Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween on the Farm

Halloween did not really live up to expectations in middle Tennessee today. We had light rain off and on all day, and this evening that progressed to a steady rain with wind. That all seems to have  moved past us now but it wasn't exactly perfect Halloween weather. The town of Lynnville postponed trick-or-treating until tomorrow night. 

The horses were having a grand time in the warm rain today. There was a lot of horseplay happening as the rain apparently made the horses frisky.  Jason and I reminisced about dressing up one of the World's Cutest Fainting goats as batman a couple of years ago. I think Jo has forgiven us for that tragedy in her life, and although she looked really cute we've opted not to torture her with another costume since then. Maybe next year . . . 

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Grand and Trigger enjoying some play time on a rainy day 


Merlin and Walden were also having fun



Sam, Renny and Dutch


Rocky, Toledo and Clayton saying "skip the picture and move on to feeding us."


There are so many captions one could come up with for this picture. Instead of licking the fence or the gate or some other inanimate object like they often do after eating a meal, Apollo and Hemi instead chose to stand there and lick Thomas' rump.


George and Asterik


Miracle


The winners of the most playful on a rainy day award were Lotus and Cocomo. They were doing their best impression of wild things. They played and ran . . . 


. . . and played some more . . . 


. . . until they saw me watching them. "What? We weren't doing anything, promise. Just standing here."


Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Ladybug Invasion

It kind of felt like we were living in that old Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds" today.  The main difference being that instead of being swarmed by birds we were being swarmed by ladybugs. I was walking down our driveway late in the morning and noticed a few ladybugs flying around. As I continued on a few more steps all of a sudden it felt like I was walking through a wall of ladybugs. I kept walking and in a few more steps I was out of the swarm. However as I walked down our (almost mile long) driveway I kept walking in and out of clouds of ladybugs. I've never seen anything like it.

Jason's comment to me was that every ladybug that is, was or ever will be showed up at our farm today. I was seriously beginning to think that we had some sort of plague happening at our farm. Thankfully my facebook feed let me know it wasn't just our farm, but apparently all of middle Tennessee was living under a cloud of ladybugs. 

Our house was also covered in ladybugs and every time we opened a door to go in or out approximately 5,000 ladybugs (ok that is an exaggeration) decided to come inside. Since I don't have anything else to do I spent some quality time with the Dyson this evening vacuuming up ladybugs from the window sills and off the trim work around the doors and windows in the house. Looking on the bright side, now would be a good time to have company over, or maybe my mom, since I am very confident that all of my windowsills and door frames are very clean and would pass a white glove test. When does that ever happen?!

Anyone else experiencing clouds of ladybugs, or are we in middle Tennessee just special right now? 

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Homer, Leo and Grand


Trigger


Apollo and Moe


Clayton and Stormy out on a stroll


Our newest resident Walon (read that with a short a, not along a) and Donovan


Dolly


Bergie on the go


Snappy and Slinky on the run; at 30 and 36 years old respectively they are two of our oldest residents.  Slinky is our oldest retiree at 36 while our youngest retiree is 9 years old.


Thor

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Donkey (mis)Adventures - The Title Round

As most of you know we've had more than a little bit of trouble getting Sparky the donkey on a trailer so we could move him to our farm. After spending a few days of our time attempting to get Sparky on the trailer we finally decided we all needed to take a step back and take a break from things for awhile. So for almost two weeks we made no more attempts to get Sparky on the trailer. 

For anyone that missed it here is the initial post about our donkey loading attempts along with a couple of pictures. A little over a week ago Jason and I had a conversation about Sparky. To say we had lost a lot of sleep over this, not to mention days of our time, would be an understatement. We were going over the list of things we had tried:

1. Having a friend already in the trailer.
2. Spending days and days trying to desensitize him to the trailer.
3. Using food and treats to try and bribe him on the trailer.
4. Putting a rope behind him and trying to push him on the trailer. We also tried having the rope tied in the trailer with a pulley hold but he would just lay down.
5. We tried flapping plastic bags behind him and other scary objects.
6. Against my better judgement we tried blindfolding him. I had tried this years ago and he reacted very badly to it, however desperate times call for desperate measures and we tried it again. He became frantic and then did his usual thing - plop down.
7.  We tried lifting his tail over his back hoping that would encourage him to get on.
8.  We tried turning him in circles around the trailer hoping we could sneak him on.
9.  We tried all of the above with both of our trailers - we have a stock trailer that is a step-up and the horse trailer that has a ramp. 
10. We shut him in a dry lot with food and water on the trailer. After four days I said uncle, I wasn't going to watch him dehydrate himself to death. He then proceeded to drink 15 gallons of water - he really was THAT determined not to get on any trailer for any reason.
11. We tried pushing him into the trailer with the tractor - cue Sparky laying down on the ground.
12. We tried physically lifting up his front feet and placing them in the trailer. He would let us put one in, even stand there with one hoof on the trailer, but watch out if you tried the other one.
13. We tried locking hands behind him and pushing him forward. 
14. I know I'm forgetting a few things but you get the idea here . . . 

