Monday, May 12, 2008, 22:31
Where's Henry?
Sunday evening, Randy was washing up some dishes while I fluffed and folded laundry and put it away. I had put away the last armful of clothes and had walked back out to the kitchen when I heard a pitiful "lost kitty" meow.
For those of you who don't have cats -- sometimes kitties will walk around meowing a "lost kitty" meow. I have never quite determined if the CAT is lost -- of the cat thinks WE are lost. Either way, it's a cat who is looking for other cats or for people.
"Who's lost?" I said. I waited for another meow. And then I heard it. The sound was muffled, so I assumed it was coming from the other end of the house. I walked to the bedroom, but there was no one "lost" in the bedroom. Not in my office and not in the bathroom, either.
"Hmmm," I said to Randy. "It wasn't anyone in the bedroom, my office or the bathroom."
Then I heard the pitiful meow again.
This time I went to the door and turned on the porch light. Sometimes Gabriel, who is about a year old now and was born as a barn kitten, likes to come in the house in the evening and stay in the basement. He started coming inside after his neuter surgery last fall. I kept him and his brother, Midnight, and sister, Tabitha, inside for a while until their sutures had healed. Tabitha and Midnight never again asked to come inside. They are very friendly and happy to see me when I go down to the barn. But they don't want to be in the house. Gabriel decided he LIKES being inside, especially when it was cold outside.
I peered out the door. But there was no Gabriel.
Once again, I heard the pitiful muffled meow.
"That's it," Randy said. "Someone IS lost. I will help you look."
He dried his hands, hung up the towel and started across the kitchen.
Just then came the pitiful meow again.
Randy stopped and opened the clothes dryer door . . .
. . .and out hopped Henry.
"Henry!" I said. "When did you get in the dryer?"
"Meow! Meow! Meow!" said Henry. "Meow! Meow! Meow!"
"Oh, Henry. I'm sorry," I said.
"Meow! Meow! Meow!" said Henry. "Meow! Meow! Meow!"
I picked him up. "Did you think you were going to be locked in there forever?"
"Meow! Meow! Meow!" said Henry. "Meow! Meow! Meow!"
Randy reached over to pat the cat's head. "You're going to have to be more careful, Henry," he said.
"I'm going to have to be more careful, too," I said.
I honestly, for the life of me, have NO IDEA when Henry jumped in the dryer. If he hadn't been meowing in there, there's no telling when we would have found him.
To tell you the truth, I have to be careful a lot these days. If I open a cupboard door or a closet door or a drawer, I have to make sure either Henry, Katerina or Dora are not trapped inside when I close the door. I have not had this much "help" from kittens since Duke and Tiger Paw and Guinevere and Winifred were kittens 17 years ago! Sure, I've had other kittens in the meantime. And Snowflake has always been helpful. It's just that I have not had three kittens to "help" at one time in a long time.
The other day, I got an apple out of the refrigerator. A minute later, I heard a very pitiful meow. It was Dora. She had jumped in the refrigerator when I had the door open. I have no idea when Dora jumped in the refrigerator. I didn't see her do it.
The day before that, Dora had jumped into the cupboard where we keep the flour and dry kitty food and the cooking oil while I was making supper. I knew Dora was in the cupboard and figured she would meow to come out when she got tired of it.
A minute later, I opened the silverware drawer to get out a spoon. I let out a shriek and almost fainted.
There was a black tail in the silverware drawer.
A small gap exists in the top of the cupboard wall between the wall and the silverware drawer. Dora had climbed over the top and squeezed into the drawer.
"What's wrong," Randy said, rushing out to the kitchen. "What's the matter."
I pulled the drawer open farther. "Come on, Dora," I said, plucking the kitten out of the drawer.
"Thank goodness," Randy said. "It's just Dora. I thought you had broken the drawer again."
