2018 Life Logs, Day 165—Meghan and Her Goats Return
Date: Thursday, June 14, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 76, Low 55 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Meghan and her goats returned today to rid the wooded part of my backyard of poison ivy. Meghan arrived early to carry away the tons of poison ivy pulled up on Monday that the goats could just not eat.
When Meghan arrived on Monday she really couldn’t believe the volume of poison ivy on the water side of the property. She called it an orchard on Monday, but by her return today she was calling it a grove. She had never seen anything like it and she posted a selfie showing her amazement at the height of the poison ivy.
She and the goats did an amazing job on Monday, but thankfully today’s job was a little more normal.
I wanted to rid the wooded area behind the cottage of poison ivy and at the end of the day, the job was done. When Megan arrived with goats, I was using Jed’s electric chainsaw to cut some of the low branches so the goats would have quicker access to the poison ivy. Meghan was aghast that I was using a chainsaw while home alone. Probably not a good practice, but when you live alone, you have to do a lot of things that are not best practice. But her admonition kept me from using a ladder to climb higher to cut some high branches. I’ll have to ask Jed to help with me with that job or wait until Justin comes to visit in July. In the meantime, I’m going to follow-up on the goat’s clearing job by using my garden sprayer to spray a salt solution on the cleared areas to discourage future growth. And I might have to invite the goats to return at some point during the summer. But for now, I feel like the property is a much safer place for little boys and myself to roam. Friends Karen and Peter Baranowski came to visit this afternoon to see the goats and Peter magically produced a wooden ramp to help Meghan get Mac, her biggest goat, into the truck bed. The other three goats jump right up, but Mac is a little big to be able to do that. The ramp worked, so thank you, Peter!
Meghan’s business is called ‘Get My Goats’ and I highly recommend it for poison ivy removal and general clearing. The goats are so cute and with Meghan’s help, they do a great job. My new chant is “Goats, not Roundup.”
While Meghan and the goats worked in the backyard, I worked in the raised bed gardens in the front yard. I attempted to get them fenced as the baby rabbits have started getting closer each day and looking on with relish. I first cut hardware cloth and tried to embed it inside the raised bed boards. That didn’t work at all. So, I went out and bought chicken wire and tried to wrap the beds in that. I hate chicken wire as I have always found it so difficult to work with. I got one bed done, but I need help to do it right. I’m going to watch some DIY videos and see if I can get better at this. But maybe my sloppy job will be good enough to keep the rabbits at bay for now.
Justin called this evening and announced that they now have internet at home. They still don’t have consistent running water, but he joked by saying, “Who needs water when they have internet?” Actually, he is very disheartened by the fact that they still don’t have water, but at least I was able to have a Skype video call with Ziggy and Coco tonight. They leave for England next week and will be here mid-July on their way home. Can’t wait to have them visit.
