Roll Farms - Herdstock is over, and I'm feeling hung over, lol

[Roll farms]

So any of you 'regular' readers of my journal may remember the nifty table and wooden goat some friends of ours made us a while back? We went to visit them today and they gave me:

A WHOLE GOATIE FAMILY!

And they made DH a silver fox bun

He bought an Amish coloring book and used the animal pics in them as his 'patterns'. We are so lucky to have such good friends in our lives. Present Company Included.

 

[elevan]

Those are pretty cool!

What a great idea using a coloring book to get patterns.

 

[Mamaboid]

What wonderfully personal and beautiful gifts. That is great. People are wonderful sometimes, aren't they?

 

[TTs Chicks]

Those are great! What nice friends

 

[DonnaBelle]

Beautiful little goats, and they don't poop!!! LOL... It's nice to have friends that loving...


After dusting mine and di-methox this evening, I kinda wish mine were wooden...Not really, but jeeze....


DonnaBelle

 

[RPC]

That's really awesome you sure do have some nice friends.

 

[Roll farms]

I just drove up and down the roads out here for 15 minutes trying to figure out where the dogs who keep coming in my yard / pooping in my flowerbeds / upsetting my animals are coming from.

Don't it just figure they went up the driveway of one of the biggest jerks in the area.

I'm gonna get a pic of them in our yard and make the flyer that I spoke of earlier....to the effect of "Keep 'em at home or they get an unmarked grave somewhere else."

I could have TOTALLY taken one out w/ my jeep, and if I was of a crueler mindset, I would have. It's not the dog's fault, though...it's the #$%%#$ idiot neighbors.

 

[redtailgal]

I've been to the point where I did take a dog out with my car. It was horrible, and I ALMOST felt ashamed. I did get out and finished it off with a clean shot to the head immediatly afterwards.

I'd be trying to keep the gun sites on this dog, but he'd been shot before, and shot AT many times, so he was educated. We could have tried trapping him I guess, time was of the essence. He mauled livestock, didnt kill them but let them standing sometimes with their intestines hanging on the ground.

We had a stray Pit Bull come thru yesterday.........Didnt cause any problems, but it worries me.

 

[Roll farms]

I've only seen the stupid neighbor's dogs 1x since I followed them home the other day, and they went *poof* and disappeared before I could get out there w/ my camera.

Been playing in the dirt like mad the last few days.

Sunday we went and got 20 bags of mulch, black plastic, landscape fabric, and I priced what it's gonna cost for the wood for my raised beds. We're going to have 4 - 8x8', plus the trough I plant taters in, and a few buckets that I set peppers and such out in. Hoping to get the wood for that stuff next week.
We had to rush back home, bottle feed, and get ready to disbud the 4 kids the LaManchas that I had here briefly had for the folks who bought them - twin BUCKS and twin DOES.
At 4pm we had a family come who've got preggo goats, they wanted to watch / practice milking, see what supplies they need (vs. what you read you need and then never use). and just ask questions. They stayed 2.5 hrs and hopefully got all the info they'll need now. We did a few more chores around here then called it a night.

Last year we (I) decided that a flower bed up above the pond would look 'pretty' with wildflowers in it.
DH took the tractor up there and tilled an 8x50' spot up. I saved seeds all fall from my flowers and 'scattered' some there then, and in spring.
And had a lovely weedpatch. Too many seeds from the weeds around it...briars, thisltes, and wild carrot took it over.

Soooo....Monday I toted a roll of black plastic, landscape staples, some weedkiller in a 1.5 g sprayer, and scissors (to cut the plastic....thought I'd thought of everything....) over there and...discovered since the dirt had had a year to settle, there were about 982,523 rocks in one section. So me and my scissors pried them all up.
I sprayed the area plus a 2' section around it w/ weedkiller.

Then I realized that I grossly underestimated the amount of staples I'd need.....so the rocks came in handy to hold the plastic down.

Did you ever notice how it can be calm as can be until you try to do something w/ a 25x10' piece of something light, then suddenly the wind gusts up to 80mph?
And how a bunch of rocks that feel like they weigh 10# ea, suddenly don't weigh enough to hold their corner of the plastic down.



