Sadly, when your tin roof sports holes (done on purpose I'm told, for the "old barn/character look"...I kid you not) ... it interferes with hay deliveries. (Rotting hay will kill a goat, btw; and thanks to it being this late in the season, hay has now gone from $2 to $4 to $8 a bale...an indirect cost to me for only now having the space to store it securely in the dry.)
Sadly, when your barn doors won't close (there's gotta be a second grade joke in there somewhere, but in all seriousness) when your sliding doors lack tracking, with gaps between sides and bottom demand repair so as to not be paying to heat the great outdoors, again, indirect costs begin to mount (on top of the costs you've already incurred through missing materials, poor workmanship and that all important commodity: time).
But fixing things that others did poorly (or not at all) is one thing. Loss of life is quite another. With mama goats ready to drop babies any day now, nothing else matters but getting the place battened down and ready for winter. (Sadly, we're minus a few batten strips as well.) Today held one mission and one mission only: get this place ready for babies!
Fortunately, for every problem there lies a solution; for every one that lets you down, God sends others to restore your faith. Today's been all stalls, all heat, all hay, all the time. The place was hopping. With inspections pending, we're down to the wire on winter; lives are at stake.To my goat-lovin', weather-watching friends who drove miles out of their way to deliver hay way after dark, thank you for your goat-lovin', compassionate hearts.
To the fix-it team of "Solutions / Not excuses" - Welcome aboard! (And thanks for hustling!)
As for me, here's to another round of learning experiences to add to all the rest...Another lesson learned...Another day in the diary of a first time farmer.
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