Working with my cows and calves is rewarding or I wouldn't be doing it. It isn't work, it's fun. Better still, it's play! The cows and chickens are hobbies I enjoy, and so is the garden: I don't make money from my efforts, but I am doing what I love and, in the process, I get some good-quality food. The day any of these things ceases to be fun, I'll stop. I am liable to look at my garden in July, see nothing but weeds (or plants killed by drought), and tell Cliff to mow the whole thing. I've done that before. I don't have to garden.
Since I've had the Fitbit counting my steps for me, I've realized how many of those steps are taken as I care for my animals. I usually have a mile in before breakfast, due to the fact that I walked to the gate to let Jody in, walked to barn and milked the cow, walked to and from the feed containers as I got feed for the cow and cats, walked out of the lot and over to feed Penny her bottle, walked to the shop to feed the ever-growing chickens... you get the picture. I had no idea that all those small trips would add up to a mile. So obviously, my hobbies help keep me fit and healthy, and I hadn't even thought of that aspect.
Before I got the chicks, I saved up newspapers to line the bottom of their home, and that's what I used for the first couple of days. I was on some website, I think Back Yard Chickens, when I read that someone had chicks coming soon and had their home all ready for them. She used horse bedding material, which I think is made of pine shavings. Well now, that was the obvious solution. After one day on newspapers, my chickens stank to high heaven, and they are in Cliff's man-cave, his shop. Not good. We picked up a bag of horse bedding and it works great at keeping odors down. Today Cliff sucked the dirty bedding out with his shop-vac and we gave the chicks a fresh bed. They started scratching up a storm when I put them back in their home.
The Cornish Cross, as you can see, are more than twice the size of the others. That smallest chick, in the foreground, is the banty. I'm pretty sure it's a pullet. I'm going to be looking for a free, or cheap, dual-purpose type rooster this summer. I like to hear a rooster crow, and I want the option of having eggs for a setting hen to hatch. What am I going to do with all these chickens? I have NO idea. It's a disease as bad as my calf-buying addiction!
I've been working with six-month-old Gracie and little Penny trying to break them to lead. Gracie has been a problem child. She's my balker from day one, and the only way I could keep her moving was to constantly tap her with a cattle prod in my right hand as I tried to lead her with my left. She's just so dead-headed she would rather balk than cooperate. I finally figured a way to get her to lead like she ought to: I take a pan of sweet feed out in the yard somewhere, lead her all around the place, and end up at the pan of feed, which I watch her devour. Next time I put the pan of feed in a totally different spot, lead her around, and again, end up at the pan of feed. I move the pan around because I don't want her fighting to go to a certain spot all the time. Today was the third time I used this method and she already leads like an angel. Cliff couldn't believe her progress when he saw us in action.
You can see on my current header what Penny thinks of the halter, but I think she's going to take to it just fine. The reason I like to be able to lead my milk cows is that it's so much easier to get them from point A to point B if you can just slip a halter on them and lead them.
Now that he's on his way home, I'll go ahead and mention that he's been gone since Wednesday morning. Rather than tell the whole world I was home alone, I opted to say nothing until he headed back from Georgia. The oldest grandson wanted to go visit his dad, our son, in Georgia. Heather couldn't get off work to go, so Arick invited Cliff along. I stayed home to care for baby chickens and calves because somebody's gotta do it.
I thought I would maybe splurge a few calories while the cat was away, but I ended up staying on my "eating sensibly" plan pretty well until yesterday: Heather made Easter dinner, so I hitched a ride over there with the daughter. All I had to make was Oreo Delight, so I had an easy Easter. I had a good visit with Heather's grandparents, people I have known for forty years but had not seen to chat with in ages. Her grandpa had open heart surgery several months ago and had the same cardiologist, as well as the same surgeon, that Cliff had. That gave us PLENTY to talk about, believe me.
The one strange meal I had in Cliff's absence was one that used to be a regular for me when we were gaining weight like prize hogs: six cups of popcorn with four tablespoons of butter on it as a whole meal... with a Pepsi throwback on the side. The calories worked out fine in my daily tally, but I might have been a little short on the nutrition that day.
It was a good time to be a widow for six days, thanks to the weather. I puttered in the garden, tended the electric fences, and walked as early in the day as I chose, which would be as soon as the sun was up. Cliff isn't a morning person, so we normally wait until Craigslist has been perused thoroughly, three cups of coffee have been very slowly consumed (you can't imagine how slowly), and mother nature calls.
A good time was had by all during his absence, except that originally Cliff had told me they were heading home Sunday morning, and that is the information that stuck in my head in spite of the fact that later, he says, he corrected that. So when I called yesterday asking him if they were on the road yet and he said, "Oh, we're not coming home until tomorrow," my heart sank. Perhaps that had something to do with my "weepy" entry yesterday (thanks for the kind comments, by the way).
So yes, I did miss him, even though I didn't realize it until yesterday when I learned his homecoming was delayed.
The comments on my blog these days are few and far between. I think there are two reasons for that: The main one, I believe, is that so many of my readers are on Facebook, and when I share entries there, that's where they comment. The other is that some people aren't able to comment on the actual blog, which is a shame, but I'm not "techie" enough to figure out the problem.
Here's something I often wonder about: A lot of people use word verification on their blog entries to keep the spam away, and that's fine. But if you are one of those who doesn't allow comments to be posted until you approve them, then why bother with word verification? You're going to be reading it anyway, why make your readers jump through hoops? Oh well, that's just a little something to keep my mind busy when there's nothing else to do, I suppose.
