Monsoon season

The rain just keeps falling around here and more and more of the pasture is surrendered to water and mud.

The chickens are learning to adapt to their new partially aquatic life. I swear one of them is trying to grow gills!

The poor goats HATE getting wet. Josie and Jennie have stayed inside their room for 3 days straight. Here Thea takes advantage of a brief break in the weather to try and devour an entire pine tree.

Here's a picture of the creek from a couple days ago. It had topped its banks once and was threatening to do it again. 

For reference, this is what it normally looks like (though most of the trash and scrap metal have been cleared from the banks since this picture).

Big Onion's new fence has been under water more than once but is still standing, straight and strong. 

 As I've said before, the ducks (and geese) are the only ones really enjoying this crazy weather. The rest of us just feel like we are stuck in a Ray Bradbury story. 

 At some point I got fed up with all the water everywhere and decided to dig myself a drainage pond....with a shovel. I think all the water is going to my head.

Like Ducks to Water

So this happened today.

After 10 months of living here, the ducks have finally found the creek. This is bad for a couple reasons. For one thing, the creek cuts through our property and is not fenced. If they come ashore in the wrong place, the ducks could easily find themselves in the neighbor's yard or even on the street. It's also bad news because, as you can see, this is no pristine mountain stream we are talking about here. At best, this creek is used as a drainage channel.

  We have been talking about fencing off access to the creek from the first pasture for a while now. The sheep love to run to the edge of it every time they see a herding dog, leaving me with palpitations and visions of my crazy butt diving in that ditchwater to saving a drowning sheep. Our original plan was just to put up a few strands of barbed wire, but it looks like now we will have to use something more poultry-proof.

Josie and Jenni know those ducks are in trouble!