The Bleu Siege of Doe Hill

One fine morning, the does of Noodleville milled about the pasture with not much to do.

Feeding time had come and gone, milking was finished… All the forage worthy yummies were long ago devoured & the grass was drying up making prospective pasture pastimes greatly diminished….

Until they spotted the hill… The hill was ever present, but just out of reach. No fence blocked their path, no obstacles to keep them at bay… They stared longingly at the hill but couldn’t venture out without the security of The Gal with Food Buckets…. Apparently The Gal with Food Buckets is endowed with magical powers that instantly vanquish the Boogie-men who reside in the imaginations of goats…

They milled about at the base of the hill…..Each secretly contemplating how they would reach the top and rule all of Noodleville Goatdom…

A Nubian named Rosie trekked up the hill without contemplation, simply walked on up and surveyed the land……. But to rule, one must have more than bulk. One must be brave and smart…… An alliance was formed. Tricks & Mocha- The Guild of Earless Wonders. Though they lack ears, those Lamanchas are clever. Rosie lost her throne as quickly as she claimed it, so fast in fact, there isn’t even a photo record of her brief rule.

 

Quite smug & cocky, this Guild of Earless Wonders. How easy it was to bully Rosie off Doe Hill. Jr does come and try to sneak by and are beaten back with ease….As they run off the latest threat to their rule, this pair ponders their magnificence and happily surveys their kingdom….. Those who are smug & cocky though must also be watchful…..

Places of great power attract those who are power hungry….Like sharks drawn to blood, the pull is inevitable. Quickly Tricks & Mocha find they must defend their throne again….

Bleuberry is Queen. Bleuberry doesn’t need allies. She doesn’t charge up the hill in a fury. She doesn’t try to sneak on by… Ears held high, she marches slowly, with purpose, clearly making her intent known.

 

 

The battle begins and with a few well placed hits too fast for the camera to capture, Tricks is stripped of her royal title….. Ordinarily, she’d quickly jump back into the fray, but Lamanchas suffer a great weakness…. Curiosity and the ability to be easily distracted…... As quickly as holding the hill caught her attention, she’s now meandered off to fuss at Jr. does over some leaves on the fence line…

 

Mocha grows bold. She is older than Tricks. Not as easily distracted on this day. Perhaps the extra Chaffhaye has fortified her and made her more daring than she usually is….. Or, perhaps she finds this royal seat comfy and isn’t ready to give it up to one lone Alpine who fancies herself a queen..

 

Mocha meets the would be usurper head on. Hair bristled, she does her very best to intimidate Bleuberry.

Bleu is an old hat at this game though. She’ll not be defeated by a mere first freshener with no ears. She hops happily in between attacks, sneaking in hard nips with her teeth and is ruthless with her rearing assaults.

The siege is over. All that’s left standing atop Doe Hill is Bleuberry, queen of the Noodleville Goats. Mocha turns away in defeat..

Graceful and beautiful she may be, but Bleuberry is not a regal, gracious winner. She flaunts her victory over those she deems inferior and mocks their short reigns.

 

Oh how she bask in the glory of her newest conquest.

Being queen is good. Ruling the milk room, having the choicest feeders, the nicest resting places and always being the first to get treats are just royal perks….. This victory at Doe Hill is just another conquest in a long list of conquest…

~The End~

 

Short video of Bleuberry enjoying her hill….. Right before I started recording, she was rolling, digging and swinging her head from side to side like she was dancing….And of course she stopped most everything once I hit record.

Goodbye to Noodleville

Someone has a sense of humor, check out the smiley face, lol

Ordinarily, such a topic would be followed by a heartbreaking tale, a sorrowful lament, an endless refrain of sadness, but this time, that’s not the case..

Why?

Well, mostly because I’m just being melodramatic and needed a blog starter to grab your attention. Though truly, we are having a goodbye, but the goodbye is to Noodle, not the end of Noodleville.

Yep, that’s right… We’re moving. It’s been a hectic mess, full of ups & downs and waves of excitement and indecision, but sink or swim, do or die, we are leaving the lil town of Noodle behind….

Jerimiah took a new job, and since October we have been living apart… He works for 10 days, comes home for 3 and leaves out on day 4. Not exactly the best situation, and not one we care to maintain permanently, so away we go off to east Texas. Found a lil place, not much land, but the price won’t put us in debt up to our ears, it’s close to family, has more space than we have in this lil house and it actually has trees so that’s great. Seriously… REAL trees, ones taller than me and they don’t have thorns. I also didn't see not one single cactus on the place, which is awesome. It's nice when the local plant life isn't out to shred you to bits...

