Wake And Shake Those Tail Feathers

You are absolutely magnificent. Don’t you ever forget it. — Our newest rooster, who very much still needs a name. Please send me your suggestions!

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Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm

This has been A WEEK. I dropped my phone in a mud puddle while moving the sheep last weekend and it hasn’t fully revived. The camera doesn’t work, so if you follow me on Twitter and Instagram, I apologize for the lack of animal pics. Hopefully, I’ll figure out a newish phone solution soon! Juliet misses posing for her fans.

On Monday, we discovered a water line in our far field had burst during a freeze and had been gushing for….days? Weeks? Who can say? We put the lines in because we want to exclude our cows and sheep from our ponds and streams. Livestock can create a ton of erosion along delicate stream beds, so fencing them out is best for soil conservation and keeping ecosystems healthy. The downside is sometimes water lines burst. The good news is the guys who put the pipe in for us fixed it the day I discovered it. Now we just have to wait for our water bill to see how bad the damage is.

On Wednesday, I caught a bobcat making off with a chicken. I ran after it, yelling “drop it!!” as if it were a naughty dog abducting a T-bone. Amazingly, it dropped the hen, but she was too damaged to survive. She took her last few breaths in my arms as I told her she was loved and thanked her for all the eggs she’d given us. On Thursday, the bobcat was back. I chased it off from the coop two more times.

We try to coexist with nature—and we have peacefully shared space with this bobcat for nearly four years. Chris spotted it years ago on a walk in our woods, and we’ve caught it on our game cam a few times. But, from the good look I got of it yesterday, it appears to be older, has a bit of a limp, and is having a hard time catching its normal prey. Chickens are easy targets. [We are now fairly sure this is what killed Super Mama Chicken when she was sitting on 13 little chicks.]

I’m working on making our gals harder to grab. I’ve rigged up poultry net fencing, to keep the chickens close to the house. We’ve also moved Veli from sheep duty to chicken watch. There’s only one problem with this plan: When Veli arrived she had a terrible habit of chasing our barn cat, Mr. Cat E. Wumpus. Months of reminding her not to chase the cat seem to have resulted in her seeing the bobcat and thinking, “Mom wouldn’t want me to chase the kitteh.” Yesterday, I tried to show her what to do by running and yelping at the bobcat. I am sure my neighbors think I am absolutely nuts. Perhaps they are right.

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Here’s What I Loved This Week

This isn’t just this week, it’s all the time: I love these Carhartt Utility Leggings. I wear them all day every day. They move and stretch—perfect for when you need to sprint through a field, screaming at a bobcat. They’re also rugged and have held up well over the three or so years I’ve owned them. They come in tall AND have a ton of pockets. What more could a woman want? (And really, all of our gear from Carhartt has held up very well. Both of us have Carhartt jackets that are many years old and going strong.)