Month One in North Carolina

It wasn't a plan to celebrate our first month with goats, nor was it a
plan to not keep in touch (I'm BCCing this to family and friends, some
who only know of our move through others).

We had truck trouble in Missouri, and once the truck trouble was
repaired i just wanted to get HOME. So we drove all day and trough the
night to arrive just after 5 in the morning. Moon above, dawn claiming
the sky, the murmur of night insects giving way to bird song: it was a
magical moment to arrive. The first creature to greet us was a toad in
the driveway.



Settling in has taken time: our household effects took ten days to catch
up with us, the bedroom suite didn't fully arrive until the 20th, and
the new love seat just made it last Friday. Mostly though, we've been
doing yard work. It's a lush time here in North Carolina, and the
previous owners had not been much for keeping the landscape checked.
With in the first day I'd confronted four invasive species doing what
they do best in the area of most significant concern: the drain field
for the septic system.

We have spent much time at Lowes (only five minutes away, thank
heavens!). Loppers, weed whackers, mower, machete: tools to fight stilt
grass, honeysuckle, autumn olive, and tree of heaven. I've gotten more
exercise in the past month than the past two years it seems: mowing the
eastern yard puts five miles on the pedometer. In looking for land
clearing in Chatham county, i'd run across the web page for The Goat
Squad (http://goatsquad.com/). We called the first week -- heard
nothing, and we had essentially given up when we heard from the Squad on
Wednesday. Yes! we wanted their help, and they arrived on Sunday.

100 goat hours of Goats as a Service (GaaS, clearing the entanglements
from your enterprise.... Apparently, we've brought Silicon Valley humor
with us) created the in-progress image above the before. (That's just
the first 5 hours of the three full days they'll stay with us.)

Christine and I went out last night under the last gloamings of
twilight. The goats eating in the woods sound like the crackling of a
camp fire, snapping of branches and the crackling as they eat branches
and vines. Fireflies twinkled around us, and the first stars appeared.
As we stood arm in arm watching and listening, a toad hopped out of the
fenced area. The same toad? It made its way to a large rock and tried to
free climb the big flat face that the fencing guys had turned up earlier
in the day. It tried a couple of times before we left it to make its way
in peace (and after we considered Christine as sherpa to free climbing
toads).

We love it here, love the peace and the bird song, the deer visits. The
humidity isn't so great, but the lush green is delightful. If you don't
hear from us, imagine us mowing and trimming and cutting branches and
burning the tree that fell in the storm and the invasive trees and brush
and finding little native plants like the Pipsissewa and celebrating the
tulip poplars and elms and oaks and maples and the tall yellow pines.
There's a hickory out there for me to find....

Take care,

[elaine] and christine of C----wood