On “The Farm” Life Is Certainly Entertaining

This morning was one of those mornings that held a delightful surprise for me. It wasn’t yet dawn when I crawled out of bed, got dressed and started my morning farm chores. The morning was rainy and damp and I didn’t relish the thought of getting out in it and experiencing the ambiance of a cold, wet day. Morning farm chores. Sounds positively dreadful, doesn’t it? Well, let me explain…


My mom started calling the acreage I bought “The Farm” from almost the first day she heard about it. The name stuck, even though, in fact, it was not a real farm. We have always had dogs and cats but up until this year we had no livestock. Three hens, a rooster, and three guinea fowl are now my livestock. Livestock!

Since I am now an official farmer I have official farm chores, which include letting the birds out of their coop in the morning, giving them feed and water, and closing them up in the coop at night. These chores are not something I shirk or try to avoid. I know from owning dogs and cats that they need daily attention to not just live, but to thrive, and I happily try to give them what they need to be happy dogs and cats. And now I do the same for my chickens and guineas.

In fact, I enjoy working with the birds, especially the chickens. Each time I approach their covered yard they run to the gate to greet me. I’m sure they are expecting a treat but I prefer to think they are happy to see me. As I work in their yard, giving them feed and water, they follow me around and two of the hens come up close and watch me. I pet them frequently, thinking that they will be used to human contact when it comes time to clip their wings and then remove the netting from the yard so the guineas can roam freely, eating the dreaded ticks that plague the other animals on The Farm.

This morning it had started to rain so I decided to open the coop up early in case the rain got harder and I wouldn’t have to go out in a downpour later on. I figured that the birds weren’t even awake yet since I hadn’t heard Crowlee (our rooster) crowing. I grabbed my raincoat but didn’t grab my camera because it was too dark to take pictures anyway. The dogs and I made our way to the yard and I opened the door to the coop. The chickens weren’t too anxious to get out of their cozy coop and into the rain, and I was ready to get back into the house. Then it happened. Crowlee crowing. What’s special about a rooster crowing? This time it wasn’t an ordinary crow, the one he crows regularly. No this was Crowlee making his trilling crow. He was still in the coop, but he was crowing and trilling. I wasn’t sure if he would still be crow-trilling if I went back to the house to get the camera to record it, but I decided to try anyway. When I got back to the chicken yard with the camera he was nice enough to crow for me a time or two. Thank heavens I was able to catch it.

My Tag Team Alarm Clock

Do you need an alarm clock to wake up every morning? I certainly don’t! At times I daydream about the high pitched rhythmic “beep, beep, beep” of my old alarm, wishing that it could awaken me out of my dreamy slumber like it used to. But alas, my alarm clock has become worthless. Useless. Not at all necessary. Yes, my alarm clock went the way of the Dodo bird.


And why is my alarm clock extinct? Well, you see, I have cats. Not just any cats. Special cats. Cats who have a built-in alarm system all their own. And they are nice enough to share.

It usually starts with Mini walking up the length of the bed stopping near my pillow where she sits and waits for me to wake up enough to get up to feed her. Instead I move her away, then roll over and try to snuggle back into the covers for another few minutes of sleep. Again she walks back up beside me and tries the “slap at the light switch” and the “climb the lampshade” maneuvers. I move her away from the lamp and try something different by rolling over, scooping her into my arms and trying to hold her down, hoping she will settle in and decide to sleep with me a while longer. Since her efforts have not resulted in their morning feeding her brothers Bart and Yowlee step in and take their turns. One of the two will jump up on the bed and attack my feet while the other lies down on the floor and uses his claws to pull him along the perimeter of the box springs. Now I snap my fingers, which at some remote time in the past worked to stop the cats from their bad behaviors, but not this time. No, the clawing at the box springs continues, sounding like the plucking of a guitar string below the bridge. Plunk, plink, plooopk. Noises guaranteed to get me out of bed and reach for the spray bottle of water I keep next to the bed to discipline the cats. I step around the end of the bed and aim the spray nozzle at the cats but they are not there. They have skittered down the hall and are now waiting in the kitchen for their expected breakfast.

