New Pics Added to the FHH Album AGAIN

I added some new pics today... a few pics of the heavy frost this morning... a couple of a shed on the property we'd never looked inside of before. There was a good size tree in the way (which we've been hacking bits off of to feed to goats for a while) and finally took it down far enough to open the door. Its in very rough shape and has a horrible lean to it, along with holes in the roof and an assortment of junk inside, nothing good.

I also updated the goat shed album as we finally got some wall siding up last night. We got one long wall done and the other long wall started. The other long wall will have its siding pieced to help reduce costs. I think it will look fine.

We're planning to insulate the shed and finish the inside with 2x something wood (2x8's maybe?) up to 5 feet. The finished solid part of the walls will be 5 feet with windows above that.

The window design we have in mind so far is (homemade) windows that hinge at the top and have a rod attached to them to open and close them. Kinda hard to describe, but the idea is that if the weather is foul, they can be shut and keep the worst of the weather out and then during nicer weather they can be opened to allow some breeze through. We'll see how it works out.

I'm not aiming for a warm shed, often warm also means wet, which is very bad for livestock. Dry and cold is generally ok, but wet... not good. I'm a freak about ventilation when it comes to horses... I think too many people seal them up too tight and then wonder why the air quality sucks and horses have allergies, heaves and get sick easily. This, in my mind, also applies to goats... it worked out ok last year with their little shelter, so we'll see.

We've also taken great care when designing this structure that if the ventilation plan doesn't work out that we can modify it without too many structural changes. Hopefully this will let us fix any mistakes we make :)

The heavy frost this morning was not really a welcome sight, even though its long since burned off. It was a little too reminiscent of last winter and I don't really feel like I've recovered from that yet. Plus I have many things I need to get done yet in the decent weather!!

I've also made Ollie's neutering appointment (Festival of Testicles) for October 7, about 2.5 weeks. He'll be 6 months old and I don't want to wait too long to have it done... its TIME :) Poor little guy.

When I called the vet to make the appointment, they ask you about all sorts of options... its not just "here, take my dog and neuter him"... its "do you want an ECG done to check for heart issues before the general anesthetic?" ... "do you want blood work done to check liver and kidney function?" (to make sure his body can recover from the effects of anesthetic)... "do you want conventional surgery or laser surgery?" (apparently the laser surgery is less painful to recover from, but can take longer to recover from).

Of course, with options come costs and risks.
- ECG costs an extra $25. If he had a heart issue that we didn't know about, the surgery could possibly kill him.
- The bloodwork costs an extra $65. If his liver and kidney function isn't up to par, the surgery could kill him.
- The laser surgery costs an extra $60 - 80 (its weight dependent) and makes the recovery more comfortable.
- While he's "under" they will also microchip him for an extra $65 (which I will definitely have done!) so that he doesn't have to feel the large needle that's used. If he wasn't going to be under anyhow, he'd just have to cope and have it done, but since he'll be "out", it'll make everyone's life easier since he won't be near so wiggly ;)

I haven't decided which options we'll do yet, they don't need to know until the day of surgery. I'm really leaning towards the conventional surgery though, even if its more painful... its the tried and true method that's been happening for a long time... and the possibility of a longer recovery doesn't seem good, even if there's less pain involved. Seems to me he'll just feel like running around like a dork sooner and have a better chance of hurting something. Pain isn't always a bad thing.

So that's about all going on around FHH these days. We hope to get a bunch more done on the goat shed this weekend, metal roofing up, wall siding finished... maybe start insulating and putting up the kickboards... we'll see :)