Ghetto Fence

Jason and I have had this need to take on difficult tasks lately. We have been attempting - unsuccessfully to date - to move Sparky the donkey. We'll have more on the donkey (mis)adventures later. For anyone who missed that bit of fun you can find the donkey moving post here with an update here. 

We decided to take a breather from failed attempts at relocating Sparky and turned our attention to fence building instead. The World's Cutest Fainting Goats are also going to need to send out their change of address cards soon. They are waiting on us to build them a new paddock with goat worthy fencing. Board fencing won't contain a goat so they need wire fencing. I have learned that working with wire is a lot more difficult than working with wood. For starters a roll of sheep and goat wire is heavy, think 300 pounds. I quit before things even got started because I told Jason I was not going to repeatedly help maneuver ridiculously heavy rolls of fence wire. I happily handed my torch over to Bryan and he and Jason have been building the goat paddock this week. 

Things didn't get off to a great start. They unrolled some wire and attempted to stretch it tight with a crow bar. The wire got nailed onto a few sections of wood fence. I have to say it looked awful, and yes I did voice my opinion aloud. No one threw rotten tomatoes at me but the expressions indicated that it was under serious consideration. 

Jason did however step back and evaluate their initial stretch of wire fencing. After staring at it for a few minutes he announced that it did, indeed, look like poop (he actually used a different word).  His solution was they were going to cut off that section of the fence there, place the gate in the next two sections, and then start over again. I said "instead of trying to redo it and make it look decent you're just going to stop, hang the gate in the next couple of sections, and then just try again?"  Jason responded in the affirmative.

Jason announcing his plans to just stop, put in a gate, then start over. 

"The gate will go right here"

Thanks to Bryan they borrowed a wire stretcher for the rest of the wire. I have to say the next several sections of wire look quite nice.  Things started going downhill again once they ran out of existing wood fence to work with.  The post hole digger we have for the tractor is a very contrary thing and is fond of digging crooked holes. Jason wasn't too keen on hand digging every hole. So he decided to only dig a few holes to concrete in wooden posts and the rest of the posts would be t-posts.

I mentioned that it would be a lot harder to stretch the wire tight without all of the posts being wood posts. Jason's response to that was to go purchase a bunch of panels instead of using more rolled fence wire. That did solve the problem of the wire not being stretched tight. However now we have this one line of fence where the fencing materials don't match. When they were done I told Jason it looked like poop.
I am now referring to the fence as the Ghetto Fence because we have mismatched sections, sections that aren't stretched tight, and in general it just looks all ghetto. It just does. We have miles and miles and miles of gorgeous fence, and then we have this.  We have not yet broken the news to the World's Cutest Fainting Goats that their accommodations are not quite up to their usual standards. They will find out at some point in the not so distant future anyway.

Jason announced that he and Bryan were going to go into the fence building business together. He said they would be J&B Fence Company. His slogan was "J&B Fence Company, you will only hire us once!"  I cannot disagree with that. Who says there is never truth in advertising?

 Look at that mismatched fence. It took some serious fence building skills to produce such fine work.

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Oskar

O'Reilly and Merlin

Sebastian and Johnny

Elfin and Grand

Silky

Cuff Links and Calimba

Hemi found a nice resting place for his head on Thomas

Sam

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . .

. . . a baby stroller!!  A baby stroller is not an uncommon site to the horses at our farm. We often have Carter in his stroller and push him up and down the driveway when we are working around the farm. It is pretty rare that the horses so much as flick an ear when the stroller goes by. They certainly don't stop grazing or lift their heads to watch.

A few days ago the response to the stroller was much more than a simple ear flick. All of the horses came up to the fence and stood stock still, staring hard, ears pricked as far forward as they could go. I'm sure you are wondering what changed?  Instead of Carter being pushed in the stroller he decided he wanted to walk and push the stroller himself. 

