BarbarianMom and the Horny Goat

Lately, VikingDad and I have been taking walks together.  Last week, we decided to go on a walk the day before a big snowstorm was supposed to hit... it also happened to be the opening day of deer season.  Earlier in the day, I took the kids to the library and drove by deer hunters in tens and twenties.  However, right before our walk, I forgot this fact.  I was about to go out like this:

...Which would have ended my short career as BarbarianMom because I would definitely have been shot.

I live in Wisconsin.  In Wisconsin, cattle are routinely shot during hunting season, because apparently some hunters can't tell the difference between this:

And this:

And, sadly, humans are also occassional victims of hunting accidents.  So VikingDad wore blaze orange and I wore lime green, because I couldn't find any more blaze orange.  As we walked, we held hands and conversed rather loudly, so as not to be mistaken for anything other than human.  I lamented that my rainbow beanie wasn't here yet, as that could not have been mistaken for deer colors.  VikingDad pointed out that it might get me shot deliberately, though.  True enough. 


My face was freezing.  There hadn't yet been snow this season (it was mid-November- weird!) but it was still fairly cold, and my cheeks and part of my lips were numb.  Which meant that, whenever VikingDad said something funny, I smiled and basically looked like a dental patient.

(Kinda like this)

It was at that moment I really wished I had a beard.  I was really jealous of VikingDad's ability to control his facial muscles in the cold.  But, regardless of my lack of shaving, I have never been able to grow a beard.  At most, I can manage one solitary black hair on my chin and that shit looks ridiculous and does nothing to protect me from the cold.  I totally need one of these:

(My face is totally toasty, bitch.)

As our walk was coming to a close and none of us had gotten shot, I was about to call it a success.  Unfortunately, as we passed by the neighbors', we saw their horses walking around in the pasture.  We saw what looked like a foal nursing off its mother, and the mother horse try to fight it off, but upon closer inspection we realized that it was not a foal at all- it was a goat!

(Kind of like that only the horse was normal sized and the goat was an adult.)

When the goat saw us, he came bounding up towards us.  The horses did too, but a horse will approach a human eagerly but at a normal speed.  A goat approaches a human like a race car careening out of control.  It was an Alpine buck and it looked something like this:

Not only that, but, at this time of year, bucks are in rut.  This applies to deer and goat bucks.  When a goat buck approaches you, you can smell his disgusting goat musk a mile away.  It's really powerful stuff, enough to make your eyes water sometimes.  (But the girl goats like it... I guess?)  This particular buck didn't have a powerful enough stench to make our eyes water, but he was still stinky.  And he easily cleared the neighbor's fence and walked right up to us on the road.

Bucks in rut think about only one thing: sex.  For pretty much any non-pet animal, the drive to have sex when they are fertile is a huge, powerful force of nature.  At times, it's easier to stop a hurricane than to stop a horny animal.

(Go away, hurricane!  Shoo!  Shoo!)

Now, this goat did not jump up and try to hump us (thank gods).  Goat bucks raised as pets are interesting creatures.  They know they are interested in humans, that humans bring them food and are generally nice to be around.  In their weird little brains, they may or may not understand that humans are different from goats.  Often they will attack humans to fight, occasionally to fuck.  Sometimes they just want food.  Sometimes they will leave humans alone entirely.

A buck goat in rut will basically go after female goats in heat, and search them out whenever possible.  However, if they are denied females in heat, they will hump whatever they have available to them.  Being goat owners ourselves, we were basically watching him to see what he would do.  Who knows!  That's the beauty of living around farm animals.


This goat decided to follow us.  We eyed him warily.  At any moment he could charge us.  He decided that he wanted to follow VikingDad over me.  That was fine with me!  VikingDad turned around and led him down the road back to the neighbor's house.  The goat followed VikingDad like a child.  Weird, but goats are unpredictable sometimes.  I followed behind them both, not wanting to attract the goat's attention.  When the two got to the driveway, they sauntered up the driveway to the neighbor's house and VikingDad knocked on the door.  Four tiny little corgis dashed out of the house to scamper about our feet as we talked to the neighbor.  I caught up to the two of them, and suddenly the goat decided I was way too interesting for my liking.  He decided to wheel about and come after me, making unmistakably horny goat noises.

So what did I do?  I slapped him across the nose.

(Have I bitched slapped goats before in my life?  Sadly, yes, this was not the first time.)

