Brad’s nails had gotten out of control.  They were really long and curled around and it was getting to the point where he was going to be crippled if they weren’t trimmed.  The problem is he’s touchy about his legs, and whenever we’d even make a gesture toward them, he’d flip out and run away or nearly knock us over.  I decided to build a chute to restrain him so we could safely get him trimmed.  Using only materials I got from the dump (with the exception of about $5 worth of screws and bolts from the hardware store), Delia and I built the Llama Salon.

It’s 25″ wide, 65″ long, and 70″ high.  Brad walks in from the back, and then there are two moveable boards at the front that can clamp down (lightly!) on his neck right by his shoulders so he can’t walk forward and also can’t thrash the front of his body around.  The rear of his body cam move some, but he can’t spin around, which is what he’d do when we’d try to do it before we had this chute.  He’s then tied in the front with a lead rope so he can’t move backward.

The Llama Salon made it a LOT easier to get the job done, though it was still FAR from easy.  Let me tell you something: llamas are strong.  Even with his neck immobilized, he was able to completely throw us around when we’d grab one of his legs.  He’d also cush (that’s what it’s called when llamas lay down – don’t ask me why) when we were trying to grab his feet.  The funny thing is he was like an Irish dancer while this was going on.  The front of him stayed completely still while his legs were flailing around like crazy.  He kept eating his hay even while flinging us around.  We finally just grabbed onto one front foot and held it as still as we could and held on until he mostly gave up thrashing it around, and got his nails trimmed down.  The back feet were another story.  We finally gave up trying to hold them after getting slammed against the walls of the chute a few times, and then we discovered we could trim them while he was standing as long as we were quick about it.

On the last nail, some blood was shed.  We cut him a little too deep and he started bleeding pretty badly.  It slowed down but never stopped, so I went over to a friend’s and got some blood stop powder, which did the trick.

So now Brad’s nails are less of a disgrace!  We’re going to try to trim them back a little more next week, and then hopefully they’ll be somewhat slow growing so we don’t have to repeat this process too often.  Nobody enjoys it.

Emily and I went to the dump today, and literally took more than we dumped.  We came home with some good 2×6 boards that will be great for a restraining chute for Brad so we can cut his nails (he’s very nervous when we touch his feet) and also hay loft railings, an old ironing board for setting plants on (Emily pulled that out of the scrap pile), some good steel for welding practice and projects, two bikes for parts so I can fix some things that are wrong with Delia’s, concrete blocks for new steps for the chicken coop, some really cool old rock drill bits from a mine, and some other cool stuff.  We also got a really beautiful old wringer washer that’s now sitting in our back yard, hiding our ugly well head.  The cost of all this was getting yelled at by the dump staff for various rule infractions.  They really take stuff seriously over there, and while there are a lot of rules, none are actually posted, so the only way to learn the proper procedure is to get yelled at for doing it wrong.

So now Emily likes the dump almost as much as I do.  When we got home, Delia ran out and said “what did you bring home from the dump?!”  She knows the score.

The weather since we’ve been back has been amazingly warm.  It’s nice that we’re having an early spring, but it cut snowmobiling season short, and I only got one short ride in.  Emily rode with me for the first time ever!  We went to Giants Ridge for lunch, cruised around Wynne Lake a little, and then rode home.  That was it for me for the whole season, though it was a very nice ride.

As of today, the driveway is almost completely clear of snow, and large portions of the yard are too.  Everything is really muddy and wet, but in another week or so I bet it’ll be nice and dry.  Of course, as soon as that happens we’ll probably get two more feet of snow.

A couple weeks ago, Henry and I took my Dad’s truck to Virginia to have lunch and get a yard cart that was on sale.  I’ve been wanting one since we moved here, and now we finally have one.  Henry helped me put it together, and he really did help – he handled a socket wrench like a pro and together we got the axle bolted on to the cart body.  My 4 wheeler doesn’t have a trailer hitch of any kind, so after much thought and a great suggestion from instructables.com, I made one out of muffler clamps and a steel l-shaped bracket.  It was a bit of a tricky welding job, but I got it done and after some use it seems to be holding.  Welding is hard.  There are so many variables to figure out in order to get a good weld.  With this project I winged it, and while it does seem to be holding, the welds are far from good.  My problem was mostly getting sort of a hollow bead.  Instead of having a nice smooth fill, it’s like there’s a groove in the bead, so it almost looks like two small beads.  I think it may be due to using too much current, but it might have also been the angle at which I held the rod, and the motion I used.

My Mom stayed with us for a week and the kids had such a great time with her, as did we.  She got to meet Brad, the goats, and the horses for the first time, and she stayed at the great B&B near our house.  The weather was gorgeous so we even got to spend some time outside.  She also provided babysitting duties so Emily and I took a super romantic trip to the dump.  She even rode on the back of the four wheeler while Delia and Henry rode Sancho down the road.  Sancho did great – especially since he hasn’t been saddled since last fall.  We had some nice meals out, and she got to see Delia’s big ice skating show!  Delia did great, by the way.

We got 6 big round bales from Dale.  It was quite a chore to get them off the trailer.  The other round bales we got rolled right off, but these were SUPER heavy.  With his help, we finally got it done.  They’re all scattered about and I’ll have to get my tractor running to move them around.  Delia is having fun climbing and jumping on them.  She calls it Haytown.

We had a bit of sadness too.  Two of our chickens had apparently been sitting in some water late in the day, and ended up getting frozen to the ground.  Hypothermia claimed them during the night and I found them in the morning, stuck to the ground.  :(  We had thought about getting chicks this year and then decided against it, but now we’re going to since we only have 4 layers left.  I think we’re going to get six – two white leghorns, an easter egger or two, maybe a black australorp, and I’m not sure what else.

We have another horse visiting, and had an adventure with him on the first day!  He got dropped off Thursday evening, and we just put him in the paddock with Cowboy.  They got along great, we gave them some treats, sprayed them with some bug spray, and that’s it.

Friday morning, we decided to let them out of the paddock.  Where Sancho has lived most of his life, they would bring him out of the pasture and let him just walk around grazing.  I don’t really know why we thought we could do that the FIRST day we had him, but we did.  We are stupid.  We had both he and Cowboy out for a while, but Cowboy was kind of running all over the place so Ryan tied him up, which is our normal thing we do with him, we tie him onto one of those big spools we have with a long rope.

For an hour or two, everything was great.  Ryan was keeping an eye on them and Sancho was staying right around Cowboy.  I had some friends over, and we all went outside.  I was going to try to stay in the front yard away from the horses, but of course things never go as planned and my friend and I and our kids (4 of them – her youngest was still sleeping in her car) made our way to the back yard.  Sancho loves kids, and I wasn’t surprised when he kind of trotted over to say hi.  We got all the kids up on the trampoline because kids around horse feet is just too nerve-wracking.

Cowboy neighed for Sancho to get back over there, which he did, but I guess that’s when Sancho realized HE wasn’t attached to anything.  He trotted back up to us, and then made his way over by the porch where Ryan was.  I yelled for Ryan to come out to try to contain him, but Sancho kept on going.  He went around the house and it looked like he may turn back into the backyard, but as soon as he saw the road, he was off.

Ryan was running after him, but losing ground.  As soon as I saw Sancho go down the road I ran for the ATV, which thankfully THANKFULLY wasn’t still on the trailer from last week!  I chased Sancho down the road, caught up with him once and got in front of him and he stopped, but I wasn’t close enough and when I got off the ATV and went towards him, he started going again.  I had to RUN back to the ATV and get going after him again.  By this time we’re within a 1/8 mile of the highway…

Luckily Sancho turned off into a field and I was able to get in front of him again and close enough while he was stopped to grap his rope.  Which I also realize, while I was thinking it was probably stupid to have it on him while he was out because he could have tripped himself, if he hadn’t had that rope on there’s no way I would have ever caught him – he would have just leaned away if I had reached for his halter.  Whew.  So, I had him.  In our neighbor’s yard pretty much, when I was standing there catching my breath and in disbelief of what happened, Sancho was huffing and starring at this target buck thingie.  He probably thought it was some strange immobile horse.

I walked Sancho over to Ryan, who had run the rest of the way down the road and Ryan walked Sancho back while I hurried back on the ATV.  I was glad my friend was there to be with the kids!  We are super glad it all turned out OK, and that is one BIG lesson learned!  Sancho wasn’t even running fast, just a trot but man.  Horses move!  I was in fourth gear on the ATV, going faster than I normally ever do just to keep up with him.  After he was back in the paddock, Ryan and I had adrenaline pumping and I couldn’t really stop thinking about the whole dramatic thing.  I realized that while I was racing after him on the ATV I was yelling “woah Sancho!” and Ryan told me he was doing the same thing from 50-75 feet behind him!  Needless to say, that didn’t work.

So, that’s Sancho’s first day here.  He’s a 20-22 year old (that’s old – we were worried about his age but I’m not anymore!) quarterhorse/shetland pony cross, which basically means he’s a really big pony.  Really big, I think – I’d call him a horse but maybe I’m just wimpy.  He’s big enough for Ryan or I to ride, which is cool, and very very gentle and a great learning horse for all of us.  We have him on a two week trial, so as long as we manage to keep him alive we’ll see how it goes.  If we do keep him, it’d be really really great if we could expand the paddock so they can run around a little bit and also get over to the water so we don’t have to haul water in the winter.

It’s been really cold.  Really, really cold.  Highs below zero for several days with nighttime lows in the 30s and 40s below.   The all-time unofficial low temperature in Embarrass was reached on February 2, 1996 at -64°F. More recently, Embarrass reached -54°F on January 17, 2005.

A few mornings ago I walked out and noticed our big window looked weird.  It looked like a kid had drawn on it with a white crayon at first, but I took a closer look and realized it’s a crack.  It’s really weird, it goes from the edge to the middle of the glass and stops without hitting another edge.  It’s the inner pane of the thermal pane.  Apparently the cold was too much for it.  Insurance doesn’t cover it.

I was on the phone today with State Farm getting this information, when Ryan called.  He was on his way to Ely to thaw pipes at our apartment building and he had gone off the road into the ditch!  Luckily, he and the car are both fine, and he was really close to a tow truck so he didn’t wait long to get pulled out.  When it’s this cold, car exhaust freezes and makes the roads slick.

The frozen pipes at the building were a relatively easy fix too, although Ryan did lose several hours to that chore.  If that hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t have gone to the garage and realized it was below freezing in there and that we were completely out of propane!  We were able to call and get our tank filled within a few hours for a pretty reasonable extra charge — I had called yesterday for a normal “come give us some propane when you’re in the area” kind of thing, but we didn’t know we were SO low.  The house didn’t cool down at all though, and it was a weekday early afternoon.  It could have been Friday evening…

So, we’re surviving.  We’re playing lots of video games and we have a slide in the living room for some physical activity.  The kids chase each other around and jump and wrestle on the beds.  Delia, Henry and I are getting some exercise with some cleaning projects too.  We got a new Swiffer, and they fight over it.  Might have to get another one so both kids can do it at the same time!  Or look even harder for the missing piece to our old one…

One day soon hopefully we’ll get pictures up of our travels to Illinois and Florida for the holidays.  We had a wonderful time!

We got some.  It’s hard to say how much because of all the drifting, but it’s substantial.  The plow came this morning and nicely cleared one side of our driveway right to the garage door.  I shoveled away the rest and made a little path from the deck to the garage door.  There’s a drift against the barn door up past my waist.

The wood boiler is doing great.  The key is to keep it really full.

The chickens are as warm as can be expected, and they’re still laying!  We have to collect eggs as early as possible in the morning and then throughout the day, or they freeze and explode.

Last night I took my Phazer out and carved up the back yard!  It was awesome.  It blew so much overnight that I can’t even see my tracks.  I put it, my Indy, and Delia’s Kitty Cat in the garage to get them ready for the season.  The trails aren’t groomed yet, but will be soon.  I MAY try to go out a little on Thursday, but I doubt I’ll have time before we leave.

We got some new firewood this week and we’ve had a hard time burning it.  It’s not the dryest wood in the world, and I figured that was why, but yesterday and today I couldn’t even keep a fire going for more than a minute after I closed the door, even with the blower on.  After some checking, and burned hair, I found that the flapper door on the blower wasn’t opening.  Some little chunks of burned wood had fallen down in there and were holding it open.  I took the whole thing off and vacuumed it out, and now we’re back in business.  I’m glad I found that because I was about to call and complain about the wood!

