My parents were out of town for a few days at a conference, so we had to take care of “the critters.” Today we woke up to snow and hit the high temperature for the day before noon. It was a wet snow that mostly melted by the afternoon, perfect for snowball fights and snowman building. The ground was too warm for it to stick, but it should be interesting tomorrow.
My husband went this morning to check on things and feed. I took the afternoon shift.
On my way out to the ranch I saw this pretty oak tree. (this was a southern-facing tree, so no snow).
When I drove up, two of the four horses greeted me. The sun was going down, the wind was blowing and it was starting to get really cold.
They had to get a closer look …
Before anything can happen, I had to change my boots. Pretty, fashion boots to working-hard-rubber boots.
My husband said he ran out of feed after the morning rounds. Before I went to the ranch I stopped and got a couple bags of feed (this was when Kelly, at the feed story, passed on friendly advice to change boots. check.). Once I opened the saddle house (aka the tack room) to get the cat food, I found, hmmm curiously, three more bags of feed.
The barn cats are almost feral. Most can be persuaded into a little petting, but a few are very skittish around people except for my dad. He can woo almost any animal into trusting him.
Although this fluffy Tom cat crawled on top of the saddle house and stared down at me.
The weaning calves were looking for a bite to eat too. They saw me and starting coming briskly to the barn. I gave them an extra dab since the cold was coming on. With an expected low in the lower 20s, a few extra cubes couldn’t hurt.
This corriente calf looks out of place among the black baldy/Angus calves. We’re currently eating a corriente hybrid out of our freezer—good eats!
Then I went in the house to feed the indoor cats, only to find that they opted out of the litter box 😦
The Arcadian Experience 