OK, so I told you that sometimes it's easier to stop a hurricane than a randy animal?  This goat was undeterred.  He approached me again.  So I slapped him again.  In the nose, because that's the most likely to deter a goat.  (Bopped him, really, I didn't want to hurt him, just make him back off.)  So, while the neighbors looked on and some oblivious corgis frolicked around, I was basically bitch-slapping their goat.  After the third slap, he got the hint.  The neighbors got a rope and tied him to a tree, and at the same time a pair of lovely lady Alpine goats came out of the woods to occupy the buck's attention.

So we walked back to the road, and the corgis started following me around like little children.

Oh great.

So we stuck around while the neighbors corralled their corgis, which was entertaining because we basically watched a grown woman running after tiny happy little fluffballs that were scurrying around on stumpy legs.  And then, finally, we finished our walk in peace, thankful to be unmolested.

Some Thoughts On Racism

I really didn't intend this to be a political blog.  I think there are many others who have articulated the things that are important to me, politically, much better than I could here.  That said, there are some disturbing social themes popping up left and right after the election, and one of these is racism.

First, there was the co-worker who, a month or two ago, saw that I was reading a Toni Morrison book on my break and started to rant at me about how Obama and Black Lives Matter created racism, that there wasn't any racism before Obama, and that there weren't any racist presidents before Obama.  I made a sarcastic comment that she took for sincere, so she thought I was actually agreeing with her and started ranting some more about black people.  She stopped, though, after my expression slowly changed from this:

To this:

She hasn't really spoken to me since.  And, you know, I am just fine with that.

Then, I started reading the book Tarzan, thinking it would be a fun adventure story to take my mind off heavier topics.  Holy racism, batman.  The Tarzan movies I've seen (I haven't seen the new one yet) hadn't ever mentioned that Tarzan encountered native African tribes, so I was quite surprised to read Edgar Rice Burrough's opinions on the "savage African cannibals" that Tarzan encounters in the jungle.  There are a lot of Tarzan books, so, enclosed therein, are a lot of racist comments.  I kept on reading the books, because, honestly, I was a bit fascinated by what the "normal" opinions were in the 1910s and '20s.  I didn't get all the way through the books, because by then the political climate in the US started to revert to overt racism and I didn't want to lose what's left of my hope for humanity.

(I like the story of Tarzan but it definitely illustrates how the opinion of the day was that a white man is superior to everyone and everything else.)

So I took a break from reading Tarzan and instead picked up a book called "The Sea Captain's Wife" which I picked up because I like historic and adventure memoirs, and it turned out to be about a woman who, right after the Civil War, married a black sea captain.  I really really love that book, although it's pretty depressing.  Not only did I learn about racism in the 1830s-60s, but I learned a lot about the politics of the Civil War, something that is becoming more relevant with each passing day.

(I highly recommend this book.)

And then, of course, I am reading on facebook and from online news sources about how people are being treated in this post-election nightmare.  I don't live in a metropolitan area, so I'm not seeing much post-election nastiness, other than yard signs saying, "We may be deplorable, but WE WON" and suchlike.  And now there is, of course, the announcement of Trump's appointing blatant racists to fill his cabinet.  And honestly, racism has me baffled.  It doesn't make any sense to me how someone's skin color has any more bearing on how they are treated than their hair color or eye color.  But obviously it is a huge issue right now.  And I honestly don't have an answer as to how to fight it, because it seems a stupidly easy thing to say, "people come in different colors and that's normal and fine", and yet it trips up so many people that I am just dumbfounded.

So there's the safety pin thing, which, if you didn't get the memo, is about wearing a safety pin that signifies your willingness to intervene if someone is being hurt or bullied, etc...

Which makes my Barbarian heart happy, because I am totally willing to help people and fight for a cause I believe in.  Except that now Trump supporters are wearing safety pins to confuse people, so it's not a completely meaningful thing anymore.  However, I've seen safety pins with rainbow beads on them, and that seems like a better thing to wear.  People who oppress others are less likely to wear obvious LGBTQ pride colors.  I bought a rainbow beanie to wear during winter (it is on order so I have to wait for it to get here, le sigh), but Pride colors are a lot easier to find than something that says, "I'm not a racist unlike most of the people that live around here."  But standing up for people of a different sexuality, religion, and heritage are all very important things to do, especially now that hateful voices have gotten louder.

