Farm news

Our new farm is progressing! The old barn we're dismantling and moving is starting to look like a frame. All of the siding is removed from the long addition, and the stalls and feeders are gone from the main floor. The milking parlor is currently being dismantled. RNB bought some special tool to remove the standing seam roofing. We had hoped to sell the metal roofing material but maybe it won't be so useful because we have to cut it to remove it.

Despite the humungous wind storm in this area recently, we had no damage to buildings! Phew! Yes, road clearning activity was required (50+ trees down across the class 6 road and the driveway) and who knows what the woods look like now. Plenty of firewood, that's for sure.

Locally, where we still live, Brownie had kids yesterday morning. Triplets! They were doing well but one got fatally clobbered by a goose. Wrong place at the wrong time, poor little thing. I cried. And moved the doe and her surviving bucklings to a stall for a few days. The geese are sitting on eggs and have proven they are to be avoided. Unfortunately, one nest is in a goat house, so future conflict is a really possibility. I'll wait till these cute little ones are larger and stronger before they are put back in the goat pen.

Cows are well. Sheep are well. Horses are well. The drizzley rainy weather of late is helping the fields green up nicely! Waiting for the asparagus to come -- that's always the first harvest, and usually abundant beyond what we can use. Family, neighbors, and the freezer will receive some of our asparagus. Chickens are laying, guineas are out in the fields, maybe eating the earliest ticks? We have been adopted by a third barn cat who is quite keen on the local rodent population so he is welcome here.

Sofia continues to improve though still limping. She limps going uphill more than downhill, and there is a little heat just at the back of her pastern on that one foot. No raised temperature anymore. I wish I understood biomechanics enough to determine just what was injured based on how she moves. It's enough for me to study her limp to develop confidence about recognizing hind foot lameness. Front lameness has been easy, using the phrase: head down, foot sound. Not quite so clear with the hind sound or lame foot, from my attempts to see this and recognize a pattern. I suppose I could google it and learn from someone else's discoveries!