Grisly and stunning at the same time.
We lost Macho, the 33 year old horse, We had the vet come and give him what I call the "Blue Juice" and he was surrounded by the other animals, the goats parked themselvesat an appropriate distance, Precious the mini horse talked to him all the way thru it, and Chalupy the burro stood by him til the end. What a great Paso Fino he was, all casual all the time.
We acquired 2 baby peahens, of which I think one is not. One has aquired color, the other is plain. oops. We wanted two for the male we have. I'll have to go to the auction and correct this on my own. I decided to let them out of their cage, they are about 1/3-1/2 grown, and it seemed cruel to not let them experience the world of bugs they crave, so the first night,we herded them back to where their cage was and put them back up on top of it, they are spooky and don't seem to own a brain between themselves...because the second night, they decided to sleep in the bushes. I figured a cold wet night was in order, so I turned on the sprinklers, and at about 3 am, they were wishing they were back up on the cage, as they did show up the following night. And tonight. I now have to figure out what to do with them when they're huge.
The partridges are finally back in their rebuilt aviary, I couldn't find them today, had a heart attack for a minute trying to find them in there, it's not that big! I crawled around on my hands and knees looking thru the underbrush, and there they were, King had built a nest for his wife, and he was in it, trying it out, and she was sitting quietly outside the nest, probably
hissing "hurry up, it's coming out!" I think they share parental responsibilities with eggs, but I've never had the opportunity to have any mate yet, well, successfully. Wish us luck.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, Mona the poodle lost her battle with a bum mitral valve. At age 11, he had a heart attack, and died. She ran around, played, was just normal as pie, with a heart that went "squoosh squoosh" rather than a normal heartbeat. We knew this was coming, but as she was happy and running around, we didn't know it would be this soon. I"ve spent this week making a Mona Zone near the front gate where she used to wait for me patiently. I planted her there, with a mango tree on top, and am putting flowers in all around, it seems fitting, as she deserves it. She was underappreciated in that you don't miss your shadow til it's gone, you realize you look where you're walking to step over her and she's not in her usual place, you miss that head in your hand whenever you walk anywhere, you notice that she's not out the door in front of you when you hear a wierd noise at night, she used to do that without me saying a word, because she already knew why we were going out.
I always compared her to my former dog, Pooka, who was a legend. Pooka had more personality, but Mona had more loyalty. Pooka was vindictive. Like running away the minute she saw me pull out a suitcase. Mona just heaved a sigh. How lucky I was to have 2 great dogs. I see so many dogs that never tune in.
Somebody gave us an excellent dog a few months back, and other than jumping on the cats for no reason outside, and bullying the passive peahens, she's wonderful. She's Nico's dog, Squinks the Peruvian Hairless is Bink's. Her name is Pebbles, which i keep trying to change to Pickles, but she really only hears "Pebbles" ... I don't know why she's being inflexible about this. She's a Schnauzer-Poodle like Pooka was, but more Schnauz than Poo.
It all goes by too fast. Thats why no post since May, just eeking out a living in times like this takes so much effort. Effort that is not necessarily directed towards the farm or even my artwork. I'd post what art I did do during this time, but it's not anything done of my own free will, it's stuff I had to do, but I do have stuff coming up I'm excited about doing, and I'm also trying really hard to free up more space here at the farm to do it. Cleaning House, so to speak, and its all good. Onwards and upwards.