There are even lakes close by and believe it or not, grass actually grows on the property and the soil isn't impenetrable rock. Truly, lots of fabulous changes for us Noodle-ites.

Of course, the humidity in the summer may actually kill me, and I’ll have to learn the lay out of a new town, new stores and hope I can get from point A to point B without getting lost… But I figure I’ll just take baby steps and conquer each obstacle one at a time as I go along… Except for the summer humidity, I’m not joking, it may seriously kill me.

Anywho, the biggest downside of the new place it has no fencing and it has a scattered mess of “shelters” that are comical to say the least. Whoever built them had an affinity for particle board and very, very low ceilings… So, we’ve been doing our best to get the fencing completed & will make do with the shelters until we get settled in and can build something else.

To make the move easier, I sold down my goats… I’m down to 7 now…. 3 pregnant Alpines, 1 pregnant Nubian, 2 pregnant Lamanchas and Tricks who is not bred this year… Most sad about selling Tonka….. Geez I can’t even begin to say how much I hated doing that, but he went to a great home and his new owner will allow me to use him for stud in the future, so all is not lost.

We are moving to east Texas, specifically a lil town called Phalba. I've been told that I’ll need to change the name of my blog.. But to what? “The Adventures of  Phalbaville“?  Or, since we'll live in Phalba, but have a Mabank address, I suppose we could sub in "Mabankville"....

Have you ever heard anything so ludicrous? Not happening. Noodleville simply has an air of awesomeness that can't be beat..

So, while I’m saying a goodbye to Noodle, Noodleville will still exist. It’s my own lil creation… It has significance… Not just as a blog, but as a start of change in my life. After our move here I grew a backbone. I stopped caring what folks thought of me and decided to do what made me happy. I cut the false friends from my life, and stopped dancing to the tune others played for me…. I took time to take stock and focus on what was important in life & I came to an acceptance of who I am, in all my weirdness, and I’m finally happy with me.

Noodleville also happens to be my ADGA herd name for the dairy goats, and due to my absolute disgust for paperwork, I’m not changing it… Even if I thought of some other name I liked better, the paperwork alone would be enough of a deterrent to keep me from changing things up.

Hoping to finish moving over the kid’s holiday break so they can get settled and start their new school at the beginning of the semester. They are excited, but nervous. They've only been to one school, so this is a big change for them… I’m sure they’ll be fine though (I have to keep telling myself that, I think I’m more nervous than they are, lol) and Shayla happens to think a new school is a wonderful excuse to go clothes shopping, because apparently, if you’re switching schools a wardrobe update is required.

Anywho, wish us luck!

Until next time, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Sprays of Urine, Home Grown Gossamers & The Sunscreen

Once again I had one of “those days“…the exact kind of day that inspired my “Noodleville Adventures” almost 5 years ago…

Start off… Jerimiah got a very last minute, once in a life time opportunity to go on an elk hunt (and fly by private jet!) on a 42,000 acre ranch in Oregon and on my “To-Do” list that day was to finish up a bit of his laundry so he‘d be set to go.

I needed some help getting the buck's feet trimmed (the boys are in rut aren’t exactly easy to work with alone sometimes) so my mom agreed to come & stay for a few days while Jerimiah was away….. Which meant I needed to tidy up the house a bit…

So my “To-Do” list consisted of a quick bank trip, laundry, wishing for Mr. Clean to appear in my house, picking up the kids, homework, then shower & get the kids ready to go out to dinner with my father in law before he & my hubby left for their elk hunting trip the next morning…

Simple, uneventful plans.

Why oh why could it not be as simple as it sounds on paper?

What actually happened was this:

First Casper, one of my Lamancha girls (the wild one) escaped…My fault, I left a perfect step stool for her next to the fence and she happily went right over… She’s in season, been screaming like a lunatic and I’m keeping her from the boys (don’t want her bred yet)….

Anywho…she takes off and heads down the road. She won’t come to me and I surely can’t chase her… Finally took her sister, Comanche, out on a lead to entice her to come… Comanche acted as if me leading her down the road was some form of torture & did not do anything to make the task easier…. Long story short, almost 3 hours later I had Casper & Comanche safely contained once more. Though part of this trek included me carrying one idiot goat while dragging the other one…. Of course it was up a freaking hill too….

