Heather Flanagan's Blog

A few months ago, my sweetheart and I started renting a lovely little house with probably about an acre of land, including an old (sadly neglected) apple orchard. Being where we are in the world, we get plenty of water and just enough sunlight that the grass and wild blackberry grow like they have absolutely nothing better to do. OK, so they probably don't have anything better to do. Work with me on the mental image and let's move on.

Once spring sprang (sprung? sproinged? is springing?) it became painfully obvious that a manual reel mower cannot defeat the acre of grass and blackberry in the orchard. Yes, we tried it, and no, it didn't work. It was a rather optimistic idea evolving out of the fact that we need some exercise and that we've had to move every year for the past 4 years and don't want to buy more equipment like a big mower.

Which leads to the possibly extended moment of insanity. Did you know that it costs about the same amount to house 3 cute little Pygora goats with their lovely spinnable fiber as it does to hire someone with a large mower and an annual aerator and appropriate fertilizer per year? Amazing, isn't it.

And they're so cute. Did I mention that? Some have fiber much like cashmere. Others have fiber much like fine mohair.

Do a Google Image search on Pygora. You will see the cutness.

In any case, I'm playing with the idea. My sweetheart is fine with it as long as he has nothing to actually do with the critters. Now, to see what the landlady has to say about it...