Our little goat is growing up.

Unfortunately, he thinks he’s growing up to be a dog. Or maybe a people. He doesn’t seem sure about it, but the people get to go in the house, and he thinks he should too.

Elvis isn’t really sticking as a name. Maybe when he’s bigger, it will fit him, but when he’s bouncing with all four feet at once to rush up to the back door to share in the leftovers with the dogs, he’s not really fitting the Elvis image. We’re mostly just calling him Goaty-Goat, and he’s starting to come to it. Dumb names, here we come.

He’s as fat as a tick too. He turns his nose up at the goat-appropriate things like cucumber peels and vegetable trimmings from the kitchen. But the rose bush is delicious, and he’s nibbled it as high as he can reach. He also has an alfalfa bale; I don’t want to untie it, because I’m pretty sure he’ll eat the whole thing at once. He pulls pieces of hay out from the sides and regulates himself. He did finally decide that goat chow is good too, and that dog food is not.

He is actually grazing on the “lawn,” but I knew I was kidding myself about that. That was really just an excuse to get a goat for a pet.

The neighbors are thankful that he’s quieted down. I went over and apologized to them yesterday. She did notice that he’s much quieter when he’s loose. I didn’t mention that that’s because I put the hay bale over on the other side of the house, so he mostly hangs out there. He’s settled down when the dogs are gone too. I had to wean him from the horses’ company for the first few days this week, so I left the dogs with him all day. I took them this morning, and he was fine.

He’s still a fun little pet. Seamus loves him to death, and so do I. John doesn’t care much one way or the other, I don’t think, but that’s just how John is. I’m sure he sees him out of the corner of his eye when he’s playing video games. How wholesome.

…unless one of you has been majorly burned and doesn’t believe in it any more.

Cowboy and I were talking yesterday, and about something that I have a hard time bringing up. I know he’s been dumped hard on his ass, twice, and I was starting to get the feeling by his little side comments that he no longer feels that marriage is important to him.

He confirmed that.

Wow, that was a punch in the gut from the man I intend to spend the rest of my life with.

I can see why he feels that way, if I use my brain and not my emotions. But it’s all I’ve been thinking about lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I do still believe in marriage, and it is important to me. It’s not just a piece of paper; it’s a public commitment to love and support each other for the rest of your lives.

Without that public statement, I’m always going to have a little niggling fear in the back of my head, “What if he stops loving me and walks away? Where’s the promise to stand by me?”

He’s coming from two bad divorces; terrible betrayal from both of the other women he’s loved, and seeing a lot of his friends’ marriages go down in flames the same way. He’s of the opinion that marriage has ruined many a good relationship, and he doesn’t want to ruin ours.

Yes, I can see that he’s had a hard time, and that other people have too. But what about people that make it work? The people that both try to make it work for the rest of their lives? And why is he assuming that I’m going to behave the same way?

I am not his ex-wife. I have not betrayed anyone, although I have been on the receiving end. I make a promise to him, and I’m going to keep it for as long as he does.

He thinks that we have as strong a commitment unmarried as we would married. But I don’t feel it. He’s not a big one for showing his feelings, and by not standing up and telling the world, he’s leaving a little hole in me. Our relationship lacks a completeness, and I’m not sure how to tell him that I feel that way.

We’re not real big on the talking about our feelings; I’m always a little afraid that if I lay it out on the line like that, he’s going to walk away. The rational part of me knows that no, he won’t, but it’s really hard to do. He’s gun shy about so many things like that. I think that if we don’t reach some sort of compromise in the next few years, I’ll ask him to go to a counselor with me.

It’s a little early in the relationship to be bothered by this so much. Being shy of marriage to the point of waiting years and years, somehow I feel I could get my hands around. But the prospect of never has me really unsettled.

I know we both have it in us to have one of the good ones. We love each other more than any one else before. Is that where this is coming from? I really don’t know. But my instincts say that I want to be his wife, not some sort of girlfriend, which implies a temporary status. I never planned to be someone’s permanent girlfriend, which puts me into a real dilemma when the man of my dreams doesn’t want a wife.

What, does he not love me enough? Am I not good enough? Does he think I’ll fail him somehow? The two before me did, and he must have loved them at one point, or he wouldn’t have married them.

These are the horrible doubts that go through my mind. I don’t like to look at them directly; it’s like looking at the sun. I’d rather just slide my eyes by them, or maybe glance at the shadows. But sometimes I have to face them.

