MOVING ALONG

The mesquite beans are getting ripe enough to fall out of the trees if it's windy, which of course thrills the donkeys to no end.  They are getting enough beans now that they aren't very impressed with having to leave a stash of beans they've found, laying under a tree.  Having to come in twice a day and eat hay is  eating into their scarfing up time before someone else finds the beans. Needless to say roundup isn't going very fast these days.  

What they don't know is their time out of the pens is starting to be controlled.  So far they are only being restricted from going out right after they finish eating in the mornings.  We're not letting them out until noon.  

I took pictures this morning of poo piles and they look pretty good, some beans, but mostly poo.  If and when the ratio gets closer to 50/50 we will have a problem.  Hopefully if the beans fall naturally and not a lot in a wind storm it won't be a problem.

If they can't control themselves, the next step will either be, having them stay in overnight with an hour or so out before evening chores.  Or no time out at all.  As long as the beans fall naturally we should be able to control their intake.  A large wind storm would knock too many beans down at one time, that's what happened a few years ago and they had to stay in their pens for almost 4 months, with no out time at all.  Talk about a crabby bunch of donkeys, they seemed to think we had lost our minds.......!! LOL  

We got 1/2 inch rain a couple of days ago, but that isn't enough to rot the ones laying on the ground unfortunately.  

This is looking over our back yard wall.  The tree is in the yard and Koshare is helping himself to the beans hanging outside.  Look at the beans hanging inside that he can't get to...... LOL  He has been known to stand on a trailer to reach beans, or even balance on his hind legs to grab some. 

Mike, one of our wonderful volunteers has been here almost daily working on getting electricity in the store/office.  

Thank you Mike, we really appreciate your help....!!!

 The next project will be insulation.  We already have an estimate and waiting for another one to compare prices.  Hopefully it won't take long to get it done once we decide which company to go with.  We're going to have the blown in foam insulation, rather than the itchy scratchy fiber-glass stuff.  

Suzanne and I have been looking at flooring etc. Found some we both like, of course flooring is one of the last jobs to do. Who knows, it might go on sale before we need it.....LOL  We had wanted to use paneling, instead of sheetrock,until we priced the difference..............!!  YIKES........!!!   Can't justify the difference in price, so we'll go with sheetrock.   

It's fun to "shop" for the stuff needed to finish it, but we're all looking forward to it being finished and moving in.  Hopefully it will be finished by September 1st when we will open up again for tours.