Have you ever had some days on the farm where you’re not exactly at your sharpest? I call these Ughdays. They aren’t Mondays or Tuesdays, they are Ughdays. Someone asks you how your are and "Ugh" comes out, then you know you are definitely having an Ughday.

Over the years I’ve closely studied what causes these Ughdays. Sometimes an Ughday follows after a night of kidding and you are staggering around, blearied eyed from lack of sleep, trying to act and think intelligently. Which is a lost cause, but you do the best you can. And, if you are still in the middle of kidding, you can actually put off that next day Ughday from pure force of will, because you have to keep it together to keep up with the kidding. After a day or two of keeping Ughday at bay, you will crash and have Super Ughday. But, we’ll discuss Super Ughdays in another story when we all are able to handle the telling.

But, even some Ughdays can have their bright moments. Take recently, we have been having blistering hot days with 92 degrees Fahrenheit, in the shade, and 97 percent humidity. Lee and I would wait until evening to do a good many of the chores, which put us going to roost at ten-thirty or eleven in the evening, but still having to get up at 5 a.m. to start the morning chores. I mean, come on, we have usually gone to roost by 9 p.m., but working in that hot weather would have killed us, so we had to wait until it cooled off some. So, after a week or two of this schedule, we were definitely having a whole bunch of Ughdays. One of those Ughdays happened to have our bi-yearly doctor’s appointments on it.

Now, our doctor is ever diligent, expecting us to explode at any given moment, eager to test anything he sees as being slightly weird. Us being goat farmers should have given him a clue that there is going to be a lot of weird things going on, but he is a very conscientious doctor. So, instead of yearly check-ups, he makes us come in twice a year. This year he finally had to admit that we were in pretty good shape, for the shape we were in, and sent us on our way.

Getting to go to the big city for a doctor‘s appointment, we had a list of things to pick up and do while there, and finally past 1 p.m. I rebelled and insisted I had to eat. Lee and I decided that a buffet restaurant on the way out of town would fit our Atkins style diet. By this time we both were really feeling the effect of an Ughday and the girl at the restaurant took our money and sent us to the buffet table. When we sat down to eat, Lee asked me for the receipt, said we hadn’t been charged enough.

He studied over the bill and said, "Ah, here it is, we’ve been given the free complimentary senior citizen drink. That’s why the bill was two dollars less then what it should be."

"What?!!!" I said. "Free ice tea?! Hot Dog! That’s great!"

Lee just looked at me and asked, "You did hear what I said, didn’t you? She called us senior citizens."

"Call me whatever you want, but just give me a discount!" I said happily. As you all know by now, I’m a real tight wad, I mean, frugal individual. My, up to then, Ughday had just been made a very pleasant day indeed.

Now, the last couple of nights has found me and Lee putting hay in the barn. We have spent the afternoon picking hay up out of the field in the 92 degree Fahrenheit heat and 97 percent humidity, hauling it home, and then unloading when it had dropped to a cool 85 degrees and finishing up around ten at night. Ughdays definitely follow after that and unfortunately there is no one around at the hay unloading time to offer us senior citizens free ice tea. Bummer. But, the next day, feeling the full effects of an Ughday, just walking by the barn and smelling the sweet aroma of fresh hay, lightens the mood considerably. And, when the goats run up to you to get a hug before they head out to pasture, you start thinking that maybe Ughdays aren’t that bad after all.