Morning Song Farm News

Some of you may recall that the family New Year's Resolution involved demonstrating once and for Who Is Really In Charge Here and definitively fence in (corral) Carl The Goat Terror and his cohorts where they belong, like the rest of the goats on the planet. This has been a long term endeavor, and not to be over reaching; we agreed that getting the task done SOMETIME in 2014 was a reasonable goal. Setting about the job without proper consultation would never do, as we mean business this time, Carl. So I called Premier Fencing's tech support line in the first week of January. They're the folks that handily instructed us how to create a llama corral that was never, ever questioned. Not by the resident coyotes, and not by our herd of three hundred pound llamas. The fence was never defied..a flagship of human will over a grazing animals instincts to eat the surrounding landscape into dust. Our otherwise untrainable dog was indeed trained in a single dog-meets-electrical-fence e...

Well, it's absolutely sweltering out here and it's been a rough day. What is it about the heat that makes everything mechanical or computer-related not work out here? I so would love to heave this computer into the ravine. Just sharing. If someone knows of a way to get a single PDF file onto blogger here without having to convert to GIF which breaks the file up into pieces (6 today), that would be awesome. It takes a long time, revisions are out of the question because of how long it takes to post, and positioning seems to be random. I just have to play with it forever to get the pages to end up sequential. Surely there is a remedy? We got a remark about our peaches being mushy, and sure enough, they're firm and great when we put them on the truck, but don't hold up through the day's deliveries in this heat...so we're taking them off the ticket for tomorrow. Carl will be thrilled because peaches are among his favorite, no matter what their condition, and the o...

Carl has outdone himself yet again, and all whose so-called unreasoning, prejudicial complaints in re Carl's behavior, lodged against his "mother," Goat Whisperer Lance; are united today to celebrate a minor, yet joyous vindication. It reminds me of the time my ex insisted his unbelievably  car-phobic dog was too car-trained, and his spectacularly ill-fated attempt to prove his point by having the dog ride in his brand new Jag. Oh yes, vindication is sweeeet. Carl has taken to wondering south, lately; all by himself...  (a very ungoatlike thing to do) and browsing down to the packing house where the weeds and treats have proved to be less impacted by other, less trail-blazing, munchers. Although a known break-and-enterer up here by his barn (which means that young and old, residents and visitors alike must, without fail,  remember to BOLT all exit doors or Carl will end up in the living room or his head in my recyling bin), Carl has found enough trouble to get himself i...

Nothing new here under the sun, but I'm just so over Carl eating my stuff. I don't know what it is about money and Carl, but he seems to have an other worldly sense for when there's money in an unattended envelope. Yeah, I know I shouldn't have turned my back on Carl with an envelope of 20's on the golf cart, but the level of vigilance that is required to never, ever get your stuff eaten by Carl has proven to be beyond me. Think about how many speeding tickets you'd have by now, if you never, ever, ever, got away with speeding. Not once, not ever. As in, every time you exceeded the limit by even one nanosecond of a mile, bamm, you get a ticket.  Some times the ticket isn't too costly, sometimes it bowls you over, as in... you just can't believe the wreckage of what was formerly known as your living room.  That's what it's like caring for  Carl. There is no elbow room, no margin for error. It's never like, high five that, I'm so lucky C...

We weren't sure how Boo's first birthday party would pan out... as, well...you never quite know with a spoiled-beyond belief miniature goat with a mind of her own. Lance made quite the deal out of it, certainly more than he's made out of any one else 's birthday around here for a while. Ha ha! There never was a prouder goat owner, that's for sure. He even went to a bakery and picked up a healthy blueberry muffin for her birthday cake. No unhealthy frosting here! Boo didn't want anything to do with her "goat cake," unfortunately, and her other guests stomped right over it to get to that tasty looking book. Boo waits impatiently for her guests to arrive at her first birthday party. Boo chooses "content over calories" and eats a book instead of her birthday cake. Daddy Carl supervises the party Most of his daughter's guests ate their hats; but Carl...ever the good Dad, wears his proudly.