A New Farm Worker?

Busy times and many surprises at the Hermits’ Rest today. I had 5 hours of meetings through early afternoon, so I took a break to relax and enjoy the animals. I didn’t relax, though.

First I took a big hunk of chickweed over to the poultry pals. They had a little plant party and tossed it all around. That was cute. Not so cute was seeing little moving shapes in the supposedly sealed storage bin for the chicken feed…again.

I went ahead and fed the birds, dreading having to remove more mice. I left the lid of the bin open to encourage a voluntary exit.

I went back to the bin and removed the four bags of feed. I was happy to see that there was now only one mouse left. The other had flung itself out. They literally flung themselves at the sides of the bin hoping to get high enough to escape. I tried to get the remaining mouse out with a feed scoop, then almost got it to run into a more cup-like scoop. Instead, as I leaned over to encourage it to enter the cup, it jumped on my shirt and ran up my arm! Cute as that was, I admit to flinging it off me. Last I saw it was climbing the screened enclosure to get away.

I hope it didn’t go near the turkeys and chickens, because they are doing a great job keeping rodents out of their area.

Next, I thought I could go enjoy more peaceful time with the horses. I saw that either Terry had left the tack room door open yesterday or the wind had got it (it no longer latches). That made me a little more cautious as I entered. Good thing I was ready, because I apparently have a new helper in the tack room. Tipper, the black-and-white cat who’s been hanging around for over a month, was lounging in my pink chair.

I thought about it and decided the kitty is welcome there. It certainly will have enough to eat. Maybe at least one of my mouse/rat problems will be lessened. Thanks, new farm worker!

I did get my horse relaxation in, finally. Apache wanted me to rub between his ears and got so relaxed that he started yawning away. He kept it up for five minutes!

Then I looked over where Drew and Spice were hanging out and realized Spice was yawning, too. I guess it’s contagious in horses as well as humans!

We did a Year of the Horse tarot reading in my group tonight, and I got three cards with horses on them!