A few weeks ago I pulled open the silverware drawer and it fell apart in my hands. Randy had quite a time getting it back together again. The house is 35 years old. It's the original kitchen drawer. It's had a lot of use. I'm not surprised it fell apart.
"What do you mean 'thank goodness, it's just Dora.' Don't you think it's a little odd that there's a kitten in the silverware drawer?" I said.
My husband shook his head. "Nope. I'm just glad you didn't break the drawer again."
Katerina likes to be helpful, too. She's a little more cautious than her brother and sister, though. She doesn't have so much of a tendency to jump in the dryer or the refrigerator. Her favorite thing is to jump into the tiny medicine cabinet in the bathroom when I've got the door open. One second she's on the floor. The next second she is clinging to the shelf, knocking bottles out right and left. . .
Back in January after our beloved friend Guinevere died, we told Henry and Katerina and Dora that they would have to do funny things to make us laugh and to help cheer us up.
I can see that they are still taking our request very seriously.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, May 10, 2008, 21:59
Those Craaaaaazy Animals . . .
I had an appointment Wednesday morning for a gentleman to come out and trim Isabelle and Kajun's hooves.
Mark has been here before quite a few times, and both horses really like him. He is quiet and gentle with the horses and often will greet them with a hug when he first approaches. And he uses "natural" hoof care -- that is, he does not shoe horses but instead trims them as necessary to correct foot and gait problems.
He has had quite a bit of success with making horses sound enough to ride again that were so lame, the owners were considering putting the animals down and making others at least sound enough again so they can be out in their pastures, pain-free, and live the life of a horse. He works with a rescue program, too, and many of the horses at his place are rescue horses.
This is a second career for him. He is a retired sheriff's deputy.
Anyway, when I walked out to Isabelle's pasture Wednesday morning to put the halter on her, she was on the other side of the field. She took one look at me -- and came on the run just as fast as she could go. After she slid to a stop in front of me, I put the halter on her. We did a few of the "training exercises" we've been working on, and then I led her out the gate and to her training pen. I figured she could eat grass while we were waiting, and of course, she was happy to oblige.
Then I turned my attention to my old Morgan-Arab cross, Kajun. I was very much hoping to have the halter on him by the time Mark arrived.
Right.
I lost count of the number of times that either I approached Kajun or he approached me. I was able to pet him and talk to him and even get him to follow me for a few steps. But when it came time to slip the halter over his head -- nothin' doing. I almost had the halter on him a half a dozen times, and I almost had the lead rope around his neck another half a dozen times.
Each time, he would rear up a little, spin away and then gallop off. I gave up when Mark arrived, figuring that he could calm down while we were doing Isabelle's feet.
Isabelle, the little sweetheart she is, stood quite well to have her hooves trimmed. She still jerks her foot away once in a while when the nippers bite into the hoof wall, but she's getting better about it. I would imagine that it feels funny to have something cutting off the tip of her toes. I put my hand on her knee, and that's usually enough to make her stop jerking her foot.
When we were finished with Isabelle, I went back to trying to get the halter on Kajun.
No such luck
I lost count of the number of times Kajun jerked away from me again. Finally he ran into the barn and then stood in the doorway. I quietly approached him and then leaned over to pick up his foot.
"He won't let me put the halter on him, but he will let me pick up his feet," I said.
"Okay, then," Mark replied. He was standing on the other side of the gate, watching me chase the horse around. "Let's try him that way."
Mark is a big believer in working with a horse's "quirks" -- so trimming a horse that has no halter and that no one is hanging onto doesn't seem a bit strange to him.
And so, that's what we did. While Mark trimmed, I stood by Kajun's head and petted his neck and talked to him.
At one point a pair of geese landed in the plowed field about 50 feet from us. I would have expected Kajun to have a fit about that, but other than putting his chin on the gate and watching them, that's all he did. The geese stayed there for about 10 minutes before they flew off.
