Nessie here reporting. It was quite a New Year at the ranch. Three of my puppies have moved to their new homes. Dot (renamed Amy) move to Sprague for a future working with sheep, Ruff (renamed Jed) has a new home with Goat Pros working with goats on weed projects and Snowy wins the prize for traveling the farthest. He hopped on a plane to St. Paul, Minnesota. Snowy will be a service dog for Kellie. We have received reports that he likes to push the snow around with his nose. Hopefully, he likes the cold as well as it is supposed to be -15 degrees or colder for the next couple of days. All of the animals including the humans are glad it is not going to be that cold here.
Stinker will be staying for another month to get his next round of vaccinations before he moves to the KV Ranch in the Palisades to learn to herd cattle. Patches currently does not have a new home. I am sure she will have a new home soon.
Craig has taken some time away from barn building to help Sue Lani organize and clean the house. He also stays busy feeding goats, walking puppies and moving fence for the goats in Ephrata that are grazing on irrigated hay ground. A young man is checking on the goats every day to make sure they have water and the fence is hot. The one cold snap caused a little bit of a challenge making sure the animals had water. It took a little practice to make sure the hoses were drained well enough so they were not frozen the next day. It is a blessing to have the animals next to a good neighbor who lets Craig plug in a water trough heater. Another challenge is that the trough heater will melt the plastic trough. A guard around the heater is designed to protect the trough. But if the guard gets damaged by the goats it can and will melt a hole in the bottom of the trough. Craig had to plug the holes in the bottom of the trough twice. He thinks he has found a solution that will protect the trough. He wired a piece of slate to the bottom of the heater and wired that to a heavy piece of metal. Now the goats cannot pull the heater out of the trough and the piece of slate prevents the heater from touching the trough. Some trial and error and a little farmer engineering hopefully solved the problem.
Harvey and I are taking it easy for the winter. Harvey had to help Craig round up the goats at Ephrata as he had a buyer for 11 of the goats. Mostly we go for walks up the hill with Craig and Sue Lani and get attacked by Stinker and Patches. Stinker and Patches like to play with Herbie, or maybe it is easier for them to catch him as he is slower than Harvey or I. Herbie is not a real fan of the puppies. He is really jealous of them when they are near Sue Lani. Herbie does not like to share the attention.
Harvey or I will try to do more regular posts to keep everyone update on the happenings at the ranch.
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