New Fence

We made progress on Jip's new area/the chickens' new area. We're so close to finishing! Darkness falls so quickly these days...

Step one was to put up the fence between the corner of the shed and corner of garage. The trampoline is on the outside so the chickens can still use it. The goats are sad they can't lounge on top anymore.

Jaron hung out in the stroller so both G and I could have the use of both hands. He enjoyed watching all the animals doing their thing. 

Inside the shed got some revamping too. We turned the duck corner into Jip's corner using pieces of a giant dog kennel my aunt and uncle gave us. His area needs a bit more work, so I'll share pictures once that's finished. 

The chickens got new roosting branches.  I took literal branches from the wood pile outside and set them carefully on top of an old planter and a stump so they would be off the ground. The planter and stump are doing double duty as nesting boxes. 

G thought the roosts should be up higher. I wasn't opposed to that; the low branches could make collecting eggs tricky. He screwed them into each other and the wall.

 

When night fell, we collected all of our chickens and put them in the shed so they'd roost there. You could tell they were already out of their comfort zone from all the changes we made. 

The birds that roosted on top of the door weren't able to because we took away their milking stand step stool. The birds who roost on the trampoline tried to roost there, but with winter coming I wanted them to start a new habit of roosting in the shed, so we caught/herded them inside too. 

The tree branches were too slippery for most of the chickens to settle on. I wrapped twine around them in the hopes that it would make the branches less slippery. I might need to wrap the twine even closer together; I didn't see anyone try roosting on them post twine. We shut the lights off to force the birds to settle in. 

I thought about making the ducks hunker down in a new place since they won't be able to use their current space when Jip takes it over, but we decided to give them one more night in their favorite haunt.

Subbing Screwup and Jip On the Loose

I was supposed to sub at Mount Olive today for one of the sixth grade teachers. Normally she emails me ahead of time with her lesson plans, but I didn't get anything from her this time. I chalked it up to me being a veteran sub in her classroom or figured she had a student teacher who would be teaching most of the day.

So, I was a little surprised when I arrived at school and found her at her desk in her classroom (with a student teacher... I was right!). Turns out, she only needed a sub for an hour and a half in the afternoon. Turns out, her student teacher is teaching the majority of the day and would be teaching for that hour and a half. Turns out, she is having a different teacher pop in to check on the student teacher so she won't need a sub at all. Turns out, she told the principal this on Monday. Somehow I slipped through the cracks! 

So, I went home and G went to work. Just as well, Jaron is teething again and has been very clingy/crabby. 

Also just as well I'm around home because over lunch, Jip broke free of his tether. 

We knew this day was coming. Just last night, G and I were talking about what to do about his rusting tether. Jip likes to chew on it, which cuts holes in the plastic coating letting water trickle onto the metal. Of course that rusts, and now it rusted to a breaking point. 

Thankfully, I noticed right away. Jeff seemed more interested in seeing what was going on in the neighborhood then bothering our animals. In fact the ducks looked pretty relaxed.

But it was only a matter of time before Jip lost interest in the goings on of people and turned to his flighty co-inhabitants. I put a barrier up at the end of the chicken area to prevent him from being loose in the front yard, closed the gate at the other end of the duck area to prevent him from getting with the goats, and locked Jip inside. 

Our gimpy chicken was the only chicken on Jip's side of the fence now. Jip had been very well behaved throughout this process, chasing the animals a little but listening to me when I called him over. This one chicken was too much for him to resist though... He went after him and cornered him in the fence. I was able to rescue the chicken and herded him through the chicken door before blockading all poultry-shaped openings with cinder blocks. 

So far Jip has stayed in and the birds have stayed out. Whew! 

But, we need a long-term solution. A dog run for Jip has been on our to do list for months. We've put it off because we planned to revamp the whole shed and adjust our chicken/duck area at the same time; winter was our deadline (so he could have a protected place in the warm shed). That deadline just got moved up!

I came up with a couple of fencing options: 

Plan A-

Plan B- 

Plan C- 

I think Plan C is the winner! Jip has his own space, but we can let him roam in one of the paddocks during the day. The goats and poultry can have the other one until they learn to coexist. And everyone has access to the warm barn.

End of an Era

Seven goats is too many. Too many for our pasture and too many to overwinter. 

We haven't had any luck selling Cocoa (the buck), Blackie (the whether), and Svetlana (the mama) via Facebook or Craigslist. 

Sale barn prices have been good, so we opted to bring them to Jackson. 

We went back and forth about taking Svetlana so many times. She is the best looking goat we have, but she is a bully and tends to hog the food / push all the other goats out of the way. She had triplets and raise them all without supplement, but if any goat is going to find a way out of the pasture it's her. 

