{"id":3617,"date":"2012-02-09T17:50:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T00:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2012-02-09T17:51:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T00:51:16","slug":"in-and-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=3617","title":{"rendered":"In and Out."},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to think this blog has universal appeal.\u00a0 Even if you are a city dweller or a suburbanite, as long as you have kids, pets or, on occasion, really really bad horrific days, you can probably relate.\u00a0 Perhaps the most significant similarity between us and normal<\/span> other people is the propensity for all things to want in as soon as they are out.\u00a0 Or out as soon as they are in.\u00a0 It’s a law of nature.\u00a0 Right up there with the rule that an object in motion remains in motion until it smashes through the picture window.\u00a0 Or for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, otherwise known as As-soon-as-you-make-a-committment-to-eat-healthy-your-daughter-starts-selling-Girl-Scout-cookies-and-there-are-50-boxes-of-Thin-Mints-in-your-dining-room.\u00a0 That’s just the way it is, folks.<\/p>\n

Dogs, of course, are particularly susceptible to this instinctive and inexorable force.<\/p>\n

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Out! Squirrel! Out! Squirrel! HURRY! SQUIRREL!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hello? I need to come in and lay on the couch. Hello?<\/p><\/div>\n

But children are victims of this compulsion, too.<\/p>\n

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Oh, is it time for school already? Thank God, I mean,...I love you. See you later.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mom? I forgot something. Mom? Why is the door locked? Mom? Mom?!<\/p><\/div>\n

However, here on the farm the desire to be in when you are out and out when you are in takes on entirely new meaning.\u00a0 We are, in essence, a free range farm.\u00a0 By free range I mean that the animals are allowed to run loose.\u00a0 Until they get into trouble.\u00a0 Then they are quickly confined and I shake my head and shrug my shoulders in bewilderment in front of the neighbors as if I had no idea how they got out in the first place.\u00a0 It’s a tricky schtick, but I like to think that in this country we can get away with being careless and stupid until proven otherwise.\u00a0 Taking inspiration from some of the greats, I have been known to say:<\/p>\n

I do not recall if the chickens were allowed to roam onto your property and dig holes under you azalea bushes for dirt baths.<\/p>\n

I would like to state for the record that I was unaware of any wrongdoing on the part of the ducks.\u00a0 If I had known they were crossing the road in defiance of vehicles with the clear right of way I would have acted immediately.\u00a0 I will be speaking with those members of my staff responsible for waterfowl behavior and requesting that their actions be reviewed and reported with full transparency.<\/p>\n

Failing to secure the gate to the pig pen was a serious error in judgment which I deeply regret.\u00a0 I take full responsibility for my actions and I ask for privacy for my family as we deal with this difficult incident.<\/p>\n

Read my lips—-there will be no more baby goats escaping through cattle panels in order to climb on the hood of your vehicle.<\/p>\n

Of course, even when the neighbors are not being plagued by rogue farm animals, there is often a need for various forms of confinement.\u00a0 The chickens were the latest to find themselves suddenly locked away.<\/p>\n

Even though the days have been steadily lengthening, the nest boxes remained empty.\u00a0 I was convinced the hens were hiding eggs in the hay rolls and every day hoisted a child into the hay for an egg hunt.<\/p>\n

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Then to make the nest boxes more appealing, I raided the kids’ Easter baskets from last year and filled the nest boxes with a plethora of colored eggs to tempt the hens into laying there.<\/p>\n

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I’m really not sure how people farm without children.<\/p>\n

Despite these methods, the chickens continued to produce a measly 1 or 2 eggs per day.\u00a0 Out of 31 hens.\u00a0 I actually didn’t know I had 31 hens.\u00a0 I was mad when I thought I had 25 hens and was only getting 1 or 2 eggs a day.\u00a0 But I spent several nights pulling chickens off their roosts and locking them into the coop, which gave me an accurate headcount.\u00a0 And, boy, was I furious when I found out there were 31 lazy, overfed hens wandering around the property and giving nothing in return except for poop splatters on the deck rail.<\/p>\n

So I didn’t even feel bad for them and their pathetic faces behind the bars.<\/p>\n

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Click...Clack...We would like to file a grievance...<\/p><\/div>\n

“Hah!\u00a0 How do you like that?!”\u00a0 I exclaimed gleefully as I peered into their coop each morning and watched them milling around restlessly as I hauled 5 gallon water containers back and forth to be emptied and refilled.<\/p>\n

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The penalty box.<\/p><\/div>\n

“That’ll teach ‘ya!” I yelled as I carried scraps out to the coop each afternoon instead of casually throwing them over the deck into the front yard like usual.<\/p>\n

“Serves you right!” I declared as I carried in another 50lb bag of layer pellets to accommodate the increased feed needed now that the chickens weren’t free ranging.<\/p>\n

