With Tim and the boys away at Scout Camp this week, the little girls and I have had to take care of the animals. It's been okay - but there have been some funny moments. Like when I thought that the calf we've been worried about needed another bottle. I made a bottle and braved the electric fence to take it to him. He didn't move a muscle as I approached him and I thought "poor little thing. He's too weak to even stand up." HAHAHAHAHA!! Never assume anything with an animal. Especially one who's momma is watching you and has finally taught her calf to nurse. I never saw the momma til I felt the ground thunder and the calf took off into the woods. Momma gave me a nasty snort and followed him with that "Ain't nobody touching my baby" attitude. GEEZ.
Tonight, however, would've been called a comedy of errors. I learned some valuable things.
1 - NEVER take the trash to the dumpster BEFORE you close the chicken house door. Chickens apparently are very curious and they all left their cozy house to follow us to the dumpster. It was funny to start with, but then Kirsten decided to walk to the barn with the blue chicken feed bucket that we had accidentally brought down to the house the night before. I guess that chickens aren't one of nature's colorblind animals. They knew what that bucket was right away and took off after her. Chickens can run very fast. Kirsten didn't know that the chickens were behind her until she got into the barn. Barns can magnify screams like you wouldn't believe! Anyway, Hayleigh and I caught up, calmed Kirsten down, got the dog his dinner and then scooped out the scratch and feed for the chickens.
2 - Do NOT let your 8 year old throw the scratch on the ground until you get the chickens into their house with the door closed. After unsuccessfully trying to get the chickens away from the scratch and into their house, I decided to fill up the waterer.
3 - Let's point out right here that no matter what I do, I can't get the lid to unscrew from the waterer. Tim said to take it off the base, hold it between my knees and unscrew it. Um, ewwww! No way. I'd rather sit there for 1/2 hour and try to fill it using the little tiny outlet hole. Which is what I did. Do NOT let your 3 year old around running water. She kept putting her finger in it which made it splash all over me - and I can tell you the smell from a chicken waterer (even a clean one) is nasty!! I just didn't want the water splashing on me. Okay - I never would've been a good pioneer. I get it.
4 - After filling the waterer and standing up to get the kinks out of my back, we went back to the chicken house. On the way there I bumped the stupid waterer against my pants. It didn't spill - but EWWW! Left a black mark on my pants. Can you say E-coli?? Yuck.
5 - A great exercise program would be to chase a rooster in different directions around his house. Oh my gosh! When a rooster decides he doesn't want to be in his house, it's really not that easy to convince him he does.
To add insult to injury - when I left to "quickly" take care of the animals, the MLS game was only in the 4th minute and it was 0-0. When we got back, it was 2-1. Since I already knew the score, backing it up was pointless. DVR is a wonderful thing when it's used properly!
Thank goodness they'll be home tomorrow night (although probably not in time to take care of the animals).
