Black Friday madness

Stopping off at the mailbox on my way out to the barn Thursday morning, I found that the newspaper man had delivered his daily bundle.  After wrestling with the box for a few minutes, a giant wad of advertisements came bursting out like some kind of bazaar overgrown Christmas cracker. 
Pages of brightly colored promotions for electronic gizmos, TVs, telephones, video games, and happy gleeful children playing with the latest must have toy scattered everywhere.  As I quietly gathered them up, a soft snow began to fall.

 I could hear the little goat girls stirring awake.  Putting aside the melee of throw aways, I assessed the stalls and buckets before opening the door and leading the babies to the pasture.  When the winds are not blowing too hard, and snow is not too wet, and the mud is not too sticky, and the hay inside is not too soft and warm, any day can be a good day to go out and play.

There wasn't enough snow to get out the snowblowers, but one still needed to clear a wee bit of snow away from the fenceline.  Fortunately that meant that only a half mile needed to be shoveled, a quarter mile of fence: inside and out.  As I slowly moved around the paddock, the little goat girls followed along.  Softly bleating, they searched out tasty morsels of green browse peaking through the snow.  Sweet hay and warm water is aways available but can't be compared to pasture nibbles.

After everyone had had her 'good girl' pats, I circled back to pick up the papers I had left.  'Black Friday!  Save!  Buy Now!  More toys and trinkets!'  the cacophony clamored.  I turned back toward and listened to little Dorothy.  "Ma Maa" she whispered. 
This place has given me a sense of what is really important.  It's not who has more stuff, the biggest TV, the best team, or the fanciest car.  Let the madness pass, while you watch the babies play in the snow.

First Snow

We had a few waves of sleety snow come blowing through around Halloween, but this last weekend saw some of the real stuff coming down.  Large, fluffy flakes blanketed the lawn and pastures overnight, much to the surprise of our little goat girls.

 As soon as I opened their stall that morning, all four came racing out, ready to go play in the pasture.  As soon as they saw the snow, without taking one step out, they came to an abrupt stop at the snowy line drawn at the door.  "what's this stuff?"  "I dunno.  Icky!  It's cold and it's WET"  Finally after 15 or so minutes, Jellybean ventured out.  After bouncing around for a short amount of time, the other girls finally took some tentative steps out toward the pasture.

 Once the girls arrived, they were like any kids playing in fresh snow.  They ran back and forth playing tag.  The goat house was too slippery to stand on top of but that didn't mean one couldn't jump up on it and slide off...or talk your sister into jumping up and falling off.

 Meanwhile out in Chickenland: the buckeyes decided that no amount of yummy scratch feed was going to get them out into that cold white stuff.  After venturing a couple of steps out, Peanut turned about and reported to the rest that the nice warm Buckeye manor was the place to stay.

 It's going to be a long time til Spring.