Louisa and I took the goats and dogs on a long hike up the mountain earlier this week. We followed our neighbor’s old logging road (and sometimes-creek) east toward Brookline, then south along VAST Rt-35 (a section of the statewide snowmobile trail system), up 350 feet of Crane Mountain to an old air strip where Bob and Ann pasture the lambs each summer.  It was a several mile hike through pasture pine and towering red oak, over old stone walls and half-frozen tributaries. When we arrived at the summit, Louisa and I unthermosed some Baileys and hot chocolate while the goats stood watch and the dogs adhered themselves to: the field!

Journeys like these ones are aways very satisfying. You get to spend enough time with the herd in one continuous stretch that everybody’s roles shift. Goats that aren’t normally affectionate suddenly want their head scratched (Gertrude), or butt rubbed (Orion), or want to protect Louisa from a certain buck (Apollo)’s unwelcome advances (Cicada). Everybody is full from the lush free-browse, exhausted, 20% drunk, enjoying the scenery, expressing the unbridled self, etc etc…if only more days were like this day.