THE RUN AWAY CROSSROADS ANIMALS

THE NIGHT THE GOATS SNUCK OUT OF
Crossroads Country Ranch
By
MELVIN ZWICK

The two deputy sheriffs of the Bowes Crossroads Country Ranch. There is no chance that sheep or goat rustlers will ever get any of the stock as long as these two tough ladies are on guard. Both of these ladies can pop the eyes off a fly at 100 feet.

But I digress. This story is about the time the Crossroads, Country Ranch Goats pulled the wool over Angels the llama’s eyes and spent the night frolicking. It is well known that Angel thinks she is the mother to the goats and sheep. She herds the animals, whether they want to go or not, into the animal shelter at night for protection.

GOLIATH

HEIDI

One day recently Goliath and Heidi the Crossroads Country Ranch goats were up to their usual frolicking on the cable spools the Ranch hands provided them.

Goliath said, “You know it would be fun to be able to eat and frolic all night long but Angel won’t let us.” Heidi replied, “That sure is the truth. You would think Angel is our Mother.” The Ranch goats continued to climb on the spools.

Goliath said, “You know that weird human they call Melvin Zwick helped get these cable spools for us to frolic on. I bet he loves to frolic all night long. I am going to talk to him. Maybe in his weird way he might be able to help us be free of Angle, at least for a night.”

Goliath put his mind to work and thought about Melvin Zwick. Before long Melvin Zwick answered him. The two of them came up with a scheme to allow Goliath and Heidi to escape Angel so they could frolic and eat grass all night long.

What follows is the story, written by me MELVIN ZWICK, as told to me by the Crossroads Country Ranch animals, Goliath, Heidi, Shirley, Justice and other miscellaneous Crossroads friends.

You may not recognize us in our disguises. I am Goliath and the little one is Heidi. We have decided to wear these disguises just in case Angel sees us as we attempt to escape.

The crazy llama Angle never lets us out at night so tonight we will sneak out in our disguises and have a ball running free in the new pasture eating all the grass we want. Maybe Angel will never miss us. I don’t think she knows how to count.

Just look at her. She thinks she is our mother.

Hey guys, will you take me with you? Being the black sheep of the white flock sort of makes me an outsider especially when you consider that my Papa was an American Blackbelly sheep. I mean, who would like to be called a Blackbelly sheep. What an insult for a lady. But you must admit I am sort of cute.

Shirley, we will be glad to take you along. But first we must find a disguise.

Now that will do it. Angel will never recognize you is she sees you from a distance. The disguise is not threatening so she will not try to run you off.

Hey I heard what you said. I, Joy, don’t think you will get away with your plan to sneak out. But it sounds like fun. I will help you by distracting Angel when you are ready to go. I will make a break for open pasture tonight. You guys make a break for it when Angel takes off after me.

But you will owe me. You have to leave me some special delicious tender grass for me to eat.

Goliath do you promise to save me that grass.

Yes Joy. I will see that a nice patch of tender grass is save just for you.
Now I, Goliath, have a question for you all. Do you guys remember that goofy guy they call Melvin Zwick? He is just the kind of trouble maker that loves to create problems for everyone.

Well I contacted him and had him send some photos to help us in our plan. This picture was taken several years ago by Melvin Zwick. Do you wonder why I, Goliath, show you a picture of Timothy, the little fellow that chases us all the time? Its not the picture of him that is interesting, its what’s behind him.

You probably notice that it is of Timothy standing in the front of our masters house. What’s important about this picture is that it shows the pasture West of our house. Note how high the grass is. If I, Goliath, Shirley and Heidi get on the other side of that grass no one will see us.

You all know that our masters just built a gate so we can get into the new pasture from our pasture. That excellent idea was created by Lydia and Valerie. Lydia called the owner and asked permission from him to allow the Crossroads Ranch to move their animals onto his property. He thought it was a great idea in that he would no longer have to mow his grass. Valerie called him and asked permission to build a gate in their common fence to allow easier transfer of the animals on to this pasture. He gave Valerie that permission.

Here is a map Melvin Zwick gave me. I, GOLIATH, marked it up to show some of the points of interest. The green line shows the route Joy must run. The red line shows the route I, Goliath, Heidi and Shirely have to run to escape from Angel.

