Friday, February 28, 2014

Can't Complain

You play, you pay.  After days of beautiful weather and a great visit with my friend, the bill came due yesterday.  A night of rain meant I was watching my feet on the way down the slope and so was surprised when I went in the barn to let the girls out.  The roof is corrugated metal with several clear plexiglass panels for light.  It was dimmer inside than it should have been.  Over Cindy's stall, I saw some twiggy stuff overhead, and more over what had been Ruthie's room.  Once all the goats were outside, I went around to see what was what.  Oh crum!  Two very large, bare branches had broken in the dead tree.  The upside down tops were resting on the roof and the butt ends were hung up in the tree itself.  Fortunately, the roof was not damaged, but the wind has continued to blow and the second wave of storm hit last night.  I put in a call to Tree Guy, who came in the afternoon to assess the situation and will hopefully come back today to get the branches down.  It was pretty spooky to sit and milk while the wind gusted and the branches screeched against the metal.  Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, I waited for the branches to fall the rest of the way down.

Milking did not take as long as usual yesterday.  Inga's pretty new necklace is useless if she won't come close enough for me to grab it.  I suppose I'll have to buy accessories for all the girls as they seem to be jealous of Inga's finery.  She wanted to come in but as she approached the door, one of the others would bash her away.  I walked out to her but the others would walk with me and Inga stayed just out of my reach and theirs.  Crum, another day with an unmilked Inga.

With no other choice, I had to put the girls into the barn for the night, fingers crossed that they would be safe.  Had another slip-and-slide event while tucking the chickens in and went down hard, luckily not on the side with the still-sore rib.  It was an equal opportunity fall.

We need this rain so much.  The barn remained intact.  Bruised but not broken.  Can't complain.  (But I was relieved when the day was over.)

1 comment:

Kathryn said...

Well darn...I'm so sorry for your bad luck...string of 3...maybe you are finished for a while. I know it sounds funny, but would cleats pierce enough of the slippery ground in the chicken pen to keep you upright?? Better luck today.