Horsing Around

On my quick trip to the mainland, I stopped by my friend's farm to meet her new horse and catch up on the latest gossip from my former place of employment. Of course, I took the opportunity to get some pics of both her horses, Dobby and Haven. I was so stunned by Haven's gorgeous markings that the names of her two dogs, also shown below, have completely slipped my mind. Siska and Nicki???? Me bad!

Dobby is a lovely dark chestnut brown colour with black mane and tail. His claim to fame is obviously as a spy - he likes to peer through the chinks in the barn wall and check what's going on in the other stall:




He's a very sweet boy, a bit less forward or flirty than the newcomer, Haven, but more of a gentleman.






Haven is just a big flirt, quite prepared to nibble away at my hair, nuzzle my neck, or give me a love pat - er, thunk - when I'm not paying enough attention to him.



I love, love, love the markings on his rump! (I told him if he didn't behave, he would make a mighty pretty hide on the wall! Just kidding, Haven, just kidding!).







And his mane and tail - Haven, do you realize people pay big money to get their hair streaked like that???



Farms are great places for photoshoots, and for the most part the natural light accomodated me. Barns are one of my favourite places - to hang out, breathing in that unique combination of hay and straw and manure and animal sweat, or to photograph old weathered wood in sunlight:






And what is a farm without a couple of dogs - though Samoyeds might not be the first breed that comes to mind for life on a farm! How the heck do you keep all that white fur clean????? These two obviously enjoy life, though, and seem to have a smile permanently fixed on their faces:







Thanks for the farm-fix, Luanne. It was a refreshing break in an otherwise hectic and stressful trip.

The Good, the Bad and the Downright Ugly

Good: The weather is milder and the precipitation is rain, not snow.

Bad: All the snow slid off the barn roof last night, forming a four foot high pile around the barn and effectively blocking ALL entrances. That meant shoveling a tunnel through it in order to access the pigs this morning. And today I need to move some of the snow from the big barn door and the pig yard so the pigs can get outside for a little exercise, light, and fresh air. They have been cooped up for too long.

Good: My house is almost back to normal, save a few Christmassy things to be carried up to the attic, and the outdoor lights which will have to wait until the snow is gone.

Bad: The knee high slush everywhere makes feeding Martin the alpaca even more difficult, especially since he refuses to move off the path into the deeper snow so I can get by with his food and water. He kicks out with his wicked back feet whenever I try to shoo him over or slip past him to reach the stable. Today I just dumped his straw and grain on the path in front of him and told him to get a life! Bad alpaca! Bad mama!

Good: I have the most awesome slip-on boot treads from Lee Valley that prevent slipping and make it easier to walk on the frozen slush leading to the barn.

Bad: The boot treads only fit my SHORT bog boots, which are not sufficient for the deeper areas of snow. My tall, winter farm boots are great for the snow but a lot larger even though, technically, they are the same foot size as my bog boots.

Good: The milder weather means the animals, all the animals, are breathing easier. Birds are hovering around, the coyote is back to his hunting, the dogs are chomping at the bit to get back into the field.

Bad: The cold and snow and now flooding have driven the rodent types into the dirt crawl space beneath the house – I can hear them chewing in the walls at night. I can’t reach the access, which is outside and buried under a ton of wet, heavy snow, and even if I could I’m not sure what I will do. Poisonous bait, while a sure fire way to resolve the problem, is a cruel way to die and dangerous for the other animals who might eat the carcass.

Downright Ugly: Dead rats/squirrels/mice in the crawlspace or walls ummm…well……to put it politely…..STINK! Which means I need to get the rodents out of the crawlspace before they die - or multiply, for that matter, which will cause a bigger problem.

Good: The university is closed this week, which means I don’t have to leave home if I don’t want to.

Bad: Classes start in one week, and I have a course I haven’t taught for a few years, and which now has a new text with quite a different focus. I better get busy researching and rewriting my lecture material.

