I have a lot of favorite movies, characters and actors. Of course, I am a fan of a lot of John Wayne movies. But has there been anybody else with a wider range and longer lasting effect on movies than Clint Eastwood? He starred in tv series, movie series, directed great movies and has done it for almost 60 years.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a timeless classic. The story, the cinematography and of course the music in that movie are killer good. I can watch Every Which Way but Loose over and over and it gets funnier every time. Between the Black Widows, Clyde the ape and the mother, that movie was funny. All of the spaghetti westerns that he filmed and the newer westerns. I haven’t seen all of Gran Torino yet, but that movie has a lot of fans. And don’t forget the Dirty Harry movies.

Moved some crap out west this weekend. Tammy and crew was staining window frames and prepping walls for paint. I went ahead and pulled a set of drills out there. Then Sunday, I loaded portable cattle panels, troughs and a few water tanks that I am not currently using and moved them west. Supposed to meet with the fence builder today. Hopefully, that goes well.

As I am typing this, I am trying to buy a couple of critters online. I don’t like this extended bid crap. I am sure that some would enjoy the fact that I am getting my ass kicked by an online auction. However, the makers of bud light like it. I do enjoy the max bid feature. Wait.

Hold on.

YES!! It is finally over. I got a couple bought.

I will mail a check tomorrow and then make arrangements to pick these guys up. They are ONLY 9 hours aways. I will have them back here and on feed by the 29th. I had made arrangements with the breeder before hand, that if I got any bought, I would pick them up on the date. They won’t be there past that date. Why? Because I told him I would get them then. Not later.

There are a lot of positives to an online sale. One of the few negatives are waiting on people to come get their damn animal at their convenience, even when they told you they would be there to get it. If an animal hangs around my place, they start to get expensive. Maybe, even real expensive.

If you think other stuff is high. Price fencing materials. I was all convinced that I was going to use 11 strand barb wire again. Now, I’m looking at some other dang goat fence. None of it is cheap. Either way, I’ve got to make up my mind pretty quick.

It is finally official. The ink is dry on the contracts. We are relocating–west. It will be 3 miles south of Fargo and 1/2 west. Duke will go to school at Shattuck. We hope to have everything moved by the first of August, but who knows. There are walls to be painted, flooring to be put down and fence to be built. It isn’t going to be an easy move. I’ve got a lot of crap.

The place is where my mom and her five brothers grew up. My uncle is retiring and sold the place to Tammy and I. The house was built by my Grandpa Duke. The place isn’t as secluded as our where we are now, but the road to get there is a little bit better. Duke will should be easy to keep track of as there is a flat top hill across the road to the NW and a pond below the barns. We are excited to get moved, but the actual task of moving is a pain in the ass. Big fun.

We didn’t get a whole lot of rain, but a little is better than nothing. We got over a 1/4″. I talked to a customer north of Buffalo who got 2″ yesterday morning. That is the biggest rain that they have had in over three years. Seems like it was a fairly widespread 1/4″ to 3/4″ rain in NW Oklahoma. We’ll take it.

With the rain meant I got to clean out feed troughs this morning. We’ll probably have little ones with the shits by this evening. Amazing how moisture does that to a goat.

Productive weekend. We were fairly busy at the store for a Saturday morning. Picked up a load of feed on Saturday. Grain markets keep going up. At some point, we are going to see feed prices start creeping up. Stopped in at Cleo, Saturday evening. I got to listen to Bob Seelke and the Governor Jack Staats sling BS for awhile. I did learn a new term for how hot it has been. I probably won’t post it on here though.

I watched Forrest Gump on tv on Saturday evening. That has to be the best acting job of all time and one of the greatest movies ever made. I also watched some Diners, Drive ins and Dives. I like watching that show. Its kind of cool seeing some new places and different food items. Although I really like to travel and eat at good places, I couldn’t do that job. There is no way that I could sample some of those vegetable dishes and anything that had tongue in it. I couldn’t even fake it. That first raw tomato and I’d be out of there.

Made it to Mass on Sunday morning. That’s three weeks in a row for me. Dang near a record for me in the past twenty years. I probably didn’t get to miss Mass three times from ages 0-to 18. Of course, I would need to go daily to make up for a lot my transgressions.

After lunch, Duke and I clipped, trimmed hooves, vaccinated, etc, all of his wethers. He is starting to do the clipping. He’s slow and leaves skips, but kids need to learn. It drives me nuts to watch him, but he’ll get better.

Braden showed up to help with work his babies. We vaccinated, burnt horns and clipped that set also. Everybody that shows goats needs to help burn horns sometime. Then we tied into the big job. Washing and clipping Freak on a Leash. The goat acted fine, but working a two year old buck is not fun. But we got him done. It just happened that the temperature spiked above a 100 while we were working him. When we got done, the temperature dropped. I’m getting old and fat.

We’re still drenching the urinary calculi victim. He seems to be fine. Tammy is still working to get the retard to suck. She has way more patience than me.

I’m not very good at waiting. Some have even called me impatient. Waiting on somebody to come sign papers on a tractor deal. Waiting on a goat to bloom. Waiting on somebody to come pick up their goat and get it out of my pens. Waiting on the next rain. Waiting on the abstract office. Waiting on two attorneys to get their crap together. Waiting.

I’m not very good at sitting still and just waiting.

