Farm Fresh Blog

After a marathon driving adventure across Texas and Oklahoma, . . . 

. . .  we brought The Little Prince home.

 Meet Trace!     

(More pics to come after we've had some sleep!)

Mom's little blessing is growing like a weed.

  She has come a long way from flagging down strangers at a gas station for help. ("HEY! You with the thumbs! I need some HELP down here!")

Now she's a member of a FAMILY!  Since the name "Blossom" didn't really stick, Mom has re-named her "Glory", and she already comes to her name.   (and wipes her paws!)

  She has a garden . . .

 . . . with birds!

 BIGGGGG Birds!

She has a big brother who likes to play rough!

  And a dog!

 "I have a family!!!"

"Thank you, God!"

Years ago I went with a friend to pick up some goat's milk. We were greeted by a most delightful man who escorted us around his farm. He showed us his goats, his pig, his miniature horses, his cattle, and his chickens.  And he did all this . . . in bare feet.

I remember being struck with the idea that this cheerful little man was a modern day Hobbit, spirited straight from the Lord Of The Rings.  And his feet looked like it. 

Now I'm not one to point fingers.  (perish that thought!) I was in my 30's before I got my first professional pedicure. The reason I was forced to get a pedicure is because Montoya had stomped on my foot ("Oops! Sorry mom!") and my big toe was a most striking shade of blue. 

A friend was tired of looking at it, so she insisted that we that head to the nearest Vietnamese lady with polish to paint that sucker!  So I did.  I went in looking like a Hobbit, and an hour later, (and lots of muttering in Vietnamese) I hobbled out with new feet. There was even a beautiful hibiscus flower painted on my bruised big toe. 

From that moment on, I was in love with pedicures. Ahhhh . . . the vibrating chair, the girl talk, the stupid paper flip-flops. And the magical hibiscus flower that announced "These are the feet of a Pretty Woman, not a Hobbit!"

But the sad reality is that the Magical Hibiscus Flower fades pretty quickly under the cold hard reality of farm living. The polish gets chipped off each time a critter bounces across the top of it.  I want to, I really want to, but I cannot seem to wear responsible shoes every time I step out of my door. Too often I'm simply puttering around the house in flip-flops or Crocs when drama stalks me, and then I regret my choice of footwear.

 (Read: The Grace of God & The Red-Headed Demon)

You'd think I would learn. But alas . . .   take this morning for instance.  One would think that I would know better. 

This is not a picture you want to see when you're wearing flip-flops! 

Or this!  (They get MUCH closer!)

One overeager Border Collie (just trying to help) + A Few Errant Sheep = Bruised Toes

Why don't I ever learn?

Did Hobbits have Border Collies?

 (I'm just asking . . .)

While city folks may not have to sling dead 'possums out of their yard on Mondays, they also don't get to rise early on "Hump Day Wednesdays" to this . . .

The sun rises to capture the dew on the pumpkin. 

(Okay, the City Folk can have pumpkins too, but do they also have dew on the horse poop behind the pumpkin?  I'm just asking . . .)

View from the Front Porch:

View from the Back Porch:

There's no hum of traffic in the country.  This is the traffic I hear in the morning:

Sexy Senior Citizen gallops into the barn!

Before I can feed myself, there are animals to be fed:

My Second-In-Command climbs up high on the hay to oversee the operation.

After all the animals are fed it's time to walk the fence line with the dogs.

Our version of Brinks Home Security . . .

And the chores are done! Bring on the day!

There are few things that I consider myself an expert on, but the smell of decomposing tissue is one subject that I know a great deal about. So when I drove into my garage barn last week and the smell of decomp assaulted my nose as I climbed out of the truck, I felt that I could safely report, "There is something dead in the garage!"

The problem was that I couldn't find it.  The garage shed is attached to the goat barn. There are also lots of hidey holes in old junk where a small animal could crawl off to die.  My concern wasn't so much WHERE the critter was, as WHO the critter was.

