matt spent all last weekend mowing and clearing out the extremely overgrown sections of the yard that could be better utilized in the future; it looks great! no more piles of dead branches and 5ft high weeds near the chicken coop or within 100ft of the house. i did my part by weeding my "flower beds" around the front door, and now i just have to hit it with the weed-whacker to get the tall grass down.
i realized he's nesting, in his own way. we had a long brainstorm about the barn yesterday morning, which i guess he wants to get started on so that we can acquire a few sheep (i think he's decided against the goat plan). he had the amusing thought that a cow/horse stall only needed to be 4ft across... ?!?! thank the gods one of us has experience withlarge any animals! but i think we got the basic plan down, and he's been compiling materials slowly, so it might get started relatively soon.
he also mowed down the garden, which disturbed me more than a little. he does these impulsive things sometimes that just make me go "huh?!" ...from my view at the house, it looked like there were tomatoes on those plants. he says everything was rotten and dead. whatever. i guess it's time to prep for the fall garden and he just couldn't wait.
our rooster is a great one but damn, his crowing all morning is really annoying! he does it non-stop from about 6am-7am, and then intermittently until about 9am. i don't know what he's yelling about, but it really drives me nuts sometimes. i'm just glad we only have ONE of them! i did catch him... fertilizing... the australorp hen the other day, which i hope means she'll start laying any day now. as soon as she starts i'm going to let big mama barred rock hatch some chicks. time to increase the flock.
last night i got my first injury in a long time, thanks to butters. i knew it would happen eventually, i just wasn't sure what it would be or how bad. she didn't mean to do it, but i was sitting practically underneath her (i'm small and i can't reach--or sustain the position--from afar) and she got restless because she ran out of food, so she tried to walk a bit and her foot bumped the milk bucket, then continued to seek a place to step but the bucket and i were in her way, and i think she sort of lost her balance and got nervous... it all happened very fast but in trying to get the hell out of the way (and save the milk from tipping over) i scored a massive hoof scrape on my right hip, a sliced middle fingertip on my right hand, and a nasty cut on the back of my left hand. i'm not exactly sure how my hands got involved but they did. (oh and she kicked a bunch of dirt into the milk anyway, on top of spilling 1/3 of it, so my injuries were for nothing.) my hip looks like i have about 10 inches of bruised, deep road burn that someone applied with a flourish from a paintbrush... and it burns like hell with an undertone of bruised ouch, even today. my hand hurts quite a lot, too. it was really scary though, because she was literally an inch or so away from catching my belly with that hoof... i was terrified she had, actually, but baby gave me some resounding kicks after we both calmed down a bit, so i know he was unfazed.
anyway, it's been a long time since i was stepped on, kicked at, thrown off, or otherwise hurt by a quadruped. the feeling is always the same though; a sense of OH CRAP THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BAAAAD and relief that it wasn't. breathe, assess your hurts, and move on--and watch out next time. horses and cows are so big, even when they're not, and it's easy to get complacent around them and forget they can hurt you without meaning to. humans are fragile little things, and i'm not so agile in my burdened state...
i realized he's nesting, in his own way. we had a long brainstorm about the barn yesterday morning, which i guess he wants to get started on so that we can acquire a few sheep (i think he's decided against the goat plan). he had the amusing thought that a cow/horse stall only needed to be 4ft across... ?!?! thank the gods one of us has experience with
he also mowed down the garden, which disturbed me more than a little. he does these impulsive things sometimes that just make me go "huh?!" ...from my view at the house, it looked like there were tomatoes on those plants. he says everything was rotten and dead. whatever. i guess it's time to prep for the fall garden and he just couldn't wait.
our rooster is a great one but damn, his crowing all morning is really annoying! he does it non-stop from about 6am-7am, and then intermittently until about 9am. i don't know what he's yelling about, but it really drives me nuts sometimes. i'm just glad we only have ONE of them! i did catch him... fertilizing... the australorp hen the other day, which i hope means she'll start laying any day now. as soon as she starts i'm going to let big mama barred rock hatch some chicks. time to increase the flock.
last night i got my first injury in a long time, thanks to butters. i knew it would happen eventually, i just wasn't sure what it would be or how bad. she didn't mean to do it, but i was sitting practically underneath her (i'm small and i can't reach--or sustain the position--from afar) and she got restless because she ran out of food, so she tried to walk a bit and her foot bumped the milk bucket, then continued to seek a place to step but the bucket and i were in her way, and i think she sort of lost her balance and got nervous... it all happened very fast but in trying to get the hell out of the way (and save the milk from tipping over) i scored a massive hoof scrape on my right hip, a sliced middle fingertip on my right hand, and a nasty cut on the back of my left hand. i'm not exactly sure how my hands got involved but they did. (oh and she kicked a bunch of dirt into the milk anyway, on top of spilling 1/3 of it, so my injuries were for nothing.) my hip looks like i have about 10 inches of bruised, deep road burn that someone applied with a flourish from a paintbrush... and it burns like hell with an undertone of bruised ouch, even today. my hand hurts quite a lot, too. it was really scary though, because she was literally an inch or so away from catching my belly with that hoof... i was terrified she had, actually, but baby gave me some resounding kicks after we both calmed down a bit, so i know he was unfazed.
anyway, it's been a long time since i was stepped on, kicked at, thrown off, or otherwise hurt by a quadruped. the feeling is always the same though; a sense of OH CRAP THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BAAAAD and relief that it wasn't. breathe, assess your hurts, and move on--and watch out next time. horses and cows are so big, even when they're not, and it's easy to get complacent around them and forget they can hurt you without meaning to. humans are fragile little things, and i'm not so agile in my burdened state...
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