a baby is born

Friday March 23 my mini mare Lily had the cutest little foal.  I wasn’t absolutely sure Lily was pg.  I thought she looked fat but then again she seemed to get fat every winter.  I thought she was getting a “bag” several days before but Steve just laughed when I told him that because he has heard it before.  The last 2 winters I thought she was pregnant and I was wrong.

Thursday evening I was watching her graze and I thought she sure looked like her udder was swollen but I kept my mouth shut.   So I wasn’t totally surprised when I went out Friday morning and she didn’t show up to eat.  I went looking and found her by the pond with the little long legged cutie.  It had rained a little overnight but he looked quite dry and was already frisky.

We had Chance with her all last year but he is the little stud that is about 6 inches shorter than her and has crippled hind legs.  We were told that before we got him he had been with several mini mares and larger mares for 4 years with no babies.    Well love finds a way.  He was with her when the foal was born but she didn’t want him near and we moved him to the pond pasture and put her and the baby in the pasture with the run in barn, which is close to the house.

 Lucky’s legs look fine, he has a black mane and tail, reddish body color with lighter muzzle and legs.  He may be a dun, or maybe a bay, color is hard to determine this young.  He is hard to catch already, I want to handle him each day so he is fairly tame but he really knows how to get around.    My legs are so bad right now it’s hard for me to catch him.  I am going to sit in the pasture tonight when I bring Lily her feed and hope he comes up to me.

 I feel bad now that I had Lily on such an austere diet all winter of 1st cutting grass hay and carrots or apples.  She had foundered last year on alfalfa mix hay.  I gave her no grain all winter.  I ran out and got some sweet feed for her and started giving her a small amount and she is very happy.  I’ll get some mare and foal supplement soon.   She looks thinner of course now that baby long legs is out but she doesn’t look too thin.  Grass is starting to get good so she will be able to eat to her hearts content and I won’t have to pen her up to keep her from foundering on it this spring.

It’s amazing that Lucky is already tasting the hay and grass and getting in the water bucket.  He runs circles around mom then ducks under her belly and comes out the other side.  Lily is still a little protective; when the horses across the street come over close to the road she takes Lucky in the barn or way out in the pasture.

 Chance has been hanging out on the other side of the fence gazing wistfully at them.  He isn’t being too bad now about trying to get through but I wonder what will happen when Lily comes into foal heat.  That usually happens 10 days after they give birth and they will re-breed if you let them and supposedly are very fertile then.  I don’t want her to re-breed at the beginning of April because the next foal would be born in early March and our weather might not be as nice next year.

 I should have Chance gelded.  All last summer I kept saying that and because of what happened with Charlie I put it off. (Charlie was Lily’s son who died after gelding.) He wasn’t too obnoxious with us - probably because she got pg in April last year.  I know they can still have sperm for a while after gelding too.   But maybe he would get along with Lucky better. 

 Because Lucky is a boy he will have to be sold.  If he was a filly I would have kept him with Lily and gave Chance away.  But after the Charlie experience I will sell this guy off as a yearling, if we can get him and Chance to be friendly that long.  People tell me studs can be left with foals they fathered, along with the mares, for a year or so, but I am a little leery.  But our fences aren’t the kind that will keep a stud away from a mare in heat and horses don’t like to be alone.  So the next month looks a little bumpy for us.

 This is the first time we have had a foal born here.  When we bought Lily Charlie was about 6 weeks old and I thought he was small.  I did not do a good job training Charlie, he was spoiled so I hope I do better with this one.  I had been seriously thinking of selling the horses, they are expensive little buggers and a lot of work.  I just have this thing about having all this “pasture” and nothing eating it.  Then winter comes and you have to buy hay and haul water.  And there is fixing fences and catching loose horses and getting burrs out of manes and all that good stuff. 

 But then there is watching a little cutie racing around the pasture and mom lovingly nuzzling him  and watching sleek, healthy horses eating green grass and well…..

I like this weather

I am looking out the window and it’s nearly the winter solstice and the grass is green. I love it. It will get colder of course but the longer this milder weather goes on the less there will be for the whole winter. And the days will soon start getting longer—like after tomorrow and the sun brighter and stronger- hurray! I don’t need snow for Christmas.


