I hate doing chores in the rain more than the cold, especially when it is raining sideways! I think the animals, especially the goats, hate it more too since they are fed outside and have to stand in the rain to eat. Goats do not like getting wet!
My goats love to eat our fir trees, in fact we have had to wrap chicken wire around all of the tree’s in their pasture to keep them from completely girdling them. So my plan on Christmas day was to take the pick-up and collect a few of the free left over Christmas trees. But the truck wouldn’t start.
So the following day I decided I could at least fit some branches or a small tree in the back of the van and drove into town to see if there were any free trees left. I drove by the Teen Challenge lot just as they were starting to tear it down. I asked for branches, which they gladly gave me and in the course of the conversation, I persuaded them to deliver the entire lot of left over trees to my house. So now I have several dozen Christmas trees piled up by the goat pastures. The goats seem to be enjoying the new found bounty, and the larger trees will be cut up to fire wood to donate after the goats strip them. (We don’t have a fireplace or wood stove.) Certainly a better use than just out right burning the lot of them!
Maggie & Matilda don’t seem to like the rain all that much either and have holed up in their shelter for a good portion of each day. Unfortunately the wind has blown the haystack tarp a bit and rain got into a corner of the haystack and several bales are moldy and completely ruined. I’m not sure yet of the extent of the damage, and with the high winds we are having untarping and retarping isn’t an option until the winds die down.
I’m going to have to start regularly supplementing their feed with alfalfa pellets, an expense that wasn’t in the budget! Ah well, that is the life of a “rancher” there are always unexpected expenses and unexpected joys too!
