Farm Fresh Blog

From time to time, the Merry-Go-Round of Life stops for a moment. It's up to us whether or not we appreciate this chance to catch our breath, or simply trudge on, oblivious to the opportunity.

Other Half is recovering from a hernia surgery. He is now out of commission for the next 6 weeks. All of his responsibilities fall on little ole me. Christmas is bearing down on us. I have to go back to work tomorrow. The car battery is dead. My truck is attached to the gooseneck horse trailer. (pain in the butt to unattach!) The dually is too big to park in my office parking garage. I have to pay bills, cook a turkey, buy a new car battery, install said battery, give Husband his meds, feed animals, not burn turkey, clean house, shop online for Christmas presents, mail goat milk soap orders, make one last batch of soap, and so on and so on . . .  It blurs.

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn. The sun was peaking over the horizon and frost blanketed the pasture.

After giving him his meds, get Other Half safely settled back in bed with Blue Heeler (Florence Nightingale) Each morning we have a 'changing of the guard' as Cowboy and Ranger change places. Ranger rushes inside to a warm bed and Cowboy rushes outside to greet the day (and chase morning commuters down our fence line.)

With responsibilities whispering in my ear, I bundled up and headed to the barn . . .

The voices in my head argue with each other as they jockey for my attention. What needs to be done first? What can be put on the back burner? I hustle through my morning chores, barely noticing the chilled, grateful faces that greet me.

Joe kicks at Lily as she bites him in the back of the leg while he eats. Lily is a bitch. I love her, but she lives to dominate livestock. I evict her from the pasture, and trudge on along with Ice and Briar in tow. There is a fresh canine turd on the frozen ground outside the barn. Hmmm . . . smaller than Briar, about the size of a Border Collie, but it isn't one of my dogs. Perhaps a coyote is visiting. This is the second time I've found a fresh turd just outside the goat fence. Someone is trolling for trouble. Briar puts her nose to the ground and follows it across the pasture. I go back to feeding animals.

The sun is crawling across the frost as Ice and I haul hay. We finish feeding and walk out into the pasture to check the water tank. The tank is full, the goldfish are fine. I see Briar on patrol and call her. She changes her path to head in our direction. As she scoots under the barbed wire fence, she grins and gallops my way.

 She roars past me, and becomes a furry snow monster chasing her tail.

Around and round she spins, her face splits into a giant smile, her eyes gleaming with delight. There are no voices at war with each other in Briar's head. She is living in the moment, and it's a beautiful day to be alive.

I take a moment to watch her. Ice and I stand in the cold and stare as Briar's circles grow wider and wider, and then tighter and tighter as she closes in on her tail. She collapses in a giant white heap. She lays there for a moment with her sides heaving plumes of frosty breath in the cold air.

I wish for my camera. This moment is too precious to waste. Instead I must satisfy myself with the snapshots I take in my head. And as I watched that silly dog, the voices in my head stopped too. Briar pulled me back into the moment, and reminded me to step off the Mad Carousel of Life and appreciate living. 

The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. And just as drama follows her father, Daughter is no stranger to her own brand of escapades. As we discussed earlier, Daughter moved her family out to the country and is experiencing the joys of raising her young children with nature.  As you will recall, I almost peed in my pants when I read her Facebook post about the hawk in the garage.  (Read: Farm Kids)

And it continues. I received this text last night:

"Any idea what this is?"

Since nothing else was there, I asked:                 "What is?"

As soon as I asked, this picture came through:

That looked all too familiar.           "Looks like a copperhead from here."

Since the picture was tiny, and we are old were in dim light, her father and I blew up the picture so we could examine it closely.

Yep, looked like a baby copperhead to us. And then this text came through:

"It is a snake I caught in the garage."

                "Yes, it is a copperhead. Baby copperheads have yellow tails."

"Yikes!! That's definitely what it is!!"

As her father and I examined the photograph, something caught my attention.  See that reflection? THAT is what's caused when a flash of light bounces against glass and reflects back at the camera.  Rut ro! Knowing the interests of a budding naturalist in the family . . .  

 (This one!)

I was quick to text back,

                              "Tell me it's not in an aquarium in your house now!"

"Hehe. Maybe :) it won't be for long..."

