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.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

It was freezing this morning when Zephyr, Hero and I went out to the barn, and I had to hit the ice on the water tanks pretty hard to break it.  While the animals ate their feed, I shoveled manure into the wheelbarrow.  Zephyr barks furiously the whole time I do that chore, sure that I'm going to play "Poop Ball" with her again.  (That's a game we played a year ago when I didn't have a wheelbarrow, so I used to throw the manure over the corral fence onto a pile behind the corral.  Zephyr would run all over the pile, barking and chasing the balls of manure as they hit and rolled down.)  I occasionally throw a stray rock over the fence for her to chase, so she never gives up hope that we're going to play "Poop Ball" again!

While Zephyr "helped" me clean the pens, Hero went looking for his morning snack.  Unfortunately, there were no steaming piles today--they were all frozen solid except for the most recent one.  So he had to content himself with a "Poopsicle"!  It keeps me shoveling fast, trying to beat him to the "goodies"!

After everyone was fed, I collected Pepita's egg (she's my "early bird"), and we left Brandy trying to curiously learn about Sara's horns through the corral panels.  Sara is very deft with them and not really aggressive, but when Brandy insisted on tipping her head sideways so she could poke her nose through the bars, Sara very deftly twisted her head to give Brandy a small poke.  Brandy seemed to be getting the idea because she was being very careful.  Angel seems content just to stand near Sara; what a sweetie!

Then the dogs and I walked down to the mailbox to get the morning paper, and they amused themselves on the way with a frisbee-shaped pizza box liner they'd stolen from the garden (cardboard is a good recyclable weed smotherer).  I threw it for them and then they played tug of war.  When we got back up to the house, we stood outside for awhile so I could enjoy the beauty of the drifting snowflakes and the dogs could finish their wrestling match.  You can see from the photos that Zephyr spends about 3/4 of the time on the "losing" end, but she keeps coming back for more (this picture).  On this beautiful, frigid morning, I'm thankful for a lot: sunshine, water at the barn, a fresh-laid egg, and the ever-changing, real-time video-feed of life on the farm.

2 comments:

  1. Zeph looks like she's having fun but really, she should lay off playing with Hero! She's too young to be having hind leg articulation problems!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Try telling her that! She's often the one that starts it!

    ReplyDelete

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