In which I tame a herd of goats and pick mushrooms

I didn’t wake up Tuesday morning thinking I would chase baby goats up a hillside that day, but hey. Things happen.

On our drive out to the Czech countryside, we stopped to see some anonymous ruins. Big crumbly stone walls, grassy slopes with boulders, blah blah blah. But after we’d done a little climbing around and ducked into a hobbit home to order some Turkish coffees, we saw something magical—a little baby goat! He emerged from the top of the ruins and started making his way down, slipping on rock ledges and nibbling on violets. I was so charmed I threw my Turkish coffee sludge into a tree and started stumbling toward the thing, singing that obnoxious goat herd yodel from The Sound of Music. (Goats love that song.)

Love me, Horace!!!

I never managed to get close enough to actually touch Horace the baby goat, but I did get close enough to bask in his unbearable cuteness. And guess what? News of my presence traveled fast, and the animals just kept coming! A family of sheep and a big white billy goat also appeared over the crest of the hill and came bahh-ing towards us.

Then I got married to this guy!

Just kidding.

The Czech countryside was like nothing I’d ever seen. The Ledvinas (family friends) have a house near the German border, right next to a national forest. We hiked across terrain so loamy it felt like walking across mounds of play dough covered in moss. The silvery white of the birch trees with the electric green of the tall grass made for an enchanted trek at dusk. We capped off our first evening there by finding a WWII bunker in the woods. #481 to be exact—the red numbers were still legible on the wall. I climbed inside with Marik, one of the little Ledvina boys, and he pointed out the holes where soldiers could fire their rifles and the chimney where they could let out the smoke from cooking.

Thistles

Mushroomin'

The next morning we grabbed our baskets and went mushroom hunting. There weren’t a lot to be found, but we did gather a few hefty handfuls of tiny orange ones that we knew were edible. We took them back to the country house and scrambled them in a pan of eggs before all the girls piled in the car for Cesky Krumlov.

 

Leaping in Cesky Krumlov

Cesky Krumlov is an old world castle village where gingerbread makers tantalize you with animal cookies and women in gowns play harps by the fountain. We ate trout and potato cakes by the river, popped in and out of bookstores and bon bon shops, and enjoyed a stormy evening sipping red wine in our apartment. *Adventures also ensued that shall not be relayed here. What happens in the CK, stays in the CK.

I joined this minstrel band. Check out our website for latest tour deets.

I don’t know how all of you are celebrating the Fourth of July today, but Mumzy and I are hopping on a night train to Krakow, Poland. Prepare for us to return with an obnoxious appreciation of our Jewish roots.