Counting Piggies

Yesterday was a pretty normal day here on Drama Ranch. I fed, took my eggs to the co-op, picked up the house. Nothing out of the ordinary. After making my late afternoon rounds outside and tucking all the animals in, I came inside to make dinner. About 30 minutes later, I looked outside and saw a pig standing by the barn. This is not going to be good. I knew that if this particular pig was out, there was a whole slew of other piggies running about. I put on my muckers to go check it out. Sure enough, all of our feeder pigs were having a party. They were everywhere! In the cow pen, on the hay, everywhere. The age these pigs are at, they are fast little bastards. I can't just walk up to them and pick them up. It's a 'get em in a corner and jump on em' kinda deal. The pigs paid me no attention while I was trying to lure them with pig food. Ah ha, apples. I cut up pieces of apple and was calling them. Nope. They were too busy to notice me. I am home alone, Dan is an hour away and it's getting dark. And chasing black pigs in the dark is no bueno. I called my pig friend. 'Can I borrow your children to help me catch pigs?' Sure, she said, but we are in town. Great. I called my neighbors and Kurt came over to help. It took 5 minutes and we rounded them up. I counted the pigs, twice. Yep, all eleven of em. I thanked Kurt and went back inside to start dinner. That was enough drama for the day. Not so much. I was talking on the phone to Rita and there was a knock on the door. Kurt said he saw one of my pigs out in the corn field. Oh damn. Here we go again. Apparently, I can't count. This pig could be anywhere. Kurt has his spot light out, I am trying to read piggie prints in the snow. Dustin shows up with DJ and we have a full blown search & rescue going. I was just about to give up. It had been an hour when Kurt whistled. Okay, we found the little guy, now we have to catch em. Dustin and I were on full tackle. We missed a couple of times, but Dustin finally nailed the little fucker. We start to head back to the pens with the pig and I asked DJ to go fetch the four wheeler we left sitting down the road. Dustin dropped the pig off and as I was coming around the barn, I saw the lights. DJ was getting pulled over by a cop on a four wheeler. Before I could get there, the cop was driving off. The conversation went a little like this. Cop - Whatcha doing out here? DJ - Chasing pigs. Cop - some people were complaining about a spot light. Who are you, where do you live? DJ was trying to answer all those questions when someone stopped and asked "Hey, did you guys find that pig?" I guess the cop knew then that DJ was telling the truth about chasing pigs and not just some punk ass kid with a spot light. It was a long evening, but a lot of good laughs. I love my friends and neighbors. That's what great about living out here. Super quality people!! Days like this, I truly feel blessed. Even after running all over BFE! And DJ will have great story about the first time he was pulled over. 'Well, one night I was out chasing pigs and....'

What is a Shoat?

For some reason, I can't get it straight. I am smart enough to know the difference between a goat and a sheep. But when I talk about them, I screw it up everytime. I don't call all of them goats, I don't call all of them sheep. I really am fair about it. So, I gave up. It's official. I will call em both Shoats. That will leave it up to you to figure out what animal I am talking about. I won't have to corrected anymore. I can talk about my shoats in confidence and you can feel a little lame when you don't know what I am talking about. That works out great....for me:)

Family Time

Every time our family gets together, I think we grow not only as a family, but as individuals. I was recapping the other night in my head.
Dan learned that dead weight is dead weight.
Rhonda learned that she is quite the artist with chalk.
Austin grew a pair.
Rick found someone to mentor.
Shelley still hasn't learned not to bring the new guy to meet to the family when we are drinking. Oh wait, then he would never get to meet us.
Trudi learned not to wear black pants when Rhonda has chalk.
Cindy learned not to wear a shirt that ties.
Karla learned cement floors are hard.
Keri learned it is great to have a sister.
I learned there is never enough wings.
And Karen never learns...love ya Mom!

That Biatch!

