Hiking Goats

Three old goats spent the winter hiking and working together. Kadizzle, The Commander, and Cliff put in some serious miles. Our group cleared 68 miles of brush from the trails, and hiked 172 miles on behalf of The Forest Service.  In addition we must have hiked another 50 miles just for fun.

Cliff and The Commander are what Kadizzle calls "fire asses".  They have to hike like their ass is on fire.  Kadizzle goes at a slower pace. Yesterday we took our new trail crew member with us who is 14 years younger than the youngest of us.  Jeff could not believe how fast and hard the goats worked.  The trail crew got up and tried to get on the road by 7:30.  First we had to drive 11 miles up the mountain to get to the trailhead on top.  After Kadizzle let the other three off to hike and clear brush down the Oak Flat trail Kadizzle headed to the bottom of the trail.  It was a twenty mile drive.  Kadizzle started from the bottom clearing some brush and hiking toward the group.  About 2 P. M. we met.  Everyone was worn out.  We hiked back down to the truck and went back to the Earth Module for medication.  Jim Beam soothed Kadizzles heart while Cliff had his non-alcoholic beer, and The Commander slugged down one of her special craft beers. Today The Forest Service is hosting a party for all the volunteers.  

When you do your taxes this year, and it is time to bitch about how much money your government wastes, think about the sixty volunteers that worked all winter for free.  Last year volunteers put in 64,000 hours of free work for you.  Even at ten dollars an hour that would be 640,000 dollars saved by the government.  Keep in mind a lot of these volunteers had computer skills, electrical skills, plumbing skills, and there were a lot of highly educated people working for you for free.  As the Republicans try to starve the government someone has to keep the weeds pulled, fix the shower, and clean the toilet.  If you really want to get riled up why not think about the new F-35 jet.  It does not work, is not needed, and cost ONE Trillion dollars. You could buy some toilet paper and put it in a Forest Service rest room for that price.