Feline Adventures

Saturday, 10:37 PM, 20 February 2010
Temperature: 30 F, clear and calm

Today we have made up for any days to date in which we have neglected to take pictures of our animals for the blog. It was a warmish, sunny day, and all of the animals on the farm greatly enjoyed this; so much so, that we relented and gave our elderly housecat Wimsey the opportunity to get some sun, in which he particularly delighted. He began by napping on the deck while one farmer shifted sheep enclosures and the other took care of the rabbits while keeping a close eye on him; elderly he may be, but he still has enough mischief in him for any five other cats.

Naps just don't last as long as they used to; not on a nice clear day with a mild breeze and the occasional hawk making territorial demands from above and a pair of robin redbreasts hopping about on the lawn scolding. Wimsey decided it was time for a walk. He visited the buck, who did touch noses with him, although we didn't get a shot of it; he then wandered over with the farmer while the water trough in the enclosure with the rams and pregnant ewes was refilled via bucket, the hose not stretching quite far enough. The rams were a bit curious about him, but he mostly chewed grass during their inspection, then began setting off past the other sheep enclosure. He was largely ignoring the crowd of ewes following him, although when one particularly intrepid ewe sniffed at him, he was polite enough to sniff back. After a few increasingly deep sniffs, however, he had enough; he hissed, and the entire flock leaped back in surprise and alarm. They may be three to five times his size, but HE is a predator and THEY are prey, thank you very much!

He was bunged back into the house not too long after; we farmers had to leave the homestead in order to go collect more used tires from a local tire place. It's a very equitable deal all round. We get all the tires we want for free and they don't have to pay fees to ship and recycle them. Reuse, not recycle!

Upon returning, we did more work around the farm, first collaring all the barn kittens and then introducing them to the great outdoors while we worked. They stayed close to the workshop but explored a bit, ignoring the scolding robins in favour of leaping about in the taller grass. They scurried back indoors whenever we got within picture range; they haven't quite gotten the hang of this 'permission' thing.

We did some sawing of branches off felled trees and putting together the other shelf unit for seedlings. Tomorrow we'll see about getting seeds started and wrapping in plastic and possibly finding the watering can. We spoke with the neighbours on another side and found them quite amenable to Devon hedges in place of trees, expressing concern for their shed due to the placement of said trees, and quite happy that our attitude includes bringing up such things to our neighbours. All in all, a positive move.

The barn kittens took quite well to the great outdoors; so much so that getting them back into the workshop and closing them up for the night proved almost impossible and taking a combination of bribery, stealth and trickery to get them all locked up again. There'll need to be another socialization period before they're allowed back out, Tootles again proving the most recalcitrant of them.

One of the geese shows signs of willingly nesting of her own accord. This means we'd like to separate the fowl from the sheep ASAP. The geese in general are getting quite stroppy with the sheep, who are primarily puzzled by it. After all, we're all herbivores here, we didn't do anything wrong! But the geese don't quite see it that way. All in all, positive developments. We're also looking to track down local sources of Jersey milk, and may have found one. Excelsior!