Animals on the Farm

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

-George Orwell, Animal Farm

Katt is much improved, and back to being the top cat.  She's regained her attitude, and she's certainly back to catting around.  I watched her bravely stalk a female cardinal... by sitting in a fierce pose and watching it until it flew away.  It's a shame, because that cat has got quite a set of claws.  She was an angel when I took her to get them clipped, but she mauled Wine Friend on Saturday night.  Evil beast... or as he said, "She's a cat."

Amy, on the other hand, is curious and adorable, and a threat to no one but the insane person who walks up to the door.  Then she turns into this fierce, slobbering Cerberus.  Children flee and huge men quaver in fear...until I open the door, and she suddenly becomes the world's most affectionate puppy, her tail wagging so hard her body contorts.  But otherwise?  She came into the chicken coop with me once.  The chickens backed into a corner, and one took a daring fly at Amy...who just kinda turned her head and went back to sniffing chicken poop.  They now ignore her.  Even squirrels don't run away much.

Now, Amy and Katt have finally settled on their pecking order.  They touch noses until Katt swats at Amy.  Katt will approach Amy sleeping on her dog bed and sniff at her until Amy gets up and leaves, at which time Katt settles onto the warm spot left behind.  Katt chases Amy around the kitchen island, her tail lifted in delight as Amy tries to escape with her tail tucked between her legs.  Oh, and this is the worst:  they get fed at the same time, and Katt will eat two bites of her food and then settle just outside the mudroom, watching as Amy finishes scarfing down her own food and then sniffs at Katt's food, at which point Katt saunters in again and forces Amy to slink off.

Ah, good times.

But, it isn't all hissing and scratches and a 70 pound dog scurrying away from a 10 pound cat.  Other times, they seem to be able to ignore each other enough to get along.  Very cute, right?

 In other news, the chickens are pooping and eating and STILL refusing to leave the chicken coop.  I'm getting one egg a day from Gandalf.  I eat two eggs a day for breakfast.  The Boy eats eggs for breakfast, and the Husband likes them as well.  Adding in the occasional need for eggs in baking or cooking dinner, we are about five chickens down in terms of production.  It might be time to add a few more chickens to the mix.  Or, maybe Leia and Vader could find the time between pooping and eating to try laying a little.  Snicker.

Prongs came home on Friday.  I am very pleased to announce that we had some challenges settling him into his new home.  As in, wow, that is a whole lotta packages in the freezer.  We came home with over a 100 pounds of venison, and the loin is as big as a pig loin!  And I can promise, I am pleased to have the meat.  Last night, we ate ground venison in some of the ratatouille I made this summer, when I was swimming in squash and tomatoes.  Amazing to think that most of that meal came from within 100 yards of the house!

And now I am planning the menu for Thanksgiving.  We will have a house full of people for that meal, and I am so excited.  I'll be able to use the butternut squashes from the summer, a local ham, and jars of relishes and sauces that were canned from our own garden.

I am still holding out hope for the Husband to bag Tom.  He's a big guy, and he's been all over the farm.  Turkey hunting is hard, and this guy seems pretty active.  But, he would make a lovely addition to Thanksgiving dinner.  (Way better than the back-up turkey taking up space in the other freezer).

And honestly, I would just love to have another animal in the house.

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City Kitty Learns a Lesson

[Warning to other city cats, potentially objectionable content follows.  Country cats, feel free to proceed, and please don't laugh too much.]

Perhaps you are wondering why I'm posting later than usual.  I had planned another cute little entry about what a big old chicken I am, and how chicken the chickens are.  I didn't attempt to push them out into the light of day until Friday, and each day, they have refused to exit.  Elvis has still not left the building.

As my morning began, I had my day planned out.  Feed the Boy breakfast, drop him off at school, make breakfast for myself and enjoy my coffee, and then skip the morning walk since the Husband was hunting, to finally sit down and type out the new entry.

I made the Boy two pieces of cinnamon toast, and one fried egg (harvested yesterday from Gandalf, who is now using one of the nesting boxes).  I fed Amy and Katt.  I put a filter (unbleached, of course) in the coffee machine and was pouring the first scoop of fair-trade certified coffee (ground at home!).

BAM!

