Sore, Spring, Sore, Planting, Sore muscles

Picture of a roadrunner. We have a daily roadrunner who crosses our fields and has a nest close by. He came within six feet of us while we were watching the goats last night.

---
Everything's sore. We had the last 'freeze-like' weather on Saturday (brrrr), so planting on Sunday commenced well, but digging holes, lugging compost around, pulling hoses and running the goats out of the OTHER garden area... then putting up a fence to supplement the fence that's supposed to be keeping them out... We're sore. Oh, yeah. I also ran the chipper/shredder and mulched a bunch of generic branches from the forested area... lugging it all into the barnyard (flattest, safest place to run the shredder). Wheeeee.

And Mike went further, putting our newly-acquired 18-foot boards on the 18-foot trailer we bought to move us into Coyote Ridge about ten years ago. They needed replacing, but we bought one too few, so we'll have to order ONE board again from Lowe's. Grrr..

Had a nice weekend, though, and got a lot done. Just put an ad on Craig's list to sell our Cabrito goats. We now have 48 goats (sold three females to a neighbor this past week).

We need to get down to 35 goats, our minimum for keeping our Ag exemption. "7 units" which equals 7 cows or 35 goats.

We're both getting over the flu from earlier this month. It has taken a toll on both of us and this weekend was the first time we got out and did stuff we really needed to do.

It was also our last fireplace fire until next year.

Projects to do:
Replace fence around backyard with cedar posts.
Rebuild fence in dogleg.
Put fence down to creek in hidden area.
Move fence to incorporate more of the forested area so the goats can eat more.
Put gate in backyard when we redo the fence.
Clean out barn
Deck (in process)
Replace siding on top of split level on house.
Paint house
Re-do the hay feeders

And there's more, but even my brain is tired.

I still have a lingering flu.  Just down to a raspy cough now and I don't have my usual energy. 10 days of this is too long.  Kristi is still enjoying her new car.  It's actually pleasant to get into unlike her old one.  We've been having problems with many goats getting into the front yard.  Can't really blame them, there is fresh green out there to eat.  The opposite of everywhere else around here.  At least we've had a couple of inches of precious rain this weekend. The electric fence is showing 4 bars.  That's about 4000 volts.  Enough for a painful jolt.  So why are the goats getting through it? I think it could be that they are getting through from the garden fence.  The garden fence between the garden and front yard isn't charged.  So I may have to connect it up tomorrow and get the goats trained to avoid the front yard.  Geese are laying eggs.  The peahen hasn't which is making me wonder if she's okay.  She would usually have laid about a dozen by now and then a dozen in a month or so.  She seems okay but...  I haven't seen any rats in the tack room for 3 days.  But they are still there.  I've seen a couple racing along the horizontal stringers in the barn.  I need to get rid of them before we buy our next pallet of feed.  They made a huge mess out of the last pallet and wasted a lot of grain.   Kristi found a dead snake in front of the greenhouse this afternoon.  Probably compliments of one of the cats.  Kristi tossed it to the chickens for protien.  Nothing gets wasted here.  I had to untangle 2 more goats from the hay feeder in the barn.  They push their heads all the way through and their horns get caught.  This is one of 4000 things on my ToDo list.  Replace the hay feeders.  I'm on it!  Cooked my corned beef today.  Came out perfect.  3 weeks in brine and spices in the fridge and now it's preserved and tasty.  All ready for St Patties day.  I wonder what corned goat would taste like.  Hmmmmm.

Bad day, but it's Friday

Okay, so last weekend, I bought a car. I had to. My mother's car, a 16-year-old Chevy Corsica, died on 71 and I pushed it off the road. They towed it to my mechanic, he declared its total death and now I had no way of getting around.

For one day, while one of Mike's work trucks (my vehicle for a few days) was in the shop, I rented a car from Enterprise -- a Mazda 6, 2009 variety. I fell in love with it and so I got one. It's a very fine car and much better than last year's mazdas and the years before that.

It's been fun to drive.

Why is today a bad day, then? Because Mike's sick -- got the flu bug, I think, and is probably still sleeping, even though it's late. He rarely gets sick, but when he does, it's a doozy.

I bought him some cold/flu medicine on the way home yesterday and I hope that's going to help. He just seems so... helpless, though. I don't know.

Sunday past (Feb 22), we slaughtered another goat and packaged it, then stuck it in the freezer. We've done this before (there are photos in a previous post), but this time, I wanted to save the hide so that I could learn how to 'process' it. I should say, MIKE killed it, skinned it and butchered it.

It is currently soaking in wood ash and water after waiting the twenty-four hours in a pure water bath. I opted to tan it, versus making something with hair on it. The goat wasn't that purty and I just wanted to practice tanning a hide. No, I'm not pissing on it or using goat brains to tan it.