The water in the hoses to the barn ran today. The temps are falling through the day but the hose will still run tonight. Filling buckets up gives us water that doesn’t have to be carried for a few days. That’s one of the worst parts of winter for me. Driving on bad roads is the very worst part and shoveling a path to the barn is another bad thing. So far the roads haven’t been that bad and no shoveling has been done. And while I have carried water a few times it also hasn’t been that bad. Hope it keeps up this way.

I haven’t brought the horses over to the main barn yet and the birds still can use the back part of the barn for roaming around in. I’m keeping an eye on the weather forecast so I can get the horses over there if I have to before I have to lead them through drifts. They like the freedom of the larger pasture better anyway. They have a deep run in barn for shelter. They don’t mind this weather and are very frisky. Lily hasn’t had any trouble with her feet, maybe having Chance with her keeps her more active.

We butchered two turkeys, young toms. They weighed out at about ten pounds each, nice size for us. I was supposed to bring one tom to a friend but that has been postponed. The bronze tom has been being a bit of a bully, it’s strange they are all related but the red turkeys separate themselves from the bronze most of the time even inside.

If I was sure the weather would stay mild most of the winter- we are talking Michigan here- it could be -20 degrees and 3 feet of snow next week- I would turn the birds out to roam again. I’d have to clip turkey and duck wings or I’d have them all over the yard again and I’d probably never get them caught again. The Guineas would probably never come in again and roosting outside in the winter wouldn’t be good. If I had to bring the horses over then leaving a door open would be a problem. The horses would be after the bird grain all the time too. They would try to push through even a small door. The doors all face north- and that would be bad for birds to leave them open although the horses come in and stand to the side and are fine. I guess I’ll leave them locked up; there isn’t much to eat out there anyway. They do have their big “greenhouse” area we made by covering the fenced outside run.

The ducks are trying to nest already. Guess they think its spring. I don’t think I’ll let them hatch eggs this early though. We have 7 ducks left- soon to be 6 as I give another away and even that few make a big mess in the coop. Hurry spring.

I need a crystal ball

The snow has come to Michigan.  It’s melting a bit today, prompting some scrambling to get some things done we missed before the first snowfall.    Snow is supposed to make a comeback in a few days.  It’s not that we procrastinated, we have been plugging away at winter preparedness, just running out of time.

 The night before the big snowfall momma turkey who raised her brood in the yard, came into the barn to roost but her 4 youngsters, now as big as her, stubbornly took to their pine tree to roost.  In the morning I was able to shoo mama turkey into the chicken coop inside.   Her youngsters had been waiting outside the barn door, calling to her.  They seemed quite unhappy about walking in the white stuff with bare feet.  A little corn inside the barn and it was done, I trapped them inside and then shooed them into the coop also.

 The ducks are the only hold outs now.  Most of them stayed outside the night of the storm, around the pond edge.  I got 5 of them in the coop at various times but 11 are still out there.  The back of the barn has a run in horse stall- where the horses should be now- and the ducks are using it.  I am trying to run a tight schedule between catching up all the ducks and bringing the horses out of the pasture to the paddock behind the barn. 

 The ducks are scheduled for the butcher- all those we aren’t keeping, on Wednesday. I need to get them inside to make it easier to catch them and I need to get the horses back by the barn before the next snow storm.  But if the snow could just hold off and let us catch the ducks in the run in stall it would be so much easier than catching them in the bigger coop.

 We also have to get the riding mower over to the shed the horses use as shelter now before the snow gets deep, there’s no room inside the barn after expanding the chicken coop.  I am putting the push mower inside the frizzle chickens outside run, which we covered in plastic, and maybe a chair and the ladder too.  Tight quarters until some of the hay is eaten up, and the horses are sure working on that.

 I’d like to leave the horses in the bigger pasture and I’m sure they’d like to stay there but it is hard for Steve to feed and water them when I can’t in the winter over there and hard for me to carry water to them.  When they are in the barn we can just open the door and toss hay to them, everyone can be fed in one trip.  And if the weather is really bad they can eat inside, it’s hard for us to get hay to the pasture shed when the snow is deep. 

 The plastic roof we put over the outside chicken run held up to heavy wet snow but snow sure didn’t slide off like we thought it would.  It stuck quite well.  The inside stayed dry though.  I am debating on whether I should try to broom it off or if that might do more harm than good.  It stills seems quite light in there when it’s sunny.  The whole thing is enclosed so it’s like a greenhouse for birds.  A heater inside might melt the roof snow but that’s rather costly.

