Adventures of a goat wrangler or my life in crime: Part 1

(Photo credit: chromatophobe on flickr)

I feel a need to share some of the situations in which I've found myself during the course of my life. Maybe I need to clear my conscience. Mainly I hope to make you laugh. In any case here we begin one of those stories.

Hubs and I had been involved with a community organization that helps animals (I'm leaving all names out to protect the innocent) for about 4 months when the group received word that, through an unfortunate turn of events, a herd of goats in a neighboring town found themselves with no caretakers. They had broken through their fence and periodically wandered around the neighborhood wreaking havoc, and I guess eating things that didn't belong to them. Our group was led to believe that the town would appreciate our help with the goats. We decided to see what we could do, and hubs actually located a family, we'll call them Dave and Leeane, with pasture land who would be glad to have a free herd of goats. We told the family where to find the goats; they borrowed a trailer and met one of our group members at the site one morning a day or so later (a Wednesday I believe and the day before Valentine's 2008) and between them got 14 of the 30 or so goats loaded up with the idea to drop them off and return for the rest of the herd. That's great! We were so excited to have helped so quickly!


Evidently when Dave returned later in the morning for the rest of the goats some person stopped to talk to him; the details of this are fuzzy, but whatever happened it kicked off a day full of more entertainment than strictly necessary. Just after lunch I received a call at work that there were policemen waiting for Dave and he was told if the 14 STOLEN (!!!) goats were not returned by 5 pm that day he would be LOCKED UP! I should stop here and say that I was highly suspicious of the lock-up story, but had no way to get to the bottom of things before the 5 pm deadline (I was at work for goodness' sake). Later I heard from a different source that some member of the police department lived down the road, noticed the trailer go by, and dropped by to inform Dave that these particular goats were wrapped up in a probate court case and could not legally be removed from the premises. Supposedly this guy was off duty and just informing Dave of the facts of the situation...which wasn't quite the SWAT team scenario I was first given, but who knows what really happened. In any case it turned out that our group had been misled as these goats had not actually been eligible for assistance. Antics ensue.


I felt strongly that hubs and I needed to help Dave and family get those first 14 goats returned since we were the reason they knew about the goats in the first place. Just shove the lot in the trailer one more time and dump them back in their field, right? Wrong. I guess Dave in his panicked state imprudently shared the story with the owner of the trailer who, fearing some sort of trouble for himself through indirect involvement, decided his trailer had best stay safe at home with him. Now needed: one trailer.


I have lived in small town South Carolina my whole life, so you might assume I know something about livestock. The sum total of my involvement with farm animals consists of driving past pastures containing horses and cows and goats (and maybe rolling down the window to moo at a cow every now and then. Don't lie, you've done it). I hope to own some goats and chickens one day, but at the moment the approximately 160 pounds of dogs running around my yard is as close as I get to the barn yard. I don't have a trailer, and I don't know anybody who has a trailer. I called any and everyone I could think of. I called our local farm supply store to ask if they knew of trailer rental places and was told "No..." in a tone that suggested the employee felt there was something wrong with my brain function. What was I thinking asking the farm store if they knew where to find some farm equipment?!?!

I was at the end of my ideas, so I called hubs (who had taken the day off work) and said, "I can't find a trailer anywhere; what are we going to do..." And my man came up with it: U-Haul. So simple, so unexpected, yet...it just might work! When he said that magic word all worry went out of my head. Hubs can do anything, so I knew once he settled on a plan our lock-up fears were over.


Crisis management team Hubs and Co. sprang into action. I called various members of our group to see if anyone could help us return the "stolen" property. I called Dave and Leeane to coordinate when we would arrive (hubs and I had to plan around the play practice we had immediately after work. We were Auntie Em and Uncle Henry in our community theater's production of The Wizard of Oz...we may not be farmers, but we play some on stage...God has a sense of humor, people). Hubs secured the truck. Yes, truck. 14 ft moving truck to be specific. I wondered if we could fit 14 goats in the truck...I felt royally stupid later when I saw the goats and realized that even though these were BIG goats we could have fit about 50 of them in there.

