Desperately seeking nice person(s)

I am going to keep this mercifully short.

I have recently come into possession of two dogs for which I need to find forever homes.

Here is what I know about them...

Brandy - beagle/shepherd? mix I'm guessing this mix because she is the size and shape of a beagle but has the coloring, rough coat and tail shape of a German Shepherd. Sweet beagle eyes and LONG ears, even for a beagle (but not long enough to be bassett)
Female, probably 2-4 years.
Doubt she's spayed, doubt she's up to date on shots.
Extrememly submissive but very loving. She's so happy to see you when you get home that she starts out whimpering and goes into full blown hound bays. Former owner swears he had her hunting but I don't really know how good of a hunter she is, if at all.
House training questionable - it's hard to tell because we have a research lab rescue dog that still struggles with house training and I think she sometimes leads the others astray.
Gets along great with children and other dogs, cats, livestock, as best I can tell. Did try to chase a chicken once but dropped the chase as soon as she was scolded. Hasn't tried it since.
Just took off on us yesterday afternoon and didn't come back until 6am this morning. On the bright side, she did find her way back.








Tessa - Lab/Pit bull?/Pointer or Spaniel? mix The reason I'm guessing these breeds: Blocky head like a Pitt but looks like a Lab profile. Very short, sleek coat like a Pitt. Legs are white with black freckles ala pointer or spaniel, plus she stood in a dead point at my hubby when he rounded the corner of the garage one day. Doesn't do that often though so it could have been a fluke.
Female, probably 5 years?
Doubt she's spayed, doubt she's up to date on shots.
House training questionable - see above.
She was definitely the leader of her little pack of three but has not tried to gain any kind of alpha position when we brought her into our home with our two dogs (one male, one female). Actually, settled in quite nicely with strange dogs, although my male is a marshmallow and my female could not be bothered with such nonsense. Mostly quite - will sometimes yap when we leave the room and she wants attention but lets up as soon as she is scolded.
Fine with children, other dogs and cats, again, as best I can tell. NOT GOOD WITH CHICKENS! Which is really why she has to go. I have free-range chickens and I would never be able to have her out of the kennel area unless she was on a leash. And, to be honest, I don't have time to walk dogs on leashes.
But she is a really, really good dog. My daughter has fallen in love with her and would take her but, since she's living on campus housing this semester, cannot. Ideally, if someone (without chickens) was willing to foster her for the school year, my daughter would be ecstatic and gather her up once she secured non-campus housing.








If you feel you are able to open your home and your heart to one (or both!) of these girls, leave a comment and we can work on getting in touch.

Please remember that this is a commitment for the life of the animal. They are currently in their third home and I would like their next stop to be where they get to live out the rest of their years. They will be part of your family and you will have to adjust your lifestyle accordingly. If you're not up to that challenge, perhaps a dog is not for you.

Why don't I just keep them, you ask? Try getting up at 2:30am to start feeding livestock on a day when you have to go to your (very physical) full-time job to work overtime, only to come home and have to either run fence, vet animals, work on the roof/bathroom/etc. and then feed all the livestock again. And then maybe if you have time, you can make and eat dinner. Otherwise you just skip it. Again. And that's not counting the grocery shopping, housework, bill paying, second job, etc.

So, do I need two more dogs that will be nothing more than pets? No, I don't. I wish I had the time to devote to them, but I don't, which makes it unfair to them. They need homes where they can have the attention they deserve.

As it is, I am trying to hold on to them for a little while longer but my energy and finances will only hold out for so long and I desperately need to cut back the extraneous. They will, unfortunately, end up at the local shelter if I can't re-home them soon. I don't mean to tug on the ol' heartstrings - it's just the way it is.

So if you are actually past the phase of "Boy, isn't that whole 'having a dog thing' a keeno idea?" and actually into the phase of "I am ready to adopt.", leave a comment and we can work on getting in touch. I would be willing to do what I can to transport for a bit - the dogs travel well.

Work, Work, Work

And more work.

That seems to be all I'm doing lately.

My primary job right now (as opposed to the real estate job, which has become secondary) is going off and on mandatory overtime, so I never really know what, if any, days I'll actually have off in a week, nor do I know how many hours I can expect to work on any given day. At least not until the day before because there is a 24 hour notice thingy.

