Category: Goats

Today Was Restful

We decided not to do much today. Missus has wrapped up so much in the past week, and her arms and shoulders have been hurting for it. We were also thinking that the girls start school in the morning, but the school has not been great at communicating till I checked back into the calendar today and found that it is not actually meant to start for another week. So, all that rest today was in vain. Well… as they say, hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now. What is a wasted day of rest?

I worked on the firewood holder next to the wood stove today. It has a box built in under it, and some robust pieces of wood planking on top of that to set the firewood onto. It is meant to hold the wood off the ground so I can reach it without bending down too much. Atop of all that is the cast iron shelves, and it is all set into a corner next to the stove, and between the wall and the built in hutch.

For a long time I was not too sure how I was going to finish the planking as it has firewood thrown on top of it all the time in the winter. It has held up really well as bare wood, especially as it is rough cut fir, and does not show indents from the firewood. So today I used my hand planes to smooth the plank tops down some, leaving a little of the saw marks for the distressed look, then finished them with linseed oil, to give them that almost varnished look, while keeping them easy to refinish as necessary, and waterproof at the same time. They look really good!

My oldest daughter came to me this afternoons and said the boy goats were out. We have two young Billy’s we are keeping in the chicken run, to keep them from the girls. They managed to push the gate open, and leave. The gate is about 18 inches high so that there is a fence along the bottom, which makes it easier for me to get in and out of when the chickens are close as they cannot just walk out, and it is elevated to make it easy to open when there is snow on the ground, too. I went out, and walked around the other goat pen slowly, which pressed the escapees round it, showing me they did not want to be messed with. Kirynie was still in getting shoes on to come help. I grabbed a scoop of corn and put it on the ground in the run, and left the gate open. I put the scoop back, and looked back, and the goats were at the gate, looking in. Just then, Kiry came out the back door and looked up at what was going on as the two goats jumped back into the run, and I stood there cool as a cucumber while they did. She smiled and laughed, as she was expecting to come out and chase them! I walked over and closed the gate, and added an extra fastener on it after, while Kiry laughed, and high fived me for being so effective. I am glad she learned the ways of the wise today.

I have more boxes to put into storage tomorrow. I need the farmer to bring us some hay as we will use the last of it tomorrow morning. I also need him to dig a test hole for a new septic system. I need to fill out some paperwork, and get the county inspector over, too. I also need to set an appointment for the girls and I to get our eyes tested, and buy new glasses! That seems like a good plan for tomorrow! Aside from all that, I can carry on packing boxes, ready to go to storage.

I tried chopping at the weeds in the empty llama pen today with my scythe. They are long, and it is hard to reach through to get their stems and cut them down. I tried fitting the riding lawn mower through the gate, but to do it, I would have to remove the mower deck, and that is just enough of a pain that I am not that interested in it. It would really improve the look of this place if I got those weeds down. Lessons learned here are to use wider gates, and to make the pens goat tight so I can set the goats loos in it to sort out the weeds. I like the way I set the gates up to be able to use only two gates side by side and combine the pens into one, but next time, either way, wider gates are a must! The four foot ones are too narrow to be useful when a machine is required for mowing, or for removing a dead animal.

I’ll probably take the mower deck off tomorrow or the next day. Depends on how busy other things get.

Finally, our oldest has at last asked his girlfriend to be his fiancée. I have heard nothing of a date yet, but that is fine. They have a lot to think about, and a lot to do to take the next step after that. What’s most important is that they do things that make them happy, and at a pace that makes them happy, too. But congratulations to them both for taking this step. Whatever and whenever next is next, at least everyone can know he has designs on her, and is committed to her, and her to him. They have been together too long to doubt it, but this is a step to make it something more.

