Ellie and Diana

Ellie is the horse that Lisa rescued from slaughter. She likes Lisa but I don't think she likes me very much. Diana is the calf someone dropped off at Heather's clinic in Winchester. She has some health issues but seems to be doing better.

Ellie bonded with Diana when they were in the barnyard together. Now that Ellie is out in the pasture they visit over the fence.

Ellie had a doctor's appointment so she went to town with Lisa today. 

The ewes are in the pond pasture now. They still like to sit by the hen house in the mornings. 

I split a bunch of the wood this weekend. I filled the rack in the tractor port (a.k.a. the woodshed). The bark peeled off most of it. That's all the bark piled at the ens of the splitter. It's in the burn pile now.

 Hi.

The girls had baths this week. They're all sparkly.

The Unicorn

Since antiquity unicorns have been thought to be mythical beasts. While horses are known to have 4 or 5 natural gaits, a unicorn has at least 12. They can also combine them into infinite combinations. It's impossible for a human to stay on a unicorn's back unless it wants you to stay there. They can throw you with a thought. And they can think. Unicorns are nearly as intelligent as dragons which, of course, are nearly twice as intelligent as humans. Unicorns are prized for the magic in their horns which is wielded by the sound the unicorn makes trumpeting the horn. Without the  unicorn wielding the horn the magic is greatly diminished but not completely gone. Unicorns were hunted to near extinction for the magic in their horns. Until recently they were indeed thought to be extinct. I had heard of their resurgence but had never seen one, and certainly never a unicorn with a rider. That is, until today. Unicorn riders are always chaotic but often good and this one was both. We were lucky since the magic a unicorn rider must have to even attempt to mount a unicorn is great and powerful. The magic of the rider while on unicornback is amplified to a point near that of deity. They can be dangerous for mere humans to encounter. It was okay, we had cookies.

This is Happy Dog. He's the elderly rescue we are fostering.

Poppy got a new pink ball.

Unicorn and rider.

The rider is a faerie (note the wings). 

The rider was nice but hard to understand.

The unicorn itself was gorgeous. It was magnificent to behold.

Heather's Bottle Baby

If you missed Heather's Facebook post about the calf, I added some pictures here. She's in the stall and gets up and walks around. (The calf, not Heather) She mooed for her lunch so she's doing pretty well. We're hoping for the best. As you can see, she looks delicious.

Lisa picked up a dog from the Morehead shelter. They thought it was a Sheltie but it is actually an Aussie. She's a really nice dog. Friendly and happy, didn't attack the cat, handled well in the bath. All good qualities. Too bad she isn't a Sheltie. She's at the clinic now getting spayed.

Tinks led an attack on the white chicken that had flown into the yard. Lisa was able to rescue it. Now it's convalescing in the rabbit cage.

She liked to roll around.

Very cute.

Poppy wants her ears.

She had to stay in the garage because she had a cough.

Heather's little girl.

She drools a lot.

Chicken rehab. The dogs got hold of this one.

Poppy

Poppy in a Onesie

It was nice weather all weekend. Highs were in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s. Nice for working outside. I got the pond pasture mowed. The grass was pretty high so I used the bush hog. Last time I mowed it I had used the zero-turn.

It's the pasture on the left.

Lisa picked up a new boot cleaner brush. It has screw holes so you can fasten it to your porch. I didn't want to make it that permanent so I screwed it to a couple of rough cut oak boards. Other than mounting the boot brush, today I split firewood. I did have to straighten up the wood shed. It was still a mess from the last trailer load. I got about 3/4 of a face-cord done today. I'm a little worried about the logs I have stored under the edge of the shed roof. The rain splashes on the bottom row and since that side faces north the sun never hits them and they stay wet for a long time. Hopefully they haven't rotted. When I get those processed I plan to put some metal over there to keep it dry. We should still have plenty for this winter but by next year we may be needing to load up again.

The old boot brush was falling apart.

I used two boards so you could stand on it to hold it in place.

Poppy got wounded a few days ago. She has a big cut on her back, we aren't sure how she got it. She is quite active and could have run into something. One of the other dogs may have bitten her. They usually can't catch her but may have thought she wasn't as cute as we think she is and got lucky. It's healing but the others are licking it and now that it is drying it must itch because Poppy is trying to lick it. So we got her a onesie. Lisa measured her. It doesn't snap because of her tail and it's a little loose in the butt area. Baby butts are fatter than dog butts. We're hoping it will keep her and them away from the wound.

It's purple and says "I Pooped" on it. (Or something,
I don't actually remember)

Riley is one of the foster Shelties. She is energetic and happy. She loves to play and runs around the yard. She doesn't chase the ball here but I think she would on her own. Poppy and Luna are loud and take ball playing very seriously. Riley is affectionate and wants to please. She is looking for her forever home but she is happy and welcome here until the right one comes along.

Riley.

Leverage

Andy came over on Tuesday to help Lisa load out the lambs for auction. They had thirty of them in the trailer. 1600 lbs of lamb. The auction went okay. The price was lower than previous years, but we usually go in October. 

