Family Day in Lambtown

I have weird relatives. One thing they like to do is pretend they're Scottish. This results in us having our annual family picnic at one of those goings-on where men wear skirts and toss heavy things around or if they're really tough -- we're talking brand-new Harley tough -- they set off their white knees with a claymore and a long knife and have a custom leather pouch for their cell phone. But the really great thing about these affairs is not the incessant piping or the overpriced bland bangers or even the hilarious fact that the closest the organizers can get to a drink for a Scotsman is Bass or Harp – it's the Scottish Goosedog.

Sheepdogs are old hat. Actually, sheep are expensive. Even in Dixon. But the sheepdog contest is always popular, almost as popular as the piglet race, and you gotta please the crowds, so the dog's gotta herd something. And as it happens, geese are natural flockers, they're a pretty white, they're cheap, and they're du-u-umb. Therefore it's sort of fun to watch the gosherd call his dog about and herd the stupid birds through gates and across walkways and into a pen. Not as fun as watching someone roll her grandmother's wheelchair over a gray splat of gooseshit that then makes a soft rhythmic sfit-sfit-sfit sound as they go along their way, but close enough.

Beyond that, it's not all manly hammer-throwing and caber-tossing, either. The women get into the act too. Women make fine athletes. Even white ones. Check out these lean and limber babes.


This one chose not to shave her beard.