Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Four Little Words

There are four little words that my hubby hates to hear.
I need another pen.
He, over the years, has built many an animal enclosure. We have gotten fairly good at it. Since we are cheap and like the idea of reusing things people throw out we have had to get pretty creative. Him and I in a constant battle. He wants to just do it as fast as he can and me wanting it to look nice too. We have, in spite of ourselves, come up with a few very cute shelters to keep everyone warm and dry.
Here is one that houses the llama and a few goats. You can't really see it in the picture but he cut out a metal horse and hung it above the gate. This use to house my son's pony, hence the horse art.

Well, I am in need of another pen. I need a bachelor pad for Ruckus and Moly. I want to keep my buck in a nice welcoming pen befitting the king of the farm. And Moly needs a place where he can relax. I believe every animal needs to feel comfortable in his home and the other goats just won't leave poor Moly alone. So we have started the discussion of where to put it. My husband, who has never been around a buck for any length of time, chose the corner closest to the neighbor, who I might add is a lawyer. After pointing out this is not the best place to put our odorous pet I suggested an area much farther away from the city folk. He quickly told me that wouldn't work for him because he really didn't want to smell him either. Go figure. We compromised on an area between the two. It will be sunny in the summer and sheltered in the winter and has two great stumps for playing goat games. The neighbors should only get a passing whiff if we are lucky. Hey, they are the ones that moved to the country.
I am hoping to get started this weekend so I'm getting my husband primed for a long weekend of building. My only competition is a new shotgun and the desire to go pheasant hunting east of the mountains.

5 comments:

Danni said...

I'm impressed - that's a beautiful pony/goat/llama/chicken pen. Where'd you get those posts? Are they old telephone/power poles? Does your husband possibly hire out? :-) Perhaps a nice (working) vacation to rainy, gray Oregon would entice him? (ha ha). I know my husband is handy (he calls it middle-aged man wisdom), but I'm anxious to see what the animal structures we are going to build together will look like!

Marigold said...

Thank you for the tin snips/hoof trimmer picture. The goatmother is now on a quest. Perhaps the lawyer will actually like the 'boys'. I, myself, have a lawyer who reads my musings...of course he is in CA and doesn't have to smell anything. :)

goatgirl said...

farmgirldk, Did I mention my hubby HATES to build my little pens. So that would be a no.......unless you move to Hawaii:)

Marigold, If he is reading your musings he is a nice lawyer. We have a lawyer lawyer.......if you know what I mean. Do goats know about such things?
Tell the goatmother to go to Sears at the Tacoma Mall and look in the dollar bins in the tool department. That is where she will find my beloved snips. Did I mention they were only 6 dollars?

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Goat girl, have you tried those snips on your llama yet? We have two llamas, one gelding who looks like your Koo, actually.
I recently had to trim the male llamas' nails with hoof nippers bought through Useful Llama, and although they were plenty sharp, they were also difficult to squeeze down. Maybe I'm not strong enough yet.

My gelding acted like I was killing him though. So much so that our neighbor's 3 horses stopped and stared at us the entire time. Probably wondering if they were next! hehe

Love the critter shelter, too. We are in the planning stage for building our own separate goat/llama shelter within the next few months. The current barn is going to house some new horses, if all the planets align!

I'm enjoying your Blog, too! Discovered it through farm girl's Blog.

Lisa
at Laughing Orca Ranch
in NM

goatgirl said...

Twinville, I haven't used them on the llama yet but will try them soon then let you know. I use the horse nippers on him.
Glad you enjoy my little corner of the world.