What did you do today?

[Taffy]

I'm SO happy he is feeling better!

[Charlie Horse]

I'm so glad to hear he's doing better. I tend to be really overly affected by the stress of having sick animals. I've had about 4 hours of sleep since Crayola died. BTW I figured out what killed him. He suffered from night panic attacks (Sometimes very strong) if you woke him up with a startle of some kind. I'd gone to get some laundry a friend did for me and I had a low battery in the car. Parked a bit differently to use the outlet to charge overnight, and the headlights swept near the windows a bit more than normal. I'm positive that he saw the light moving and did his startle thing and this time it gave him a heart attack. Everything matches up perfectly with this explanation. Such a waste to die from fright when he's really not afraid of anything but the hawks he liked to watch for out the window. I cant blame him for dieing of panic though-- I'll probably croak from the stress of worrying about a sick animal. I now have a new Caique parrot. I had to rush and buy another because breeding season is over for the entire year and there were 2 left. Expensive But why not spend on the things that matter most, eh? New little guy is settling in rather well already, but Mozam Beak the other parrot is suspicious that something is different.

[Nanno]

That's too bad about Crayola. I'm glad you know what happened. Are night panic attacks common in birds? Is that why many people cover their cages after dark?
I'm glad you have a new buddy already. I feel strongly that caring for other animals is the best way to recover from losing one.

[Charlie Horse]

Yeah panic attacks are common enough. Putting a cover over the cage makes it worse because now taking the cover off, itself, is a big disturbance out of the blue... I mean pitch black. There's just no winning.

New guy is going to turn out to be another great one, I can tell. I dont know if its male or female yet. Perhaps if its male I can name him Crayon to keep with the theme.

I'm going to hijack the neighbor's wild turkeys. He's gone for 18 months and I think I'll throw some food out for them to make it so they stop by the property every day or so, like they did next door. Had a small doe with a radio collar and two super cute fawns stealing hay this morning. They're half tame and don't tend to fear me or the dog as much as I'd expect.

[Nanno]

Finn is doing great this morning. Temperature is normal and he's up to his usual mischievous tricks. Yay!

[Nanno]

No goats at Halloween Town this year. It was too cold! We woke up to around 10 inches of heavy, wet snow this morning, so I spent a lot of the day shoveling and clearing fences. 

We set up our dragon again this year. It's so tall it dominates the street when we set it up in our pickup, and it's a big hit with the kids. Several of them were more interested in staring at the dragon than getting candy.    
   

This was my favorite decoration this year. I found a pumpkin with a "butt crack", so Phil put a pair of underwear on it and i stuck a skeleton in the top. 
   

Phil was Wolverine from the X-Men. He always does such a great Wolverine impression! He started growing the chops a week or so ago, and his hair is the perfect length right now. 
   

I had no costume ideas until this afternoon, and no time to make anything complicated. We had this big box from the shipping supplies I ordered for the NAPgA calendar sale. It's not every year I get to have a Big Box for Halloween. The best thing about it was that I could bundle up in my warm winter clothes underneath and not worry about freezing. With all the fresh snow on the ground, I figured a Christmas present wouldn't look too out of place.   
   

[Nanno]

Not even halfway through November, and already we've had far more snow this year than we had all of last winter! We got over a foot last night and it's still drifting down a little this morning. Woohoo!

[Nanno]

And I had a fantastic time this evening getting hauled around on a sled by Sputnik. He wanted to help haul hot water to the pens so I obliged. He was a little excited and had a hard time "whoa-ing". After delivering the water, I got a nice fast ride to the house with the empty water jugs and then back out to the goat pen. What a good boy! I need to post a video of him fetching sometime. After not practicing for over six months, I tried it out last week and he fetched better than he's ever fetched in his life. I'm doing it out in the yard around other goats now!

[Charlie Horse]

We had a big rain storm a month ago.  Flash floods came down and overfilled the empty canal, then washed down and I had a couple feet of water in my field.  A few days later I took the goats on a hike to survey the damage or changes in the local hills.  There was one main casualty....


   
The greatest goat posing rock... Having stood for half a billion years...>

   
Was undercut by the evil forces of nature.  Its gone folks.  One of the wonders of the world.

[Taffy]

That's SO sad. At least one of your goats wasn't om it when it collapsed!