To be continued...

And they say there's no hope for our young people...

(Photo credit: nbklx17 / Sandy)

Argh: so much to blog and so little time. I'm sure none of you out there have that problem...

My 22 year old brother just called to apologize for seeming short when I called him yesterday to ask him an important question. The facts:

1) The important question: "So I'm in Marshall Homegoods, and I'm trying to decide between the fig and cocoa spread from Croatia or the walnut preserves from Armenia. What do you think?"

2) He may have rolled his eyes or thought, "Are you kidding me..." but he didn't let on and instead gave me his opinion: fig and cocoa spread.

3) He is a senior in college (I swear he was 4 years old yesterday...where has the time gone!?!) and has an avalanche of papers and projects due. I knew this and only expected to be on the phone for about 30 seconds.

My thoughts on this situation after his call today:

1) Could you ask for a sweeter 22 year old, male or female?

2) His future wife will no doubt greatly benefit from this level of thoughtfulness.

3) I love this guy!

I assured him that he was so sweet to apologize, but that I knew he had a lot to do and I hadn't thought twice about his hopping off the phone after solving my crisis situation.

What a great kid. I have a lump in my throat right this very minute.

Pink Saturday banner

Good Sunday morning! Let's relive a bit of Pink Saturday, shall we?

I made this pink banner for my swap partner Angela for Linda's Vintage Spring Sweetness swap over at A Swap For All Seasons. I'll be posting the rest of what I sent and what I got soon. Linda is a great swap hostess and she'll be announcing her summer swap in the next few days, so check it out!

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See those pink and white curtains behind my banner?? Those are part of my pink room that will someday make it to Pink Saturday. You'll love it!

Perfect today

Today is my perfect kind of day. Happy sun, blue sky, no clouds. There's the slightest hint of a nip in the air, and its a little chilly in the shade, but in the sun my black tee can soak up the rays until I'm pleasantly warm. The breeze gives me a little shiver, but a good one.

It's like this...

(Photo credit: Sascha Corti)

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or this. I don't know her but she's enjoying my perfect day.

(Photo credit: lesamonster)

This is the kind of day that makes me glad to be alive, proud to be American (I can't explain this one...I've experienced gorgeous weather in other countries, too), humbled to be a child of God and thankful that I let myself delight in something as simple as the weather (we don't need to talk about how much of an impact bad weather has one me...this is a happy post). I want to be close to nature on a day like today. And, ask hubs, I am NOT a nature girl. He likes to ask me how long its been since I've set foot in the back yard. I try to explain that there is nothing for me in the back yard, and what's the point of his question anyway. Then I pull a dirty trick like asking him when was the last time he ran the dishwasher :D (Its a dirty trick, because hubs often rescues me from the piles of handwash items that I let languish for embarrassingly long periods of time...I tell him I've been busy in the back yard)

Today I would like to run away with hubs and lay in a hammock in the sun. Or lay in a pile of squishy pillows on a window seat in the sun. Or ride a horse in the sun. Or any outdoor activity that results in perspiration on a normal summer day, I would like to do that today in the sun.

Weather.com has crunched the numbers of my perfect day and here's what it looks like:

-Sunny

-61 degrees F

-UV Index: 7 High (ok, I have to be careful with this one. I'm white as a sheet, and I'm on acne medicine (27 and on acne meds, yay!) that makes me sensitive to the sun...puts a damper on all my "in the sun" activities, huh)

-Wind: From NE at 10 mph

-Humidity: 20%

-Pressure: 30.26 inches (what the heck does that mean?)

-Visibility: 10.0 miles

God is so good to give me a day like this.

Butt cheeks

I am not your typical person. I don't say this in an "I'm sooo amazing" way...more like a "wow...I'm so weird..." way. A way that makes hubs shake his head and wonder sometimes...and be SO glad that he'll be entertained for the rest of his life, you know it!

Example:

Conversation between hubs and I as we left Wal-Mart several weeks ago:

Hubs (holding out little tin of saddle soap): "Know what that's for?"

