A Cold, Rainy Morning

The morning was cold, with stinging, numbing winds, and the sky promised rain or snow soon as I did the morning chores:

The previous day I'd feared that Jasmine was dying, but I found a horse feed, full of grain and drenched in molasses which she scarfed down like a starving cow. She began standing all day and keeping up with the herd. Things were looking up:


In the pigeon room, the baby who kept falling out of the nest was now blocked in and still alive in spite of the cold, along with its sibling:

The younger babies in the nest on the floor were also alive although I didn't want to get my hopes up. Babies at this time of year don't often live to adulthood:

The big machinery began pulling in to the corn field across the road from my house, and harvesting began even as cold rain began to fall. I knew the corn kernels would be processed through a dryer before storage, so there was no worry about the rain. Two years ago they harvested in October and I got better videos of the process. Just click here:


And then the gravel I'd ordered arrived. I put the mischievous horses in the barn and let the truck back in and dump seven yards of bank run gravel. Violet sauntered over to check it out:

The area in front of the barn door was muddy and messy, causing me to want something firmer for the animals to walk on. I didn't know if it would help their hooves, but I figured that it might:

I spent the morning on the tractor, scooping up and spreading the gravel. I would previously have worried about the bigger rocks, but now I consider them a potential blessing, thinking they might help break off hooves which grow too long. I was cold and miserable by the time I was done so I let the horses back out and went inside to warm up:

Miniature Horse Update

It would be difficult to come up with a narrative for this post, so I'll just call it "Random Snapshots." The first is of Remy and Blue tasting their mineral salt block. As you can tell by Blue's facial expression, he wasn't so sure he liked it:

 Blue, looking rather elegant beneath the Box Elder tree:

 Back at the salt block, but this time Blue decided not to have any:

 A lazy September day in the south field, beneath skies of blue with white, puffy clouds. The winter's hay supply rested nearby:

 Blue was always shy and not one to rush up to be petted. Lately, however, he's been warming up and moving slowly in my direction because he truly does enjoy affection:

 Both horses tend to spend too much time in the barn. If the weather and/or fly population are bad, I allow it. But if it's cool, sunny and free of flies, I push them outdoors to do their pooping:

 Blue is an adventurous grazer, willing to flirt with the electric fence and brown stalks, hoping to find some new taste treat:

 I was cleaning the barn when I snapped this photo. Remy always thinks I am there to play with him and gets in the way constantly:

 And when I'm not feeling playful, they have a fun time chasing each other:

 Blue was peeking out the barn door. The chain is to keep the cows from pushing it open and covering the interior with manure. The chewed wood is courtesy of Blue and Remy. I have been painting all such spots with Ivory Dish Detergent mixed with red pepper and Angostura Bitters. They don't like the taste, so it helps dissuade them:

 Remy was scanning the field, perhaps looking for the cows, or perhaps hoping to see an Amish horse trotting by:

 Their favorite cow is Rosella. They've been a threesome from the beginning:

Around The Farm - Part 1

The first two months of winter weather were blessedly mild, but that doesn't mean that everything went smoothly. For instance, there was the day I detached the tractor bucket and replaced it with the bale spear. When I attempted to reverse the process, I accidentally pushed the bucket too far and knocked the bush hog off its wheeled dolly. It was too heavy to lift, so I had to put the bucket back on the tractor, take it outdoors and set it on the ground. When all that was done, I reattached the bale spear and ever so carefully used it to lift the bush hog. I got off the tractor and positioned the dolly back underneath it:

And on the same day as the bush hog incident, opening the heavy barn door pushed several sections of the roller track apart. A catastrophe was imminent and I could never have lifted the barn door back into place. But I carefully climbed up on the tractor bucket and used a sledge hammer to tap the track back into place. Another disaster averted, at least for the time being:

And then there's the cow manure and frozen urine left by the cows every cold night when they sleep inside the barn. This truly doesn't capture the horror of it on the worst mornings, but you get the idea:

Poopsicles everywhere!

And then one day, winter truly arrived, albeit belatedly:

The apple trees probably needed a good dose of winter. They seem to thrive in this climate. If so, they got their wish with a goodly dose of below zero temperatures, high winds, blowing snow and freezing rain:

Indoors, however, my fall blooming cactus was so warm and happy that it began blooming again. I guess it's a multi-season cactus:

For the first and only time this season, my neighbor had to put the snow plow on his truck. I am blessed with the best neighbors in the world and he came over and plowed my driveway:

I declared a truce with the local Red Squirrels and decided to make friends with my home squirrel instead:

I don't know if it's a male or female, but it's not very afraid of me - or of the Chickadees who share its taste for sunflower seeds:

One last look. Notice the icicle covered lilac in the background: