On January 1st, two new goats arrived. In the snow. Bad timing? They shivered, they were licked, they were left, they suckled. So far they have survived. The coyotes are reported to be having pups. How are they to be fed?
Wonderful Zip disappeared a couple of weeks ago. My heart fell. I cannot seem to keep a dog. The food was left uneaten. But a few days later he reappeared with another dog. It felt like a Chinese 'good luck' story, in which every event changes its valency with the subsequent event. I assumed he had been sowing his wild oats. His new friend was him/herself the product of some wild oating - mostly Great Pyrenees but some St Bernard, or something else in his bigger head. They seemed good friends - but were they boy and girl - it wasn't clear. But the new dog seemed perfectly happy barking at me (nicely) with the goats behind him, defending them alongside Zip. These two dogs, however, are sometimes there, sometimes not. But the new dog is making Zip a little less stand-offish.
Today I went to see Bob and Carol, to give them their New Year's banana bread. It turns out that my new dog is their Rex, that Rex has been 'breeding' Zip, (that Zip is a girl), and that the two of them are being fed at many of the places on their daily round, including Estelle Reed's where there are two more dogs. And that Zip kills ducks. My picture of my severe Kantian duty-bound Zip is well and truly shattered. Actually she is a party girl who likes life on the town, and does goat-protection as image-enhancing charity work. Still I love her.