The process begins with the four or five day soak in the ash-water (produces lye) to get the skin off the hide. Then I will scrape the fat membrane and any remaining meat off the back of it, turn it over and then scrape the hair off of the hide, as well. The lye process softens the hide and allows me to take the fur off with a scraper.

The things that we need to do next time:

• Have two sharp knives, not just one.
• Make sure the goat is high enough to work on without breaking Mike's back.
• Figure out a hanging method that works. We used a branch of the tree in the backyard, but I was afraid it would break with the weight of a hundred-lb goat on it and us tugging the skin off and pulling it down in doing so.
• Make sure we always do this in colder weather.
  
• Keep hay on hand to cover the wheelbarrow underneath the goat so that when the guts are freed and tumble into the wheelbarrow, that they can be covered up with hay to keep the flies away.
• Keep the dog out of the backyard. She was a nuisance while we were working on the carcass.

Oh what fun we have! Last night, we put everything back into the tackroom after Mike sealed off most of the rat entryways. I suspect it's going to be a bit of a battle to keep them out of our feed.

In the last three days, we've lost two goats -- one for unknown reasons... wait, make that three.

Yesterday evening, I was 'watering the geese' which means turning on a faucet near where we are going to plant grapes this year, and heard a most distressing goat yell. I looked toward the sound and saw a kid lying on the dirt and ran to it. Mike was in the barn, familiarizing the new kids by picking them up.

The wounded kid, whose parentage we'll have to discover this evening, seemed to have a broken neck. It was leaning its head back as far as it could and at first, of course, I thought it was dying.

I yelled for Mike and he came, picked the kid up and brought it into the house (standard operating goat procedure). It had been raining a bit and the kid was filthy with sand. We washed it off in the sink and dried it, put it on some towels and gave it some aspirin with some milk. This year, we purchased a kid-saver -- a handy device that has a long tube that we can snake down into a kid's stomach to give it food. We did this twice in the evening. It didn't save it.

Mike said that the kid gave a final yell and squirmed a lot around1am in the morning, and that was the end of it.

But now comes the question.. HOW did it get into such bad shape? We are, at the moment suspecting our livestock guardian dog, Brisket. The only reason for this is that he has been known to chase the kid goats around unmercifully and yesterday, Mike saved an armadillo that Brisket had in his mouth and was shaking the poor creature as hard as he could.

So we think that Brisket was full of himself and had shaken this kid until the kid's neck was broken. The sounds from the kid were not of the kind of distress sounds from a goat with stomach problems. These were pain sounds, uncomfortable pain.

But there are other options. The kid could have been thrown by one of the adult goats for simply being in the way or trying to drink milk from the wrong mom. We don't know.

But then again, we think Brisket did this to a chicken this past year... playing with it and slobbering all over it before the chicken just died (probably a heart attack).

Hard to tell, but if this is the case, we're going to have to put the dog down. He won't make a good livestock guardian and he is definitely not suitable as a pet.

This was not a good day.

We now have:
52 goats (of which, only one is a milk goat)
6 geese
9 guineas
60 chickens
2 cats
2 dogs

Kidding Season is almost over...

Just about a half hour ago (about 9pm), 205 kidded. Beautiful twins. One with a dark tail. That's three with dark tails this year and that's odd, since we've never had any... at all.

And so, over the last two weeks, we've had 23 kids, four of them died, and 19 survived. We're lousy with kids, now.

Yawwwwnnnn... We're both tired.

Good night.

And another

Friday (the 30th), 216 kidded... but we weren't there (out picking up feed and other stuff) and one of the twins she bore died... it was born with the pileus still around its body and probably suffocated in it. Mike and I are very sad when these things happen to our goats... we weren't there but should have been to remove the caul and let the kid breathe. But we can't always be home.

But the other one, the one that survived is doing well.

Yesterday, we cleaned the barn's walls (filled with nasty, dusty cobweb-like things and just plain dirt) and did maintenance to the stalls like attaching new wire on some of them. Mike also fixed and affixed the four feeders we bought last month and installed them on the doors of the stalls. I put wire on the outside of them so that goats couldn't get to the feeders from the outside. They all can eat side-by-side, now. I hope.

But in the process of doing a lot of work in the barn, Mike left the stall door open (not latched) and early this morning, apparently, when he went to unstick yet another kid that got stuck in the hay feeder, many goats were milling about 216's stall, probably eating all her hay and feed, as well. Her release date wasn't until Monday (three days to allow moms to recover and to bond with their kid(s) is the norm).

