Send Soup

Dang, the sun shines and what do I do?  Not a darned thing.  This cold is a doozy and all I want to do is take another nap.  More rain is due by the weekend and I need to bring more wood to the porch.  I reach for another tissue.  The chicken coop door is falling apart.  Instead of going for a hammer, I heat a can of soup.  I did go out with Bess for a short walk yesterday and had a heart-stopping moment when I could find only three of the four remaining goats in the pen.  Who's missing?  Oh, crum, it's Esther.  She is only a half-hour younger than her sister Cindy and I thought losing two in two days would be too much.  Not able to stand the suspense, I walked down into the pen and found Esther basking in the sun behind the barn.  Whew.  I explained she was not to worry me like that again (for all the good that will do).

If I needed an indicator of how much rain we've received this season, I have (or do not have) the salt block.  I've never had to buy more than two forty-pound trace-mineral salt blocks a year.  Regardless of weather, it has taken the goats six months to wear a block down to nothing.  I put a new block down in January and between the rain falling down and the run-off underneath, there is not even a smidgeon left in less than a month and the girls are licking the ground.  I see a trip to the feed store in my future today.

I've hesitated to leave the house because potholes, sink holes, and falling trees and landslides abound in our county.  People who leave in the morning often can't get back home because of some disaster or another.  County road workers are dashing around like headless chickens, trying to keep up.  Bless 'em for their efforts.

The local maintenance crew is also hard at work.  Vultures have the day shift and coyotes take over at night.  Another day or two and there will be nothing left but a memory of my little black goat who continues to give sustenance as she did throughout her life.

I'm going to raid the freezer as I'm pretty sure there are some bags of split pea-and-ham soup in there.  Soup is good for the soul (and about the only thing that sounds good right now).

On a truly bright note, it's my son Dave's birthday!  I made the traditional, official early morning call well before daylight.