No, I don’t need an alarm clock any more, and if you’d like one of mine I would certainly consider sharing.

I wonder. . . would I miss my purring foot warmers?

The cats enjoying their breakfast after getting me up.

My, how time flies!

It’s been almost exactly a year since I posted and I can’t claim any great endeavor that kept me from it. Just life. A busy life. So much has happened that it can’t really be condensed into a paragraph or two, so I won’t even try. And while it does seem like that might mean great, or life changing, or catastrophic events, it wasn’t. It was just life.


So, here is another attempt at keeping a blog. I have questioned my motives, wondering why bother, but in the end I would just like to share. Some of my insights and techniques and thoughts. It might not be interesting to anyone but me, but who cares? If you want to join me on this venture, please do. If not, have a great day. So here goes.

I started keeping chickens and guineas this past year, and while there is a lot of information on the web about that, there are little things I’ve learned as I went along that I wish I had known. One of our cats had a litter of kittens, which are now almost grown. Even now I’m trying to type with two cats in my lap. Big, purring, male cats. More on all the antics of the animals as the blog progresses.

Dolly

Gretchen

Anne

Guineas enjoying their millet

Also, I would like to share some of my thoughts on the creative process and share how I go about creating, be it a guinea house, a piece of jewelry, a lampwork bead, or another artistic effort.

One of my hand blown Christmas ornaments.

So, come and join me as I sip my coffee and muse about life.

Teeny Leenie Spamaleeni….

Let me apologize right now if I sent you spam. It was unintentional. I was surprised to see several emails in my inbox stating that the email I sent was not deliverable. Thing is, I didn’t send any emails to those addresses. I think I figured out who did it, though. Leenie, my kitten.
Apparently she’s a very talented kitten. She’s tried to order pay-per-view (is there an all-kitten channel I’m not aware of?) from our dish remote control, and she’s recorded more than one program. I guess you can tell that she’s everywhere and into everything, on the tables, the counters, and the keyboard. We put an alarm pad on top of the DVR to keep her off there, but she just sits on it, alarm blaring! I’m sure she’s asking, “What is that noise? Did I do that?” All while looking so innocent.
I have tried to keep her off the keyboard. My computer is in a cabinet with a drawer slide for the keyboard, but it only works if I slide it into the cabinet. Now, if I could only teach her to type. I’m sure she’d be great at some of those work-at-home schemes.

Leenie laying on her favorite bear skin.

A laugh a day.

My best friend Lynn sent me a link to a great site.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

It has photos of with captions to make you laugh. I especially enjoyed the cat and dog pictures (go figure!), so many of them could have been taken here at the Farm. I just can't imagine life without a dog or two (or seven!), and (of course) cats, too. And aside from the humor they contribute to life, they give us so much more: a foot warmer at night, a morning wake-up call, an invigorating walk around the pond. Each of our animals has a different personality and temperament, and, of course, their own quirks. Willie, the Doberman, is either reserved or running wild. He will sit and stare at me waiting for a pet or a scratch between the ears. Sometimes he will get impatient and lightly touch my arm with his chin so I’ll know he’s there, as if I couldn’t see an 80 pound dog sitting at attention by my chair staring at me. At night, if he doesn’t get one of the doggie beds right away he will pace up and down the hall, his nails going click-click, click-click, click-click on the floor, until one of the other dogs moves or he decides he didn’t really want a bed, anyway (ok, I've been known to make another dog move on occasion, too, if I get tired of hearing him pace). On our walks he literally runs in circles he's so happy with life, and he loves to run and chase the other dogs. When he came to us he weighed about 40 pounds and we weren't sure he would make it through the night. He was starving and sick with parasites, and could hardly walk. He had been eating roadkill beside the road where my brother stopped to check on the trailer he was towing. Willie came over to Mark and sat at attention in front of him, all bones and skin, looking up at him because he knew Mark couldn't turn away a dog in need.
Nope, I can’t imagine life without having met Willie, getting to know his devotion and his joy for life. He has given me at least a laugh a day, and has certainly added to the quality of my life.