Wednesday

After doing the morning routine of baking, cleaning and laundry, I headed to the chicken coop to check on my two new ladies I brought home yesterday. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase some moran chickens. They lay the most incredible dark eggs you have ever seen and I am so excited to get them. They seemed to be settling in quite nicely with little picking from the other girls. I fed and watered everyone and went to check on the garden. It seems to be very happy with the temperatures of late (30's/60's) and is growing quite nicely. I was pleasantly surprised by the spinach. I had thought our germination was really bad this year. I had a very spotty row but a lot seems to be coming up now. So I spent the next hour or so weeding.


Next on my list was feeding and tending the sheep and goats. This turned out to be not such a pleasant surprise. It seems we had our first fence break- ALREADY. Grrr. So the next hour was spent putting the fence back the best I could and separating all of the sheep. Most went back to their respective pens quite easily. However there is always one that refuses to cooperate and today was no different. One of my younger ewes didn't care to go back to her pasture. I went and got grain and put some on both sides of the fence close to the gate. I managed to capture her and was holding her between my knees with an ankle hooked through the gate and trying to open it at the same time. I thought I was loosing my balance but realized that the gate was being pushed wide open by my 250 pound alpine buck in an effort to reach the bucket that was sitting beside me. Over I went, in a very contorted position and landed with a huge thud in the lovely wet sheep dooky. Surrounded by eager hungry sheep I was afraid of being trampled and I scrambled up in a flash. At this point my pleasant mood was fading fast. Now I was covered poop AND smelled like a stinky billy goat. Yuck. Finally after several more attempts I was able to once again secure everyone. I finished feeding, gathered my eggs and hobbled to the house to take a shower, trying to decide what hurt worse my fanny or my pride. Just another day on the farm...