AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY...........INSANE?

Ladies and germs, today is a landmark day in the evolution of my blog. After a perfectly harmless post concerning my annual battle with the evil spawn of trees, a fantastic idea for a more appropriate name for my blog was introduced by none other than Lord Tim , our fairly flatulent friend with airs of royalty. (I swear to Bob I had no premeditation on that pun, it just happened, but I'm sticking with it).

My blog has been a mixture of political commentary, reporting on the aggravatingly obvious, expressions of outrage over cruel injustice, and peeks into the darkness of my sick mind, sprinkled here and there with reports from the home-front, however mediocre it tends to be. However, without her even realizing it, my wife is an important contributor to much of the material in this blog, both for her insights concerning our lives, and the richness she lends to my existence. There has been many a time I wished I had a sound recorder going on 24/7 in this household to catch some of the comedy that goes on between us, material perfect for this blog or perhaps even a pod-cast. She is convinced she has no ability to write, and so far I haven't been able to convince her to at least take a shot at her own posts, but I am more than happy to pass on the nuggets her creative and quite funny mind produces here at the hold. So, since in many ways, as I have just described, this is really a cooperative effort, and I want to lend her the credit she so richly deserves for her contributions. Besides, all anybody seems to comment on is the relationship I have with her, even though I never consciously tried to highlight that. I guess the love is just that obvious.

Although I have changed the title of the blog, the content will not change drastically. I will still go off on my occasional rants. I will preach the righteousness of my own personal beliefs, and boldly attack those of others whom I feel are complete idiots and richly deserve it. I will continue to invite the ire of the NSA and homeland security, for I swore an oath once to protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America, from enemies both foreign AND domestic. However, in a desperate attempt not to lose the few loyal and dedicated readers I DO have, I will continue to report on the happenings here at Pendragon Hold, embellishing and enhancing the mundane occurrences here as needed in order to continue to hold your attention. However, this blog IS produced under a tight budget, so if you wish for it to compete with the likes of Tim and his photoshop resplendent masterpieces, you'll have to all get together and sell cookies or something and buy me my own copy of Photoshop Elements for the Mac. And yes, you can add "shameless" to my long list of lovable attributes.

In closing, I would like to thank Lord Tim for his excellent idea, if only to deflect the blame entirely upon him should this gambit fail. I would like to thank all my commenters, the one's who have stuck with me through thick and thin, as well as the new ones who crept in and became addicted to my personal magnetism. You have my condolences, but I'm keeping you just the same. I want to thank Buffalo for finally getting off his duff and taking his remarkable show on the road, and pray I have rum on hand should he stop by, and I want to thank Shandi for not abandoning us in our hours of need when she wanted to just fade off into the sunset. And Lights, if you don't get your ass back on line and blog, I swear I'm gonna track you down and expose you as the insidious perverter of Dr Suess that you really are. Cherish, gina, littleone, and all my sweet subby friends........thanks for your nurturing words of encouragement and making me realize all the good things I continue to enjoy. And last but not least, I want to thank Bob, who never, ever makes me feel guilty about ANYthing.

Good night, and blessed be.

Lord of the Leaves

For those of my loyal readers who have patiently awaited the exciting episode I HAVE to get around to writing sooner or later, your patience is about to be asked to stick around for a little longer. Today, the yard, covered in leaves, huge piles of leaves, small piles of leaves, huge spans of sand still covered in layers of leaves yet to be raked up, and mixtures of both, thanks to the habit of trees to dump on your nicely raked ground after you've raked it up, ruled the day. A man might be master of his domain, but today the leaves turned the tables.

Now, being a guy, and a husband, I would be more than happy to just let sleeping leaves lie. Hey, they are all going to break down and rot and return to the earth anyway, eventually, right? After all they've been through, who am I to go shoving them around, piling them on top of each other, and then feeding them down the throat of some gasoline powered monster, only to go spreading their poor shredded remains back on the ground anyway? I sometimes wonder what their parents, the trees from which they were shed, are thinking as they witness this horror?

There's no lawn here at Pendragon hold that needs to be uncovered; nope, nothing but sand, with a scattering of weeds attempting to get past the hungry predation of our goats. The front of the house has something resembling a lawn, only because it's not fenced off and subject to the oppression of eating machines that are capable of committing plant genocide. I never have to actually mow it anymore. A day of grazing controls the growth quite nicely. The trick is tying those four legged lawnmowers out on lines in such a precise way as to allow them access to what I WANT them to eat, while keeping them away from those lucky plants I don't want them to murder. So, sometimes, a mechanical trim is in order to take care of those areas, which sometimes resembles voting districts drawn up by republicans.

Well, the wife's shade garden has a remarkable appetite for mulch. The leaf mulch does an excellent job of keeping down the weeds and vines and other nasty little things that thrive in this sort of environment. Plants we LIKE, for one reason or another, haven't a banana split's chance in hell of surviving without lots of compost and manure as well as water. Sand only supports rather aggravating kinds of plant life, like palmetto bushes, and thorny vines and such horrors. It was probably Florida's attempt to make humans want to take one look and go back where they came from, but alas, it didn't work. Hell, even the everglades, with it's vast expanse of saw-grass and swamp, didn't stand a chance against the snowbirds determined to move away from snow and ice and build bingo halls and shuffleboards to keep them occupied while they waited to die. If nature offends thee, pave it over!

Well, here at Pendragon hold, we have a truce with Mother Nature. We just tidy the place up a bit, not dumping tons of fertilizers and poisons on it in order to artificially prop up some foreign ecosystem that couldn't exist here otherwise. We get our water from an onsite well, and anything that percolates down through this sand is going to eventually end up in the drinking water. Unfortunately, this gives those damn fire-ants the upper hand around here, so the best I can do for now is hose their mounds away from places I don't want them, although I sometimes break down and dust those bastards with the bare minimum of ant killer, praying it will break down before polluting the ground water. And, we compost EVERYTHING that can possibly be composted, and return it to the earth whenever we garden or plant things.

This place overall is not pretty, at least not compared to the manicured lawns of the gated communities surrounding us. And thanks to the poisonous overkill needed in order to maintain those pretty little lawns, the St Johns River here in NorthEast Florida is starting to get choked with huge algae blooms every summer, having been overloaded with runoff rich in nutrients. Me, personally, I am rather proud to live on this acre of sand, sans the lawn, in favor of just getting along with Mother Nature, perfect green outdoor carpets be damned. It's hard enough work just dealing with this place on it's own terms; I would already be worn down physically and bankrupt if I attempted to turn this entire acre into a putting green.

