Water Through a Fence

There’s an old saying that if you throw a bucketful of water at a fence and any gets through, it won’t hold a goat.  Well, there might be a lot of truth to that.

Litha walking through a fence several years ago.

When I bought my farm ten years ago, the first thing I had to do was fix fence around the Back Forty.  And I did replace fence on three sides.

Right after we put the fence in.

That left one section (on two sides) that did not get replaced, but I did my best hobbling job, and it actually worked really well until last summer.  Last summer I think I had to open the panel by the lane to let goats in every day.  Seriously.  It was quite a pain.

leaning and hobbled, but still working when this image was taken a few years ago

It started again this spring as soon as they went out to pasture, so I followed them to see where they were getting through.  That little spot is where they were sneaking under.

Penelope and Hera were my two main offenders.

Hera and Penelope

I added a little section of panel and figured that should do the trick.

Penelope checking it out.

Penelope tried going through before I even had it secured.  Luckily, she can get her head back out from the panel.

When I got done tying it tight (with Moose supervision),

Moose

I stood up and turned around to see…

Dang Penelope!  I couldn’t do anything until she came back through, so I decided to just hang with the rest of the herd for a little bit when I turned to see…

Hera

She’s almost five months pregnant (which is why I didn’t grab a leg and wrestle her back out).

Hera with Caroline on the right side of the fence

Don’t worry; she got back through, and I did some more hobbling.  I’m sure that will take care of the problem until the next time they go out to pasture.  My hope is that this last stretch will get replaced this summer.

I Need Sunshine

For the last what seems like forever, we’ve had snow and rain and fog and gloom.

robin in the crab apple tree during snow showers

I think we’ve had an hour of sunshine here and there, but otherwise, it’s been pretty yucky.

Goats at pasture in the fog and drizzle

That means the kids are mostly playing inside.

2TC, Scooter, Butterscotch, and Flora

I kind of feel like Cutie–just staring outside wishing the mud and fog would disappear.

Cutie

I’m really ready to move past mud season.  Sky needs to learn to wipe his paws before coming in the house.

Sky

It’s also hard on the goats’ health.  Poor Trace ended up with pneumonia, but after banamine and antibiotics, she’s feeling much better.

Trace and Quatro

Here’s hoping to better weather soon.  In the meantime, I just keep planning my garden.  I actually have some seeds that have already sprouted!

okra sprouts

Some are to be transplanted outside, and some are my experiments in container gardening.

green bean sprout

I also spent a day making these feed sack garden bags.  I have a dozen of them ready to go!

I had the bags in the garage all neatly stacked to make my tote bags that I sell, but you might remember Antigone was in the garage for a while over the winter, and she was horrible about playing in them and throwing them on the floor.

Wanda in Antigone’s mess

That means I can’t use them for nice tote bags.  The mice might have played in them too.

mouse provided drainage hole

I plan on planting potatoes and other veggies in them.

I have my big pile of compost behind the Love Shack, so it seemed like a good plan for putting both the bags and the compost to good use.  We’ll see how it works.

Popcorn Comes Home

After several days with my mom, Popcorn was starting to get into a lot of trouble, so he came home.  Unfortunately, we’ve been cool and damp, so I had to pen him under a heat lamp.

Popcorn

But now the weather is warming up, and he’s coming out to play.

For a little perspective of how small he was, that is his twin sister standing to his right.

He’s learning he’s a goat and not a house cat. 

You can check out a video of the kids playing HERE.  Pretty soon, there will be no stopping this boy!