Ants in My Pants and Other Happenings

Have you ever heard the saying “Because I’ve got ants in my pants and you made me do the boogie dance”? Well yesterday my daughter and I were putting t-post ties on and having a nice conversation. The last thing she said before I started my own boogie dance was. “Mommy, what does it feel like when you are in an ant pile?” and I replied, “Mommy hasn’t been in an ant pile in a long time.” Well I spoke too soon, because no sooner than that left my mouth I felt a bite. “Ouch!” I said and then bent down to look at what had bitten me. Ouch! I said again, the bite was a little farther up my leg, next thing I know the offending little (insert curse word here) was all the way up my thigh and biting me there. HOLY MOLY there are ants in my pants. I ran as fast as I could to the house and stripped them off as soon as I hit the door. I know most of you are laughing. But if you have ever been to Texas you know that they are not normal little ants they are FIRE ANTS!!! They don’t just bite you they leave a little blister and they itch like no body’s business.
Finally I decided that I needed to do a little more work and I got a good portion of the t-post ties up. Not as much as I would have liked but I will have to finish next weekend.
Today was another busy day. We were up early and Ralph and I went to have breakfast. After that we made a trip to the tractor supply, we had to stock up on some feed for the animals. Also a very nice man that works with my husband was bringing over two horses, Jupiter and Pistol Pete, they are Dapple Grey Arabians, and our friends Rick and Ruth were bringing our goats over, Cinnamon and Socks. Cinnamon we bought and Socks they gave to us.

Matthew worked his behind off today, he mowed the yard, used the weed eater and everything else we told him to do today. Rebecca got to play with her friends, Rick and Ruth have two little girls that are Rebecca’s age and they got to stay a couple of hours while mom and dad did a little shopping.
Poor Bruno feels like he is getting pushed out. He tries to chase the goats but that only gets him in trouble. The horses don’t put up with him so he doesn’t have a chance there. The pig gets to roam loose now and she is about his size, they are having a good time playing with each other. Piggy chases Bruno and Bruno chases piggy. She decided that she likes his food better than she likes her own so Bruno has to eat as fast as he can or piggy will eat it all up from him.

It is the end of the weekend and all the animals are put up for the night. Tomorrow is a new day and the fun will start all over again.

On the fence

Well another long week has passed. We haven’t lost anymore of our animals. Partly because we don’t let them out until late afternoon and only with supervision, but mostly because we put up the fence around our property this past weekend. I say we, but mostly my husband and son. They did all the work; I just stood around and acted the girl part. I think our daughter did more work on the fence than I did. Anyway it was a job well done and I am very proud of them. The rain we got this week almost flooded us out, the rain on Tuesday made the pond overflow and the small creek running through the yard was raging, and it rained all through Tuesday night and right into Wednesday morning. The rain finally stopped Wednesday about mid-day; the water came up so close to the house we are thinking about getting flood insurance. We are supposed to go and get our goat this weekend from our friend’s house. Rick and Ruth have been housing her until we got the fence put up.
They also have a donkey for us; I’m not sure how we are going to get him over to the house. He will help keep the coyotes away. Another guy that works with my husband is giving us two horses and is bringing them over on Sunday. My husband isn’t too sure about having two horses, they can eat down a field of grass in no time, and we are looking to get about 20 goats. With the horses and goats we won’t have to mow the grass anymore. I am looking forward to our new additions; it is going to be a great weekend.

Where O Where Did Our Little Birds Go?

This first week of September has gone by very fast. Before we know it winter will be here and the cold weather will be a relief. On Wednesday we lost our biggest goose. He just vanished without a trace. It really bugged me, I really liked the goose. He was very friendly and would eat out of our hands. We decided that we would keep the birds locked up during the day when we aren’t home and then let them out in the afternoon. We weren’t really sure when the birds were disappearing but this would rule out the daytime. The only loss we had on Thursday was our Polish chicken. We think that he may have had something wrong with him because he was acting a little lethargic and perhaps he just died of natural causes. But we can’t be sure.

This afternoon our son was taking our dog out for a walk around the yard. After about 5 minutes Matthew (our son) burst into the house and yelled SOMETHING GOT THE CHICKEN AND IS RUNNING AWAY WITH IT. My husband starts out the back door and I am looking out the kitchen window and I see a rather large Coyote slowly running close to the bank of the pond at the back of the property with one of our big white chickens in its mouth. So, Matthew, my Husband and Bruno (my dog) are running up the side of our property toward where the coyote is climbing back through the fence with his prize. I look at my daughter and tell her… dad is gonna be mad at Bruno, he isn’t even interested in that coyote.
I see them looking out across the field where the coyote went through the fence. There isn’t much that they can do at this point.
In a couple of minutes they all come back into the house and my Husband says that the coyote was taunting them with the chicken. It was just sitting by the fence and when they came close he shook the chicken at them and then climbed through the fence and went a couple of yards out and looked at them again and shook the chicken. He did this a couple of more times before he just ran off.
I told my Husband not to be mad at Bruno; he is a city dog that was transplanted to the country. He doesn’t spend very much time outside and wouldn’t know what to do with the coyote. Our next step is to buy some traps and see if we can take care of some of the coyote population around here.