Catching up

Well, the weather finally cooled off a bit. Saturday we went to a brilliant estate sale run by our favorite estate-sale people, and we staggered home five hours later, tired and grubby, with some amazing things and four hammers. (The way I lose tools, I need four more hammers.) The car was crammed full, and our new-to-us 1950s lawn chaise (that folds down into a double bed) was strapped on top. Some wag mentioned The Beverly Hillbillies, but that's not at all appropriate. Granny was not riding on the lawn chair on the roof. She was driving.

I could post photos of our finds, like the tin ceiling tiles or the perfect 10-gallon crock, but then you'd hate me because I have such cool stuff.

Sunday we unloaded the car and played with our new things. And tended the garden and waited on the many animals. We had deer damage in the garden again – about half of the pole beans were gnawed off and the non-heading broccoli might as well be called non-leafing broccoli, as only stalks are left. I upped the trailer-park quotient in the garden-fence department, adding more cord and plastic flags, and scattering old printing plates on the paths. They're thin aluminum, and make a lot of noise when stepped on. It isn't pretty, but I don't care.

Monday I had to work, and came home tired. And unloaded the last of the stuff in the car.

Today after work I bumped out the fence in the big-animal pasture. C. has been bringing them all kinds of garden greens and tasty weeds, but the goats wanted more. I could tell because Mo escaped twice and Pants got his horned head stuck in the fence twice. Pants cries when it happens, and the sheep come find me and tell me about it ("Bleahhhhh. Muhhhhhhhh.") I rush out and finagle his big old head and horns and poor soft throat back through the hole, and he looks at me for a while with his creepy yellow slit eyes and then clops casually off, pretending nothing happened. It's scary, though – if a coyote or loose dog found him first it would be grisly.

So now they have plenty to eat and new ground to explore, and unless the goats find a weak spot in the new fence, they'll be good for a while. There is even a nice big mossy rock to play King of the Hill on.

C. made the dogs something green for dinner, and I sampled it and liked it and shared it with them. It was sort of a quiche or pilaf thing made of greens and eggs and rice and such, baked in the microwave. I had ketchup on mine.