When Mark walked around Kajun's rear end to pick up the last foot, that's when Kajun brushed past me and trotted out into his pasture. We had to chase him around a little more before we got him back in the barn, but it was only a few minutes, and then Mark was able to get the last foot done.
I'd hate to have the horse running around with only three trimmed feet because he would then be so uneven and walking lopsided. If he were walking around lopsided he would probably end up with some lameness problems from it.
Kajun has always been a goofy -- and at times, crazy-dangerous -- horse. This does not stem from a mean personality, but rather, from a horse who is frightened of everything, including his own shadow.
I have been trying to reassure Kajun for the last 20 years that nothing is going to get him, but so far, he hasn't really believed me. In his younger days, before he ended up with a heart condition when I was riding him quite a bit, he was much better. But in the last few years, since he developed the heart condition, it seems like he is getting worse and worse about being frightened of the most ordinary things.
I never would have believed that we could get his feet trimmed without even so much as a halter on him.
Nap time
As for Isabelle, after Mark left and she had nibbled to her heart's content in her training pen, she decided to take a nap. She stayed there for quite a while, too. I figured I might as well get some pictures while I was at it. Even while she was lying down, she had to nibble some grass once in a while. At one point, the sun felt so good to her that she had to stretch out flat.
I got a shot of Kajun, too, while he was standing by the gate. He wasn't too sure about having his picture taken. But he stood there long enough for me to get a picture.
Somehow, though, I am going to have to get a halter on Kajun. I've been working on it all week, working toward it gradually. Because the next thing is -- I need to have the vet out to do vaccinations. And I KNOW we can't do vaccinations without a halter on Kajun. If he jerks away in the middle of the vaccination with the needle still in his muscle and the needle breaks off. Well, I don't even want to think about that one. . .
Baking bread
Tuesday night after I got home from a meeting, I decided to bake a batch of bread. Before I got the flour cleaned up off the cupboard, Snowflake found it. She had a grand time,
rolling around in the flour.
My hands were all doughy, and by the time Randy got a hold of her, she was covered with flour.
Planting oats
My husband was able to get a half day off Thursday after he finished first-aid training. He was *supposed* to be on vacation for most of the week, beginning Wednesday. But because of the required training, he couldn't take all of his vacation. He had planned to go turkey hunting during part of his vacation.
Instead, he spent most of his time disking the field again and getting it ready.
By Friday afternoon, he was ready to plant oats! He went to one of the local seed suppliers and bought 9 bags of seed oats and 1 bag each of timothy and alfalfa seed. He loaded the planter. We mixed up the timothy and alfalfa seed. And he was ready to go out with the 460 Farmall to start planting. I took another picture when he got to the south side of the field. You can really see that the field is gently rolling.
He was not halfway finished planting the field yet when he ran out of oats Friday evening.
So, at 7:30 p.m., I headed into town to buy more oats. It wasn't "seed oats" -- it was horse oats. I had to go to Fleet Farm to get it. But still, it was good, clean, fanned oats. Randy said he needed 5 bags. So I got 6 -- "just in case."
It's been a long time since I've had to make an "emergency run" for seed in the spring. When I arrived at home again Friday night, Randy had just run out of oats. I couldn't have timed it any better if I had tried.
After he had run the 6th bag through the grain drill -- you guessed it -- he still wasn't finished with the field yet. It was after 9 p.m. by that time, so he decided to leave the tractor where it was, cover the muffler with a can in case it rained, and pick up where he left off the next morning.
Saturday morning he had to run to the seed supplier again to get 6 more bags of seed oats. In all, we put 34 bushels of oats on 5 acres -- or in other words, 17 bags of oats -- or 850 pounds of oats. The grain drill must be putting it on faster than what my brother thought. It's his grain drill. And he had set at the rate he always plants at. He said we'd need 18 bushels of seed oats -- and that's what we started out with.
Well, one thing about it. I think the field has got plenty of oats on it. Now, if will only keep on raining and not turn so deadly dry again . . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