 If I just had a crystal ball to see how this winter will play out it would be so nice.  I’m not asking to change it, although that would be nice too.  Just asking to know what’s coming when. 

wish it would rain

The sun is trying to break through low clouds here- I wish it wouldn’t.  I was hoping for some rain last night, it’s been about 2 weeks now since we had any.  Just before we turned over to the 11 pm news last night a tornado warning flashed across the screen.  A small cell had popped up just to our north and west.  It was unusual that late at night with no watchs posted and it got the weatherman all excited.  A waterspout had formed over a lake and moved on to land making it a weak tornado but it quickly fizzled out before it got here.

 They had said there might be hail over our area from the storm and I went out in the dark to check things out. Although we had been leaving the light on in the back of the barn to attract the guinea hens and turkeys inside for the night they insist on sleeping outside.  The baby ducks which usually do come inside were outside also.  So I was glad there was no hail but rain would have been nice.

 Guinea fowl are strange creatures.  They are very noisy also.  I’ve learned that females make a two syllable call and males a one syllable call.  Otherwise they look pretty much alike.   Any little thing sets them off and they sound like a flock of strange geese or hoarse dogs yakking away. 

 Our young turkeys, destined to be holiday meals, have become very tame.  They follow me around the bird pasture and if I sit to watch the birds they come up and stand on my shoes and peck at me.  Big Tom the old turkey male pretty much ignores them.   Both of his adult hen friends are again setting on eggs, one in my corn patch and the other in a flower garden.  I have had to water those gardens but nothing makes them move.  I hope for their sakes they finally hatch some turkey chicks.  They have both hatched chickens for us but we took them away of course.

 We have sold off all of the excess hens, the frizzle babies are in their permanent home and the replacement hens are in the back horse stall with a screened opening on both sides for the old hens to get acquainted with them.  The coop wall shares a wall with the one horse stall.  The bottom half is solid but the top is covered with wire.  Last night when I was checking before the storm I saw that one young hen had gotten over the wire and was perched on a roost next to the older hens.  Instant integration!  But she was back home this morning with the other youngsters.

 We opened up part of the area around the pond to the horses since their pasture was dried out and not re-growing because it’s been hot and dry.  We put some hot wire up across the section leading to the apple trees and the gate to the pond because we wanted to let the ducks come and go and keep the horses out of the green apples.  Those buggers walked all away around the top edge of the pond which is a narrow, steep and brushy strip to get around to the apples.  We put hot wire on the other side of the trees so when they walk around they are stopped.  This morning Lily must have waded around the hot wire in the pond (which we extended 4 foot into the pond), because there she was on the other side. 

 The bank she climbed up was steep and she seemed reluctant to go back down so I ended up leading her through the chicken pasture all through the yard and around to her old pasture.  The brat better not be back there tonight.  The old saying that grass is always greener on the other side of the fence must have pertained to horses.

 I’ve been watering the garden but rain is always better.  Our corn is making ears and I can’t wait for some fresh sweet corn.  Baby potatoes are ready too.  I can’t keep up with the weeding because all my time is devoted to watering, water makes the weeds grow- it’s a vicious circle.  All the flowers are blooming early because of the heat - nothing will be left soon.

 Summer just goes by so fast.  

Just jabbering

We had hoar frost the last two mornings or ice fog. It’s when there is moisture in the air that condenses on all the trees and other surfaces and then freezes, like frozen dew. It’s so beautiful, although it can make the roads a little slick. I don’t mind this kind of winter weather too much, although it’s been a bit gloomy. Our temps have been in the low 30’s daytime and 20’s at night. Enough to keep the plants dormant but not too cold and we haven’t had any big snow or ice storms.

I had to take Charlie, the little stud colts halter off because it was getting too tight for him. He reminds me of someone who isn’t wearing their glasses when you are used to seeing them with glasses on. He keeps hiding the water bucket and feed dishes on me. It’s amazing how well he can do that when they are now locked in the small paddock and it’s covered with snow. He put the water bucket inside an old shelter we had for the ducks. He dropped one of the big rubber feed dishes inside an old burn barrel, which is empty and just sitting there and the other was hidden beneath the bottom of a tarp we have stretched in back of their stall door to block the wind. These are not areas where you would just expect him to drop things when he was done playing, it’s like he does it on purpose. And that means he must use some kind of reasoning when doing it. I think we underestimate the power of animal minds.

