plodding along

Our child is in the hospital sick again, so we are just maintaining.  I have been coming home and taking care of the animals.  Yesterday, I got Zeke to run up a very steep hay pile and hang out 12 feet off the ground on top of the hay.  This let me throw bales off the top and not crush the puppy.  He is getting better.  I am trying to get him to understand the word "guard".  When he watches the open door and keeps the sheep from passing I tell him he is "guard"ing the door.  Works so far.  I did mount a new chicken light to a wooden pedestal on Thursday.  It has an enclosed glass cover and then a strong metal wire basket over that.  I wired it to an extension cord directly and screwed it to the ceiling in the coop this morning.  It was working great when I got home.  Amazing how much more light there is when it comes from the ceiling.  Now hopefully, we will get more eggs.  I recounted last night and we have 29 laying hens and are only getting around 7 eggs/day.  Some of them should be old enough to lay this month.  I am going to have to get our friend Doom to make me a few more wooden eggs.  The chickens have lost two of the wooden eggs and are now currently laying in the same nest boxes.  So I would like to put 2-3 eggs in the upper boxes to get them to move into the upper boxes.  We will see if he has the time.  No new baby sheep recently.  We still have at least three more pregnant ewes.  Two of those look like they are going to pop any minute.