July 27, 1948 - A Very Important Date in History

July 27, 1948 — a day that should be circled on every calendar in the free world, etched into stone tablets, and possibly declared a global holiday. Now, if you consult the official historical record, you might be underwhelmed. There's no moon landing, no royal wedding, no world-shifting event that would stop the presses. But dig a little deeper (say… into the birthday section), and you'll find that this day did, in fact, gift the world with greatness.

Let’s take a look:

1. Peggy Fleming – Olympic gold medalist figure skater, Hall of Famer, and all-around glider of grace. She made it look like defying gravity was as easy as putting on socks. She brought home America’s only gold in the 1968 Winter Olympics and went on to twirl her way into our living rooms and hearts for decades.

   

2. Betty Thomas – Emmy-winning actress and director who proved that women could not only steal scenes (Hill Street Blues, anyone?) but also steal the director’s chair and make comedy magic happen (The Brady Bunch Movie, Private Parts, and many others). She’s got style, smarts, and sass — and I’d like to think that’s a theme for everyone born on this fine day.

3. ME!!! – Yes, yours truly. Born on this illustrious date, forever cementing July 27, 1948, as the day the world got just a little more interesting, a lot more sarcastic, and infinitely more stubborn about how things should be done. I may not have a gold medal or an Emmy (yet — hey, the day’s not over), but I’ve wrangled goats, raised a family, survived the 1970s and shoulder pads, and still manage to operate power tools without adult supervision. That’s gotta count for something.

So the next time you flip past July 27 on your calendar, pause for a moment of reverence. Light a candle. Bake a cake. Name a goat. Do something to honor the sheer awesomeness that this day represents.

Because on this day in 1948, history didn’t just whisper — it cleared its throat and said, “Buckle up.”

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3 Bean Salad

Well, look who's making a comeback — the garden! After suffering a tragic case of “death by goat” over the July 4th weekend (because nothing says ‘freedom’ like hoofprints in your broccoli), it's finally pulling itself together. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would. I nearly held a memorial service next to the compost pile.

But hope springs eternal — or at least it re-sprouts if you replant fast enough and glare menacingly at the fence every time a goat walks by.

The squash and cucumbers are making up for lost time, flaunting more blossoms than a prom corsage stand. The beans and peas are hustling to prove they belong in the garden and not a petting zoo disaster film. The second-round broccoli and cauliflower are looking cautiously optimistic, probably muttering among themselves, “Just lay low. Maybe the goats won’t notice us this time.”

The tomatoes —, bless their squashed little hearts —, weren’t eaten, just flattened in the panicked goat exodus as my English Shepherds reenacted the Normandy invasion: barking, snarling, and herding like their doggie diplomas depended on it.

And now for the harvest update… drumroll, please…

I picked three green beans today.

Yup. Three.

Count ‘em: one, two, three. (Yes, I did. Out loud. In the garden. With the dog looking at me like I’d lost what’s left of my marbles.)

So, naturally, I’m having a Three Bean Salad for lunch. Heavy on the optimism, light on the actual salad. Might have to supplement it with a slice of cheese and a prayer.

But hey, it’s a start. Victory gardens didn’t win the war in a day either.

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Enter to win a Trekker 72-hour kit

Over at A Homesteading Neophyte you can enter to win a Trekker 72 hour kit from Emergency Essentials. You can also pledge to blog for 24 hours straight to raise money to help the Downed Bikers Association. It's for a good cause so take a click over there and check it out. The contest ends 7/31 at midnight.

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Talon Looks "Official"

Well folks, it’s happened. Talon got his harness this week, and let me tell you—he looks official. I mean, if there was a DMV for horses, this boy would be standing in line with his paperwork filled out, waiting to get his equine license and a vanity plate that says "HOOFINIT."

After a slow start—you remember, the whole “sensitive” thing (aka hiding behind the trainer and then behind a rock… yeah, that start)—he's finally decided he might not die from wearing tack. He's now actually ground driving, and looking pretty darn pleased with himself about it too. Blinders on, reins draped over his rump like he was born for it, head held high like, “Yes, peasant, I am majestic.”

Tomorrow I get to go visit, and I’m bringing his cart with me to replace the one the trainer has tried to introduce. No promises, but the trainer says he might be ready to hitch up in another week. I am cautiously optimistic and wildly giddy at the same time. Not sure who’s more excited, me, or Talon. Actually, no, it’s definitely me. Talon’s still deciding if the cart is a friend, a foe, or a mobile snack bar.

I’m also looking forward to learning how to drive myself. Hopefully it involves fewer bruises than learning to ride did. And fewer runaway moments that end with me yelling things like “I’m not ready for this level of horsepower!”

