The Barn Cats

I made a promise to one of my sisters years ago. I told her when the day came that Chris and I bought a farm we would have a barn cat that belongs to her, and we'd name it Tumbleweed.

When we were in the process of buying the farm, we knew that there were two black barn cats hanging around the property. We talked with the previous owners about letting the cats stay when they moved out, and they decided to leave one behind. The other was more of a family cat that would spend time outdoors when the weather was nice. The cat we inherited is named Boots, because of the white on his paws. They told us he was a jumpy, unfriendly cat, but we've found the opposite to be true. He'll hang out with us on the deck, let the kids pet him, and meow to us in a hoarse gravely voice. We like Boots.

About a week after we moved in though, I knew it was time to find Tumbleweed. I looked for kittens in the swap sheet and on Craig's List. Let me tell you, if you're forthcoming and let people know that you're planning on letting a cat (or kitten) live outside, nine times out of ten they won't give you the one they're trying to get rid of. It was baffling to me, but that's the way it went.

Finally, I found an older lady who has literally given a couple dozen feral cats the run of her property. As you might expect, she frequently has kittens to give away. I had only intended to take one kitten, but we ended up with two. The brown striped kitten became Tumbleweed, naturally. The girls named the black kitten Kevin, which seems like an odd name, until you know that Despicable Me was the movie of the moment in our house this summer. He just didn't look like a "Gru" or "Dr. Nefario", so Kevin it was.

We were quite happy with our three barn cats. The kittens were fun, and Boots was taking care of the rodents outside. Then, one day, we spotted a fourth cat. We're pretty sure she didn't come with the farm, because the previous owners never mentioned her. I suspect that she's Boots' girlfriend from another farm, and he decided to move her in for the winter. She's a calico cat, and I honestly have no clue if she's really a female. Chris called her Snickers when we first saw her, and it stuck. She's super jumpy, and won't let any of us get anywhere near her. I'm still not sure why she let me get close enough to take a picture of her for this post.

From left to right: Kevin, Tumbleweed, Boots

Snickers

Marshmallow

This is the first in, what I plan to be, a series of posts introducing you to the animals who call our 3.5 acres home.

Before we even signed the paperwork to close on "The Farm" Chris had procured us some chickens. We were given a few by a man who wasn't going to be able to care for them anymore, and we bought a handful from a local petting zoo when they shut down for the year. It took awhile, but eventually the two flocks integrated and got along.

Fast forward to this week. All 15 of them (maybe it's 17...I can never remember) have spent the past few cold and snowy weeks in their coop instead out out in their yard. Apparently, chickens get bored when they're not able to get outside to scratch and run. Instead of doing something productive with their boredom, like cleaning or reading a book, my chickens have decided to incessantly peck one of their coop mates. As it turns out, chickens are attracted to the color red, an unfortunate thing for the chicken whose head is bleeding from being constantly pecked. 

So, now Marshmallow (Samantha named her that when she found out we had a sick chicken) is beginning her road to recovery in a dog kennel inside the chicken coop. I'll post an update on the patient's status when her condition changes. This farm life is not for the faint of heart, or weak chickens.

How'd we end up here?

I'm pretty sure last time I checked, we didn't have a 2 year old and a 4 (nearly 5) year old living on a farm with us. I guess there's a lot to catch up on!

Why don't we start at the beginning? 

When Chris and I were dating/engaged/first married, we agreed that one day we would live on a farm. Not just an acreage with some land. A real-deal no-joke farm. We looked at a few when we were house hunting back in 2007, but never found a place that worked for us. So, we ended up living in the middle of town in our "five year house" for nearly six years. Honestly, I had gotten pretty comfortable there, and didn't expect to move any time soon. At some point in the spring of this year (2013) we asked a Realtor friend of ours to come check out our house and let us know what we'd need to do to get it market ready. We were both surprised to learn that we didn't need to do as much work as we thought we would. After a few more months (let's be honest, we're both procrastinators), we made the leap and decided to put our house up for sale. 

We received an offer on our house less than 24 hours after we listed it. The day after we accepted the offer, our Realtor took us to look at two acreages. The first I affectionately referred to as "the haunted house". It was an old vacant farmhouse that needed a lot of work. The second house was much more appealing, to say the least, and we ended up buying it.

So here we are. We have egg laying chickens, barn cats, lots of room for our dogs, plans for a big garden and hopefully animals in the pasture in the spring. We drive 20 minutes to get to town, and our closest neighbors are about a quarter mile down the road. We burn our garbage, and we were the family who looked like tourists this fall taking pictures of the combines harvesting the field that butts up to our property. 

As if that wasn't enough to keep us busy, we've had a few other things going on too. Chris took a job with John Deere right before we moved, and has been working on 3rd shift - 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. - since August (so don't show up unannounced at my house in the middle of the night, because I just might shoot you). Samantha is less than a year away from starting Kindergarten, and Hailey surprises us every day with the things she knows and says. I'm planning to run a half marathon in the fall, and I'm sure Chris is planning to shoot a prize winning buck shortly after. 

And now you're caught up!