Good: I am in my usual “start the new year off by simplifying” mode – seems like this time every year I get really ruthless with reducing and recycling stuff that I don’t really need/don’t use/don’t want/doesn’t fit/ etc. I have a real boost of high energy and just want to clean, sort, sort, clean, reorganize, sort, run to thrift store, clean…..

Bad: Repeat: Classes start in one week, and I have a course I haven’t taught for a few years, and which now has a new text with quite a different focus. Forget the reducing and recycling and get on with the rewriting!

Good: Christmas is over and life gets back to normal.

Bad: Christmas is over and life gets back to normal.

Global warming is an urban myth!

'Cuz there sure isn't any "warming" going on around here!!! BRRRRR! I don’t remember winters this cold when I was a kid. Maybe it is just because I was a child then with child sensibilities – the thrill of sledding on the wooden sled my dad made for me, or getting to wear long pants under my skirt to walk to school (though we had to take the pants off once we got there), or building snowforts and pelting my brother with snowballs. Now as an adult with adult responsibilities, I am far less amused.

It was minus fifteen in the barn this afternoon. It's supposed to get colder still over the next couple of days, with a wind chill factor of minus 23 tomorrow. And that's according to the weather forecast - the winter temperatures up here in the hills are usually about five degrees colder than the "official" reports.

Once again I have added more bales of straw to the piggies' stall in an effort to keep them warm. The straw breaks down quickly and piggies are very sensitive to cold. I have two bales left and so I must go on the scrounge again or fork out $12 - $16/bale from the local supplier and haul them home four at a time (which is all my vehicle will hold).

I have put a large tarp over the big double barn door to eliminate the wind, which is picking up again tonight. I hauled warm water to the barn four times today – the piggies can’t get enough of it, and it chills and freezes within a couple of hours. Even Martin the alpaca is inhaling the warm water. Next I will be making them hot chicken and dumpling soup – my personal comfort food for cold nights and winter days. I would make the pigs hot oatmeal, but oatmeal is something I have never learned to cook as it is one of the few foods I really don't like!

Even the dogs have finally started refusing their run in the pasture. Oliver is game, but Belle only leaves the house to do her business, and today Charley and Sadie were both crying and picking up their frozen feet within a few yards of the pasture gate.

So tonight we cocoon in the house and hope that this cold snap will soon end. If I wanted to live in a place with cold winters, I would have stayed in the Northwest Territories!

Stay warm, everyone.

In a dark barn on a cold, rainy evening

There is always a good side to having a bad week in which the computer crashes, the truck breaks down, and the camera dies. When the problems are fixed and the crisis is over, the experience of being back to an ordinary level of stress is truly energizing!

The dark and rain of winter’s early night sent the dogs flying back indoors after their evening constitutional. They weren’t about to wait outside or on the cold concrete floor of the garage while I fed the pigs and tidied up the stalls. And so, with the dogs safely in the warm, dry house, I spent some time sitting with the piggies, singing to them in a dark barn lit only by the dim glow of a flashlight.

Scotch LOVES to be sung to. His body immediately relaxes, he rolls over with his head near my lap and his belly by my hand. He softly “oof oof oofs” as if humming along. Several of the pigsters also love the sound of music – the cadence and rhythm of the voice seems to settle them like a lullaby settles a sleepy babe. They snuggle into the fresh straw and the wool blankets, and they snuffle and wiggle and snork. (I know “snork” isn’t a word, but it describes the sound they make – not really an oink, not really a grunt, not really an “oof” – it is a “snork!”). One or two will jump back up and run to the water dish or trot into the feed stall to make sure no one has left a piece of grain or a morsel of pumpkin.

I sit with my back against the smooth pine slats. I listen to the rain on the metal roof, drumming in accompaniment to the soft vocalizations of the pigs and I. It is soothing, it is restful, and I feel the last of the stress slide from my body and dissipate into the soft earth of the stall floor.

