The Adventures of Gloucester the Goat

 

 

Gloucester is a dairy goat.  He tells all the other goats that he is all grown up but they know he is just a kid.  Gloucester runs and plays and climbs the mountain with all the other goats. His two best friends are also dairy goats and their names are Harvard and Fitz.  All three goats came from a place that names the new goats each spring with the same letter and the letters go in the order of the alphabet.  Once you know that you can tell that Fitz is the oldest, Gloucester is a year younger and Harvard is the youngest.  Harvard is two years old this year so Gloucester is three years old and Fitz is four.

Gloucester, Harvard and Fitz live with five Angora goats.  Angora goats are covered with curly hair while the dairy goats have smooth straight hair.  Gloucester thinks the Angora goats are funny.  They start out smooth  and just keep getting more and more curly.  Then a man comes and takes off all their curls and they are back to being smooth again.  Gloucester laughs at them when they turn back into smooth goats but the Angoras don't mind because its so much cooler with all their curls gone.
Gloucester and all the goats live on a wonderful farm with trees and grass and fences and a barn.  There are mountains to climb

and bushes to eat and rabbits to chase and long legged shaggy llamas and alpacas to worry.  But the best part of the day is being let into the pen with the feed bins hanging on the fence with food in therm.  That's Mama Food's job.  She puts food in the feed bins every morning.  Sometimes it's Noisy Man who puts out the food but mostly it's Mama Food.

This morning Gloucester had a great adventure.  All the goats were playing around the shelter near the barn.  They were waiting for Mama Food to come and put out the food.  Gloucester saw Barking Dog over by the house.  She was chasing the Meows.  Gloucester kept walking closer and closer to watch the Meows.  He likes the Meows even though he doesn't understand what they are saying.   He got right up to the gate but wanted to keep walking.  He stuck his head though the gate so he could see better....

Just then Mama Food walked around the corner of the barn.  Gloucester knew what that meant.  Breakfast!  He tried to step back but something wouldn't let him.  Oh, no!  He was stuck in the gate.  He pulled and pushed and twisted but nothing happened.  He really was stuck.  Every time he thought he could get loose his horns were still stuck. He couldn't remember how he got into that gate in the first place.

Mama Food noticed him standing over there by the gate and called him to come for breakfast but he couldn't move.  Mama Food is pretty smart and came running to help.  She pushed and pulled and twisted but couldn't get Gloucester's head free.  Gloucester knew it was the right time to be an all-grown-up goat so he stood very still and waited patiently while Mama Food went to get Noisy Man and while Noisy Man went to get tools.  And he stood very still while they cut the gate and made the hole bigger so he could get his head out.  He even stood very still and watched as Mama Food put a patch on the gate and wrapped the sharp points up with duct tape.  Then it was time to eat!