It sure looks different out there! Next year when the grass comes up and everything is growing and cleaned up, it's going to be beautiful. The goats won't know what to do out there! It's so much more open and easier to walk through, it's amazing. I signed up for a couple more acres for me to do this fall after I get done with the cashmere.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with the cashmere dehairing! I only have about a week left and I'll have all of mine done finally. It's been a long, slow process, but it sure is rewarding. I love working with the cashmere! Now if I could just figure out a way to actually make a living doing it, I'd be set. :-)
One of the low points of the summer was when i had to put Henry down. He was the first kid born on the place back when I first got into goats. He got into the helper's chicken and rabbit feed and ate way too much. They wouldn't admit that he and four others got into the feed, just said they ate the tomato and strawberry plants they had. I had to ask a couple of times if there was anything else the goats ate before they admitted it. By then it was too late for Henry. He ate the most and got really sick. I put him out of his misery and hauled his body up to the pass for the scavengers to eat. The other four survived with a good dose of baking soda. One of my helpxers had just got here an hour earlier, so he got quite a first impression of the place! Shooting a goat and hauling it off all before he even got to move into the camper. :-) He was fine with it all, and was a great help with the thinning. I don't think it would have been done on time without his help. Now we can get new batteries! A slightly larger battery bank is next. That will be nice not to have to run the generator every day the sun doesn't shine! The old batteries are pretty well shot. I should only have to run the generator every few days this winter after the new batteries are installed. I'll be able to run the dehairing machine a little more, too. Although I should be all done with dehairing cashmere for the year by the middle of October.
The garden is doing well this year. The bottle baby trio has managed to get in there a few times, so there are some pruned apple trees, and broccoli plants. They have left the green beans alone so far, so I'm getting a good amount of them. Last year the deer got all of them, so I am quite happy this year to be able to eat beans fresh out of the garden. Last night a deer got in there at 3 am. Thank heavens Sam barked at her! Nellie is worthless when it comes to deer, she ignores them and they have the run of the place. I got out there and chased her out before she did too much damage. She did stretch and disfigure the upper wire fencing as she was trying to jump out. 8 feet was just too high for her, so she almost broke through the wire, fell back down into the garden, then ran behind the greenhouse and ducked under the high fencing by the woodshed, crashed through the woodshed and out into the driveway, snort/whistled, and ran off. I hope she doesn't come back anytime soon. I'm not sure how she got in to begin with. I think she must've crawled through where Nellie does, at the gate! Dang beast. She fit through a little one foot wide gap in the gate that is tied with a wire half-way down, so she must have literally crawled through there. Why she has to come in here when there are much easier pickings out in the forest is beyond me. I do hope she got scared enough last night to not venture in again. I closed the gate more, too, now, so she can't come in. Nellie can't come and go, either, so I don't know how this will work.
Well, that's all for now.
