Good puppy news, other animals on the farm

After a period of getting no calls at all on the puppies, Mama and Victoria are telling callers that the puppies are first-come-first-served. One sold last night before church and the two remaining are mostly spoken for. The couple that came last night was an older couple that lives in the area. As Mama spoke to the wife, the husband was in the background instructing her. It seemed that he wanted a puppy badly and instead of waiting until the next evening, they came over as soon as they ended the call with Mama. For the two that are mostly spoken for, Victoria texted the young man who had expressed interest and told him that the two remaining pups would probably be sold by Friday night – unless he called and let us know he was really determined to buy one. He called right away. He will be up Friday to get the puppy he has chosen, and his brother may buy the other remaining pup. That would be fine with us since Mama was planning on spending Saturday morning sitting at Trade Days. I would be thrilled to have all of them gone. Mama and Victoria have mixed emotions about it. Now, since Mama and Victoria have discovered a way to get the word out, we are going to try advertising the goats again.

On Tuesday night Mama and I worked off of a pretty aggressive list of chores each of us needed to accomplish. I had six on my list and she had three or four on hers. I honestly did not expect to get all of mine done, but by the time we were ready to go to bed both of us had scratched everything off each respective list. Mine were watering the plants, weed eating the garden and sidewalks, making a batch of elderberry syrup, cutting my hair, getting the music together for this coming Sunday, and finishing disassembling the little building. Mama’s list had cleaning the coop, moving the yard and the goat paddock and something else I cannot remember; laundry, I think. For a four-hour time-frame those were noteworthy goals. It was fun to cross our line items off one by one. It was even better to get all the individual chores done.

This evening Kim Cantrell is coming over with her grandchildren. She wants the little ones to see the goats and the puppies – before the pups are all gone. As a bonus to me, she is taking the rabbit back with her, so she and the grandchildren can have a little animal care project. The rabbit has been a good, quiet, somewhat smelly pet for Mama and Victoria, but it has not really suited us as a pet. It will do well being handled more often. The Cantrell’s have raised rabbits in the past so they are familiar with the pros and cons associated with the commitment. I believe we will be giving them the cage and the 50# bag of feed we have for Mattie. As for me, it will open a very large spot in the garage – and move the very acrid smell their urine has out of the garage. By the way, all of the chickens they took with them last Saturday are doing well.

With our chickens, the twenty or so Mama bought from the hatchery, the eight specialty breed she bought from Tractor Supply and the eleven chicks the Banty hen hatched on our farm are all doing well. Of the nineteen that were other than the hatchery purchase, we are still waiting to see how many roosters we have. They will, sadly, be eliminated from the flock. Mama is going to try to sell them before she gives me permission to either take them to our Chinese family or process them for my use. I say “process them for my use” because Mama and Victoria will not eat the chickens that make their way to our table – and times are not so tough that they have to succumb to eating our own livestock. At least, livestock from the coop.

Culling the roosters is more than a month away, but Mama is already beginning to dread it.