This is Skippy, the mostly worthless-as-a-livestock guardian dog. One day he might be able to be trusted around the goats and poultry, but not now. He's slowly getting better, but I still can't trust him to not chase or attack. We put up a poly tape electric fence along the top of the field fence. I'm going to change that over to electric wire, that tape doesn't work very well. It's old, got it from a friend who had it for years, and that was a few years ago that I got it. It kinda works, but the snow weighted it down and it's touching the fence in a few places, so I will switch it out to regular fence wire. Before the snow it worked ok, Skippy got shocked by it, so he doesn't try to go over the fence now. The deer have been shocked, but they still jump over it into the paddock and yard area. They have knocked it down a couple of times, too. Dang beasts.
An 8 ft elk fence would be ideal to put up around at least the driveway and yard area to keep the deer out and Skippy in. Ideally around the entire perimeter of our place. Then there would be plenty of food for the goats to eat. It's amazing how much a deer can eat. A lot more than a goat, that's for sure. I would guess that a deer eats as much as 4 goats do. We have a herd of them that comes in just about every night. between 3 and 5 does, and 2 different bucks visit. I got a picture of one of the bucks just about to touch the electric fence. I should've kept it instead of deleting it. He must've moved pretty fast after touching it, because there were no more pictures of him that night.
We had our first snow on Sunday and Sunday night. Got 6 1/2 inches! It's still here but slowly melting. It's supposed to be sunny and in the 40s the next few days, so hopefully it will all go away. I still have 40 miles to ride on my bike to achieve my goal for this year! I'll do that in two rides. The garden was still producing quite a bit of food. The zucchini plants were still blooming, there were strawberries still ripening, and a few blackberries still to ripen. Got all the carrots, apples, onions and leeks harvested before the snow came. I spent the afternoon chopping and freezing the leeks. I ordered 20lbs of pears from Azure that I will get tomorrow. I'll freeze most of them, too.
The pullets have started laying eggs now! There are nine of them, I get one little egg every other day. So far there are 7 eggs in the fridge.
I have made some progress on my weaving project finally. It's only been on the loom since May. I don't get much weaving or spinning done in the summer, too many outside things to do. I might get this project done by the end of the month.
We got new phones this last week. I am learning all the finer points of this new phone. It sure is a pain having to change phones. I like things changing in my life for the most part, except for computers and phones. It takes me a while to figure out the new ones. My old phone was fine, even though I was being told by most people that it was time for an upgrade. I had no major issues with it. Although I am noticing this phone is a lot faster than the other one. Maybe a new phone is a good thing. :-)
Well, that's it for this week. I am making a good effort to write once a week here now. Every Tuesday is the plan. Have a good rest of the week, hope the weather is not too bad where you are. I see there are storms in various places in this country and around the world. Humanity is undergoing major changes and so is our planet. Turbulent times ahead! But we can make it through this and what is on the other end of this is going to be wonderful. Hang in there everyone!