Thursday, May 14, 2009, 13:19
Weeding the Hayfield
And so it begins. The slow process of weeding the hayfield: chopping and pulling up Yellow Rocket wherever we see it.
It's a little daunting, the idea of weeding five acres. (Thank goodness the field is not any bigger than that.)
Fortunately, the Yellow Rocket seems to be confined to the west end and a few patches in the middle. Depending on how dry the soil is, sometimes I am able to pull it up by the roots. I have a wonderful feeling of triumph whenever I can pull Yellow Rocket up by the roots. (Jeepers, it doesn't take much to make me happy, does it.)
We will keep at the Yellow Rocket until the alfalfa and clover and timothy is too big to be wading around in. But that won't be for a while yet. The hay is only a few inches high right now.
Cloudy Weather
It has been cloudy and damp the last few days. I cannot say that it has been rainy because all together, we have gotten just a few brief showers that amounted to only maybe two-tenths of an inch. I thought it was looking rather hopeful Wednesday afternoon when it grew very dark and started to thunder.
The "kittens" (Violet, Sir Thomas and Kitty Kate) were all ready to come in the basement when it started to thunder. The other two, Petunia and Rosie, have turned out not to be much for going outside. They do sometimes, but I think they may have had bad experiences with the old tom cat from the barn, Squeak, chasing them, so they prefer to stay inside where they feel safe.
Squeak has turned into a nasty tyrant the last month or so. It is because there are tiny kittens in the barn that he feels he must protect by chasing off the other cats. Our gray tom, Gabriel, limped around on three feet for almost a week. He and Squeak really do not see eye to eye, and I suppose they got into a big fight and Squeak bit Gabriel's foot. The foot seems to be all right now, though.
By Thursday morning, the sky had cleared, the sun was shining and it was very windy. We have had quite a lot of wind this spring. If it does manage to rain, then it turns windy and dries everything out again right away. Tuesday was exceptionally windy. When I checked the horse water Tuesday afternoon, it was full of floating bits of junk that had been driven by the wind.
Sore feet
Poor little Isabelle has very sore feet. I had the farrier out on Tuesday to trim Isabelle and Kajun's hooves. Kajun is getting around all right, but Isabelle is quite lame. She has the tiny little tea cup feet of the modern-bred Quarter horse, so when her hooves are trimmed, there is not much foot left to support her weight. It's a good thing, really, that she is not a very big horse so there's less weight for her feet to support.
Isabelle spent most of the day Wednesday in her loafing area along the fence where the ground is soft. I gave her a horse aspirin with her grain Wednesday morning and again Wednesday evening, and I will continue treating her with aspirin for a week or so until she can move around better.
I brought hay out to Isabelle's loafing area both Wednesday morning and in the evening along with a pail of water. Her feet hurt so much that I suspect she would not walk up to her shelter for a drink, and it is important for her to drink. She spent a fair amount of time Wednesday lying down too. Fortunately, her feet do not feel hot to the touch.
I wish there was more I could do for Isabelle, but the best thing will be for her feet to grow out a little bit. And that will take some time.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Monday, May 11, 2009, 19:16
They're At It AGAIN. . .
The deer have been at it again. They have nipped most of the buds off the lilac I planted at the cemetery between Mom and Dad's graves. We were at the cemetery on Friday while my nephew was planting the extra acre next to the cemetery into "church corn" for the Foods Resource Bank .
The soil is so sandy at the cemetery that I don't know if the corn will do anything at all, especially if it doesn't rain, but the committee had seed corn left over from the other plots and wanted to do something with it.
When I looked at the lilac bush on Friday, it had about a half a dozen buds at the top. I could see farther down where the deer had just nipped off the branches not long along ago. I avoided looking at the lilac on Sunday because if the deer have eaten off the rest of the buds, it will be terribly disappointing. I would like to hold onto the hope for a little while that *maybe* this year it will get a few flowers on it.
