Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I have a really wonderful Food Porn Friday for you today. Betsy aka "The Goat Yoda" and I began our eatery tour this past Tuesday, starting at Wanda's wonderful Barbecue Garden and Cafe.

Unfortunately, the Canon Craptastic A40 is holding these amazing barbecue photos hostage for the moment. I think I have a barbecue ribs shot in there that blogger may censor. Please don't flag my blog when I finally get it up. It's very explicit. A "money shot". Very wet and drippy with sauce.

The idiot battery problem has reared its ugly head.

So I call Canon and try to find out what they will charge me to fix Craptastic. I explain the problem and politely mention that I have a Nikon used during the Vietnam war that still works great and I was sort of hoping to get more than five years out of the Craptastic. She tells me, for a digital, that the Craptastic is positively ancient and is probably just wearing out.

Then she tells me they have a program called the Craptastic Upgrade Program that I qualify for. Basically, I send them 125 bucks and they send me the New Improved Craptastic A610. It's to reward my loyalty for staying with the Craptastic brand.

I say, "Sweet!"

So, as soon as I have the bucks, all I have to do is call Canon and give them my phone number and they will have the new camera to me in two days. Cool. So now I only have to supercharge some batteries that can keep the Craptastic going for the five minutes it will take me to retrieve the food porn shots I took on Tuesday.

So we will hopefully have a Food Porn article on Saturday. Cross your fingers.

In other news. Didi is up and running, but Violette is back on the porch. No biggie...she has an eye infection and I want to get her a little more friendly. She has a shot lump that needed some attention and I'm giving her antibiotics for the eye and the shot lump. Her nose looks funny again. But I think that's just scar tissue. She may end up having a disturbingly human looking nose. I hope she grows out of it. It's sort of creeping me out.

Vi-vi is in so many ways the type of goat I want to breed here. Polled (no horns), pretty spotted coat, sturdy, good keeper. She is the only one who is obviously Beacon's get based on her outrageous spots. Unfortunately she seems to have inherited Beacon's tendency to get shot lumps. These are infections that pop up after you give a goat a shot. Basically it just means she has overly sensitive skin that gets infections easily. That is not something I want.

So, the plan is to go ahead and let her dirty old uncle Leonard have at her when it is time to breed her and see if we can get Leonard's good, hardy skin back in the mix without losing Beacon's outrageous spots. Her two sisters, who are probably Leonard's (yes, you can get a mixed "litter" if somebody goes in for sloppy seconds), do not have this skin thing going.

But for now, little Violette is on the back porch. She has an unfortunate voice. See Bat Boy? Vi-vi sounds like you would imagine Bat Boy sounding. I'm not kidding. That's exactly what she sounds like. And she won't shut up.

Did you know they made a musical of "Bat Boy"? That is just something I've got to see. Or at least get the soundtrack to. I hope it's gloriously bad. Damn. I love a bad musical. Just doesn't get much better than that.