I have started teaching the Master Gardener program again. A new class of people eager to learn more about gardening. It always amazes me the range of ages and range of professional occupations that take the class. All these wonderful skills that they have outside of gardening. And you can almost predict that there will be the joker, the frowner, the overly anxious and the know it all in each class. I do think that most people enjoy our Master Gardener class and do learn a lot.

I know that for the most part, I enjoy teaching it. I wish we had the funds to offer it for free, and I want to make sure that the class thinks it got its money’s worth because it is expensive for them to take. I do get tired standing and talking for 4 hours - it’s amazing how that wears you out. And then of course you get to talk before and after class to all the students who need your personal touch. It’s a good thing I like talking!

End of summer

It’s the last day of summer. We have had a spell of nice warm and sunny days and cool nights, but it has been very dry. For the first time this summer the grass stopped growing and began to scrunch up. I had to water several times. But last night we got a good soaker, very much needed. I hope we get more later today. It’s a bit muggy and warm this afternoon. I was thinking of cooking chili- thought it would be cool and damp - but I am re-considering.

Tomato’s are still giving me some fruit, the ones in the tomato”bed” anyway. The ones up by the house are dead from late blight. I made some sauce this weekend and froze it. We finally got to taste the variety Lemmony - a yellow tomato- it was all right, nothing special. Our favorite has definitely been Cherokee Purple, it’s ugly but tastes great.

I notice that the Morning Glories are staying open all day now. It must be because the plant wants to optimize its chances for pollination and the bees aren’t out in the cool dew wet or frosty mornings. We have two light frosts but annual flowers are still going strong for the most part. I have got to start bringing in the houseplants and things I want to save this weekend. The landscape roses are blooming and the Sweet Autumn clematis and my lovely swamp sunflowers, but not many other perennials.

My beasts Charlie and Lily got out of the pasture last Tuesday while I was at work. They rolled under the fence it seems. Steve tried to catch Charlie, then Lily got out and they both ran across the street, up the horse farm road and under one of their fences. When I got home they were sharing the pasture with a mare I believe Charlie was interested in, but that he could walk under. I thought since they went under the fence to get in they might come out that way but I guess the fence must have given them a good poke as they went under and they were having none of that, although Lily seemed like she wanted to get out and come home.

They were right across the street but the gate to that paddock was way up by the horse farm’s arena, a good walk. I had to roll under the fence, put leads on both of them and lead them to the gate with the big mare in the paddock periodically rushing us and my two practically pulling my arms out of the socket. Lily went through- no trouble- but Charlie planted his feet and refused. It took forever to inch him along, then I had a long walk home with them both.

The east pasture has now got a hot wire all around it, when the deer don’t break it on the way to the apple trees. Charlie and Lily are now being locked up there when I am not home and at night, even though the grass is pretty much gone. We fixed the spot they went under on the west and they get to wander over there during the day when I am home.
I was outside last night feeling up Charlie’s balls- sounds worse than it is- and he still hasn’t dropped both. He can’t be gelded until they are down and I hope that comes soon. I actually offered to give him away in the Master Gardener newsletter last week but I had only one call and they changed their mind after I honestly told them about him.

They only thing bad about leaving all the gates open so the horse can find the maximum grass is that the turkeys follow the horses over to the west were the dogs can see them. They stand over there making their weird loud calling noise and it drives the dog’s nuts. Next they will be getting out to go after the turkeys.

Speaking of dogs, Honey’s babies are growing like crazy. She spends more time out of the box and wants to come and go from the room. But Ginger sneaks in and gets in with the puppies. She has been caught trying to steal one a couple times. She doesn’t seem to hurt them but I am worried it might happen if a fight breaks out between her and Honey or one of the other dogs gets it. Soon they will be too big for Ginger to carry and that may help. It’s hard to say if she wants the pup because she’s feeling motherly or if she thinks of it like a personal toy. Ginger has always hoarded toys.

Well that’s life on the farm right now.

Lazy, hazy days of summer

The song calls it the lazy hazy days of summer but I think here that time refers more to the lazy hazy days of early fall, although I guess technically it is still summer. You couldn’t ask for better weather, the sky is crystal blue, the deep clear blue of fall. It’s warm enough to be comfortable - near 80 - especially with a nice breeze and low humidity. The nights are cool and comfortable and in the morning we either have heavy dew or like this morning, fog.

