Saturday, April 26, 2008

Lessons from High School

I remember this lesson from High School:
If you put a drugged-up chick in your car, there is a near-certainty that you will end up with drool on your window, and a high likelihood that you will end up with pee on your seat.

Within the past 24 hours, Azure had begun acting a little lethargic. Returning home yesterday evening, we noted that her color was a little – off. It seemed like she was missing her usual piggy pinkness at the nose, and maybe the membrane around her eyes seemed a little washed out. She was eating and drinking fine, and willing to accompany us on our evening walk. She was her usual protective self over her pork roll treat. She just did not seem to have her usual bon vivant.


Not entirely certain what to do with a new, low-key version of Azure, but certain we wanted to keep a close eye on her, we let Azure sleep in bed with us last night. With the exceptions of delivering a couple of upper cuts to my chin around daybreak, I don’t know that she moved all night long from the little nest she made plunk in the middle of the bed, head resting on K’s sacred “Mickey Mouse” feather pillow.

Having returned from our vacation last week to find a variety of random objects misplaced and missing, it had not entirely escaped our attention that Coffee’s prescription bottle of Deramaxx turned up in an altered state, appearing to have suffered at the jaws of a massive chewing. Last weekend, Azure welcomed our yearly geese visitors with a dinner party whereupon she crashed their nest and consumed all of their eggs. In making the acquaintance of a new visitor to MisFit Farm, Azure rushed into the pasture to gulp down some breath-freshening horse dung breath additive. And these, of course, represent only the most egregious and obvious intake transgressions of note from the past week. How, then, to narrow down the offending source of malaise?

You begin the narrowing-down process thusly: sedate her to draw blood for a full work-up including a liver panel. Upon identifying some high white blood cell counts and what may look like a little bleeding in the tummy, direct an overweening Mom to take her home with a handful of medications, instruct Mom to offer up a cottage cheese and yogurt diet (can you hear Azure jumping for joy and shouting “YEEEES!”?), and keep a close eye on her for “abnormal” behavior. I don’t know how we are expected to modify her behavior to discourage things like perching on the kitchen counter, climbing on top of buildings, and destroying everything that crosses her path when the absence of this behavior would be the indicator that there is something “wrong” with Azure.

The good news is this:
Even though Azure peed on the seat just like those chicks from high school, unlike those chicks, I got to bring this one home.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Boo-Boo *hearts* Azure

Based on purely non-scientific observation, it appears as though Azure possesses a certain. . . attraction that is not readily apparent to some of us. Notwithstanding my admonitions to Coffee that dating crazy women only leads to trouble, he continues to be morbidly fascinated, even attracted, to Azure.

The other inhabitant of MisFit Farm with an intense interest in Azure is Boo-Boo, the goat. The problem with being adored by a goat is that it looks like it could hurt. At least the part where they ram their head and horns into you. I guess the whole “sneaking up behind you and giving you a love tap with my 8 inch horns and tongue sticking out” is a sign of goat adoration. I am perhaps not as brushed up on my goat-speak as I could be.

What we have been able to discern is that the only dog Boo-Boo has any interest in whatsoever is Azure. You can almost see the stars in his eyes when Azure is released into the pasture to run. While the other goats are intent on feeding time, Boo-Boo lurks in the background, awaiting his opportunity to prevail upon Azure and to convince her that they are a match made in heaven. He is crazy about her.

While Azure may be crazy, she certainly isn’t stupid. So, much to Boo-Boo’s dismay, Azure cuts him a wide path. I have been lurking around, trying to capture glimpses of Boo-Boo’s love overtures on video, but the following is the best I could do.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The Squeeze Cheese Incident

MisFit Farm contains some staple ingredients. The grocery carts from weekly trips to the store almost universally feature “bunny milk” for K., “cheesy poofs” for me, animal crackers for the goats, and “squeeze cheese” for the dogs. Squeeze cheese serves as an inexpensive filling for Kong © toys, a masking compound for medication administration, and as seen here, a source of great amusement or an instrument of torture, depending on whether you are the squeeze-er or the squeeze-ee.

And because we are big fans of loose association, we offer this additional delectable cheese-themed video from a group called “The String Cheese Incident” (emphasis mine).
However you like your cheese, Bone Appetite!