Things have calmed since the fair and we're falling into a routine. Ripley went on a trip to the vet a couple of weeks ago and we were told to keep her food at the current level and not give her any more (this vet had us switch her to adult food right away - something about the growth rate of big dogs, I guess). He thought she was a little heavy, but not too. It turned out that it wasn't the food. My daughter was giving Ripley the goat milk that at the time we weren't saving. We took her off of it, and she's looking like a much sleeker dog now.

The Great Pyrenees coat continues to amaze me. Briars and snags comb right out, as does dirt. She came home from a romp in the woods with my father-in-law and my nephew's chocolate lab, who is about the same age and weighs ten pounds less. She came back looking like a different dog, coated with dirt and burrs from head to toe, and two large dark spots on her left flank that look like she'd rolled in clay. I brushed her out that night and everything came out except the dark clay spots. They were gone the next day. My nephew's mother was going to wash the dog, but apparently thought we'd already done it. I don't know if it dried and worked itself out or if Ripley cleaned it herself. This is an amazing breed of dog.

The big news is that my daughter is getting enough quarts of goat milk from her main doe that we're slowly converting to using goat's milk in our household. Yesterday my wife and daughter made their first batch of goat cheese. It was wonderful stuff - much better than the buck-tasting stuff we got at a fancy market a couple of months ago. It was mild, mellow stuff that looked like ricotta. Wonderful.

And now, here's starting over with the tracking of the egg laying, thanks to the on-sale business calendar I got at Office Max.

Eggs (week ending 9/9): 13
Eggs (week ending 9/16): 9
Eggs (9/1/06 to date): 22
plus sixty or seventy collected 7/06 - 8/06