April 2024

Good morning, all. Spring is trying to move into our area.

Visiting me last Saturday was son, Eric and wife Tammy, granddaughter Ashley and great grandson, Gio. While here they went to the Jeff Carnahan Farm to purchase a registered pig for Gio to show in the County Fair.

Hello to all of you Marshall Mountain Wave readers and greetings from the jewel of the Ozarks, Leslie, Arkansas. We have had another bit of early Spring weather this past week. It has been very warm and muggy and then very cold almost frosty in the early mornings. It warmed up some then that old north wind began to blow, and it was very windy and rather chilly, at least the sun was shining. It was very warm and overcast on Easter Sunday. All in all, it has just been an our usual toppy turvy weather that we have become accustomed to here in the Beautiful Ozarks. If you are unhappy with the weather stick around a minute and it will change as the saying goes.

Hi everyone. Today is Thursday.

Hopefully everyone had a really good Easter weekend. The weather was nice and warm, last year it was a little cool. The Pancake Breakfast had a really big turnout. The food was good and Ms. Tammy and I enjoyed visiting with everyone.

Hello to everyone again. I hope you are all doing well.

It is time to pick up the cemetery flowers at Witts Springs Cemetery, if you wish to reuse yours. You have from now until the 20th to pick them up. Cemetery cleaning day will be April 20th unless the weather is bad, then it will be the 27 instead. The cemetery meeting is after the clean-up.

Hello again from Zack. Happy April.

The Rocky Bank, the Sequel You may remember that the one thing that my goats ever did, that we actually wanted them to do, was to clean up a rocky bank of saplings that was obstructing the views of the valley behind our house. Before us, many chemicals had been applied to that bank without success, but when we moved in, I was smug because I had a secret weapon—goats. Fast forward a few years and they have completely and utterly overachieved and caused devastation and destruction, the hallmarks of a goat’s work. It was a rocky bank covered in saplings. Now the saplings are long dead, and the rocks they were holding in place have rolled down the hill to make a rocky wall along the fence. These aren’t pebbles, we’re talking boulders. With the loss of the boulders, the hill is eroding back toward the goat barn, driveway, and house. We have plenty of room for goats, but we don’t have it fenced. So my little herd of goats is licking the clay off the bank (yes, they have plenty of hay), surrounded by lush pasture. All the strategies we have tried to let them access that have failed Rosie, I’m thinking of you. This week we decided to put up high tensile electric wire around a couple of acres of pasture to let them graze and keep them off that bank. This pasture is lush green, but nearly vertical, so fencing it was no walk in the park. We labored, we climbed, and we groaned, but after much longer (and more costly) than we figured, it was complete. We tested the wire and it was all working. I released the goats and got a few happy pictures of them chest deep in green, grazing to their hearts’ content. We came in for a wellearned cup of coffee and piece of cobbler. While we relaxed in the living room after exactly one sip of coffee and one bite of cobbler, I saw a herd of goats run past the living room windows. They moved across the patio like a crowd leaving a movie theater. Back to the drawing board…

Hoping everyone had a great Easter weekend. The weather was nice enough.