Panic attack!

Poor Buzz.  She comes to the side door to get her dinner.  We have a cat, formerly a stray, now the neighbors have adopted, that is an extreme jerk.  He will run up and pound on her with no warning, and tries continually to corner her.  I am not a big one for hurting animals, but I ended up having to hit him with a rock to get him to lay off her and leave.  I had no gloves, or I would have grabbed him bodily... Sigh.

 But we don't leave the food out now, we feed her, when she leaves, we put the food away.  It's a pain in the butt, but it works, we rarely see the other cat. (The one I called Midnight, by the way...)

So, she has become used to calling for us at the side door, and we come out and feed her.  This works well for all involved.  Ding even comes to the door, and Buzz will come over, they touch noses, and all seems well in the land of Kittycat. 

Until about 2 days ago.  Buzz decided Ding was being friendly, and for whatever unknown reason, Buzz just walked in the house.  I decided not to close the door, as she is NOT a house cat.

I was spot on with that thought.  She rubbed up against Ding, who looked very confused, and then Buzz actually registered.  Hey, I am in the house.  THIS IS TERRIFYING!!!  LET ME OUT YESTERDAY! 

Launch!

She yowled, then scorched out of the house like her tail was on fire, Ding ran to the door, looking even MORE confused, why did my new friend leave?  She just got here!

I managed to keep Ding from running out the door, Buzz was long gone, and I quickly closed the door. Ah.  All is back to "normal"... 

Except now Buzz stays WAY back from the door when it opens.  Guess you can't be too careful when you are near the doorway of...

Whatever she thinks it is... 

A new chicken roller...

I feed my chickens (when it's wet, mostly), in a long feeder.  It's a long metal 'trough' that is supposed to have a bar at the top, so the chickens won't stand IN the feeder to eat. 

I don't know when it happened, but my feeder was in pretty rough shape, and when I have been feeding them inside of late, (NOT like any rain in the south, but we have been getting some rain here, oddly...), two or three chickens will insist on standing in the center, which blocks the other chickens from eating... And, sometimes the solid fuel exhaust gets put in the feed.  EEEEEEEEEEEW!!!

So, I finally remembered to get a heavy dowel on my last trip into town, and had a little confab with Husband about putting it on the feeder.  He looked at the poor thing, and said, is the foot SUPPOSED to look like this?  Um, no, I think it may have been run over?  (To this day, I have NO clue what happened, but the bar was bent nearly in half, and the foot was crushed, even the trough itself was squashed, but I managed to get that back to useability.)  He hmmed for a moment, and said, let me see what I can do.

He came back in with the feeder, and the first thing I notice, the center roller was white, not wood.  He explained, he put a bit of PVC pipe he had over it, to protect the wood, and he waxed the PVC, so that the chickens couldn't stand on it.  (The dowel rolls quite smoothly...)  Then he showed me where the smashed foot was, and it was as if it was new!  He'd taken both out, and bent the one to match the other. 

And so now, I have a chicken feeder that looks very much like a nice tool box, with feet.  I gave it a 'test feed' the other day, and nearly hurt myself laughing!  Edgar, one of my most obnoxious bold hens, jumped right up on the roller.  Then Marshmallow did, too.  And they realized that they couldn't keep their footing.  They both tried running, to keep up with the roll of the center, and then WHOOSH, both go zooming off, landing in a heap by the feeder. 

Do they give up?

Of course not. 

It took Marshmallow about 3 tries to get the clue she couldn't stand on it, and Edgar, the better part of 3 DAYS... But, they aren't jumping up on it anymore. 

Now Jet Puff, on the other hand, got the bright idea to stand straddle of the roller, with one foot on either side.  Oh, great, thought I...  But he learned that he isn't well appreciated for  that, as his toes were pecked, and his tail feathers pulled.  Whereupon, he jumped on the roller...

No one seems inclined to have breakfast on the run anymore!

Breakfast. (Picture heavy.)

(To explain, I am trying to put some weight on Llama, she is elderly, and didn't seem to hold her weight up during the winter.  So I am feeding her in the chicken house, and the others are very jealous... And yes, it is chicken chow, but it's nearly the same product as some of the other feeds I have used for the llamas.  Go figure.)

Nom, nom, nom...  I loves me this chicken chow...

Hello, I heard the word CHOW used.  Where's mine??

Me, too!  Chicken chow is my favorite! 

Why is the door closed?  I am ever so... annoyed...

Oh, you have a camera.  If I smile, do I get chow???

Ah, sunshine.  You know what would be nice? 

Yes, indeed, I would love some chow.... 

No?  But I am so cute!

HEY! MOM!  Why are all the spitters up front?

SPITTERS??? How RUDE!

Um.  Food?  

Finger lickin' good? Um...

Went to feed this morning again.  I don't know what was going on, but I seemed to be on the menu!

I took the hay out, and the llamas met me at the gate.  I put the hay in the bins close by, and Llama walked up.  I patted her, then said I didn't have anything for her, holding up my hand.  She then walked over, and started sucking my fingers like a calf!  This was odd.  I carefully removed my hand, and she just walked over and started on the OTHER hand.  Okay...

After removing my now somewhat gooey digits from her mouth, I started for the gate.  I looked down to see Toni reaching for my fingers, too!  But, she smelled Llama on my hands, and quickly backed off, with a disgusted look.  I quickly let myself out, locked the gate, and put my hands down...

Whereupon, Rudee decided that I needed my fingers washed!

I have not a clue why the llamas would be interested in my fingers... Rudee is always licking me, so that wasn't a big surprise, but it was sure unique having a llama nibble.  (For any worried about my being bitten, llamas don't have upper teeth, just a hard, gum covered plate.  They have long, horse like bottom teeth, but again, they aren't particularly sharp.)

So, I guess I was tasty this morning!

Is it July yet? Must be...

In one of my earlier posts, I said it was going to be July before I fed...  Must be July 1st today!  I was able, with a bit of thought beforehand, get all the animals fed.  I couldn't go out in the field, so I got out the wagon and fed them from the gravel side of the fence, using the wagon to haul things.  The llamas didn't care, but Rudee was checking out the wagon a lot.  I am wondering if our visiting kitty had slept, (or worse) in it.  That's usually why he's interested in things like that.

The chickens, well, they just figure if it's food, they are good.  So, I didn't trip, I wore shoes that didn't leak, (I found out that the garden clogs that I was using have a bit of a hole, so when you walk in the mud, there is a definite squish factor involved with socks...), and I was able to get the animals all fed and checked.  About the only thing that happened was when I tried to exit the chicken house, Annie and Toni decided that I must have grain for them, I was in the chicken house, right?

I showed them my hands.  They sniffed.  They looked at me.  I raised my hands, giving them the "all gone" sign. They looked at me some more.  I finally said, "SHOO! I don't have anything..."  They continued to glance at me, as if I was going to do some fancy magic trick, until I just walked carefully forward, and went out the gate.

And nearly had two llamas in the yard.  They know who gives them the good stuff!

In the weather news, it didn't rain today, (part of the reason I could feed...), but the weather folk are talking another 2 inches of rain soon.  We have done pretty well here, locally, we had one road out with about 2 inches of water, but that has receded, so we are able to get out.  Everyone around is nervous about wind, since we had so much water, so fast.

Eeep.   I know we needed rain, but it was juuuust a smidge on the the generous side!