Miller Farm Friday Archives - Page 32 of 47

18 03, 2016

Spring Break Numbers at Miller Farm

By judythemorgan|2016-03-17T13:13:13-05:00March 18th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

8 – The number of dogs in the house – our 6 plus Miller and Jengo. These are the dogs we often keep while their owner is out of town. This is the first time to have them since acquiring Max and Penny – Tucker’s puppies.

7 – The number of people working out of our house. Rachel is housesitting elsewhere but comes by for meals. Matt and Catherine are home from college. Catherine brought her finance. Bill, our exchange student, is here along with Brian and me.

6 – The number of cars at our house the day Matt grilled ribs and steaks. He invited a friend to join the fun.

5 – The number of free roosters Brian agreed to take.

4 – The number of free roosters that actually made it into our cage. One escaped during transfer and was last seen flying down the street.

3 – The number of days Catherine and Caleb are here

2 – The number of nights Matt slept on the floor.

1 – The number of bee stings received this week – remarkable considering all the other numbers. Chicken Wrangler Sara’s ear was the recipient.

0 – the number of regrets I have about Spring Break.

Having a house full of chaos is how we roll on Miller Farm :)

11 03, 2016

Multi-Purpose Housing for Bantams

By judythemorgan|2016-03-04T10:30:10-06:00March 11th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog from Chicken Wrangler Sara

Rachel commissioned little coops for each of her six bantam runs.She actually traded a full day of babysitting for them. She watched eight children for 12 hours in exchange for six A-frame chicken coops. I’m not sure who got the better end of that deal.

The bantams are happy. They now have a safe place to sleep at night and a shelter for when it rains. They also roost on the top of the coops.

One day a chicken slid down the side. So the coop triples as a shelter, a roost, and a playground. What a great deal!

What more could a chicken want?

19 02, 2016

New Game on Miller Farm

By judythemorgan|2016-02-18T11:33:18-06:00February 19th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

By Chicken Wrangler Sara

Rachel’s new coop design for her color project seems to be working well. Everyone is staying where they belong.

A side benefit is that it has provided me with a new game. I call it “Chicken Coop Skee Ball” after the arcade game where you roll the ball into a series of circles to earn points.

I stand in the grass outside the chicken yard and throw food (bread, bruised fruit, etc) into each of the six separate chicken runs.

Sometimes it takes me several tries to get it into the furthest one. I’m trying to see if I can get food into each run with only six throws.

It is nice to be so easily entertained.

12 02, 2016

Day? Month? Year?

By judythemorgan|2016-02-10T21:31:05-06:00February 12th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|2 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

I started using a planner a couple of years ago. It is a weekly planner with room to make lists on every day.

I confess, I am one of those people who writes things I have already done on the list just so I can cross them off.

This year I chose one with a boring cover. I never see the cover anyway. I always keep it open to the current week.

At least I thought I did.

This year I was a little late getting the planner. I didn’t really need to keep lists during the holidays so I forgot all about having a planner – until school started. Then I needed to write things down.

So I opened the planner and started writing things down. All was fine until we started discussing which day of the week was actually Valentine’s Day. I looked at my planner and then realized I was not only in the wrong month but was actually in the wrong year.

My planner is a 16^th month planner. It starts in August 2015 a fact I totally missed until nearly the middle of February.

Oh, well, at least I was making lists and crossing things off. Of course I could do that on notebook paper and ditch planners altogether.

5 02, 2016

Chickens Don’t Do Change

By judythemorgan|2016-02-04T10:09:59-06:00February 5th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Rachel has decided to do what she calls a “color project” with her bantam chickens. She has built six separate runs and has put specific roosters with specific hens to try to get certain colors of birds.

This would make a great 4H or FFA project however, we have never participated in any farming organization. I believe Rachel would have excelled at it.The weather here has been unseasonably warm and Rachel was able to spend one afternoon building the runs. It took longer than she had anticipated but she is pleased with the results.

The chickens, on the other hand, are less than impressed. After chasing them around and gathering the predetermined groups, Rachel went inside to shower. The chickens then began escaping from their new homes.

One rooster flew up to the fence. I guess he was checking out the other runs to see if he had the best accommodations.

The oldest bantams left their run altogether and have returned to their old coop. They even laid their eggs under it. Apparently some things are not meant to change.