Here was my first concern:

Lovey hadn't been seen in a couple of days.  This launched an all-out search at 1 AM for a tabby calico cat. I called and I called and I called.  (Yes, I'm sure my neighbors hate me.)

I really worried that the dogs had caught her in the ever-popular, "Let's chase the cat and try to kill it" game.  Faith likes this game, but Lovey is not a big fan.  (She's not as good at the game as Faith.)  So I continued my hunt for Lovey.  A can of cat food at 1:30 AM finally produced three calico cats who climbed out of the rafters of the horse barn.  One of them was Lovey.  I could go to sleep.

Perhaps the victim was Remus, the banty rooster who survived multiple Boogey Beast attacks:

  Remus used to spend his evenings roosting in the Goat Barn until daybreak where he would trek across the pasture to greet my mother's hens as they began their day.  "Hellllloooo Ladies!"

I worried that perhaps Remus had met up with Blue Heeler in his journey across the pasture.  Or Briar could have loved him to death.  The result is about the same.  (Again. . . it depends upon your view of torture.)  Or . . . Remus could have been killed by whatever attempted to kill him a couple of weeks ago when I thought something was after the goats.  I moved Briar into that barn, only to discover that Something was after Remus, not the goats.  But I left Briar there anyway.
 
So I went to bed that night, The First Night Of Decomp In The Barn, comfortable that Lovey was okay, and slightly annoyed that Remus had finally met his demise. The next morning my mother reported that Remus was alive and well, and spending his nights in an oak tree above her chicken coop.   At this point, since everyone in my Family Fold was accounted for, I quit worrying about the smell of decomp in the garage.

 Until yesterday . . .

I asked Other Half to feed the dogs.  He couldn't find Briar.  We hunted and finally found Briar hunkered down in the driveway paddock.  My heart skipped a beat . . .   Briar had something. . .

Fearing for my calico cats, (and Mom's calico kitten) I cautiously approached.  Briar looked over her shoulder and happily grinned at me.  She reeked of decomp.
That ruled out the calico cats and kitten.  Now what did Briar have?

Warning!  Warning!  Warning!   GROSS ALERT!!!!!

This was what Briar had been working on like an All-day Sucker:

Eeegaaads!

It took me a second to identify the victim, but this cleared it up.

Now it's possible that the opossum lost the Let's Kill The Kitty game and crawled off to die.  "Look!  A cat with a skinny tail!"  I doubt Briar tried to love it to death.  It is also possible that it came to kill Remus and Briar caught him instead. (Oh well . . . sucks to be him.)  Regardless, he ended up dead and Briar finally dug him out of his death bed.

The down side to my job as a crime scene investigator is that I cannot throw down the Girl Card and get Other Half to dispose of gross items that are too horrendous for my delicate sensibilities.  (You forfeit "The Girl Card" when you play Twister over dead men for a living.)  So I had to dispose of the dead opossum while he changed out a broken tail light on the flat-bed trailer.
 
Then I had a more important task at hand . . .

 
Do City People have to do this kind of stuff on a Monday afternoon?

I'm just saying . . .

It's Monday!!!!

Seize the day!

       Embrace it!  

And if problems come your way . . .

Ranger says . . .

Go forth and make it your day!

This is Rasta. Pardon my French, but she's a bitch.  (Actually . . . since we are in the South, we don't call her a bitch, we say, "Bless her heart . . .")

Rasta is a large, aggressive ewe who will attack a dog in an instant.  This served her well when Oli The Patrol Dog climbed the fence last winter and attacked the sheep in the isolation pasture.  Roanie suffered horrible injuries, Jamaica later died, but Rasta was such a "Bless her heart . . . " that the dog went on to easier prey and Rasta was left with just a few blood stains on her wool.

Rasta has a deep hatred of all dogs - even Briar.

  Briar tries to stay away from Rasta.  Sometimes that works out for her, other times it doesn't.  This morning . . .  it didn't . . .

 "Get away from here, DOG!"

"Beat it, you stupid white dog!"  