I jumped.  I peered through the window and saw through the bushes beyond the lawn area a blaze orange Yeti walking.  The Boy shrugged and said, "Well, that was a surprise."  I then looked over my shoulder at Amy, who is ANOTHER chicken, and was relieved to see that she didn't hear the gunshot over the crunching of her hippy dog food.  A few minutes passed, and Amy whined to be let out for her morning constitutional.  Unsure how to proceed, I texted the Husband.

Me:  Didja get one?  And can I let Amy out?  
Him:  Maybe Prongs.  Yes, just near house.

I shared the news with the Boy, who said that he was proud of Daddy.  I took Amy to the front door and let her out, and thought about it.  First thought was that I was pleased for Husband, who hadn't had any luck yet this season, and anticipation of being able to cook with ground venison again, after three months without.

Him:  Found him.  He's a big son of a gun.

I took the Boy to school and came home, mostly looking forward to my jalepeno (canned from my own garden, naturally) and egg sandwich and my coffee.  And then came the request for help.  I emptied the truck bed, and then cautiously approached the top of the hill which slopes down to the upper pasture.  I saw Husband over a big object that could only be a deer.  I hollered down to see if he wanted me to drive the truck down.  Even from that distance, I could see the disbelief in his body when he yelled back that I should probably wait awhile.

Fine.  I made breakfast and enjoyed it.  I went out to the chicken coop to check on the girls.  I was considering starting the laundry when I saw him waving me over near the barnyard.

I went and saw Prongs.  I couldn't believe that he was just laying on the sled my husband was hauling.  He still looked so full of life...until I saw the other side of him.  Gulp.  He'd been field dressed.  I was just staring at him, when my Husband gently suggested that I go put on his car coveralls to protect my clothing (pretty blue lounge pants with matching jacket) from blood.

I am not going into all the gory details, or tell you all the things that disturbed my delicate sensibilities.  I simply had a rude awakening.  I love eating the local meats:  venison, the local sheep, goats, chickens and beef.  But I've still been getting it all in little plastic bags.  I've been separated from the reality of how that meat gets on my table.

At one point, I grasped Prongs' foreleg near the shoulder as we were attempting to haul him into the back of the truck.  It could have been one of Amy's legs:  muscular and softly furred.  Except it was cold.  Prongs was dead, and would never break into the hen house again, or lead a couple of does into the yard to munch on the bushes.  I'd never be able to expertly identify which of the three bucks we'd caught on the game cam, because we are down to two.

The Husband asked if I wanted to go to the processor with him.  I've been there several times, picking up all those little plastic bags of venison.  I'd never taken a deer there.  So I went.  They weighed Prongs in at 130 pounds.  He had a 9 point rack (8 normal ones, and another one inch spike beginning.  There were two more tiny spikes, but apparently you don't count those).  The processor began to cut off the rack with a saw, and I had to turn my back.  There are pretty cows there.  I started counting them.
  
The Husband got my attention, because he needed to know how I wanted the meat.  I turned back, and thankfully the worker had moved on to one of the other deer waiting to be processed.  I watched as he skillfully began to skin the doe.  It was okay to watch, if not fascinating.  But I had to walk away when he turned his attention back to Prongs.

I was quiet on the drive home.  Husband asked if I was okay.  I cracked some jokes:  I'm married to Voldemort!  Looks like Santa was hauling the deer this year!  I'm gonna have to kill off a supporting character on the blog!

It's been an interesting morning.  I'm okay.  I'm glad my eyes are no longer shut so tightly.  But my comfort zone wasn't stretched today.  It was totally breached.  Here I thought I was getting my hands dirty already.  I have my family so accustomed to pure venison that beef tastes weird to us.  I completely support the much-needed reduction in the local deer population.  But then I finally got to see just how a running, jumping, and fascinating animal winds up in my freezer.  I feel like a stupid city girl who might as well go sit out all night with a sack held open, waiting for snipes to crawl in.

Am I happy we'll have venison?  You bet.  Do I wish that I hadn't known Prongs?  Absolutely.  Do I think I am going to have the cajones to actually purchase some chickens for meat and then do what needs to be done?  I doubt it.  Apparently I might be too much of a tender-hearted, overly-sensitive little princess.  I always wondered how small farmers and 4-H kids could raise animals for slaughter, but in an abstract way.  Now I have a tiny bit of understanding.