This morning, all the goats seemed to take their kids out and around to the dogleg -- you could see the newly-born ones jumping and running around like crazy. It's a great time of year for us.

But wait! There's even MORE!!!

Just before getting up, I can hear our dogs and other dogs howling in the distance.
Mike says, "I hear a new kid".

"You're hearing coyotes or dogs."

"Every once in a while I can hear it."

I can't. I am in disbelief. But when he goes out in the 26-degree weather to feed the animals, I sense he may be right. But I'd never tell him.

I prepare our lunches and coffee and clean up the kitchen a bit for the afternoon when we both return from work.

He comes in twenty minutes later.

"I was right. Twins. They're beautiful. They look like Boer, not like 9 or her other kids."

That makes sixteen healthy kids, now, and three more nannies who will be kidding soon! Gah!

barn creature pics

<--Blank - "pfffthhhhh" (just look at that tongue)


Mike and one of 17's kids. --->

<--19 with her new kid. and below, six and her new kid.

Keep 'em comin'

Oh, boy.

When Mike and I went to work this morning, there were no more kids... but he just arrived home and went to look in the barn.

19 had her kid (first picture)... a big one! We've had her 'put away' for about a week so that she could kid and she's been giving us false signs for a while.






Blank had her kids - the first trips that actually look like they're going to survive. She was about the size of the side of the barn, so this is good.. but she had them in the wooded area.

While Mike's on the phone with me telling me this, he also says that he can't find 215. She was due as well -- then he sees her and says, "two more! they look just fine!" (also in the wooded area) And Brisket was defending her against Mike. At least the dog's doing his job.

A kid bleats loudly, waking us both up at around 5:45 this morning.

"Stuck kid or lost?"

"Dunno." He puts on his robe and shoes and goes out to the barn. Then I hear his feet coming back a minute or two later, more quickly.

"Get up. Delores had triplets. One's dead. She's in the middle of the entrance to the barn."

Okay. Clothes first, and I grab some for Mike, too. He's getting stuff in the kitchen for Delores - probably molasses water at this point. I dress quickly and we take towels out to the kids. We have to get them into a stall along with Mom so that the other goats don't trample them. Delores was already defending them against Brisket, so that was a good sign. We needed more good signs, though.

One of the kids seemed dead, but wasn't. It was the smallest, probably not weighing more than ten ounces or so. It died about ten minutes after it was born.

We left the other two with her in a stall- the one that was screaming was the healthiest and largest of the three, but still very weak and not able to stand. Delores, while Mike was heating goat milk, would not deal with her kids and seemed very hungry. That's all she really cared about was eating so we thought that giving her as much grain as she wanted would help her to go back to her kids and start taking care of them. Mike tried to get both of them to drink from Delores' teat, but nothing doing. Neither kid wanted to.

I had already wiped the smaller of the two with a towel, but the other one was still quite wet. So it seemed like Delores had everything under control and we left. We ate breakfast and read the newspaper, then went out again.

This time, things were a little different. The littlest goat was barely moving and the other one was still quite wet. Delores, despite having stolen a kid from another goat last year, just wasn't interested in these. We took both of them into the house and sat by the fire to warm them up. We cleaned them and gave them some formula that was frozen from last year.

But the littlest one wouldn't do much but breathe... and Mike gave it milk, but the kid wasn't destined for this life. The other one I fed successfully and dried off. It has a healthy set of lungs and will be a screamer. These are both male.

After the littlest one died (pictured), we took the healthier one (above) and cleaned it more, then put it back into the stall with Delores. She nosed it, and I really wondered if she would accept it back. She was crying for her kids when we left and when we came back to the barn with it. We put it on the ground in the stall and she held her nose to it. I think that's just how they get the kid warm. She also tried to nuzzle it to see if it would stand and eat, but nothing doing. I think, at this point, it was exhausted from our terrorizing efforts of trying to keep it alive. I also think it will survive, but it will take some encouragement and the ability to stand - to be able to reach Delores' teat.

And did we expect Delores to kid? To have TRIPLETS? Hell, no. But this has definitely been a surprising kidding season and it's only just begun.

And Mike says,

"It feels like we've already had a full day."

"You didn't expect to get anything DONE today, did you?"

Just wait 'til all the rest pop - all at once, all while we're out somewhere leading our lives.





THIS JUST IN: - We went to sleep for an hour and what happens? We both get up to new screaming. At first I thought it was Delores' kid, but then Mike went out and, again, came back -- but in less of a hurry. Two more kids from 71. She'd been in labor when we were out there, apparently, and had two beautiful kids - one buck, one doe.

That's ten. Five today and five on the 19th of January.

We tested Delores' nipple and found that it squirts well. We put the kid up to it (can't yet stand) and she fed.






