Gone

I came home on Thursday and noticed Antigone and her little girl snuggling together.  I asked her where Spuds was, but wasn’t too worried. He’s often off with other goats.

Antigone and Spunky

But when the herd was heading back out to pasture and I saw Spunky nursing without her brother, I worried.

Spunky

Actually, I didn’t worry.  I already knew.  But I went everywhere and searched every nook and cranny where he might have gotten stuck, but he was just gone. Coyotes.

This is a direct result of the neighbors tilling and planting corn-on-corn and tearing out waterways allowing all that debris to wash out my fence preventing me from keeping my goats off the back part of the pasture where coyotes can lurk in the woods and just grab a kid.

Spuds

I now have everyone on the front pasture.

The four boys are in the small pen off the buck room.

Benji, Frodo, Freddie, and Xerxes

My hope is to spend Sunday getting the fence fixed so they can go back out on the front half of pasture.

More of the Aftermath

When I let the goats out on the back half of the Back Forty, I decided I better do a check of the fences.  I mean besides the one that I know was just flattened.

Not worried about this one for now; I just have to have it fixed before our genealogy trip.

I already shared that the neighbor’s farming practices included ripping out the waterways and planting by tilling highly erodable hills which allows everything to just wash.  Luckily they didn’t till under the corn stalks from last fall because that would have made it ten times worse.

The darker lines in the soil outside my pasture are where there used to be waterways. The grass slows the water and stops the cornstalks from slamming into my fences. But they want to plant it and make more money instead of stopping erosion.

Anyhow, not only is the tile intake on the north side of my farm completely covered in their silt, but the one in the middle of the bottom is also completely covered.  There’s supposed to be a burm to help hold the water back but it is completely covered in silt and corn stalks.  Hopefully, when things dry out (after planting), my nephew can bring his new backhoe and help find the intake and repair this damage.

I went back to the fence to check it out, and it looks like there’s a new foot deep gap of lost soil.  I’ll have to fix this, or the goats will be out of my pasture.

They did actually start coming that direction.

But the ground was too soggy, and they decided to go eat elsewhere.  I have a few days to get it fixed.

I did check the intake on the south side of the pasture, and it was still open.  Although, we kind of missed where it needs to be.  The water largely bypasses it and has cut a ditch through that burm.  Erosion is really hard to reduce when you do things correctly, and when the neighbors don’t care, it. makes it even harder.

Anyhow, I’ll get off my high horse about conservation and just enjoy watching happy goats on the pasture.

Penelope and Maisie

Ostara

Victoria

Perdita (still sporting her second horn apparatus)

Until the next time their horrible farming practices totally mess with my pasture.

A Bit of Rain

I can hardly wait for the next drought monitor to come out on Thursday because I think there’s a good chance we’ll no longer even be “abnormally dry.”  We have had several rains lately, but Thursday night through mid-day Friday saw four inches of rain.

I came home from work and decided I should just do a quick check of everything.  I counted kids first.  Everyone was present.

Brigit and Ostara

Lady

They really could have washed away, but I’m pretty sure they are smart enough not to go in the water.

I haven’t seen the ditch this full in a long time.

This kind of really hard rain is hard on all the conservation work we’ve done.  I still need to do a better job of stabilizing this end of the ditch.

It would help if the neighbors hadn’t removed all of their waterways because that lets the old cornstalks wash into my pasture and knock down my fence.

The silt from their tilled fields fill my tile intake and completely plug it. I couldn’t even find it to clear it and help the water get below ground.

Somewhere in there is a tile intake.

So there is a lot of work to do.  But, I am going to focus on the good and celebrate another new bird sighting at Eden Hills–I saw my first ever belted kingfisher!  He was snacking on something he caught in the wet bottom.

I also saw a big bunny when I came back into the barnyard.

So, yeah.  I’m glad for rain, but it’s going to take some work to recover.