I don't really feel like I OWN this place. I'm in reality more of a guest. Until the mortgage, if ever, is paid off, I can't even claim to be a home OWNER anyway. If either one of us lost our jobs, we'd be back to filling out applications to live in some tight little box six inches from equally oppressed neighbors, and the very idea of that happening strikes terror into my heart. While I have the honor and privilege of living on this little acre of sand, I am going to at least try to honor it by providing stewardship that doesn't include bringing nature to it's knees. Many years from now this place may be totally paved over after some developer drives the tenants away to build something that has no need to be here, but until then, I will not insult this land which for 6 years has nurtured me, my wife, and my family.

Back to the leaves. I managed today to eliminate another very large pile of those suckers, and I paid dearly for it. I am sore. My head and upper respiratory system is asking me what the hell happened. I ache. I am tired. Of course, the wife, being a woman, was out there with me, raking in the new mulch I was producing, and I can't honestly say she didn't work as hard as I did, perhaps even more, but true to the nature of women, she is in the kitchen preparing dinner for me and the kids who are coming to visit tonight, as though she had spent the day at a spa or something. How do they do it? Is it strictly lazy and wimpy me, or are you other husbands familiar with this strange species of amazon rabbit that embraces work so insidiously? Bob bless em, though, I am not complaining. I'm too tired. And hungry. And despite that deep seated resentment I KNOW lies within her heart as she takes care of me, I also know a measure of love compensates for that understandable feeling, and I am blessed, and will be well taken care of. What more can a guy ask for?

The Return of Mr. Brandon

Hello guys. For those fans of that "other blog", I have found the time for a new installment. You know where the link is. Enjoy.

And you thought I was a NICE guy...........

I'm not exactly sure what people think of me overall as a human being based on what I have said in my blog. For the most part I think I'm fairly likable. Even those who have had direct contact with me pretty much give me the benefit of the doubt. Ah, but there are dark things beneath this teddy bear exterior. I was reading Amber's husband Dan's blog about end-of-the-world fantasies and how some of us have this deep seated longing for it to all end, with us and the one's we care about intact, of course. I understood where he was coming from. That alone would scare alot of people. But let me explore my own take on apocalypse and see if you still think I'm a decent human being. This might take some deep thought, so don't rush to judgment. Hear me out.

I have daydreamed on occasion that a plague of all plagues swept over this world and took out at least 90% of the population. And I have done so not with horror, but with longing. That, on the face of it, would rate me up there with Hitler and Stalin as personalities go. And that is perfectly understandable. But like I said before, bear with me.

For at least the last third of my life on this Earth I have not been a particular fan of the Human race as species go. Before we came along, it was survival of the fittest, and no one species consciously thought of doing evil to any other beyond what was naturally necessary to survive. Big fish ate little fish, and that was it. Nothing sinister there, my friends, all in balance. Then a light bulb lit up over some monkey's head, and it went downhill from there.

Intelligence is a wonderful thing. It produces art, music, love, bravery, good deeds, and some damn good alcoholic beverages. However, on the flip side, it has also brought the world clear-cutting, pollution, greed, war, genocide, Walmart, violence simply for the sake of violence, taxes, Jerry Springer, the Windows operating system, George Bush, and Tammy Fae Baker. Every other living thing in this world operates within a system of checks and balances, predator versus prey, etc. Mankind has no predator. Mankind has no checks, save himself.

To make things worse, somehow evolution came up with a "God" gene, and once that one kicked in, things really went to hell in a hand-basket. It was bad enough that we preyed on each other to get a leg up, but once we convinced ourselves that invisible men in the sky were cheering our bad behaviors on, we really took our ability to destroy everything in our path to heart. We got smarter.....we embraced science along with religion and devised new and exciting ways to kill each other and anything else that got caught in the cross fire. With friends like ourselves, who in the hell needs enemies?

I understand the basic nature of man, and left to it's own devices, that nature is not something you turn your back on. Even my own disdain for my own race could be viewed as less than noble. But I have to be honest with you......should some alien ambassador approach me with the idea of keeping mankind under it's thumb for our own sake as well as that of this beautiful planet of ours, I would get Benedict Arnold in a second. I think the worst possible thing that could happen to the universe, and all those life-forms that must exist out there in that vast wonder, would be for the human race to discover a faster-than-light drive for starships, as in Star Trek or all those other stories that conveniently bypass the laws of physics as we know them. You think manifest destiny was a crock here in America, imagine that concept on a much grander scale. It would NOT be pretty.

So, back to the great near extinction event. Why, if I claim to be a decent human being, would I advocate the deaths of millions of innocent men, women and children? Well, to even conceive of such a thing, you have to have accepted that it is already happening, and has for quite some time. How many famines have you witnessed from the comfort and well-fed safety of your living rooms via your television sets? How many episodes of genocide have you seen our government and governments around the world allow to happen without lifting a finger? Were we not complicit in all these horrible happenings by not demanding with the utmost outrage that our leaders put an immediate stop to such atrocities? You know it, and I know it; we are quite capable of sitting by while millions of innocent people die, not by natural causes, but by the horrific capabilities of evil men.

Haven't you noticed that despite all these plagues, wars, genocide's, famines, you name it, this race of ours STILL continues to grow by staggering numbers? And hasn't it been painfully obvious that this world of ours is NOT growing in diameter in order to accommodate all these masses of hungry mouths? Is the natural world SO removed from your living rooms that you can't see how fast it's getting paved over? And is all this horror OK with you?

No, I do not wish death and destruction to rain down upon my neighbors. But it already is, my friends, and even now we are starting to see the effects of the worst of our considerable influence on this planet. And there is no other way that I can think of that will have any effect on us as a cancer upon this globe. We must for once in our long history truly become part of the natural world, including it's checks and balances. SOMETHING has to be higher up than us on the food chain. And that thing is that microscopic little wonder known as the virus.

Even now we are fighting a losing battle with bacteria, which thanks to the very real process of evolution, is becoming resistant to our chemical weapons known as antibiotics. We are poisoning our land, our water, and our food, which in turn is breaking down our natural resistance to our environment. And now comes the Avian flu, which is just a few mutations away from becoming the next great pandemic. Do you really think, after Katrina, that we are going to handle that one any better? I still have a few bridges to sell if you do.

