![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IMG_8022.jpg\" "\\"spring")
<\/a><\/p>\nBrussels sprouts that seeded themselves from the fall crop.<\/p>\n
Broccoli that has been harvested twice and is still giving the grass a run for its money.<\/p>\n The only problem is that it’s impossible to get in the hay.\u00a0 With mommas and babies in the kidding barn, it helps to have some square bales to fill their hay racks.\u00a0 But picking the bales up, driving them home, and unloading them is difficult inbetween spotty showers and unpredictable downpours.\u00a0 I finally got 12 bales to the top of the driveway and they were only a little bit wet from the sprinkles that started as soon as I got on the road.\u00a0 Since the ground is way too soaked for driving up to the barnyard fence (The Other Half gets mad enough when I drive over the septic lines.\u00a0 Getting the truck stuck in the mud right on top of the septic lines would have to be blamed on Big.), I had to settle for hauling it into the barn by hand.\u00a0 And beating the next rain storm called for desperate, if precarious, measures.<\/p>\n But the most dangerous part was not the threat of the hay toppling out of the wheelbarrow.\u00a0 It was the threat of attack from the herd.\u00a0 The rest of the goats and sheep despise the coddling of the new mothers in the kidding barn.\u00a0 They know those ladies have free access grain.\u00a0 Bringing them fresh hay is enough to trigger a revolt.\u00a0 Luckily, their envy is counteracted with just a little bit of planning.<\/p>\n Oooooh, ladies.\u00a0 Look at this newly fluffed hay roll!<\/p>\n And, oh my gosh.\u00a0 What was I thinking?\u00a0 I guess I forgot<\/strong>.<\/em> And left this new hay bale completely unattended<\/em><\/strong> on the picnic table.<\/p>\n Muuwhahahaha.\u00a0 A hay trap!<\/p>\n With everyone otherwise occupied I managed to get the bales into the kidding barn.\u00a0 Too bad I needed a bit of extra room for the bales and dumped the bucket the little mad wren made her nest in earlier this spring.\u00a0 Because Pretty told me that the baby birds had fledged already.\u00a0 And the bucket was in the way.<\/p>\n Of course, 3 feathered, yet fuzzy, baby wrens scattered into the barn as the remnants of the nest dropped onto the floor.\u00a0 Of.\u00a0 Course.<\/p>\n When the little mad wren appeared in the rafters with a tidbit from the bird feeder to find her nest knocked down and her babies peeping from all corners of the barn, boy, was she was pissed!\u00a0 I would’ve taken a picture but I was busy trying to get in the hay before the next rain storm.\u00a0 Also, I am a crappy photographer and my point-and-shoot camera blacks out now when I try to zoom in.\u00a0 I don’t know why, but I think it is exhausted from me putting it on auto and expecting it to correct everything that is wrong with my picture taking.<\/p>\n Good thing this photographer, Joni Johnson-Godsey, captured the expression of a little mad wren perfectly.\u00a0 ‘Cause this is exactly how she looked at me.<\/p>\n “They’re fine”\u00a0 I huffed as I stacked hay.\u00a0 “I put your nest on the ground.\u00a0 They’ll make their way back to it.”<\/p>\n “Really,”\u00a0 I puffed.\u00a0 “you’re not an endangered species or anything.\u00a0 Just start over.”<\/p>\n “Who put her nest in a bucket <\/strong><\/em>in a barn? <\/strong><\/em>What kind of a wild animal raises her young next to people<\/strong><\/em>?\u00a0 I mean, have you seen what people have done to wild species lately?\u00a0 Whose fault is this really??!” I exclaimed.<\/p>\n I was about to begin another defensive tirade when Angel piped up from her corner of the barn.<\/p>\n “Um, I think I found one under the corner of this shelf.\u00a0 Perhaps you could remove it from my stall.\u00a0 Its peeping is disturbing my milk production.”<\/p>\n Angel is always so……helpful.<\/p>\n “Fine<\/strong>,”\u00a0 I said.\u00a0 But I said it in the way that indicates that everything is not fine and that I probably hate you. I know y’all know what I mean.<\/p>\n I repaired the nest on the ground, scooped up the baby bird, and stuck him next to it so he could see his mama and his home.<\/p>\n “You’re on your own for the rest of them, ” I grunted as I rolled the wheelbarrow out for another load of hay bales.<\/p>\n By the time I finished with the hay the kids arrived home from school and ran out to the barn, covering their ears.<\/p>\n “What’s all that noise?”\u00a0 they exclaimed.<\/p>\n “Oh, the little mad wren lost her babies and now they are chirping incessantly in order to find each other.”<\/p>\n “Here’s one!” they cried and they promptly cornered\/traumatized\/rescued one that had tucked itself in this little gap in the barn wall.<\/p>\n With 2 solid stacks of hay bales in place for Tina and Angel, I sat on the milk stand and sighed.\u00a0 Off in the distance I could hear the little mad wren chirping and flitting about.\u00a0 Where could that 3rd baby possibly be that was getting her into such a flutter?<\/p>\n Oh, for Pete’s sake.\u00a0 Whoever Pete is.\u00a0 How did that baby get stuck between the backyard fence and the wire side of the barn?\u00a0 A 2″ wide gap?\u00a0 That is only open at the top, 6′ high?\u00a0 Well, Pete?\u00a0\u00a0 How?<\/p>\n The little mad wren was perched on the fence top, encouraging the baby to try and climb up the wire to her.\u00a0 But he kept falling back down.\u00a0 Until he lay exhausted on a 2X4, panting weakly.\u00a0 She glared at me.<\/p>\n “This is NOT my fault,” I declared as I got the wire clippers.\u00a0 I cut a nice square in my previously predator -proof fencing and reached for the baby wren.<\/p>\n The exhausted baby wren that quickly and vigorously scampered out of reach to a new section of hole-free fencing.<\/p>\n Grrrrrrrrrrr.<\/p>\n I cut another hole in my now ruined barn fencing, but blocked the baby’s retreat with clumps of leaves before I reached for him.\u00a0 Because fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and I’ve just been outsmarted by a bird with a brain the size of a booger.<\/p>\n I got him, the fence got me….<\/p>\n ….and I stuck the last baby on the pallet by the nest so his momma could find him.<\/p>\n As I nursed my bloody knuckle and the little mad wren gathered her young into the nest for the night I grumbled to myself, “Why does the simplest task turn out to be so difficult?”<\/p>\n Then I noticed Nigel, Tina’s kid.\u00a0 Bouncing around on his once-weak, now-perfect forelegs.<\/p>\n Which healed, magically, mysteriously, all on their own.<\/p>\n Without any splints or medicine or anything.\u00a0 Within the first few days after he was born.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n