Don’t let her fool you!
If you’ve been following the blog for awhile, you know we have goats and chickens in our backyard. Our landlord asked if we wanted him to remove them and we said no. So we pretty much take care of them, though they’re not really our responsibility. Over the years, as it is with farm animals, they pass away or get replaced (because the farmer needs them for another reason), so we’ve gone through a few so to speak.
Currently we have two chickens, Angel, who is white, and Ginger, who is brown. Both of them very quickly realized they can fly up to the fence and then over it to roam the yard. Wim asked us if we wanted to clip a wing-tip so they would stay in the pen, but we figured we didn’t mind and they probably appreciated not being stuck with a couple of goats all the time.
Occasionally, however, we’ll be sitting at the dinner table having lunch (or breakfast, or dinner), and Angel and Ginger will hop up on the window ledge to let us know that they’re around and wouldn’t mind having a bit of lunch too. We’re suckers and usually will give them a few dried worms and maybe some bird seed (no, that is not what we have for lunch).
They’re a couple of rambunctious chickens that roam around the yard digging for bugs, climb up and over the hill on the side yard, and will occasionally pop out of the bushes along the front of the yard. And I’m sure Ginger would just walk on into the house if we let her (I’m a bit worried about what we’re going to do if we’re still around when it gets hot and we hang the fly drapes and keep the rear doors open).
That all goes to the point that sometimes you’ll even see them popping their faces in the front-door window. They even gotten to doing a little tap-tap-tap with their beaks on the glass. Hey, I’m here, wanna feed me?
Over the couple of years we’ve been here, we’ve become less enamored with the goats. We’ve got a little one (unnamed - usually referred to as the brown one or the little one) who is pretty cute, but Boots has turned into a real jerk, much like Vinny was before him. They have a definite pecking order (Angel and Ginger seem to get along - unlike some of the other chickens we’ve had) and Boots will ferociously head-butt the younger one away from food. Boots has become such a butt-head that Ann pretty much doesn’t want to do anything as a favor for Boots. And you can’t treat one without treating the other (though there was that one time I let the little one into the courtyard by the barn and made Boots watch me feed the little one while he was stuck on the other side of the fence).
Still, Ann is Ann and feels duty bound to care for all the animals.
Though I’m not sure that means one has to go so far as to hand-feed the goats slices of apples and carrots, and to let the chickens eat out of the bird-seed pail.
So don’t let her fool you when she gripes about the goats . . . she’s a sucker! As am I.