At this point her father snatched up his phone to call her. It was a lively conversation.  Daughter informed us that after the kids went to bed the snake would be "released." (with a shovel!) Yeahhhhh . . . that's what we're telling the kids. Yeahhhhh . . . that sounds good.  Ahhhh . . .  life in the the country.

And remember this: Just when you think your life needs some excitement, try being the mother of this child . . .

 . . . in a place where copperheads crawl in your garage in the middle of December.

Susan asked how Joe did in the parade.

Well, let's start with The Bath.  You see, the problem with beautiful black and white horses is that they like rolling in dust in dry weather, and rolling in mud in wet weather. At no point do they actually like water baths (except of course, if you are trail riding through a stream, then they will stop, drop, and roll with the best of them) But I digress . . .

Suffice it to say, Homeboy needed a bath. In December. With no hot water. And although I waited until late in the day when it was warm (high 70s) it was still cold water because, well, it's December.   Joe was less than thrilled with the arrangement. He has a thick winter coat and it took forever to rinse him, thus exceeding ALL of his patience and mine.  We finally gave up on his lower legs and decided to borrow baby powder from Dear Draft Horse Friends (Doug & Debbie) who were carrying Santa in the parade.

 Prior to Santa's arrival

So I loaded up Joe and headed toward the parade.  Keep in mind, that at this point I have not bothered to introduce Joe to the concept of wearing Christmas lights. I merely have a grocery sack of lights that I purchased at the last minute that Other Half kindly inserted batteries into the night before. I had yet to plan out how I was going to put the lights on Joe.

You really should plan this stuff out, but I live much like Scarlett O'Hara: "I'll think about that tomorrow."

Well, tomorrow was here, and I still didn't have a plan. Whatever. Jesus loves me and so does Joe. (well, Joe likes me. And he's a patient horse, so it's practically the same thing.) I unloaded Joe amid all the hustle and bustle of everyone else unloading and outfitting their unsuspecting excited livestock for the Sparkling Rodeo Parade Of Lights.

As I watched the rodeos around me,  dressed Joe, I decided that Joe and I could do with much fewer strands of lights than I had bought.  He ended up looking like this:

 Joe had lights around his breast collar and on this garland. I opted against lights around his butt and feet, not because Joe objected, but for once in my life, I remembered my physics:

For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction.

Joe is a calm horse. Then again, I doubt he's ever had a strand of Christmas lights slide under his tail and give him a 'wedgie.'  I don't know for sure, I'm just guessin'.  And as I watched people put all manner of things on their horses, I decided that I had enough things to worry about from items on OTHER horses. Joe and I would just keep it simple. We were clean, and that's doing good in December.

We had a chance to relax walk around and look at the floats and other riders.

 Yes, that is a real Bethlehem scene on a flatbed trailer - complete with a real donkey and real goats. It was awesome! (But I made mental note to keep Joe away from that float, lest donkeys and goats become airborne in the middle of the parade.)

Dear Friend Mindy owns Frodo, Joe's BFF (Best Friend Forever). Joe and Frodo are buddies. Frodo arrived shortly before the parade began. We hastily flung the rest of Joe's colored lights on Frodo.

Like me, Mindy hadn't bothered to introduce Frodo to lights prior to the parade. Like Joe, Frodo took it in stride. Other Half arrived minutes before we mounted up. He objected to Joe's 'minimalist' look. Other Half wanted Joe decorated like a Griswald Christmas.

No problem. He can ride him. Nevermind.

The sun went down. Santa arrived. And we all lined up. Christmas carols blared from sound systems all around us. The street sweeper roared to life and followed right behind the horses. As you can imagine, horses were freaking. Frodo, who is scared of motorcycles was less than amused by the decorated ATV mule that followed us closely.  Since so many other horses were freaking out, even though Frodo resembled a fractious Thoroughbred being led to the starting gate by his solid pony (Joe), we didn't particularly stand out. 

The streets were lined with children who darted into our path friendly kids. The air crackled and chimed with Christmas music and jingle bells from floats and panicky prancing horses.   It was a horse nightmare lovely experience. I had a blast. Then again, I was on one of the calm horses. Joe took everything in stride. Frodo bounced against us for the length of the parade but they switched roles when we returned to the trailer.

