Pac-Man may have been the one who shopped for the truck, but Nubbin is the one who owns it now!

This naughty goat was tap-dancing all over it this morning! I don’t want her to do this but I’m not sure how to make her stop now that she knows she can leap this high. The goats have never bothered the trucks before, so I’m not sure where this sudden interest came from. I tried to make her come down, but she only mocked me. Since I can’t prevent it, I suppose I might as well be amused.

“If only I could get through this window, I’d be in the driver’s seat!”

“Perhaps if I try from this angle…”

“Well, the bed looks good anyway.”

“Hey guys, come play with me!”

Goat party on the truck!

“Nubbin hit me with her truck! Give her a ticket! Take away her license! I’m dying!!!”

“She was asleep at the wheel! I swear! I have proof! Gasp!”

Petunia was right! Nubbin has some explaining to do when she shows up in traffic court!

Today, the stars aligned at the Hassey Household, and love bloomed full and fair between two lost souls who found each other and are now inseparable. Nubbin and Pac-Man were the outsiders, friendless and alone, but not any more.

I have never seen two creatures fall in love so quickly and so completely. There is more than hormones at work here. Nubbin and Pac-Man have been interested in each other ever since he arrived, but they’ve never been allowed to spend time alone. Now they don’t want to be with anyone else. There has got to be a law against this level of cuteness!

I kept the two of them together this morning so they could have their romantic time undisturbed, but even after I let them out to be with everyone else, these two stayed apart, kissing, playing, snuggling, and yeah, switching roles. 

Phil and I took just the two of them for a walk with us today. I had to keep at least one of them on a leash at all times or they would stop in the road and stand staring at each other with misty eyes. When we were walking, they pressed so close together it looked as though they were stuck with velcro from nose to tail.

I had been planning to put boys and girls up in their separate pens tonight as usual, but I knew there was no possible way I could pull Nubbin and Pac-Man apart without breaking their hearts (and keeping us awake all night with their despairing cries!). So these two stayed in the “boys’ pen” and Cuzco got moved up to the “girls’ pen” tonight, and everyone (Cuzco included) seems quite pleased with the arrangement.

Phil and I got home late from game night this evening, and I laughed when I saw Pac-Man’s head sticking out of the little Dogloo. I figured Nubbin must have kicked him out of the PolyDome. But as we got closer, Pac-Man emerged from the dog house followed closely by Nubbin. How they managed to squeeze both their bodies into that tiny space is beyond me. It can only be love!

Petunia was loud this morning. Extremely loud. The only thing that could shut her up was a hot date with Pac-Man. 

Catch me if you can!

Pac-Man is still getting over that cold Cuzco gave to him, but it didn’t seem to discourage him any. Now it will no doubt be passed on to Petunia and will probably cycle through the rest of the girls in due course. 

Petunia is quite the flirt. She’d wave her little tail at Pac-Man with a come-hither look, but as soon as he looked, she’d smack him then run off giggling and shaking her booty.

I love you now, stay away from me you little creep!

Good thing Nanno has a woman’s intuition about these things!

By introducing Nubbin into the mix, jealousy won the day. Nubbin wasn’t remotely interested in Pac-Man, and when he tried to sniff her she clamped her tail down and hit him so hard he saw stars, but Petunia wasn’t about to stand for any roving eyes in her man! Within two minutes of Nubbin coming into the pen, Petunia jumped in Pac-Man’s face and stood to be bred.

Even Cuzco felt romance tingling in the air. He actually butted heads with Lilly, and I don’t mean smearing her across the yard. He was actually playing with her! Lilly was happy to play too, but when he stuck his tongue out, blubbed, and swatted her with his front feet, she turned tail and RAN, kicking her hind legs together as if to say “EW, EW, GROSS! OLD MAN STINK! I CAN’T WIPE THE COOTIES OFF!!!”

Lilly declined to play with Cuzco again, but I think Cuzco thought he’d just done something manly and strutted around after that.

“Huh-huh! Yeah, I’m the mac daddy here!”

Cuzco was about done with his cold, so in a rare moment of generosity he gave it to Pac-Man. What a sweetheart!

Pac-Man is still cute, even when he has a snotty nose. But I wiped it for the pictures anyway.

It got pretty cold last night and poor Pac-Man was shivering by himself in the little Dogloo because Cuzco won’t let him share the big shed no matter how much he begs. I piled straw underneath and inside, covered it with some pieces from an old horse blanket, and banked snow around the outside for extra insulation.

