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Our donkey is weird. He has this thing he does whenever he takes a drink of water, which is to keep his tongue hanging out. Why does he do this? I think it might possibly be a way of cooling himself off by letting the water evaporate on his tongue. Or maybe it's just because he's silly. 
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Well, after all that lake raking it was time to kick back and throw in a line to catch some fish. With most of the weeds gone on the shoreline it was easy to cast. Blue-gills galore and a couple of crappies. But the catch of the day was this bigmouth bass. Caught him right off the shore with a night-crawler. He put up a good fight. For me, I just take a picture and release. I look forward to the next time we wrestle. 
Beautiful day today. Thought I'd rake the lake. Chester Lake is a perfect fish habitat, full of blue-gills, crappies, and largemouth bass, some of which are monsters. They love to hide in the weeds, of which the lake sports many--mostly the annoying variety. Two or three times during the summer it is necessary to rake the weeds out to clear the shore for fishing. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. That somebody could be you! If there is anybody out there who would like to know first-hand the joys of lugging out heavy, wet, algae-laden, muck-coated, slime-loaded, filth-encrusted weeds, I could use a hand. The pay is minimal but the rewards are many. Any weeds you take out you are welcome to keep and cart off the property. Thank you, The Management  Man, the mosquitoes are bad. We came home last night around 9pm and proceeded to put the animals away in the barn. Apparently Daryl and Goofy were playing tag with each other. Both goat and donkey were wet with sweat and the mosquitoes just zeroed in on them. As soon as Goofy got into his pen, he immediately laid down and tried to hide himself with straw to ward off the bugs. Daryl was just covered with those blood sucking insects. We brushed them off his coat and gave him an extra dose of repellent. You could tell he was happy to be mosquito-free. It seems every season has its challenges. With Winter you have the numbing cold and the snow cover that limits access to pasture. With Spring you have the mud and the rain. With Summer you got the heat and the bugs. Autumn, on the other hand, is my favorite time of year. The bugs are minimal, the days are pleasantly cool and the Fall colors are beautiful. Looking forward to the Fall.  Michael Anderson made this for us. If you have ever seen the movie "The Princess Bride" you'll appreciate the humor. If you haven't seen the movie, be careful and don't get too close to the shore without some measure of protection.  Hauled this three pounder out of Chester Lake today. Life is good.  Yesterday our little goat Daisy happened to get into the sheep paddock where she decided to throw her weight around, as much as it is. Daisy is petite, no more than 30 lbs of goat. Once inside, those 30 lbs proceeded to seek out the lambs and head butt them, playfully of course. One by one she greeted the little ones, looked them over, and gave them each a good head butt ("you want a piece of this?") Soon, some of the mama sheep became annoyed at Daisy's daring do. Lizzy, for one, lowered her head and charged to shoo Daisy away, but that little spitfire head-butted her as well. Daisy was having a good ol' time, prancing from sheep to sheep in a head-butting binge. The fun ended when Fabio, our very large 300lb ram, stepped up imposingly to let Daisy know that enough was enough. This message was communicated with a loud snort and bull-like pawing at the ground. Daisy decided it was now a good time to quickly prance to the safety of the goat paddock, where she is once again #4 in the barnyard hierarchy.  "I'm in charge here, just so you know" The summer has been very wet thus far. We've had rain and fog nearly every day for two weeks now. This is great for the pastures; they are growing well and provide lush feed for the animals. But there is a down side to it all. The mosquitoes are everywhere and there's nothing I can do about it. The sheep and goats want to stay in the shelter a lot to keep away from those pests. But after a while, the temptation for all that green grass is too much and out they go to fill themselves up while shooing away the bugs with their funny little leg kicks. Daryl the Donkey seems to have it the worst. The flies like to bite his feet all the time. I have remedied the problem with a really good fly repellent that I apply to this legs every morning. Daryl seems to know that the repellent is the thing that keeps the bugs away. When I let him out of his pen, he just stands there, patiently waiting for his "treatment" before he goes out to pasture. The other problem with the wet weather is wet sheep. And wet sheep like to lay in the mud. And when they lay in the mud, they get dirty and brown. The mamas seem to know how to keep themselves relatively clean, but not the lambs. We now have brown lambs. They don't seem to care for some reason.  Hello Everybody! Well, we launched our website today. Sharon and I thought it best to get a web presence out there seeing that we'll soon be in "market mode" with our sheep. The little fellas are about 3 months old now and growing very quickly. The lambs will be ready for sale and market sometime late in August and early September. For the latest on lamb info and sales, refer to our SHEEP page. Here's the most recent photo:  |