According to the horses there was nothing right about this, nothing at all. It is fine for the toddler to be in the stroller being pushed up and down the driveway, but it was not fine for the stroller to be empty while the toddler pushed it along the driveway.  Carter and his stroller garnered a lot of attention at every pasture he passed. I thought it was funny that this slight change in strolling arrangements was the cause of so much concern and staring from the horses. Below are a few pictures of some of the intense staring that occurred as the empty stroller, pushed by the toddler, strolled by.

Silver, Donneur and Lofty on full alert

Faune and Flyer watching the stroller intently

Lotus, Romeo and Gibson keeping an eye on things

Murphy, Dutch, Wiz and Renny seem to be saying "something has changed. Something isn't right about this."

Fabrizzio and Walden saying "what the heck? Why isn't the child in the stroller?"

Noble, Slinky and Lucky felt they needed to come get a closer view of things

Sunday Stills

Flyer and Gibson

Cocomo and Lofty

Griselle and Miracle

Johnny and Sebastian doing some sunrise grazing

Calimba and Cuff Links

Traveller, Cinnamon, MyLight and Lily waiting for breakfast

two grooming sessions at once; Hemi and Thomas & Moe and Levendi

Donovan napping, Johnny grazing

Murphy, Wiz and Dutch coming for breakfast

Donkey (mis)Adventures Continue

As you read in our last post Sparky the donkey has made it known that he does not wish to change addresses.  We did put him in the dry lot with water and hay in the open trailer. After almost 30 hours Sparky had opted not to drink or eat anything. Jason and I were getting really worried, so we broke down and gave him water from a bucket. He is so darn stubborn that we were genuinely worried that he would rather not drink and suffer the consequences than do anything against his wishes. Yes, Sparky really is that stubborn.

We've continued to work with Sparky, and have spent hours feeding him cookies and treats at the trailer. He still hasn't put a single, solitary hoof in the trailer. However he does seem to be thinking about things a lot. For those of you who haven't lived with a donkey they are thinkers, and take their time thinking things over (understatement of the year). I am hopeful that he is mulling over his decision to get on the trailer as he is lonely and unhappy with his current circumstances.  

We're also thinking about switching from our step-up stock trailer to my horse trailer with a ramp. The stock trailer feels much roomier inside since it is a stock trailer, but the ramp on my horse trailer might be useful. If Sparky decides to say "eff all of you" again and lay down there is at least the possibility that we could push him up the ramp. Like Sparky Jason and I are mulling over all of our options. So I guess the update is their is a lot of thinking going on from all involved parties! We'll be back with another update in a couple of days.

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Donneur and Lofty

Silver

Flyer

Johnny

Bergie and Oskar

Toldeo napping

Stormy and Clayton

George and Romeo waiting for breakfast

Asterik

Traveller, Cinnamon and Lily doing some early morning grazing

Group roll: Alex and B-Rad are already in process and Darby is getting ready to join them

Rocky and Clayton

Donkey (mis)Adventures

Yesterday was supposed to be a big day for Sparky the donkey. He was finally going to make the move from my parents' farm to our farm. Sparky is the last of the equids to make the move, and he had waited his turn for quite awhile. My dearly departed Dad purchased Sparky at a gas station one fateful morning. My dad had stopped at his usual place a few miles from his farm for a cup of coffee. As he left he noticed a stock trailer in the parking area so he wandered over to have a look inside. When he peered inside the trailer he saw Sparky looking back at him. 

As he was talking to Sparky the driver of the rig came out and walked back to his truck. My Dad asked if that was his donkey in the trailer. The man answered yes, but that he was hopeful he would only own Sparky for a few more hours. He was taking Sparky to a cattle auction barn and hoping they would let him drop him off. Anyone who knew my Dad would not be surprised by what came next. He offered to purchase Sparky and told the guy he had a farm just a few miles away. The guy agreed to sell Sparky to him, and my dad purchased Sparky for an "undisclosed amount." 

