In the spirit of giving...

The barn cats presented me with the back half of a rat yesterday morning.

So thoughtful.  Now that I know they give a rat's a--, if I could just convince them that coffee is a MUCH better way to wake up... lol!

Off to feed the ponies.

Cats & rain

Had to begin with a quick cat update.  My mom can't stand not being able to monkey with the outdoor cats, and her mission to get her hands on them has paid off.  Squeak is now rubbing on our legs and flipping over in the path of feet so that the tall, food providing mammals with oppoable thumbs can put them to their intended use: scritching the cat.

Miss Silence continues to be stand-offish, but will now come up in the morning and sit next to Squeak while the food hits the dish.  Progress. 

We put a new storm door on that has a full glass panel.  The indoor cats are having a ball watching the world - and growling and hissing at Squeak and Silence when they look in to see how the other half lives.

Rattle continues to be a wonderful granary guardian, and demands (and accepts) lots of attention as his just due.

No riding last night - instead we had storms.  Bringing some much needed rain so I'm not going to complain since they didn't also bring hail and other nastiness.  We had high winds all yesterday and the weather radio announcing all sorts of direness a couple counties away.

Sunny was happy to be off the schedule, but Amyra whinnied after us when we left them to their after-graze snooze.  I think she likes the extra attention, if not the actual riding.

Pictures of shiny ponies, gate progress, and (parent-painted) cavaletti, coming soon.

Up a tree and underwater

 

Poor Rattle.  He's been spending quite a bit of his time in trees the last few days, no thanks to Squeak.

Inside the Granary when Squeak braces him, Rattle hides under the lawn tractor where Squeak is too big to fit.  Outside, he scoots for either of the two big trees that are close by.  Squeak chases him up as high as he'll go, then descends to one of the first big limbs and lounges there daring him to come back down.

Rattle's cat clock imitation

He was up there last night most of yesterday afternoon until I brought the horses back.  Finally came down once I walked over and Squeak retreated to the barn.  Squeak had him treed again this morning when I went down to feed them all  their breakfast.

The ponies, meanwhile, are very pleased with life.  

They've apparently decided that they can spare time during the day to nap instead of eating constantly.

When I went up to fill the water buckets they were hipshot in a semi-circle enjoying the breeze, but woke up long enough to investigate the possibility of lunch being delivered.

One of yesterday's projects was the barn stock tank - between the hay that's been dripped into it and the tank heater, it's developed some green scum.  I'd heard some good things about this non-chemical stock tank cleaner so I ordered some and let the horses drink the tank down for a few days.  The cleaner arrived yesterday, so I emptied the rest of the water out and rinsed the tank.  The directions said no scrubbing required, so once I had it pretty well sprayed out I refilled it and added the cleaner.

It takes a one capful per 50 gallons, added once a week or so depending on usage.  Pretty economical, considering a bottle is 32 oz.   More info at Aspire Premium Equine Products....

Got the tank full, only to discover that it had sprung a leak... right at the bottom, of course.  After some fiddling around with various ideas that didn't work, I finally got a latex glove out of the first-aid stuff, plastered it over the hole on the inside of the tank and then screwed a nail through it until the leak stopped.  It's temporary, but it'll work until the horses drink the tank down and I can JB weld it or I can locate a rubber washer & bolt combo that will work to seal it.

On the plus side, my make-shift patch held water overnight and the tank's clean.  We'll see if the remaining algae disappears and how quickly, and if it actually works long-term.

Small things

Sat here earlier this morning watching Mabel zip from one end of the living room to the other with her tail all puffy and her ears plastered back.  Cats, go figure. Drinking coffee and waiting for it to get light enough to go feed the outside critters.

The snow event turned out to be not much - drifted a few spots in, more than anything.  Most of it's already melted, but it brought back cold temps and wind. It was 10' this morning, although they're promising it's going to get into the 40's today.  The horses are very ready to go back up on grass.

The little birds, juncos, sparrows, nuthatches and whatnot were out swooping, hopping and pecking, trying to find anything at all they could eat.  I'd feed them, but don't want to provide that cats with a bird buffet. (I'd much rather they eat mice.)


