Ah, sweet quiet

Our mantra these days is "Simplify". To that end, we've decided to cut back on the critter count. The two donkeys, Jesse and Julia, needed a new home because they had to be kept off the green pastures lest they founder. Keeping them in a stall meant feeding them twice a day and hauling water from the creek. That certainly didn't make our lives any easier, so they had to go. They went home with a nice couple that needed companions for a young horse.

Now, if there's one creature that makes life harder for everyone, it is goats. Our herd was up to 14 adults and kids, which became a marauding tornado of destruction. They would get into anything, anywhere, anytime. They felt a particular need to follow us everywhere, which was endearing when we had three goats, but troublesome with 14. They also left little gumdrop sized presents all around the ranch, especially on the porches. We put an ad in the Missoulian and the response was overwhelming. We could have sold twice as many easily. We are now down to two milk goats and a kid. The kid could still sell, but if he doesn't then we'll probably eat him this fall. We're going to keep the two milk goats for foal emergencies, which means we'll be breeding them every year to keep them producing milk. However, I think we will make a habit of selling the kids.

With most of the prime troublemakers gone, it is actually quite peaceful up here.

New Rule: No Fun Allowed

Summertime is when we have the most visitors to the ranch. We have friends and family visiting almost continuously from May through August. Unfortunately, I still have to work, and since I telecommute, I'm in the middle of everyone else's vacation. Last summer we instituted a new rule, no one was allowed to have any fun in the house between 7AM and 4PM. It actually worked pretty well, because the weather cooperated. Who would want to be indoors when it is sunny and 75 outside?

This year has turned out to be a bigger challenge. We have had a lot more rain, and so all the outside projects get put on hold. It is actually a sore subject with me that people persist in having fun while I'm trying to work (read: not have fun). Needless to say, I am easily distracted these days. Add to this that our summer helper, Michal, arrived this week. She is going to be staying in the house, which means that her bedroom is in my office, or vice-versa, I don't know which.

What we decided to do about this is something I've been wanting to do for some time. We are moving my office over to the apartment above the garage. Over the weekend, I did the hardest part, which was to pull network wiring over there. This was my most ambitious wiring project to date, which involved pulling almost 200' of cat-5 through conduit, under the house, and up through two floors of the house and one floor in the garage. It went pretty well, all things considered. When I put the ends on the cable and plugged in a laptop, it worked the first time!!

That's all the progress we've made on the move so far, I'll keep you posted as my commute gets multiplied by a factor of 10.

Sleeping Throught the Night: Priceless

For those of you who haven't heard Christie tell stories about birthing foals, let me sum it up. She generally starts sleeping in the barn when the birth is near, and wakes up at every little noise, in case the birth has started without her. She goes days without a decent night's sleep, and when the foal is finally born, she just goes to bed. She's not neurotic, most births go on without a hitch, but once in a while there is a complication, and if someone is there to help, it is easy to solve.

Take Echo's baby this year. Echo had some trouble pushing the baby out, and Karen and Christie had to each grab a leg and pull. Even with help, it was a difficult delivery, and Echo had some tearing, which shouldn't happen. If Christie hadn't been there, we might have lost the foal, the mama or both.

This year, however, Christie didn't have to sleep in the barn. She didn't even set an alarm to check on Echo every couple hours. In fact, Echo wasn't even on our radar because her milk hadn't turned white. I won't lie to you, we're incredibly lucky, but luck isn't what saved that foal.

What saved the foal was Foal Alert. My mom gave us the money to buy a Foal Alert system this year, and it is already paying for itself. Christie was able to sleep through the night, and when the alarm went off, she was up, dressed, and out the door in less than 30 seconds! She found Echo laying in the pasture struggling to deliver and was able to assist immediately.

I know I sound like a commercial, and this won't help most of you (except maybe Mb ;), but you should check it out, and tell all your friends who raise horses, cattle, sheep, goats, or even llamas about it. This thing works, and works well. We had the vet install the first two on Mariah and Echo, but we've been doing it ourselves since then. Even for us rank amateurs, the procedure only takes about 30 minutes, and the peace of mind is priceless.

You know what gets my goat?

Apparently a candy necklace.

It all started because one of our guests has both a sweet tooth and a twisted sense of humor. She bought one of those candy necklaces with the idea that you could put it around one goat's neck and the other goats would mob it to eat the candy. Hilarity would ensue and a good time would be had by all.

Well, we picked Chico as our victim based on that fact that he is the most annoying goat and surely deserved such a prank. The joke was on us, however, the other goats completely ignored the yummy treat, even when we held it out for them to taste.

Fast forward to the next day, and Chico is still the most stylish goat with his new necklace. While sitting around the cook fire waiting to grill our steaks, I decided to see if he would eat the necklace. It wasn't quite as funny as we hoped, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

A former, ex-blogger speaks

I'm going to call this a monumental case of writer's block. Well, that isn't really true, I just got stuck on one story about Thanksgiving at the Ranch, and stopped writing. I should have just bagged on that story, and written others, but I did not. So, I became, as the months passed, an ex-blogger.

Now, I am a former, ex-blogger, or a former, former blogger, or an ex-ex-blogger. Take your pick, I think I'll go with re-blogger. Anyway, I'm back. I feel the need to make my voice heard. There are lots of stories to tell about the ranch, and Christie's blog only covers one perspective.

It is the beginning of birthing season at the ranch, and our friends, Karen & Aud are in town helping out. They were here last year about this time, and were present for at least 4 births! They are now honorary ranchers and will be assisting with more births any day now.

R.I.P. Lambie

Many of you have been introduced to Christie's Blog, but if you haven't, I encourage you to read it. The first story (a two-part story) tells how we lost our pet lamb. He was a sweet little guy, and he deserved better. We are trying to honor him by not letting his value as a food animal be wasted.

High Tech: 1, Mother Nature: 0

With all that wind on Friday, my satellite internet service wasn't working. I hoped it would clear up by Monday morning when I had to telecommute to Chicago again. Monday morning came around and the internet was still down. It was funny, because it seemed to lose its signal each time the wind blew really hard. I went out on the deck and eyeballed the dish's line of sight and noticed a tree was waving in front of it.

When we installed the dish, that tree was a good 3 feet to the right of the dish, but the high winds pushed the top of the tree over in front of it. I got the chainsaw and dropped the tree, letting the wind push it over right where I wanted it. It was about 40' tall and still had lots of greenery at the top. I hate cutting down a live tree when we have so many standing dead, but in this case technology had the trump card because if I can't connect to the internet I don't get paid.