My parents were leaving that morning on a trip out of the country. Apparently my dad instructed the man with his newly purchased donkey to drive around for awhile before delivering Sparky. My parents left on their trip, and a few hours later I came to the farm. Imagine my surprise as I drove up the driveway and saw a donkey standing in my parents' front yard. I called the neighboring farms asking if anyone was  missing a donkey. No one was missing a donkey. Not knowing what to do with the donkey in their front yard I called my parents in England at 2am and made the announcement to my mom that their was a donkey in their front yard, and what should I do?  My dad got on the phone and informed both me and my mom that he had purchased the donkey that morning on his way out of town to keep it from going to an auction.  I was told to make sure the donkey made it to a pasture and had everything he needed. 

That fateful day was almost 17 years ago. Thus it should have come as no surprise to us that Sparky was quite settled in his surroundings after almost two decades. He had all of the furniture arranged just the way he wanted it, he knew where everything was, and all was ok. So why would he want to move?

Well he didn't want to move so he declined to get on the trailer even though his best buddy was already in there.  We had tried ahead of time desensitizing him to the trailer. Obviously that didn't work. Sparky is very agreeable about most things in life. Two of his big exceptions are needles (every spring I post pictures of Sparky dragging the vet, Jason and a few extra handlers around as we try to vaccinate him) and small doorways. Sparky does not like small gates or doors. 

First we tried being patient, letting him check things out, just standing around like it was no big deal. We tried his favorite cookies, we tried carrots and grain, and he would get up to the edge of the trailer and that was it. We tried pulling him forward with the leadrope, we tried pushing him from behind, Jason finally got behind him with the tractor and tried to push him in that way. Sparky's tactic to prevent that from working was to simply lay down on the ground. Talk about giving us the finger - or the hoof.  In case you are wondering it is damn near impossible to do anything with a donkey that is laying down on the ground.  I felt like we were living out a used car commercial - you know for the "push it, pull it or drag it in" promotions they always have about trading in used cars. Except instead of trying to push, pull or drag our car to a car lot we were trying to push, pull or drag the donkey onto the trailer.

Trying to push Sparky ahead with the tractor; as you can see his feet are firmly planted

This is right before Sparky said "eff all of you" and laid down

Trying to use a rope to get him on the trailer. Sparky didn't even have to break a sweat as he stood there with his feet planted.

We finally gave up. Sparky has no need to send out announcements with his new address since he opted to stay at his current location. Jason and I talked over our options last night and today we visited Sparky again. He is now in a large dry lot and a stock trailer is parked in there with him. The door is tied open and his food and water are in the trailer. Neither Jason or I love this option but we can't come up with a better one. For anyone who is going to suggest sedation Sparky reacts very poorly to sedation, and on top of that usually just blows right through it anyway.

I spent another couple of hours sitting on the edge of the trailer today with Sparky. I petted him, fed him cookies, and splashed the water and gave him a few bits of hay.  It is amazing how far he can streeeeetch his neck to get a cookie in the trailer without ever having to place a foot in it. We won't be able to work with him any tomorrow as we have too many other things going on, but we're going to try again in a couple of days. Hopefully he will have already decided to get on and off the trailer on his own when he gets thirsty and hungry. I told Jason that when we finally get him on the trailer we'll have the same issues in reverse trying to get him off the trailer. Hopefully Sparky will consent to getting on the trailer sooner rather than later. It would be a real shame to not send out all of those cute cards announcing his new address.

Having some more quality time with Sparky today. He can streeeetch his head and neck in all the way to those Mrs. Pastures cookies without setting one hoof on the trailer.

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MyLight and Calimba grooming

Cinnamon and Silky

Kennedy is napping, Rocky just got up from a roll, Donovan is rolling, and Stormy is watching everyone

Levendi and Moe grooming

Trigger and Homer

B-Rad and Darby

Oskar and Kennedy grooming

Largo and Clayton having a sunset grooming session (lots of grooming around the farm lately!)

Elfin and Grand