Munching

This time of year is hard to find the critters doing anything but hanging out in pasture munching on grass.

Odie, Maybeline, and Aurora

Flora has managed to get stuck a time or two trying to eat through the fence.

The whole herd

Maybeline

Penelope with Bambi behind

Odie

Aurora

Pistol

Popcorn

Except Myson.  He’s usually standing in a tree or on a rock.

Myson (Cinnamon in front, Reva. Cutie. Addie, Sonny on the back rock, and Moose behind)

We’ve had great weather for the grass to grow into this amazing jungle.

Day Two

Remember I thought I had the goats in for a day or two.  Well, about the time that post was going up, I was once again trying to get goats in.  You see, I did go out the next morning and find the place on the back fence where they were getting out.  The problem is there were like three big areas I needed to fix.  My son had my truck, so it had to wait.

I had to set up the two big chunks of panel and added another to the right in the picture.

As the post was going up the other day, the goats had made it all the way across the corn field and up by the buildings.  They were about a quarter of a mile away.

They ate their way through the grassy patch between the two parts of the field. The day before when they were out, they went the other direction where there isn’t a drop of grass–just tilled field.

It’s a good thing I have a big mouth because when I yelled, “Hey, goats!” they came back home.  It did take a bit more work (and yelling) to get them to go back along the fence and go under it to get back where they belonged.  Myson really looked like he would have preferred I opened a gate for him so he didn’t have to limbo under the fence (brat).

Myson

But everyone finally made it back onto the farm, and this time, they went back through the gate onto the front part of the pasture and the llamas were there, so I could  shut everyone off that part until I got it fixed.   And thank goodness the llamas weren’t out.  The goats are homebodies.  They’d have been back by evening anyhow; I’m not so sure the llamas would do that.

Maybeline and Odie

Luckily, the neighbors are nice.  They did try to find out if they were my goats or if someone else had gotten goats, but they decided to just let them hang out instead of calling me because they were okay with them munching.  I do appreciate that, but I’d prefer my bratty goats stayed home.  They thought they had about fifty goats there, but if you count the kids, it was closer to seventy-five goats out roaming.

Milo on the rock (Ruby in front)

I still don’t understand why they would leave the lush Back Forty with trees and rocks to climb on and water to drink.  Why?

Just because they can is probably the correct answer.  But (at least as of my writing this) we are on day two of staying where they belong!

Cold Snap

Before I planted my garden last weekend, I checked the long-range forecast.  It was a little early because our frost-free date is mid-May, but we’ve been warm, and since it was just a couple weeks out, I figured the long-range forecast should give me an idea if it was okay to plant or not.  It looked good, and I planted my garden.  Then they kept changing the forecast to where Friday night looked cold.  Then there was a frost watch.  That was changed to a freeze warning.  I thought of my poor garden.  I looked at my beautiful crab apple and hoped it wouldn’t get damaged because the birds rely on it for winter food.

I looked at the lilacs just opening.

I was really not happy.  I got the old towels and blankets and decided I’d try to cover the plants.  I actually had to use pretty much every towel in the house, the blankets and a bunch my mom loaned me.

It was quite the trick to accomplish, but everything did get covered up.

I also made sure to cut any asparagus that was up so it didn’t get frozen.

When I checked the temperature at 6:00am, it was 30°F.  By 8:00 am, it was 40°F.  I went outside and was happy to see that the crab apple tree looked pretty darn amazing yet.  That gave me hope!

the morning after

I went and checked the garden, and it did not fare as well.

just a little bit of frost damage

I’m afraid I’m going to have to replant a large portion of it.

I guess this is what I get for trying to actually get things done early.  I might have to go back to planting the garden ridiculously late from now on.