scenes of a morning

I took the camera with me when I went out this morning to do the barn work...

Tucker... always Mr. Nosy... checking out the camera.




A doe I startled (and who startled me!) as I walked back to the house... she was getting ready to jump into the front yard, but changed her mind once she saw me...



Our chickens.... mostly looking fat and happy... except poor Sadie... the incredible molting chicken... isn't she a mess?





I hope she starts growing her feathers back soon, she looks sad and miserable now.

I've been enjoying the warmish weather lately... it's been in the mid 30's each morning this week, and I've taken extra time before the kids get up to work on cleaning the pasture, straightening the barn, etc. We have a cord of wood scheduled to be delivered tomorrow that will need to be stacked, and then the outside work will be caught up... just in time for the snow that's in the forecast for the weekend. I've enjoyed the outside time this week, but I do miss the snow, I can't wait for the flakes to start falling...

old school...

The farrier came out the other day to check out the crack in Murphy's hoof.

He examined the crack...



Then cleaned and trimmed,








and filed the hoof smooth and level.



Then he did the same thing on the other side (of course, it wouldn't do for Murphy to be high on one side!)

I love watching him work... his actions gentle, yet strong... doing work that has been done, probably in much the same way, for centuries..



He finished his work by bringing out a tiny bottle of turpentine and squirting some in the crack... He said it's old school, but works as a great disinfectant.

His expert word is all is good... Murphy is plenty lazy enough to not put any extra stress on the hoof as the crack grows out, and the crack isn't deep enough to cause any pain.




So now it's just a matter of rewrapping it every few days until the crack grows out (probably a couple of months...).

So, once again Murphy is recuperating from something... luckily nothing serious... but still...  If we had a year go by without Murphy needing recuperation time for something, I'd be amazed.

He is the exact opposite of an "easy keeper" like my pretty boy Tucker!



We're off today for a meeting for S, and then a neighborhood get-together in the afternoon... It should be a good, but busy, day.

Rain is good...

....especially when you live in a place that frequently deals with drought.

I took this picture this morning in the front pasture as I was waging war with the purple thistles (armed with my trusty six-shooter weed-eater)...




Don't look at my dirty old paint splattered barn coat, and don't get distracted by the sun just coming over the horizon (and my arm), instead check out the grass that is up to my waist!

We don't see that much in our part of Colorado...

The grass is so long you almost can't see the deer walking through the front pasture...



Here they are again, coming out into a place with shorter grass.



Needless to say, Murphy and Tucker are being spoiled by all the grass in the back pasture...

A little rain now and then is lovely.

Pig in the Pumpkin Patch

By anyone's standards we live a pretty boring life.... not much happens out here in the boonies. So we've learned to take our excitement where we find it.

Like this morning, I went out to feed and found a pig... in a coat... rooting around in the pumpkin patch.



We see a lot of different creatures around our acreage ... deer, coyote, foxes, hawks, snakes... are everyday things. Mountain lions passing through are even regular occurrences... (although not every day, thank goodness!)

But a pig in a coat is unusual... even for here. (So of course, I ran in and got the camera!)



This pig is not a stranger to me however... His name is Ernest.



I know this because he's my neighbor's pig... He's a teacup pot bellied pig. (Who knew there was such a thing!!)



And he seems to like horses....

But he's not great at reading donkey body language....



... continuing to snuffle his way along the pasture fence while Tucker snorted warnings to him to get away. Tucker is, apparently, afraid of very small pigs... and thinks it's his job to run them off. But he's a cautious donkey... no sense getting too close to this scary new thing.

Ernest eventually snuffled and rooted his way back home again...



... and I came back in the house, and Tucker finally relaxed and went into the barn to eat his breakfast.

Just another exciting morning on the farm...

Baby, it's cold outside!

Denver broke a record last night... it got down to -13.

I'm not sure how cold it was (is) here, but it's cold.

No, I take that back... It's COLD.

