New Tarps on the Goat Shed

Waah waah waah… Here’s today’s tickle-some tale of woe:

 

Just what I needed was a pricey (to me, $100 right now is “pricey”!) “home improvement” chore after having to spend over $1000 on vehicle repairs last month!!!  ARGHHHH!!! (“It never rains but it pours”.)

 

I’m going to have to buy a tin cup and hit the streets pretty soon if this kind of thing keeps happening!

 

(Most creative people live a “feast or famine” existence. I’m in a “famine” phase right now!!!)

 

I had to tear the old tarp down last night–the one over the goat “barn” because it split and then decomposed at the touch of my hands–so the goats only had a small shed to hang out in while it rained. Of course, that made me feel like a bad Mom-goat, so I went out and bought new tarps this morning–ones that I hope will last at least two years!

 

I bought four heavy duty tarps. Two of them measured 15′ x 12′; two measured 8′ x 5′. The two biggest ones had to go over the goat “barn” area; the smaller ones went over the smaller goat shed where the goats hang out when it rains, when the chill factor is around twenty degrees, and at night when they put themselves to bed.

 

This afternoon Lisa helped me re-tarp the goat “barn”.  Luckily, she happened to stop by at just the perfect moment, because it would have taken me four hours (had I lasted that long) to do everything we ended up doing (never a sure thing anymore at my “advanced” age).

 

The trick was getting the tarps into place and tied down with bungee cords on a blustery day in between cloud bursts.  Did I tell you that goats hate getting wet? Hence the desperate need for a fast fix after the old tarp failed…

 

Truth time: the roof on the small goat shed really needs to be replaced. It’s the size of two 4 x 8 sheets of plywood and the part of the roof closest to the opening to the goat “barn” has gotten very waterlogged in one spot. MOST of the roof is okay, but that spot is both an eyesore and a place where water was running into the shed. The goats’ bedding was getting wet, leaving them wanting to sleep higher up, but there’s only so much room higher up in that small space and they don’t all fit…

 

So after Lisa and I managed to get the large tarps pulled into place and tied down in a moderate wind tunnel-type situation (go ahead and laugh–anything you can imagine happened to us while we were doing our best to prevail against tremendous odds!), I climbed Jackie’s seriously awesome VULCAN ladder (no relation to Mr. Spock or the planet, I’m sure) to get onto the roof of the goat shed to pull the smaller tarps into place and nail them there. It was still windy, so Lisa had to hang with me from the safer confines of the goat “barn” to keep the loose front ends of the tarps from flapping up, rearranging themselves, or smacking me.

 

The roof was wet–as I said, we were working between storm fronts–so I ended up soaked to the skin in my pantaloons because I was sitting higher up on the roof (roofs slant, you know, in these northern climes) while nailing the tarps into place…

 

The goats came into the goat “barn” several times to examine our handiwork.  They were duly  impressed. I could tell. (Don’t mock me.) (OK, go ahead: mock me. I will just ignore you. So there!)

 

Mr. Tumnus (my largest year and a half year old “baby goat”; he’s bigger than his mom, Maggie, now, but still insists on being my “lap goat” every time I sit down, but only half of him fits in my lap anymore) looked like he was wondering how the heck I got up there on the roof. If he had found out how I managed it and discovered a way to get to the ladder (cleverly, we goat savants placed the ladder outside the goat enclosure), I have no doubt that he (and several others) would have joined me up there. (Goats love to climb–the higher the better.)

 

I will take pictures of the results tomorrow (weather permitting) and post them here. Why? Because dammit, I think Lisa and I are due some serious applause for our goatally-devoted ministrations this afternoon!  We worked our considerable rear ends off for those crazy, cuddly critters!!!