April 16- 30 in Reverse Chroniological Order

04/30/2009 Thursday:

I slept most of the day. I guess I was tired.

04/29/2009 Wednesday: Overcast with heavy rain in the evening. Looks like sunshine tomorrow and rain and overcast for several days. I should try to fertilize the Dexter pastures.

At the Health Department I reviewed a grant targeted at the homeless and worked on the Health Indicator project. Doug W asked me to change offices since the new Health Educator was starting Friday. It was easier to move me today. I'm now down on the second floor in a large office formerly occupied by sanitarians.

One of the women from fiscal, Cheryl, asked me if I was interested in helping the Pe Ell fire department with a grant. They want to get a building as part of the Obama stimulus program. I agreed. The first meeting is on the 11th at 7pm.

I left early to go to a dentist appointment where they cleaned my teeth and chewed me out for letting my gums get inflammed. It's hard to thoroughly floss when you have braces on.

Dinner was stir fried vegetables with leftover turkey and frozen mixed stir fry vegetables. I included a cut-up onion, garlic and hot sauce with a few tablespoons of Chinese sauce to make a delicious meal.

As part of my email I saw a workshop in Richland I'd like to attend. Cost is $205 + hotel and gas. I asked for more details in an email to the person offering the workshop before I make my decision.

04/28/2009 Tuesday: Overcast but not cold.

I spent some time in the morning entering farm receipts into the computer

Pat came by around 11am. His plan today was to clean off the roof on the green barn and figure out how much gutter and downspouts we needed to make the green barn less unpleasant to work in by making the water drain away from the barn and not into the barn yard.

It took Pat 2.5 hours to clean off the roof. I was tense the entire time since I was afraid he'd slip and fall and hurt himself. The green barn has a loft on one side that is quite high. Pat started with the west side of the barn. That side is shorter than the other side. He had to watch out so that he didn't step on the plastic that the former owners used to create light in the interior of the barn.

Pat cleaned strips along side paths where he would walk. The roof still covered with moss and tree branches was pretty secure footing. When he cleaned off those side paths he attached a rope to himself to prevent him from slipping off the edge of the barn. It seems to have worked since he cleaned both the tall section of the barn and the much more slippery lower section (the section that he just replaced the side on.

We discussed a flight of steps going into the upper section along the back of the tall part (under the overhang). He's going to figure out how much and what kind of wood, concrete and other things we need to build the stairs. He's going to put the opening at the south end of the overhang. The stairs will be about 10 feet long. I asked him to make the risers somewhat shallower than he was going to build it originally because of my gimpy right knee. He'll pour a concrete pad to put the stairs on. It will be a straight run from the pad up to a landing outside the loft. Pat thought that my idea was a good one as it won't take up space in the working part of the barn.

It will be nice to be able to store hay in the loft as well as down below. Maybe it will save me from having to have helpers (or myself), move bales across from the cow barn whenever I need hay. With the loft now available for storage I should be able to store most of a winter's hay for the goats.

Pat took measurements on the stairs and at the same time measured the length of the building for gutters. I want gutters to keep the inside of the goat pen drier. Right now all the water drains into the duck pen and into the overhang which causes me all sorts of grief.

This evening I gave the goats alfalfa and no grain. The point of buying the alfalfa was to cut back on the grain. I figure if I grain everyone in the morning when I put them on the milk stand they'll still gain weight because I'll feed alfalfa twice a day. It's amazing. They go through 8 leaves of hay a day, four in the morning and four in the afternoon. Still, the bales are so compact that they seem to last several days.

If I buy compressed bales I can get a lot more up in the loft because they're half the size.

When Pat was here he set the ladder at such a slope that I could climb the ladder and finally see what the interior of the loft looks like. Turns out that there are more fire hoses up there, really large ones plus black plastic hose and a metal heater of some kind. I wonder if Mike and Mary would like the heater. I also put the old house screens up there for storage. The place needs sweeping badly. I may have Gabe get up there and do a preliminary sweeping.

