Your Weekly Boo: In which Boo shows me what's what

Today marked Boo's second official course in "How to Politely Follow Jenna While Attached to a Lead Rope." This is part of a series meant to teach him excellent manners and encourage his maturity and social growth, kind of like a cotillion, but for baby donkeys. And instead of a big party at the end with a frilly dress, bouffant hairdo, and tea sandwiches, it'll be more of a Boo -tied-to-a-fence-while-vet-visits-and-snip-snips kind of thing. Are you starting to understand the importance of the halter and lead rope?!?


On a scale of 1-10, 1 being a "piss poor showing" and 10 being "exceeds expectations," Boo's lead rope manners scored him a whopping 2.5. Basically, he was a jerk. Sure, he happily followed me around for the first 30 seconds of the ordeal, with his muzzle aimed at my right pocket (sweet feed location), but he quickly learned to put on the brakes when things got boring (Jenna=empty right pocket). And donkeys have impressive brakes. I don't have much up my sleeve in the way of donkey training, and my minimal tricks really weren't sufficient to teach anyone to go anywhere. Especially when the student sees through the 'ol "pretend to have food in the hand but really have nothing" trick.

As usual, my attempt to civilize Boo ended with his heartbreak and despair.

His grumpy mom, Chula, tried to cheer him with some entertaining rolling tricks. To no avail.

Lucky for me, Boo knows just how to pull himself out of a foul mood and that is by schooling the teacher. He was intent on showing me just how much fun it is to be bossed around and told where to go as if you don't, maybe, have better things to do with your time, thank you very much. The jacket wrapped around my waist served as a great "lead rope," in Boo's opinion.


After several minutes of being taught what's what, I have a much better perspective on this whole training business.

Boo, I promise to never humiliate you again with the offensive process of being dragged around the place as if you have none of your own preferences about where to go and who to see. Next time, I'll just walk NEXT to you. I promise. Sheesh.

It's a love/hate thing.

I want to preface this post with a statement (since Jenna will read this later) that I do not regret getting the chickens for a second. Well, that's not entirely true since this post is inspired by this morning's incident. So, let me start over.

Take 2:
If I had to do it all over, I would still get chickens in the back yard. BUT, I don't feel like I was adequately prepared for some of the negative aspects. There's a downside? My biggest complaint is the infamous "Egg Song." You're probably thinking, "oh that sounds precious." It's not. Especially at 6:30 in the morning. We had read about this egg song before we first heard it, and they tend to do it after they lay an egg. Ok, I can respect being proud about an recent accomplishment and wanting to let everyone know. I'm not sure I would be as proud since the remaining 20 trillion chickens around the world also lay eggs almost everyday, but to each his/her own. What drives me crazy sometimes is when one of the chickens decides to sing this egg song in the morning for no good reason. (First off, let me clarify, this "song" is no song. When I hear the word "song" I think of a melodious, soothing piece. Like "The Sound of Music" or something. No no, this egg "song" is an obnoxious, jarring antithesis of a song. I digress). Since they normally lay eggs between the 10:00am - 3:00pm time, the egg song(s) don't really bother anybody (by anybody, I mean Jenna and I and our 7 neighbors that surround our cul-d-sac backyard). Everyone is at work or, at the very least, awake by then. So, I don't really care about the normal occurrence. But, the occasional 6:30am performance gets to me, especially when that coincides with a day that I don't have to be up early. Like I said, it doesn't happen every morning. The only common thread between morning incidents that I can see is when I don't have to be up early. Spiteful little punks.

Now, you may be asking how do you get them to shut up at 6:30am? (You're probably really asking why you are still reading this rant thinking "boo freakin' hoo, I get up at 6:00 every morning.) Well, Jenna or I throw on a robe, run to the kitchen and grab whatever bread product is handy, and head to the back yard bumping into walls and furniture along the way in our pre-alarm clock, morning stupor. As soon as we get outside and toss some bread/chips/etc. into the yard, the "singing" ceases and we go back to bed. Every once in a while, the "singing" resumes after we've settled back into bed which results in a repeat of the previous 30 minutes activities. Luckily, no neighbors have complained yet.

So, to all of you future chicken owners, this is not intended to be a message deterring you from acquiring these funny little creatures. Instead, I just wanted to shed some light on the less sunny side of chicken "farming." It's not all scratching and egg-laying.

Below is a video of when they first started doing this last fall, when we thought it was still charming. Without further ado, I present: Graciela sings "The Egg Song." Enjoy.

Thanks, Google Sketch Up

First off, I want to acknowledge that the hand drawing illustrated in Jenna's previous post got a little out of control. Like any self respecting (read: anal retentive) engineer, I immediately began researching CAD programs to better realize our vision. Being the fiscally responsible (read: cheap) person I am, I ended up settling on the free Google software. Below is a pic of how I interpreted the scribbles on the graph paper.



