Don't abandon your pets

Well this has been a strange week.  At work someone found a small kitten under the cars in the parking lot and brought it into our office.  We all couldn’t take a kitten home but we made it comfortable by feeding it and providing a litter box.  It was playing around the office and the boss thought it was cute and said maybe it could be an office cat.  But then a client came in and started talking about her 17 year old cat dying and we introduced her to the kitten.  Love at first sight and the kitten went home with her.

That was Tuesday.  Thursday I came home from work and a little dog ran up to meet me when I got out of the car.  Problem is it wasn’t any of my dogs.   It was chasing poor Frizzle my little yard rooster and I was worried that it would get my baby turkeys out in the yard.    I tied it up - no collar but he was a friendly little thing and after dinner we drove around the neighborhood asking people if they lost a dog.  No luck.

My instinct is that he’s a drop off.  Steve said he was outside a half hour before I came home and it wasn’t around then.    The dog is a little black and tan, wire coated thing, maybe a schnauzer-rat terrier mix.  Very loving, but a whole male, so he can’t come inside.  I didn’t see any fleas; he’s real thin but looks healthy.  I put him in the kennel outside with Sarah.  Sarah is really old but still active Jack Russell who has always been an outside dog.  She has a really large outside and inside run.  She loves male dogs, she’s a big flirt.  She can’t get pregnant and they are about the same size. 

I decided to name him Justin Bieber for now.  He’s not really happy outside but only cries for a short time after he sees me.   He wants to snuggle under my arm constantly.  He’s a little big for a lap dog, but not a big dog, just long legged and gangly.  We have called all the vets and put notices up at the stores but my bet is that an owner won’t be found.  I can’t keep a whole male here as some of my girls aren’t fixed and I can’t afford to neuter someone else’s dog.  So we’ll be looking for a home for him.

Then this morning- Saturday- I started outside to go do chores and stepped on a cat. It was lying on our porch steps in the sun, half dead from starvation I think.  The poor thing was skin and hair.  She probably didn’t weigh 5 pounds and was a large cat.  It was an adult female gray domestic shorthair, also with no collar.   I fed her of course and I thought she was going to settle down on the porch but later I saw her walking down the road.  She had a scrape on her back - I wonder if she was locked up somewhere and finally escaped and is trying to go home.  She ate well here so maybe I helped her.

I keep wondering if the two are connected, the dog and cat, someone’s pets that they dropped off.   Or maybe left behind in a house and finally escaped.  I just don’t understand people, there are so many places they could take unwanted animals and to think that dropping them off at someone’s house is the right thing to do is so stupid.  People- just because we are a farm don’t mean we want your unwanted pets!  And yes- one more does matter!    Dropping animals off in the country is about the dumbest, most inhumane thing you can do.  And it’s illegal too.

Locust trees

I had someone bring me a tree sample for identification. The piece had tiny white pea-like flowers in drooping clusters with the most delightful scent. The small round leaves made me think locust- as well as the flowers and when looking it up I found I was right - it was a Black Locust, considered by the author of the reference I consulted to be a “weedy tree” but I really liked it. The young guy who brought the piece in said the tree stood in an empty field and was quite huge. He wanted to get a young plant or seeds from it. I want one now too. Someone should make a perfume from that scent. On the way home from work I actually noticed two of the trees in yards, because of the white flowers. You would think a native tree that grows in poor soil as this one is supposed to do would be found in more places. It gets to 60 foot high and has rough interesting bark .

Our Bristly Locust is blooming right now, it’s flowers are larger but pea-like also and a pretty shade of pink. It has bristles up and down the stem and weedy does describe it. It makes small trees but spreads through runners and soon takes over a spot. We allow it to grow along the east side of our property by the road. It doesn’t have that nice smell but it is pretty this time of year.

We have had quite cool weather but I have taken the chance and planted out my tomatoes. I did something different this year and real redneck re-cycling- orientated. We had the box springs from a double bed in the spare bedroom we were going to throw out. It had a nice wood frame so I pulled it outside, took off the cloth on top and the layer of batting and excelsior under it and laid the frame over one of my raised beds, propped up by black plastic pots on each corner so it stands about 18 inches off the ground. I took the matt of batting and excelsior and laid it on the soil under the frame and cut holes through it to plant the tomatoes. I want the tomatoes to grow up through the frame of wood and wire springs and spread out over the top, off the ground. We will see what happens. It will be easy to throw a cloth over if frost threatens too, although it’s June and we shouldn’t be having frost! I am going to get a picture of it and post it here soon.

I saw the wild little kittens last night. There are at least 5 of them. We have 5 female cats on the farm and normally by this time we would have tons of kittens but this is the only litter we have had. Not that I’m complaining, its just strange. These will be real wild, I did pick one up because its little eyes were glued shut and it didn’t see me coming. It hissed like crazy but didn’t fight too hard. They are about 5 weeks old I think. It was nice and plump and besides its little eyes looked healthy. I pulled the eyelids open and put it in the feed dish where it started eating. The others snuck out after I went up to the barn and sat down. There are a lot of mostly white ones, our cats tend to be mostly white or black although we do have two striped ones now.

