Pioneer Woman at Heart

One Flourishing, Frugal and Fun Family!

One family learning to live off the land, cut back on expenses, and to live a simpler and a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Adopted Motto

"Eat it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or go without."
~A Pioneer Sampler, by Barbara Greenwood~

Monday, June 22, 2009

Spring Has Brought Us a Fawn

I never thought I'd see the little guy again but I did. I first saw him/her last week while hanging my laundry on the line. At first when I saw a brown animal streak through the corner of the mowed grass and the tall grass, I thought it was a bunny. But after getting a better look, it was a fawn, complete with white spots.

Just prior to seeing the fawn we heard a car horn from the 2-lane highway. Our first thoughts were that it was a deer, raccoon, cat, or someone's dog. Then I saw it just minutes later. The funny thing is that I am the only one who has seen it.

And then yesterday morning as I took the dogs out, there it was again. However, it was right next to the garden which we have yet to fence in. So far we have not seen any adult deer with it, or even in on the property. We are praying that the Mom finds him/her soon, or that an another adult deer adopts it and moves on.

There is so much activity here in the country. Even though the house sits along a busy 2-lane highway, we are experiencing quite a bit. We found a wonderful book at the library to help the kids identify animal tracks.

This is our first experience raising chickens, and have already had all but one killed by an animal or animals. The one that survived had been named "Road Runner" and she was the survivor. She definitely lived up to her name. Since then we have built a secure housing for her and added 6 new pullets. She acts like a mother to them also. We are in the process of building their outside coop, as they are growing very quickly. Here we have found the dangers to chickens are raccoons, owls, hawks, rats, probably more we haven't discovered yet. We have even discovered bats in an old barn we don't use.

Now that we have seen 2 black water snakes, I watch were I am walking and gardening a bit more carefully.

The herb garden is growing nicely, and we have added curly parsley, more rosemary, cilantro, dill and sage. The kids are now in the habit of going outside and snipping green onion for scrambled eggs in the morning. Pretty soon we will have have eggs too.

Sadly, we must get the barn cats spayed. They both make beautiful babies, but we cannot raise anymore kittens, nor let anymore stay in the barns. They are great mousers, and Aurora brings us a mouse or bird weekly. She is the strangest barn cat I've ever seen. She's out hunting and will devour a mouse in seconds, and then the next minute come to us purring and wanting loved up and held. I can't imagine how eating wild mice and birds affects her tummy - blech!

The kittens are so fun to have around the house. Although last week, every lump and bump in our bed was being attacked at 5:15am. I laughed so hard as I watched them play with an empty shoe box. They pounce and play and are such a delight to have, even if they do rise early.

As for the dogs, Jesse James, the one who used to chew up flip flops, chewed up a partial roll of toilet paper yesterday. We left for a few hours to go out for lunch for Father's Day, and when we arrived home, there was toilet paper all over the kitchen floor. It's been a long time since he's done something that bad, but we still love him.

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