I’m not looking for reassurance. Writing these thoughts out helps me to sort them and face them. I have no doubts that we’ll work it out. I just don’t know exactly how that will be right now, and I like to know these things ahead of time.

Yeah, I know, life’s not like that.

John got braces on his front teeth yesterday, around four in the afternoon.

By dinnertime, one of the brackets had fallen clean off. I had to cut the ¼ inch of wire that was stabbing him in the mouth.

I’m not thrilled with this quality of work. I had braces for two or three years, and I don’t remember a bracket ever falling off. I’ll be calling them in about five minutes to get it fixed.

Well, if my neighbors are threatening to sell their house and move because of the noise, it sure isn’t my little goat causing it. I’ll be right behind them. I forget in the winter that those damn dogs behind me make such a racket that I can’t sleep with the window open all summer.

I’m really dragging today. It’s not just the damn piercing Chihuahua behind me. Their next-door-neighbors, the ones behind my complaining neighbor, have three big dogs that fight all night long. I hardly got any sleep. It’s not like I can just shut the window and go on in the summer, since I don’t have an air conditioner. When it’s 110° out and your choice is to be stifled or listen to that crap, it makes for an unhappy summer.

I remember what a relief it was to go out to Cowboy’s every other week last summer. This year there will be more calls to the Sheriff. That amount of noise all night long is just inexcusable.

And it’s not my little goat. Elvis has settled down a lot. I think his initial noisiness was just due to being weaned. He’s quiet now as long as the dogs are there to keep him company. He’s kicked Jessie out of her doghouse at night. I’ll have to see if he can handle being alone without the dogs; otherwise I’ll have to set up a pen at Cowboy’s and bring him with me next week. I think he’ll settle down even more as he gets older.

So I picked the baby goat up on Thursday evening. That was highly entertaining in itself, since the neighbor with the goats is a real Doctor Doolittle. She’s a vet tech, and seems to be a collector, except that she takes extremely good care of her menagerie, and many collectors don’t.

I was greeted at the gate by a galumphing Great Dane and a Doberman Pinscher that she was trying to call off. Since she had the gate open, I walked in, as the code of conduct goes. This is one place that doesn’t mess around; they’ve got a complete chain link fence, many dogs tied up or kenneled in the front yard, and signs warning of guard dogs.

I could see she had a shock collar on the Doberman, and she did know I was coming, so I just walked in far enough for her to see me and stood still. I have been around the dog before, so I wasn’t too worried, but she seemed to be having a time calling him off. Finally, he veered away. That’s very nice that she’s training her dogs to mind, but I’m not sure that I really appreciate being an unwitting dummy.

Then she told me that she was really working with the dog because the week before, a lady came in when the gate was closed and the dogs were loose, and he bit the shit out of her. That’s nice—totally the victim’s fault, since in this country, you don’t just keep walking in a posted yard with dogs coming at you. But still, here I was potentially the next victim and doing everything right.

Once she introduced us though, the dog was fine. I do love Dobermans. The Great Dane was a big ol’ puppy—not even a year old. She was a big leaner, and between the Doberman on one side and the Dane on the other, I was feeling a little too well loved. The Dane was mouthy, and I got completely slobbered.

So we went and got the goat, and I took him over to the barn and got him all situated for the night in one of the horse trailers. He clearly wasn’t very people socialized, and had just been pulled off his mother. So he cried and cried, which freaked out one of our less experienced horses. The rest of them didn’t give a shit though, and all was fine.

I took him home and got him all taken care of Friday morning. The dogs were very interested—Angus still is. The goat (he has been named Elvis—the kids liked it) is still hollering, but mostly because he’s lonely.

Seamus goes out there and keeps him company, and he’s quiet the whole time. By Sunday afternoon, Elvis was tame enough to follow either Seamus or me around, so I let him out in the yard for a little bit. Angus got a little too excited over that, and found out what that lumpy collar means. He’s still fascinated with the goat, but he’s quickly going to learn to leave it alone. Jessie is bored by the whole thing.

The boys and I had a fun afternoon at Thomas’ birthday party. It’s not every party that has an organized drowning^*!

The boys’ gift of two water fighters went over well, and Marci organized a tournament. Picture 12 or so ten year olds having water wrestling matches, and you get the picture. It was pretty fun. One of the girls ended up winning the whole shebang, with all the moms cheering her on.

