Back to "Normal"

Wilmer is now at a new host home, having been discharged from Shriners Hospital yesterday. My week-long residency is finished. It was a lot of fun & helps pay the hay bill. I am planning on concentrating this week on getting back to my regular routine which is actually not much of a routine but at least it is on my own time schedule!

Right now we only have partial electrical service to the barn so we are waiting for Duke Power to send a repair crew. Fortunately, the electricity to the electric fencing runs off a different line so the livestock should be staying home for the night. Most are quite cautious around the electric fence but if one animal proves to the others that the fence is not charged quite a few will decide to stray away. After the week-long power outage with the big ice storm a few years ago, we bought a generator for future electric fence emergencies. We are usually okay in the house without power because of the two fireplaces & a good sense of humor. Wandering livestock, however, is not funny.

Mike Rogers, our favorite feed supplier, had some "interesting" feed on sale today. It is a nice sweet feed mixed with citrus pulp. Al bought a ton of it in 50 pound bags. I didn't realize what it was but the citrus aroma was obvious in the very first bag I opened. The goats took only an instant to decide they were willing to try it after an initial suspicious sniff. It was even more attractive when the chickens & sheep decided they wanted to try it also.

Pig Update: Al & Eric worked much of the day on a new pig enclosure. The pigs love to dig so they will have two newly fenced pastures to work on soon. That way, when they make too much of a muddy mess out of one, they can simply be moved next door until the original pasture recovers. We've done this before & it cuts down on what a lot of people perceive as pig mess.