Weekend Roundup: L and M

I didn't do my usual blog last week and I'm pretty late doing it this weekend, too.  Just very busy and I haven't been taking many pictures at all.  I feel like there isn't much of interest to photograph - just more ice, snow, ice, snow, rinse and repeat...

I'll do the prompts for last week and this week together.

Starts with L
My goat is named Lucky Nickel. I've told the story before, but for newer readers, I'll tell it again.  Her mom was having a lot of trouble during the birth and I had to call the vet.  The first baby was too big to come out, and the vet was unable to save it - in fact, it had to be decapitated to remove it from the mother, which was very distressing.  It took a long time, and the vet, Dr. Nicholson, had said that any other babies would likely be dead because of the difficulties.  He then pulled out the second baby - a doe who lay on the straw looking dead, but then suddenly coughed and we realized she was alive.  So, she was lucky to be alive, and also lucky that Dr. Nicholson was there, so she became Lucky Nickel (also a bit of a play on lucky penny).  Lucky Nickel's mom died shortly after the birth, which was really sad, so LN was raised in the house on bottles, and was spoiled to bits, which is probably why she remains a spoiled, bratty goat to this day!  On April 19th, she will be 8 years old.

Starts with M
This is a picture of my chicken, Maple.  She is a cross between a Swedish Flower and an Isbar, both fairly uncommon breeds of chicken.  She's just about reaching laying age. 

Maple is often found with her friend, Star, who is an Isbar-Icelandic cross hen.

And here's Marble, who is a Maran crossbred hen, having some melon for a snack.

Long
I've been trying to get out for some walks lately, since the weather is slightly less frigid and the snow and ice on the road is not as dangerous for walking.  This is a view back down the road having walked up the long hill that is part of my 1-hour walk circuit, and I'm about to head down the other side.  I do this part at the beginning of the walk because it is the harder part and I don't want to do the climb at the end.

You can see there is still a fair amount of snow here, and our house is surrounded by woods (and thus shade) so the snow in our yard is still over a foot deep throughout.  The fields in this picture get full sun all day on sunny days but they have a way to go before they will be clear of snow.  It is always a LONG winter here.

Middle
Back to Lucky Nickel for a moment - you can see that her horns have grown long enough that they now meet in the middle - just at the tips.  This can be troublesome in a young animal if the horns rub against each other too much, but since Lucky Nickel is older, her horns only grow a tiny bit each year, so this won't be a problem for her.

Favourites (2 of them, one for each week)
Our rabbits spend a lot of time in mutual grooming sessions.  Here's Epinette patting Pippin on the head, which she sometimes does during grooming. 

Here's my second favourite photo for this week - our cat, Mitten (bonus M) on the middle shelf of my cookbook shelf unit.  He seems to like this spot!

A barn! A barn! We have a barn!!

I am really pleased and excited to say that finally, after more than a year of needing one, we finally have a barn for Lucky Nickel, Tucker, and Twilight.

I am so relieved that this winter they will have a proper structure to shelter in, rather than my little hoop house made of a cattle panel and a tarp!  The guys who built the chicken coop for me were able to put this up over 3 days.  Now we are just waiting for the roof panels to come in, which should be in the next few days.

The barn is made from rough-cut lumber, which is ideal for an outdoor building and is very sturdy.  It is 10 feet square and has two very sturdy doors which lead to each compartment.


One side is for Lucky Nickel, who insists on bashing everything with her horns and generally intimidating the sheep. The other side is for Tucker and Twilight, who are calm and peaceful and just want to be left alone to eat their hay in peace.

The barn has two lovely windows (on the sheep side) which are 3 by 3 feet, and 4 by 3 feet.  They open and have screens, which makes for great ventilation.


Because they were low enough for Lucky Nickel to reach when she is on her hind legs, the builders put a cattle panel piece over the outside of them, and some boards on the inside, so she cannot break the glass with her horns.  It is very difficult to find cattle panels around here, so I am glad I had one for this purpose.  The other one will probably become part of my garden set up.


Each compartment has a hay feeder area that was also made with cattle panel pieces.

One for the sheep...

...and one for her highness.

Nickel's is smaller than the one for the sheep, because she is a little portly and there is only one of her, whereas there are two sheep and they need to put some weight on.  Now, they will be able to eat without Nickel constantly charging at them and chasing them around. Do not let this innocent face fool you - she can be a bully!

I have enclosed the critters in the barn tonight as a test to see if Nickel will try to jump over the centre wall.  I hope she won't.  If she does, some additional boards will need to go up.  For now, the sheep are eating peacefully...although somebody is trying to see if the hay is greener on the other side of the wall.