I've been trying and trying to get a good picture of the woodpecker.  He's very audible, but so quick that I usually end up taking very clear pictures of branches.  Finally caught him, but not as close as I wanted.

Speaking of mousers...

Silence and Squeak

These two haven't forgotten or forgiven me yet.  I snapped these thru the kitchen window. (You can see, the snow is pretty much gone.)  They were out yesterday sunning in front of one of the outbuildings I've been cleaning out, but as soon as I opened the house door they both disappeared.  I'm supposed to take all three of them back in next month for booster shots.  Hopefully they'll be a bit less leery by then!



Talked to one of T's sisters over the weekend, and she's located a niece who wants her old upright piano which is currently tarped in the workshop.  No idea when they'll actually appear to haul it away, but hopefully soon.  And I don't envy them trying to get it tuned!  I've been plugging away at cleaning out there again for the last couple of days - it's a project out of the wind and best done while it's cold enough that layers are a blessing.  I peel all my outer layers off at the door and then dump them into the washer when I'm done.  Blech.
 

Workshop

Mice.  Generations of them.  I won't use poison because of the cats, so T picked up some of those ultrasonic vermin deterers.  Which appear to be working on the pack rats, but I pulled open a drawer Sunday and a very fat, very surprised field mouse was staring back at me.  Eeep!  Pushed the drawer back in, banged on it, gave it a minute, pulled it back out.... Mouse was still there.

Pulled the drawer out, set it on the floor and gave it a tap with my foot.  Presto!  Disappearing mouse.  I've added "MOUSE TRAPS!" to my shopping list.  I really don't mind them outside, and I can't blame them for wanting to live somewhere people haven't been using for years, but we're back and they can move out or die.

But I hauled another load to the dump this morning - I ask you, who saves their old, broken toilet seats? - and I think I'm making progress. 

"A trapping we will go..."

With apologies to Thomas Ames...

Nothing in the live trap yesterday morning, and nothing this morning, either.  Phooey.  I bought a different brand of cat food - still fish flavored, but... it's proving not quite as tempting as the first batch.

Yesterday was gorgeous.  I ended up in town most of the day and got nothing productive done.  The ponies sure were soaking up the sun, though.

Waiting on the gate

They were all nicely in a line.  But Sunny just had to be different. 

In any case, that's our marching order, if you imagine Sunny back on the left: Sunny on my right outside, then Amyra, then Thunder and Rufus gets the far left.  Their butts are already getting rounder again - I may need to cut back on the pasture time, although they're enjoying it so much I really hate to. 

Farrier update I hope later.

Spring cleaning

Cat 1

Still working on catching Cat 2 for his vet trip.  Set the live trap last night with fingers crossed that I'd be able to take him in this morning, but when I peeked out around 11 pm, I had Cat 3 again.  Let her out and re-set, but it was unsprung this morning.  Guess I'll have to keep trying.


I got a very nice follow-up call this morning from the vet - wondering if the kitties were doing okay.  I was happy to tell her yes.  Nice of her to check.

In other exciting news, the farrier is coming on Wednesday.  After talking to a number of area horse people, the same name kept surfacing.  Hopefully he's as good/dependable as his reputation.  So far I only know he talks re-al-ly sl-o-w.  

Rufus needs his shoes pulled, and they all need to be trimmed.  They're not super long, since hooves grow slower in the winter and the ground's been hard enough to keep them worn off some, but it's definitely time.  If it works out - and please, let it work out! - it sounds like this guy has a regular loop down this way that I can schedule in on.

Too windy today to work on the loft.  They're saying 35mph winds for the next couple of days, which should dry things out.  Because we so need to be drier.  Not.  I did some post-winter clean-up around the barn and where the bales have been sitting.  Ended up covered in hay bits, even from the stuff that was still dampish.  Came in itching like crazy - I found my second tick yesterday, and now I keep thinking I feel the suckers crawling on me.  So far just chaff today, though.

Amyra is so in heat it's not funny.  She keeps trying to get the boys interested, and they're oblivious.  She gets to walk next to next to Sunny for the duration, because she knows better than to pin her ears at him, and when she makes faces at Rufus he takes her seriously.   She knows better than to snark at him while they're haltered, but if we're not moving sometimes the temptation's just too much. 