So, Michael, you evil little selfish man, you'd love to become that survivalist, holed up in some bunker until the nightmare subsides and you can come forth with your friends and loved ones and rule the world.........that's what you're thinking, huh? Sorry, but no. I have no more right to be a survivor of such a cleansing than anyone else, and there's precious little chance I would survive anyway. I know that. No, I don't wish it upon my loved ones either. But Mother Nature never has, never will show favoritism to any living thing. That I respect. It's the natural order of things, or at least the way it used to be.

So, when all is said and done, what I am suggesting, and long for, is that this wonderful planet somehow get a breather, a chance to heal itself before Man in all his glory utterly devastates it. God is not going to come down and clean up this mess for us, my friends. No one gets out of here alive.

I hope my honesty does not disturb you. THE Michael will not be an instrument of any of these possibilities. That is far beyond anyone's capabilities, save some brilliant geneticist working feverishly in some secret lab somewhere. I hope you all live long and productive lives. Just understand that in my humble, if twisted, opinion, we all exceed our rightful place in the great circle of life, and if we cannot find some shame in that, then we fall prey to our own righteousness.

AND THE HITS KEEP COMING..........or not.......

Well, gang, I finally, FINALLY installed a hit counter on MM&M. As I type this up, the grand total is 56. Yes, 56. Since yesterday. I have no idea whether or not this is a very good, average, or pathetic number, as blog hits go. But, what does bother me is that the most number of comments I can expect at any given time is about seven (as compared to Buffalo and Tim's average of 5987), so when you cast that 56 against 7, well, that's 49 people who passed on by with nary a comment. Every once in awhile I might get a comment from someone I do not previously remember hearing from, but overall my fan base would not populate even the smallest banana republic. Or a nightclub. Or a closet. Sigh.

I thought perhaps a niche blog would perhaps draw more attention. So I created the Adventures of an Alter Ego. That is pretty damn niche if you ask me. Well, so much for that idea. Only my hard core niche minded friends showed up, and even then the reviews were mixed, which only proves that even a niche blog requires exceptional talent to draw in the numbers. That, and Photoshop.

Speaking of photoshop, I am beginning to equate that wondrous tool of artistic manipulation with steroids. That's right. Pumped up blogs that might not get quite the attention if it wasn't for the high tech intervention. Now, before the howling begins, I want to assure you that I am not directly referring to our friend Tim-Elvis when I make this point. I think his would stand quite well on it's own even without the digital slight-of-hand. Buffalo is proving that with every post; the man don need no stinkin' photoshop.

I was also beginning to think that perhaps relying on my life as a template for a blog was a big mistake. The things that happen to me are about as quant and common as lives go, and I can understand why my posts aren't exactly adventure material. I go nowhere, I do nothing, and I write about it. Another words, I write about basically nothing. It's no wonder this blog suffers so.

However, I DO have a secret weapon. I could pull this high-calibre, multi-megaton warhead out at any time and the content of MM&M would suddenly get a whole lot steamier. Trouble is, I would be straying across borders that need not be crossed. Every couple, or one of a couple, that decides to lay it all out to the world has to decide every day, every post exactly how much he/she/they wish to reveal without exposing something that might come back to bite them in the ass. The relationship I have with my wife is a fine example of this. I love this woman. I think you all know that. So whenever I write about US, I have to take into account that she is not exactly a big fan of revealing things that many other couples who blog seem willing to do. And I can understand that. I watch these hollywood gossip shows on television and sometimes I yell back at the screen, "Who GIVES a FUCK who's doing who? I Don't FRIGGIN CARE!" So, although the generic posts concerning the goings-on here at Pendragon hold are usually mild and slightly interesting, they do respect both hers and my privacy to a certain extent. Not that we are rubber clad swingers who have a thing for Ethiopian midgets who recite Shakespeare, or anything like that (exactly....hehe), but for now at least, my need for ratings has not and I do not think it will reach the point that you'll be peeking under anyone's skirt anytime soon, subject wise.

So, if anything, the hit counter only proves that the fans I DO have seem to have become comfortable with what I am able to deliver. I will do my best to find ways to improve my blog, but my resources are limited, as is my natural talent. Thank you for sticking with me, friends, and thank you for sharing YOUR lives with me in those fashions that YOU find comfortable.

Passing into Valhalla

Today brings more loss to our family. The wife's older brother and uncle to our twins, Conrad, has passed on after a hard life that finally surrendered to cancer. I personally did not know nor have I ever met Conrad, but my impression was that he was the hard-bitten, lived as he wished road warrior of the clan. The pictures I have seen of him remind me of the Buffalo in many ways, and I think they may have well have been cut from the same clothe. He died with no shame for how he lived his life, which is well and good, for he faced his end exactly how he wished. In retrospect I kinda wished I had gotten to know him.

This has had a profound effect upon the matriarc of the family, who has lost two children in the course of a year. Nothing pains a parent more than to outlive their son's and daughters. Most of us are in agreement that this woman may very well outlive us all, for despite all the assaults that age and loss have bestowed upon her, she puts the ever-ready bunny to shame. As in just about every family, their are histories that haunt us all, but when Bob embraces us and removes us from our family, it still effects us, and we do not take the loss lightly.

In speaking of this loss, I also introduce the "coming out" of my daughter Holly, whom I have lovingly referred to as "The Evil Twin". I assure you all, and her, that she is anything but evil. She has had her trials and tribulations, her hurts and her pains, and just as I knew deep down from the very first time I met her, she has grown, has overcome, and the essence that makes her the unique and loving individual that she truly is comes shining through as she faces her life with courage and determination. If I had to pick a favorite between her and her Sister, the so-called "Good Twin", I could not do so, for they are two sides to one wonderful coin that I carry in my heart with much love and pride. Their Mother, my Wife, sure does good work, if I may say so myself. They both have made a Father out of me, and for that I owe them so much.

Holly took this opportunity to start her own blog, which opens with a poetic tribute to her Uncle. Her natural talent with words only enhances the emotion her post delivers. Please go hit the link "RideIntoTheSun", and I think you will agree.

By his own request, there will not be a formal service for Conrad. He asked to be cremated, and for his ashes to be taken to Holly, Michigan, from whence the clan originated, and spread upon a lake there. His son Michael will carry out his wishes this spring. The wife will pay her own tribute in our Pagan fashion, wishing him a fine place at the great hall of Valhalla, where all true warriors go when their battles are over.

Leaves, leaves, and more leaves.......