I loaded Joe into the trailer and Calm Mr. Joe went batshit crazy at the thought of being separated from his BFF Frodo. He began bucking and sitting back in the trailer. I gawked at him in disbelief for a moment before Mindy rocked me back to reality by asking,

"Want me to just load Frodo up beside him and you can drive him home?"

Does that sound like we're enabling? Ahhhh . . .yeah.  Did we do it?

Yessirree Bob!  As soon as Frodo stepped up into the trailer, Joe calmed right down.  And so, the two best friends drove to Frodo's house while Mindy drove behind us. Other Half drove his police truck behind Mindy and lighted up the highway so we could unload safely.  Joe was happy. Frodo was happy. Mindy and I were happy.  Life was good.

Overall it was a wonderful night filled with friends and fellowship, and who could ask for anything more?

With the holiday season ramping up things are getting even more chaotic around here. I rode Joe in a Parade Of Lights Christmas parade on Saturday night.  That was supposed to be the blog for today, but, understandably, it got bumped.

Yesterday was a special kind of circus because I had to get Other Half off to work, finish up soap orders, load soap into truck, cook a dish for a party, feed the dogs, feed the horses, feed the sheep and move them to the yard, and get dressed for the party, pick up Dear Friend Mindy, drive to party, and then, well, party with The Girls!

And I accomplished all this . . . life was good, until this morning.

Here's how it all began to unravel:

Other Half calls me on his way home from work to see when I'm coming home. I'm still partying and so he stops and gets a burger on his way home. He lets Patrol Dog/Psycho Dog/Oli out to play in the dark for about 5 minutes. Brings Dillon, Lily, and Cowboy into the house. Turns Trace/Troll/Psycho Border Collie and Ranger/Blue Heeler into yard.

I return home around 8 pm and we watch television for a while and then go to bed.  Wake up at 6:30 am. An idea pops into my head. I forgot to remind Other Half that the sheep and goats were in the yard. Oh...Sh*t!

Turn to Other Half and say, "You DID get the sheep in last night. Right?"

"SHEEP!!! WHAT?!!"

We both spring out of bed. (Levitate is a much better verb here.) I run outside in my pajamas. Thankfully my neighbors are ranchers who are used to this behavior.  I swing open the door and race outside into the fog . . .

. . . and total silence.

. . . nothing . . .

"Trace?"

Nothing. Just empty fog. I start to walk around the yard. No sheep. No goats. No dogs. Nothing.

"Trace???"

A figure races out of the fog. Ranger bounces into focus. No Trace.

"TRACE!!!"

A little red figure emerges from the fog. He nods at me and races off. Okay. At least I have a direction of travel now. I head off after him. Plunk Ranger in kennel. Mentally prepare myself for the carnage. This is, after all, the unpleasant part of raising farm animals.

And so it was that I round the corner, and standing there in the middle of assorted tractor implements is a band of scared sleepy sheep and three disgusted goats. And standing tall with the sheep was one Big White Dog.

Trace is circling the band like a satellite. He is a red moon orbiting a fluffy confused planet (and three disgusted goats).

I call the little bastard. He ignores me.  I roar at him. He flicks an ear but continues his orbit.  He has waited all night long for me to arrive so he can work sheep and refuses to be cheated. The sheep are very happy to see me.  I wade into their grateful midst. They crowd around me and tell me all about their horrific night with The Psycho With Googly Eyes.  Trace continues his maddening orbit.  I order him to down, which he does. (Miracle of miracles! Then again, he had probably been doing this for 12 hours already.)

I walk over to him to scoop him up and note that he has lost his collar.  The sheep unwisely decide to make a break for it. He is on them like a duck on a June bug. Briar grabs him by the tail and football tackles him. The sheep run back to me.  Briar trots along with them. Other Half joins us and we check them out.  They are fine. All of them. Ever single sheep and goat is safe. Wonders never cease.

The whole band of us begin our walk to the barn.  All is good until they see The Promised Land (i.e. The Opened Gate)

They make a break for it. Trace breaks his down. Briar football tackles him again, and the sheep slide through the gate and run like Spotted Apes back to their pen. There is a sonic boom as they broke the speed of sound.

Other Half and I have the same argument discussion about Trace's less than stellar behavior with livestock.  He is the first dog that I've actually felt the need to use electricity on. It may be in his future. He MUST learn that 'down' means "down and STAY DOWN, DAMNIT!"

