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.

Bad Weather

We’re having bad weather caused by the same system that’s been moving across the entire country–wind, cold, rain, and snow.  It’s not the kind of weather I wanted for my Thanksgiving break because it’s impossible to do much outside.  Luckily, the goats and llamas are still going out to pasture to eat, so I’m not feeding hay.  That’s good because I hate feeding hay in mud.

Aurora

When they’re not out eating, they are mostly standing around in the barn.

Margarita and Maggie

It’s too muddy for us to get the equipment in to clean out the back part of the barn and get it bedded down.  Heck, they’re still trying to finish getting the corn out of the fields.  The goats still stand around back there to stay out of the wind and rain.

Pluto

They also just stand around in food pans,

Antigone

which makes them a muddy mess when I want to try to feed the goats.

Hilda, Gidget (Blaze behind), Hera and a Wanda butt

Or they try to find little bumps of land that might be better drained and less muddy.

Pistol

It’s not fun to have such a muddy barnyard this time of year.

And we’re expecting more rain and snow right up until Monday when I go back to work.

Go Away, Rain!

We’re still in the weather pattern of too wet.

We had over two inches of rain Tuesday into Wednesday, and we’ve and another round of heavy rain this morning.

Everything is miserable and muddy.  That means, I did not sell little boys today.  (Grumble, grumble, grumble.)

Xerxes, Mary, Gidget, and Tootles

I’m babying Chiffon because she was not doing well with the rain.  We couldn’t get her by herself in the barnyard to give her sweet feed, so she spent a couple of days shut in the milk room.

Chiffon

That made it fun to milk those cranky girls with the little kid in there.  I’ve built a small pen and moved Chiffon into the greenhouse.  I do think she’s looking a little better, but it’s always such a long road to recovery.  [Edit: I did just see her chewing her cud while I was doing chores, so that is an improvement!]

No, you may not join me in the soap room.

I still need to get everyone else copper.  Again, it’s not easy to do anything in the mud (especially take blog pictures).