No traffic tonight, but we did pass some wild turkeys.

Four wide

Clip-clop-snort-clop clop clop...  It's about a 1/4 mile down the road from the end driveway to the pasture gate.  The five of us have been making the trip up and back every day for the last few days.  The ponies are thrilled to be out on pasture - especially since there's some green to it.  It's just shy of 10 acres that hasn't been grazed for the last two years, so there's considerable old stuff there, too - a nice prairie mix of buffalo grass and some longer stuff.

I didn't think we were ever going to get the fence finished, but the weather finally cooperated and it's up.

We've had rollercoaster weather here lately, but I had managed to get the small piece of grass north of the driveway sectioned off with temporary electric fence and they'd been getting an hour or so a day on that, so getting out on grass wasn't a complete shock to their systems, and I've been gradually increasing the amount of time they're out. They're up to six hours on the big pasture now.

I haven't gotten a water tank in yet, so for right now I fill two big plastic tubs for them.  Thursday and Friday we had 80's, and they drained them.  Today we had a high of 41' - the high was lower than yesterday's low.  They weren't nearly so dry.

Currently we have to walk all the way up the road to the southeast corner of the pasture to get to the gate.  On the plus side, there's a grass shoulder wide enough for all of us 90% of the way, and I can see clear to the stop sign in one direction and almost as far in the other, so we stop, look and listen before starting out and if I hear anything coming in any direction we wait until I see which way the driver's going to turn.  (So far there's been a sum total of 1 car to wait on.)

The plan is to put in a walk-through gate on the north side, and then I shouldn't have to take them down the road at all.  I'm looking forward to that.

Coming in for the evening trip down the hill

It took them all of one trip to figure out where they were going every morning, and now they meet me at the gate and stand in a row to have their halters put on.  I'm a little slower; I haven't quite gotten the perfect twosomes down yet.  The only one I'm sure of is Rufus.  He walks on my heels, and he has shoes on, therefore he's an outside horse.  Other than that, they walk along politely whoever they end up next to and they've even figured out the four-wide swing at the pasture gate so that I can hook the line behind us, and the swivel-to-me at the barn gate so that I can take their halters off and block the way back out at the same time.

Speaking of the line at the pasture gate...  The existing pasture gate is one of those multi-strand wire things.  And it was a miserable pain to start with.  I can't open it one handed.  (It's tight, heavy and awkward, and I have to literally hug the fence to open and close it.)  I didn't want to leave it wide open, but I couldn't get it open easily once I had them all caught without one of them - or me - stepping in it on the way out.  And I surely did NOT want to open the gate before I had them all caught.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the solution: I tied a strip of polywire decorated with a few strips of orange surveyor's tape to the gatepost on one side, tied a gate handle to the other end so I could hook it on the other gatepost, and viola, a gate I can get in and out with four horses attached.  They respect the polywire, because it generally comes with electricity running through it.  They can also see it much better than the brownish wire gate.  The best thing is, I can unhook it one-handed, walk in keeping it snug, swing them around, and then hook it again.  Once they're all in and turned loose, then I close the wire gate and they're secure.  It will work until the walk-through's in, and/or we get a regular steel gate up instead of the wire.

See the house & barn roofs behind them?

When I walk up to get them in the late afternoon, they've been great so far about heading my way.  They get a drink, I halter and flip leadropes across their backs, collecting them one by one once I have the last one haltered.  Then it's back down the hill.  Today it was chilly with a stiff northeast wind, and I was wondering if I'd have my hands full.  Thankfully they were only a little lookier than they've been on the warmer/calmer days. 

Other than that, Cat 1 and Cat 3 have been hauled to the vet, tested negative for feline leukemia and FIV, and had their respective reproductive bits removed. Cat 1 has forgiven me.  Cat 3... not so much.  Cat 2 will hopefully cooperate and catch himself in the livetrap Sunday night so that he can take his trip Monday morning.  And that's the news that is news from around here.  Now I'm off to catch up on what everyone else has been occupied with while I've been incommunicado.

