Finally Done

As I talked about in a previous post, I bought a stock trailer a few weeks ago. It was a used trailer that needed some work. So, the past few weeks I have been fixing it up and getting it in good working order. I removed the rust, put on a rust preventing primer coat, and then repainted it. I fixed the floor boards, rewired the lights, and replaced the side boards and bolts. It looks a lot better now and is in good shape to be used. Hopefully it will last for many years to come. Here are some before, during, and after pics

Before


During


During


After






I also wanted to let you know that I updated our "favorites" slideshow on the sidebar in case you want to check it out. I had not updated it in like a year so there are several new pics on there. Actually, how about if I just put a bigger version of the slideshow below. Just click play.

Camping

This weekend we went camping with some friends out near the Buffalo River. There was seven of us total and we camped Friday night and came back home Saturday evening. It was a really fun time to hang out with friends and enjoy the Buffalo River area. On the way there we got to see some big bull elk and the new Trumpeter swans they relocated to Arkansas this year. We camped at Lost Valley which is a really nice place to camp. On Saturday we did a bunch of hiking. The first trail we did Saturday morning was the Goat Trail. I had read about it (click here for article) a few months ago and had been wanting to do it. It is a 7 mile round trip hike and the first part which is when you are getting to the actual Goat Trail is pretty unimpressive. But the Goat Trail itself is amazing. Basically you are walking along halfway on the bluff about 300 feet above the river. The bluff itself is like 500 feet above the river. I am not sure who found this trail but it is awesome. It is not for the person that is scared of heights though because at some points the trail is only like 4 feet wide, on one side is the bluff going straight up and the other side is a 300 foot drop. The views are amazing and this is one of the coolest hikes I have ever done. I highly recommend it. After lunch we did the Lost Valley trail which is a pretty easy 2 mile round trip hike with beautiful views of a creek bed, bluff, big boulders, water falls, and a cave at the end. The cave at the end is really fun. It is not a long cave but you have to get down on your hands and knees towards the end and crawl but after a little bit it opens up into this big room with a waterfall. It is really cool.
Here are a few pics I wanted to share specifically and I will embed a slide show on here so you can see more.

Here is our group


And Margo and I


this gives you an idea of how the trail was, notice the lean in


Another pic of the trail, notice the dropoff


Margo went ahead and took a picture of me looking back


Here is another picture looking back at the trail we had already been on, the trail is in the middle


here is the slide show, just click the play button or double click to view full size

Huge Melons

We finally got some melons today. I planted cantaloupe and watermelon this year. It seems they have been a little slow in producing, maybe because of the dry conditions we have had here on the farm. Although it looks like the cantaloupe is going to produce much more than last year's did. Margo counted 20 good sized cantaloupe that aren't quite ripe yet. This is our fist year to do watermelons. I had a big problem with squash bugs this year and they got to one of the areas of watermelon and killed the vines. The other area where I planted them seems to be doing ok though. They take up a lot of space. We picked our first one today, they are sometimes hard to tell when they are ripe but I think we hit this one right on the nose. We forgot to take pictures until after we had cut into the melons.
This picture is a little out of focus (some people call it artistic) but here is the watermelon. Please notice my awesome hair and shirt.


Here is the cantaloupe

A Goat Happening

This could turn out to be a long story....I will try to keep it as short as possible
Last Thursday we did some goat separating. As I talked about in a previous post, we have two billy goats. For background on this click here to read the blog entry about that. I had been keeping the billies separate from the females until I was ready for them to breed. So, Thursday we decided it was time to put the females with their respective males. I only had two females (sisters) with one of the males. These two did not like being separated from the rest of the goats they were used to being around. So, as all goats do when put in this situation, they tried to find a way out so they could join the others. Well, these goats found that way out. We were at work when all this went down but I pieced together what happened. We did not figure it out until later but what they did was get on a tall stump that was near the yard fence and jumped over the fence. I had always thought that a goat might jump over at that spot but none ever had so I stopped worrying about it. So, after jumping over they were in the yard and needed to find a way over the other fence that would get them back into the section with their buddies. They walked all around trying to find a place to get over and this took them to the far side of the property. This is where they found another stump. This was a stump from a tree that I had cut while putting up the perimeter fence 3 years ago. This stump was not as close to the fence as the other stump but I guess the goats figured they could still make this jump. The first one made the jump because when we got home we found her on the side of the property that she was not supposed to be in with the other goats. We did not see her sister anywhere who had been with her so we went looking for her. She was not on the side she was supposed to be on so we knew she had gotten out but just may have not made it in to the other side. We finally found her at this spot where they decided to jump back in, this is how we figured all this out. While her sister had made the jump back in, she did not. Evidently she almost made it but her back leg got caught on the top strand of barbwire and got tangled in her flight over the fence. When we found her she was dangling upside down hanging by her back leg for who knows how long. We thought she was dead because she was not moving. But she was still barely alive. She had struggled some because she had gotten her head and other legs tangled in the fence and was pretty contorted. It took us a few minutes but we got her untangled. She tried walk but could not and would just fall down every time she tried. Both legs on one side were injured. We gave her water and food and just let her lay down for a while. The next day her front leg was stronger and she could walk around on it but she was still dragging her back leg that she had been dangling from. I did not see or feel any breaks or dislocations so we just cleaned up her wounds, put a bandage on the leg where it got cut up pretty bad by the barbwire, and gave her some antibiotics. I am not sure if the leg is going to fully recover or not but it is showing improvement after two days. This was one of the craziest things I had seen happen with a goat. To make things worse it is my new goat that I really like because she has cool markings. Here is a pic of her from today, you can see the bandage on her leg where the barbwire was wrapped around.