A New Project That Must Be Completed Before Winter

So that we can quarantine animals, we have a portion of the pasture fenced off in an area we call "the bull pen."  You see, the quarantining I'm talking about is not due to illness, but due to the wanton desires of the male species.  If you don't keep the males separated from the females, we've found that things get a little dangerous.  Wild hanky-panky notwithstanding, if you don't separate the males from the females, you cannot control the breeding date.

We generally keep the bull in the bull pasture until we see a cow or heifer go in heat and then we'll put her in the bull pen with the pull for a day of courtship and romance.  But it's not just the male of the bovine persuasion.  We keep the billy goat, Popcorn, in the bull pen, too.  For similar reasons, but for another as well.  Billy goats are, well, there's not a nice way to put it.  They're gross.  During their season of lust, they pee on themselves, all over their beard, and it stinks.  We don't want to be anywhere around them.

So here's where the project comes into play.  Goats aren't real fond of rainy weather.  The bull pen is gated into the barn, but the barn has the cows and heifer and also the does there.  We need to build some sort of small lean-to shed so that the billy goat and bull can get in out of the weather.  Nothing too big and nothing fancy and certainly nothing expensive.  So I decided to put up an 8x8 simple shed.  It will be closed on three sides and open to the south side.  In winter, it will provide a respite from the rain and north winds. 

Saturday, I enlisted Russ' help and we used a post-hole digger to place four 8 foot 4x4's into the ground in the bull pen and anchored them in with Quik Crete.  I kept the bull and the billy goat out of the bull pen for 24 hours to give the cement time to cure.  Nicky, the bull, has a propensity for rubbing his head on things, and I didn't want him to push the posts after we had worked hard to level them.  After 24 hours I put the bull and the billy back in the bull pen.

They were curious as to what the project was.  What are these posts in our pasture?  I felt sure they would set out to destroy the work we started, but so far, the posts have held firm.

I'll work on this as time allows, day by day, until we have a shelter for the Nicky and Popcorn.  Everyone needs to be able to get out of the rain, right?