I saw just the start of it and then just the end of it.  It got cloudy in Shattuck, America during the great eclipse.  However, I got to see plenty of text videos sent of the same eclipse shot.  I bet several of you saw it as well.  I first got this video in the morning titled “Eclipse in Alaska”.  James Sweet probably sent the best eclipse shot that I saw.  Schoovy definitely sent the worst that had nothing to do with an eclipse.

Looks like everybody’s favorite Uncle Ron hosted a heckuva gathering in Nebraska to witness the totality.  Pretty cool deal.  Here in OK, we were stuck with some of Milligan’s Facebook videos.

Alex, our goats were fine on this side of the TX/OK border.  Tammy had them all wearing protective glasses.  Except for one and that one wore a welding helmet.  I do know of a lady that moved her goats inside during the eclipse.

I am glad that so many people got out and about to witness this event.  Sure, there was lost productivity at work but in the end, it is all good.  Kind of like getting a haircut—yeah, I really don’t know how this ties…but…I did get a haircut today and I feel better.

I don’t watch much television before 9 pm,  but I did watch my current favorite show tonight–Forged in Fire.  Dude, I can feel myself making some of these tools.  But, it hurts to watch the tests.  Dang, to put that much effort into something just to watch it get hammered on something like green bamboo.  I guess it is kind of like going to some shows.  You just know that this is going to be tough to watch but you gotta do it to get to the end.

Back to that tv show.  Tonight, they used these swords to cut a pig carcass in two pieces.  I spent a lot of hours back in the early 90s at the Okie State meat lab cutting pig, beef and lamb carcasses.  I would have loved to swing a sword at one.  I like cutting tools but I want to make a saber.  Yes, those of you that know me understand that I want a light saber.

I’m done.  Have a good one and a better tomorrow.

“Black people that were never slaves are fighting white people that were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by Democrats, because Democrats can’t stand their own history anymore, and somehow it’s Trumps fault?”

Dr. Terry Rickard

Unless you have been in a hole, then you are aware that there will be a solar eclipse today.  This is a natural happening that is really not that rare.  But the fact that there will be a total eclipse from coast to coast of the USofA makes it a huge media deal.  Make sure that you have your goats protected, so that they don’t stare at the eclipse and become blind.  I have glasses for all my goats.  Julie Milligan had some left over eclipse glasses, so I got them and will fit them on the does as I care about their eye sight.

I actually saw a post on Facebook asking if they should protect their horse’s eyes.  I also had a sarcastic text from a young Texan remarking about protecting goat eyes.  One must be a able to find humor in these things.

My does got to deal with a natural happening last evening.  A hail storm decimated the garden back at the end of May.  Therefore, weeds had taken over.  I moved all of the does into the garden yesterday to mow the weeds down.  This was going to be a two day job to slick this pen up.  Last night, just as it was getting dark, a storm blew up quickly.  Little bit of hail, an inch of rain and a pile of wind hit.  There was nothing on the weather app, OKC news weather and not much warning.  SO, the does were locked in that garden pen with no shelter.  Goats don’t like to be wet.  They will dry out.

Have a good one and good luck watching that eclipse.  Productivity won’t be very high today.

I routinely read the judge interviews in the Purple Circle magazine.  Do they divulge earth-shattering info as to how they will judge a given show–NO.  Are the articles worth reading–YES.  If you don’t already subscribe, you should.  I enjoy perusing these articles and I do think a reader can infer some (just a few) priorities—kids first, muscle first, etc.  Normally, if their article reads like crap, that given judge sounds like crap on the mic.  But that is for a different time and place.

I always use my good eye to read the part where it asks “How does the show ring compare to the “whatever” industry?  I love it when they say it doesn’t or in some spots it does mirror the industry.  Okay.  It’s even better when they are honest and give us a lesson about work ethic, people networking skills, animals as a teaching tool……  YES, and I agree.

Hogs–could NOT be farther from the actual industry than we currently are.  C–sections–common.  Small litters–can you say twins.  Cripples–absolutely.  Slow growers–get you some of that.  But the chance of making that ONE big boned, stout skulled, wide backed son-of-a-gun that kind of walks without being a cripple–priceless.  The hog industry is stuck in 1998.  McGwire and Sosa–we all want the next home run.

Sheep–RUSM?  Could we get them any wider based, huge boned, fatter and how much is shag worth in the real world?  NOTHING.  But it sells good in pictures online.   And vets get paid for C sections to deliver these big boned, wide skulled lambs.

