Dogs and cats

A ranch would not be complete without a good dog and a cat...We have three bad dogs and three obnoxious cats.

Jake-poor thing just can't figure out why he's on a leash.

Hank-The Head of Ranch Security.

Flip-Her mission in life is to collect every sock in the world.

Coconut-He just had a sponge bath.

Steamer-He just ate two squirrels.

Houdini-His name should tell you something about him.

Tragedy has struck

We had one of our wethers die on us during the summer. We did everything we could to save it. There was no discernible reason and even after putting our heads together and asking others, we just couldn't figure it out. Turns out you can get an "autopsy" on animals - it's called a necropsy. The results showed that it died from coccidiosis. This small bacterium is carried by all sorts of birds and of course our chickens took the blame. Not the flocks of wild geese that rest in our fields, nor the turkeys, nor the ducks, just my chickens. Not that we have many left... The skunks, raccoons, possums, and turkey vultures have eaten all but about 10.
We thought we had the problem licked, but it has reared its ugly head during the last week or so. You see the temperature has really dropped with a rain/snow combination and any little problem that hasn't been completely fixed tends to pop up during worse conditions. Yup, we went out and found another dead sheep. Since it was Christmas Day, there wasn't much we could do.
El Jefe found another drug that promises to work and arranged to purchase a gallon from our local vet. Much "doctoring" has to be done on our own. The vets around here don't want anything to do with sheep! Fortunately El Jefe grew up on a ranch and has a good background in treating animals so he can usually figure out what to do. If we can treat before the animals get sick, we can save them. So we are spending all our free time treating sheep when we would much rather be doing anything else in the warmth than out in the frozen field.
So far so good. Everyone looks bright and cheery, even the mamas-to-be.

Goat dumping

Well I guess it's the season to dump goats. People dump puppies and kitten all the time but goats? Here's the story Christmas day while we were all opening up presents when we hear someone driving up our driveway, we all run to the window to see...A guy with a funny mustache on a four-wheeler drove up the driveway. el jefe goes outside with a suspicious look on his face may I help you he asked, well...I was driving up the road next to your house and there were a couple of goats standing in the way. A doe and two little kids....So are ya'll missing any goats? Well no I can see ours standing there in the way back el jefe says. Oh ok then I guess I'll just have to keep looking for whoever owns them he said as he drove off. We all went back inside to finish opening presents. About an hour later el jefe went outside and saw a white doe in the way back with all the other goats happy as can be. We now have a new goat. "Maybe it's a milk goat! We should demand a reward for it" Elly May said excitedly. Chicken mommy tried the next day for about 30 minutes trying to get hold of some one who deals with found farm animals but no luck.
I am now bored with this post someone else may finish it for me if they want otherwise everyone will be left in suspense.

spiders and turkeys

On Sunday the turkeys attacked. They must have known that the day of judgment was coming, when we butcher two of them for Christmas dinner.

We had just returned from buying our Christmas tree. We buy our trees at a tree farm, so this one was freshly chopped, which meant some shaking out of dead needles and spiders is necessary. As my dad was shaking the tree, we were all watching agape as hundreds of spiders fell out. My dad, who lost nearly a month of work over a spider bite that forced him to have a large chunk of his leg removed and almost put him in the hospital, was taking no chances. He got the hose and began spraying down our tree. We were all distracted watching him when all of a sudden my dad started sputtering and pointing at the house. Finally he managed to choke out words. "Help! The house! The door!" I glanced at the house. The front door was hanging open. This happens regularly because the latch is loose, but I really couldn't figure out why he was so upset. It was only raining a bit, and he wouldn't normally pitch a fit about the rain. I glanced at my dad again who was still pointing and sputtering. "Turkeys! In the house!"

What on earth? I dashed inside and glanced down the hall. Sure enough, my dog Jake was in the process of herding a very unhappy looking turkey towards the door.

"Good dog," I said, trying to take over. Jake was not finished yet. As my brother came running to grab the turkey from the doorway, Jake made a desperate grab towards the turkey. It was his turkey, didn't we see that? He was doing just fine with the turkey removal job. Why weren't we letting him work?

My brother grabbed the turkey just in time, and Jake was left spitting out a mouthful of turkey feathers.