BUT WAIT! There's MORE! Six just kidded. One very large one. In fact, it may be larger than any of the ones so far. That makes six today.












As a follow-up, we lost all three of Delores' trips - they were just born too early and not developed enough to stand on their own. It's always sad to lose one goat, but three is a lot more difficult to bear, particularly when you've tried to keep them alive for so long.

Yet to kid this year (but pregnant and due SOON).

Blank 6
71
215
216
9
205
19
28
201

That's a lot of goats. That's a lot of kids.

Kidding!

Really. It's kidding season, but we have about ten pregnant goats. Today, two kidded. Last night, one died while kidding. One also (about two weeks ago) aborted its kids (213).

But tonight, we have five nannies in stalls - two stalls for those who kidded today (at around 10 and then again about 1pm, when we were out trying to return the cage that we had for the dog. Oops.. that was something else, too. Our new dog, Brisket, is entirely too wild to capture by hand.)

Wait. The goats. And why we have five stalls occupied at the moment. Two goats kidded (32 and 17). Thirty-two is a brand new mom and didn't quite GET how to clean its kid up and allow it to feed. Seventeen had her kids first, in the woods, and without notice. Hell, she wasn't even in the running for 'first to kid'. But she did, nonetheless. Had twins. The second one we thought she was going to just leave in the woods, so we had to show it the teat and allow it to feed -- after we dragged 17 and her kids into a birthing stall so they'd be safe from predators. Our dog, Brisket, probably ate the first afterbirth, but we don't know. He was licking his lips, though, when we went out to get the feed dish, scoop and water bowl that we'd left for 17.

So 32 kidded while we were out getting hay, but had no idea how to actually clean her kid off. And frankly, I think she was a little put off at first that it actually wanted to feed from her udder. I think it's all cool, now, so we don't have any bottle babies... yet.

So 12, one of our finest and smartest goats, is putting out major signs and we put her away today.. she may have her kids tomorrow or even late in the evening tonight.

Blank was just acting strange and doing what we thought was a first 'push', so we also put her into a birthing stall of her own. I think she appreciates the solitude.

And then there's 215 - Mike saw white goop coming out of her hiney and we put her into a birthing stall, as well.

This comes at the end of a day of canning 10 cans of chicken stock, putting wire on a stall just in case we had some that were birthing (oh, gee... just in time). And doing a million other things in the day, as usual.

But then there's Brisket. Yesterday, we set the trap that Mike got from the Bastrop Animal Control people a few days ago. We did capture poor Brisket and Mike was late this morning, but dropped the dog off at the vet -- I was following behind and had the day off... We thought Brisket would have to be anesthetized so that the vet could work on him, but that wasn't the case. We got him back around noon today - yes, you guessed it... just in time for kidding season to really get going. Brisket seems slightly less timid of us -- probably because now he knows that there are a lot crueler people out there that want to stick him with needles (vaccinations) and such. The collar came off and he's happily eating. Poor pooch. We just torture him so...

Tired. That's it for now.

Killing holiday time

It's Texas and ya know yer holiday's gonna be fine when you start it off by killin' somethin'.

Thanksgiving, it was a goose. Yesterday, well, it was time to clean out the tack room and fill some holes in the walls so the rats couldn't get in. Well, they were already in. We already figured there was a rat's nest in the old cabinet, built with quarter-inch plywood and needing to be replaced. Inside this cabinet, we kept various things for the farm -- like bee stuff, oyster shell calcium for the chickens, extra heat lamps and old waterers. I pulled a bunch of the stuff out and when I located the stuff at the bottom of the cabinet - and keep in mind there's very little good light shining into the cabinet, I heard a squeal, or thought I did. I was making enough noise so that it could have been a squeak of a mechanical kind, but it wasn't, as I was to find out shortly. I was using a shop vac to vacuum all the paper mess that was at the bottom and suddenly I see this very thick, very long tail heading toward the corner of the cabinet that I'm NOT vacuuming.

Then the squeal came from me and Mike came running. I'm not usually that squeamish about stuff, but when the 'stuff' is live and possibly pissed, it's time for reinforcements. Mike came with a shovel and by that time, the mother rat had disappeared (the tail, the tail!) and we uncovered six babies. Mike whacked them all over their heads and killed them. They were the size of full-grown mice.

That was yesterday. Mike already knew that there were dead rats in the chicken water tank (an oblong, four-foot tank that sits on the ground) and today we checked it out, emptied it and there were five dead rats in it. Mike buried them in our pet cemetery area so Brisket couldn't eat them.

Today's adventure is all Mike's -- finding dead snakes hanging from a net under the joists under the house.

