Repeat....Repeat...or maybe a ReRun

A friend of mine asked that I post this blog. It is found among my other ramblings on Facebook. She has heard the story verbally so many times. Since she is not a FB user I'm posting it here for everyone. It is not to be used against me at dinner parties, happy hour or any other social occasion where laughing at Dawn would seem appropriate. I do lots and lots of things that make others laugh at me, this would only be added ammunition that would go to waste. Anyway...here it is...my recollection of the night the cat came a visiting....

Originally posted on Thursday, January 29, 2009.

MISSING DUCK

Ah the trials of life in the woods. Last week I was rudely awakened by the swquacking of the ducks. I'm guessing it was only one duck but she was loud and annoying. I tried to ignore it, thinking she was trying to fight off the drakes or get the best bed in the house. Turns out that wasn't the case at all. After several annoying minutes of the noise, I got my bum out of bed to see what the big deal was. Our duck's pen sits directly behind our bedroom and bathroom. They are in an enclosed pen about 12' long and 10' wide. The pen is made up of chain link dog panels and covered with mesh. It use to be open but we had a problem with an owl dropping in and getting snacks. The pen is about 8' from the backside of the house so it is easy to see from the bedroom and bathroom windows. I chose to look out the bathroom window, since I was getting out of bed I might as well take care of business while I'm up. I did remember to put on my glasses, I sometimes get the idea that my horrible eyesight will clear up with a couple of hours of sleep. I looked out the window and caught sight of a large tail moving from one side of the pen to the other. Even with my vision corrected I made an incorrect assumption as to what this animal was. I ran back into the bedroom and shook Shel awake and told her there was a coyote in the duck pen. Shel springs up and throws on some clothes and grabs the 9mm pistol from the nightstand and heads downstairs. She didn't say much to me, seemed a bit annoyed that she had to wake up so fast. Shel's wake up process is usually long and deliberate. As she is heading down the stairs I look again outside. It is then I notice that the coyote is not, instead it is mountain lion and he is frantically pacing the pen with a drake in his mouth. I see no other ducks and the swquacking has stopped. I run out of the bathroom and yell to Shelly that it is not a coyote but a cat. Shelly says, "Awh, I don't want to kill one of our cats." She's thinking it is one of the ranch cats, domestic short hairs. I squawk at her telling her it is a big cat, a mountain lion. She comes back up the stairs and gets a different gun. We look out the window together and try to come up with a plan. Shel suggests shooting at it through the screen but when I agree with her she changes her mind and takes the rifle outside. She opts to stand at the corner of the house on the deck. This puts her about 20' away. She asks several times if the animal is still in the pen to which I yell out of the bathroom window that it is. She finally takes aim and snaps off a shot at the big cat. The cat gets scared and is now frantically trying to find a way out of the enclosure. I yell at Shelly and tell her that she missed. Shelly yells back in argument. She fiddles with the gun and fires again. This time the cat finds a way out. The lumbering feline is over the fence and back up the mountain. Shelly comes back in the house, still amazed that she missed...twice. No matter I tell her, and head outside to survey the scene. I take the flashlight out and check out the house and the nesting boxes. No birds. I'm trying to figure out a way to break it to the child that we have lost birds....again. As I'm muddling through the fog in my head, Shelly speaks from the bathroom window, telling me that Gizmo the swquacking hen is behind the house. I check it out and see that she is there, seemingly unharmed. Shelly must come out now and help me retrieve the duck. When Shelly enters the pen she hands me the pistol. I've been out her with a flashlight in slippers with no clothes. I would have rather had a jacket or something a bit softer than a pistol. Anyway, Shelly moves the house and grabs the duck who has no objections. We start to head back to the house when I notice some black and white feathers under a pile of straw. I tell Shelly to wait, that I think I see Goosey. Shelly gets a tear in her voice when she asks if she's okay. I move the straw a bit and Goosey tries to hide more. Shel picks her up and we look again for the other duck. There are no more ducks. We assume that the cat feasted on one and that we caught him with the other. We run the girls into the house and check for holes. Goosey has some blood coming from her breast and between her wings. Not sure how to doctor a duck we set the two girls up in a dog crate for the evening and go to bed. Goosey ends up seeing the vet the next day. She gets a week of antibiotics and some staples. I get laughed at for bringing a duck to the vet. Gizmo is appears fine. Both hens get a lukewarm bath the afternoon after the ordeal and have to stay in the house until Goosey's staples come out. Having ducks in the house icky. They stink, they have feathers, and they make noise. The cats are fascinated and Bertha dog is annoyed. Shelly spends the week following the "attack" repeating her heroism about town and making excuses for why she missed a big target from such a short distance. We both intentionally leave out the fact that the pen was directly in line with the propane tank. We get through the week of giving a duck a pill and twice daily cleaning up stinky duck poo newspapers from the bottom of the dog crate. Everything is going swimmingly until yesterday. One week and one day after the backyard massacre, I'm in the bathroom and happen to glance out the window. I see this black headed duck sitting in front of the little house. He's just sitting there. It doesn't click with me. I'm getting angry with Shelly for not getting that darn dead duck out of the pen. I'm thinking this guy has been in there for a week and now it's going to be stinky. It takes a few moments for it to set in. This is not the dead duck. This is the duck that we thought was the appetizer. I yell at Shelly to come into the bathroom and look. She tells me my cream is in the cabinet...just kidding. She comes in and takes a peek out the window and then scampers outside to get the guy. The drake is fine, no marks. He is now inside with the girls helping to contribute to the smell. I have no idea where he was for a week. Jolene stated that it was a miracle, when she heard the news. I don't know about miracle, lately it just seems like normal stuff around here.

