Fionna is finally interacting with the animals and vice versa.

Mostly this is good.

She’s had a one minute long giggle at the dogs, Molly & Elf and she’s seen her first kangaroo.  Merlin has had his tail pulled and Gandalf has had his ear yanked.

Also, a mouse has visited her room and a white-tipped spider made it to within 30 cms of her and Merlin hid under our bed one night and was later caught sleeping next to Fionna her in her cot.  Hmmmm….back to the good interactions perhaps…

Her favourite four-legged friend is definitely Tara the goat though – probably because everytime we see her I sing: “My highland goaty-oatee-oatee-oatee-oat” etc… he he  good thing our neighbours aren’t too close with my singing.

Here’s Tara looking like a typical kid who’s worn holes in the knees of her jeans. The little dirt patches are where she kneels on her front legs. Quite cute.

On the weekend, sometime overnight on Saturday, little Tansy, our hoofed funny friend – died. (At least we think it was Tansy, it’s still quite hard to tell them apart). For a few days, Tara has been pining for her playmate.

We’re not sure why Tansy died, the theories are everything from an existing condition to a snake or spider bite. She just died in her sleep. Needless to say, it was damn sad and I couldn’t bring myself to actually look at her.

By being in total denial, I managed to keep it completely together over this most significant death on the farm. No burnt falafels this time. Losing ducks and chickens is bad enough, losing something as large and with such prescence and personality, aches badly in the heart region. I took a modern approach, to grief – supress that emotion and get on with the week. 😉 The more animals that you let into your life, the more that depart it.

Anyway, it presents us with a problem that needs solving. Goats need company so we’ll need to get another, preferably around the same age. I wonder if anyone sells goats at Christmas?

I realised I haven’t posted any recent photographs of them, so here’s some of Tara taken tonight.

Munching some alfalfa from the vegetable patch (grown for the animals) …

Discovering how tasty a skirt is …

If you’ve read The Wind in the Willows you’ll know from the title of this blog, which animals have joined us on the farm.

Richard sheepishly returned from the auction this morning saying he had bought me a present and I that I had to promise not to be upset. He popped the boot on the car and there were four little eyes looking back at me.

They belonged to …

Admittedly, at first peek I said ….”awwww lambs”… but luckily not out loud. They are actually baby goats. It’s not that I can’t tell a lamb apart from a goat, but I could only see white faces and cute eyes poking out. I guess I was close enough to keep my farmer credibility intact?

We have called them Tansy (who I named after the herb) and Tara (who Richard named after a friends human kid). Don’t ask me why, but I felt an overwhelming urge to name a little girl goat after a herb or wildflower. Goats seem to be so symbolic of the wild, untamed, unruly chaos of nature – embodied in the great god Pan of course.

Here are some photos.

In their behaviour, they are very lamb like anyway, apart from emitting goatish wee and poo pellets of course. They make the funniest noise and have a lamblike skip/jump skittish dance.  They sit on your lap, drink from a bottle and follow us around on wobbly goat legs.

It’s not fair to call them lamblike and bring their goatishness into question, but if you imagine a 10 day old lamb with clumsy hooves, you’ll get the idea.

I felt that I had to test their interest in my garden statue of Pan, the goat god, who’s calm austerity might mike a good goat role model.

I think that probably made them feel at home and that the great god of goats was looking after them.

Yes yes, we know they eat *everything*. We’ll worry about that very soon, for now it’s simply nutritious enough to be in love with them.