Hectic Weekend

Saturday morning turned disastrous while yard-saling. We were backing up in the van to turn around and hit a fire hydrant. It smashed the left side of the rear bumper of my in-laws van. My wife was driving at the time. That is going to cost us $500 deductible. I didn’t even see the hydrant and I walked by it! It was located right by a drive way. It was painted Forrest green and has a white top. The concrete it was on was a light white and the grass in the yard was green. The city of West Burlington is smart I’ll tell you.

Later that day my wife drops her Blackberry in a puddle of water. It won’t turn on. We have insurance on it but it still cost us $50 bucks.

Sunday afternoon one of my pregnant goats starts bellowing. My wife tells me something is wrong with one of the goats. I run down the hill and she was lying on the ground feet uphill. I go over to her and she tries to get up but isn’t able. I see she has one of her hoof clef stuck in between a fork in a sapling. I free her hoof and check for breakage. I feel the clef joint pop back into place. She is walking on it gingerly.

My wife and I started putting up an electric fence around the parameter of the property. We drove in close to 30 steel tee posts with a driver.

Christine and her parents went into town to get a few things. Later I’d find out they picked up more fence posts.

While they were in town I cut every sapling down that could cause a problem for my goats. My back is sore from leaning over using a chainsaw for close to 2 hours cutting these saplings down. Seen poison ivy around the area and went in to take a shower. As I was getting ready to go in to shower Christine and parents came home.

I went in to shower in case I had gotten the poison ivy on me. I no sooner finish the shower and sit in the recliner and I hear Christine driving in fence posts. I get up and go out and help her drive the rest of the posts.

After that I go and do chores. I feed the goats. I check Peaches (the goat that fell) hoof. She is still limping on it. I can tell it is still tender. I put hay in their trough and check their water. The horses see me and start coming up thinking I’m going to feed them. They had already been fed a little earlier. I check their water and it is low. The owner of one of the horses sat over by the horses all day and didn’t even put water in the trough. So I had to do it. It is now 7:30 PM. I still have the chickens to feed.

After I finish feeding and watering the goats and horse I head over to the other barn where the chickens are. I have my rooster (5 of them) separated from my hens. I have one rooster that runs with the hens. {Note to self: I might change him out and let one of my younger rooster’s run with the hens, I think on it}.
All the hens follow me to the coop. I check the nest box and see one lousy egg. I have close to 20 hens and I see one egg. I go in the barn and see 3 eggs on the floor next to the hay bales. I shake my head in amazement. All the nest boxes (about 18 around the coop) they lay their eggs on the floor by the hay. I feed the hens and release the roosters back to the coop. Inside the coop it is a feeding frenzy, as always. I grab my eggs and head home. I finally relax and eat super at 8:00 PM.

What an expensive and hectic weekend.