We're HOT and Wormed!

Good number of occurrences this last week. First, unfortunately, the injured goat did not make it. She held on for a night and two days. We buried her up from the field, but not right next to the poor cat we lost to a car this winter. Yes. Apparently, our pet cemeteries are segregated. The goat also did not get a cross as a grave marker. At least not yet. Once Faith realizes, though, the goat may have one, too.

Secondly -- after much frustration and bemoaning -- we FINALLY got a working electric fence. The details of the whole ordeal are too long to go thru here. Let just say Jonathan spent many, many hours grounding and un-grounding (weed-wacking) and grounding more. I even took a trip to the tractor supply store and got a mini-lesson in electrified fences and solar powered charger. In the end, a great neighbor who's lending his electric and a super - duper new charger got us in business. The puppy tried it out. (oops!) It works. Jonathan -thankfully- put it on a switch so whenever we are around with kids we can turn it off.

This Saturday we then got to the down and dirty. First, we cleaned out the old (cow) milking shed that had been transformed into a hunting cabin (yeah, huh?) and turned it into a goat shelter. Well, its almost a goat shelter. The beds, bedding, microwave, coffee maker, table, chair, etc have been removed. There is still the stove (with a massive mouse nest in it) and a few other things that did not fit in the truckload to the dump. Then some straw and the goats will have some shelter from the weather this winter.

The final accomplishment: worming... a.k.a. goat rodeo. Actually most of the goats were fairly easy to give the worm medicine. In fact, I think a few kind of liked it. There were about four who really were not interested. Thanks to a couple of friends who have goats (and brought their goat catching agility skills with them) they all got wormed. We think. We're pretty sure. Mostly I just want the one with the bad poops to get better.

The saga continued today, though. On goat count, we were down by one. I counted to 18 probably ten times. There weren't any lying down or hiding in the shed that I could see. I question my counting skills... but am hoping that one was just out of sight...I'll go back in the morning and check and count again. (Jonathan is out of town for a few days, I'm on goat duty by myself!!) Stay tuned.