Not Again! Farm

by CrimsonNinjaGirl

If you have never been inside a medium or maximum security prison, you just cannot imagine what it feels like to have a 12 foot gate topped with razor wire slam shut behind you. I was ok through the first one. The second gate slamming automatically behind me gave me what can best be described as claustrophobia. By the time we went through the third gate, I had pretty well adjusted.

It truly is an unsettling feeling to be locked in. I didn’t really think it would bother me and so that feeling of being trapped caught me off guard. Then again, I don’t know why I would think that it wouldn’t. I am one of those people who hates to have the windows shut and prefers the doors open. When I was a kid, I don’t think we even had a key to our house and moving into the city, I remember having a really hard time with locking the doors when I was home. I felt, and still feel to some extent trapped.

So I was lucky, my stay in prison was just an hour and I was released through the same automatic gates. I have been asked to teach a class in grooming to a select few prisoners. They have been participating in a program through PenPals that brings in unadoptable dogs to be trained and socialized. The prisoners work with them in teams and from what I saw today, they do a great job.

I will be teaching basic grooming skills for an hour a week for about 10 weeks. This is not directly through PenPals but is a vocational program that teaches the inmates a skill that they can take with them when they are released. The guys are nice, polite and very interested in the animals, in the business and asked the kind of questions that I would have expected from a college class on the first day.

I am really excited about working with them. The PenPals program is GREAT for the dogs as they have a 100% adoption rate and the dogs do really well with the intensive care and training. It has also had unexpected benefits for the men who are caring for and training them.

They are understandably very proud of their animal. They are it’s last chance and that is a big responsibility. Gaining the trust of an animal that has been abused or abandoned takes a giving of one’s self. You have to trust and give first before the animal will trust and give back. And animals don’t care where you have been or what you are wearing, they don’t care about your past, they are just looking for a leader they can put their faith in.

If you are looking for an animal oriented charity that has the good of animals and people at heart, you might want to look into the SOS-PenPals program.

I loved this commercial. It says so much about life and putting forth the effort to become what you want to be.

Budweiser Clydesdale Team

Ok, so I am a few months behind the times but I was just watching the trailer for the new Underdog. I had heard that a Cavalier plays Sweet Polly Purebred. After all, what other dog could even come close to the sweetness and beauty of a Cavalier?

I understand that Sweet Polly is played by a Cavalier from San Fransisco named Ginger but I haven’t been able to find who owns her or what bloodlines she is. I am showing the pictures to my girls and pointing out the nice luxuriant ears. Maybe they will get a bit more vain and stay out of the burr bushes.

Kory has her story posted in the Dog Blog Carnival. If you love dogs, you will want to check it out.

There are some great dog tales:

Rebecca Camarena presents Millionaire Mutt « Dogs Rule and Cats Drool posted at Dogs Rule and Cats Drool. A cat’s look at why people leave their dogs money.

Riayn presents Puppy Preschool posted at Petulance.

Tony Clements presents tuesdays: chase and bunny posted at tuesdays. A great dog story.

Shirley presents Things I’ve Learned From My Dogs. posted at Fun Spirit.

There’s more at the carnival so be sure to check it out!

I got up this morning and went out to feed the animals.  I walked over to the goat pen and the goats came a running as usual.  What was unusual was the horse came running in the goat pen too.  When I went to bed last night, she was in the horse pasture.

So Gracie and I had a little chat.  I explained to her that she couldn’t just go around knocking fences down and visiting the little goats.  She explained to me that it was lonely out in her pasture and she wanted some company.  Goats eat hay, horses eat hay, at least she would have someone to eat dinner with.

Ok, so I agreed that she could stay in the goat pen especially since I was running late for work.  I made some hasty repairs on the fence and checked to make sure that they had plenty to eat.  Then I trundled off to work.

I come home and not only is she eating dinner with the goats but she is following them around like a puppy dog.  The goats weren’t overly pleased with this situation this morning when I left but didn’t seem to be in any imminent  danger but this afternoon they all seem to have made friends.

