It's hot, Nicholas saves me from a Loud Bug, and more on those goats....

Saturday was a hotsy-totsy... the weather guy said it was the hottest day in three years! And swampy... it was hot and swampy. After a while we gave up, went inside, cranked up the air conditioning, and watched loud movies. My hubs' choice for movie? The 1953 version of War of the Worlds.... the alien noises sound just like the bugs. I can't get away from it.

 Guess what she is looking at?

The other day I walked inside and there was a Loud Bug on me. I flung it off me in utter terror. Then I realized there was a bug in the house. I needed an assassin...because I sure wasn't going to touch it.

"Nicholas!"

I called The Grey Terror by name exactly once. He arrived on the scene, killed that bug, ate it...and stomped off twitching his tail. I honestly don't get the "cats are jerks" thing. Based on results my Nicholas is better trained than half the dogs I see.

My hero. He's a little lazy most of the time but definitely a man of action.

Anyway....

I had some further interest in my post about why we are considering becoming entirely goat-less.  The long and short of it is.... they have outlasted their usefulness - at least in our case. For now. One of the things that changed was that my husband got a new job. Without saying too much about the details of our life, the old wisdom about 'why by the goat when you can get the milk for free?" still holds. So since our household dairy needs are mostly met we no longer have a pressing need for tons of milk.

But what about the barnyard? Don't we need all that free milk for the pigz and chickens?

Well this summer is shaping up to be somewhat different than before. Based on our freezer space and our projected needs.... we may not get pigz this year. We had a pig-free summer before and we loved it. It was quiet and not stinky. Of course we were over run with turkeys that year - which was hilarious. But not having pigz is just fine by me.

Nibbles. Looking majestic.

So if I do the math, *OFG holds up piece of paper covered in scribblings.....*  then you can see here that goats may not fit into the equation. Especially if they are not milking and probably will not be in milk ever again.

Both Debbie and Nibbles are kind of on the old side... and poor Debbie had such bad congestion in her udder the last time I'm just not sure it would be good for her to be in production again. She had a couple of very hard births so her days as a wildly successful milker are pretty much over.

Remember that farming is a series of hard choices about managing your own situation. Not every body gets to stay. We are looking down the barrel of hard choices this summer and our thoughts of being entirely goat-less is one of those decisions.

Don't ever be afraid to critically examine your situation and make adjustments. What worked for you before may not work for you now. Effective farm management means there will always be changes. 

Happy Monday everyone! Was it hot there? Did your biggest cat save you from a bug?