Cora's day with us

When school is out, Cora visits us every other Tuesday.  A while back she said she wanted us to have a picnic sometime, and since we saw it was supposed to be in the 90's for the next two weeks, it seemed as though this Tuesday was the day to go.  We usually don't do a lot when Cora's here, and it surprises me that she still wants to come, but we are glad she does.  Any other eleven-year-old child would be bored to death at our house.

Just to be doing something a little different, we decided to go to Fort Osage for the picnic; it's only about 12 miles from home.  There's not really a lot to it, but that's a good thing, because neither of Cliff nor I can do a lot of walking, due to my knees and Cliff's hip and breathing problems.  I managed to climb some stairs with Cora, though, so I could take pictures.

Cliff climbed upstairs with us here, so we could look down on the Missouri River.  There was a canoe race going on that goes from Kansas City to Saint Louis; this is the 19th year for the race.

By the way, we had our picnic as soon as we got there.  

When we got back home, she did what she really wanted to do, which was to spend time with Thelma and Louise, the goats.  The daughter, Louise, wasn't very tame, and Cora wanted to teach her how to be friendly.  She's used to messing with horses, and does barrel races; she's now learning to rope calves.  I've been pretty picky about people opening the gate to the goats pen because they meet everyone at the gate and try to sneak around them.  However, as I told Cora, I feel I can trust her to shut gates because she's always been around farm animals and knows it's something you have to be careful about.

Obviously, she made a friend out of Louise:

Here's what Cora looked like when we first started babysitting her.

We are so proud of her!  And she isn't even related to us.

The first day with goats

The two goats, mother and daughter, arrived around 3 P.M. Sunday.  I haven't called them by any names so far except "the goats".  My dear friend Joanna suggested Thelma and Louise, which I like, and may use for them if I can remember it all the time.  The mother has a registered name, but I don't think they bothered to call her by that, or any, name.  

Like all livestock, they ran the whole fence around their pen, continually crying, all afternoon.  They wanted their old home and all their buddies!

They had plenty of grass to eat, which would shut them up for a while.  I had no fear they'd get out of this pen, because Cliff and the grandson spent every resource making it safe.

I wanted to check them before it got dark and went out to make sure all was well.  Imagine my surprise when I found the daughter, Louise, outside the pen and crying pitifully to get back in with her mother, who was frantic.

Seriously, I could have cried.  Cliff and Arick had given everything they knew how to do so this wouldn't happen.  All that work, and now my worst fear was coming true.  I came inside and said, "Cliff, you are not going to believe this, but the baby goat is out."

But he DID believe it, of course.  He put on his shoes; we went out and walked the whole fence and found no place a goat could get over or under; Casper the friendly ghost couldn't have got out of there!  We got Louise back in, watched for awhile, and came back in the house.  We were a bit worried, though:  If Louise did get out and went to bah-bah-ing for her mother, it could easily draw coyotes who could easily kill that little goat.  About 15 minutes later I decided to go to bed, but first I went to check on the goats.  I'm sure by now you know.  Louise was out again.

Cliff came out and helped me to get the rowdy goat... she isn't exactly tame yet, though her mom is.  Since it was almost dark, he said we'd shut her up in the garage.  That worried me, because what would that little goat do in there?  I needn't have worried; we had a bale of hay in there, and she was asleep on it.  Nothing looked out of place.  Thank goodness these Nigerian Dwarf goats are too small to hop up on a car or truck!

The next morning Cliff said he thought he had figured things out.  Where the back of the pen goes to the fence between us and our neighbors, it ends not near a post, but in the middle of the fence.

He and Arick had mentioned it, and were going to fix the space between the pole and the fence; they had forgotten to do anything about it.  The space was no wider than three inches, but when the goat stuck her head in and pushed herself through, that forced the fence away more, and she had room to get out.  Cliff fixed it with a rusty baling wire and there have been no more runaways.

  

I didn't know I'd get an adventure to share so soon after the goats arrived, but there you go.