Good morning, world! What a beautiful and glorious day to be up at 7am!
Sort of.
I jump out of bed at 7am because today is Drive Goats Into The Mountains Day, and that is a special day. We get up early to complete a few chores around the farm so we can make sure everything is in order to go hiking. That means checking to make sure the high tunnel is properly secured, all the plants are watered, and the animals that are staying behind are fine.
Nooooo!
NOOOOOOO!
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Apparently, first order of the day is just staring in agony at how utterly dead everything is. Except the goat, a toe in the face confirms that he is, in fact, just sleeping like a weirdo. But the high tunnel that we have been relentlessly patching has finally decided to give up the drunk ghost act and become a real ghost via seppuku-like suicide. With a giant tear down the center, the Tunnel of Doom is officially dead.
Also dead are the squash. I am unsurprised because I planted them. Lauren is more surprised, but I did warn her profusely that my ability to raise plants is on par with the Nazis' ability to raise Jews. We get over the death of the squash relatively quickly. After all, fuck those guys. But the high tunnel stings, and we are fairly stunned that something that was confirmed as 'high-wind resistant' by State of Utah's Agriculture Department resists even less than a girl getting hit on by Hugh Jackman dressed as Wolverine.
Our last chore of the morning is fly-spraying Ruby, who is apparently a fly magnet.
NOOOOOO!
I momentarily panic until I realize the pony is just getting her tan on. Also that's not even Ruby. I get the right pony and spray her down.
"Do apples come out of the spray bottle?"
All the chores are done. Time to pack up some goats!
"I dunno, we're pretty good here."
I learn that the goats do not particularly enjoy being loaded into a trailer, but that is too bad. We get most of the wethers (male goats that have been shorn of their manliest qualities (balls)) and Merlin into the truck, and take along Princess too, because she is little but not too little for the trail. She takes it in stride like a lady, but the boys act like they are dying.
"Let me out! I want to liiiiiive!"
"Does this train go to the Statue of Liberty?"
After answering the insipid questions of goats, I get to play Catch the Baby Goats And Shove Them Into the Barn, which is a pretty fun game. The baby goats would rather come on the trail with us, but they are too little.
All goats that are invited being accounted for, we take off for the Deseret Peak Wilderness.
It's around here somewhere.
We find the trail head without incident, because Lauren knows what she is doing. Then it is time to unload the goats, which one would think would be easy. But noooo. First they did not want to get in, now they do not want to get out. But they are goats and have no say in matters of what we will and won't do, so eventually they all get out.
"Is it time to go home yet?"
Right as we manage to get all the goats out of the trailer, a woman drives up with her barking dogs, and the goats stampede right back into the trailer, so we repeat the process of pulling them out goat by terrified, reluctant goat. Eventually they learn what is good for them, which is listening to what we say, and we saddle up Odysseus with one of the packs. We go to put the second on Ajax, and find that the pack is broken. Why should it be not broken, we wonder? After all, has anything happened today that would lead us to think the gear would all work flawlessly? No. No it has not.
The problem is that a strap has fallen out of one of the heavy-duty buckles, and is so frayed that there is no way to fit it in the hole of the buckle. Here is an accurate representation of the problem:
Having no scissors, we try in vain to shove the thing back in, but it's like trying to keep a Mormon from feeling guilty about masturbating: it ain't gonna happen.
Princess and Merlin give no fucks about our plight.
A new plan is necessary. Lauren roots around in her truck and comes up with some old matches, and we try to burn the ends of the frayed strap. We find quickly that the matches are so old, half of them will not light, and Deseret Peak becomes the abortion clinic of the match world as the wind snuffs the other half out before they even get a chance to live.
It is hot, and Ajax is exceedingly fat and uncooperative. But perseverance is the word of the week, and I dig up shears meant for cutting clothing off wounded body parts in the first aid kit. We use that to cut the strap, and then I ask Lauren if she minds me lighting fires in her truck, because that is exactly what I am going to do. She assumes I mean matches, so she lets me do so, but I in fact succeed at setting the whole strap on fire and burning my fingers. Luckily no one is around to witness this, and I go outside to put the strap on.
I'll let that one sink in.
Now, while it sounds like this whole process probably should take about ten minutes, the fact of the matter is it takes nearly forty. The driver's seat is littered in the corpses of matches by the time I finish fitting the strap, and some excessive hammering is required because the shears for clothing are not thick enough to cut through frayed webbing, which no normal human would ever be wearing as pants, and so burning it causes it to thicken and still not fit through the buckle. But like I said, perse-fucking-verance. I refuse to be bested by a goddamn goat backpack strap, and with a good blend of common sense and excessive cursing, by God, I fit the thing back in the buckle and strap that pack around Ajax's ridiculous amounts of lard.
Pictured: a fat goat without his backpack buckled.
Our goats packed, the area predator-free, my fingers are singed from matches, and the morning turning to afternoon, we are finally, FINALLY, ready to hit the trail.
(to be continued)
GOAT OF THE DAY: Kitt
Kitt is the mommy goat of the two littlest babies, that are the No Name Twins, since they have no names. She is a silly goat who is more interested in getting pet than watching her children. Kitt likes people so much, this is the face she made when I took her picture.
I can't look at this without laughing hysterically.
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