This photo is just to prove, as we asserted yesterday, that the goats really do want to come back inside the barn each evening. We say 'evening' but this was actually not even 4pm and even with the clocks having gone back an hour last night (sunset is now 5pm), the girls were being a tad early!! In the foreground you can see the start of our 'goat path': a double set of paving slabs leading straight into the barn. Goats really don’t like mud and we don’t like the ground getting muddy with animal footprints, so this pathway is a win win!! Of course, the fact the ground is muddy in the first place is not great but equally it is not a surprise. This area outside the barn has had a lot of traffic since we moved three months ago: human, animal and vehicular and we always knew it was at great risk of being churned up. We will have to get it sorted more permanently for next winter but we did need to see how it fared this winter in order to know what we were dealing with. Compared to the mud back at our smallholding in Minions, it really is minor so our hope is that our pathways wil get us through the next few months without too much more mess being created.
Meanwhile, back to our goat photo and what stunning autumn colours!! We have views like this all over the smallholding.