Also, it's pretty important to support causes that fight racism.  I'll link to another website here that lists some: 
Racial Equity Resource Guide

It seriously pisses me off that some of my friends are being called racial slurs and threatened because of their skin color.  Friends have been harassed at gas stations, called slurs, and bullied by their own families.  That's not OK with me.

(Nobody fucks with my friends.)

I don't remember hearing very many racist things at all growing up, but now I'm concerned that my kids will pick it up from their peers.  So, if you're a parent, please talk to your children about being kind to everyone, and, most of all, lead by example.  'Kay, now I'll get off my soapbox.

Baby Pictures With My Sis

I haven't posted in a while, because I've been super busy.  But this past weekend, my sister came over to the midwest from New York, so I got to hang out with her some.  She's awesome and I love her.  So here are some baby pictures that she (and my mom) found of us when we were tiny little wild children.

(I don't know what kind of weird science experiment I'm trying to do to my poor helpless baby sister in the top picture, but it looks like she is terrified and I'm about to have some fun.  Actually, that pretty much sums up our childhood.)

(But I didn't just torture my sister, sometimes I actually showed affection...)

(And taught her how to hold things with her tiny baby hands...)

(And made her suffer through my adventures.  Look at her expression... I've seen that expression on her face many, many times.)

(And horrified her, apparently.  I'm not sure why she's horrified in this picture, but I look happy about it, whatever it is.)

The Day I Stabbed Someone With A Fork

So, I've been doing martial arts for a long time, and this story is from when I was a high school student practicing Karate.  Recently, my former Karate teachers celebrated their 30th year of teaching Karate (Congratulations!!!), and this story, among others, was told at the party.

(Me when I was just a tiny little kid learning to break people's bones.)

It all started when our dojo went down to Nebraska for a Karate seminar.  I got to meet Shihans (the head teachers of their respective dojos) from a couple of different places.  One of these was from Kalamazoo, MI.  I'd never met him before, but I introduced myself and we sat across from each other at a restaurant after the first morning of class.

I was excited- I love doing martial arts, so a few days of nonstop working out, kicking ass, and learning stuff was heaven to me.  So I was a bit wound up.

(I was on cloud 9)

Plus I was hungry.  So I started picking apart my napkin with my fork.  The Shihan from Kalamazoo saw me doing this and must have been amused.  He stuck out his hand and said something to the effect of, "Here, I'll give you something to stab."  But what I heard in my head was, "Please stab me with your fork.  I want to know how it feels."  What a coincidence!  I'd always wondered what it felt like to stab somebody!  Clearly this was a match made in heaven.

But, I'd misjudged other people's intentions before, so I asked him, "Wait, you want me to stab you in the hand with a fork?"  (Just clarifying.  Wouldn't want to get my hopes up for nothing.)  "Go ahead," he replied.  "You're sure?" I asked.  "Go ahead," he repeated. 

Now, I had never met this Shihan before, but I'd heard he was pretty tough.  Maybe this is what they did for entertainment in Kalamazoo?  Well, I thought, how often do I get the opportunity to stab someone with their permission?  (It doesn't happen as often as you might think.)  So I picked up my fork and held it close to the bottom, on the off chance I could actually do some damage to his hand.

(I didn't hold it like that but I can't find a picture on google to match how I held it.)

But wait!  This guy is really tough, I thought.  He is probably used to being stabbed by far stronger people than me.  And I've never stabbed someone with a fork before.  I want to make sure he doesn't think I'm weak.  I'd better stab him 3 times, just to make sure.  So I held the fork tightly and pounded 3 times on his hand.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham! 

I looked at him expectantly.  I was curious- how would he react to being stabbed in the hand with a fork?  His expression flickered a little, but that was all.  Then slowly, very slowly, he pulled his hand back off the table and set it in his lap.

Then he asked me, "OK, now would you like to reciprocate?"  "Nah, man," I said, "I'm good!"  And then I grinned at him.  This was a fun seminar!  I went on to learn lots of things and do lots of martial arts and kick some more ass.  But that instance will forever live on in dojo lore.

(VikingDad and myself at a Nebraska seminar a couple years later.)

And to this day, of all the people I've met either before or after, the Kalamazoo Shihan is the only one who has ever volunteered to get stabbed by me. 

The Barn Comes A Tumblin' Down

Our farm is in a sad state of affairs.  A couple of years ago, one of our big sheds collapsed under a pile of snow.  Our other shed is leaning precariously.  And our poor barn, I'm sad to say, has finally collapsed.

