Monday, July 5, 2010

Goats by Moonlight

   Lately, I've been staking out the goats to let them chew down the blackberries sufficient to allow me to put in a new temporary fence to enlarge their space.  I put the goats out after church (now yesterday) and with company and a few other distractions I forgot to put them away for the night. Of course I woke up at 2:00 a.m. and realized the goats were still staked out.  The two Jacks have a serious talent for getting themselves tangled up in their ropes so I could only imagine what uncomfortable position they would be stuck in for the night.  Anyhow, I couldn't get back to sleep without first going out to put the goats away.  True to form I found each of them seriously tangled with the result being a very short tether and a serious tangle of rope. Goat gordian knots are difficult to untangle in daylight, but even more of a challenge by moonlight.

    An event of great significance took place this past week with the birth of our 21st grandchild, John Wesley Tunnell, on Tuesday, June 30th. I realize that everyone who reads my blog is probably already informed of the great event so this isn't intended to be any sort of announcement.  However, I thought I would take the occasion to express my appreciation to my children for all of the sacrifices they make to bring our sweet grandchildren into the world. For my daughters and daughter-in-law it is literally putting their life on the line.  For all of them it is a serious commitment of their time, talents, and other resources for several decades. Their sacrifice has brought a lot of happiness into my life. Grandpa is the best job I've ever had.  When I have occasion to tell someone that I have 21 grandchildren I feel like I am rich beyond my wildest dreams.   I am grateful that my children have caught the vision of what is truely important in life and are willing to devote their time and resources to the important task of raising their children rather than merely accumulating the things of the world. Some of my friends have children in their thirties who are either still single by choice or married without children. Very sad.
   On Friday I was able to skip work and go to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle with Luna, Lance, and Britton.  My nephew Gavin and his family had come to visit my mom and were taking their kids to the zoo. They invited me to come along and Rachel was willing to take the bee store for the day and let me take her kids to the zoo.  It was a very fun day. We saw a lot of amazing animals, but the most amazing thing I saw at the zoo was little Britton downing a seriously large ice cream cone.

   I did have one moment of stark panic while at the zoo.  I was watching the meercats with Lance, Luna, and Britton.  Grandma Cozette was resting at a picnic table about 50 feet away while Gavin and Arianne had taken their kids for a potty break.  Anyhow, I was the only adult with the three kids.  After we had been watching the meercats for about a minute or so, I looked down and all three of the kids were gone. I franticly searched the immediate vicinity for what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than 30 seconds,  before Lance popped his head out the nearby meercat play area.  They have an enlarged concrete meercat den as a play area.  The kids apparently thought it was more fun to pretend to be a meercat than it was to watch the real meercats.  

2 comments:

  1. Were you guys at the Point Defiance Zoo...because we have mucho meercats too!

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  2. lol! I'm glad you didn't actually lose the kids...I have that happen a lot, too ;) I miss ya

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