And then it hits me.  I'm mad at Trace for not calling off sheep, but I have completely overlooked the fact that a Psychotic Malinois/Proven Sheep Murderer was completely unattended with the flock for at least 5 minutes.

(translation: If Other Half tells you they were unattended for 5 minutes, it really means at least 15 to 30 minutes.)

 There is only one reason why I didn't find bloody bodies all over the yard:

Yes, Briar.

Briar has an intense dislike of Oli. (No, duh! Wonder why?)

Oli wakes up in the morning and says, "What small hooved mammal can I kill today?" She is a velociraptor on paws.
 
And Briar is . . . Briar.

She is a gentle mountain of a dog, slow to anger, but force to be reckoned with when pushed too far.

Oli must have decided that killing sheep wasn't worth going through Briar.

"Wise choice, Bee-otch!"

Sometimes I take my Big White Dawg for granted, but I thank God she was on duty last night.   :)

I almost snorted frappuccino through my nose when I read a post on Facebook by Daughter and couldn't resist sharing it with you...

They have recently moved their family from the suburbs to the country and are currently raising baby chicks in their garage.

 When her father and I were there for Thanksgiving, the chicks were getting pretty big and the family was hustling to get their "chicken tractor" built so they could explore the great outdoors.

But as we have discussed earlier, the problem with real farms, as opposed to "Farmville," is that REAL farms are in the COUNTRY and thus REAL farms come with Predators.  And so it was that a hawk found its way into the garage with the baby chicks. Yes, according the Facebook report, chaos ensued.  (I laughed my ass off.)

I want you to imagine a young mother trying to chase a confused hawk out of her garage, while her toddler is busy tossing chicks into the house to protect them from the hawk.  (The mental picture literally had me falling out of my chair with laughter.)

Fortunately the mission was a success and there were no casualties.  And naturally, this was a stellar "teachable moment".  Lilah was later quizing her mother on hawks and asked, "Are hawks 'turnal' or 'not turnal?"

Nothing against the Discovery Channel, but few things quite illustrate the Food Chain and the Circle of Life better than a hawk chasing chickens in your garage. I'm just sayin'.

I watched the National Dog Show last night. They say people who have dogs are healthier. I'm not sure if dogs make us healthier, but they certainly enrich our lives. On the other hand, some dogs are definitely medicinal. Take for instance, this dog:

His coat is soft and plush, much like an otter or a beaver, in short, he is extremely 'pettable'. Is that a word? If not, it should be. And beside the definition in Webster's dictionary, they should have a picture of this dog, with a little arrow pointing toward his ears.

Yes indeed, Dillon's ears can lower your blood pressure.  If I ever stroke out, it will be at work, not at home when Dillon's ears are within reach. I have freakishly naturally low blood pressure. Why? Dogs. In particular, Dillon's ears.

As a dog trainer, I know all the reported evils of allowing "unsolicited, unearned" petting of your dog.  My answer to this is "horse hockey."  I pet my dogs when I want to pet my dogs. It pleases me and them. If it became a problem, then I'd stop, but until then, bring on Dillon's ears.

Which brings us to last night.  Other Half got food poisoning. (and that, Dear Friends, is why you shouldn't let your husband buy discount chicken from the grocery store!) One thing became quite obvious last night:  Dillon is a 65 lb heating pad and is quite happy to be used as one.

So not only is this a good hunting dog,

and a promising cadaver dog,

and great with kids,

he is also a very good dog to keep in your medicine cabinet, for stomach cramps, high blood pressure, head aches, and whatever else ails ya!

This month many Facebook users began a project that I found particularly interesting. They challenged themselves to post one thing daily that they are thankful for in life. Like myself, many would skip a few days, and then make up for it later by posting multiple thank yous. The point was that the exercise forced us all to sit down and think about the gifts we enjoy.

I've posted this quote before, but it's certainly worth another go-round:

"What if, when you woke up this morning,

the only things you had left,

were the things you thanked God for the night before?"

The older I get, the more I realize I can make do with less stuff. Merging my farm with Other Half's ranch forced me to downsize once. Moving to North Texas will force us to downsize again. Although we will ultimately build a "barndominium", in the mean time we are living in a cabin when we're up there, and it's filling up fast!