And all of that is throwing a real monkey wrench in my life right now. On days that I am working overtime, and hubby is working too, I have to get up at 2am so I have enough time to feed all of the animals before starting work at 4 or 4:30am. The getting up early part is a real drag because the goats are all, "What the...? We're sleeping!!!" And then I have to proceed to drag them all out to their feeding stations because they just. Don't. Want. To. Go.

Oh, and God forbid it's raining.

Which it always seems to be doing.

Although, I shouldn't really complain because it has seemed to let up a bit at least when I need it to. They really don't like coming out in the rain to eat.

Perhaps someday when we have a big ol' barn in which to feed them, these days will go much more smoothly. Perhaps by the time we can afford the time and money to build a big ol' barn, we will also be well enough off to not have to go off to other jobs in the first place.

Ah, dreams.

So, yeah. Work.

And that's not even getting into all the additional animal-related stuff that goes on when I get home from work. Or the pressing need to put up A LOT more fence. Or the roof project from last year which still remains unfinished.

But, if it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.

Well...yes, I am. But it's not about the animals or the farm. It's more about not being able to really devote the time I need to to them. I think a lot of folks are still under the impression that this farm is a nice, little hobby for hubby and me.

I wish that were the case.

No, in fact we are busting our butts to try to get a bonafied business up and running. A buisiness with which we intend to replace our other jobs. And it takes a lot of works.

And people just don't get it. At all.

...

But enough of that.

I just wanted to pop in with a quickie update.

I took Fen to the vet today. All is well - it was just a check up. Ruby goes Thursday for her check-up. I had to take two different appointments because I would have had to wait otherwise.

And Jasper...

sigh...

Jasper is gone.

I can't really write about it because...well, I can't. But I just wanted to put it out there because it dawned on me the other day when a friend stopped by, that not many people know about it. Mainly because I never see or talk to anyone any more.

But, yeah. It happened over the summer and I'm still heartbroken about it. He was such a sweet, sweet boy - quite possibly the most loveable animal I've ever known - and life is just not the same without him around. If I knew the guy we bought him from was breeding the same two dogs again, I'd take a puppy in a heart beat, just in the hopes of getting another dog half as good as him.

And since it rains when it pours...

Our three and half legged cat, Fang, is also gone as well. She was just an amazing animal and a real trooper. She will be sorely missed as well.

...


And now I've lost my steam for writing. So enough for tonight. Hopefully I'll get to check in again soon and announce our farm's new website!

Sifting Through the Rubble of My Blog

For some reason or other I tried to dig up an old post I remembered writing a while back. Then on a curious whim, or perhaps morbid curiosity, I came to the most recent one and saw that there were some comments.

You guuuuuuuyyyyyyyssssss.....

I feel so bad leaving you all hanging like that. (All = 2)

I thought I had better check in to at least let you know I haven't checked out, at least not in the cosmic sense.

I'm fine. The goats are fine. Everything is fine down on the farm.

But busy.

Looooooordy is it busy.

I had mentioned that I was starting a new job. Well, fast forward to today and I am still working that job (a lot luckier than a lot people), in fact working overtime hours.

And since I had just managed to obtain my broker's license, after a great amount of time, effort and expense, I did not want to just put my license in escrow. However, since the goats need to eat, and my family needs to eat (yes, in that order), I have put the real estate career on the back burner so to speak in favor of a steady paycheck and mental wellness.

Ok, steady paycheck.

But, I am still working on some real estate deals so that takes another share out of The Bucket of Time.

And then there's the goats. And goats, and goats, and goats. I think we're up to 24 now. I'm not really sure.

So, another drian on the time bucket.

In the end, after all this stuff, along with the normal demands of day-to-day living, I have very little time and even less energy at the end of the day to sit down and write.

On the bright side, hubby and I are working on a web site for our farm and I am hoping to have a sort of farm journal tied to it. So I should be able to have some regular updates there.

And maybe I'll make more of an effort to get back here now and then. Because as much as I enjoyed and needed the hiatus, I actually miss keeping this thing going. It's one of the few contacts I have with people outside of the workplace.

I'll admit it, I'm an attention hound. I need at least one person (other than my dear hubby, that is) to pay attention to me every few weeks. I THRIVE on it! Why, when the UPS gal stops for a visit ... er... delivery, I'm just all, "Hello." and stuff!