Just before dark, I looked out my back window and the three of them were napping in the late afternoon sun.  I don’t think I have ever seen Gracie lay down but I guess she figured if it was good for her new friends, it was good for her. Where is my camera when I want it most?
So now I have a guinea who thinks it is a chicken and even lays eggs in the chickens nestbox but a horse who thinks it’s a goat.  There is plenty to eat in there but I will have to do some reinforcing of the fence since Grace seems to feel inclined to just push right through.

My name is Kory and I live on Not Again Farm. Mom says I am a Farm Cavalier. I’m not sure what she means by that except that we live on a farm and get to do cool farm things like chase frogs in the creek and run in the pastures. I know that many of my Cavalier relatives live a life of ease and plenty, reclining on the sofa and being pushed around in carriages and such.

My day starts out about 5:30 am when my first job of the day is to wake Mom up. I sleep on the bed so this isn’t a hard job. I wake up the other dogs and they all come and stare at her while I find an available spot on her face to lick. Sometimes it’s an ear but usually I try for an eye or her nose.

Once she is awake, she lets us all outside for a romp and to check out the farm to make sure it’s all ok. We like to get up before the goats and chickens because we can make a visit by the chicken house and get those roosters going. They aren’t much afraid of us during the day but if we can sneak in before the sun comes up, we can really cause a ruckus.

Once we have made sure that the rest of the farm is awake, we do our business and come back inside for breakfast. Mom complains that if we get the chickens too stirred up, the hens don’t lay their eggs and then we don’t get scrambled eggs for breakfast. We usually get them on top of our regular dog food.

After breakfast, Mom has to go to work. I watch her carefully and as soon as I see her finish her second cup of coffee, I know it’s time to go. I follow her around while she does her final chores and bark encouragingly. “Come on, Mom, we don’t want to be late.” As soon as she starts the van, I jump up in the passenger seat. I know we are going.

Mom takes turns with the other dogs and lets them go too but I almost always get to go. I think it’s because Mom needs me to make it through the day but she says it’s because I am the best behaved around our guests. I get to greet the grooming dogs that come to the shop and make them feel at home. I suppose this makes me kind of an ambassador. It’s a very important job.

I have my own cage at the grooming shop where I can sleep on my bed and chew on my hoof while I wait for Mom to finish. When we go out for a walk, I get to check out the gardens. This is a very important job. Sometimes there are things growing there and I get to dig them up. Better yet, there are sometimes moles that live under the garden and I get to dig and dig.

Mom gets really mad at me when I dig in the garden. She says I dig up the wrong things and get muddy and dirty. I don’t understand it at all. Isn’t this a dog’s job? To protect the house and garden and keep the crawly things out?

When we leave work, we go to the bank. This is my favorite part of the day. I can recognize the bank as soon as we pull into the parking lot and start to wiggle and bark. We pull up to this big window and the girl behind it talks to me every day. I sit in Mom’s lap at the bank and try my best to figure out how to fit myself into the little drawer that comes out with dog cookies in it. The girl in the bank tells me that I am the most beautiful dog in the world.

After the bank, we go home to take care of the other dogs and animals. This is fun and Elle and Ginger really love it. Mom feeds the animals and we usually take a walk around the farm. Elle and Ginger and I used to run off to the creek when it was warm. Chasing frogs and making them jump is great fun. We never catch them but they make a great plop when they jump in the water.

We also like to find the birds that hide in the tall grass and bushes. We stalk them and sneak up on them and then bark and they fly away. Sometimes we chase them off when they get in the yard. Silly Ginger chases butterflys in the summer. She looks pretty silly running and jumping as they flit along just out of reach.
Mom gets mad because we get muddy and dirty. She tells us that we are supposed to be Royal Spaniels and act like little princesses. How very boring. She gets mad when we get burrs in our ears too. We don’t like that much because then we have to get our ears combed out. It pulls the hair and Mom gets upset. She says we will never have ears like a proper Cavalier.

We don’t mind. Our job is not to have ears, it’s to take care of Mom and curl up with her on the sofa in the evening. We are here to lick her face and make her laugh. When it’s cold, we snuggle up under the throw with her until it’s bed time.

As you can see, the life of a Farm Cavalier is filled with chores and fun. We have much to do to keep Mom in line and all of the other animals in their places.