 What if they have better hay than mine?

In her younger days, she would have been up on that middle wall like a shot, and over onto the other side.  These days, she's not quite so agile.  She is 7, after all!

Munch munch munch.

I went outside and looked back through the window.  I can see she's thinking about whether she can make the leap.

Everybody's in their place for the night!  And I will sleep much better this winter knowing that they are safe and cozy every time we have a big snowstorm.

My next objective will be some decorating.  I haven't decided if I will do name boards on the doors, or a 'barn quilt' decoration for each door, or what.  It will be fun to get creative with it.  I'll update when the roof goes on.

Friday's Hunt v 3.13

Here we are again for Friday's Hunt with Eden Hills.  Today the prompts are:  Starts with M, Week's Favourite, and Water.

Starts with M
I have a few M words for today's post.  First of all, here's my marvelous husband Marc, who is outside in the garage working on his project to insulate and finish the inside walls of this outbuilding so it can be his motorcycle workshop.

Here are some of his motorcycles, all covered in dust from the wood planing he has been doing, but they will be cleaned off when the season arrives for using them.  You can see the planer on the floor at the lower right.

It is a bit of a mess in there right now.  He is using pallet wood to create the ceiling of the workshop. Here's the outside edge where he's started, but the next step is to put up vapour barrier.  He can't go further with the wood until that's done.

However, the pallets have been outside this winter so they have a lot of moisture in them.  After he planes each board, he is letting them dry out.  It's an ongoing project.  He hopes to have it finished by the fall of this year.

Week's Favourite
I took this picture of Lucky Nickel through the fence, by mistake - she got in the way of my shot. However, I rather liked this picture, even though it wasn't my intended one.

After that picture, I took another of her horns, showing the texture on them.  I like it too, so I'm sharing both these goat close-ups for my favourites this week.

Water
My birds have water in their heated birdbath.

My sheep and goat have water in their heated bucket.

Most of the rest of the water around here is in the form of snow and ice.  Here's a picture of my back deck from this week.  When I say there is snow, I mean a lot!  Although, this is far less than was there earlier this month.

I did find a puddle in the driveway, since we are a little above freezing today, and there was a reflection of a pine tree in the water's surface.

Marc also pointed out that there was a little puddle at the bottom of the slope by the garage.  There is even some green-ish looking grass around it.  That will be frozen tonight though.  We have plenty of winter left to go.

Friday's Hunt v 2.25

Here I am, doing a Friday's Hunt on Saturday again.  Friday was a very busy day, and I was helping at Marc's workplace with their inventory counts, so it wasn't a good opportunity for blogging!  None the less, I don't want to miss the penultimate hunt, so here is the week's effort!

Our prompts from Eden Hills this week are Starts with Y, Week's Favourite, and Festive.

Starts with Y
I was going to do "yarn" for Y, but today I took some pictures outside, and I had another opportunity for this letter.  I took pictures of our yew shrubs in front of the house.  They are large shrubs that are weighed down by considerable snow at the moment, and because it was a cloudy morning, you can't really see the deep green in this view.

Yews are evergreens and they produce little red berries, although not very many of them.  We have 3 of these shrubs, but I only found berries on 2 of them.  I think the yew berries also look quite festive, in a natural way, so I am using this picture for both Y and festive!

Week's Favourite
My week's favourite is this picture of Lucky Nickel.  We have had 2 brutally cold days and nights, with wind chills down to -36 Celsius (-33 Fahrenheit) and I was really worried about both Lucky Nickel and the two sheep, since my barn didn't get built this fall.  The winds were gusting to over 70 kph (over 45 mph).  However, they have all been really well and haven't seemed to suffer any ill effects.  They have the hoop house made from an arched cattle panel with tarps over it, so at least that protected them from the wind.  Still, I am glad that the temperature is headed back to "normal" levels of cold today.

Festive
I really haven't had time to do anything festive in the house this year.  I've been very busy with work projects and other things, so I haven't put up a tree at home, especially since I helped with my parents' tree, so that was my festive effort!  However, as I mentioned above, I went outside and thought that it would be nice to take some natural festive pictures, since so much of what is considered "festive" is so commercialized these days.  The yew berry above was a lovely festive shot, I though.  Here are a few more shots that had a festive air to them.

This bird feeder has a snow hat, which looks quite festive, and the sun coming through the branches in the background (it made a very brief appearance) gave a bit of a festive glow.

This was a view through the woods while the sun was trying to come out.  Again, the woods with the snow and the glow seem festive to me.

