Goats Gone Viral
It’s been quite a nice week. The playground has been closed for summer vacation. Good thing I have my own key. It’s been rather enjoyable, letting the goats out in the morning. Putting them back in when it’s time to leave. Just sitting with them in the pen. Like I’m running the show.
Okay, the goats are running the show. But I’m glad I can let them outside. Otherwise they’d only have been out briefly while William came and did the feeding every day. He brought his girlfriend some of the days. Anna, I think. Or Anne. The faceblindness makes it really hard to remember names. Bodil and I were talking to them at the fence and Mio came over and stuck her head through it. Anna leaned down and started nuzzling her. And of course Mio is the cuddlemonster. It seemed like Anna and William were quite surprised and marveled that she’d stand there and be petted forever. I was not surprised. The other goats can get bored or annoyed or distracted. But Mio can just stand there for ages and enjoy the attention. But yeah, they seem like really nice people. Bodil was telling me that they were doing some grassroot charity in Nepal. For Sherpas, I think. Building a school? Or supplying food. I’m not sure. But they’re doing good things and that’s a good thing to do.
Lots of other visitors too. There was a German couple, living and working in Denmark, with a little baby girl. I don’t know who loved her more, Bodil or Sif. They were both crazy about her. And there was another family later on. A woman asked if we sold the goats. I said no no, we don’t. Turns out she was just joking. She said she wanted to keep one on her balcony and laughed. The husband told us that he loved animals. He had grown up in Afghanistan and his family had been very rich. Owned lots of land and horses and cattle and so on. I think he said they lived in a castle even, or something like it. Now all he dreamed about was getting a place where he could keep chickens because he loved them so much and missed having them around. Makes you realise how you have to appreciate what you have, doesn’t it? You never know when you have to flee from your castle and start from scratch in a whole new place. Possessions are fleeting. Bodil is always telling me how everyone in the neighbourhood have their own little stories to tell. She talks to lots of people when she walks around with Sif. And everyone has their own tale. Happy or sad. I remember the boy, also from Afghanistan, whose family had had goats. But eventually they got so poor that they had to slaughter their goats to have something to eat.
Count your blessings. I count mine when I go to the playground. One, two, three, four, five currently. I’m not sure when Herman will be leaving, he has already staid longer than expected. But I’m in no rush to get rid of him! And I think there must be babies on the way. I’ve been looking at Mio’s udders and I swear they’ve gotten bigger. Of course she’s huge as always. But surely…
Another visitor was a boy who decided to call Felix the pony “Pizza”. Which was cute until he started running around screaming “Pizza! Pizza! Come, here Pizza!”. Which just felt like the universe mocking me. Because pizza is the bane of my existence.
Speaking of Herman. He’s gotten a lot more comfortable with me. He has started trying to lick my face! Haha. It happened sort of randomly and it cracked me up and I gave him a raisin. So now he keeps trying to do it to get treats. I guess when you lick someone’s face you just get more comfortable with them! Haha. He doesn’t react as much to being touched anymore, so that’s good. He’s a funny, goofy guy.
The weather has been good too. Got warmer and warmer as the week went on. We had some rain in the beginning of the week. I left my rain coat off because I enjoy walking in the summer rain. As long as it’s not cold. Later that night I left my window open and went to bed and fell asleep to the sound of the rain. It doesn’t happen too often, but I love lying in bed, listening to the rain. I’ve been waking up early without my alarm clock a lot lately too. A good feeling. It’s given me time to start cleaning my apartment a bit in the morning. I have my big Project Razorlight to cleanse and simplify and be better and so on and so forth. Cleaning the apartment fits in well with that. I’m taking it slowly. Bit by bit. A corner today, a corner tomorrow. Yesterday I took down the boxes I had standing in my windowsill. And the extra sheets I had hanging over the curtains. It’s amazing what a difference it makes. Even with the curtains drawn I’m still getting a ton of extra light into the apartment. It used to be so gloomy. Now it’s bright. How symbolic, eh! I put up all that stuff because it was too bright when I sat at the computer in that part of the room. But I haven’t used that old computer in years. Now I use my new computer down by the TV. So there was really no need to keep the other part of the apartment so dark anymore. I should have done this a long time ago. It’s really nice letting the sun in.
Another nice thing happened this week. One of Mia’s videos went viral on Facebook. I thought it was just going to be another little video of her standing on my back to reach leaves on the tree in the pen. I’ve posted videos before that I thought were awesome and funny and that the whole internet would love. And then nothing happens. It’s so random. Someone must have shared this one with their friends. And then they shared it with theirs. And so on. When I went to bed the video had 6000 views. Which I thought was really cool. When I got up in the morning it had 200,000 views. Nuts! And it just kept increasing during the day. When it was time to go to bed again the view count was something like 333,321 I think. I thought to myself I thought “maybe I’ll screenshot it when it reaches 333,333. So I waited a minute and refreshed the page. And it was at 335,000something. Haha. By now it has started slowing down, but it’s up to something like 430,000 views. And Mia’s friendcount has about doubled. It’s been really fun to follow. It was fun too to scroll down the list of people sharing the video. You can see what some of them are saying about it. There are lots of comments like “this guy must really love his goats since he lets them do that”. And “those goats are so smart, look they’re lining up to get their turn!”. And of course variations on “I hope they don’t poop on him!!! lol”. Haha. It was nice having a little taste of internet fame for a while. Now I’ll have to go back to normal and try not to look at all my other videos and think “WHY DON’T YOU HAVE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VIEWS?!”.
I think that’s enough typing for today, though. Now it’s time for hundreds of thousands of goat photos.
Mia on my back. A hit with everyone!
Don’t let it go to your head, Mia!
Where’d everybody go? Surely they don’t need a vacation from meee?!
I can’t believe she’s been so wide for so long. Hopefully there will be babies.
The thing about goats is, they always stand still when you’re ready to take that perfect shot…
Palle makes sure to get the attention by blocking Mia out with his ears.
Just hanging out. Mia wasn’t too pleased that Palle got extra food and she couldn’t get at it.
It’s hard work being a superstar!
And a goatlog. You can see me let the goats out and put them back in. Four times. Because I find it amusing. Also the viral Mia and other funny tidbits.
And that’s all for this week, folks. See you in the next hundred thousand.
July 21st, 2014 at 3:43
Herman was watching Mia on your back and thinking how he could get up there, too.
Now if you could just ride a tiny bicycle while balancing a goat on your shoulders while wearing a striped shirt and plaid pants with suspenders, you can join the circus!
That balancing act reminds me of those acrobats who make a human pyramid. Now you can make a goat pyramid!
I don’t think I will show this video to Snickers for fear she’ll think she needs to be a “balancing miniature donkey” on my husband’s back. Hee, hee.
July 27th, 2014 at 22:32
it is quite a circus in the pen sometimes! I’m glad the others don’t try to jump on my back. Even Mia is getting too heavy for it. Well, she has been for a while. Just can’t say no to her. I wonder if Snickers would let a goat stand on her back!
July 28th, 2014 at 1:00
We’ve put a cat on Snickers’ back before. The cat isn’t quite so happy about it, but Snickers just freezes and doesn’t move.
She’ll turn her head way around to see what’s on her back, but she stays really calm.
We did have one cat that we put on her back in the winter time and I think both of them liked the extra warmth. Don’t think they cuddled up on their own though! Hee, hee.
July 30th, 2014 at 9:56
Aw haha. I wish I could have seen Snickers with a cat on her back! That must have been quite a sight. One of my favourite photos ever is still the one of young Mads standing on a sheep. Cuteness!