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Of Nuts And Goats

And now here’s Plume with the weather:

It’s too damn cold. You know that “The Rent Is Too Damn High” party from the election? I want to start a “The Weather Is Too Damn Cold” party.

I went to see the goats yesterday. And it is now so cold that it is prohibitive. I had to have my woolly socks
and gloves on. The sweater and scarf will probably come out soon too. Maybe even the leg warmers. And it’s just hard for me to sit there in the cold for hours. I took my gloves off to pet the goats, and when it was time to go home I had popsicles for fingers. It is exasperating to think that it will be 4 months or more before it will be tolerable again. And I don’t even want to think about how it will be when the snow and ice comes, I might have to start bringing my dad along for trips again. Or at least have to use the cane again.

So the weather is too damn cold. On a brighter note, mama is planning to make soup one of the coming weekends. That is always the upshot of the cold. Mama’s world famous soup. I do look forward to that.

And fortunately the goats are still great. Yesterday was the first time I sat outside on the bench with just Magnethe and Grethe. No Hans. It was quite odd, since he was always the trouble maker with the most energy. Bodil came by at one point and commented “you can’t help miss the little black-headed guy”. No indeed. But Grethe is good fun too. And she can be quite energetic as well. Sometimes a little too much even. She doesn’t always like to be touched. Around the sides especially. Or held by her collar. It’s not always, but just sometimes she’ll start jumping around in protest. Swinging her head to butt away the hand. And if I hold her collar then she’ll almost always start jumping upwards. On me or on the bench or just in the air. Not aggressively. Just a little oddly. It’s not that I push or pull. I only have to grab on to the collar. I don’t recall any of the other goat kids ever reacting quite like that. I wonder if she was handled badly when she was littler. I probably spent less time with Hans and Grethe when they were tiny than I did with the other kids there have been at the playground. Because of how my life has been going. But anyway, she’s still very sweet and fun. And I’m trying to get her used to being touched more. She does like scratches. And I’ll sometimes give her some treats while I pet her and such. Positive reinforcement.

Speaking of treats, I introduced her to hazelnuts yesterday. The storebought kind, without shells. Still, it took her a little while to figure them out. The first couple of times I gave her just one and it would still pop out of her mouth after some failed attempts at chewing. But once she got the hang of crushing them she seemed to like them well enough. And Magnethe likes them too. Although I think she prefers the au naturel ones. Picked from the ground with shells intact. And I prefer them like that too, because I just love the crunchy crunchy sounds the goats make when they eat them.

And now back to you guys in the studio.

2 Responses to “Of Nuts And Goats”

  1. Debster Says:

    It’s been warm here. We’ve been painting outside the last few days for our neighbor. I think we’re going to have another couple of nice days then a possibility of rain on Saturday. I think we will be finished painting tomorrow.

    The goatzies and donkey are enjoying the nice weather as well. Much leaf eating and grass chewing going on.

    The kittens are sure growing up fast. They like to be scratched and combed and will come most of the time when I call: “Kitty, kitty”.

  2. Plume Says:

    Debster – I could use a little warmth. OR just some kittens. I wonder if I start calling out “kitty kitty kitty” anything will happen?!

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