Never thought retirement would be like this
- Thread starter NancyNGA
- Start date
I think that's because it's at the bottom of a little valley between two hills. All the topsoil and leaves have washed down there. And it's mostly red clay. The shadows make it look dark. This is back at the top of that little valley, with a section of the new fence on the left.
Tabitha, they looked a little bewildered the first day and headed straight for the barn. Showers the next day. I'll have to take them for a walk around when things dry out. Also cut down on the alfalfa pellets. They smell so good I'm tempted to try them myself. No need to venture out if you got food in the barn.
Tabitha, you are too kind. I assume everyone is tired of hearing about goats (and fence).
One thing has me puzzled lately. The goats just stand around watching me all the time. When I move from one end of the pasture to the other, checking the fence, they follow me and stand *there* and watch me. It's as if they are waiting for me to tell them what to do.
The goat in my avatar has been the lead goat for a long time. He kept everyone in line, except Dixie. She never paid any attention to him, did her own thing. [I guess it was a dysfunctional goat herd. Ha!] Now that she's gone there are only the 3 boys left, and whatever Top Goat does, they imitate him. I guess he wants to be hand fed alfalfa pellets and gingersnaps.
It makes me feel guilty sometimes.
Top goat is overweight. They are going on a diet for the rest of the summer.layful:
One thing has me puzzled lately. The goats just stand around watching me all the time. When I move from one end of the pasture to the other, checking the fence, they follow me and stand *there* and watch me. It's as if they are waiting for me to tell them what to do.
The goat in my avatar has been the lead goat for a long time. He kept everyone in line, except Dixie. She never paid any attention to him, did her own thing. [I guess it was a dysfunctional goat herd. Ha!] Now that she's gone there are only the 3 boys left, and whatever Top Goat does, they imitate him. I guess he wants to be hand fed alfalfa pellets and gingersnaps.
It makes me feel guilty sometimes.Top goat is overweight. They are going on a diet for the rest of the summer.
layful:
Meanderer
Supreme Member
"Today there’s so much interest in a more natural, slower way of living as part of our modern quest for meaning and fulfilment, and recently this trend reached a sort of apotheosis when designer Thomas Thwaites, 34, commissioned himself a set of special prosthetics and spent three days living as a goat, amongst a farmer’s herd of goats on the slopes of the Swiss Alps".
Another memory popped into my head from 50+ years ago, and I got caught up in it. A very depressing topic.
The dark ages
In 1908 the Ohio state legislature passed an act prohibiting individuals with tuberculosis from being admitted to general hospitals due to the highly contagious nature of the disease. Each county was required to provide a separate facility specifically for the care of TB patients.
A new facility for our county opened a few years later. It sat atop a hill on 100 acres of land in the middle of a (now) well populated area. From 1957-64 our school bus route passed by the property. All you could see from the road were woods, two driveway entrances, and, from a distance, a blue water tower extending above the trees. My mother first told me what it was then, and mentioned that she knew a woman who became a nurse there and later contracted TB. The tower was the closest I ever came to seeing the hospital.
Both entrances had tall iron gates that were always closed, no signs out front, and I believe the entire perimeter of the property was fenced with chain link. It gave the impression that the place was something mysterious, perhaps something to be ashamed of. Nobody seemed to want to talk about it. Could be simply that few adults knew, or cared, what was there.
So I tried to find some history and follow up to the present, just put the whole thing to rest. I found several pictures on the internet. This is the main hospital when it first opened around 1915.
And the same building in 2016.
When it opened, there was no cure for TB, and the only treatment was simply healthy food, fresh air, and lots of sunshine. Often that failed, or appeared to work only to have symptoms reappear later. Wide porches allowed patients to sleep outside in fresh air. There were sections for men, women, and children.
In the summer the children wore scant clothing outdoors to get maximum sun exposure. Below are children doing daily exercises, and participating in organized entertainment.
It even had its own cemetery with 248 unmarked graves, all deaths before 1923.
It closed as a TB facility in the late 40's after antibiotics were developed for treatment, and became a home for orphaned and abused children (during the period our bus passed by). Maybe some of our classmates were housed there?
Later it became variously, an alcohol detox and rehab center, an adolescent chemical dependency treatment center, a halfway house for cocaine-addicted, pregnant women, and a center for treating head-injury patients. So many sad things, at the time unimaginable to naive spoiled kids like most of us riding the bus.
I found this on a website about haunted places.
"With such a history, it is no surprise that facility was said to be haunted. The spirits of not only the TB victims, but children who committed suicide, are said to haunt the grounds. Ghostly humming and children whispering are often heard."
This is supposedly a picture of a ghost taken at the cemetery.
Not that I believe any of this, but it's interesting that children weren't the only ones spooked by this place.
The property was abandoned and put up for sale in 2010, but there were no takers. Coincidentally, demolition of all the buildings on the property began just 3 months ago, March, 2017.
I find this whole thing disturbing and depressing, and my initial reaction is...glad it's gone and glad I didn't know anything about it at the time.
The dark ages
In 1908 the Ohio state legislature passed an act prohibiting individuals with tuberculosis from being admitted to general hospitals due to the highly contagious nature of the disease. Each county was required to provide a separate facility specifically for the care of TB patients.
A new facility for our county opened a few years later. It sat atop a hill on 100 acres of land in the middle of a (now) well populated area. From 1957-64 our school bus route passed by the property. All you could see from the road were woods, two driveway entrances, and, from a distance, a blue water tower extending above the trees. My mother first told me what it was then, and mentioned that she knew a woman who became a nurse there and later contracted TB. The tower was the closest I ever came to seeing the hospital.
