A few weeks ago, I wrote about a tiny goat who had arrived from Manhattan. He was desperately ill; we weren't sure he would make it.

Well make it he did. "Zen Sunshine" is his name -- Deborah from Luna 61 offered "Zen," and a volunteer was hooked on "Sunshine." We went through the same process a year earlier with Zen's lookalike predecessor. Volunteer Chris Seeholzer dubbed the little goat, who was slightly larger and far less ill than Zen, "Lenny."

"No!" I exclaimed, having already chosen a name. His name is Nelson!!"

So "Lenny" became "Leonard H. Nelson," and most of us used his full name when referring to him.

A few weeks after his arrival, Zen Sunshine has doubled in size. No more crusty nose; no more coughing or sneezing. Much to his dismay, he's been weaned from the bottle he loved. But the bottle is probably the only thing he misses from those first few weeks spent in quarantine. Today, Zen has replaced our young pig Franklin as resident troublemaker. (As a free-range piglet, Franklin wound up spending so much time in "time out" that we reluctantly, a couple months ago, placed him in the field with the grown up pigs. He does just fine, as long as volunteer Allen Landes remembers his treats--squash microwaved for 30 seconds--each day.)

So Zen is our newest free-range animal, challenging 50-pound feed bags to duels and using wheelbarrows full of shavings as trampolines and staring down a blind horse, not understanding why the horse who cannot see does not quake in fear.

Why do we do this? Because we can. Because we have lots of space and lots of loving hearts and hands to get the newest member of the "underfoot family" out of trouble many, many times a day. Because allowing young or new or inexperienced or timid animals free range of the property always seems the very best way of convincing them that life is good.