Cold Mornings

The indoor cats' days start early.  Their mental alarm starts going off about 4:30 if not earlier.  Mabel bounces around at our feet for a while before moving up to tromp solidly across our heads.  No snooze alarm on her, but if she doesn't get any response she might settle for 5 minutes or so on a shoulder before resuming her march.  

Nu-Nu's approach is more subtle.  She parks herself on the door side of the bed next to T and stares fixedly at him.  The slightest twitch of a hand or a brow spurs a plaintive meow.  "I'm starving to death here."

Snowball doesn't bother with harassment.  She lurks on top of the living room chair closest to the food dishes, soundless, a nearly invisible darker spot in the dark room.  She's going to get there first, you see. 

Once feet finally hit the floor around five, the path to the kitchen is littered with swiftly moving anxious bodies.  Far more than two, or even three, but that's probably just morning vision. And heaven help the human that hits the bathroom first - pit stops and extraneous stuff like teeth brushing are NOT approved activities and should take second seat to cat necessities.

Thankfully, peace descends once the rattle and crunch has started.  Who ever is first out of the bathroom has coffee chuckling to itself and cups out for a much needed hit of caffeine.  It's still dark and not much later when T leaves.  By this point the cats have retired to decorate chair backs, the bed or sprawl in front of the stove like furry rugs.  I settle to enjoy the last of my coffee, pay bills, catch up email, on FB and blog posts, or Google whatever random oddities came up on morning conversation.  Non-spinning dryers, mower cables, vintage Western Flyer scooter frames, and window clings this morning. 

I have about an hour before I need to start layering on socks and woolie underthings.  We don't have a light on the barn yet, so I wait until the sun's started to come up before outside chores commence.  Then it's knee socks and jeans and stamping feet into boots cool from a night in the entryway.  Neck gaiter, earband, etc., and a lot of thankfulness that I'm not wriggling my way into coveralls to head out into -'s Fahrenheit.
 

The front screen door squeaks and bangs, and Sunny hollers at me as soon as he hears it.  He's as impatient as the indoor cats.  And I'm sure he'd happily tromp across the bed too, if it meant he'd get faster service.  The outdoor cats get fed first, though.  I pry the cold bungee strap securing the bin off and dip out a bowl full of food for Cat 2 and 3.  They've commandeered the garage, and most mornings are waiting a whatever their idea of a safe distance has fluctuated to.  They won't come close enough to eat until I've walked off, but they're getting bolder.

Today I fumble with refilling the coffee can of kibble to carry down for Cat 1 in the granary before I close the bin back up.  Then I head on down the hill to Sunny's impatient encouragement.  Getting the granary door to slide back on its track is a job for both hands.  I cram the can under one arm and drag it back ignoring protesting shrieks.  Cat 1 pops out of his box and hops down to strop himself madly around my ankles.  He's stopped yelling excitedly at me every morning, but he bumps his head and sides against my gloved hands as I bend over to shake cat food into his dish.  Regular feedings mean he's not as desperately hungry as he was, but he'll still linger at his dish for a few minutes, making walking to the corral a safer proposition for both of us.

The Rubbermaid garbage can that serves as my rodent-proof (and cat-protected) feed bin has another tarp strap for me to deal with, reluctant to give up its cold-tightened grip, but eventually I manage to get enough slack to unhook it.  I scoop out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 full 2-cup measures of grain.  T picked up an oat/ground corn mix at the Co-op.  It's chaffier than I'd like, but the horses scarf it down enthusiastically.

Amyra waits in the corral, and the boys are lined up along the section of fence in the much-abbreviated orchard pasture.  They're all whickering at me now and I scan for any nighttime damage as I head in their direction.  Experience proves it's best if Sunny gets his grain first, and once I'm moving toward the corral he leads the other three around the barn to meet me at his spot.  Nose almost but not quite bumping my shoulder, he waits while I dip his portion out.  Amyra and Thunder know better than to push up to try to share.  He knows better than to threaten them with more than laid back ears and cranky face while I'm standing there, but that's enough to keep them waiting at a respectful distance.

