La Vida Loca

I was ahead of my self-imposed schedule and feeling darned good about the way this morning started.  The five tom turkeys have evidently taken up residence here and were somewhat reluctant to leave the chicken pen, but they grudgingly flew out and moved a little way off while I tended to the girls.  As previously mentioned, wild turkeys can disappear while you're watching them if you blink for an instant.  However, one of these boys kept coming closer while I was filling the waterers for the girls, until he was just a few feet away...and almost tapping his foot with impatience.  Aha!  The pan of water for the wild things was empty.  I filled it and put it down and took a few steps.  Not only did he immediately come to the pan, he called one of his brethren to join him.  So much for my intimidation factor.

I know better.  I know that if I disrupt the goats' routine in any way, there will be consequences.  Lucy ate her breakfast; Sheila and Vicky were milked; Esther, a non-milker, came in to eat.  Normally, I use this break from milking to clean the barn, but today I really wanted to get a photo of Poppy's new "do."  She had finished eating and was down behind the barn.  I grabbed the camera out of my bibbies pocket and headed around the south end of the barn.  Big mistake.  Passing by the window in Nineteen and Tessie's stall without warning, Nineteen panicked and leaped over the gate into the locked hallway.  I rushed around and pushed him out into the yard, but that left Tessie alone in her stall, and she goes where ever Nineteen goes and was getting frantic, so I had to let her out, too.  When I opened the gate for Tessie, Ruthie pushed her way in.  The grass hay and grain barrel are behind a very low gate, and of course that's where Ruthie headed...and she wasn't about to be distracted.  I got her, with effort, into Poppy's empty stall and slammed the door, then went to let Esther off the stand.  Tessie and Nineteen remembered that the milking room is where I hand out goodies and they wanted in and were hanging on the half-door.  Esther couldn't get out that way, so I let her into the sleeping room...that redirected Nineteen and Tessie long enough for Inga to come in for milking.  Okay...Esther's in the sleeping room, Inga's done in the milking room, but that left Ruthie still locked in Poppy's stall, waiting to be milked.  I forced my way out with a scoop of grain and ran around to the far end of the barn and threw it on the ground.  That's what Nineteen and Tessie wanted in the first place, so I could let Esther and Inga out and rush to retrieve Ruth.  "Hurry, follow me, and be very, very quiet!"  Ruth and I snuck around to the milking room and I finished the last chore for the morning.  I think the Marx Brothers would have been jealous of this morning's escapades.  I never did get a picture of Poppy.

Back in the house and thinking the excitement was over for the day, I was catching a breath in the living room when I heard a loud squawking from the back yard.  I went out on the deck and there was a coyote standing below me with a Rhode Island Red pinned to the ground.  The rifle, of course, was at the other end of the house.  Dammit!  This required immediate action so, in my best "Mother" voice, I yelled, "Spit that out!  Spit that chicken out right now!!"  (I wonder what the neighbors thought hearing that.)  The coyote took off with a mouthful of feathers, and my poor denuded hen took off the other way to safety. 

I did go out later this afternoon to try again for a Poppy photo op, but she, sheared down to the skin, wisely stayed by the barn in the shade (no PF 50 available for sheep).  I may, or may not, try again tomorrow.