This past month, a few things have happened, some good, some, well, typical. Number 20's tumor is getting worse (she still sounds like darth vader) and we're thinking of culling her so that she doesn't suffer more and so that she doesn't eat more feed -- you have to think about these kinds of things because feed isn't cheap and we're about to have another set of kids here, soon.

In the goat arena, some goats have figured out they LIKE dried dog food and thus it's nearly impossible to feed Brisket (who stays in the barnyard) because the friggin' goats just bully their way and eat all his food. So often as not, one of us guards his food while he eats it (usually me) and the other one feeds the rest of the creatures.

The goats are heading into kidding season and a lot of them are getting huge with their pregnancies. Since this is the year we switched billy goats, these are still likely to be half-breeds because Billy Goat was in charge and had his work pants on when we sold him. Recoil, however, has definitely buddied up to some of them who rub against him in their heat. Since we now have a fine billy goat pen, we stuck him and 201 inside it for a few days and marked the day. It takes 155 days for insemination to produce a kid and it will be easier if we know which nanny and when from now on.

Recoil has just leaped up in size, as well, and his collar, once very loose around his neck, is not quite as loose, anymore. He's now about the size of one of our largest nannies. I suspect he will be in total charge this coming year.

The geese. Oh, the geese. Six left, still. They have to be fed in their own stall and getting them there is a challenge when you have 36 goats hanging around the tack room door. So as soon as the goats are fed, the hugely noisy geese get theirs, then the chickens, then the dog.

During this last freeze, we covered the water pipe that comes into the barnyard and up through the ground with one of those foam pieces meant for that kind of stuff as well as blue paper tape.
The geese thought this was amusing and proceeded to eat the entire thing, tape and all. So no protection for the pipe. Today, Mike put another foam thing around it and this time we put a short coil of hardware cloth around it, as well, so the stupid geese couldn't eat it.

The white chickens - the second batch of Cornish this year (since the first batch are tough as leather, we needed to have quality roasting chickens and bought 25 more, 25 of the kind we know and love), were mucking up their area so badly that when we had to catch them at night after the first rain, I almost puked. The area was muddy and full of crap and piss and felt like tar underneath my shoes.

So we moved the white chickens (not quite ready to 'process') into the backyard. It's been more than five weeks, so they're fully feathered and can take the cold without getting hypothermia. They all generally stay in a group and are closer to the killing station for when the time comes. But they don't know that, though. Usually, we would begin harvesting them and wanted to do this during vacation, but they're not big enough. They eat twice a day, but that doesn't seem to be enough to grow them to the proper eating size.

Our little barred rocks - the 25 or so we purchased along with the cornish cross, are doing great! Mike and I finished the inside-the-inside chicken coop early this month and that's where the little ones stayed. Mike opened their area up about a week ago and allowed them to come and go -- and they just happily and without incident (mostly) cohabitate with the other chickens and the guineas. We now have about seventy-five birds in the chicken yard and could probably raise another hundred in there, but this is enough and we don't like overcrowding creatures.

The chicken yard, by the way, is holding up REALLY well. One chicken got past Mike this morning (unusual, these days) and into the larger barnyard and the side yard. However, by the afternoon, the chicken voluntarily went straight back into the chicken yard when Mike opened the gate. That means the chicken yard is now their home and they WANT to be there. Yay.

Brisket, being a livestock guardian dog, had his first really bloody battle yesterday. We were quite worried about the little guy. Mike heard the dogs go off in the early morning hours and for a much longer time. There are places in the fence where other dogs can get in and we think one of them did, but probably didn't fare too well from the looks of the blood on Brisket's coat - it wasn't his blood. He seemed to be limping a little, but all that's gone today. We spoiled him with a nice large rib with meat on it yesterday because of the extra work he did in protecting the goats and the chickens and the geese, etc...

How our Thanksgiving is different

Let me list the ways:

We raised and killed our own goose. The day before Thanksgiving, we had foie gras and crackers - my homemade crackers with Parmesan and pepper, some with just butter and a few whole wheat crackers.

On T-day, there's no sports, unless you want to include herding the goats into the long driveway to eat what remaining grass there is. Oh, and avoiding the geese (the six remaining ones). It is the lean time of the year for the goats.

Mike made me Parker house rolls - which I haven't had since I was a kid. And they're delicious! Even though dinner's not ready, yet, we each had one to try them. MMMmmmm...

We're having potatoes - layered with a layer of yam in the middle of it -- this way of prep looks very cool and we have goose fat to put in it - fat that Mike rendered this morning. Beans, spinach salad with mandarin slices in it (and pecans) with goat cheese medallions.

With this, a bottle of Newton unfiltered that we had for a while. It is a celebration of a debt paid that has been going on monthly for the past 11 years (minus one year).


