Lazy Sunday

It was a lazy Sunday for the residents of Crosswinds Farm.

Jordan did a little sunbathing.

White Chicken and her friends took a nice dust bath.

Rooster Cogburn and Mr. Swagger rested in the shade.

"Yaaaaawn."

"Yaaaawn."

"ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzZZzzzzzzzzz".

Bailie rested as the fluffy clouds floated by.

" Ahhh, yes, I get a much better view of the clouds this way."

The ram lambs took an afternoon siesta as well.

Yup, a lazy summer Sunday............ for THEM maybe!

I woke Sunday morning to find a littering of pears all over the ground, shaken loose from the tree by some strong overnight winds. So, after I did my regular rounds of feeding animals, cleaning water tanks, and counting heads, I started my morning by filling bucket, after bucket, after bucket, with pears. I was still a little sleepy so it took me a moment, but as I was filling the buckets it occurred to me that pears don't easily get knocked off of the tree, which could only mean one thing....oh, no, the pears are ready to harvest already! I don't have time for this now! I checked the fruit that was still left on the tree, and, sure enough, they snapped off very easily.

Pears are kind of odd in the fact that they ripen from the inside out, so if you wait until they look ripe on the outside, they are actually over-ripe, and at that point, the fruit pulls right off the stem, like this...

Luckily, I only found a few that were to that point...I guess I will be making pear jam this week....A LOT of pear jam.  I am really glad that my other variety of pears ripens much, much later- usually not until late October, but then again, the Bartletts have never been ready this early before, so I may be in for early harvests all the way around, UGH.

Yeah, and it looks like I may have a few apples too...just a few..

After I dealt with the piles of pears, it was time to move on to other things.

I had another rack of hay that needed to be emptied, stacked, and the rack needed to be returned to my neighbor/hay guy.

Another 129, sixty-pound bales of hay unloaded, stacked and stored for winter. Yes, of course they are stacked a certain way....why do you even ask? You know that I am insane.

Hay was done, now eggs needed to be gathered.

Next it was time to cut grass....

..and cut grass...

 ....and cut grass.

Next, I checked the garden and found that something was eating my tomato plants.

Upon further inspection, I found these big fatties- Tomato Horn Worms.

They are both cool, and disgusting all at the same time. The chickens, however, did not find them to be disgusting at all, in fact, they found them to be quite tasty. 

With the garden de-bugged ( yes, Alanza, your Tomato-babies are safe now), I moved on to watering, watering, watering everything since, once again, we have had very little rain and the gardens are looking a little stressed....with the exception of my Amish Cockscomb, which seems to be doing very well in spite of the hot, dry weather.

After all of the outside morning chores were done, I still had the usual inside household tasks of cleaning, doing laundry, and washing dishes ( No we don't have a dishwasher, unless you count me), and before I knew it, it was time to start all over again with the evening farm chores.

Where was Gary while I was doing all of this, you might ask? Well, he wasn't exactly slacking either. He took a week of  'vacation' time from his regular job, to work 14-16 hour days at his part-time job all week. 

Yup, just another lazy Sunday.

" Blah, blah, blah, Sheep Lady. Work, laundry - whatever, can you keep it down? I am trying to rest over here!"

"Ahhh, yes, there is nothing like taking a leisurely dust-bath on a quiet Sunday afternoon."

  

"Wait, what?"

"What did you say Sheep Lady? What's a stew-pot? Was that supposed to be funny? I don't get it. You're joking, right?"

Don't worry chicken, I was Joking, of course ; ).

Barn secrets revealed!

So, it was  minus 13 degrees with a minus 32 wind chill when I did my morning calisthenics, A.K.A. barn chores.  Who needs a gym membership when you can walk out your door wearing 20 pounds of extra clothing, climb over fences (because the gates are frozen), carry multiple buckets of water to fill waterers who's heating elements can't handle such frigid temperatures, all while fighting your way through snowdrifts covered with a layer of ice? Much more fun than running on a treadmill next to some guy in sweaty gym shorts.....hmmm.....6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

It has been a strange winter and we have had more than our share of cold and snow, but a couple of days ago, when it was warm out... a balmy 20 degrees, we got a bit of wet, heavy snow that helped me answer a couple of questions that had been tormenting me. One thing that was still puzzling me was the mystery of who killed Blue-ster Rooster back in December. It's not like I have been lying awake at night, pondering about it, plotting my revenge....OK, maybe there has been a little revenge plotting...but mainly I wanted to know who the culprit was in order to keep the rest of the flock safe. I couldn't figure it out, until the wet snow last week revealed the secret.

Winding along the chicken run...

Back and forth along the fence...fox tracks!

