Full Moon Over Maggie's Farm

Guess who didn't wake up when the cell phone alarm went off? His alarm was set for three, mine for six. I yelled and yelled across the trailer - not that far - and he didn't wake up. I had to shake his curly kinky head to wake him up. Grabbed the coffee and he was gone to NJ. Makes my job here harder but until he finds work around here this is the way it has to be. No new goat babies this morning, but Old Black Jack is not doing well at all. It's tough to lose an old friend, one who has been such a handsome fixture, in so many pictures, sire of many little black goaties. I remember Matt carrying him to the truck when we bought him at Rhinebeck years ago, a mass of black ringlets. We live not too far from his ancestral home in Mexico, New York. I don't know what is wrong with Black Jack now, but he has been wasting over the winter, like an old man who knows what's coming and is trying to hang on and enjoy the rest of his time. We have had him living with the does, where he can get all he wants to eat and drink, and plenty of room to spread out. The does lie all around him, like a sultan with his harem. And oh, what a beautiful rack. He will be sorely missed.