Animal Chatter

There have been so many thoughts going through my head that I’ve had trouble publishing a blog post. My heart is grieving with the whole Gosnell case.  My heart hurts for Boston.  There are so many things going on at home to talk and/or vent about.  My lack of posting every day has nothing to do with a lack of opinions or something to say, but the cause of opinions so strong, and too much to say that I don’t even think I can type it all out.  Well, some topics I’ve typed out my thoughts 5 or 6 times…it’s just whether they are worth posting or not.

I’ve been trying to keep my home in order.  I’m trying to keep my kids on task and help them finish this school year strong.  I’m trying to plan some summer ideas.  I’m trying to stay on top of my projects.

So why in the world do we need more to do?  Why are we looking at animals?  Well, I don’t need more to do, but my kids sure do.  I can have them do chores and school all day long, but what I would love is to see them get into nature more.  I would love to see them go outside to play without much prodding from me.

I think we’re at the point where we either need to get the kids involved in more activities in town, that will be hard on the little kids and me, or provide more for them to do here at home.  I think animals are exactly what our family needs right now…or at least coming up.

We went to a neighboring farm yesterday to pick up a pregnant kitty to live in our barn.  Our neighbor had 2 pregnant cats for us to choose from, but the other female was a favorite of her grandkids so she was off limits.  She said they were both great mousers, and that’s what we really wanted!

This is our neighbor’s barn, and if you see that door on the right side of that picture?  That’s the door I go through in voting time.  Yes, their refurbished barn is my voting station.  The doors on the left hold animals.  The door on the right holds voting ballots.  Check.  I love the country!

Our first stop was to see the new lambs in her barn.  She’s had a few dozen born in the last few weeks.  The youngest was born just last Sunday, and was about the most darling thing I’ve ever seen.  She keeps both icelandic and jacob sheep, and this little lamb was one of the jacobs.

She also keeps rabbits, chickens, and we even got to see a pea-hen in her coop.  (Think girl peacock…if you’re like me and wanted to know what a pea-hen was.)  The inside of the barn was poorly lit, so I didn’t get the best pictures of all of these treasures.  We saw her goats, and one was so huge from the little babies in her belly, it was almost humorous!  All her animals were friendly and well tempered, so the kids had a great time.

The pregnant kitties climbed high in the rafters when our crew of 5 noisy children came in.  We decided that perhaps we should leave our crate with her, and when she fed the cats later and they came down, she would pick one and put it in the crate for us.

The kids were disappointed that we wouldn’t be leaving with a cat, and then a friendly tom-cat came up to Silje and jumped in her arms.  Our neighbor said we were welcome to him as well.  I looked at Knut, and he said “sure.”

So we carried this friendly cat to the car, but made a mistake by letting Silje out with the cat by our barn and then drove to the garage.  Lena ran over to Silje and the cat and scared it out of her arms, and the tom-cat ran up our maple tree.  He stayed up there until it was completely dark.  We left the barn door open, and a trail of food down to it.

This morning, he has not been seen yet.  Paw prints were discovered in the snow headed back to our neighbor’s house, which I would guess is about a mile away.  I hope he is okay wherever he is.  I hope we can get him back.

Last night, after the kids were in bed, I was talking to Knut about how much I wanted to get some sheep.  I’m the personality that often just dives into things, and he’s the personality that pulls back to make sure that if we do something, we do it right.  It’s a good balance.  We talked about if we ever got sheep, what kind we would get.

However, we came to the conclusion, that sheep weren’t at the top of our list for adding animals.  In a few weeks, our chicks to be raised as meat birds will arrive.  I don’t know if it will happen, but Knut really wants a beef steer or two.  I would really like a milking goat.  We talked long about what all of that would mean for our family.  We talked a lot about cost, both in money and in time.  That did not shy away from the idea, but helped us plan.

We’ve heard that the biggest mistake people make when building a homestead is taking on too much at once.  We want animals, but we will add them gradually.  I know if I pushed hard, I could get Knut to let us get a few more animals for the barn this summer, but that would require that he do some work down there during his free time, and I’d prefer he use his spare time this summer to finish the renovation of the 2 bedrooms upstairs.  The boys room needs to be painted and the girls room needs to be gutted, re-insulated, dry walled, texturized and painted.  Well, the boys and girls will be switching rooms, so perhaps I should label those projects differently.

There is no lack of projects for Knut and I around here, but we are eager to add child-sized projects for the kids to work towards.  We want them to have the self-dignity that comes with hard work, and the feeling of accomplishment, and caring for an animal.  The kids aren’t capable of setting that up, though. We need to set it up.  It may not be this summer, but I’m certain that many in this house won’t be able to wait much past that!

At any rate, sharing dreams when the kids are all tucked in their beds…that’s good for the soul.