Today I mowed some of the really tall grass on the other side of the barn and along our road.  At first I found it hard to maneuver the tractor with the sickle bar, so I ended up missing spots and going over others twice – loading up the bar so I had to stop and clear it.  Then I got the hang of it.  I raked out a path through what I had cut so I’d have room to move without going over the downed grass again, and then carefully cut a few more swaths, and as long as I didn’t go over already cut grass, it worked great.  The key is to not get too aggressive and try to cut too much at once.  That’s when you start to miss grass and get it wound up in the works.

What I cut sure looks like decent hay to my very untrained eye, but I want someone who knows to look at it.  My plan is to see if Nora wants it (loose – not baled), and if she does, I’ll have the fun task of manually raking it up and loading it into my trailer.  If not, I guess I’ll just manually rake it up and load it into my trailer, and then either dump it off some place or burn it.  I hate for it to go to waste (if it’s even worth using for horses) and there’s not enough of it to get our neighbor to use his baler, and he’d have a rough time maneuvering it in there anyway.  Whatever happens, I’m happy to at least start getting rid of all the overgrowth.

I also discovered something about my tractor.  My hydraulics have never worked right, but now I’ve found a pattern.  Sometimes it would lift an implement up all the way, but usually not.  Today I realized that after the tractor has been off for a little while, if I raise the lift lever and then let the clutch out, it’ll quickly lift the implement all the way up.  Each subsequent time, however, it’ll only lift it about 1/3 of the way, and pretty weakly.  Now I have something to go on when researching this.  Oh, and my starting issue from the other day turned out to just be a loose wire.

We figured it out.  Blackie has been sitting on 14 eggs inside my 1970 Panther 303.    She’s gone broody.  None of the eggs are hers, but I guess the other hens have been going in there to lay periodically and finally there got to be enough for a full clutch, so she’s been sitting on them.  We couldn’t find her most of the day yesterday and in the evening we looked all around for her.  I had checked the snowmobiles before, but didn’t see her.  I checked again and saw a tiny bit of red (her comb), and even then I wasn’t sure it was her.  She was all flattened out in there, so she was very hard to see.  We opened the hood and she hopped out, revealing the eggs.  We figured they’d be rotten, but we tested them and all of them sunk right to the bottom of a bowl of water!  That means they’re not very old, and I guess they’ve been cool enough, even with her sitting on them.  When she got out, she puffed her feathers up really big, which I’d never seen before.  Now we need to break her of the broodiness.  We took all the eggs out and I’m going to stuff some paper in there so they can’t lay in there anymore.  I’ll have to collect eggs several times a day to make sure there are none lying around.  I’m also going to lock her in the coop for a couple days, and if that doesn’t work, she’ll have to be kept in a wire cage for a while.

This explains why she was spending so much time in the nesting boxes and in such a hurry to get out of the coop in the morning!  She had a job to do.   Last night we got them all in the run and she flew out right away to go eat birdseed.  When birds go broody, they’ll sometimes neglect eating to the point where they starve to death!

Interesting information about broodiness

The chickens have been out almost every day because Blackie the Australorp tends to jump the fence, and if one is out, they may as well all be out.  Blackie has been separating from the other two lately, and usually when one is missing, it’s her.  One day a brown one was missing, and I looked all around for her before finding her on a shelf in the barn, crouching behind a box.  I wouldn’t have seen her, except she peeked her head up over the box, saw me, and ducked back down again.

Last night at around 7:15, I went out to close them up, since they’re usually roosting by then.  I found the two brown ones, but no Blackie.  I got on the 4 wheeler and rode around looking for her, or at least a pile of feathers, and didn’t find any.  I went out several times during the rest of the night and never found her, even in the barn where she sometimes roosts.  I went over to the spot where I’d found the brown one, and saw three Australorp eggs, so I knew she had used that hiding spot as well.  That made me feel a little better, but still, chickens are supposed to roost up high, so I was still expecting the worst.

This morning when I woke up I took Henry outside to look again, and nothing.   Then while the kids were eating breakfast, I was looking out the back window, trying to figure out some way that she might still be alive, but sort of resigning myself to the fact that she probably wasn’t, when all of a sudden she trotted out and ran over to the bird feeder, where she likes to eat the shells the birds drop.  Thanks a lot, Blackie!  I was worried!

Apparently she has a little nest in the barn.  When the barn is finally cleaned out, I’m going to do my best to limit the places where chickens can hide.