04/27/2009 Monday: Overcast. It's supposed to rain. It did rain. We had a thunderstorm late in the day that really dropped some rain on us. I went out to do evening chores while it was still nice and ended up getting soaked. Chas brought me out a hat and coat. He was all bundled up in a big rain hat and rain coat.

I wasn't feeling so hot this morning so I stayed home from work at the Health Department. Pat M came by and put the barn back in order by replacing the stock panels where they were before, removing the post that was supporting the roof while he redid the rotted wall, and properly supporting the south wall in the green barn so that he could install T1-11 siding. Aside from two of the panels being a glaring white, that side of the barn looks pretty good.

I slept most of the morning.

I tried to get things done in the afternoon but life conspired against me. Can't remember what happened but I just couldn't get anything done.

Dinner was boneless beef ribs, commercial potato rounds, and succotash.

04/26/2009 Sunday: Mostly overcast with sunny patches.

Gabe came by this morning and did some more weed whacking for me around the green barn and around the house. Where he weed whacked it looks great.

Then I asked him to clean out the Dexter's water tub which really needed it. First we had to dig away the dirt that the cows had piled up over the drain hole. I think he must have spent about half an hour, scrubbing it out. He did a great job. The tub looks brand new. When we refilled it I added a glug of bleach to kill the algae that might still be lurking in pits and cravities in the plastic.

After that he cut out the wild roses in the flower bed next to the well house. We still have more wild roses to cut back but we made a start on them. Gabe also pruned up the cedar tree and threw the trimmings to the goats.

Chas went out about 12:30pm to go mushroom picking with Charles, Sharon's friend. I was just coming back from letting the Dexters and the Herefords into new pastures.

I cooked squash, a baked potato and a turkey for dinner tonight. I cut up the turkey into sections so that it would cook it faster.

04/25/2009 Saturday: Overcast 5 minutes; rain 5 minutes; sun 5 minutes. What a day.

Susie wrote and told me that one of her cows got grass tetany. Susie advised me to use epsom salts. I did not know about epsom salts as a possible prophylactic but I will add some to their mineral mix/feed tomorrow morning. I think we have some in our basement. If not, I will buy some.

I try to prevent grass problems in the the first few days after letting my cows graze the new grass by only letting my cows out for two-three hours in the afternoon and only after feeding hay in the morning. Susie is the second person I've talked to this week who has had this problem. My friend, Bob, also a farmer, whom I just met a few weeks ago had a cow go down with grass tetany and he had virtually no grass in his pasture! It was all nibbled down. Neither he nor the vet could believe it. But with vitamins and minerals and an IV they got her back up on her feet within two hours. I guess she's ok. She didn't die, at any rate.

Even with a three days of short time grass access my Herefords are looking better. They went into N3 today.

Emma, as usual, is pouring everything into milk for her new baby The other Dexters look wonderful. The bull's a little leaner than I'd like but that's mostly because the steer and Noel spar with him all the time and they're wearing the fat off him. Strange how it doesn't seem to make a difference to Noel, tho'.

Today Gabe and I set up two more paddocks for the Dexters along the southern corridor (the wide corridor that runs along the south exterior fenceline where my neighbor cut down all her trees except the ones leaning over my fence) and set up a t-post, rebar and polywire rectangle in the two large pastures I'm keeping for them so that I can move them into one or the other pasture from the gate. Actually I could move them into a third and fourth pasture if I wanted to but I think I will save those other pastures for the Herefords, at least until I get the Hereford herd numbers down.

I can't believe it. When I went to check Emma's heifer's sex last week I totally forgot to check for horn buds. I was so excited that she was a heifer. She seems to be turning brown. Or maybe that's wishful thinking.

The little bull calf is doing well. Susie reminded me that Babe has a mom with a really bad udder. I had not thought about Babe's possibility of throwing more cows with her bad udder. (Laura flips a switch and makes an abrupt change in her thinking). Cheddar's udder is very, very bad. I honestly do not know how she can even walk dragging that bag around. It's almost scary. And she has such a sweet personality too. Going to be a sad day when I wean that calf.