Cattle–Marketing, marketing, marketing.  They’ve been at it the longest and they get it.  The show ring vs. the real world?  Okay, there are similarities, BUT, this is a somewhat goat based site so…..

Basically, I would rather talk the cattle side but I don’t have time for the cattle deal.  It has its moments and I have plenty of thoughts.

Goats– The wethers are too fat.  Period.  And as a result we cause more problems.  Kidney stones for one.  The does are fat so therefore, they become susceptible to toxemia.  No dang’d old range goat ever gets thiamine deficiency.  Too much emphasis is put on base width and mass (not true muscle).  Purebred goats are nothing but big bones, wide based bastards with a set of papers.  Therefore, they can’t help any part of the industry.  There is no real substance.  Hair, fat and bone.  In the real world, this doesn’t work.  That is why we have “wether” genetics and purebreds.  The purebreds should help the market industry.  The purebred goats do NOT.

The purebred side markets “wether genetics”.  The wether side secretly uses some purebred stuff hoping, praying that it saves them.

But NOOOO!  Nobody is paying attention to their history lessons.

My point—-the Angus cow is still a staple of the market cattle industry.  The Yorkshire sow still has a place in all things porcine.  The Dorper sheep is taking over the sheep industry because of reproductive ability.  And the outstanding purebred Boer goat–is waiting to be flushed (again) because she can’t raise one on her own.  There will be a Spanish recip waiting for her embryos.  And most breeders have a dairy cross doe on stand-by that will raise the babies.

My point….it is going to be awhile until the next great wether buck shows up.  Why?  Because we are at a genetic stand-still and the purebreds are not selecting for productivity.  So, both sides of the industry are standing around looking for the next great thing.

Somewhere, someplace there is a goat.  The right goat.  What’s he worth?  Where is he?  If you study history,  these deals run in cycles.  Hogs have a shorter cycle than the rest, but they still have the same issues.  For example,  Berks are popular, Herefords are making a charge and are there any good purebred Hampshires left?

I ain’t never been surfing but it looks/feels/sounds like the entire goat industry is waiting on that magical wave to ride.

Holy what the hell?  I sat down to write about differences between Duke’s uncles and I ended up here. Look—squirrell!  One phone call and I get off on a tangent.

If reading all of this crap makes you mad, well….go tear down a statue somewhere.  From a teacher perspective, I had a GREAT day.  I mean GREAT!!

“Black people that were never slaves are fighting white people that were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by Democrats, because Democrats can’t stand their own history anymore, and somehow it’s Trumps fault?”
Dr. Terry Rickard

I don’t know this dude, but obviously there are some differences out there.  Somehow, I feel that we were smarter before smart phones and Facebook, blogs and all of this other crap.

WTH is going on?

Get ready for the eclipse next week.

Sometimes, the hardest part of writing on here is putting something in the title line.

Spent some time walking through crops last evening.  Trying to see if the ground is firm enough for a swather to run across it.  It was getting close, but then it rained again this morning.  It is kind of a fun feeling walking through the vegetation in these fields.  Haygrazer, German millet, Teff grass, cowpeas, crabgrass, collard greens with the occasional okra plant mixed in.  Lots of green diversity.

Duke and I spent some time cruising through the grass pastures identifying grasses.  Little bluestem, big blue, indian grass, switchgrass, blue grama, buffalo grass, side oats grama and some old world bluestem.

I need to get a chisel in the ground in the doe pasture.  Those little hooves can cause some major compaction.  Right now, there is a fine line between being muddy and it getting hard.

We had a python alert in Shattuck.  Somebody’s “pet” snake got loose and they couldn’t find it.  Everybody needs to worry about something like this.  I asked a member of the family that owned the snake how it got loose.  The reply was fitting, “I can’t help it if Dad got stoned and drunk.”  Sometimes, you just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

It hasn’t been taking very long to get the round of chores done around here lately.  Why?  It doesn’t take long to fill water tanks.

1.  There are numerous water holes that are holding fresh water.  The does in the pasture aren’t even coming in to the corrals.
2. It has been fairly cool (especially for August) so there hasn’t been much evaporation.
3. The regular rainfall has kept tanks and troughs full.

I used that engineering marvel known as a wee bander last week.  Guess what?  It works.    We banded a big nutted dude on Thursday.  He limped around on Friday, a little on Saturday and we cut the sack off on Sunday afternoon.  Unlike my previous banding methods, I cannot do this banding operation by myself.  Somebody has to hold the goat still so that both hands can be used to operate the machine.  If you use one of these things, I highly stress watching the video a couple of times.  And then, do a practice run.  Once you see how the tool works, it all makes sense and then it gets easier to operate.

