Hard water

"I hate hard water," said Shawn this morning, as he broke ice on the sheep trough at the sheep house. Every winter, we have the same complaint, the water gets hard. It has something to do with the really cold temperatures.

The sheep will stand around their water trough in the morning and look at us like we really should know how to keep this from happening, I mean, it really does inconvenience them! I often ask them what they would do if they were wild sheep and they look at me like, "Duh, do we look like wild sheep? We are smart enough to have human servants."

The horses don't have the hard water problem, they have a tank heater in their trough. But the sheep and goats are divided into their small breeding flocks this time of year, so everyone has smaller 10-30 gallon water containers and when it gets cold at night - their water all gets hard.
The thing that seems to bother the sheep and goats the most about the hard water is, though, that while the humans are dealing with breaking the ice on the troughs, they, the sheep and the goats are not getting fed! After all, everyone knows that the first most important thing is that the animals get their hay - NOW.

Tonight we went to my parents for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great time with my parents, brothers and a friend. We ate too much, visited not enough and got home late for chores. All the animals were fine, but rather miffed. "We thought that we had you trained better than that," their many cries seemed to say. "Humans just can't get it right!" They are all fine, tucked in to stall and barn and happily munching now... silly critters... What would they do if they were wild?

May your water always be soft and your hay always arrive on time - Happy Thanksgiving everyone.