Day 16: Market Prep, and some goat wranglin'

Yesterday evening, after I posted about the Tarantula, I had closed up shop for the second time that night, and then another Tarantula showed up, I'm not sure if they are coming through my window or what, but it appeared right where the other one was! Maybe it was the same one and it went around the outside of the barn and came back through my window!! Anyways, It ran off, and I was not in the mood for chasing it, I just told it to not bite me in my sleep and decided to call it a night!

Morning chores started at 5:30 today because Jim had to leave with the kids for soccer practice around 8. I was once again doing chores by moonlight and stars, as I will be tomorrow night as well because it's market day.

When I was in the garden today harvesting for the market prep, chasing grass hoppers as usual, I remembered something that slipped my mind to post about yesterday. Yesterday I caught a grasshopper, but instead of letting it go, I ate it. Yep, alive and all, well it wasn't alive once I crunched it. But before you get all grossed out, or start thinking "Okay, now I know this guy has lost his marbles, He loves hard manual labor, and eats bugs.." let me explain why I did it. In Permaculture class we learned that bugs were actually and essential part of peoples diet in jungle areas (like Thailand) and that when people from their couldn't get their normal diet of bugs they suffered what's called chitin deficiency. Chitin is the material that makes bugs exo-skeletons and it is good for us to eat! So since I figured, hey, why not try it I'm going to be in Thailand soon anyways! It wasn't that bad actually.

Jim and the kids took off and didn't come back till 1-ish, and Tina is still in Phoenix so it was up to me and Carla to prep everything for the market. We worked our way through most of the list right as Jim got back. He has an uncanny sense of timing like that.When Jim got back we kept working and doing other prep till about 5:30 and then I went to do chores while he took the kids swimming. The only noteworthy thing about tonight's chores is that instead of penning the goats, I put them in a fenced in pasture so I don't have to worry about them tomorrow morning. But that isn't part of the goats normal routine so they didn't go in very easily. Eventually after 20 fruitless minutes of my solo effort, I went to get Jim's help. Our combined efforts finally got them in after another 15 minutes of sprinting around after them and cutting off their escape angles so that they only had one place to go, the pasture. Now I know what it's like to be a herd dog, except I am in far better shape than old Cristos so I was doing it for about 35 minutes, he quit after about 5. Other than that, I just did my normal chores as well as some prep to make tomorrow as easy as possible.

The goat fiasco plus the prep for tomorrow caused my work day to end around 6:45, much later than usual so after a hasty, cold, shower, and a hastier dinner, that's all I have to report tonight. I'm going to turn in early in hopes to get a full 8 hours before tomorrow!