Category: Animals

A while back I mentioned an upcoming post about our goats.  Well, this is it!  🙂

After battling weeds around our small farm and trying to find the best way to stay on top of them, my husband came up with a wonderful idea for a “weed management” program.  His thought was to find some goats with kids, let them munch away on things they enjoy while ridding us of what had become such a hassle – weeds!

We found a lady in our area that raises and sells goats (and sheep) and purchased two of her nannies with one kid each!  After we did some work on our fencing we were ready to bring our goats to their new home.  Let me introduce them to you!

This is Connie.  The moment I saw her I fell in love with her beard!  She is very shy but such a sweetheart.  🙂

This is Sally Mae, Connie’s little daughter who is now all grown up.

Then there is Lucy, our other nanny.  She has been our most friendly goat and is easily led around on a leash and such.  She follows us around and tries to eat out of the feed bucket all the time!

This is her son, Bernard, as a little guy and then as a two year old “wether”.  He is a gentle giant.

   I must say we have been very pleased with how well the goats have kept the weeds down and it was loads of fun to watch the baby kids grow up!  They are so cute when they are little!  Our children thoroughly enjoyed being able to “walk” them, wash them, feed them, etc…  In fact, things went so well with these four goats we found ourselves wanting to add more to our little herd.  After checking into several options, we decided to breed our female goats and (hopefully) have a few kids to raise!

Enter Raphael.  If you say his name with a roll it is rather fun.  Our daughter called him “Stinky Raphael”.  For those who do not know, as I did not, a billy goat can really stink!  Aside from not wanting to be downwind of Raphael, he was a very pleasant guest during his two month stay at our house.

He did his job well while at our house and provided lots of interesting and good discussions with our kiddos.  🙂  He was also very friendly and gentle with people.  A great billy for our nannies!

So, now we are in the final stages of waiting for the little kids to arrive!  It could be any time…we are just waiting and waiting!  The nannies look very pregnant, especially Connie!  She looks like she could pop!

  In the meantime, Bernard has been moved to the horse corral so the ladies don’t have to worry about him stealing their much needed food or being ornery to their babies once they are here.  He and the horse seem to be getting along just fine.  The ladies also remain full of life and have been seen “playing” with each other.

I look forward to sharing some pictures of the kids once they arrive!  I have no doubt they will be adorable!

I just have to give a huge shout out to the lady from whom we purchased our goats!  Her name is Monica and she has been a great resource for us as we navigate being goat owners!  Not only did we buy our goats from her but we also “rented” Raphael from her – one of her several billies.  She has willingly taken our phone calls and patiently answered our questions or given us pointers.  Should you be in the market for goats or sheep I would highly recommend seeing if she had any available.  Send me a note if you would like her contact info!

This is one of those posts I mentioned a while back…one about the drama associated with the feathered critters around our farm.  🙂

About two years ago our family decided to add chickens to our small farm.  Although we would be considered chicken novices, I know, without a doubt, that our chickens understand we are their friends.  From the start each little one has been around us, cared for, played with, and held often (especially by the kids) while we have been outside.

   Yet, the chickens have also had their fair share of scares during the last two years.

Although they have had run of the farm during the day, we put them in the coop at night, which also has an attached outdoor area with triple fencing!  After several episodes of finding only the feathers of a chicken IN THE COOP with no sign of a predator’s entrance or exit we set a live trap.  (apparently something was eating them through the fence!)  We were astounded to steadily capture 2 feral tom cats (very vicious and mean), 3 possums, and 5 raccoons over a period of time!  Oh my!  I could just imagine the drama in movie form which had been taking place at night.  Poor chickens.  I am thankful to say, we are well beyond that window of time!

The chickens have continued to enjoy roaming free during the day, interacting with us, following us around, chasing the cats away from their own food, etc…

Well, they had been running free until I went out to do the evening chores a few weeks ago and discovered one of our chickens dead, laying half eaten by our shed!  What?  What could have taken her?

Then I remembered one of our cats, Larry, catching my attention through one of the windows earlier that day.  He looked similar to this:

 I remember him intently watching something in a slightly crouched position.  I remember being surprised when he stayed that way for a long time.  I remember even going to several windows trying to see what had so fully captured his attention for such a lengthy amount of time.  Hmmmm  He immediately became our first suspect.  Yet, it didn’t make sense!  The chickens kinda push the cats around, they steer clear of the “ladies”.

After two days of looking suspiciously at Larry, the possible chicken killer, I again noticed him crouched to the ground watching something intently when I looked out one of our windows!  I immediately began trying to see what he might be watching.  I went from window to window looking from different angels.  Nothing.  Ugg!  He remained motionless, watching for such a LONG time!  I was determined to see what had captivated his attention!  It could be a link to what had taken Daisy, the chicken we lost a few days prior!

I never would have seen what Larry was watching had there not been some movement to give this critter away…but, it did move and I did see it.  I never would have thought of this being the culprit, but suddenly it all made sense!  It was:

a HAWK!

I told you we were novices when it came to chickens.  An aeriel predator never even entered our heads!  Poor Larry, and here we thought he might have done it!

Needless to say, the chickens went through a period of quarantine and were not allowed out of the coop for quite some time.  Thinking the hawks had by now forgotten all about our chickens, we decided to let them run around again.  Unfortunately, after only a few days of being out, we lost another chicken.  🙁  The hawks are sharp!  They are also everywhere!