Seriously though—doesn’t he look like an old pro? I’m so impressed with how far he’s come. He’s traded in ‘shy guy’ for ‘show-off’ and it suits him just fine. 

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Now That Gets My Goat!

 

Why is it that on a farm with goats, the things that really get your goat almost always involve. . . well, goats?

Seriously, anyone who doesn’t have goats probably thinks they’re all sunshine, skipping, and milk commercials. Ha! Goats are like toddlers with crowbars and nothing but time. They spend every waking moment plotting how to break, eat, climb, destroy, or escape. And they’re brilliant. I’m not even convinced they’re animals—I’m pretty sure they’re a small, hairy demolition crew with hooves.

Take Saturday, for example.

It was a quiet morning—too quiet, as any seasoned farm gal will tell you. I was just about to sit down with my herb tea when the dogs went berserk. Not just the “Hey, someone’s pulling into the driveway” bark. No, this was the “INVASION! EVERYBODY PANIC!” bark.

I stepped onto the deck and saw it: my garden… my beautiful, hard-won, back-breaking, sweat-drenched garden. . . under siege.

And there they were—the goats. The inmates had organized a full prison break!

They weren’t just nibbling. Not even casually sampling. No, they were throwing a full-blown brunch. Frolicking like toddlers at a trampoline park, tails in the air, broccoli bits hanging from their lips like it was dollar margarita night at Applebee’s.

Peas? Gone. Broccoli? Gone. Cauliflower? Gone. Corn? Let’s just say it didn’t stand a chance. The blueberry bushes were untouched, but they had cleaned off every single blueberry. The only survivors were the tomatoes (which apparently didn’t pass muster), the summer squash and zucchini (miraculously unscathed), and the radishes—because, let’s face it, not even goats like radishes.

And do you think they looked even slightly guilty when I came stomping down in my barn boots like an angry landlady? Nope. They looked up at me like, “Oh hey, you’re just in time. We’re harvesting the garden for you.”

So, after wrangling the criminal element back into their pen (which is starting to resemble a goat version of Alcatraz), I headed to the farm store to see if they had any vegetable plants left. At this point in the season, I figured my best hope was a display of dusty seed packets and maybe a plastic carrot.

But miracle of miracles—they still had plants. Not great plants, mind you. These were the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree version of veggies: wilted, sad, probably already questioning their will to live. But they were five bucks for a full flat. And pumpkins were free. Free! I guess everyone else had given up on pumpkins this late in the game. Not me. With the way things are going, I might need a Cinderella moment before fall.

Then came the replanting. I picked the hottest day of the summer for this, because of course I did. I was sweating like a sinner at a tent revival, dirt in places I don’t even want to talk about, and one of the goats kept hollering from across the fence like she was the victim in all this. “Excuse me, human! We noticed you forgot to replant the kale!”

So now we wait. The frost usually hits us right around the first week of September, which gives my new plants about oh. . . three weeks to get their act together and produce something worth eating.

If we have a very warm summer. . .

If I fertilize like I’m prepping for the county fair. . .

If the goats don’t stage another jailbreak. . .

And if I can string up more fencing, add a padlock, a moat, and maybe hire a goat whisperer with a taser. . .
Then maybe—just maybe—we’ll end the season with a harvest instead of another episode of “Goat Gone Wild.”

Well—miracles can happen.

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You Might Be A Redneck If... Your Parade Float Has An Outhouse!

Now where is my camera when I actually need it?! Of course, not in the truck, not in my purse, and definitely not in my hand—because otherwise, I'd have photographic proof instead of folks trusting my “I-swear-I-saw-this” version of events.

It started innocently enough. I was in town on the 4th of July, running errands and pretending I was “just swinging by for one thing.” (The biggest lie since “the check’s in the mail.”) I cruised past the parade float lineup—pure Northern New England Americana in all its glory: patriotic bunting flapping in the wind, kids sticky with popsicle juice, fire trucks so polished they could blind you, and the high school band wheezing out “Yankee Doodle”. Even the Boy Scouts were there, standing at attention like little soldiers bribed with root beer floats and the promise of extra s’mores at the next campfire.

And then… it happened.

A float that stopped me dead and made me rethink what had brought me to this curb.

I don’t know what group, company, or loose coalition of third cousins twice removed sponsored this thing, but what it lacked in branding it more than made up for in sheer, unapologetic commitment. Imagine a hillbilly porch slapped on a trailer, overalls (shirts optional), a couple of guys with guitars—two of which were actually in use—and, the crown jewel: an outhouse.