They say that the color of the feral cats in your area can give you clues as to where the original settlers of the area came from, as the color of the feral cats reverts back to the original stock after a while and different ethnic groups preferred different colored cats. I think the black and white / gray and white ones like ours were supposed to be Dutch, which could be, German- Dutch people did settle this area early on and the Amish are German derived. There are a lot of cats marked like ours in town too.

Today Charlie will get his first hoof trimming. This should be fun. Hopefully neither I nor the gal coming to do it will get hurt nor will he. This girl is a friend of a neighbor and hopefully she knows what she is doing. I could not find anyone who wanted to come out here just to do two mini- horses without charging an arm and a leg. I tied Charlie up to a post the other night to try and get a piece of wire out of his tail and he managed to break the post and take off dragging it which scared me to death. He stopped though when he got to where Lily was and I was able to walk up and unsnap the lead. It was hitting his legs and belly and I was afraid he would kill himself. The post was rotten- that should teach me a lesson.- Maybe him too, hope he doesn’t freak out being tied today.

Late October

It’s a beautiful but chilly fall day here in Michigan. I have lost Henny Penny, my pet hen. She was here Wednesday evening, I put her on the shelf in the barn because she couldn’t get to it because we had moved a table she normally used. Steve said she was there in the morning following him around. But Thursday evening she was no where to be seen. No feathers no carcass in the road, I looked everywhere. I wonder if someone stole her, if so, I hope it was to keep her for eggs. I miss her. I guess eventually I will get some more hens, I had Steve re-building the little pen in the barn a few days ago, I thought I would get her a few friends.
I also lost the male black and white half grown kitten that I called Skunk. He followed me into a dog kennel one night when I was feeding and I didn’t notice. Next thing I knew I heard him crying. I ran back in and rescued him but it was too late, he died the next day. That’s why I say cats are just stupid. He knew these dogs don’t like cats. He was well aware there was a dog in there. They don’t go in the kennels any other time. I guess they think if they are with me they are protected. I feel bad that I didn’t notice him. He could have climbed the gate to get out of Bubbas way, he probably tried to stand Bubba down. Just stupid.
My car is missing too. It’s been at the shop all week. They promise it will be fixed tomorrow. Last Saturday after my big Education Seminar I had it all loaded up with left over food and supplies and it wouldn’t start. Luckily, just a few days before a guy down the road fixed Steve’s car. He was very nice and fixed it for $25.00. Steve was able to come and pick me up and we went back the next day to try and start it with no luck. It had some sort of electrical problem and it took the mechanics a long time to find it, then they had to order a part - for a 22 year old car. Hopefully we will soon be able to afford a slightly younger clunker. Steve’s van is all caved in the front from a deer collision, the lights don’t focus in the right direction , there is only one wiper blade, seatbelt doesn’t work and if you press too hard on the accelerator it sticks wide open- very scary. So its just for emergencies in the daylight. A deer owes us a car.
Last night we had quite a heavy frost, there was ice on water outside the barn. Maybe the tomatoes will finally die. I never dreamed I would be tired of picking tomatoes, here it is the end of October and just a few days ago I picked some from 5 different vines. The petunias and marigolds are still blooming too. At work we have had daylilies start blooming again. The Farmers Almanac predicts a mild dry winter. We will see if their predictions are better than last year. I don’t mind mild but I wish we could get more moisture. Our pond has never been this low, it is only a fraction of its normal size. We had about an inch of rain yesterday but it barely dents the soil deficit and none seems to make it to the pond. I want to find some way to channel water from the roof or even the washing machine down to the pond. I am sure glad we never got around to re-stocking it with fish this year.
We had to pen the sheep up in the west pasture. They had started getting out of the north pasture by the woods and then coming up to graze in the yard. There are lots of hunters around already and its safer if they aren’t in the woods. The grass is green but it isn’t growing much and we will have to feed hay now. The two ewes I think are pregnant are huge, if they aren’t pg then they are extremely fat and won’t need much hay. I have had Barbados lambs in October before but October is almost over. We peeled a whole bunch of apples last night to make pies and I took the peels out to them this morning thinking I was bringing them a big treat. They acted like I was trying to poison them. Yet they will break a fence down to reach some Bittersweet berries.
I sent Steve out to sit in the sun. He needs to go out each day and not sit around watching football or talk shows. The sun helps heal depression and keeps your body clock working right. It is very hard for me to be inside on nice sunny days. I know I get depressed when the days are dark and rainy but I have a book deadline to meet and it’s much easier to be inside writing if the weather is nasty. So let it rain- or snow- as long as it isn’t too deep.