Merry Christmas Everyone!

Farm Update

I was at my neighbor, Doug's house at 7:00 this morning. He lives a mile further up the road from us. We were loading his 4 goats into the car to bring to my house. His place is under attack by bears - a mother and 3 cubs. Luckily they only got his 4 turkeys and 12 laying hens, not any goats. But they have been there a couple of times and tore off the roof to his chicken pen and broke through a window. His remaining layers and a hen turkey are now also residing here as well.
The damage the bears did are making me rethink the security of my barns. The main difference is that Doug's property is in the trees and backs up against a mountain park. So he is at the interface with bear country. This is where we are luck, being in a meadow.
Hope the bears go into hibernation soon!

Garlic

Not a bad garlic harvest considering it was all volunteer. Had too much happening last fall when I should have planted my garlic.

Catching up with the farm

As always there are about a hundred projects to work on during the summer on the farm. I pretty much spend the summer working on things to get ready for winter. It is the goal to have everything more efficiently setup, so that winter chores are easier.
Here are some of the projects completed.

  Real gate to the 3 stall chicken house.

 

Real gate to another chicken house.

 Remodeled chicken house to make it a two story condo. Roosts are up above. Food, water and nesting boxes are on the lower level. Still need to add better hinges to the door.

Real gate to the goat pen. Previously I've just had pieces of fencing panels wired to a post. These gates are on hinges, with a kick plate on the bottom to keep them at least sort of above the snow.

Inside of the new goat barn. It needs some cracks filled in and paint on the outside, but otherwise it is ready fro winter.

More walls

Accomplished a lot on the barn the last couple of days, even in the rain!
If all goes smoothly today, it will be totally closed in.

 Not real pretty, as we are using up all the scraps. Trying to make this as cheaply as possible. It will look better with some paint.

 Large double doors for easy clean out. I'm getting smarter about this!

Dutch door, allows for opening just the bottom half for the goats. Helps keep the weather out.

The roof is on!

Slow progress with the new goat barn, but yesterday we got the roof on and the windows and doors framed in.

Another barn raising

Needing to build another barn this summer. With the help of my community of women, it is getting done.
We put up the last rafter just as the thunderstorm rolled in.

I'm not a conventional builder. My barns are eclectic and funky, but they are sturdy and weather -proof.

After the storm rolled through, we were able to put up some wall boards.