The ducks, all together again.

Will She ever leave for College?

Shelly and I have welcomed a new baby, Jemma into our family. She has curly black hair and HUGE ears. I think she got the ears from me. She doesn't like to sleep in at all, must have gotten that from Shelly. She loves her afternoon bottle and hates diapers. Lately she's taken to jumping off the back of the couch onto the island in the kitchen! Darn Kid! As much as I roll my eyes at Shelly when she insists on bringing another furry critter into the house, I love having a diaper clad kid racing up and down the stairs. It keeps life interesting.

Jemma catching a few Zs on the couch.

Along with Jemma, we are oohing and ahhing at Bridgette's little bundle of joy as well. Since he's a Boer X Saanen, we've opted not to name him as he may well end up being someone's main dish at a their summer BBQ....as much as I hate to admit it. I just can't keep them all.

Bridgette's little monster!

The Nubians are due in a few weeks as are the rest of the sheep, all just in time for warmer weather. We had a new calf born Easter morning. Gizmo the duck has been sitting on a fine clutch of eggs. I think she has about 12 days to go before anything hatches. The chickens have ramped up on egg production and are enjoying the warmer weather. I just started letting them out of the coop yard for the daylight hours. They have thanked me by producing nice big brown and green eggs. Seems like normal at the Ole Rancho!

Now if I can just get that kid out of diapers and out of the house! At least her college tuition will be cheaper than Jolene's.

Eggs, Chickens and Old Age!

BC

Busy days at the ranch. We are done with the first round of lambing and are now just waiting on a BIG bonus round in May. The Shelly ran up from the barn this morning to tell me that we had a visiting kitty in the llama/goat pen last night. Apparently it just passed through as no one is harmed or freaked out. The snow has been falling and temperatures dropping and eggs sales have been picking up so much so that I haven't had a any in a few days. Somethings wrong when all of your eggs are sold before you get out of bed for breakfast. This morning I either got lucky or someone wasn't paying attention. I opened up the fridge to find four eggs sitting without a crate in the diary bin. I got my pan ready, bread in the toaster. I banged the first egg on the counter top to crack the shell and.....found that it had been hard boiled along with the other three. So it turns out that I was the one not paying attention. I decided on egg salad instead of fried, I didn't really have a choice. Turns out it was a good thing, it made me remember the days of chemo and all the wonderful conversations Mama Nell and I had over a couple of sandwiches. After nearly having my fingers removed by Hound Dog as she lurched for the crust, I went downstairs and checked on the little critters. BC (Blind Chicken) had been moved into the house several months ago. BC is a wonderfully feathered Americuna chicken. She was left here at the ranch after the Nash fire a couple of summers ago. The Boss Lady took her to Phoenix ranch for a week or so and then returned her after we realized she was blind. She lived in with the layer chickens until she got herself stuck between two fences. When she was stuck the other chickens pecked a hole in her throat and when I found her I was sure she was a goner. I hauled her up to the house and let her live in a dog crate for a few days, I really thought that was all she had left. Chickens are amazing things, as I have come to found out. She healed up and was back to her chicken self again in no time. We put her back in the coop thinking things would be just fine. The other hens really believe in that "Survival of the fittest" thing. They took to pecking at her again. So we moved poor old BC up to the duck pen behind the house. She lived with the ducks with no problems. She got use to her surroundings and started laying eggs again. Several months ago when I went out to feed the ducks and BC, I found that she had roosted on the side of the stock tank that the ducks swim in. It happened to be very cold and she had become frozen to the lip on the tank. I used the blow dryer to thaw her off the tank. (I'm nuts and I know it, who else uses a blow dryer to thaw out their blind chicken?) I scooped her up and took her inside. Since we have every other animal living inside, I couldn't find a problem with one chicken. So, now she lives in the rabbit room in a stock tank. She has free eats, heat, water and love! She gives me a big green egg every day and sings to me when I go to collect it. She's reliable hen in her golden years, she's about 7 years old. I love BC and couldn't imagine putting her into a pot for Sunday soup. Yet....as I'm selling eggs to a customer the other day, the customer told me that she would buy BC and take her off my hands. I asked what she wanted BC for as she lives in town and can't have chickens. She told me that she would buy BC and any older hens for stew. OH! I politely declined, explained that I don't butcher my layers. Why would I butcher BC anyway? She gives me a HUGE egg, everyday. She's old but so am I. I do butcher chickens, that I raise from chicks. They live about 10 weeks here on the ranch. They are bred to be butchered. For the most part letting them live for 6 months is a really BAD thing to do. They have little hearts, big bodies and little feet. After 4 months they can't stand up. The don't fully feather and would freeze to death in our cold climate. They don't live long enough to lay eggs. I think keeping some breeds of butcher chickens too long is just mean. However, keeping BC right now is not mean. She is happy and healthy and giving. I understand ranch life. I hope that we are being HUMANE ranchers. As for BC....She will continue to live in the rabbit room until the green grass grows and then she will be back in the duck pen until the snow flies.

