farmwitch

The goats arrived today.  Eleven does, eight weanlings, two bucks.

We were late getting in and it was full dark.  The transfer of the Big Buck from the trailer to the horse stall that is to be their temporary home went smoothly.  Much more smoothly than loading him.  He jumped over the seller's fence and led us a merry chase before finally settling into the trailer with a look on his face that seemed to say "well, what are you waiting for?"

The Smaller Buck was a bit more difficult to get into the stall, slipping out of the rope and running around the barn a bit before we managed to recapture him and put him in the stall with his comrade.

Now we had to figure out how to get the rest of the herd through the barn and into the paddock we had prepared for them.  JW, my husband climbed into the trailer and roped the herd queen.  The hope was the rest of the herd would follow her.  But no.  They all stood in the trailer and watched as she was led away.  With a bit of coaxing and prodding, we finally got them moving and into the barn they went, just as perfectly and smoothly as we hoped.  I closed the gate behind them and then JW, The Boy, and I moved them through to the back of the barn toward their paddock.

And as they moved in unison, right through the gate, just as we hoped they would, something suddenly went wrong.  They joined up with their queen and ran into the paddock, all the way through to the far side, through the seven strand electric fence and out the other side.  We still don't know how they went through the fence - hopefully tomorrow morning in the light we'll be able to see what happened - and if we still have a fence.  My theory is they were running and didn't see the wire in the dark.  They hit it fast and hard and en masse and were through it and out before they even felt the jolt.

But that's just a theory.

In the meantime, we have nineteen goats on the loose.

They came up into the main paddock, but by the time I got the door on that side of the barn open, they were heading off through the hayfield.  JW followed them and The Boy and I circled around the other side of the barn to try to head them off, but they were already gone.  Vanished into the night.

JW finally tracked them down and got them into the barn.  The herd is sharing a horse stall until we can figure out  how they got out of their paddock and get it corrected.

And two and a half hours after we started unloading the goats, we are finally done. 

I can only hope that goat ownership gets easier.

I guess I can no longer avoid that spring, perhaps the busiest time on our little farm, is here.  The list of things I have to do - or should have done weeks ago - is growing every day.

I did turn over about 20 sq ft of garden today.  Only about 160 sq ft more to go.  At this rate...  I don't want to even think about this rate.

It doesn't help that it seems to rain continuously on my days off from work.  Or if it isn't raining, like today, the ground is so wet from the previous three days of rain that it clumps together in giant mudballs.

Excuses excuses.

I wonder if I can get Wulf to work with me for a day.  I know his to-do list is as long as mine, but I've been helping him to the detriment of my list... 

The horses are coming along.  It's been only two weeks since we got them, but it seems so much longer.  I actually had to look at a calendar in order to believe it.  The vet was out yesterday, says he's seeing lots of underweight horses this season because of the bad hay situation.  But he says we're on the right track and we'll see them start to bulk up.  I'm looking forward to riding - when the weather dries up!

Of course, the rain is a good excuse to continue the winter hibernation, but rain or not, if we're ready or not, the Wheel keeps turning.