I really love our baby monitors down at the barn. You can hear everything that goes on and I can’t tell you how many times I have ran over the hill to save a kid or help a doe deliver. So, baby monitors are great. But, sometimes... Okay, sometimes you just get tired of hearing too much. Oh, I don’t mean tired of delivering kids or saving a kid that has escaped into the wrong stall and that doe is trying to kill him.

So help me, sometimes you think the does are remodeling your entire barn. At times you hear so much thumping and banging and you find yourself asking what was that? Was that a saw? I could have sworn I heard a drill, too. And, when you run down to see what on earth is going on. All the does and kids look at you so innocently and they are so quiet. You wonder if you went to the right barn.

Sometimes you get really tired of frantically running over the hill to the barn and finding absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, I don’t want something to be wrong, but why on earth did I just about break my neck running down an icy hill because it sounded like the end of the world had just arrived in my barn and only I could save all my critters, and then they just turn their heads to stare at me, asking, what is her problem? You can just see them thinking, Why is she in her house shoes? There’s three foot of snow outside and she’s in her house shoes! And, no coat! These humans sure are wacky.

Up at the house, listening to the baby monitor, you really would believe that somehow the goats had got hold of Lee’s tools and they were sawing and hammering to make the stalls the way they wanted them. Why I say Lee’s tools, is that I don’t have any tools except my trusty duct tape. I can just about fix anything with duct tape, including patching clothes. Anyway, in between all this sawing, hammering, and drilling you hear, the goats are whooping and hollering at each other. In goat language it sounds like they are hollering, "Pass that saw over here. This main post in the barn is totally unnecessary. And, can you believe where they put that beam? I’m cutting it out. Anybody got anymore nails? I’m almost out." I really expect to see the barn totally rearranged when I go down.

But, what am I talking about. They don’t need tools. Tools are for the inept, not for a goat. Have you ever noticed a goat’s upper lip? It has a type of split in it. They can maneuver those lips to take apart anything you put up in a barn, particularly if you are like me and tie everything or duct tape it. They can take apart in minutes what you have spent hours in tying up.

I remember one time tying up our pvc pipe grain feeders along the fence. Several all neatly tied up with my favorite hay twine, ready for the next feeding. Sure it took me a couple of hours to get everything just right, but it was worth it. I let the goats in the feed area to get fed, came back a half hour later to shut the gate after they had left, and what do I find? Yep, my feeders all neatly untied and lying on the ground, string still through the holes. I would challenge any Boy Scout to tie a knot, any knot, and I bet a goat, particularly a kid, will have it untied in minutes. It’s mind boggling. These scientist are crazy to think that ape’s are the smartest because they have those fingers and thumbs. Goats are ten times smarter with that little split lip of theirs. You’ve should have seen all the little grain feeders I tied up in the barn. Yep, in minutes they all were down. The only thing to discourage a goat from untying something is to put so many knots in it that they get bored. That’s why all the things I have tied up look so weird and why I have to use so much string.

So, why on earth do the goats in the barn need to make such a racket? I really think it’s just to drive me crazy. I can see them down there egging each other on to make a noise that will make me show up at the barn wild eyed and sure that someone is in their death throes. Why not turn the baby monitors off so I can get some rest? You’ve got to be joking! Someone might need me. I might miss something. It’s like being addicted to your favorite TV show. You’ve just got to see what happens next. With a baby monitor, you’ve just got to hear what happens next, particularly in kidding season.

With all my complaining about them, I have to admit that I now have a nice extra bonus in listening to the baby monitors. One day I heard this continuous soft little whimpering sound. Intrigued, I ran down the hill to discover what it was. There, in winter, was a house wren. At least that’s what I think it is. A tiny brown bird with dark brown streaks and a long narrow beak for eating bugs. It was making this little whimpering sound as it hunted through the cobwebs for bugs to eat. Since I never knock down the cobwebs, it was finding a feast of dried bugs, and was happily making it’s busy little whimpering sound as it worked. Now I thought they left in the winter, but evidently this guy decided to stay because of the feast he found in our barn. He can walk up and down walls, even hang upside down on the ceiling checking out interesting webs. Very social, he will fly over to where I am bottle feeding to say Hello and then go on his way, searching out the cobwebs. At least twice a day he has to break out in a beautiful song. So, without those baby monitors, I would truly miss a wonderful concert.

But, those goats... Right at the moment I am listening to a squealing sound. You know the sound children make when they are pretending to drive a car and it’s going around a tight corner. You wonder what on earth that is? Ha! One of my does absolutely has to make that sound before she brings up a cud to chew. It sort of makes your hair stand on end until you realize it’s only Bernice bringing up her cud.

Now what was that? It sounded like someone started up a microwave down there. Is that popcorn I hear popping and a TV being turned on? Good Grief. I’d better run down and check this out. If they are going to throw a party, I don’t want to be late!