Hide And Seek

It was trash day and I was checking waste baskets for the week's contribution to take to the big road.  There, in the bottom of an otherwise empty basket, was one of the piglets, thrown away, as a friend used to say, like an old dirty shirt.  Now, I don't want to blame unfairly because I wasn't a witness.  I'd like to imagine Ralph had flung one of Celeste's favorite babies into the air and it just landed there.  Giving him the benefit of doubt, it could have been an accident in a game of hide-and-seek.  Or not.  It was one of the tall baskets and no way could the cats have retrieved the piglet.  Celeste was in the room when I made the discovery, and she pounced on the baby when I tossed it out and ran to cover it up with the bath mat again.  I'm sure there are times Celeste wishes she was an only child.

It is with a certain amount of trepidation that I take the lid off the feed bucket in the milking room.  (Since I'm no longer milking, I guess I'll have to start calling it the feed room.)  On the one hand, I've been kind of glad when the trap has done its job; on the other, not finding a rat is a good thing, too.  I'd had to leave a bag of goat chow in the feed shed for a while and knew what I'd find when I had to take it to the barn yesterday.  It looked like a bomb had gone off in the room, with shredded paper and styrofoam all over the floor and nearly everything knocked off the shelves.  Teenage vandals could not have been more destructive (apologies to teenagers).  I truly try to cohabit with all kinds of wildlife, but this is intolerable.  It's going to take a bulldozer to clean that room.  With difficulty, I got the ripped bag of feed onto a cart, backed out and shut the door.  There are some things I just can't face and would rather hide my head.

It was very nice to have power and water yesterday.  Destructo rats notwithstanding, it was a good day.  Just ask Celeste.