There is a distinct chill in the air, reminding me that the lovely seasons are over and cold, wet, and windy weather is on the way. Because I have livestock, I spend quite a lot of time thinking about ways to make them more comfortable in the winter and to streamline their care. I've had a little idea tumbling around in my head, and yesterday Chris helped me put my plans into effect.
The main room in their cozy is 8'x12'. I asked Chris to put up a tall board along the floor, reducing their bedding area by about 4 feet. There were two reasons for this. The first was that limiting the bedding area meant that their shavings would be deeper and warmer. The second was that by doing this, I could move the hay bags to the end of the space away from where the shavings are, so that spilled hay will not mix with the shavings. When shavings, hay, and excrement mix, it gets heavy and difficult to move. By keeping the hay away from the bedding, I can easily sweep the spilled stuff up (goats do waste a lot of hay!) and make keeping their space clean easier. There is a saying, "goats poop where they eat." By slightly separating the eating area from the sleeping area, the bedding may stay cleaner and drier longer. We shall see.
The goats look very snuggly as they sleep in their new, abbreviated space. I'm so pleased to have this little idea of mine put into effect. (Thanks, Chris! You are the sweetest.)
Next up was a refresh. Many years ago, my sweet friend Chez sent me a marvelous gift. She bought a vintage silver-plated tray and painted the center with blackboard paint. I keep it in my kitchen and write a variety of messages on it. The paint has become worn from constant use. It looked like this:
Meanwhile, the final thing left to complete our wonderful deck project was to have some stones placed at the base of the stairs. The project is almost done, just a few minor finishing touches left. I am delighted. When the grass grows in around the edges, it will look even better. It is an attractive and safe place to land.
We recently had the field fence that separates the pasture from the back yard moved out, giving us more "living space." While we were at it, we removed the fence between the hen yard and the back yard. In an ideal world, the birds would stay out of the backyard, but they took the fence as a mere suggestion. Removing the fence made our space look nicer, and it will make mowing and navigating in and out in bad weather more manageable. The problem was that the lovely little rock wall in front of the coop looked chopped off once the fence was moved. More stones were brought in to extend it a bit, and one huge flat one to merge from the human area to the bird area. It looks magical. I'm going to plant some daffodils around the rocks, and it will look oh so sweet in the spring.
The flower beds are all cleaned up, the last lawn mowing done, and now it is time to turn inward, both figuratively and literally. As the days grow shorter, we can take a bit of time to rest, but I also plan to tackle some indoor projects. The kitchen cabinets need to be cleaned and organized before the "cooking holidays" are here, and the basement? Oof. It needs some help.
We have managed to have a lot of "little" (and BIG!) projects taken care of this year, and I am tickled with all of them.
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