If you look closely at the two pastures you can see why Lydia wanted to open the new pasture to us. You can see that there is a lot more grass on the new pasture that there is on the old pasture.

I, GOLIATH, asked Justice to join us in our plan. He is the elder statesman of the flock and is not interested in escaping with us but has agreed to help us.
Here is the plan:

Late tomorrow, when no one is looking, Justice will walk up to the gate and do his sneaky thing he is noted for. He will unlock the gate. He will do his thing late enough in the evening so that no one will notice the unlocked gate. He will walk away from the gate. If anyone of our masters heads towards the gate Justice will paw at them playing like he wants attention. No one will suspect that he is trying to hide anything because he is always pawing at someone for attention.

As usual Angel will herd us all into the animal shelter. That’s when Joy will make a break for it. Joy you have to run as fast as you can towards the north east corner of our pasture away from the new gate. When Joy draws Angel to the far corner of the pasture I, GOLIATH, Shirley and Heidi will make a break for the gate. Heidi you must close the gate as soon as we are through it. We will head as far West as we can. No one will see us there and we can spend the whole night frolicking and eating all the grass we want to. Boy what fun that will be.

Angle will be frantic once she finds me, GOLIATH, Shirley and Heidi missing. She will check the whole pasture. She will look at the new gate but will find it locked and assume no one went through it.

She will become worried about all the rest of you and give up looking for us.
First thing the next morning Justice will unlock the gate. Joy will make another run to the North East corner of our pasture which will draw Angel away from the animal shelter. Then I, Goliath, Shirley and Heidi will sneak back to the animal shelter. When Angel and Joy come back she will find us there and become confused. We will tell her that we were in the shelter all night. I, Goliath, hopes she will not notice our fat bellies.

Our great adventure has to take place tonight. If we wait too long all those new puppies will grow up. Once they are grown up the Bowes ranchers might turn them loose to look for us. It will be pretty difficult hiding from Angel but hiding from 10 energetic puppies would be impossible.

I, GOLIATH, don’t trust Baby Blue. He looks like he is ready to chase us now.

Just look at Onry Orange. She looks like she could join Baby Blue. We would not stand a chance of hiding all night if they were turned loose on a hunt for us.

So tonight before they grow up we go. Any questions?

And so it came to pass. Justice did his sneaky thing and unlocked the gate. Joy made a break for it and Angel chased her to the far corner of the pasture. Goliath, Shirley and Heidi rush through the new gate into the new pasture. Heidi did her thing and locked the new gate behind them as they passed through it.

Angel herded Joy back to the animal shelter then realized Goliath, Shirley and Heidi were missing. She went ballistic. Where could they be? She searched the whole pasture. She noted that the gate to the new pasture was closed. The runaways were having a ball in the new pasture and poor Angel was having a fit.

She finally realized she needed to protect the rest of the flock so she settled down in front of the animal shelter.

As is usual when you do something sneaky you can get into trouble. And so it was for the run away animals Goliath, Heidi and Shirley.

Later in the night Charlie, the local sneaky coyote, noted that the there were some animals in the new pasture and Angle his arch enemy was not anywhere near. So he started his slinky approach at the animals. The animals looked somewhat familiar but the was something strange about them. He figured sheep was about the size of a dinner he could handle so he set his sights on her. But he was still somewhat confused. That black sheep looked something like a duck. But old Charlie decided a sheep or a duck made no difference to him. Either way that funny looking critter would make a great dinner.

Lucky for the animals there is not much cover in the new pasture.
Goliath spotted Charlie and gave the alert. All of a sudden frolicking and eating grass became a danger. Goliath, Shirley and Heidi headed for the gate with Charlie close on their heels. The screams of Goliath alerted Angle. She realized the missing flock was in the new pasture behind a locked gate. What to do. She woke up Justice and they rushed to the gate. Justice did his thing and unlocked the gate just as Goliath, Shirley and Heidi reached it. Charlie saw Angel who was raging by now. He decided that going hungry might be better than contending with the flashing hooves of a riled up Angel so he hightailed it back into the new pasture.

Once Charlie was gone and things settled down Angel gave a good tongue lashing to Goliath, Shirley and Heidi. It will be a long time before any of the Crossroads Country Ranch Flock tries to run away. They know now Angle is the protector and they will not leave her too far behind.

THE END