Hermit on the Homestead

Yay! After much sleepless nights, hand wringing, and brow furrowing, we changed the yaks halters! They were getting so tight they were digging into their noses, and making furless indentations on the back of their necks. I knew they must have been very uncomfortable, but The halters I bought were too big. We had to drill more holes in the strap and even then I wasn't sure if they would fit. We brainstormed how we should do it. Should we tie the yaks up some how? Should we build a make-shift squeeze chute? We had no idea, but we knew we couldn't traumatize poor Rocky again.  I had an idea. Clip them up with the leads to their existing halters like we always do every morning. I thought, let's put the sweet grain they love in a bucket. Then make the nose hole on the halter really big and place it around the sides of the bucket. When they reach in the bucket for the goodies, lift up the halter and then it would be around the nose, all is left is buck the back strap. Then switch...

Dad finished building transitional home number 3 for the not-so-baby chickens. It's a make-shift cage inside of the chicken coup. I reached inside the box to grab the chickens in order to move them and they run so fast. I had a hard time grabbing them even when they were confined in the box. Finally I grabbed one, they feel weird, like bones wearing fluff. I put them in an empty diaper box and then carried the box to the coup and put them inside the new cage. They immediately started kicking and shaping the hay into a little nest. It was kind of cute. Meanwhile, I had to fix the screen on our sliding door in our bedroom, it had an enormous hole ripped into it, and we just happened to have some leftovers of a roll of screen material, so I got on it. First you take out the gasket and throw away the old screen. While I was doing this I broke the gasket, so I had the main piece and another piece about a foot long. I figured it didn't matter I'll just use the pieces. It was extr...

The first month we were here was incredibly treacherous. The moving company refused to deliver our furniture, so we were all sleeping on the floor, with just a little bit of our clothes in bags, we had some of Winston’s toys in order to entertain him. It was dreadfully uncomfortable. Note to all others reading this: Never do business with Nationwide Moving, or Cobra Van Lines—they are shysters—I'm not convinced that they aren't running some outright illegal trafficking/smuggling or some other nefarious activity. I just don't believe that any company can be *that* bad genuinely and innocently, they know what they are doing. And if that wasn't bad enough, keep "sleeping on the floor and having no furniture" in mind while you continue reading. We had to manage a constant revolving door of contractors who were redoing the flooring, carpet, and painting. Nine days later after arriving, we were confronted with a major systemic backup of the sewer system. The toilet...