Probably a good thing I didn't end up bound in that plastic (as it was flapping in the wind) and trip and fall in the pond. DH woulda went to prison for murder, nobody would have believed he didn't kill me.


Now, I poke fun at my DH for using the Gator for *everything* - even when he fishes, he will drive it to the pond, then drive around the edge and sit in it and fish....I try to use my own gumption and WALK....but at this point in the game (after nearly losing the plastic to the pond / wind) I decided I needed 'help'.
So I got about 25 bricks and loaded them in the gator and drove back up there (it's about 1/4 mi from the house....too far to carry 25 bricks, even for me....) and used them to hold the plastic down.

Then I played the old-fashioned version of Slinky. It wasn't any fun.

We put a small electric fence around our garden last year to A) keep Booger the Newfandland w/ big feet out of the mud and B) the coons outta the corn. It kept our dogs out....but not the coons. We're not even attempting corn this year and I'm going to do raised beds, so we don't need the fence. (but we're going to leave the posts up as it seems to deter the dogs....no reason to let them wander in the area and poo where I'll be working). Fiddles (poodle) seems to like to poo where there's rocks or mulch. I think he's a cat disguised as a dog.

So I start rolling up the wire. Man it was a lot of wire. I get a good sized yarn ball-looking mass of wire going, bend over to unhook some wire from a post and BOINNNNNG - half of it comes unwound and just JUMPS from my hand. I'd tell ya what I said but I'd probably earn a temporary ban. Got it all wound back up and kept going and it did the BOINNNNGG thing 2 or 3 more times. By that point I coulda bit nails and spit tacks.
Then it was time for chores, dinner, and I had to get to bed so I could get up at 3 to be at work by 5am on Tues.

I got off work at 8am, came home and did chores, then started on my 'big' flower bed. It had 10 yr old plastic / landscape fabric that had been cut and redone several times and a buildup of mulch that had started to decay / turn to dirt, so that weeds were taking over. AND, some of my perennials (bee balm and missouri primrose) that root vertically were spreading to the point of taking over. So I pulled out 3 big pots full of starts from that stuff, raked 4 tarp fulls of mulch out, and drug it over to a row of Rose Of Sharon nearby and used it to mulch them. Removed the old plastic, landscape fabric, and staples. I had to quit at that point and get chores done, b/c we had someone coming at 5pm for milk. After she left, DH and I tatted all 12 of the bunny kits (NOT fun).

THEN he mentions, "I'm going to need rabbit feed tomorrow."
Why can't he tell me that...WHEN I'M ALREADY AT TSC????? I coulda grabbed it when I got off work that morning.

Today I fully intend to get my new landscape fabric down around the stuff in the big bed before the plants get any bigger. Going to town requires at least 20 minutes of "go to town" cleaning up (combing of hair, applying chapstick to windburnt lips, washing of face, choosing which ball cap to wear, etc) and 45 mins of driving time, plus shopping time...which was going to steal my 'dirt playing' time....
Soooo...at 7 pm we ran to town for feed....I was gonna go Friday for goat feed so we loaded up on that too.
Got it put away and then I had to do the pedigrees for the rabbit kits.

The breeder we get our Silver Fox kits from is dropping 4 bunnies off here Thurs - 1 for us and 3 for a lady in Angola. We're already holding one for a friend in IL.
We are out of cage space, w/ the 2 litters we have, plus all these 'temporary' residents....so we'll be setting up extra cages tonight.

In other news, my daughter will (hopefully) be coming to visit next week. The child misses her mama. Waiting to see if work gave her the time off or not.
If they did, I gotta do some serious cleaning of her 'room'...which is full of paint, windows, etc. from my 'winter projects'....lol.

I'm gonna shut up now and go get morning chores done and play in the dirt some more.
Trying to remember to get pics before I do anything else....so you can see my progress.

 

[redtailgal]

OK, so I've located enough bricks to border the 50 by 6 foot bed, sooooo I need you to bring our gator over for the day.

Your not gonna bring the gator over are you? sigh

I'll have to get the tractor and load my bricks in the bucket.