Friday’s Farm Fotos

Okay, so it’s a cute-sey way to spell “Photos”, but I happen to be a fan of alliteration. 🙂 At any rate, just thought I’d show you a few pictures I’ve taken lately around the farm and hadn’t got around to posting yet.

First, we have a picture of our cat, Spot FenceWalker. He thinks he’s a dog. He and one of our “real” dogs, Toby, follow us around where ever we go outside. This is nice until I’m trying to take pictures, and my subject objects to having a cat and dog close by! In this picture, Spot was following me one night when I went out to check on the chicks.

And here’s a picture of the chicks I was checking on.

That’s a little pile of peachicks on the left with a couple of the younger chicks, and the older chicks huddled up in another pile under the volunteer sunflower.

Sometimes I find chickens in unlikely places. I often look out a window to see them perched on the other critters.

The ewe with the horns is Valrhona, and the one with the Buff Orpington hen perched on her is Papaya.

Other pretty things we can see from our windows include Goldfinches enjoying snacking on seeds and bugs around these tall blue wildflowers. (Anyone know what those flowers are called?)

We can’t have a bunch of pictures without one of The Farmer doing what he loves best… playing Firebug. 🙂

We seem to accumulate boxes and feedbags, so they need to be burned every so often before the feed room in crammed full of them.

The Farmer’s faithful companion likes to trot softly and carry a BIG stick.

The minute one of us goes out the door, it doesn’t matter what Toby is doing, he rushes to grab as big a stick as he can find, cause after all, then we might play with him, right?

And on final reflection, we have a heron who visited our pond this morning. We happened to catch him there when The Farmer went out to work this morning, and knowing how I love pictures, he waited for me to grab my camera and take some before heading on down to the car and scaring the heron away. (Thanks Farmer!)

I’m not sure whether the heron was there to grab some breakfast or admire its’ reflection, but it was a nice surprise to see it..

And there you have it, my collection of “Friday’s Fotos”. Hope you enjoyed them!

Typical Scene on the Farm

It’s a blustery day here on the farm. There’s moisture in the air, sometimes just a light mist, other times it’s wee little balls of stinging sleet. This is not my favorite time to be out and about, but the animals need hay even more on days they don’t go out and graze.

The guineas don’t seem to mind a little rain, running around looking for grain or perched on the fence.
I almost chickened out of my morning walk through the woods, but I figured if the guineas could hack the foul weather, so could I.

The wind was making quite a racket as it roared through the trees, and of course the creek was up a little from the bit of rain we had.

On nice days, when I let all the animals out together, it’s not unusual to see all kinds of combinations of critters, with the chickens, guineas, dogs, sheep and llama.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen poultry perching on sheep. I think that nice thick wool must keep their feet warm, or maybe they just like being on top of things.

It’s a typical scene on the farm.

Everyone’s excited about new kids!

I went out to do morning chores, and had a GREAT surprise waiting! Cinnamon had just given birth to the second of twins.

Out little llama shows great interest in babies on the farm, no matter what sort, and Neffie, the Maremma LGD, is very protective.

More pictures later! I must go back out and finish up chores!

Snow!

It’s snowing here for only the second time this year. Now everyone north of the Mason-Dixon line, don’t be laughing about how excited people in the south get over such a little dab of snow!

When I went out to do chores this morning, the first thing I saw was Toby cavorting around with snow dusting his back.

A couple of the peahens were out and had even more snow on their backs.

After I finished taking care of the critters, I walked down into the woods. There was snow dusting all the leaves on the ground, and some sticking to the trees. I took a picture of the slue on one side on our property.

I  didn’t see any owls or deer today. They probably had the good sense to stay tucked inside some sort of shelter.

My quince bush has frozen blossoms. Right now the iced blossoms look rather pretty, but I’m sure when it warms up they’ll all turn brown and die.

 Back up near the house, the birds were busy at the feeders and birdbath. We always have several cardinals and woodpeckers dining at our buffet.

They take turns at the feeders, and sit on the fence posts patiently waiting their turn.

You can see what blustery weather we’re having by the way the feathers of this lady Cardinal are all ruffled up. She even tucked one of her feet up in her feathers to stay warm.

We won’t get any accumulation worth mentioning from this morning’s snowfall, but it was still fun to see some snow for a change!

Toby Chasing Thunder

When we had that bad storm last week, I took a video of Toby running around like a demented critter, chasing after thunder. Yes, the dog chases after a SOUND. He runs, he barks, he jumps… he thinks he is going to catch it, sometime, somehow.

In this first one, you see the lightning flash, and him taking off through the main pasture chasing the noise while sheets of rain blow over him.

Here he once again runs through the field, but I caught him when he came back and jumped up against the fence, barking and trying to let that thunder know some day he’s gonna get it!

I don’t think there’s a single critter on this farm that’s normal.