Is it a sign?

I've been serious about the goat research for a couple of weeks now, reading everything I can, looking around online... but I haven't requested anything, haven't put my address anywhere, haven't looked at any g oat supply catalogs at all.


So please tell me why today, out of nowhere, I opened the mail box to find a catalog from Hoegger Supply Company...

Cover to cover, nothing but goat stuff.


How did THAT happen and why?

I'm baffled.

Delighted but baffled.


More drama today. Blarg. I'll be glad when things have settled down. Seriously. Thank goodness Tiff is handling it all so well. beyond well. Better than I am handling it, in fact.

On a brighter note, the car has new, um (*asks Tsu because she can't remember*), rack and pinion assembly with inner and outer tie rods, tires and an alignment, as well as new spark plugs. The spark plugs were loose and there were three that fit and one that is like the size for outboard motors. I have no clue how the thing was even running but all it needs is new car smell air freshener and you wouldn't even know it was used. and old. and super high miles.

I'm so glad I have my car back!! Even though it was gone for repairs longer than it was here, I still got attached to it. Now I just want some horse window stickers. hehehehe.

On a brighter note....

As promised... something less dismal than drama.

My MIL has a friend, Nancy, who used to have goats. When I started to seriously think about getting myself a few I thought of her and wondered if she still had them. Now I have been catching some flak from friends and family about the whole goat thing... Not from Tsu, he was the one that made a comment about changing his mind and wanting goats instead of a donkey. But from other folks who don't quite get the concept of "small farm". You know, the type of place where you kind of grow your own food stuffs and such, and not just a place with a large yard and maybe a horse and some barn cats.

So my plan is that if we get enough this year from tax refund and bonus I am going to buy a 10 x 14 shed, and divide it into two sections, and put about 10 chickens in one side and about 3 goats in the other (and a buck who will have his own pen farther away from the house and away from my does, the smelly bugger). The chickens will get a chicken wire fenced yard and get to free range once they are older and settled in, and the goats will get a pen made out of 16 foot long cattle panels and I will get some extras panels for a mobile goat pen so they can browse down several areas that have become over run with brush Not sure if they will be the panels with smaller holes at the bottom and bigger at the top, or horse panels with 2x4 mesh all over.

Anyway, every time I start to work on making my farm a FARM i catch some attitude from someone, or several someones. So, I am a big believer in signs. not in a spiritual sense so much, just as in, "If something is the right thing to do, it will all fall into place."

So... guess who, after several years, we run in to at WalMart this weekend? Nancy who had goats. Imagine that. she said she hasn't had goats in about 3 years, but her front paddock is growing over with brush so she was thinking if getting some more. she asked what kind I wanted and we discussed breeds and she said she would get my number from my MIL so we could chat about it later and I gave her one of my business cards. She was VERY encouraging.

I walked away from our conversation wanting to find my goats RIGHT NOW! lol. I mean, I have a fully enclosed stall in the barn I could keep them in until I get their pen built, right?

My car is almost done. We can go get it tomorrow. Then I can try getting in touch with that lady close by me with dairy goats.

I'm so silly.


I also started looking for gourd seeds and planning my garden. Two places I used to buy gourd seeds stopped selling them. *cry* so I have to try a new place this time.

I seriously need canning jars, so I can try canning stuff out of my garden. I've never done that before so I may need advice, hehe. I have a big book about preserving foods by canning, dehydrating and freezing. I have this crazy goal to someday be able to provide enough of my own food that if needed we could get by without going to the grocery store. You know, in case we ever get snowed in for a month, lol.

To end this... I've narrowed my goat breed choices down to the following breeds, in this order:


pygmy:








Kinder (Pygmy/Nubian cross):








and Nigerian Dwarf (they can have blue eyes...):

update: ugh...

I am just not going to go into it. The details don't matter, not really. Suffice it to say that Tiff is "no longer welcome" at her dad and step-mom's home, and leave it at that. No sense going in to details. *sigh*


Tiff is fine, or at least is acting fine and says she is fine. She feels like the last two days has shown her that her feeling of being shoved out was justified and she is just ready to move on. I, on the other hand, am a complete wreck. I'm gradually starting to pull it together but my head is killing me, my gut is killing me, and I am worried that when the full import of this hits her she is going to crash hard.

I'm just dumbfounded, and sad for her. And a lot of other things i am just no going to talk about here.

I'll be back later today with a more upbeat post, i promise.

teenager/parent drama...

