Back to work
Good goat times today. A rainy one. Coming down hard all morning and into the day. It did clear up some later on, but mostly it was rain. Rain rain rain.
But of course the main event today was the triumphant return of Jeanette! So nice to see her again. Nice to talk to her and just a relief to have her back so you know the goats are getting the care they need. I put her to work immediately on a big project. I’ll tell you in a photo post in a bit. Other than that we just caught up on what’s been going on. Thankfully the goats have gotten through the three weeks just fine. You know me, I’m a worrier. I did worry if everything would go completely wrong. But it went fine, mostly. And now hopefully things will go smoothly. Best laid eggs and plans.. they always get scrambled.
Anyhoo.
I think today was the first day of school back after summer vacation. Maybe that’s why there were several groups of kids around. Maybe it’s that school that moved in nearby. Maja, one of the caretakers, came over with a young boy who got to pet the goats and ask questions. He was interested in their horns. Mainly why they had them and if they were dangerous and were we sure they weren’t dangerous and why was Sky looking at him like that is she dangerous? He luckily survived his encounter with the dangerous creatures and I am sure his friends will get some tall tales of his encounter with the horned beasts.
7/8 2023
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Here is Jeanette back at work. And busy. Removing the hayholder.
And why? Well, I didn’t tell you guys but we had a little incident while Jeanette was on vacation. The week before last I guess. One morning when i got there, the rock that is used to weight down the plank that covered the hayholder, well it was lying on the floor. I don’t know if the goats managed to knock it down or if someone put it down. it’s really heavy. But I figured I’d get that fixed once I’d done my stretches and put food out for the goats. But it didn’t take long before they had knocked the plank off the hayholder. And then one of the kids jumped into it and was stuck there. On that day I didn’t see any other caretakers working while I was there. So if I hadn’t been there that day Luna or Bella would have been stuck in that thing for at least 3-4 hours I think. It freaked me out, also because someone commented on the page (when Bella jumped up on the hay in the other hayholder, which I fixed by moving the salt block so she couldn’t jump on that and then onwards into the hayholder) that they had lost one of their goats because it jumped into one of those hay racks and broke its legs. So yeah, scary. I got the kid out of the hayholder and fixed it up as good as I could. Put the rock back on. And put pavement tiles into the hayholder. They couldn’t fit on top, but I put them inside so if the plank should get removed again then hopefully they wouldn’t be able to get deep in and get stuck.
Anyway. I told Jeanette about that this morning. And after some deliberation on the best way to fix the issue, well she decided she would just take it down alltogether. So she got the drill and took it down.
It’s a little sad, because it was nice having it there so low to the ground. I have noticed that the gang doesn’t always like to use the hayholder in their bedroom, I think it’s a little too high for them. And it was fun to have that plank, they’d jump up on it and sneak stuff from the storage shelf above and just be cute on it. But safety first. And now we have removed the risk of them being able to get stuck and hurt. So that’s good. I’m glad Jeanette listened and took my concerns seriously and acted on it.
And of course Luna and Bella supervised the work. They weren’t as scared of the drill as I thought they would be. At least they didn’t run away, even if it startled them a bit.
7/8 2023
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Here’s a little before and after of the hayholder. I thought it would be a good idea to keep the plank after all. Put down a couple of the pavement tiles on each side and then the plank between them. So hey, we can still walk the plank!
7/8 2023
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Well, I just put in my first order for the grocery delivery service. To be delivered next week. As previously discussed, I’m mainly going to use it to get Pepsi Max freighted. Although I just accidentally put in an order for 25 1½ liter bottles of non Maxed Pepsi. You guys have Pepsi Max in America, right? It’s huge, one of the biggset if not the biggest brand of soda, in Denmark. Anyway, I accidentally ordered the regular Pepsi with sugar. Whoops. Good thing you can edit your order. But that should sort me out for Pepsi for a .week. Or so. Plus 4 bags of flourballs for my soup. Hopefully this will go okay so I can keep doing that and then do my regular groceries in the alternative stores once the supermarket closes. I am not sure when exactly that happens. “At the end of August” the press release says. Not sure if that’s literally August 31st or whatever. But I can already tell they are winding down. Can’t get fresh tomatoes anymore urgh gosh darned it!
Assuming my Pepsi delivery comes in okay I will start shopping elsewhere. I need my maters. Not just for the goats but for me.
7/8 2023
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Oh Sky, that’s not.. particularly dignified. Jeanette remarked that Sky was a little …wider, that last she saw her. And I mentioned how people had thought she was pregnant. Yeah, with Jeanette back there may be a slightly revised diet for our big little girl.
But at least she found the peanut I accidentally dropped under the new plank.
