Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I'm Not A Duck

Perhaps ducks might enjoy this wet weather.  Lacking webbed feet and feathers, me...not s'much.  Yesterday was a repeat of steady downpour and heavy winds (and it looks like today is going to be more of the same).  The barn is a mess.  So far, the stalls have remained dry, but water has flooded the milking room floor.  The stand had sunk a good twelve inches into the muck and I was almost sitting on the ground.  I wasn't able to pull it out, but will have to before the dirt hardens to cement.  The play yard was awash, too, so again I left the big room open for the girls.  How I wish we'd had the foresight to build the barn on high ground.

While switching out goats for milking, I noticed a large hawk out in the pen.  It saw me, but didn't fly off.  Turns out he'd made a kill and come hell or high water (I'm betting on high water), he was going to eat his breakfast.  He was still at it when I'd finished my soggy chores and was going past loaded with clanking milk buckets. 

I'm starting to feel like a model on the runway as I change clothes umpteen times a day, out of soaked bibbies and jacket and into comfy dry britches, and then repeat when I've got to go out again.  I've been coping with just my barn shoes, but today I must dig out my wellies to go wading in the barn.

Badly in need of some comfort food, in the afternoon I put on a big pot of ham hocks and lima beans.  Cam called as she was leaving Plymouth and I invited her to join me for dinner.  She and Honey had been out in the rain most of the day running errands, and she readily accepted.  Honey's thick coat is like a sponge and the towel I used to dry her could have been wrung out when I finished.  Good food and good company was a great way to end the day.

1 comment:

Kathryn Williams said...

Building the barn on higher ground reminds me of our early camping trips with friends. The friends learned after it was too late, to dig a moat around a tent that is on slightly slanted ground, which an opening on the downhill side so that the rain is captured in the moat and does not flood the tent. Those friends spent time in the laundromat and I think they ended up going to a hotel because all of their bedding and lots of clothes were wet!! Glad your trees have stayed upright!