It's so cold that when I was out doing the barn work this morning it felt like my eyeballs were going to freeze...

Brrrr.....

The few things we had on the calendar yesterday were cancelled, and we spent the day at home.  We got a lot of school done, and I started a little Christmas decorating...



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I had a nice fire in the fireplace...



... so the living room was toasty warm.



R and I made multiple trips out to the barn yesterday. When it's cold like this Murphy and Tucker need extra hay and more frequent feeds to keep their body temperature up... We fed them 5 times yesterday (versus twice on a regular day) and they ate roughly twice as much hay as usual. So far they are doing ok with the cold... Tucker is a little tank, with a super fluffy thick coat. I did break down and buy Murphy a coat this year though. He's getting older (he'll be 19 in the spring) and it seemed like it was time. He's a little skittish about his coat (I don't know that he's ever worn one before) but does seem more comfortable in the cold.

Doesn't he look handsome?



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Murphy scratching his neck on the fence I worked so hard to repair after he tore it up... It's looking like fence repair/re-stretching will be part of my spring chores again this year.





Today will be more of the same... Joe wasn't able to plow the driveway last night so we'll probably be home for the day. I'm not complaining though, we've done so much running around this fall that it's very nice to be "grounded" for a few days.

Stay warm! :)

morning barn chores...

Each of my days starts exactly the same way... in the barn doing the morning barn chores.  It makes me happy to start each day with my "boys" Murphy and Tucker, we have nice little talks in the morning and I never get tired of the rich warm barn sights, sounds, and smells.

Here is a peak into my morning...

Murphy waiting at the gate... as soon as he sees me he starts pawing the ground to make sure there is NO doubt in my mind that he is hungry... No matter how early I go out to feed, in his mind I'm always "late". :)



With his ground pawing message delivered, he heads towards the barn... sure that I will follow and feed him. Tucker usually hangs around a little longer being sociable... but then he too heads towards the barn.



More ground pawing, this time in his stall... This morning, when I didn't feed Murphy right away, and took some pictures instead, he started  moving his hay bucket from side to side with his head, banging the big empty bucket on the stall walls. He communicates quite well despite his lack of words...



The ground pawing, hay bucket rattling and banging both stop the instant the first flake of hay lands in Murphy's feeder... He's happy now, I've done my job (and I'm free to go, thankyouverymuch!).



Tucker's hay gets tossed into the feeder in his stall next, but he waits... I'm acting differently this morning... I'm taking pictures. Tucker doesn't like "different". He waits outside, looking away from me and the different thing I'm doing but with his ears pointed towards me... he's not looking at me but he's acutely aware of what I'm doing. Just a moment after I took this picture he looked back over his shoulder at me... unable to look away any longer, too curious about what I might be doing with the strange little flashing box I brought to the barn.





A look back at the barn. I love the way the warm light makes the barn glow in the dim early morning...



Next I fill the water troughs... Tucker also stays well clear of that process, he hates water and would rather go hungry than chance getting wet. Murphy, on the other hand, lets nothing keep him from his breakfast....





By the time I'm closing up the barn, Murphy has already scattered his hay looking for and gobbling down the "best" parts... Tucker's hay is still untouched, and if he doesn't hurry Murphy will (after eating all of the "best" parts of his own hay) head next door to Tucker's stall and eat the best parts of his.



Morning work done, I head back to the house... As soon as I start walking back, Tucker heads into his stall to finally eat his breakfast. Such a creature of habit, he always takes that first bite of hay then turns around and stands in the stall door, looking out while he chews. (Surveying "his" pasture... he's all about keeping track of everything that happens there.) I knew if I waited by the fence he would look out...

It didn't take long.



I love early mornings... it's so beautiful outside and is such a blessing to have the grounding of taking care of the animals each day, keeping me in tune to their wants and needs, their gentle strength, the quirkiness of their personalities, the way they live entirely in the moment. They waste no energy in worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow, or even 10 minutes from now. They both just trust that hay will land in their feeder, water will be refilled, and they will be taken care of.