Not just any outhouse. This one had only the bottom half of the walls. Waist-up? On full display for Main Street to enjoy. And inside—sitting proud, serene, and apparently at peace with all his life choices—was a man leafing through what looked like a vintage Sears catalog, as if auditioning for “Rustic Bathroom Chic: The Calendar.” And to top it off, t
hey were playing “Ode to the Little Brown Shack Out Back.” (If you’re not familiar with this, it’s a little ditty sung by Billy Edd Wheeler in the 1960s—a sentimental ballad to, you guessed it, the outhouse. Go ahead, look it up!)

I wish I was making this up. I’m not. My imagination isn’t this deranged.

The man had the air of someone living his absolute truth. He might have been humming. I don’t know—I was too busy praying to every saint in the book that they weren’t about to toss Tootsie Rolls into the crowd. Because we all know exactly what that would’ve looked like.

It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in this town. . . but it’s a firm top-five contender.

So here’s the takeaway from the curbside, front-row seat to pure Americana:
You might be a redneck if you ride in an outhouse in a parade—I assume fully clothed, catalog in hand, waving to the crowd like you’re the Grand Marshal of Bathroom Breaks.

And yes, even in Northern New Hampshire—where duct tape is legal tender, and your neighbor’s goat might be better dressed than you, somehow. . . this still won’t be the strangest thing I see all summer.

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Caution: Don't Do This With Your Head!

I sometimes question whether the teenage male brain is actually fully connected to the body it occupies, or if it’s just in there rattling around like a peanut in a soda can.

Take my grandson Nate and his buddy Roger, for example. Nate is in the middle of a home improvement project—he’s demolishing his bedroom ceiling so we can replace it. (Translation: I'm supervising with a steely gaze and a coffee mug the size of a feed bucket.)

Enter Roger. Roger sees Nate removing the sheetrock ceiling like a normal human with a hammer and thinks, "You know what this situation needs? A flying headbutt."

So he jumps… and puts his head through the ceiling.

Yes. HIS ACTUAL HEAD.

I stood there blinking, trying to decide if I was witnessing a renovation or a mating display. The dog left the room. The goat outside stopped chewing and just stared. I think time paused briefly to say, “Did he just…?”

Apparently Roger believed his skull was more effective than a hammer. And, in a way, I guess it was—I mean, he made a hole. He also made a dent in my faith in human evolution.

We are now seriously considering installing warning labels on the house:
“Caution: This Ceiling Is Not Load-Bearing for Craniums.”
Or maybe just:
“Friends Don’t Let Friends Demo With Their Faces.”

This, my friends, is why we pray. Constantly. Not just for our children’s safety, but for their common sense to hurry up and mature before the ER punch card fills up.

Because drywall shouldn't come between you and your frontal lobe.

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Talon's Summer School Adventure

Talon, my 3-year-old Gypsy Cob gelding (that’s horse-speak for “majestic feather-footed goober”), is away at summer school this year. No, not because he failed algebra—he’s learning how to drive. As in pull a cart. As in work for a living. I know, I know... shocking.

He’s studying under Melody Madison of Shamel Arabians, a trainer with nerves of steel and the kind of patience usually reserved for kindergarten teachers and bomb defusers. Me? I have the patience of a caffeine-deprived raccoon on in a cornfield. So she’s got the job.

Things didn’t start off great. Turns out Talon is what Melody gently described as “sensitive.” Which is trainer-code for melts under pressure like a snowflake on a griddle. When she introduced him to two other horses in the paddock, he panicked and tried to hide behind her. When she stepped away? He tried to hide behind a rock. A rock. You can't make this up. Unless you’re writing a sitcom, in which case boom, there's your pilot episode.

But wait, it gets better. One of the horses bit him. Three times. Did he assert himself like a proud, 1,200-pound steed? Did he puff up his chest and show them who's boss? No. He stood there blinking like a stunned librarian who just got hit with a dodgeball. Poor baby. I swear he tried to file an HR complaint.

Look, I’m not saying he’s a coward… but the goat he lives with at home has more street cred. And that goat screams at chickens.

Then there was The Great Right Turn Debacle. Talon was perfectly fine working to the left. Left was his jam. Left was safe. Left was home. But ask him to turn right? Suddenly we’re starring in a soap opera called "Why Are You Ruining My Life", starring Talon as the over dramatic lead and Melody as the long-suffering trainer with a twitching eyelid.

But then—cue angelic chorus—he finally got it. One day, mid-hissy fit, the lightbulb in his big fuzzy head blinked on. You could almost see it: “Ohhh! You meant turn this way? Pfft. I knew that. I was just... testing you. Yep. Totally intentional.” And now there’s a picture of him trotting proudly to the right like he invented it.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, a little girl at church wanted to come visit Talon. DH told her Talon was away at summer school. Her face said “I smell nonsense.” Then he added that Talon was learning to drive.