(Wah wah waaaaahhhh)

Not that we didn't know it was coming.  From the day VikingDad bought the place, 8ish years ago, it has been crumbling slowly into an inevitable state of entropy.  Too broken to be worth fixing, we slowly watched its structural integrity dwindle until this summer.  A couple of years ago, the upper level became too unsafe to store hay in anymore.  Last year, the interior began to crumble.  Early this summer, the roof caved in.  And, finally, the whole barn collapsed (in either August or September.  I have a piss poor memory.  I have it written down someplace but I'm too lazy to look it up.)  Thankfully, no animals were harmed!  But now we have a huge wreck on our hands that we have to clean up.

(What a mess!)

VikingDad has to clean most of it up, the farm being his pet project and all.  But, last night he lured me into helping him with the tantalizing tidbit that I could "make boards explode by hitting them with a giant axe."
Whaaaaat?  Why did no one tell me you could do that?  I love explosions!  I love giant axes!  I love hitting things!

(Boom, baby)

So I decided to go out there and help him make boards explode.  WildBoy and WildGirl wanted to come too because VikingDad was burning the non-salvageable boards, which meant fire (and where there's fire, there's roasted marshmallows).  So I got them dressed (WildBoy was, of course, nekkid), got the marshmallows, and tromped out to help VikingDad.

OK, so the boards didn't exactly explode like I pictured it.  It's more like, if you hit rotten wood hard enough with a giant axe, the pieces go flying everywhere.  It was still really fun.

The first time I tried to make the boards explode, VikingDad had me hit one of the thicker, less rotten boards, so when I tried to make it explode, what actually happened was I nicked it slightly.

(This was my expression.)

VikingDad just laughed.  Soon, though, I found a couple of thinner, more rotten boards, and went to town on them.  It was very therapeutic!  I have to say, nothing beats the feeling of making things fly apart as you hit them.  We had a great system.  VikingDad climbed on the roof and threw down the boards.  I chopped the boards into manageable pieces, and the kids ran amok. 

(I love big axes and I cannot lie.)

WildBoy and WildGirl helped too, by carrying the broken boards over to the burn pile and occasionally feeding the fire.  (And, of course, they ate marshmallows, climbed on the wreckage, climbed on the hay bale, pretended that some of the board pieces were guns, and played tag.  All perfectly healthy activities for Barbarian children.)

 (Pretty much a jungle gym.  With the added risk of tetanus.)

We were visited by some of the inhabitants of the farm on occasion.  Pot belly pigs, goats, chickens, and cats all wandered by to watch our activities.

(A couple of pigs by the burn pile.  Surprisingly, they left the marshmallows alone and just wandered around.)

 (A particularly ornery Angora goat named Misty.)

We only went back in the house after it was too dark to see.  What a fun Sunday night!

Barbarians Hate Underwear

One morning I was trying to get the little kids off to the bus.  WildBoy was being difficult.  He wouldn't get dressed.  Finally, I yelled at him enough that he went downstairs to put on some clothes. 
"Remember to put on underwear!"  I shouted down after him.
"Awww!" He complained.  "WHY?"

("Underwear is for losers, Mom.")

I don't really have a good answer for that.  To be honest, I don't give a shit whether WildBoy (or anyone) wears underwear, or even clothes.  Although he accepted my, "Everyone needs to wear underwear to school, honey" answer, what I really wanted to tell him is, "The world is stupid.  Underwear is stupid.  Wear (or don't wear) what you want, and don't listen to anyone who thinks it's weird!"  But, I didn't, because sending WildBoy to school without clothes would have gotten me arrested. 

You may attribute this hatred of underwear to his liberal upbringing.  And maybe that's partially true.  Since I don't give a shit whether my kids wear clothes at home or not, WildBoy spent the first 4 years of his life mostly sans clothes.  When clothes were practical (or on outings), we would wear clothes.  At home, we mostly wouldn't.  So when he finally went to preschool, WildBoy had a bit of a difficulty understanding why he couldn't just take off his pants when he was uncomfortable or hot.  Surprisingly, I only got 2 calls from the teacher about it before he learned that clothes have to stay on in school.

But his upbringing alone doesn't account for it.  As a child, I was raised in a strictly clothing-required household, and I hated underwear.  I hated underwear with a passion.

("Guess who's wearing underwear, Mom?  Not me!")

