A Warning for Doris

It seems there is a lot of confusion about weather patterns everywhere. Over the last week we have had 2 nights of significant rainfall when we should still be in the dry season. It rather looks as though the rainy season is arriving early…….very early, compared with last year when we hardly felt a drop before July!

Anyway, as well as finding plots fenced off and ready to farm, lines of small boys one behind the other, a hoe over their shoulders heading out towards their farms, there are some goats who have found themselves tethered already. They must feel so hard done by as others will be roaming free for another few weeks before they find themselves tied to a post or a tree each day for the duration of the growing season. You hear the free ones jeering at the prisoners who reciprocate mournfully.

There is also a proliferation of building projects around our locality and areas laid out neatly with mud bricks that have been formed and left to dry. One collection of these appeared beside our house last week. They were different from others as the ones around the perimeter have a stone on top of each of them. The reason for this was clarified for us later in the day when some children explained that they were to keep the goats off. Apparently, if a goat were to climb on the new bricks undeterred by the stones, it would die!

This begs the question…..Has anyone told the goats?

You can imagine my concern. If Doris, my goat, had not attended the briefing and missed this information, the outcome could be disastrous, and her still “with child” too. Fear not, dear reader, I am pictured here ensuring she is briefed accordingly.