Sometimes mistakes have happy and funny endings, whew!

Oct 28, 2023

Happy Saturday friends!

I know this picture looks idyllic but there is a bit of a story here:

That's Little Man Sweetness grazing away out on the pond dam, steps away from the pasture where the rest of them were. He really wanted out and I have trained him to stay close, so off he went to graze for a bit while B-Rad and I did morning chores. We were laughing and saying that we had to remember to bring him back in!

Uh-oh. Haha.

We finished up chores, went inside, fed the dogs, had breakfast, took a shower, started working. By then an hour and a half had gone by. I happened to look outside and found Sweetness grazing on the wrong side of the fence.

Gawd 🤦‍♀️😂

He got lots of praise for staying close!

It's fall ya'll (as they say in the south :-)) and we are moments away from the Two Month Saga of the Leaves, where we start blowing leaves for 30 minutes a day. That is how long our battery lasts on our leaf blower, which is just fine because that's about as long as I can stand it. This year we also have my dad's old "lawn sweeper" that looks like this:

We pull it behind the golf cart. It has rotating brushes in the front part that pick up and toss the leaves, sticks, pinecones, grass clippings, whatever, into the bag. Flip it into the compost pile. Makes it a pretty fast process. I'm hoping between the two of us with the sweeper and blower we'll be able to keep the leaves from swallowing us all whole.

It's a beautiful thing to take ManChild to school and turn on the seat heaters because it's in the low 40s. Ahhhhhhh, fall is my favorite time of the year! The horses have been growing their coats like crazy and are getting nice and fuzzy. They like to snooze in the sun on the cool mornings. Wynter soaking up the heat:

Look closely, just to the right of him, there is steam coming off the dark fence slats!

The change in season (maybe?) has one of the barn cats next door unexpectedly visiting us and it's just lovely. Her name is Marvel and apparently she is an amazing huntress:

She's very talkative and likes to rub against legs. I love her ❤️ Happy to have her hanging out here, we have a ton of voles digging up most of our property, she will be well fed over here!

Jaffee and Little Man Sweetness are starting to bond:

They've been found playing and chasing each other in fun around the pasture, eating together, and this morning I watched Sweetness roll in the dirt about a foot from Jaffee. Obviously he feels safe :-)

I bought the biggest. puffiest Mums at the State Farmer's Market! The Impatiens (OMG! I'm today years old when I found out that they aren't called "Impatients" but "Impatiens!" Whaaaaa??) were still blooming up a storm but were getting a big leggy. With the cooler nighttime temps, I knew it wouldn't be long before they toppled so I took them out and planted the puffballs instead:

These are garden Mums, so I'll have to find a sunny place for them to be planted once they finish blooming here.

I have good news! Stinky Oliver has finally grown a pair and become a man goat. Haaaa! I amuse myself :-) Actually baby boy goats are pretty much born with that pair right out in the open so God and everyone can see, so that wasn't the issue, but the other part—the peeing on their own face and legs, lifting the upper lip, being super excited when seeing the girls—none of that was going on until about two weeks ago. Then one day, like magic, he was a man goat! Yay! He's suddenly gained a ton of hair too, the better to hold the stink when he pees on himself 🤦‍♀️

I'm thinking Goat Yoga/Tai Chi with Goats/Goat Snuggling Sessions in...early May...gestation is 145 days which is 4.8 months...and I like to give the babies enough time with their moms before allowing the public in...which means I will be breeding in mid November or so. I've been starting to paying attention to their heat cycles! Three will be bred, Denali, Alaska and her adult daughter Dancer. The plan is always to give us a little time between births but that rarely happens lol.

A funny little memory from 2016:

Here are a few pics of Brad's older son Josh (aka ManChild 1.0) and Jamie's wedding a few weeks ago. If you remember it rained all day that Saturday so it was held in our house:

But at the very end, it cleared up and they got to have a few pics outside too:

So sweet ❤️

Misty fall mornings:

Look what our 1 year old Ninja toaster oven/air fryer/convection oven/etc did this week:

And we didn't even know! It had been making some funny whirring noises but working fine. I had unplugged it a week ago because of the funny noises and the outlet didn't look like that! In a week's time, I found out an old friend's parent's house had burned down last year because of some electrical issue, saw a facebook ad that I hadn't seen in ages and went to Amazon to buy the Prepared Hero Fire Blanket for the kitchen, and then heard a funny noise again from the toaster a couple days later. When I unplugged it found that scary scorch mark. Yikes. Tossed it and bought a new one. B-Rad replaced the outlet. If you have an iffy appliance, go check and make sure you don't see any scorch marks!

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Tesla corner: I'm ridiculously head over heels in love with my new car. It's just silly I know but I don't care. She's lovely :-) I sent this to B-Rad after I found this little alarm to turn on if you're going too fast. You can set it for whatever amount over the speed limit that you'd like, obviously I need to up that number lol:

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I found a stash of photos in my email accidentally. If you've lost a loved one, make sure you got through your emails and texts, you may find some hidden gems!

ManChild and me out for a hike in 2011: