Fickle Fall

See that white snow behind the potato vine berries? There no more! We have had a few days of gentle winds and mild temperatures. I finished this morning’s chores with no coat. The sun was wonderful … but dare I say … I miss the snow?

Soon enough there will be plenty. I think I have figured out the trick to making it disappear. This past week I bought chains for the tractor. I figured with the goats out and running with me it would be much easier if I could still make the hill come the winter. If I can’t (as has been the case the last two winters) I then have to open the gate to leave the back paddock – drive the laneway and the road across the front of our house and the front paddock – then I can reach the manure dumpster. Lots of opportunity for MayMay and Dottie to find a way to follow me. Best to just stay inside their boundaries.

The day before all the snow disappeared I laid the chains out in the driveway and we figured out how to loop them over the back tires to latch them on. I used to love hearing our neighbour, Randy, come down the road with his chains on – the chains ringing like bells on the hard pack road.

I’m going to try the jennies on the same natural wormer formula I’ve used for the goats. It is a spice mixture highly recommended by my ‘goat contacts’. It seems to have worked well for MayMay and Dottie. I noticed when I received my first batch that the documentation listed donkeys and horses as well …

Darby and Bella detest the deworming paste I usually ‘attempt’ to give them. Rosie will gobble anything up offered in a syringe. 😉 So Edie offered to cook up some doseage balls to hide the spice mix in. She baked two weeks worth. That meant 96 balls! We wanted them small enough so they would be easy to pop into a cautious donkey mouth.

They looked yummy enough … however the kitchen did take on the strong smell of the spice formula. Edie HAD TO bake up a batch of people cookies and an apple crisp to cover up the odour. All good!

In the end the jennies decided they tasted great! It did seem like a big bowl FULL of ‘cookies’ to them. Next I’m going to try out mixing the spices in sweet grain like I do with the goats. To compare … I think by the time we were able to mix in all the ingredients for the cookies there was a lot of ‘extra’ that I’m trying to avoid with the jennies.

Here’s a shot to show you why I love when the snow arrives. The whites and the blues … are sooooo beautiful!