Holy Cow!

Squirrel burrows and mice holes are nothing new in the barn.  A pile of fresh dirt by the milking stand did cause me to look under the stand yesterday and, Holy Cow!, I couldn't believe it.  Some thing or things have a major excavation going on under there.  There is a crater nearly the size of the stand itself and close to two feet deep.  It (or they) must be carrying out loads of dirt through tunnels because the one small pile was the only evidence, the giveaway left by some careless miner.  A leg or two of the stand have tipped in the past when an underground burrow collapsed, but I can see stand, goat, and me dropping into a pit and lost if this goes on.  This latest storm blew in with fierce wind and heavy rain, so there's no dry dirt with which to fill the hole.  One just never knows what form excitement will take up here.

There's some suspense I can do without.  Strong winds for days combined with soaked earth have me really concerned about the safety of the trees.  I pace through the house, looking out windows to check the treeline on all sides.  I know some big dead branches have broken and fallen, fortunately in areas where they did no harm.  The old beauties, the oaks, are the ones I worry about.  We've all been asking for rain.  Well, we got it.