More Pieces of the Puzzle

We started out today by getting the dogs and goats fed and their hooves trimmed (more on that in a minute)... it was darn cold today, clear and windy! When we were done feeding and trimming the goats and were standing at the hose at the house washing off rubber boots, a pickup truck slowed down in front of the house and stopped just on the other side of the driveway.

We didn't recognize the truck, but watched as an older man with a cane got out and walked up to where we were standing. He introduced himself as our next door neighbour (not on the vacant lot side, the other side... the people whose lot didn't have road frontage and were sold a tiny corner of our property in order to get frontage many years ago.)

He's got a British accent and is an interesting person... he's a machinist for Lee Valley tools and he does sold machinist work out of his house as well. Him and his wife have been in that house for about 25 years and knew the previous owners of our house... but not well, he said they did keep to themselves a bit. He also does model train stuff.

He had all sorts of info and trivia about our house and his as well... who knows if its all true or not, but it was interesting. He seemed to think that our house was originally a log house, then refaced with brick and most recently with vinyl siding. We're not sure if that's true... but we think maybe when we gut the kitchen we will find out more about that.

Originally, our 6 little acres were part of a 100 acre place....which we figured was likely true. The neighbour was most familiar with the dad of the guy we bought the house from and had a few funny stories to relate about him.

He also confirmed that the previous owner's wife did die of cancer 5 or so years ago, which we had heard from various other sources too.

I asked him who owned the vacant land beside us and he was pretty sure it belonged to the Pakistani people that also ran a store ... I can't remember the store's name now! Maybe it'll come back to me.

He pointed in the general direction of where our house used to be located (closer to the middle of the property) and thought it was moved in 1948... similar time frame to what we'd been told. He also told us of a beautiful custom made gate that hung over by our stone dust pile with an "H" on it.. the first letter of their last name.

He was quite a character and Shawn is absolutely taken by him and is fascinated and would like to adopt him, I think :)

After a while, he had to go, he was meeting a friend that is part of his model train club and was running late.

If I remember the order of events today, I think we came in and had brunch... fried double yolk eggs and bacon and walnut toast (its got walnuts in a "birdseed" type bread... very tasty... from Farm Boy!)

Then it was time to get some work done and we went out and started laying out fence posts again. Shawn put in about 10 of them today... we didn't get to putting up the wire part yet as the next section is kind of a long run and more posts need to be installed before we start that part.

Shawn was tired and I was cold so we came in for a break... I made popcorn in the microwave in the special bowl that Shawn's mom had bought for us and added melted butter to it.. yummy! (According to some study, microwave popcorn that you buy from the store causes some bad thing that I'm also drawing a blank on and kills you... hence we now can have NO DEATH microwave popcorn... and its yummier and doesn't have that gross stink to it!)

We sat around for a while and then I was looking out the window and what did I see?? SNOW! Snow flakes in the air!! No wonder I was so friggen cold.. it was cold enough to SNOW!! It didn't last long and of course didn't stick... but it was creepy.

We then decided that maybe we were tired enough to take a nap... so we did. Just after we woke up, but before we got up, Jess called and I chatted with her for a while. It sounds like she and Kyle had a nice weekend!

Then we got out of bed and decided we'd put up some Halloween stuff. So Antoinette is hanging in the front yard... the grave marker crosses are out... and some of the new head stones we bought this year we put out too. I had got some curtains from Ikea that are like mosquito netting with the idea of using them for Halloween so we hung them from the tree so they kind of billow behind Antoinette when the wind blows. I have some pics, but I probably won't get them posted until at least tomorrow.

We fed the goats and tucked them into their goat house a bit early tonight, given it was so cold... they don't seem to mind and they were very happy to get their grain tonight, as always.

This morning we trimmed their little goat hooves... it wasn't hard and went remarkably well. We did Ernie (the bad goat) first... I haltered him and put twine around his neck (I like to have a backup in case they get out of one of the restraints!) and led him into the little white building that I'm using as a feed room. We left Bert locked up in the shelter, so he wouldn't hurt himself... poor little baby cried the whole time being alone for one of the first times of his life.

I bought a pair of sheep hoof rot shears at TSC a few weeks ago for this purpose... they worked ok, but not great, they require a fair bit of force to operate and my wrist was awful tired by the time I was done... I'm going to try getting tree pruners and see if they work better... I read online about someone using them.

Shawn held his head and offered him his grain pan and we had one side of him up against the stack of hay. I put down those interlocking rubber mat things to kneel on and trimmed up his feet. It went really well and he was pretty well behaved, not that he had much choice with both of us right there.

Goat feet grow weird... not like horse feet, obviously, plus they are cloven hoofed... but its the side walls that grow over the surface of the foot. If you don't trim them often enough, they can get foot rot... in fact, one of Bert's smelled an awful lot like thrush in horse feet, but I trimmed it away, so it should be ok now, until next time.

We took Ernie back and put him in the hut and brought Bert over... it was a decent place to work, out of the wind, but the sun was shining in the window. We're going to install some sort of light in that building for times like this... or like when I have to feed them after dark!! Bert was also very good and inhaled the grain so fast we had to top it up to finish the last foot.

I was really pleased with how it worked out, I wasn't sure if it would be a horrible battle or not, but apparently a pan of grain and some twine around your neck while being sandwiched against hay bales means you can just stand patiently ;)

Their leading is coming along... Ernie must have forgotten to have a temper tantrum today and didn't throw himself to the ground. They still don't walk really willingly or where you want them to... but I did notice less resistance... maybe I can train goats yet?

Tonight, I'm feeling less healthy... my throat is rather sore... I looked at it and its red and raw again... and my left ear is a touch tender. I'm not really coughing much, but I may still consider going back to the doc... I noticed my throat hurt quite a bit while eating bbq'd steak and mashed potatoes for supper tonight.

Sorry about the long winded rambly update... its just who I am :)