So, as you can see, I lead a pretty socially destitute life. I think I'm actually the only person that looks forward to the Jehovah Witness folks visiting.

I'm sorry to leave you folks wondering and I'm sorry I haven't been to anyone's blog in a long time. I'll try to do better with that because I do miss all the good folks I used to read.

And the Times...Well, They Are A Changin'

Hey there, folks.

I know, I know. It's waaaay to early for another post from me. And yet...


So we are in the full swing of autumn at the farm. And that means shearing goats. Which also means a lot of bodily pain for me, stretching those muscles that only get used twice a year.

But! I'm almost done. I only have one medium sized goat and two little goats to go. Although, we are going to try to sell the little goats so, hopefully, that will be someone else's problem. I mean, gain. Did I say problem? No. I didn't. Someone else's gain, what with that silky kid fleece and all.

Anyway...

I sheared our buck and the two bigger does, one of those being the new one that came home with us when we went to a wedding in West Virginia. Usually you just win the center piece as a door prize but, I'll tell ya, those West Virginia folks really know how to do a wedding door prize right!

Ok, it wasn't a door prize. Picking up the goat just happened to coincide with the event.

So, this is our new gal, Milan. She came with that name.



Note all the hair. I cut that off. With scissors. Because the electric shearing thing? Still apparently costs money.

In other exciting farm news...

We have peeps! Again!

Just a few days ago another one of our chickens showed up with three peeps. I thought it would be a bit late in the year for that sort of thing but that just goes to show I don't know diddly squat about the having and raising of peeps.



The hen, however, does.

Here's hubby introducing the peeps to Fen.



Fen wasn't quite sure what to make of the peeps at first and would just kind of look at them and then look at us all worried like. But now he has kind of decided the peeps are his and chases the other chickens away if they start gettin' up in the peeps' bidness.

Word.

And what discussion on the cycle of life would be complete without the mention of breeding goats. Yes, it's that time of year again. The time when the boy goats pee on their bad selves, stinkin' it up for the ladies. And the gals are all "Ooooooo, you smell soooo baaaaaaa-aaaa-aaad."

Actually, they don't stink all that bad. Just a little more goaty then normal.

Since we don't have enough actual pens to separate everyone into their assigned harems, I take the two little boys out of their pens on days when I am home and put the lucky boys and girls together in there for conjugal visits. Then at night, they all exchange numbers and the buck promises to call the does - but it never happens - and they all go back to their respective pens. I'm hoping within the next week to finish one of the new pens so I can just stick them in together and leave them there.

Autumn also brings with it harvest time. Not that I have a whole lot to harvest. I planted some tomato plants in a very poor attempt at a garden this year but... Well, it was sort of neglected. I mean, I got tomatoes and everything, but I didn't have enough cages for all the plants and a lot of them just flopped over from sheer exhaustion. I did get an awesome pot of sauce out of them though.

Also, through no effort on my part, our grape vine had a boom crop this year. So I just picked all the grapes yesterday and promptly forgot about them until 9 o'clock tonight, when I set about extracting the juice. It's sooooooooooo good. I am going to attempt jelly. I'll let you know how that goes.

Other that that, I don't really have a whole lot to harvest. Some little gourds that, God only knows why, volunteer to grow every year. One even grew in the dog kennel. Every once in a while I'll find the remains of some poor, unfortunate gourd that one of the dogs picked off their vine and brought into the house to chew up.

So that's it for our farm harvest: mohair, some tomatoes, grapes and gourds. Not a whole lot, is it? And I have no idea what the gourd commodities are like these days.

Add our pitiful harvest to the housing slump, stir in two college tuitions, and you will have the Perfect Financial Storm that has emboldened me to seek Real Employment. Which, oddly enough, wasn't too hard to find. Mainly because I wasn't being picky. I went to one interview. When the interviewer asked me, "What are you looking for in a job?" I said, "A paycheck." And so now I will be training employees at a grand new warehouse nearby. I start October 26th. This should be interesting.

So, that's the new news on the farm front.

Signing off for now. Going to list three of the kids goats on Teh Internets for sale. Cross your fingers, folks.

Penny for Your Thoughts?

