Tuesday, March 01, 2016

I said I needed 200' of fencing ...

... and he asked if I really needed a 50' by 50' garden! He should know by now that by the time I say I want something I've already done the math. 


Apparently he forgets my stories about the garden that was started when I moved here, and the ones I had the first few years I lived here. I wish that I had taken pictures of it. They were lovely! Planted in rows and deep mulch between the rows and plants to keep the weeds down, so they were different than the one I have planned now. I want to have mostly raised beds now. After not having a garden at all for several years, I put in four raised bed three years ago and they worked really well for me. Now I am ready to expand the garden again.
   Here is a picture of my little garden from 2013

I have since fenced it, but the fencing I used is low enough that my goats have learned to jump over it and get into the garden. I bought 200' of welded wire fencing a couple of days ago and want to get started but I have to wait for the ground to thaw before we can drive fence posts. I could start making the boxes now.


   Nineteen days away from the first day of Spring and its 56° F. so we are getting closer to being able to start planting.
   The first of the baby goats are due to start arriving next week, so I'm hoping to be able to post lots of cute pictures soon. Last week one of my heavily pregnant does died suddenly one morning during chores. I have really don't have any idea what happened to her. She was having a hard time getting up on and I tried to help her up and all of a sudden she acted as if she couldn't breathe and she was gone just that quick. I was quite shocked by the whole thing. She hadn't really shown any signs that anything was wrong other than the day before had started to have a little trouble getting up on her own. She was due to kid March 11th but she didn't show any signs of being in labor, just having a hard time getting around and getting up on her own... the next morning she died.
   Two days ago I went out to the barn to find a set of twins had been born during the night and were dead. I had their mom's due date written down as the 17th of March, so I wasn't expecting them yet, but they did not appear to be born early. They were fulling developed an were even all dried off and Mom's udder looked like they had nursed. I'm really hoping that this isn't the way the whole kidding season goes.