Alayne took this photo of Willy the blind Dachshund in one of the dog yards on Saturday. It looked like he was lost in a sea of grass. If only, however, that was representative of the rest of the grass around here. This one yard, behind the house, is deceiving in its thick greenness. Most of our grass, especially in the pastures, as well as many of the trees and shrubs, are only now coming to life after an unusually cold, long winter. We finally turned the goats out to browse yesterday for the first time, though their browse paddock is not nearly as lush as it should be by this time. (We were tempted to turn them out into the dog yard Willy is in and let them graze it down, but the thought of the dogs enjoying all’those savory goat poop snacks somehow kept us from doing it.) Still, the dogs are spending every day outside again, thank heavens.
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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway
The second round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway. You can vote every day at http://www.shelterchallenge.com/ To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We’ve won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!
Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an inside track? to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don’t know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page and their Rules page.
Thanks for your votes!
How beautiful…….!
Probably best for the mowing crew (yep, I guessing that’s Steve) as well. I’ve learned it’s a mixed blessing to turn the livestock into the yards. They may eat it down, but they fertilize it as well, and it grows faster……but in patches!
Willy looks very content. I’m sure everyone’s glad that winter is over.
I had to enlarge the pic to really see Willy, as he looks like a small brown blob in the small one LOL! He looks so cute hanging out in the yard. Here in SC the grass took longer to get green because we also had a strange winter (a nice 2 day ice storm isn’t normal in Charleston), but it’s not nearly as lush as your grass. I have a question…how many dog yards do you have and if you were to let the goats out into one of them (if you have more than one), how long would it take them to graze the grass down to a level that you’d like?
Ann, we have five dog play yards — one in front of the house, and the rest in the back. If we were to turn all the goats (12 does, 6 yearlings and 17 kids) into that one yard, it would be mowed in probably an hour.
In the larger picture, Willie looks so peaceful, like in meditation on a beautiful May day!
Steve, thanks for the response. I have to say that’s a lot of goats, but can’t beat that for all natural lawn mowing!