One Shot

J was looking out of the kitchen window this morning and exclaimed, "there's a coyote!"

(no coyote in the picture, taken after the fact, bullet casing added for effect)  And sure enough, there was one making its way across the field.   J grabbed his rifle and headed off after it.  

Did I mention he got it with one shot. 

He said he came to this brace post and it was trying to find a way through the fence down the hill. 

Then it headed up that way when he shot.  

The goats are up on the hill this morning, no little ones to worry about and the dogs were all there.  But one less coyote anyway. 
 

Coupon Saturday #51

Several good digital coupons this week, and my Dollar General was mostly stocked.

48 cents plus tax, 

$1.88 plus tax.  I had it at 88 cents but didn't check my paper coupon for beggin strips, it was expired.  Rookie mistake.  

Was running low on M&M's, $4.48 plus tax.  

It was a good Saturday at DG. 

Christmas Ornament

I have started on this year’s ornament.

Here is a sneak preview.

Looks like some felt, pom poms, embroidery floss, batting and a disassembled ponytail holder.  I did splurge for the grey and teal felt, but everything else I had on hand.  We'll see what happens. 
 

Weaning Has Begun

J has begun weaning the spring calves.  He stated with the first calf heifers that are on the rented pasture.  The new pens he had built worked fine.  Much better that the falling down ones we had been babying along for years. 

The only problem came in trying to back back out of the field. 

A gully had washed out in front of the gate which caused the back wheels to drop and then the back of the trailer was stuck. 

Plus the ground was slick and we couldn't pull forward either.  

J had to walk home and bring back the tractor to pull the trailer out.  Then he had to steal a couple of dipper loads of gravel from the gullies on the gravel road to fill in the gully in front of the gate.   He finally got backed out and to the house with the load of calves. 

They have been weaned now for a few days.  The sign must have been right for that anyway, because they really weren't too much trouble. 
 

Garden Produce?

I can't believe it is almost Thanksgiving and I am still getting lettuce out of the garden.

I cleared everything off over a month ago and have been dumping mulched leaves as I get them up.  But I left the lettuce to see what it would do.  

I enjoyed a nice salad with a variety of lettuce types.  There may be a couple of more servings out there. 
 

Yet Another Flood

I think we have had more flooding here in the last 20 months than we have in the last 20 years.  Another 4 inches at once caused the creek to flood and washed out a section of fence. 

J has worked on this section several times this year.  He replaced the woven wire with 16 foot cattle panels so they would be more likely to come off in sections instead of a longer run of wire.  

We ended up having to go pick up rocks to tamp into the post holes to help hold them in tighter.  

Wonder how long it will last this time. 
 

Good Goat Day

We sold our kids last Saturday.  The market lines up a buyer for us then tells us when to have them there.   I think the same person has been buying them for the last several years. 

So the day before, J and I walked 3-4 miles getting them all gathered up.  

They had split up into 6 different groups all over the farm.  

That really makes it hard for the dogs to keep up with. 

At least the goats are easy to handle.  Once you get them going in a direction they pretty much stay the course. 

Gathering was successful, and they all spent the night in the field behind the house. 

V and M came the next morning to help with the sorting.  

It wasn't near as much walking to get them to the barn as it was the day before. 

It's a lot of goats when you get them all together.  

Once in the barn, we sorted out the nannies.  M was a big help here, snatching up two at a time.  Once the nannies were out, we kept out 16 doelings, 1 because she was tiny, 7 as our replacements, and 8 for someone in the Sheep and Goat Club that came to the tour here last year, liked how we did things and wanted to start a herd of their own.  That left 84 kids to take to the market, our largest group ever.  We finally made it to 100 kids at weaning.  

We picked up a billy goat on Friday and turned him out Saturday after the kids left.  

Should be starting all over in about 5 months.