Oh, and me too I guess. I have been oooohhhhing and ahhhinnng over my guys all day. Keep in mind that these are pictures of pictures so they are not the best of quality..

I got to make a trip to the big city of Richmond yesterday.  I had to go buy paper and I wanted to get a gizmo to download the pictures from my SM card in my camera to my computer.  There just simply isn’t any place to buy either locally.

To make it a perfect trip and well worthwhile, I also got to meet Ned for dinner.  We met at BoneFish which is my favorite restaurant.  I am not big on bone fish usually but I have never had anything there I didn’t like.  They have the most scrumptious appetizer called Bang Bang Shrimp.

For a girl on a tight budget and who rarely gets to dress up, dinner was heaven!  The shrimp melted in your mouth and then I had some kind of Venezuelan white fish with a Rockerfeller sauce.  It was delicious and even better because I didn’t have to cook it myself plus I got to actually dress up in non-farm clothes and I had great company for dinner.

It’s the simple things in life that make me happy and aggravate me.  I got home with the paper and the gizmo.  I was excited to finally be able to download the pictures off my camera.  The gizmo was plainly and clearly marked to support SM cards but when I opened it, there was no slot it would fit in.  I dug out the little paper instructions that came with it and no where on THE INSIDE OF THE PACKAGE DID IT SAY IT SUPPORTED SM cards.  Grrrrrr!

Now I am stuck with this cute little media card reader that doesn’t fit my media.  It takes every other card in the known world but not mine.  I am faced with returning it to Richmond Office Max which will cost me more in gas than I paid for it or just keeping it and hoping that one day, I will be able to use it.

Photo Courtesy of Daniel Farrell 

Ok, I admit it. I finally screwed up my courage and killed one of my roosters. I am having very mixed emotions about it. Ned, who grew up on a farm, laughs at me and tells a few stories of the old days. It doesn’t help.

I go out to feed the chickens and the remaining roosters stare at me. Obviously unhappy that the one who has rescued them from tormenting dogs, pulled them out of bushes and provided daily food and water has now turned on them. You can see them wondering who is next.

I’m not going to go into the gory details but let me say that those step by step instructions that make it sound so easy are wrong. When it was over, I ended up with a good meal in the freezer and a day’s worth of cleaning in the kitchen and I had totally lost my appetite. Wet feathers stick to EVERYTHING! And worse, once it was plucked, it had goosebumps.

It’s taken me two days to even suck up my nerve enough to write about it. Ned tells me that by the time, I have the last two in the pot, I will be an expert. I’m not sure how to tell him that the last two may die of old age before I screw up my courage to go through this again.

On the other hand, the hens are little happier now with one less pesky rooster. With 4 roosters and 3 hens, they were sadly outnumbered. The roosters wouldn’t even let them eat. Egg production had fallen off and the hens were avoiding food to avoid the harrassment from the boys.

I have a whole new respect for our foremothers who did this and more on a daily basis. I think I like gardening better. The tomatoes never stared at me reproachfully. And the cucumbers never turned away after a harvest. I don’t think I am ready to be a vegetarian but grocery store meat does have it’s advantages.

Time flies when you are having fun.  It’s been very busy here this last week and I am behind in everything.  I noticed this morning that the girls are getting bigger and bigger and although they are eating everything in sight and then some, I don’t think they are getting fat.  So it means…. puppies!!

My camera won’t talk to my computer so I can’t post pictures at this time.  I am hoping to fix that today with a shopping trip to the big city of Richmond.  It’s silly that a 50 mile trip seems like an expedition but with gas prices as high as they are, I can’t afford to do it often.  I have to save up all the little things and make one trip do for all.  I definitely want to get the camera working again before puppies get here.

We get the picture day pictures back on Friday.  I’m looking forward to seeing them and hoping that we got some good ones of the girls and Jamie.  They took enough that at least one of them should be good.  My reward for hosting picture day is a 16×20 inch framed print.  I really hope they pick one of just the dogs.

Ok, I am rambling.  I don’t think I have had enough coffee yet and definitely did not get enough sleep.