Cows on the loose... again!

Sometimes it is a blessing that I am a night owl.

It was 11:15pm last night when I started walking around the house turning off lights and locking up. When in the kitchen I happened to look out the window over the sink and was surprised by the sight of Cherry Blossom, one of our Irish Dexter cows, grazing on the freshly mowed lawn in front of the house. I had an immediate feeling of dread!

So, after slipping on my boots I headed outside to see what was going on. I walked right up to her and took her by the halter (this is the exact reason I do two things with the cows 1. they always wear halters and 2. I routinely give them treats when they come up to me so they never run from me). Only after I had my hand on her halter did I happen to notice the other large dark objects moving around closer to the road... all the cows were out having a midnight snack. The great thing about me having Cherry Blossom in hand is that she is the boss cow of the herd. As she and I walked down to the barn I could hear the cows behind me running to catch up with us. I was expecting the gate in the barn to be open as their way of escape but it was closed up tight. In fact our donkey Inora was on the other side quite unhappy that she was left behind. I secured CB in the cow stall and could see our bull Chuck coming in the barn door and Riona, our other cow, stick her head in behind him. I grabbed a few leaves of hay and enticed Chuck into the stall with Riona coming behind him and Nick, Riona's 10 month old bull calf, fast behind her.

With all four back in the stall happily munching on hay I walked around the barn (in the dark as I didn't think to grab a flashlight on the way out of the house) to check the gate by the goat barn. Unfortunately, that gate was secure too! That really only left the electric fence as the weak link in the fence. Back up to the barn to get the electric fence tester then back out behind the barn (still in the dark) to check the fence voltage... it had none! We run our fence off of a solar panel with a battery backup. Normally the system works great as the solar panel keeps the fence running during the day and charges the battery and then the fence in charged by the battery at night. It is a system that for the most part works on its own and I don't think about it at all. So, at almost midnight I had to figure out what to do for tonight. At first I thought I would just move them to another of our four pastures, it didn't take long to think that through and realise it wouldn't work for reasons different for each pasture.

I needed to get this fence up and working again. I went back up to the house to get a flashlight so I could see what I was doing. First I tried our backup battery with no results. I ended up taking the vehicle booster pack out of the Suburan and hooking it up directly to the fence charger. Immediately I heard the familiar snapping noise of a fully charged fence. Tired, I headed back up to the house and just hopped the cows would still be in the fence come morning.

So, thanks to my night owl status I managed to fix a bad situation... gosh knows where they would have been by this morning if I hadn't noticed them last night.

Everything is green

I spent most of the afternoon mowing the front lawns today. Neil was home from work today as he had a Dr's appointment this morning in Durham. After he returned home he got the weed whacker out and trimmed up around the house flower beds. Once all done everything looks so nice. This Fall is so dramatically different from last year. Everything is green and lush this year while last year with our severe drought it was all dried up and brown. It is so pleasant around the farm this time of year. I love to sit out on the deck in the late afternoons soaking in the view.

Neil was industrious after the yard work was done and continued work in the front hall/closets by installing the new can lights. He hopes to get it all dry walled this coming weekend.

Fun day at the NC Zooilogical Park

We got an early start today and drove the 2 hours to Asheboro, NC to spend the day at the NC Zoo with good friends that drove up from SC. What a fun day viewing amazing animals and watching the kids play together. There were several memorable moments but I think that top of the list would have to be the end of our visit watching the polar bear. He jumped into the water while we were at the underwater viewing area. He totally played up the crowd. We stayed and watched for over twenty minutes before the kids were ready to move on... but the adults would have stayed until the polar bear was done.

More turkey poults hatched

Neil had noticed a few weeks ago that one of the turkey hens was setting on a nest of eggs near the shed. This morning I saw that hen was strutting among the taller grass out behind the barn. When I caught up to her I could see two little puff balls following behind her. I had my usual mental struggle of should I leave them alone or to restrict their movement by putting them in the brooder where they would be safe. Today the brooder won out. I put mother turkey and the two poults in the brooder and also moved in the two little chicken chicks that were almost two weeks old (yet the same size as the newly hatched turkeys).

This, hopefully, gives us three turkeys for the holidays.

Hanna has past

Well, we started getting the high winds and heavy rain from Hurricane Hanna yesterday afternoon. When the rain finally let up around 10am this morning we had received somewhere around 5 inches of rainfall.

I headed down to the barn as the rain was letting up to get morning chores done. I was curious how about the condition of the barn. It sets in a low spot on our property so a lot of the water gets funneled down to it when it rains. If it is a gentle rain it has time to flow around the barn but with the heavy rains of last night I expected the floor of the barn to be damp inside. I was not disappointed... about half of the floor was damp (no standing water, at least not by the time I got there).

All the animals looked like they made through unscathed. I did notice however that Eloise, our black alpaca, was out in the pasture while the rest of the girls were up in the barn. I could see that Eloise's cria was also out in the pasture and was running about. But something wasn't right. I walked out to the gate and realised that the little guy was on the OTHER SIDE of the pasture fence. He was actually in the adjoining alpaca pasture and desperate to get back to his mom. I immediately went out the other pasture and rounded him up. He was soaking wet to the skin and as I scooped him up to carry him all the way around the fence line I became soaking wet too. He didn't much like being carried but he was very happy to be reunited with his mom. He went right to nursing and I could see that Eloise's udder was fully engorged... they must have been separated for most of the night! I am still not sure how he managed to get himself over, under or through the fence and on the worst of nights too!

New chicks

I discovered two new chicks under my perpetually setting hen this morning. They are cute little fluff balls... one yellow and one black.

Since this hen sets on eggs up high in the nest boxes I always remove the chicks and put them into one of the brooders to keep them from falling out of the box. They seem to do well on their own this way so all turns out well.

Labor Day - a day to relax

In celebration of Labor Day today. I packed up a picnic lunch (grilled jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon, grilled corn on the cob, grilled pork country style ribs, apple cole slaw and a watermelon, yummy) and Neil hooked up the boat and we all headed to Lake Kerr for the day.


It was a bit breezy when we got there but the sun was shining. Neil took the kids down to the lake for a swim while I cooked lunch on the grill. After lunch as we were cleaning up the skies became dark, the wind picked up and soon it was raining cats and dogs. Luckily we had set up under one of the wooden picnic enclosures and were able to stay dry while watching the rain and doing a bit of coloring. Evan also did a bit of playing in the rain as you can see here...

The rain did finally pass and soon everyone had returned to the lake. A group near to us was preparing gear to go parasailing right from the beach below us. That was fun to watch. Neil took the kids swimming again and they had lots of fun. Unfortunately, we lost too much time to the rain and never got the boat out on the lake ourselves. I wanted to get home before dark to get evening chores done. But still, we had an enjoyable and relaxing day at the lake.