Day 14

I wake up at 7am, because I have been here long enough to start doing things like wake up on time for work. Granted, I am still the first one awake every day, and the first one outside to do things. So I really have no reason to wake up at 7am other than the fact that that seems like a time that people wake up to work on farms. I would wake up before dawn, but we do not have any cows to milk.

Even at 7am, it is hot. Already in the 70s, which means it is going to be annoyingly hot today. I am not a fan of extreme temperatures. I think my ideal location would be in an old folks' home in Southern California, but then I would be living in Southern California, and would kill myself. I resign myself to the fact that I am in Utah and it is going to be in the 90s and there will be no games of bridge.

I go to water the plants, and have a day just like any other.

"Whatcha doin', bitch, watering plants? WELL TAKE THIS."

The Dickhole Twins strike again, and stand outside the garden, fluffing up at me. Seriously, I have done nothing to them this morning, but they have clearly spoken to their turkey father and follow in his footsteps of just standing near me and annoying the shit out of me. I consider purchasing them from Lauren so that I can take them out back and shoot them.

Instead, I take care of all the plants. I use that term loosely because every time I water something, I have the distinct feeling that rather than providing it with nourishing elements, I am just murdering it slowly. I cannot put my finger on the reason why I feel this way, but it is probably because everything I have planted thus far has died a violent plant death.

A few days back, I made fun of Odysseus for being the laziest goat. I walk to the sunny side of the yard and see something that makes me take it back.

"Are we dead? I think we're dead."

The rising temperature has an inverse relationship with how vertical the goats are. They spend much of the day like this. Even Pan and Pandora are not immune.

Heat oppression does not affect all goats equally, however.

"Don't do work, pet me instead."

The little baby goat makes a compelling case, and I take a break from being hot to pet him for a long time. It is hard to say no to a baby goat, with their little triangle heads and devil eyes. There is also the worry that you are insulting Lucifer himself if you deny his creatures their due. Also they are cute. Look at their little noses!

After the rigorous goat-petting, I return to the house for breakfast. Lauren is a master of cooking eggs in things that are not just butter, and today she fries them in tequila and tops them with the precise amount of bacon I usually serve myself, i.e. a third of the package. Truly, this is the promised land.

Then it is time to start helping make the farm look a little bit more like the agrotourism business that it is. This starts with hanging up the Utah's Own sign that Lauren has just received in the mail. We contemplate where to put it, because it is so little that on the big red barn, it looks like a weird black stain instead of a sign denoting sustainable farming practices. I recommend that we take the Goat Crossing sign from the other side of the barn and put it next to this new sign so that it looks more put together.

"Great idea!" Lauren replies enthusiastically. "That's your new job."

Let this be a lesson to everyone: do not supply useful information unless you are prepared to execute it. 

In the noontime sun, this easy task becomes hellish. Mostly because I do not understand how to use drills, and the bane of my existence has always been figuring out how to remove drill bits. Why is there not a universal way to remove drill bits? Some screw out, some pop out, some have to be sledgehammered in a violent rage and returned to the store under the "It was broken when I got it" warranty. I eventually cave and ask Lauren the secret to her drills, which she gives me, because they are not secrets so much as common knowledge that I lack. Either way, I make the barn pretty.

Someone call the MOMA.

Since I have proven that I have something of a prodigy-esque proficiency with signs, Lauren gives me what she deems an easy job, which is to fill in the Planet Goat sign with permanent pen. On any other day, this would, in fact, be an easy job. But it is hitting the 90s, and standing in the sun in any way shape or form is the worst. I consider forming a union consisting of myself and waging a worker's strike, but Lauren is repairing a fence next to me in the same heat, and her job involves a lot of hammers and hinges, and my job involves making sure I don't color outside the lines.

Harder than it looks.

Since I have had all the easy jobs today, Lauren helps me with my quest to be a hardened farm worker by giving me the task of scraping all the bird poop off the tables in the barn and washing them down with the hose. After being out in the sun, anything sounds better than slowly turning into a shriveled brown husk of dehydrated Persian, including, but not limited to, scraping bird poop off of tables.

Besides, once I am done cleaning the bird poop, I get to play with power tools! I have to sand down the rough edges of the tables, and I take to sanding with a weird delight reserved only for people who have found their true calling, of which sanding is not mine, because Lauren takes the job away from me after she discerns that I am just sanding EVERYTHING, instead of actually sanding the spots that need the most help.

THEY ALL NEED HELP. 

But it frees me up to move on to the next thing, which is riding the ponies. The best part about living on a farm with ponies is that they are like oversized dogs with soulful eyes that can see into your heart and straight through to the eternity beyond. So when I go to wrangle the ponies, I am met with this face:

"Is it time to do things? I love things!"

Since I have bought another saddle pad, we finally have enough gear to take both of the ponies out together. Lauren and I have been impressed with how quickly Coco and Ruby took to each other, but the ride makes it evident that they are...just a little bit in love with each other. They are in pony love, and hate to ride nose to tail, but only like riding side by side. They also hate being separated. This is a problem because Coco is an old pony, and every day needs to go into the barn to eat her special old folks dinner of grain, senior pony chow, and anti-inflammatory powder, which is the equivalent of a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with Metamucil. I expect her to start wearing big floppy hats soon and talk about today's degenerate youths.

Whenever I take Coco into the barn, Ruby gets incredibly distraught and prances around calling out for her new best friend.

It is so cute to watch that I did not even notice I filmed a goat's asshole for like an entire minute. I cannot unsee that now.

In addition to making a lot of noise, she stands with her face pressed up against the barn door, hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of whatever Coco is doing inside. The second Coco is done eating, she presses her face up against the glass too.

This picture is like one of those Magic Eye things where you have to spot the second pony.

And of course, once you open the barn door, there is the joyous reunion where they pony kiss and make sure the other one is not dead.

Let's see the government try to stop this marriage.

As if I did not know it, this further solidifies that I want a pony. And then two ponies. AND THEN ALL THE PONIES.

I wonder how my landlord feels about livestock in the yard.

I spend the rest of the day watching the baby goats frolic around and play King of the Mountain on various surfaces.

Then I play the ukulele until the sun goes down and the goats all go to bed. As it is one of my last nights in Rush Valley, I feel that I must cherish the beautiful open space, but it starts getting cold and a bug bites my ear so I go inside and cherish it via Netflix, like the country person that I am.

GOAT OF THE DAY: Diotime

Diotime is the mother of Arjuna and Siddhartha. Her life is spent calling all the baby goats back to the herd and trying to make sure they are not dead or in a situation which would cause them to be dead. Her nickname is Squirrel because she is a total weirdo, like squirrels are.

The mammy of the goat herd.