happyy fridayThankfully, we’re coming up on the weekend. It seems to have taken a while to get here. We’re gearing up for a great couple of days. Not sure what they’ll hold, but I know they will be wonderful! This may be a rather short post tonight, I’m starting a bit later than normal. I made the mistake of going to the store, after work, on a Friday, at the beginning of the month, during the first full week of school. All those things – I think – combined to create the perfect shopping storm. So, I was a bit late getting home today. I’ll just give a quick run down of our last two days and call it macaroni.

feet03Thursday morning we worked a bit more on the orchard. We are still creating the wells around each tree site. This is ending up being a bit more labor intensive than we initially anticipated. There are so many rocks in the soil – and they are not small (we think they move in when we’re not looking) – it takes a while to clear the space. Plus, the orchard is on a slope and so we end up moving a great deal of dirt to make the wells, well, wells that will do their job. I’ve mentioned this before, but I do believe this is an important part of the  process. It’s just taking us longer than we thought, and we need some recovery time after we’ve worked out there. Every couple of days we’re good, but then we need to work on something else. Eventually I’ll have a photo of this to publish, but I just haven’t taken one that seems to work. It’ll come.

leantoThis morning, we took a day off from the orchard and worked on shoring up the sleeping platform for the goats, and finishing the lean-to on the goats’ shed. Sue had built a platform, with a ramp, for the two babes when they first got here. It works great and they love to get up there, but they are so rambunctious that their antics have shown us we needed to stabilize the platform a bit more. So Sue cut some braces and she screwed them on to the legs this morning, while I acted as the goat bouncer and kept them out of her hair.  Once that was completed, we finished the roof on the lean-to. Part of it had been burned in the Monument Fire and we had to take it down for safety. We had partially fixed it by putting up new beams and cross pieces, but had one more 2×4 to get screwed into place and add two more corrugated tin roofing panels.  Well – here you can see that it’s all completed now. It provides a nice sheltered area from the sun and now their water will stay cool as well. We’re thinking we might create a small chicken coop in the back for the Four Hens and Vicente – so they have a more permanent home. Chickens and Goats can live peacefully together, or so we’ve heard. Just something that we’re kicking around. If that happens, you know we’ll share the adventure with you! Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: It was nicely cool this morning.  In the low 80’s while we were working. Then, while I was at work, Sue said they had a huge down pour, with a lightning storm right overhead. Looks like it gave us a really good soaking. The rain gauge is reading .45″ today. Not bad. Our high was 89°. Currently (8:34 pm) it’s 76° and we’re at 63% humidity. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be sunny with a high of 96°, overnight low expected at 66°. Sunset was at 7:12 and sunrise tomorrow is at 5:37.

Egg Report: Thursday – zero goose,  1 duck, 25 chicken.  Friday – zero goose, 0 duck, 21 chicken.

banty babiesHere’s your cuteness for today.  Can you find the two heads that are peeking out from under mama’s wings? It’s a bit dark, but if you look hard, you can see them. There are six chicks in all.  Happy weekend everyone!