Sunshine and Goats

This was a beautiful time!  Snow, after snow, after snow.  It was lovely!  And definitely an initiation to caring for critters in cold, nasty weather.  And the other lovely thing?  It's over for now!

Jeremiah and I set up a new field for the goats.  We're gradually getting faster at this.  We've been using extension cord reels for $7 instead of the fencing reels for $50 and the've been working quite nicely.  1320 feet of fence fits perfectly on one reel!

They're getting better at moving to a new field without scattering which is very nice!

Despite appearances, I think that means she likes the minerals.

Her too!

Another little project we're working on is the shelters.  We're trying a Norweigan technique called cladding.  We're using a hog panel bent to shape and woven with cedar branches.  It isn't like we're gonna run out of cedar anytime soon!

Figuring out how to haul a hog panel across the farm to where the cedar is
without wrecking it by dragging.   And not using a truck because isn't really, really, really muddy.
 I'm the "stability engineer".  :)

Here we go!

This is what a "used" tree looks like.  Just a little thin up as high as I can reach.

That fresh cedar is quite heavy.

We ended up having to stake it out to make it stand up while we worked on it.  Hoping that as it dries and when we trim it, it won't be quite so unwieldy.  I love how it looks and the usefulness of it, but the jury is still out on whether we can find a way to make it feasible for being mobile.

Oh and another little project ...

It's corny, I know.  And yes, I found it on pinterest.  And I like it.  Leah was a good sport and helped me make some of the paper balls.  I'd wanted to use pingpong balls, but after pricing them, scrap paper seemed like a much better medium.

Song for the day - Everything'll Be Alright

PS. I wrote this post probably a week and a half ago.  Thanks to an internet hiccup and my impatience .... I had to re-do it all.  It isn't nearly as much fun the second time around, let me tell you.