a few days on the blue ridge

a few days on the blue ridge at carl sandburg has been good --- it's such a beautiful little park --- especially loving mrs. sandburg's nubian goats --- crappy motel where we stayed because it offered a govt. rate and would rather have not spent the days in a conference room with a dozen other people going through another exercise to figure out how to deal with the fkd up federal budget situation --- the public hasn't really noticed the resource and service degradation yet, all incremental changes that eventually add up to a lot --- drove up on the parkway one evening to see some high places, in this case above 3100' --- and learned that many goat herds acquire a donkey to protect them against dogs and coyotes --- they can be fierce and the braying usually drives the predators away