7/8 2023
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I am going on my second rewatch of the old The Soup episodes. I got to one of my absolute favourite parts today. I don’t know why, but this just makes me laugh so much. Every single time. Even just thinkin about it makes me laugh. The way taht old lady calling in goes… omnomnom or however you’d write that out. I wish I could find the original clip without The Soup audience laugh etc. But even so. Every single time I watch this I laugh.
7/8 2023
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Had my half-yearly checkup at the eye doc today. In and out in about 5 minutes. Nothing new, things look stable and the doc expects that to be the case for the foreseeable future. Hooves crossed. Some day it’ll get worse, but for now it’s hanging stable and that’s wall I can ask for.
My dad came with me, I like to have him there in case I get my eyes dropped. Eyedropped. Then I can’t see so well. Wasn’t necessary today fortunately. But after the eye doc we went to that grocery store Jeanette told me about. I don’t like unfamiliar places, so it was nice to have my dad with me. Someone who can actually see. He went with me and it seemed like an okay place. It’s a longer walk home than my regular supermarket, but it’s only a slight detour from the usual walk from the goats to home. And if my Pepsi deliveries work out okay then I won’t have to haul such heavy loads, I think this new store can work. We got fresh tomatoes! Wooh. There’s also the smaller store in the lower part of the shopping center, I will do recon on that soon too. That’s the same center as the current supermarket, so going there would mean less change. But it’s a smaller store and I’m not sure it will work out. But we’ll see. I got choices and hopefully it won’t be too much of a bother.
Nearly lost my hat today, it’s stormin’ out. Did one of those hail mary last ditch arm reaches to catch it as it started to leave my headspace. Phew.
8/8 2023
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Goat hair gets EVERYWHERE.
Yesterday Jeanette had to laugh at me as I sat there with goat hair all over me. “Is someone molting?!”. Haha. She suggested maybe I should get one of those.. what are they called? Rollers to get lint and stuff off your clothes. Haha. I come home with so much goat hair on me that I could build another goat from them.
8/8 2023
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Henrietta Solo after a trip in the rain.
8/8 2023
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What the cluck!?
Look at Luna in the background. Looking at us like “Hey, you’re supposed to be smoochin’ with me!”. Yeah, I’m in high demand.
8/8 2023
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Brrr. It’s so cold. It’s like 10C/50F. In August. This summer has been so weird. It started with heat and drought, so much that we weren’t allowed to do the traditional burning of the witch on the Sankt Hans fire. Then the moistest July in recorded history. Now it’s 10 degrees in August and we had some of the hardest storming to try to take our hats. But hey, climate change isn’t real, you can’t milk an almond etc.
At least we aren’t having horrible fires and our drought wasn’t as bad as it gets ni some places. But I do hope I get some more proper summer days with the goat crew before fall fells us.
Yeah this summer surely wasn’t what I was expecting, in many ways.
9/8 2023
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Just got a couple of packages. Stuff I had ordered from amazon. The postman gave them to me and then said “can I ask you something?”. He asked me that when it says “delivery to the door” does that mean he can just leave them at the door? So I had to tell him that no, that does not mean you can just leave them at my door. It means you have to go to the door and ring the doorbell and if no one is home you take it to the post office so I can go get them. I honestly can’t believe that the postman doesn’t know that, that they don’t tell them that, that he had to ask me. But I’m glad I could tell him that today, because I have mentioned before here I think, I have had several packages left at my door when I wasn’t home and it was pure luck that they didn’t get stolen, one of them got opened and someone riffled through it and decided the stuff wasn’t worth stealing. The last time I wasn’t home for a package they did take it back to the post office and left a package slip for me. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Hopefully now this particular post guy won’t be leaving packages at the front door.
I guess I can see how the wording “levering til døren” / “delivery to the door” can be taken as … just to the door. But the meaning is that it’s supposed to be delivered to the address as opposed to being taken to a package shop or post office for the customer to pick it up. You don’t actually deliver packages to a door, you deliver them to a person. You can sign up for “flex delivery” in the postal app if you want to have the postman leave packages on your property if you’re not home. I don’t even have a smart device so I couldn’t use the app if I wanted to.
Anyway, rant over. I got my packages. That’s a relief. Now I just hope Keiko’s package will get to me soon. It’s been underway for a month and a half and if the tracking is correct then it went from America to Ireland and back to America, through New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, back to New York and now it’s in Copenhagen. I think the mailman might be drunk. NEWMAN!
9/8 2023
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goat content
9/8 2023
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Luna was the first to use the hay tub as a bed, but these days it’s usually Bella who gets in to relax.