Me (having absolutely no idea but deciding to throw something out there) : "Um, your baseball glove."

Hubs: "Nope! My butt cheeks!"

Me (somewhat surprised hubs was divulging this information as he tends to keep subjects such as this fairly private, but not wanting him to feel like he shared more than he should have): "Awwww, babe, are they chapped?"

Hubs (pause, furrowing brow and looking at me in the "What the...?" way): "Ok...what do you think I said?"

Me: "Butt cheeks"

Hubs (feeling like he shared more than he should have): "I said BOAT SHOES!"

I doubled over in the Wal-Mart parking lot and laughed hard for quite some time. Hubs shook his head and wondered at the fact that he had all this to himself for the rest of his life.

"My Deodorant Failed Me" or "Danger: Too Much Information Ahead"

You read the title, right? There is definitely TMI ahead, so consider yourself warned.

Um, today was rough. I guess mostly the end of it where I smelled worse than I've ever smelled in my life. And I really had no good reason to, like running 10 miles or even just 1.

I am trying to save the world. I have reusable grocery bags (which I actually remembered to take to the store for the first time on Sunday! I've had them for months), natural dishwashing paste (mixed reviews on that one...it left my stainless silverware cloudy), whole wheat pasta, lots of tofu and the chemical-free deodorant alluded to above.

There are lots of chemicals in most of the mass produced soaps and cleansers we find in stores; these additives are harsh on our skin and bad for the Earth. I've found great natural soaps that perform beautifully, so several months ago I embarked on a mission to switch to a chemical-free deodorant. I first tried out Tom's of Maine in one of the scents...I think it was Lemongrass. That worked pretty well if I really put it on heavily, but it was a bit harsh and burned a bit after a while and actually made the skin around my armpits (can you believe I typed THAT word on my blog?!) peel a little bit. So next I tried Tom's of Maine unscented which didn't irritate my skin, but every once in a while it would fail me a bit. I remember the first time I noticed it I was reaching for a paint sample in Lowe's and got quite an embarrassing surprise. I had had a dinner date with my brother earlier that evening after which I definitely hugged him, so I had to call him and apologize for any...offense. So embarrassing. So I redoubled my efforts to apply plenty of natural Earth-saving Tom's.

In light of the ok results with the Tom's products I decided to audition a new player: Kiss My Face Active Enzyme Fragrance Free. I think I started using that this past Sunday. Monday went pretty well. Than came Tuesday.

Its late afternoon today and I'm washing my hands after a bathroom break. While reaching for the paper towels...yes, you guessed it, another embarrassing surprise. I was like, "Shoot! I'm just trying to save the Earth here!" I had sweated a tiny bit while running errands at lunch time (to clarify I didn't run at all...it was pretty warm today, though), but not enough to warrant an embarrassing surprise. We were done for the day just a couple hours later, and I decided to wait and shower after the 30 minute walk (2nd one in two days...we're trying to save ourselves along with the Earth!) with hubs. It was just a walk! But by the time I got back the situation had gone from bad to horrendously worse. I couldn't help but LAUGH really hard at the horrendousness. It was CRAZY! Kiss My Face let me DOWN! Absolutely the WORST I have smelled in my life. I don't know if I've EVER smelled another human being as offensive as I was.

What am I going to do? I want to save the Earth, but I also want hubs, with his ridiculously keen sense of smell, to want to be around me. And friends are nice, too. Sigh...there are a couple other brands I can look into. I shall continue the mission, but I might have to smell like a man tomorrow...the only other deodorant in the house is hub's, so hopefully he'll let me borrow it.

Stick Figure Family

Haaaaa! I just found a link on Tracey's blog to this website where you can order those family stickers for your car. I couldn't resist mocking up this sticker for us. This sticker would cost me $47.25...I gotta lose a couple random animals or something.

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Please note! Hubs wears a helmet when riding his motorcycle...the site only offered a head with a football helmet or a hockey helmet...and then you would have laughed and mocked him for wearing the wrong kind of helmet. Don't say you wouldn't.