Amyra gets her share next, near the hay feeder.  She'll share, usually, with Thunder for the first few bites, so leaving the two of them taking turns at her spot, I head for the backside of the barn and what has become Rufus's.  He backs and fills in front of me - his pan tends to get moved around more than the others and needs to be flipped upright more often than not.  I dip his grain out, making sure he gets a well-rounded scoop and a bit more.  I rub his neck for a few seconds, then head back to dump Thunder's allotment out.  By this point he's generally heading for his place, content with having snagged a few mouthfuls of Amyra's portion.

I still have some grain though, so I divide what's left hitting Sunny's spot first, then Amyra, and finally tipping the last out for Thunder, scanning the barn interior on my way past to see if they've used it overnight.  They munch while I slip out the gate.  Once Sunny's done, he'll circle around, moving Amyra and Thunder to make sure he's not missing anything, before heading around the barn to move Rufus and clean up any crumbs there.

By this point, I've started the morning wrestle with the round bale.  Parked on end, the hay just peels off in great sheefs; this one got dropped on its side and it's not nearly as cooperative.  But it is good exercise.  I alternately pry and pitch forkfuls of hay until the big feed bunk is full and drop a couple across the fence behind the barn, too - Sunny, Amyra and Thunder will share at the bunk, but Rufus is persona non grata when the three of them are eating together, so I tip a couple forkfuls off for him either inside, behind, or next to the barn as well, depending on wind direction.

Cat 1 has polished off enough crunchy bits to come out to join me.  It makes walking a challenge, but burdened with the hay-loaded fork, he just has to watch out for me.  He's learning.  I haven't squashed him thus far.

Once hay distribution is complete, I collect the grain lid and scoop and head back into the granary to snap the lid on and re-secure the strap.  Cat 1 hunkers down over his dish again, polishing off the remainder of his breakfast.  It's too cold yet to top off the water tank - the hydrant prefers afternoons - and my fingers are numb from the chill of the pitchfork handle seeping through my gloves.  The barn cleaning, assuming it's necessary, will wait until later as well.  For now, it's time to head back inside for more coffee and some much needed Kleenex.   

Signs, and the Purple Paint Law

I've often wondered if signs in urban areas carry as many bullet holes as their country cousins.  I'd guess if they do, the homes nearby probably get offers to appear on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or  Cribs about as frequently as ours does... So far, never and counting!

Even back off the gravel since 9/11 and the advent of fire numbers, the intersections have street signs.  Which is a huge improvement from, "Turn at the old Jones, place, go about 3/10ths of a mile, make a left onto the Kelly road, and you'll see a white silo set off the road in some old cottonwoods.  Go three more intersections, you'll pass a feed lot and some tanks.  Turn left at the Dunn place (that Ross's used to farm, but Websters' have leased now and put it in milo, but it got hailed out this year), and it will be on your right back off the road but you should be able to see the barn roof..." 

Stop and yield signs aren't all that common, though.  Not enough traffic to warrant it, I guess.

Kansas Banker's Award
Soil Conservation
1968

No holes in this one.  No one lives on the acreage now, either.  You can still see the bones of an old stone house sitting back in the grove at the back of the field, but they've tilled and planted across where the driveway used to run.
   

Some variety of "no hunting/trespassing/violators will be prosecuted" signs decorate posts and power line poles up and down the sections.  I'm familiar with those - who isn't?  But the purple paint law was new to me.  Apparently, in Kansas since late 2000 if you paint a post or some easily visible object purple and stick it on your fence or along your fence line, it has the same legal implications as a "No Hunting without written permission" sign.  

I was skeptical at first, but I googled and Kansas isn't alone.  Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Illinois and North Carolina (possibly other states, as well) all have similar purple paint statutes.  Among other reasons, it's harder for vandals, poachers and trespassers to remove fence posts and trees and then claim they didn't know they weren't supposed to be wherever they got caught at.

So in addition to my NO HUNTING signs, I think I'll be investing in some purple paint!

Cat 3

In other news... Cat 3 is getting just a bit braver.  It actually sat outside the hole this morning while I walked back up from feeding the horses.  Of course, I couldn't take a picture... Thank you, Sunny!

We're melting! We're melting!

