Don't Feed the Wildlife

I probably should have mentioned, when I posted this picture of a nice, big catfish....

that it isn't my catfish and this isn't my pond.

The reflection pictures I posted were all of my pond, which is just behind my  house, tucked into the edge of the woods.  These pictures were taken during one of our walks, at a pond about a mile from here.  It belongs to an old gentleman who has a little cabin in the woods and a pond with some fish that he feeds.  How do I know that he feeds them?

Because, when I threw a stick in the water for Tanner, they all swarmed up after him looking for hand outs.

My camera was too slow to catch it, but the fish were swimming after Tanner.  As in...trying to decide if Tanner might be edible.  A few of the faster and braver souls even tried to grab a mouthful of his fur as he swam by.  I didn't throw the stick again because I didn't want Tanner to get freaked out by a bunch of piranhas attacking him from below.

As for my fish, I have no idea.  I know that I had one casualty, as I found a dead fish a couple of weeks ago.  It looked like it might have gotten attacked by a snapping turtle.  I don't know, but that is what it looked like to me.  On the positive side, it had survived up to that point and looked healthy otherwise so I am just hoping that the other 29 catfish are still alive and well.  And watching out for snapping turtles.

The water in my pond is fairly clear, but the pine trees around it leech tannin into the water, making it the color of black tea and impossible to see down into.  I think the only way I will ever see any fish in my pond is if they come up near the surface.  The only way they are likely to do that, is if I start feeding them.

If I ever mention a desire to start feeding my fish, please remind me to visit my neighbor's pond for a reminder of why I should NOT do that!

Sunday Stills - Looking Down

And this guy, looking down on me.

All the News

Last night was the second time that I could not make it all the way to Farm Buddy's place to pick up Tanner.  It was raining so hard and the roads were flooding so bad that by the time I made it to my road at the top of the hill, I didn't dare keep going the extra three miles to get my dog.  It was just as well that I didn't try as the rain slacked off for a moment just after I got home and, in the odd way that sound travels at such times, I heard the fire whistles going off in all the little villages around me and knew that things were really getting bad and the roads were closing.

The town had to use the snow plows this morning to clear the debris off the road that I had to drive through last night.  You know those warnings about not driving through water flowing over a road?  Well, what do you do when going back or stopping is worse than going forward?  Reports today say we got over 4 inches of rain last night.  Enough already!

It was good to come home to find my little herd happily tucked into the barn, all sleeping sound and dry.  They were even happier when I put a new bale of hay into their net so they could spend the rest of the night munching and sleeping through the storm.  I crawled off to my own bed, missing my dog, but content knowing everyone in my little world was safe.  Not everyone was so lucky.

(No, this is not my picture and not my road, but it was taken near here.)

***

I just didn't have the heart to write about this earlier, but Emma came up lame last week with a hoof abscess.  I took her temperature at the first hint of trouble and kept checking it every few hours.  When it went from her normal 99.7 to 101.1 (which is still considered normal, but is not what Emma's usually is), I put her on antibiotics and Banamine.  This really was just a typical abscess and it popped out of the top of the foot a couple days ago and she is already sound on it again.

What happened to Ramsey was really something very different, I know that now.  He got a tiny wound just above his hoof right at the age when maternal antibodies are wearing off and before his own had matured.  That wound allowed bacteria into his leg and, gravity being what it is, it ended up in his hoof near the bone.  If it had happened a few weeks earlier or later, that tiny wound probably would have gone unnoticed by all of us, including Ramsey.  I knew at the time, in my gut, that something was different when Ramsey came up lame, but I didn't know what it was then and everything went to hell so fast....I guess I know now, having learned the hard way.  Education is never cheap or easy.

Still, I don't think I will ever see another hoof abscess without panicking just a bit and I am sooo glad that Emma is fine.

***

There is a new addition over at Farm Buddy's.  It wasn't certain if he was going to be sticking around, but I don't see him going anywhere at this point.  He is a great big, five year old Maremma Livestock Guardian Dog named Buster.  

