All sorts of excitement to report here today
Started the day with watering the garden. Followed by vacuuming the pool to waste. I think it is full of pollen. I had turned the pump off last night hoping some would settle to be vacuumed out. I just hate sending that much water out of the pool. By the time I was done the level was below the bottom of the skimmer. Had the hose in it for 5 hours, still need to add another inch or two of water.
Then time for lunch and forum reading.
Then I added a board to each side of the alpaca stand so they hopefully can't accidentally step off or intentionally kick me. Also put 3 cleats to the ramp, I don't think they felt they had traction on the grooved plastic mat last year. Of course they didn't have any desire to be on the stand AT ALL. Going to shear at least one tomorrow. Not really looking forward to that. While I was working on that Yue was in the nest box. She came out singing the egg song. Sorry Yue, you are an Ancona, you can't lay a green egg. Oh well, she tried. She is 6 years old after all. That makes her pretty old as layers go and she has been laying 1 or 2 a week this year.
Then I jacked up the GT on the lift, took off the "lawn" blades and cleaned the deck out. Put on the "field" blades. Mowed the perimeter of the fields. I saw a doe (the deer kind, not the rabbit or goat kind) about 100 yards from the north end of the NW field. She was in the tall stuff I wasn't near and watched me as I was going along the edge. Soon as I passed her position she took off north into the woods. Might have a baby in the tall grass somewhere. We've seen a doe and fawn at the edge of the woods.
After dinner, time for closing the barn. DW says she sees a teeny bunny near the small barn. Yep, I saw it as it ran into the bushes. Went outside expecting all the birds to be in bed and saw
Actually what I saw was all the juvenile delinquents on the outside of the gate, they ran through while I turned the camera on. This is the gate all the older girls come to and run their tin cups over the bars when I don't let them out to play around the house.
Left to right:
Welsummer, Golden Campine, Barred Rock, Campine, Barnevelder, Rock
This is Vienna, the friendly Rock
After I closed up the barn I heard something run through the bushes behind the little barn (the birds pictured were in the ~15' space between the barns) and saw
It isn't quite as teeny as DW said, I would guess it to be about half size. A couple of years ago the little ones we saw would fit in a tea cup.
Got some triple antibiotic on that, took off the halter and let him loose. DD1 stated she does NOT volunteer to help shear Laddie next year.
I wanted to put more ointment on it but of course he wouldn't let me touch him. So I tried to get a 10' rope around his neck. Um, nope, somehow he managed to get it wrapped twice around his neck and took off. After a few miles of walking around the pasture, filling in the partially dismantled old midline fence with sheep and goat field fence (conveniently left nearby from the fence work 1.5 years ago because it is HEAVY) and DW coming out we managed to get him to go up between the barns (front gate closed) and at least trapped. Long story slightly shorter I finally got him trapped next to the winter water thing just inside the barn and tied him to the non functional frost free spigot. At that point putting the ointment on was real easy. Wish they were smart enough to know I'm not going to kill them. I put his halter back on since I'm sure I'll need to put more ointment on. Not sure how I'll get a lead hooked to it though.
