Call of the Wild

I didn't allow enough time to mow the front yard before chores yesterday, but didn't want to waste the "cool" of the morning so decided to attack the lavender bed again.  I'm not talking about plucking a few interlopers from amongst the posies; this hayrick, larger by far than Bessie Anne, is about an hour's worth of weeding...and I'm not done yet.

The beastie boys were either up early or out late, making their presence known as they made their way up the canyon behind Dennis's place long after daybreak.  Their yips and howls cause an atavistic response from Bessie Anne.  She doesn't buy in when the dogs down the road set up a commotion, but let the coyote pack pass by and she throws back her head and sings along.

Tree Guy and Number Three Son came by in the early afternoon to split another cord of the oak rounds down in the goat pen.  I'd talked to TG about needing to reduce the size of the herd, and yesterday he said one of his other customers would like Nineteen and Twenty-Two (when he's old enough, and neutered) as brush-eaters on his property.  I would be so happy to have the boys go together, a band of brothers, as it were.  I've tried never to sell just one goat unless it's to an established herd; they'd be so unhappy alone.  I've learned not to count my chickens until they've hatched (and it's darned hard afterward as they run around!), but I hope this customer of TG's really comes through.

Whiling away the heat later in the day, I was brushing burrs from Bessie's coat when I discovered she's evidently gotten another foxtail in her eye.  It was too late to get her to the vet's.  I'm hoping that cool compresses and a couple of doses of the antibiotic from the last episode have at least made her more comfortable until I can get an appointment today.

To finish the day with a bang, the girls were fighting down in the pen at bedtime and one slammed into the gate and caught my thumb in the latch just as I was going in to put down their snack bowls.  Running blood, I got the big ones settled in their respective stalls, but still had to give the nighty-night bottle to Twenty-Two.  I couldn't see in the near dark in the barn, but tried to keep the blood out of the milk and off him.  I was relieved to see later that I won't have to ask Dr. Ric to throw a couple of stitches in me after he's tended to Bessie Anne.

All's well that ends well.