 "You are a DOG!  You are not a SHEEP!  Don't you get it?!!"

Dejected, Briar wanders off to lay down in some sand and watch the flock.

But someone sees her.  That Someone leaves the flock to go lend a sympathic ear.

  Roanie, the sheep who survived the dog attack with grievous injuries, leaves the other sheep to go stand beside Briar.

"Hey, you okay Dog???"

And the ewe who has every reason in the world to hate dogs, stood beside the Giant White Beast, and stayed there. And Briar felt better.

Perhaps this world would be a better place if we were all a bit more like Briar and Roanie . . .  

                        . . .

                                               . . .

 (Roanie recovering from her injuries last winter leans on Briar. It was months before she could use her right hind leg again. This photo was taken less than a month after Roanie was attacked by a dog.)

I bathed Alice again this week, and as always, it was quite the task. 

Most of the time it's a chore simply to catch her for a bath, but this time, Blue Heeler felt compelled to play in the bath water.  

It made The Rinse Cycle difficult.

But as annoying as it was to have a Little Blue Dog bouncing into the spray, it got me to thinking about the biggest hurdle to bathing a Bloodhound - Montoya.

This is what bathing a Bloodhound is like when you add a horse to the bucket:

      Now for those of you who have ever considered getting a hound, you need to know that even on a good day, they stink. Even if you bathe them in rose-scented shampoo, they will still smell like wet bloodhounds (with a faint hint of rose). But poor Alice, like most bloodhounds in Texas, has skin allergies and must be bathed regularly. This is no thrill for me or for Alice. Bloodhounds come with an uncanny sense of smell. They also come equipped with an uncanny sense of knowing when the thought of a bath just flits across your mind. As soon as the thought enters my mind, Alice runs to hide in the pumphouse. Fortunately for me, cat food is Kryptonite for Bloodhounds, and if I pretend that I'm not holding a leash in my armpit, I can dump dry cat food on the barn floor and snare her as she's scarfing it up .... if I'm fast.

Luck was with me, and I was able to catch my hound, pour a little Pantene Shampoo & Conditioner in a bucket, and hit it with the water hose. That's about the time things got interesting.

Because Montoya spends so much time in the back yard, I tend to forget he's there. He's like Andalusian Yard Art. And he happens to be fascinated with bubbles. I did not know this until this afternoon. Neither did he. Montoya was delighted with the bucket of suds that I was sponging onto the hound. He hovered over us and supervised the entire operation.

"Whatcha doing?"

"I'm bathing the Bloodhound."

"Why?"

"She stinks."

"Look! Bubbles!"

"Yep.... you need those to bathe Bloodhounds."

"Why don't I ever get bubbles?"

"You don't stink."

"I want BUBBLES!"

"Go away. Leave that alone."

"I want BUBBLES! I want BUBBLES! I WANT BUBBLES! ......Whoops..."

"Happy now? Your bubbles are all over the ground."

"Look! I have a Bubble Mustache!"

"I'm not impressed. Go away!"

"See my mustache? Look. Right here. See? Oh good! You're making more bubbles!"

"Go away! I've got to bathe the dog!" (once you finally catch a Bloodhound, you do not, under any condition, let go of that hound if you plan on bathing it that day.)

"Oooooh... there are bubbles on the DOG!"

"GO AWAY!"

"Can I lick the bubbles off the dog!"

"NO!" (The dog was in total agreement with me on this.)

I dropped the water hose. It squirted him.

"That was rude, Mom."

"So go away."

"Hey! I've got a Bubble Mustache. Do you see it?"

By the time I was finished, the hound was soaked, I was soaked, and Montoya was soaked, but he proudly wore his Pantene Mustache until I wiped it off. I don't think the hound will ever come out of the pumphouse again.