T requested Ginger-people bars - post-holidays the gingerbread flavored marshmallows were on sale for $.75/bag, so I picked up a bunch.  

Every time I make them the witch's plaint from the Wizard of Oz runs through my head.  "I'm meeeellltting....".

It really is melting here... mornings are crunchy, but my midday the snow has that slippery, wet feeling to it and the driveway is sloppy.

They're predicting a chance of rain for Thursday, and then it's back into the depths of winter for the weekend.  I hope we get more snow!


Yesterday I worked on the chicken house, restacking all of the wood that's been stored inside it outside, raking out packrat nests and moving all the other odds and ends that have accumulated.  It finally got too dusty to breathe, so I moved down to the barn and worked on that.

Down there, I acquired an audience.

What'cha doin?

For now I'm hauling the manure over to dump next to the granary in what will, if all goes as planned, be tilled for a melon/squash patch next spring.
 

Cat 1 came to see what I was up to via the barn window.  He tried sitting by the muck bucket, but after a couple of frozen horse apples bounced off his head, he moved over into a spot of sunshine by the door and gave himself a bath. 

Thunder came in to see what I was doing, checked out the bucket to be absolutely certain nothing inside was edible, poked the cat to make sure he wasn't hiding anything tasty, then migrated back around the barn to watch me through the window.

You work, I'll watch

Next trip to Orschlens, I'm getting a wheelbarrow!
 
T and I checked out the loft over the weekend.  It's not as full as he remembered, thank goodness! There's some old alfalfa, and some straw bales along the back side and one wall, and someone stored a bunch of windows along the other wall, but a large portion of the floor is clear.  It's really dusty. 

We'll back a truck in below the loft door and shove the bales out, and I think we can use them for mulch.  The windows... not sure if we can use them to make hot boxes for the garden, or if we'll end up just hauling them to the dump.  Anybody have any nifty ideas for old screens?

Also up there, hanging from the rafters, two complete sets of harness.  I think it's too old and cracked to be saved, unfortunately.  But I'm going to see what I can salvage.

Remnants of the old days

Since the horses have been using the barn to loaf in, today's project is getting the mangers cleaned out.  That way, if it's really nasty I can feed them inside, not on the floor.  And there's more cleaning to be done in the chicken house.

A bunch of cows were shoving one another around their water tank when I finished up in the barn, and when I checked sure enough, the tank was empty.  The guys have only been filling it in the morning so that it doesn't freeze solid at night - no heater, so it saves them from having to break ice all the time.  There's another big tank clear on the other side of the pasture, so some days the cows don't come in to this one at all.

I turned the water on for them and Cat 1 and I hung out on top of the well house cover in the sunshine while they drank. 

Pet me!  Pet me, pet me, pet me!

Definitely not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Weekend Update

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Holiday baking has commenced.  Two Swedish Tea Rings dropped off, and the and second round of Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps are ready to go.  I love the smell of the house during the holidays.

Rolled in sugar

Hot out of the oven

We had about 1/2 an inch of rain the other night - the horses were all proper mudballs in the morning, but the ground and all the vegetation is surely happier for it.  I wouldn't have minded if it had kept up for all of the next day, too.  Unfortunately it didn't.  The horses weren't entirely pleased to be kept penned up in the corral with hay until afternoon to give the orchard pasture a chance to dry some.  Every time the house door swung open Sunny would whinny notifying us that, "Hey, you've forgotten us down here!  We want out!"


It was still damp even yesterday when I went down to snip off some more spindly trees along the orchard fenceline.  I'm making progress - I've done most of the way to the barn now, although there's still work for T to do with the chainsaw.

Cat 1 joined me to supervise, yammering away the whole time.  He's nothing if not vocal.  He's still a youngster, definitely a tom, and was likely someone's pet at some point.  He worked his way closer and closer and finally got up the courage...

Once he'd had his ears rubbed I couldn't keep him out from underfoot - I almost dropped a tree on him a couple times.  Finally the horses came over to check out what I was up to and after Sunny snuffled him over and got slobber on him and Thunder almost flattened him, he retreated under the pear tree to complain at the lot of us.

