Goat

Now that I have my priorities in order (good moms really probably should mention their child's wedding before they rattle on about their new pet - I suppose! :) I figure it's a prime opportunity to let you in on a little event that happened here a few months ago (sometime early July, I believe...

This has some echoes of the "Pony Tracks" tale I posted late this spring (but with a twist to the ending.) This time I was alerted to an alien presence when an old man knocked on the door and asked if I had a goat that got loose.

"Goat?" I asked, thinking not at all about goats, but about whether or not the creature he was talking about might actually be my llama - in - residence, one who might , perhaps, have just jumped the fence. "I don't have a goat, but I have a llama..."

"No," he said, shaking his head back and forth (and no doubt a little annoyed); "this looked like a goat, maybe a baby goat.

"Oh...you're sure it wasn't a little llama? ... cause we have one of those,"I persisted in my pre-coffee fog.

"No, no, this is definitely a goat," he said.

Duh, I thought - I'm sure he must know the difference between a llama and a goat.

But mention of a goat on the lam, so to speak, did help boost the adrenalen, and I sprang into action. Sure enough, out on the road was a little goat, wandering about. Now I remembered Rick telling me he'd seen a goat a few days before, meandering around the road a few miles away. A lost goat! It needed my help(of course!) I mentioned the sighting to the old man.

We tried to herd the goat into the yard. It took a little doing, following the little critter around, trying not to scare it...how cute, how cute! I'm sure I must have kept saying that. And he was! But unfortunately I got so wrapped up in catching the goat, I never even noticed the man was leaving until after he got in his pick up and drove away. Drats! I didn't even catch his name. I soon focused back on the goat, however... Who did he belong to, and what do we do with this goat until we find the answer to that question?

So we asked all around the neighborhood, and no one seemed to know a thing about who it might belong to, so now... well, I suppose we have a new pet!

But that was oh so long ago (ok, say July), and we still have that little stray goat. We played around with some names for a while - Lily, Billy, William, no doubt a few others as well. Finally came up with a frivolous, goofy ass name, Sweet William Go-Tee - but really, mostly we just call him Gooooaat (pronounced deeply and streeeetched out, of course!)

So almost three months later - and I really do hope whoever lost their goat just simply didn't want to be bothered by another billy... Anyhow, he is very cute, as you'll be able to see as soon as I post a pic of him . . .

...and whoever he used to live with better not come looking now - we just love this little guy!

Here he is trimming the rose bush...

I'll take a shot at posting some more pics of goat soon (due to popular demand, of course!)

Dustin and Cori Get Married...

Yikes! I've definitely slipped on my new and improved attempts at more consistent blog posting. Ah well, I'm back now...

...with my son married off, a new (old) job, and a new critter (a stray goat that wandered into the yard and just sorta stayed-more on that later.)

For now, let's see if I can find a nice picture of the newlyweds...
Ahh, there they are - don't they make a cute couple! This was one of the few you could see both of their faces and the lake behind them (Rick took these pics, and while we had front row seats, we were off to one side and couldn't get a great angle. Anyhow...)

It was a beautiful wedding, a sunset ceremony held outside right by Conneaut Lake, where they both grew up. The weather couldn't have been better, and I managed to survive having to sit beside my ex-husband for the entire ceremony. Dustin and Cori have been married for almost a month now (the Big Day was August 17) and married life seems to be suiting them well. Cheers to them! OK, lets see if I can get a few more pictures posted...

















Obviously, one of them smooching; the other is their grand entrance at the reception...

...and here's a pic of moi, the proud mom, with my son Dustin. Dustin and Cori are telling me they're planning on making me a grandma 4 or 5 times over! I'll keep you posted... er, umm, at least I'll TRY!