It kind of puts things into perspective... you know?

partners in crime

Meet the Will-Stop-At-Nothing-For-Grass Gang:



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Their ringleader... Murphy Malone (aka the Mooch):



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The sidekick, Tucker "the Tank" (motto: "Whatever you say, Boss."):



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The scene of the crime... the pasture fence. (Yes, it's true... they always return to the scene of the crime!)



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The loot: the green grass on the other side of said fence.





Yes... Murphy has bent and mangled my new (as of last summer) pasture fence (while Tucker stood by watching, wishing he could share in the "loot"!)



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It's not entirely Murphy's fault... the guys who built the fence didn't use the quality of materials they should have... specifically, they used aluminum ties, rather than steel... It's nothing for a 1,200 lb horse to break or bend an aluminum tie. Murphy probably didn't even notice it was there. And they didn't properly stretch the top wire. I should have caught these problems, but I'm no expert when it comes to fence building... so I (initially) trusted they knew what they were doing and would do a good job.   (Well, I did catch the fact that they didn't stretch the top wire, but by that time I was about half afraid of them... all their top front teeth were rotted away, something Joe said was from meth abuse... so I didn't say anything, I just wanted them gone!)



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And Murphy was hungry... it took forever to get a load of good hay this year, and my boys were eating old dirty hay while we waited for the good stuff.



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So I'm fencing this week... Taking apart the top of the fence, restretching the wire, attaching to the wood posts with giant brads and to the T-posts with STEEL ties. Then straightening out the horse fencing that runs beneath it and securing them together with yet more STEEL ties.

I've learned to use this awesome wire stretcher that I bought the other day...



And these fencing pliers have become my best friend.





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Wire stretcher in place...



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Before the stretch:



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After, nice and tight:



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Once the top wire is restretched I can go back through and straighten out the horse fencing beneath it, then tie it all together with good strong wire.

I'm almost done.... I've gotten all but the section of fence behind the barn done. I started out v-e-r-y slow... but as I've figured out better ways of doing things it's gotten quicker... and having the right tools makes all the difference... I couldn't have done it without the stretcher and fencing pliers.

Ah... much better... the Will-Stop-At-Nothing-For-Grass Gang is thwarted once again. :)

Oh yeah, this is more like it...

This is what my barn should be looking like in late summer...



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Stacked full of sweet smelling, fresh, clean hay.

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The hay guys showed up on time Friday, and were a lot younger than I expected (probably not much older than M!), and the only hitch in the delivery was that the guy driving was not able to get the big trailer backed into the barn, or even very close to the barn. This was not for lack of trying... he tried for almost an hour to get backed up to that barn. But he just wasn't quite as good maneuvering that big trailer around the pasture as some of the other guys who have delivered hay for us. Not backing it into the barn was kind of a relief for me though, since our barn is just barely big enough for a load of hay to fit... there ends up only being about a foot clearance on either side of the trailer. So you have to be very good at backing... and this guy wasn't... so it's just as well he wasn't able to take it all the way into the barn. Unfortunately, that meant they had to haul the hay from the trailer into the barn, and up into the hay loft... a lot more work for them. :(

This was as close to the barn as he was able to get...



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The hay is wonderful, fresh, good color, clean...

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...and the price was good. I'm counting my blessings for having a barn full of such good hay.



I ended up buying more than I originally planned on. I think I have at least 8 tons (I bought 200 bales at 80-90 lbs each, so have 16,000 to 18,000 lbs which is 8-9 tons) , and I only needed 7 tons... but having extra is ok... I can share with the neighbor if she runs out in the spring, or just buy a little less next year.

So... hay buying is FINALLY checked off the list of summer things to do, hallelujah!

The last of the big barn work that needs to be done this summer is calling someone to haul away the manure pile. Once it's gone, we're ready for Fall and colder weather...

Bring it on...