“OH!”
“HELP!”
“MOM!”
“HELP!”
“BOO Berry Betty”, Mom yelled,
“Come help me put the chickens away,”
“OKAY, MOM!”
Teeee heee, chuckle, snort!
Boo Berry Betty
I get this “Scatter” thing, Boo Berry Betty. I always scatter when there is a HUGE BIG MOTOR somewhere close.
I mean like RUUUUUUUUUUUUN! Is the word.
And RUN to the house is the answer.
Hiding in the house is the only way to go.
BUT—
Sometimes in the house—
MOM does the unthinkable!!!
SHE VACUUMS!!!
When that happens you and I have to
SCATTER!!!
TLC Cai-Cai
Mom and I had just come out of the house
Where I had been eating BREAKFAST!!!
I go out early, early in the morning
Just at Daybreak
Not Daylight
Daybreak!
Why so early?
Gosh, there are things to do
Stuff to see
And MICE to catch!
Anyway,
Mom and I came out the backdoor together
Mom going over to feed the Humming Birds
And I, to walk with Mom
WHEN I SAW
What is it?
Just as I saw IT, so did Mom
I saw Mom put her hand down by the It
Then
No more IT
I wonder what happened to IT?
Oh, well, gone.
TLC Cai-Cai
I was out and about
When I saw
Chase
Chase
Zoom
Pounce
A Lizard!
You have to be Extremely Fast
To Catch a Lizard.
TLC Cai-Cai
We have a chipmunk…
actually, two that live with me in the farm yard. But Mom can never seem to get a photo of them. These Chips are the descendants of two Chips
who were friends with Sam-Sam.
And Fuzzy.
And Boomer. Now their great, great grands are friends with me.
Since Mom can’t get a photo of them, she is posting one she saw out on the farm—where I NEVER go.
We also have several ground squirrels who share the chicken feed with the chickens.
Once more these are the descendants of Stanly and Stewart and their lovely squirrel wives—Shirley and Shelia.
It seems whenever Mom is around and the squirrels are around, she never has her camera. BUT— out on the farm, Mom saw a squirrel hiding behind his tail. So cute-thought Mom.
We also have a family of bunnies.
Momma bunny told me it was much, much safer to hang around the farm yard, than the farm proper. She knows, she was over by the equipment area when she grew up.
It was a dangerous and very scary place to live.
The Gambol Quails have migrated in to share dinner with the hens. They are extremely fast. (and, of course, Mom never has her camera when she is working in her yard.)
The pair of Gambol Quails have BABIES— that run and dart very fast. I have a goal….no! No! NO!!!! I don’t. Never! I can’t even think of that goal! EVER!!!!
One day I was a tad bored, Skitter Bug was close, I was bored so I hopped out from under the peony bush right on her back. (Mom saw). Mom screamed NO!
She didn’t need to scream.
Skitter Bug turned around very fast and pecked the heck out of me, then when I fell over, she flew up and pounced on ME!
Let’s just say—hens are off the grocery shopping list. (Although to be fair to me, I didn’t want to eat her, just play with her.)
We have
birds,
and birds
and
lots of birds.
One day we had a hawk…
WOW, THAT BIRD IS BIG!!!
I had to hide in the wood pile. Mom was outside and saw the hawk. She yelled at the hawk—“SHOO! Go away!
(I’m not sure if this IS a hawk—any ideas?)
These animals in the farm yard are NOT your dinner.” The hawk just looked at Mom, but he did fly away.
So—that’s the working list of animals in the farm yard.
Plus, Me, Dad, and Mom.
(We also have a badger…Mom…did you hear me?)
TLC Cai-Cai
When Dad goes out to the farm with one of his HUGE, BIG, LOUD machines
Mom goes into her yard, or out by the farm buildings, or into the corrals, or something or other.
The second I hear the back door open and then shut
I know Mom is outside somewhere.
Someplace.
Somewhere.
I stop what I’m doing and start looking for Mom.
Sometimes I look for Mom in a sneaky way—like hide here and there.
Hide under this.
Or that.
Then I walk very quietly to Mom
Sit down and wait for Mom to notice me.
Other times I run down the road
As fast as I can.
Soon as I get to Mom, I start rubbing myself all along her legs.
Either way, Mom always stops and gives me really nice rubs and pets
Then Mom ‘gets to work’
Sometimes that means dragging the hose all over the lawn
Or loading up the wheel barrels with shovels, rakes, and the hoe
Other times it means Mom sits down on the side of the flowerbeds and starts grabbing the weeds
No matter what Mom starts doing I hang around with her
I hang around
And around
And—
This is so sooooo boring.
