Welcome to the porch today guest blogger, Becky Burkhalter. She's a writer and published author who raises goats. Here's her tale about Sadie.
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Everyone has heard the joke about the occasional table … (what is it the rest of the time?)

Would you believe I have an occasional goat?

Sadie looks like a goat. She was born of a goat, I do think that’s her actual form, but she isn’t always a goat.

She started out as a Valentine, born on February 14. She was a tiny thing, the weaker of twins, and we brought her inside to nurse her and keep her warm.

‘Keeping her warm’ meant, of course, keeping her in the bed with us. Isn’t that where normal people snuggle a baby? On second thought, don’t answer that.

She didn’t stay inside for long, and she’s been in since, although not often. This seems to have caused her confusion and from that first day we shut the door in her sweet face, she’s been searching, with a fluid malleability unique even for goats, to find her place.

It came on quietly and without fanfare.

She still seems to be pretty sure she’s a people and has never understood why we don’t let her live in the house. However, as time passed, she became comfortable in being whatever seemed to have the most benefit on any particular day.

I noticed her, one day, being a horse. Goats, you know, stay locked in their yard while horses are granted the pasture and large bales of hay.

<img class="aligncenter" src="http://beckyburkheart.com/images/Sadie/sadie_horse.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="207" />

Horses are fine to be, but chickens get to come up in the shade of the barn alley, out of the wind, and peck grain out of the dirt. Alley trumps pasture, grain trumps hay, and being many times larger than the others by far trumps being only as tall as everyone else’s kneecaps. So many days, Sadie is a chicken.

<img class="aligncenter" src="http://beckyburkheart.com/images/Sadie/sadie_chicken.jpg" alt="" width="471" height="257" />

<img class="alignleft" src="http://beckyburkheart.com/images/Sadie/sadie_collar.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="315" />Sadie also tends to be a dog on days we have visitors. Dogs get to sleep on the porch. They get lots of attention, scratches behind the ears and all the leftovers cleaned out of the truck. French fries, of course, trump even grain. In the case of a cookout, there are too many good eatables to mention and unattended plates are free game. On those days, it’s good to be a dog.

There are days, of course, when it’s good to be a goat. Goats fit through fences like horses can’t and get to roam the far pastures, and beyond, until they’re chased home.

Chickens fit through fences, but don’t go too far and dogs just have to stay in the yard.

Goats who have figured out how to turn sideways in order to squeeze through a stock gate still get choice pickings of hay and grain – but sometimes get yelled at.

When the yelling starts, it’s better to go back to being a chicken.

Sadie’s latest transformation is to become a mom, which she is handling in her usual fine fashion. Her little daughter appears to be a goat, but only time will tell.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sadienspecial.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4681" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sadienspecial.jpg" alt="SadieNSpecial" width="288" height="274" /></a>
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<img class="alignleft" src="http://beckyburkheart.com/images/becky1.jpg" alt="" width="218" height="309" />Becky Burkhalter takes frequent flights of fantasy, in real life as well as in her writing.

It's said that life is stranger than fiction, but Becky's out to prove it's possible to integrate life both ways. Whether she's racing her Arabian horses through the woods, rapid firing her .45 or gargoyling from local rooftops, Becky finds it hard to stay grounded in the real world. Although she has yet to ride in a space ship (she did get to simulate crashing a 727) or to meet a real vampire (that she's aware of), anachronistic dress, "QaQ poHmey" and pints of brew (yes, it comes in pints) are standard fare on the odd weekend.

Visit her on her website: <a href="http://www.beckyburkheart.com/">www.BeckyBurkheart.com</a>

Connect with her on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BeckyBurkheartauthor" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.

<strong>Bloodcup: A Tale of the Last Amazon Queen</strong> is available from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bloodcup-Tale-Last-Amazon-Queen-ebook/dp/B00JW4RB8O/">Amazon</a>, and other ebook outlets.

<strong><img class="alignleft" src="http://beckyburkheart.com/images/bloodcup_cover v17c web.jpg" alt="" width="191" height="290" /></strong>What is it to be a priestess and a queen but a life of service to the people and the gods?

Historic legend tells us Hercules stole the Golden Girdle of War from the Amazon Queen, Hippolyte, at the command of King Eurytheus. Once it was taken back to Mycene – the trail grows cold.

In BLOODCUP the young warrior-priestess Aekhosora seizes command in the aftermath of that bloody theft to lead the army of her people on a vengeful journey south to recover the girdle. Plunging into the marshes of the Danube, through Thrace, past Mount Olympus, with only a brief stop at Delphi, they march on Theseus and all but take Athens before they continue south to death and slavery at Megara.

Suffering the whims of slavery, she struggles to stay true to her god, her goal and the man who takes her home, a man who finds himself the master of a queen striving to restore a lost and scattered people.