It was another pleasant day at Pendragon Hold. The weather was perfect. We went to Lowes to pick up the first box of vinyl tiles, but upon examination and pricing of all the prep stuff you have to lay down over this base floor before you lay down the tiles, it occurred to us that we would end up paying the same if not more for the tiles than if we just went with the cheapest laminate wood flooring. This stuff just snaps together seamlessly and requires only a padded underlay at the most. So, we decided to go with the wood flooring, and got a box for only 96 (dammit, were IS that damn cent key?!?) per square foot. The big risk we are taking is that this particular color of wood will run out before we purchase enough to cover the floor, but we are just keeping our fingers crossed that if that does happen, we will be able to find a close enough match that it won't be all that noticeable. Pity we can't afford to buy it all at once.

Yesterday I dragged out the shredder and began the process of converting all these humongous piles of leaves into mulch and compost. I took the deflector off and am letting the shredded material blow into the vegetable garden area, which via the wonderful process of gravity versus weight and velocity, throws the lighter and dryer material suitable for mulch further than the moister, denser material suitable as compost soil. It's been awhile since I've done this, so last night my sore muscles were raising hell with me for bringing them out of retirement. YOU shovel pitchforks full of leaves into a shredder chute for hours on end and tell me it isn't one hell of an upper body workout! They might as well buck up and deal with it, cause I only have something like fifteen piles to go......big piles.

Well, I work the weekend, but since the wife is still on vacation for the next two days, I get the car all to myself, without having to play auto-roulette with her. She's been keeping herself busy with her Wiccan crafts and work out in the shade garden. Tomorrow is her birthday. I ordered her a nice pendant she's been lusting after, and made her a card on the computer. I would have rather taken her to a nice spa or maybe a visit to Marine land, but that's for people with money. All we have are each other. When all is said and done, I'll take each other any day.

The Moonlight Madness, Bondage, Carpet, Compost, Solar Power, and Royalty Edition

I came across this article in the local paper, surprised as hell that a reporter, apparently having a slow day, dug this up, probably off the police blotter. Boy, it's amazing the fun stuff that goes on right under my nose.....grin. As it is here, it's hard to read, but I discovered that if you right-click on the article and open it in a seperate window, it presents large enough to read, at least in my browser. Enjoy!















It was a full moon last night, so you just KNOW where the wife and I was for most of the evening. You guessed it, out in the shade garden, conducting a full moon rite. We charged up our crystals under a bright, full moon and now we're loaded for bear! During one of our spell castings, which should have buckets of money raining down upon us fairly soon, the next door dogs decided to raise hell, attracting their owners, who I sensed where standing there watching our strange goings-on, probably wondering what sort of satanic nonsense we were up to. Sooner or later the word is going to get around our neighborhood that we're out in our backyard eating the heads off bats and sacrificing babies to the devil or something liberal like that. As long as the Sheriff's department doesn't show up wanting to search for shallow graves, I could care less what they think is going on. If someone should have the good and nosey graces to actually come up to one of us and ASK what we do, I'll reply that we are praying for all our neighbors to come to Jesus, and not realizing what I REALLY mean by that, will hopefully be satisfied. I just hope I can do it with a straight face.

I've been considering solving my septic tank problem by abandoning it altogether in favor of composting toilets. I've been studying the concepts involved and am pretty sure I can build these things myself, alot more cheaply than buying them. I am also going to divert our "grey water" towards our gardens, which will really come in handy during the summer when we tend to suffer from occasional drought conditions. At first I was thinking that all these pipes were going to be hell to access due to the insulated undercover beneath the trailer, but upon closer inspection, it appears that only the intake plumbing is above this blanket and I won't have to sweat tearing into it. The drain pipes are all easily accessible, thank Bob.

This carpet of ours is so nasty I'm sure that if I watered it, strange new mutant strains of life would grow profusely from it, and probably have us for lunch. We have decided to bite the bullet and buy a box of cheap vinyl tiles each payday till we have enough to cover the common area and rip this carpet up. The vinyl floor in our kitchen has worn beautifully, and is easy to keep clean. The carpet has not fared nearly as well, with stains, rips, things that won't vacuum up, and who knows what embedded in it that the vacuum simply won't pull out. It's probably most responsible for my wife's increasing bouts with allergies. Plus, the fact that I have vacuumed up enough dog hair to assemble a whole team of sled dogs from scratch, and you can see why I am eager to be done with it.

I wish the Federal Government was required to provide low interest loans to homeowners for the purpose of incorporating solar panels and/or solar hot water panels. Yes, I know you can get tax credits, but that only helps people who have the money to begin with. With all this sunshine we get down here, it would be nice to get off the grid entirely, and even make some cash selling electricity back to the power company. But, of course, as long as Bush and his oil company buddies control the strings, there's a snowballs chance in hell of that ever happening.

A recent report just came out that states that the earliest models of the Toyota Prius hybrid cars have already clocked over 300,000 miles on their batteries. That's pretty damn impressive if you ask me. Many people don't even get that far on an ordinary auto powered strictly by a gas engine. I wonder if those Nickel Hybrid batteries would work as well in a solar powered house? Hmmmmmm........

On the war front, Donald Duck.....I mean Rumsfield, is insisting that there is no civil war going on in Iraq. He's right, it's just the boys in the 'hood massacring each other by the scores quietly in the background rather than with full scale fire-fights in the streets. I'm sure the victims appreciate that distinction. Meanwhile, Sadam is insisting at his trial that as the President, he had every right to wipe out villages that pissed him off. He claims that the rule of law doesn't apply to him, because as president, he IS the law. Hmmmmmm.........why does that reasoning sound so familiar.......?

And now the Triple M Weather Report. If you live in the midwest, MOVE. If you live in Texas, RUN! If you live in the South East, enjoy your home while it's still standing. And remember, according to the administration, there is no such thing as global warming. This weather report was brought to you by the GOTCHABYTHEBALLS Energy Consortium, providers of obscene profits to rich investors the world over.

And now for something completely different: Seems Tim-Elvis wants to be king. Like Tom Petty once said, "It's good to be King". I wish him well in his royal quest. However, I would like to point out that if he truly wants to live an opulent lifestyle and oppress peasants, he should consider running for the Senate as a republican. Professional ass-kissers will besiege him with baskets of cash and send him on exotic all expense paid vacations to study strange new locals to export American jobs to. However, there's one major caveat; he'll have to kiss bawling babies and forego crowns, at least while on the campaign trail. And the only sword he'll encounter will be the one he'll have to fall on when he's investigated for kickbacks and campaign fraud.

Meantime, I, THE Michael, already the spiritual descendant of King Arthur, will be content to rule my tiny kingdom, until such time that all the Britons, whoever the hell THEY are, call upon me to save them from whatever it is that Britons need saving from. They did pretty well without me during the great war, so I don't expect to be bothered anytime soon.

