Graceful

Today just wasn't my day. Things were going along fine until I started doing my morning feeding. The sky was overcast but after the dreadful storms that we have had for the last few days I just wasn't expecting what happened.

I started feeding as usual, I had turned Cinder out to go to the barn/house to be milked and fed Angel and the other five goats outside of the shed instead of inside because it wasn't raining and I wasn't expecting it to.

I grabbed ahold of Calico to drag her over to a big dog cage that we feed her in because she gets some calf manna mixed in her feed that the other don't. As soon as she saw her feed in the cage she took off on her own and as she jerked away from me, my feet went out from under me also.

It is just so sloppy and muddy right now in that lot after all of the rain that we have had. I hit the ground with a resounding thud and kept sliding in the mud even after I hit the ground hard with my left side.

When I got back on my feet there wasn't a spot on me that wasn't covered with manure and mud. I went to the house to try to clean myself up some before I milked. But by the time I got to the house the sky erupted with a vengence, high winds, thunder, lightning and pouring rain.

I couldn't leave Calico out in that cage and I didn't want the rain to get into all of the grain that I had just put into their feeders. So I went back out there and it was raining so hard that it hurt. I didn't mind getting some of the mud and manure washed off of me but this was ridiculous.

By the time I made it back to the lot that I had just left, there was already two inches of rain in their feed pans and the grain was just ruined as far as my picky goats were concerned. I released Calico and put both of the feed pans in the shed but they wouldn't touch it with that water in it.

I made it back to the house/barn and washed up enough to milk. While I was trying to milk poor Cinder the storm just raged on and the sound of the hard rain, high winds, thunder, then large hail on the metal roof made her somewhat nervous. I was nearly finished when I noticed that the water was getting pretty deep at my feet. Our barn flooded worse this time than it has ever done before.

There are still severe storm warnings out tonight and a tornado or two touched down in some areas around us yesterday. So far we haven't had any damage and for that I am thankful.