winter shelter

[picklespickles]

the water froze deep and thick last night BUT for three days before that we had no frozen water. YEah. i dont' even know for how long i'd been hauling water. and i don't have the back for that. so duckys were not exactly pristine white.

but with three days of easy to get to water they all bathed lots and got purty again. yeah.

my dog keeps barking outside? coyotes? or she's just tickled i'm home by midnight. hmm........

how many more times can i go out with a crowbar at midnight to check and see. if only coyotes were what i'm really afraid of seeing at midnight.

boy goat has learned not to jump on nice human lady's car when she just gets home from work and is mighty likely to get MIghty po'ed. so, he gets the privilege of chomping on random feed in carport as i bring in groceries, baby the chihuahaus, scold porch cat or walk with ifd out to check mail at ungodly hour. okay. no hour is truly ungodly but god prolly has more sense than me and is already in bed so.......

anyway. b-goat is tickled at newfound freedom to forage while i do five minutes of getting home chores. then when i'm home inside out of the cold he's gotta go back in the fence.

glad he is getting some roaming privileges. makes my life easier. i hate always making sure things are inside the fence. i much better like making sure but also knowing that if something happened and you got outside the fence you would just hang out and be cool. lol poor peacenik billygoat. do you even know what be cool means?

he DOES know what a schoolteachery shake of the finger means as all my animals do. by hook or by crook they've all figured out that is the oh, she's serious pose. amazing how once you've ridden billygoat bucking bronco style a few times that all it takes is a wag of the finger and a raised eyebrow.

his favorite carport treats during my "i thought i would be home from work hours ago" evenings are OH you left the dry dog food out, HMMM you left the bird seed out OR especially oh, my i do declare you've left the sunflower seeds out.

little does he know i leave stuff there on purpose. much more fun for him to think he's bedevilling me, i believe. and why take away an old b'goat's fun?

 

[picklespickles]

-------meet the girl goats----------


nanny goat has wise eyes and will grin at you from a block away. the most darling animal to me. the boss of the barnyard to everyone else. i've never had a goat love me, but i think this one might. or else she's figured out that i'm the one with money. not sure.

my neighbor a field away can hear her and will BAAAAAAAAA back if she's antsy about something. he is a sturdy merchant marine type and just the one to bray back at a goat across a field. he and his wife love her though and have actually let her inside their house. a man who covers everthing with plastic so no dust gets anywhere. she didnt' even poop on his carpet. maybe she knows he's a goat eater by national origin.

the teenager who i'm hoping will be a mama goat soon is the one who was attacked by dogs. by teenager, i don't mean real teenager but gum smacking teenager in spirit. odd that i'm hoping for a teen pregnancy here, but lol, she ain't human. since the dog attack, she has come back very very well. her one leg may always be slightly off but she can stampede with the best of them so i'm not worried about her. (well, okay, that's a lie, but you know what i mean.)

she has beautiful brown fur and wold make me some purty babies. if she ever does, and if i ever get a camera, maybe you'll get to see some pics. thank goodness boy goats don't know about protection. i am not sure he himself will make purty babies, sort of a brutish looking thing but with the most gentle eyes. so, with her looks and his gentleness.......

regardless, i will harvest some of his fur to make dolls with later on. oh, hey, i'm off work tomorrow. he prolly wouldn't miss a little spot. her fur is not really fur. more, um, short hair. and her mama, too, not really fur.

i have thought about if either of the girls die if i could make something with the skin. even like a small journal with a leather cover? i like to make handmade books. how funny that i would feel funny about eating them (well at least nanny goat) but would feel like it would be a nice tribute to turn them into a journal.