I made a pecan pie yesterday, one that came from my Grandmother on my father's side that was given to my mother and I put it into our 'recipes we actually use' notebook. That notebook is getting quite full.

We sat in the front yard and watched as a tiny finch-like creature graced us with its presence. Yesterday, I was working in the garden (getting it ready for next year) and an armadillo strolled through the main part of the garden on its way to the creek.

And I was driving around picking up firewood and saw a killdeer again - this time hurrying in and out of the tree area I was driving around in. They lay their nests on the ground in the rocks, so I just turned the cart around and made sure not to bother them. Today, Mike and I wandered out there to see if we could find the ground nest, but no luck. They hide them really well and it could have been that this bird was scoping out a place for a nest and didn't already have one.

All the goats that are pregnant seem more so this week. Maybe that's because we're home to spoil them. We bought some cheap, cheap beet greens for them a few days ago.

While wandering around the garden today with Mike to find the armadillos, He stumbled upon a rotting watermelon that I'd forgotten was there. I took it back and threw it high into the air into the chicken gulag and it splatted nicely. The chickens love the fruit and the rind... leaving the very thin outside shell (until they get desperate and eat that, too).

It's been a good day. And in a few hours, the goose will be cooked and dinner will be served.

I bet your day wasn't like this one.

Vacation Days 3 and 4.

It's already starting to be a blur... yesterday, we killed and eviscerated a goose - one of the African geese because we want one for T-day and these geese seem to have the loudest sound to them and are the most aggressive. Mike did the killing (took two shots to the head), then eviscerated it (see photo with him with his hand up the goose's butt).

We picked up the cart (yay!!!!) and it works! All that was wrong with it was some bad battery leads. We could have fixed it (having already replaced the solenoid (Mike, again) as well as the brushes in the starter/engine).

The weather is in the low 40s for the low in the mornings, which isn't really too cold. We're heating the house with wood (abundance here) and I volunteered to help a friend out by burning her old records (checkbooks, account statements, etc...) , so that becomes our starter paper for the fires.

Mike has been cleaning out his garage (ah, THAT's what we did Monday) while I was doing other things. He needs to paint the garage and get going on putting up french cleats. Should be interesting.

The chickens are getting fatter and healthier with our regime of more protein-based foods as well as supplements of whatever we have in the house, including eggshells and leftover vegetables. We throw in a cup or so of dried cat food now and then for added protein. The eggs are normal again (not rough on the outside, normal-ish sized and good yolks.)

Brr... it's kind of cold and I need to start moving around or these old bones will start to creak more than normal.

Relaxing Vacation? That's for wimps

Vacation, day two.

It's Sunday and the requisite guns went off in the afternoon. Very near, from the sound of them. This is, after all, Texas.

Today's stuff: We finished the 'inside-the-inside" chicken coop, captured and relocated the barred rocks (that lay and are NOT for eating.) They seem happy, spreading their wings and turning over on the concrete blocks that Mike put underneath the heat lamp (so it doesn't burn the barn down).

I cleaned out the little chicken coop - which means rolling up the feedbags that rest on top of the hardware cloth. By the time it needs to be cleaned, the smell is overpowering. If this was summer and we were raising chicks, the hardware cloth would be all that was on the bottom and the poop and stuff would just go to the ground. But it's coolish outside and we got these chicks on the 5th of November ("remember, remember, the 5th of November...") and it's cold outside. So I use empty feed bags to line the bottom of their cage. This works quite well and is easy to roll up.

Everyone says that chicks have to be at a certain temperature before they have all their feathers, but that's just plain poppycock. We have a heat lamp in this little coop and open the small door, and guess what? The chicks don't opt for heat, they opt for freedom (the chicken coop is about three feet off the ground, has a ramp and opens into a five by seven or so yard just for them).

While I was cleaning out the chicken coop, I left the door to the main coop open and Mike was yelling - Did I want the goats in the chicken coop and did I want the chickens to come out? - He was being facetious and angry - but you know, it's not like it's life-threatening. I screamed at the goats to get out and only two chickens escaped -- both which came back or were captured during the day and brought back.

I also gathered a bunch of leaves from the backyard and dumped them in the middle of the chicken yard. Chickens love to scratch around in the dirt.

Finished digging up and re-potting the three Thompson seedless I thought were pretty dead, but one of them has a leaf - a GREEN leaf on it that's coming out (the weather has been quite mild in Texas this winter - so far). I think another one of them is still alive, but we'll see. I repotted it (and put the new container in a container of rainwater, only to lift it out and have the water pouring out the bottom of the pot - right onto my jeans.

