Oh Hey I'm Movin' On Up....

I interviewed for a new position and found out Wednesday that I got it! It will be a raise for me and hopefully the new office will have fewer guv'ment oddities. I work for the guv'ment so I guess I am an odd one too...however, I hope the new people I work with are more in line with my particular quirks if you will.

Guv'ment... don't get me started.

I never once woke up as a child thinking: when I grow up I want to work for the government! However, here I am and I'm trying to make the best of it...tho' to me it is VERY confusing and VERY different compared to private sector. The stories I could tell. You would think I'm making them up, seriously, you would. I'm learning that if I keep my mouth shut, smile, nod and remain "pleasant" - I get along pretty well. It pays the bills and I gotta be somewhere 8 hrs a day.

Tuesday I left work early (a guv'ment job perk) to ride in a clinic given by Jennifer Baumert. I just love her and love riding with her! Here is a link to an article she wrote when she was in Germany training with Conrad Schumacher: http://equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/english/dressage/eqconrad1914/

My goal was to ride outdoors in the beautiful weather. All was fine until my mare Sera noticed...LLAMAS! The place next to the farm hosting the clinic has 15-20 llamas. In the summer, the llamas go unseen due to the trees but with winter's bare branched trees... well let's just say Sera was having a major cow because the llamas were blowing her mind.

Jennifer said we could move to the indoor arena if we wanted but Sera has to learn to "get over it" and I need to learn to deal with her when she is flipping out. We stayed outside and dealt with the horrifying horse eating creatures. By the end of the lesson, Sera was accepting and relaxed. My lessons with Jennifer are always very fun and so informative!

Toward the end - Sera was stretching down into the bridle and relaxing.

I'm giving back all the high tech earpieces and transmitter to Jennifer. The llamas are all behind those trees...you can't see them but Sera sure could! She's standing still in this picture which was not possible at the beginning of the lesson - there was much head shaking, cow hopping and bucking. Poor thing. Doesn't she know llamas are vegetarian??

Once I got home and put Sera back into her pen, I had to milk goats and help Furry Husband feed babies. We are getting 16lbs of milk at each milking now with three does - that is over 30lbs of milk in a day! Yeeks! Furry Husband is still very leery of Chocolat's small teats tho' I can milk her without too much trouble and I have large man hands. Yes, I was man hands in Seinfeld...oh, you have something on your cheek....

Some co-workers from a program I worked in a long time ago were in town. They were the ones that initially started me thinking about dairy goats and helped me with my initial research. I picked them up at their hotel and we all drove up to Lyons, CO to see SouthFork Dairy Goats. SouthFork has wonderful Lamancha dairy goats and they just won the National Show in 2007. An extremely prestigious win. Check them out here: http://www.southforklamanchas.com/

First place dairy herd at the 2007 Dairy Goat National Show. Left to right: Cierra, Cate, Charity, Cayenne

We toured the farm and talked goats. We went inside to have dinner and talked goats. We looked at goat pictures, talked about goat shows, discussed other people in the goat industry that everyone knew... it was a full on goat evening.

My friends had early flights in the morning so we left at a decent hour and headed back to the hotel. What a fun, animal packed day! From la-ti-da Dressage clinic to a very well known and respected Lamancha goat farm.

Makes me giggle - the Dressage people would probably be a bit down in the mouth about goats and at the same time the goat people would be a bit down in the mouth about Dressage people... see how much you can learn, enjoy and the fun people you can meet from all different walks of life when you keep your mouth shut, smile and nod?

Whattya know. Maybe the ol' guv'ment ain't teachin' me such bad things after all!