     Last night Other Half came home at 5 AM.  He was tired, grumpy, and had a headache. Lily does not recognize those states of being.  At 5 AM, she is happy and wants to play.  She wants to lay in bed and do the backstroke across the covers to get into the crevice between Mommy & Daddy so that she can backstroke across his chest, and he can rub her tummy.  She also wants to scratch imaginary ticks and fleas.  (I check that dog religously and she does NOT have bugs!)  But . . . she will wait until we are trying to sleep and she will scratch dry skin, and then bounce on his chest to announce "HELLLLOOOOOOO!!!!!  I LOVE YOU!!!"

He will scratch her tummy and go back to sleep.  Sometimes I kick her off the bed or put her outside.  Last night I was too tired to do either.  Her Thing 2 Counterpart (Cowboy) is now awake and pacing beside the bed. As he moves his dog tags rattle out an irritating melody.  

At 9:30 AM Other Half decides to get up and go the restroom.  He is naturally escorted the entire 8' from the bed to the toilet.  After all, he might get lost in the artic blast of the air conditioner and need a Border Collie to lie beside his prone body to keep him warm until rescue arrives.

In the restroom there is a calendar. This is the picture for October:

I had just turned it over last night.  (I hope little Trace grows up to look like this dog!) Anyway, with his canine escort, Other Half returns to bed.  The melody of Cowboy's dog tags continues to tinkle and Lily bounces on his chest.  He lays there in silence for a moment . . . and then he says,

"You know what we need to do?"

My mind races through images of kennels lined up on the back porch with dejected dogs waiting impatiently for their day to begin. But then he says something that surprises me . . . . . .

This man who had not had a moment's peace and uninterrupted sleep in 4 hours, announced . . .

"What we need to do is get some pumpkins and carve faces into them and then take pictures of the dogs beside them."

I love this man.

     Other Half is having an affair. He has another love. And as much as he denies it, he loves her with his whole artery-clogged heart.  She is fried food. Country people just love cooking in grease. Take one look at all the fried exotics at the Texas State Fair, and you'll get an idea.  By exotics, I'm not talking about fried swamp buffalo; I'm talking about Fried Oreos!  Or Fried Twinkies!  Or any damned thing that falls in the grease!

     Now in his defense, he will not eat those exotic fried foods.  He does, however, want his vegetables and most of his meat fried. He wants "Man-food!"  Manfood is meat and potatos . . . and cornbread. If something green lands on his plate, it had better be fried, or an opened can of green beans.  He will eat a salad if it has lots of ranch dresssing on it. For him a salad is in a ready-mix bag with a jug of ranch dressing.  He "might" spruce it up with some radishes, some tomatos, . . . and homemade bacon-bits.

This is what I looked like 5 years ago:

  I hid this picture because I thought I looked fat.  Someone told me once that women should keep old photos because undoubtedly you will look back and say to yourself, "What the heck was I thinking?  I'd be happy to look that way now!"  That was an entire jean size ago! Those were wise words.

  Now I look a bit more like this:

 Okay, my hair is still long, but I've added a few (lot) more pounds! And okay, I can probably squeeze into those old pants again if I try really hard, and don't breathe, but the point is . . .  all this fried food isn't doing ME any favors!

So I am determined to get us eating better!  Sunday I went to the grocery store and spent $218 on good, real food.  While I was there, he phoned to place his order since I was also nixing our eating out EVERY NIGHT when on-duty. Not only is it expensive, it's unhealthy!

This is what he ordered for himself:

(Yes!  It cooks in 90 seconds! And has enough sodium to preserve a hog!)

When I came home, he inspected our new meals . . .

chicken breasts
chicken fajitas

"You know I don't eat chicken unless it's fried!"

broccoli
mushrooms
avocados

"That's for you.  I'm not eating that."

tomatos

(He will eat those . . . with lots of salt.)

yogurt
sour cream
low-fat milk  (He hasn't noticed the low-fat label yet!)

and the list goes on . . . .

After spending $218 on food that afternoon. Do you want to know what we did for dinner?

  Whereupon . . .  he ordered a giant chicken-fried steak sandwich, and . . . greedy little pig that I am, I gave up and ordered a chili-cheese burger.  WTF!!??