Inspirational Reading (the goat edition)

Tonight I'm up late glued to a book called "Goat Song". Yes, really.

Who am I, and why have I got the Goat Fever all of a sudden? I'm simply besotted of my sweet, curious, playful little goats, and I can't get enough information about them at the moment. It is my unfortunate experience, however, that most critter-related reading is either the cold and clinical kind or - worse yet - the I wub my putty-tat!!! variety. Egads, NO. No Chicken Soup for the Goatherd's Soul, for me, thank you.

Goat Song is actually quite poetically written, by a man who's relationship with his goats has become, by his own description, a quiet, symbiotic paradise of a sort. He describes the milking of his does as a time of quiet meditation for he and the doe alike. He further details the nitty-gritty, down and dirty details of animal keeping (sometimes in very graphic detail), interspersed with bits of the story of the history of the human/herd animal relationship through the millennia, with heavy meditations on what it means to be so life-and-death linked with another creature whom you sustain and in turn sustains you. It's good reading - educational, inspirational and so sweetly written.

In the end, it really just compels me to dive further and faster into this goat herding thing for the joy and satisfaction that there is to be found in it.

And his description of eating his hours-old chèvre rolled in homegrown herbs or honey is enough to get me chomping at the bit to get our Miss Gertie bred this fall.

The keys to a happy Me

I've been doing more than my fair share of whining lately, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all putting up with it. I've been working on getting myself sorted out, and have tried to focus on those things that make me get my bedraggled butt out of bed every morning. So here it is, the good stuff. In no particular order-


Homemade Wine


Experiencing Nature


Brown-eyed girls


This Guy :)


Goofy-Sweet Goats


Enough good food to feed my family


Flocks of fat chickens


Knitting nutty things for the people I love

Add to all that a Venti Caramel Macchiato, the middle of a warm cinnamon roll, and a good thunderstorm, and you've got one blissed-out chick on your hands. :)