Winter has arrived. The photo is the last sunshine of fall being soaked up by Harvey. He was all stretched out but the camera wasn't cooperating and as soon as he knew I was there he sat up in hopes of something to eat.

The goats are too friendly and are in the middle of everything and everyone elses' business. They will sneak into the chicken coop and eat their food if you don't mind the door. They will open the door to Harvey's area of the barn an steal his food. They will put their font feet on the inside walls of the barn so they can reach the alpaca's feeders and clean up their grain. So the feeding ritual morning and night involves feeding the goats first and locking them in the head stanchions. That way everyone else can eat in peace. DMP

You Know It's Hot When the Chickens are Panting

I don't have any great blog stories but a few little tid bits that are amusingly insteresting. Hot weather showed up in Oregon for 4 days. Around the farm making sure all the critters have water all the time is a bit of a chore. One after noon while filling up the various height water recepticles I looked over and there was a chicken with its beak open pretty wide panting. So alas there is your title.

Harvey the pig and the pair of geese are buddies now. They hang out together and mainly the geese follow Harv around. A couple times we have see come pretty funny interactions. I can never get a picture due to the geese being imprinted on people and running over to you when you go outside with the camera. One time the hen was pecking at Harvey's tail like it was a worm or something. Another time they were pulling the hair on his back. He didn't appreciate the hair pulling.

The geese now have an bizzar behavior. When I go out at dark to put them in the coop at night they will often run up the pasture honking and flapping their wings. It is goofy as heck! The wierd thing is they do want to go in at night and chow on the chicken feed.

We made an electric fence enclosure for the alpacas so they could have more grazing. After 2-3 weeks they had it cleaned up. Youngest lad and I expanded their fence saturday morning before it was too hot. We pull the wire out of one end of the old area so they could use the new area. Oh no. They wouldn't go into the new area. After a couple days we had to entice them into the new area with grain. After the revelation they were back in business grazing. Funny creatures.

The black berry picker has surpassed the 20 gallon mark. With the hot weather the cans and bottles business has been very productive. The people are really nice when Big C explains what he is doing. DMP