Rainy Weekend

There’s nothing like a rainy weekend to catch up on laundry, finish up those books in the office, clean the house, paint a room…….or develop a brand new addiction.

 

I spent some time with my sister, (the fertile one) on Friday.  She and her adorable two-year old are having a girls’ weekend, while her husband and three – yes three – sons went away for a weekend of motorbiking.  The forecast shows 100% probability of rain, so she chose to stay home rather than spend the next 48 hours chasing a toddler around a camper and telling three (maybe four) boys to keep their mud outside.

During our visit, I was treated to my niece’s newly developed alphabet abilities.  They go something like this – ay bee cee deee   hm hmmm hmmm, hm hm jay kay elemenopeeee,  hm hmmm hm, tee you vee, hm hm hm, ex, …..oh yukit antie, a puppy!  I applauded loudly and told her that she was so great.  I think she gets her singing ability from her grandma, our mother.  I remember fondly the family car trips where mom would belt out the songs on our Anne Murray 8 tracks….”could I have this dance… for the rest of my life…..would you be my partner…..hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm…..when we’re together….hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmmm hmmmmm…………   It was great.  One day (probably now actually), my kids will laugh about my singing too, only it’s because I get the words wrong.  For years I’ve tried to be so cool, rocking out to Guns N Roses by singing Welcome to the Dungeon.  Until my oldest finally rolled his eyes and said “Mom…. it’s welcome to the jungle”.

On this lovely visit with my sister she introduced me to the latest tool by which I can avoid doing anything productive.  This is nice timing too because I’m getting pretty Facebook efficient and it’s not wasting nearly as much of my life as it used to.  I can log in, skim the updates like breezing through a newspaper, respond to whatever appeals to me, and log out again in about 10 minutes flat, leaving me with over 23 hours left in the day to do actual productive things.  For those of you doing the math, I count sleeping as a productive thing.

But now my unusually fertile sister has planted the seed of a whole new addiction for me to grow.  This addiction is a website called Pinterest.  It’s a site that puts up all kinds of interesting things.  If you like something you can pin it to your board.  You can see what your friends like on their boards and if you like theirs you can put it on your board.  You could make a board called ‘Johnny’s Birthday’ and put up all the great ideas you can find to plan Johnny’s birthday.  There are books and quotes and recipes too!  It’s so cool.  Here’s the address –  pinterest.com

Go see if you like it too.  If you do, check out my board – there’s probably some things there that you’ll enjoy.   However, here’s your warning.  Only go to Pinterest when it’s a rainy day and you have lots of extra time on your hands.  There’s a load of information there and you’ll find yourself very distracted.  Kind of like my niece when she’s singing her alphabet too near the window….oh yukit antie, a puppy! 

 Looking at my Pinterest board I have found that I really like quotes, and recipes….oh and books!  And horses, and farming….and, oh look a butterfly!

Training Chickens

Who says chickens are dumb? ….well, that might have been me…..but a funny thing happened this morning that makes me wonder if maybe chickens are just pretending to be dumb so that we don’t expect too much of them.

Why did the chickens cross the road?

We have always had chickens around on our farm.  We occasionally raise broilers for ourselves and a few neighbors so that we can have big fat turkey sized chickens to eat in the fall.  We always have a few hens around.  We call them laying hens, which would lead you to believe that they lay eggs.  However,  most of them are now so geriatric that it’s cause for celebration when we do find the occasional egg in our barn.  I think senility may also be a problem for some of these old ladies, because occasionally we will find an egg that was layed beside the road, or near the watering bowl.  It’s as if they couldn’t remember why they came to this spot in the yard, so decided that it must have been to lay an egg.  We even found one right outside our kitchen door a few weeks ago.  That was great, I thought that the hens had decided to start delivering their produce to our house.  Turns out I was wrong, it only happened once.  She probably forgot why she was there.

In the past, we have just fed our chickens regular chicken food that we buy at the Co-Op farm supply store.  We would occasionally throw them some garden scraps when we thought of it, but they have mostly just had full access to bagged chicken feed.  Not too exciting.

For the past two weeks I have made a conscious effort to put all the breakfast scraps and watermelon rinds into an old bucket and throw them to the chickens in the morning after the kids leave for school.  In the beginning I noticed that they really seemed to like this.  There was a lot of crowing and clucking whenever I came with my yellow bucket.

As the days progressed, I noticed that the chickens would start getting excited when I was in the yard.  They are in a fenced in area, but if they want to they can apparently fly right over the gate if they think you might have a treat for them. 

