If I'm remembering correctly, the upcoming winter will be our fourth here at the little farm house. Our first winter, the year of the failed rocket mass heater, was cold. The second winter was warm on the inside, thanks to our factory made wood stove, but the water pipes under the house froze more than once. Last winter, we put straw bales all around the foundation of the house to block the breeze from entering the cracks in the stone foundation, and the pipes never froze. But then in the spring, we had a huge messy job moving water logged straw.
Brandon was determined that this was the year he would fix the gaps in the house foundation. Using a concrete mix plus some white gooey stuff, to make it more flexible, he patiently crawled around the entire house and troweled it into all the gaps.
It took several workdays, and multiple sore back muscles, but he finished the job! It's bound to help, right? Plus, he's plugged up many of the snake and mouse access points.
The house foundation isn't the only project he's been working. He tackled one of the jobs the goats and I have been hoping for, which is to add enough fences to allow the goats into the overgrown fence line adjacent to the small back pasture. The old fence line has a woven wire fence that is tangled with vines, shrubs, and small trees. By connecting the side of the small pasture to this old fence, it allows the goats to browse all those leaves. In just a few days they devoured so much of the tangle of vegetation that they identified some week spots in the old fence.
Nibs also figure out that the old fence has perfectly sized holes for him to get his horned head stuck! If you've ever tried to push on a goats head, then you know that they instinctively push back. Trying to push a young goat back through a fence is nearly impossible, but now I know the trick. If I put my hand under his chin and lift up, he's helpless to resist. He's strong neck muscles only work one way, and it's easy to make him lift his chin and then maneuver his horns back through the fence. It's a good thing this old fence is in the shade, because he's been stuck multiple times and had to wait for help. He's been stuck enough times that he doesn't even cry now, he just stands or lies there calmly and chews his cud.
Brandon has poison ivy all over from patching holes in the fence as the goats find them and escape. When I came home from work to find all the boy goats (except Nibs, who was stuck!) roaming the yard with their bellies so stuffed that there sides were distended, and I told Brandon that they found another hole, he said with exasperation, "I don't even like goats!" What!?! Ha!
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