We cleaned out quite a bit of the Dexter feeder area today. I had my two helpers clean all around the feeder but it's clear that we'll have to empty the feeder to do the rest of the cleaning. Enrique used the box scraper to scraped the area in front of the lean to so that it's level and did a great job. My manure pile is now about 10 feet high. I asked the guys to make it high because as it heats up it loses height, and having it high does mean that it will compost faster.

My carpenter friend, Pat, finished replacing the rotten side of my green barn over the last three days (2 half days and one full day). He tore everything out including the studs, siding and bottom face plate and replaced everything. Took him about two days worth of work. Pat asks me for work when there are no jobs available and I generally have projects I want him to do.

Next week if he has time he'll put up T1-11 siding on the south side of the green barn. That's the side that looks so awful when you look at it from the house. Those two dead white panels they put up temporarily have been an eyesore since we moved in and I will be glad to see them gone. Course I will have to repaint the barn. Sigh. Another thing to add to my gradually lengthening list of things to do.

I think Pat will put up gutters for me so that I don't have so much back-splash plus we'll put metal along the bottom to keep the goats off the wall - and will replace the ladder to the loft so that I can get up there to throw hay bales down when I need them. This also means that I can use that space to store hay for the goats instead of having to haul it over to the goat barn from the cow barn. We also talked about having him put in a set of stairs up to the loft but I'm going to hold off on that till next year. I'm really not spry enough these days to climb ladders, especially vertical ones, but if I grit my teeth and move slowly up and down, I can do it. Plus, if I have helpers they can toss down bales for me and I can stack them. A set of stairs would make life much easier but figuring out where to put them is a bit of a problem. Maybe under the lean to where there's more space.

My helpers also removed the last of the wooden gates that I had in the cow barn lean to. Actually it was a partial gate. Looked like the large gate that was there got broken and for some reason instead of removing it when we took out the other broken gates we just left it (two years ago). We also removed two more worthless upper (horse) doors from the stalls that I will probably use somewhere else. They're not very large but might work as a side on a sheep building (since my sheep are pretty little).

Gary suggested that I put in another small area where I can separate cows in the Hereford pasture. I will have it run into the cow barn so that I can use the feeders that are already there.

It turns out that Pat has extensive experience doing concrete work so later on this summer we'll pour concrete in that section of the cow barn that doesn't already have concrete and will pour a 20 foot pad in front of the barn and also put in a pad for storing concrete (with ecology blocks on three sides as you suggested). We'll also do the Dexter lean to and a pad in front of their eating area. I discovered this fall that it's way too hard to get into the cow pastures when we have more than the normal amount of rain. I may pour concrete in the middle stall where I feed the Dexters their treats. Boy, is farming a learning experience.

Getting your fenceline cleaned would make all the difference in the world. It is so much easier to set a fence when the area is already cleared of brush and trees. It sounds like a good trade to me.

Susie says her neighbor wants to rent her his entire 35 acres. Can I ask what rent he is asking per acre? Have you thought about advertising in the Farm and Garden section on Craigslist? You might have to place the ad several times over three weeks or so because it sometimes takes folks awhile to make a decision. I'd also post a notice at the local feed store and tell all your neighbors what you're looking for because sometimes people know other people who want to rent their pasture lands if they aren't haying it. Take pictures of your girls with you so you can show people how cute they are and what great pasture ornaments they make.

I expect as people see your critters as they drive by you'll have lots of sales even though many people have horses. If they don't ride the horses or if the horses and people get old and can no longer ride, they may consider buying a lawn ornament or two to keep the grass down when they get rid of their horses. Nothing like a cow or two to make you into a "gentleman farmer."

