Barn Dance

All that are missing are the fiddles and the caller, but we have a barn dance every morning.  Flicking tails take the place of swishing crinolines at our square dance.  On a good day when everyone remembers the routine, it could be put to music (Turkey In the Straw?).  There is the promenade as the first goats leave the barn to go up to the alfalfa corner, followed by an allemande left as the girls switch places on the milking stand.  They do a fancy do-si-do past each other in the doorway.  I keep the rhythm going as I squirt milk into the pail, and Nineteen and Twenty-Two provide the background vocals.  Since I have the biggest feet, it's my own darned fault if my toes get stepped on.  Yeehaw!

Tree Guy came and whittled away some more of the downed oak.  Number Three Son came as TG was finishing up for the day (with a kid's perfect sense of timing) and helped pull some brush over to the field.  I've sold a truckload of the smaller firewood to a neighbor, to be picked up when their kid comes to visit.  Even sharing the wood with TG as partial payment for the work, between the two trees that went down I'll have enough firewood for two or three years.  After the bones of this latest behemoth have been picked clean, there will still be work to be done on the live oak standing next to the stump.  These two trees grew up close together, each leaning somewhat away from the other, and the live oak will have to be trimmed out to keep it from falling without its neighbor's support.  I suppose, in this economy, I should be happy to provide job security to a local.    I think I'll be happier when I see light at the end of this tunnel.

And the beat goes on.