I often wonder how the younger generation, with their apparent need for constant noise and motion and steady stream of micro-bytes of colourful visual information flashing at them nonstop, how they ever manage to clear their minds, to relax their bodies, to just let go and be one with their universe.

I could not be fully human without my connection to nature, to this incredible universe of which we are a part. I would be no more than another piece of technology, acting without thought and without appreciation, if I could not at times escape to breathe in the scent of the barn, if I could not gaze at the distant mountains, if I could not feel the animals nearby, if I could not take this time for myself. It is what breathes life back into me after the modern world has sucker-punched me in the gut. It is what keeps me strong. It is what keeps me sane. It is what reminds me of the truly important things in life, and gives me space to clarify my goals, my sense of purpose, my raison d’etre.

In the words of American naturalist and essayist John Burroughs: “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”

An hour in a dark barn on a cold, rainy evening, warm piggies all around me, and my senses are back in order, and I am soothed and healed.

Escapades in the Barn

(Photo by Red Dog Photography)

The temperature dropped significantly late yesterday afternoon, and poor Scotch was tugging blankets over him in an attempt to get warm. He really hates the cold. It doesn’t take much for one dozen potbellied pigs to break down the three bales of straw I put in there last week, especially when the piggies get wet and muddy, so I took pity on him and decided to add another bale to the end at which he was trying to sleep.

The challenge is to lug a fifty pound bale of straw into the piggy stall without letting ten nosy pigsters and one pushy mama out into the main part of the barn. In morning light, this is not too hard as I put something tempting outside and close the barn door. But it was already dark, the piggies had already been fed, and they were settling in for the night.

Since most were snuggled down in the straw, I foolishly took the chance of opening the stall door, bale in arms. As I am only 5’1”, and the gate is about 4’8” and the bale of hay extends past my head, I am working by touch alone. Just as I manipulate the latch and stumble backwards to swing the gate open, I feel a piggy dart through my legs and make good his escape. Spritzer! Oh no!

I dump the straw, slam the gate to block the others who are now on full alert in case their scout squeals that food has been found, and try to figure out how to get Spritzer back in the stall. Unlike well trained dogs, piggies don’t sit and wait patiently while people open gates. When faced with an immobile obstacle in their path and a human behind them, they panic. They have an intense fear of being trapped – it is the nature of animals who are prey. So when I went to the far end of the barn where Spritzer was checking out the bales of hay and tried to shoo him back toward the stall, he raced at top speed to the closed gate and then raced, squealing, back to the far end of the barn again, knocking over a half dozen plastic bins and an empty garbage can enroute.

Of course, this was all occurring in a very dark barn by the light of a flashlight - the very amateurish electrical wiring in there died a final death last week.

I decided I was going to have to distract all the other piggies, including poor Scotch who had finally gotten his blankets pulled over him just how he likes them, unfortunately right by the stall door. I needed to open that gate to let Spritzer go in of his own accord.

Peanuts! I had one bag of peanuts left from the generous supply Lynda had provided at Misty’s celebration dinner. I tossed peanuts into the feed stall, the “lobby” area between stalls, and the far end of the sleeping stall, and watched as nine piglets and one Mama Soda greedily tore into them. Scotch elected to stay in bed but batted his eyes and lifted his snoutie to me to say "Foster Mama, just put a few of those peanuts right here by my snout, would ya?" And of course, I did. Spritzer would figure out a way to either clamber over him or go around.

Meanwhile, Spritzer had returned to the hay at the other end of the barn, where he was busily munching his way through a nice fresh bale. I approached him with a handful of peanuts, which thankfully have much higher treat value than hay in the minds of piggies. I slowly enticed him back along the length of the barn, opening the gate when he came within about eight feet of it. Hearing his brothers and sisters noisily squabbling over who had the most, the biggest, or the tastiest peanuts, Spritzer trotted in, scooted around Scotch’s back end, and joined the melee.

