Itty Bitty Hooves

Car Bloopers

I pulled a real boner yesterday. I was taking the garbage down to the street. We have an eight hundred foot driveway, and sometimes I’m just too lazy to walk it down, especially if there’s more than one can. What I’ve been doing lately is getting in the car, and leaving the door open while I hold one of the cans and driving them down seperately. The car is too small to get the can inside, and the trunk is too small to put it in so that’s the only way to do it with the car. We have a garbage can ‘truck’ that’s really just a bunch of welded piping on wheels. It’s worked great for all the years we’ve been here and made walking the cans down much less of a chore, even in the extreme heat, or cold we can get. But one of the wheels is broken on it so it’s walk, or drive it down. Lately it’s been so hot that walking it down is enough to give you a heat stroke. Yesterday even just driving them down I had sweat running down my face. That’s what caused the stupid accident I had. Leaving the driver’s side door open requires giving that side of the driveway wide berth. Our driveway isn’t very wide, and there’s fence on one side that I was trying not to hit, and an old basketball hoop that should have been dismantled years ago still laying on it’s side (to keep it from getting blown over onto the cars in the driveway by high winds) on the other. Well I was just starting to back up and some sweat trickled down into my eyes and whammo! I hit the basketball net with the car door. Now it wasn’t all that hard of a hit. Apparently it was hard enough though. The door won’t open or close right anymore.

One more repair for the local body shop. My husband always tells them to use aftermarket parts when we’re getting repairs done, or even new things put in. You can save a bundle using parts that are just as good, but not ‘name brand’. Yeah, even cars have name brand parts. You pay for the name. Now if you can do the repairs yourself, and use the aftermarket parts you can REALLY save a bunch, and really customize your car just the way you want it with all kinds of car accessory goodies. My husband has done lots of things to his truck like that and it’s so much less expensive than it would have been if he’d taken it in to the dealer to get those things done. He even put a sporty spoiler on my son’s car. I don’t think he’ll be able to fix my door though. He’ll just have to tell the parts guy to get aftermarket parts and let them fix it.

The Great Escapes

Three in one day! I didn’t even get online yesterday because I was so busy retrieving goats, and getting them back in the yard, and fixing the weak spots they found in our new fencing. It seemed like I was just finished with one spot and a couple of the goats found a new spot. It didn’t help that it was in the 80s yesterday either. A cool breeze would have been nice. By the end of the day I was ready to swear off goats for good and considered very heavily the thought of taking them all to the sale on Sunday. That passed after I’d relaxed for a bit in the house and had taken a half hour long cold shower to cool off. They’re all staying in their pens today though. Not so much as ‘punishment’ for them, but as a ‘day off’ for me.

Strange Finds

On any given day you can walk our property and find all kinds of strange things you might not think you’d normally find on a farm. Walk through our wooded acerage and you’re likely to find broken arrows discarded from our archery range, paint ball remnants, some even unused from one of our many ‘wars’, and even used golf balls from when Bob has gone out to ‘hit a few’ and couldn’t find it afterwards. As expensive as those little round bullets are I have to clue him into the site where you can get great deals on used balls. Then if he looses them it’s fine if it takes days for me to come across them on a walk through the woods. Of course, it may take longer for him to get them back if I have to crawl back because I’ve slipped on one of those little slippery suckers and broke a leg in the process. I wish he’d keep them on the green.

No Other Way To Watch A Movie

I remember about 20 years ago when Bob and I first got married how excited we were to get something that was cutting edge technology… our first VCR. Yep, we were on the winning team with that one. The big war between BETA and VHS was going wild at the time, and for non-geeks like us it was very confusing to say the least. And scary. Machines back then were so ‘high-tech’ that they cost in the neighborhood of eight hundred dollars a piece, and movies on tape at that time ranged from fifty to eighty dollars. Movies took years back then to make it to VHS, not months the way they do now. The big fear was however, after investing so much money, would VHS win, or would BETA? Would we have to buy a new machine again? All new tapes? Scary stuff for an average young married couple just making ends meet and trying to save to get a house and raise their toddlers as well.

Kind of makes you laugh now doesn’t it?

You can run out to the store to pick up a new VHS machine for about thirty bucks. The new kid on the block, not so new anymore is DVD and even those machines, once selling for hundreds of dollars now goes for about fifty. Of course there are ever new inventions, blue ray, recordable DVD players, etc… But we’re used to the changes now. Everything moves so fast in technology today that we know if we buy something it will be outdated the moment we walk out of the store. Thankfully movies now only cost about twenty dollars on the high end, and you can buy all kinds of older ones for less than ten dollars.

The big craze now is home theater systems. We have one. Bob looked at me over the weekend when we were sitting around watching movies during a rain storm and the sound from the movie was all around us and said ‘There’s no other way to watch a movie’. True, and yet a mere ten years ago we wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing.

