DONKEY BASEBALL AND MORE
Some say that we in the sticks don't have enough to do - maybe so. Last Saturday night I went to my first donkey baseball game. It's exactly what it sounds like it is. A game of baseball riding donkeys. Because there is no real way I can explain what this looked like, I have a couple of short video clips we took. Enjoy.
Donkey Video 2 from sharon kinsey on Vimeo.
Donkey Baseball 1 from sharon kinsey on Vimeo.
Feeding Time At The Farm
Feeding time is always exciting around here - for the animals that is. It is clear to me that almost alll of the animals live from meal to meal. The barn kitties don't really have to worry since they have food available 24/7 - something the dogs aspire to.
Right now everyone is on pasture - well not the dogs - so no supplemental hay is required. Just because its not required doesn't mean the inmates don't demand it. Both Babe and Kate wait for me every morning and then each has her own way of demanding food. Babe kicks at the door - to which I respond to closing the top part of the door - a sort of time out. Kate starting kicking at the door until she saw the consequences for Babe and decided a differeent approach was needed. She lets out one of her very strange bray/whinny noises. It starts as a donkey bray and then ends up as a huge whinny as if she were calling another horse. Neither strategy works but I do take pity once in a while and toss them a flake of hay to chew on. The rams know any begging is futile. Opal gets to share the gift of hay with Babe. Ruby, Jade and Dude along with the goats who share the pasture with Kate can only get near the hay if they put on full battle gear. A kick from Kate would be like stepping on a land mine. You don't cme out of it in one piece. So they just fume in private.
The real problem comes with trying to feed Bongo and Golda. Elka has her flock trained and they approach her food bowl at their own risk. Golda and Bongo however are pushovers and although Golda is reasonably good at defending her bowl, Bongo is a total failure. When the ewes see me come get the dog bowls from wherever the dogs have carried them - they all run to me as if I were their savior. They act as if they are starving, pushing and shoving to get close to me. In some ways I've created this mess myself. In order to have a prayer of feeding Bongo and Golda I have to toss some grain around so that they are distracted while I give the dogs their bowls.
You may be wondering why I need to fend off the sheep from dog food. Idon't know except that my supposed herbavores are really omnivores - they love dog food. In fact, when I used to feed the dogs a raw diet (had to stop due to cost - it was either their raw food or my clothing allowance -- guess who won). Anyway - when I fed them raw - the sheep would run over each other to get to the food bowls. I even saw one of the sheep steal a chicken leg from one of the bowls and try to run off with it. It makes no sense - but there you have it. The problem is that even though I toss a bunch of grain around for them - the smart ones ignore that and follow me with the dog bowls. When I put the bowls down, they rush in and start to gobble kibble before the dogs can say "hey." So I have to stand guard and shove them away until the dogs decide to begin to eat. Once they start any sheep that gets too close gets barked at and nipped if necessary. I even tried turning a water hose on the sheep to scare them away but they just stood their ground. I guess dog kibble is important enough to endure an unexpected shower.
The house dogs are way easier. For sure they live meal to meal and eacch meal is like they've never eaten before. At least they don't have to defend their meals from sheep :)
JJIM's ASS
You asked for it - here are two pictures of Jim on Kate. Notice in one of the pictures he is tryiing to explain to Kate that the object of the exercise to put one hoof in front of the other and move forward. Kate and Jim and well suited to one another :) What do you think - is Kate a candidate for Prozac or what.......(yawn)
