4 Feathers Farm

Alex's Christmas Eve day adventures

            Alex has had quite the adventure in the last 12 hours or so. We’re burning woodpiles in the pasture while we let The Girls wander the property. Our acreage was partially timbered some years ago and there are enormous logs and piles of wood everywhere.

            Last night one of the woodpiles was starting to blaze just as Alex was ready for bed so he decided to stay out and watch it a bit. He heard a helicopter flying low and thought, “Oh man, am I in trouble.” So he ran to get the rake. As he told me, “You know in the movies when someone steps on a rake and it hits them in the face? I did that. I stepped on the rake and it hit me in the face.” He covered the blaze with some dirt to get it down a bit and the helicopter just passed by.

            This morning he was checking on The Girls. We’re letting them eat hay off the trailer in hopes it’ll last longer without them peeing and pooping all in it. Alex was scooping up hay they’d knocked off and he said Spellbound asked what he was doing that for. He said so y’all won’t waste it. He said Spellbound started to chuckle and turned her back to him. After he’d stuffed all the fallen hay back into the hay roll, Lisa came along and, in one felled swoop, knocked it all back off onto the ground with her nose. Alex said Spellbound couldn’t stand it and had to walk around the back of the trailer, she was laughing so hard.

            He also fed the cats and our lone guinea flew down and scratched him on the hand then proceeded to dine with the cats. I said if that guinea comes near me, it’s a goner. I’ll go into labor just chasing that thing around to knock it’s head clean off.

            Today I guess we will warm up the turkey my friend Charleen sent us at Thanksgiving. I’ve been looking through my “Down to the Roots” magazines for a turkey soup recipe and, of course, found several other articles that I want to read again. I love that magazine. It comes out four times a year for $38 and is worth every penny. I especially love the yearly pantry stocking concept and will start all over again come January. It makes such sense and has helped around here when I’m trying to figure out dinner. www.downtotherootsmagazine.com.

             Yesterday we stopped by Jim and Nancy’s mule farm to show Alex ‘Er’s Prince,” a paint Clydesdale stallion, and Nancy ended up putting Hayes on two ponies to see how they did with children. I was proud of Hayes’ seat – nice and tall and heels down. One pony started to take off with her but she remained composed and really had a good time. Didn’t want to leave, of course. Check out the mule farm at www.calicojunctionmuleranch.com.