As we rehashed all the things we had tried I said to Jason "I think we need to stop talking about all the things we have tried and talk about things we haven't tried."  The conversation went like this:

Jason:  After thinking about for a minute Jason said "we could have the vet out and heavily sedate Sparky, as in he is down on the ground and not conscious, and then have a bunch of people there to drag him into the trailer." (I should add here for background info that we already know from past experience that Sparky doesn't really sedate very well, you can give him very large doses of dormosedan or xylazine or ace and it really doesn't have any effect on him)

Me:  There is a lot I don't like about that plan. We have no idea how old Sparky actually is and how he would handle the heavy sedation. Plus what happens when he wakes up in the trailer? That could be a total disaster.

Jason:  Do you have another suggestion for something we haven't tried?

Me:  I had to think for a few minutes. Finally I said "We could call an animal communicator and discuss this with Sparky. You know, try to reason with him."

Jason:  Watching the expressions cross Jason's face was one of those things where a picture is worth a thousand words. I could literally see the responses going through his head but he kept wisely choosing not to say them.  There were a lot of bad words interspersed in there. Finally he said "I thought the point of this conversation was to come up with viable solutions."

Me:  I just stood there and shrugged my shoulders. "That's all I've got."

So we left the whole Sparky getting on the trailer issue alone for awhile and went on with our lives. However it was always on our minds. Finally last week I broached the topic with Jason again. We decided we were going to try one more time, and if we couldn't get him on the trailer we were going to have to euthanize him at some point. He could stay at my mom's farm for awhile but due to many different logistical reasons that I won't go into here that was not a long term solution. 

This was it, this was going to be the title round for Sparky vs. the trailer. So far the score was something like Sparky 9, people-with-trailer 0.  We decided that we were going to go all out and tackle this with an army this time. In addition to ourselves we lined up seven more people to help us at my mom's farm on Saturday. I came armed with a lunging surcingle, two halters, two ropes, and a lot of treats. Our plan was to put the surcingle on Sparky and run the ropes through the rings so they wouldn't fall down to the ground if they got slack. We were going to have two halters on him in case one broke.  

We parked the stock trailer at a spot in the pasture where there was no step up and the floor of the trailer was flush with the ground.  I went and got Sparky and led him to the trailer. I gave him some dormosedan even though I knew it wouldn't have much, if any, effect on him and it didn't. So after 45 minutes of waiting and hoping Sparky would sedate I called Jason and told him it was time, we were just going to have to go for it. He gathered up our army and drove them over to where Sparky and I were waiting at the trailer.  We tried once just having everyone pushing/pulling on him but even with seven people behind him Sparky hardly had to break a sweat as he planted his feet, and of course threatened to lie down. 

I put the surcingle on him and we ran the ropes around him and back into the trailer. We got everyone in position. We had four people in the trailer pulling, me also in the trailer pulling on the leadrope, three people behind him pushing/pulling on the ropes and controlling his hind end, and someone ready to slam the trailer door shut should this actually work and we got him on the trailer.  On the count of three we all started pulling with everything we had. Before Sparky even had a chance to realize what was happening both of his front feet were in the trailer. Jason yelled "keep pulling!!"  Sparky quickly realized he was about to lose this battle and went to his old standby, to lie down. 

But we were ready for that. Since the ropes were run through the rings on the surcingle they didn't lose any tension, plus we had enough leverage to keep him on his feet. In a few more seconds Sparky was in!  The door was slammed shut, the guys let some slack out on the rope, and Sparky just stood there quietly. It was kind of anticlimactic as five of us stood there in the trailer along with Sparky. As I have said all along I knew if we could get Sparky in the trailer he would ride in it very quietly. His issue was not the trailer, but going through the door of the trailer.  We opened the people door on the trailer and the people exited the trailer. 

