Bucks and barn

I have come to the somewhat painful conclusion that I need to try to trade one of my bucks for an unrelated buck. Two of my bucks are related to my original buck as are three of my breeding does. And it makes no sense to keep four bucks. Unfortunately these are the best looking bucks I have seen. There is Yahoo:

And there is J. P.:

We have also begun the long projects of refurbishing the rabbit hutches and the barn. All will get new roofs, supports, walls and paint. So these are the "before" photos.

Projects

So after animal chores, the first project of the day was to get the llama maintenance done. She needed her toes trimmed, her wool sheared, CDT shot and worming. So Tom attached a new stronger piece of plywood to the stanchion, and I caught and haltered Fancy. I managed to get her in the stanchion and proceeded to trim and shear her, as best I could.

She tried to jump out, lay down and whined the whole time. She had a large green ball of cud ready to spit at me if I was stupid enough to walk in front of her- which I wasn't. We both survived the experience without any injuries for which I am thankful. Then she was freed and ran back to her sheep and goat buddies.
Then I took new updated photos of the goat kids still for sale: Athena,
Mearth,
Sophia,
and Sugar Magnolia.
I am still trying to find good homes for them. The economy appears to have affected goat kid sales but not lambs nor wool- interesting.

On the way back from the barn I watered the plants in the green house, admiring a lot of large green tomatoes- I hope they ripen soon. I noticed that the garden is growing well, is fairly well weeded and pretty. The majority of the corn was definitely knee high by the Fourth of July.

Then I cleaned up, had lunch and made cottage cheese for the first time. I have been making chevre (soft goat cheese) and yogurt for a while, but this is my first attempt at cottage cheese. This is the cheese in a cloth, dripping whey.
And here's the final product.
It taste good- although different from store bought.

My grandmother worked in a cottage cheese factory when she was a young woman and never ate cottage cheese again. Hopefully I will not have the same experience with my little home-factory.

Happy Fourth of July!

Babies and cleaning pens

When I as doing animal chores I noticed a baby swallow had come out of its nest and was laying in the entrance to the barn. I thought it was at risk of being stepped on so I fussed with it to try to keep it out of harms well. It is unlikely my efforts will help this chick as it cannot fly yet. I replace it in its nest where its parent fed it but it kept coming out again. While I has fussing around with this I realized how much of my life and its efforts are focused on trying to help vulnerable, cute, innocent creatures of the worlds- whether it be human infants, domestic animal babies, or wildlife's youngin's.

I also managed to clean on of the pens from its winter's bedding. The rabbits received new bedding despite the heat. They are initially a little nervous but soon are burrowing, chasing and munching on their new straw. 7 more pens to go!