I may be interested in a youngster/cow later on in the year from Susie if I get all bull calves since I will be down one breeding cow. I was aghast when I heard what that woman was asking for her cow. Looks like a nice cow but is not worth $2500 to me. I want good quality, reasonably priced cows from a reputable breeder like yourself. One who stands behind her animals, is knowledgeable about the critters and is willing to share her considerable knowledge with someone like me who is eager to learn. I am not trying to breed show animals, just good hardy critters that I can have fun with.

LOL, chickens. My chickens got out when Pat was putting some metal siding on the facia boards on the chicken coop roof. Boy, did they ever do damage: ripped my strawberry bed to shreds (good thing strawberries are so resiliant) and messed up my newly wood-chipped garden paths and generally went nuts in my flower beds. I have to confess that I much prefer them in chicken tractors or a chicken yard. Too much mess for me.

Gabe weed whacked around the green barn but has more to do around that area. He also weed whacked the vegetable garden which should make it easier to spray.

Enrique and Alberto also removed two small and one large horse feeders from the south and middle stall and took off the two top horse stall doors. Enrique and Alberto did the removal with me supervising and supplying the tools.

Enrique and Alberto took the two drakes that I was keeping in the large outdoor pen to the cow barn. My idea was to have them eat the flies, however, they made their way back to their old pen so I let them in. I think they were relieved to get back to familiar quarters and good food.

Herefords into N3.

Chas has been telling me that I've been doing too much and he's worried about me. I actually think what he's telling me is that he misses me when I'm gone to the Health Department. I am making progress on the various projects especially the Indicators Project (health indicators such as how many cardiovascular/diabetes/stroke deaths, etc. occurred in Lewis County. Writing about statistics is not my strong point. I also review grants and do searches for folks when they need information. I may decided to stay home more and work from home.

I appreciated Susie reminding me of the genetic issues with using a bull out of a cow with a bad udder. I needed a reality check. She seems to have succeeded in improving the udder in her daughter, Brie. I suppose if Brie has a baby I'll have to find another cheese to name the baby after (if it's a girl). If it's a boy, we'll probably not name it a cheese name but a steak name. Sirloin, Ribs, Porterhouse, LOL.

Dinner was home baked bread with clam-corn chowder. Tasty.

04/24/2009 Friday:

Worked at the Health Department and made some progress on the Indicators project. I also did another search of the Web for information on the ethics of triage in the event of a Pan flu epidemic. Strange that we're hearing about a swine flu epidemic that's killing people in Mexico. At least 11 people are ill with swine flu here in the USA but the cases so far have been generally mild.

I stopped at the bank before work and did my grocery and feed store shopping after work. I bought ducks at Del's. The 5 ducks are: 2 Rouen's (brownish) and 3 Pekings (all white), straight run, so who knows what division of males and females I'll get? If I'm lucky they'll all be males and I can put them in my freezer. They're in my basement now growing feathers and eating and eating and eating. I'll have to find another place for them when my 25 chickens come around the 29th since that's where the chickens will be living. I have a nice rabbit cage I can put them in. Or maybe a couple of large under the bed plastic boxes with cardboard around the outside to keep them in.

Dinner was leftover pork ribs. I make rosemary potatoes baked in the oven and served squash from our garden (frozen). I brought up a turkey that we'll be eating Sunday for dinner.

04/23/2009 Thursday: Overcast until about 1:30 and then the sun started shedding its light on our part of the world. It is magnificent.

Pat M was by early this morning to continue working on the rotted out section of the barn (east side). For some reason I thought he was going to cut the rotten parts of at the bottom and replace them with new boards, and replace the bottom plate. Instead he removed all the studs and will be replacing them, the foot plate and will be installing new T1-11 siding. Pat sent Chas into town to Lincoln Lumber to get lumber to finish the barn. Unfortunately he forgot the 2 x 8 x 8 foot studs so he had to leave to get them. I ordered the studs on my credit card but Pat picked the up. He's setting the studs in place and will likely finish that off today. He has to leave tomorrow at noon. I expect he'll get the T1-11 siding up tomorrow morning. Then I can put everything back together.