Sparky was at the very back of the trailer and ideally we wanted to get him to the front so we could shut the middle divider and keep him in the front half of the trailer. We went back in the trailer and started to try and pull him to the front but then I changed my mind. I asked Jason if it was safe for Sparky to stand at the back of the trailer for his trip. He said it would be fine as long as Sparky was quiet and didn't move much. I was confident he would ride in the trailer like a seasoned pro so we let him stay where he was. 

The answer to the question of "How many people does it take to get Sparky on a trailer?" appears to be nine. It would not have happened with one less person.  My deepest gratitude and endless thanks to our helpers on Saturday, we couldn't have done it without you.  

We drove Sparky to our farm and he stood like a statue in the trailer. We drove the trailer right into his pasture and opened the door for him. He stood there contemplating things for a minute and then hopped off the trailer. He checked out his new surroundings and then went and joined his friends and started grazing. Everyone - donkey, horses, people - was happy.  Sparky is sending out his change of address cards to all of his friends and acquaintances as I type this.  The End.


The victory picture, Sparky is standing quietly in the trailer in the background.  Pictured are seven of the nine members of the donkey loading crew.


Sparky in the trailer trying to puzzle out what went wrong and how he ended up in there


Sparky deciding if he wants to get off the trailer


He hopped off after a minute of contemplation


Sparky checking out his new digs


Back with  his friends


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Trigger and Moe having some fun



An amish horse and buggy went trotting by the farm a few days ago. Did that ever get a lot of attention from the horses. They were probably scared they might have to really work for a living!!


Maisie, Lily and Cuff Links


Faune saying to Gibson "play with  me!!"


Flyer and Cocomo


Donneur, Lotus and Romeo


Jason and Carter were giving Johnny some pats


Walden and Fabrizzio


Hemi and Apollo

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Goat Construction Zone

The World's Cutest Fainting Goats have been keeping up busy lately. In all of our spare time (hahahaha) we built them their ghetto fence and moved them to the farm.  As I mentioned in the post where we described their moving day, Mina was beside herself when she realized the only shelter they had in their paddock with the ghetto fence was a couple of dogloos. We promised Mina that we would rectify this unfortunate situation as quickly as possible. True to our word we've been working on that the last few days in fits and starts.  Mina definitely does not grasp this concept of a "real job" and I'm sure is wondering why we haven't worked non-stop on building her some suitable housing.

Jason has been busy . . .

He's measured . . . 


. . .  he's made sure things were level . . . 


. . . he's chainsawed . . . 


. . . he's contemplated . . . 


. . .  he's used the nail gun . . . 


. . .  he's put on the joist hangers . . .


. . . and he's currently in the process of shingling the roof.


I attempted to have a conversation with Jason today about non-structural things in regards to the goat housing. Jason is all concerned about the structural engineering but looks matter too right?  It all started when I saw he had bought black shingles instead of red shingles. 

Me: You bought black shingles?

Jason:  Yes. So?

Me: This won't match the other run-ins and barns. They all have red roofs, now this one is going to have a black roof. Shouldn't we take these back and get red shingles?

Jason:  silence

Me:  Is there going to be a cupola on the roof like the other run-in sheds?

Jason:  silence

Me:  But all of the horse run-in sheds have cupolas.

Jason:  silence

Me:  We'll at least put a weathervane on the roof, right?

Jason:  silence

Me:  We're going to paint it white, right? Because all of the horse run-in sheds are white.

Jason:  silence

Me:  I feel like I'm talking to myself.

Jason:  silence

Me:  Well, this conversation has been very productive. I feel like we settled a lot of things. 

Jason:  silence

By putting my intuition at work what I have interpreted from this conversation is the black shingles won't be replaced with red, there will be no cupola, probably not even a weathervane, and Jason isn't too keen on painting the goat house white.   But it is possible that I have completely misinterpreted Jason's responses. I guess I will wait with baited breath to see the final product.  Although it will undoubtedly be structurally sound, I'm thinking that as far as aesthetics go it will pair up nicely with the ghetto fence. 

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George's mom took these two pictures of Jason with the grays, and she aptly named these photos "The Blessing of the Grays" (Silver, Gus and Asterik)



Norman and Dolly


MyLight and Calimba


Largo and Clayton


Bergie


Sebastian, Lighty and Johnny


Lotus, Cocomo, and I believe that is Donneur hiding behind Cocomo


Leo rolling and Chance getting ready to join him in the fun


Silky