and the winner is

First, a big thank you.

When I posted this giveaway, I was not expecting

the inspiring and imaginative range of ways

people have come up with to support shelter cats!

Thank you all for the pleasure of reading your comments.

~~~

The trusty sequence generator at Random.org chose the winner:

nicewitch on ravelry!

nicewitch wrote:

Whenever I spot humane live-traps and good-condition animal carriers for sale at yardsales or in the classifieds, I buy them and donate them to our local charities running TNR [Trap Neuter Return] programs. My donations this month include boxes of books for a fund-raising book sale, and food and cleaning supplies to the humane society . Of my four current cats, one was a semi-feral who chose to come to me when he was injured, one was brought home by another semi-feral I was already feeding, and two were neighbourhood dumps -- I couldn't live without them!

Congratulations, nicewitch, and thank you for being such a good friend to cats,

both in the wild and at home.

~~~~~

at your request

More baby goat video, taken yesterday morning.

This time, with some words!

(Move over, Chris Chibnall.)

Enjoy.

By the way, I want to assure you that the little black doe is

just as energetic and bold as her brother,

and the little silver buck also spends many hours sound asleep

and oblivious to his sister's repeated efforts to rouse him with a prodding hoof.

Their individual - and frequent - energy peaks are a bit staggered,

which seems rather tough luck for Lily!

But both kids are already so agile (mostly) and

so reliable about coming when she calls them (mostly),

that yesterday Lily decided she could have a few minutes of "Me" Time,

alone in the Chalet, while the babies were sleeping 20 feet away in the barn.

They grow up so fast, don't they, Lily?

Hide the car keys.

~~~

P.S.

A few minutes after I saved that videofile to my laptop yesterday,

I went back out to clean the barn.

When I reached down to pick up a water bucket,

my camera fell out of my shirt pocket. 

plop!

Straight into the water bucket.

Uh-oh.

It's been drying ever since, and I'm trying to be patient.

Tonight I'll put the battery in and press the On button.

Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, just on the off-chance, 

I looked up my purchase info.

Lo and behold!

I had the foresight to pay for 

the Unfortunate Water Bucket Incident Service Contract,

and it should still be in effect.

Whew.

~~~~~

giveaway tomorrow!

In all the recent flurry of baby goats, let's not forget the giveaway!

The winner will be drawn after midnight ET this Sunday,

so you still have this weekend to enter,

or to share the link. Please do!

I hesitated to make specific suggestions for the donation category,

because no one has to donate money to enter.

But someone pointed me to this online option which I thought was such a clever idea,

I've decided to share it here. (And this way, I'll know where to find it again.

This blog has become a big part of my functional memory!)

The $5.00 Castle for Shelter Cats - a heavyduty cardboard "castle" that provides precious private space for an individual cat while at the shelter, then transforms to a carrier for the adopted cat's trip to it's new home. Bonus: it's made in the USA.

The Greater Good website is a very "busy" place, but if you are interested, this link will take you directly to the Cat Castle page.

So, if you've been wanting to enter the yarn giveaway but haven't gotten around to it - 

or if you just want to tell your friends you've "bought a castle" - 

there you go!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

~~~~~

a little video experiment

A few seconds of goat video...

low on plot,

high on drama!

It's Day Four for the kids, and this morning Lily invited them to follow her down the ramp

for the first time without assistance from The Staff.

I love Day Four.

I'm playing around with my little camera's "Record" feature, but since Blogger refused to accept the video (or tell me why), I had to upload it to YouTube first.

Not sure how I feel about putting the goats on YT.

Plus, it took ages to upload!

Unless I can figure out another way to edit and upload,

I doubt there will be much video on this blog.

But for now, since I've already uploaded these little clips...

That's big sister Tsuga making a cameo appearance at the beginning.

Lily gives her a couple of bumps to say,

"Watch it now! There's a little baby here and another in the stall!"

I followed Tsuga in and found she was not at all interested in the other kid.

In fact, her head was so deep in Lily's grain bucket, she couldn't see a thing.

I shooed her back outside, and took a little more video of both babies on the ramp:

They played and explored and visited their relatives through the fence.

After I cleaned the barn, I picked up the kids - 

who were then approaching the barn-building scrap lumber pile,

which I will now have to remove - 

and carried them up the ramp and inside.

They had been wide awake moments before, but once back in the barn,

they both went straight to their little cubbyhole under the bench,

and fell fast asleep.

And so ends another Adventure!

Life.

So exciting.

So exhausting.

Bring. It. On.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~