Eagle, Roo, Kitties and Chickens, Oh My!

With what's left of today, I'm going to introduce you to the rest of the crew here at Silver Mark Farm and the two horses we own, but whom are boarded off our property.  Before I do, I'd like to clarify a few things.

• The time you see at the bottom of the blog IS NOT the time I post the blog.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the right time to show down there.  I do not get up at 5:35 a.m. to post a blog.  I do not get up at 5:35 a.m. for much of anything. (I might get up in the case of fire, or a bomb, or an emergency if it really was an emergency, but then in my foggy sleep stupor, who am I to judge a good emergency when I hear one?)  I am not a morning person.  It is more likely I would post a blog at 2:00 a.m. than 5:35 a.m.  Add three hours to the time you see, and that is when the blog is posted.  Even though I've changed it, it's not changing at the bottom of the blog.
• I won't be blogging every day, but I will be consistent.

Let's start with Eagle.  Eagle is actually the next horse to be added to our crew.  A friend of mine in Western PA was the person who told me about him.  He was five at the time and was being sold by the family that had him.  Eagle is a Pinto.  He is not a Paint, because his Dam was a Standardbred.  This disqualifies him from Painthood (is that a word?) and gives him a very long face.  He is chestnut and white.  I really like Eagle.  He has always been a very good guy in his head, and I think that can be attributed to his mother. 

Eagle has done lessons for a number of years with my riding students.  He has carted many of them to shows, and he has won ribbons for them.  He isn't the easiest horse to ride, but he seems to know when he has a rider on his back that isn't as balanced as they should be.  He likes a light hand on the rein, and a quiet leg.  He is about 15.3 hands.  Eagle did live at our house when he first came home.  Then he went on to training, and I moved him to a boarding facility.  Right now he is boarded just five minutes from where I live, so I can see him quite frequently.


Eagle at home.



Eagle at his first hunter show.

Roo is the final addition to our crew.  Roo came along at the age of 17 months.  He is from Vermont, where he was born.  His mom was rescued from an auction, and she was pregnant with Roo at the time.  His Dam is a Percheron (a draft breed) and his Sire is a Thoroughbred, although he looks more drafty than not.  Roo was left to be a horse until the age of 4, at which time we began his training.  He is a great, fun horse and he is the horse I have chosen to ride while working on my newly found dressage seat.  He is boarded with Eagle, five minutes away.


Roo and I working.

Roo learns slowly, but he remembers everything he learns, so it is easy to go back and know he will remember his cues, even after a bit of time of not doing them.  We are about to go to our first clinic together over the Easter break.  Hopefully, all will go well.

Next comes our cats, Harry and Gus.  We went through a period where we had five cats at one time--one that came with the house, one that we found in a cow barn and brought home, and Emma--who had been with us since 1995 (and whom we obtained as a small kitten in the Phillie and Chelsea years). 

We took in my Aunt's cat when she had to move and couldn't keep her, and then we brought home Harry from the SPCA.  Over the course of one year we lost two cats to illness (TD to a tick born illness, our Oggie to a tumor that burst).  Just a year later, we lost my aunt's cat, Bootsie.  We think she was heartsick when my aunt died.  Last year we lost Emma.  She was 15 years old and she had a stroke which she did not recover from. 

Harry will be two years old this year and he is the most personable cat I've ever owned.  I really think he understands the spoken word and that he once was a human.  Gus is a stray found by my stepson and his wife.  He inhabited their porch for a number of months until we took him in.  Harry and Gus are best friends.  Gus purrs alot and hides on the dogs by laying in other rooms where the dogs cannot go to find him.  Both cats are dog savvy (they'd have to be) and get along well with all of the dogs in our house.



You seriously cannot read a paper in our house.
Harry is fixated with newspapers!



Gus camped out on my stepson's porch.

Harry likes to crawl under things, especially newspapers, dog beds, and carpets.  If you see a dog bed moving across the floor, it's Harry underneath it motoring it along.  Gus is a relatively quiet cat that loves to investigate closets.  As such, he often gets locked in them and we notice he's not around and have to go search for which room and which closet he may be in.

Finally, we have our chickens.  Before we had our chickens, we had the "great chicken debate"--to have or not to have.  I was personally always on the HAVE side, but my husband saw no redeeming qualities to HAVING.  So it wasn't until last year that I mentioned I was interested in chickens to the owner of the boarding barn.  She raises chickens and meat goats.  In April of last year she handed me a cloth bag with two hens in it and a second cloth bag with a rooster.  I put them in my car, drove home and sprung them on my husband. 



Penny (black and white), Henny (red) and Screech,
the original crew.

 After rolling his eyes, he built a coop in one of the spare rooms of our barn.  He also built a brooder for the hens.  We now have fresh eggs every day and we've found out that chickens are actually VERY smart.  For instance, if you feed them ONCE by going out the front door and they happen to be in the drive way (they are free range, and we let them roam the property...they have figured out that coming into the fenced in area of the yard, where the dogs are, is not a good decision)...so anyway, if you go out the front door ONCE with a bag of roasted sunflower seeds, they remember that you gave them roasted sunflower seeds once when you came out the front door, and they start looking for you AT THE FRONT DOOR every day! 

We named the hens Henny and Penny (see what I mean about the naming thing?) and the rooster, Screech...because he does.  At all hours.  Several months after the first round, we added Jenny.  We figured our closest neighbors could probably hear our rooster.  Roosters don't just "welcome in the day."  They yell for the hens, send out warnings if the cats are nearby, yell for the hens, squawk at the horses, yell for the hens....all which involve crowing.  So our standard approach with our neighbors has used the following sentence syntax:  "Hi!  Have you heard our rooster?  Here's some fresh eggs for you."  We've had no complaints.



Our rooster, Screech, with his little buddies
looking through the window of the front
door, wondering where I am with the
treats!!!

 I am sorry to report that we lost Penny just a few weeks ago.  We have no idea why.  She was about two years old and from everything I've read and everything chicken folks tell me, that is a critical age and alot can go wrong.  She was not ill, and she was not egg bound.  Paul found her in the barn one morning and she was already gone.  All of our chickens are friendly, and are trained to the white treat bowl.  If they see anyone with a white bowl in their hands, they come running.  We treat grapes, lettuce, peas, corn and roasted unsalted sunflower seeds (their favorite).  This ought to make our summer parties interesting if we use any white bowls.

When the chickens first came to the farm, our horses were not amused.  I think the whites of their eyes were very prominent most of the time.  When Screech started crowing, I thought our horse Pharaoh would never come in the barn again.  Here is a cute photo of Pharaoh and Gifford hiding from them.


Pharaoh and Gifford hiding from the
chickens!

I think they were pretty successful camouflaging themselves, don't you?  Nope, you can't see them at all! 

And with that, I leave you for the night.

Aarrrroooooo