Slowly, things are being retooled at the Accidental Farmer's place. In the chicken coop, a couple of potential predator entrances have been boarded up, with two to go. The gate I built for the milking room/nursery has been taken apart and is being reassembled, albeit in a somewhat shorter form, but I think I can still make it work.

Last Wednesday, I took another important step in protecting the assorted flocks (okay, goats are a herd, not a flock, but stick with me on this). My wife and I travelled to the far away town of Hanoverton and ended up brining home a Great Pyrenees puppy. After some thought, I named her Ripley.

Okay, she won't be chasing off possums and raccoons any time soon. But she's already leaving little deposits around the barn that might make them think twice about intruding. Ripley also has instincts for wanting to be around the goats. She was dead tired from her trip home in the car, but when we took her out to see them, her ears perked right up and her tail started to wag. She loves to watch them, almost to distraction - she gets engrossed in what they're up to and doesn't hear us talking to her.

Right now she's a little wary of the big goats because the cranky old doe with the two kids keeps chasing her off, and butted at her a couple of times. But she keeps wanting to come back and be around the goats. I'm thinking that her instincts will overpower her wariness of the goats as she gets bigger.

Plus, when my wife and daughter were attempting to bottle feed the two kids a couple of days ago, Ripley wanted to jump right in and be in the middle of things. She was licking their little goat ears and behinds, and was generally trying to nurture them, even though she's still a puppy herself.

She also seems pretty intelligent. After just a day or two, she's gotten the hang of "sit" and "come" (when she's not engrossed in goat watching, or practicing the breed's famous "selective hearing." I think the potential is there.

I've given Ripley her own page on this site; you can go there now to see pictures and learn why I named her Ripley, and a permanent link will be placed in the menu.

So now my farm to-do list looks something like this:

1. Clean up the tack room and make space for the spring order of hay.
   
   
2. Rebuild part of my restraining fence over the manger that the goats knocked down over the winter. (My father-in-law did this for me - thanks, Henry!)
   
   
3. Refloor the back half of the chicken coop to make certain that it's secure from any rodential predators. (Half done)
   
   
4. Design and build a new goat gate.
   
   
5. Possibly working on my dear spouse to see if she could be convinced to keep a dog.
   
   
6. I also need to build some new nest boxes.
   
   
7. Put up chicken wire across the roof of the coop to keep the birds out of the rafters.
   
   
8. Make some bleach water and spray the chicken coop with it, with time to dry before restocking.
   
   
9. Clean up the tack room.

All in all, not too bad. I'm wanting to go to the swap meet in Mount Hope this weekend in the hopes of finding some started pullets. With any kind of luck and good timing, I should have the coop mostly finished (re-finished?) in time for their arrival.

Then we can see how they take to their watchdog - and the dog to them.