A high pressure system is responsible for this lovely weather and I think that’s where the lazy comes in, you just want to sit around and bask in the sun because you know it won’t be nice like this for ever and the high air pressure makes you drowsy. Maybe people are a bit more relaxed right now too, although that might only apply to those of us who don’t have kids going back to school Tuesday. I sure hope most of you were smart enough to get the school shopping done early so you could enjoy this last summer holiday.

The trees are starting to turn, every year people remark on how early the leaves are turning and they certainly can’t turn colors early every year, but think about it, when have you ever heard people say “Wow- the trees are late turning color this year?” The fields are turning purple and gold - purple asters and goldenrod. I have been going out snapping pictures of weeds and wildflowers for my examiner articles - you can see them here but I can’t help snapping fall landscapes as I go.

We had puppies born this weekend, the first babies on the farm this year other than the wild kittens. Honey our cocker had seven pretty babies. Three are black like dad and 4 are light - either blond or red like Honey. They all appear healthy and happy, no obvious runts. I spent one of these beautiful days locked up with her, being her midwife. Honey does not do birthing gracefully. She thinks the pressure she’s feeling means she has to go to the bathroom and she wants to go outside. Even locked up in the spare room she has to get out of the box and squat over paper each time a pup is born and I have to be there to catch it and make sure she cleans it, otherwise she goes back to the box with the rest and leaves it on the floor. And she takes up to an hour between pups - which makes for a long day. This is her fourth and last litter. I am going to neuter Bubba and we won’t have to worry about any surprise puppies, he’s the last whole male dog on the farm.

I still haven’t been able to get my little brat horse Charlie gelded. He still has only one testicle down. We moved them over to the east pasture because the west was pretty eaten down and I don’t like them over there when the walnut leaves and nuts start falling. But the east side fence is the oldest on the farm I think, and last weekend Charlie broke through the road side of the fence when some riders came down the road and Lily followed him.

When I went outside because of the riders yelling, Charlie and Lily were running around the group of riders, tails up just as pretty as you please, showing them how much fun it was to run free as the wind - which did not make the riders happy. I was able to catch Lily with a bucket of food, of course, and Charlie came back to her in just a few minutes. The two rascals had to be locked in the barn overnight and then we had to spend most of the week on and off - fixing the fence and eventually running a hot wire around it. They are now back to full pasture on the east although I am keeping a wary eye on them.

All of this expense and time makes me seriously doubt whether I need horses, especially Charlie. Since we spend so much time fixing things I barely have time to handle them and while they are cute - the fun is wearing a bit thin. If Charlie were a larger horse I know he would be gone by now as he would be too dangerous. Steve wants me to sell him and get another mare for Lily’s friend. But baby bad boy horses need someone who cares about them too and he’s likely to get sent from one place to the next. If he ever gets gelded maybe he will calm down. Age will help too. I just hope Lily doesn’t get bred by him before he is gelded. We haven’t been able to separate them - he finds a way to get to her no matter what we do. He just turned a year old so maybe we are still safe.

If I could afford it I’d send him to someone to train. But it’s hard enough to afford hoof trimming, hay and gelding costs. So I should get my act together and just do it- right? (The training, not the gelding part.) Make him the poster boy for mini horse studs or mini horse geldings. A good Charlie horse instead of a pain in the butt Charlie horse. Ok, it’s a resolution- I’ll report on my progress here.

A Charlie - horse

Oh, Charlie the mini horse is appropriately named. He is a major pain to me right now. I tried to get him gelded but since both testicles are not down the vet wouldn’t do it. Today I was taking a break from writing and I went out by the pond to look for the big, beautiful dragon flies that have been out there. Usually this time of day the horses aren’t out by the pond, but today they saw me and came running. I don’t like to mess with Charlie out there so I quickly went back through the gate to the pasture in back of the barn. I heard a kitten crying over by the junk pile where the wild kittens live and I couldn’t figure out why.

About the time I discovered a tiny new born kitten on the ground Charlie jumps the fence- or rather crawls over it. He comes running for me with the idea of having some fun with me. He couldn’t step on the kitten because it was behind some wire but the chickens had also noticed me and they had came over. I was afraid they would pick at the tiny kitten and I wanted to cover it with something. Charlie was dancing around me trying to nip me and rearing up on me. I had to give him a good whack with the cover to a kitty litter pan that I picked up to put over the kitten and then it only deterred him for a minute. I tried to grab him by the halter but he is getting too heavy for me to control well that way and I didn’t have a lead nearby. I got the cover over the kitten and retreated into the barn. He then started chasing chickens around. I left him there to get back to his mom on his own.

