small goat/sheep farm in Northern Colorado: summer ramblings

I have come to the conclusion that writing in a blog is a winter time activity. I am not able to keep up with writing even once a week, since we have so much work to get done before the snow flies again. Speaking of snow, we have had our temps in the 90's for about the last week, with some humidity also. But our saving grace is that the temps get in the 50's-60's at night. We have not had rain for awhile, and the garden and the pastures are in dire need of it. Everything looks parched. I was just telling Dennis yesterday, "don't you wish that a rain storm would come thru and drop the temperature to about 48 degrees?" Wishful thinking, as it hasn't happened yet. I guess that I am a true Northerner, and like the cooler temperatures.
I finished painting the coops, finally after a couple of months. I painted the goat huts and their feeders today. You can see the hut behind the girls, and the girls are standing at their freshly painted feeder. They are under the shelter that our grandson, Brady, helped us build while he was here. He had also primed the goat huts and the feeders for me.

I will probably have to put another coat of paint on tomorrow. I did lock the goats out for 2 hours for some drying time. It reminds me of a goat I used to have, my dear sweet Sarina, we had her for 10 years before she passed. I was painting a goat door in the barn, she was such a good goat, stayed out of my way, watched as I lovingly applied each brush stoke of paint. I even painted on an X to make it look barn like. I came back about an hour later, and there was Sarina, lovingly licking off all the paint that I had applied. My X looked like it had been rained on and was heading south. Sarina lived for about 5 years after that, so the paint did not cause her demise. I always use a barn paint that states safe for livestock on the can.

Dennis even got in the spirit of painting and painted the top part of his large pigeon coop to match the chicken coop. Here is a picture of his racing homers' landing board and trap where they will come in after they finish their competition flying. He is hoping to start their training flights soon.

Katahdin "hair" sheep
Sheep that you do not have to shear, or dock their tails.
I have found two Katahdin "hair" sheep to add to our menagerie here. Two little ewelings, sisters. They are seen here just born with their white mother.

Can't wait to get them, but they were just born in June.

Grandson help.
Brady is pictured here helping us put up our goat shelter to keep the goats out of the elements as they eat out of their feeder. It also keeps the sun from leaching out the hay nutrients.

Here he is digging fence posts in for the shelter. Boy we sure could have used him earlier this spring!

One of his daily chores was to carry water buckets to the animals twice daily. Getting a water and electric line is on our "wish" list. As I sit here, we are waiting for an electrician to come and give us an estimate.

Brady learned how to do many things while he was here with Grandma and Grandpa, allot of animal husbandry and carpenter and fence building skills. But what he learned the most is that he never wants to have animals other than dogs and cats, and also that he does not want to live on a farm. Valuable lessens no doubt. Here he is doing his favorite thing while staying with us, his XBox!

Antelope!
We had a new alpaca rancher move in about 5 miles down the road from us. As we went for our first visit, we spotted this antelope with her twin calves in the grasses.

A little out of focus, I know, but she was to spooky with her babies out in the open.

I was so excited, as we have never seen the babies before. If you left click on the picture it will enlarge for you. Speaking of antelope, both Dennis and Ryan got antelope permits for this fall.

July Prairie pictures
As I walked out to the mailbox, I took some pictures of the prairie in July for you all to look at. Our bird feeder by a lone maple tree in our front yard.

If you left click on this picture you will see honey bees are enjoying the water. I always try to have a stick or something in the water, as sometimes the bees fall in and drown. This way, they have some chance to climb out. Bees are so beneficial and necessary for farm crops!

Wild grasses by our mailbox.

wild alfalfa

sweet clover which is taking over the ditches

some sort of wild daisy

One of our Burbon Red turkeys maturing, we can tell it is a tom as it is getting its red throat patch.

Dennis garden is hanging on for dear life, and he has been watering it daily, during our dry spell. We have eaten very delicious salads and radishes from it already.