A Is For....

A for Annoying, S for Sneaky, P for Painful and Persistent, U for Ubiquitous, D for Dratted; give me a letter and I'll find a pejorative to describe the everlasting B for Bane of our lives, the star thistle.  Like the mythical Hydra, if one head is cut off, two grow back, and this darned plant is smart!  It will grow to three or four feet tall if left alone, but if cut or mowed, it won't die, it just starts putting out its spiny constellations closer to the ground.  Milking got set back a bit yesterday while I dropped the blade on the mower a couple of notches and attacked the enemy on the west point.  Heat and lack of water have killed off all other vegetation, but star thistle thrives under those conditions.  I detest the darned stuff.

I had barely cooled off from my sojourn in the barn when Tree Guy drove up, but this time he was wearing his Fence Guy hat.  When he cut the fence to put in the connecting gate between the two goat pens, he also cut the hot wire.  Loosely folded back, the goats had caught their feet in the cold "hot" wire and pulled out hundreds of yards that I removed from the pen to prevent injury.  It won't be too much longer before I let Twenty-Two out into the pen and I want him trained to avoid fences via the hot wire.  Fence Guy could have done the job alone, but another pair of hands (mine) turned an hour job into twenty minutes.  He carried the heavy spool of wire and I threaded it through the post clips.  We were accompanied by the seven-member goat committee all the way.

"Let's go see if we can fire up the tractor!"  Who is we, Kemosabe?  I dutifully trailed along in the hot sun over to the tractor.  TG has made it his mission to get the old Ford up and running so I can put it up for sale.  The battery is deader than a doornail, but TG thought he might get it going with a jump start from his truck.  I held switches while he revved the truck engine, and we could get a good clicking sound, but no turn over.  He thinks it might be the solenoid.  I think I should sell it "as is."  He is so enthusiastic, I don't want to throw cold water on his project.  By this time, I was W for Wilting, and we decided to try again another day.