Around The Farm In May

The lilac buds continued to swell and were in full bloom by last week:

I keep two water buckets in the pigeons' room when it's above freezing, one for clean water and one for dirty water to be dumped. Normally I keep them covered, but one afternoon I left with to refill the clean water bucket and found this when I returned. I rescued this silly bird of course, but was reminded why I need to keep those buckets covered at all times:

Blue has become more gentle and friendly - and yes, I do think he appeared to be laughing here although he was really just yawning:

Blue is a handsome boy:

Both Remy and Blue are inseparable (and sometimes insufferable), but I fear there will be fighting if they grow into stallions. I plan to have them gelded (neutered) soon:

One Saturday afternoon, a neighbor pulled up with a wagon load of grass clippings to give my animals. The cows were in the north field, but we put the clippings in the south field, where the horses were. I felt uneasy about it and headed indoors to do an internet search as soon as the neighbor left for home:

I read online that grass clippings can be very bad for horses, especially if they pig out on them. Remy was gobbling them up pretty fast, so I put both horses in the barn and raked out the clippings. No harm was done but I was very worried for the next 24 hours. The next time the neighbor brought grass, the cows were in the south field with the horses, so I simply locked the horses in the barn and let the cows enjoy the treat:

At the time, however, the Red Poll girls were enjoying the lush green grass of the north field. It was plentiful, so they spent much of their time lounging about and chewing their cuds:

The Shadbush burst into bloom on Mother's Day and continued blooming through much of May. They made a nice backdrop for the north field:

I fed the cows a bit of grain each morning and evening:

In the mornings, I didn't let the chickens out until after the cows ate their grain. But for their evening bowl, the cows had pesky chickens to deal with as they ate. Any cow which lifted her head out of a bowl found a chicken in it when she went back for more:

But they seemed to enjoy the north field. In fact, one day I tried to move them back across the road to south field and they refused to go. No grain, no cow bell, no coaxing had any effect. It's a good thing that cows have hooves and not fingers or they'd have shown me one: