It’s more work to water in the winter

But Will figured a way to make it less painful. In the past, we had six 50-foot hoses connected to our frost-free hydrant in the yard, running down to the horse pasture below where our new barn is. That meant six 50-foot hoses to drain every time we ran water to our stock tank — which is every other day; we can’t run a water heater in the tank because we’re off-grid. And, of course, sometimes (often!) one of them would freeze because it wasn’t drained. So we had to haul it to the house to thaw. It took all day to water! Chopping ice is bad enough, but dragging all those snowy hoses was a real pain. This year, we have a new frost-free hydrant in the new barn. But the water line was only run 100 feet toward the well before the dry sand started to cave in as the excavator dug the 8-foot deep trench.

So we stopped till spring. Will rigged up 200 feet of 1-inch black poly water line above ground and inserted round heat tape, meant to be used on roofs to prevent ice dams. (We did that with our house water line, running under the driveway. It froze every winter until the heat tape was inserted. Now it doesn’t!) Now to water the calves, pigs, and horses down below, we turn on the generator, plug in the heat tapes, and wait from ten minutes to half an hour, depending on how cold it is. Then I turn on the pump, go down and pull the handle up on the hydrant, and water! How easy! I do have to drain two hoses, but one is only 25 feet and the other is easy, compared to last year. I’m done watering in half an hour, including chopping ice. Will even figured out how to completely clean the calves’ bathtub water trough. When it gets ice-choked, we chop out what we can, then turn it over. He heats the bottom evenly with a weed-dragon type propane torch and the huge ice cube pops loose. A totally clean tank! How cool is that? He then shoves the ice cube out of the corral with the tractor or throws out the pieces if it breaks…which it often does.

It’s goat-breeding time, so we’ve separated the does and bucks. We have three different bucks this year, all young bucks from this spring: a Boer and two Nubians. So each buck has his own harem. I can’t wait to see the kids born next May. We’ll have quite a bunch by our first seminar. (By the way, there are still several spots available if you’d like to come.)

We work hard all day, but evenings are for relaxing. Check out this picture of Will, Spencer, and Mittens (the new kitten) relaxing by the fire. Notice Spencer’s collection of “babies.” Every time I go to the thrift store, I pick up a small stuffed animal for Spencer. He just LOVES them. He used to de-stuff them, but now he’s content to just play with them. He goes around and finds all his babies and makes a pile before he stretches out to relax after a long day of being a homestead dog. What a life! — Jackie