3 inches of rain at the ranch (newsletter)

We started off the new year with a bang! THREE inches of rain in 24 hours and then a short bit of snow to end that storm!

So pretty! It had been 70 the day before so it didn't stick.

All that rain made our pond run over into its outflow pipe and create a little stream, I always love seeing that! Brad and Michael had gone out the evening before and deepened the stream bed a bit and that helped it not flood into the edge of the goat pasture too much.
My friend Lorrin lives in the Pacific Northwest and often posts this meme, now I get it :-/

Unfortunately the back pasture, right by the gate did this:
What a mess! We are thinking that we need to use the tractor to dig a ditch, line it with gravel, and put one of those holey pipes in it so we can divert the water downhill to the stream. For now, instead of feeling like swimming over to feed the horses, we feel like this during chores lol

Ahhh, the joys of living on a farm. It often feels like sunshine and roses to us but then every so often an annoyance pops up, like the mud or this:

What's Wynter doing you ask? Having hay soup apparently. I asked around on Facebook last month and decided on the Hay Chix brand of hay net feeders. We went with the 1.25" smaller holes so it would slow our little herd down and they could munch little bits all through the day and night, the way horses are intended to eat. These nets hold about a half a bale of hay each and are hung on an eye hook on a wood fence post or if it rains they are hung inside their shelter. Wynter somehow figured out that if he tossed the net into the air, sometimes the non-locking carabiner would release and the whole thing would fall to the ground...

Then he could drag it around the field and play with it like a toy. Lord. And then dunk it in the water and eat from it there.

Brad went to REI immediately and bought locking carabiners!

But Wynter keeps trying...

This week I finally decided on the most simple way to separate the girl goats for food. I just braided some baling twine, attached a double sided clip and ta-da! It took me 30 minutes and some serious wrangling to get them all attached and eating the first time, now it's about 5. Goats are so smart.
I've been feeding them as a group, dumping their grain into the feed pan at the bottom of the hay feeder and everyone jostles around for the food. It was okay when our goats were all around the same age. But now we have our old girl Snickers, she's 9.
She used to be the queen of the herd but Frick and Frack have taken over together. She just couldn't manage to keep her queendom!

Snickers was losing weight since she was being pushed around more so, MOMMY to the rescue! Now everyone gets what they are supposed to and Snickers gets MORE haha!

While I'm doing chores and figuring goat stuff out, I'm being watched over by my fluffy white angel dog. She keeps an eye on me and the world around us and makes sure we are all safe. It's a nice feeling:

Check out this strange little lichen I found on top of a fence post!

This week I created a new BABY GOAT design for the store:

I created this design from a picture I took at one of our goat yoga sessions in Colorado. This young woman was so taken with this little baby!

And finally I have a request! Should next week's design of goofy Snickers stay as is:

Or should it include a funny caption? If you caption this and I use it, I'll send you a free tee! Shoot me an email ([email protected]) with the subject: Caption the goat!

Hope you guys have a wonderful week!

Love to all from the Mother Ranch,

Julia

PS You can get prints of my artwork here!