Posting

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted much lately. There is actually a reason for that... Jed and I are expecting a little one and things are a lot more interesting. As it turns out, I seem to hate the smell of alfalfa, grass, animals, air, dirt, and most everything else. I sleep through most of my time at home and when Jed isn't home I've run through putting the animals away while trying not to throw up on them. As the nausea goes away I'm able to go outside a little more. I'm able to go outside and at least look at the animals and see how they are doing without just running and throwing food at them while I close them up. As you might expect, the whole pesky pregnancy side effects were not really planned for. I thought I would be finishing up a bunch of projects, continuing with contruction, and working on my workout to keep the baby healthy. We'll see how things get worked on as the energy comes back.

Rosie and Jed's home for displaced animals

We recently acquired a few new face at the homestead, due to some life issues a friend of ours was unable to have a place for a few of her animals. So to help her out we offered her some space at our home for a pair of drakes (male ducks) and a goose (female.. Uh... Goose). So now we have a few more faces in the flock and we will see how they fit in. Hopefully a couple more drakes will keep our ducks happy and I am guessing that another goose will fold right into the flock pretty well. There was a little bit of hostility from the turkeys as they attempted to show the newcomers who the boss turkeys where in the yard and the French geese snapped at the new drakes a little to show them who the top water fowl are in the yard. But after a short swim and a preening session they seem to be settling in OK. We will see how they do tonight with the coop arrangement.

Pride in small things

At out home we take pride in small things, getting the fire going with only one match, finding a new brown egg, green wheat poking up threw the straw, and this morning watching Trouble (our newest kitten) catch a mouse. In the first few weeks that we had Trouble with us our other two cat would bring Trouble field mice and drop them in front of her, so that she could learn to catch them. As time went on Trouble would "assist" the other cats in catching mice, after they where caught by the older cats she would be allowed to play with them (to death). Now Trouble has firmly moved into big girl cat land, she catches and "plays with" her own mice (and growls at the other cats when they get close to her new toy).

Some people may find it odd that we don't mind when our cats catch and kill mice or birds. Part of our reasoning is that while our cats are members of our family they are also a form of employee. The cats have a job to do just like the rest of our animals, the goats are to eat weeds and give milk, the pigs are to turn the ground and provide meat, the chickens are to eat bugs and provide eggs and meat, and so on. Part of the cats job (in addition to keeping peoples feet warm on cold nights) is to keep down the population of field mice. When we first moved into our home we had a problem with mice getting in the house and eating food from our cabinets. Within a few weeks Calvin (our black cat) had discovered that from time to time when he opened the flour cabinet there would be a mouse in it (much to his joy). And soon he would check the flour cabinet (AKA mouse dispensary) several times a day to see if it had been "restocked". With in a month or two, no more mouse problem. So when I see Trouble working hard to pull her own weight around the farm I take a little pride that our newest member of the family has what it takes to keep herself welcome on our little homestead.