September is galloping right along, isn't it?
At the start of the month we had a stretch of several days without rain - the first such stretch this summer - and my neighbors made hay on Labor Day weekend. (That sentence may have needed an Irony Alert. Haying is pretty dang laborious.) Anyway, it was their first cutting of 2023, which is just staggering. I've noticed that in-person conversations about hay and weather have one common feature this year: at some point, each person just stops mid-sentence and throws their hands in the air. It's better than bursting into tears, I guess.
I've picked up 29 bales so far, in four trips with the Highlander. This is my very local family hay farm, right around the corner. I've been a regular customer for years and would be happy to buy all my hay from them but it's impossible, as they have many other regular customers. So in recent years I've bought hundreds of bales each year from another family farm a bit southeast of here. They will deliver and stack 50 bales per trip, which is a huge help. That farmer hasn't yet called to say they have baled a second cut, but I'm sure that during the string of dry days they were working "right out straight" as we say in my neck of the woods. So my fingers are crossed.
Because now we are in the middle of another 10-days-of-rain forecast. Literally in the middle. It hasn't rained constantly for the past five days, but we've had a couple of big storms and at least some rainfall every day. The deep, boot-sucking mud is back. When I felt that first tug on a boot after a few days without it, my heart sank a little bit thinking of how hard the goats try to keep their hooves dry, and how much I'm failing to provide that option for them.
One option that I have provided, and feel pretty good about: a chute connecting the Upper West Side to the little Pocket Paddock, between the driveway and the road.
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| What the bittersweet looked like before it met the goats. |
I fenced this tiny paddock many years ago for the goats, but it turned out to be of very limited use. The biting bugs are even worse there than elsewhere on the property, probably due to a small drainage nearby. Also, there was no simple way to connect it to the upper paddocks. Each goat had to be escorted down - and later, back up - the entire length of the driveway, one by one, with a collar and lead. It's not that I minded the extra effort and time, but since none of the goat likes being taken out of sight of the others, these trips were fraught. I'll never forget the time LeShodu, that massive and stately Matriarch of Cloud Harvest Cashmere, suddenly yanked a lead rope out of my hand and took off down the driveway at a rapid trot, headed for parts unknown. Just the memory makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Whew.
Deep breath.
Back to now.
Well. As the search for hay became more and more desperate in August, I realized that the gap created recently by the fallen tree provided a potential route from the corner of the terrace garden, down the steep bank garden, to the driveway. And if I moved the west side of the Pocket Paddock fence, which was parallel to the driveway, about 15 feet to the east, a couple of 16-foot stock panels could serve as a chute across the driveway. So, long story short - if it's not too late? - I had a load of stock panels delivered and that's what I did.
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| The view from the top of the bank garden, across the driveway, to the Pocket Paddock below. |
Building a chute that crosses my driveway sounds crazy. Because it is crazy. I now have to muscle two 16-foot stock panels 90 degrees every time I want to take the truck up or down the driveway. It's crazy, but it's not forever.
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| Bud and Mallow didn't have to be asked twice. |
And in the meantime, on nice days, the goats have been introduced in twos and threes to the new chute, and have been making short work of the bittersweet jungle in the Pocket Paddock. We are all very happy about this. Of course, it's only an option when it's not raining and it's best if the foliage has had a chance to dry, so it's still kind of a treat rather than an anytime thing. But we all need treats. Yes, we do.
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| The nose of a happy goat. |
Moxie has directed this project every step of the way.
Here she is on our own little Promontory Point, checking out the drop to the driveway below:
I don't know how a standing cat can cast a sitting shadow, but Moxie is a creature of many and mysterious talents.
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