The Beautiful Stampede

Every morning, I head out early to feed the horses. When the horses see me coming they race from the pasture to the barn because they know it is time to eat! The other morning as I was walking out there was a group of deer standing in the pasture between myself and the horses. They were beautiful! As always, once the horses saw me, they started running as fast as they could... and straight towards the deer. The poor deer didn't know what was going on, so as the herd ran up, the deer just joined them in their run. It was a beautiful sight to see the horses and deer running together. It was also funny as I am sure the deer were wondering, "What is going on?" and, "Where are we going?" As they approached the barn, the deer split off and ran the other way. I will have to start carrying my camera with me more often to capture these moments to share!

Oh the joyful sights to see living on our farm... It was a wonderful way to start the day!

Nesting on the Farm

Not long ago, Al and I discovered a killdeer nest on the farm. Killdeer are a very interesting bird. They get their name from their distinctive call, have you ever heard "kill-deer!" being screeched from above? They also play a wonderful trick on their predators. If they see an animal coming for their nest, they will move away from the nest, stick one wing up in the air, and flounder around like they are injured. Then the predator will go after them, thinking they are an easy target, instead of going after the nest. Clever birds!!

There isn't very much "nesting" to their nests, either. They like to lay their eggs on gravel - with a very thin lining of grass. So, the gravel path outside of our barn, with grass sprouts and hay, made a perfect spot for them. With all of the daily activity around our barn, we've had to be really careful not to disturb the eggs!

I'll keep you updated on the baby killdeer - they should be hatching soon!

Hay-Baling Time!

Every May, our family gets together to bale the hay on our farm. As Al says - the family that hays together, stays together! Erin and Sam both came home to help, and our friend John Hammond came to help as well! It was a long day of hard work... but, we managed to have some fun too. And of course it was a wonderful weekend having all of my children in one place again!

Here are some photos from our hay-baling adventure!

This picture is so funny to me - my daughter woke up with a hurt eye so I made her a patch. She laughed and said that this is what you get when you have a hypochondriac-artist mother! ...the patch worked and her eye was all better in no time! Click here to read more about our baling on Erin's blog!