For those of you not personally acquainted with us, we have three children (all girls) and four grandchildren (all girls).  Three of those four grandgirls are sisters who live within driving distance.  I refer to them as the Three Sisters.  This weekend, we were fortunate to have them come play with us here at the farm. 

The girls were able to do all of their favorite things!  They drove the golf cart, and drove the golf cart, and drove the golf cart… You get the picture!  Good thing they got that out of the way on Saturday because by Sunday, it was muddy……. again.

They ate their favorite foods, both at our house and at the Dairy Queen!  They went to the Farmersville feed store with Papa Ken, and to Atwoods with me where they got to play with (more) baby rabbits and hold the baby chicks.

Papa Ken and I started putting together the dog kennel (although the rain and the tangled arrangement of the chain link prevented us from finishing it).  This will be handy to keep Buddha and MudBud from going on unauthorized adventures outside the fence when we have workmen coming in and out.  The Welder is going to be starting a fence for me soon to make a place for the alpaca herd that will be increasing in size substantially this summer, and then he’ll be helping me build some new goat shelters.

I had to just shake my head at my poor dirty goats.  I think these animals roll in the dirt just for fun!

The girls and I also had some fun in the Bunny Barn.  It was a bunny free-for-all while I cleaned cages.  First we let all the girls out to run around; then we let all the boys out!

Finally, once it stopped raining on Sunday, we put away 30 bales of hay that we hope will get us through the rest of the winter. There was no prayer of getting Randy’s truck and trailer into the back pasture where our hay storage barn is, so we ended up loading it into our livestock trailer which we have parked in front of the house. Not much use having a building for hay storage when you can’t get to it, an issue we still have to work out!

All in all, I think the girls had a fun weekend in the country.  They took home a dozen fresh eggs they had gathered from the chickens, and a bag of rabbit poo for Ms. Patti’s garden. Mostly, they ran in the fields, tromped in the mud, played with the animals, ate lots of favorite foods, and provided lots of joy for their grandparents!

We had a busy weekend here on the farm. Poor Ken has to go to work tomorrow to get some rest!  Here are the hightlights, with pictures!

Took Buddha and MudBud to the vets to get heartworm tested and shots. No picture for this adventure. They had never been off the farm before, and they were scared to death! It worked out okay, though. They got what they needed and we brought them home.  Public Service Announcement:  If you live anywhere near Greenville, please support Cause for Paws, a low cost cat and dog vaccination and spay/neuter clinic.  They are FANTASTIC! Moving on….

Stacked the Sudan hay that had been sitting in the livestock trailer into the barn.

Got the Suburban stuck in the mud.  Both ways.

Drove to Celeste and bought 30 more bales of hay.  Went to the feed store and bought straw (for bedding), sheep & goat feed, puppy food, and pallets to stack the additional hay on. Decided against trying to drive the Suburban/trailer back through the mud to unload the hay. Hope to have some sand delivered on Monday that, when spread, will help with the mud.

Drove to Merit to meet “Bear” at our friend Astrid T’s house.  Astrid operates a rescue home for livestock guard dogs, donkies, and who knows what else.  She also has a nice looking herd of angora goats, some horses, and about a million chickens, roosters, and guineas.  She has 50 acres, a lovely place, so we enjoy going to see her.  Bear is a recent rescue acquisition, and she’s willing to let him come live with us as soon as he has had his shots, is heartworm tested, and is fixed.  He’s so very sweet. He will be Buddha’s new companion in the big pasture.

Okay — I think that was it for Saturday, except I also cleaned some rabbit cages. (Use your imagination. I don’t think you really need a picture.)

Sunday, we started out with more cleaning up. Swept and raked the main barn. Cleaned more rabbit cages. Thought we should tidy up because……….. we were having company! Hank and Ty were coming to visit (sons of DeDe who is a former teaching colleague, and a friend of Stephanie’s who is also a good friend and former colleague of mine and who came with.)

Hank held a bunny, and petted some of the others.

Then Hank gathered eggs.

Then Hank petted the sheep. He petted some goats also, but he liked the sheep best.

The sheep also really liked Hank!

Ty was not in a very good mood except when he was chasing the chickens (we had to spoil his fun with that), so there are no pictures of Ty.

After our visitors left, we drove into McKinney, did a little shopping [not Christmas shopping, I'm afraid - vacumn cleaner and screen door shopping], ate a little supper, went to the grocery store, and got home just in time to feed.