BC's Egg on the left.

And still....more babies

We had a lull in the lambing. Only a couple of days but still it was nice. This morning I was set on sleeping in and letting Shelly handle the chores. I had big plans to run to the post office and then to make some Queso Blanco from all the milk I have. Instead Shelly came racing back to the house to tell me that we have two new babies and one wasn't nursing. I reluctantly went to the barn to find a ewe with NO MILK. One lamb had tried to draw it out but just ended up a bit bloated and the other wasn't moving. I hauled them to the house, shoved some colostrum down their gullet and 10 minutes later I had two screaming lambs in the house. I'm now wishing they would just take a nap like a normal baby. UGH! I hate bottle feeding. We've given the ewe a shot of oxytocin in hopes her milk will let down, I only hope she will take the lambs back if she gets some milk.

Babies, Babies, everywhere!

About five months ago Shelly and the Boss Lady ventured to Ft. Collins to purchase about 10 more head of sheep to work the dogs on. The Boss Lady was so overcome with glee that by the next week we had 111 new sheep and a brand spanking new stock trailer. After three trips to the sale barn in Ft. Collins we finally got everyone tucked into pastures. Nine of the new sheep turned out to be rams. Over the course of four days all nine rams had come in contact with every single one of the ewes. So here we are, 151 days after the rocket launch! Friday while checking on ewes the hired hand came back to the house and announced the arrival of the first lamb of the season. Shelly and I went out to pluck it and mama ewe out of the pasture and put them in the nursery in the barn only to find two little wooly critters. We pulled ten other girls up to the barn as they looked like they had coming appointments with the stork as well. On Saturday morning I was up early getting ready to go to the kiddo's basketball game. I jetted down to the barn to check on the girls and found five new babies stumbling around. Sunday morning brought a singleton girl. All total we've got 8 little fuzz balls running around the nursery. Shelly finished the goat condo just in time, we've plenty of room in the barn for babies.

New Condo for the Girls....and MeMoo too.

Checking out the new condo.

Shelly had been working hard to complete a new house for the little Nigerians. The project was sidelined about a month or more ago, bigger and better things needed to be done. She's had some extra time this past week and was able to finish the goat condo. I was very excited when I walked down to the barn and got my group of girls and MeMoo too. MeMoo is a black and white wether who lives with the tribe of women. He fits in fine. Shelly finished just in time for a bit of snow. The girls seem happy with their new home, the heat lamps are an added pleasure.

Cinderella loves the easy access to the spool.

Catching up....Still, forever..Always

I've been terrible at trying to keep with things lately. The ranch is in forward gear and I'm struggling to keep myself from slipping into reverse. Oh well, such is life. A lot has been zipping. We had a wonderful holiday season. Shelly's family from Florida, sister and nephews joined us for the festivities. We were able to spend an afternoon tubing at Keystone. Tubing brings back many memories of my childhood. Near my hometown of Salida CO, is an old mountain pass that has the best tubing hill in the northern hemisphere. As a child I spent many, many Saturdays there with my cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. My Grandfather had a knack for finding huge inner-tubes. We'd pack nonsense food and Gramma's cookies and pile in Uncle Aubrey's El Camino or the old blue "Hippie Van" and head out. I've never been so cold and so happy at the same time. My memories of the good times were wrecked by tragic "now" times. Sometime after Christmas my young cousin, Josh was hospitalized with liver and kidney failure. He hung on for awhile but peacefully passed away on January 7th with family by his side. Just a short 10 days later my beloved Uncle Dennis passed away as well. It was fortunate that I was able to have a happy phone chat with Uncle Dennis a few days before his passing. For awhile now it seems the boatman has been collecting my family members in pairs. I've no idea the reason, nor will I ever. It seems that is just something I'm not to know in this life. I've no choice now but to remember the good times, the bad times, the ALL times.