I was busy in the garden since Mother's Day and there wasn't much around for goats that I could find! They are settling in nicely on day 3 now. Mama goat comes right up(she knows I have food) and the baby is still very shy but willing to grab a bite out of my hand and back off quick. Always wondered what the big fuss about goats escaping was- I've never had one get out. Well, until wednesday a.m. when I heard a little bleat while out watering, came around the corner of the house to view the little cuties through the dog run fencing at a distance. "So cute," "like little gazelles" thought I, until the little gazelle mother ambled from behind the kennel and was free ranging! It only took her 13 hours to find the low spot in the kennel and burrow under it- amazing. I flew into full bore goat containment mode then because they are new and shy and not likely to come prancing up when I say to. Hauled a lot of rocks, logs, stumps, anything I could find to barricade that little monkey IN! So far so good. We have a lot of work to do on the big goat pasture before these two gain admission. The large goats and the chunky little pygmies could never go under or over- I forsee these two to be challenging. The 5 month old has the sweetest little face- looks like a lamb.

Hi, LL here, nice story, glad to see one of these ;) I'm curious, on what grounds did he evict you? And if you won, why was the eviction left on your record? I will disagree with what others have posted regarding being wary or skeptical. I have learned over the years that not all is black and white, there are many levels of gray. Some of my perfect tenants on paper turned out to be nightmares. And some of those less than stellar on paper, but whom my gut told me were being truthful so I gave them a break, turned out to be some of my best tenants. Sounds like your LL is a human being with some compassion and was giving you a break. ;-) I would encourage you to check the sex offender registry, not for your LL, but for your own peace of mind and to be aware of your local neighborhoods. Sadly, it's common to find offenders in all walks of life, from urban to rural, from affluent to impoverished. I check regularly, and keep my tenants with children posted. National Registry is linked below, google your State registry for assurance of most up to date info. I wouldn't worry tho, all in all it sounds like you found a great place and a decent LL. Hope your daughter has a healthy future in store. Meantime, relax and enjoy! Here is a link that might be useful: National Offender Registry

Fascinating discussion, and timely for me, as I am trying to decide whether to retire. My wonderful boss left last month for a new job and they transferred in someone who is a total idiot. We saw our financial advisor on Monday and he agrees that we can afford it. I am 61 and hubby is 49; he has eleven years before he can retire from his job (not Federal). I have 29 years in the Fed government, so would get a defined pension and keep my health benefits. We have been saving at a good clip for the past 15 years (married for 17 years) but took a hit in the dot.com bust and again last year. Since the market went haywire, I've focused on paying off the mortgage. Have $18K left to pay. Right now, our investments are averaging 4%, so the mortgage paydown seemed like the better option. Expect to have it paid off by next year at the latest. (BTW, we don't include home equity in our "assets" because we would have to sell to obtain the value, and we love our location.) My problem may be off-topic. I have no idea what I would do if I retired. We don't have kids and our parents are healthy. I have hobbies, but can't imagine staying home all day. Most of my friends are still working. You are lucky that your DH may be retiring soon.

The ray of light in this is that she gets her spousal support through her divorce attorney. It's automatically taken from her husband's paycheck and goes to the attorney, who then sends it to her. Our attorney says that if she doesn't pay, it can be taken from her spousal support by writ. DH is going to take the final order over to DCSS and let them collect... they can intercept her tax refunds, unemployment, disability and when she works, they can access those records. They can also suspend her driver's license. It's never really over... but at least there are no pending court hearings. We aren't going to lose sleep if she doesn't pay, we just got tired of her making threats to my husband. She used to threaten to take his daughter, so he filed for an order. Then she threatened that he was going to lose and not get to see his daughter and have to pay her a lot of support. Then, $13,000 in attorney's fees and five months later, he got an order that says when he has his daughter (50/50). Then when she got her order for support, she called him immediately to threaten contempt charges because he didn't pull out his checkbook THAT DAY and pay her. (She was NOT happy with the amount because the custody was 50/50) Then she moves away and gives him full custody three weeks later and doesn't think she has to pay anything. In fact, she tried to intimidate him again because he wasn't paying her the support for the 50/50 arrangement because he had full physical custody. So, another $2,400.00 in attorney's fees later... she has to give him a measly $216 but it is worth it if she can no longer 'threaten' him. She is still threatening to take him back to court to get full custody but he isn't worried about it since he has an order (that she signed) and she has no legal leg to stand on. She can no longer threaten to make him pay back the last nine months of support because at the last court hearing, she agreed that he shouldn't have to pay it and today the court made the final ruling. She isn't likely to file to go back to court for a while since she would have to explain herself. If she files for custody, she's going to have to explain to the Judge... why she moved three weeks after the trial.... why she left both her daughters for a guy she only knew a week or two... why she hasn't paid any support... why she is late to or cancels visits.... why she thinks it's best for her daughter, to uproot her again to move her away from her dad where she has been for a year with no problems, where she has made friends, where her counselor is, where she is settled and stable, to go live in a house where they just moved to, that they may not be able to afford and may have to move again, where there's a lot of rivalry with her BF's kids. Just because mom wants it to happen. or Just because mom doesn't want to pay support. or Just because SD has no rules there and has more fun there... well, those aren't the kind of reasons a court wants to hear.