The Breast of Humanity

Lost and Found: Blankets and Goats

RC and I just spent a frantic ten minutes looking for the little man's favorite thing ever, his blanket. I finally yelled at RC to leave to go get dinner (since the car was sitting in the driveway running with the little lady inside) and I would figure out where the cursed object was. It took me (partially) folding a pile of clean laundry that I hadn't done yet, and much looking through cabinets and other things that have closable orifices, such as refrigerators and ovens and dish washers, before I finally realized that when RC checked the front porch he just walked around to the front of the house. So I decided to look at it again, just in case. It had been closed inbetween the front door and it's outer storm door. This was completely my fault. {For all of you men out there who have wives just like me that are for the most part right all of the time, I will repeat my self so that you can savor the moment, but only this one time.} This was completely my fault. And oh, so, preventable. You see, our front dooris directly across from our stairs. In fact, when the front door is opened to a ninety degree angle, it hits the stairs and completely blocks the view into the living room from the dining room. So when the little man awoke from his nap, we went out to pick up the sprinkler from the front yard through the front door. We then took it directly around the side of the house to the place in the back where all things hose related are kept and thus skipped the front door completely. When we re-entered the house and got ready to go clean up, I came around through the dining room to close the front door. I had no idea that he had unwittingly left the so coveted item there in the space between.
Now on to the goats...
While the kids were napping today, I recieved a phone call from my sister. I almost always go outside to talk on the phone if the kids are napping because I don't want to risk waking them and thus lose my holy and pure alone time. So, I went outside. While wandering around the back yard dead heading flowers and moving the sprinkler around, I talked to my sister. I happened to look up the way (that is to say that I looked north across the one yard next to us that hasn't got a fence). What did I see? Why five little billy goats, of course (well, actually I think only four of them were billy goats). What else would be there in the middle of a neighborhood that has no farms nearby? They were standing behind a house that was just sold, eating a cardboard box. What else would a ruralised billy goat herd eat? So after I finished on the phone I noticed that there were odd twigs sticking out from the trunk of a mimosa out back (they were caused by a pseudo-recent freeze), so I got out the pruning shears and went to work. These odd looking twigs go all the way up the trunk and out onto all of the limbs. So to reach up as high as I could, I kicked my shoes off and started climbing up the tree, trimming as I went. A nicely dressed gentleman then approached me, when I couldn't have possibly looked any more redneck (unless I had been eight months pregnant smoking a cigarette with a Lynard Skynard shirt on), okay, so I could have looked alot more redneck, and actually, ok, so maybe I really do appear to be rather redneck sometimes. So anyway, this nicely dressed gentleman approaches while I am barefoot ten feet off of the ground trimming twigs off of a tree while standing in said tree. Herd of goats in tow. "Do you have any idea whose goats these are?" Of course, I have never even seen goats around here before. We had friendly banter for a moment or two until Buddy noticed that there were these odd horned creatures coming toward his territory. I guess it is just an instinct that all dogs have, since he was never trained, he began herding. It is amazing that an untrained dog with only three legs can herd as well as he did. The house that the goats were originally demolishing the cardboard box at has a fence around all of the back yard except the driveway. The garage is on the back of the house, so the driveway goes up the side and has a parking lot large enough for three dualies to park side by side. The fence cuts around the edge of this parking lot, creating a sort of corral. Buddy, being the amazing non-trained herding dog that he is, with only three legs (did I mention?) herded them straight back over to this area, after chasing them all over the yard that is between ours and the one with the "corral". This all the while I was speaking with the new next to the next door neighbor. He and his wife are approximately the same age as my parents if not a tad older. So, once the goats are re-corraled, we have finished talking and he goes back over there to chase them out of the driveway-corral. So, within moments they spot me and start toward me. They nibble briefly on the mimosa twigs that are still laying on the ground, then they start in of the buffet table lining the edge of the property, also know as the hedge comprised of mock orange and rose of sharon (which had a very brief blooming period this year due to the freeze that caused the odd twigs on the trees). They started toward the clematis, cleome and jasmine next but Buddy noticed they were back and started chasing themm again. They went to the currently un-lived in house next door which no longer has a for sale sign in the yard which leads me to believe it is no longer on the market. Back to the story. They munched along the little row of shrubs in the front of the un-lived in house. A very unappitizing option apparently because they were back in the front yard in no time at all. The primrose, poppies and rhododendron bush got most of their attention. Unfortunately for mom and me. The damage isn't really all that noticeable though, if you have never seen that particular garden before. I finally got hold of animal control, and since I said that they kept going across the road they said they would get an officer out there right away. I keep trying to chase them off, running at them waving my arms in the air yelling "getgetgetgetgetgetgetget". It didn't particularly work other than to put their attention back on the shrubs that I wasn't yelling at them for eating, those being the ones next door. Te new next to the next door neighbor came back and parked in the currently un-lived in house's driveway, to try to block the goats view of my yard I suppose. While they were sitting there I decided to pull out the hose to water all of the plants in the front yard. Another man, actually two men, pulled up in a pick up truck and asked all three (the new next to the next door neighbors) of us if we wanted to purchase some goats. Small chuckles. It was at that point that I told them my dad had told me to "rope 'em so's we cun hev a goat roast ev'ry day next week". More small chuckles, with added wierd looks. Turns out theses men know the man that owns the goats simply because they escaped into their yard once. They happened to be driving by and noticed them and figured they would herd them back to their owner's residence, oh yes, it is just right back here in this neighbor hood behind my home. Huh, who would've thought? Goats, in my neighborhood? So they chase them back that way, I call animal control again and tell them they don't have to send someone out after all and that was that. What a very exciting day I had. And to put the cherry on top of this exciting sundae of a day, the goats caused me to have to protect the flowers and so I didn't get the kids up in time to have them ready so I could get to Zumba at seven. Rotters.

posted by Jedi Master Deba Sing @ 7:30 PM 1 comments