Twisted Fern Farm

Monday, January 13, 2014

Pent Up Energy!

So, I took the goaties on the WF hike today. It's been rainy and yucky and they've been all cooped up and need some fresh air and exercise... and to blow out the cobwebs... feisty little critters!

Here, they are distracted by the last patch of decent berry leaves and for the most part are well behaved.

Had to throw in a pretty picture of Shane. King of the rotten stump is almost the tallest goat now. He will soon have no competition for the high branches.

And let the feisty out nnnnnnnnow! Turns out the walk didn't burn enough energy and the fight begins with Willow and Huckleberry...

And ends with Lucy! Does anyone really want to tangle with her? NO! I have several very blurry action pics but, these speak for them enough. A few slams from the herd queen and everyone is quiet.

I guess its over now. So nice of them to trot right into their pen.

(psst, check out the shop! Guess what landed there? snigger snigger)

We have 4 major drainage's on our property and we've had a hard time naming them. I'm fondly naming them WF's, short for Water Falls: WF1, WF2, WF3 and WF4, in order north to south. WF1 trickles year round and makes great ice when it freezes but, it never flows more than a trickle. Pictured above is WF2, if it rains it has water in it. If the snow melts, it has water in it.

WF2 has the longest lasting berry patch of the season at its base. Here you will find the goaties munching until spring. Once spring hits this berry patch will grow so big they won't be able to stand where the are in the photo.

This is WF3 and it flows nearly year round. It has a fun pond at its base and some day we're going to build a trail to it with a fun cable bridge across it.

This is WF4 and it also only flows with heavy rain and snow melt. It does trickle most of the year but, it is only spectacular when full.

I waded through the wet ferns up the hill to get a close up of WF3. If you look at the first photo of it you can barely make out that it splits in two around a tree at the top. I tried to get closer to take a picture of it but the goats started to panic. They won't cross the creek to follow me and they get weird if I get too far away. Oh well, next time.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Birds Eye View Or Rat Bird? Everyone wins!

Remember, Pepper's favorite perch is in the goat barn on the railing. This is fine when the humans don't bother her early in the morning and after the dark. See, chickens keep different hours than goats. Chickens tuck themselves in about an hour and a half before dark and hop off the perch at daylight the next day.

Its very disruptive to Pepper when we flip the lights on at O'darkthirty in the morning to milk/feed and she has to fly away outside... especially if its raining and nasty. She is, again, put out of place when we come in for evening pet and turn out the lights time.

Having put up with quite enough commotion, she flew across Little Barn and up into the hay mow. Yes, its hard to imagine a chicken doing that but, she did.

And there she perched in peace looking down and keeping watch from above.

In the morning I did annoy her a little coming up the stairs to get hay/alfalfa but, she didn't mind too much because she didn't have to escape outside into the nasty, windy, rainy weather.