In for the Night

It's 8:35 and everyone is in for the night. It didn't go too badly tonight, just a few stragglers and I managed to coax them to the gate. Funny how some of them get nervous when they realize they are the last ones out. The goaties found their way to the field in back of the barn where they will live somday. It is filled with little bushes and plants that goats love to eat. I was concerned they wouldn't find their way back to the front where the gate into the pen is and I would have to put on my rubber boots and go in there to guide them out. Not a problem. The chicken the dogs got ahold of this morning was hiding when I got home. She let me pick her up and feed her some chicken meal. She's up on her favorite roost now and looking fine. One black ewe has puss coming out of her udder and is complaining loudly. The flies are getting on it and I desperately want to help her. Spent about a half hour trying to get her in a pen with rabbit pellets to tempt her. She smelled a trap and was very skittish. I tried to run her down with a can of Blue Kote to spray on the udder but this gal is really fast. After breaking two bones on the same leg in freaky accidents, and the knee going bad on that leg, I am a little wary of tackling her. That's what it would have taken to get the antibiotic shot in her, the pus squeezed out, and the wound dressed. Will have to wait for Matt to come home late tomorrow night, and he won't be in the mood to catch her for me...or maybe he will, in that newly reunited euphoria, be willing to help me. I have a little broody hen in the "Fine Dineing Lamb Pen" sitting on a clutch of eggs. I check on her several times a day. Hope I find the chicks before any cats do, although I've found those Old English Bantams can be very fierce. I sat on the uphill side of the barn with one of my favorite barn cats, Motil, a tiny tortoise shell kitty, and watched the sun going down behind the one giant pine tree. I need to plant more shade trees but am afraid the goats would eat them before they get started. Funny, I'm very alone but not lonely tonight. I get used to being here alone, then Matt comes home for three days and it's hard when he leaves again. Last fall and winter was tough. It would get dark shortly after I got home from work, and this milk room/office/kitchen/laundry room was not set up. I had my sewing machine set up in the middle of the upstairs hay mow, with one lamp to sew by. There was a wall of blackness all around me, and it would freak me out to look into it. I would force myself to look at the sewing and not into the darkness. I needed to make bags for my biggest shows which all take place in the fall. It was worth it as I sold enough to get my apartment started, but wow, I was not a happy camper. When I couldn't stand it any longer I would run for the trailer, which was parked up there. Some nights I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, but if I laid on the picnic table and fixed my eyes up on the stars and planets, I was fine. Star power kept me going...