Morning

This time of year,  the routine is the same every morning and yet there is always something new.  

 

So many personalities ...... the possibilities are endless.

Boss of the barn

 

Carson,  our rescue cat,   is really starting to come into his own around here.  We love him and I think the feeling is mutual.  He's such a lovely boy and his personality is so sweet and affectionate.   Sadie,  wild girl that she is,  still pretends she is pushing him around,  but they both know it's just a game now.   Slowly,  slowly he decided to come out of the room in the barn where the cats sleep at night.  I let him pick his own pace for acclimation.  After all,  it's a big barn and there were lots of other critters around that I'm sure he'd never seen before.  For a week I left the door from the workroom standing open and each day he ventured a little further out.   He was quite timid in the beginning and kind of crept around investigating all the nooks and crannies.  The day he discovered the barn loft was the turning point.  He loves going up there.  In fact,  he turns into " Zippy Kitty " and " Boss of the Barn " when he's in the loft.   He and Sadie chase each other around and up and over the stacked up hay bales and he loves going up into the rafters.  He's even gotten brave enough to take a run at the peacock a few times.  I'm pretty sure he now knows he doesn't want to go there anymore.

Carson reminds me so much of my Buster cat.  Buster was not a rescue,  but was given to me at a time in my life when I needed to feel unconditional love .... and he certainly gave me that for many,  many years.   I'm so glad I just happened to be looking at the adoptable pets on the Friends of the Animals of Jessamine County website and saw Carson's picture ( the boy formerly known as Peaches,  no less ! ) .  I believe Carson is glad,  too.  He's part of our farm family now.

I'm impressed

Oh,  if only I'd known about the possibilities while Phoebe was alive !  I can't stop watching this ... and laughing !



My husband's cousin,  Vicky,  sent this along to him and he shared it with me.  I love this!

What's the world coming to?

I've given up on winter this year.  My daffodils are blooming and the forsythia is coming on strong.  It's too weird.  I don't seem to be able to conjure up any snow,  so I'm just going to enjoy the mild weather ( and hope that winter doesn't show up at the end of March,  when lambing begins  ).

I have lots of little rituals and my own methods of doing things around here that can appear to be awfully random to the casual observer ( and my husband ).  For instance,  the way I feed hay.  Mornings and evenings I pull the hay cart out into the field and put down flakes of hay for the sheep,  llamas and alpacas.  There is some waste from feeding on the ground,  but it is preferable to having the sheep pull hay out of the feeders and down on their neighbor's head.  It certainly would be easier to feed from big roll bales,  but there is no way to keep the fleeces clean and having clean fleeces is very important to me.  I like to put hay out in a different location every day,  to have fresh ground under the hay.  When the weather is not unpleasant,  I go as far out into the field as I can stand to push the cart and then,  when the weather is nasty,  I have cleaner spots up close to the gates,  where I can quickly unload the hay.  Since we have had very little unpleasant weather,  I'm now going way,  way,  way out.  Pretty soon I'll be in the "back forty" !   Sometimes the hay is so far away from the gate that the sheep have trouble seeing it and I have to lead them half way there before they spy it.

Last fall,  I was worried that we might not have enough hay to get us through the winter.  We ended up buying extra and are now going to have plenty to get us through.  Of course,  if the weather continues to be strangely warm like this,  I can stop feeding hay and will have to start mowing the grass !!