I'm too frazzled right now to type this out again, so here are my two posts from Global Family Room about it (slightly edited to remove some TMI stuff and remove some of my shocking and questionable language, lol):

8:30 am

Tiff ran away from her dad's. Walked the two miles to our house at 1 am last night using the light from her cell phone as a flashlight because she was out of minutes to call us (probably good thing because tsu and i were WASTED on cheap wine and driving even just two miles to pick her up would have been a bad idea). She had been in a tizzy when she left because i told her she could not come home saturday night from his house, so she was just a bucket of attitude waiting to explode. Tsu and I planned to spend most of today *otherwise engaged*, guess it is a good thing we did our valentine's dinner friday and *had some quality time* today, lol, otherwise I might be REALLY pissed.

I asked her why and she said that a) he ripped in to her over the nose ring. It seems her step mom knew and had told everyone EXCEPT her dad. Step mom had found out from her sister who saw it when she was snooping around to see what Tiff's cousin was doing on line. So Tiff thought he already knew but susan had not told him (just EVERYONE else) so it was a bit of a shock. *blahblahblah* and 2) when she got there all of the stuff she had up on the one corner of her room that is still hers (because last Halloween they shoved all her stuff in to the corner and moved her baby sister in to her room) was pulled down off the walls and left piled on her bed.

So at 1:30 am or so i got to call him and tell him that our daughter had just shown up at our house, she was fine, and she said she had left him a note on her bed. She has NOT really told me what the note said, just that it said she was coming over here and "some other stuff". I said, "You mean something like, 'You obviously don't really want me over here, so *bite me*?'" and she said "Something like that." *sigh*

When i called he went off about how she needs to have some gratitude and realize she has it pretty good. he kept asking me what was going on with her and i kept telling him i don't know. She is a teenager. I went through it too. It is hard on kids having two homes, for one thing, and teens go stupid/crazy from 13 to 18 anyway. He kind of blasted me for "getting her nose pierced" and i had to remind him that the piercing was already almost entirely healed before i even knew about it. *more blahblahblah, lol*

Anyway, the next few days could be interesting. I am at a complete loss as to how to handle this. This is one thing she does NOT talk to me much about, the actual reasons WHY she is so full of anger and disdain for her dad. I mean, I have worked REALLY hard trying to keep her relationship good with him so it is clearly not anything from over here. All she will say is that he is *annoying and doesn't understand her* and that her siblings drive her nuts. *blah blah blah* Aside from telling me basic facts about things like when they moved her sister in to her room and such she doesn't go in to how she actually FEELS about that. But i suspect that is part of it. It's like someone over there has been slowly pushing her out the back door for the last several years anyway. i suspect that may be a big part of this but she is really closed mouthed about it.

11:21am

Well, I needed to vent so I called my MIL.

She said that she just had a feeling that part of this with the crazy hair and nose ring and wild makeup was that Tiff is desperate to know that she is loved for who she is, and not what she is like on the outside, or what other people want her to be. So some of her outlandishness may be a test, to see who really loves her unconditionally. I had not thought of that aspect of it, but had this gut feeling she had a point.

So Tiff got up and asked if she could go to Jacob's (her boyfriend's) and I said, "Um, no. We kind of have some issues that we are going to need to deal with here." and she was like, "I left him a NOTE. What more is there to talk about?"

*rolls eyes* kids. I swear.

Anyway, we talked and she said the main thing was that every time she goes back over there more of her stuff is crammed into a corner and she feels like she is being shoved out anyway. Then I told her about my conversation with Karen and she got seriously teary eyed and said, "I never thought about it that way but... *sniffle* You know, you may be right. I think you are right. I never thought about it but... *blink blink blink back tears* I think you may be right."

She said she explain in her note to her dad about the feeling like she was being shoved out because every time she went back over more of her space had been taken away. She also said she just doesn't want to go back over there. Ever.

Really not sure how to handle that. She said she can see her brothers and sister at Oomama's and Papa's house. She still wants to go over there.

My stomach is killing me, I'm so worried. But to be honest, she seems completely at peace with this and relieved that it has all finally hit the fan. It would be a lot harder if she were upset. On the other hand it bothers me that the idea of cutting her dad out of her life doesn't seem to bother her at all. And that there is nothing I can do to change that. I mean if everything I have done so far to encourage a good relationship isn't enough it is out of my hands, and I hate that feeling.

Someone please remind me why ANYONE actually WANTS to be a parent? this *poo* is HARD!