So, tonight, I will raise a glass (of a medium body red that would totally work with venison) to Prongs, who was a lovely addition to my country adventure, who provided me with plenty of smiles, who will feed us for several months, and who helped teach me a lesson.

Never name your food.

Prongs and the Chicken Coop

Maybe you remember, Faithful Readers, that we were planning to attempt a chicken coop.  That hasn't been forgotten.  

Apparently, when you are a big old idiot like me, and obstinately determined to renovate an existing structure rather than just buy a nice Amish coop, it takes a lot longer to plan, price and compare materials, forage for usable scraps, scrap your original plan, then hold the second plan, then glean free stuff from the side of the road, and clean that stuff.

So, here is a photo of the old play-set that we'd intended to convert originally.

We figured we clean it up, kill the poison ivy, enclose the main structure, extend the roof down to the balcony area, add a door, a window, and use one of the pre-existing nesting boxes left for us, and we'd be good.  But the roof said otherwise.  See, I love the shingles.  But making a non-leaky roof would have required removing the shingles.  And replacing a roof?  Lazy girl said, not as such.

So, we looked at the other outbuildings.  Country Kitty had told me that all the outbuildings had been used for chickens at some point, but one seemed to be the best choice.  Here is what it looked like before we began.

 There was a lot of work involved, obviously, but the roof only has one leak!  Never mind that the floor was a minefield booby trapped with tunnels dug by Clarence and his entire extended family.  And that a tree was growing almost through the rock foundation.  Or that the back of the building was completely inaccessible due to overgrowth, making the east facing window a complete and utter joke.  Or that the sheer volume of grape vines, wild blackberry, Virginia creeper, and even some poison ivy gave the impression that it was the sole reason the building was still standing.  

Still, it seemed like an easier job to me, to fix an existing chicken coop rather than convert a new building.  So, we began.  We removed all the debris... mostly by transferring it to the other side of the building.  (But we stacked the lumber neatly, and placed the pots carefully on a flat surface.)  After we cleared the floor, we dug it up, filled in Clarence's deepest holes with every big rock we could find, and then leveled it all, raking and removing all the small debris we discovered.

The Husband got out his chainsaw and began removing the worst of the limbs from the tree growing out the foundation.  Armed with a whacking stick (which is different than a web-wand) and a pair of gardening clippers, I began attacking the overgrowth and vines.  I whacked everything in my way with the stick, and clipped only what refused the move.  I truthfully wondered, at the beginning, where one acquires Agent Orange, but then I discovered the true pleasure of the whacking approach.  I highly recommend it to any one in need of some constructive violence.  Upset about creative differences with your spouse?  Not after that!  Frustrated by your child's inability to keep Legos off the floor?  Not now!  Irritated because your hair is growing out and looking less cute than it did even a week ago?  Not even a worry.  (Those are all hypothetical, of course.)

 Anyway, after that, it was cleanup for all the remaining vines clinging, and marveling over the finds.  The skull from a medium sized animal!  An old county road sign.  A license plate from the 1960s.  We made a list of what we needed to plug holes and fill in that blank wall.

Minor cleaning, measuring tapes... and a hugely lucky find of windows and lumber from a free pile at the local farm stand.

I've gleaned some plywood scraps, and have been playing with them, trying to fit them without having to cut much.  (Did I mention I am lazy?)

So, the work is progressing nicely.

But someone is not pleased.   You see, the day before we began clearing, I saw this guy, and watched him wander inside the building.  If you look carefully through the little hatch in the front wall, you will see him. It is his favorite place to spend an afternoon.


This is not creative license.  This is not exaggeration.  He goes in there!  Just yesterday, I was unloading the windows from my truck, making an awful racket, and I opened the top half of the split door and SAW him leaping through the far door to leave.  Look at the bottom right-hand photo in the quad above.  You can see the outline of his body in the dirt.  


Here is what the space looks like after I finished work today.  This photo shows the half the building we are not using.  There is no door attached on that side, so I laid the old door down across the doorway.  Can he still get in if he wants to?  Sure.  But why would he when the path to his favorite nesting area is blocked like this?  

The buck has been named Prongs, and I sure hope he'll keep hanging around the property for another few months.  He'll be welcome in the house, just like the chickens...

Mwahahahhaha....