I planted that lilac more than 10 years ago. The deer have been trimming it back ever since. I was hoping it would have bloomed long before this. But no. Every year when it gets buds on it, the deer go through and eat them off.
I have a small lilac that I planted in the east side yard at home six years ago. It has been blooming for the past three years. Of course, I have been watering the little lilac close to the house. The extra water has helped it grow faster, I think. I do water the lilac at the cemetery from time to time, too, but dry sandy soil and drought mean that watering the lilac will only keep it alive but not do much for its growth. I water the pot of greens I put out for Mom and Dad every Memorial Day too. I don't dare put flowers in the pot anymore because either the deer will eat them, or as is more likely, the rose beetles (Rose Chafers) will chew them to bits. (sigh)
Last year I trimmed up the lilac at the cemetery. I am planning to trim more off this year. My aim is to remove the smaller suckers growing around the main part of the bush so that the bush puts more of its energy into growing taller. I am thinking that will be the only way the lilac bush will ever get flowers -- if the buds are up above the point where the deer can reach them.
The deer don't bother the lilac bushes in the yard around the house. But then again, the Rose chafers don't bother the lilacs at home, either. The poor little lilac bush at the cemetery spent the first five years being stripped of its leaves every summer by the voracious beetles.
My dad would think it was funny that the deer are eating the lilac bush. In fact, he is probably telling them all about it. ("If you're hungry, there's a nice bush over here with the some tasty buds.") Dad loved all animals. One year he accidentally ran over a fawn while he was cutting hay on our "other place" and it ruined his day. He felt bad about it for the rest of the summer.
My mother, on the other hand, would be upset that the deer are eating the lilac. ("Roy! Those deer are eating the lilac again! Do something!")
Maybe I ought to just be thankful the lilac bush is still alive yet and stop wondering if it is ever going to get any flowers. . .
Babies!
I have seen Little Sister's kittens! She has four of them! Two gray and two black!
I thought the kittens were born April 15, but now I think they were born a week earlier than that. Last week, the kittens started poking their heads out from a hole in the hay by the floor. They were looking for their mother. She had been out for a jaunt in the hayfield, and I think they were hungry. From time to time for the rest of the week, I would see one poking its head out of the hole and venturing out a little ways, but that was all I saw of them.
Once again Monday morning while I was waiting for Kajun to eat , I saw one little gray kitten stick its head out of the hole. Feeding Kajun is a long process. I have to let him eat a mouthful then wait for him chew and then feed him another mouthful. He doesn't have much left for teeth anymore (at the age of 27), and if I let him go at the feed himself, he spits out about half of it because he doesn't have the teeth to handle that much.
At any rate, while I was feeding Kajun, Little Sister was eating dry kitty food up on the shelf. I went over to the shelf, saw the little kitten and made an decision. I went up to the house and got a can of canned kitty food and a plate. I crawled over the piece of plywood we have put up between the post and the fence in the barn to make a "safe" little place for kittens to eat, set the plate down and scooped out some kitty food.
By this time, Little Sister had gone back in the nest, but she knew canned kitty food when she smelled it and came out for a treat. One little gray kitten ventured out, too, to see what Momma was doing. Unfortunately, he saw me and got scared. So I scooped out some more kitty food and climbed back over the plywood and waited.
Pretty soon, the little gray kitten appeared. Then another gray kitten. And then two little black kittens. Up until now, I did not know for sure how many Little Sister had. I knew there were at least three. The one black kitten is tiny compared to the others. I also could tell that the one gray kitten seems to be an unusual color. The body is a much lighter gray than the ears, legs and tail. The one black kitten appears to have a lighter colored body as well. Time will tell what they will look like when they get a little bigger.
The kittens weren't too sure about me standing there watching them and talking to them. Little Sister was not one bit concerned, so that helped. I told them that they would soon be looking forward to me bringing them something to eat because they will soon be big enough that their momma won't have enough milk to keep them fed.
So, I've taken one step closer to being friends with them. I now know how many there are. And they know that their momma eats something that smells awfully good.
We are making progress!
LeAnn R. Ralph
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