Goat Training

Guildy has decided that her goat, Rosa, must be trained to be a pack goat. So Rosa gets several lessons per day practicing walking nicely with her little load of grass.

Rosa has actually become a fairly nice goat. For  a long time we referred to her as "Satan's Goat" because she would rise up on her back legs, tilt her head menacingly, and strike her front hooves at whatever poor defenseless child was in her sights.  She and her far less intelligent sister have also broken into my garden, crawled in the car and eaten the CA map out of my road atlas, and eaten the bark off an apple tree, among other offenses. More than once I've been within moments of slaughtering them on the spot. But then I always decide it would be more trouble than it would be worth. Plus I'm short on freezer space. 

Charity Visits Us!!

Last week, my bestest good friend Charity journeyed out west to visit us (and some other people, too). We spent most of the week at Dillon Beach and had a most lovely time relaxing and catching up. We hadn't had a proper live-in-person visit since January, and frankly, between the election and our busy lives, there was a lot to discuss:o)

After picking Charity up at the train. 

Dillon Beach sunset. Josh's mom very graciously let us use her rental house for the week, as the exact days we needed it were open.

Rocky beach adventures.

 

A chilly day necessitating the sharing of Aunt Charity's coat:o)

Beach Photo Shoot

Star Gazing

Awhile back, we took a family 4-wheeler ride up to the top of a ridge to watch the sun set, eat a picnic supper, and star gaze. 

Not bad...as far as sunsets go.

Working furiously to clear grass from our campfire site. Of course the blurriness wasn't planned, but it nicely illustrates the speed with which the girlies move!!

  

Almost dark and ready for the fire. Notice Hadley's  aircast boot. She got two green stick fractures in her  foot about a month ago. She was "trying to fly" off a playset. It didn't work out as well as she had hoped. Thankfully it's all healed up now and she's back to her normal self. 

A fireside chat...

Halloween

My Halloween photography was pretty dismal this year, but you can at least get the idea of what the girls were.

Josh's very talented Mom whipped up the Rapunzel dress and the Indian costume. Guildy did the bead work on her dress.

Rapunzel with her cast iron pan:o)

Guildy's Field Trip

A few weeks ago, Josh and our friend Paul made a trip up to Willits, CA a couple hours away to visit a shop that sells and repairs gas appliances. We needed a gas fridge for our off-grid electrical system, and Paul had a couple that needed worked on. Guildy loves going to work with Josh, so she thought this trip would be fun, too.

Josh and Guildy with the owner of the shop, his monster truck and  a dog. 

Paul loaned Guildy his camera to take pictures of "interesting things" on her field trip. I got a huge kick out of the things that caught her attention and were deemed photo worthy.

Under the hood of the monster truck.

Monster truck trophies:o)

Monster truck and monster dogs....

Gas fittings....

 

Tools....

A lift for loading appliances into the pickup. She took a whole sequence of pictures documenting the loading and unloading of this fridge. 

Close up of the lift.

 

Lunch before heading home:o)