Cowboy and son spent the day traveling between two rodeos. The last time I heard from them, they were sitting about third in the team roping at the first one, and Chris was second or third in the calf roping. That was all in the slack though; standings could change during the performance. They called while they were on their way to the second rodeo.

It’s funny that I never get to see them win a roping. Well, I did see Chris win the 10-steer this fall, but not with Cowboy as his partner. I have yet to see Cowboy win one. He has won, just not when I’m there to see it. I’m convinced that either the camera or I am a jinx. So maybe they’ll have good luck tonight, because I’m sure to go with them next time.

^*no actual children were drowned in the making of this entry

Grouse called me on something in my branding entry, and he’s right; I totally forgot the castrating step.

It was silly to forget it, since the little boys and I were having a good ol’ time playing with the ball sacks. Adam, who’s about two, was initially horrified when I handed him one. They’re really soft, and kind of squishy, and he gave me a look that said, “What is this?” But then he and Dillon and Jacob got into ball sack snowball fights and sneaking them onto each other’s hats, and we all had a ton of fun. At one point, Dillon had about eight stuffed in his pockets. We suggested that he should probably take them out before his mom found them in the laundry. I don’t think that would have gone over too well.

And what do you think we were barbecuing?

Grouse, the horses and ropes look excessive, but I really don’t think you’d get a lot of volunteers if it were all groundwork. It’s pretty easy to run them through a chute and use a calf table. I don’t know about your suggestion of mugging them by hand though. You must be branding smaller calves. These were mostly in the 400-pound range, with some bigger. Oh, and they’re too big to band.

Besides being traditional to use horses here, it’s fun. It’s the only time some of these guys get to use their horses for something besides riding around. A few of them are full-time cowboys, like Lonnie, and some do a little up in the hills on the weekends. But most of them have regular jobs, and get to go out and do this a couple of times a year. We only had six horses in the branding pen at a time, but even that was a little overcrowded. The foreman has to be careful to rotate everyone in to rope, or someone’s bound to get pissed off and not come back next year.

These brandings are more about the social event than efficiency. They get everything done, and done right. It’s a long day, but they have fun at it.

This particular branding was actually pretty low-key. Everyone got along and did their jobs. It seems that most of the time, there’s more drama than that. Someone didn’t get to rope enough, someone wasn’t doing it right, someone pissed off someone else, and someone got drunk and shot up someone else’s good hat. Heh, that actually happened the night before this one, and was the talk of the day. Bunch of cowboys can be whinier than a group of women, I swear.

Just some quick pictures from this weekend. The black and whites from the previous weekend are still out at the processor.

The kids having fun. That’s our little cousin on the bottom of the pile. John kind of got cut off there, which I think was the processor’s fault.

Cowboy and Chris roping. It looked real good until Cowboy missed the right horn, and then it was all over.

Seamus at his opening game. I got a lot of good pictures from that, quite enough to justify not buying the photo package. I won’t inflict them all on yall.

Cowboy called tonight, and he’s on his way up to the vet. Apparently Chris’s number one heel horse cut her face all up sometime today while out in the arena. He said she’s got a flap of skin hanging off from below her eye all the way down her nose, but that it probably looks worse than it is. They’ll be there half the night.

This is why they need backup horses. I think Chris was going to rope in the Pro-Am Friday, and this shouldn’t stop him. His calf horse is also a good heel horse, and he’s been bringing up a little bay mare to be both.

Too bad Cowboy’s out of horses for this event—it’s really fun to rope with the pros, who are in town for the Oakdale PRCA Rodeo this upcoming weekend.

Sometimes the disparity between my sons amazes me.

John is very intelligent; quick with math and spelling, and he can build incredible structures out of Legos that actually work. But he’s terrible with the social skills.

Seamus gets along with everyone; he has friends his own age, and once he gets past being shy, he goes out and tries new things.

I attribute this to two things, mostly. Seamus went to preschool and John didn’t, and for the first four years of John’s life, he was raised by a depressed, isolated, and unhappy mother. Seamus doesn’t remember those days; the mother who raised him was happy and outgoing.

I tried to be a stay-at-home Mom for John. I thought that’s what was best for kids. I didn’t expect, when I started, to be walloped with post-partum depression, and to be moved against my will and mentally abused by my husband. I hate the most the affect it had on my son. He doesn’t understand how to get along with other people. Why would he? He spent his formative years cooped up in the house. He didn’t know any better, and I thought daycare was a cop-out at the time.

