Oct. 26, 2002 ~ Cats, chicks and cows
The little dark one is still with us today. She was there on the porch bright and early for breakfast, and later I saw her running across the top of the hay bales. Since the hay is stacked near the barn, it's possible that she could be living in the hay barn, perhaps even with KITTENS! And we could use some kittens, since our supply of cats is pretty low. 17, I think? 18 if you count little Blackie. Yes, I know... not the greatest name, but all the good ones are in use.
Yesterday I realized that we needed some more hens, since we've only been getting about one egg per day. Grown hens would have been nice, but sometimes they're hard to find. It requires driving long distances down country roads. But on a whim I stopped at the feed store to pick up a sack of crimped oats for Dakotah. As I wrote out my check, I heard the familiar sound of chickens, and sure enough, they had pullets. They weren't grown hens, and they're only a month old, but it was so easy to get them there. I wrote out another check for the four babies, made it halfway to my truck, and decided that they might enjoy having something to eat! Stowed them in the cab of the truck, went back inside and bought a sack of chick grower. By this time the guys in the feed store were all laughing. I offered to just hand over my purse, or maybe give them a blank check, because the way things were going, I'd probably be back soon. Ha ha! As if that would happen. And yet, I got home and discovered that we were almost out of Equine Senior. No way was I going back to that feed store again!
Husband was less than amused when I told him we had four new chicks. AND a new cat. "But Honey, they're so CUTE!"
He scowled.
"Really, really cute!"
He was not convinced. But this morning he came into the house all smiling and excited, because, wait for it, the chicks are so CUTE! Two of them are mumble, mumble, mumble (I can't remember what they're called). They are going to have fully feathered legs when they grow up, like little boots. They have tiny leg feathers now.
---------------------------------------
It's been a busy day, and I'm beat. I've walked nearly three miles, and none of that was planned exercise. Husband took a steer to the auction, and while he was gone, I did laundry and housewifely things. Then we bought a half ton of cattle feed and Husband put it in the barn. Next we transferred a truck load of hay from one of the hay barns to the horse barn, so we are set for awhile. It makes me feel very secure to have a good supply of feed. Next week we may buy another half ton. That's about all we can carry on the truck, and it's slightly more than a week's supply. We haven't started feeding the range cubes (sacks of feed) yet, but started feeding the cattle hay this week.
He put out two large bales of hay, took the hay forks off the tractor, did some welding on the disc, and disced up most of the garden space. Some of the space is still occupied by tomatoes and peppers. Yes, it's highly unlikely that those tomato plants will produce any more tomatoes before the first freeze, but you never know. Now we can start putting compost, leaves and such on the garden spot, in preparation for next year.
If I'm this tired, Husband must be exhausted, because he did most of the hard work.
We're having strawberry pie for dinner. Oh, wait... that's supposed to be dessert. Fine. We're having nice, healthy vegetable soup for dinner, with pie for dessert. Does that sound better?
I wonder if Soldier Boy will call tonight.
Hope you're having a nice weekend!
All rights reserved
_______________________________