These are the shots from last year’s Halloween. Looking forward to the carnage coming up this year! 

…especially on the side with the missing horn.

Our faithful old Buick, Edith, finally bit the dust, so Phil and I had to make a decision. Repairs would have cost far more than she was worth, and four years of living in the western NY rust belt had not been kind to her undercarriage. We decided that a car this fine could only go out in style!  Colorado State Fair demolition derby, here we come!

The only problem was that this was Cuzco’s car.

The goat was very excited to see his favorite ride standing in the drive with the doors open. He thought he was being invited to climb in and go for a ride and maybe take a nap in the cushy back seat (Buicks are always so plush!). But the back seat was no longer there! He crawled all over the interior of the vehicle looking for it, but even the front passenger seat (which he had used once or twice in a pinch) was missing! I’m afraid he was a bit traumatized by the experience.

In order to console Cuzco for the loss of his favorite ride, we decided to get him into the spirit of derby day. I had sprayed the car with aerosol glue and poured about five bottles of Sunday school glitter on it. Cuzco was lying on the porch minding his own business and I thought, “That goat needs something…”

A couple of spritzes of glue and a few dashes of blue glitter and voila!

Cuzco, bedazzled, poses next to the corporate logo on our car:

This is only fitting since he is, after all, our company mascot.

Phil and his dad recently built a palace for Cuzco. He gave it his immediate stamp of approval and made it his royal headquarters. 

4th of July parade 2004, Lake City, CO

Try stucco!  This is a very subdued itching session. Sometimes Cuzco gets so “into it” that it looks like his feet are going to slide right out from under him! Our walls now have a nice blackish grease streak right at goat level. But at least his coat stays shiny!

More than anything else I think it was the parachute ears that really won my heart. I’ll never forget the first time I watched him bounding through a field of tall grass. His ears were flapping like wings so it looked like he was trying to take off. Proportionally they are not nearly so big now that he’s grown up, but even still when we’re with friends who see him run for the first time they almost always exclaim, “Oh my gosh! Look at his ears! Is he trying to fly!?!”

This is the photo we submitted to the Houghton Star when we ran Cuzco for Homecoming King. Look at that royal strut! I think it’s obvious why he won. 

Today is Cuzco’s ninth birthday, and it brings back memories of how we found him. This is the very first photo we ever took of him, and it was about a week before we bought him from a farm near Varysburg, NY. He’s the tiny speck closer to his mother. His sister is in front.

Phil and I were driving home from our anniversary celebration at Six Flags Darien Lake when we passed a lovely farm with goats. Somehow I spotted this tiny baby way off in the distance that had the most amazing coloring. I pulled into the farm so fast I nearly got in a wreck. I was sure that a goat this pretty would be far beyond our budget, but I was determined to ask. I banged on a lot of doors and hunted through many barns and tool sheds before I located the farmer. His price? $25!!! The cheapest goat we had looked at yet, and by far the most stunning to look at. He was with his Alpine mother and had a twin sister who wasn’t quite as pretty and was not for sale. The owner raised milk goats and was keeping all the female offspring. Lucky for us the pretty one was a male. 

This is the first photo we took of Cuzco after we bought him.

Phil rode with him in the back seat so he wouldn’t jump out of the box. We had even managed to name him by the time this photo was taken. Poor little thing was shaking like a leaf. He had never been handled before and suddenly he’s whisked away from his family and friends, banded, poked with a needle, and shoved into a car with a couple of strangers. It took him a few weeks to get over his fear of people, but it’s amazing what a little singing and cuddling can do. Not to mention treats. Lots of treats.