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Perchance you know a pair of folks who are the compliment of one another: the two in balance, the one nudging the other, the timid and the brave in balance, the mellow smoothing the rough, the slow moderating the fast? They are an admirable team, and you esteem them so? Perhaps it is time to send them a pair of intrepid goats and let them know?
Other Things You Might Like to Know: The original artwork is gouache and graphite | © 2017 Melinda Nettles | Designed and printed in Oregon, USA | Paper by Neenah and envelopes by Mohawk are minimum 30% Post-consumer recycled content and FSC® Certified |
The Back Story:
In the late spring, when the grasses are new and the yellow flowers do their yellowing, Annie and Tootsweet make haste to the rocky outcrop above yonder town -- the one across the valley, down past that one old sheppard’s hut (you know, the one not so far from the stream bank, with ancient stone walls, and its roof all covered with moss like a thick carpet) and up up the other side of the valley again. Well, Annie and Tootsweet, they push and shove one another, up up up the steep slope of that rocky outcrop, and ‘round through the cracks and crevases of its steep steep sides, until finally finally they are at the tippy tippy top. Because that is the place where even the sheepiest of sheep are too timid to wander, and so of course that is where they find the grassiest of the grasses and the floweriest of the flowers, which are also the most golden yellow of all the golden yellow flowers anywhere in this wide world. There, amongst the intrepid little flowers and robust little grasses thrusting their energetic roots into the tiniest veins of soil, you will find, grazing -- or more likely just gazing -- in happy contentment, one pair of equally intrepid goats.* *Ever So Important Note: Well, just so you know, it was not always so. Intrepitude did not come naturally to one Ms. Tootsweet. Well now, Annie doesn’t like to toot her own horn, but get her to chatting and she’ll allow that if it hadn’t been for Her’s Truly, well, Tootsweet might still be standing around down in the vale, which is just fine and all, but just look at her today, a real Adventurer, a real Expeditioner, always travelling far and wide and coming back with stories to tell. Why, when they set off on upon their First Adventure, the one to meet Mythic Old Uncle Hollowbucket, up the windy canyon past the long-gone orchard (“where, gosh, the thorn bushes are so thick!” adds Tootsweet), Tootsweet was just a timid thing (“a coward, really,” Tootsweet pipes in), and nearly turned back home forty-six times. But with a little cajoling, a little kindly encouragement from Her’s Truly, timid little Tootsweet finally found her footing, and yes indeed, just look at her now. |