Forty Percent

Cold.  Cold enough to apologize to Inga when I put frigid fingers to her udder.  I'm talking California cold here, which must make me seem like some wingeing wimp to those buried in snow up to the eaves in the east, but cold, just the same.  Cold and wet.  Since the girls do not want to go (make that will not go) outside on rainy days, the routine goes to pot from the git-go.  Waiting goats who normally go up to feed on alfalfa stay in their stalls until the last minute.  Those who've been in and out of the milking room race around to the covered play yard to clump together and complain.  When either Esther or Cindy (the two nonmilkers) are up on the stand, I use the time to clean the big room or take a breather and check my cellphone for anything new.  Yesterday, with nose and eaves dripping, I checked the weather app and burst out laughing.  I saw there was a forty percent chance of rain in my locale.  I wish I could have put down a bet on those odds.  Rain was beating on the roof, on my head, on the goats and poor old Poppy.  Forty percent, my foot!

I'd made a tactical error by not lighting a fire before starting chores and the house was cold!  (Did I mention it was cold?)  When the sun finally came out, Bess and I thawed out by sitting on the deck.  We weren't the only ones warming up.  Turkeys were coming out in droves.  Their colors are so beautiful in sunlight.  When these boys get excited, their heads glow blue and their wattles shine bright red.  They really put on a display.

Enough photos taken by the locals the other day put a name to a phenomenon I've seen before.  It's called reverse sunset.  This was taken after putting Ginger to bed the other day, but I thought I'd posted enough sky pictures for one blog.  The oaks are filling with leaves already.  I haven't yet raked up the fallen ones from last season.  Oh well, job security.  There's a forty percent chance I'll get around to it someday.