Home, Home on Teh Ranch
Jan. 10th, 2010 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madshutterbugHerself rolled in from her SCA Arts-Sci weekend around 16:30. I was just heading out to give the bottle-kid the early evening hot milk, and she joined me. One of the older does, in the big paddock, also kidded. At least she did it in daylight, and she's more experienced as a mother. So far her kids are doing OK, and have been finding teats.
After feeding teh Horses and teh Cows, together we strung the canvas sidewalls of her pavilion around the goat pole barn in the big paddock, and along the side of the adolescent and buckling shelters as well. Plus we added to the hay load, which of course the goats started eating. That's fine, as it will provide heat from within as well, and they can't eat all of it before bedding down.
Shelter from the wind, and enough of a dead-air zone to help hold in their own body heat. They'll do OK through tonight, which is supposed to be the coldest of the stretch so far.
Electric bill is going to be up some this month. *G* Between heating the Big House, keeping Studio 318 just above freezing, and the fact that running water won't freeze which is why the goats, horses, and cow troughts are on dribble rather than float valve just now... See, to keep our water running like that means the pump cycles in teh well. Still OK. Rather have that than frozen burst pipes. We've had that before, too, when the power failed in an ice storm, back in '89.
Yup, back then we had to haul ice, uphill both ways and barefoot... nah. Actually, we didn't get the goats until early '90.
After feeding teh Horses and teh Cows, together we strung the canvas sidewalls of her pavilion around the goat pole barn in the big paddock, and along the side of the adolescent and buckling shelters as well. Plus we added to the hay load, which of course the goats started eating. That's fine, as it will provide heat from within as well, and they can't eat all of it before bedding down.
Shelter from the wind, and enough of a dead-air zone to help hold in their own body heat. They'll do OK through tonight, which is supposed to be the coldest of the stretch so far.
Electric bill is going to be up some this month. *G* Between heating the Big House, keeping Studio 318 just above freezing, and the fact that running water won't freeze which is why the goats, horses, and cow troughts are on dribble rather than float valve just now... See, to keep our water running like that means the pump cycles in teh well. Still OK. Rather have that than frozen burst pipes. We've had that before, too, when the power failed in an ice storm, back in '89.
Yup, back then we had to haul ice, uphill both ways and barefoot... nah. Actually, we didn't get the goats until early '90.
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Date: 2010-01-11 04:43 am (UTC)Hang in there.
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Date: 2010-01-11 12:12 pm (UTC)We get cold here in North Central Baja Jorja. We do. Usually doesn't last this long, usually doesn't get this cold. We broke records!