Yellow Squash, Black Suburbans - Can't Blame Everything on the Goats!

Raising goats can make you do crazy things. This I know. Today as I was watering the weeds I had transplanted into our yard from the roadside bank (anything to make the goats happy), I looked out towards our vegetable garden and realized that I have also done a few crazy things even before the goats joined our family...

The highlight of Em and Ellie's day is their afternoon "walk" in the lower field, next to the garden. We let them out of the fenced yard for about an hour of supervised "free grazing" (praying the whole time that we'll eventually be able to get them back in the pen).  Sadly, this activity may soon be curtailed as I fear the temptation of a growing vegetable garden will be too much too resist - hey Emerson, let's eat all these watermelon plants...mmm! Strawberries! Radishes! Poisonous rhubarb! Absently I wondered if my husband will plant yellow squash this year...

Several years ago our squash were out of control. They multiplied everywhere, growing from four inches to two feet long overnight. We fried it, pureed it, grilled it, froze it. We made squash pancakes, squash salad, squash casserole. In desperation we dropped them on neighbors' doorsteps in the dark like abandoned puppies. Still they stacked up on the dining room table, crying for homes...

I called my sister-in-law, whose children went to the same day camp as mine. Would she take a few? (I offered free babysitting in exchange.) Two, she agreed, so I eagerly selected a pair which resembled giant Neanderthal clubs. Food for a week! At camp I set the squash on the pavement and scanned the parking lot for her black Suburban - oh no! She was already driving away! Desperately I hefted both club-like squash and madly ran after her vehicle, determined to cut her off before the exit. (We had a deal!) Crazily waving the giant squash, I leaped in front of her vehicle - but how odd...the only way this driver could be my sister-in-law was if she had entered Witness Protection overnight and gotten a new identity, but then why was she still coming to the same camp...and that's when I saw a small red hatchback, driven by my clearly-recognizeable sister-in-law, pull into the lot.

"Sorry I'm late," she called. "My Suburban's in the shop and I had to borrow this car. Are those my squash?" At that point the driver of the black Suburban, taking advantage of my breathless-and-distracted state, made a very rude gesture and swerved around me into the road.

The funny thing is, after that, my daughters begged me to drop them off a block from camp each morning, though I really can't figure out why...but with rumors of a crazy woman attacking people in the parking lot, I just couldn't risk it.