Thus concludes another epic post from the mind of THE Michael. I hope you enjoyed this latest effort from the combined efforts of our new team, Me, Myself, and I. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a message outlining in great detail just how much you enjoyed this episode so that I don't have get medieval on their asses. But, feel free to provide some mild criticisms so that I have an excuse not to give them a raise.

The Frenzy Continues.....

The cleaning frenzy continues here at Pendragon Hold. It's after 8 p.m., I've had my dinner, and the wife is still in the kitchen scouring anything with a surface to it. When this woman is on a mission....well.......

I had a fairly good day at the hospital, but my legs are still sore. I attribute that more to age and physical condition than anything. Our director, who manages both the CCU and the fourth floor, is testing out one of those robots that take things like unused drugs and labs downstairs, freeing up a gopher (I'm sorry, I meant PCT) from having to run this stuff downstairs and making them more available for patient care. I'm all for it, personally, but I have one question. How in the hell does this thing get on the elevator? I'll report back on this later.

Do any of you have faux wood vinyl flooring that you want to replace with real wood? If so, now is the perfect time to upgrade your floor! All you have to do is roll up that vinyl carefully, wrap it, and mail it to THE Michael (Address available by request), who will joyfully recycle it here on the floor of Castle Pendragon. And, if you act now, I will throw in a pictorial blog post to show how much better it looks on my floor than it did yours! (Offer void in Timbuktu, Biloxi, in zip codes ending in 666, of by persons of exceptional moral turpitude).

The evil twin has reported to us that she has acquired herself a second snake. My girls have this thing for tubular reptiles. Personally, I think there's a hidden erotic component to this, either that, or they are into sacrificing rodents. Our reptiles tend to have legs and rather interesting constructions. The first one we had was a chameleon, who eventually died of old age. The wife was always fascinated by that mile-long tongue the creature zapped it's prey with. I wonder why. Now, we have Sandy, the Leopard Gecko, who can lick his eyeballs. Wish I could.

I'm watching 24 while finishing this up. As much as I like this show, I believe there's an underlying attempt to soften up the public's aversion to torture as a method of keeping the American people safe. Jack Baur does like to torture those bad guys to get information. Wonder how many Jack Baurs we have down in Gitmo and other unknown places torturing the second cousins of someone who knew someone who prayed at a mosque that was attended by the brother in law of someone who once knew a terrorist? Makes me proud to be an American.

The tire I repaired yesterday is still holding air just fine. Another money-sucking disaster averted, at least for now.

Time to wind down. It was a pleasure talking wit ya!

A day in the life..........

Today, the tire that had previously gone flat decided to override the fix-a-flat solution and REALLY go flat. Another can of the cheap repair only revealed that there was a sizable puncture that wasn't going to close up by some runny latex sealer. Damn! So, we drive quickly back to the homestead before the can of air exits the tire altogether, and I decide that the fairly new tires on the dead goat-mobile would make a nice replacement. WRONG! the lug nuts were spaced just far enough not to fit. Sigh........

So, I pull out the jack and put on that skinny little spare and head to the auto parts store and get me a tire puncture repair kit. I will know in the morning whether or not I actually fixed it. If I didn't, I'll be late for work putting the skinny little spare back on.

The wife is off for the whole week and has already started her cleaning frenzy, which comes naturally to her when she's taken off work and I haven't, for there isn't much else to do. Right now she's in the kitchen painting the wear marks on the cheap kitchen cabinets that helped make this fairly spacious double wide of ours so affordable. These nasty carpets are really looking....well....nasty, so I tore up a section to see if maybe we could paint the underlying plywood, which, unfortunately, is no where near in that kind of condition or quality. So, we have decided to buy whatever vinyl flooring we can afford a few square feet at a time and replace this stuff square by square, preferably with a nice faux wood finish. Sweeping the dog hair is going to be alot easier than vacuuming it. The cat rubs his off on the furniture.

I'm a little worried about Ozzy, one of our goats. He's always been the quiet one, but lately he's been quieter than usual, acting a bit listless and perhaps getting a bit skinnier than the others. Perhaps it's just a case of worms, at least I hope it is, because I can treat him for that. Billy has taken it upon himself now to be the bad-ass of the herd, now that he has two itty bitty pygmy goats to bully around. I usually have to stand between him and the two girls after he has eaten his share of feed, because he feels it's his mission in life to eat it ALL. He has this funny little goat growl when he gets thwarted. But, I can't make him out to be the bad guy, because Sasha, the bigger of the two dwarves, bullies Sonya, the smaller, at the feed bin. It's the schoolyard all over again.

I'm not going to add my usual outlook on the Bush administration tonight because they are already doing a fine job of demonstrating what a circus they've become. Even the polls are reflecting the sad truth of the matter. Nuff said.

I'm so jealous of Tim. He has this great toy to play with called Photoshop, along with a great sense of humor, and has consistently produced award winning post after amazing post. I still can't afford to install the larger hard drive I need in this computer, much less the OS upgrade I'm lusting after as well as Photoshop Elements, which once I get my hands on I HOPE has the features I need to create the magic Tim has. In the meantime I have to rely on my typing and pic-uploading wits to keep this blog from going completely under. If Blogging was a money making survival of the fittest type of endeavor, I'd be toast by now. As it is, I am able to remain a voice in the wilderness, on par with one chirp in a horde of crickets in the evening twilight. You can pick my chirp out if you listen real hard and know what to listen for............

Suffer the Little Children

As a product of the foster care system, as well as having been baptized as a Catholic, I was overwhelmingly disgusted to hear on the news this morning that the Boston Diocese of the Catholic Church has decided not to continue assisting in adoption of ANY children, rather than be forced to consider gay couples as parents. This is just one more instance of these institutions showing their true colors of intolerance, irrational behaviors, and discrimination against anyone who doesn't toe the line. I am sorry that I EVER stepped foot in a church of any denomination, for I feel dirty just being associated with this madness, however involuntarily.

All over this nation, every day, children are being taken away from abusive parents, only to be put into abusive foster homes, people who's only motivation to "care" for these kids is for the money. The agencies charged with checking out these people are understaffed and do a piss-poor job of insuring that these kids are placed in safe, loving environments. Adoption, on the other hand, is a long, drawn out and frustrating process that only the most generous and dedicated amongst us are willing to run the gauntlet in order to adopt children. Special needs children have it especially tough. So, in this age where we read of tragedy in the paper every day about some poor defenseless child being molested or abused in foster care, why are we willing to reduce the potential for loving homes for these children just because many of those willing to step up to the plate happen to be gay? The people most likely to abuse children, my friends, are so-called straight heterosexuals, and it's a big crock to attempt to associate pedophilia with being gay. And, I hate to bust your bubble, but homosexuality is NOT contagious. Tolerance is.