I don’t mind waiting and waiting if there is a mouse to torment
catch
But just laying in the shade, under a big leaf, waiting on Mom
IS—-
I’m done!
See you later, there are things to do, and mice to catch!
TLC Cai-Cai
I was finally outside running free, free, free!
I checked here
And there
And over here
Then back behind here
Down the road
Behind the grain bins.
I was just turning around to head back to the house for
BREAKFAST
When
I heard a ROAR!
Not just a roar, but
A BIG ROAR, ROAR
It scared me so bad I ran under some weeds next to Dad’s tractor shed
The ROAR got louder and louder
THE ROAR WAS HUGE
I made myself as small as I could get—keeping my eyes peeled on the sound
Then out backed Dad and the tractor
OH! Yes! The TRACTOR!
The scary thing that lives on the farm
Well, one of the scary things
Dad has five tractors—FIVE! And they are all huge, green, with giant tires that could smash a cat flat and LOUD!
I mean LOUD!
I slunk way down to the ground where I got so flat I was part of the ground.
Then I waited there. All still and tiny and flat.
As I watched, Dad fueled up the loud tractor, then headed toward the equipment area
That means the tractor, the VERY LOUD tractor has to go right by my hiding spot.
I made myself flatter and flatter
Whew!
Dad is gone!
I jumped up—all fluffy and my full size again—and dashed away, away from the tractor shed and all those potentially
LOUD TRACTORS!
As I was dashing away I saw Mom come out of the Backdoor—
MOM! I yelled.
WAIT! I need breakfast!
Mom waited.
Swooped me up, gave me a kiss on my kitty nose, and put me in the house
Where I got BREAKFAST!
Purrrr, purr, purr
TLC Cai-Cai
Dad is planting corn,
He got it all planted
Then he went out and knocked down the rows
Now Dad and Mom wait
( of course, they don’t sit and wait)
After the corn gets a tiny sprout
They will start the water on the cornrows
Soon the tiny seeds will make
BABY corn PLANTS!
As for me—I am busy keeping the farmyard
SAFE!
TLC Cai-Cai
Outside of all the bending, stooping, picking up, laying down, walking, walking, walking, shoveling.
There is always and forever the delight in being out on the ditch bank watching the seeds pop up out of the ground, growing straight and tall.
There is so much happiness in being a farmer, and a protector of the land and the water.
And having a wonderful, furry kitty. Kitties are an important part of this farm.
There are so many things kitties do: we hang out with our people when they are stressed and just need to hear a purring voice,
we follow along as they work in the farmyard, keeping a silent, watchful eye on all they do,
we keep monster mice away from the house, the feed, the chicken pen, and everything on the farm,
we warm beds in the night, (sleeping RIGHT BETWEEN our people!), and lick them in the face when it’s time to get up in the morning.
(Meow—it’s hot!)
Kitties are very, very important!
Thanks for coming along. We, (Mom, Dad, and I) appreciate your stopping by and reading.
TLC Cai-Cai
Well, maybe not the water itself, but Mom and Dad sure are.
There is the headgate, you have to keep all the trash out of it,
sometimes Dad has to walk across the headgate on the tiny little board to put other ‘blocking’ boards in,
and sometimes Dad has to put down the side of the tiny walking board a screen to filter out the trash.
Trash is a huge part of keeping the water flowing.
Trash stops the water,
causes it to pool up and then will become a flood. Trash makes Dad and mom athletic getting down and digging it out of the water.
Then there is putting in and removing the dams. That is a dam you are seeing.
Dad uses several dams all along the ditches so the water isn’t just rushing by and causing some other sort of crisis somewhere else along the way.
At each dam, the water rises until there is enough water Mom and Dad can start the tubes.
Mom says you have to be fast or the water will rise so high that it will run over the side of the ditch and cause a flood.
The water coming out of the cement ditch into the tubes goes into little furrows that keep the water manageable.
Over time the furrow becomes imprinted with the water and won’t let the water run over into another row.
But in the Springtime, when everything is starting to ‘learn’ it’s way-of-being, Mom and Dad have to walk down the rows and make sure the water stays in its own row and doesn’t get greedy and try to take over its neighbor’s row.
The tools used on the water are shovels, rakes/forks (not all the time, but in the early Spring for sure), dams -metal and the
orange fiber material, siphon tubes, a wide variety of trash cleaners,
four-wheelers to get a person from here to there, and people.
Lots of bending and stooping and jumping over ditches and walking on scary boards…if water isn’t athletic, Mom and Dad sure are! 😊
Lots of work, but Mom says it keeps Dad and her young.
TLC Cai-Cai
Life on a Colorado Farm 