Baby goats on my head 🙄😂

May 18, 2024

Happy Saturday friends!

I’ve been prepping all week for today—my first Women’s Circle since 2019! If you’ve been following along, you know that we’ll be meeting out in the lower pasture’s covered and fenced pavilion for some time communing with nature, animals, and each other before moving inside to create and play with art. I’ve been mulling over what I want to do for this first piece and then in popped into my head in the shower one day earlier this week, yay! So I sketched this out:

I thought we might work on things we'd like to see this year but as is often the case when I switch from sketching to painting and playing with the lights and darks, I found the painting had a life of its own. I began splitting the portrait into two sides—the left side was dark and made me think of the storms that we weather as humans. The right side was lighter and made me think of how after the storm and sometimes within the storm, we are often still able to experience joy. That had me mulling over our ability as humans to hold so many emotions at once. The painting (which I'll post next week) is about going through one of those big life storms, and most of us have had quite a few right? All of the feelings I had before, during, and after Mom’s death. And still have 18 months later. Probably will always have.

Sometimes they consume me but often they don’t anymore. They are still absolutely there, I’m really recognizing depression lately but…then there’s the light. I think it’s wondrous and crazy that I can feel them both at the same time. How are we capable of such a thing? How do we hold despair and hope at the same time?

If you are interested in upcoming Women's Circles, send me an email here and I'll put you on my list for the next round!

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Speaking of hope, there is nothing more hopeful than having babies around. Parsley and Rosemary are growing like weeds. I sure hope the Women’s Circle wears play clothes to our group because these two love to be in laps!

And…chew on anything that gets near their mouths…like clothes, shoelaces, hair, hats, glasses. It’s fun to put my readers on and find that they have baby goat spit smeared all over them ;-)

And then there is the climbing and jumping, their balance is incredible. I usually wear a brimmed hat of some sort outside, a floppy gardening hat or a cowboy hat. Early this week Rosemary looked up at me while I was sitting on the milking stand and she must have thought my hat was a challenge she couldn’t pass up. Before I could blink, she had jumped onto the milking stand, then onto my shoulder, and then jumped on top of my head! There she easily balanced on the brim of my hat. I couldn’t stop laughing!

On Wednesday I was squatting down, giving the babies some loose minerals out of my hand when Parsley disappeared from in front of me and reappeared on the back side of my peripheral vision. I immediately straightened my back so she couldn’t use it as a ramp. Then the little cretins tag teamed me. Rosemary jumped onto one of my knees and balanced there causing me to catch my balance. Parsley had been waiting for just that. She leapt onto my back and then onto my head! I didn’t have a hat and I figured she’d jump off but noooooo! She just balanced on my head! What in the world? In the 7 years I’ve had goats, I’ve never had a goat hat before! Rosemary, not to be outdone, somehow jumped from my knee to my shoulder. At that point my goat apparel was getting to be a bit much but neither wanted to jump down on their own. I literally had to lift them off of me and stand up quick.

Click here if you want to see when the baby goats got added to the girl herd this week!

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It seems it’s all stories this week and few pictures. Hard to whip out the phone with a goat on one’s head.

I got a text from our neighbor across the pond Wednesday afternoon: FYI…I just saw a coyote…your white dog chased it. They went down below your dam.

OMG! I went tearing out of the house calling the Polar Bear. In Colorado we would hear stories about dogs being lured off where multiple coyotes would attack it. When you read about coyotes, it is usually said that they don’t have packs like wolves but I’ve seen otherwise. Once when Mom was visiting us in Colorado, she and I were out in Denver seeing a late movie. We got out around midnight and were driving home on nearly empty streets when 8 coyotes crossed the road in front of us. We were in awe. I’ve never seen that again but I’ll never forget it. So, back to the story, was the Polar Bear ok? Brad and I called her and then there she was, trotting her slow trot, tail up and waving, happy as a clam. When she got to us, her eyes got all slitty and her tongue lolled out in a smile with all the praise we heaped on her :-) My neighbor said the coyote was chasing a goose and apparently those geese are also the Polar Bear's to protect! Who knew?

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Every morning before chores I sit on the garage steps and put on my farm boots. On this morning, I looked out the garage door and found these two staring back at me:

Living with Wynter and Rayn, I mean I know that there is a size difference but a picture like this shows it so much more clearly! For reference Rayn is an average size horse.

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I looked outside last Saturday and found this:

A couple of turkey vultures (or something similar) were out sunning themselves on the dam! We are always seeing the weirdest things! I've never seen them here but I went out and talked to them for awhile. Seems they were looking for a place to rest and be near water. I said they were welcome :-)

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Just for fun:

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I was out snuggling the babies before locking them into the barn for bedtime:

And I looked up and found Wynter’s butt like this on the gate LOL:

No wonder all our gates are bowed:

Memories:

I know, I know, I post this every time I run across it! Still my favorite. Mom took it :-)

I can't believe it's been 7 years this week since we welcomed the Polar Bears onto our Colorado ranch! They saved us and our animals from being mauled by the huge coyotes all around us. Miss our big boy Duke❤️