So, I did mention that I might get another post up today and here it is. This one is a shameless post as an entry for a contest sponsored by www.capitalone.com/financialeducation/
and parentbloggers.com . Not an entry of my writing skills, thank goodness, but for a random drawing, and we all know how much I like "Free"!

I remember once being somewhere - I can't really remember details but work with me here - with my two darling, little cherubs. Maybe it was in the car. Maybe it was in the kitchen. Who knows. At any rate, I remeber they were about 7 and 8 - or 8 and 9 - years old and, on this particular day, Baby Girl asked me, "Are we poor?"

I was really taken aback by this simple query and had to think a moment before answering.

It's not that I didn't know if we were poor or not. We weren't. At least not by Third World standards. Heck, we weren't really even poor by Super Power Nation standards. I mean, we had a roof over our heads. We had four walls around us. We certainly had enough food for our bellies. We had vehicles and jobs and access to health care.

But...

I could kind of see where the question came from.

Scrambling for buckets when the rain came was a regular kind of thing. Learning to layer not only the clothes on your body but also the blankets on your bed was the modus operandi from November to March. And when you come out of school at the end of the day, and your mom is waiting in the line of cars with all the other moms, except your mom is the only mom laying on the ground under the car wiring the muffler back on...well, one shouldn't be too surprised at a question like this.

Their friends, at least as far as my children were aware, did not live like this.

And so began the years long process of teaching our children the difference between being poor and being in over one's head. Or living on the edge. Or thumbing your nose at convention.

Or whatever way you happen to want to spin it.

Because, let's be honest, it can go any way you prefer.

They were now becoming aware of the consequeces of life choices on a much bigger scale.

We had to teach them that we lived the way we did because we chose to do it. That there were certain things we were willing to sacrifice in order to have others. That there were certain things we were willing to sacrifice because they were incidental, and it wasn't really much of a sacrifice after all. And most importantly, if need be, we were willing to walk away from all of it saying, "At least we gave it a shot."

Sure, they had to learn the value of money. They learned how it can hurt when you don't have enough. They learned how having it can make things somewhat easier, but also how it can't solve all problems. How it might get you some of the things you want but that not everything can be bought.

I've seen them experience the easy come easy go, the not so easy come yet still easy go, the not so easy come and I'm really having a hard time letting it go, and the I've busted my butt for this and just try to pry it from my fingers lessons of money. We talked about investing and credit and debt and interest and saving and spending and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

They had some things but not everything. They joined some activities but not every one they wanted to join. They got to go to some places but not others. They learned that everyone - moms, dads, and kids - are all affected by money.

It's all part of the game.

But more importantly, they learned that money is a tool, a means to and end. They had to learn that there is value in so many things - material things, work, play, freedom, health, land, happiness, knowledge, independence, everything.

How much of my freedom am I willing to sacrifice for the almighty dollar? Would I rather have that extra day of overtime or would I be happier spending it with a friend? What if I buy this item from this store? How will affect someone else? How will it affect me? Would I be better off if I could make/grow/knit/cook/etc. it myself? How might what I choose to do or not do today affect what I may or may not be able to do tomorrow? What is more important to me?

These are the kinds of lessons I wanted them to learn. I think if you know how to answer questions like these, the answers to the money ones fall more easily into place. They are hard questions when you really sit down and try to answer them honestly. We humans are so skilled at rationalizing our shorfalls and blunders.

But I was a little nervous about whether or not we did the right thing. Maybe a small house in town would have been better. Maybe it would have freed up more time and money for other things. Maybe we really screwed it all up after all.

I was always a little afraid that my children would grow up, leave home, and never look back. I thought they might have had their fill of wacky parents with misplaced priorities, living in a drafty old house, in one of those spots in America that time just kind of forgot. I thought maybe they would like to high tail it out of Dodge and say "So long" to the old farm... I certainly wouldn't blame them if they did - they are young and the world is their oyster.

Yet oddly enough, they both have said that they would like to see a bit of the world but are considering coming back to this area when they want to settle down. There has even been mention of living on the farm.

So maybe we're doing alright after all. Who's to say? They may get out into the world and love the change and never come back to the area, but at least they are aware of and open to other options.

Thinking back, I can't honestly say that I ever set out awith the intention of teaching my children anything specific about Money. Rather, I hope that I taught them - and still teach them - that money is just one of the many, many variables that affects a life, but certainly not what defines it.