To complicate matters, Freya, one of our new goats, died. G went out to the shed and there she was, curled up peacefully. No clue why she died. You can have a vet come do a necropsy, but those are expensive. 

Our best guess is that she got parasite overload or acidosis, which can happen from overeating on grain. I think it's more likely that it was parasites.

The goats have been eating pumpkin which is a natural dewormer. I read online that if they get dewormed but it's not strong enough to wipe out all of the parasites, only the weak parasites die, leaving space for the stronger parasites to take over. This can cause a sudden death when the strong parasites fill those gaps.

So, to sell Svetlana or not? In the end we decided that we want to have nice, non-mischievous goats in our herd, and we settled on taking her. 

G brought the work van home and we loaded them up in our doghouse and dog kennel. It works surprisingly well. 😆 

We gave them a few garden scraps to keep them content on the way. 

Of course, this week's sale barn prices were not as high as past weeks. But that's the game you play with the sale barn. We both wondered if hunting opener played a role in the lower prices. 

Now we are left with three goats: Gerda, Sage, and Brighita. The goats are already jostling for the position of new boss goat. I had wondered if Brighita would take over for her mom, but it appears as if Sage is going for the title. Gerta is attempting, but I think Sage will win out in the end.

Fall Cleanup

Jaron and I bundled up to do some cleanup outside before the snow flies. 

The chickens and goats coexist quite well. Don't seem to bother each other at all!

This chicken found a new roost. Used to be on top of the milking stand, now it's higher up- on top of the shed door. 

G brought home a ton of pumpkins for our animals (leftover from the garden center!) and tossed them out of the truck any which way since it was late and dark.  

I rolled and carried them to the compost pile so if we don't feed them to the animals, at least they decompose in an acceptable location. 

Our oldest hen, Dixie, has laid low recently. I haven't seen her out and about with the others, she looks pretty scraggly, and we haven't gotten any green eggs in a while, so G and I checked her out. I thought she was sick, maybe a fungus/ringworm type thing growing on her face. Nope. She's just molting. 😆

All those tough looking feathers are actually new feathers that haven't fluffed out yet. There's a thin casing around them that will work off eventually. 

And once the molting is finished, she'll start laying again!
 

Last Garden Haul

Over the weekend freezing temps were expected, so after my day of subbing on Friday, I did a last sweep of the garden for everything I thought would freeze. The cabbages filled the wagon, but a lot of it is air space from the leaves. The actual heads are pretty small, and a lot of the pieces will end up going to the goats.

Calendula, still going strong even through frost! I clipped them at the base so I could go through and collect the flower buds later.

Our celery didn't amount to much this year (right). Good supply of oregano (left). 

I spread the oregano out to dry on an old screen. As you can see, we finally dug our garlic. 🤦‍♀️ Better harvest than last year, still not as big of heads as I'd like. 

I collected some carrot tops and lettuce/greens. Most of those were too leggy for us to eat, but the goats enjoyed them! The carrots are left in the ground. They'll be okay in there until the ground freezes. Surprisingly, the remaining tops are still green, even after a night in the 20s!

The brussel sprouts had just begun to form on their stalks. I had planned to shave them off for us to eat, but they were so small G didn't notice them and he fed them to the goats before I could process them.

We actually got a couple of teeny broccoli! 

I'm about ready to give up trying to grow them. They have gone leggy on me both years I've grown them. One more year. I'll research over winter for broccoli growing tips. 

Subbing in Fifth

Today was my second day subbing, same school as before, different classroom. The classroom I was in has a student teacher who did most of the teaching today, so I felt a bit superfluous. Their regular teacher stayed until 10:00 a.m., which let me spend the morning with Jaron. My father-in-law took him when I needed to leave so G could stay at work for the morning. The whole transition among us went very well! 

The only lesson I taught today was reading. I got to read aloud a few chapters of their class book and then we went over a few pre-selected questions together. Otherwise I sat in the back of the classroom while the student teacher taught and occasionally step in for discipline.

I knew ahead of time that a student teacher would be covering most of the classes today, so I came prepared. I got Jaron's birthday thank you notes written. I altered a few 12-month onesies for him. And I started reading a library book that needs to go back pretty soon. G brought Jaron to school over the lunch hour so I could nurse him. Everyone was thrilled to see Jaron again! 

What to do with Green Tomatoes?

Normally, I would let my green tomatoes ripen on the counter, but a lot of these tomatoes were damaged by the frost so they needed to be worked with right away.

I found two recipes I wanted to try, and I had enough tomatoes to be able to make both! Both recipes called for roasting of the tomatoes, so I cut them up and put them on a pan and cook them in the oven.

Afterwards, I separated them into two containers and put them in the fridge until I had time to make the recipes.

Recipe #1 is for green tomato soup.

Recipe #2 is for green tomato salsa verde.