My Buddy Bill Withers

Everyone should have a buddy, and Bill Withers is a great goat buddy to me.  He stands beside me and rubs against my legs until I give him a good scratching on the top and back of his head, between his shoulder blades, and on any other areas he cannot reach with his handsome horns.  (Don’t get pervy on me those of you with dirty minds; I am still freaked out by the google results I achieved when I typed “animals enjoy petting” in the search box.  Ugh.)  I have always bonded best with my male pets and at first I thought castration was the key but our big bloodhound,

Marshall

is not fixed  (no lectures, please, I haven’t been able to bring myself to chop off those lovely nunus.)  Some of my best human friends have also been male but, in contrast, that doesn’t always work out.  Men, being men, inevitably get to the point, usually after a few drinks or a particularly tiring work shift, where they would like to “take our friendship to the next level.”  Been there, didn’t do that. 

The most scientific of animal behaviorists state that animals have no capacity for emotion beyond pain and fear, which we unwillingly administered to Bill during shearing time.  (For the unfamiliar among you, see Shear Misery I and II.)   Along with the other ruminants, we threw him to the ground, shaved off his lovely locks, and unwillingly cut him with those cumbersome power shears.  Yet, Bill recovered quickly from his ordeal.  Once again I use my anthropomorphic nature to deduce that Bill understood what we were doing (and he liked his cooler countenance.)  Recent research does strongly suggest that animals have emotions as people do, though they lack certain cognitive insights.  Bill gets it, you see.  He’s awesome.

To reward Bill’s good sportsmanship, I’ve decided to finally finish carding and spinning his fleece, seven pounds worth, that has been in the box washed for three months now and let it tell me what it wants to be.  Fiber does this, you know.  As it emerges from the spinning wheel, it sings a little I-want-to-be-me song and by the time it’s spun, I know what I am making with it.  I’ll let you know what it says. 

For now, though, I think I think my buddy Bill needs a good scratching.

Comments

[Michelle]

Hey Lauren, can you send me the link to this specific post? All your posts show the same www.pretendingtofarm.com addy at the top; don't know why. But I want to show the beautiful creature who grew the luscious fiber you sent me. :-)