I breathed a sigh of relief, locked the stall door, and turned to depart……and fell smack over the bale of straw that I had dropped when Spritzer escaped. A bale of straw that was still on the wrong side of the stall.

Looking back at Scotch, and seeing him still cozy under his wool blanket, I decided the pigs would be fine for one more night and that extra bale could go into the stall in the daylight hours tomorrow.

G’night piggies. Sweet dreams.

Who's dat on OUR ROOF????????

RobRoy: I tink it might be SANTY CLAWS!!!!



Whisper: No, silly, Chwistmas isn’t for anuver couple of months!

Toddy: Well, maybe he’s just doin’ a dry run, checking where all the chiminineys are?

Lizzie: I don’ts think so…….he came last year so he knows where our chimininey is .

Martin the Alpaca: Maybe it’s the BIG BAD WOLF!!!




Piggies: OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! HELP! FOSTER MAMA! MAMA SODA! PAPA!!!!! THE BIG BAD WOLF IS ON THE ROOF!!

Foster Mama: Silly piggies! It’s not the big bad wolf. It’s the Big Good Jim. He’s putting a new tarp on your roof to keep you all DRY when it rains and snows! He’s a friend of the Piggy Lady from Hearts on Noses; she arranged for him to come here.

Piggies: Oooooh!! That waz vewy nice of her! An’ vewy nice of him, too! We will like having a nice dry barn.

RobRoy: Awww…. I wanted it to be Santy Claws.

Mama Soda: Well, if you are all very good little piggies, I’m sure Santy Claws will come visit you in about eight weeks from now. And in the meantime, you can enjoy your nice dry bed with the fresh sun-warmed blankets that Foster Mama has put down for us. Good night!

Piggies: Good night Mama Soda. Good night Papa. Thank you Piggy Lady and Foster Mama and Mr. Jim. We will sleep tight now.

Uh oh......we's in BIG TWOUBLE!!!

Ummmm......we finks we is in BIG twouble!!! Reawwy BIG twouble!!!! Our Foster Mama is NOT happy wiv us tonight. No siree. Not one widdle bit.

Foster Mama stayed up vewy vewy vewy late last night, till two-firty, marking papers. Then she gots up again this morning early cuz she forgots to tell Belle not to sound the sheltie alarm at o-dark-firty like she always does. So Foster Mama was pretty tired all day today. An' she went to the unityversity to teach an' it waz gettin' late an almost dark an' we waz hungry. It was 'way past our dinner time. But we fixed that. We helpeded ourselves!

When Foster Mama camed home, she let the dogs out of the house and then headed to the barn. She heard us before she saw us. Or she heard us before she saw this:




An' this:

Those garbage bins was all fulls, waitin' to go to the dump. They nots full no more - we waz doin' her a favour!!!! We emptied them an ate up as much as we coulds. Now she won't hafta pay to dump them! We even licked all the papers clean!

We also ates up the nice big watermelons that were hidin' in the big Wubbermade totes:

An we ates a tote an' a half of apples too:

Umm....we dids dent some big tins that held tweets, an' got the lids off the alpaca food an' even off one of our grain bins, so I guess we made a bit of a mess. But we cleaned it up by dumping a five gallon pail of water on the floor to wash away the watermelon and apple joose.

Foster Mama isn't sure how we got out into the main part of the barn from our stall, cuz our gate was still latched. We didn't tell her that we wiggleded it opens and then we pusheded it shut again wiv our cute little patooties.

We was scared when Foster Mama came in, even though she didn't yell at us. She just groaned. Loudly. An' groaned some more. An' said "Ohhhhh you piggies! What have you done???!!!".

We all ran in every direction but we couldn'ts get back into our pen 'cuz every time Foster Mama opened it, sumbody would crash around an' bump it shut again. Foster Mama couldn't get it to stay open 'cuz of all the containers we'd spread around everywhere. We was panicky. One of us even twied to climb through the slats. He jumped up onto these two split rails which is a foot above the floor.