FB has been having a lot of trouble with a fox stealing baby chicks this year.  It was bound to happen eventually, especially with the wild rabbit population being way up this year and the coyote population being (temporarily) a bit down.  The fox numbers are high at the moment.  I am not sure that one bad year out of ten warrants keeping a 90 pound guard dog, especially since the foxes are already suffering from attrition.  I know one got killed in the road, and now that it is August and the coyotes are bringing their pups out into the world, they will kill off the rest of the overly brazen foxes in short order.    

But...Buster is a big, sweet, fierce, galumph of a dog who certainly does keep the riffraff away and besides, FB is already a goner over him.   I think Buster will  be staying, even if he does eat ten times more than the chickens ever bring in.  I'll try to get some pictures soon.

***

There were so many painted turtles sunning themselves on the straw bale in my pond a few days ago that there were some hanging off the edges.  Standing room only. Where do they all come from???

Not quite ready for the driving test, but...

We've finally started playing around with the idea of Driving Donkeys again.  That means playing around with the sled, getting Emma and Ramsey used to the thing dragging around behind them, listening to voice cues, and generally putting up with odd stuff.  The hardest part so far is convincing them that I only have so many hands and can only work with one at a time for now.  That part doesn't go over so well...

That isn't separation anxiety, it's a complaint about not getting to come out and play.  Ramsey might be getting to do something really fun after all.

Don't be fooled by his rather dour expression, that was because some very nasty little gnats with an appetite for donkey-ears have suddenly made an unwanted appearance.  He really does think this is a great game.

But, we kept the lesson short and made sure Emma got to come out and have some fun too.

Now if I could just figure out a way to grow a few more hands so I wouldn't keep decapitating her...

What it's Worth

The Old Red Dragon is actually an International 606 tractor that I bought for just under $4000 about twelve years ago.  It's history is unknown, I am not even sure what year it was built.  The most I know of it's origins stem from the mysterious, hand-painted "Oct. 73" scribbled below the seat.  It mostly runs good and does it's job, but it suffers from what most old tractors suffer, which is lots of little problems.  It needs new hydraulic hoses, it leaks various bodily fluids from various places at various times.  I don't worry about anyone stealing it because one has to posses the proper magic wand and know the proper secret spells and incantations to get it started.  Good luck stealing it.  Still, once it's going, it runs well, has lots of power and it's best to just get out of the way and let it do it's job (and I really mean that 'cause the brakes ain't so good).

I had to go to Cortland last week and since it was storming again and I had the time, I stopped at the tractor dealer on the way home.  They were having a big sale and 0% interest for forever and blah, blah, blah...so I stopped to see if it would be worth trying to trade the old beast in.   I told the very nice young sales guy what I had and what I needed a tractor to do and he got a bit morose.  Here's what he told me...

"First, you have to realize that they don't make tractors the way they used to.  I can sell you a tractor that will do the job, but most people who go from these old tractors to the new compact ones, aren't happy.  You're not going to have the power you are used to and it is going to take a long time to get the job done  (I already think this mowing job is excruciatingly slow, boring, tedious, noisy, smelly, etc.).  The smallest tractor that will do what you want, costs about $26,000."

The tractor that you really want, that you might actually be happy with and which is the modern equivalent to your old 606 costs $33,000 (or was it $35,000....I've lost track now and it doesn't really matter, 33 or 35, it may as well be 3 million).  Your old tractor is worth $3-4000.

There was a nice used tractor there, but it still had a $16,000 price tag and a used tractor is nearly impossible to get financing for, certainly not at 0% for forever.  I thanked him and told him that maybe I should just put some money into fixing up my poor old tractor.  His response to that was, "You have to be careful there.  Your tractor is worth about $4000, you can spend a bunch of money fixing it up, getting it running as good as it has in 40 years and it will still be worth $4000."

And he is absolutely right, that's what the tractor is worth and what it would be worth.

But....after pondering this sticky logic for a few days now, I come up with something a bit different.  If the value of the Old Red Dragon is measured in what I can buy or sell it for; it is, was, and will be, worth $4000. If it's value is measured in what it would cost to replace it, it is worth about 4 million and I am now a rich woman.

Donk-a-vision

A donkey's version of TV...

Fungus Among Us