Even though I’m all but out of the goat business, I still have goats to buy for students.  So……that means I’m still traveling, studying genetics and flipping rocks looking for show goats for kids all while staying within a given budget.  I still have an elite taste and well, the budget doesn’t match my taste.  Therein lies the challenge.  I like it!

     A few days ago, I hollered at Clayton Washmon and said, “Let’s go look at some good stock.”  Clayton being a livestock junkie didn’t even ask what species we were going to look at.  It could be Jersey dairy cows and he would go.  So, we drove to Amarillo, hopped on a plane and headed west.  BTW, I highly recommend flying out of Amarillo.  This was a first for me and it was laid back and simple.  

      The central valley of California is EXTREMELY dry.  Wow!  If it ain’t irrigated, it’s dead.  We flew into Fresno.  Another small airport that was friendly and easy to navigate.  The cool thing about the Fresno airport is upon arrival and going down the escalator, the first thing that you see is a John Deere tractor.  AWESOME!   Most of the ads in the airport are for irrigation systems, ag chemical companies, seed and fertilizer dealers.  My kind of place.  

      We jumped in a rental car and drove to Brem Livestock.  Great hospitality, excellent goats and a wicked lineup of bucks.  Unfortunately, they know the value of some of those doe kids.  I don’t blame them.  I, as well would keep them.  Especially the de-horned doe kids.  Which begs the question….Why don’t we de-horn all doe kids?  Leave the horns on the purebreds but disbud the “wether”-genetics.  IDK.  Makes sense to me.  

       Clayton and I picked some Valencia oranges.   Oh, so good.  The Brem crew had some navel oranges for us as well.  Ohhhh!!    Eating these things is kind of orgasmic.  No matter the person, there are a lots of grunts, groans and moaning followed by a lot of juices flowing.  Clayton and I did talk reasons as to the differences between a Navel orange and a Valencia.  We also learned about Sumo oranges.  Any of you that know Clayton understands that he is a man of few words.  But as he said, “Really good trip.”   

        We’ll talk more about goats later.  Here are some of our adventures on this trip.

     It is now standard apparel for a lot of women to wear yoga pants while flying.  This is good and bad.  I understand the comfort level but not all women need to wear yoga pants in public.  However, since this was a livestock evaluation trip, Clayton and I did judge several classes of yoga pants.  This also involved some grunts and groans.  Some good, some not so good.  

       Going through security at Fresno for our return trip, I got busted.  Clayton had picked about 15 pounds of oranges which he put in my carry-on bag.  At the conveyor, the TSA lady asked me, through her mask, “Dew ya half sum tawletries or fewd items in tha bawg.”   I replied, “Hunh?” as I thought about the teacher from Charlie Brown.

She pulled down her mask and said, “Do you have any toiletries or food items in your bag?”   

Me–“Oh yeah!  There is a toothbrush, some deodorant and travel shampoos that I took from the hotel..oh…and some oranges.”

Her–“You mean orange juice?”

Me–“Ma’am, they are really juicy but they are still oranges.  No juice.”

Her–“I don’t know if that will pass or not.”  She pushes the bag into the x-ray machine.  

Next step–“Sir, is this your bag?” 

 “Yes.”  I replied as I stepped forward while putting my shoes back on and buckling my belt.  All while trying to contemplate how Clayton and I are going to eat all of these oranges as there was NO chance of us letting them chunk em.  

“Can you please step over here?” 

“Okay.”

“Sir, you cannot take this aboard this flight.  Do you want to drink it or throw it away?”

“WTH?   Are you serious?  That 8 ounce bottle of water was given to me by American Airlines yesterday along with those pretzels and the hand wipes.”

“Sir, you can’t take this bottle of water on this flight.”

“Okay.  Keep it.  They will give me another one in an hour or so.”

        They kept the 8 ounce bottle of un-opened water that was given to me by the airline and I zipped up my bag that held a bunch of fresh-picked oranges.   Makes sense.  Yoga-pant-wearing ladies could buy starbuck’s products and carry on the flight and I could smuggle oranges in my bag yet, they confiscated the un-opened bottle of water that the airline gave me on Thursday and then gave me another one on Friday.  Ahhhhh!!!  I get it.  Central Cali is in a drought and need to conserve all the water that they can.  Okay!!  

     And you can’t have a livestock adventure without some good food.  Oh yeah!   Mexican food in Porterville was top shelf.  El Tapatio.   HUGE portions, wicked good flavor.  Highly recommend.  

   Over and out for tonight.  More useless information to come in the upcoming days.