Footloose Farms

Since my last entry

After catching a flu bug and being tired and dragged out for a few days, I’m back on my feet and ready to tackle the next project.  Last week was a busy one for us as we were animal sitting for some friends.  We couldn’t tell anyone as we didn’t want the neighbors to get wind of it.  That could have been horrible if they had.  I don’t want to even think about what all they could have done (and gotten away with!).  Anyway, no one knew and we had a very good time.  It’s nice to get to know other people’s animals.  They all have such different personalities.

  Chipper, the 2 year old gelding that was raised with Candy, is finally working through his grief.  Candy was his great grandma, and also his best friend.  He was very angry and in mourning for the first week but this week he’s calming down and accepting things as they are now.  The deer kept tearing down his fence and he’d quickly take the opportunity to go looking for Candy.  We have a son of Candy’s, named Charge.  He looks just like she did.  We finally had to pen Chipper next to Charge so he’d get it through his head that they were not the same horse.  He seems quite content where he is now, although he doesn’t want to be turned out with Charge.  When I turn Charge out, Chipper wants in his pen for the day.  Charge is still a stud and likes to dominate Chipper.  Nothing mean, just basically saying, “Look at how strong I am.”  Chipper wants nothing to do with it and I don’t blame him.  I’ve been taking more time for Chipper since Candy died as he’s just like his mother, Tess, and loves attention.  He was always a cocky little turd (also, just like his mother was at his age), then this summer, we had neighbors actually punching him (we caught them doing it!).  They’d lure him to the fence with goodies, then when he’d reach over to eat what they were holding, they’d punch him in the face.  I came totally unglued and chewed them out.  I had suspicions before catching them as Chipper was getting head shy.  He was starting to act like a horse that was being hit on, but I couldn’t prove anything.  After I had my fit, the adults left him alone, but I did catch some kids trying to run him with sticks.  I quickly put a stop to that too.  Anyway, Chipper is now doing much better and reminds me of his dam every day.  I can’t wait until he can run on 10 acres and really kick up his heals.

  Yesterday was exciting.  My mother had a gal there to clean her house.  While she was outside, cleaning the many windows, mom and Emily ran to town.  When they got back, they were met with a very excited cleaning lady.  She had attempted to move some tin that was lying on the ground so she could move her ladder and met with a very loud and angry rattle snake.  She had climbed the ladder and sat there until the snake finally slithered off.  Mom called me up, wanting me to run down and find the snake.  She couldn’t let her dogs out and didn’t want to really go out herself.  I took Benny, our faithful snake hater with me and we looked all over (and under) everything but never did find the snake.  He probably went down a gopher hole.  I can’t believe the snake was there.  This time of year, they should all be near or in their dens.  Guess he got layed up somehow…..

  Well, it’s about chore time and I need to get busy.

Bye for now.

P.S.  Here's a photo I shot with my Sony Mavica on Sunday...

Untitled Comment

{ 08:34 , Thursday, October 11, 2007 } { Posted by CandyFoote }

Great picture!
I'm glad that you are feeling better!

Candy