Animal Activities #71

Barnaby wasn't a goat of soaring aspirations. While the other herd mates spent the afternoon smashing their heads into the rusty tractor or butting for the highest hay bale, Barnaby stood with quiet dignity at the Grey Boundary. The wall, constructed of cement blocks and weathered by the tropical rain and the dusty harmattan winds of West Africa, was in the eyes of any human just a wall of cement.

The wall was a picture to Barnaby, besides a defence and a place to watch from. Barnaby also was a handsome animal, with fur the colour of russet and a correct bib of white beneath his breast, like a table-cloth dropped upon the floor. It was Thursday, and a very hot one, quiet, close and smelling of rain coming and too-ripe mangoes, somewhere on the other side of the wall. Barnaby was not moving.

The Hidden World of the Grazer
Barnaby's life was a tapestry of touch:

• The soft lip of grass where it met the rich brown earth.

• The scratchy dust of the path on which it was hottest.

• The cool, hard surface of the wall, where it was the perfect back-scratcher.

Today he was more than just a static figure. He was a keen observer of the compounds 'hum': the muffled giggle of humans on a path not far away; the thwack thwack of a machete hacking the bushes.

All at once a flicker-a little green streak of a lizard sped past, clinging to the wall above. Barnaby produced an almost imperceptible 'mff'--acknowledgement to another son of the sun.
As evening came and the shadows began to elongate, Barnaby was thoroughly contented. He did not have need for the hysteria of the rest of the goats. He had his plot of land, his constant wall, and the trees to keep him company. He was guardian of his own territory, and a pensive brown-and-white observer in a world of clamor.

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