An update

Alright, so a week and a bit later I've got lots to talk about. (This is getting to be a pretty cheesy blog site about my place but if you asked me in person how i'm doing and what's new, the first thing that comes to mind is agrarian stuff. I love my little farm. )
That darn goat is getting to be such a PAIN! All those goat-haters out there are probably laughing and saying I told you so, but I don't care. Mozzerella is supposed to be a teaching tool for me so that I can find out what goats do. Here's what they do: they get out. They focus all their care and attention on getting out and eating grain, or tulips, or the landlords small trees. grrr. So she lives in the chicken coop with chickens but early last week we noticed that she had butted her head against the door soooo many times that the door frame was giving just enough for her to slide through the gap. what a stinker! So we had to fix the door frame and get new locks for the door since the hooks that I had put on she figured out how to pop up and out. smart thing. So we put her in the middle of the barn. It's a big open area that we store the hay in. it was a huge mess last year but Mom W. and i cleaned the whole place out last summer so it's just big and and empty right now. We don't really want the animals there though because sure enough, they poop a lot! What a mess. Dan had planned on bringing his tools home for the weekend so that we could do some building stuff so we figured she could stay there for now. Well, by friday she had found the softest most rotten barn board to but her head against and had broken it right off at a knot! She got out of there too! I ended up putting her on the dogs lead tied to a tree for the next couple of days. That actually worked pretty good. We put her in the chicken coop at night and actually nailed the room shut. We fixed the door frame and put the new latches on so we'll see how that works. Here's my new problem: I like to open the chicken coop up during the day. I like having the chickens running around outside. It really saves on chicken feed. I don't think I've fed them in a week! Also, the ducks have started to use the chickens nest as their own next. They've got about 7 eggs laid right now and if I had the door open, I bet they would start sitting on the nest by the end of the week. I thought it was a brilliant place for them to nest since it's quite protected. The door is open during the day and at night I would have the mother and eggs/ducklings locked up. Besides the fact that its turning one of my chickens broody (she thinks its her nest still and lays her eggs on top of the duck eggs and then squawks and squawks when the ducks reclaim it) now that the door is safely locking up the goat, they can't get in. I'm sure when I get home this afternoon they will be right uptight trying to get in. One morning when I opened the coop the ducks were so impatient that they actually flew in through the doorway while the goat and chickens were coming out. I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to just tie the goat to the lead every morning but Dan (he get's really uptight about the animals) says that it's too long to keep her outside unattended. She does get herself tied up once in a while and has even gotten off once or twice. I still think it's the best way, though.
On Saturday, while the landlord was fixing up the roof of the house (birds were getting in and tearing out insulation to build a nest) Dan and I did our own building. We put a nesting box in the coop (to try to convince the chicken to lay her eggs there instead of in the duck nests), we fixed the door, and we built a compost out of beer store skids. It's a pretty good compost. Now i just have to fill it. I've got a pile beside it that has built up over the last year. I'm debating whether or not to just pitch fork the whole thing into the bin or to do it the way the books say, layering the material in the proper order for ideal and fast composting. That would just be a lot more work. The next project is a garden fence. With all the new poultry coming, I can't see how my garden is going to survive. Free range of the garden for 3 chickens worked amazingly last summer. They were just the right amount of chickens to get rid of the bugs but leave my plants be. Any more than 3 will be a pain though. So I bought one roll of chicken wire (i think I'll need 3 more) and have been scouring my property looking for the right fence posts. I've got lots of really big wooden fence posts around so I think I'll use them for the corners and then along the side I'll use those metal T posts. We have quite a few (7ish?) but I think I'm going to need twice that. I really don't want to go buy any because aren't they everywhere? Does anyone know where there's a good place to find those things laying around? Too bad Oma and Opa already sold their place. I bet there was tons of them there. I've got plants from mom and dad that have been sitting outside during the days and are looking like they really want out of the pots and into the ground. Dan has about 3/4 of the garden tilled (he actually likes the work) so I think that I might plant a few this week along with some lettuce and spinach (too early or late??). I found some plastic things in the garden shed meant to keep the frost from early plants so we'll see if they work.
That's it for now (not really, i still have more stories about accidentally eating duck eggs and a sighting of our lost duck but... no space or time). Enjoy the spring!!