good morning!

Good morning! 71 now, going to 91 later with a slight chance of rain this afternoon. We got a couple of brief showers yesterday, barely enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge. I picked about 4 gallons of beans yesterday before it got too hot to breathe outside. That was about 1/3 of what's out there.

As a followup on the bean picking yesterday, I was carrying the basket of beans out of the garden gate when two goats accosted the basket. They kept me occupied while the third goat slipped through the open gate into the garden. I had nowhere to set the basket to keep the goats out of it, and those two took advantage of the opportunity to slip into the garden. From that point it was like a smash and grab robbery. They all split up and hit different parts of the garden. I ran for the house with the basket of beans to grab a handful of Animal Crackers, the goats' usual treats. When I got back to the garden, the goats ignored the cookies in favor of the greenery. I yelled at my wife to bring the new dog, as she is normally keen on chasing goats. The dog came into the garden, and the goats and she ignored each other while I had a meltdown. I finally broke the standoff by firing a round into the ground. That set the old goat on the way to her pen and broke the concentration of one of the others. I got the dog to join me, and we walked the other two out of the garden, where my wife was waiting to usher them into the pen.

Next time I pick beans, the goats will be locked up FIRST. It's a terrible blow to my ego to be outsmarted by 3 goats.

My wife and I were picking blackberries on the other side of the fence one time and became distracted by a bunch of aggressive bees and one our buckets (probably about 4 gallons in it) was set down over the fence. When the smoke cleared, there was Misha, our alpine milk goat grinning ear to ear with her snout as purple as purple could be!  Misha was a good old girl with the finest personality so we couldn't get too angry with her.  She certainly was happy with our berry picking efforts!

Good morning! 72 on its way to 91 later. There's a little rain down south headed this direction, so maybe our 20% will pan out today.

The aforementioned old goat is a 10-year-old Nigerian Dwarf, our best milker. She's a lot like the little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When she's good, she's very, very good, but when she's bad, she's horrid. She's the perfect milking goat. Hops up on the stand and stays perfectly still while being milked. Once she's finished milking, though, all bets are off.