I just finished my eighth trip out to the barn today. I have a sow, Charlotte, that is due any day. I fully prepared her and had a lengthy conversation this weekend about my schedule for the week. I told her anytime before Wednesday night would work for me. Thursday is out and probably Friday morning(most likely nursing a hangover). Dan landed tickets to the Bronco/Duck game and I WILL NOT miss it. To see the ducks play here is like living in LA and being a Yankees fan. You just don't get to see them much. And thinking back on it, Charlotte caused me to miss the Super Bowl this year too. I had just finished up making some salsa and ready to sit down for a little pre game action. Being the good farm girl that I am, I want to make one last check before I settled down for some football. That was the end of my super bowl experience this year. Perfectly good salsa and beers waiting inside for me and I was out in the barn in the freezing ass cold until 2 am. So, I just warned Charlotte that it is do or die time. I asked her if there was anything I could get her....castor oil, a walk, anything to speed up the process. She just looked at me like I was a retard. I am trying to communicate better in my relationships, but I can't be the only one talking...

After a Few Beers at Drama Ranch

Okay...a lot of beers. Good F ing times!

Da Blues

Maybe it's because I haven't been actually working outside of the house or maybe it's the fact that my hair hasn't seen a curling iron in weeks...but I'm a little down. Duke, our 'cow dog' has really taken to the chickens. So much so that last week he nailed about a dozen and this week he decided he was up for a bigger challenge. I really wanted to breed my own meat chicks instead of buying them from the hatchery. I have been patiently waiting for 2 hens to start to lay. 5 months in, I am finally getting some eggs out of those girls. Duke killed one. Nice, huh? I don't know how my hatching project will turn out now. I went off and bought a stupid jersey calf again. I know better, but he is so fricken cute, solid grey. He got sick on me and I don't know how he is still breathing! Two whole weeks, 4 times a day, I am out with Stewie. I know, I named him, stupid thing to do. He is so weak that he can't stand right now. I get to move him and clean him all day long. Poor guy! It breaks my heart when they get sick! Austin has been gone all summer and I am ready for him to come home. I know, bitch and moan. I'll get over it. Oh yeah, and it's fucking hot! I'll be bitching about how cold it is here soon.
Should I be concerned if I actually hold conversations with my animals? Kinda has me worried. I'll let you know when they start answering me.

Some Days It Just Won't End

Dan has quickly selling our hay. Not so happy about it, I just worry that we won't have enough to get through the winter. He needed to go deliver a ton to a lady over in Boise last night. Our 'Farm Truck' needs new brakes. So Dan decided that the Land Rover could handle a ton of hay. He hitched up the trailer, loaded it and off he went. Karen was here, so he had no help. See, I get very busy when she is here. He didn't complain and didn't insist that I go with him to help deliver. Mom & I waived him good bye and off he went. Dan likes to put papers on the dash board of his car. That being said, his mapquest flew out the window. He could handle that. He just called the gal. Well, he didn't have her number programmed so he made multiple phone calls to random numbers in his call history to find her. Once that was taken care of, oopsie, the trailer fell of the hitch. Actually, the hitch fell off the Rover. Dan is a just good enough guy, i.e. he didn't really check to see if the pin was all the way in. I know, details, details. Luckily, he and the car survived. Just a little scratch. He fixed the hitch, making sure that it was secure and finally delivered the hay. Dan rolls into the drive way and backs the trailer in to unhitch it. His elbow his the lock when he closed the door and he locked his keys in the car. Now, I hate to say I told ya so, but you should have gotten that spare key when I told you to. At this point, I think I would've blown a gasket. Dan was close. We tried a hanger. Does that really work? Not for us. Then Dan had an aha moment! Call AAA. Awesome idea, except when I called, we had expired. Had to pay an emergency enrollment fee and blah, blah. The locksmith showed up and we are good now. We didn't make any money on that hay, but we have AAA for a whole year. I think I will lock some keys in the car just to make sure that we get our money's worth. I didn't think it was going to end for Dan. The hits kept coming. But at least he didn't get his balls cut off, stepped on by his mom or pissed on.