Saturday Phil and I hiked up Bartlett Trail again, only this time we took Finn and Sputnik and packed a picnic lunch. Since there wasn’t much to bring, Sputnik did the honors of carrying the pack while Finn went in the buff. This was Sputnik’s day in the camera lens. Finn usually hogs the frame, and if Sputnik isn’t wearing a pack he becomes invisible even if he’s somewhere in the picture. But Finn stayed out of the way this time (I guess he was ashamed to be doing no work), and Sputnik’s red panniers helped him stick out against the sparse fall foliage so I indulged in taking way too many photos of my beautiful packgoat.

Rye Homecoming was today and Phil and I hitched up our chariots for parade! Phil wore his Thor thunder god outfit. The theme this year was pirates, but we didn’t know that so we went with the Thunderbolt theme since we can’t go wrong with that. The football team is the Rye Thunderbolts or “T-Bolts” as they are known locally.

I went with sort of a lady Thor outfit. The T-Bolt’s colors are purple and silver so I was going to wear a purple cape with my silver dress until I realized that we used all the purple material to line the coffin in our Halloween goat hearse last year. So I found a leftover scrap and made a sash instead. The wonderful purple wig came from Phil’s mother and it was perfect for the occasion!

Finn and Sputnik were pretty good considering how little we’ve driven them lately. I think we’ve only been out once since the International Goat Days Festival six weeks ago. Sputnik thought it was a race, not a parade, and he kept trying to trot ahead and pass everyone. Luckily he’s very good at the “whoa” command but it meant that we went along in short bursts where we trotted and then screeched to a halt before trotting on when the parade got far enough ahead.

Finn took a more leisurely attitude about the whole thing and almost got left behind a couple of times. Finn loves attention and doesn’t mind lingering in the street while people admire him and take pictures.

Phil and I hiked a couple of miles up the Bartlett Trail last Sunday. Since Finn and Sputnik were nowhere to be found when we were ready to leave, we took TinCup and Nauti who happened to be loitering around the house looking for attention. They happily loaded into the truck and then very unhappily scolded us all the way to the trailhead, but once we got there they settled right down.

It was a beautiful, golden day. Most of the aspen leaves are gone but there are some patches still lingering here and there. The scrub oak is a lovely burnt orange right now and the grasses are tawny, giving everything a warm glow.

I had a hard time getting pictures of these girls because they were so clingy and insecure about being taken on a new trail away from home. They kept crowding me at first and trying to squeeze past me at every opportunity, but with the help of my jacket I was able to discourage them from constantly stepping on my heels and bumping into me. By the end of the hike they had relaxed enough to hang back and browse along the trail like goats are supposed to do.

The girls LOVED these rock outcroppings and didn’t want to leave this place! But since Tinny especially was making me nervous with her cliffside explorations, Phil and I hurried them along after snapping a few pictures.

The sure are best friends!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there was a video floating around on Facebook of our chariot race in Millington which I was trying to get ahold of.

Lo and behold!

We present your heroes! 

The supreme winners: 

Our champions greet their adoring fans. 

And here are some pictures of kids taking cart rides later that afternoon. I had fun wrapping Sputnik’s horns. Finn’s horns were done up in red and white so some of the kids called him the “Christmas goat”. 

The kids’ favorite thing about riding the goat cart was usually honking the horn.