Well, now it’s gotten out of control.  If the chickens hear a human voice in our yard they come over the fence and follow you around just waiting for you to give them a treat.  I had no idea that chickens were this easy to train!

This morning, two of our kids had just walked out the door to leave for school when the phone rang.   “Mom, can you come do something about your chickens?  They have surrounded my truck and two of them are underneath it, I don’t want to run them over.”

I went to the window to see our 11-year-old daughter trying with very little success to chase senile old hens away from her brother’s truck.  It was the funniest thing I have seen so far today.  Our border collie was trying his best to help her, but he has very little effect on these old girls.  I have seen them chase him away from his own food dish.

I picked up my scrap bucket and walked out to the yard.  Sure enough, they all came running … except one, who had forgotten why she was there.

<Terra>

Learning the Ropes

We had the privilege of travelling north this weekend to watch a group of young people show off their newly developed roping skills.

Grandparents in lawn chairs watching 4-H

It was our 4-H club’s first achievement day of the year.  It was beautiful and sunny out, a perfect day to sit on the hillside and watch what the kids have learned through the winter.                                                                                                   

Our youngest son is in roping 4-H.  He is a great help at brandings as part of the ground crew – which means that he is strong enough to restrain calves on the ground and be subject to all the head butting and face kicking that a calf can dish out.  I think he has been watching the ropers sitting calmly on their horses and has decided that he would rather be up there.

He had the trailer hooked up, the horse saddled and ready to go and we were on the road in plenty of time to arrive at the arena by 1:00.  Except that I had the time wrong, and roping didn’t start until 2:00.  So, he had plenty of time to warm up his horse…

…and have a little nap in the back of his truck until the others arrived.

'Friday' is wondering if he's done for the day too.

One of the reasons that 4-H is so great is because all different ages of young people learn a skill together. 

Even the moms got to have a try. 

I got third place…..out of 4…..and I may have cheated a little.

Thanks to the adults who have volunteered their time and their skills to teach our kids.  We are so fortunate to have these role models in our kids’ lives who are willing to take them on and show an interest in their development.  

“Learn to do by doing”   –   4-H motto

<Terra>

Lucky Guy

 

I didn’t always spend my days this way.  I used to be called on for the tough jobs.  If there was a bull that needed to be roped, they called me because I am big, very strong, and bulls don’t scare me…..llamas do, but who isn’t afraid of Llamas?   If there was a cow who was having trouble calving, I brought her in.  If there was a long cattle drive ahead of us, I went in the back to keep things moving along.  I have pushed in between angry cows chasing farmers, I have tolerated excited young pups who liked to snap at my nose, and I have even pulled a truck out of deep mud!

Ready to rope some calves.

All of that changed one day when a 3-year-old girl was plopped onto my back.  She sat up there feeling my mane, and after a few minutes she proudly exclaimed, “I’m fableeous up here mommy, just fableeous.”  She was hooked.

Over the years, our relationship has developed from me ignoring her while she sat on my back to where we are today.  In the beginning, her feet didn’t come past the saddle pad, so I could pretend I didn’t know she was there and just continue eating grass while she practiced steering and clucking and kissing me into motion.  I would never run no matter how many times she asked.  I don’t like running unless there’s a good reason.  As her legs have grown, and she has gotten stronger, I have found that it’s more important to pay attention to what she suggests, or her polite suggestion will turn into a drill sergeant’s command…….always followed by ‘good boy’ and lots of hugs.

Getting some apples from the garden.

My skill set has changed also.  In the past, there wasn’t much criticism when I ran after a calf, but now I am expected to change leads, and be on the correct diagonal….whatever that means.  I am sometimes subjected to being shown on the halter, which really makes me uncomfortable.  I’ve never liked being the center of attention, and there’s something about those people looking at me so closely that makes me fidget.  This really upsets my little boss, so I try to do my best.

Keyda trying to stand for a halter class.

I know the other geldings think it’s weird when I come home from a trip to town smelling like strawberries, with my mane and tail all in braids.  Sometimes the elastics on my braids are pink, to match my ‘pajamas’ that she dresses me in to stay warm on the ride home.  But here’s the thing – I am comfortable.  I get more treats than they do.  I hear the knickering and commotion when I am brought back into the pen, but don’t forget who I am guys! 

Tough enough to wear pink!

I am still big, I am still strong, and I’m still the boss! 

Keyda moving the others out of 'his spot'.

 All horses should have the good fortune to be loved by a kid at least once in their life.

<Terra>