It seems as though a fox has been frequenting our barnyard in search of a free meal. Ever since the rooster-eating incident the rest of the flock has been locked up tight at night, and there is electric fencing along the perimeter, so at least the girls are safe. It is still a bit nerve-wracking knowing that there is something prowling around trying to eat your friends. After mentioning the tracks to a neighbor, they commented that they had seen a large Red Fox sitting across the road from our place several times in the early morning hours....this may have been useful information a few weeks ago, but, whatever, mystery solved!

The other thing that had me baffled was the huge amount of barn cat food that we have been going through. We had a similar problem over the summer and it turned out that there was a  GIANT RAT  large opossum

that had been gorging itself on our dime. But this time I was leaning toward another suspect. I was pretty certain that it was an inside job. You may  remember a couple of months ago we acquired another barn cat. He was "gifted" to us by an anonymous donor (dumped at our farm). He was kind of small, and needy, and meowed constantly. Being that I have "Sucker" tattooed on my forehead, I felt sorry for him and we kept him..

                                                                       Earlier photo.

Well, Helios Maximus Manmonster has grown, and is less talkative than he used to be, but he sure likes to eat....a lot. The way the food was disappearing I was beginning to wonder if I could afford to continue feeding him.

"Nom, nom, nom!"

"What?"

"I'm innocent I tell ya, innocent!"

I have witnessed, on many occasions, the fact that Manmonster does consume a disproportionate amount of  food compared to the other barn kitties. As it turns out though, in this instance I was misguided in my suspicions-he was falsely accused.

I found supporting evidence in the snow.

Opossum tracks all around the barn leading into the feed area. They' re baaack.Yet another one of the creepy little naked-tailed varmints has moved in and is taking advantage of the free buffet. I'm not sure what I am going to do about this breaking news, but I am certainly not going to feed that mangy critter for the rest of the winter! I have been putting the cats food away after evening chores. But, as cold as it is, I hate to take food away from the legitimate borders for the night just to banish the freeloader. I think I see a live trap in Mr. 'Possum's future!

"I told you I was framed!"

Mysteries solved!

Side note/off topic.

Some of you have sent me messages or emailed me because you were concerned about my lack of blogginess as of late-we are fine, not to worry, we have just been dealing with a lot of serious issues concerning our aging parents over the past couple months and I have been a bit preoccupied with that. Things are getting better and we are trying to get back to 'normal'.....or my twisted version of normal anyway. Thank-you for the kind thoughts : ). Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Guess who's coming to dinner.

Last Saturday morning when I went out to do chores, I followed my normal routine-I walked out to the horse barn, fed the barn cats, threw a handful of cat food to the marauding rooster trio (yes, they love cat food), and then started toward the big barn to get hay for the horses and sheep. Just as I was leaving the barn I heard an unusual, "Meow, mouw, mouuuuuuw!" It sounded strange and I wondered if one of my barn cats was injured, so I did  a head count, nope, all three cats were sitting around the food dish happily munching on breakfast. Still the meowing persisted...but where was it? I looked around the bales of hay, behind the saddle rack, under the wheelbarrow......finally I looked up and saw a kitty perched in the rafters of the barn. He kept calling to me, and as I walked back and forth on the barn floor, he followed along, trotting across the beams above. As friendly as he was, I knew right away that he probably had been someone's house cat, and for whatever reason was dumped. You may remember from earlier posts that when people dump animals here it normally sends me into a rant, but there was something comical about this little guy-with his silly meow and desperate attempts to befriend me that made me forget how angry I was that someone had dumped yet another animal at our farm.

After coaxing him down from his "Flying Wallenda" act, I gave him food and water which he gobbled without even the thought of chewing. I reminded myself not to get too attached, knowing that he would likely wander off over night, but at least I felt better that he had some food in his belly.

Well, here it is nearly a week later, he still has food in his belly, he hasn't left the property...at all, and he hasn't stopped MEOWWWWWWing. I won't take him to the Humane Society because the animal shelters are beyond capacity, and although he is a young cat, he is not a cute little kitten so his chances of being adopted are next to none. He is getting along well with the other cats, so it looks like we have another resident at the farm. He is going to be in for a rude awakening though, there is a trade-off for free room and board.....he has some parts that are in need of removal. Yes, he still has THOSE. So in the next couple of weeks he will be taking a trip to the vet (ugh, more vet bills).

Also, it would be much appreciated if he stopped meowing continually-it's a bit much at 6am.

 "Meow!"

 "Meow!"

 "Meoooooowww!!"

"Meeeeeeeooowwww!"

The other cats are most certainly NOT amused by the new guest.

 "Not amused."

 "We are not amused at all."

"Hmmmpf!"

"Hey you guys, I like it here, this is going to be great!"

"Wait............

what parts did you say need to be removed?"