Happy Friday the 13th y’all! Boot City has a “13” tattoo and Coco has a “13” brand, so the number 13 is near and dear to us. It has been cooler and stormy this week in North Texas, which has been AMAZING, but sadly we haven’t gotten very much of the rain. Only .15″, but as long as the hay fields got it I’m happy.

The goats like to clean up the hay that the horses spill in the trailer. They are so helpful!

Introducing Nellie and her babies! The puppies were born on June 30. She had 8, but we sadly lost the runt at day 11. The rest appear to be doing fantastically!

Samson is the hungriest pony you’ve ever met. He is always trying to steal food at every opportunity. It helps that he’s so cute.

This puppy has the cutest nose spots. I’m hoping to have a name theme for them by the end of this weekend. I’m taking suggestions (but Game of Thrones is not an option. That has been suggested to me a lot and I don’t watch the show!).

Have a fantastic weekend!

Boot City and I both took some time off work this week to get some stuff done around the farm. Usually when we do this we get distracted and hardly accomplish anything on our to do list, but we did really well this time! Lots of gates built, arena sand delivered and some purging of Boot City’s metal collection.

Little Mickey is quite the snuggler. He has no idea that he only weighs about 5lb. He acts like he is a 70lb pack leader! So funny!

Casey is spoiled and gets 24/7 turnout, mostly because he is so well behaved and not a fat kid. He often has chicken buddies while he grazes during the day and the other horses are in their stalls.

Simon. Just because he is a lovebug and so cute.

It has become somewhat of a tradition for one of my hunt friends to host a gymkhana the weekend before the 4th of July. We were blessed with moderately cooler temps this year and had much fun!

I got a truck load of sand for my “arena” and the dogs and horses took full advantage of the sand pile. There was much dog wrastling and horses rolling!

It is never easy to see them go, but its time for these boys to move on. Boot City took them to the goat sale this morning. I always tell myself that they end up in a home similar to ours and get good lives.

What are you up to this weekend?

It’s June now, how did that happen?! Enjoy some photos of the cuteness that abounds on the farm!

This little nugget goes to The Humane Society of North Texas to be adopted next weekend! Get you a kitty cat!

Goats are ridiculous and cute. Baby Esther is off to the left. I love her.

Yes, this chicken has roosted for the night on an extension cord. At least one and sometimes two hens roost on this extension cord every night. You would think they did not have a room full of roosting bars…..

Can you find the kitty cat?

Quila went down to the mailbox with me and it makes me nervous when the dogs go near the busy highway by our house. She was clearly trained by someone at some point. I told her to sit and stay and she did!

A BEAUTIFUL sunset on the farm

Boot City sent me some photos last week of Cattle Egrets with our grazing goats. He knows that I love Egrets. The Cattle Egret, or Bubulcus ibis, is a species of heron that has evolved to a life adapted to following herds of grazing animals and eating the bugs that accompany those grazing animals. You know, cows. Or in our case, goats and horses.

I do love a symbiotic relationship when I see one. The bugs are always bad in Texas so it makes me feel better when I see the goats or horses being followed by some Egrets because I know they are at least helping reduce the bug irritation to the goats or horses! As the larger mammal moves around in the grass, they inevitably disturb some bugs and that is the meal for the Egrets. Sometimes the bird will even land on an animal (Jaguar) and eat the bugs right off them! I have witnessed this a few times, but never snapped a photo.

A little research on Wikipedia indicates these birds migrated to the U.S. naturally (they flew here, they didn’t come on a boat) as the herds of cattle became larger and more established, but originate from Asia, Africa and Europe. It isn’t often you read about a species being introduced that doesn’t wreak havoc on it’s new home; e.g. rabbits in Australia. Good on the Egret! On other continents the follow different large mammals. In Africa they follow Cape buffalo, wildebeasts, waterbucks and zebras. Clearly the African birds have a more exotic partnership.

We are just glad to have them back this spring. Hopefully they will stay a long while!

It is baby goat time at the Farm!  Enjoy some adorable pics of the kids, some foxhounds and one John Deere kitty!

This particular goat just LOVES to sleep on top of the round bale!

Our #fosterfail kitty is a big fan of the tractor seat for sunning and sleeping.

Baby goats can be quite aggressive when nursing. I always feel bad for the mama goat!

Our retired foxhounds live a very (not) hard life!

The goats’ favourite day is new-round-bale-day!

I feel like I’ve woefully neglected the farm critters lately, so here is a pictorial update of some of the creatures.

Goat babies! Lots of goat babies! This is the only set of triplets this time around (thank goodness!)

Penelope, one that we bottle fed as a baby because her poor mum couldn’t feed all three of her triplets, with her baby Periwinkle. Twinsies!

Baby goat napping. They love them some tire time. Sadly they are starting to get too big to fit in the tire these days.

Kittens! All four are adorable yellow tabbies. Two are fluffy and two are short coated. Who wants a kitten?!

Pablo a few weeks ago when he was snuggly. Now I can’t get near him. I blame having sprayed him with fly spray recently. Poor fella.

This is our crazy juniper tree that is growing out the side of a hill. The kids like to play on it when they get let into the front pasture. That and we’ve had lots of glorious rain lately so have seen some beautiful skies.

Happy Thursday!