The Goat God In A Tree . . .

Where to start ??? The eternal question . . . were I a dog, I'd be exclaiming, "So many fire hydrants, so little time . . ."
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Well first, let me start by thanking the wonderful Lille Diane at Woodstock Lily for encouraging me this past weekend to go take a look at one of the funniest and shenanigan filled blogs I've ever come across, I mean how could a blog named Nanny Goats In Panties not be hilarious ??? It's all about goats, no kidding ! So I went there to take a look, left a little comment, and in no time, the head nanny goat Margaret had been by and signed up to "follow" this humble little blog, and asked if she could borrow the goat photos from Haiti in the post just a couple below this one . . . so, I'll be curious to see what they become in the hands of a nanny goat in panties.
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And it just happens that when Margaret of Nanny Goats (sounds sort of like John o'Groats; I wonder if they're friends?) signed up to follow the Magic Lantern Show she became follower number 300 . . . Now I have to admit, I still haven't figured out whether the "followers" business on blogs has any real importance; which is not to say I'm not grateful to all 300 of you, equally, for having spent those few seconds it takes to sign up to "follow" a blog. But of all the three hundred "followers" who clicked those buttons over the past year, only a handful, and a wonderful handful at that, actually drop by from time to time to visit, and more importantly to comment. Now that may be just as well, because if there were 300 comments coming in on every post, it would quickly become impossible to answer them all, and answering comments is half the fun of blogging. But if there were 300 comments coming in regularly, that would be a sign of popularity, and one reason one blogs I suppose is with a fleeting hope of attaining some measure of popularity in this domain . . . I guess anyway . . . although I have to admit, I'm wonderfully pleased with the current level, and not sure that more popularity would be a good thing, because the current faithful few are a wonderful group indeed, even if one or two are a bit rowdy sometimes after a Tuesday Tipple, or revealing their Décolleté, and I wish I could go on here to credit each and every one of you who has made this first year of blogging a real adventure, but most of you are already in the sidebar, and so are permanently credited . . . as permanently anyway as anything is in the world of blogs, which is simply a reflection of the real world full stop.
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So, 300 is a nice round number . . . I wonder if it will stay in that vicinity, or diminish, I've noticed sometimes followers drop back out, or whether it will continue to grow. The number of visits is growing, approaching the 20000 mark since 1 January, 2009. . . so now, what will it take to reach 200000 ? Or 2000000 ? Well, my gut feeling is that it is not important to focus on numbers, just to get on with the quiet business of pouring out my soul in these pages, while surfing the breaking wave of life advancing at the speed of light, of children growing up, family, work, playing a little guitar when time permits, and taking photographs to nourrish future pages here . . .
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Speaking of which, here is a photo taken on a trip to Nimes in southern France a couple of summers ago, in which the Goat God has taken up residence in the ancient stump of an olive tree . . . and I still can't figure out for the life of me whether someone worked the wood here to bring out the goat soul hidden in it . . . or perhaps it had just been butted repeatedly by a goat that had lived there ?
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Overture to an Overturned Automobile . . .

For no particular reason other than the fact that her blog happens to be one of the very best and most engaging blogs I've come across in this first year of blogging, I'd like to dedicate this one to La Framéricaine and her other half le Framéricain, and her blog Halfway to France . . . where just a couple of posts down she posted pictures from a calamitous accident in a town in central France which featured a car which had somehow become overturned, overwhelmed no doubt by events beyond its control; something which can happen to the best of us when we least expect it I suppose. By some odd act of serendipity, the same day I saw her post with the upside down car, I had just seen an automobile in a similarly unfortunate position earlier that morning, in a ditch along a road near Quend. It must have happened that Saturday night, as it was quite fresh, and was removed by the police shortly after I took this photo of it. So, drive carefully folks, right on over to "Halfway to France", to check out some fine writing, linger to browse her back posts, and don't miss her even finer reactions to whatever comments you might like to leave her. In the meanwhile, don't hesitate to expand on how you think this could have happened, and who the occupants may have been, and where they might have gone after crawling out of their upturned car in the wee hours of a Sunday morning . . .
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And yes, Arnaud, as you can see from the logo, it's a Peugeot . . .
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Goat's Head Soup . . .

While visiting Haiti in 1997, as mentioned in a few previous posts, I photographed this worked iron goat, which was a piece in the personal collection of haitian folk art belonging to Rudi Stern. After the returning from the trip, I put together a hand-bound collection of photos done in Haiti, of which only two copies were produced. The caption I wrote under this photo was : "Land Scape Goat". And it was incredibly heavy . . .
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This second piece was shot in a haitian cemetery, where some real live goats were frolicking about. . . kids will be kids . . .
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