Tomorrow morning Joel and I will be heading to the Smokey Mountains, so this morning we tied up some loose ends in preparation for our departure. We made an early trip to the feed store…so early that the store dog

wasn’t good awake. As a matter of fact, he was still on his bed, eyes half open, snoring.
Joel got some seeds, and I got some staples

to repair the goat fence. The last thing I need is for those goats to get loose while we’re gone. While I was in Alaska, Rose and Jasmine got out and trimmed Joel’s citrus trees. To tell you the truth, I’m glad that I was 4000 miles from home when that happened.
The goats, chickens, guinea, turkey, pigeons, rabbit, dog and cats will be

under my sister-in-law, Donna’s care. Although, one time when we were gone, Donna ran over Willow with the golf cart and had to jack the thing up to pull her out. Willow’s horns are now uneven and her tail pointed to the left for several months, but she was fine. Actually, she was in better shape than Donna.
Even though I’m excited about our trip, there is a part of me that would like to stay

because the yard is in full bloom. But, there should be plenty of wild flowers in the mountains.
Speaking of flowers,

remember these gears? Well, they are now flowers.

I call them “geardenias”.
Well, let me throw a few things in a backpack, because tomorrow starts early.