I am sure that some of you have been missing something in your lives the past few days. There hasn’t been any posts on message boards on oklahomshowgoats or breedersworld. No word of the day, no rumours, nothing. How can you make it through the day, knowing that a piece of your life is missing?

Thank goodness for this extremely informative blog to help you out. I don’t have any good goat rumours, although I have heard a few, just don’t know if they are true or not.

Thursday evening, (although this Thursday kind of felt like a Monday), I got home and headed to the barns to do chores. Checked on the kid born yesterday morning. He didn’t look very healthy. I milked the doe and tubed him. This sparked him a little. Tammy got home and helped him to nurse. The dumb shit doesn’t know how to suck. He acted fine this morning, although he doesn’t look very full.

Moved two first time does into confinement pens. They haven’t done very well in general population. They should be milking better than they are. I’m sure the heat hasn’t helped, but the rest of them are doing good.

The great thing about raising goats is all of the “I’ve never had that happen before” moments. I was surveying a set of goats that are between 4 & 7 weeks of age. I noticed one buck kid that was set up and looking the part. I’ve been watching this goat for a while as his mother has raised some good ones. I walked up to him and he moved just far enough to not get caught and he set himself up again. Then he dribbled just a few drops of piss. Hhmm? I made him move again. Same thing. Moved a little, stopped and dribbled. Crap. A kidney stone.

We haven’t had very many problems with kidney stones at our place. I’ve dang sure never had one in a goat that hadn’t been banded, had good creep feed and salt available and is only 7 weeks old. I caught him and sure enough, I could feel the blockage. I couldn’t get a hold of the end to snip it. So I gave him a big dose of vitamin C and drenched him with apple cider vinegar. Obviously, he has spent more time eating mom’s feed instead of creep or we wouldn’t have this problem. If he doesn’t make it, I will know for sure that he was a great one. It’s never a common one that dies.

Speaking of common. I’ve got a wether in Duke’s pen that looks like hammered shit. He and his twin brother had the shits the day I bought them. I got them home and thought I could get them dried up. The skinny little twin dried up and is going to make a goat, all be it at somebody else’s place. This one still had the nuts in him. I gave him a week or two and then banded him. I never really got him dried up until I weaned him. He then dried up the next day after weaning. He has been weaned two weeks now and he still looks like crap. He is eating. But he acts lethargic. He has been wormed. Since, I was dealing with this other crap last night, I thought might as well try something on him. I gave him a dose of Liver 7, B12 and probiotics. Of course, he is the most expensive wether on the place. For that matter, he is the most expensive wether that I have bought for anybody all year. Refer to earlier paragraph. If he dies, I will know that he was dang sure a great one.

We are dealing with a major dilemma. The 4 wheeler has not been operating at an optimum level. I think it has an electrical problem and I can’t find it. This 4 wheeler gets used daily, so this cripples us. Although, it does keep Duke in shape when the 4 wheeler is down as he then runs wethers on foot. Back in February, I took the 4 wheeler to the dealer to get serviced. Fix anything that needs fixing was my orders. A couple of hundred dollars later, I get the 4 wheeler out of the shop. Two days later, I had to buy a battery for it. Four months later, it is broke down again. For the first six years, zero problems. Take it the shop, two problems.

The last one kidded this morning. Finished. That is the last one to kid here.

Took the 4th off. Completely off. I laid on the couch until 7 am. I cooked a steak dog for lunch at 11 am. I took a nap. I didn’t answer the phone or texts. I worked around the barn and pens with the ear phones in. I went swimming at the in-laws while everybody else was at the lake. It was awesome. Now, back to the real world.

Duke and I shot a pile of fireworks on Tuesday night. We would have shot more, but it was to windy to shoot the big ones. Thanks to Fred Urban for providing Duke with this pickup load of firecrackers. We dang sure shot all of the bottle rockets. There is a reason those things are illegal in most states. Dang, they are fun.

I did sample the sand plum wine. It tasted pretty good, but it is obvious that there needs to be a soft spot to land if a person has too much of it at any one time.

Its pretty dry all across OK, KS and Texas. The panhandles are by far the worst. Being this dry makes it hard to track any animals. Even the best trackers haven’t been able to spot any tracks around Beaver for an older, lumbering mammal that limps on one leg. Suspiciously, though, some tracks that fit this beast have been noted in the Hill Country of Texas. Don’t know if this one is hunting hogs or goats.

I spend a lot of time on the road. Not just chasing livestock, but work related also. I listen to a lot of Xm radio in the pickup. There is an iPod that constantly plays in the barn and I normally have earphones going at a show. I listen to a wide variety of music. A large percentage of the time, it is some kind of 80s rock that is playing. Some of these bands got labeled as “hair bands” but they actually made some really good music that is still being played by kids today. There was some under-rated bands. Ratt, Winger, Tesla and Cinderella all made some really good music.

What’s it going to be? There is this one doe that is going to kid sometime in 2012 at our place. Don’t know when she got bred, but she obviously is. We are to the point that it is going to be out of one of two different bucks. Either one will work. The doe raised the grand wether at Enid in 2011, so it could be interesting. We’ll just have to wait and see. We are going on vacation in mid-July, so I am betting she will wait until then.

Well, fire up some 80s tunes and get in a good mood as tomorrow is a holiday. Good Day.