She gasped. “Horses can’t drive cars!”

I mean… technically, no. But considering how my grandson parks, I’m not ruling it out. Talon at least signals before turning—after 3 weeks of training, anyway.

He's majestic. He's fluffy. He's emotionally fragile. But by golly, he’s turning right now.

Talon’s Official Summer School Progress Report

Filed by: Melody Madison, Horse Whisperer Extraordinaire

Week 1:
• Introduced to new paddock friends
• Hid behind human
• Attempted camouflage via small rock
• Bitten three times
• Confidence level: Marshmallow

Week 2:
• Refuses to work to the right
• Mastered “I don’t wanna” body language
• Feigned dramatic exhaustion after light groundwork
• Therapy goat requested

Week 3:
• Still twitchy, but not hiding
• Cart harness introduced—looked mildly betrayed
• Minor progress turning right… if bribed with hay

Week 4:
• Successfully driving left and right
• Stopped sulking mid-session
• Looks smug, acts like he’s known it all along
• Requested return of emotional support goat

Final Notes:
Horse is a wimp, but a lovable wimp. Recommend continued training and possibly a helmet for emotional protection. He may not be fast, brave, or particularly useful yet… but by golly, he’s polite and turns right now.

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A Pig Happy Family

Well, it’s official—we’ve reached piggy peace talks. Now that the piglets are getting bigger and less… squish-prone… mama Chloe has decided it’s safe to let daddy Larry rejoin the family unit. I found the whole gang snuggled up together in their rain shelter for what looked like a cross between an afternoon nap and a piggy pile-up.

Just after I took the photo, one of the piglets let out a high-pitched squeal (the kind that makes your heart drop and your brain start counting heads), and Chloe sprang to her feet like she was shot out of a cannon. She sniffed around in a panic, clearly doing a roll call. That’s when things got interesting.

Apparently suspecting that Larry might be using one of the kids as a pillow, Chloe marched right over, shoved her nose under his rear end, and heaved. She moved that 300-pound loaf about two feet across the shelter floor. Did he wake up? Of course not. He just grunted, rolled over, and probably dreamed of corn. Typical guy.

Chloe finally spotted the missing piglet snoozing peacefully near the edge of the tent, gave a relieved snort, and laid back down to nurse. Crisis averted. Family intact. Larry still clueless.

Now I have to admit something that I never thought I’d say: piglets are dangerously cute. Like, criminally cute. I’ve always considered pigs to be DH’s department—his favorite farm animal, and absolutely not mine. But I think they’ve cast some sort of adorably muddy spell on me, because I caught myself watching them with… affection. Ugh. I feel weak.

But listen, let’s just keep this between us. DH can never know.

(Honey, if you’re reading this, I need you to focus. You are getting very sleepy. Your eyelids are heavy. You feel relaxed. You will forget you ever read this post. When I count to three, you will awaken refreshed, relaxed, and with zero recollection that your wife may or may not be softening on the subject of pigs. One… two… three… wide awake now!)

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9 New Additions

We have nine new additions to the family. No, not because I planned it. Not because anyone told me. Not because I marked a date on the calendar with a little heart and a note that said “piglets due!” No, I discovered them like every other big farm development—completely by accident, while stumbling around before my second cup of herbal tea.

There they were this morning, snoozing under a tree like they owned the place. I had no idea they were even on the way. Apparently, pigs don't feel the need to keep me in the loop. Thanks for the heads-up, sweetheart.

And here’s the kicker—this might explain Remi. A few days ago, I caught our female Great Pyrenees, Remi, inside that pasture. Now, Remi never jumps the electric fence. That girl respects voltage. So naturally, I assumed there was a predator threatening the area and she was heroically throwing herself into danger to protect the livestock. Nope. Turns out she might’ve been moonlighting as a midwife. Or just wanted to be front row for the big event. Either way, she knew what was going on before I did. Typical.

This morning, I waited until Mama Pig was off doing pig things—rooting around like she doesn’t have newborns to keep alive—before I crept in like a nosy neighbor with a camera. Took a few baby pictures while trying not to get discovered. Because, let’s be real, the only thing scarier than a protective mama pig is one who’s hangry and postpartum.

So now we have nine piglets. I don’t know their names, I don’t know their gender, and I don’t know how long they’ve been here. But I do know that my week just got a whole lot more complicated.

Farm life: where every day is a surprise party, and you're the one cleaning up after it.

Meanwhile, I found poor daddy banished to another area of the woods.

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