Off to the races!

We had a very busy weekend around here. And although we did move the big goat herd since they had eaten everything, the busyness was all about parties. Saturday was my friend Jerry's annual Pig Party, where he roasts an entire pig and everyone brings food, and there is live music and some dancing and carousing that lasts around 24 hours. I absolutely cannot party for 24 hours. I am good for four or five hours tops, but I applaud those who can hold out that long.

Most of the pictures I took came out blurry, which I am blaming on bad lighting and moving targets. It had nothing to do with wine.

The music was great, and although it had sprinkled off and on all day, the evening was dry. Here in Oregon we won't let a little rain ruin an outdoor event, but it's more fun when we don't have to dry off before we retire for the night.

Sunday was one of my favorite parties of the year: the annual paper boat race!

The rules are pretty simple. The boats must be made of paper or cardboard and can't be longer than one foot in length. Every year the boat designs get a little more elaborate, and although there is a prize for the winner, nobody really cares about that. The crowning moment of the event is the inevitably disastrous launch. The idea is to time it to catch the outgoing tide, so all the boats will float downstream. Sometimes that actually happens. This year, though...

While the current was going the right direction, the wind was going upstream, so that's where all the boats went.

The goose and duck that hang out near the dock seemed to be pretty amused by the whole thing, until they got curious about the boats. I was really hoping that the goose would sink half the fleet, but since none of the boats were edible, her interest waned quickly.

I'm thinking that next year we should put crackers on all the boats. The launch is always a disaster, but it would be so much funnier if the race had an offense.

Our goal has been to design a boat that will burst into flames and sink in the middle of the race, but we haven't come up with a way to pull that off. It would require a remote detonation or a very slow fuse, because of the launch problems. If anyone can come up with an idea, I would greatly appreciate it. My goal is to raise the humor quotient at this event, and I think a flaming boat would do it.

The wind died down eventually, and the boats drifted downstream, but by then we were tired from laughing and nobody really cared. I was distracted for most of the party because the water district whose books I keep had an outage that affected the entire system, so every couple of minutes my phone was ringing with someone asking me why they didn't have any water. I deployed all the troops, but nobody ever told me what happened. I guess I'm important enough to handle all the money and the phone calls, but not important enough that I need to know what's going on.

All in all, it was a fun weekend, but full of so many people that I have felt the need to hibernate for the last couple of days, emerging only to check on my goats and then scurry back home where it's quiet. Well, not exactly quiet, but the voices aren't human.

I have a busy week ahead, filled with clipping blackberry canes and mending fences. The fences are not metaphorical. The goats are heading off on a big job out of town in a couple of weeks, and the fencing needs to be repaired before they go, since the long distance jobs make me nervous enough without me waking up in the middle of the night worrying that the fence isn't electrified and all the goats will be floating in the bay by the time I get there.

If all goes well, I will be filled with energy tomorrow and will spend the bulk of the day clipping down the blackberry canes at the last job so I can rest up for a minute before I move on to the next one. Some weeks the energy is easier to find than others.

Have a lovely day, everyone, no matter what season you're in.