Goats and Horses in Cahoots

We did some farm sitting for Elysian last week. She went to California to visit family for Christmas and asked us to take care of her animals. She has about 25 chickens, two goats, two horses, and a Shetland pony. Her system is very streamlined and efficient. Each of the feed containers is labeled with a cutout of the front of the feed bag stapled to the wall of the barn above it. All of the doors open and close with pulley and rope systems. The stock tanks all have heaters, and I only had to fill the chicken waterer every other day. And the hayloft has openings in the floor for the flakes of hay to drop through.

Elysian had attached two small stock tanks to the walls of the barn underneath the openings in the hayloft. Theoretically, the hay was supposed to fall down into the stock tanks. The first day, however, I discovered that the horses didn’t like that arrangement. They had pulled the stock tanks out of the ratchet straps holding them to the walls and arranged the tanks in the middle of the barn floor. This plan was endorsed by the goats. When I arrived, one goat was standing on top of one of the stock tanks—which was on its side—and the other goat was inside the stock tank rocking it back and forth.

I didn’t want the goats to hang themselves on the ratchet straps, which were still attached to the wall, so I removed them. I put the stock tanks back in place. That lasted exactly one day before they were again moved so the goats could play on them:

After that, I didn’t bother putting them back.

I don’t have a lot of experience with horses, but Brighton and Dixie (she’s Brighton’s mother) are fairly calm. Still, I thought it would be prudent to take carrots with me when I went to do chores. Brighton caught on right away. Every time I showed up, he would impatiently nose around the pockets of my barn coat to see if I had treats. Elysian says he is like a big puppy. I suspect he wonders why Carrot Lady didn’t bring him anything this morning.

I skipped yoga last week because I got plenty of flexibility exercise climbing up and down the ladder into the hayloft.

Many years ago, when we lived in Pennsylvania, I farm sat for a friend of mine who had a large flock of sheep. Her farm was just off the route I took to work every day, so I would stop in the morning and let the sheep out of the barn and feed them, and then stop on my way home to feed them again and put them back in the barn. She had a Lincoln ram named Tiger. Tiger was a sweetheart most of the year—he would come running up to the fence when he saw someone and put his nose up to be petted—but during mating season, he tended to be a bit aggressive. I carried the shepherd’s crook with me so I could bop him on the head if necessary. Tiger lived to a ripe old age (for sheep) and sired many beautiful lambs. He died of old age and now his pelt is on the floor of our bedroom.

We would have sheep here but the husband says that would be equivalent to putting up a neon sign saying, “DINER.”

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We’ve already had an eventful Saturday morning; a few minutes after I got up at 5:00 a.m., the pager went off for a structure fire. Nothing will get a firefighter out of bed faster than to hear those two words from dispatch. The husband was half-dressed by the time I got back upstairs to make sure he had heard the tones go off. He left to get the engine. I waited a few more minutes, then called the convenience store just off the highway to see if they could make up 15 sandwiches for us. Fortunately, it was not a large fire and they had it knocked down by the time I had picked up the sandwiches and delivered them to the scene.

We don’t respond to many structure fires. Our responses these days are mainly medical calls and things like motor vehicle accidents (and there are plenty of those, unfortunately).

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I finished the website for the construction company this week. It can be found here if you’d like to take a look. And if you know anyone who is planning to build in the Flathead Valley and needs a concrete contractor, please let them know. The schedule for 2020 is already starting to fill up.

The husband got the plywood up on the inside of the shop. It’s nice and toasty in there with just the floor heater. He also has the supports for the loft framed in.

I am curious to see how he arranges everything in the new shop. The old shop is very organized, but stuff is crammed into every available nook and cranny.