Run-A-Muck Blog

I was watching the movie, "Revolutionary Road" the other day.  The couple in the movie decided to make their lives better and to break away from the mundane cookie cutter lifestyle of the suburban life, they needed to move to Paris.  How exciting that would be to take the kids to a new life, exciting food, new things to do and the possibilities were endless.  Everyone they told thought they were nuts. 

Well in the movie it was quite the disappointment, as things didn't happen like they had hoped and it just devastated the mom.  I just smiled, because I thought "this is our Paris"  we have done it.  We got away from the cookie cutter life, everyone thinks we are a little crazy, but we love it!  It works for us.  I love the animals, the time outside, working with the new garden, and all the animals.   Everything is while not always "new" is new and exciting to us.  I drive a Mustang convertable, and wear cowgirl boots.  We can do as we please.  We have bought the farm and can "have it our way" as BK would say.

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Posted at: 10:11 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Well Cuddles, our mini rex doe, has had her baby bunnies, it's amazing how little they are.  They don't have hair and their eyes don't open for about 12 days.  Yet I think they are so adorable.  We moved her inside with her babies.  Last time her babies got too cold at night and didn't make it.  I felt horrible, but I learned from that experience.  Now she is brooding her 3 little ones in our living room.  Then we will need to make room for our chicks that are due on April 22nd.  By then the bunnies will have their fur and be able to withstand the temperature changes.  We have a lot of chicks on the incubator and I am excited to see how many hatch.  Last hatching we had 90% hatch rate.  It was so awesome to see the baby chicks hatch and Cassidy had a couple of friends over that were able to see it as well.  I certainly learned from my first experience when we had 0% hatch.  Like I said before the learning curve is drastic.  However, it is possible for even a city/suburban chick to turn into Bunnychick.

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Posted at: 10:32 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

We are overloaded with animals and I couldn't be happier. Instead of having a "bun in the oven" we have eggs in the incubator, ready to hatch next week. I have always loved animals, even the "mean" ones teach me something about myself. If you really pay attention to how you are acting around animals you will see changes in their attitude and behaviors...the same holds true for people. Each species and individual animal is different. It's not how they behave that matters, it's how I choose to handle the situation that matters. I could have stomped away when my daughter's pony broke (I think) my finger and blamed it on him, got mad, cried, and gave up. But if I have learned anything from my sister* about training a pony, it's that I can't give up on a bad note. If I did it would be a long haul of more training. So I stayed at it until he lounged for me and once he did we had that moment of understanding. It's a peaceful feeling...until the pain set in on my finger. lol. * Anna Dobos, my sister, is a long time professional horse trainer in Minnesota. Her... [More]

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Posted at: 10:54 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

I have been really praying and trying to figure out what our Lord has planned for me.  It seems like every time I try to do something outside of the home/farm I am met with obstacles.  So in this spirit, I have decided to develop a young children's farm program.  I am currently gathering information, developing lesson plans, and materials.  I will have something available in late Spring when the grounds will be a little less muddy.  We will spend time learning about the animals, the trees, the wildlife, the garden, and much more.  This will definitely be a hands-on learning environment.  We have lots of animals that love attention and pruning that can be done!

We have a few new animals since I last posted.  We brought home a miniature horse "Little Nickle" a couple of weeks ago.  Since he is not big enough to be a quarter, he is nickle:)  He and Short-E are getting along well and seem to enjoy each other's company.  Short-E is back in training and being worked and is doing great.  He has always been a good lead line pony, we are just trying to get him to be a better riding pony. ...

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Tags: bunny, german angora, mini, miniature horse, new chicks, pony, pony rides

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Posted at: 09:49 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Well, if anyone would have told me 8 years ago that I was going to spend an entire day canning fruit, I would have asked them if they knew who they were talking to.  I don't can foods...I buy them already done. 

 Well fast forward eight years to my life now.  I spent most of Saturday canning Grape Jelly.  I've got to say....not my favorite thing to do.  First Todd cut back the grape vine leaves and cut out some grapes.  I can't believe how many grapes one vine/bush (not sure what to call the thing) can produce.  So naturally we need to do something with all these grapes.  Well they taste like crap if you eat em off the vine.  We thought maybe they were wine grapes, but that is not an option for us, so I looked into Jelly and figured out that they were Concord Grapes.  Yay!  So off to researching canning grape jelly.  I knew it all...so I thought.  Here is where theory and practice just collide in my kitchen.  I admittedly am not the best cook, but can make some great dishes.  I like to try new recipes for fun.  So I started by having...

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Tags: canning grape jelly, concord, grapes, jars

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Posted at: 07:27 PM | 2 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Well, I took 8 roosters to the auction today...that's fun getting them into the boxes.  Emmett and I stayed there most of the day.  He was not the happiest to be there, but once I bought a bidding number he began to enjoy it.  I ended up buying 2 indian runner ducks, 2 cross bred ducks, and 2 silkie chickens... 1 is a rooster, ugh... That's why I was there...to get rid of roosters.  They sold for super cheep, but at least they are gone; the hens just couldn't take that many roos.  I bet they would thank me if they could talk.

So when you buy an animal, usually you prepare for it, right?  It seems to be the general understanding that when you have a farm, you get the animal, make do with what you have, and then build what you need for it. 

Well the ducks are going to need a pond, and their own coop...apparently chickens and ducks don't get along too well and ducks need water, while chickens prefer to just drink it.

I divided my new animals into the secured chicken run with a kiddie pool and will just let the original auciton brats free range...

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Tags: auction, buying, chickens, ducks, indian runners, mom, selling

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Posted at: 11:10 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

I really don't like being woke up to the words "OMG look what happened while we were asleep."  What could go wrong we live on a farm...right? 

The first thing we did when we bought this farm was bought baby chicks...15 to be exact.  Rhode Island Reds, Americaunas, and Buff Orphingtons...very cute.  They grew rather quickly and before you knew it they stunk and I wanted them out of my new house, so Todd worked non-stop on building a beautiful coop for the chickens.  This coop was like Fort Knox...nothing was going to get through that thing. 

Well, three months later around Memorial Day, it happened.  After we had raised those15 chickens for three months from little babies, the coyotes figured out that there was a space to jump in through the chicken wire surrounding the pen to the coop.  They massacred 13 of our 15 chickens.  Now if they had only taken what they needed to feed their babies I wouldn't have been so upset, but come on...really? Not fun.  I think they waited for us to fatten them up before they took em.

So fast forward a couple of days and many tears...I've got an idea.  "Let's replace the chickens with...

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Tags: auction, chickens, coyotes, new

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Posted at: 11:23 PM | Permalink