To keep the goats out of the barn proper, he put some of the stock fencing along the newly installed studs and tied the temporary fences to the studs. I asked if he would install a window made of translucent fiberglass. It would make that side of the barn lighter.

When I fed the two doelings this morning I just put them on Violet and that was all the milk they got at that feeding. They did get milk in the afternoon feeding but it's time to wean them.

The Herefords were put into N1 this afternoon to graze. The Dexters ended up in the southmost paddock. All the Dexter pens need serious fertilizing and liming. I may buy a couple of bags of fertilizer with lots of N and will spread that just before it's supposed to rain. That likely won't be for more than a week. It's supposed to be nice for several more days.

After lunch Mike and Mary brought me over their small Rotohammer with a 1/4 inch bit so that Pat could drill some holes in the concrete just to hold the pressure treated boards in place. He also brought over a piece he'd welded for Chas's drill press. I will have to return that tomorrow afternoon along with Mike's metal box of bits.

I've asked Pat to put in a gutter on the back side of the barn. It will drain away from the barn to the north. Hopefully I can get him to put another one up in the cow barn and maybe a third off the back of the lean-to addition. That might help keep the area a little drier.

Pat hopes to install the t1-11 siding on the south side of the barn, too.

In the afternoon I put in a cross fence along the south corridor so that I can let the Dexters into the two big fields I've set aside for them. I still have some work to do to make a proper entrance for the Dexters.

04/22/2009 Wednesday: Overcast till about 4pm when the sun started shining again. Supposed to be nice the next 9 days or so.

Pat M was here today. He's taking apart my green barn and fixing the dry rot in the bottom face plate and uprights. So far he's taken off the top section on the east wall. I assume he'll be taking apart the entire wall. The bottom is covered with a large sheet of metal that we put on to slow the damage from the rain splatter. The splatter is caused by one of the previous owners laying down concrete road posts on the ground by that side to keep the area from becoming totally mud. He has a large support post in the middle of where I was keeping my cross-bred bottle baby doelings which means I'll have to keep them with the adults.

The wind sure whistles through the barn now that there's such a large space opened up. Pat will be replacing the plate next to the concrete and most of the uprights on that side. He'll be putting metal on the outside of the barn at the bottom and who knows what on top. I asked him to install at least two gutters, one on each side of the rebuilt addition.

When I got home from the Health Department I made up some milk replacer for Bottle Babe. He didn't come when I called him so I had to gingerly walk on the top of the mounds of dirt to get to him without sinking into the muck. He didn't seem very hungry but he did drink the bottle. Mom was helping him by licking him on the nose and muzzle. He found it pretty distracting. He's about 5 days old now.

I mentioned that I called the butcher Monday. They returned my call. I guess they'll be out this way on May 6. I don't know what time. That's usually a work day. I guess I'll have to change days so I can be home. I keep wondering if I'm making a huge mistake having her butchered. On the other hand since she can't nurse her calves it means extra work for me because I have to bottle feed it for at least 4 months.

It also means I won't be buying a calf from Gary Mc for at least four months.

After dinner I went out and fed the baby bull again. This time I made sure I put a small amount of yogurt into his milk to enhance his stomach flora.

04/21/2009 Tuesday: Another lovely day with lots of sun.

When I looked out the window this morning I noticed that one of the Dexters had given birth. It was Emma and she had a female calf, a heifer. I was thrilled since I have been wanting to add a few more females without having to spend the money. The baby is black.

I fed the little Dun bull during morning chores and then when I got back from the Orthodontist (around noonish) and then around 7pm.

Pat showed up this morning and helped us move hay before he started work on finishing putting up the facing on the chicken house. I'd put the grey screws he wanted to use somewhere. It took Pat some time to get back. He basically comes over when he's not working. All right with me but makes getting projects done quite slow.

We moved two round bales of hay into the Herefords feeder and one into the Dexters feeder. Everyone was hungry, that is until they found out that I was feeding them local grass hay. I did let them out to eat grass today, at least the Herefords, so they weren't too pissed.

