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.

Our Hero: The Scrap Metal Guy

When you move to a new rural location, there are certain people you should probably get to know.  Local sheep and goat people are important, local volunteer fire fighters are helpful to know, and locals who have lived in the area for a long time can give you reams of useful information.  Without a doubt, however, the most important person we have met is our local scrap metal guy.  Rob is a big strong guy with a big strong truck, and he's helping move mountains.  Mountains of scrap metal, that is.

The barn that I'm working on fixing up for the World's Most Famous Goat (Lucky Nickel, of course), was completely full of (mostly) junk, a large portion of which involved scrap metal.  Likewise, surrounding the barn and in the pasture area around it, there was enough scrap metal to build a small battleship...not that I have time, or need, to build battleships.

Here's her barn, from the front, outside!

And here, my friends, is the inside.  Well, at least a few days ago this was the inside.  Yes, in case you're wondering, that is an old bed frame that for some reason is wired to the back wall.

Rob takes it all.  He's even taking those 5 gallon buckets of used motor oil and other fluids (which he pointed out to me make great mouse traps based on the number of dead mice he found in the bottom as he was pouring the buckets into other buckets with lids on them).  The barn is slowly getting cleaned out - I still have some work to do on plastics and some other detritus, but overall, it's approaching a condition where Richard can do some work to seal up the windows (which have fallen inwards) and ensure that Miss Nickel will be safe.  I have been sorting stuff into piles, and Rob takes it after I sort it.  I've nearly got the entire floor cleaned off now.

Rob is taking all the stuff around the barn too, including old, dead tires, windows with rotted frames, plastic barrels, and all manner of other monstrosities for which I have no need, and for which I have no means of simple disposal.  It's not as if you can take old pieces of farm machinery that weigh over 1000 pounds and just pop them at the end of your driveway for removal.  These things require Rob, and he has been at the farm every day for the last 4 days, except Sunday, and will likely be here for quite a few more days in future.
Here's a few of the outside of the barn (from the back) from when I visited in December of last year, just to give you an idea of what's keeping Rob busy.  There's a lot more under the long dead grass that you can't really see in this picture.

Yes, it needs work...

While the barn is important, there are also great heaps of metal and plastic around other areas of the property.

One of these "heaps" was a very dilapidated livestock trailer, mostly rusted out, and absolutely chock full of garbage. I wasn't sure Rob would take it, given its dreadful condition, but sure enough, he hauled it away on his big flat bed truck.  Now, I don't  have to look at this view every morning.  It's too bad I didn't take a closer shot of the trailer - well....why would I want to?

But let's zoom in on this one a bit....here you go....somewhat grainy, but a better idea of what I've been looking at each day.

Anyway, it's gone now, and all the garbage it contained.  Also gone were some pieces of machinery that Rob says he believes were forest clearing machinery from the 1950s or so.  Huge, heavy, sad hulks of rust, the sort that would take centuries to disappear.

I won't even get started on the future chicken barn.

So, the cleaning and organizing continues, but things are moving forward, and even though I'm quite sure Rob isn't a blog reader so he won't see my gratitude here, I'm definitely going to be thanking him for a long time to come.