Now Bonnie is in with Speedy and Martha is in with Dolly. Lisa was trying to coax Martha into the barnyard. She never went in so she'll be sleeping alone out in the pasture tonight. She'll figure it out eventually.
We are well stocked in the llama department.
Lisa was shaking a feed bucket. Everyone was taking notice.
Andy came over to drop off the little trailer. Heather can lift square bales again so they won't be needing any round bales for a while. He played in the burn barrel with me.
Lisa and Andy were securing the hay on the rack with a ratchet strap. It fell over last week and killed Curly. He was Andy's big wether.
We got Bonnie moved into the pasture with Speedy. Tomorrow Paddy should be going to his new home. He hasn't been a pleasure to have around so he will not be missed.
We moved the hay ring back down to the bottom. It drains better down there. The 'mud' was getting deep up by the shed.
Nelson was showing us his pigs.
He's taking them to the meat packers next week and wants to sell one.
Their names are Pearl and Bacon.
The creek got way up into the bottom pasture. We call it the bottom pasture because it's in the creek bottom. It isn't that surprising when it floods after raining all day it just makes a mess.
Luna and Satin got their nails done while it was raining today. They got the hair on their feet trimmed too. Less hairy feet means they track in less mud.
Ally is getting big.
She gets to come out in the dog's yard.
She follows Lisa everywhere. They all do.
The girls know there is a sheep in their yard. They are sheepdogs after all.
She knew that was her bottle. We had left it sitting on the deck. She quickly lost interest.
She played with the extension cord for a few minutes. Everything is a sheep toy in Ally's world. She quickly lost interest. Lambs have short attention spans. In case you're wondering, that is a look of disgust on Piper's face. Satin is trying to decide if she can kill it without us noticing. Paris just wants it to go away.
It is a little hard to see the new gravel with the snow. The big gravel is behind the truck. The little stuff is next to the garage.
We got more snow this go around than the last one. It wasn't as windy and the snow was wetter so more of it stuck.
The girls got to play in the snow.
It was great fun barking and running in the snow.
The uphill sheep and Dolly stuck close to the barn in the snow storm. They don't like the rain or snow on their faces.
Lisa was feeding Ally and delivering warm water for the sheep. We fixed the water deicing issue today.
Ally's stall with heat lamp. She is doing well. She eats grain and hay plus her bottle.
We only got an inch of snow. It melted off the driveway quickly.
The downhill sheep have embraced their new run-in shed. It is a huge improvement with the side walls. No landscape murals yet.
The cattle are eating the hay with wild abandon. At the rate they're going we'll be lucky to make it through February. Let's hope they slow down some or it will be a hunt for hay come March.
I went down to lock Speedy in his catch pen. I was going to be working in his pasture and didn't care to have any surprises.
This is how we solved the deicing problem. Libby is still a mamma's girl.
Previously we had two tanks. One in each pasture with its own deicer. With Ally's heat lamp, the electrical circuit we would normally use wouldn't support the addition of the water tank deicer.
We had this 50 gallon low side tank so I cut the bottom fence board and leveled the ground so the tank straddles the fence. The vertical board next to the tank is embedded in the ground about six inches. Now the sheep can drink from both sides and we only need one deicer. Problem solved as long as Duane doesn't swim through it to get to the ewes in heat. At first I thought the frozen ground would be an issue. It turned out that I only needed to remove about two inches on the upper portion. The ground was only frozen about two inches down so the dirt chipped off in blocks of dirty mud ice at the perfect depth.
She rode in the truck on the floor between Lisa's legs. You can see her little pink vet wrap cast.
She wasn't supposed to get the cast off until next week but the vet thought she was doing exceptionally well.
She didn't mind the ride at all. It's warm and dry there and her mamma was near by.
She had a dog collar and leash. Luna wasn't using it.
We moved the hay and showed the sheep the new shelter.
They seemed to like it.
Carly trying to get into the hay ring.
Carly in the hay ring.
Lisa chasing Carly out of the hay ring. She just squeezes her little butt in there. A little poke with the stick and she squeezes it back out.
Lisa the cattle wrangler.
We moved the hay ring to the top of the hill next to the run in shed. I had to back up the driveway because the bales are quite heavy. I didn't want to tip over so it seemed safer this way.
This bale is a little lop sided. I think it caught on something when Nelson pulled it off the stack.
We started work on the side wind walls on the horse port. 4x4 posts and plywood siding.
There was a long line waiting to get into Southern Lights. We listened to Christmas carols and talked so it was fun.
Allen came to visit from New York.
They had no trouble locating the new hay. Well, that isn't entirely accurate. All of them except Harvey found it. Lisa had to go out on the 4 wheeler to lead Harvey over. He couldn't find the opening in the fence.
We finished one side today. There will be trim on the corners and wall ends to protect it but it is functional as is. I dropped the drill off the ladder and broke it so we didn't get finished with the other side. We had to go to Lowe's and buy a new drill. We did find one with the same type battery. We have four good batteries and two chargers now. Speedy has to wait in his catch pen when we are in the pasture. We moved it over next to the fence so we can close him in from the outside. He knocked Lisa down the other day and gave her some big bruises. He might be getting some long time outs for a while until he learns some manners.