When he left Pat left the ATV down at the chicken coop. It won't start. It's been running fast. It has gas so that's not the problem. I put a call in to Mike N this evening asking him to call me back. I expect he's working out of town so it might be the weekend before he phones. We'll use the tractor to pull out the ATV and trailer so he can fix the ATV.

Pat also left the gate ajar so that many of the chickens got out. I just opened the gate and let them all out to eat bugs and generally wreck havoc on my cottage garden paths. Not a good idea to let them out where they can get into mischief.

Dena and her sister dropped off a couple of egg cartons. I'm getting really low on egg cartons. I even asked Mary H to save me some cartons. They visited for awhile. They stay till Mike and Mary showed up.

Mary and Mike came to drop off the gate Mike welded for me from two futon backs I had lying around the property, plus they brought me about 33 builder's blocks. I had them load the blocks into the tractor blade and carried them back to the green house where I'm going to use them.

I'm going to use the blocks to support frames made of 2x4s with stapled on mesh on the bottom. They'll be used in the green house to support pots. I plan on making beds below the frames for hardening off plants.

I still need to put in more bricks by the entrance and maybe some vertical bricks to make an edge to the lower beds. I'm still thinking of that.

I still need to put plastic up. I also want to replace the tin roofing with clear/translucent plastic to get more light in the green house.

Getting the chickens back into their pen was fun. I must have walked around their pen three times shooing them in - and this was after I put out some cracked corn and sunflower seed treat.

The rooster attacked me a second time. When I have time I'll be hanging up a rope on the back of the coop so that when I catch him I can harvest him. I need to get back into practice for the time when I have to butcher the 25 Red Ranger chickens.

I moved 6 bags of all purpose feed into the cow barn but will move a bale or two out to the green barn for the goats when the ATV is working again. I could have driven the car over but I was too pooped.

04/20/2009 Monday: Lovely, lovely sun all day. The temperature hit 75 degrees F this afternoon. I didn't have to wear a jacket to do my chores.

Worked at the Health Department today. I reviewed and made suggestions on the first draft of a grant intended to try to get full time funding for a Humane Officer (someone who follows up on complaints of abused animals, stray animals and soon, puppy farms).

Finally, the ducks are laying eggs. I found the first duck egg today in a tidy nest under the nest boxes in the milk room. At least the girls are not getting out into the farm yard. Once they get a bunch in the nest I'll stop putting them in at night and let them stay with the eggs if they want. It would be nice to get some babies to sell out of the mommas.

I felt really badly tonight when I went to feed the newest calf. His momma, Cheddar, is cutting the bejesus out of her pendulous udder with her hind feet. She just cannot swing her leg around far enough to miss the udder. I guess the time has come to turn her into hamburger. I do not want to do that but she will never be a good momma given her udder. I called Bolars (my regular butcher) today but they are closed until Wed. I left a message asking them to return my call when it's convenient. My voice got all quavery when I left the message. I really hate having to butcher Cheddar.

The calf is drinking pretty well. I think I'm making too much replacer, tho'. No scours so far. I will lessen how much milk replacer I make. I keep forgetting he's only a teensy baby. I added a tablespoon of yogurt to the milk replacer to give him some probiotics. I will have to culture a quart jar of yogurt. It's way to expensive to use store bought yogurt when you can make your own just as easily.

Dinner was leftover turkey breast with mashed potatoes and peas. I should have made gravy but I'm too lazy.

04/19/2009 Sunday: Another lovely day. Sun, sun, sun.

I had a lovely nap this morning for an hour. I should schedule more naps. Of course it means I don't get anything worthwhile done when I'm asleep but it sure feels good.

Chas did the laundry. I do the first load of sheets and the last load of farm clothes. He does the rest. Thank heaven's for Chas.

The chicks in the basement are doing well. I put out 32 ounces of feed every night and by the next night there's not much left. They go through less water. I raised the heat lamp up some as they were lying pretty far away from the lamp.

