All Moved In!

Today we got the goat fence moved over to the new goat shed. They are officially moved in now. I added some pics to the goat shed album. They've been sleeping in the shed overnight though for a few days, since the snow storm the other night. During the day, I would halter them and walk them over to where the fence was and they'd spend the day outside... then just before it got super dark, I'd halter them and walk them back to the shed. Worked ok, but now things are more convenient :)

Now in the morning I just have to open the gate and the door and they can come and go all day long... at night, I shut them inside to stay warm and safe. There's a few more bugs to iron out with latches and stuff, but nothing major and I'll get those done this week. All the windows and shutters are currently fastened shut with screws, we'll get on to installing the mechanisms yet, but depending on the weather, we may wait until spring. I don't think we'll need the windows open before then anyhow! Plus, even with them shut there's lovely ventilation in the shed.

We also built them a new hay feeder today... nothing fancy, just out of wood. Hopefully it will help stop the excessive hay wasting. (Bert likes to stand on a new flake of hay that I give them and soon after that, pee on it. Then of course its no good at all and they scream for more, which they usually don't get... I'm a mean goat lady.) Bert seems to be a bit put off about it so far, but I'm sure he'll figure out he could just pee in the deep straw now instead... you know, like he's supposed to!!

We got the second inside gate hung properly this weekend also. We also moved the goat ghetto, the 2 parts of the goat shack (the cubes) into one area inside the electric fence for winter "storage". I cleaned up one huge lawn tractor cart load of dirty hay and straw from where the 2 cube shelters have been for the last few weeks. It was pretty wet and smelly and normally I wouldn't have left it so long, except I knew we'd be moving them soon and I was kinda busy doing stuff in order to get them moved. Oh well, I'm sure it didn't hurt them, its not like they were spending much time in the cube shelter lately anyhow, with staying overnight in the new shed.

We moved a bit of stonedust also... did the final grading around the goat shed... mostly just added some to go under the rubber mats at the front and back doors. We also put a load in the low areas of the tarped building and some on the grass (that I had sprayed round up on) in front of the tarped building. There's still another couple cart loads to be moved and we'll put them on the grass in front of the tarped building too and try to make it more like a driveway.

I'm cooking a sirloin roast for supper tonight... it was on sale at Farm Boy. Hopefully it will be good enough, its not a cut I buy usually, but it was $3.99/lb.

We still have small amounts of snow left around... where the drifts were in the fence line and in other areas. Its spotty, just here and there... the rest melted. Its pretty darned chilly again this afternoon... we came in around 4pm and there was a real nip in the air already!

The dogs are doing fine... Buddy is moving a bit slower these days... I think the cool weather and his NEED to chase Oliver around are making him a bit sore. He was feeling much better in the summer when it was warmer. I've been trying to keep him from chasing Ollie by having them take turns outside, but it still happens sometimes that they all go out together. Buddy has also had a sick tummy for the last few days. I gave him some pepto bismol yesterday and that seems to have helped quite a bit.

I think that's all what's new around here.
-- L