The weather turned cold again so Rachel left well enough alone. This weekend, however, she and Beekeeper Brian will try to reinforce the runs and convince the chickens that change is good.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

29 01, 2016

Colors

By judythemorgan|2016-01-27T21:26:39-06:00January 29th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Winter can be a dreary time – particularly in Texas. We don’t get the pretty white scenes, at least where we live.

Everything just turns brown.

The closest thing we have to snowy white is Rachel’s new frizzle. He makes a stark contrast to all the brown.

It makes me smile.

In my quest to find beauty amidst all the brown, I made a pleasant discovery.

The partridge-colored silky bantams have blue ears.

So now when others are enjoying beautiful snow with contrasting cardinals or other wonderful scenery, I can enjoy our blue-eared chickens.

As I always say, there is beauty all around. You just have to look for it.

22 01, 2016

Feeling Old

By judythemorgan|2016-01-21T19:17:05-06:00January 22nd, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|3 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

My parents bought me the coolest sweater when I was in high school. It has music symbols on it and in all my travels as a music teacher I have never seen another one like it.

I wear it as my main coat every winter since in Texas it is never really cold. I don’t think much about it unless someone mentions it.

For instance, the checker at Walmart last week said, “I like your sweater.”

I told her thank you and mentioned that I’ve had it a long time.

She then said, “I really like vintage clothing.” I wasn’t sure whether to be offended. Then she went on to say, “I love going into my grandmother’s closet. It is like a thrift store.”

I had no response.

This morning one of my first grade students walked up to me and said, “Why is your hair white right there?” and pointed to my streak of gray hair.

I told her I had earned those white hairs by growing older. It must have sounded appealing because she then turned around and said, “I have white hair back here.”

I love children. They keep me young – or make me feel old as the case may be.

15 01, 2016

Chew Toys

By judythemorgan|2016-01-14T10:14:57-06:00January 15th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|4 Comments

Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

It has been 8 years since we have had a puppy on Miller Farm and now we have two.

One major issue I had forgotten was the chewing. They chew on everything. Rachel has provided them with multiple acceptable chew toys, but Max and Penny seem to prefer non-chew toys. These include but are not limited to:

Newspapers

towels

shoes – especially when on feet

I devised a new dance – the “puppy shuffle” which involves moving my feet in such a way as to avoid stepping on a puppy or having them grab my shoe.

I finally surrendered and gave them my socks. I figured it was better for them to chew on my socks when they were not on my feet.

It kept them occupied for quite a while. If only it would work until they outgrow the chewing – in about 6 months.

8 01, 2016

Tucker’s Disappearing Ball

By judythemorgan|2016-01-06T20:26:37-06:00January 8th, 2016|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

With the arrival of two dachshund puppies on Miller Farm came the arrival of 14,000 puppy toys. Well, maybe not that many but it seemed like that to Tucker, who was not allowed to chew up or play with any of them. In fact, Rachel put them all in her room behind a gate where Tucker could see them but not get to them. This was very distressing to Tucker. He was, after all, the first dachshund on Miller Farm and the father to the puppies.

Rachel bought Tucker his own toys including a spikey ball that squeaked. At least it squeaked until Coco chewed holes in it. Off to the pet store went Rachel once again. This time she bought a package of 3 spikey balls that squeaked. This gave us two BUBs (back-up balls).

Tucker’s favorite way to play with his ball is to have someone throw it so he can run and retrieve it so it can be thrown so he can run and retrieve it and so on and so on. This continues as long as the arm of the thrower holds out. This particular morning, I was the thrower.

I must confess, I was multi-tasking. I threw the ball as I was feeding the chickens so I wasn’t really paying close attention to where it went. It didn’t matter. Tucker would find it and bring it back to me.

One time I threw it behind me and I never heard it hit the ground. Tucker ran all around the yard and came back empty. I didn’t see it either so I looked in the neighbor’s yard. No ball. I looked between the fences (ours is chain link and the neighbor’s is wooden). Still no ball. I finally gave up and went inside. Rachel got out a BUB (back-up ball) and all was well.

Later that afternoon Beekeeper Brian called me into the kitchen where he was sitting at the table. “Sit down, look out the window and tell me what you see,” he said.

“I see the chickens, the chicken coop, the fence…”

“Look higher.”

There in the tree was Tucker’s ball. I could not have thrown it there if I tried. We got it down and now Tucker has two balls. At least until one of them disappears again.