Mike has begun to prep for painting the garage - which means moving heavy equipment around so that the walls are bared. He cleaned out the garage and cleaned off the workbench. With all his shiny new equipment, it's kind of cool to watch him transform our garage into a workshop.

We also let the goats in the front yard for the first time in a long while -- and had to sit with them so that they do not destroy the fruit trees by getting on their hind legs and leaning on the branches.

We saw a tiny bird today - not familiar with it, but Mike saw it hopping around the trees a bit. So he put out a thistle feeder and I had already refilled the bird feeders today.

I also cleaned out the pond filter - and Mike noticed that we now have three frogs living there - or I should say three MORE frogs, because he swears that these are not any of the ones we got out of the pond when I cleaned it a few weeks ago and drained it.

Last night I didn't sleep so well (a combination of hot chocolate, caffeine and over-tiredness). And now I just want to snooze like there's no tomorrow.

Signing off.

Murder in the afternoon

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Okay! ARE YOU READY??? OKAY, NOW, RELAX, DAMMMMMITTTT!!! Or, otherwise titled, "Vacation, Day One."

We always say we're not getting out of bed until 9am on vacation days, but we always get up right around 7. Maybe stay in bed an extra thirty minutes, each of us thinking about the day ahead. Which is a waste, you know.

Yesterday, Mike called the Kenfield Golf Carts on Pond Springs Road, way the F)*()#$# on the other side of Austin - to find out that they're open today from 9 to Noon... and it would take us - or so we thought - about 50 minutes to get there from the house. So Mike starts a little after nine am to get the cart put back together (he replaced the brushes in the starter/engine and the solenoid a few weeks ago. Neither made it go). The starter wheel now just turns slightly. But it still don't go.

In two hours, Mike has to put it back together, fill one of the wheels with air in the back and reseat the bead on it. We cleaned it up and then tried to get it onto the truck bed. After two hours of exertion and while we're just leaving the farm, Mike said: "If I was going to have a heart attack, I would have during all this," We only had just slightly over an hour and ten minutes to get the cart to the cart shop and finally, we were on our way. Out the gate, then to the second gate near the road.

"Wait! Stop!"

What now?

Barbecue had escapes the confines of the farm and was just casually walking down the road. Great. Stupid dog. Get her into the driveway, close the outer gate -- which means she'd be without food or water until we got back home.

Then we head to the shop, but Mike insists on taking the toll road to 620 and then to 183 or some such nonsense. It takes a long time, we're both stressed and when we pull into the shop at 12:05, everything looks closed. We catch someone who says the manager's inside and we plead our case... we've come from Bastrop and, implied, it's a long drive. They let us us. It is Mike's way of pushing it, you know, but even he was getting frustrated by slow drivers, red lights and, um, driving for miles out of the way. (ducks).

We headed to Der Wienersnitzel (one of those places we don't have on our side of the world, but it's a Kristi place, not a Michael place.). I had gotten a Saveur baseball gimme cap in the mail while Mike was enclosing Barbecue in the driveway and wore it to the fast food place. Oh, the irony.

So we come back and hey, it's time to rest, right? I was a little restless having been in the truck for three hours and went to take the rest of the hay from the hay stall (we always let the goats in to clean up after we've fed them all that's in there). I look and what looks back at me is a sleeping possum. I run like hell to the house while Brisket, the dog, who's not used to seeing me run so fast, barks like crazy at me.

"Get the .22!" The possum must have been there a long time under the pallets that we put on upright cinderblocks. It had made a nice little nest. The last time I raised the pallets, I noticed that the hens had been laying there... at least there were a ton of eggshells everywhere. Now I know why. Mike suspects that when we let the goats in to graze the final bits of hay before we put in the new stuff, that they ate away part of the top of this creature's 'hole' in the hay. Also, this is probably the same possum that both Brisket and Barbecue had cornered in a tree a few weeks ago.

It was a convenient arrangement: The possum simply lays around, waits for the hens to lay or goes and gets them from nests in the barn and eats them, then goes back to sleep cozily under the pallets. I'd been wondering about Brisket and his harming chickens enough to kill them, but now I think he had some help. Also, the goats tend to stand around and stare at something with their ears on high alert when something's off or odd in the neighborhood. We just haven't been paying attention.

Mike put his boots on -- after thinking we were, you know, going to have some downtime, and gets the .22 from the place we keep it, goes to the barn and shoots the possum in the head. I feel completely helpless as I grab a shovel and went to our pet cemetery to start digging a hole, leaving Mike to shovel up the creature, find something to put it in, then collect the bloody hay in the hay stall, as well. My hole was in the wrong place, of course, and was dug into very hard dirt (as really, no rain and all that creates a very hard tundra here). So Mike dug a new hole, as well.

