Stories of life on our farm in Northwest Georgia where every day is an adventure in this beautiful spot that God has entrusted to our stewardship.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Catching up


It looks like the only thing that has happened so far in November is that I made a tortilla and we played with Charis.  Actually, a lot else has happened, and I have to catch up!  So let's backtrack to November 2 . . .
Our new Kubota tractor arrived! Can you tell we're excited?  Hero's excited too, but then again, he's excited about everything!  Zephyr was over meeting the man who delivered it.  A bit of tractor vocabulary for you city-slickers:  That orange scooper thing on front of the tractor is a loader.  It can come off and be replaced by a hay spear, a three-pronged weapon for spearing deep into round hay bales.  The red thing behind the tractor is technically a rotary cutter, a kind of tow-able mower, but pretty much everyone calls it a bushhog, a big brand name.


As the delivery truck disappeared down the driveway, we took off the loader, put on the hay spear, and started moving three moldy bales of hay out of the barn.  We had man-handled those 1,000-lb+ things in there by hand and were SO excited not to have to get them out the same way!  They will serve as ground cover/mulch in areas where we have gotten some erosion.


That done, Herb put the loader back on (to help balance the tractor, for you CS's) and headed out to bushhog the back pasture.  The photo at left was taken with me standing below Kara's house.  You can see how steeply that hill drops off and then rises again in the back pasture.  We are glad Buddy Boykin over at Kubota gave us the widest, most stable tires available!  This tractor and bushhog handle differently than the ones in Alabama, so Herb took it slow at first.  You could say it's a steep learning curve!  It's got a glide-shift, too, so you don't need to clutch it--something else to adjust to.  But Herb couldn't wait to hurry home from school each day and get out there.  Hero put on more miles than the tractor did, running circles around Herb.  I tried to keep Zephyr up at the house as much as possible, as she isn't tall enough to see very well when you're backing it up.  :(


On the 5th, I got both these eggs!  I know the one on the right is Gypsy's.  I know Esmerelda's are large and brown, and Pepita's are small and pinkish.  So, the one on the left must be Victoria's!  Hooray!  Now I have half the chickens laying colored eggs!  It's hard to see, but Victoria's is more blue than Gypsy's, which I call green.

Here is a funny shot of the two dogs resting with their toys in the kitchen.  Hero let his fall out of his mouth, and it just balanced there on his cone.  Not only can he use the cone to hold things, he has also learned how to get back at Zephyr.  She was chewing his front legs, because he couldn't get his mouth on her to bite back.  So he just stands over her, bends his head down, and presses the cone into her back until she collapses to the floor, where he rolls her around--still using the cone!  You want to feel sorry for her, but she kind of asked for it!


More fun with Charis!  On the 11th, Monique brought her out, along with a friend, Joanna, and her two children, Mattie Jane (3) and Liam (15 months).  I mostly needed my hands free for holding animals, so I don't have too many pictures.  The tractor stood still all by itself, so I got pictures!  We visited the horses and the chickens, who had done themselves proud!  In honor of their visitors, they ALL laid an egg--the first time ever to get 4 in one day!  The kids collected them for me.  Charis picked hers up and went to show it to Liam . . . and dropped it! 
The shell only cracked a bit; a store-bought egg would have broken open. So we fixed the yoke for her for lunch and the white for the older kids. Charis devoured the yoke as fast as she could! She knows how to make Grandma happy!  She was excited about all the animals, the tractor, Kara's play kitchen which we set up, and pretty much everything!  Mattie Jane told her mom she liked the horses and "that farmer" (me!) and called Pepita's egg "pink," which is what I say.  Liam was excited about rolling in the grass, finding a pitchfork, "driving" the tractor, and playing with puzzles.
Since the kids had so much fun, I think it's safe to say their moms did, too.  They all even took naps so the ladies could have a cup of tea.  It was pretty much a fun day all around!


Hero has two bits of news.  One, his collar is gone!  Not really because he didn't need it anymore, but because he ran into one too many barn, tree, fence, etc. and shattered it beyond repair even for duct tape!  The other is that, thanks to me (who will henceforth be referred to as Mom instead of Grandma) playing social worker, an adoption has been effected:  Kara has transferred her parental rights to Herb, who is now the proud Dad of Hero!  Herb is pretty much the only person he'll listen to anyway, Kara is gone at school so often, and Hero won't even go in her house, which is now ready to live in!  We have also realized that he and Zephyr have become inseparable buddies.  So I guess I'll learn to look at the muddy prints halfway up all 4 glass doors and think "pawprints on our hearts!"  After all, with 2 horses, 2 cats, and 4 chickens in the barn plus 1 dog and 2 ferrets in the house, how much more difference can one big black dog make?  And he does make us smile!  I defy anyone to look at that picture and not chuckle at the sight of Hero bounding like a black kangaroo over--and "over" is the definitive word!--the fields!

5 comments:

  1. snic snic snic ehheheheheeh snic snic snic, what a funny Rhoodog, Tiga'dog, or Space dog! He makes me laugh lol So now that he has a new daddy, a new man in his life, a new BOSS, does he get, you know, spade? LOL LOL LOL poor poopsy!! May that will take the bounce out of him for a while...snic snic snic snic!

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  2. Well, since he's a boy, he'll get neutered. Like the cartoon that shows a dog, let's call him Hero, leaning out the car window laughing at another dog, say Zephyr. Hero is saying, "Ha! ha! And after we take a ride, I'm going to the vet to get tutored!"

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  3. Why? Are you afraid to come visit us now?

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  4. I'm not afraid. I've already attended to one of your family jewels distribution!

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