Tag: pets

A little something to warm you up…

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“When the weather is cold, and never goes above 32 degrees, we are stuck in the mudroom all day just to avoid freezing our whiskers off. We’re so bored.”

 

You are not seeing double.  Kitty on the left is Pickle and on the right is Peanut.  They are brothers from a litter who arrived all the way from Tuscaloosa riding in the grille of a pickup truck.  That is a 2 hr 28 min or 169.3 mile trip.  When the driver discovered them, he extracted them and then took them to our local vet’s office. 

On entering, with Walker and Noodle in tow, I spied the assistant feeding them behind the counter and asked if they were available. They were.  

“I’ll take them both!” I exclaimed.  Bob cocked an eyebrow at me, but I held firm. 

Peanut has since become Bob’s favorite and Pickle is mine.  I do love a good Ginger cat and having two ginger cats is twice a nice.

Although, perhaps not so nice if you are a mousie or a vole.

Duck Bribery

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As it happens, a duck will follow you anywhere for a bowl of peas!

I ordered them months ago to be sure of getting what I wanted and to be delivered at a time when I wasn’t dealing with new layers and the meat chickens.  I never expected, once they arrived, that their feed would have increased to $20.00 for a 50lb. bag.  I now have three laying hens and a rooster, my two pet geese (Polly and Fredrik) and the runner ducks.  I do hope some of those duckies are girls, so at least they can give me fresh eggs for baking.  But if not, they sure are taking down the bug and slug population and many of the weeds as well!

I used to give the eggs from all my laying hens to folks who needed them or just appreciated a good fresh egg.  However, since Covid nobody wants them anymore.  That’s sad, but in the end, it saves me on feed.

And on another note, I will share that even though I was not here, I did take pictures, shoot videos, and work in the garden daily.  I have a lot of material that never made it to my pages and would like to get it up here anyway.

Perhaps with some notation so you know the difference?

Thank you for visiting!

Last week on the Farmlet

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I finished this and it is ready for quilting.

I am so glad about how it finally came together.  And yes, I did fix that one block.  I couldn’t stand it and it was easy to do…  😉

My dog did a bad thing in the mudroom…

NOODLE,  what have you done!?  Doesn’t he look the next thing to a Chuckle-head?

So what was so irresistible in the waste basket?  You might think it was the empty dog food bag, but no, it was his demolished  blue ball!  He’d chewed a hole in it and it was looking particularly nasty inside so I buried it in the bottom of the wastebasket.  I thought the dog food bag would be a good coverup.  Guess not.

Won’t make that mistake again

😲

Update on the Avian Flu

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As I told you on the 15th of March the Avian Flu has been seen in our county, and so far our chickens, and my geese Polly and Fredrik are flu free.  I have made it a point each day to check beaks and bills in the AM and PM to be sure no one has a runny nose.  This is the good news.

STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU ARE IN THE LEAST BIT SQUEAMISH!

And so it was that I found my Black Cochin rooster, Pagliacci had fevered and swollen eyelids on his right eye.   I picked him up and took him into the mudroom to see what was going on.  I expected to be cleaning debris out of his eye and then treating with an antibiotic eye drop…  except that his eye was missing.  Gone.  It was a chilling discovery as he had been fine in the morning when I let him out.  I did the only kind thing I could do and put him out of his misery, but I must tell you that every time I thought about him for the next couple of weeks I was chilled and sad all over again.

My 14 lb, big fella came to me from Murray McMurray Hatchery as a free chick; they are almost always a rooster.  He  got his name for singing crowing loudly every time he heard my voice or saw me coming into the chicken yard.  He was so fluffy feathered he looked for all the world as if he were wearing a clown suit!  I am sad to tell you I never got a photo of him fully grown, but if you follow the link above you will see an illustration that looks exactly like him.

Raising animals on the farm is certainly not for the timid or weak of heart.  It’s all fun and frolic until someone gets hurt and then you have to step up and do your best for the injured animal.  Sometimes, as in this case, it is very hard to do.