What's new on the unfarm?

I realize there hasn't been an unfarm update in a while so here's a quick briefing.

The chickens spent most of this morning in a miserable huddle under the redwood, trying to stay dry. It poured here all morning - dark, grey clouds and thunder, making it seem like it was dusk at only 11 am. The chickens, in general, do not appreciate the rain. Light rain they will tolerate but this was far from light. Even the ducks took cover during the heavy rain.

Speaking of the ducks, Minna continues to lay an egg every day, and she continues to manage to wiggle out of her diaper after only a couple of hours of wearing it. Maggie keeps hers (or rather his) on all night most of the time but Minna is always out of hers by the morning. I'm not entirely sure why this happens - the only thing I can think of is that Minna's significantly larger chest results in the diaper strap sliding to one side or the other, which then eventually pulls the diaper off completely. I think her chest has gotten larger since she started laying. This means I'll have to try reworking her diaper - again - to account for her new... bustiness. I am really not looking forward to another session with the sewing machine - each diaper takes at least an hour to make. If I don't screw up and sew the velcro on the wrong side or stitch the back strap on backwards. But there's no avoiding it - I need to get her diapers to stay on all night, their sleeping area is always a mess in the morning and as it gets colder it's going to get more and more troublesome to do the cleanup with the hose when we have to shut of the outside water.

The cats have now officially moved into their fall routine. This means that Mynx will not be going outside again until (in all likelihood) sometime next June, and Aspen has finally decided that he will come in (most nights) at a decent hour, as opposed to his summer routine of making me wait up until midnight when he finally deigns to grace me with his presence. He also will start rubbing up against our legs again when he comes in. This - in other cats - is a sign of affection. In Aspen's case, he only does this when he is wet. Aspen is a Norwegian forest cat and the rain doesn't actually soak into his fur, it just sits on top until he wipes it on something - or, most often, on someone.

The rabbits still aren't getting along. And on top of that, I think that TJ has finally given up on Suki becoming a mate. By mate I don't mean a husband/wife type situation so much as a best friend sort of thing. In rabbits a bonded pair spend most or all of their time together, keeping each other company and grooming one another. When one half of a bonded pair dies (as is the case with TJ, in which his mate Tajha died) the remaining rabbit can get depressed and mopey until they have a new mate. That was supposed to be Suki, but Suki doesn't seem to want to participate. So, from what I can tell, TJ has decided that I will be a sort of substitute mate. What this entails is the requirement that I pet him and massage his ears whenever he is out of his cage. If I do not pet him, he reminds me of my job requirements by biting me. Not the most pleasant situation - I'm still holding out hope that somehow I can get all three rabbits to get along.

It's getting pretty late and I'm tired so the last one will be very brief (as opposed to the rest of this, which was supposed to be brief but ended up rather long and rambling...) The dogs: Buddy is improving in his behavior on walks, but I suspect that this is only because I continue to carry a water bottle and threaten to squirt him whenever he misbehaves. Maia: she remains the most well behaved on walks and around the house, but she is starting to show her age a bit in the trouble she has jumping onto and off of my bed (which is, admittedly, ridiculously high.) Kita: he is also showing his age a bit by slowing down a bit on walks and having some trouble hearing at times. In general I hate seeing evidence of old age or illness in any of the animals, but I guiltily admit that this morning it was kind of nice to see Kita sleeping through the thunderstorm which usually sends him into a full blown panic.

Daily art

Here's today's art: "I'll Fly Away." It's a cardinal, I guess, since I have very limited color choices until I can get to the art store.

And now, another exciting edition of The Unfarm Update: Tonight when I went to put the chickens away in the armored coop I noticed that Daisy was back up on the roost bar between Penny and Sakari. This is an improvement over last week in two ways: first, because for the past couple days Penny had decided that she was going to spend the night perched on the rim of the garbage can in the shed where we store the extra straw; and second, because all of last week Daisy refused to sleep on the roost bar, choosing instead to sleep under the nest boxes on the floor of the coop - very unusual for chickens, and probably a result of her being picked on by the other two.

Things continue as usual with the rabbits: Suki is steadfastly diplomatic, being civil to both TJ and Jojo, although she is not unbiased, giving preferential treatment to Jojo and refusing TJ's repeated requests for grooming; meanwhile Jojo and TJ remain sworn enemies.

Maggie's leg appears to be on the mend and her limp is much less noticeable now - she feels well enough to come thundering down the pathway after me, trying to grab grapes before I can take them inside. Ducks in the water are very graceful. A full grown Pekin chasing you around the garden: not so graceful. (But cute nonetheless.) Minna is taking full advantage of the fact that her quack is quite noisy and is using that to get her way whenever she feels like it: bring me water in the evening, bring me food in the afternoon, let me in early and then let me out again, etc, etc.

Thinking about simplicity

I have been thinking about simplicity lately. Well, I always think about it but I have been thinking about it more than usual the past couple weeks. I have a small piece of calligraphy written on white paper that says "I need very little, and of that very little, I need very little" and I think of this saying often, especially when going through my stuff looking for things to get rid of. I love it when things are clean and organized and the house isn't crammed with unnecessary things everywhere you look.

I used to think that living in the country on a farm would be the ultimate simple life: grow your own food, see the stars, spend the afternoon on the porch. That is, until we got our chickens, rabbits, and ducks. I now realize that a farm life might well be a good life, but it would not necessarily be simple. Take pitchforks, for example. How many do you need, do you think? One? That's what I thought, until I discovered that there is one for turning the compost pile, one for moving hay out of the chicken coop, one for garden work, and another one for moving large quantities of hay, straw, etc. That makes four pitchforks.

And then shovels: a small one perfect for planting perennials, a normal sized one for digging out and replanting larger plants and bushes, and a square edged one for cutting sod, edging paths, and moving small patches of snow off stairs, etc, and finally an actual snow shovel for clearing large areas of snow. In the pacific northwest we don't often get snow in the winter, but you can't get rid of the snow shovels because you can be assured that as soon as you do there would be a freak snow storm that drops a good foot or so of snow, even if it's in the middle of June.

And then the ducks: they need several water bowls spread out all over the yard as well as two pools - a kiddie pool for splashing in and a livestock tank so that they can actually swim without their feet touching the bottom. And then at feeding times you have to stay with them while they eat to refill the water after Minna has stepped in it and tipped it, and then refill the food after Minna tips it trying to get out of the water bowl. Oh, and to chase the chickens away before they can chase the ducks away and steal their food.

The rabbits are another story entirely: three rabbits and two cages. Suki gets along with Jojo and TJ, they get along with her, but they can't stand each other. They need run time (outside) and binky time (inside). They should have pellets and hay available all the time, and then greens as often as possible, but not too much at once and TJ and Suki love basil leaves but Jojo looks at it like you've just given him a worm (which is to say that he gives it a disdainful look and refuses to touch it.)

And this isn't even taking into account the dogs, cats and chickens. So the only conclusion I can come to is that, no, farm life would definitely not fall into the simple catagory, but then again, life without animals would be too dull to contemplate so I suppose I will compromise by having a complicated life as long as I can keep my home and belongings simple and clutter free.