“You’re not a farmer’s arse.”
He’s right, you know. I probably wouldn’t ever measure up to the mark required to be a farmer. I’m far too soft and too lily-livered. Outwardly, I’m Mr Tough-Guy, a tobacco-chewing, juice-spitting, hog-kicking gum-booter, but inside… I’m only an animal softie.
This morning I went down to Goat-Hill with a bunch of hay for Jacko’s breakfast. There I go again… Can you imagine Farmer Brown admitting that he’s taken din-dins to Dobbin and Black Beauty and Billy? I think not. Animal feed is animal feed – a farming raw material, nothing more.
The morning was dry and warmer than other mornings, pleasant enough to take a stroll down the winding path of Goat-Hill – a mental reminder to myself that I should start trimming the weeds and wild fern undergrowth along the pathway as soon as we have a dry spell. As I approached the goat fence, I felt an eerie silence. In the distance the carpenters were busily hammering away at fixing the roof trusses, but here I could only hear a dog barking faintly in the distance.
At the lower gate I could see all the way to the bottom of the steep incline. Nothing, no-one. No Jacko.
At the tree-covered foresty-bit along the lower fence, also nothing. No Jacko.
Where was Jacko?
“Here, Boy, here Big Guy!” I look round sheepishly, in case someone has heard me. Sometimes I whistle to attract his attention, sometimes I simply bang on his tin roof with a stick.
“Maa-aa-aa-aa! Maa-aa-aa-aa!”
I’m not sure what a goat yawn looks like, but I suspect it may have been a goat yawn that greeted me, as a furry pink snout shoved its way through the curtained door of the goat-house.
Jacko had been taking an extra-long morning lie-in in the straw this morning!
(Above): Jacko digging into the yummy hay breakfast, packed full of free-range organic stuff, befitting a healthy Billy Boy.
Despite his goofy stare, he is really a strange but loveable creature.
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