Cat 2 is still running off whenever he spots us getting closer than 20 feet or so, and there's an even shyer, big fluffy grey cat that showed up briefly over the weekend.  Finding some outside cats is not going to be a problem.... keeping track of them all, however....

I have the majority of the tub surround tiled, along with the sink backsplash.  Hopefully we'll have a working shower before company arrives for the holidays, but it still has to be grouted, so we'll see.

Last night when we went down to bring the horses in, only Amyra and Rufus appeared.  T called, I called... finally a crashing and thudding, and the errant pair trotted up over the edge of the creekbed both with grass still hanging out of their mouths.  So at least a couple of them have figured out there's edible stuff down there. 

This morning all of them but Amyra were standing in the barn when I went down to let them out, so they've figured that out, too. 

T pulled the cover off one of the old well pits yesterday so we could see how deep it is.  Fairly deep, with a bit of water in the bottom from the rain.  And it also had snakes.  T says just corn snakes. 

They eat mice and bugs and aren't poisonous.  But I still wouldn't want to run across one unexpectedly, and I sure won't be picking them up. 

They look a bit too much like rattlers at first glance.  And I'm not sure what the green one is.

And that's the news from here for the last couple of days.

The Cows Moo-ve In

Friday afternoon the cows arrived. 

I'd been in and out all afternoon with the laundry and various chores.  The horses were grazing, stopping now and then to stare northward.  When I walked up the road to get the mail I could hear cows bawling and the sound of engines from our closest neighbors.  By the time I'd walked back to the house and processed the next batch of clothes from washer to basket to line, the cow noises were getting louder and the horses had abandoned grazing in favor of standing sentry looking up the hill.

Sure enough, when I walked down to where I could get a view of from their vantage, here came J (yes, I know, another one) and his Kubota runabout leading a trail of complaining bovines.  Most of the older cows have wintered here before, and once they'd passed the gate from the next field up they picked up the pace and trotted ahead of him down to the big tank.  There was much splashing, banging and thudding as they all pushed and shoved for first dibs on a drink.  The level on the tank, even large as it is dropped alarmingly fast.  I hooked the hose to the hydrant - it has too much pressure behind it to leave a float on, water just blows out the top - and watched a couple cows climb right into the tank.

Through all the commotion I'd been keeping a weather eye on the horses to see how they'd react, but they were more concerned with tracking J's progress on the runabout than they were with worry about the moo-vers-in now sharing their fenceline.  J drove around to check the gates on the far side of the south pasture, then stopped back up to chat for a minute. 

He's got some late/early(?) calves starting to drop, and with the forecast set for winter-like temps and maybe snow to arrive at long last, he figured they'd better get the cows moved.  There were 8 or so new calves mixed in with the rest.  He still had a few stragglers making their way along, a couple with newbies, so he was heading back up to see where they'd gotten to.  The cows will have about 6 big fields and pastures that are all opened up for them, but they'll be watering here and when the weather gets bad they'll bring in bales for them down here in the trees where it's more sheltered.  It makes a great place for calving.

The horses have all seen cows, but the cows had never seen a horse before. 

I picked up grain yesterday not because any of them need the extra calories, but because I wanted a tasty treat to teach them to come when I holler.  Pre-cow invasion I'd set up four feeding spots in the corral and dribbled a half-cup or so of sweetfeed in each spot.  Then I called the horses.  They didn't come, which wasn't a big surprise.  But I went out, brought them in and let them eat, then go back out a couple times during the afternoon.  I had enough daylight left and the cow-tank was still filling, so I figured I might as well give it another go.  About 15 cows lined up along the corral panels - including the bull - and blew snot at the horses.  The ponies ignored them.  Good ponies! 

They got a drink and then trailed back out again.  I left them out overnight, since I'd had them in the corral during my airport run.  When I checked them at sunrise this morning I decided to see if they'd figured out "Come on" yet.  They were dozing midway down the fence, but ears pricked when I called.  By the time I had the last half-cup distributed I could hear hoofbeats heading my way, and the first nose, Thunder's, was rounding the barn corner in very short order.  Smart ponies!  Nothing like food to encourage that mental click - lol!

Cat 1

Cat 2