Preparing for Sandy

Whew, it's been a busy month; just flown by!  We spent this past weekend preparing for a visit from Hurricane Sandy. 

When we first moved to the area I didn't really consider the possibility we'd be affected by hurricanes .  We are pretty far inland but occasionally will feel the effects of large, coastal storms. 

Last year, our storm preparations were focused more on the barn and the critters. 

Here DH and DS are repairing one of the barn doors.

 

We had more animals then and it was like a large puzzle figuring out how to fit all the animals into the barn.  It reminded me of the old brain-teaser, "Okay, you have a fox and three chickens and you have to get them all across the river but they can't all be in the boat at one time . . . "

Our milk cow, Lily.  In the background are Belle and Patchy Pony.

The horse and pony had to be kept apart from the goats because they steal the goats' hay and the goats had to be separated from the cows because the steer was too rough with the goats and the horses had to be separated from each other because the pony beat up on the old horses when he thought they were eyeing up "his girl"  . . .  Quite a puzzle.

We divided the cow's stall into two sections and put the cows on one side and the horse and pony on the other side. Then we put up a temporary wall in the goat's stall and put the goats on one side and the two old horses on the other.  We closed the barn up tight and everyone rode out the storm just fine.

This year our preparations for Hurricane Sandy were focused more on the house.  We spent the day Saturday caulking and painting windows. 

 

While we were at it, DH cleaned our old windows from the outside and I washed them on the inside.  I have a confession, we've lived here two and a half years and not once have I washed the upstairs windows of our house - keeping it real, folks.  DH and I keep marveling about how nice it is to be able to see out the upstairs windows.  Maybe we should consider washing them more often . . . just a thought.

 

The rest of our hurricane preparations were easy; dusting off and filling the oil lamps, filling some jugs with potable water and some five gallon buckets with water to flush the toilet.  That's the worst part of losing electricity; the well pump doesn't work so therefore, no running water.

 

Caring for the animals was much less complicated this year. Lily came in from the pasture thoroughly soaked and eager to be let into her stall for a rubdown and some hay. She is due to calve on November 10th so we're hoping she doesn't go early! Currently she is our only cow so she gets her own room in the barn.

I carried the cordless screwdriver out to the barn and put a bar across a back stall temporarily. This will allow the goats, we only have three on the farm right now, access to a back stall while Rio gets the hay in the front room.  Patchy Pony was elected to go to his own stall across the hallway.  Rio is patient and tolerant of the goats.  Patchy will sometimes get a little too pushy with them.

 

DH covered the windows in the chicken's area with plywood and they've had the good sense to stay inside today.  The dogs will spend the worst of the storm in the basement where it's warm and dry. 

 

Right now, Monday afternoon, we have steady rain and some wind; the front of the storm is moving in.  Forecasts predict the majority of the tempest will move over us later this evening or overnight.  Every once in a while a gust will blow the top of the pond into small waves.

 

But all the critters are safe in the barn and everything, so far, is pretty quiet.  DH went in to work for only a short time this morning, I had an unexpected day off and we let the children take a break from school work.  After we went out to tend to the animals, we spent a quiet afternoon finishing laundry and reading.  It's good to know we've done all we can to prepare and now we're able to relax and watch the storm move in.  We are thankful for a warm, sturdy house and barn.  Let's pray Sandy moves on quickly!

Night Adventures

I read or heard a statistic somewhere regarding how often pet owners are awakened by their pets on an average night.  Something like two or three times a week.  The news only confirmed my "no animals in the house" policy.

However, when the nights are cold, we do let the two dogs into the basement.  They happily curl up on their respective blankets and, typically, are quiet until morning.  Last night, however, I was awakened at 2:20am by Jack whining at the basement stairs.

Jack is our black lab/German shepherd/hound mix.

I tried to ignore him for a while, hoping he'd go back to sleep but he would have none of it.  I groped around on the bedstand for my glasses but couldn't find them so I shuffled down the stairs, half blind, in my fuzzy socks.  After I let Jack and Fynn out of the basement I stood on the front porch for a minute enjoying the cool air and the (blurry) moonlit view.

That's when I heard a rhythmic, wooden, thumping, bumping sound coming from the barn.  I slipped my feet into Dear Son's crusty barn shoes and scuffed my way down the sidewalk to the barnyard.  The goats did not seem too surprised to see me.  They rushed the gate hoping for an early morning treat.  The barn cat came streaking out of the barn and happily wound her way through my legs as I looked for the source of the sound.

Ah, there.  Patchy Pony's nose was poking over the door - a doorway that he should not have been able to reach.  He's so short that he can't look over a gate unless he points his nose up in the air and looks sideways, with one eye, over the top.  I could see him ogling me over the barn door.

 

The ponies go into small paddock for the night for two reasons; one, to preserve some of the grass in the pasture and, two, because they don't need to eat 24/7.  They both stay fat on grass and ponies can actually get sick from eating too much.  If we leave them out overnight they will literally eat all night long.  So the grass gets a break and the boys get to cool their heels for the night.

 

The only problem was, the night before, Rio had broken the inside door of their run-in stall.  This was the door the kids and I had built last summer.  I was so proud of the Dutch door we made all by ourselves that I took a picture . . .

 

 

The bad, little Patchy Pony cornered Rio in the corner of the run-in stall and kicked him.  (Rio is new to the herd and Patchy is still trying to establish his dominance.)  Poor Rio, frantic to escape, hit the stall door so hard that it cracked right down the middle.  It was late in the evening so DH and I just closed the top part of the Dutch door and hoped it would hold them in for the night.  It did but we did not get around to fixing the door Sunday afternoon.

 

Sunday evening the children brought the ponies up from the field.  I assumed they would shut the top part of the stall door.  Never assume.  They didn't and now Patchy had broken the door completely down the middle.  Two boards were laying on the ground.  He had walked over them to let himself into the barn.  Thankfully he hadn't done much damage - just pulled all the empty feed sacks out and tossed them all around.  But now he was standing, stuck, in the barn aisle.

 

I picked up the broken pieces of board and gently tapped him on his chest to command him to back up.  This was a difficult thing for him to comprehend because he had a concrete step up into the stall he had to navigate while moving backwards.  Meanwhile the rooster had been roused from sleep because the barn lights were on.  He began crowing.  And crowing.  And crowing.

 

 

Don't think it's like the coffee commercials where the rooster crows - off in the distance - and the woman sits on the edge of the bed smiling and stretching.  It's not like that. 

 

That ding-dang bird starts bawling his head off somewhere around 4:30am most mornings.  He crows and crows and crows.  For my part, I lay in bed dolefully counting how many minutes of sleep I've now missed and I daydream about throttling him with my bare hands.  We have two roosters right now and two is one too many.  They announce their rooster-ness by crowing; starting at 4:30am but they pretty much crow at any time all day long.  It's like dueling roosters around here. 

 

The reverb in the barn was deafening.  He wouldn't shut up.  I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, a plastic pitchfork, and pitched it at the bird.  He squawked in surprise and flapped to the other side of the barn, clucking indignantly.

 

The pony backed beautifully up the step and back into the stall.  I tried to sort of prop up the broken boards and close the top part of the door.  The pony shoved back from his side of the door, scattered the pieces again and pushed his nose through the opening.  I put everything back in place and looked around for something heavy to hold them there.  There wasn't much to chose from.  Finally I settled on using a five gallon bucket that was filled with molasses.  (We use it to top-dress our dairy cow's food.)

 

I nearly took out the barn cat with the bucket as I waddled back to the stall with the heavy bucket.  I put it down and hoped the pony wasn't strong enough to push the bucket over; what a mess that would be -five gallons of molasses spilled on the barn floor!  

 

It seemed as though the bucket was holding so I fed the barn cat, petted the goats one last time and headed back to the house.  The dogs came back, excited from their night run, and settled quickly in the basement. 

 

As I crawled back in to bed I was surprised to see the whole escapade had taken only 25 minutes.  It seemed longer.  I was thankful when DH got up this morning and did chores while I slept in.  By the time I made my way out to the barn, everything was done.  The bucket was sitting off to the side with just a little molasses dripped down the sides.  Phew!  I guess fixing a stall door is on the list of things to do today!