Hawai'i Part Two: Mostly About Goats.
So, I was told that some bloke was selling goats for $50, and I was asked if I wouldn't mind choosing one, naming her, and bottle feeding her. Since K's mother was very keen to get goat's milk and cheese, I said yes. I've never been overly keen on goats, but ickle things are always ridiculously sweet, and besides, it didn't sound very hard.
This, in short is how I've ended up with a small mostly-white female goat called Lilikoi. (It means 'passionfruit' in Hawaiian, and I choose it because I liked the sound.) However, K's brother liked a different goat, so *he* has one too, called Biscuit. Lilikoi has long rabbity earys.
Feeding them four times a day turned out not to be the half of it. For a start they don't like their 'parents' to be out of their sight for longer than ten seconds - usually less. Because the goatlings are only three weeks old, they've had to sleep in our beds. Which is rather meekle on the one hand (they're small, floofy, very very warm, and have a weird and endearing little huffy way of breathing) but on the other hand, it means one has to wake up and take them out every time they get up, for fear they're getting up to pee - which they usually are. This does lead to a certain amount of lost sleep... and by a certain amount I mean about 70% of it. This makes me tired, and K and K's brother rather grumpy. (I can't really get pissed off at a small critter who's trying to eat my clothes or has just pee'd on the doormat. Yes, it's frustrating, but shouting at them or threatening to kick them out into the rainy night time pasture seems a bit mean to me.)
Anyhow. This is my goatling Lilikoi.
She's almost as soft-furred as a rabbit. She doesn't like the rain nor the shiny wooden floor. She doesn't like being picked up, but doesn't mind once she's being carried. She likes having her ears groomed, and being petted, eating fire-weed and thimble-berry leaves. She enjoys chewing on all my jewellery and very occasionally my hair. She doesn't tend to come when she's called but if I walk away she cries and then bounds after me like a mental thing.
The rest of my current news is less shiny.
The house has become rather flee-infested thanks to a neighbor's dog and I've been bit to hell. K's younger brother and sister occasionally have long arguments with K's mother which I don't enjoy one bit, especially since K has to shout to shut everyone up. Bleh.
K's ex flatmate back in Capo Beach put all our boxes out in the torrential rain for the delivery people to pick up: he included in the pile all the things we didn't want and had given to him to sell. This means another grand owed to the moving company, a bunch of stuff we don't want, plus another bunch of stuff that may or may not have been ruined in the rain. Rocking. Capo Beach peoples are roughly my least favourite peoples in the world right now - I could happily beat them with sticks.
For the past week I've been mostly curled up with a goat or two on the sofa watching people play video games, or standing with the goats in the pasture; as a consequence I feel rather fat and scruffy and useless. Actually I think it's all part of the fact that my neurons thought they'd go to Hawai'i and quickly become a mad piratical witch who made money selling jewellery: I'd do lots of farm work in the sun too and so be a fitter and far browner keecher with neat bleached tentacles and monies to boot. In the five weeks I've been here it hasn't magically happened (and I haven't had much art to distract me) so neurons are moping. I realise I'm being foolish; I need to wait 'til I don't have little bleats following me and then do lots of outside work and exercise and not drink beer. (As well as wait 'til my art supplies get here and make a thousand necklaces and hope they sell...)
*Sigh* Yes, I'm in Hawai'i and bitching about my lot - bad attitude or what? Stupid neurons. I think they're just being a touch baggagey and depressive.... Maybe I should just go hug my ickle goat?
This, in short is how I've ended up with a small mostly-white female goat called Lilikoi. (It means 'passionfruit' in Hawaiian, and I choose it because I liked the sound.) However, K's brother liked a different goat, so *he* has one too, called Biscuit. Lilikoi has long rabbity earys.
Feeding them four times a day turned out not to be the half of it. For a start they don't like their 'parents' to be out of their sight for longer than ten seconds - usually less. Because the goatlings are only three weeks old, they've had to sleep in our beds. Which is rather meekle on the one hand (they're small, floofy, very very warm, and have a weird and endearing little huffy way of breathing) but on the other hand, it means one has to wake up and take them out every time they get up, for fear they're getting up to pee - which they usually are. This does lead to a certain amount of lost sleep... and by a certain amount I mean about 70% of it. This makes me tired, and K and K's brother rather grumpy. (I can't really get pissed off at a small critter who's trying to eat my clothes or has just pee'd on the doormat. Yes, it's frustrating, but shouting at them or threatening to kick them out into the rainy night time pasture seems a bit mean to me.)
Anyhow. This is my goatling Lilikoi.
She's almost as soft-furred as a rabbit. She doesn't like the rain nor the shiny wooden floor. She doesn't like being picked up, but doesn't mind once she's being carried. She likes having her ears groomed, and being petted, eating fire-weed and thimble-berry leaves. She enjoys chewing on all my jewellery and very occasionally my hair. She doesn't tend to come when she's called but if I walk away she cries and then bounds after me like a mental thing.
The rest of my current news is less shiny.
The house has become rather flee-infested thanks to a neighbor's dog and I've been bit to hell. K's younger brother and sister occasionally have long arguments with K's mother which I don't enjoy one bit, especially since K has to shout to shut everyone up. Bleh.
K's ex flatmate back in Capo Beach put all our boxes out in the torrential rain for the delivery people to pick up: he included in the pile all the things we didn't want and had given to him to sell. This means another grand owed to the moving company, a bunch of stuff we don't want, plus another bunch of stuff that may or may not have been ruined in the rain. Rocking. Capo Beach peoples are roughly my least favourite peoples in the world right now - I could happily beat them with sticks.
For the past week I've been mostly curled up with a goat or two on the sofa watching people play video games, or standing with the goats in the pasture; as a consequence I feel rather fat and scruffy and useless. Actually I think it's all part of the fact that my neurons thought they'd go to Hawai'i and quickly become a mad piratical witch who made money selling jewellery: I'd do lots of farm work in the sun too and so be a fitter and far browner keecher with neat bleached tentacles and monies to boot. In the five weeks I've been here it hasn't magically happened (and I haven't had much art to distract me) so neurons are moping. I realise I'm being foolish; I need to wait 'til I don't have little bleats following me and then do lots of outside work and exercise and not drink beer. (As well as wait 'til my art supplies get here and make a thousand necklaces and hope they sell...)
*Sigh* Yes, I'm in Hawai'i and bitching about my lot - bad attitude or what? Stupid neurons. I think they're just being a touch baggagey and depressive.... Maybe I should just go hug my ickle goat?