And how DARE the Catholic church, overrun with pedophile priests, have the gall to hold itself as the arbiter religions of morality? Gay couples as a group are far more likely to adopt special needs children that no one else seems to want to give a home to, and the church has a problem with THEIR morals? The Catholic church, as well as most religions, pisses me off!

Catholics really need to examine what it means to do God's work, if that truly is what they feel they should be doing. If I was a devout Catholic, and had any real sense of compassion as taught by Christ, I would have to start questioning this atmosphere of picking and choosing who I can treat with compassion and who I can't. Catholics will picket outside a prison death row to protest a serial killer being executed, but you don't see them protesting moral, law abiding, committed couples being denied the chance to be loving parents to children who desperately need them.

The sooner that religion gets out of society's business, the sooner I believe we will see social injustice being dealt with in a rational, caring manner.

As a former foster child, I have license, so if you can't understand what I'm saying here, then go get a fucking lobotomy and spare the rest of us the your inability to construct a coherent thought.........

Another day trip to the twilight zone......

We, meaning the wife and moi, decided a nice little picnic and window shopping in Cassadaga, the Florida Psychic camp/town would be a nice way to waste a Saturday. The kids, consisting of both the good and evil twins, along with the Son-in-law on wheels and his Sister, drove up from Tampa and met us there.

It took us about two hours to get there, but the kids ran into the bike week at Daytona traffic and were delayed for almost an hour. The biker traffic from our direction hadn't been as bad. All the way down, we would pass two or three bikes parked off the side of the road, and the wife and I disagreed as to exactly why we saw so many of them as we drove. She said it was because they were probably joining up with other bikers at specific meeting points, while I ventured it was because at least one of the bikes had broken down. To back up my theory I pointed out the fact that none of the groups of bikes parked all along the highway were jap cruisers, they were all Harley's. Why would only Harley riders be parked all down the route and not the Honda Gold Wings or the rice rockets? Then again, it may not have been strictly mechanical failures, but the fact that Harley rider butts are pounded pretty hard and need rest stops to ease the pain. Matter of fact, I am going to have the softest pillow I have available for old Buffalo's butt when he stops by to kick my ass for saying what I just did.........grin.

Of course, we also saw our share of trauma center bait riding in tight formation, no more than a foot of space between them or the cars they are tailgating at 70 miles an hour. People with more rebellion in their brains than common sense often run in packs. Now that Floridian bikers have the "freedom" to ride without helmets, the incidents of brain injury have risen back sharply to their pre-law levels when they were required to wear them. I think that along with that freedom to be stupid should come my freedom from having to foot the bill for their hospital care, which the insurance they are required to carry doesn't even come close to covering. Yes, my friends, with the kinds of injuries these people sustain, they eventually end up in long term care with Medicaid footing the bill to have nursing aids bathe, feed, and dress them. So much for being bad-ass road warriors, huh?

It was a nice little family gathering and lunch, and we all could have spent wads of cash on crystals and incense and other odd paraphernalia if we'd had any. Easy Rider's sister did go for a psychic reading, and I sincerely hope the advice she got was worth the money she paid for it. Me, I tend to have people pay ME to tell me what to do. I call it a job.


The trip back was a whole other story. Interstate 95 turned into a parking lot halfway back towards Jacksonville, so it took us twice as long to get home as it took to get to Casadaga. By the time we got home I was a bit tired, sore, and hungry, so we picked up a frozen pizza on the way. A nice hot bath to soothe the cramped muscles, listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio, and putting out tonight's exciting episode on MM&M, then perhaps a Netflix movie afterwards, ah, isn't this the life?

It's been a quiet week at Pendragon Hold, our little sandy acre on the edge of the big city............

Venting, please stand back.........

These things just pop into my head at the strangest moments. If I'm lucky, or perhaps if I'm not, I am close enough to the Imac to run over and type it down.

I honestly don't know how to do this. I've been winging it for fifty years now, and how I've gotten away with it this long is really beyond my comprehension. I don't have the slightest idea how to be an adult male in America.

Oh, in the early days when I was emancipated from my unwanted youth, I seemed to have a knack for picking directions to head in when there were no signs pointing to anything in particular. Anyone who does not believe that fate has an amazing amount of influence on where one ends up hasn't been out on this empty highway without a map, without the slightest idea how to read one if you did.

I have been particularly drawn to the posts of you guys with genuine fathers, biological or not, who taught you things, whether or not you listened to them at the time. That was their job, and from what I've read, they did that job pretty damn good overall. I know that plenty of men were sired by fathers who were there in the flesh only, so having one does not automatically put you on the fortunate list.

I knew my father only long enough to burn a blurry picture of what he looked like into my soul. Beyond that, I can't remember what he sounded like, or any real conversations we had about anything. If he taught me anything, it was that fathers go away and leave you. That was all he contributed beyond his share of my chromosomes. If he had gone off to war and died, I could forgive him for that. What the bastard did do was let me out on the highway of life, without even showing me how to stick out my thumb. I had to learn how to do that all on my own.

Yes, I did end up in the care of people. Problem was, "care" as they defined it was not starving me to death, not letting my clothes get to ragged before spending the money the welfare people gave them, and making sure they got some good use out of me while they had me. As far as education was concerned, the school was in charge of that. The ancient sonofabitch that was my paternal stand- in had no vested interest whatsoever in teaching me anything about the nuances of life other than to run when he picked up his bullwhip.

Long after I turned 18 and was thus my own problem, I've been shackled by this pathetic not knowing how to take initiative, how to figure out what was expected of me without a full-tilt explanation, and not even knowing how or who to ask for help. I more or less took things as I blundered into them and made the best of it, even when I truly hated being where I was. I knew there was so much more out there, but getting it or even thinking I deserved to was another matter altogether.

I HAVE accomplished things in life, some I have been quite proud of. Some of the things I am proudest of are in reality quite simple, like teaching myself to swim because, being strictly a liability, my owners would not risk my drowning by allowing me into deep water. Their biological offspring, younger than me, were taught, and they quite enjoyed laughing at me in the shallow end. I wish I could get the sound of their mirth out of my psyche; it haunts me to this very day.

Now, I juggle the responsibilities of homeowner, husband, worker, etc, and always seem to barely be able to manage it all. I suffer a continuous guilt for having my wife along for the ride, for I somehow feel she suffers for my ineptitude. Of course, she loves me so dearly for some strange reason that she easily tells me all the time how proud she is of me and how much she needs me. No matter how much I appreciate her love and support, that little bastard, my "inner child", doesn't buy it for a second. If there was some way to excise him altogether, he'd be dead meat in no time. I don't need this. Not now. Not after all this damn time.

I consider myself pretty damn intelligent, despite my upbringing. I fully realize that I may be deluding myself in that assessment, but I cling to it nonetheless. It keeps me warm. As does my rage. Oh, yes, I have SO much rage built up inside, both from what's been done to me and for things that have nothing directly to do with me. When you have no earthly idea why Bob even bothered to put you here in the first place, it wears on you. Now, reading over what I have just typed, I piss myself off. What a fucking whiner! Oh well, damage has been done, big deal. Here I am. I'm standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at all the awful things awaiting me, and I'm so used to it that it just seems perfectly normal. So, I just smile, flip those monsters down there the bird, and back away from the abyss another quarter step.

So why did I say all this stuff, and even worse, publish it for all the world to see? Pressure relief. Therapy. Howling at the moon. So, I lost my owners manual, big deal. I know where the gas pedal is. I know how the brakes work. I can even manage the turn signals. I figured all those things out on my own. Nobody taught me any of it. I'm doing pretty damn good considering that the only thing about myself that I really know for sure is my model year. I don't really know who made me or what I was made for, but I'm still firing on all cylinders, and I somehow get from point A to point B. And for that, I am blessed.

Venting over. I now return you to things that matter.

The Menu of the Beast

Hello, and welcome to ACME Services incorporated. We truly care about our customers and wish to provide the best customer service possible. In order to best serve your needs, please enter your account number followed by the pound key, the star key, the numbers 666, and the square of your age divided by the third prime number in your social security number.

Thank you, now please choose one of the following options. Press one to find out roughly what you owe us. Press two for a more detailed account of everything we are stiffing you for. Press three for the fine print you missed on page 298 of your contract. Press four for our listing of accountants and lawyers who can decipher that fine print on page 298 of your contract. Press five for a bill of charges for referring you to those accountants and lawyers who will mislead you as to exactly what that fine print on page 298 of your contract really means. Press six for our disclaimer that you signed a binding arbitration agreement, hidden somewhere on page 298 of your contract, which gives you no recourse concerning any misleading information in your contract due to the fact you don't speak our language, known as "legalese". Press seven for an explanation of binding arbitration. Press eight to register an appeal to the independent arbitrator, a judge whom WE picked and whose livelihood depends on our good graces. Press nine to give us your bank account number, which we are going to drain eventually. Press zero for our customer service representative in Tibet.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't understand your response. Please start over.

I'm sorry, but we still don't accept profanity as a response. Please start over.

I'm sorry, but the system is tired of you, and will disconnect now. Have a nice day!

Extremes

Extremes come in so many flavors; religious and political fundamentalism, sexual fetish, corporate greed, governmental oppression, you name it, there seems to always be an extreme version available for every one to enjoy. Even sports have gotten so ho-hum that more and more games are going "extreme" in order to keep the attention of the masses.

In this world of sensory overload, it seems to me that one could enjoy so many more differing distractions if we pursued a moderate interest in a number of things rather than going whole hog at any particular one, thus diversifying our enjoyments while avoiding making what should be a pleasurable activity simply work. The saying "balance in all things" certainly seems applicable here.

This is why I bemoan the fact that we now have 250 quadrillion choices when it comes to television and radio channels, music genres and artists, books, websites, blogs, vacation destinations, and even flavor of chips to snack on. Sometimes when I'm confronted with all these choices, it intimidates me to such a degree I delay or even avoid making a choice at all. I'm not saying that choice is a bad thing, for I remember having three channels on television to choose from, and frankly that sucked at times. Choices would indeed be much to all our advantage if it wasn't for the sad fact that most companies have abandoned originality in favor of duplicating each other's efforts. You see this all the time with television shows; you get one big hit and next thing you know every other network has it's own piss poor copy showing, sometimes canceling some pretty good stuff to make room for the "copy crap". If you are going to provide me with all these choices, could you at least make the effort to provide me with quality, originality, thought provoking and fresh, rather than simply throwing on a different color paint and calling it something else?

Extremes in commerce has robbed us of so much culture. The extreme mega-box retailers have all but driven the unique flavor of the mom-and-pop establishments into extinction. When you travel from one part of the country, or even from country to country, you are faced with the aggravating sameness of the chain stores and restaurants, instead of the regional flavor that makes you want to visit any particular place. Regional and cultural festivals invariably become sad shadows of their original ancestors once the corporations get in on the fun and slap their logo's on the floats and judging stands. It seems in this day and age everything is for sale, no matter what the activity.

I have found a way to exact my revenge, at least on the fashion world. They ARE hard to find, but I wear no shirts with any kind of brand name or corporate logo imprinted on them. My jeans say "jeans", and that's it. I am not an advertising whore for Tommy Hilfiger or Nike. When I estole the virtues of any product or service, it's strictly based on that products performance and value, and has nothing to do with brand image. I do not purchase extended warranties on anything; if the damn thing breaks down long before a reasonable period of time, I simply refuse to buy that company's product again. Survival of the fittest, I say. It's a pity that doesn't apply these days to human beings as well.

They say work hard and play harder. That seems to me to ruin the difference between the two. I work only as hard as is required to do my job and give my employer his money's worth, especially when I feel that my employer is not exactly holding up his end of the bargain. I do not consider play to be recreation if it feels like work. Yes, I might end up expending blood, sweat and tears in pursuit of my happiness, but not noticing that I am is what makes it play. If it threatens my bank account, my health, or my sanity, then it ceases to be play. It's become an extreme.

Even love can be ruined by extremes. I love my wife. To think that I am not the most important thing in her life would bother me. She contributes more to my well being than detracts from it, regardless of her aches and pains and her occasional hormonal behaviors. To me her love is a quiet (most times) comfort, and it is not really work. I honestly think that we tell each other we love each other more often than any other couple that ever existed, but to us it seems natural. However, repeated instances of disrespect, constant demonstrations of irrational jealousy, or other uncalled for behaviors would insert extreme factors into our equation which would cause me to re-evaluate my feelings for her. Many couples go thru an entire 60 year marriage always seeming to be at each other's throats; I could not participate in that. The calm comfort of my relationship is why I have one at all. There are things I would wish of her that I know she can't or won't provide, but I respect her and value what she does give to me as my wife. The same applies in reverse; Bob knows I could use some improvement in her eyes, but what I do provide her is worth what I don't in the grand scheme of our relationship. It's the extremes we don't go to that perhaps makes our marriage work more than anything. It's the extremes this society of ours goes to that threatens to tear it apart.

Zen and the art of list avoidance

I was reading Buffalo's post that described the excellent writing abilities and apparent educational prowess of many of our best bloggers. I was not on this list. Now, before you automatically assume I am complaining about this, you can stop assuming that right now. Most everybody he mentioned puts me to shame. I do not speak in the novella fashion that most of them do, and I rarely subscribe to the power words that send many people to the dictionary when they have the humility to admit they are not quite sure what "that" word actually means. My content leaves alot to be desired, as I report from a rather narrow and mundane world, inside looking out at an ever increasingly complex planet. There is nothing I could say about the world that others have not already said more succinctly, with more interesting graphic and pictorial support as well. However, I am not really bothered by this. YOU guys, or those that stumble upon my blog, might be, but it doesn't keep me awake at night. For one thing, anybody that keeps up with this blog knows well by now that it is written in "plain speak", with a little dash of flash to pry a smile from the reader. You do not visit me to learn the secrets of the universe, the inside scoop on pop culture, or a first look at something revolutionary and life changing. But, you never really leave empty, now do you?

When I joined the Navy, I did it right out of my senior year in high school due to the fact that one: the dozens of different schools in various states that I attended while growing up as a welfare kid all had differing graduate credit systems, and those credits didn't add up in the last school I attended as a senior, and two: I didn't have a home anymore with the breakup of my Mom and her "significant other". I ended up with a quick and dirty GED, which to this day implies I didn't REALLY graduate.

After I did my service to my country, I had the GI Bill, which would have made going to college a real possibility. However, I had it in my mind at that time that I was anything but college material, especially with my aversion to anything math related. So, I continued on in life content to pursue whatever blue collar opportunities presented themselves.

What I did NOT do, however, is stop learning. I have always been an avid reader, a great fan of science and tech shows on television, and have soaked up more knowledge about the world around me on my own than any institution could have, in a general fashion, that is. I know a little bit about everything, although I can not claim to know everything about any one thing in particular. And I am somewhat proud of my critical thinking skills, however twisted they might be.

Was I ever really college material? Well, I attended almost two years of community college in an ill-fated pursuit of a nursing degree, and was amazed at how utterly simple most of my classes were, sans algebra. I am proud to report that as far as grades went, I had it sussed! Unfortunately, events transpired, of which I will not go into here, that required me to abandon school, but I did come out of the experience assured that I was fully capable of becoming formally "edumacated". And yes, folks, to this day I am convinced that aside from narrow facts and figures, I did not learn anything that I did not already have an understanding of gleaned by my own life's experiences and discoveries. Yes, I know that I am paying dearly in many ways by not having a certificate of intellectual authenticity issued by the powers that be, but in the grand scheme of things, my brain is functioning just fine without it. Things could be worse. I could have the thought processes of a republican.

So, did I belong on that list? I dare say not. All if not most of them walked a more formal, in- depth path than I did to arrive where they are, and I am sure they paid some dues on the way. The list I do belong on probably has one name on it.
Being on that list does not make me special or lesser as compared to the people on that other list, but I take pride in being on it regardless.

Besides, being on that list would have ruined any chance of Madness, Musings, and Melancholy being the truly unique creation that it is. Imagine what all those big fancy words and eloquent sentence structures would have done to the poor thing..........

Ladies and Gentlemen! An Announcement of EPIC proportions........

Well, folks, just as it looked like I was going to have to fire Me, Myself, and I and possibly consider putting this fine blog into liquidation, along comes some fantastic post material which is sure to save our bacon and return us to our former glory as one of the very best of the worst blogs ever produced!

Do I have the inside scoop on the "smoking gun" needed to finally impeach good old Dubya? Eyewitness testimony sure to run every republican off Capital Hill? A first peek at a vaccine which will cure all cancers?

Nope.

What I DO have is an announcement sure to warm the cockles of the hearts of those who have enjoyed those occasional posts about the four-hoofed members of our family here at Pendragon Hold. You may recall the tragedy that befell us when our dear Mysty was brutally assaulted by a bad dog and died of shock. It had a palpable effect on all of us here, and we miss him terribly. But that terrible event has been overshadowed by our very happy adoption of two new little girls, genuine pigmy goats, very cute and VERY compact little critters who were given to us by a coworker of mine.

But wait, there's MORE! Although these two adorable little gals could easily pass as twins, there is a distinct difference between the two. One of them happens to have a genetic condition which causes her to totally lock up, stiff as a board, when startled. These are famously known as "fainting goats". They aren't fainting, actually, because they don't actually pass out. But we were treated to this phenomenon when the goat in question locked up while running away from me as I was herding them towards the water bucket, and she bowled over onto her back from the momentum, her stiff little legs stuck straight up in the air! I know this might sound cruel, but it was rather funny to witness. No harm done, she recovered very quickly and was right back on her feet in a flash.

Billy, our crybaby male goat who used to follow Mysty around like a loyal second in command, and who since has proven to be a pathetic Alpha male, was truly delighted to meet these two new playmates, although the little ones were understandably skittish about billy, considering how much bigger he is than them. These guys really are minute little goats, only half the size of Ozzy, himself a pretty small little package. They both have these yellow reptilian eyes that truly look odd in the face of a mammal, which Billy and Ozzy have themselves, but aren't as obvious.

I did have second thoughts about adopting these two, considering what the three goats I already had (when Mysty was alive) did to the back area of my acre. They had totally denuded it of practically all green life! Believe me when I tell you that goats will eat almost ANYTHING! But, since these two together hardly could make up just one goat of Mysty's size and appetite, I figured we probably came back out even. I do have to buy feed for them during the winter when the weeds do not grow and recover from the grazing very well, but come spring I figure they should stay even with the growth that will erupt.

Anyway, as promised, the team here at MM&M has delivered a heart warming story sure to go down in blogger history as the one that pulled our collective asses out of the fire. But, my loyal readers, as an added bonus, we have also delivered photographic evidence of this wondrous events, just in case you thought us so desperate and underhanded as to simply manufacture something out of the blue, something like our president did to in order to go down in the annals of history as a "war" president. We would never stoop that low, I assure you.

So, stay tuned for our next exciting post, when we reveal the identity of the person hidden behind the grassy knoll!

The staff is photoshopping the evidence as I speak.........