Lisa, I love the way you think, as in, "two more kids won't hurt anything." That's the same kind of reasoning I use when I get more chickens.
But, like Jim, I don't raise my own hay. My hay guy is great. Until late last year when he upped the price by a dollar a bale, he was still charging me a mere $4 each -- the same price he'd charged since Day 1. In fact, I'd been telling him for two years that he wasn't charging me enough.
It's not so much the cost as the physical labor. I can get 12 bales into the back of the F-150. If he's home, he helps me load, but there's no one here to help me unload. Although the girls haven't figured it out yet, before old Bandit died last year, he would just walk over the icy drifts and let himself out of the pen. That meant I had to shovel a trench all along the fence line.
The other downside to having sheep and goats is how much I worry about predation by coyotes. My poultry is locked up at night; the ruminants have shelters but there's no way to lock them in safely.
On the other hand, there are few things in the world cuter than goat kids. And, although Tessa makes me crazy with her endless complaining, when the last of my original goats passed away, it was So Stinking Quiet that I couldn't stand the tranquility, I guess.
Jim, I'm impressed with your culinary skills. The longer I live by myself -- when I could be whipping up all those dishes that my Jim turned up his nose at -- the less I want to take time to cook. I made a "vat" of a pasta dish yesterday that I intend to eat for at least two more days, maybe more than once a day!
I still can't walk all the way to the end of the ramp. The more-than-3-foot-high drift that turned to ice is still blocking half of the length of it. But, there are great rivers of mud all over the yard. Warm weather is a mix blessing. On the plus side, the last of the reluctant Cochin hens finally popped out of her coop and onto the nice, dry plastic boot trays I'd laid down for her feathery feet. No, I don't think my birds are spoiled.
