My bleatin' neighbors

I've been noticing an intriguing and welcome phenomena in Bucks County of late. It's to do with goats. Yes, goats.

First I should explain that, although I live in a rural area that's easily commutable to both Philly and NYC, there isn't much farming done here any more. In fact many of the old farms have been purchased by wealthy New Yorkers for the most part and they use them as their weekend getaways. (My township historical society is currently on a mission to find photos of Dorothy Parker at her old farm which lies a stone's throw from my house for a book they're doing--it was a humble place rich in the aroma of its Quaker roots then but through the years has metastasized into a multi-million dollar mansion that's hardly recognizable though the grounds are stunning. It's said she wrote Big Blonde there, which is one of my favorite stories of hers.) Of course, there are still some old families here who still own their farms, but they are now the exception to the rule as opposed to the rule. Sad, but true.

One family near us has a sign out that says "Organic chicken, beef and pork." And the township or County gave them a problem about their hanging the shingle for a while instead of giving them a whopping big bloody tax break. It'd surprise me if it was the township because, all in all, they are in favor of preserving rurality and its traditions. Many residents here are not in favor of cookie-cutter development of the kind the Toll Brothers and others like them do throughout the US, which is the erection of McMansions or tract housing. Oh, you can call these places enticing names like "Summer Meadows" or "Pastoral Mews at Bluebell Farm," but they're still McMansions or tract housing at the end of the day. In addition, the damned school taxes always jump horrendously when these houses get built in country areas.

Anyway, back to my goat observations. As I drive through our County I'm seeing more and more herds of goats at some of these farms. And some of the farmers have constructed interesting climbing and play areas for them because goats are intelligent and love to explore. One restaurant in the area also has a herd of goats, right beside their own organic vineyard--and their wine's (red and white) drinkable which might surprise some because we're stuck in Pennsylvania. An old llama and donkey and a flock of guinea fowl and turkeys live there, too. It's wonderful, refreshing, a tonic for the eyes.

I'm very very happy to report it's a growing phenomenon because I'm spotting goats grazing on farms in New Jersey, too. Maybe the Federal government has given these last remaining farms a subsidy to make goat cheese or something, I don't know. But if they have, kudos to the Federal government and the USDA.

Whoopi fun

I was listening to Wakeup with Whoopi with Whoppi Goldberg and her co-host Cubby on the radio this morning, as I do when I'm not listening to NPR. She's hilarious, good-spirited unless it's railing against something she doesn't like such as NYC's mayoral office's recent decision to close down a respected, well known hospital when so many poor people are going without proper medical treatment and she was encouraging New Yorkers to attend a protest rally (the show's out of New York City but syndicated throughout the country as it deals with topical items that are national in scope) and am glad she's back on the airwaves. This morning--I guess flowing from Hillary Clinton's decision to run for president this weekend--she's decided she should perhaps run as well. (Her attitude to national politics on the show is to 'just add a sprinkle because we don't want to scare the people, do we Cubby?') Cubby thought running would be a bad idea as Whoopi has skeletons, but she retorted something to the effect that we all have something in our closets and the self-righteous people who threw stones at President Clinton got caught up in the fire because all she could hear was the sound of breaking windows all over the US at the time. Check out her website, which I'm providing because according to Whoopi if you add an 'e' or another 'i' to her name by accident, you'll end up at a whole different kind of Whoopi.

Regarding my own website, this weekend was a bit of a milestone. My publisher's website guy had sent me an email before Christmas that my website domains were up for renewal and, after much deliberation, I decided I wanted to take over responsibility for my site. So, after much backing and forthing and setting up a new hosting account and having the domains transferred and renewed and him sending things called FTP files--sounded very scary and something I wanted to avoid getting involved in because I dislike dealing with technical stuff--to the new site, the transfer is complete and I am now utterly in charge of www.soncalledgabriel.com and damianmcnicholl.com. In the future I think I'll have my website redesigned around my name as many authors do and its current content revolving around the novel will become one element of the website design.

Since I've also recently upgraded my blog, I now have the possibility to transfer its contents so that the blog will also reside within the website at some point. But that's down the line and I'm in no rush. We'll see. Baby steps.