This put me behind on my chores quite a bit… Made a mad dash to the bank….Some bank error was going on……..showing the wrong name on my account… Took 30 minutes to fix it… A very quick trip turned into an hour & a half of time wasted (drive time wrapped up in that).

Finally get home to start cleaning…. Got the dishes done & glanced at the kitchen clock..

OMG! OMG! I’m late to get the kids!! How on earth could I be late to get the kids? I’m NEVER late!!!!!

Rush as fast as possible watching storm clouds roll in along the way…

Sit in the parking lot for 15 minutes before I realize that I did not adjust my kitchen clock and I’m in fact early…really early.

If I find whoever invented Daylight Savings Time, I’ll happily kick the fool right in the gut!!

Do I wait? Or do I go home? Contemplated waiting, but the storm clouds looked like a nasty one, so I decided to rush home, open the barn for the boys & get my round bale of hay covered & protected from the rain…

Lots of wasted time, wasted fuel, aggravation & I’m home with the kiddos, the clouds blew away, no rain, no noticeable house work done & I don’t have much time to get homework done & get ready to go out to dinner.

This my friends is where it all goes to hell.

I set the kids to their homework & go out to take care of the critters before dressing for dinner..

The feeder in the boys pen was broke…bent to fix it and in the process Sam decided to perfume himself… Hitting me with a steady, strong stream of urine in the process!! Hits my hair, shoulders and I feel this sickening warmth run right down my spine….

Stupid, stinking, nasty goat bastard!!!!!!

So now of course I have to wash my hair! I have longish hair, very thick, prone to messy waves & frizz…..it’s not easy to make it look civilized …It requires a flat iron to tame the masses. Flat ironing it takes forever.

Woo freaking hoo! As if I needed another thing to eat up my time, which at this point I no longer have any time to waste.

In the shower I hurry… in my rush I grabbed a bottle of water proof sunscreen instead of conditioner. Don’t ask me why it was sitting on the side of the tub…despite questioning, no one in the house knows how or why it was sitting there….

I’m slick & oily as a duck who waddled around in a tar pit.….three shampoos later & I still can’t get the damn sunscreen out…. My hair feels NASTY…can’t even run my fingers through it. I hop out of the shower & head for the kitchen for the Dawn dish soap…. You see those commercials of once oil slicked wild life happily restored thanks to Dawn… Had the images of adorable lil critters going through my head as I lathered up….

If you ever run a ginormous handful of waterproof sunscreen through your hair, Dawn is your ticket to clean hair…just FYI. Though you will be forced to deal with a dry, itchy scalp later… Cute lil critters don’t have that disclaimer on the stupid commercials!

I quickly check the kids homework & send them off to change out of their dirty school clothes while I tackle blow drying (I do so loathe the blow dryer & I’m really ticked at being forced to use the hand held cooking device!)….

Hair dried and doing it’s best to look like something off an awful hair band album cover… I really considered throwing it in a pony tail and putting on a ball cap…. But when I do that I look like a truck driver of an undetermined gender…. The look doesn’t flatter me at all so I decide I’ll flat iron just the front pieces and the top layer so it at least looks tame… I’m loving this plan and my hair actually looks ok.. Not great, but much better than looking like a gender confused truck driver.

Out to check on the kids….. Clayton changed his shirt….. then crawled under the porch to fetch a hidden egg & had what look suspiciously like chicken poop on his fresh shirt…

Shayla....my dear, sweet Shayla was in her freaking Halloween costume!!!!

God why?!?!?!?!!?

I tell them both to just put their school clothes back on and wash their hands & face & go to get myself dressed.

Had a cute grey sleeveless top picked out to go with one of my few pairs of jeans that aren’t stained and ruined by mystery substances & possible unmentionables.

Oh, it actually looks semi cute!!
Oh wait!!
What’s that??

Oh, it’s only an armpit pelt!!

Damn it all to bloody hell!!!

In my frenzy to get the sunscreen out of my hair, I forgot to shave!!!! I’m sure my inlaws don’t want to sneak a peak at the armpit Gossamers I’ve been growing so I need a different shirt…. I don’t care that it was in the low 80’s… I found a blessedly clean long sleeve t-shirt & that’s what I wore…
Get everyone in the car & on the road I start to breathe again. I think:

“It’s all okay….mom changed my diapers, she’ll forgive the messy house”


”We’re only going out to a casual Mexican joint so the kids in school clothes is okay, even if they are a lil dirty from the play ground”


“My father in law isn’t picking up Jerimiah until tomorrow morning, so I have time to finish up the rest of his laundry tonight..”

