Devonviolet Acres

@Devonviolet, home again, home again, dancing a jig. so tickled for you. glad things are done in dallas. i love the picture out your back window and the cats are so handsome. my lewis, the 20 yr old, is a maine coon cross. in his hey day he was just huge but after a scrape with a coyote and his advanced age he's kind of shrinking. again, congrats on the move and getting settled in.

Poor fella - he must've given that coyote a run for his money though if he came out alive!

@frustratedearthmother it was really pretty sad for him. the coyote tore the hamstring on his left rear leg so now that he walks with a decided limp and docked his tail by about 3 inches. i wasn't sure he would live thru it all but with a lot of determination on his part and a lot of tlc on my part he did ok. took him almost 2 months to go farther than the food bowl, the cat box and his bed but he did it. i dearly love that old sour puss

Aww! Poor baby!! If he's anything like my boy, he is a love sponge! Porter likes nothing more than sitting in my lap and getting loved on!

yup he's a big love bug, my daughter picked him up off the road on her way to my house, someone had tossed out him and him sibling, who had already been hit by a car and killed. he was so tiny that i let him sleep on my chest to stay warm so guess where he wants to sleep now. nothing like having a 18# cat under your chin. this was him last summer

goatgurl said:

yup he's a big love bug, my daughter picked him up off the road on her way to my house, someone had tossed out him and him sibling, who had already been hit by a car and killed. he was so tiny that i let him sleep on my chest to stay warm so guess where he wants to sleep now. nothing like having a 18# cat under your chin. this was him last summerView attachment 6574

Click to expand...

Oh My! What a beautiful boy! He is definitely a Maine Coon. What a pretty face!

My Porter likes to sleep on my chest too. If I sleep on my back, I wake up with him on my tummy.

Georgous sunrise! Welcome back to Texas!

Chivoville said:

Georgous sunrise! Welcome back to Texas!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Chivoville! Its good to be back!

I haven't been able to post lately, because when we moved we decided to try to keep internet costs down with a WiFi hotspot, on our Verizon plan, since cable internet isn't available way out in the country. Well, with having to pay for data by the gigabyte, it adds up very quickly.

Enter my DS who suggested Satellite internet. I looked up the company he suggested, and found the independent reviews, for customer service, to be less than desirable. So, I did some research, and found a satellite internet company, that is smaller, and had very good reviews.

A couple days before we had satellite internet installed, we had Direct TV installed. What a near disaster that turned out to be! The previous owner had DISH TV, so I figured they would just put a new dish a few feet away. NOT!!! The installer looked at the previous set up and said it was done without a ground and he couldn't install his dish on the house because there wasn't a ground for the house. I was incredulous that there wasn't, since the previous owner/builder went totally by the code book. The installer insisted that the best place to install the dish was on a 4' metal pole in the middle of the yard, next to the RV hookup (which DID have a ground), that the previous owner used when they were building the house. I was planning to move that oncer we get some of the more important work done.

DH okay'd the dish on a pole, since he was told there weren't any other options. WELL!!! When I saw where he was going to install the dish - right at FACE LEVEL, I ran out in the yard, and said that was unacceptable! He said, the ground was run directly from the light pole at the corner of the property. I said that's crazy! I couldn't believe that. So, DH suggested there was a ground on the AC. The installer said they weren't allowed to ground the dish to the AC. It turned out there was no ground on the AC after all. Then I looked at the wall and said, "what is that wire coming out of the house and going into the ground?" It turned out IT WAS A GROUND!!! DUH! It took a non-electrical person to show TWO men, who have a lot of experience working with electric, where the ground is! So, in the end, I got my dish on the roof. And then when the satellite internet guy came, there was no discussion about ground!

I'm used to unlimited internet, with cable TV. So, now on satellite internet, I am on limited, with more gigabytes (10GB - well, for six months I get 20GB, but don't want to start depending on that, so tell myself I have 10GB), than with the hot spot (3GB).

This evening has been a challenge, because every time I tried to get on BYH I would lose my internet connection. I even tried calling our Internet company. There was a problem with slow internet connection, but once she helped me fix that I could get on any website EXCEPT BYH!!!

I'm hoping this gets resolved soon, because I really miss getting on BYH. Although, I won't be able to get online as often as I used to.

We have been getting ready to bring our puppies home. Baby steps, none-the-less, but we are making progress.

Before we bring the puppies home, we need to bring our gift of wethers and laying hens home first. To do that we need fencing up.

After much discussion and realizing that we are running out of time, we decided we need to scale back on our plan to fence the sides of the property back into the woods a ways, for the goats to start clearing. DH has was really feeling the pressure to get all that fencing done, but it just wasn't realistic. So, we regrouped and decided to just extend the side of the existing fenced area, which is approximately 35X45', to include the loafing shed. Once it warms up in March, we can put some temporary electric fencing into the woods, so the goats can start browsing. Then we can start putting in the permanent fencing a section at a time.

So, last weekend we went to Tractor Supply and bought treated corner posts, t-posts and woven 2X4" woven wire. On Monday, we called a friend to help put in the corner posts and t-posts. T hat took most of the day.

Here is what they got done:


The placement of the loafing shed is not ideal, since when it rains a decent amount, water runs downhill creating a bit of a stream in front of the loafing shed. So we are working on burning the ground to divert water flow away from the shed.

The dirt floor inside the shed tends to get damp, and we want to keep the goats and dogs dry in there. So we decided to use some 1" pressure formed floor Underlayment, that we got out of the dumpster, from the house being built next door. There are a number of decent size scraps. So, we bought some treated landscape timbers and are using that as a frame to keep the Underlayment off the ground. Once that is cut to fit, we will screw the flooring to the frame, fill any cracks with caulk and seal,with polyurethane. I thought I had a couple photos, but will have to post them later.