You are disrupting my peace!

Muñeca, aside from now sharing her pen in the evening with 21 geese, has had her days altered a bit this weekend. Three chicks were acquired a couple of weeks ago and over the weekend during the daylight hours they were introduced to the coop.

She went very vocal about this intrusion and kept giving the eye signal that ….”this was just temporary, right? Like, ‘temporary’ is over NOW, right?”

On this subject, Addis Ababa University has recently found that chickens have the power to protect you from mosquitoes. Four compounds found in chicken feathers, isobutyl butyrate, naphthalene, hexadecane and trans-limonene, are believed to have some sort of repellant effect.

So a couple of options:

1. sleep with a chicken

2. or incorporate feathers into your attire

Me…I’ll just stick to fur as being challenge enough for mosquitoes.

I'm 14 today!

In human years, I'm 14 today. In cat years, I'm 80 (or 72, depending on which cat calculator you're looking at). Pretty amazing in that the Handlers still call me a baby. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that ...I am the baby. Or I was the baby...

Yesterday we lost Keika who made the move with us 5 years ago to the Southern Hemisphere. She had turned 18 on April 23rd. In other words, she was really old. She put up a brave battle in the past two days, and in the end, Male Handler was caressing her head, and Female Handler was tickling the underside of her paw when she took her last gasp. She found her mojo down here, there is no doubt about it. Back in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, she wouldn't venture more than 3 meters away from the house. Here on the farm in southwestern Uruguay, at least in the beginning she didn't want to be left behind when the family walked the orchard, which meant walking at least 300 meters from the house.

She was buried right next to her son, Motor (the genesis of this blog) who passed 5 years ago in July.

So, on my birthday, my wish is for Keika to find the sun spot of her dreams. She has earned it!

Taken on Monday...

She had a soft spot for Dulce de Leche ice cream...

Northern (lower) Pond

This is what the area looked like before the pond.

The lower pond required the excavator which Nostra didn't particularly like when it was parked near the house in the evenings.

And these are the current residents of the lower pond.

World Water Day

In celebration of World Water Day, which was on March 22...(you're forgiven if you didn't know), we decided having water retained on the farm would be advantageous. The alternative is that the water disperses off the farm, usually eroding the soil beyond.

The end of February, Carlos and his capable team (consisting of his son and his daughter) started to work digging ponds. This is what the front field looked like before they got started.

These were the tools used on the front pond.

And this is what it looked like when it wasn't even finished.

Once completed, we waited, and waited, and waited....

On April 15th, the rains came, and came, and came... (along with a tornado to the N.W. and much destruction elsewhere), and the pond filled very quickly just as it was supposed to.

And then the word got out...

And then it really got out...

And life was good.

(Senior FH-V, your sunset on the water, as you requested)

Harmony

Eggs!

Life is good...an egg a day for the past four days. Not bad for old hens!

Whatever....!

This has nothing to do with me....or goats...or chickens... or almonds...but I'm posting it anyway...

A surreal picture of morning fog.

And it happened to be perfectly positioned above Blanca's horns...