They watched.\u00a0 They waited.\u00a0 They gave 1 or 2 eggs each day.<\/p>\n

They rushed out in glee when, 6 days later, exhausted from schlepping food, water, and scraps to the coop, I let them all out.\u00a0 There was a lot of clucking, crowing, and bawking.\u00a0 It kind of sounded like:\u00a0 Hah.\u00a0 How do you like that.\u00a0 That’ll teach ‘ya.\u00a0 Serves you right.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0 Pretty and I gave them a nice little haircut as they exited.<\/p>\n

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A little snip here and a little snip there.<\/p><\/div>\n

Without their flight feathers, they’re forced to stay in the pasture surrounding the coop.\u00a0 Lots of bugs and forage.\u00a0 Close enough to throw the bigger scraps like apple cores and broccoli stems.\u00a0 Within reach of the water hose.\u00a0 But nowhere to hide eggs except the nest boxes.\u00a0 A nice compromise for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

Although it isn’t working as well for the guineas and the ducks.\u00a0 They’ve been kicked out of the pasture.\u00a0 So they want in.\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Magenta’s babies were freed from the kidding barn.\u00a0 They proved to be healthy and vigorous, even the tiny buckling.\u00a0 So they were given rambunctious names to go with their rowdy nature.\u00a0 Behold Ralphie, Rita, and Rosie, in that order:<\/p>\n

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OK, on the count of 3...<\/p><\/div>\n

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Although, like all young ‘uns, when they were finished jumping on things, knocking things over, and putting everything in their mouths, they headed right back inside their barn and under their heat lamp for a snooze.<\/p>\n

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The Three Snoozers.<\/p><\/div>\n

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But while the newest goats were testing their freedom, others were finding out that their privileges were revoked.\u00a0\u00a0 Coca and Vixen were now restricted to the kidding barn in anticipation of their due dates.<\/p>\n

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You're kidding, right?<\/p><\/div>\n

They are due to kid on,…um,…well,..let’s just say…sometime after Magenta.\u00a0 I’d tell you the specific date but apparently I made a note of it without actually writing it down.\u00a0 So we are back to the old fashioned method of peeking at udders and looking for birthing discharge.\u00a0 Yep, as Sir Walter Raleigh has pointed out<\/a>, being a back-to-the-lander isn’t always a bed of roses and although joys sometimes have a date, we never really know what that date is.\u00a0 I think that’s what he said.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n

And since I have the honor of being involved in both the beginning and the end of my goats’s sex lives, I had to lock Carmen in the back breeding pen with Jack.<\/p>\n

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Carmen had the audacity to go back into heat 2 months after she was last placed with a buck.\u00a0 Which means she didn’t actually get bred back in November.\u00a0 Or she absorbed her pregnancy.\u00a0 Or she’s in false heat.\u00a0 Or, really, who the heck knows?<\/p>\n

Since Jack and Carmen were heating things up in the back pen, it was an opportunity for Papa Noel to be let out to explore.\u00a0 He’s become a sturdy little guy but it didn’t seem smart to confine him with a horny buck and his doe.\u00a0 So he went from pastured pork:<\/p>\n

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to free range fatback.\u00a0 Which caused an uproar both among the standard free rangers and any casual visitors.<\/p>\n

“Is that a pig?\u00a0 Out there loose with the children?\u00a0 Don’t pigs bite?\u00a0 Is he eating the pony poop?” they asked.<\/p>\n

“What?” I replied.\u00a0 “Jeez.\u00a0 Is the pig loose?” (See how that works.)<\/p>\n

But, with a bit of time and some initial supervision, order was reestablished.\u00a0 Or what passes for order.\u00a0 (Notice I did not say things went back to normal.\u00a0 What is normal?\u00a0 I don’t think we do normal.)\u00a0 One of the benefits of biodiversity in agriculture is that the animals here have never known specialization or species domination.\u00a0 Around here you might sleep with the goats one night and snuggle up to the livestock guardian dog for a nap the next afternoon.\u00a0 You might have chickens laying eggs in your hay rack or ducklings in your water trough.\u00a0 In the scheme of things, what’s the big deal about a loose pig?<\/p>\n

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Sharing grain.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Taking a tour, escorted by security.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Testing the waters.<\/p><\/div>\n

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A girl and her bacon.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s hard to say who’ll be going in and who’ll be going out next week.\u00a0 Or even tomorrow.\u00a0 You don’t get into farming for the predictability.\u00a0 But I did notice there were some bugs eating my spinach in the garden.<\/p>\n

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And the brussel sprouts do such a great job of holding dew all day that they almost make an automatic waterer.<\/p>\n

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Might be time for me to put some guineas down in the garden.<\/p>\n

Fasten your seat belts, everybody!<\/p>\n

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I like to think this blog has universal appeal.\u00a0 Even if you are a city dweller or a suburbanite, as long as you have kids, pets or, on occasion, really really bad horrific days, you can probably relate.\u00a0 Perhaps the most significant similarity between us and normal other people is the propensity for all things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3691,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions\/3691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}