I think that everything pretty much has a rhythm to it, and our farm is no exception.This is the rhythm of our farm:
Before I let the dogs out for the day, you can see the peacocks all in a group and usually just hanging out by the steel bins. There is some leftover corn that’s there when Daryl grinds feed and that’s how they start out their morning, hanging out with each other and having a morning snack.
Then, just as I’m opening the door to go outside, the cattle are all standing in the cow yard and it seems like they’re watching for me. Now I’m not sure how smart cattle are – but my Rion probably could be considered a ‘Cow Genius’. Because he waits to see where I’m going and if I start to head to the barn, he starts running to the north door of the barn and just waits. And when I say running… he’s running. He knows that I’m coming to pet him and to bring feed.
When I get to the barn, I get the dogs up for the day and spend sometime petting them. They really got into the routine of being locked up at night and I’m so glad. At night we can hear other dogs bark and I would just hate to have our dogs get into trouble at someone else’s farm. The unwritten rule is that, if a pack of dogs come to your farm at night and start chasing your cattle, you can stop them no matter what it takes. The farmer has so much money tied up in his cattle and I understand how all that works. So instead of being in bed worrying at night – we have our dogs go in our dairy barn and it’s been working really well.
Next comes the cattle – when I open the north door, I’m greeted by Rion and then No Ears, Spoiled Baby, and Sassy is standing close by. I usually have to pet Rion to get him out of the way and then they get fed corn and hay for the day.
But today I messed the routine all up. I went to the farm store this morning after chores to get some dog food, and while I was in there I bought some more chicken feed. In the early afternoon I thought I better get that feed out of the car because tonight we need to take it to a basketball game. And since I was going to put the dog food in the barn, I thought I might as well give the cows some more hay. They were in the shed and when I walked in the cattle yard, they just looked at me. They didn’t know what was going on, but soon … here comes Rion. After I fed them and was walking through the yard, I looked back and all four cows were just standing there looking at me. It was pretty funny. They looked a little nervous, but still they didn’t mind the afternoon treat.
Then I put the chicken feed into the brooder house and they just stood and watched me also. I’m thinking tomorrow I better keep to the schedule otherwise everyone will be messed up again!
The morning routine of the peacocks
I needed to make a Sympathy Card for a friend