I'll Think Up A Name For You In A Second

   A friend gave us four more cats than the two we already had (we had three beforehand but the first one we had disapeared). My dad wants these cats to eat the mice so he dosen't let them eat in the house, but instead we only dump them some food in the morning so they don't starve, and we leave them water outside. The only problem is that our miserable goat loves cat food for some reason, and so when we leave them food outside he comes and eats it. The only solution is to tie the goat up until the cats finish eating or to put the food where the goat can't reach.

   Remember that the goat is lonesome 'cause his brothers where killed by the coyote. Some crazy idea came to the it that me and my brothers had horns like him and we liked to headbut. Oh oh. Almost all of us have been nearly mauled by the deranged goat. Of course, he usualy stops just before he reaches us, but now we're not so sure.

Animal Revolt

   A coyote ate two more keets today. (A keet is a guinea fowl). They havn't told me how they found out, but I think my dad just counted them and there wasn't 21. We havn't actually seen anymore coyotes since last time, and we think its becase my dad scared them away with the rifle (he didn't hit them, though)

   A couple days ago, our neighbor's cow got into our property, while our own cows escaped. We let our cows out every morning and afternoon to another area, since they have absolutely no grass were they usualy are. The new area is bordered with electrical strings. One time, my dad forgot to turn on the electricity, so the cows ran out. it took forever to get them back in. A day later or so, a neighbor's cow got into the land around our house. He got in becase the fence over the creek is loose. We had to drive the cow to the other side of the fence through the gate. 

   The hens are running everywhere. Sometimes it means they laid an egg, and sometimes it means they are trying to annoy us. By the way, if you see the picture of the keets on the  entry called COYOTE, you'll see there is a yellow bird. That is a rooster. It crows every morning. At first, the cock-a-doodle-doo sounded ridiculous, like a deranged frog trying to sing. Eventually, he got better at it.

EGGS !!!

   We finally got eggs from the chickens. We found the first eggs on Saturday. My dad was with the cows. We let them out every morning to another fenced area beside the house. Well, my dad was there and a hen came all the way to were he was, squaking his head off. My dad grabbed the chicken and walked back with the rest of the chickens. Then he saw the eggs. One was on the ground, and the other was in the nests my dad built for them. Both eggs were small. That same day, we found two more in the nest. One was small like all of them so far, but the other was bigger. 

The white ball is a bit smaller than a baseball. 

   On Sunday we found two on the nests. When we went to see the chickens that day, mostly all the chickens were outside of their area, so we grabbed them and put them in, but they kept flying out. When we couldn't keep them in after a long time, we gave up. Later, when it was dark, we went to try again. This time they were already inside. My dad wanted to look for eggs where the chickens had been, but it was dark and we couldn't see a thing, and when I just when to check some minutes ago because another chicken came squaking, there wasn't any.

   Anyway, back to the topic of eggs, even though we've had 6 eggs so far the eggs are eaten immediately for some reason. We even prepared them in a shake raw! I don't like eggs so I havn't tasted them yet. Six eggs in two days isn't bad, but they say my great-great grandfather had so many eggs he threw them in the river! Of course he had like 200 hens, and he couldn't sell many, since everyone had their own farm back then. 

Thanks!

Coyote

   My dad's sighted a coyote twice so far: once this morning, and once some days ago. The first time my mom was having coffee outside with my dad. We keep some guinea fowl

beside the house, and these are really free range, since the door to their house is always open. Anyway, my parents were outside, when the guinea fowl started shrieking like they always do, my dad started yelling like the abominable snowman, my mom almost dropped her coffee, and there was general mayhem. The reason? There, among the birds, was a big ugly coyote. He had crept up, unseen, and was now chasing a lone fowl he had singled out. The bird was so surprised, and the coyote so fast, it didn't have the time to fly up a tree like they do when we chase them. Pretty soon, the coyote was running off with prey clamped within its teeth.

   The second time wasn't so exiting. The coyote was coming for his breakfast when he saw my dad holding his rifle. The coyote was bold but not dumb. When my dad started shooting, the coyote hightailed away. My dad isn't an excelent shot, and the coyote was far away, so my dad missed. At least this time it didn't kill anything (The 'it' I'm talking about is the coyote, not my dad).

TOO CLOSE TO NATURE

  We lost all our goats to coyotes except one, strawberry, who is really lonely.  Goats are social creatures, so it tried to make friends with the cows, that didn't work.  Everyday strawberry got closer and closer to our house. 

  Yesterday my mom called us for dinner, and it was a nice day, so we left the doors open.  In the middle of mashed potatoes, the goat stuck his head in the house, walked in, and made for the kitchen!

  As I mention before, the coyotes are the ones that killed the goats.  When we found the body of the last goat to die, it wasn't that far from the house, which made us realize just how close we were to the wild. Worse, we found half of the body, which means somenthing scared the coyotes away before they could get the rest.  Either something worse than coyotes or it was my dad.  My mom is a bit jittery.

Jabberwocky (whatever that means)

Jabberwocky

Lewis Carrol   

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
and the mome raths outgrabe.

(first stanza)

  
 Yesterday, a friend gave us two rabbits, a buck and a doe, as a gift. We put them inside the barn in a cage. Today we put them in a fenced area, though it had some holes. About six hours later, my sister went to check on them. News reached us. One rabbit was dead. We hadn't even named it.
  Eventualy we pieced, together, enough information to theorize. One of the holes, we thought was to small for a rabbit to fit in, had a sort of hook pointing outward.  When it got out, no problem, but when it got in, the hook must have pierced the neck, so the rabbit  couldn't breath. This made sense  since we found the rabbit inside, but close to the hole.
  Storm (that's what my mom calls the rabbit now) was buried solemnly beside our first dead chick that we had buried long ago.
  

"To Kill A Mockingbird" (I mean a Chicken)

     We've started butchering the old broilers,the ones I said we would eat when they are 9-11 weeks old, almost every weekend since the end of April.

                                           Here are the steps from this:

  to this:

                                                         

Before you kill the chicken, do not give them food for twelve hours.

1. Catch the chicken (not as easy as it seems).
2. Bring it to the slaughter area, preferably beside a tree.
3. Put it inside the ''killing cone,'' a cone made out of sheet metal nailed with the narrow end down. Insert the animal headfirst. Another method is to hang the chicken by the feet from a tree.
4. Grab the head and cut right above, or rather below if you put it right side up, a red line you see on the neck, back and forth until a stream of blood pours down. Don't cut all the way through. Reapeat on the other side
5. Clasp by feet and dip in water 140º Fahrenheit (60º Celsius) five times
6. PLUCK AND PLUCK AND PLUCK. Include the annoying black feather roots.
7. When the chicken is completely, ahem, naked, chop the head off.
8. Remove entrails through a cut you make in the rear end somewhere (my dad does this part so I have no idea where). Cut off the feet.
9. Put in water with  a lot of ice. Later, store in freezer in a bag with the air sucked out.
10. Eat.