Thursday, February 25, 2016

Don't Try to Teach a Pig

My brother had a bumper sticker:
DON'T TRY TO TEACH A PIG TO SING
IT WASTES TIME AND ANNOYS THE PIG!

Well....

We lost a tree.  A beautiful tree fell over in looking at the tree I found a water leak they are not close enough that I think one caused the other.  The water line needed to be repaired and that meant turning off the water to the pigs for several hours.  

The pigs drink out of a nozzle not water bucket like the rest of the animals.  I did not have a way to use a nozzle without the water being on.  They do a set up at the fair but we are not showing our pigs so we don't have it. 
 In my infinite wisdom I decided to teach the pigs to drink out of the bucket. 

 I grabbed one pig and put it's nose near the water NOT even INTO the water and 
it squealed so
 badly the dogs came running, 
 
Luca saw it was me and started watching the perimeter of the pen.
Good dog.
the other pigs joined the squealing and started running around knocking the bucket over,
 the chickens started squawking, 
and I fell into the mud from the knocked over bucket.

The pigs survived 2 hours with no water without any problems.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Missing Cattle

One of my morning joys on a week off is getting up while the boys are sleeping and walking with the house dog outside and taking a short walk with him while letting Luca off his cable and checking on the other animals while the 3 dogs play.  That joy is cut short when I see the cattle fence is down and the cattle are nowhere to be found.  
I called and woke up Teen Son, while he went to get fodder and go off on the quad.  I ran into the house and woke up Stick Boy and our HelpXer.  So much for everyone's relaxing morning.  Teen son drove one way down the street and I went the other.  Then I went up the main road with fear in my heart and luckily didn't see any of the cows there.  Then I drove to the housing development that runs along part of our property and in a neighbors yard was a knocked over bronze horse and 7 bad cattle.  I knocked on their door but they wouldn't answer so I left my jeep with the keys in it in their driveway called the boys to let them know we found the cattle.  I grabbed a bucket of fodder and started walking home with the cows pushing and bumping me for more fodder.  We walked through 2 neighbors back yards then they heard Teen Son and ran for his fodder hoping he would give them more fodder than I would.
We put the cattle away and fixed the fence then I went to get the jeep and make sure the neighbors knew to contact me if they had any damage to their property.  

Oh Happy Mornings!

None of these pictures are of today.  I was more concerned with bringing the cattle home than taking pictures.