The latest phase of the move to New Hampshire is underway. I arrived Friday evening, with a loaded pick-up truck and trailer. I brought out seven dogs as the advance contingent — Widget, Goldie, Bailey, Dexter, Daisy, Travis and Patti. Most of the rest are being picked up today back at the ranch in Montana, along with the cats. Alayne will bring the last five of the dogs with her when she makes her trip out to New Hampshire after closing up the ranch. The horses are scheduled to begin leaving this coming week as well.
My job is to have everything ready to receive the animals when they start arriving in a few days. I thought all the dog fencing was done, and thus was surprised to pull up Friday evening and find that, well, the fencing was done but not a single gate had been hung yet … so in effect, I had no usable dog yards. I scrambled to put together some makeshift gates so I could turn my seven dogs out into the yards. The fence company will be finishing up in the next couple of days.
Today's major project was unloading the semi that arrived with corral panels, dog kennels, and extra hay. Yes, we need to carefully transition the horses onto the New Hampshire hay we've already bought, because too abrupt a change even with hay can cause intestinal problems. It's not just the lush green New Hampshire pasture they'll need to be slowly introduced to — their initial grazing will be carefully controlled — but we will need at least a week of mixing in the New Hampshire hay with their Montana hay when they're not on pasture. On the truck was about 1.5 tons (1,361 kg) of our hay.
The truck was driven by friends of ours, Hank and Mary Ann K. from Avon, Montana. This was the second load they've delivered. We have another couple from New York, Mike and Laura R., who have been bringing out loads with a pick-up and 24' (7.3 m) flatbed trailer. Hank's semi flatbed is 48' (14.6 m) long. It took over four hours to unload that thing!
Part of the trick to making this move happen was having a tractor at both ends, each equipped with pallet forks. So Mike hauled one of our tractors on one of his very first loads so it would be here in New Hampshire to use in unloading each shipment. The other tractor remains at the ranch in Montana for loading, and will be sent out on the very last shipment.
The other trick was finding people to haul who would also be willing to unload the freight for us, using our tractor. Most truckers who haul for a living won't touch the freight, and it's up to you the customer to get it unloaded. Both couples were willing to do the unloading for us, and that was absolutely critical since we couldn't be here until now.
In the next couple of days I need to set up all the horse corrals, put in water tanks, put together all the dog crates, and … yes … make sure all the gates get hung for the dog yards! Oh … the new washer and dryer are being delivered on Tuesday, and that's a really good thing — these incontinent Dachshunds have generated a lot of laundry for me over the past several days!
Meanwhile, speaking of Dachshunds, here was Daisy this afternoon enjoying herself:
After she'd get done rolling, she'd push herself across the grass, sliding and sliding. Then she'd roll some more. I think she likes it here.
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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