Camping

I took my 4-H group camping

and we had to cook all our meals over a campfire.

Talk about difficult!

(This cobbler was a gigantic success story.)

Boy do I have a newfound respect for pioneer women.

When I count my blessings I will have to add

a 350 degree oven!

  

Butting Heads

In a goat's life,

there comes a time, 

when you just gotta show'em who's boss.

And the best way to do that

.....for a goat.....

is to butt heads.

When the adults butt heads,

it makes all the kids look and learn and imitate.

Except little Cookie.

She must know she's on the bottom of the totem pole.

She just calmly ignores it all and eats hay.

I think she's hoping she can bide her time

and get big enough to boss somebody around one day.

Maybe.......

Turtle in the Goat Stall

This morning Ranae came rushing back to the house

during her morning chores,

which always makes me nervous.

My mind goes haywire and I imagine the worst.

(And oh - do I have a good imagination.)

Immediately I think,

"Is there a wild animal about,

is one of the goats sick,

is there a chicken missing?"

But this time I was relieved.

Between pants of breath she said that there was a turtle in the stall,

"scarring the goats".

It came and went for a few days until I decided he might need

help finding his way to water.

So Ranae and I loaded him into our wheelbarrow.

We then took him to the back far reaches of our property.

Back where I know a little creek flows.

We placed him down and gave him the Spock send off.

"Live long and prosper turtle."

~ ~ ~

And don't scare any goats, if you can help it.

Kevin and the chickens

Kevin has a way with our birds.

He spends, by far, the most time with them.

And they seem to like his attention.

In fact, they seem to think he's one of them.

Even the rooster loves him.

And that's saying something,

because this rooster likes no one else.

The rooster dislikes me, in particular.

If I had to guess, I would think he wishes me harm.

Great harm.

Maybe he should read Cold Mountain

by Charles Frazier.

In that book there's a ornery rooster.

And he ends up in a pot.

I can play Renee Zellweger if I have to.

Beyond Dirty

So after nine days of hauling grain and hay,

carrying shovels to clean out stalls with,

eating dinner and doing homework in the car 

plus transporting goats...

my car became less than clean.

In fact, it became downright unsanitary.

If you really zoom in,

it is apparent that there is goat poop in my car!

I can share this with you now

only because just a few days after fair I cleaned it up.

But seeing these pictures makes me think of the comedian

Jeff Foxsworthy.

And his "Redneck" series.

I could possibly be a candidate for,

"You might be a redneck if........

you drive your kids to school

with goat poop rolling around in the car."

County Fair

For nine days we traveled back and forth to the fairgrounds,

to feed and care for our animals,

and also to show them.

The kids did great and my children had a great time too.

Our Nigerian Dwarf doe, America, surprised us and won

first place in her division.

I can't wait to breed her in the coming year.

Little Cookie went to the fair with her sisters.

And we traveled up twice a day, every day, to give her a bottle.

She did just fine.

In fact, I think she grew a lot during the fair.

We, of course, went to every barn and display

and "ooooohed" and "ahhhhhed"

over the chickens, and ducks, and steers, and horses,

and quilts, and photography, and baked goods, and canned goods.

Ranae took her goat Barnabas through the agility course

and did really well this time.

Kevin took his goat Lightning through agility and did very well too.

After it was all over, we rode some rides

had some more fun and

finally packed up and went home.

.....but we couldn't help ourselves.....

(We started planning our next year at the fair on the ride home.)

But for now.....YIPEEEEEE.....we're done.