Sunday 27 September 2015

"But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating..."

Partner #1 is gone again to our ranch in Merritt for work.  With fall here, the busy season in ranch terms, he is going to be gone more and more often.

This time has gone pretty tame compared to past trips he has made.  No one has turned up dead yet, which can be counted on almost every time he leaves.  That is to say, we haven't found any bodies yet.... Knock on proverbial wood.

Our sheep flock seems to think they have run out of grass in the field they are in, however.  Sheep are finicky.  They will eat their favorite patches down to dirt and then believe they are starving when really they just wont eat the less desirable grass two feet away.  In any case, a brave few have decided that they are immune to electric fence and it has become almost a daily morning routine to head out and chase them back in again  My first inclination is to leave the bastards out there but we have to bring them back every time in case they start giving the less brave any ideas. Ugh, sheep suck.

In an effort to keep them satisfied, we have started giving them a daily ration on oh-so-delicious kelp meal.  This way, the ones who have jumped the fence wont get their share, thus encouraging the others to stay put.  Or something like that... I don't think sheep think that logically, but that is what I am going with!

Problem is, the sheep have now learned what it means when I walk through the field carrying the blue bucket.  Usually they part like the red sea and I'm Moses, but now it's almost a safety hazard to walk through there! Sheep don't normally seem very threatening, but when there is a hundred sheep that weigh almost as much as you mobbing you for the goods you carry, it's down right scary! And their grain trough is at the opposite end of the field, go figure.  It's going to turn into Black Sheep around here soon... (If you get that reference, we should be best friends)

You solve one problem, only to create another.

Our guardian llama, Creepy Frank, decided he was amoungst the brave and managed to get himself on the other side of the fence, only to realize that he was now stuck.  And eventually thirsty. Usually he is a pretty crafty llama, however, and is usually bolstered by the fact that he has thick wool to protect himself from the electric fence, this time though the fence bested him and he was stuck on the wrong side for a couple days.  The thing about Creepy Frank is that he is capital-C creepy.  So while we wanted him to make his way over to the other side of the fence and consequently the water trough, neither Partner #2 nor I were particularly keen on getting close enough to help the creepy bugger. Pity finally won out for me and with the assistance of our trusty dog Abby, I managed to lift the fence up high enough for Creepy Frank to duck it.  Funny thing was though, he took 10 steps, turned around, and looked almost longingly back to where he had just come from!  He didn't immediately go to the water trough either! Ungrateful llama.

We have one solitary stud horse in our barn yard subsisting on hay at the moment.  Thing is though, he has been in that barn yard, bored and alone for too long, with only that bale of hay to keep him occupied, so that is all he has done.  Eat, all day.  So now his hay supply is getting a little low... Not "Oh my god, call the SPCA!" low, more like "Alright, you're going on a diet" kind of low.  Neither Partner #2 nor I know how to run the tractor with any confidence in order to get him a new bale, so we've decided to put him on rations to conserve whats remaining.  So now instead of a 24 hour mealtime he is on more like a 6 hour mealtime.  Good thing he can stand to plateau with  his weight gain.  He was getting to be a little chunky... But don't tell him I said that.

One of our guinea fowl chicks have turned up ill.  Birds, by the way, are real jerks to any of their own who show weakness.  They are descended from dinosaurs after all.  So our kids have decided that they are going to nurse this poor bedraggled bird back to health.  Want to know whats loud?  A sad, sick, confused guinea fowl in a box in your dining room, that's what.

So needless to say I am MORE than ready for Partner #1 to come home.  Not that anything catastrophic has happened, but the possibility is always there, and seems to get higher whenever the boss is away.  And being on high alert all the time is a stressful state of being!

Oh Ranch Life, gotta love it!




Sunday 6 September 2015

What Do You Get When You Cross a Clown With a Turkey?

It has been brought to my attention that I do not post as frequently as I used to.  I think this is a combination of things.  Summer has been a hectic few months, with really nothing of any import happening... Nothing that I would count as hilarious or fantastical ranch happenings anyways, therefore not really blog worthy.  Plus I think I have become complacent. Which is really just another word for lazy...

As we came upon September 1st it seems as though summer was counting down the days until it could take a long awaited vacation, and promptly (and violently,  in my opinion) left us.  Now instead of 30+ degrees of beautiful sunshine, we have frost, rainstorms, and outfits with sweaters.

With this cold snap comes the desperation to pick everything in our garden before it withers and dies. Though despite the worrying, we have yet to get outside and pick anything.... Apparently that is on the docket for today.

Our duck house is still a work in progress, although I have a bathtub/pond now and a hole dug to put it in.  I did however, manage to set up a temporary fenced in run and fashioned a way for them to get out of their gas chamber of a house whenever they please.  So they are pretty happy ducks at the moment.

Oh! On a more exciting note! Partner #1 came home with over 30 guinea fowl chicks! If you have no idea what they look like, check out the picture below.

These are not our chicks, this is just to give you an idea of what they will look like.

Basically they are a small turkey crossed with a clown with a bad skin condition...  Currently though, they are pretty damn cute.  At last count we have roughly 50 birds on the place now. I told Partner #1 that we are turning into the funny farm.  I feel like we should open the gates and charge admission...

This is a few of them. The ones that were cooperative enough to gather on one side of the coop. The ones up on the perch are the chicken chicks.  There is an obvious hierarchy going on already...

The kids have started school, which is going just swimmingly.  Although, Isabella was scheduled to see her dad this week and the boys are off hunting with their grandfather.  So it is the second week of September and we are already taking a week off... 

My lovely daughter has been taking riding lessons over the summer!  She still maintains that she wants to be a rancher when she grows up, and has even upgraded to saying she wants to take over our ranch when she grows up.  Learning to ride a horse is a good first step I suppose.  Currently, our only family-friendly horse is at our place in Merritt though,  Come fall, when we haul the herd back up here for the winter, Lewis will come with them.  

I got a job! Like a real live one with a pay cheque and everything! Which, come to think of it, may further inhibit my free time to post with any regularity.  There goes my resolution to become more reliable.  I have yet to actually start (my first day is Tuesday) so in anticipation of being completely unavailable to my family and the house work for 6 hours everyday, I have been making a mad scramble of catching up on my to-do list.  Though Mount Washmore is a never ending struggle, so I don't know why I bother? 

I suppose that about wraps up the last few weeks of our life.  I don't feel like anything particularly exciting has happened... I am starting to wonder if maybe I am becoming acclimatized?  The things that I would have previously found post-worthy are almost my normal condition now?  I feel like if anyone else's Partner would have shown up with 30 baby birds, it would have been note worthy... 

I have a good friend coming to spend some time with us this week, so maybe she will renew my enthusiasm a bit.  Give me a fresh pair of eyes to see my world with.  Aside from being really excited to see her, I am really excited to show off my life to someone!  I guess I still find my life pretty darn amazing!

Anyways, here are a couple photos I took this morning in anticipation of writing this post.  

One benefit of the cold weather, really crisp clear skies!