Because space is at a premium, and money is always tight, we want to either re-purpose things we already have, or only buy new things that have multiple purposes.  For instance, look at this Bad-Boy! We found it last week!

 It's a chuckwagon cabinet!

We found it in a local Sutherland's lumber store. It has shelves with a table/counter that folds down/up. It also comes with 3 little stools that fit underneath it. I was beside myself with delight!

 The three stools can actually slide into a groved area under the cabinet, but we use that area for storage.

 Here it is all folded up. Look how much space it doesn't take up! Other Half bought a small sheet of stainless steel to screw onto the table so that he could roll out biscuits or use as a hot plate.  And here's the best part: the chuckwagon cabinet (with stools) was only $411!!!  How cool is THAT!??

Remember my precious little puppy from a few years ago?

  What a cutie!

Well this little rascal has grown up to become a troll. He is a resource-guarding-dog-aggressive-son-of-a-buck. Fortunately he confines his ill manners to his pack members and is quite sweet with humans.  In fact, if he were an "only dog" you wouldn't have a clue what an evil-tempered beast lurks beneath the smiling exterior.

But The Beast does indeed lurk.  Other Half simply adores the Little Troll.

 Note that Troll rides up front.

Other dogs ride ON THE BACK, but not Troll. He rides on the gas tank, peeking over the handle bars, like a tiny Hell's Angel.

So while the other dogs run along ON THE GROUND with me, Troll and Daddy ride ahead, looking for hogs, checking feeders, and checking game cameras. And all the while this song plays in the background . . .

 "Bad To The Bone!"

Listen:  http://youtu.be/_7VsoxT_FUY

Our "driveway" into the ranch requires you to go down a bumpy dirt road with pot holes large enough to eat compact cars for breakfast. You must open three gates and cross a cattle guard. For those who don't know what a cattle guard is, I want you to imagine a little guard shack set up beside the road where a livestock inspector checks the papers of all bovine visitors and stamps their passports.  No . . . it's not that!  

Gotcha goin' there though didn't I?  I make this joke because I thought everyone knew what a cattle guard was until my city-raised sergeant threw up question marks and other members of our crew had a little fun at his expense. Fortunately he has a good sense of humor, and now will never forget what a cattle guard is.

A cattle guard is a series of heavy bars set over a shallow "ditch,"  arranged in such a manner that a vehicle can roll right over it, but a cow or horse (although I sure wouldn't trust a horse) will not want to walk over it because they fear falling through the bars.  The whole thing is one big contraption that is just set into the roadway at a fence gap so you don't have to get out and open gates; you can just drive right over it. A determined horse (Montoya!) should never be trusted around such a contraption as it could result in a broken leg, but cattle seem to respect it quite well.

I generally like the cattle guard crossing because "I" am the resident gate opener and it relieves me of the burden of opening and closing a gate. Our cattle guard is also in a really pretty stretch of hardwoods.  Now this phrase often goes hand in hand with another word - copperheads. 

"Really pretty stretch of hardwoods" = "Copperheads"

Never forget that fact.

Forgive the quality of picture, but the snake was alive, and the picture was taken with my cell phone while leaning across Other Half, who was still sitting in the driver's seat of the pickup.

Other Half spotted this copperhead as we were driving across the cattle guard. He stopped the truck to kill it show me.  The snake knew something was up because he stopped and raised his little snakey head to examine the large white truck that loomed over him.  I actually felt sorry for the snake. Then again, I thought about that emergency trip to the vet when Dillon gets bitten by a snake and it hardened my heart.

Other Half is not burdened by my soft-hearted "Live & Let Live" attitude and immediately got a metal t-post out of the bed of the truck and proceeded to assault and batter the poor snake.  Now even though I knew it had to be done, I still felt bad . . .  until . . .

I felt bad until I talked to the neighbor who walks down that road regularly. He reported that he had been bitten twice that weekend. Fortunately he was wearing snake leggings.

Okie dokie then . . . Goodbye Snake.

Why, you ask, did Other Half beat him to death when it goes without saying that we had multiple firearms in the truck? Other Half is a considerate hunter and he spotted the snake shortly before dusk when he knew hunters were setting up. He didn't want to fire off shots and thus risk alarming deer in the area. Me? Screw the hunters, I'd have shot the damned snake.