Naomi has a lovely garden. We make salad just from the stuff in her garden. Tonight, we baked pumpkin bread from a pumpkin from her garden. Correction: I watched Naomi bake pumpkin bread from a pumpkin from her garden.

I get to drive Naomi's Prius today. It is so quiet. I think I am stalling it. That's just because I stall my own car quite often, I guess.

My plane descends into O'Hare.

I look outside and see enormous, nasty looking bugs and wonder if the plane hit a nest or something. These things are big and gross. There is a dead one on the jet bridge. Some of them come out on the luggage conveyor belt. So gross.

Cicadas. Once every 17 years in Illinois for a few weeks in the summer.

Why the time when I am here?

Welcome to Illinois, Jamie

Horse on the Loose

The drama doesn't stop on the farm. Ever.

So Ellen says "I'm going to put the goats back in the main pasture with the horses. Wanna come?".

"Sure," I say, "Let me put on a bra."
(I am still in my pajamas).

Ellen is convinced the goats will just follow her to the pasture, as they did last time they got loose. They have gotten feistier since that time. I bring a box of Grape Nuts to shake and that works reasonably well.

We lead the goats to the pasture with the horses (And, listen, there's the soundtrack to "Brokeback Mountain" playing in the background).

So the goats in are in but whhhhhooooaaa the horse is out. Worthy bolts. Jamie bolts. Jamie (stupidly) grabs Worthy's tail to stop Worthy from running across the road. Worthy starts to gallop. Jamie starts to gallop. Traffic is stopped in both directions.

I am holding the horses tail and running like I have never run. This is the stuff of a Nike TV spot. But the horse is too fast and I am close to being dragged (it's surprising I wasn't kicked, in retrospect) so I let go and keep running. Then it occurs to me that chasing the horse is not going to help. He is faster and bigger than me.

I stop running. Worthty stops running.

A woman in her Mini pulls up and says "Is that your horse?"

"Yes!" I say "Well, no" I am still in panic mode "It's our landlord's horse."

The woman, Lynn, lives around the corner so she takes her Mini at 90 mph a la the Italian Job and gets some food and a harness.

Meanwhile, Ellen has called the landlord.

Lynn returns. Gina the landlord arrives. We get the harness on Worthy and return him to the pasture.

But Zsa Zsa is loose. Oh boy. It never ends.

Good thing I put on that bra.

Goats on the Loose, Part Two

The goats are in the back pasture, because the horses are in the main pasture. But there's a hole in the back pasture so the goats got loose. I put them back in there twice already but they keep on getting out so we stopped worrying about it. So, there are just goaties walking around the property. They come up to the window, wander around on the porch. They asked Ellen if she would mind making them some decaf in the morning and Zsa Zsa was looking for some hair spray for her goatie (ooooh, that was baaaaad). When I pulled in they come up to the car and help me unload groceries.

We are *this close* to just letting them in the house and teaching them tricks.

The goat food is kept in a garbage can. Yesterday I witnessed three goats inside the garbage can getting at the food. I took a teriffic video that I will post soon.

They are eating everything.

Goats on the Loose, Part One

An e-mail from Ellen:

Subject: Oh what a pity

that you didn't pull in the same time i did. the goats greeted me in
the driveway. all snuck out, just waiting there. followed me wherever
i went. tried to get in the car. followed me right back to the
pasture where i locked em back up. then the horses sort of did that
"high horse" thing where they rear their front legs up after
charging....well at least worthy did, to molly. twice. some sort of
territorial thing. i talked to worthy about it and expressed my
disappointment. my talk ended up in a whisper. i get why they do
that.