"Well, my brother says Hello. So hooray for speech therapy." - Emo Philips

I spent time at the coffee shop this morning. Most customers are regulars and know each other both because they frequent the joint and because this is such a small community.
That doesn't mean they always get along.
Good grief. It was like a verbal cage match this morning with more bickering than we every had raising kids, and over things just as dumb.

Steve v. Judy:
"Next time I see you talking on your cell phone while you're driving I'm calling the cops on you."
"Go ahead, I dare you."
"I will, and you'll get one expensive ticket."

Mike and Dave were going at it over Dave's tendency to tell stories that go on and on and on, flowing seamlessly from one event to another, all from 20 years ago.

Me? I sit at my table in the far corner and try to focus on my writing. That didn't work real well today, though. On the way into town afterward I decided what I wrote was poorly structured and needs to be scrapped and rewritten.

I went to Lowe's to get lumber for a table that I built before lunch. It now sits up in the fenced area that used to be the garden before the trees came out and we moved the raised beds down by the creek where's there's a lot more sun. This table now sits next to the gambrel I'll use for hanging goats for skinning and gutting. Once the carcass is skinned and clean I'll put it here for cutting and wrapping.

After building the table I dug a hole about the diameter of a 5 gallon bucket and three feet deep deep where I'll bury the "waste." I'll cover the offal with lime which speeds decomposition.

I've got a cheap meat cleaver ($12) coming from Amazon.com and once that arrives I'll be all ready. The first one, Itzhak, won't meet his destiny until the first week in September when Pam goes to Arizona to visit the kids. She doesn't want to be anywhere nearby when it happens. I certainly won't enjoy the process, but it's a part of life too many people willingly ignore.

If you're curious about the various cuts of meat that come from a goat here's a video of a chef showing how to separate a carcass. There's NO blood or guts, nothing more than you'd see a butcher doing on the back of the grocery store. It gives an idea what we'll end up with and how it will get cooked. It also shows why a cheap cleaver will do the trick just fine.

I'll leave home a little before 7:00 tomorrow morning for the 5k race in Junction City. Last year we both went and I ran while Pam walked. Afterward we toured the Scandia Festival the city puts on each August. She said the walk was a miserable experience she has NO desire to repeat, and the festival is nothing but a series of booths selling unhealthy foods or cheesy faux Scandinavian trinkets, so she'll stay home.

Last year I finished second in my age division and got a nice hat as the award. They guy who beat me was 69 so this year he's moved up a division. No one who ran last year from the next division down has aged up into mine so I'm hoping I can snag first place this year. But I'm not very confident because I lost so much training time due to the procedure on my toe and then the trip to MI. And there may be speedsters who weren't there last year.
We'll see.