Mercury and Gold

One of the goats was looking a bit down in the mouth yesterday - so it was molly coddled and Jussi decided she'd best take its temperature. This is done anally and Jussi decided to do this without my help. The outcome was that the thermometer was inserted but said goat then balked and escaped Jussi's clutches. When she caught up with the goat there was no thermometer.

When I arrived Jussi was tryig to search the ground - straw bedding (but you'll appreciate, quite deep and, erm, wet and browned) with about eight goats nudging her and displaying a great willingness to 'help'. We cleared all but poorly goat out and systematically searched the whole stable. No joy.

Perchance, my love, the thermometer went further in, not out. So I held goat while Jussi poked around 'inside'. No joy.

So we had to search through all the straw and shit again. There was no way we could leave a glass mercury thermometer either on the floor or in the goat.

Straw is quite pretty really. It catches the light and flashes little golden glints (can glint be a noun?) - rather like you might expect a thermometer to glint. So searching through the straw the second time we took a great deal more care.

As we neared the last patch I was preparing for further internal investigations (as it would be my turn eh) when Jussi found it. Oh how I celebrated.

All in a days work...