If you remember, oh plucky reader, the last time I got chicks--the Brahmas--was two Januarys ago. For their first two weeks they lived in an old cast iron tub that had dirt in the bottom and was covered with several hardware cloth-filled frames to prevent cat intrusion. This worked really well. Not only did the cast iron tub have round corners, thus preventing chick death from all of them trying to squish into a square corner (a strange chick behavior), but the heat lamps warmed the cast iron which radiated even more heat back at the chicks. However, with thirty chicks they very quickly outgrew that small space and I soon moved them outside the barn into a thrown together pallet-and-baling-twine built coop inside a chicken run.
I once again have seven cats living on the farm, courtesy of the new guy in my life. Molly is a Somali Cat, which means she looks more like a fox than a cat.
OK, be kind, dear relatives from Duluth. I know you sneer each time I mention it, but I have snow!
The conversion of Lonely Girl from pig to sheep is now complete, at least in her mind and much to Tiny's complete aggravation. That aggravation is complicated not just by Tiny's certainty that Lonely Girl isn't a sheep, but because the pig (She-ig? P-eep?) treats her the way Lonely Girl and her porcine sisters treated June the Cow.
It's that time of year and four out of my five piggies are now gone.
"Really?!" I said, my head tilted up to the gorgeous blue sky on Thursday morning. I was limping again, having tweaked a tendon even though I don't recall stepping wrong.
Saturday evening, June gave me the spotted heifer I wanted so much. My first inkling that all was not going to go well was when I saw Little Iris's hooves appear.
I'd so like to tell you that June delivered her calf. I can't! I swear, she's doing this just to make me crazy. Actually, the only reason I'm not crazy is because I know there really is a calf and that calf was alive and well a couple of weeks ago.
First, I would so like to report that I have a new calf. I can't. Although June is getting more serious about letting that baby go, she continues to bide her time.
Sigh. There's no calf yet, at least not outside of June's body. All the signs are there. Her tail's loose as are the muscles around the birth canal. Her pin bones are low, her bag is filling up, and every day there are gooey strands wrapped around her tail. That cow! I swear she's doing this on purpose.
For those who don't know the story, there was once a beautiful and talented weaver in ancient Greece named Arachne. She was so talented that the goddess Athena, also a weaver, challenged her to a weave-off.
The other day I sadly swept a small, dead, completely desiccated toad out of my basement. I love my toads. I love them despite the fact they make the weirdest sound of all the creatures on the farm.
That cow! Remind me the next time I decide to buy a cow that I need to ask if she was raised by other cows or raised by humans. I definitely prefer cow-raised cows.
Our Monsoon season opened with a storm so powerful that it sent a flash flood right through my property.
It's official. I'm not selling the farm. What makes my decision official? I bought piglets.
Over the past eight years (and this month it's officially eight years that I've been a co-owner of this property), I've only once seen a beaver. That was about five years ago in July, no less. I was standing on the porch when all of sudden Moosie, then just a pup, went racing down to the Mason ditch. I watched as he walked along the ditch bank his attention on something in the water.
It's only been a few years since I last had dairy cows on the property, but in that short time I completely forgot how awful the flies are. However, before I get into discussing the pestilence of flies, I need to get you caught up on general cow news.
And how am I certain that summer has arrived? Because on Friday the temperature got over 100 degrees while Saturday brought us a lovely all-day rainstorm. It was overcast, drizzly, and cool, and I had all the windows open. Welcome to summer in Northern Arizona.
You know how some people are shoe fanatics, or have shelves full of bobble-heads, or collect those theme plates? Well, I've decided I'm an animal-aholic. It's for this reason that I stay away from the "Farm and Garden" section of Craigslist.
I wasn't a helicopter parent with my kids, and I'm not a helicopter farmer when it comes to my animals.
That title should read More Sheep Tales, but it's been a week of sheep giggles for me. First up is Mari, who has made an amazing turnaround. I had her sheared ten days ago. Like her father Cinco, that wool of hers is a throwback to the Hampshire side of the family. Unlike most Dorpers, who shed their hair (Dorpers have hair, not wool), Mari has wool and it just kept getting thicker. So as I did with Cinco, I hired a shearer.
I've never owned a dumb farm animal. That's not dumb as in unintelligent. From the cows to the pigs to the turkeys, every one of my critters has proved capable of figuring out how to get what they want. That includes opening gates, breaking down fences and crossing hot electrical wires.
I'm getting to this post late today because I wanted to finish the last bits on the coop so I could take a proper picture. And I did, both finish the coop and take a picture. The wooden structure is now wrapped in hardware cloth and chicken wire. There are a pair of wheels at the back of the coop although I haven't yet strung the rope handle at the front that allows me to move it. A technicality. It's well and truly done.
As you, my patient readers, may recall I recently stretched my "I can build it" muscles and added flooring to my stairway. In that process I conquered my fear of a table saw. For more than forty years I'd been haunted by the two missing fingers on my first father-in-law's hand. He had removed them while using a table saw. I need all ten of my fingers to do my job and I know very well that I am a certifiable Klutz. That, and nothing else, is what has kept me from venturing too deeply into the massive workshop that fills my front barn.
Beauty a thousand years ago is beauty today and the progression of change on this planet is at a pace that because of our limited life span seems not to change although it is ever changing
