Spring is Here!

Spring is finally here!  It was warm enough today to kick off our boots, let the critters out to play, start on the garden, and do some spring cleaning!

Winter in Vermont

Sunny Day and Chilly Snow

We're still here!  There's not much happening other than the day to day chores of feeding, watering and petting.  It was sunny this morning, so the herd came out of the barn to soak up some rays for a bit.  They don't go too far into the snow, as evidenced by their tracks, but they are pretty happy with the Christmas tree that we gave them to gnaw on.

Belly Deep

Treats!

The snow was belly deep to a goat this morning.  The boys weren't quite sure what to make of it, so I opened the gate to let them go explore a bit.  Blackberry did the initial recon, but Strawberry is the one who led the charge to the other side of the  pathway, where the
boys enjoyed a nice snack of tree branches until the snow came down in their faces.  It didn't take much prodding to get them to go back into the barn.

Blackberry is not impressed.

Checking it out.

Leading the way.

Single file across the path.

Snow?! Where'd that come from?

There's a goat under there somewhere.

Winter Has Arrived

This morning, compared with this afternoon.

I think winter has finally hit for real.  Even though we had snow a few days ago, it's been warm enough outside that the kids and I have still been running around in bare feet.  That all changed today.  The boys don't seem to mind it too much, but I'm sure they'll be happy for the warm barn later tonight.

It's beginning to look a lot like Winter.

Can we come out to play?

Road Trip!

Kids in The Back

Putting a goat in the back of a car is never going to stop being funny.  This afternoon the girls and I took Eiar on a trip north to Capsand Creamery, where she'll spend a couple of weeks on vacation.  With any luck, she'll come home bred, and we'll have some baby goats in the fall.

It's actually sort of surprising how well the animals ride in the cargo compartment of our Escape.  We put a tarp down, add some hay, and they stay nice and content until we arrive at our destination.  It probably helped that the girls were occasionally sneaking saltines to the goat while I wasn't looking.

Winter Feeder

Round bale feeder.

Today I decided to tackle another project to prepare us for winter.  The last couple of years, rather than buy small square bales of hay for the goats, we've opted to buy a large round bale to get them through the winter.  Usually we  leave it outside, covered with a tent made from a big blue tarp.  Each year we think about building a feeder to make it a little easier for the goats to get to.

This year, with the new location, we have enough space to keep the big bale inside the barn.  We've been looking at various feeder designs online all summer, but figured we could put the bale up on pallets if we needed to, just to keep it up off the ground.

The feeder pictured is based on one that both my wife and I found online on separate occasions.  I figured if it looked promising to both of us, that is was worth pursuing.

After dropping my older daughter off at school, and once morning chores were done, I starting looking around for scrap 2x4s.  I managed to gather enough to build the feeder, so I dragged them down to the barn, where I also keep my circular saw and tools.

As I set about measuring and cutting, the goats decided to help.  Like cats, curiousity tends to get the better of them, and they can't leave things alone.  While the boys worked on holding down the boards I was trying to cut, Eair made an attempt at eating the sketched plans I had drawn earlier in the morning.  After a while they realized that none of the parts were worth eating, so they went about supervising instead.

Once the feeder was built, I had to question the design.  While I'm not an engineer, I do know that triangles help hold things up, and I didn't see a single triangle in this thing.  I was afraid (and I later confirmed) that the entire feeder would just twist with any amount of weight put on it.  Given the size of round bales, I decided to add some bracing once I got the feeder into the barn.  Now that it's in place, we'll just need to figure out how to get the hay in place once we purchase it.

"Let us hold this down for you."

"Aaahhh. Sunlight."

"Are you sure these are long enough?"

"You need another nail right here."

Feeder space.

Bracing added.

Hooves and Stalls and Walls, Oh My!

Gabriella helps with stall cleanup.

We had a busy day today.  Mom was home, so she and I were able to work on trimming the goats' hoofs.  With all of the moving in the past couple of months, they had unfortunately been neglected and were in bad shape.  I did the holding while Christy did the trimming.  We managed to get all sixteen goat feet trimmed back to where they should be.  We'll now be able to get them back onto a routine care schedule.

Another task accomplished today was cleaning out the goats' stall.  The goats are fairly tidy, but changing out the shavings and straw in their stall every so often helps to keep down odors and pests.  While I raked out the stall and made a discard pile outside of the barn, Gabriella filled buckets so that we could move the pile outside of the fence.  Once everything was cleared out, we all helped put down some lime and new shavings.  The goats, who were outside of the pen eating down the brush around the barn, were very happy to come home to a clean stall.

The exterior of the barn also received some love.  My father-in-law had been working on putting up barn board along the exposed wall.  Later in the night while he was away, I was able to add some more.  The animals should have a nice warm barn before winter hits!

Base boards in place.

Outer boards in place.

Kids at Play

The kids out enjoying the weather.

With another warm day, we were able to let the goats (and the girls) out to play. Days like this are why we enjoy living in Vermont.

The other kids out enjoying the weather.

Family Time

Getting kisses.

The girls and I had a chance to spend some quality time with Eair and the boys this afternoon.  After feeding and watering them, we all just sort of hung out in the pen for awhile, playing and snapping photos of each other.  We had a good time, the goats had a good time, and we all got a chance to bond.

Blackberry, Elaina & Eair.

Gabriella, Blackerry & Eair. Hoover tries to take a selfie.

Hoover.

Strawberry.

Blackberry.

Eair.

First Frost

Frost in the field.

This morning we woke up to the first frost of the season.  Even our poor duck, Quackers, had his house covered in a very light mist of chilliness.  London, our new duck, sadly flew the coop, literally, the day after we got her, so Quackers is by himself again.

Once things warmed up, it was time to do some more work on the barn.  Above the entrance, the barn boards were left different lengths.  I strung a line across the doorway, leveled it, and started to cut the boards to make an even line, but unfortunately the blade to my jigsaw was too short to cut through both layers.  I'll have to return to it again once I pick up a longer blade.

Once the doorway is cut nicely, we have some old hardware salvaged from another barn that we'll be able to install.  This will allow us to close the barn up against the snow and cold this winter, keeping the goats nice and warm.

Chilled duck.

More barn work.

New Feeder

The boys try out the new feeder.

Not much farm work today.  I did manage to remove the ex-horse feeder from one section of the barn and repurpose it for the goats by hanging in their stall at a lower height.  It definitely works better than the plastic bin that we had hanging there previously.

Other work for the day included general cleaning up around the barn, and fixing some of the barn boards that were lifting away from the exterior.  In the process I managed to get stung by a wasp that lived in one of the multiple nests in the barn eaves, so evening was dedicated to eradicating stingy flying things.  Before winter comes, I'll need to patch the barn in a few more spots to make it warmer for the goats, but it was nice to get even a small section put back in place.

New Fence

Gabriella rolls the old fence.

Today we finally completed the permanent fence for the goats.  The fence attaches to the back of the barn, moves out into the field, up toward the house, then back to a newly built gate at the front of the barn.

The new space gives the boys and girl about twice as much area to graze in as they had with the temporary fence.  For now, the cattle panels will be stored in the barn.  We may use them to set up a "field trip" area in another part of the pasture where we can move the goats for a day or two to eat down the grass.

Elaina takes Hoover and Eiar for a walk.

View from inside the barn.

The boys try to figure out the gate latch.

Time to play!