Then the call comes…. Hubby letting me know that they are leaving after dinner instead of the following morning!!

Ok, I almost panic (I like everything planned & scheduled…deviations of any sort make me panic, no matter how trivial the deviation is, stupid yes, but it‘s one of my many character flaws)….. Instead I hit an ATM, get cash so hubby can buy a pack of socks (all the whites were in the washer…..no time to dry them) and meet my father in law, sister in law, her fella and all the munchkins for dinner.

Had a pleasant dinner, all went well, company was good, food was good..

Once the kiddos were in bed, hubby was on the road & I was sitting with mom watching TV I felt my sanity slowly, but surely seep back into me.
Yes, I had to chase, carry & threatened escapee goats, I wasted gobs of fuel & time running all over the place. I accomplished nothing on my to do list…

I suffered urine in my hair, on my skin and on my clothes…

I had a frustrating battle with various sudsy products in the shower trying to remove an impenetrable film of hair matting ick…
And yet, I made it to dinner, EARLY & civilized looking……even if I did have two lil Gossamers growing under my shirt!



Yea, that’s just the way I roll… I’m kind of awesome like that sometimes.

Mutant Wasp Blamed for the Near Death of a Blogger..

Of course I have no scientific evidence the wasp was a mutant….And yes, that Blogger who almost met an untimely end was me.

Okay, “near death” might be a slight over exaggeration, but it was one heck of a mess!

As mentioned in this post, we have a wasp problem. I’ve been stung 4 times in the past 3 weeks. I’m not allergic. It hurts, swells a bit, goes away. I don’t even need to take Benadryl.

Yesterday though was a whole different can of worms. One of those demonic yellow jackets stung me on my middle finger. *For the record I was not even bothering it or it’s stupid nest of devil spawn, I was simply turning off the water and was senselessly attacked*

It hurt worse than any sting thus far and it BLED!! I’m not talking about a lil' dot of blood…It was a steady dripping of blood…at least 8 drops before it slowed to an ooz. Since when do insect stings cause BLEEDING??? Strange & seriously painful.

That’s not all though…this brutal, unprovoked attack led to BONE PAIN. Starting from the sting and shooting all the way down into my hand the bone HURTS….the same kind of bone pain I had when I fractured my finger. It’s intense and bewildering as I just can’t explain how a sting from a wasp caused it. The bone pain lasted for an entire 12 hours before it started to ease and it still hurts to close my hand.

Anywho…I whined for sympathy on FB about it…then talked a big talk about my planned revenge on the wasp. I mentioned cans of wasp spray & discussed my desire to hunt down that particular wasp, remove his wings and legs one by one & feed him to the chickens. Yes, I was THAT mad over the whole stupid thing!!!!

This morning I set out to fulfill that promise & went hunting nest in the vicinity of where the attack occurred. Armed with a sore hand & a can of wasp spray.

Found the nest about 15ft from where I was stung.. Attached to a board laying on the ground close by the fence…It’s a good sized nest.



I flip the board, readied my spray can to spray…

And not a damn thing happens…My sore hand struggles to push the button on the spray can, the wasp are ANGRY…….several wasp come to the attack before I finally get my injured hand to squeeze the button and hit the nest.

Got some, killed their precious eggs, but not before the ones who left the nest first came after me.

I try to run.......only to trip on my stupid flip flops…..

I fall and in the process bite my tongue so freaking hard I have a mouth full of blood… and manage to get stung twice on the back, once on the neck and once on my scalp!!!!

Stupid, demonic, evil, cursed wasp!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time, I take Benadryl, the stings hurt, but thankfully they don’t seem to be of the mutant, bleeding, bone pain causing sort I got on my finger yesterday.

They may have stung me…….I shall give them props for getting a total of 5 hits on me, 6 if you want to count the bit tongue. But in the end, I won…….. I got the nest!!

After coming inside to tend to my battle wounds and change into boots I arm myself again & hunt up more nest.

I’m feeling kind of like a Noodle Mob Boss….you hurt me, I kill your family you devilish wasp!!!!! Though I shall have to work on my evil laugh and Italian accent a bit…

Total for today: 5 large nest soaked, dead & gone, and morbidly each nest down gave me such immense pleasure.

Pictures of a few of my kills from today..

Twisted, yes I know, but you would completely understand if you lost most use of your right hand simply because a vengeful, hateful wasp attacked you without just cause.