Charles and Sharon stopped by for a cup of coffee. I showed them the new compost tumbler and the new greenhouse made out of six cyclone fence puppy panels.

The calf that was born yesterday cannot find Cheddar's nipples to feed from. He looks high and Cheddar's udder is so low. I also can't get close enough to her to milk her out. She keeps backing away although she hasn't indicated she would kill me if I touched the baby (and she didn't) but she did have her nose on the calf's nose as he ate earlier today and even sucked my fingers after I fed the baby. She looks awfully uncomfortable with her udder so distended. She's encouraging the bull calf to eat but he just won't put his head down.

So, after hearing him whine most of the morning I made up some milk replacer, grabbed him and fed him a quart. He ate with gusto and with no problem. Later I fed him another quart. When I tried this evening, he did a couple of sucks but clearly wasn't hungry. I doubt if he has nursed judging by her udder. So, no cholostrum but I will be putting yogurt in his milk tomorrow.

I hope he does ok on twice a day feeding. I worry that he didn't get cholostrum but will have to see what happens.

It was interesting, Cheddar seemed interested in the bottle so I offered it to her. She drank a bunch and then grabbed the nipple with her teeth and nearly pulled the bottle out of my hands. I got it out of her mouth finally. She was determined to hang on. I fed the rest to one of my Shorthorn babies. I was surprised that she would take the bottle the way she did and actually drink the milk.

Anyhow, the calf looks brown in the light but I expect that will darken to black over time. Is there any reason to expect he might have dun in his background?

I got a startle today. I was bent over the baby feeding him and felt a nose sniffing the back of my leg. It was Huck. I excused myself and shooed him off, but very politely. He was merely being curious but I'm always cautious around bulls.

The Herefords are certainly enjoying the hay that was delivered yesterday. I feed one bale of compressed timothy (equivalent to two 60 lb bales) and about a third of a bale of alfalfa. I roll the alfalfa off the stack and over to the feeder and then peel off flakes. The Dexters do not get alfalfa because they'd get too fat but I do give the 2 bull calves a flake morning and night with the occasional flake of timothy along with their grain.

With any luck they'll start gaining weight before I put them out on grass.

Dinner was pork ribs with BBQ sauce cooked with rosemary baked Yukon gold potatoes and squash. Pretty tasty. Chas served blueberries with yogurt for dessert.

I canceled the 20 round bales that Wally offered me because the cows are just wasting too much of the hay - more than a third of the bale plus they are losing even more weight.

04/18/2009 Saturday: Another lovely sunny day, but not too hot. It was cold first thing in the morning but warmed up to about 72 degrees F later on in the afternoon.

Enrique and Juan and I got lots done today.

We remove the hog panel pen from the doeling's pen and took it outside for use by the ducks. It's not needed any more. I now put the doelings in with the other goats to get exercise during the day and in their own pen at night so that they can get their grain without competition.

After building the duck pen a week ago it became clear that I needed to put two metal panels on duck pen to keep them safe from birds of prey. We first put two 2x4's on top of the taller panels and tied them down. Then we slid on two green panels and tied them down with binding twine too.

We fixed the break in the fence on the north-west side of the fence. I guess Trevor and I didn't get enough of a crimp in the crimping lead and the fence separated where we had to splice it. We tensioned the fence and it seemed to work beautifully. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the charger was reading nearly 7mvh. This was up from 4.0. I thought I had turned off the fence in that section but apparently not.

Enrique and Juan pitchforked waste grass that I'd piled up in Cow Barn and in the leftmost stall and spread it on the extended winter pasture. They put it on the trailer and hauled it out and spread it around. The cows, perverse things that they are, immediately had to go over and pick through the hay they'd already rejected and eat it.
remove hay and muck from around the collapsible feeder out about 2.5 feet.

Juan and Enrique cleaned out quite a bit of the hay around the collapsible feeder in the cow barn out about 2.5 feet. This will make it easier to push out the collapsible feeder when I want to add round bales.

