Hurry to catch up, Mama’s adventures, cattle – sort of

I have been in training for the past two days. It has been a good refresher of the safety focus we have as a company; a focus I have to promote as a supervisor, so it was a good use of the time I put into it, but it was a lot of time away from the jobs that I am doing. Now I have to play catch up in order to keep up.


While I was away Mama had an almost disastrous chicken adventure. She insists on letting the chickens out of the coop into the open. It usually works out pretty well since the flock does not wander too far – it has been too hot. Yesterday, it was not hot and the hens were ready to frolic in the open far more adventurously than at any previous time; especially the one young chick we have.

It appeared that the dogs were also quite energized by the cooler temperatures. While she turned away to get water for the chickens the chase began. Dodger, to his credit, stops his pursuit as soon as his name is spoken. Samson and Sasha do not respond to any commands, calls, criticisms, directions or instructions. It is a constant source of frustration for all of us.

Mama is not presently in shape to compete on foot with the dogs and Victoria is also almost always outdone. No chickens were hurt because the big dogs have no intention of hurting them, but the chick barely made it into the garden enclosure where access is limited – but not impossible – for the dogs. She and Victoria – who was ready to go to work at the time – managed to catch the little one and return her (I think) to the coop but it was another lesson in how quickly things can get out of hand when Mama assumes all the animals want the same things she wants. Unlike the story book ending, the dogs and the birds have not yet become friends. I have a call in to Disney to see if they can help us out.

Mama and Grandpa found an ad in the Shopper that caught their attention. It was for some cheap T posts and corral panels. When they arrived at the farm selling the items they realized they had found a pretty good deal. Although they had to pull up some of the posts themselves they felt rewarded fro the effort. Several of the posts were too difficult to remove but they did manage to get fifty on the trailer. My only mistake was telling Mama where my money stash was and how much was in it. There is nothing in it now.

Grandpa and Mama also stopped by a local dairy farm and got to talk to the owner about a bull calf that at that moment was 30 minutes old. If I understand correctly we are going back to purchase that calf tomorrow. It will have to be bottle fed for several week but Mama and Victoria are both thrilled. We will have to see how long that lasts. The farmer also has several larger calves to sell that Grandpa is going to go back for. Grandpa and I will finally have some cattle on the farm and Mama will have a short term petting zoo; another win-win

We are supposed to get two estimates on the concrete work today. I have only a slight idea how expensive the work might be so I am anxious to see what the rates for such work are at this time. I expect we will be getting our own crew together to do the pour but it does not hurt to ask. Right now I am so overwhelmed by work that I am having trouble juggling objectives which makes it very difficult to plan ahead – especially since we have so many irons in the fire.

It will all work out. God is good.