Then it was time to start Mercy’s haircut. Why cut this poor rabbit’s hair in the winter, you ask? Well, rabbits groom themselves by licking their fur (like cats). When their fur is long, and loose, they ingest it. Unfortunately, rabbits can’t hack up a furball like cats can (gross, huh), so fur the the rabbits ingest can actually cause a blockage in their digestive system, and death. Mercy was showing me signs that she was ingesting too much of her fur, so rather than let her keep her winter coat, I took it! No worries, though. Mercy lives inside and will not get cold, and I have very special plans for her fur coat.

Last, but not least, I sat down to spin.  I’m spinning a very special yarn that I will knit into a luscious scarf — something I’ve been commissioned to do by a customer who needs it to give as a Christmas present.  No pictures here! I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise! On that note, I better get back to it!

Here are my Top-1o hints that you are well on your way to becoming a Farm Girl, based on personal experience!

1.  The only store you shopped at on Black Friday was Tractor Supply.

2.  When buying this season’s boots, your biggest decision was whether or not to get steel toes.

3.  You have successfully backed a livestock trailer into a parking space (at least once) Yes, it still counts even if luck and lots of space on either side had something to do with your success.

4.  When Quicken prepares a pie chart showing you where all your money goes, the largest slice of the pie is the category Farm Animals: Feed.

5.  You can drive to at least 3 different feed stores without asking for directions.  I can actually find 4 <patting self on back>.

6.  You can stack 19 bales of hay in a short bed truck with a tool box AND drive home without losing any of it.

7.  You would rather be driving your daughter’s 19?? older pickup with a standard transmission and not one bit of automaticity or electric anything than your own 2007 completely decked out Suburban.

8.  You know the difference between driving gloves and drivers gloves (no apostrophe in “drivers” — go figure), and where to buy each.

9.  Your favorite purse came from the feed store.

10.  And my very favorite, thanks to my friends Cindy and Terri, animal poo and parasite load are acceptable topics of conversation in your circle of friends!

Here is my Top 1 hint that you’ve not completely lost your city connections:

1.  In addition to 4 feed stores, you can also drive to at least 4 Starbuck’s!

Ken stayed home today and, thanks to the flexibility of my daughters, we had a pick-up to drive, and a man to see about getting some hay!

Chad Boone lives between Farmersville and Princeton.  At one time a very busy construction worker, he is now a very busy hay farmer with 100 acres that he plants in Coastal Bermuda or Hay Grazer hay.Hay Grazer is a hybrid of Sorghum and Sudan grass that is very sweet and we’ve been told that the goats love it. It also has a thicker blade and we’re hoping it won’t get down into the animals’ fleece quite as badly as does the thin blade hay.

Chad was an absolute delight to visit with and we learned so many things from him.  When he’s not working construction (which he still does from time to time), or planting or cutting hay, or constructing things around his own place, he also produces organic fertilizer which he sells in containers from a 1 gallon jug to those big plastic cubes full that you see sitting in the beds of pickups from time to time.  He didn’t give away his secret formula, but I know it involves composted horse manure and pure blackstrap molasses!

For us, however, Chad was the man to see about hay.  He proceeded to load 19 bales of Hay Grazer in the short bed of Jamie’s truck, and we were off toward home. I’ll admit I was somewhat trepidatious. I had visions of a bale of hay flying off the back of the truck and into a following vehicle.  But Chad knew what he was doing, and we made it home just fine.

A big of ingenuity and a piece of scrap plywood helped us drive through a soggy part of our goat pen and out to the big barn in the back where we store the hay.  It took no time at all for the goats and Rascal to figure out what was on the back of our truck, and for us to realize we weren’t going to have any trouble with the animals not liking the new hay!  In fact, at one point, I had to coax a goat down off the top of Jamie’s truck!

Eventually we managed to shoo the goats away, or more accurately from one side to the other as Ken prepared a place and unloaded the truck.  Note to self: Before bringing hay home next time, put the hay eating critters in pens.  Once almost all the hay was unloaded, we drove back into the big pasture, loaded the big hay feeder onto the back of the truck, and drove it out to the new animal shelter.  Ken tossed two bales of hay into the feeder, cut the wire on them, and we were set.  Now the goats in the big pasture could finally get a taste of what the other goats had launched into eating off the back of the pickup!

P.S.  Thanks Jamie for letting me use your truck this week! I hope you’re enjoying driving your sister’s Honda Pilot while she and her family are in Iowa driving my Suburban.  I don’t know why she was in such a tizzy at the thought of my hauling hay in the back of her car. Very narrow minded of her, huh?