So finally, we can rest a little, lay in bed a bit... but then we're just laying there after all the commotion and it's hard to close our eyes, much less sleep.

"Hot chocolate?"

"Sure!" Why not, the day is young.

One of the reasons we moved out here to the country is to have more "active" lifestyles (I  have a lifestyle???!!) 
At our last place it was too easy to sit before the TV and vegg out.  So now we have these 15 acres and around a hundred and forty some odd animals and things are busier.  Very busy.  Just a partial list of what needs to be done.  

The aforementioned trailer repair.  You never know how much you use something until it's unavailable.  

The cart.  That gets used daily for transportation around the place, as a wheelbarrow, for cleaning out the barn, for planting, harvesting, moving machinery, collecting animals, and sometimes it's nice to drive out to a seldomly visited area and have a glass of wine and discuss things.  

The deck.  I've been working on it for nearly a year and it's woefully incomplete. I'm redoing a section now and I expect some progress to happen here pretty soon.

The backyard fence. Bad dry rot.  It doesn't help that the goats rub up against it to scratch.  Several posts are leaning precariously.  This is a big project as there are 52 posts that need replacing.  

Vineyard gate. To provide easy access without having to go through the barnyard.  When you open the barnyard gate there are over a hundred animals that all want to stand on your feet and see if you have anything to eat. Avoiding them whenever possible is a good thing.

Herb Garden. Kristi had built a large, great herb garden.  Basil higher than your waist, even if you are a tall person.  Oregano, thyme, fennel, Lemon balm, catnip, rosemary and others.  Alas, it was build over a buried electrical line that runs between the house, the shed and the pond.  As we watered the herb garden, it would short a splice in the wire and the power would go out to the shed and pond.  So the garden had to go.  It needs to be relocated before spring.

Greenhouse. I had chosen a rigid clear plastic panel for the roof and walls.  Unfortunately the plastic I used was very brittle.  Just 2 months after I built the greenhouse (converted a large animal shelter) we had a hailstorm that battered large holes in it.  I have to remove all the panels and replace it with a different material.  The time for this project is right now. Since the greenhouse is best used Fall, Winter and Spring.

Pond. I have to put something in for geese and waterfowl.  We only have a barrel for them now and it's too small and gets fouled to easily.  This won't be huge, but maybe a couple of hundred gallons with a liner.  Then the geese can swim and dive and produce more geese for the freezer.

This is only a partial list and there are new items that pop up frequently.  Of course there are projects that look like emergencies and have to be done immediately.  Those don't appear on any list.  Well, gotta get to it...

Finished stuff

Finished: The buck pen. The pea chicks. One of them drowned and one just disappeared. I suspect the hawks that have been squealing in the mornings here, but it's just a guess. With raccoons, possums, dogs, coyotes, etc... there's always some predator or the other around to let you know that life is fragile.

Unfinished: The deck project. Fixing the trailer so that we can go pick up compost and such - which means replacing all the rotten boards - basically all of them. When we last put the tractor on it, the wheels crashed through the boards. It's time.

We have made progress this last year, though... finishing the chicken coop, figuring out how to rotate the fields so that the goats have enough to eat all the time, fixing the fencing (but not the long part) so that the goats can't go eat the neighbor's pasture. Buying a livestock guardian dog, buying stuff for Mike's eventual creative works in wood (and cabinetry)... it has been a big year.

Oh! And we bought twenty merlot grape vines (two-year-old vines) to plant in the spring. This will require putting in a new gate on one of the fenced in areas where the previous guys who owned the place had a horse shelter (a lean-to). The whole area is divided in two (not evenly) and is about 20 feet wide and about 100 feet long. We had grown gourds successfully there a few years ago and are now going to make that our vineyard. It only has a foot gate in it right now, so that will have to change and put a gate in large enough to accommodate our tractor and cart.

Right now, I make wine with a mash of black, seedless grapes from the store, with regular yeast and sugar. It works and is probably better than what we've been drinking. I put a balloon on top of the glass jug the mixture is in and when the yeast action is over, the balloon will deflate and it will be ready to rack a few times for clarity and to get the yeasty taste out of it. Then it will be drinkable.

Oh, the cart. It's broke. We just replaced the solenoid and it still didn't work. Advice online says it might be brushes in the starter area (technical term) and those will come via UPS in a few days.

We also ordered a new replacement canning element for our stove. We have three and when we lit this particular one up a few weeks ago, the rods in it sparked and hissed. Time to go.

Just made pea soup and the first batch of fruited sorbets for the year. Low-fat, but higher in cals. However, it IS something sweet and if I had my druthers, I'd probably just eat chocolate.

Who wouldn't?