An unexpected, weird visit! 😳🤯

Aug 10, 2024

Even the goats thought it was weird!

Happy Saturday friends!

It's been a strange week with an unexpected visit and the hurricane/tropical storm/storm Debby.

She left us soggy but in good shape, no flooding! A pretty night before the storm:

We opened up the coaching barn to Wynter and the donkeys so they could have more shelter. Wynter looking less than enthused about the upcoming hurricane:

We spent some time in the days before it arrived digging out swales that were too shallow, making sure drainage pipes were clear, and removing grass and dirt that had built up in ditches to make sure everything flowed correctly.

Because I was asked: "a drainage swale means a natural or constructed waterway, usually broad and shallow, covered with erosion-resistant grasses, used to conduct surface water from a field, diversion or other site feature."

We have a big one that diverts the water from the pond should there be an overflow. There is a big pipe in the dam that is the normal overflow but in the case of hurricanes and/or debris blocking the pipe, there is a swale that takes the water past the house, down into the woods, and on to the stream below. We are very thankful for our tractor, it made fast work of clearing things out! We did have some big branches come down in the wind and lost power for about six hours, but no damage and we have both a battery backup and a gas powered generator so we were fine.

There were a few tornado warnings (warnings mean a funnel has been spotted) in our county. They weren't near us but they were near my Aunt Katy! Our weather alarm went off at 3:00am Thursday so I got up to check what was going on and found this, the funnel spotted is that circle on the right:

I gathered together water, wallets, phone chargers, a flashlight, my 3 external hard drives, blanket, leash, prescriptions, etc in a bag in case we needed to head down to the lower garage. Lucy followed me from room to room looking concerned. I put her harness on as well, just to make it easier to grab her if needed. I had hoped to keep the Polar Bear in the house the night before but she insisted she had to go out to her goats. I put a nice pad of shavings inside the barn where she liked to sleep and she was just fine. It's so scary to think of what could happen during a tornado but I was calmer this time because I've been through a fast prep for a fire back when we lived in Colorado.

The Crepe Myrtles lost a lot of their flowers and left a pink carpet:

After the storm we realized we had a great rain gauge in Wynter's feed bin in the upper pasture. We measured 7 inches:

We've had so much rain in the past month or so that there are places that the ground is green, but not from grass:

A few of the grapes are suffering from the excess water:

On Friday morning when we were headed out to do chores, B-Rad and I saw three Snowy Egrets at our pond!

Enough water in our goat pasture to leave a perfect Polar Bear footprint:

Somewhere there is a photo I took like this with Duke's (the Polar Bear's brother) footprint next to my boot. Her print is about a third of my shoe. His was half!

All the rain made a few extra bugs come into the house. I don't know what this is but B-Rad put it back outside!

A million years ago, when my brother and I were teens, my Dad made us go down into the crawl space to do some DIY thing for him. There were a million of those creatures except they were white. It still gives me the shudders thinking about them. Like a spider cricket, they were jumpy and skittery. Aargh!

This little Praying Mantis had the sense to stay outside:

•••

So...what was the unexpected visit? I had the weirdest thing happen last Sunday! I was just going to sit down in my office recliner and have a neurofeedback session/nap when I saw a woman with a big camera come marching into view, headed down toward my lower pasture where the animals were.

Huh. That's not okay. I started to put on shoes when a small herd of seven people arrived in my front yard and the photographer came back up to start taking pictures of them.

In my front yard.

So I went out and said, "Uhh, hi, whatcha doin'?"

A young man peeled off this group and came over all smiles and said, "We are friends of your next door neighbors (big white barn) and wanted to know if we could take a few family photos!"

"Uhh, sure, but it's always nice to ask first."

He apologized and said it would just take a couple minutes. As he walked back to the group a huge black truck pulled into our lower driveway, the one that cuts across the front yard to the lower garage. What appeared to be the father of this family gets out, yells, "Thanks for letting us use your property!" and walks off to the group.

😳🤯

The entitlement of some people.

It made me think of this doormat:

"And here you are with the audacity."

You know how much I like to share my farm with people right? I actually like having visitors! And if you were friends or family, I would be happily surprised! But random people? Not so much. Entitled people? Not at all.

And it wasn't a couple of photos. They were here an hour. It was just so weird!

And it got me thinking about boundaries, people pleasing, and confrontation. In the past I wouldn't have even gone outside! So, yay. But I still didn't say, "Hi, this is my home and you're in my front yard without asking. It's weird. Please leave."

And really, if they had come up and knocked on the door and said, "You're farm is so pretty and we are friends of ____ next door and we were wondering if it might be okay if we took our family photos here?" I would have said, "Well thank you! Yes, of course, enjoy!"

After they left, all I could think of was: I wonder what they would have done if I had shown up with seven people in their backyard and acted as if it was perfectly normal?

Weird, weird, weird. Their arrival was a surprise. Their attitude was shocking. I wonder how often they get away with the audacity. I didn't even know how to respond. Next time I'll do better.

MEMORIES:

ManChild was 5:

I Love Lucy and ManChild, age 10:

2017 was the only year we milked. It was really cool and the milk was amazing. None of us can drink cow's milk anymore so we often used plant based but I still use goat milk in cooking. The only place that carries it around here is Whole Foods and it's $12/half gallon. I'm thinking it would make sense to breed and milk goats again lol.

THE MEMES: