Goats – Page 3 – This Old House 2

How Y’all doing out there

Dear Georgia – Shout out to the brave ones as your Governor has opened your doors again, with the high praise of Tr*mp and P*nce. Let us know how y’all make out, we’ll be paying attention. Of course.. you won’t be seeing Tr*mp & P*nce out there among you, because they do still care about their own asses, just not yours so much as the all mighty dollar as it pertains to their re election prospects. Of course, with all the MAGA stupidity going on, those rallies to be set free again with our own POTUS calling for civil unrest – set yourself free!!…. and don’t leave out the can’t-make-me-wear-a-mask bullshit… sad but true – there might be fewer MAGA voters come November.

Mask wearing no longer feels weird in a grocery store, hell, everyone’s doing it. If I could only master the damned arrows in the aisles!… sheesh, such a simple thing and yet so many of us are getting it wrong. (hand raised high here). I don’t wear gloves except at the gas pump, where they are thrown out as soon as the handle is back in it’s holder. Hand washing is so frequent my hands are sandpaper, but MOM to the rescue – have you tried Cetaphil ultra healing with ceramides? It’s not cheap but it’s magic on rough try hands. Thanks, Mom – it works!

I’m eating more than I should because I’m cooking and baking more than usual because I’m home and there’s the damned refrigerator every time I turn around and you know I have to open it and take something out and shove it in my mouth. Right now I’ve got a blueberry buckle baking in the oven, and Maple BBQ Ribs and green beans are on tonight’s dinner menu. Tomorrow night I’ll make the New York Times recipe Caramelized Shallot Pasta. All are delish recipes, easy to put together if you have the ingredients.

Farm news! – the baby goats, Star and Bella will be moving in this weekend. YAY!!… It’s been 40 years since I’ve had a goat – that’s an actual fact.. and I am so excited to welcome them home. My first goat was one I had adopted at the Staten Island Zoo while I worked there at the pony ride track. The baby goat had eye ulcers and they were going to put her down. I begged them to let me take her, and got her to the vet immediately. We healed her ulcers and she lived on our little plot on Staten Island until she became much bigger and a neighbor’s daughter who had a farm took her to live a bigger farm life. Her name was Casey – She was a black goat with a white star on her forehead just like our Star. We’ve got the goat house ready and their goat yard properly fenced in for their safety, now to create a little bit of a playscape for them. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, Stella is open and ready for the season… we just need some warm weather…. Some scenes from “down island” after yesterday’s rainstorm…

I hope you’re well and staying sane. We’re all good here, working from home and out on job sites with caution of course. Our business has definitely been affected, as several tenants have notified us they will be abandoning their lease (hair dresses among them). Time will tell how it all pans out.

Closing out this post with a little quarantine humor…

Kidding

While we were on the beautiful island of St. John wondering if we should really get on a plane to come home landing at JFK of all places ( 😲 ) or just try to figure out how to hide away there until all the ‘rona crazy had dissipated… the husband was fortifying the goat house and yard for me. He gets a double gold star for that, I must say it right here, right now. He brought home an old shed from a property we are renovating and repainted it, gave it a new roof, put a window in the back, rubber matted the interior and hung a water bucket and hay rack. It came out great!… and is ready for Star and Bella, the two baby does that will be coming to live on our farm as soon as Bella is old enough to leave her mama. Star is the baby with the broken leg who had been rejected by her mother. She has healed very well! They are both a cross of nubian and alpine goat.

This is star… currently living in our feed store owner’s garage where she’s been nursed back to health and has some heat and a few buddies…

And this is Bella – who is a few weeks younger and will be ready to come with Star in about two weeks.. The silver nubs you see on her head are where she was de-horned. Neither doe will grow horns because at a very early age the vet sedated them and did the procedure – it’s safer for us and for them and for the other animals they might mingle with here on the farm. The process is sort of like a burning.

Unrelated – how do you like those old sun-bleached highlights half grown out??… I swear they are not that pronounced in “real life”… or maybe they are? It is what it is.

We brought our show girl home for the duration – no sense leaving her at a show barn paying big board when we can’t even visit or ride her. She approves of the bigger stall and much bigger turnout, for sure. Shows have been cancelled for the next few months and we still don’t know how all this crap will affect our business and if I’ll even have my editing job. So, time to reel in the expenses.

A little humor shared below, because CHRIST, it beats obsessing over the news. I go back and forth between panicking and telling myself to just get a grip. Wishing you all good health, may we all come out of it healthy on the otherside, living to tell.

I could go for a good strong Bloody Mary right about now.. how about you?

Take care, all – and wash your damn hands!

Karen

Just Kidding! No.. REALLY!

Last week our grain order was delivered.. and the wife of the fellow who would be bringing it texted me minutes before… Will is on his way – and he’s got a little surprise for you in the truck.

Surprise? What the ** could that be?

Well, lo and behold… … it was a kid.

That kind of kid. With a wee little cast on her wee little leg. She’d been squeezed a bit too tight by a kid of the human variety and sustained an injury that requires a cast. “Star” is being bottle fed while she heals… and then… have you figured it out already? I opened my big mouth and said – we’ll give her a home when she’s ready.

Then I said to myself, I said… Self? You ought go run that by the husband because he’ll tan yer’hide when he finds out you’re taking on more critters and you didn’t even consult. He is the payer of the big bills and the builder of the outbuildings, after all, and currently there is no goat house at this old house.

So I asked Will to excuse me for just a few minutes, and the wee bairn and I walked down to the house where the Mr. was sitting at his desk pondering bills. Oh, crap. Not the best moment to pounce this on him. However, upon first glance of the wee bairn in my arms with it’s cast and faux fleece jacket, he scratched her little chin and petted the star on her head and I said with the tiniest pleading voice….. can we keep her?

Right then I swear I expected the skies to open and the universe to fall to earth with the fury of fire and brimstone because that’s how it usually goes when I seek to add to the critters living among us and God help me I’ve done it a million times.

Instead… …you could have heard a pin drop, or my jaw hitting the floor, which is close to what actually happened.. when the Mr. said… “I wondered why you haven’t had goats here, I don’t mind”.

WHAT? What the everloving what?…. What did he do recently that he’s trying to make up for, that’s the burning question here.

But I think I don’t even care, because Star and a buddy not yet chosen or named will come to live on the farm as soon as they are old enough and her wee little leg has healed. We’ve got some work to do, will need a goat house of some sort and a sturdy, protecting fence. Stay tuned!

Have you noticed that little bit of scottish brogue I’ve inflicted in the words above? Have any of you been a fan of OUTLANDER? Oh, my Good Lord, how did I miss this all the way till Season 5 is out? I am madly in love with Jamie the Red, the love story that is Jamie and Claire, the mystery, the magical, the incredible countryside that is the Scottish Highlands, life in the 1700’s …I’m totally smitten, can you tell? The thing that has finally gotten me stay on the eliptical for 45 minutes is having Outlander on the screen in front of me. Friends have told me they have trouble with the accents so they use the closed caption to understand it all, LOL… that’s my method of watching anyway, but the accent is inflicted in the closed caption wording and I’m loving that, too. If you just crawled out from under a rock like apparently ME, watch a few episodes and see if you get hooked too. I understand the books are very good, of which this series originates, but.. the eye candy is the all important icing on the cake for this girl. Plaid has never looked so good.