Killing Bugs, Shopping Goats, Washing Trailer

Easter Sunday was spent with family, as always. Andy, Carole and I headed out to Carole's mom's place to eat dinner and take care of a few errands and go for a quick trip.

The dinner was also--as usual--satisfying and memorable. After that we drove over to one of Faye's friends who has a big farm with lots of animals, including a bunch of goats. One thing that Carole and I want to do when we retire is to adopt a pair of those miniature goats. So we decided to go look at the ones at the farm even though they're not the type we want to get in a few years.

The farm was a lot of fun. It's always interesting to be around domesticated animals. In this case we met two horses, a burro, a Labrador retriever, and a butt-load of goats.

After the trip to the farm, we headed back home where I treated the two hemlock trees with Imadacloprid, the best insecticide for getting rid of the Hemlock wooly adelgid. As I reported in an earlier post the horrid bugs finally found our pair of thriving hemlocks and have infested them. So I bought enough poison in solution to both drench the bottom branches and also to apply to the soil at the base of the trunks so that the roots can absorb the poison up into the tree to kill the little monsters when they begin to draw the sap from the hemlock needles.

I hope it works. I've been told it's quite effective.

With that done, I tackled washing the Casita travel trailer. We're going on a short jaunt with it into the mountains this coming weekend so I needed to get her into traveling shape for the journey.

Friendly horse. We fed her carrots.

They keep the burro in the paddock with the goats because they say it protects the flock from coyotes. We fed the tiny burro carrots, too.

Andy feeding carrots to the goats.

Can you say "pregnant"? This ewe looked ready to pop!

The boss billy goat. Two of the ewes were fighting and he got between them and broke it up.

The "wool" produced by the almost-invisible Hemlock wooly adelgid. These tiny insects have finally found my back yard hemlocks. But I treated them with a heavy dose of Imadacloprid. Hopefully, the treatment will kill the horrible invasive aphids in quick order.

Got the Casita cleaned up. I like to take a photo of her every Spring sitting under the blooming dogwood. I think the flowers should be all fully open by Thursday when I'll take another shot.