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Early last night, I looked at the weather forecast.  It looked pretty good, with only a 20% chance of scattered showers… and they weren’t supposed to be likely until later today.  With that, I had nearly everything I needed to pour a small cement pad for the new automatic waterer – the tools and supplies were either on the trailer with the cement mixer or in the van with the 20 bags of concrete.  The sun was shining and I was ready.

With the weather looking as though it would be in my favor, I brought the van and trailer into the old cow-yard.  The goats were out in the far pasture, where they should be for the next few hours.  Once I was in the yard, I plugged-in the mixer and off to the races I went.  After my 20 bags were mixed and poured into the form, I realized I was short some… hmmm.  Not good.  Then I remembered I had 2 bags left from this spring, when I poured the other pad.  I could only hope moisture hadn’t turned my bags of cement mix into a bag-shaped piece of concrete.  I got lucky.  The mix was good.  It was just the amount I needed to fill the form.

Then it started to sprinkle.  As I was screeting the cement, the rains came.  To add insult to injury, the goats headed home early.  I quick closed the lane gate so that the goats couldn’t get into the yard.  Oh… did I mention it was raining?  I quick grabbed a couple of cattle panels and formed and small pen/barrier around the freshly poured pad to keep the goats off the pad.  Once I had that up, I let the goats in so they could get into the dry barn and out of the rain.

Now what to do about the rain on the new cement?  I quick placed an old hog panel and wired it atop the cattle panels to form an arch.  Once I had that in place I threw an old tarp over it all.  It sort of looked like a yurt.

This is my make-shift shelter

Once the water on the cement disappeared, I was able to get under the tarp to trowel the cement.  My “yurt” worked pretty well… it only needed to keep the goats out and the rain off the pad.  It did both quite well.  As an added benefit, it kept me dry & comfortable.

Here's a peak under the tarp

After an hour or so (when I took these photos) the pad looked pretty good.  If you look closely, You can identify the thermal-vent, the electrical wire, the water-line (rising out of the tube) and to the right of thermal-tube is the copper ground rod.   With the daily temps. being somewhere between 40-60°F, it’ll be a good 6 or 7 days before the pad is cured.  I should be able to remove the goat-barrier on Tuesday.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to my local Ritchie waterer dealer and order a new frost-free waterer.  Once it arrives, it should only take an hour to install.

Related posts:

1. Pouring Cement