I hope everyone had a great weekend. We got a lot done around our little farm. There is always the usual stuff, like cleaning out pens and feeding everyone. We also got new lights put up on the patio. I filled the humming bird and oriole feeders and hung them up, weeded the raised bed in the back yard and the rock garden in the front yard, and made macaroni salad for our family Memorial Day bbq.

One of the cats caught a good sized lizard. I went to investigate and saw that the lizard was not very injured, just playing dead. I removed him from the cat's presence and let him go in a very prickly, densely vegetated area near the garage. Hopefully, the cat didn't find him again. The cats are great about getting rid of unwanted critters. The thing is I cannot train them to discriminate between critters that are wanted, like lizards, and ones that aren't, like rats. They also kill snakes but they can't tell the difference between a rattler and a king snake!

While all the family was here yesterday, I recruited my son and son-in-law to help rangle another goat. Jenny is our biggest, wildest and meanest doe. She is also the hardest to catch. Her toe nails were getting so long that she was limping around the pen dangling her left front foot. After our dinner, Steve and Sam and Jeff went out armed with rope, toenail shears and bloodstop powder. I stayed in putting food away. I figured I'd have plenty of time to get out there before they caught her. I was wrong! They caught her, Sam and Jeff held her and Steve cut all her nails before I could even get out the door! Amazing! Steve is getting better with his lasso! Jenny is still limping but she will eventually get better and use her foot again. She is already putting weight on it. Who knew goats needed toenail clipping!

Steve also spent quite a bit of time pruning trees yesterday. He wants to make the place safer when fire season hits. I hate cuttting trees! They spend years getting big and branching out and I just hate cutting them. So we rangle about that. He wants to cut 10 branches off and I say only 2! So we compromise or I give in and he cuts the ones he thinks need it most. Now there are big mesquite branches all over the yard that need cutting up and removing. Sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day or, in our case, not enough energy left in the old bodies to get everything done in one day! Ha!

It is now 7am and about time to start the feeding routine. The goats are already yelling at me and my little red dog is barking. She wants back in the house. Hiho, hiho! It's off to work I go!