Feeding the animals

I have been meaning to make a check list for feeding the animals.  As the number of teens we will be feeding this summer is increasing as well, I’d better get on it!  We left California with 2 dogs, a cat and one resident teen.  We are now at 2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 kittens, 1 horse, 10 chickens and the teen rates will swell between 2 to 5 for the next two months.  More importantly Pat, our chief cook will be gone at dinner time for the next few weeks, which sadly to say for everyone, just leaves…. me.  I’m going to need a plan.

I never knew chickens had an awkward phase, but our 10 have to be the ugliest bunch of fowl I’ve ever seen.  They are half way between their chicken feathers and their chicken fluff and their feeders emptying quickly especially when the gawky things knock it down!

Our beautiful paint Dolly, is a white horse with brown patches and loves to roll.  So she often looks like a brown horse with browner patches.  Luckily, she can feed herself from the abundant pasture grass we have.  However, this girl drinks like a sailor, so keeping an eye on her water trough (farm word) is a must.

The kittens are still pretty small, but do come into the house sometimes for some people time and to annoy our other cat.  More on this another day, however, their bowls empty quicker everyday as well.

The dogs have an amazingly accurate internal clock and begin barking for their super at exactly 5:00pm.  It is pretty hard to forget them, which right now is a good thing!

Billie Elliot the inside cat just annoys you until you feed her.  She is not beyond jumping up on the table to snack on your food or drinking out of the faucet.  (I’m never going to get use to having an inside cat).  She has become a better mouser.  Most of the mice are outside (I like to tell myself), however there are nights one wanders in.  Yes, there was a dead one left just outside our bedroom door and unfortunately I was the first one up.  (I have tried to rectify that whenever possible).  I was a tom-boy growing up, so I was actually quite proud to learn at that moment, that I am quite capable of ‘screaming like a girl’.

I know that the teens can feed themselves, but I have raised a few boys who often ate for a snack what was planned for dinner.  I also know, you can come home with a couple hundred dollars of groceries and there is “still nothing to eat in this house”.  Wouldn’t parenting be easier if feeding them was more like doing the laundry?  Give them a really big meal on Sunday, that could hold them over until Wednesday.

I’m guessing that it is a good thing that two of my favorite stores are Fred Myer and the Feed & Seed!