Who knew...

... that this year's freshly cut and baled grass hay:

could make me so miserable?:

It's a rather cruel joke for a farm girl to be so allergic to her critters' food that it virtually incapacitates her, don't you think?

Believe it or not, the goofy mask seems to be the one thing helping the most. (The donkeys were a bit taken aback, though.)

Now I just need to find a pair of goggles and then all points of entry for those nasty allergens will be stopped dead in their tracks...
--> picture to follow (kidding).

The best llama in the world -or- Llama 1, Coyote 0

So there I was this afternoon, picking raspberries...

When I heard Kai llama sound her llama siren alert:

Did you know that llamas sound a shrill trill (say that 3 times real fast) when they sense danger?

Kai was in our center pasture with her goat charges, Pete and Reggie, so she knew she had a job to do:

Unfortunately, while I had my camera with me, my lens was not strong enough to get a really good shot of the ugly bugger that was bothering Kai. Can you see him, though? The coyote? He's just to the left of Kai's tail in the below photo:

Kai walked sternly toward the coyote, sounding her alarm and putting herself between him and Pete and Reggie:

Which made the ugly bugger decide not to have goat or chicken for lunch:

and he turned to run away:

He looked over his shoulder once to make sure she wasn't following:

which she most certainly was:

I ran down the hill to open the gate separating the two pastures so she could chase him off:

She would run up into the woods, sound her alarm:

And then race back to the fence of the pasture containing Pete and Reggie:

Back again to verify the intruder was vanquished...:

Followed by a sprint back to her boys:

She let me know when it was ok for her to go back into the middle pasture with Pete and Reggie:

The boys and I heaved a sigh of relief as we all made our way back up the hill:

Everyone's nerves were a bit on edge for a while:

I found the chickens hiding under the deck:

Even when the goats relaxed and moved on to other things, Kai still stood in the distance, completely still, keeping watch:

This is a girl who is damn serious about watching over her goats:



Such a good, good llama:

Oh, and she eats dandelions, too:

Whenever I sit down

Whenever I sit down around my donkeys, Beau and Chester, it doesn't take long for one, the other, or both to find their way over to me for a cuddle:

...a nibble:

...or a rub:

Something about me sitting implies captive audience to my boys and I am gloriously, at least for a few minutes, the very center of their attention.




Now, this isn't to say that they aren't capable of entertaining themselves - completely and instantly - the moment I stand up:










It's just that, sometimes, Human Mom makes for great entertainment:



This last shot was a split second before I got smacked in the face with that green jolly ball.

I am selfless when it comes to providing entertainment for my donkeys. Heh.

The leg

I received a number of comments on my beach blog post yesterday applauding my farm pup Roxy's use of her left rear leg following the nasty ACL tear injury (and subsequent surgery) she had in June.

Because a great many of you have supported Roxy through this whole ordeal and then commented on this one, specific thing yesterday, I feel the need to share a bit of the "behind the scenes" story from yesterday with you....

Roxy is doing better. She is using her leg more. She is, however, for the majority of her day, still a three-legged dog. To our delight, she does, at times, have joyous bursts of energy, enthusiasm and capability that enable her to use all four legs - just like she used to. Unfortunately, these don't last long and they are what they are: bursts. And she always feels the pain afterwards.

Jim and I miss her former joyous energy so much, we are guilty of taking her to the one place we know she will have such bursts of joy: the beach.

There are people who don't believe dogs can smile, but our girl sure can. And she was, as she always does, when she was running on the sand:


Her entire body was smiling, in fact:

But she also knew when to stop. One moment she was running:

And then she was done. Right there, in the water, she decided that was it for the day:

And then she was a three-legged dog again:

She definitely overdid it yesterday, but believe it or not, this is part of her healing process, according to her vet. She will stress the leg and then need a day or two to recover. This stress and recovery cycle supposedly makes her injured leg stronger.

So after yesterday, today was a recovery day:

The look on her face this morning told me she was feeling more than the usual, slight discomfort:

So I pulled out her Rimadyl, an anti-inflammatory kept on-hand for just such a purpose:

She is such a good pill taker. It helps that this one is chewable and tastes like a doggy biscuit:

Then she rested some more. In her crate:

And under our bed:

But just so you know, we totally wore Enoch, our visiting dog, out, too:

He whole-heartedly supported Roxy's healing process by sleeping most of the day away himself:

In Roxy's dreams - and mine - this is how she'll spend next summer:

Until then, we'll make do with the joyous bursts.