Back at the playground.

youtube.com/watch?v=KcfW5Qpp2vs.

Little Smokey is quite the escape artist. Once again he escaped through the fence. Twice. Once again Snow White turned to me and asked for help. In the video you can see the first time it happened and I brought Smokey back into the pen. I think he quite liked getting out and exploring on his own. At least he enjoyed it until the second time, when one of the horsies came up to him and started pushing and chasing him. Then it suddenly wasn’t as funny. He wailed and ran away. And then he went through another fence and got out on the grounds. So I had to go all the way around. And then he went back through the fence into the horse field. But then there were the horsies again and that stopped him, so I could go over the fence and scoop him up and bring him back to safety. And by then I think he had done all the exploring he wanted to do for the day.

Poor Snow White, her voice is so hoarse, she can’t really cry out loudly enough when her kids go astray. It’s easier for Magnethe, if she wants her kids’ attention then we’ll all know about it. Snow White could use a megaphone or something. But her babies are getting more confident all the time, so that’s good. They’re still a bit shy. But I’m working on it. I sat with Bandit in my arms for a long, long time yesterday. He settled in nicely. Although he seemed to be a little freaked out when I started scratching his back. I don’t think he’s been really scratched like that before. So he was a bit jittery at first. But once he got used to it he seemed to like it okay. Strange new people who want to pick you up and scratch you! What a world.

They are all growing. Magnethe’s boys are big enough now that they can jump up on the bench on their own. I’m hoping they will soon figure out how to jump up on my back, because I do enjoy that sort of thing.

Snow White seems to be growing a little too. At least growing a little more of a temper. Now that she has her own kids out and about she is a little less tolerant of Magnethe’s boys. Most of the time she ignores them, but sometimes she will now go and push them away if they get too close. I guess her maternal instincts are kicking in. And that’s not bad, I think that’s how it’s been with all the goats I have known. They’re not too happy about sharing space with other goats’ babies.

When I was sitting down with Bandit Sigrid came into the pen with a guy I didn’t know. It was the vet. He had come to take a look at Magnethe’s blackheaded boy. I hadn’t even noticed anything was wrong, but when I listened to them talking I could see that the little guy was indeed standing sort of scrunched up. Sigrid said that since about Friday he had started getting a little quieter and less active than the other boys. I haven’t really noticed that to be honest, but it’s hard of course when you have limited eyesight and five little boys running around. The vet speculated that it was a tummy problem. Something about the time when they go from just drinking milk to eating solids. And their extra stomachs kick in and all that stuff that I don’t know how to explain in English. But we’ll give the little fella some medicine and hopefully that will help him and he’ll be okay. Fingers crossed for no more problems.

I’m having a lot of fun with them all, that’s for sure.

Let me tell you about the latest fun with the goats. Yesterday.

First the video: youtube.com/watch?v=qBPrFIXtDHE.

All five kids were out in the pen. A nice, sunny spring day. It was good to see Snow White’s boys jumping around. They’re still a little unsure on their feet, but they had some of that nice goat kid energy which is a good sign. Bandit is so adorable. He’s the smallest of them all, but he has nice, big fluffy ears. He is just a little cutie-pie.

Mio, Magnethe’s black boy, might be the biggest of them all. He is certainly getting rowdy, trying to head-butt my legs now. I think he will be the king of the pen. But the others will probably have a thing or two to say about it. They have started chasing each other around a little at times, I am sure that will only get worse as they get older. It will be a long while before they can challenge Magnethe for authority though!

There’s a sweet part in the video where Smokey has gotten himself through the fence and is out by the horses. Snow White is doing her hoarse little worried baahs and then she turns around and looks at me with this expression “can you please come over here and help”. Before I got over there, though, Smokey found his own way back through the fence and disaster was averted.

It was really good, sitting in the sunshine and enjoying myself with the goats. There were lots of visitors too. Some kind of kindergarten class, probably. One of the adults took the kids into the goat pen in little groups. He said he had grown up on a farm, so he was obviously good with animals. And he was good about passing it on to the kids, telling them how to act around the goats. It’s a really good thing to teach the kids, so they will hopefully grow up and also feel comfortable around animals. The other day there was another adult accompanying some kids and she flat out refused to go in the goat pen. She was scared of Magnethe. She was nice about it all and telling the kids how brave they were to go in with the goats and such. But I bet she didn’t grow up on a farm. I think it’s really good and important for kids to get used to being around animals. That’s why it’s so great to have a playground with animals in the middle of the concrete jungle here. I didn’t have much contact with animals when I grew up, and I remember being quite scared of the goats when I first met them. It’s funny to think of now, what a big feat it seemed to be when I dared to pat Mads on his back the first time. I was sure he’d turn around and try to kill me. Meanwhile he was just munching the juicy green grass and barely noticed I was there.

But anyway, the guy yesterday was really good. After a while he told the kids that they should get out now because he wanted to go look at the other things at the playground. The kids wanted to stay, though. Who can leave cute little goat babies? That’s hard. So the guy turned to me and asked me if I could just keep an eye on things and make sure nothing happened. Which I of coursed agreed to. And then he told the kids that as long as I was there they could stay in the pen. So that was sweet. I kept an eye on things. And by “things” I mean Magnethe of course. A couple of times I could tell she was getting a little annoyed by all the commotion, so I just caught her attention and kept her away from the kids so they could have a good time with the little ones without the scary, big one coming after them.

A little later on a boy came in and sat down with me. He asked me some questions, as some of the kids do at times. “Do you work at a zoo? Are you a photographer?”. Hehe. He asked me if it wasn’t boring to just sit and watch the goats. I told him it wasn’t. And then he sat and watched the goats with me and didn’t seem bored.

Later still a couple of girls came to the fence. Cooing over the babies. They wanted to come inside the pen, but they were scared of Magnethe. “Should we go in? Let’s go in. I want to hold the babies. I wish the big one would go away!” etc. I picked up one of Magnethe’s boys and held him up so they could pet him a little. Eventually Magnethe walked far enough away from the fence so they felt safe enough to climb over and sit down with the goat kids. It’s always nice when I can help out like that, help the (human) kids have positive experiences with the goats. “It’s not so scary when you’re in here too” they agreed. “But if Magnethe comes over here then we’re going to go behind you, hope that’s okay!”. Hehe yes. But as long as there aren’t too many kids and they sit down quietly then Magnethe really doesn’t pay attention to them at all. If you learn how to be around her then there’s rarely a problem.

As I was leaving the playground a kid waved and said “hey it’s the goat expert” and another kid said, in a correcting manner, “his name is Lasse”. It’s nice to be liked and known for something good. I mean, I know most of them think I’m a bit of a weirdo. But that’s okay. I don’t mind being the goat weirdo. I know I do some good at the playground and I know it makes me happy. So that’s quite allright by me.