Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘animals’

Diary #675

Horses are, in many ways, quite fragile creatures; there are so many ways to throw their health off-balance that it’s difficult to keep track of them all.  Last week I extended the paddock fence to enclose the north lawn, which means lots of lush, sweet grass for the animals to graze on; of course Shiloh doesn’t have the horse sense (sorry about that) to pace herself (sorry about that one too) in order to avoid colic, and that meant a bloated, gassy pony whining until she managed to poop, and then immediately going back and gorging some more.  She seems to have mostly adjusted now, but for a few days there I got rather tired of her complaining loudly all afternoon, every afternoon.  So I decided to force her to exercise in order to get things moving, and the quickest, easiest way to accomplish this was to annoy her into running away from me.  So for several days, I would periodically chase her, waving my arms as though they were tentacles and shouting, “RUN! FLEE! RUN!” and “Come back, I want to eat you!”  Naturally it worked, and I have the piles of pony manure to prove it.  Eventually she seems to have figured out that she didn’t need to stuff herself into sickness like an American at Thanksgiving, so I can probably skip the Demogorgon impressions for now.  But I must admit that I laughed like a hyena every time I did it for a few days there; sometimes it’s good to have a proper adult excuse for behaving like an imbecile.

Oh, and by the by, I lied in the second sentence; I’m not really sorry at all. 

Read Full Post »

Diary #674

Last week, I ran the barbed wire for the west side of the paddock extension, then on Saturday I ran the two lowest strands of the north side, taking them from the fence I’m phasing out.  Then yesterday I ran two more strands before moving the gate, pulling off the pig-panels and running the top strand of the new fence.  And as I expected, Jonathan was out there tasting all the new plants before I was even done, so I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and took a number of shots.  If you look closely, you can see that I hadn’t yet pulled out the old T-posts, but I did so not long afterward.  Shiloh was more cautious than Jonathan; she contented herself with standing barely past the old fence-line, nibbling the lush grass that I’ve intentionally left uncut this year because I knew I’d be doing this and wanted to let them have as much as they wanted.  And though Cicero doesn’t eat grass, he seemed delighted at all the new smells, and when it gets hot this summer he’ll have plenty of shade to nap in.

Read Full Post »

You’re gonna get lit up.  –  “Officer” Henry Trujillo

This week’s video was sent by Rikki de la Vega because she remembered that I like these sorts of things; this one especially reminded me of Jim Henson’s “Number Three Ball” and the Wintergatan.  The links above it were provided by Nun Ya, Cop Crisis (x4), Mike Siegel, and Winnie Pond, in that order.

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

Diary #673

Whenever I first close up the nursery for the year and force the new pullets to join the flock, they’re typically a bit reticent; this year was no exception.  Though I kicked them out almost two weeks ago, they spend all their time close to each other, typically hiding among the feed cans and only occasionally venturing out of the henhouse.  But this past weekend that finally changed; they’ve started to venture out to scratch in the dirt, and though they still stick close to each other (as you can see), they’re getting braver about being near the big hens.  For the most part, the hens (even the previously-troublesome blues) are leaving them alone; the only aggressive one is the oldest of the Ameraucanas, and she’s too old, fat, and slow to actually catch them.  Within a few weeks, even that will stop, and in about two more months we should start seeing some eggs from the young ‘uns.  Then next spring we’ll start the whole thing over again with three new chicks whom I’ll have to protect from the now-grown leghorns.

Read Full Post »

This is not rocket science, and it’s not an epidemic.  –  Jennifer Jenkins

This week’s video seemed the proper sendoff for BTO’s original guitarist Tim Bachman; the links above it were provided by Clarissa, Jesse Walker, Cop Crisis (x3), Marc Randazza, and Mike Riggs, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Read Full Post »

Go find a tree branch or something!  –  “Officer” Myles Foster

In my mind there’s only one proper song to honor the passing of Gordon Lightfoot; the links above the video were provided by Franklin Harris, Gustavo Turner, Stephen Lemons, Cop Crisis (x2), Scott Greenfield, and Radley Balko, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Read Full Post »