I couldn’t stand it anymore when he was almost four, and I got a job outside the house. That’s when my life started to turn around; when I started to see that it didn’t have to be that way. I made a friend that made me believe I was worth more than that, and that I could make it on my own. Even the marriage counselor agreed that it was better for children to live with two divorced, happy parents, than the misery we were all in.

By then, Seamus had arrived. He was eighteen months when we moved out, so he really doesn’t remember anything else. And he went to a family run daycare for his first four years. They did wonders for his socialization, and when we changed him to a more organized center, he was off and running.

They had different kindergarten teachers too. Again, I didn’t know better at the time, but I think John’s teacher was sub-par. I know his first grade teacher was horrible; we transferred him out of that class mid-year. And it’s taken him until now, fourth grade, to find a teacher that really cares for him. Even if she’s slack on the sending messages home part.

Seamus’ teacher is much different. He’s learning to write sentences, which I don’t recall John doing in kindergarten. He brought home a project this week. He’s supposed to pick an animal, research it, write about it, and make a presentation.

He picked deer, mostly because the bear is still at the taxidermist. I’ve promised him that we will take it to school for show and tell when I get it back. He looked through one of my hunting magazines, and picked a big buck to draw. He had trouble drawing from a picture, but hey—he’s only in kindergarten. So I gave him a rough outline, and he just finished cutting it out. He’s coloring it now, and then we’ll glue the ears and antlers on. I told him he could bring one of the antler sheds I found this year to go with his project.

What a contrast! I can’t even strong-arm John into doing his mission project. You’d think he’d be all over that, especially since it involves constructing something. He gets to glue sugar cubes, but he’s really not interested. So I’m going to make him do it anyway, because he has to, but he won’t have half the fun at it that Seamus is having right now.

I can guess who’s going to want to go hunting with me when he’s twelve.

So today was opening day for Seamus’ T-ball league. This time we’re in the city closer to me than his father, and man, do these people take their T-ball seriously!

I am so not a soccer mom. Rodeo mom, I can get behind. But I don’t really get the ball-throwing attraction. I can barely stand to be at the practices, and I never was the cheerleader type. I like to see Seamus improve—he can catch and throw this year. But I’m never going to be the kind of mom who jumps around and whoops and hollers every time their spawn picks his nose.

And apparently, I’m going to be surrounded by them all season. Oh, the joy.

I parked my butt on a hill with John, who was reading a book. He shares my inclinations in the sports department. I forgot my book.

And behind me is a whole baseball family. I was listening to them bitch to each other about the parking situation (which wasn’t good—I circled the lot and then drove down to the Food-4-Less.) Whining about how, last year, someone had to back up three times to get out of a spot, and wondering whether they should call the police because a Suburban was blocking the dumpster.

So, in my own petty little mind, I was happily composing snarky comments for my journal. Hey, it passed the time.

Then Seamus’ team was brought out for introductions. And they went nuts. Apparently, their kid is on the same team.

Well, doesn’t that just make my day. I’m going to have to listen to that all season long.

I’ll just have to be my typical anti-social self. I’m sure I can manage that.

OK, back from Seamus’ first T-ball game of the year. He did pretty well. He got tagged out in his first at-bat, but he got to run the bases for the second one.

More fun was watching all the squirrelly little kids, like number 10, who was picking his nose on the bench and eating it. (Heh. Sure is a lot of nose-picking in this entry, and I wrote the upper portion before I went to the game.)

Or the little girl out in left field sitting down playing with the grass. That was Seamus last year.

One kid can really throw, but there ain’t a one of ‘em that can catch. It will be less fun when they start to take it seriously.

I did end up sitting to some people who weren’t horrible, so there’s that. I seem to be the only parent wearing a cowboy hat too. I don’t know why that is—in this area I’d have expected some more. I’ll fit in better tomorrow.

Now I have the afternoon to myself, as the boys “get” to go to their other grandmother’s. Woohoo. They’re thrilled. Seamus hasn’t figured out that she’s a manipulating old bitch yet, but he’s a kind little person.

I’ve got an exciting day of laundry ahead of me, but since I paid bills and balanced the checkbook already, that looks OK.

Cowboy came out and got the rest of the salvage stuff this morning.

It was really kind of a family affair. The guy we borrow the arena and stalls from works for one of the big builders in the Valley, and he’s got a job near me. So we offered him the extra tank for his arena if he would provide the crane and flatbed. His wife works for a towing company, and arranged the flatbed, although I doubt she volunteered it. She’s not that way. Cowboy’s low bed trailer is too short for the two tanks end-to-end.

The sites look really clean without all that stuff there. It won’t take much more for an official demolition project.

John’s dad called me yesterday asking if I’d heard anything about John’s Missions project. Well, I knew that they have to build a Mission in the fourth grade—all Californian fourth graders do that. And he’d had an internet assignment to look up Mission stuff a month or so ago, which I helped him with.

But I had no idea the project was coming up, and neither did his dad. It was due yesterday, and he hadn’t even touched it. His dad had asked him about it even, and he flat out lied about it. I’m completely ticked; his teacher either didn’t send home any information about it, which is doubtful, since the parents would have to buy materials for the project, or he threw it away.

I’m not terribly happy that his teacher gave him an extension through spring break to get it done. A part of me feels like he should deal with the consequences himself, since he’s the one who blew it off. But that would probably mean failing the fourth grade. He may not be mature enough to deal with the responsibility of getting his own work done, but he’s way too smart to go through fourth grade again. He’s got the math and spelling down at that level, and making him do it again would do more damage than good.

But I feel like he’s getting off kind of light for this. He lied about his homework. He didn’t do a major project. And it’s kind of like his teacher is just slapping him on the wrist for it.

Don’t get me wrong; he’s getting some serious punishment for it at home. But the worst we can do to him is restricting him from his favorite things. No TV, no playstation. And when we tell him he’s grounded, he just kind of shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t even ask about getting off it very often. So it seems like it doesn’t really mean anything to him. I’m not going to take away books—he’s just got into the idea that reading is fun, and I don’t want to ruin that. I do think he’ll have some serious chores to do over the next few weeks. Fortunately, we do have a giant yard full of dog shit that needs to be picked up. He’s quite old enough for that.

We’ve got some things planned for this weekend, family things, and he would actually prefer it if he had to stay home from them. I’m not going to punish the rest of the family. We’re still going to T-Ball Saturday, and we’re still going to the LaGrange Rodeo on Sunday. He’s just not going to get to have any fun.

He also has to go to his grandmother’s (on the other side) birthday party on Saturday night. In my mind, that may be punishment enough. I think he’s starting to feel that way too, although with no help from me. I keep my mouth shut in that department.

Gah. Turkeys. What are ya gonna do with ‘em?

The boys are turning into good little farm boys. All according to my evil plan.

We went out to Cowboy’s on Saturday, after I finally finished weed whacking the back yard.

The kids got to run around and play at the barn for a couple of hours. They climbed on the hay stacks (although I wouldn’t let them on the full blocks, as those are pretty unstable,) fed Charlie the Goat, made boogly eyes at the cattle, climbed fences, and had a good ol’ time.

Seamus has always been very timid around the horses. I’ve had to hold him up for him to be brave enough to even touch one. But I had our 25-year old mare Thistle tied up in the arena, and I was shedding her out while Cowboy worked with the colt in the round pen.

Seamus actually came up and touched her on his own, and then he wanted to brush her. So I gave him a brush and some instructions about how to walk around horses, and he brushed her for a few minutes. It wasn’t a big thing, but it was a good step for him.

Thistle’s a sweet old thing, and when we get her back up to a decent weight, she’s going to be the kids’ horse. If my kids don’t want to ride her, we’re going to send her over to Lonnie’s for the kids there, since their old mare had a stroke or something, and falls over. Not terribly child-safe, that.

While Cowboy and I were in the arena working, the kids were running around having a ball. I sent them off toward the calf pen in the back, and they climbed all over the stripping chute and pen fences. They have learned the no climbing on gates rule pretty well. Then they ran up and down the alleyway, screaming like madmen. After that, they spent the rest of the evening until dark playing in the roping chutes, pretending to be cattle. Seamus makes a good steer, and John was running the head gate. It’s mechanical, you know, so he likes it. He’s completely oblivious to the horses, to the point where I have to watch that he doesn’t just bumble right into one.

Wore those kids clean out too. It’s good for them, and I’m glad they’re getting comfortable around it. Had I saddled a horse, I would have taken them for a ride. This is how I want to raise them, outside having fun instead of glued to the playstation.