Have a good one.

here in paradise, we are just happy to be alive.  The battle with the fungus looks like it is nearing the end.  This one has been brutal.  It has taken its toll on the goat, but he hasn’t lost his appetite, so there is a chance that we can get him back into form.

Normally, when one travels to NW OK during the month of August, green is not the color that comes to mind.  Most years, the colors would remind you of a 64 count box of crayons that all the good colors have been taken out and all that is left is brown, burnt sienna, camel and tan.  But not 2017, it looks like a John Deere dealership….lots of green.  Yeah, we got more rain this weekend.  The neighbors tell me that my rain gauge sucks and that they have gotten more rain.  May be.

Speaking of the neighbors, I was standing in the road watching water running out of the spillway pipe on the big pond.  They pulled up and wanted to know when I was going fishing.  I allowed since that pond had gone dry the past two years, I was pretty dang sure that there wasn’t any fish to catch.  They allowed how you don’t have to catch fish to enjoy it.

Then, one of them told a story about seeing a guy named Dan Blocker sitting on a bridge fishing.  This was back in the late sixties.  He and his then girlfriend pulled up and talked to him.  This guy was just sitting there drinking a beer with a line in the water.  They asked if had caught any.  He reeled his line in and showed them an empty hook.  “It’s kind of hard to catch any with no bait.  I just needed a reason to sit here and drink a beer and enjoy life.”

Some of you old timers may remember Dan Blocker.  He played Hoss Cartwright on the legendary TV show Bonanza.  Dan Blocker married a girl that grew up near here.  So, the story of him fishing is probably true.  Maybe.  By the way, I watched an episode or two of Bonanza this summer.

The calendar says August.  We did start back to school which happens in August.  But it is 80 some degrees, green and guess what, we got another 1.6″ of rain with more in the forecast.  Unreal.

I got me a new bander.  While at Helms last weekend, he was showing me his new toy…a Wee Bander. Supposedly, this thing bands so tight that they don’t feel pain for very long.  This could be a handy tool, especially for those of us that don’t like to band very early.  Being a sucker for new toys that have a chance of helping, I ordered one.  I even banded one with it.  Simply reading the directions for this thing will not suffice.  You must watch the how-to video before using.  Plus you need a physics degree with a masters in mechanical engineering to operate it.  But, yeah, it works.

When dealing with goats, it is always something.  As I talk to people across the country, this is a constant, regardless of climate and weather.  Battling worms, having hoof problems, bucks aren’t aggressive, does aren’t coming into heat, limping goats, destructive does, coccidi problems, stones, fungus,  bad flush #s, good flush #s but low embryo retention rates, sale kids aren’t blooming, sore mouth, dead goat (and there is a long list that causes this).

All livestock have their problems.  But I do feel that goats have way more than most.  Sometimes, I wonder if a lot of us spend too much time and effort trying to manage this miserable beasts at a high level.  We must remember that GOD put these things on this Earth to roam and eat crap that no other animal wanted to eat.  And here we are trying to feed corn/alfalfa/soybean based feeds to them in a confinement setting while trying to manipulate reproductive cycles.

I hope that you have a good one and a better tomorrow.  But, if you have goats, there is a high probability that it won’t be a good one.

Sunday evening found Duke, myself and brother Daniel sitting on the front porch.  We walked to big barn and looked at a grapple bucket.  We then meandered back to the front porch.  As usual, Duke was walking behind us, in no hurry whatsoever.  I was already sitting down when Duke hollered, “Dad, bring me a .22.”

“For what?” I hollered.  He replied, “There is a rattlesnake under this bush.”

I ran towards the carport to grab a baseball bat.  But wait!  There on the front porch was a rack of antique croquet mallets.  Hunh?!  I’ve never done that before flashed through my mind as I grabbed one.

Daniel laughed when he saw me coming with a croquet mallet.  Duke shook his head.  Daniel told me that I couldn’t kill it with that weapon.  HAAA!! I beg to differ.  I did kill that rattlesnake with a croquet mallet.  Now, it was not a big snake, maybe 15″ long with 3 buttons.  But, it was still a rattlesnake and it is still dead.

Tammy and I traveled to TX this weekend and attended the Helms wether sale.  Sale went well.  Food was excellent.  Great group of people.  We even spent the night in the vintage Hotel Turkey.

School starts this week.  Have a good one.