Kerfufalies – Part I

On the farm, we don’t usually need much excuse to go to sleep after a long day hauling feed & fence posts, but somehow a bedtime story is a special treat.  “Really”, you may ask, “this is not farm related”, but our bedtime stories are all about the farm and are always 100% true………….

or mostly true as near as we remember………..or at least true adjacent, perhaps.

I start to become a little suspicious of their veracity when she tells me that the stories are related to her by the sheep or the goats.

Patricia has told a great many stories to put me to sleep and this first one is a favorite.  The story of Kerfufalies must have been related to her by one of the several mating pairs of geese that raise their goslings on Morriplum Farm Sanctuary.  Kerfufalies (aka Joe) is a goose that seems to have his life in perfect order and the owl who wants to know how he manages to do so.

Let me know if you like it and I’ll see if Patricia will release more.   Here you go, enjoy!

Click this link: https://innerfireouterlight.box.com/s/d72qxev6y6fxlcl1t0ggm6hv6h4ve4us

Bailey – Winter 2016

 

 

Such a sweet goat, Bailey came to us this November.  She and Maverick (Turkey) came together and were quite close, until she heard the “Call of the Wild”.  No, not the audiobook, but the cry of the other goats.  Well, actually, she started talking the instant she left Farm Sanctuary’s van and immediately 16 ears perked up and 22 ears did not.
That is, all eight goats instantaneously came to her side, while all 11 alpacas and sheep didn’t seem to notice.  She was immediately accepted and this little goat has never stopped talking.  Oddly, every other goat has stopped, so we call her the “spokes goat”.

Bailey is a miniature goat, now full-grown at 30 lbs, she is most beloved by her big sister, Azul (about 50 lbs), and the biggest goats in the herd (about 200 lbs).  I suspect, i.e. independent confirmation remains lacking, that Bailey’s horns just barely reach the bellies of the big goats, allowing her to scratch them automatically, when she runs under them.

 

Maverick – Winter Holiday 2017 – First Annual Holiday Story

Maverick giving me his “I am a handsome & impressive turkey,” look.

Maverick lives with the chickens, roosters and hens and all appear to respect him, for he gives them protection.  Today, a falcon came into the run, probably after a small bird who was, in turn, after the free food.

Seeing his size, the poor falcon became frantic and couldn’t find its way out again.  After reminding the falcon of the open door, I looked under the coop and found 17 chickens and one rooster huddled behind Maverick.

God love my turkey!

He doesn’t get to mate with 20 of his favorite hens, but he keeps a closer eye on them than does our rooster, Justin.  When they wander through a gate, he waits until they come back.  When they are sick, he doesn’t move from their side.   When one of his flock needs something, he chirps at me and once my attention is gained, leads me to the problem.

Remember Maverick this holiday season!

Bandit Ducks – Summer 2017

We have 11 new ducks, new to us at any rate.  They are Muscovy ducks, but that is all we know about them as they always wear a mask to keep their true identity a secret.  The red mask around their eyes identifies them as the only domesticated duck that did NOT descend from a mallard.  “Like ducks to water” does not apply so readily to these South American tree ducks that wag their tails and nod their heads in a language, which relies heavily on body language.  They don’t quack, but they do have a vocalization that sounds like a hoarse whisper.

We just finished surgery on all of their feet to rid them of bumblefoot, a painful foot infection.  A thumbnail sketch of this process: force the duck in question to take a “spa day” in a bucket of warm water and then quite literally, scoop out the infection.  This is a two-person job, with one person doing the surgery and one person holding a very strong and very wet duck for 20 minutes.  Which job would you rather do?

Even though they would rather perch in a tree than swim on a pond, they are messy birds.  They appear to scoop up dirt in their mouths before they drink water, so once they heal, we would like to situate them near the pond where they can be as messy as they so desire.  I imagine that this is like shipping a kid off to college.

Unlike geese or chickens, their eggs are mostly yolk, but like geese, their eggs are large and slippery smooth, so I am always careful to hold them tightly.  When I occasionally trip and juggle my egg stash, Patri just laughs and tells me this time it is me that is “butt of the yolk”.

Maverick – Winter 2016

We just got a turkey! He is big and white, one of the broad-breasted turkeys that our “civilization” has evolved to be heavier than he should be. Naturally, his ancestor would have been about 10-15 lbs. In the last 70 years, they have bred them to have so much weight, specifically breast weight that they can walk, but only barely. They cannot mate! Imagine, dear reader, if you could not mate?

Maverick has a snood on the top of his blue (yes, blue) and red head (combined with his white feathers, he is the most patriotic of all animals and historically was proposed to be the national bird by Mr. Benjamin Franklin). When he is calm-ish, it is short, pink, and sticks strongly and straight up! When he gets excited, which is every time he sees me or a visitor to the farm, it fills with blood and becomes dark RED, LONG, and limp, yes limp. It goes from 1”ish inch long straight up to 6-8”ish long and STRAIGHT DOWN. Yep, some boys get long and limp when they get excited…. 🙂

During mating season, Spring & Fall, he pecks at people more than usual. All other times, he pecks only occasionally and, if he remembers to peck, then only briefly and only with visitors. During mating season, this behavior increases exponentially (in the common sense, not the literal sense of the word. That said, I suppose it could be in the literal, aka scientific sense, I just haven’t quantified, i.e. measured, it yet.)

Why does he peck at people? I am not sure, but I expect he thinks we are female turkeys or romantic rivals. Either way, he just wants to know where he is in the pecking order, so he knows with whom he can mate.

To deal with this, we pet his head and give him a hug; this seems to pacify his “urges”. To this day, we aren’t sure if he thinks we are higher ranking or lower. Either way, the hugging and rubbing his head seem to have solved the problem. Oddly, my wife has found that this technique works on me as well! So thanks Maverick! Your presence has enhanced our marital communication.

That said, if I find my wife snuggled with you, I might be a bit miffed. 🙂

Alpacas – Summer 2017

(-best read with the batman or superwoman theme song in your head, just FYI-)

They can jump over grass as tall as your knee! They can dance and prance too! They are supppperrrrr alpacas!

Now folks we are going live to….to the pasture, where our intrepid local spokes-sheep, Willow, has a few words to say about fly season this year. Yes thank you Scott, Willow here in Morriplum farm’s pasture where the grass is very very green and tasty, but the fly season is badddddddd this year. So baaaddddd that the tall sheep (Your listening audience knows them as ‘Alpacas’, I am told, but to us they just look like tall sheep.) have to wear eye masks. Their eyes being bigger and dreamier (i.e. more watery), so they are prone to flies. We have already had two ‘tall sheep’ be quarantined for fly-strike and pink eye. Fortunately, our humans, Scott and Patri, got to them in time before they lost their eyesight entirely.

Here is a picture of what they look like. Now you can see why all the visitors to the sanctuary laugh and ask them, “So, what is your superpower?”.

Meet Our Farm Family

Welcome!  We look forward to getting to know you better and introducing you to the beings we call family here.

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Pictured are a few of our goat family!  From left to right, Chad, Rene, Jeffrey, Audrey and Pollock.  They love to have their ears and heads scratched and are frolicky fun characters.