I am going to put a lead on him tonight and give him a good manners lesson. I know he is being a normal brat boy horse but I am just glad he’s small. Steve wants to get rid of him, but I think it’s a phase just like all young animals go through. After he’s gelded maybe he’ll settle down. Poor baby boy horses get moved around a lot in life. I wanted to give him a good, permanent home but I don’t like dealing with male horses.

I really worry about Lily having a foal. If she does it will be nearly impossible to separate him from her. She’ll have to be locked in the barn or he will. I just wish I knew whether she was going to foal, she’s as big as a barrel but then she never stops eating either. She is still very active. And the other worry is that he will breed her before he’s gelded, if she isn’t pg. I need to work on fences he can’t go through too. Electric don’t seem to work with him.

Ah, well such is life with animals.

Planting time and fat horses

It’s planting time and no matter how I try I always have more things to do than time to do them. Today after some office work I got outside just in time to get half my corn planted before it started storming. Steve made and filled a nice new 5 x 10 raised bed for corn. It doesn’t seem like much but we had plenty of corn last year from a bed that size.

I have got onions, potatoes and lettuce up and growing. I made a trip to a packed greenhouse last Saturday and picked up some new plants, one of them is quite intriguing its got large, wine red trumpet shaped flowers on a trailing vine and is called LoFos, which is short for some long Latin name. I guess it has been popular in Europe for a few years and is called Trailing Gloxina there. I got my mom and daughter in law each one too.

I got some petunias because I can’t resist some of the gorgeous colors they have even though it’s hard to find a place for them here. And I bought more lavender because some of my plants didn’t make it through the winter and a single pepper and some cinnamon basil. My sage is finally getting some new green so it did make it through the winter and the pineapple mint is also coming back- although it’s hard to kill mint. I also bought a couple new perennials. I spend way too much on plants.

A Master Gardener friend brought me some of his “trilliums” which he said his woods were full of. They turned out to be mayapples instead, but that’s ok - they look great in one of my shaded gardens and the silky white flowers scanned well for my scan art pictures. It was great weather for transplanting stuff too.

My horses Charlie and Lily took a little trip last Saturday morning. They pushed the gate out at the bottom and walked up the road in time for breakfast at the big horse farm. The neighbors were kind enough to lead them home and put them back in the pasture without waking us. I was quite puzzled in the morning though, because the gate was all bent up but the horses were inside with both latches on. I spotted a mini manure pile next to my hosta which I knew wasn’t there the night before and then I did some sleuthing and found the tiny hoof prints going up the road. I guessed they had been out - Lily wasn’t that hungry, another clue, but couldn’t figure out who had put them back without us hearing, dogs didn’t even wake up. The neighbor rode over on Monday and told me about it.

I am trying to decide if Lily is PG or just fat. If she is pregnant she would have at least a month before she foaled. If she’s just fat I got to try and get her to lose weight. In a day or so I’ll post some pictures of fat Lily so you can be the judge. I didn’t want to say anything to my husband because this happened before when we got our Shetland pony Tinker, I thought she was pregnant and made him put up more fence so she could be alone and it turned out she wasn’t pregnant. He thinks I’m nuts. But Lily was with two males, a mini jack donkey and a mini stallion or at least close to them and the man who sold her to me said something about separating her from the rest of the horses because she was always trying to protect Charlie. I got her when Charlie was two months old, which would have given her at least two heat periods before I got her. Charlie was born July 19 and mares come into heat about ten days after foaling, gestation is 11 months more or less, so that leaves about a month before its possible for her to foal.

The tree frogs are really noisy tonight. It’s amazing how big a sound their little bodies can make. They like this warmer wet weather. I guess I’ll take a walk outside as the rain has let up, and get carried away by mosquitoes.

The animals are springing themselves!
We had one glorious spring like day on Friday, sunny and almost 70, then it was back to winter. On that one glorious day I was emptying all the frozen water dishes and cleaning up a bit around the yard. I went out the gate to the pond from the horse pasture to dump out the ducks dish. The dogs in their yard could see me and Tiny Tina decided I needed help so she climbed the back fence and came after me, then chased all the wild cats up trees, which incited Peanut, her grandmother to climb the fence too, and Peanut went after the poor old duck. Since only the edges of the pond were unfrozen he couldn’t swim away from her as he does in the summer and she chased him across the pond ice to the bank near where I stood then caught him by the leg. He didn’t fight her at all, didn’t do anything even make noise. I had caught Tina to keep her from joining in and I was trying to get down the steep slippery bank holding her under one arm.