9/8 2023
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Good goat times today. A fun day. We had several groups of visitors. Jeanette took one of them into the pen and they fed carrot slices to the goats. One of the ladies with the kids said she loved coming there so much. She said she was paying more attention to the goats than to the kids she was minding haha. And then there was a sweet boy, developmentally challenged. I am not sure if it was the same boy that was here a while ago, back then that kid was with a lady who sang to him, I remember that so clearly. This time it was a man with the boy, but the boy could be the same. Anyway, he was brought to the fence to see the goats. Jeanette is so good with kids. She picked up Luna and let the boy have some close time. He was a little scared but Jeanette went “well this was your first time here so you were very brave to come to the fence, maybe next time you come here you will feel like petting the goats”. Very sweet.
And I had some fun with the goats too. I wanted to ask Jeanette something so I went and left the pen. Which triggered the goats. The kids came running immediately. Not to me or the gate, but they ran down the hill and into the bigger pen. I thought well this could be fun, so I went back in teh pen and then we all ran around like goofballs for a while. It takes Sky a lot longer to get going, but she’s still got some kid in her. And the actual kids were galloping around. Up and down the mountain, up on both platforms. It looked like they jumped right over the mountain a couple of times, but that’s imposible of course. They must have been running up the mountain and then jumping just as they reach the top and came into my view. But it looked like they jumped over the whole thing haha. And Luna ran over to me a couple of times with panting breath to get treats. They really got worked up. Cuties.
And then later I did some hard manual labor in the goat house. But I’ll tell you about that in a photo post later.
10/8 2023
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Here’s Jeanette and Luna entertaining visitors.
10/8 2023
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Look what I done did today!
As you will recall, we removed the hayholder on the wall. We put a board between the pavement tiles for the goats to have something to play on. But I was figuring I’d update it a bit today. And then I found these three boards, connected in one side. And I figured, well I’ll steal that. Brought it up to the goat house, and it fit perfectly between the two ‘feeding lanes’ on the sides of the room. I had to put it some work removing some hazardous scews that were sticking out of them. And then a lot of lugging the pavement tiles around to arrange them in the best way possible. Probably not great for my back, all that leaning over and moving heavy stuff. But I think it turned out pretty well. Instead of just one board now we have almost a platform, three boards. And higher up. With pavement staircase on both sides. The goats seem to like it. The kids were curiously following me work of course. And all of them went up on the new platform after it was done. It leaves them a little less floorspace, but they have plenty of space in their bedroom. It’s nice for them to have stuff to climb around on. Who needs Jesper the handyman when you have Lasse the… unhandy man. Or as Jeanette said, Bob the Builder! Haha. I don’t know if we’ll change the design some. and I guess at some point the pavement tiles will be taken away to be put outside in the pen. But for now this is pretty neat.
10/8 2023
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Here’s a Before-During-After ohoto from my work today. The kids are busy helping. When you’re doing stuff like this, half the work is scooting nosy goats out of the way.
10/8 2023
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Breakfast in progress. I asked Jeanette if it would be okay if I did the breakfast feeding still, on the days I’m there. I do enjoy doing that. So that’s my job from now.
11/8 2023
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Yesterday I went on a reconn to the grocery store in the lower section of the shopping center next door. Walking by my regular supermarket in the upstairs section. Past the sign that said “clearance sale, 17 days till closing”. Sigh. It’s sad to see. The whole shopping center is sad to see, like a ghost town with closed shops everywhere and not a lot of people. When I was a kid this was the busiest place around. I lived further away, but I’d sometimes take a trip to the center. Thirty minutes-ish on bike. The whole neighbourhood was different then. And the shopping center had lots of different shops. Bought my Amiga there in the big electronics shop. Now it’s probably a matter of time before the new owners tear it all down.
But the small grocery store in the bottom section is still open. It’s not very nice, though. It’s what we call a discount store. I am not sure if that term applies in America. But it’s the cheapest kind. It’s small and cramped and it’s not very conveniently designed, things are stacked in narrow isles and it’s just.. not nice. For me. I don’t mean it as a critique of the place in and of itself. If you’re on a very tight budget then it’s probably great having a place where the focus is on cheaper goods and not accessibility and comfort. But for me it’s not nice. I don’t mind paying a little extra for an easier experience. And I hate new places. I feel so lost, with my bad eyesight. I went through the whole store looking at everything. But on top of my blindness I also have my social phobia, which makes me feel like a total weirdo if I stand and look at things too long or just.. act abnormally. I know I shouldn’t care what people think. But that’s the thing about the brain. You can’t just tell it what to do. You can’t just tell an alcoholic not to drink, a smoker not to smoke, a politician not to lie. It’s not that easy. But anyway. I checked it out, and at the end of the day the thing that let’s it down is just that it doesn’t have as big a selection as what I’m used to. It’s a small discount grocery store and the one I usually go to is a fair-sized supermarket. Coupled with cramped environment, I don’t think i’ll be going there. It’s too bad because i would have liked to still do my shopping in the shopping center. But I guess my new place will be the market that Jeanette showed me. The initial look I had when I went with my dad on Tuesday was promising. So I’ll go there and have a closer look, hopefully they have all the things available that I need there. Coupled with the Pepsi delivery from online. And maybe I’ll get some other things from the online delivery place too. There’s a minimum amount you have to spend to get delivered, so financially it wouldn’t work to get all my shopping delivered. But for bigger things and things that don’t go bad when you keep them in the cupboard for a month, that will be fine. And then fruits, vegs and bread from the new market.