Both entrances had tall iron gates that were always closed, no signs out front, and I believe the entire perimeter of the property was fenced with chain link. It gave the impression that the place was something mysterious, perhaps something to be ashamed of. Nobody seemed to want to talk about it. Could be simply that few adults knew, or cared, what was there.
So I tried to find some history and follow up to the present, just put the whole thing to rest. I found several pictures on the internet. This is the main hospital when it first opened around 1915.
And the same building in 2016.
When it opened, there was no cure for TB, and the only treatment was simply healthy food, fresh air, and lots of sunshine. Often that failed, or appeared to work only to have symptoms reappear later. Wide porches allowed patients to sleep outside in fresh air. There were sections for men, women, and children.
In the summer the children wore scant clothing outdoors to get maximum sun exposure. Below are children doing daily exercises, and participating in organized entertainment.
It even had its own cemetery with 248 unmarked graves, all deaths before 1923.
It closed as a TB facility in the late 40's after antibiotics were developed for treatment, and became a home for orphaned and abused children (during the period our bus passed by). Maybe some of our classmates were housed there?
Later it became variously, an alcohol detox and rehab center, an adolescent chemical dependency treatment center, a halfway house for cocaine-addicted, pregnant women, and a center for treating head-injury patients. So many sad things, at the time unimaginable to naive spoiled kids like most of us riding the bus.
I found this on a website about haunted places.
"With such a history, it is no surprise that facility was said to be haunted. The spirits of not only the TB victims, but children who committed suicide, are said to haunt the grounds. Ghostly humming and children whispering are often heard."
This is supposedly a picture of a ghost taken at the cemetery.
Not that I believe any of this, but it's interesting that children weren't the only ones spooked by this place.
The property was abandoned and put up for sale in 2010, but there were no takers. Coincidentally, demolition of all the buildings on the property began just 3 months ago, March, 2017.
I find this whole thing disturbing and depressing, and my initial reaction is...glad it's gone and glad I didn't know anything about it at the time.
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Nancy, you brought back a memory I had forgotten. My Mother was an RN and I remember her talking about people being sent to The Sanitorium. It seemed like a scary place in my young mind.
This is the one in Mississippi where I grew up. It was opened in 1918 and closed for TB patients in 1976. The State named the town where it was...Sanitorium, MS. It is now a facility for people with disabilities.
Thank goodness modern medicine has come a long way since those days.
This is the one in Mississippi where I grew up. It was opened in 1918 and closed for TB patients in 1976. The State named the town where it was...Sanitorium, MS. It is now a facility for people with disabilities.
Thank goodness modern medicine has come a long way since those days.
Yesterday I had to bribe the goats with gingersnaps to get them to leave the barn and take a walk with me around the "new" pasture. Wish I had fenced off this smaller area 13 years ago. It would have saved so much time and caused so much less aggravation over the years.
This is Rusty. He cannot stand to have a single fly on him. He acts like giving them an intimidating look will scare them off. OTOH, it keeps him in good shape, and his weight down, because he doesn't have time to eat as much. He is definitely the healthiest of the three. A real character. Also 13 years old.
(Video is clear if set to HD, 720p)
This is Rusty. He cannot stand to have a single fly on him. He acts like giving them an intimidating look will scare them off. OTOH, it keeps him in good shape, and his weight down, because he doesn't have time to eat as much. He is definitely the healthiest of the three. A real character.
Also 13 years old. (Video is clear if set to HD, 720p)
Pappy
Living the Dream
How about some corn on the cob?Tabitha, they eat all kinds of plants. In that video Rusty was eating mostly little sweet gum trees and a stalk of privet near that tree at the end.
(I've gotten into a habit of watching what they eat all the time.)Funny how they know to avoid the poison plants. The area around the barn is loaded with nightshade. I used to freak out over that when we first got them, but they don't touch it. Ferns, daffodils, buckeye, they never touch, all poison to some degree.
They will even eat dog fennel. Cows won't touch it. Cow pastures get overrun with it and it's a problem. Goats don't like grass, but will eat it when there's nothing else. Cows and goats often work well together.
Pasture overrun with dog fennel.
Yes they will try paper and some types of cloth (your cotton clothes, for example) just out of curiosity. They seem to have learned they can get a lot of attention that way.
When you belong to a herd, you try to stand out. That's my theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it. Pappy, a set up like that would be a riot. They would spend all their time trying to keep the others away from it---like hummingbirds at a feeder.
Meanderer, I thought about posting this picture of shaved goat feet in your barbershop thread just to be mischievous.layful:
The same goat got foot mites again this year---the kind that form wax balls in the hair for protection. Nothing dissolves that wax. You have to scrape it off. This was only after the *first* round of shaving, after clogging up the clippers. He has clean naked feet with well trimmed dew claws now, and I didn't draw any blood.
Picture of wax balls from last year. Weird.
I tell ya, 90% of my time is spent on animals lately, and bugs, including fleas in the yard. Btw, goats don't get fleas. Thank goodness.
layful: The same goat got foot mites again this year---the kind that form wax balls in the hair for protection. Nothing dissolves that wax. You have to scrape it off. This was only after the *first* round of shaving, after clogging up the clippers. He has clean naked feet with well trimmed dew claws now, and I didn't draw any blood.
Picture of wax balls from last year. Weird.
I tell ya, 90% of my time is spent on animals lately, and bugs, including fleas in the yard. Btw, goats don't get fleas. Thank goodness.
