My Funny Farm

This little desk calender sums it up!

I truly live on a Funny Farm!

The things that happen around here on a daily basis will crack you up, well they crack me up but I am not right and it doesn't take much to entertain me.

I have one big huge almost 150 pound Nubian goat, Belle, who is absolutely petrified of Roxy our little 5 pound pup!! She has clobbered me with her hooves, ran over me, drug me, kicked over the milk pail once, snorted, ran, kicked at (rarely does she want to stand still enough to kick at her though, cause Roxy might be able to grab her!!)............YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW AFRAID SHE IS OF ROXY!!!!!!

LOLOLOLOL!!!

Belle is my GREAT milker, sans Roxy in the area, that is a first time freshener and her big beautiful black spotted baby girl was snatched from her before they bonded, at the other farm, so she has never had a baby on her.........TIL NOW!!!!

She has taken over Saphira's twins. She will let them eat and eat and eat and they will not go back to Saphira if they were allowed to stay on Belle!!

Belle gives around a gallon of milk a day but suddenly I was down to a drip.......OMG what has happened? When Saphira came in the barn and it took me about an hour to milk her out I knew what it was. Saphira is a very hard milker, small teats and lightning legs! This was not going to work so I had to start separating them. Belle has to be put in the lower lot and brought thru 2 gates to get her to the milking parlor (sounds more professional when I call it my milking parlor) .......................................... but answer me this PLEASE.....why do goats NOT know how to get thru a gate? They immediately go to the hinge side of the gate, they try to go over it, Belle loves to attempt the under it route getting her neck stuck in the pickets of the gates, she tries to knock it down, she eats at my clothes when she stops for me to latch the gate that I practically have to stand on my head to get latched in the first place. Of course we have the other goats in the field who have to get in on the action too.....you know the grass is greener in HER lot., so I have to keep them from changing lots while wrestling Belle. Yesterday she had a head butting contest with Ellie Mae, while on the lead, while I was upside down latching the gate and I was right in the middle of the fight with my rear in between 2 mad goats weighing 150 poundsish!!!!!

All this trouble to keep me from having to bottle feed 2 babies twice a day????

I am not sure if it wouldn't be easier to bottle feed the babies........

then on top of all of the tricks I have to use to get her to the parlor.......just let her sneak a peek at Roxy lurking under the butterfly bush awaiting a nip at her or my heels.............................OMG!!!!!!!! Of course there is always the puppy action of chasing one of the cats thru the barn door and right between my legs and under the milk stand. I could just scream, I could just give up and bottle the babies, or I could sell the farm!!!!

But I just keep on and take it one milking at a time.

After the initial period of the battle of the hard heads and she is milked.................as she is released from the head chute, she won't step off the milk stand even if Roxy is in there, until she sniffs my hands, both hands, then she sniffs her bag and back to my hands....trying to figure out how I got that milk out??? I dunno?? Then she has to throw her head back and turn it as far as she can stretch it in a 360 turn, 2 or 3 times.......you would have to witness this..hehehehe and then after some gentle tugging she is ready to hop off and go thru the rodeo maneuvers back to her lot again.........only briefly passing thru the lot with her babies Daisy and Duke trying to grab a snort of milk and her trying to drag me to get to them. All the while Saphira has her panties all up in a wad cause Belle is near her babies!

Other than that Belle is a dream goat!!!!

I know she will make a good mother someday, just not happening today!

Yes she has been trained very well and is full of good manners but not here on this funny farm with all the obstacles!!!!!!

Speaking of kids......

I have had more grandkid time this summer than ever before.

Last night was the first night with only Danny and I in the house for well over a week!!

Way too quiet too!!

We got a really really great boat ride in Saturday with the grandkids and Leslie.

The weather was too hot even for the lake.

The water was so hot that you couldn't swim the first time we got out,

It would take your breath away.

We went up the lake in hopes that as the fresh water came in from the river that runs thru the mountains it would be cooler and we were right.

It was PERFECT!!!! We swam til we were all prunes!!

Emma decided that day that she was no longer afraid of riding the tube behind the boat and wanted Papa to go faster!!! He went as fast as the boat would go and she said she thought that would be OK!!! hahaha

Now about this MONSTER KID!!!!!!

Where do I begin?

Other than freaking out my goats.....

she has been head butted out of the pasture by a mama goat, head butted by baby goats while playing King Of The Mountain and she only wanted to chew on their long ears!!

She is stepped on numerous times by the milk maid because she stays under her feet wanting attention.......well the goat babies are cuddled too much!

She has a very bad habit of stealing the milkmaids "Make your milking time more pleasurable milking straps"....the nylon rope pieces that I have to tie lightning legs up to be able to touch her. 2 blue ropes that I always just throw over the back of my milking chair when I am finished milking Saphira, aka. Lightning Legs.

I have found these ropes in the flower bed and I know who loves to hide in the flower bed so it must be Roxy. This morning as soon as I, by habit, hung them on the back of the chair, I turned around and they were gone. I heard some growling and grumbling from under the butterfly bush and there they were, Roxy was having her way with them!!

I made it to the house and turned back around only to catch her with the pillow, that I have in my chair as a cushion,
drug out into the yard and then quickly under the butterfly bush. OMG What next?

This is no ordinary butterfly bush either....it is about 15 feet tall and as wide and branches are all the way down to the ground!! I think Roxy's dad will be crawling under there when he gets home and get the remains of the pillow, as I am sure she will shred it to pieces for me.

Now a real concern here about home canning.

I have been canning at home for ......well way too many years to count on my and your fingers and toes and I have never ever had this happen to me.

I have had probably 12 lids pucker like this one this canning season alone.

The lids are always sealed but with a huge pucker.

All the puckered up ones were processed in a boiling water bath too.

What is happening?

These were the lids that came on a new dozen of Kerr jars.

I have some other generic, bought in bulk, lids from the Amish store and it happened
with a few of those too. KNOCK ON A BIG PIECE OF WOOD HERE ..........KNOCK KNOCK on my head........I have not had a single jar not seal in forever but I am sure getting puckers.

Has this ever happened to you or is this just something else to be blamed on living on the

Funny Farm????