Rosie on the run

Yesterday the heat got to the chicks.  I used the greenhouse last year, but I only had Golden Campine chicks then.  This year, I have lost a lot of Buckeyes, and I lost two to the heat yesterday, while the Campines weathered the heat just fine.  I was worrying about them when I went to sleep, planned to move them to my basement this morning before daylight, until I can find another solution.  I woke up at 3:00 a.m. worrying about them, and decided to act immediately.

Chicks have to be moved in the dark, and it is dark at 3 a.m.  An hour later, chicks were cozied down in their brooder box in a spare bedroom in my basement.  However, that is not a great solution, and they are probably going to make another move tonight to the screened deck off my living room.  How I will move them from there to their permanent home in a few months is something I will deal with later.

I slept until 7 a.m., something I rarely do.  That middle-of-the-night work project probably had something to do with it, since once I knew the chicks were safe, I slept just fine.

I got up feeling well rested, looked out the window and saw Rosie in the yard just outside the garden.  What?  She was supposed to be in a paddock a long way from there!  Sure glad we got the fence up around the garden to keep the chickens out, because it kept Rosie out too, Rosie the lover of kale. 

I had planned to do some fence work today as soon as I finished up the last two pages of my organic certification paperwork.  The deer broke the top wire in one of the new pastures south of the pond.  Since Rosie had been nowhere near that area, I was sure that wasn't the problem.  I hopped in the golf cart and headed out to see what had happened.  She managed to break down a corner post!  Good grief!!  I knew their paddock was getting thin, but she didn't have to be so outspoken about it!

I managed to push the corner post up part way, get the insulated wires back around it, and then I rammed into the post with the golf cart to get it into its former upright position, or at least close enough that the wires were taut again.  The gate had been destroyed there, so I made a new one with some tape and push-in fiberglass posts.  Then I went down and repaired the deer damage on the perimeter of the new pasture, since I wanted to move all of the cows down there.

I had no trouble getting Rosie inside the pasture fencing.  I herded her to the other dry cows.  I have no idea why the others had stayed in, but thank goodness they did!  Then I herded the whole bunch of them towards the new paddocks and went back to the barn to put away tools and take care of some other chores.  By the time I was done, all of the cows, including Rosie, were happily in Paddock #22, munching away.  I closed them in, took them their daily tray of minerals and came in the house to have breakfast.

I am so thankful that Liefschon, one of our milkers, is milking for me on Sunday mornings now.  If she wasn't, I would just be finishing up milking and would have had all of those fencing chores still ahead of me.

Well, back to the organic certification paperwork.  It will be ready to go to post office tomorrow morning.  Gee, I'm going to beat the deadline by one whole day!