What really defines a life is how many goats you own.

Whatever.

That's right. Whatever.

I know I'm a bad blogger. At least I've taken the first step and admitted the problem.

But...whatever.

Anyway...here is the (seasonal?) update from the funny farm.

When we last met, I told you about ... what. Let me go check. Oh, the kids (human) and the kids (caprine). Well, all kids are doing fine and dandy. Except the one that died and, fortunately, that one was of the caprine variety.

Yes, we lost another goat. Again, I think, to parasites. So, going against all I had hoped for, we broke out the chemical wormers and dosed everyone up. And then gave vaccines. Which, you wouldn't think it would be, but it was a pretty exciting thing what with the possibility that at any given moment after you give the vaccine the goat could get all bug-eyed, stick out its tongue and go into anaphylactic shock. And DIE.

Luckily, that didn't happen. But, I have to say, we are all getting quite the education with these critters. "We" meaning pretty much eveyone within a 10 mile radius of our farm. The people at my dog vet office found the whole goat-going-into-shock thing quite interesting when I called them and begged for epinephrine to have on hand(to counter the possible shock).

Here's the real crazy thing. A friend of a friend of ours just got some goats, and the friend in between called me and was asking for some helpful advice. After my initial reaction of "Why in God's name did they ever get goats?", I was actually able to give her a lot of good pointers. It sure surprised the heck out of me.

Regarding the other kids...

Sonny Boy is in full swing with his second year of college now, although he is still living at home since he is going to one of the local campuses of PSU. Right now he is trying to raise a VW Jetta from the dead. It involves a new engine, some sticks and mud, and strange chanting ceremonies that go long into the night. It is taking up the better part of the summer but, you know, it keeps him out of trouble.

Well, almost. There was that little incident with The Law when he evaded a police officer by riding his dirt bike through a golf course. He did manage to get away but due to the fact that the police officer kind of recognized his bike, and that sonny boy has a bit of a guilty conscience, he turned himself in after negotiating a fine.

That's my boy!

At least he's not hanging out with Republicans.

Baby Girl is in Scotland right now. Yes, that's right. She is spending her first semester of school there. I am insanely jealous, particularly when she emails and tells me things like her one friend's parents have a time share on some island off of Spain and they are thinking of spending a week there at the end of Ocotber. Oh, and since they only have class 4 days a week, they are thinking of taking a long weekend trip to Norway.

She also emailed me a picture of her in a pub, holding a big pint glass of Guinness. Because, you know, she is of leagal drinking age there. So there's that to think about.

But, all in all, both are doing swimmingly well and I couldn't be a more proud mom.

Speaking of proud moms, I thought one of our chickens had become Fox Chow earlier in the summer. They are completely free range, sometimes not coming home for a few days. As long as they have the car back before I have to go to work I don't really mind. But after a couple of weeks doing a head count and always coming up one short, I thought we had indeed lost one for good.

Then one day, Sonny Boy came and asked me where all the peeps came from. My initial reaction was to think that my mother had horded away some marshmallow Peeps from Easter and was now dropping them off, in the perfect state of stale, for hubby. She always deposits her care packages on my kitchen table (which I can never get to the point of Empty!), so I asked him if they were there. He told me that, no, they were outside.

I looked at him wondering why my mother would leave the Peeps outside. Were they on the hood of my car? The grill?

Me: Outside?
SB: Yeah.
Me: ...
SB: ...
Me: Where?
SB: Near the saw mill.
Me: ...
SB: ...
Me: Peeps.
SB: Yeah, peeps.
Me: Like, Peeps peeps?
SB: Like chicken peeps.
Me: ?!!

Sure enough the prodigal chicken - the one I had given up for lost - returned with 10 peeps! 10! All of a sudden the chicken population on our farm had doubled. So that was pretty neat.

And, yes, I said saw mill. Because, wouldn't you know, now we have a saw mill. It arrived sometime, I think, in April and was set aside and covered until such time as we would actually have time to do anything with it. It was immediately forgotten about until that fateful day when I was tracking down the smell of "something dead" and followed said smell to the saw mill.

