Bloody Nora

God what a day! Had a lie in until about 9, which was just as well given the epic levels of activity that followed.

Morning doings: haylage all round, break the ice on the water troughs again. Angie out in her pen. Gather up chickens who have opted to take free range more literally than intended and return them to their run. Clean kitchen. Cup of tea. Scrambled eggs and toast. Nom. More tea. Clean meehoo room. Vacuum.

Weather forecast suggest that heavy snow is en route. Arrrghh. Must batten down hatches. Skip out/muck out boys and Angie, clean out field shelter and top up straw beds and wood chips. Sid chops industrial quantities of wood while wailing loudly and out of tune to his iPod. Do best to flatten poached area outside girls' shelter. Consider the need for girls to be confined to shelter, and the resulting need for further water buckets.

Trip to Charity Farm for supplies: water buckets, feed buckets for incoming goatages, wormers, broom. Stock up on supplies from farm shop. Stop by the hardware store for some metal brackets on the way home.

Meanwhile, Sid starts work on the goat shelter.More cutting of weatherboard to size. Afternoon preps: haylage all round, dinners, steam hay, water all round. Sounds easy when you say it quick but hoses and yard tap frozen so need to bring it all up from the house. Arrghhh. Bring Angie in. She makes a play for Sid's Belgian buns, but disaster is averted at the last. Put Angie away after she's wandered around the yard for half an hour helping herself to haylage, carrots, hay etc.

The final push on the goat shelter: board up back and sides. Sid makes a shutter on advice from Bob the goat man - they like to be able to see out so he made a flap which can be opened as needed. Put chicken in oven to roast. Gather in the meehoos and feed. Feed Puppy. Put roof on goat shelter. Attach metal tie rings to base to facilitate dragging. Yay! Finished.

 Lash the goat shelter to the LandCruiser. Put mares away. Dismantle temporary electric fencing to facilitate passage of aforementioned LandCruiser and lashed-on shelter.

The operation to transfer the goat shelter form its site of construction in the middle of the yard to a suitable spot in the field commences, with Sid at the wheel. There's only one shot to get it through the field gate, but this passes without incident. There follows precision driving at a snail's pace, a bit like those programmes you see when people put a house on the back of a truck and transport it to a new location, albeit on a much smaller scale. Begin to hum theme tune from Dambusters. Shelter is aligned as planned, facing away from prevailing winds and the worst of the weather. Sorted. Clean up, put away tools. Remove chicken from oven.

The job is done. Under cover of darkness, the goat shelter has been completed and transferred to its new location. The sense of achievement is matched only by numbness of arse and feet.

God what a day!

Needless to say, the boys didn't get worked again. Perhaps I should try wearing my knickers outside my jods and se if that makes a difference.

Current status: roast chicken dinner, demolished. Chocolate pud with ice cream: seen off. All that remains is lates and a nice hot bath to ease muscles which are uttering noises that sound something like "Jesus wept!", "sodding hell" and "bloody Nora".