Once I started to get the hang of this software, I decided to move into the 3rd dimension for my barn. Is it a bad thing that I got more excited about my future barn than I am about our future living quarters? Don't tell Jenna I said that.

Patience is not a virtue

Yesterday, the unthinkable happened. Jeremy initiated a state-of-the-union-address type conversation about future plans for the land. I tried to be cool about his unexpected enthusiasm to start actually really talking about getting out there but I blew my cover with uncontrollable shaking and foaming at the mouth.

No, no, no. I kid. I really did have it under control and managed to keep him talking about it for a full 37 minutes by nodding with a big dumb grin on my face and agreeing to his many and complicated ideas that involve: a toolshed, within a barn that houses a smokehouse which sits beneath an attic that has a trap door from which drops a pulley and platform to "lift heavy things" (say wha??) next to a pavilion that can be used for both parties and to milk animals (excellent dual purpose usage), that sits beside a garden shed and greenhouse which will all reside atop a hill above the beehive, vineyard, and wheat field, etc. Etc. It is clear that he's covered all of the bases except for....well....a place for us to live.

Ahem.

I have some different ideas. Well, two, mainly. They involve 1) a temporary dwelling that can be permanently left on the land and used later for many, many things (this is, like, a REALLY good idea) and 2) the permanent house. I'm having trouble getting much beyond these two goals but am pretty sure that until we have said dwelling, it might be tough to smoke meat, milk animals, and grow grapes along with the various other activities that require, you know, living there.

The combination of our two future plans, as illustrated, go something like this:

To this entire, expertly drawn to scale, diagram, I added the dot which is now completely lost in the middle corner of the sketch. The dot represented one of my two tiny goals - the temporary dwelling - and I clearly made the mistake of placing it within the area where Jeremy has planned his combination toolshed/smokehouse/barn/orchard/hay field. Oops.

Regardless of where anything will go or what it will be, it seems we're now looking at a Twenty Five Year Plan and the Five Year Plan I criticized earlier looks quite appealing about now. Too bad that the FYP got lost somewhere in the scribbles.

I am not a patient person but this process is going to beat me down into enjoying "the simple things" (blah. puke) - - like tiny teeny steps forward. And I'll admit, adding our first official piece of furniture this weekend, was incredibly gratifying.

Your (more than) Weekly Boo: It's Not Easy Being Green

I totally stole this title from an episode of a television show. Name that show! (There is absolutely nothing in this for you. I'm just hoping someone else can Name that show! and then I'll feel better about having watched it. Thank you.)

But it's a deep message. It really isn't easy being green. Which is why today, I offer you a view of the world from Boo's perspective.

First it is important to understand that Boo takes a lot of soul searching, meandering walks that inevitably end like this:

Probably, this is due to loneliness (please refer to an earlier post.) But maybe it's because he's just very complicated. I am fascinated with such things and have to wonder, what is he thinking?

Upon closer inspection I find that he is not really thinking. He is asleep.

Of course, all my picture taking and bothering sends him trotting away to attend to more pressing business. He sets his sights on befriending the dog.

LuLu is: shock and awe.

Which leads Boo to his second favorite activity, behind eating sweet feed: inappropriate sniffing.

From Boo's perspective, I think all we can ascertain is that he still has a lot to figure out. After all, he's only five months old, and is, let's face it, only a donkey. What were you expecting, rocket science? Geez.

Your Weekly Boo: Nothing stays the same.

Boo is growing like a weed and only one part of him remains the same.

His grumpy mom, Chula, is trying to wean him by nipping his neck and snorting and stomping. This worked for a while and Boo would hang his head and sadly walk away. But he's way past that. Now when Chula kicks at Boo to wean him, he kicks her right back and keeps nursing. Very sassy.

Look at that face! He is hardly a baby donkey anymore which leaves me broken hearted.

I am also broken hearted by the amount of poison ivy that's vined around many of the trees that surround the "pond." Spring has revealed the unpleasant surprise that poison ivy is abundant and that cactus can grow without roots. I promise.

It's a relief that some things will probably never change. Particularly the cows who remain small enough to crawl through the hay ring.

And Rooney, who never eats the outside hay.

Spring Chicken

If you do not have one of these:

It's probably time to run to your nearest feed store and pick out a few of these babies for your own backyard.

We owe a lot to these ladies. Not only do they provide us with lots (lots, lots) of eggs daily, but they eat pesky bugs, and keep the dogs in line.

If you have a little yard, are easily entertained, and are friendly with your neighbors get onto My Pet Chicken and Backyard Chickens now, right NOW. Tis the season! And I welcome you to my world.