I finally managed to snag Peanut by the collar and now I am laying on the muddy bank, a dog in each hand. I couldn’t stand up, it was too steep and slippery and if I let either of them go they’d go back for the duck, who was alive and not bleeding, a good sign. So I crawled up the bank on my belly, pushing a dog before me on each side while holding on to their collars. What an exciting life I lead!

The duck is 8 years old at least, his last bachelor friend died last spring. He’s a white Pekin, but very wild. I made him a shelter out by the gate to the pond and have been wading through the snow all winter to put food and water over the fence. Last winter the ducks came up to the lean-to on the barn for shelter but we had torn that down and put up new fence since then. So he was kept alive all winter only to be caught by the dogs. He’s still alive actually, but I think a leg is broken. He is staying in the water and on the bank near where they caught him, I tried to catch him but he gets in the water just out of my reach and I can’t trust the ice. I threw him some bread but I don’t think he ate it. He’s used to eating dry cat food. This morning we had a dusting of snow and the gate latch was frozen so I couldn’t even get down by the bank.

The dogs were excited by the spring like day and so were the horses. I let them out in the bigger pasture and they ran and ran, kicking and rearing and having a great time. No grass but a lot more room. They decided they liked that I guess, because when I went out this morning they were out there all on their own, gate still closed. They had pushed some fence away from a post and squeezed through. By the time I went through the barn they were back in their stall area, quite innocent looking, waiting for their sweet feed. I tried to fix the fence but I didn’t have tools with me. Then I thought I would just open the gate to keep them from making any more damage, but its latch was frozen too. Hopefully they will remain in the small pasture today.

As soon as it warms up and the grass begins to grow we are moving them to the west pasture with the run in shelter but that may be a month or so. We have to fix a gate and put up some fence on top of the five foot fence to keep the dogs from climbing the shared boundary when they see the horses. It seems like I am always trying to keep something in or out.

Charlie really needs to be gelded. That’s the next big hurdle, and he needs his hoofs trimmed for the first time too. They both need some work, they have become bratty over the winter. Charlie wants to bite or kick me all the time.
Ah, the sun has come out even if it is cold- Hurray!

Monday in Michigan

It’s Monday in Michigan, a cold and blustery day. I used to say I didn’t want to live in Florida, but I may be changing my mind. I just went up to town to buy some goodies for my husband’s birthday tomorrow and everyone I met complained about the weather. I drove by the stockyard, Monday is market day here and there were even a few brave souls set up outside where the flea market is and where they sell small animals. There were quite a few cars, everyone must have been inside at the calf auctions or buying hay at the hay auctions.

I had to stop at the feed store and there was a sign up about a horse that was found quite close to me. The clerk said it had been up there a while. She said people are finding horses all over- people are just turning them loose because they can’t feed them. She said someone told her there was a herd building up in the state game area north of us. I could afford another small equine mouth to feed maybe, I feel bad for the poor things. I can’t imagine that they couldn’t give them to the Amish or some 4-H kid.

I felt sorry for the few Amish horses tied up outside with their carriages at the stockyard and at the grocery store today though, and even sorrier for the Amish women walking out to them in their black shawls, with their long dresses blowing around in the wind. At least I had a warm car to ride home in.

You know what I would like to do? Ask an Amish woman what she thinks about the single mom having 8 babies on top of the six she had. I wonder if they know about that and what they think. And I would like to ask them what they think about Mr. Obama, the talking head. If you didn’t hear him yakking would you think he was doing anything? He can sure talk but the best politicians all do that. Maybe when its warmer I will try to start up a conversation with some Amish and see what they think.

I was at the VA hospital with my husband last Friday and Mr. Obama was on the TV in the lobby talking about ending the war and some dumb woman kept clapping. Everyone else ignored her and him. I gave her the evil eye and then she got up and came over right next to me and sat and started clapping. It was deliberate. 10-15 years ago I might have told her what she could clap but I wisely ignored her. I don’t think my husband would have liked to come out of his doctors office and find me rolling around on the floor with some stupid broads hair in my hands. But then maybe that would have been a good birthday present for him. Chick fight.

I guess I am just going winter nuts.