 

[picklespickles]

what does an asthmatic pickle look like carrying hay and digging mud holes? do you think my neighbors take bets on how long before i keel over?

wish i could blame it on smoking or some other fun bad habit.

one came down today though and put my mailbox on proper. i have tacked it back up so many times. as he said,,,,,,,only a redneck from texas would do it that way. lol. he gave me fig newtons while he was here so i didn't take the criticism too harshly.

mud hole is now at three feet. chickens love to explore the overturned dirt. went to go fill it up today, water frozen outside but not too bad. just a couple inches. and guess what. bubble in hose and it BURST. pow. sounded like a gun.

hey. a pickle just about passed out finishing up this hole and now her hose explodes so no water to the hole?

i'm thinking good thing that guy showed up just then with his fig newtons!

been dragging old tree stumps, slowly pushing up and over fence from field. useful for goats to jump on. espeically billy boy who has a big yard but still not as much as girls. so try to provide as much height in there for him to climb as possible.

 

[picklespickles]

oh. i need to officially say that the juvenile deliquent who had ruined my barn before i moved in is actually the same kid who now brought back my mail box when other juvenile (or adult) deliquents stole it over the holidays. so perhaps that relationship is being patched up a bit.

i love writing on this board and this thread. thanks for being interested in pickle's particularly problematic predicaments and the plethora of potential playmates who inhabit my yard. still trying to keep them out of the house.

 

[picklespickles]

this is my first day off in so long that things have really been going nicely.

i even had a beer and sat outisde with the billygoat and ifd. worked on teaching them today to take a walk down along to the big field where the ranch land starts. i'm only like maybe a third a block from there. so i walked them back and forth twice. billygoat butted teh first time. i had to sit on him several times. lol. i looked up and my neighbor was scratching his head working on his car looking out over the fields. i was so conenctrated on showing billy whose the boss girl so i didn't wind up with a hole somewhere unfortunate that i didnt' even notice.

then i heard EH eh EH. which is like his hellllooooooo. i looked up. lol. i think he was more amazed that i was WALKING a billygoat than he was that i was being butted. lol.

i attached the string from a hay bale to his collar.

the last time we practiced teh walk, i brought a stool with me. that time he was used to it and walked along nicely behind the fields just right. then i sat my stool down and he and ifd munched. i can see from miles from that space. mountains and fields and beautiful three sixty five view.

then the wind got cold, i hid the stool near a junked car so i don't have to carry it next time and we set off. billygoat and ifd jogged way ahead of me and seemed to have really fun. i sort of was figuring that they had both lived here long enough and were well fed enough that we could start going on walks over the fields and they would just scurry home.

they were about three minutes ahead of me. when i got to the turn behind my house, there was bilygoat eating in the field directly next to my house, three feet outisde my yard, in the exact place we stepped out of the yard. happy as pie.

so it worked wonderfully.

yeah. pickles can now walk the fields with her big strong billygoat and ifd to protect her. the chihuas had the offer to go on the walk but had to go back inside because of the cold. lol.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

Pickles, you are quite an interesting character, with or without your goat!!

 

[panner123]

I been thinking, maybe pickles could help me out in her spare time. I have a barn to build, fifteen arces to fence in and a couple more coops would help. And Pickles you don't need your hammer and paint brush. I have a nail gun and an airless sprayer. By the way for the post holes, we can use a two person gas powered one. The more we complain about the work we do, the more we know this is the life we LOVE. The person who will not care for their critters, is a person not worth a shot. Glad I can't spell at times.

Keep up the work good Pickles, for at the end of each day you can say, darn I did a good job on that. And feel good about yourself.

 

[picklespickles]

thanks i needed to read this waking up.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

Keep up the work good Pickles, for at the end of each day you can say, darn I did a good job on that. And feel good about yourself.

ditto that Panner, well said!!​

 

[picklespickles]

i am off tomorrow.

so,haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ha. yea.

well, i'm thinking of filling up every single water bucket ever.

i'm thinking of re tacking up part of the tarp for billy and dog. think it might snow tomorrow night. dog has learned to prance around top of fence so tends to pull tarp down on her way up. amazing that she doesn't jump out. she did it once, got in trouble and hasn't done it since. billy has learned that he can come outside the fence when i get home at night and carry groceries and still hasn't gone back to jumping on the car. (one of the main reasons his last owner said buh bye to him.)

must de chicken poop the porch tomorrow.

i'm tired. g'night