I feel sorry for our boy Llama Stormy. He is stuck in a closed up pen with the 2 girls and they won’t let him get any where near the grain. He stands in the corner by the gate while the girls eat and spit at him. He is bigger and stronger than both girls yet they rule him with an iron hoof! They eat, he quivers. They spit, he ducks. The girls run to me for food, he begs me for help. I tried to split the girls up and give them the grain in opposite corners of their pen and sneak him some nibbles but as soon as I put my hand anywhere near him, they both run over and start spitting in his face while pushing him away. What does he do? He practically bows and slinks away staring at me with sad hungry eyes. I tried to rescue him until I couldn’t feel my toes anymore from the cold. I couldn’t even get inside the gate to let him out and get away from Miss Domineering and Miss Control!
My wild and free goat…in our backyard!
SHE IS FREE AND WILD AS LONG AS I FEED HER!!
Goat stories!
Okay true goat stories….
You can take the goat out of the mountains but you can’t take the mountain out of the goat! We have a small rock by our back porch that measures about 13″ tall & 18″ wide. You know, the kind you put somewhere for looks. Well, I came out of the barn to see our girl goat was standing on that rock…front feet on the top of it, back feet on the porch. Standing proud, head held high with a satisfied look on her face, she was dreaming of being up in the hills, face to the wind, wild and free. Then she saw me and forgot all about being in the wilderness and BAAAAAA’D at me for food!
You can take the goat out of the mountains but you can’t take the mountain out of the goat! We have a small rock by our back porch that measures about 13″ tall & 18″ wide. You know, the kind you put somewhere for looks. Well, I came out of the barn to see our girl goat was standing on that rock…front feet on the top of it, back feet on the porch. Standing proud, head held high with a satisfied look on her face, she was dreaming of being up in the hills, face to the wind, wild and free. Then she saw me and forgot all about being in the wilderness and BAAAAAA’D at me for food!
I saw Dillon our boy goat, come up onto the front porch and start to eat my reindeer decoration that is made out of twigs and twinkling lights. I had to play tug of war with him to get it out of his mouth. I scolded him for being a bad boy but he ignored me (a trick he learned from Dunkay), he quickly brushed past and went for the matching deer on the other side of the post! The nerve!
Before I go to bed, I shall share a Dunkay story.
I collected all the brown eggs and remembered that my little red basket was in the house so I put them in a bread bag. I carefully placed in each one so they wouldn’t break and gently laid them on the ground next to the gate. I went to the back of the barn to feed the Llamas when I heard this commotion behind me. I automatically roll my eyes and start to form the word NO on my lips. I turned around and there was Dunkay with his head squeezed through the lower bars of the gate, my Wonder bread bag in his mouth. I saw myself in slow motion running to the gate, reaching for the bag of eggs, my hand opened wide and the favorite barn word being slowly yelled, “NOOOOOOOOOO”!. Dunkay looked at me, swung his head to the right, the bag of fragile eggs flying through the air just missing my out stretched hand and flying body! It hit the metal top bar with a dishearten CRUCNH sound. The eggs and I landed at the same time next to the gate. Dunkay now on the other side, was looking at me with his ears back wearing a “did I do that??’ expression! Yep, 6 good eggs now scrambled without a frying pan!
MY ANIMALS HAVE MANNERS!!
My animals have manners! I took out as a treat, mushy mashed potatoes for Chick Chick and her buddies who live in the main part of the barn. I put it down and before I could say “NO” to Dunkay, 3 chickens and 2 cats came running to see what mommy has brought out for them today. They all love tators and decided to share,. Oh how I wish I had this on camera! The black plastic container isn’t very big so they took turns taking a bite! First Chirpy our black hen who we hatched on our own 2 years ago, then Chick Chick followed by the boy kiddie (who is buds with the possum) then the rooster, after his peck, the black kitten took a bite and then they started over! A chicken, followed by a cat and so on!! There they were, 3 chickens, 2 cats, mining their manners by taking turns nibbling bites of food out of a tiny container filled with mashed potatoes. They were the envy of all the other animals who couldn’t get out of their pens to eat the delicious human food! Dunkay was not happy and HEE HAWED at me more than once.
FARM EXERCISE!
If you are a true farm woman, it is impossible to get fat! I was out in the barn, field and yard today for an hour and a half, climbing hay stacks, moving bales, filling up animal water bins inside the barn. I did my grain dance with the circling goats and horses. I then emptied out the turtle shaped sand box that the quackers use for a pool, rinsing it out as my impatient ducks flapped and squawked at me the whole time. I climbed over a bunny fence, taking part of it down to make their pen bigger. I swept, then hosed off the back porch from duck poop. I searched for eggs with Dunkay (only found 5..dang hens are getting sneaky again). I chased Llamas out of their pen into the back pasture so I could close it up and let chickens out to enjoy some fresh air and peck at the brown grass. I carried 2 large arm loads of hay to put out for the Llamas and the best exercise of all….I saw Dillon running towards the garage so I sprinted from the middle of the yard to beat him there. I just fed the kitties and left the door open because I wasn’t done with my cat chores when I saw him do a bee-line for the opening! Ha! I beat him! I got there 2 seconds before he did and I loudly said to him, “I win, you lose, no kitty food for you!!” He grunted at me and walked away to see if he could get into the bunny pen for rabbit pellets. Tonight, I’m going to be lazy and herd everybody back into the barn with my Jeep, window down yelling “YEE HAAAW!!..ROLLEN ROLLEN ROLLEN KEEP THEM DOGGIES ROLLEN, RAW HIDE!!”
Dunkay helps! NOT!
We stood up our decorations, he would knock them down and then push them around with his nose!
Christmas decorations being put up with animlas!
Chad and I decided Sunday to get all our outside Christmas decorations out and up. We pulled out boxes and tubs filled with lots of holiday stuff. Unfortunately, Dunkay thought it was cute and hopefully edible! So he took a nibble from the blow up Santa that sits on a farm tractor, tasted a few blinking lights, knocked over Frosty the Snowman and pushed a container around with his nose. Dillon the goat and our ‘mini’ Tank were also curious about everything we were doing and wanted to be in the middle of the action just in case we brought out food! Chad, pushed animals away from our decorations, yelled our favorite phrase, “NO” more than 100 times , chased horses and a donkey out of the garage and gave me the evil eye more than once because I wanted to watch the show, take pictures and capture this special moment on film as he played with his animals!
Chad and his animals!!
Where Chad goes, they follow!
Black bunny that lives with the chickens
the hens share their food with bunny, whether they want to or not!
ONLY AT ADDIE ACRES 