Should work okay. It still sucks, though. I wish my supermarket wasn’t closing. I hate change so much. Stumbling around blindly, full of anxiety is not fun. I depend on knowing the places I go to. Oh well.
11/8 2023
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goatlog
11/8 2023
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By the way, I feel like I should clarify that when I said feeding the goats was my job now, I didn’t mean that as in a real job or any kind of responsibility. I just meant that Jeanette will hold off on giving them breakfast so I can do it. And if I don’t show up she’ll do it. So you know. It’s not like I have become a respectable working man. I’m still just a goat bum. But I do enjoy giving the goats their breakfast, so I’m glad I can keep doing that.
11/8 2023
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Speaking of Frank Turner songs that make misty eyes and think of the goats…
I’m still listening to a lot of FT bootlegs and whenever this comes on I can’t help thinking of Mia. I mean, this song is a little too upbeat and optimistic, obviously I can’t really feel like that about Mia, not yet, not by far. But I like the message, I hope to get to feel more like it with time. …the last of the greats have finally gone to bed…
We live to dance another day
It’s just now we have to dance for one more of us
So stop looking so damn depressed
And sing with all our hearts, long live the Queen
11/8 2023
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What, we aren’t doing anything…. don’t come in!
11/8 2023
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Sky and the cluckedrs, Henrietta Solo and Red Sonja. Sky gets along with them very well. The kids? Not so much. Not that they don’t get along at all. But Bella and Luna will occasionally chase the clucks away. Especially Luna seems to not want them too close. Of course the feathers are fast, so when one the kids lunge after them, they just squawk and flap away out of reach. You gotta be fast in the goat pen.
12/8 2023
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A little bit of video of Jeanette and Luna entertaining at the fence.
12/8 2023
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goatlog
13/8 2023
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Oh my goodness. Thank you so much Keiko Murakami ! I don’t even know what to say, I am gobsmacked. I wasn’t expecting this. I know you told me something about a sketchbook in the package, but I was not expecting this.. masterpiece. Absolutely huge and amazing treasure trove of wonderful art and memories.. What a collection. And the Mia angel too. I absolutely love it all. Thank you so much!
Normally I don’t like talking in videos, I ahte my voice so much. Spent most of my life not talking, so it’s not a good voice. But I ahd to record a little video last night. I unpacked it just before heading to bed. This video is just a quick flip through it so everyone can get an idea of it. I will sit down and take a closer look at it all soon. But I can already tell it’s full to the brim with love and happiness, along with the tinge of sadness of course. Happy and sad tears. Thank you so much again Keiko, you have embiggened my life with your cromulent art. And friendship. I love you and appreciate you in my life!
And I’m so happy the package actually made it here. I was starting to doubt. It went from America to Ireland to America, through New York, Los Angeles, Texas. Before coming to Copenhagen and ending up here in Aarrhus. There was a sticker on it that said something like “rejected / failed electronics” on the customs clearing. I wonder if it failed a check in some kind of automated x-ray machine. The package didn’t look like it had been opened. Normally when customs opens the package they put big stickers on it that say it has been opened. I don’t know. Doesn’t make sense that they’d send it to Ireland in the first place. On the second go it looks like it went straight from America to Denmark. Who knows. Just glad it got here. It shall be one of my most prized possessions. Thank you for loving the goats, helping ease the pain of unbearable losses and sharing the joys and silliness on a daily basis. And thank you for the gift for.. someone who I won’t mention in the slight chance they might read this, want to keep it a surprise.
If there is anything I can do for you, Keiko, please ask. I feel like I should gather a vial of goat berries for you, but I don’t know what customs would say to goat poop! Haha. Oh and again please excuse the crummy video, it was literally 1 am and I was about to pass out.
13/8 2023
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Thank you everyone for all the lovely comments on the video of Keiko’s book. I am glad you all enjoyed it and nobody hated on my voice haha. This thing surely means a lot to me, and so do all of you. Thank you. Tomorrow will hopefully be a good day, but also maybe a tough one. It would have been Mia’s 11th birthday. I had myself crying earlier going through old photos to make a collage to post tomorrow. Keiko’s Mia angel came just in time to be with me tomorrow. I miss her so much, especially when i let my guard down and the thoughts come flooding in. But thank you all for being with me here, i appreciate it.
13/8 2023
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That’s all for now.