Hay Day

We finally got around to unloading the three racks of hay into my barn on Monday, the last day before I went back to work.

It is really full.  We added about 375 bales to the 300 or so I already had left from last year.

I did make this gruesome discovery in the loft.  It’s pretty mummified.  I think it’s one Sky played with last summer because I remember smelling it not long after he kept me up all night playing with one.

By the way, working in there also made me realize the storm blew out that window at the top of the barn, so add that to my list of repairs I need done.

Anyhow, we had to throw out a couple of old icky bales, which the llady llamas promptly decided they should snack on them.

Odie and Aurora

Seriously?  Why?

Maybeline

Odie then did switch to the new stuff that fell off the racks and elevator.

Talk about lazy.  Just lying there eating and rolling in her food.

I also took some to Avril, which she seemed to like.  I do anything to encourage her to eat right now.

Avril

I also gave some to the birds.  They think it’s a nice treat, almost as good as veggies from the garden.

Nugget and the hens

Anyhow, I feel better now that the barn is full.

Moving On

I really was happily in denial canning and just ignoring the chaos around me.  But the Sunday after the storm, the insurance adjuster came, and then I realized I had no reason to ignore the mess. I decided to unplug the basement freezer long enough to do my laundry.  It makes me appreciate my clothesline even more.

Then it was time to clean up.  I brought the Ranger in and picked up two full loads to haul up to the north end of the farm and burn.

Sky helping

Then I decided to mow.  That would make it easier to walk when they got around to coming back to finish the magnolia tree and the big oak limb in the yard.  It was a good plan right up until the lawn mower lost its ability to steer.  Now it’s a lovely yard ornament until they get around to fixing it.

Moving right along, I decided to work on picking up the pasture.

I spent a good nine hours over the course of a couple of days cleaning the brush off the bottom.

It’s a good thing I started clearing it because, part way through, my nephew called to see if he could mow it to finally make my hay.  It was supposed to be done the week before when the storm hit.

Goats on the bottom

I hurried to get it finished.  There was only one log that was so big I had to use a chain to pull it off the pasture.

I got it done! My nephew mowed the bottom on the front half of the Back Forty.

Then he cut the bottom on the back half.  He did say he had to stop a few times to pick up stuff I missed, but I got a lot of it.

After baling all the small bales I needed, there was enough for a couple of big round bales too.

My dad came out with the chain saw to help me clear the fence in the Back Forty so we could let the goats back out there too.

After the town got electricity back (late Sunday evening), my dad also told me their Internet was finally back too.

Truck and worker who came from Canada to help restore power.

I checked mine by moving the modem and router into the kitchen so it was closer to the drop cord coming from the garage.  It worked!  So I brought my computer back in and my kitchen became my office.  I need a more comfortable stool though.

I was supposed to start back to work on August 19th, but there’s still so many people without Internet and electricity that they delayed it.  I now start on Sept. 1.  But there’s trainings and virtual PD and all that fun stuff because of Covid-19, so I had to have my office.

Beau

Since I was still taking care of my mom’s cats and she now had electricity, it made it a lot easier to borrow her shower–a real, warm shower! Then I saw the weather was supposed to be really hot again, so I decided I better make it so I could sleep in the soap room too.  I hauled a twin bed over.  I got a longer phone line, and I put the router and modem in the milk room.  What’s another cord/cable stretched between the house and garage?

Sky is still coming over with me.

Then the weather turned really hot again, so If it gets too hot, I brought the cat over too.

Sky welcoming Rocky (cat food and litter in the milk room)

He’s still exploring and getting adjusted, but it’s better than being alone in the house and waaaaay better than the day in the barn.

Sky is doing a good job of tolerating the harness when I take him back and forth from the yard.

Bob  has been in too, but he usually doesn’t hang out too long.

Bob in the back; Rocky in front

Caroline was trying to figure out what was going on in here.  She’d never seen the dog through the window before.

Caroline peeking in the window to check out Sky

It’s about as cozy and homey as I can make it. I guess nothing is normal right now, but I’m going to try to quit living in De Nile and just flow like a river.

Pasture Rotation

Part of good land management includes making sure pastures don’t get overgrazed.  Before I bought the farm surrounding my acreage, my poor front pasture was constantly eaten down, which is really bad for it.  With the addition of another almost forty acres of pasture, that has really made things much better (and I finally made a map of my pastures so you can see what I’m talking about).

This past weekend I shut the gates to the back pasture in the Back Forty. There are several reasons.  First, the goats have been eating back there most of the time since March.  The grass isn’t very tall, and that’s where we make hay.  I want to get them off the hill so the grass can grow.

I was also tired of making the long trek to the back hill two or three or four times each day to make sure nobody was stuck in the pasture.  This past week, Milo decided he wanted to get stuck in the fence.

Milo

Then Penelope got stuck in the fallen tree.

Penelope

I kid you not, she could not figure out how to put her head down and just back out.

I was also really struggling to count my babies in the tall grass to know if I needed to go get someone out of the fence.

Joker, Jester, Astra, and Avril

I decided that it would just be much easier to shut the gate.  Now they are confined on the front half of the Back Forty.

I still have Joy, Margarita, Aphrodite, and Antigone on the front pasture.

Front to back:  Antigone, Aphrodite, and Joy

Over the weekend, I checked that fence and found where Uno managed to escape to get back to his maa, and I plugged that with a panel.  The escape route is marked by the purple spot.

Front: Penny; Right: Athena; Back Cutie, Addie, Chiffon

I’m pretty sure Freddie and Fannie haven’t forgiven me for weaning them the other day (for like ten minutes), but I managed to catch and wean them again.  This time, they are on the front pasture.  We’ll see if I did a good job repairing the fence.

Ava with kids Fannie (front) and Freddie

I have more changes planned pretty soon because of the need to replace the fence between the Back Forty and the crop field.

Aurora, Maybeline and Odie

It’s kind of a necessity.