Snow Storm!

It was nice to be all cuddled up in the new kitchen during the first big snow storm of the year!

Mike plowed the driveway a couple times through the day to keep up with the snow.

Here are some photos of the house & yard after the storm... we got around 30 inches!

The side field

The barn

Behind the barn

The picking garden is totally covered!
(I had taken the fountain in last week)

The goats liked playing in the snow too!

New Goat Climber

While we were waiting for the kitchen renovation to get started, Mike decided to do a little project for the goats... a larger climbing structure for them!

All of the materials were things we had out in the workshop from previous projects! 

The goats are loving it- lounging up top to soak in the rays, or underneath when they want shade.

Happy October!

Look what's growing in the goat yard....

Can you believe that's a big pumpkin vine?  And if you look inside...

There are 8 of them growing!

We often throw extra veggies in the goat pen for a treat.  

We must have tossed some pumpkins back there last fall!  

I'm happy the goats haven't treated it as a buffet!

We picked them over the weekend and have decorated around the yard...
-2 on the fence posts of the driveway leading to the barn
-1 by the back driveway entrance, on our sign post
-2 on the stone wall at the entrance to my picking garden
-3 on the front porch

A Little Thunderstorm?!?

Last Monday I came home after work to find the baby goats loose in the driveway... uh-oh, that's not good!

Turns out there was a 15 minute thunderstorm that wreaked havoc on our yard- we lost a total of 5 trees (almost as bad as Hurricane Sandy!  But thankfully, this time we only lost power for 1 day!)

A big walnut tree that was in the goat yard completely uprooted.  Thank goodness the goats (and chickens) weren't hurt, and it didn't fall on the barn.

But it did take down the fence...

Our older goat stayed in the yard, but the little guys thought it was party time & climbed the tree right over the fence!

Then I turned around and saw half a pine tree had gone down across the back driveway entrance...

That one broke two sections of the white picket fence.  

(Luckily it just fell short of the bigger privacy fence!)

After checking the rest of the property, we found three more trees down in the back.  

Happily, two of those fell onto the brush pile anyway! 

<looking for a silver lining>

Just when we thought we had the yard in pretty good shape... 

(we had literally just been saying this on Sunday!)  

Our biggest concern that night was finding a place to put the goats.  We moved their stuff over to the horse barn, and put them in one of the stalls.  They were NOT happy (they didn't have free access to the outside from there) but at least they were safe.

Each afternoon, we let the goats out for "play time", while Mike was cutting up the tree & fixing the goat yard fence.  Definitely not how we had planned to spend our evenings last week!

Next we tackled the tree across the driveway.  I didn't realize how much we used both driveway entrances until this one was blocked!

The rest of the trees are going to take a while, but at least the most disruptive stuff is cleaned up!

Got our Goats!

Today was the big day- our baby goats (introduced here) were ready to come home!

We brought them home... the leashes/collars are way still big, but we figured they'd give us a little control!

They were introduced to our old goat... luckily he doesn't seem to mind them too much!

Showed them into their new yard... they were kind of intrigued by their neighbors!

 The boys played with them all day, to make sure they were doing okay...

They are so funny how the prance & jump around!

They seem to be happy, and are steering pretty clear of our old goat.  

Which I think is a good thing, while they get to know each other!

The New Kids!

Just a quick post to introduce our new kids!

We had decided that we would get 2 little Dwarf Nigerian Goats to keep our older goat company, and for our boys to raise them from kids.

We went to the farm last weekend to pick them out!

From the moment we entered the goat yard, 

this guy started following our oldest son all around!

The owner said he loves attention...

Then we went to the second goat yard and our youngest fell in love with this guy...

We won't be able to bring them home until June 

(they have to be at least 8 weeks old).

The boys are so excited & are picking out names.  

I have a feeling the names will change a few times between now & when they come home... so I'll wait until they're moved in to announce their official names!

The indignity of it!

A Monday morning smile...

The hens are ruling the roost!

Coop Reveal

The painting is done!

BEFORE

We decided to go with a solid color stain, rather than paint.  Hopefully the stain will just fade, as opposed to chipping like the paint would.


We matched the original color as best we could, although the original looks rather pink since it's so faded!  
We'll get around to painting the other sides eventually!



The kids were excited that I was actually letting them do the painting!  Since it was just the side of the barn,  I wasn't worried about it looking "perfect".


It turned out to be lots of fun, & the boys are very proud of their work!





While we did the painting, Mike finished making the new chicken door:

And ramps for the chickens to enter & exit.

Waiting for the ramps to dry

Door from the inside

We're also making progress on the inside, though there's still more to do:

Buck got a little punky- he couldn't resist rubbing up against the painted wall.  

Here's where we are on the To Do list:
-Fix rotting sill and chicken entrance- DONE!
-Replace some insulation- DONE!
-Replace siding- DONE!
-Paint new siding- DONE!
-Replace fencing
-Add a fenced top to the chicken yard
-Scrub down the inside
-Make door for goats
-Make door for chickens- DONE!

Fun for Goats

Right after we moved in, one of the wooden spools that the goats liked to climb onto collapsed.  So, we've been on the lookout for another one (if anyone has any leads, please let me know!)

In the meantime, my mom saw this video on youtube and asked why our goats don't do that... um, let's just say our goats are more "mature" than those little kids!  But it got us thinking- with all of the trees Mike is cutting down, we could make a climber for the goats out of some logs.

Here's what Mike came up with:

The goats scraped/chewed all of the bark off the logs!  But, they wouldn't climb up on top of it.

So, we decided to cut the top flat...

Now I catch Buck up there every day!
The only problem is that every time I approach to get photo, both goats run over to greet me.

So I have a bunch like this:

But I'm glad Buck's liking it.

However, it looks like Tink isn't convinced yet- I guess she likes to keep her hooves on the ground!



Update:  I FINALLY got a photo of Buck sitting up there.  It was the first of the warm days (spring on the way!) and he wasn't moving for ANYTHING!