was still raining heavily and some way off the council road, on a farm track I came upon a minibus backed well under a tree and almost out of sight.
Mindful that someone might be after ‘my’ hares, I thought to myself: ‘Aha, I bet these are up to something.’ And I was right, they were up to something, but nothing that hares or rabbits needed to worry about.
HOT WEATHER and goats. It’s all changed now, yesterday morning I was actually looking for a pullover because it was, in relative terms, chilly. But throughout July it was as hot as we’ve known it, and on some hot sticky nights it was difficult to sleep. There is an age-old solution to this that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve if you follow my drift, sleeping on top of the bed without night attire.
A friend of mine was regaling us with this solution one night in the pub. He’s one of those farmers who has rarely been sighted without a cap on his head. Well, he’s been seen at weddings and funerals without a cap on his head but it’s always stuffed in his pocket. His ruddy weather-beaten countenance stops halfway up his forehead and becomes very white where his hair starts to recede. There was some discussion in the bar about the possibility that his ‘naked’ solution on hot nights did in fact include his cap, but he assured us it didn’t, although the cap was on the table at the side of his bed.
And then there are your goats. I’ve never kept goats but many years ago, no, even longer than that, a lot of dairy farmers kept the odd goat running with their cows because goats carried a disease that was related to a similar disease that caused abortion in cattle. The presence of the goat helped the cattle to build up a natural immunity. The goats carried brucella melatensis — I’ve had a brain cell carrying that information locked up since I was in college — which was related to brucellosis in cattle, which we have now eradicated from our herds.
From casual observation I have come to the opinion that all goats are rascals. I think there is a part of them that yearns for the rocks and boulders of their ancestors. When Julie Andrews climbed every mountain, goats were right up there with her in spirit, leaping from rock to rock with abandon.
And so, for those of you still with me, I draw the stories of the goats and the hot weather together.
Our friend with the cap has made lots of mistakes in his life, as have we all, but well to the fore in these mistakes is allowing his daughter to keep two goats.
These two goats were chained up at night, but most nights managed to escape, dragging the chains behind them. Having achieved the escape bit the next essential for your frisky goatis to do a bit of leaping about on boulders. Most farms around here don’t have boulders on the yard, but goats are inventive and imaginative creatures and if they can’t find a boulder, what better than a five-year old Vauxhall Vectra?
So we return to our hero whose sleep is disturbed, on a bright sunny morning, by the sound of long lengths of chain being dragged across his car. The goats have decided it is great fun to jump on the boot of his car, then onto the roof and then off the bonnet down onto the ground. They take it in turns and then reverse the procedure.
My friend leaps out of bed, pausing only to put his cap on, and rushes to the bedroom window. He takes in the scene out on his yard in an instant and rushes downstairs, his bad language, legendary locally, now in full flow. He puts his wellies on at the back door and launches himself out onto the yard wearing just his cap and his wellies with nothing in between.
The goats aren’t dull and are off around the corner at some speed with our hero in hot pursuit hurling abuse and anything else that comes to hand. There’s a public footpath running through his yard and coming towards him are about 20 ramblers.
There are several aspects to this story among which are: goats that had the last laugh, ramblers
Mindful that someone might be after ‘my’ hares, I thought to myself: ‘Aha, I bet these are up to something.’ And I was right, they were up to something, but nothing that hares or rabbits needed to worry about.
HOT WEATHER and goats. It’s all changed now, yesterday morning I was actually looking for a pullover because it was, in relative terms, chilly. But throughout July it was as hot as we’ve known it, and on some hot sticky nights it was difficult to sleep. There is an age-old solution to this that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve if you follow my drift, sleeping on top of the bed without night attire.
A friend of mine was regaling us with this solution one night in the pub. He’s one of those farmers who has rarely been sighted without a cap on his head. Well, he’s been seen at weddings and funerals without a cap on his head but it’s always stuffed in his pocket. His ruddy weather-beaten countenance stops halfway up his forehead and becomes very white where his hair starts to recede. There was some discussion in the bar about the possibility that his ‘naked’ solution on hot nights did in fact include his cap, but he assured us it didn’t, although the cap was on the table at the side of his bed.
And then there are your goats. I’ve never kept goats but many years ago, no, even longer than that, a lot of dairy farmers kept the odd goat running with their cows because goats carried a disease that was related to a similar disease that caused abortion in cattle. The presence of the goat helped the cattle to build up a natural immunity. The goats carried brucella melatensis — I’ve had a brain cell carrying that information locked up since I was in college — which was related to brucellosis in cattle, which we have now eradicated from our herds.
From casual observation I have come to the opinion that all goats are rascals. I think there is a part of them that yearns for the rocks and boulders of their ancestors. When Julie Andrews climbed every mountain, goats were right up there with her in spirit, leaping from rock to rock with abandon.
And so, for those of you still with me, I draw the stories of the goats and the hot weather together.
Our friend with the cap has made lots of mistakes in his life, as have we all, but well to the fore in these mistakes is allowing his daughter to keep two goats.
These two goats were chained up at night, but most nights managed to escape, dragging the chains behind them. Having achieved the escape bit the next essential for your frisky goatis to do a bit of leaping about on boulders. Most farms around here don’t have boulders on the yard, but goats are inventive and imaginative creatures and if they can’t find a boulder, what better than a five-year old Vauxhall Vectra?
So we return to our hero whose sleep is disturbed, on a bright sunny morning, by the sound of long lengths of chain being dragged across his car. The goats have decided it is great fun to jump on the boot of his car, then onto the roof and then off the bonnet down onto the ground. They take it in turns and then reverse the procedure.
My friend leaps out of bed, pausing only to put his cap on, and rushes to the bedroom window. He takes in the scene out on his yard in an instant and rushes downstairs, his bad language, legendary locally, now in full flow. He puts his wellies on at the back door and launches himself out onto the yard wearing just his cap and his wellies with nothing in between.
The goats aren’t dull and are off around the corner at some speed with our hero in hot pursuit hurling abuse and anything else that comes to hand. There’s a public footpath running through his yard and coming towards him are about 20 ramblers.
There are several aspects to this story among which are: goats that had the last laugh, ramblers
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