When we adopted Coco six months ago, I immediately started a routine of taking her for a walk each day. My cousin thought it’d be good for her to learn to be on a leash. My favorite thing about dogs is taking them on walks. I adore the feeling of walking with a team. I love the relationship that develops as we learn to allow each other to investigate stuff the other isn't interested in. Coco and I walk all over the farm every morning, visiting all the goats, chickens, feral cats, and herd-guardian dogs.
This week Jan and I suddenly asked ourselves, why don’t I take Snoopy on a walk every day?
I don’t know why we never thought of it before. This week I began taking Snoopy on daily walks around the farm, and we both love it.
Walking Snoopy is way different than walking Coco. Coco wants to do the same thing every day. Snoopy, however, wants to investigate. Any random scent sends him off in pursuit of adventure. So far he’s discovered eggs that chickens have laid underneath the rose bushes, and this:
Yep, it is the sole remaining foot of a chicken. Horrified that it might be all that was left of one of our lovely hens, Jan and I decided we ought to count our chickens.
Before we got the new flock last July, we used to count our chickens every day. But, back then we only had seventeen. Now we have forty. And they don’t hold still while you're trying to count! They shuffle themselves.
We counted the old flock on the evening Snoopy discovered the foot. I went into their coop with a flashlight when we were shutting them in. At that point, they don’t move around much - they’re all settled onto their perches. All of them were accounted for.
We knew that the foot could not belong to a Brahma - it didn’t have feathers. So our next task would be to count the Ameraucanas in the new coop. We decided that the best way to count them would be when I was letting them out the next morning. We could count them as they emerged from the coop.
We should have had eight Ameraucanas. We stood by the door watching the crush of chickens as they hurried out to begin their day. Sure enough, there were only seven Ameraucanas. That foot was all that was left of one of our hens! She must’ve stayed out in the chicken wilderness when it was time to come to the coop and be shut in for the night.
Of course, now we’re worried about who ate her. There aren’t any hawks here big enough to carry off a chicken. But, she could’ve been caught by an owl. There was an owl killing cats here a year or so before I arrived.
Or, it could’ve been a western weasel. (This is a stock photo):
Adorable, right? But, they are serious predators. They eat mice, rabbits, and all kinds of birds and eggs. They’re fast, they’re strong, and they hunt at night. Also, all weasels become all white during the winter! No kidding! And, according to Nature Conservatory, they glow a bright lavender when exposed to ultra-violet light.
All that aside, it’s important for us to know who made off with our hen, because we need to know whether to take specific precautions against the same predator harming our baby goats!
Speaking of baby goats, poor Rosa is so big now that, when I go out to see her during the middle of the day with one of the dogs, we generally find her lying on her side, making a sound that is remarkably like a vocal imitation of teeth grinding. Which was alarming the first time I heard it, because the goats grind their teeth when they’re in labor.
I was out in the yard, and heard Rosa lying on her side, making the grinding noise. I ran right back inside and told Jan about it. Jan said, “Oh! Sally used to do that late in her pregnancies, too!” Huh.
Here's Rosa, lying underneath the shade cloth, making the sound. Molly and Lezlie are in the background. You can also see Clark and our hay barn.
In other goat news, Harper and Roger have perfected their parade act.
When I was a kid, I lived in Nebraska. On the Fourth of July, there was always a parade downtown. One of the acts in the parade was always Shriners in clown cars. These great big old men wearing fezzes in little tiny cars drove in circles down the parade route - half of them clockwise, and half of them counter-clockwise - throwing candy into the crowd of spectators. Looking back, it’s amazing no one got hurt.
Harper and Roger now run in circles around me every morning and every afternoon. When I come into their pen, they both start running circles around me - one running clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. It’s truly amazing. It’s as if they’ve cooked this up and practiced. They run fast, making a bunch of circles each while I walk from the gate to their food tub. When we get to the food tub, they stop, and I drop their flake of hay into the tub. Each of them puts their front hooves on the flake, and they look up at me together, waiting for me to give them their animal cracker.
Here they are - they had just finished their dance, and eaten their animal cracker. Now they’re wondering why I’ve taken out my phone, instead of getting them a fresh bucket of water, like usual. (Roger's the one in the foreground).
Meanwhile, in soap world, two exciting things have happened. One is, I’ve figured out how to offer soap subscriptions! What a great idea! You can now subscribe to your favorite soap and I’ll just keep sending it to you every month.
The other thing is that my experimental dish soap bars are going to be ready to test this weekend. So, I’m offering a free bar of dish soap to the first eight people who volunteer to be testers. You’ve got to buy four bars of soap and/or shampoo (any variety). Put in the comments that you’d like to be a dish soap tester - or email me at SerenaSoapsInfo@gmail.com. I’ll send you a bar of dish soap free, (along with instructions) and then I’ll ask you questions about it so that I can perfect the recipe. Shop here: https://www.serenasoaps.com/