So today was the day that I'd booked in the meehoos to be castrated/sterilised, as applicable. I'm such a sap, I hate doing it and I particularly hate the hours leading up to it, when they mill around me with that particular aura about them: "Mom, did you forget to feed us?". A policy of avoidance only goes so far because they're there, tickling the back of your frontal lobe from a different room, sending out distress signals involving empty bellies and food. And I can't explain to them when they come to me saying "Mom, what are you doing, you definitely forgot to feed us" that I haven't in fact forgotten, it's just that they're undergoing a GA to facilitate the removal of their gonads in a few hours' time, for which an empty belly is an important prerequisite. And indeed, were I able to explain it to them, I'm not convinced it would be that much better from their perspective, when the obvious responses would be "OH GOD NO!" quickly followed by "but WHY?".
The hour came, I got the cat boxes out of the garage and in they went, easy as pie. On the 20 or so minute journey to Cranbrook, there was only minimal wailing, which was good. However, about halfway there I suddenly became aware of an unholy odour creeping stealthily around the car, only to burst with appalling clarity in my nose; the sort of stench which can only ever emanate from a cat's arse. Hmmm. Nothing for it but to engage mind control and Keep Driving.
Upon arrival at the surgery, they invited me to take a seat in the waiting room. I did so, with both cat boxes arrayed at my feet, hoping it wouldn't be too long. I sat and waited, and waited some more, and all the while the surrounding air became saturated with the unmistakable aroma of cat poo, while for my part my eyes started bleeding and my nostrils slammed shut. One of the receptionists walked by and remarked "Ooooh, someone's done a poo" which, from my particular vantage point, was a completely unhelpful and unnecessary contribution to the proceedings. Clearly such observational skills as she possessed did not permit her to register the fact that my face had gone green and my eyes had melted and thus had a better than average chance of being aware of this development already. Eventually the vet arrives and we go through to the consulting room for the pre-op check. "Oooh" she said, "someone's done a poo".
And there it was. My betrayal complete, I left them to the surgeon's scalpel and returned to Luso Towers feeling miserable and guilty. The only thing to do in such a situation was to tootle over to the farm shop to visit with Angelina, the new addition to our family, and to buy some produce whilst we were there. We discovered that we needed a CPH number in order to keep a goat and that this must be obtained prior to transport taking place. I therefore spoke to a very helpful young man at the RPA who upgraded my request to critical (woop woop!) and informed me that I should receive my CPH number some time later in the day.
Knickers and I went to McVeighs, purveyors of all farm equipment, whereupon we purchased a range of items suitable for constructing (a) a goat shed, and (b) a covered area for the chickens, whose talents do not include the sense to stay indoors when it is cold and wet and miserable, and who therefore leave themselves vulnerable to chills. The plan is to knock in four fence posts (necessitating a post basher), for each of the corners, then use weatherboard on the back and sides, with an onduline roof (necessitating sheets of onduline, a kilo of staples, 100 onduline-specific nails and some 2x4 rails to use as roof struts). We also purchased a 50m roll of stock fencing, which will be used to secure her pen against escape attempts of the cunning bovid variety. We can use existing chipboard to make a raised bed, for goats, it seems, like a raised bed. This will be much cheaper than buying something ready made. I had a cunning plan to create a goat hay rack out of some pallets after I found a recipe for one on the Internet, but was stymied at the last by the fact that there were no pallets to be had. Will have to develop a plan B for this.
The impluse purchase of the day was a an implement called a Wood Pekka, used to split large logs into smaller ones. This is timely because we have a lot of big logs, but less and less small ones, so we got one. Upon arriving home with said goodies and eating some soup (roasted butternet squash), Knickers and I amused ourselves by splitting enough logs to fill the log container thingie, in about ten minutes flat! Wowser.
We also added a layer of wood chips to Xacra's side of the field shelter, poo picked the shelter and the field and went off to get the meehoos, by now divested of their doodads and ready to come home. And very please to come home they were, milling about, gazing up at me in that glorious trusting way that they have, apparently bearing me no ill will at all for the day's events, but still wanting some FOOD.
I now have my CPH number and tomorrow we go to collect Angelina.
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