It reminded me of a cold night long ago–almost exactly 11 years ago to the day–when Cuzco was the exact same age as Pac-Man (did I mention that those two share the same April Fool’s birthday??) when Phil and I took him on a road trip with us to visit Phil’s relatives in Stowe, VT. It was -17 degrees when evening fell and they had no shed where we could put Cuzco. So Phil and I built him an igloo!

I was quite proud of the result, and Phil’s uncle Steve gave us some flags left over from a car rally to decorate it.

Cuzco wasn’t too sure about this strange shelter at first and would only put his head inside to snatch hay, but as the night deepened and the cold grew worse, he crawled right inside and curled up on his cozy bed.

No pictures, since I’m preoccupied with a sick Petunia this morning, but the beauty of a laptop is that I can sit with Petunia by the fire and still type on my computer.

Pac-Man has been entertaining us non-stop this morning with his antics, which we can see through the back door window. I’m not sure he ever had high things to play on before he came here because he didn’t seem to know what to do with the stump and the spool. Well yesterday he apparently discovered what they are for (and a very clumsy display he made!), and this morning he woke us up bright and early like a kid on Christmas so he could play with his new toy. He’s been out there for an hour fighting with himself on top of the spool. His hair is all stood up on end, his tail is wagging viciously, and he’s bouncing and posturing and head-butting invisible enemies. Sometimes he even gets pushed off! He is exactly like a kid with a toy sword, fighting invisible foes, getting stabbed, then jumping up to fight some more. Phil and I can’t stop laughing as he spins, rushes, butts, flies off the spool sideways and leaps back up, hackles raised, to twirl and pounce and fight again.

I forget how big my little girls are because to me they’re still my babies, and some of it, of course, is camera angle, but still… Nubbin as no longer a little nubbin, and while still the cutest and fluffiest of my goats, she’s lost most of her baby look by now and is fast turning into a beautiful young doe. Her feet are also turning out much nicer than I originally feared. She was pretty pigeon-toed for a long time and she’ll always have a funny little waddle, but she seems to be getting better with age, and conformationally, she seems to be an improvement over her mother.

I told ya Petunia is a monster! Look, she’s even giving goat-back rides to horses now!

Pac-Man passed his preliminary health check on Monday (vet says he looks healthy, has no worms), but until we hear the results of his CAE test, he’s got to be penned up separate from the girls. I felt comfortable letting them all be together under supervision for the first couple of afternoons while I worked on his new pen because Lilly is bred and the younger two went out of heat two days before he came. But no more free time with the ladies after this! He was a lot more subdued the second day after being thoroughly rebuffed on the first. He’s smaller than these Amazons, so he learned very quickly that he can’t take advantage if they don’t want to play.

Also, there’s Cuzco to contend with. Cuzco doesn’t mind if Pac-Man plays nicely with his girls, but the minute there’s even a hint of flirting, Cuzco is on the scene in a flash and starts using Pac-Man for a dust mop. Nubbin is desperately in need of a friend right now so she went over and engaged Pac-Man in a bit of friendly head-butting on the back patio. That lasted about a minute before he stuck his tongue out, swatted Nubbin with his front leg, and started blubbing. Cuzco, who was quietly grazing with his back to them about thirty feet away, sprang into action like he’d been shot out of a pistol. I haven’t seen him move that fast in several years. He charged through the patio gate and broadsided Pac-Man so hard he was swept off his feet. Cuzco smeared him half-way across the patio before he managed to get back on his feet and beat a hasty exit. The mood for romance was thoroughly crushed and that was the last blub I heard from Pac-Man all day. In fact, he kind of kept away from the ladies completely after that except for some polite sniffing and looking (no more ogling, and he kept his eyes firmly on their faces!).

I put the two boys in their own pen last night and they seem to be getting along well. Pac-Man is terrified to come to the gate for treats if Cuzco is there, but he’s got some guts! He continues to challenge Cuzco to head-butting contests, and as long as they’re engaged in a legitimate fight, Cuzco is a gentleman and doesn’t pave the yard with him. They just go back and forth like Cuzco used to do with Nibbles before she died, which makes me think they’ll be good friends before long.

The girls are intrigued.

Lilly is also intrigued, but she has a certain amount of experience with these horny little beasts and will only investigate if she is the one on top.

Stay away from my girls!

Please let me out of this madhouse!

Pac-Man will be the father of Nubbin and Petunia’s babies this year!

He thinks he’s a real tough guy.

Cuzco thinks he’s an idiot. (I’m inclined to agree.)

I wonder why Daisy snapped at Pac-Man yesterday?