I have spent the last week combing our property and pulling up those horrid little ankle-grabbers that Phil and I call “sock burrs”, and today the goats came with me–all four of them. They don’t generally think much of the sock burr plants, but when I’m picking them, they think they must be delicious. Nibbles and Lilly kept grabbing mouthfuls out of the trash can I was filling up, and I kept trying to shoo them away to eat the ones I hadn’t picked yet. That would have been far more helpful! Cuzco was certain there must be something tastier than burrs in the trash can because he started rooting down into it like a kid looking for the toy in the cereal box. Petunia learned about cactuses and I spent some time pulling spines out of her nose and legs.

And then there was Nibbles… Nibbles, Nibbles, Nibbles. That wily goat was the worst when it came to pillaging the weed bin. But my afternoon really took an interesting turn when I heard her rummaging behind my back, and just as I was about to turn around and reprimand her, she walked up behind me and dumped a whole load of burrs down the back of my pants. You should have heard me whoop! I spent the rest of the afternoon picking burrs out of my underwear. I never did succeed in removing all of them. It was an itchy day. I keep telling myself that I will never again let goats help me with any project! But then I can’t help myself and I allow the entertainment factor to outweigh all practical concerns.

After we got back to the house, I brought Petunia up on the porch with me where we enjoyed the swings.

Phil was gone for the evening, so I had a friend over to watch a movie. She brought a 10-day-old Nigerian Dwarf buckling with her, so I brought Petunia up and we both sat with baby goats on our laps watching “Artois the Goat.” It was a perfect “goat day.”