Usual Stuff

Steve moved the chickens to new pasture. Quite  a contrast where they had been (foreground). I will plant something like buckwheat which is a quick growing cover crop, bee attractor, and food crop for the chickens. 

Meanwhile the goat brothers were tethered out for their daily browse. Waldo is cuious about the tractor.

Henry got right down to eating.  

Though I didnt get a picture, I used this time to take each goat and lay them across my lap for some hoof trimming.  Using  a cup of grain as an attention diverter, I was able to cut back the overgrowth on their hooves. Goats' native landscape is rocky, which naturally wears down their hooves.  Without that normal wear and tear, hooves have to be trimmed down or  the hoof wall can start growing inward, and they can get pockets of dirt in there, which can then cause certain hoof diseases and lameness.   Once these guys get bigger, I think I will have to use  stanchion to hold them, but for now, a wiggly baby goat straddled across my lap is doable.

Goat sympathy

steve brought out the camp cot so I could sit out in the sunshine and watch the goat brothers while keeping my knee elevated after surgery.  Little Henry made sure the cot was strong enough as he watched me hobble up on crutches

Then he decided to curl up beside me - a little goat sympathy I think.  

The goats and Marley, our German Shepherd, seem to be just fine together. Marley seems to take a motherly interest in them, even licking their little faces. The goaties were at first not quite sure about the dog, but now seem to understand she means them no harm. Our neighbor's dog is a  little bit worrisome, and has to be watched closely around the goats.  The goats are definitely not as comfortable in his presence.  Hopefully everyone can learn to co-exist peacefully.  

Pouring the Foundation

It was impressive watching the foundation guys build some cusom forms in order to work around the existing stone foundation of the old garage.

Who Dat?

I found this little guy on the celery this morning.  Looking it up,  I identified him as the caterpilar of the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly. Evidently, they are more often found on members of the parsley family, or wild carrots, such as Queen Anne's Lace. Maybe this one was just a little confused.  

This photo came from www.kuse.medford.k12.wi.us

Goodbye George

I finally finished with the paint in the TV room, also called the "George Washington room".  This is because when we bought the house, this room had very old wallpaper, stained and falling off from previous water damage. The sellers had started removing the old wallpaper on one wall.  And under that wallpaper was maybe original paint, and the old plaster walls had been patched where cracks, etc. had been. One of those patches looked exactly like the classic profile of George Washington ;  you know, the one  in the portrait that you see all the time.

good ol' George

Can you see George above the TV?

its sort of like seeing the image of the Virgin Mary in your grilled cheese sandwich. We hated to have to paint over it.  We would have friends over, and just point to the wall, and say, "notice anything?"... and they would say, "You mean George Washington?"  So,  it was with just a little bit of sadness that we finally re-painted and said goodbye to George.
Well, not THAT much sadness.... gosh, this room has looked so awful, and took a ton of work to even get it ready to paint.  It has been a mix of a couple of colors of old paint, chipped, cracked walls and ceiling, stained, peeling wallpaper, and a few splotches of exploratory colors the previous owners had tried in a few places.  

I keep telling myself that we need to take "before" photos, so the "after" is more impressive.  But, I never remember to do that.
So, here is  the "after" at least.

House Painting

We are finally getting the house painted.  I was not a big fan of the yellow, even though it is a traditional color for a farmhouse of this vintage.  We had originally planned to paint all the trim an off white, but after tallying up just HOW MUCH trim there is, we decided that white looks just fine!  it just needs touching up in a few places.

The new color!

Steve does the high ladder work, I do the ground level work.
Who will do the middle?

The old Chicken Coop is also getting   facelift.   

Barn Foundation

The concrete guy came today, and in about three hours flat, set up the forms for the concrete frost wall for the barn. They poure three sides of it. 

yes, of course the geese were over-seeing the whole project.

forms in place

pouring concrete

they just make me laugh

I discovered the fence makes  dandy clothesline