This is Getting Ridiculous!

I just looked back, and my last post was in JUNE!!!! I really miss blogging, and really miss all the blogs I normally used to read! This new schedule of ours has wrecked my "blog-life!" I simply must find a way to get more time on the blogs......

A lot has happened. It has been a lousy summer for riding -- to blasted hot and humid, and WAY too many bugs. But we have managed to get in a few rides, and of course they have each had their own little adventures attached to them. Now let me see if I can remember back over the almost three months since I have updated this site.

One of the neatest things to happen this summer was around the 4th of July weekend. We had absolute monsoon rains. It was like something out of a movie. It was just a deluge for over 24 hours, and everything was flooded. My drive to work was a nightmare in my little car. Fortunately, our home is on a hill, so forutnately and thankfully our house did not flood.

But our property did in some places. So we decided to go check it out with the horses and goats. We were completely surprised by what we found. Check this out...

It was pretty deep, and it just got deeper the farther we went into that particular section of our property.

I was really worried that the goats would freak out and do who-knows-what and cause all kinds of chaos....

.....but as you can see, they handled it well!

It really was a neat experience.

Tack Cleaning With Goat Audience

Just about all month it has been just too hot to ride, so what do you do??? We decided it was time to do some tack cleaning.

So with Serbian folk music blasting, a couple of beers and some rakija, we started on our project. Our tack really needed cleaning -- but to me it is a badge of honor to have tack that is dusty and has remnants of mud. It proves you actually ride your horses!

I believe our animals speak Serbian -- they know when they hear the Serbian music that there is a good chance they will get some treats. Sure enough, we were not in the barn very long before each goat showed up...

Misho arrived first, checking us out from Divna's stall.... hoping for a Vanilla Wafer.....

Then, Marco's face appears in Zora's stall, also hoping for a Vanilla Wafer.... Of course we gave them some.

Eventually the horses figured out what was going on, that treats were being handed out, so they decided they should be in on it, too....

Next thing you know, all of us are in the barn. It was a really neat way to spend a hot, humid summer evening...

I even put some "bling" on John's saddle. His old turquiose ring from the 60's has now become a "saddle ornament."

And a beautiful sunset to finish off the day.....................

Help Wanted: Goat Farrier

(This picture of Misho and me was taken the day after the trimming. I am holding the trimming tool in my left hand but you can't really see it.)

The farrier was out to trim The Girls' hooves last week, which is our reminder that it is also time to trim the goats' hooves. Well, "reminder" is not quite the right word -- it is more of a "sentence" -- the kind the Judge hands down when the charges are serious.

Anyone out there with goats should be able to relate. When we got our first goat, and the hoof trimming procedure was demonstrated to us, it looked so easy....

We bought our first goat, Marco (a.k.a "The Alien" and "You Are An Ass!!") from the LaPorte County Fair. We had decided we needed a goat because some of the weeds in the pasture became so overgrown that we had to mow -- these were weeds that for some reason the horses would not eat. We had been to my cousin's house in the mountains of North Carolina a few years before. He wanted to clear a piece of property he had purchased, and got two or three goats. He left them on the property, and they cleared it so beautifully. We imagined the same thing would happen to the gangly weeds in our pasture -- they would be beautifully cleared if only we had a goat.

At the Fair we went into the Goat Barn, located a young 4H member who was showing goats and asked if he wanted to sell one. Of course he did. He showed us Marco (who at the time was named "Sampson") and explained that this particular goat was headed for the meat truck when the Fair closed. He was the cutest little goat -- maybe 20 pounds. I couldn't stand the thought of him being in the next Gyro sandwich we would order in a Greektown restaurant in Chicago at some point in the future, so we gave the 4H boy $20 and promised to pick Sampson/Marco up on the last day of the Fair. We got to talking about how to care for goats, and 4H Dad showed us how to trim the hooves.

Standing beside the darling little goat, he pulled up a leg, took a rasp and ran it over the bottom of the hoof a time or two. "See! That's all you have to do." Like a couple of green city folks turned country, we bought it -- and the goat.

The reality of our lives with goats is quite different than what I imagined on that warm July day at the Fair in the Goat Barn, looking at sweet little Sampson/Marco munching on hay in his cute little pen. Within 24 hours of bringing Marco home we had another tiny, young goat -- yes, we called the 4H Family to ask if they had another goat to sell us (that is a story for another post). And now when it is hoof trimming time we must get properly liquored up to endure the ordeal.

The Goat Boys are full grown now -- on hind legs they stand at about 6' tall and weigh well over 100# each. And they absolutely hate having their hooves trimmed. You can do the math and realize this is not a match-up either John or I would win easily. Alone, neither of us would have a snowball's chance. So we have to team up.

Our battle plan consists of a two-front attack (following consumption of a beer and a couple of zoomers of rajkia each). We tether the goats to the stall doors. John grabs the one we decide to work on first (usually Marco, because as noted above he is "...An Ass!!!"), pins him up against the stall door keeping a hand firmly on the collar in case a mild choke is needed. I grab a hoof, try to hold it still, and do the trimming. When they start to kick, I have to let go of the hoof, regroup, and try again. Sometimes John loses control of the goat, and then we have to stop, regroup, and try again. Often we have to take another rajkia break between hooves.

It is an exhausting ordeal. I must say, as they have gotten older it has gotten a bit easier. They are a touch more calm.

But I can't help but wonder how we are going to do this when we are a bit older. (????)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention.....we still have to mow the overgrown weeds in the pasture.

This picture of John and one of the chickens is included here for no particular reason.