...later the same day...
the dogs came home, finally, after lunch and the goat was right behind them. They don't look like they've had to fight for their lives, but are covered with briars and hitchikers. Silly animals! I hope they don't do that again.

Okay. Now I have two dogs and a goat missing. The goat, Frosty, actually thinks he's a dog, so I am sure they are all three together somewhere. I am thinking that the dogs may have gone up the mountain to look for deer bones and skin from hunters and the goat followed. Once up there, where the coyotes are ALSO looking for such treats, the goat probably realized he was in a bad neighborhood. I'm hoping that they didn't all get into a scrap with a pack of coyotes. They've been missing since yesterday, and I sure hope they get home soon because some really cold weather is on its way here.

The bridges over Felkins creek and Kings river were flooded this morning, so I had to take the back way out to work. On a normal morning, the back way would take me, oh about 30 minutes or so to reach highway 74. And if the bridge on THAT route is flooded, then I have to take the other back way, which turns off of the first back way, out to Hwy 21. That route takes about 45 minutes on a normal morning. Well, this morning was not a normal morning. It was misty rain and very heavy fog. I could not see beyond a few feet in front of me, so basically all I could see was the ground right in front of the jeep. The road was covered with leaves, but so was the sides of the road, and so was the forest floor after the sides of the road. This made it very difficult to actually see the road!! The only way I could really tell I was on the road was the absence of trees right in front of me, which can be misleading because the road is very curvy and steep, so sometimes the trees are in front until you complete the turn. It was so foggy that I could not see the county road signs at the junctions where I either needed to turn or continue straight, and all of the driveways look like junctions that might be where I need to turn when it is that foggy. At long last I finally came upon the aforementioned bridge on the original back way out. And there was the school bus which had left a full 20 minutes before me just reaching the bridge too. I was never so happy to see tail-lights, haha, because a.) that meant that I was on the right path (I could not see the bridge yet at the point where I came upon the tail-lights), and b.) someone else would have to cross the bridge first if it were flooded and I could watch and see how high the water was. Fortunately, it was not flooded, but the water was rising. This was also King's river, but it takes longer for the water to crest here than it does on our road, so sometimes if you're lucky you can gamble and make it out in time. Otherwise, if you lost your gamble, you have to turn around and go all the way back to the junction where you can turn to take the other back way out. It took almost an hour to get to the pavement this morning, but it was a very nice and quiet drive nonetheless.

This morning was cold! I wasn't expecting it to get to 21*F last night, but that's what the thermometer read when I woke up. On my way down the county road I stopped to watch another beaver, this one was waddling through the shallows at the Kings' river bridge. I told him he'd better hurry on up before Samson sees him there - Samson shoots some things on sight, beaver being one of them.

Frost flowers littered the sides of Hwy 74. At first I thought a chicken truck or turkey truck had recently passed by, there were so many that it looked like feathers all on the roadside, haha.

I'm posting a picture of Comanche, my new baby. He's still living with his mother right now, but he'll come to live with my horses in a few months. He's about 6 months old, isn't he such a cutie?!