Monday, December 3, 2007

How's the Weather?

The rain has come to Washington. Tons and tons of rain, and snow, and wind! Now as a born and bred Washingtonian I should be used to all this rain. I know people that like the rain. But just about everything I like to do is outside. I hate the rain. I just don't have the hair for it. Picture yourself and everything you do, then picture yourself and everything you do with the sprinkler on. It is about this time of year I wonder why I have all these animals. We get in the "just maintain" mode. The goats won't leave their shelter so in between drips I just throw the hay in the rack. I went down yesterday when we happened to be having a snowstorm and found the goats, the llama and the neighbor's "free range" chickens that had free ranged themselves over to my place, all together in the stall. A gal I work with and I saw an article in the paper about a woman that rents out her goat herd to clear land. We thought, Hey we could do that, but then I started thinking about my goats in this kind of weather. I would have to be around to move the EZ up so they wouldn't get their heads wet. I also read the she stays in a trailer with her goats and I said, I'm out.
Ruckus and Moly are getting along so nicely now. It has to be all the solitary confinement during the rains. Kind of bonding in the trenches. I have been spending time with Ruckus, teaching him how to walk with his collar and to stand still. I intend to have a buck I can handle. I may not want to but that's beside the point.
I think the girls are losing weight. I have been only giving them a few kernels of grain, just enough to entice them to go where I want them to go. There is just no easier way to move a bunch of goats than by a coffee can of grain. Works with pigs, llamas, chickens and dogs too.
So, it's this time of year, with all this rain, a person starts to plan for spring and watch for the neighbor's forsythia to bloom.