Looking back at our house through the woods seemed to be a festive scene as well.  The smoke from the wood stove chimney gives a cozy feeling, and the snow blanket on the roof is a bit like something from a children's story book or a Christmas card.  I'm glad I have a warm and cozy house, even if it isn't very festive on the inside!

Friday's Hunt v 2.12

Again, it's Friday!  This week has gone super fast! But, regardless of speed, it's time for Friday's Hunt, hosted by Eden Hills. As usual, there are 3 topics for today: Starts with L, Week's Favourite, and Critter.

Starts with L

Here is a Lovely Landscape shot that I took today at the Sackville Waterfowl Park.  The trees are still mostly green but you can see hints of yellow.  The temperatures are getting lower at night these days, almost dipping to the freezing point.  Soon the fall foliage will be in its glory.  Also there is a Lake in the picture.

Because she is the herd queen, and demands her proper publicity level, and because her name starts with L, here is Lucky Nickel.  (By the way, she is also a Critter!)

Week's Favourite

My little chipmunk friend, having a rest in the sun.  (Yep, also a Critter!)

Critter

Usually I post cute, cuddly critters, like my goats and sheep, or birds (and I already posted two of those!).  For the critter category, I'm posting something a little different.  This critter is a shrew. There are quite a few shrew species in Canada and it's difficult to tell them apart unless you're an expert, which I'm not.  The only thing I can tell you for sure about this shrew is that it's dead.  I turned it over so that it would be more like it looks when it's alive.  It is most likely the Masked Shrew, or Cinereous Shrew (Sorex cinereus) simply because that is the most common species.

Unfortunately, our cats seem to kill shrews more than any other animal.  I have seen a few dead voles, and the odd dead mouse, and I've never seen them with a dead bird.  However, I have seen a LOT of dead shrews.  We try to keep both cats in at night - Izzy is an outdoor cat in general due to her problems with the concept of the litter box, but we try to keep her in the garage at night - but we aren't always successful.  You can identify a shrew by its very long, pointy nose and its lack of cute round ears, such as you see on mice.  They have very tiny eyes.

I don't know why the cats seem to favour shrews.  Are they easier to catch?  I have no idea.  Cats won't eat shrews because they emit an unpleasant smell that cats don't like. Poor little shrews.  I quite like shrews because they are insectivores and eat lots of bugs that might otherwise damage my plants. I wish that the cats would leave the shrews alone.

Fezzik and Lucky Nickel come home

Today was the big day - Fezzik and Lucky Nickel, my goats, finally came home again to live with me.  It has been 2 years and 8 months that my goats have been in long-term boarding, and I have missed them so very much.  I brought the sheep home first, and today the goats came home.  My woolly family is now back together again.

The first thing I had to do was trim their hooves, since it had been a while since I'd done it, and I wanted to check them over in general before putting them into the fenced area.  You would think that they had checked in to Goat Spa Central, because they just chilled out in the deck chair and had a wee snooze while I worked on them.

"I am relaxing.  Where is my pina colada?"

"My hooves will be beautiful."

Fezzik, because he is well-behaved and not a runner, was allowed to sample the greenery.

Yum, raspberry leaves!

More yum!  Maple leaves!

Marc made some adjustments to the gate on the fenced area while I did the hoof trims.

Fezzik reunited with Twilight first (and there were some head bumps)!

Then it was Lucky Nickel's turn for a pedicure....I mean, hooficure.

Cabana boy....bring me my parasol!

"Why do these pallets have to be here?  They ruin my view."

"I do not care that you are 'all done' with my hooves.  I am not ready to move yet."

As usual, Lucky Nickel asserted her dominance.

Fezzik, smart goat that he is, stayed out of the way when Lucky Nickel was discussing her dominance with the sheep.

 Is she done yet?  Is it safe to approach?

Fezzik then discovered the massage tree.

Goat and sheep sharing a massage.

Marc seemed to enjoy their antics, too!

Fezzik looks like a big white teddy bear with horns.  He's as adorable as ever.

"I am a big fierce goat and I will show you by rubbing my head on this tree!"

Izzy came around to visit with the goats.  She used to spend all her time with them.  I wonder if she actually remembers them. She got a fuss from Marc on the way.

Both goats quickly discovered the spruce trees on the menu.

They seemed to take a few moments to consider their new surroundings, but overall, they just fit right in to their new home.

I think Fezzik is pretty happy to be home.

And Lucky Nickel, as long as she is the centre of attention, is also happy to be home.

And me....I may be the happiest one of all.  These goats saved my life one day, in the long-distant past.  I am blessed to have them back with me again after such a long time.

Sharing with Camera Critters and Saturday's Critters!