Crisis averted, I glanced at the turkey poo all over the hall. Gross. But just as I was heading to get something to clean it up with, my dad hollered something about a second turkey. There, hiding behind a pile of laundry by my parents' bedroom door was another turkey. Jake and my little sister made a mad dash towards the turkey. I made a mad dash towards Jake. I got to Jake before he got to the turkey and grabbed him by the collar. Lil'bit threw the turkey outside and we surveyed the damaged. Feathers and poo were strewn randomly throughout the hall and Jake had a feather hanging out of the side of his mouth.

But on the plus side, my dad got all of the spiders out of the tree.

Life and death: ranch style

Yesterday morning our smallest cow, "Gimpy," died. He was really my sister's cow, but mine too. When we saw him dying Saturday afternoon, it was a fairly solemn moment. We sulked, individually for a few minutes, squabbled a little bit, and then moved on. We're fairly used to losing animals, though it was depressing losing a cow that we had poured so much time and energy into. Today we buried him. We drove out on the tractor to the way back pasture with Gimpy's body in the tractor scoop (we were riding in the back and my dad drove). Once out there, my dad began digging a hole and my sister and I, still on the back of the tractor, cold and wet, began to spontaneously hold a funeral service. It was perhaps less solemn than a typical funeral. We hummed what we thought was a military tune - upon consultation with chicken mommy later we determined it was actually "Pomp and Circumstance." Then lil'bit held up her hand. "I will give a speech."

"Gimpy was a good cow. and a faithful friend. And now I will quote a verse." She cleared her throat and solemnly waved her hat around. "Thou shalt eat of any animal with a split hoof who chews his cud. Of these are the cow, the sheep, and the llama. This does not include the bat."

Then we sang silent night mooing instead of singing the words.

The funeral concluded with my little sister remarking thoughtfully that, "It's too bad we couldn't eat him."

Introduction

Growing up I always admired farm kids. I thought they were infinitely better than me. They lived with animals, woke up at the crack of dawn to feed chickens and milk cows, usually had a bit of a twang while they talked and were just cool. I had no friends whose parents owned a farm, but I remained hopeful. I always thought it would be pretty neat to have a best friend who would let me ride her horse and climb her trees and feed her chickens.
Now that I live on a ranch with my family, I keep expecting people to think equally awesome thoughts about me. Come to find out, not only are my friends not envious of me, but a few of them feel sorry for me. Go figure. When friends come over, instead of wanting to hang around the ranch and look at the manure, they want to go to the mall or to see a movie. Who goes to the mall when they can get muddy? That's what I would like to know.

It wasn't until a few years ago that my family finally carried out the dream and moved on to a ranch. We steadily began to collect animals, beginning with a crazy llama named Lulu who came with the house. My little sister tamed her by bringing her peach skins. Lulu is still a little shy, but it's an act. She knows as well as we do that she would be forced to survive only on pasture if we stopped bringing her a nightly snack of alfalfa. In return, she guards our sheep. She does a terrible job. This summer some dogs got in with our breeding flock of sheep and had a small one pinned in the corner before I made it back there with two fistfuls of rocks. Lulu was standing in the small grove of trees in the way back watching the scene with interest. I waved at her to thank her for her assistance before pelting the rocks at the dumb dogs.
Did I mention the sheep? Our flock started with Fred. FRED is an acronym. "First Real Economic Disaster." He lived up to his name and killed our second ram, "Silver," who was a pretty decent ram. Fred was fat and chubby and we ate him.
Our flock soon grew to.... actually, I don't have a clue how many sheep we have. 50 maybe. Maybe more than that. I had a vague count until our ewes started having babies. Now I couldn't tell you.
Besides sheep, we have chickens, indian runner ducks (not good for a thing except an occasional egg but pretty cool anyway), turkeys (minus two which we'll be eating tomorrow), 5 calves, 2 horses (Selah and Arlo. Selah is about 25 years old and Arlo is a colt), 3 dogs (Hank, Jake and Flip), 3 cats which were supposed to be barn cats but prefer to get underfoot and trip anybody who may be carrying food, one rabbit, and no doubt some assorted animals that I'm forgetting.

This is our ranch. We are five, my dad ("El Jefe") , my mom ("Chicken Mommy"), my brother and my little sister (lil' bit) who has the life I always wanted. I finally decided to start this blog because I think my friends are getting sick of hearing my stories, and the whole family will join in the venture because their friends are no doubt sick of the stories as well.