Laura and Enrique picked up the fencing tools and fixed the broken wires in the north-west fence line. Before I went out to fix the fence I had a big-time short. The charger went almost all the way back to 7mvh when I turned the power back on after fixing the fence. I thought I'd disconnected the back part of the fence but I expect the guys put the gate wires on the wrong hook so it actually was hot. I'm pleased about that because Chas and I looked for about two hours to find the short with no luck.

We still have broken wires in the south-west boundary fence. We'll save that repair for another day.

Juan and Enrique did a great job of cleaning out the waste hay in the sheep pen and putting it in the compost pile. I asked them to move the sheep feeder out of the way and they did. We also put clean hay into the sheep's house.

McCombs Hay Co delivered 3 bundles of 12 compressed bales of timothy ($390) and 42 bales of 3 string 125lb alfalfa ($504). I fed some of the timothy this evening. The cows really enjoyed it. The bales I am using first have some dirt in them but Landon did deliver a half a bundle to cover that loss. Actually they have quite a bit of dirt in them but they did bring me half a bundle extra to replace the dirty ones.

I finally bit the bullet and put the unpleasant Muscovy hen back in with the other two hens and the drake that I plan to use for breeding. That seems to have stopped the two drakes that were fighting in the outside duck pen. I will be putting the two males in the cow barn as fly killers when I get around to it.

04/17/2009 Friday: Sunshine most of the day. Wouldn't you know it? I worked at the Health Department.

Oh joy, all of the ducks were where they were supposed to be, 3 in each pen.

After work I went to the Chehalis Library and dropped off a couple of overdue books. Chas had asked me to pick up the books that were being held for him at the library. Naturally I had to get some books for myself. My bag went out as full as it was when I came in.

Next I hit Del's Feed Store to pick up some chicken supplies: a small quart jar waterer, a small chick feeder and a larger chick feeder for the chicks that will be delivered after April 29. I also picked up 3 bags of alfalfa cubes and 3 bags of alfalfa pellets.

I purchased 6 Buff Orpington Chicks when I went to Dels and finished setting up their quarters in the basement.

I listened to that wonderful British woman who sang "I have a Dream." It was bloody wonderful. It was great to see how she surprised everyone. Look at: www.youtube.com/watch (http://ct.pbinews.com/rd/cts?d=94-4987-8-8-146623-986836-0-0-0-1-1-365).

04/16/2009 Thursday: Overcast but no rain.

Boy, was I tired this morning. I sat down in my comfortable chair to eat my scrambled egg and tea breakfast and almost fell asleep holding my tea. I quickly finished it and put it down, then boom, fell asleep for an hour and a half in that chair. I snored loudly, too. I know because I kept half waking myself up.

I must have scared Sherry who was over to clean house with my snoring. I gave Sherry a bunch of eggs to take home for her family. Always nice to have home-raised eggs. They do taste pretty good.

Looks like one of the ducks is the loser in determining who gets the right to mate with the unpleasant Muscovy hen. They started fighting yesterday when I put the foreign male into the outside pen and this morning one of the two drakes was out. It looked as if he or the female had dug their way out. I put their shelter over the hole and will fill it in with boards eventually.

I caught him and put him back in the outside pen. One of the hens was in the pen who shouldn't have been there. I captured her and put her back in the goat pasture pen. One of these days they'll stay put where I want them to stay. I hate to keep them fenced in but I may just have to do that to keep them from escaping. I may put them in the outside calf pen and let them out after they've laid their eggs and have hatched out some babies for me.

I washed out another small (125lb) protein block tub that I'd been using to rinse off my feet in and put it in the cow barn to be used to put feed in. It cleaned up pretty well. I may drill holes in the sides and will try bolting them together.

Before I went down to do evening chores I put a pot of soup on to cook. It came out pretty well. We ate the soup with some of the bread that Chas started and I cooked yesterday. Chas added 1/4 cup of pine nuts to the bread. It was one of the best breads we've made.