When Enoch comes to visit

My son and his girlfriend have flown to New York state to attend a wedding and I am grand-doggy sitting!

It took me and this sweet boy, Enoch, about a day to find our routine, but now we've got a good one. Here are the things I've learned will happen when Enoch comes to visit...

When Enoch comes to visit, we play a LOT of Frisbee:

In fact, it is necessary to hide the Frisbee when we're finished playing or the game would never be over:

Actually, the game never is over because I haven't managed to hide the Frisbee successfully yet:

When Enoch comes to visit, I try not to use the hairdryer very often. He doesn't care for it:

Oh, and Enoch prefers a firm bed for his mid-morning nap:

When Enoch comes to visit, he helps me with all my chores, which is a huge help to me:

I find I wake up much earlier in the morning when Enoch is visiting:

And when Enoch comes to visit... we take spontaneous Saturday trips to the Oregon coast:







...which makes everyone happy:



We've learned that when Enoch comes to visit...everyone has a good time!

Clever alternate use of lawn chair: #2, Goat Edition

My critters are a freakishly itchy bunch. Fortunately, I always try to have the proper tools on hand for them to find some relief.

Case in point, Pete and his lawn chair. Now, generally, Pete uses his lovely green plastic chair for his most-perfect napping spot, but on this day, it served a completely different purpose. It turns out, that the left arm rest reaches that always-hard-to-access spot on the head, right between the horn buds:

In this next photo, please note that while his head is still being scratched, he has adjusted his rather rotund belly to receive a scratching on its underside with the right arm rest. Coordinated, isn't he?:

Ooooh, back of the head is nice, too:

And, come to think of it, that left eye was a bit itchy:

Cheek! Cheek!!! Itchy cheeeeek!:

Now..just that one spot on the back of his head and....:

Perfect! I'm sure he feels *so* much better.:

Wait...:

Ohhhh yeahhhhhh....mmmmmm....

It would appear that I have a bilaterally proficient goat! Surely fame is just around the corner:

Once this itching stops:

And then, as quickly as it started, it all stopped - and Pete just stood there, motionless, in sort of a goat-y stupor, as if all of his possible goat-y needs had been met. It was the longest I'd ever seen him stand still. It lasted about 3.5 seconds:

And then he was off... to find a clever alternate use for a feed bucket:

I'll keep you posted if he manages to scratch any itches with that.

(You can see "Clever Alternate Use for Lawn Chair: #1 by clicking here. <--)

Did you know it looked like this?

I know... I said yesterday I'd share a sad tale about blueberries today, but I just couldn't get all my pictures organized in time (So frustrating. How do you organize your digital photos over multiple years?)

Anyway, in lieu of blueberry sadness, I decided to share a donkey palate today instead.

I've seen my donkeys yawn:

And in Beau's case, he yawns a lot:

But not until I caught his yawn from this angle:

...had I ever seen the roof of his mouth:

I didn't know it looked like this. Did you?:

Forgive me, please

...for this post is almost entirely about chicken poop.

If you are in any way offended by chicken poop, you should opt out now and not read any further. You see, I fear I may have been out here on the farm too long. For when I stepped outside today, and saw what Honey, my roaming chicken, had less than delicately left me, I thought immediately that it looked like a work of art:

Seriously, though, tell me this isn't quite artistic (in a rather twisted way), not to mention impressive - just in size alone:

I was certainly impressed because I immediately fell to my knees, pulled out my phone and texted a picture of it to my friend. "Your next post is going to be about poop art, right," she texted back. (I don't think she was all that impressed.) "This post is practically writing itself!" I responded with glee.

George was certainly impressed and immediately lay down and posed with it:

Can't you just imagine my gallery show?:

"Chicken poop with closed-eyed cat":

"Chicken poop with cat, soft-focus":

"Chicken poop with resting cat, black and white":

And finally, "Chicken poop with watchful cat, tinted collage":

I tried to speak with Honey - you know, to find out what she was thinking at the time of her creation, who her inspirations were, etc.:

... but she was extremely busy and couldn't be bothered with my questions:

I guess we'll never know:

Um, you do forgive me for this post, right?:

Here, have some blueberries.
You know I must really like you because these are the only ones I'm getting this year:

What? I haven't told you my oh-so-sad blueberry story yet? Ok, we'll talk about that tomorrow instead of poop.