Horse At Work

When we were driving through the Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountains, we saw a horse drawing a piece of farm equipment.  I’m not sure, but I think it’s a manure spreader.  It looked like hay being thrown out the back.

I think it was probably old bedding with manure mixed in.  Anyway, it was pretty cool to watch them at work.
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Not something you see very often in these days. Usually it’s a tractor at work, not a horse.

I love watching horses at work!

Just Hangin’ Around!

Yesterday evening I went out to do chores. Well, sometimes you see the darndest things around here. See, there’s a woven wire fence separating the “people” backyard from the “animal’s” backyard. The fence is just a few feet from the back of the house really.

So it was impossible to miss this:

Yes, there was one of the young white roosters hanging in the woven wire fence!

As for how it got there?  My best guess is something (cough, cough.. Toby.. cough, cough) startled it, and it took off to fly over the fence and didn’t quite make it.

As soon as I saw it I went back inside and got two things:

1. Gloves, because I figured he might get a tad excited and I didn’t want spurred, scratched and damaged trying to effect a rescue, and
2. My camera… come on, it just took a few seconds to take the pictures, and who would believe it otherwise?

So there you have it, another wacky moment on the farm.

Sheep and Lambs

I have a good friend that raises Dohne sheep in Australia.  Right now it’s lambing season, and they’ve been having an awful time with eagles killing the lambs and sinking their talons in the ewes backs.  That means not only are the lambs lost, but if they don’t medicate the sheep to kill the fly eggs turning into maggots… they could lose the moms too. 

There are times I miss lambing season.  Every spring in fact.  EXCEPT I do NOT miss losing a lamb.  I can only imagine what it must be like to lose a whole bunch of them at once, to walk out and see a paddock full of dead lambs. 

Little lambs are just sooooo incredibly cute!

Anyway, I got to thinking about our lambs and looking at past pictures, so made a little video with some of the pictures I have:

(you can see it full screen by clicking on the icon 2nd from the right at the bottom.)

I do love lambs!  I mean, look at this:

How can you not love a little face like that?!!

Lambs are not only cute, but lambs and wool are “cash crops” for my friend in Austalia.  I wish I could make it better for her, with having lost so many of their lambs.

Cause we BOTH love lambs!

Chickens Roosting in a Tree

With the time change, it gets dark so early, sometimes I am busy working and forget to go out and do chores until it’s almost dark.  And don’t get me started on the time change thing, because I have definite opinions as to how it’s the biggest waste of time (ha!).  It’s a nuisance to have to shift your sleep patterns back and forth every few months, for instance.  And studies have been done that show it does NOT save energy, and really, I can’t think of any good reason to do it.

Okay, that’s my rant with some of the reasons I don’t like the time change thing.  Now back my regularly scheduled story!

It was almost dark before I got chores done last night.  The sun was setting and a little sliver of the moon was shining brightly.

Toby sat and chewed on a stick while I enjoyed the scenery.

Then I saw the chickens flying up to roost in their tree. 

Not all of the chickens roost in this tree.  The rest of the chickens are either in the sheep shed or a few even roost inside the chicken coop.  But a few end up in the catalpa tree here:

I wouldn’t think it’d be such a good spot since the leaves are gone and it’s getting cold, but they seem to stick with it no matter what the weather.

When I throw out feed, or when the chickens and guineas roost or night are about the only times they mingle.  Here one of the guineas flew up to the shed roof then is walking over to the tree to join the chickens.

A few more guineas roost in that tree, while the rest either roost on top of the chicken coop or high up in the big walnut trees in the back yard.

Heaven forbid they should all go in the chicken coop at night!

Our llama likes maypops!

There were a lot of passionflower vines growing on the fence around our garden this year.  The Farmer decided to gather up some of the fruit and let it dry out so he could save the seeds.  He got mabye 18 or so and put them on top of the wellhouse roof to dry.

Well, it seems the wellhouse roof is just the right height for a llama table.  Further, it would seem that after the inital taste-testing … licking, nibbling and finally eating one… that our llama decided she really likes maypops!

They do smell really good!  The first time I saw her eating them, she just ate a few.  Then I saw her eat a few more later in the day.

I saw her eating them 4 different times.  I happened by the dining room window last night when she was eating the last bunch.

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Yes, she ate every last one of them!  Then she licked the roof and nudged the board around trying to see if there were any more.

But no, she got every last smidgen of them.  I told The Farmer if he wants any of his maypop seeds he’s going to have to follow the llama around and get them after they’ve been processed!

But he informed me there were a few maypops that dropped to the ground before he picked the rest, so probably will get some vines from those.

Don’t understand why he doesn’t want to be sure and get those seeds! 🙂