Amused

Today had its good moments and its frustrating moments (all of which had to do with lame insurance). Luckily, all the amusing and good moments had to do with happy farm things.

I was woken up around 4 to loud chirping coming from the turkey room. I found that all three of the turkeys had escaped their box and were somewhere in the room. The room is currently filled with baby, turkey, and armour making items so to find three baby turkeys while only using the light of the heat lamp made for an interesting Where's Waldo sort of feel. I found the last one hiding under a spanish book about a hippo who can't find it's peanut butter sandwich.

After work I was able to drive down and pick up a scythe that a gentleman had posted on craigslist and of course we immediately started talking about gardening. Luckily, we both had time to kill so we spent some time talking about different plants we were trying out this year and how last year went with our crops.

I stopped by Jed's work to see if I could drop off food for him but he was out on a call so I ended up dropping off his food and was going to leave when I noticed that there was a bucket near the car. I walked over and it turned out to be the spent grains that his co-worker had used for his beer making. I took this over to the van and dumped the spent grains in the pig bucket to take home. (Yes, I actually carry a pig bucket almost everywhere I go... you never know when you'll find something very numy for the piggies to eat.)

At home I unloaded the pig bucket into the wheelbarrow and I took it out to the pigs. As soon as I started filling up their trough Squeaker jumped into the spent grain and starting eating enthusiastically while biting the snouts of the others if they tried to get near the beer grains. I couldn't help but laugh and wish that I had a camera on me to take a picture of my poor abused piggies. Aaron came out to help and ended up giving Squeaker her full name: Squeaker McSqueakums

When I came back in to the house I checked on the baby turkeys (actually called poults) again and found that one had escaped again. I couldn't figure out where it had gone and was following the faint peeps. I finally heard some scratching and figured that it wasn't in a box somewhere. It turned out that it had somehow jumped into the 25lb bag of chick food and was going through it with all the gusto a tiny chick could muster. It looked a bit disappointed when I placed it back with the others.

It's days like these that I really enjoy living where we live. =) I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Macaroon, Macaroon, Maca-macaaarooon

You know how Jed says that I have mad scrounging skills? Well, not too long ago I picked up another 5 gallon glass carboy on craigslist and other beer making supplies and also.... I found some livestock. =)

I saw a post for rescue piggies and sheep. I responded thinking that these would be totally awesome for manure. I was contacted a few days later by the poster who said that she would pass on the information to the rescue shelter. A few weeks after that I got a call from the lady in charge of the piggies and sheepies and let me know that the sheep and a piggy was available. I had previously been told that they might have found a home for the sheepies as well so I didn't actually know what we would end up with. I spent a week making homes for all of them and then called back to let them know that I was ready. I was going to drive half-way to pick them up and then put them in the back of the van. (You can hear Jed cringing at this part.) Well, they ended up calling me back and said that they would just drive them down and as the animals had been with them for so long they were going to waive the adopion fee. Score!!

So last week we ended up having two hair sheep (still need to find out what types they are) a female pot belly pig and a castrated hampshire pig. They arrived a little irritated and nervous but the sheep started eating as soon as we got them in with the goats and the piggies calmed down with food and water. So now we have those additions to our farm/ranch. The sheep are called Lavern and Sherlie (one's light colored and the other is dark colored), the potbelly is named Macaroon and the hamp is called Oreo. =) The piggies love watermelon and are very friendly. We're still working on the sheep.