Meanwhile, Lisa got the mower tire fixed. The mower was still up on the trailer so Andy put the tire back on for me while he was here. Tonight when I got home the plan was to mow around where the trailer goes then park the trailer with the 4-wheeler. The truck is hard to maneuver in the tight spaces and I was only going a short distance. When  I first tried it the angle was too steep facing down hill and the deck got caught on the ramp corner. I pulled the trailer across the driveway to get a better angle. The angle helped, sure. Apparently, the mower with me on it weighs more than the 4-wheeler. Being parked in front of the surveillance camera was just lucky. I didn't get the mowing done after all. When the mower deck got caught it bent something and the blade was hitting it. It was too dark to see by that time so I'll have to fix it tomorrow.

Mower Flat

I waited around but the grass didn't mow itself. I got most of the mowing done and took the mower into the lamb pasture barnyard. The weeds were pretty high in there and I wanted to mow it since Andy and Lisa are loading the lambs on Tuesday. It looked so nice I went into the ewe pasture to mow around their water tank and the hay rack. The weeds were high in there and after the first pass I was going back over it from the opposite direction and I bumped into the end of a corral panel. That mower is a heavy duty commercial grade mower and I bump into stuff all the time. This time the receiver for the corral panel pin caught the wheel rim and ripped the valve stem out. I didn't want to drive it with a flat tire so I walked up and Lisa came with me in the truck. We loaded it on the trailer and I pulled off the tire. She's going to take it to the tire shop on Monday to get it fixed. 

Flat tire.

Closer view

Hole where the valve stem is supposed to be.
See the scratch where the pin receiver hit in just the right spot.

I looked for the stem because I thought if it had just popped out
I could shove it back in.
It was broken.

I didn't want to drive on the flat tire so we brought the mower
up the hill on the trailer. Lisa is going to drop it off at
Paynter's Tire shop in the morning.

Tinks

Dung Heap

      You may recall from previous posts that I maintain a compost pile back behind the barn. When we clean out the stalls, barns, run-ins, and cages it all goes in the pile. The compost requires regular maintenance so that's what I did this afternoon. I rake up all the material that the chickens spread around. They love scratching through it. They find all kinds of bugs and worms in there. Their scratching helps with the health of the compost but it still needs regular work. To turn the compost I shovel it from one side of the pile to the other then form it into a nice stack. After that I shovel all the chicken scratched stuff onto the top. The scratched material is dry and fluffy and makes an insulating layer over the heap. It usually heats up pretty good after I first turn it. You can feel the heat if you lay your hand on it and it steams on cool mornings. I must be doing it right, the vegetables in the garden love it.

The heaping pile of dung.

While I was playing in poop Lisa was in Lexington doing home visits for Heartland Sheltie Rescue. She found Shadow a home. Shadow is a sable and white rescue who has been staying with us.

Shadow.

Poppy did manage to get a few rounds of ball chasing in before and after I went composting

Poppy resting in a sunbeam after playing ball. I was watching zombie shows. 

We had to get new tires on the 4-wheeler this year. The old ones had dry rotted and didn't hold air anymore. We went with and aggressive agricultural profile instead of a sport tread. We need the bite in mud and snow.

New ATV tires.

Fetch Jim Fetch

I worked from home today and Poppy took full advantage. She must think that since I am sitting around doing nothing I should be throwing the ball. The first time, I was working on a report with information that management needed before an afternoon meeting with the customer. What good is some report? How could that be important? It doesn't fling a ball across the yard. The next time I was deploying services for another customer. I mean, it's not like it was going to make our company much money. It can wait, there was a ball on the shelf with my name on it. It really got bad after lunch.

Could you say no to those faces?

I couldn't say no.

The Color is "Coral"

I got a new job working in Lexington. After more than nine years at IBM they decided they could do without me. I like where I am now. I'm working as an IT consultant with a mid-sized Managed Service Provider. My main role is Vmware Engineer but I do other system admin stuff as well.

My cubicle. I need some cat pictures. 

The network login there requires a two part authentication. One of the parts is a random code generated by an app on your smart phone. My phone was a stupid phone so I had to get a smart phone. Luckily the guy in the next cubicle had an old iPhone 5c he sold me for $10. I put a bring-your-own-phone card in it and I was geared up.

Since I now have a smartphone I had to take the
obligatory selfie in the bathroom mirror.

Luna.

The Lambs of 2017

I'm sorry you all have missed the last few years of the bloody reality that is lambing season. This year's batch of lambs have done really well. We only had two bums and I don't think any of them died randomly. Maybe next year I can bring back all the gory details!

We had them in the catch pen for their final worming.
You can see the spotted llama in the background. That's "Freckles".

It's hard to tell but I think there are 30. Two of them are getting
promoted to breeding ewes. It's the two on the right next to the weeds.

They don't like the crowding but it is necessary for worming.

In case you had not heard, we lost Leo. He stowed away on Heather's
truck and was never seen again.

He may have been the worst lap cat ever, but I miss him.