One day, my parents took me to church.  This was not surprising, since I grew up in a family that went to church every Sunday (and on Wednesdays during Lent and Advent).  They sat in the front pew (for an unknown reason- possibly so I could see what's going on), but soon realized that was a mistake.  I started bouncing up and down on the pew, and, since I was wearing a cute little Sunday dress, they soon got a horrible realization.  I wasn't wearing any underwear!  And I was jumping up and down on the front pew at church... My cute little dress swishing up and swishing down as I jumped... and when it swished up, the pastor got a very surprising view!

("I don't know about you guys, but I'm having fun.")
On another occasion, our family decided to go on a picnic.  I absolutely refused to wear underwear to the picnic.  Getting fed up with it, my mom finally asked me, "Do you want to wear your underwear on your bottom, or on your head?"  I just pouted in reply, so my mom put underwear on my head.  How humiliating!  To have to put the hated garment on my head! 

 ("This is the worst torture ever!")




So, I pouted with underwear on my head for a long time before I finally consented to put it on my bottom.  My exasperated mother won that battle, and we went on the picnic fully clothed.

That was my childhood in a nutshell.

Fast forward to that fateful day when WildBoy refused to wear underwear.  I told him he had to wear underwear, so he went down to get dressed.  A minute later, he came upstairs... with the underwear on his head!  Unlike me, he wasn't pouting, but grinning ear to ear.

 (Maybe he saw Misha Collins doing it and thought it was cool.)




"I have the underwear on, Mama!"  He said in his sing-song "I'm playing a joke on you" tone.  Then he proceeded to jump on the bed, sans clothes, except for the underwear on his head.

Sigh.

My children are just like me.  HELP!

A Shit-tastic Day

This is the first of a couple shit-tastic days I've had recently. 

Gather 'round children, as I relate a tale of horror and sorrow!

The date was October 5th.  I rushed frantically about the house, as I usually do, getting the children ready for school, little knowing the horror that would be unleashed as soon as I got the children on their school bus.  Going back to the house, I tried to start some laundry, but lo! and behold! the washer filled up with water, but alas! would not drain.

So I called my faithful husband to go down and fix it.  Foolishly, I thought to myself that the drain was probably just clogged.

Instead, the whole washer had to be taken apart.  That day, I was supposed to meet with Dreyaka's case worker to discuss her therapy benefits, so I was rushing around trying to get the kitchen table cleared off so we would have a place to sit and talk without having to shout to each other over a heaping mound of debris.

(It looked like this, only worse.)

Also, VikingDad had to rush off to work soon, so he was understandably frustrated with how this was going.  He asked me to help him, nicely, in a very polite and considerate tone. 
Just kidding. 
He yelled, "COME AND HELP ME."  And, as an afterthought, "PLEASE!"

(VikingDad yelling "PLEASE!")

So I went to help him, and we discovered the inside of the washer was full of.... SLUDGE!  (Dun dun duuunnnnn)  Not more sludge!  I had thought we cleaned and scrubbed the last of it from our house.  Alas!  It was invading the washer.  So I got out my cleaning gloves and got to work while VikingDad rushed off to his place of employment.  I cleaned and I scrubbed, scooped handfuls of sludge out, and also cleaned the floor in the laundry room because it was filthy and I can't get to that part of the house with the washer in the way.  With the washer out of the way, I was able to see exactly how filthy it had become.  (Far too filthy to take a picture.  It would burn out your eyeballs.)

After I had bleached everything (including myself- that stung a bit), I went out to the kitchen to get a snack, only to be met with this.

(Just kidding- it wasn't quite that bad, but it was alarmingly flooded.)

So, I grabbed our last remaining towels and sopped up the huge mess, putting the towels in the laundry basket that I had to put on the treadmill because the washer was in pieces in the laundry room.  At this point, this was my expression:

(Grrrrrr!)

It turns out one of the pipes under the sink came completely off while the dishwasher was running (it's a portable one so it uses the sink to run).  Hence, flooded kitchen. 

At that point, the social worker was going to be at the house in 40 minutes, and I was covered in sludge and bleach and the whole house smelled like sludge and bleach.

So I rushed off to take a shower, light some incense to clear out the smell, and do my best to make a bad, rushed situation look presentable.  When the social worker drove up, I met her like this:

("I'm fine!  No really, I am!")

Thankfully, she was a very understanding person.  We had a good meeting, and then I had to rush off to get WildGirl to therapy, get groceries, and get livestock feed.  It was super hectic, but the good news is that I ended the day with Jujitsu class, which always makes me happy.

(Yay!)