We haven't named it yet. I suggested that we name it "goat" but that didn't seem to get a very high approval rating.


This is a good mosquito. It's one of the few that I just killed and didn't totally crush beyond recognition. My aim must have been off just a little.

this is our second youngest grandchild. I think she was eating a cracker and forgot to let go.

Susan cutting up peppers from our garden. Some of them went into the omelettes we had for breakfast.

The dog and goat meet for the first time. Neither one seems too impressed with the other.

Sunday, July 11, 2010
The kids got here late yesterday afternoon and spent the night. Sunday morning had omelets for breakfast. J and I shot gophers in the late morning. Had a lot of shots, many of them were off-hand at fast moving gophers! We went to a different spot this time but they’ve been shot at before. The survivors learn quickly. Susan made dinner using the solar cookers (one store bought and one home made.)

Got a call from a neighbor in the evening. There’s been a mountain lion hanging around the neighborhood. He’s been seen by several people over the last week or so. Once he was crossing the road dragging a full grown deer. This time he was at their house. They sometimes have deer in the yard and the cat was stalking one. They let the dog out and the dog treed the cat. He got some pictures then they put tied the dog up and chased the cat off. The only problem is that while it shows no aggression towards people it also shows very little fear. It would only run about 50 yards then lay down until they got closer. When they’d get within 20 yards or so it would take off again. Normally they should run and run and run. You shouldn’t be able to catch up with one. If he makes it to hunting season I’m sure there will be a guy with hounds coming up. (I have his phone number.) It’s a full-grown male and appears to be quite healthy. He may have been forced to hunt close to people by wolves or a larger male lion. They’ve also been logging in some prime mountain lion habitat about a mile from here and might have forced him out of there. Whatever the reason he’s a little too comfortable with people to have him around for long.

Susan went to a neighbor’s place to see their new goat. They just got a milk goat and had made a milking stall for it. She came home with a quart of goat milk for us to try. I’ve never had it before and am looking forward to it.

Not much else happened over the weekend. I got the go-ahead on another article query.
Watched three episodes of Top Shots on Hulu. Now I’m caught up with it.

Monday, July 12, 2010

After breakfast I finished up all the extra stuff to mail the article. I cut some wood and took pictures to go with the article. Then I culled them out to those I’d use in the article and labeled them. Next I wrote up the photo caption page and made two copies of it then burned the article, spread sheet, photo captions, and photos onto a CD, wrote a cover letter and addressed the send envelope and another for returning the materials if the article doesn’t sell. After that I put a new battery terminal on the pickup and cleaned the other cable real good, load tested the battery and tried it out. The truck started just fine which didn’t surprise me since it usually does … cold! I’ll have to drive it until it’s warmed up good to see if it’s fixed. I suspect it’s got a bad starter. The problem is only apparent when the engine is hot.

I’ll pick up a thermostat later, For now I’m just going to take the old one out and drive it like that. I didn’t fix the tire yet either. It’ll have to be done later also. We needed to get in town to mail the envelope and go on into Eureka to get dog food and a goat.

When we hit town we filled up three water jugs before going to the post office. After picking up the mail and mailing the manuscript package we stopped at the green boxes (dumpsters) and unloaded our trash. From there we took the highway into Eureka and stopped at the bank to deposit a check (payment for an article) and go to the grocery store. They were out of the stuff they had advertised that we wanted so we ended up just getting a big bag of dog food. From there we went to some friend’s home and they gave us a goat to take care of. They raise and sell pack goats. They gave us a three-month-old kid as long as we promised not to eat it. That sounded good to me. I just hope we can keep the mountain lion from eating it. It was less than enthusiastic at the idea of leaving it’s mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great grand parents, etc. and coming home with us. We had to pick it up and carry it part way. When we set it down it decided it didn’t like that idea either. So, when we went to load it in the back of the Cherokee it laid down on the ground. It took two people to lift it up then and load it into the Cherokee. I was already there waiting to keep it company, which I did for the ride home. We were good friends before we got home. (Now that didn’t sound quite right!!!!) Anyway, it’s new home is the dog kennel. We’ll be taking it out to graze every day and hopefully it will keep some of the undesirable plants in check. I’m hoping to get it to actually do what it was designed for and have it carry stuff when we go backpacking. We’ll keep you posted.

By the time we got home it was late afternoon. We had leftovers for supper and I took some more allergy medicine and will probably be asleep soon. I’m hoping it will rain tonight and clear the air some. The wind has been blowing all day keeping the pollen stirred up.