He gots stuck!!!! Foster Mama was vewy scared he was gonna break a leg, but he managed to get hisself outta there and we was all standing on all four legs later so she thinks he's okay.

When Foster Mama moved the tubs an got the gate to the stall open, Mama Soda stood there and waited while all us liddle piggies raced back to safety. These three of my bruvers were the last to go in - they was in the furthest corner of the barn and vewy scared. They was tryin to be brave an' to pretend they didn't do nuffin':

"Wasn't us! Reawwy!!! We didn't do nuffin'!"

But foster mama gave them lots of room and they raced back to the stall and then Mama Soda told us we should ask nicely for our dinner.

Foster Mama said "NO DINNER FOR YOU!!!!" so we all stood vewy, vewy, vewy still and were very quiet while she fumbleded around in the dark trying to clean up the mess.

Martin is mad at us cuz he didn't get no dinner since it was all dark in the pasture an' he had given up an' gone back to his favourite campin out spot. The dogs is mad at us cuz they didn't get to go out in the pasture cuz it was vewy dark when Foster Mama waz finished. Foster Mama is mad at us cuz we made a lot of work an' we scared her an' besides she was wearin' her most favouritist light tan cotton pants an they not very light tan no more.

Foster Mama sat on a container an' looked at us through the slats.

After a liddle while, we said

"You still mad at us, Foster Mama????"

An' then we said

"We's vewy sowwy Foster Mama."

We saw a liddle smile on her face an' then she laughed an' we laughed ha ha ha and then she got us some food and put us all to bed. And that was our vewy adventurous day.

Don't tell foster mama..tee hee.....but....tee hee hee....Bwhaaa haaa hhhaaaaaa...

WE HADS LOTS OF FUN TODAY!!!!!!!

An' now we hear her comin out of the shower so we best gets back to bed and go to sleeps. G'night All.

Love, Toddy, Fizzy, Lizzie, Rickey, RobRoy, Whisper, Tom, Spritzer, Swizzle, and Derby (an our mama and papa, Scotch and Soda).

Noah! Send help!

The barn is floating away....well, maybe not quite but I do believe we could use a carpenter like Noah to build us an ark. I've had no time to make arrangements to get the roof, doors and gutters fixed, nor to supervise anyone onsite (I don't trust strangers around my critters!), and so it has been left undone.
And now I am paying for it with stress and worry. The water is pouring into the garage all over my tools, part of the ceiling looks ready to come crashing down, the thinly tarped straw and hay and alfalfa is getting wet from both above and below (I KNEW there was a reason to only buy one bale at a time), the water is washing across the floors under the tarps, into the piggy stall...........yikes.

Let's see....how can I put a positive spin on this?
As long as it is raining, the pipes in the barn won't freeze.
I don't have to worry about the well going dry.
I have a good excuse not to clean the piggy yard - it is a foot deep in thick mud.
I really needed to throw out a lot of stuff in the barn anyway.
It will help me get my priorities straight.
I can take it as a lesson about procrastination.

In other news: Oliver had his checkup today. His mouth looks awesome, his butt looks awesome (Oliver is blushing!), but his - ahem - balls, not so awesome. Apparently the size of the tumour that was removed left a lot of skin behind that is not shrinking and is still swollen and hot. We have him on another antibiotic and will return in another week. If it doesn't go down by itself, he may need another operation to remove the scrotal sac. Meanwhile, he has to keep wearing the dreaded cone. Oh, and GOOD NEWS - all the tumours from both the testicles and the butt end were benign and localized.

And that's all for now. My sister has just arrived for a photography conference, my students are awaiting their midterm marks and their assignments, and the dishes are waiting to be washed.

Hmmm...maybe I could just spread the dishes out on the leaky barn floor.