Favorite kind of day...

It was an excellent sort of day, in many ways. First, when I woke up I was a little chilly. We had a fan in the  window, and it was blowing cool, dry,  slightly crisp air into the room. It felt invigorating. I did my regular chores, and then tackled a few projects.

I got the goatie girls up on the milk stand, and trimmed their hooves. I put fly repellent on them, wormed them, and gave them each a huge capsule the vet had left for me called a copper bolus. This consists of copper shavings crammed into a gel cap. The fragments of copper lodge in the goats stomach and are slowly absorbed. Copper is an important nutrient and this helps keep my girls healthy. Bliss gobbled hers down in the cookie I disguised it in. Spirit was more suspicious, but I prevailed in the end.

That task completed, I moved on to cleaning the Silky chickens coop.

This is sort of a fun project. The coop is so darn cute, as are the inhabitants. Since it is small, I have to do a little stooping, reaching and contorting, but the job does not take long. And when it's done, it looks so nice.

While I worked the Silky's pottered about the yard, and enjoyed the sun.

Chris joined me outside, and sweetly offered to help me clean the goat cozy and donkey dorm. It's so much easier when we do it together. I clean out the low roofed goat room, tossing the soiled shavings into the donkey dorm, and Chris fills the barrow and hauls it away.  I swept down a lot of cobwebs... I can't ever keep up with them.

The shed needed some repairs, and we've been putting them off.  Today Chris gamely suggested we tackle them. The animals had been rubbing on one wall, and had actually pushed the bottom of it out about six inches off the foundation.  Chris got it back in alignment, and then put some long screws in to hold things in place.  Next he hauled up one of the three heavy rubber mats that make up the floor of the shed. These things are awkward to move, and weigh much more than you might expect.  When we had rabbits, and some got loose, they dug holes under one side of the shed. One of the rubber mats went from being flat and even to dipping down low on one side where the rabbits had excavated.  This made it very tricky to clean.  So Chris moved the mat, and then we filled the holes the bad bunnies had dug with sand. He made everything smooth with the back of a rake, and then wrestled the mat back.  There were a couple loose boards he screwed back into place, and he took down the two hay racks that have always hung on the walls. After Bliss got her head stuck in one this spring, I decided they had to go. I'll come up with a safer plan this winter.

Having crossed many things off the "to do" list, we took a break to enjoy the lovely day and have a little lunch.  Chris grilled some hot dogs and we enjoyed being in our pretty yard at our well-loved picnic table. One of our fun neighbor kids dropped by.

Chris got him an ice cream sandwich and we chatted. He is headed out for a trip with his grand parents. Chris reached into his wallet and handed him $10.  "A guy needs a little walking around money when he goes on an adventure," he told him.  My heart swelled. I married the nicest man. And I got to spend an entire day with him, working side by side.

The cherry on the cake of my day was when, this evening, we got to witness Abraham and Jezebel (pictured here) playing.  I think that because she lived without another donkey for most of her life, Jezebel seems confused by the concept of play. But tonight she and Abraham nipped and kicked and reared and bucked. It wasn't as wild and rough as when he and Sarah romp, but it was a good start.

We shared supper at picnic table, too, and sat outside until after the sun went down. As darkness settled over our quiet little corner of the world, we felt glad. Happy to be together, and pleased to have gotten many chores taken care of. This was my favorite kind of day.