{"id":1912,"date":"2008-08-25T10:50:51","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T14:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/v3\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2008-08-26T10:52:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-26T14:52:00","slug":"lifes-coloring-book-a-column-by-suzi-walls-for-the-daily-herald-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/?p=1912","title":{"rendered":"Lifes Coloring Book A column by Suzi Walls for The Daily Herald"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There\u2019s nothing cuter than a baby goat. Well, okay, maybe a baby pig, but that\u2019s another story. Let\u2019s talk goats.
\nMaybe we don\u2019t have a farm and maybe Walzie\u2019s true name is not Noah, but we\u2019ve crammed nearly every animal imaginable into our two acre ark, including several goats.
\nWhen walking through the goat barn at the Huntingdon County Fair, I first noticed how cute baby goats are. Naturally, I wanted one right away and my dear hubby, (who will do nearly anything to keep me happy, bless his little pea pickin\u2019 heart!), quickly said, \u201cOkay, you got it. But let\u2019s get a miniature. It\u2019ll stay tiny and make a really good pet. Shucks, maybe we could even make it a house goat.\u201d
\nSo for several weeks we perused the Bargain Sheet and finally one day, there was the following ad: For Sale, miniature kids, $15. Yahoo, assuming that they didn\u2019t mean tiny children, we\u2019d found our baby. Only thing was, the farm was in Cumberland, MD. Oh what the heck, it was only a four- hour drive (two down, two back), and we really wanted a mini. We sped off on a hot Saturday afternoon.
\nFollowing the farmer\u2019s directions, we traveled back a long country lane sided by high weeds and rocky hills. Once in a while we\u2019d see a flash of black and white darting among the weeds or hear a shrill \u201cnnaaahhhh\u201d. At least we knew we were in goat territory. Finally, we reached the farm.
\nAn elderly Amish-looking man greeted us. We paid him the $15 and he instructed us to pick one.\u00a0 There must have been a hundred nannies, kids, and billies roaming in a weed patch. Pick one; yeah, right! Being young and knowing everything, Walzie and I dove in. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Amish man snicker.
\nWe ran and we chased through the brier patch. Goats darted around, over, and even under us.\u00a0 Finally, Walzie was able to pounce on a teeny black baby. Oh, he was a cutie.\u00a0 As I stood there, oohing and aahing, I never heard the snort behind me. Old Billy\u2019s rock-hard forehead connected with my buns. He sent me down the hill like a rolling donut dusted with thorns.
\nThe Amish man asked if we\u2019d like to have our prize catch neutered, \u201cdey make mo\u2019 betta pets dat vay,\u201d he stated. We nodded. He instructed Walzie to hold the little guy by all four feet and bottom up. When I saw the pocket knife, I tightly shut my eyes, cupped my ears, and cringed.
\nNext thing I knew, the old man spit two grape-like things at my feet. The barn cats came running to scrap over those tiny desserts. I nearly lost my lunch.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t be squeamish, missie,\u201d he said with a trickle of blood on his lip. \u201cDat\u2019s the vay the shephard\u2019s do it. More sanitary. Ya see, me teeth dey crimp da blood vessels. Not as messy dat vay.\u201d
\nThe baby goat cried and Walzie hugged him, \u201cCalm down little Billy. That didn\u2019t hurt too much, did it?\u201d
\n\u201cYa vant to be next?\u201d the old Amish man asked.
\nWalzie and I and our new baby got the heck out of there.
\nAnd so the little goat thrived in our back yard.\u00a0 You know they say that goats will eat anything \u2013 not so. This guy only ate flowers, shrubs, garden plants, and the bark off our trees. As the months flew by, Billy grew, and grew, and grew. He was no longer a mini-goat. He ended up being a full-sized goat with 6 inch horns and an attitude like a bull in a China shop. Do you think this may have had something to do with the neutering?
\nBilly absolutely hated our kids (the human ones, of course), our hound dogs, cows, his pen, weeds, squirrels, even Walzie and me. Billy would just as soon butt it as look at it.
\nOn our back deck we have a glass sliding door. I\u2019ll bet you can guess where I\u2019m going with this.\u00a0 Jason was about twelve years old; his job was to feed Billy. But Billy didn\u2019t care if Jason was hand that fed him or not. I heard Jason scream and then the glass door slam shut. Suddenly, there was the shatter heard \u2018round the world, and Billy stood in our kitchen! Jason was locked in his bedroom shouting, \u201cshoot that sucker!\u201d
\nAnd thus, our sweet little mini-goat that grew into a split-hoofed tornado went on a little trip to the Belleville Auction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet that tough ol\u2019 boy was like baked shoe leather on someone\u2019s dinner table.
\nAs time passed by, we forgot the terrible saga of that goat and bought several more goats, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, horses, pigs \u2026 keep it up, Noah, we\u2019ll soon need to build that ark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s nothing cuter than a baby goat. Well, okay, maybe a baby pig, but that\u2019s another story. Let\u2019s talk goats. Maybe we don\u2019t have a farm and maybe Walzie\u2019s true name is not Noah, but we\u2019ve crammed nearly every animal imaginable into our two acre ark, including several goats. When walking through the goat barn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-interest-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}