It could have been any number of creatures - chicken, cat, groundhog - who knows. At least all of the dogs, goats and horses were accounted for. I was so not looking forward to lifting the piece of rubber we had covering it to find out what poor thing went under there to die, and looking even less forward to having to drag the thing out and dispose of it Properly, Properly being Somewhere Where We Can't Smell It. But, someone had to be brave and, since hubby was being brave in his own way (story to follow), it was left to me to do the exhumation.

Imagine my surprise and relief when I found the stink was not that of a dead animal slowly roasting under the saw mill, but merely an abandoned clutch of eggs left by a hen that finally realized if the chicks are going to smell that bad, she didn't want them anyway.

You can also probably imagine my surprise when I learned that, even if you are as careful as can be when removing eggs full of potentially deadly stink, it doesn't matter. Because they explode. That's right. I guess they were full of enough ... I don't know... Dead Chick Gas that the slightest little movement made them go "Pop!"

And boy did they stink.

All I could think was "It's a shame I don't have any mortal enemies right now." And then I thoguht, "I have to make sure I get rid of them before Sonny Boy finds these." Not because he has any mortal enemies, but because I never quite recovered from the time he put an M-80 in a pile of dog poop and lit it. It's a hard thing to forget.

So I just mentally pinched my nose, loaded the eggs in a wheelbarrow, took them to the end of our driveway which is located in that place called Somewhere Where We Can't Smell It, and tossed them into the woods.

Now, I did mention that hubby was busy elsewhere, and that elsewhere happened to be... the roof! Yes, folks. After a Long Time, we are doing roof work on the house again. And this time it doesn't involve hand-me-down pool covers. No, this time it is bonafide roof work involving building trusses, milling molding, buying sailboat windows and everything. Because when we do a roof, we go all out.

To make a months long story mercifully short, we decided it was reasonably possible that we could fix the northern most peaked roof of our house this summer. The inevitable fly in the ointment came when we also had to figure out just how we were going to deal with the small flat roof that kind of connected into this one. Like so...



After quite a few days (and beers) of assessing the situation, we decided what the hell we'll make it a peaked roof.

Indeed.

The sucky thing about roofing is that it tends to take copious amounts of time and money, neither or which we have much of to begin with, let alone at the same time.

But, after many weeks (and beers), we have gone from this ...



... to this ...



Pretty darn impressive no matter how you slice it.

I know. I lost you all at sailboat window, didn't I? Well, as it turns out, all of the rest of the peaks on our house have circle windows in them. As it also turns out, circle windows cost about 5 trillion dollars. So, thinking it would be a bit extravagant to buy a window that cost as much as a Fannie Mae bailout, we started seeing what our other options would be. As it turns out, the most affordable circle windows that you don't build yourself happen to be sailboat ones. So, there you go.

Which pretty much brings us to today. Well, in a very summarizing kind of way, at least. We did add another goat to the herd which involved a long trip home from West Virginia but, really, you've all been through this before with me so I don't really have to go into it, do I?

And of course there were all the other things we all do with our summers - attending composting workshops, breaking into our cousin's house to see if he is still alive, geting a rug loom - you know, the usual stuff. But you've all done that before so I don't want to bore you with those stories.

So, here we are at today and I think you are all caught up for the most part. I am now going to wrap this up and head out to put some fence up. And drink more beers. There is a possibility that I might try to get another post in today in a shameless attempt at winning a contest but I don't know how likely that really is. So, I'll either see you later or laaaaaater.

Peace out.

Now That I've Effectively Driven Off My Readers...

It would appear that my blog is going the way of my EpiLady. Seemes like a good idea at first, but really, it gets boring having your leg hairs ripped out by the root. So it gets used less and less until, one day, you sell your blog, along with a set of Caruso Steam Curlers, for $1.25 at a yard sale.

Anyone wanna buy a blog?

So, if you are one of my long-neglected readers returning, you might be wondering, "Yo. What the crap? What is the big deal with writing a post now and then?" Truth be told, it is quite a big deal for me. I just don't...know. I don't have any ambition for this right now.

But enough of that.

I'll try to fill you in on some things that I've been up to since I last wrote.

Let's go back in time. Waaaay back. Close your eyes.

Wait.

Open them. (Or not. I guess it all depends if you want to just drift back in time willy-nilly or if you want to actually follow along.)

We're going to go way back to April. April 9th to be exact. What was going on that day? Well, that was the day I was taking my LAST CLASS that I needed before I could apply to take my broker's exam. The LAST one! This, my friends, has been years in the making. Years, I tell ya.

