Monday, November 15, 2010

The cheap thrill of stacked wood

There is nothing quite like the pure pleasure of hauling, splitting, and stacking firewood (except maybe the warm, relaxing pleasure of falling asleep on the couch in front of a blazing fire after a day of hard labour). Slowly but surely the random piles of logs from various topped and felled trees are being chopped up and re-purposed. Thanks are due to the ever-helpful Toryn, who is a master with a chainsaw and good company despite the rain and a very grumpy goat. Yes, even though the main task of the day was doing things with firewood, Toryn was very good-natured about wrestling with a reluctant goat (just guess which one...) who needed to have her back feet trimmed. Between the two of us we managed to get the job done, though not without a bit of kicking and complaining (from Poppy) and grunting (from us). Despite the fact she was restrained in her milk stand, she still managed a hearty kick or two before resigning herself to standing sullenly while I snipped off her too-long toenails. Cloven hoofnails. Tips of her cloven hooves...

While we were busy upsetting the animals with routine maintenance, we decided to worm all the horses. All went well until we got to Ringo, who decided he was terrified of Toryn. There followed a bit of stampeding through the mud until we reassured him that all was well and he should just stand still and swallow his meds... After that, it was off to the duck pen where we re-clipped everyone's wings. One of our mature mother ducks has gone missing (Mocha). As there are no feathers, bones, or other misplaced duck bits around, I can only conclude she has flown the proverbial coop. Weirdly enough, it was only the other three old mommas whose replacement flight feathers have come in - the other young females and the two drakes were still snipped and trimmed from the last time around. I'll have to monitor the incoming feather growth more closely so we don't lose anyone else.

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