Meet the "Farm-ily"

Living on a farm means that life is busy. There are lots of animals and that means lots of feeding, watering, and cleaning up of said animals. The number of animals we have on our farm is always in a state of flux. Heading into winter we start to downsize around here because feeding and caring for tons of animals over the winter is not a lot of fun. Right now there are no pigs or sheep here at the Golter farm and that is a good thing. Let's meet the animals that are here though! We'll start with the bovine and work our way through some others. 

Meet Po: Po is our little bull calf and he has the markings of a Panda and while I wanted to name him Kung Fu, the family finally agreed on Po. He is fairly nice right now but I bet by the time we sell him in the spring those hormones of his will have kicked in a little bit and he might not be quite as pleasant to be around. 

Meet Po'Mamma: This is, of course, Po's Mamma (rhymes with Yo'Mamma!) and she is still trying to figure things out on our farm. She has a little bit of 'tude and the other day she was stalking me while I was out fixing a fence. I told her the last cow who did that ended up as hamburger and she did back off a bit but not without first giving me a look that said she'd see about that. She's pregnant though so it could just be the hormones that are making her ornery - I remember that feeling!

Meet Cookie: Cookie has a full white belt around her belly and since we are a house that loves Oreos, Cookie was the logical name choice. Right now she's of the double-stuffed variety as she too, is pregnant!

Meet Momma: Momma is our oldest cow and she is Cookie's mom. She is also knocked up and expecting in the spring which is just fine with her. She loves having babies and taking care of them. Her and Cookie have a mother-daughter relationship that is the envy of many.

Meet Rory: Rory is our youngest heifer. She was our only calf born this spring and she is named after one of my beloved characters from Gilmore Girls. This spring I'm hoping to add a Luke and Lorelei to the mix. Mark wants a Negan but I've told him no way! (I hope you have no idea who Negan is as I am currently boycotting that show based on the idiocy they showed in killing off my favorite character!)

Meet the Girls (aka The Chickens): I currently have a gaggle of chickens, probably around 15 or 16. We get new ones each spring and they die from time to time (drown in the water trough, get eaten by foxes, just drop dead) so it's hard to always keep count. We also currently have a turkey. We had two tom turkeys as well (Christmas and Thanksgiving) but they took a walk with Mark behind the chicken coop a while ago. 

Meet Easter: Easter is the nicest bird but alas, the dumbest as well. She gets lost if she turns in a circle too quickly. She likes hanging out with the other girls though even when they are not always very nice to her. And she practically purrs when you give her a pet. 

 Meet Uno, Dos, and Tres: These are the 3 little chicks that we have right now. They are in a separate place from our other chickens currently so that they don't get picked on. These are the first chicks that we hatched from eggs. They are a little camera shy! The reason we have these little ones is because of ...

The Pecker: Now before you say anything, in my defense he came by his name honestly. In the spring we had purchased 6 new little chicks and before long there was one that stood out because it was always trying to peck at your toes when you wore flip-flops. I started to say to the boys "Watch out! That one's the Pecker". So we started saying things like "Here comes the Pecker!" "The Pecker just pecked me!". And then The Pecker grew one of these and I started to realize that calling it The Pecker was a bad idea.

The name has stuck though and he is turning out to be not so bad. He did try to establish some dominance when he first learned how to crow. He looked for the smallest human on our place (Owen) and he began to stalk him and then full on chase him. One day, Mark and I were watering some trees along the creek bank and Owen came running and yelling with The Pecker in hot pursuit right behind him. As Owen ran past Mark, Mark scooped him up and in the same move, spun and launched The Pecker into the air with a well-placed kick. He splashed into the creek and I thought "Well, that's the end of The Pecker". I went over to the bank to see if I could see him floating and there he was, looking up at me from the side of the bank where he was clinging, promising to never do anything like that again. I scooped him out of the water with the shovel and he is now very well-behaved. And he gives Mark a wide berth whenever he spies him. 

Meet Crosby: This is our one and only farm cat right now. I'm honestly a little surprised he's lasted this long with that white coloring but he's doing well. He is a champion mouser and will often bring us little surprises to the back porch. 

Meet Mercy and Kizzie: Last but certainly not least, the two dogs. Kizzie is annoying but so was Mercy until she turned 2 so I'm holding out hope that Kizzie will settle down some. They are good dogs though and scare away all kinds of things - people, skunks, foxes, the neighbors we don't like. They're awesome!

 Phew! That's a lot of animals! Just wait until springtime - things really get hopping around here!