Brrrrrrhhhh

I just couldn’t resist using the image above to initiate this article. Ever since I took the shot I have been laughing at what first came to mind: the caption says it all.

The piece itself begins……………………………now, and includes another picture of the Fab Goat4 in a different setting.

It is five- thirty in the morning.

The wind is howling from the north.

My guess is that the gusts are around twenty-five miles per hour; that is the normal threshold for the sliding glass doors to start making their strained, high-pitched whistle.

Local NOAA Radio weather reports “…wind north at sixteen mph gusting to twenty-three producing a wind chill of twenty-eight.”

Twenty-eight? In mid-November?

OOFH.

Weather this frigid has my animal buddies seeking shelter anywhere they can.

They are probably scratching their respective heads like we humans are: why so soon?

When the wind noticeably shifted to coming from the north late this past Tuesday afternoon, the winter-coated goats immediately found one good break from the buffeting: the metal shed and oasis of a couple of prickly bois d’arc trees.

In addition to the cover image, you see the four of them through nature’s camouflage.

A walking stick – so skinny and gossamery that the strong wind would take it airborne – quickly found a sheltered spot on the west side of the building. [What it doesn’t know is that it is also a nocturnal meditation location for individual toads: I still haven’t figured why they go there.]

I almost stepped on it in the doorway. Easy to miss it looks like a couple of strands from an old broom, doesn’t it?

My toad tenants are really fortunate, though. They have a dedicated patch of no-mow high grass which provides a year-round protective canopy over their subterranean digs. [Pun intended.] And the spot does get a crew-cut every once in a while, with hand-held clippers.

The point of this short piece is to simply show respect to all of the above, and their eventually to-be-featured cousins. They are fun to have around.