Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A House for the Goaties!

The dear, wonderful love of my life came over the other day and helped me build a house for Dean and Truitt!

Truitt and Dean wondering why I am taking a picture and not feeding them.  Goat house w/ temporary roof in the rear.

Actually, he did most of the work.  He designed the house, did all of the cutting and most of the drilling.  Most of the materials that we used were scavenged from my house or his--his dad gave us a whole bunch of nice cedar planks to use for the framework, and we found some old two-by-fours laying near my garage that we utilized for the base.  A friend gave us an old rubber apron that we used to make a door flap (kinda like a cat door).  The only material we had to purchase was the plywood--and the money I used to purchase it was money that Davis had donated anonymously when Jerry died for the purchase of a new goat.  I'm telling you what, I have got myself one heck of a great guy.


One of the coolest design features of this house is it's removable floor.  The floor slides out the back, causing the droppings, hay, etc. to fall to the ground underneath for easy cleaning.  The roof will also be removable, in case I need to get in topwise for any reason.
  
Gracious wanted to be in the picture too.

The base.

 The base with cedar planks for support.  Sorry it's sideways.

The house was built just in time--we have had some crazy weather going on here in Georgia right now.  It has been snowing and icing all over the place, and hasn't really gotten about 35F this week.  I'm glad the goats have a warmer, more sturdy place to sleep and get out of the wind! 

This is about all the work I did--just held thing in place! ;)  

We (aka Davis) worked pretty late into the night to get as much finished as possible.  

 Attaching the front piece.

The product of a days work! 

It is almost complete--right now it has a temporary roof, and the most recent picture I'm posting here (the one at the top) does not show the cool door flap.  Dean and Truitt really like it!  I love seeing them poke their heads out and bray when I come outside.  Cuties.

Thank you, mon cheri. You are wonderful. Dean and Jerry will love you forever--and so will their crazy, goat-loving, accordion playing, old movie watching owner.

 ~Bessie