Giving Up On The War Against The Grass

We are uniquely cursed here on our place. We have grass growing here that I cannot remember the name of, but it is a blended type that when cut short serves as a wonderful lawn, and when left to grow long serves as an equally lovely pasture. It is a curse because I have burned holes through it with burn pits, I have tilled it to death, and I have even in the distant past used grass killers on it in places. In every instance, within two years of letting up these attacks, the lawn has been back, and by the start of the third year, the place where it happened has been completely indistinguishable from any undamaged part of it.

This is a great place to be if your life is about your lawn, and cheap upkeep, or if it is about grazing cattle, and you want an easy pasture to keep.

It is not so great when your wife wants a flower bed, and so you till and prep and cover and till again, and by the end of the year the flowers have all but succumbed to the weeds, and are followed the next year by a lawn that will choke out even them.

We have put in raised beds with no bottoms, we have put in raised beds with cardboard bottoms, and we have put in raised beds with plastic bottoms, and the grass has come up through and overgrown the tops of the beds. I have pulled raised beds out again, too. I am in the process of doing that, now. The only place where we have succeeded has been where the raised beds have been covered at the top with cardboard or plastic and mulch. We have done a fair job of keeping the grass at bay with those efforts. So that is the direction we are looking now.

So this year we begin anew with a different approach to the flowers. We have a couple of beds where we have flowers coming up through plastic, and mulch all over that. We also have purchased half barrel shaped plastic tubs that will sit on beds of plastic and mulch, filled with flowers. It is not necessarily the look we would like, but then, neither is “pasture choking petunias to death.” It is just too grim.

I have a bed right in front of the house that I would like to till, surface with the appropriate slope, cover in plastic, and mulch today. It is not too big, so that should be an attainable goal. There are five tubs for that space. I am not going to win against the now two Russian Olives growing there, but I suppose I can trim them back till I can get my dream tractor with a hoe, and dig out the stumps.

There is work to still be done in the herb garden, but we have got to the point it could be easily said it is half way done. We were working out a watering solution for it yesterday, then I went with a shopping list to the stores down in Logan, and while I was at one of them, I spotted a pair of copper-toned sprinklers that were about three feet tall, and decorative, almost Celtic, and got those to put up in the garden, along with feeder hoses that worked out really well. I could not decide between a green one and a red one, so I got one of each, and while I had other plans for them, they worked for the sprinklers to the point that the green one now sits across the grass, and the red one across a mulch bed of nearly the same color. I could not believe it.

We have a space under the kitchen window that needs doing, and against the back of the garage where Missus would like a she-shed, or a space where she will be able to sit outside and work in the future. By, ‘in the future,’ I mean after that noisy goose finally dies of ole age! But then, a quick Google search suggests that he may be with us for another 20+ years… Maybe it is time for him to move to the water across the street! Apparently he is not like to leave us anytime soon.

With the flowers in place in the spots I have discussed, I think that planting season is about done here. If anything is to get root, and flourish it needs to have been in by now, or at least sooner than we can afford more. I can see a couple more trees going in, and I will be putting in the potato starts in either today or tomorrow. I have about 330 feet of potato rows to plant into in 11 rows. I may be out doing that tonight at sunset, or after, when it is cool. I know it is getting late in the season, but that is fine, as Missus prefers New Potatoes anyway.

We have a short, almost cool spell on us till around Friday, so it is a good time to get some mess cleaned up and sorted out. I would like to see the girls and myself picking up firewood down at the Logan City Dump on Friday. I am pretty sure we are all stocked up for the coming season, but I would like to get a trip or two in before summer’s weather is hot in earnest, and then go back down again in the autumn for the rest of the following year’s supply.

Our rejected goat has been staying in the duck run, and making friends out there in the daytimes, and coming into a crate in the house at nights. We are bottle feeding her milk from the fridge, same as we drink. In the days since we brought her in, she has started walking correctly, and even becoming more playful, and she has gotten fatter across the mid section where he backbone was starting to show before. She likes to follow us around in the house. It looks like she is becoming a part of our family! She’ll have to go back out with all the other goats when she is better, and when she is big enough to take a full hit from her mother and either withstand it with no problem, or even deliver it back to her.