. . .the day the crabby guy banged on my front door, I saw a business card from the Gem County Sheriff's Department wedged in the screen door on my back door.  He must have been knocking on the back door for a while to get that crabby.  I can't hear anybody at the back door, though.  Don't they know there's a doorbell next to the front door?

Oops!

I finally got the fences in a little bit better shape.  One Saturday, I woke up to my front doorbell ringing (here in Gem County, people usually come to the back door, so this was unusual enought), then pounding on the old antique glass in the front door.  Bambambam!  I peeked through the door and some crabby guy said, "Your donkeys are over in the trailer court!!"  I think all I was able to get out was "Oh, dear!", but I must have looked stricken, because he immediately started to soften.  I threw on some jeans and shoes and grabbed some oatmeal to entice the burros back home.  I was stumbling down Idaho Blvd. (stumbling because the arthritis in my feet gets pretty bad first thing in the morning) and didn't see them anywhere, when some other mean guy hollered:  "they're over there!".  They were across the road, sedately eating some weeds between the house and barn on the property where Dorothy and Clint Bisom used to live--who have both passed away now, and I sure miss them sometimes.  I pretty much just said, "Burrito, what are you doing?!?", then he hung his head and he and Margarita plodded after me, following the bucket of oatmeal back to their pasture.

They have been so terribly naughty this summer.  It gets so embarrassing with the neighbors!  If I don't pay enough attention to them, Burrito bashes his head against the pasture gate repeatedly until it breaks loose or he can slip through.  Lately, it is the board on the barn that the gate latches into that rotted and broke through.  My helper Conor and I fixed it last Saturday and so far, so good--the burros have stayed in.

On the same day, Conor helped me put up fence panels in a new area for the buck Apollo.  Poor Apollo is in major rut, all stinky and hormonal.  I had him tethered out to eat weeds, but now he is in his own mini-pasture under the trees with a girlfriend or two.  He is so much happier now.  I had to shut all the windows on that side of the house, though.  Breezes drenched with his stench were wafting fairly powerfully

I am going to have mohair yarn and hats, scarves, and other items available at Hen House starting in October.  See you there!

I'm out of town for about a week and poor mom has to take care of all of my farm animals.  I never think I have very many animals when I'm at home, but I feel badly when somebody else has to care for them while I'm gone.  I just called her to check up and the burros had completely broken out of their pasture.  They hadn't just broken down the gate, they busted it entirely to pieces.  This is the great thing about country living in some areas--when Mom went up to my place to check on everything and saw what had happened, somebody had already captured them and put them into the front pasture!  Thank you whoever did that!