The Terror Goat of Treveth is on the loose.

[bunn]

I just drove past the old railway embankment where the Terror Goat brought fear to Rosie and Brythen a couple of days ago, and can report that it has ESCAPED.  Its enormous shaggy form is now wandering free among the old mine buildings, munching on brambles and looking ridiculously smug.   If it jumped off the railway embankment then it has survived a 20ft fall, but I suppose that is nothing to a goat.

I did park my car to bang on the door of the house I believe to contain the owners of the Terror Goat, which I think was a brave move. But although the lights were on and radio was playing, there was nobody home.  Possibly the Goat has already eaten them.

There's a restriction out at the moment telling everyone that they are supposed to keep their chickens and things indoors for fear of bird flu, and I suppose that some people are doing it (and good for them.)  But seeing it, I thought that it seems to come from a different and more orderly AU version of the British countryside to the one that I live in, where the livestock often seems to spend its time doing what the hell it wants while the owners try to prevent it using the one strand of electric rope that they bought in 2001 and now has a lot of knots in it, two old pallets and the remains of an iron bedstead from the 1930s.

The other day I noticed a notice on a gatepost down the lane which said:
'I found seven horses in my garden and am unable to trace the owner.  I have put them in my field, but it is only fenced for sheep so they might not be there any more.  I am disabled, and can do no more!'    HE IS DISABLED AND YET HE MOVED SEVEN RANDOM HORSES INTO A FIELD!    I am not disabled and yet I know if I tried that they would all hurtle past me and go gallopping down the lane and vanish (because this has in fact happened, and that did in fact happen).

If we all die of bird flu it will probably start in Cornwall.

--
In other news, I'm still writing that 'what if Feanor didn't go to the Halls of Mandos after his death' story, only it has sort of segued into the Silmarillion from the Feanorian point of view that I have vaguely thought of for years but had always thought would be too long and boring to write.  Apparently I am now writing it.  I can tell you are gripping your chairs with excitement :-D

In further random animal news, I have just stopped Yama Bungle cat from trying to climb up the chimney.  I don't know if he can actually get up there, but I'm not keen to find out that he can and has got stuck.  I guess this means he is feeling better. 

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

When I was about 8, we went to a sort-of petting zoo (a rare breeds farm park) and stood outside the goat enclosure, smiling with delight at the friendly, cheerful, curious and spritely animals therein. Then my parents allowed me to buy a bag of food and go into the field to feed said friendly, cheerful etc. creatures. My parents still tell the story of the result: a mad stampede of about 25 voracious monsters who were all determined to rip the entire bag from my hand and would brook no resistance. The last they saw of me was a desperate waving hand emerging from the churning ocean of goats, and then even that was gone.

Strangely, despite this traumatic experience, I still like goats. From a distance. And as long as I don't look at their eyes.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor wee you! All of the petting zoo animals I've met have been so well fed as to be entirely blasè about one more human approaching them with a bag of food.

Well, excepting one particular donkey. I was ten and my mother had taken me to a place specializing in hooved animals. (The strangeness of this hadn't occurred to me until this moment.) It was a four-hour bus trip from our house but we went every year because I so loved seeing and petting the baby llamas, and feeding the goats, piglets, lambs, deer, etc. On this occasion, my mother had bought me a chocolate ice cream cone and then departed to do something or other. Suddenly I was confronted with a big donkey with a glint in his eye. There was no mistaking what he wanted. I handed him the ice cream, pleased I think to have gotten away without any trouble.

I still love donkeys.

And I know just what you mean about the eyes of goats.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor wee you! All of the petting zoo animals I've met have been so well fed as to be entirely blasè about one more human approaching them with a bag of food.

Well, excepting one particular donkey. I was ten and my mother had taken me to a place specializing in hooved animals. (The strangeness of this hadn't occurred to me until this moment.) It was a four-hour bus trip from our house but we went every year because I so loved seeing and petting the baby llamas, and feeding the goats, piglets, lambs, deer, etc. On this occasion, my mother had bought me a chocolate ice cream cone and then departed to do something or other. Suddenly I was confronted with a big donkey with a glint in his eye. There was no mistaking what he wanted. I handed him the ice cream, pleased I think to have gotten away without any trouble.

I still love donkeys.

And I know just what you mean about the eyes of goats.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Goats indeed have creepy creepy eyes. When I was a young teen, I was a 4-H volunteer in the children's zoo section of the local zoo. They liked to put us in the petting pen, to keep people from going in with food or with things sticking out of their bags or pockets that the sheep and goats would then try to eat. This is where I learned that A) a goat or sheep will follow you ANYWHERE if they think you have tasty food, and B) it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to get them to STOP following you.

I also learned how to show goats, which is all sorts of exciting, sometimes in the not happy kind of way, if you have a contrary goat.