The farmyard ice rink ... or is that slush pool?

9 January 2014

Have you ever seen a goat ice skating?

No, really.

It's been an amusing, messy, cold, wet week here at the farm. Between the sub-zero temperatures, ice and snow storms, and baby turkeys being born, I'm not sure where the muck ends and our house begins any more. AND of course this was the week when I started my new venture into full time writing.

What week would be complete without a blog entry about the farm critters?

Biggest excitement of the week - six baby turkeys hatched. They moved from the incubator to a big box with a heat lamp attached at the end of my bed after 24 hours. Remember those days of having a new born infant in your room? Yeah, it's kind of like that.They fall asleep at odd times, wake to the slightest noise, do not sleep through the night in any way, scream like a banshee if left alone for two seconds or if they get too cold or too hot or if all but one of them falls asleep or if one of them pecks another one or ... you get the idea.

But dang they are cute little unicorns.

Opening the shell after 24 hours of pipping

Standing up for the first time

A few days old in the brooder box

All the while it was snowing and blowing and cold enough to freeze soap bubbles. Everyone except the goats spent two days locked inside the barn which made for some messy messy housing. When I opened the doors finally yesterday to the snow covered yard, the birds all stood and looked at me like I had lost my mind. One chicken ventured outside and almost immediately returned to the house and chewed me out for about twenty minutes before I decided to be nice and put down a blanket of straw for them to walk on.

And no, no one even thanked me for that. The gratitude I live with ... Lol.

Oh, the soap bubbles you ask ... yep, we froze soap bubbles. I only got a picture of one of them so here it is.

It crystalized into this feathery pattern. It was fun to watch it grow at is froze.

And then today came along and melted most of the snow. Ugh. As much as I was tired of sliding and slipping and keeping the animals cooped up and carrying buckets of hot water around, the melting is often worse. Then everything is covered in a layer of muck and mud - floors, feed buckets, waterers, hoses, gates, handles, shoes, boots, birds, goats, ducks, sidewalks, steps, etc ... EVERYTHING.

The goats loved it though. They got to play in the slush and quickly figured out how to slide across the patio on the partially frozen partially wet surface. Vincent ran with glee, hit the patio and slide like an awkward overweight figure skater right into the garden netting, then turned around and repeated it all over again in the opposite direction.

It's funny. For the all the awkwardness the goats have, they are remarkably sure-footed and nimble. They prance around on the tiniest of ledges and branches and squeeze themselves through the smallest of openings. And we just watch in awe. If we were to try to move through some of the places that they move through, we would fall unceremoniously on our heads or break something in the process. But they just scamper like little mice. And they aren't little at all.

And then there are the meat birds ... that should have been processed three weeks ago ... Anyone need an 8 pound chicken??