I am sorry for the poor quality of the two photos above but they are the only ones I have been able to take.  I have tried and tried to get a tight shot of a hawk but they always fly away long before I get close.  Even with a telephoto I could not get a good shot.  🙁  Anyway, they are all over the place.  We see them on power poles, fence posts, hovering on the wind currents, and flying over fields.  While I realize a hawk must eat too, I just really wish they would leave our “Sweet Baby Chicks”, as we still call them, alone!

And that, my friends, is the current drama related to our chickens!

Today marks one week since pheasant season opened in our area.  You cannot drive anywhere without seeing blaze orange everywhere you look!  (For those of you who do not know, when you hunt pheasant you are required to wear the very fashionable, blaze orange – vest, hat, shirt, etc…)  People come from all over the place to hunt these wily critter.  My husband and I were among them until we moved into the area.  🙂  Unfortunately, I am sad to say, there are not as many birds to be found these days – there are many reasons why this is so.  Yet, seeing all this blaze orange and hearing the occasional “pop” of a shotgun has made me reminisce about the days we did much of the same.  It has also reminded me of a unique pheasant story I would like to share.

My husband surprised our family by bringing home two hens and one rooster pheasant a while back.  At that time the rooster did not look like he does in these photos.  He was very small and mainly brown and black.  We cared for our pheasants and gradually integrated them into the coop, where they joined the chickens.  I had my first, real look at what “hen pecked” means as poor Peasant the Pheasant lost feathers, cowered in the corner of the coop and seemed to cheer when all the “ladies” headed out of the coop for the day.  (We did not let the pheasants run loose.)  Well, as the days went by Peasant the Pheasant slowly grew colorful feathers, matured and would hold his own among the ladies.  When company came to visit, we enjoyed showing them the pheasants.  Such a lovely bird!  So colorful!  What an amazing creature God made!  Well, Peasant the Pheasant surprised us one day when we went into the coop to gather eggs – he attacked our legs!  What!  Where did that come from?  Did we startle him?  We knew something had to change when this happened time and time again.  He was becoming more and more aggressive.

After weighing the options, we settled on letting this amazing creature enjoy his freedom and return to “the wild”.  I took as many pictures as I could that day because I did not know when I would ever be this close to a pheasant again.  As my husband sat Peasant the Pheasant out in a field and we waited for him to discover that he was free, I took several of the photos you are seeing.

There was one thing we did not count on…he did not want to leave.  He slowly made his way back to the homestead area and headed for the coop.

He stuck around all day!  He seemed to think that the entire yard area belonged to him.  Whenever we went outside he would come running to attack us – the people who have cared for and fed him!  Go figure!  Our poor children were afraid to go outside since he was on the loose!  Peasant the Pheasant even went as far as to taunt the dogs (bird dogs we use to hunt this very fowl) while they were tied to leads.  Crazy bird!  That night my husband and I were weighing our options again, for this could not go on!

The next morning we were anticipating his attack when we stepped out to do chores.  Surprisingly, nothing happened.  Peasant the Pheasant was nowhere to be found!  (The kids were cheering from the doorway!)  Where did he go?  What was his fate?  I do not know.  Yet, I like to believe he is out running and flying free in the fields that surround our house.  When I hear the distinct cackle of a rooster pheasant I like to think it just might be Peasant the Pheasant, enjoying the freedom it took him a while to realize he had.

And I remain thankful that he is no longer around causing misery to us when we gather eggs and work around the house.  🙂

That, my friends, is the story of our Peasant the Pheasant.

Oh yes, his name:  Pheasant the Pheasant was decided upon because of an ongoing alliteration our family has when it comes to animals, i.e. Daisy the Dog, Petra the Pointer, etc..

Yes, this is a post about the eight legged, creepy-crawly things we call spiders!  Like most of you, I am not a fan of spiders.  Yet, as I was out and about the past several days I stumbled upon these two critters and was fascinated.

The first spider I am going to call a “banana spider” because it is yellow and black (I don’t know what it is really called – anyone want to enlighten me?).  I was walking through a field and saw some movement off to my left.  Pausing a moment, my eyes took in this large spider hard at work.  It was wrapping up the rather large grasshopper (below it in the pictures), making the web shake.  Amazed, I called the kids over to check it out with me.  While observing it all we had the “great idea” to catch another grasshopper and throw it in the web so the kids could watch the spider wrap it up.  (I know, poor grasshopper – but a spider has to eat too!)  After several failed attempts at tossing a grasshopper into the web (I am sure those grasshoppers took a deep sigh of relief and then cheered happily!) we finally got one to stick in the web.  Sure enough, the spider scurried over and began to wrap away.  Interestingly, the spider stayed still but turned the grasshopper around and around to wrap up it’s meal!  Then it went back to the center of the web to wait again.  Needless to say, the spider ate well that day, we are down two less grasshoppers to munch on the crops and we all learned a little something!  🙂

Actually, the second spider is not the focal point of the pictures.  In fact, I hardly noticed the spider at first.  It was the web the spider had painstakingly created that caught my attention!  I was out taking care of some chores as the sun was coming up and this web was backlit and highlighted in such a unique way!  I ran back into the house to grab my camera and returned to take a few pictures super quick!  As I was taking the aforementioned “few” pictures a bug landed in the web and the spider went to prepare it’s next meal.  Again, I know nothing about this type of spider other than it seems rather small to have such a huge web.  🙂  Hard working little thing though, huh?  This type of web is the kind I really dislike running into unawares – set up between trees, you can’t see it and you walk right into it face first – a very disturbing experience!  Thanks to the sun I did not walk into this web and was able to actually enjoy the lovely spin job of this spider!