I may portray that home is peaceful and tranquil and my fur and feathered friends and I live together in perfect harmony and that may be true for the most part but I feel compelled to fill you in on a dirty little secret. Its a funny thing called meal time. I'm guessing any parent with a toddler will be nodding with frayed nerves in anticipation of the horrors of this daily occurrence.
And so my day begins. Today is Saturday so I sleep in until 8am and listen to the rain on the tin roof. Hmmm, I'll wait until it stops raining I think to myself remembering the last time it rained. That time I forced myself to stick to my schedule and in the process of feeding out in torrential rain I got soaked to the bone and cold, freezing cold. To make matters worse as I was stripping off, washing my hair and clothes the rain stopped. So, lets wait a little I say. All the while Hoby (dog) is performing like a circus pony, twirling, bucking, tip-tapping his little feet on the wooden floor in front of the cupboard that houses his cookie tin. Alright-alright. He gets a couple of scoops of biscuits, puppy biscuits.....yep I'm no mother of the year feeding my elderly dog puppy biscuits but all the old-timer biscuits seem to be diet conscious and Hobes is a frail old man [who just doesn't know it yet]. Our experience with general dog biscuits are that they're too big for him to wolf down in a hurry. If we do use them we get the dreaded 'vommies on the rug syndrome' which results in round two of eating breakfast either recycled or if I can control my gagging long enough to clean it up, a fresh bowl which goes down slower but heck it is an expensive exercise! And did I mention that I have wooden floors and only one rug in the house which is precisely the place Hoby chooses to review his breakfast? So I'm sticking to the pup cookies thank you very much.
Now that Hoby has been fed I look outside, the rain is still coming down, not torrential but that hazy drizzle that is quite capable of penetrating all of my attire. I don a freshly laundered pair of comfy black leggings, mmmm comfy for sitting at the computer all day doing paperwork. Then I muck around on Facebook for while. At 9.04 am the rain stops and cicadas start chirping. Time to feed. I throw on a woollen jumper and now that my leggings have warmed up to body temperature and feel like a second skin I decide that I'm just feeding out and worming the horses, I'm sure I can do that without getting dirty, right? Wrong!
Hoby's still failed to do morning ablutions so up to his enclosure he goes. En route, three chickens attempt to trip me up. With Hoby safely in his cage I survey the premises for the 500 kg 'toddler' Ella (big horse). She's eyeing me up from the bush in the paddock, I have about one maybe two minutes before she steps into my bubble, for a big horse she's surprising good at sneaking up on me. Now, let's see if these pigs have out-slept me. I peer into the pig pen, the gate is closed but there are no pigs in there. Sh*t. Cue entry of 100 kg Shamey (big pig) or toddler number two. He's grumpy and wet probably from spending the night somewhere other than home. How the heck did that happen? He stamps a muddy snout print on the back of my knee and then brushes the length of his wet frame across the front of said knee. Hi Ella, that was quick. She's not pestering me it is more like a enormous unmoving presence right in my pathway. Hi chickens. A dozen chickens come running at me. Then oinking and running with desperate anticipation is Tallulah. "Maaaaaaaaaaa" Mabel (goat) arrives, hi May-May. "Mmmmmm" don't talk with your mouth closed Lucifer. I detour around the big horse. The now excited big pig rubs his body against my other knee. I pick up the feed buckets. Hi Tarkie, you've come to join us. Right, lock up the pigs. But wait, little pig can still squeeze through the gaps in the gate I thought she was too fat for that now, dammit. Come here Tallulah. "Eeeeeeeeeeeee, oink, oink, oink. I'm now carrying the little-ish pig to her enclosure. I step over the low fence, dunking the crotch of my leggings on the wet rail dammit. A piglet leg falls free from my arm and leaves a print on the top of my leggings. I lean over the fence and lower piglet into her enclosure. The front of my leggings soak up more water from the fence rails. Shamey (big pig) snout-stamps the back of my other knee with such force that I half sit on his muddy head that's on bum cheek of leggings muddy.
Feeling slightly smug at having contained the pigs I walk to the feed shed. As I'm fumbling with the door Nigel (big rooster) leaps up and pecks my left butt cheek Ow! The persistent sound of cheeping starts oh sh*t. It seems none of the animals were put to bed last night, the little chicks and their two mums are out too huddling around the shed. I'll just put the buckets in the shed and then I'll remove the horses from the equation by putting them in their pens. As I step out of the shed Lucifer (goat) jumps up on me, putting his two dirty hooves on my stomach and then seeing I haven't got his feed bucket he slides his hooves down my front and the full length of my leggings. Thanks buddy! The horses are compliant. Tarka goes into his pen and rolls in the dusty wood chips, then shakes, I cop the dust cloud he emits. He has a huge eye-booger so I de-booger him and in the process he flicks his head which sends nose-drippings down the length of the legging on my left leg turning the dust into a river of nose-goobey-mud. I adjust the measure on the worming paste and Tarkie sees the syringe and spins, brushing his dusty frame all over my thigh. What next? Luckily the paste goes down well, he doesn't spit it all over me. I turn to go out, Ella (biiiiig horse) is at point-blank range "Hi Mum" Jesus Ella! Please don't sneak up on me like that.
Back to the shed I can finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing the big animals that are pros at tripping me up are safely away. However upon seeing me enter the room of food Sheamus starts with his squealing, not just a "hey I'm here" kind of a noise but a "feeeeeed me first, not second, not third but NOW!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" That kind of 'wake the dead' noise. The neighbours must hate me. Then the dog starts to bark. Did I mention he's deaf? Yeah, so he has no idea of the volume of his barking, let's just say it rivals Shamey's squealing.
I step out of the shed and turn sharply, ah-ha, this works, I stride out for about four steps before I'm being intercepted by hordes of chooks and two goats. I toss the contents of the bucket of chook chow, the masses flee in pursuit of grain. There are squawks and tweets of objection as the big breeds tread all over the bantams. Mabel (goat) is purring like a cat, a weird little ritual she has at feeding time. I place their buckets on the ground. Both horned heads shove into the buckets. The pig squealing is reaching epic decibels by this stage. I whistle and try to ignore it.
I secretly dose Ella's feed with her worming paste, she eats anything. When I get to the horses they've joined in on the serenade. I now hove horses whinnying, a purring goat, clucking chickens, a barking dog and screaming pig in my choir. I quieten down the pigs by giving them a bit of grain, they don't need it, they're barrel-sized both of them. I wait for the horses to finish their feeds before letting everyone out again. Tarka thanks me by wiping his feed covered nose on my bum. Ella take a big long drink out of the trough and then rinses her mouth out spitting down the back of my leggings. I play a game of flinger ball with Hoby and then in my muddy, sodden leggings seek refuge in the house. I change out of my pants that haven't lasted an hour and fantasise about a farm with fencing and a day where I wear the same set of clothes for a whole day. And at 11.44 am I finally feed myself.
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