So, yeah. The very last one. It was in a town that I now forget the name of but remember to be a suburb of Philadelphia. Which means a two hour drive for me.

It's not the two hours that I minded. With enough coffee and cd's, I'll happily drive for two years. And it wasn't really the idea of herding myself into the morning rush hour traffic into the city. While it's not my cup of tea, I can deal with it now and then.

No, the problem this day came from, as you might have guessed, one of my goats. The goat I wasn't quite sure was baking little buns in her oven or not. As luck would have it, she was. And as lack of luck would have it, she decided to have them that day.

I don't know if there are words to describe just how sucky that predicament is. On one hand, I have no idea when I'll be able to reschedule the needed class - months, years, whatever. Which means I would have no closure in my Quest for the Broker's License.

On the other hand, I have a goat about to give birth.

After carefully weighing all the options, I did the prudent thing and left my teenage son in charge of the goat.

Well, he didn't really know I left him in charge of her as I poked my head into his bedchamber and yelled, "I have to go to class! Rhubarb might have her babies today! Make sure you keep an eye on her! Bye! Love ya!"

I know he made some sort of response. Something like "Mmphff." But there was no time to waste. The clock was ticking and I had to get to pole position on the turnpike. So I scooted out the door, made one last check on the goat, and headed to the metropolis, making a mental note to call my son every chance I got.

During the morning break I called to see if she had the babies. My son had a vague recollection of something goat being said in the early morning, and was appropriately disturbed to find out he was now on baby watch. "Everything should be fine" I told him, while trying not to think about the potential "Insert your fingers and see what you can feel" conversation. That would not go over well. After extracting a promise of an immediate phone call upon any action, I went back to class.

My next break was around lunch time. I called him again to find that she was still holding out. He was going to go get a slice of pizza.

Me: "You're leaving???"
Son: "Yeah."
Me:
Son: "Just for a minute. I'm just going to get some pizza."
Me:
Son: "I'll be right back."
Me: "Ok."

About an hour later, I glanced away from the instructor and saw that there was a missed call to my cell phone. I scooted out the door into the hallway and called my son.

Me: "WELL?"
Son: "She had the babies."
Me: "Babies? How many?"
Son: "Two."
Me: "So, how was it? Were the any problems? I guess there weren't any problems because you would have called me if there were problems. Were there any problems?"
Son: "I don't know..."
Me: "You don't know? I mean, did they both come out ok? Did you have to ... do anything?"
Son: "Um. No. I went for pizza and when I came back they were there."
Me: "Oh. Are they, uh, alive?"
Son: (looking) "They look like they're alive."
Me: "Do they look normal?"
Son: "I don't know. Normal for a goat, I guess."

And so it came to pass on April 9th, our black angora goat, Rhubarb, gave birth to two little black kids, Crow and Raven.



(They both look the same so one photo should do.)

Now we're going to travel ahead in time a little bit. Moving forward to the end of May...

May 30th. My daughter. My babygrrrrl. My sweet, little imp graduated from high school.

Where in the world did those years go? One day I'm looking for her little sneaker, trying to get her off to preshcool, the next I'm shopping for shoes to accessorise a graduation gown.

It's all gone in the blink of an eye. It sounds so cliche' but it's completely true.

She graduated with honors and a couple of college credits already under her belt. She's on her way to Arcadia University by way of Stirling University in Scotland, where she will spend the fall semester.

You know, I would love to write something meaningful about it but I am at a total loss for words. Where would I even begin? This child, this person I had a hand in making (hand and other things), is all growed up now.

I look at my son and daughter and think what cool people they turned out to be - despite my involvement. They are smart and funny and just crazy enough to get them in a little bit of trouble and yet keep them out of most. I just can't get over that fact that, for the most part, it's over. It's all kinds of sad and scary and happy at the same time. I want to go back in time and read A Visit From St. Nick on Christmas Eve one more time. I want to sit on the edge of their beds and sing bedtime songs again. I want to get lunch and go to the playground. I want to go to another piano recital and pinewood derby race.

Sigh. It all went too fast.

Ok, that's enough for now. I'll have to bring you up to speed in another post or two. Otherwise this one will get very long, as I lead a terribly exciting life and have lots to relate.