Harvey reporting for blog duty. We having been keeping busy moving the goats from one project to the next. The goats spent 11 days in Quincy, eating Kochia, Canadian thistle and other weeds on the berms and in a stormwater retention pond. We had several days that were 100 degrees or more. During the heat of the day the goats stayed along the irrigation ditch (some even stood in the ditch, it has to be hot for a goat to stand in water up to their knees), lay in the shade provided by the corn in the adjacent field and panted. Nessie and I would lay in the shade of the trailer and on occasion run over to the irrigation ditch for a dip to cool down. Craig followed the shade around the trailer.
Craig, Nessie and I went home for three days while our friend Reece waited and watered the goats. The three days flew by and before we knew it Craig and I were back on the road to Quincy. Nessie is staying home with Sue Lani for the remainder of the summer. Two reasons: one to help Sue Lani with the goats at home and two – Craig and Sue Lani do not want another batch of puppies this year.
Craig and I got back to Quincy on Friday and on Saturday morning we were loading the goats to head to Highline Community College to our next project. We had an uneventful drive over the mountains. Craig did make a couple of stops, one for fuel and the other for fresh fruit.
The site at the College was a new area so it took Craig some time to set up the fence. It is a site that has not been maintained for several years so there is a dense thicket of tall blackberries for the goats to eat, There were also several patches of English Ivy. Craig spent quite a bit of time cutting off blackberry canes and pulling canes out of the trees and shrubs. It was a challenging spot to pull the goats out of. We had 5 days to work and the pen needed 6.5 days to do a complete job. As a result there was still vegetation to eat in the back corner of the pen. Craig sent me in to push the goats into a smaller pen. The majority of the goats came along without any problem. It was the last 8 goats that were hiding in the back corner of the pen. I bunched them into a group and Craig pointed them in the right direction. Once we got the goats in the smaller pen it was time to take down all the netting.
The night before Betty and Bob came to visit and brought pizza to share. When they were leaving, Bob told Craig if he needed help in the morning to give him a call. It was 10 am when we got the goats into the smaller pen. Craig knew it would take quite awhile to take down all the netting by himself so he gave Bob a call. Bob came and helped Craig pick up the netting, set up the ramp and even load the goats. It was not an easy spot to load the goats as it was difficult to create an alley due to all the blackberry canes. With my speed and Bob blocking a potential escape route we were able to get all the goats loaded with only a couple of reruns. All Bob’s help sure made the loading easier on Craig as well as much faster. Craig greatly appreciated the help. Bob enjoyed the physical activity and seeing how the goats get loaded.
Currently we are working in Puyallup. It is a site we worked on four years ago. Since then the blackberries have came back strong and there is quite a thicket. Luckily it worked out that Craig could set up a small pen within an hour of us arriving and get the goats out quick. The next morning it took Craig about 6 hours to set the next pen up. Cutting through thickets of 10 foot tall blackberries is a lot of work. Luckily two of the sides of the pen were fairly open. Craig is keeping busy moving panels so the goats can climb on them to smash the blackberry thickets down, cutting off canes and pulling canes out of shrub thickets. This is about a four day project and we move to the next location on Tuesday.
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