For some folks even that’s not enough. If you have the space, and the money you can create your very own theater in home complete with theater seating. It’s actually pretty affordable. What a wonderful way to really enjoy the movie. You can get everything you could even dream about and turn your family room into a real live theather complete with popcorn and movie posters.

I can only imagine us watching a movie in a few more years thinking, ‘there’s no other way to watch a movie.’

Sell To The Market

It seems I am always doing market research. I’m either watching market trends on goats, goat meat, milk, value added products like soap and cheeses made from goat milk, or following the sales trends of miniature horses, horses in general, and even value added animals in regards to what types of training bring what types of variables in the market place. Same thing with the books. What’s hot at a given moment, how long the moment lasts, how various genres are selling. They all effect my bottom line. There are so many other aspects to good marketing strategy though that as it gets more involved it’s wise to enlist the help of professionals. Finding out what areas of the country are more likely to sell your product well, what places online, how to reach them, all these things get extremely complex. Sales is part of the business no matter what you’re selling from goats to horses, to books, or anything at all, but no one person can do it all, and do it well. Get someone else to study the markets and figure out the best way to reach them, then you can do what you need to do best–sell to that market.

Finally–Rain

We finally got the rain we’ve been praying for. Earlier last week we had a couple of days that thundered a bit and poured down rain for maybe a half hour. Nice, but not nearly enough, and that kind of fast and furious rain doesn’t soak in as well. It tends to run off because it’s coming down too fast and doesn’t stay long enough. Yesterday though we had a constant rain that lasted all day. That’s the kind of rain we really needed. It drenched the ground. Whew. What a relief. Of course, they say tomorrow and for at least a few days after that it’s going to be in the 90’s again. But at least the ground got good and wet. Hopefully our pastures will hold up a while, and hopefully the guy who does our hay will get a good 2nd cutting. I’m hoping for a full four cuttings this year, but to get that we need the kind of rain we got yesterday at least a couple times a month.

Being a little Naughty Sometimes

There are times when my usual uniform of sweat pants and t-shirts just won’t do. There are times when my ’show’ attire of dress pants and jackets won’t do. There are times when I just want to be sexy. Private times usually, although sometimes even when I want to feel sexy underneath business, or work clothes. Usually though, when I’m in the mood to be extra playful with my husband. After all somethings aren’t meant to be hidden beneath clothing. Whether it’s open tip bras, or lacy panties there are just times when something a little special is the perfect way to set up an evening of snuggling. It’s fun to be a little naughty sometimes.

Finally Some Decent Pasture Shots

I’m still trying to get that perfect shot and it eludes me. This time, however, I managed to catch a few of the girls wandering out in the pasture and not hanging in by me crowding around my bench. Here’s one:

And another:

And I never did post a picture of the two girls we got at the swap in May. I can never quite seem to get a good picture of them. Today’s no real exception, but since I really want to get SOMETHING up to show I’ll just post the one I managed to get of their backsides, lol:

And of course Oreo, our newest little addition at 3 weeks old, born here at the end of May is growing like a weed, but is always right by me when I’m outside:

All in all, just another lovely day here at the ranch playing with the goats.

Sandcastles and Dreams

Wouldn’t you love to create a castle like this? You can. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s all click and drag. What a cool way to spend a few minutes creating a fantasy. There are all kinds of pieces you can choose from to create your masterpiece, and fun little add ons like the birds, and pail and shovel. Flags, and starfish and other little trinkets you’d find on the beach of your dreams too. Let your imagination run wild as you create your ‘dream castle in the sand’. Just click on the link to Build A Sandcastle of your very own. You can even email the card to friends, or save it as a wallpaper. It makes a great relaxing wallpaper that will surely bring a smile as you fantasize about that great vacation you can create to build your very own sandcastle for real. My idea of the ideal vacation is one that I can spend lounging on a sandy beach soaking up the sun and making castles as the waves lap at the shores. There’s nothing more soothing than the sound of water rushing up to the sand and slowly running back out again. Walking along the edge of the water as your feet sink into the cool sand, and letting the waves rush up and hit your ankles as you walk, or wading out into the majestic blue waters. The ocean has a feeling of power, and serenity all at once. Some vacations you have to rest up from when you get home. A vacation at the beach is true relaxation on a vacation that leaves you invigorated.

New Digs

Well I did quite a bit of work last night. The weather was just cool enough (it was setting up for rain overnight yay!) so I moved some of the pannels of the new small barn pen so that they had access to the inside of the small barn and then moved the dairy goats over from the big barn into that pen so they could go out with the rest of the girls and browse during the day. Then I moved the milking stand from the big barn to the small barn (whew what a pain in the butt. They better like it over here because I’m not moving it back) and the feed bucket.

I still have a few more small things to move over but it’s so much fun to see the entire herd together. All that’s missing is Mickey and Savvy who are in their seperate run/paddock for breeding and because I don’t want Mickey in with the rest since there are a couple close to kidding.