Diary #671

A few months ago, a pregnant stray cat turned up at Yellowbird’s house, and she gave her shelter until she had four kittens. Yellowbird named her Lilith, and she’s barely more than a kitten herself; in fact she and her kittens were all fixed at the same time.  There was no way she could have five cats in her small house, so she kept the two males and offered the two female kittens to Jae, who lost both of her cats to old age in the past year (the second just a week after we lost Aeryn).  That still left Lilith; Yellowbird asked if we could take her as our atrium cat, assuming she could get along with Rocky.  So I agreed, and she’s now been here just under two weeks.  She staked out her territory immediately, letting Rocky know in no uncertain terms who was Queen of the Atrium, and apparently laying a claim on me as well; whereas she seems merely tolerant of everyone else, she eagerly seeks me out for petting, even to the point of following me out into the paddock.  I’m told she’s a good mouser, so that’ll be nice too; Rocky seems to have gotten a bit lazy about it lately, so maybe this will keep him on his toes.  Anyhow, she’s been exploring the atrium and the yard, and I like her personality, so I reckon I have a cat of my own again for the first time since poor Friday passed back in 2015.  That’s how it is with me; I can’t just replace a beloved pet as some people can, but rather have to wait until it kinda happens.  It was four years from losing Sheena to getting Friday, and eight from Friday to Lilith.  And given her youth and my age, she’ll probably be the last one I call my own.

Read Full Post »

Diary #670

The last time I expanded the paddock, I thought for sure I’d at last given them enough room to have plenty of grass, but nope; within a month the new section was clipped as close as the rest. So I recently decided to expand it again, this time to the entire north lawn; in addition to the grass there being the most lush and green of any near the house, it also includes most of my apple trees so the animals will be able to enjoy fallen apples.  So on Saturday, Chekhov helped me set five new posts: two for the gate, one at the northwest corner of the house, and two more along what will be the northern fenceline.  I’ll run the bottom strands more closely together this time so I won’t need to Cicero-proof the bottom, and once the new fencing is in place we’ll move the gate from its current location to the area you can see at upper left in the picture below.  Then I’ll remove the old fence, and the paddock will stretch from the south side of the barn all the way around the house; I can recycle the current pig-panels into skirting to keep both Cicero and cold air out of the atrium basement.  So next winter it’ll be easier to keep the house and annex warm, and maybe at last the animals will finally have enough grazing area.

Read Full Post »

The gang list is absolutely asinine.  –  Tracey Mason

In observance of May Eve, here’s another Lovecraft video from the creators I featured last week; the humor in this one is both drier and darker, and does not entirely override the horror concept at the core of the story.  The links above it were provided by Walter Olson, Mike Siegel, Lucy Steigerwald, Greg Lukianoff, Cop Crisis (x2), and Radley Balko, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Read Full Post »

Diary #669

One thing about living on a small farm is, whenever anybody has some animal they no longer want (for whatever reason), they immediately think of giving it to me.  Now, that’s not really a problem when they take the time to ask; I like having animals around, and it gives the place character.  But sometimes they don’t bother to ask; they just find the nearest farm, ranch, or whatever and dump the animal there (which was how we ended up with Orville here and several dogs in Oklahoma).  This time, it was a goose and I was asked; last week Yellowbird texted to ask whether we could take it because the owners couldn’t protect it from coyotes which had started coming around.  So I said “sure”, and here she is.  So far she’s mostly just waddling around; she can duck under the gates (no pun intended) and spends most of her time either in the paddock or the west side of the house, hunting bugs in the grass (at least, I think that’s what she’s doing).  She seems cautious of the other animals right now, so she’s mostly keeping to herself, but yesterday I saw her pretty close to Jonathan so I guess she’s getting used to them.  Now if I can only figure out how to get her to consistently take a little poultry feed every evening, it’ll be nice to occasionally have a goose egg rather than chicken eggs with my bacon; I had one Friday and it was the size of three large hen eggs by itself, with a slightly richer flavor.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »