It's Just Torture, I Tell You

Jay and I are house-sitting for a friend of mine.  She's kind enough to let us use her property for shooting and is mean enough to make me come workout with her.  (I haven't made it to her house for a six a.m. workout yet and I'm not seeing that happen any time soon.)

When she asked if we could house-sit, it took me about half a second to say yes.  How could you say no to this bit of paradise?

I don't do mornings.  I hate them and don't really believe they should exist, but this morning I crawled out of bed to let her eighty zillion fowl out of the coops, feed the bucket calves, and check the four mommas who haven't managed to get their babies on the ground yet.

Holy cow, these turkeys and roosters are ginormous

They were wide awake and ready to leave the coop when I opened the door.

The not-yet-mommas

Turns out, mornings aren't so bad out here (but don't tell anyone I said that!).

After a trip to check out our first 9HealthFair of the season, I took a quick nap before starting the noon-time chores.  Here's the thing.  Actual farmers make it look easy.  Faux farmers like me huff and puff through the feeding of the animals.  I did get one hell of a shoulder workout, since the tops of the rolls of cornstalks are taller than I am.

I'm not exactly sure how many laying hens they have, but for someone who *hates* chickens, it was a feat to go gather the eggs.  I had long sleeves and leather gloves on, so I figured even if I ran into a stubborn hen who didn't want to give up her eggs, I'd be okay.

As I was reaching up into a box, I felt a hen peck at my leg, so I flicked my foot at it to shoo it away.  Only, it didn't shoo away.  It attacked me.  Full-on, wings flapping, spurs.  Wait...spurs?  I don't know if hens have spurs, but I damn sure know that roosters have spurs.  Sure enough, I looked down and there was a little rooster looking up at me like, "bring it, bitch."  In fact, not only did he look at me like that, but he opened his damn beak and cock-a-doodle-doo'd me as he puffed up for another attack.

Are you kidding me?

Little bastard wasn't so cocky once I had Jay hand me the shovel.  In fact, he might have been afraid I'd whack his head off with it and hustled out of the coop.

We managed to fill up our down time before evening chores with a little plinking.  Have I mentioned that this house-sitting gig is pure torture?

Deejo, and Jay's dad and brother came out to crack off a few rounds with us.  While we were waiting for them to arrive, we enjoyed just sitting at the picnic table in the sun.  (I might have gotten a bit too much sun, shhh.)  I looked down and saw this rattlesnake.

Dead.  Just like I like them.

We didn't manage to waste enough time plinking, so Jay and I tried our hand at pin-striping.  Newt has been pretty hard to distinguish from other Souls because she didn't have any tattoos.  We fixed that today.  Nothing as in-your-face as Ripley's tattoos, but still cute.

Not bad for a DIY job.

The requisite gun sticker.  Now Mom and Bill can identify my car.

Since she got her new tattoos, of course she needed a photo shoot.  What's the point of getting new body bling if you can't show it off, right?

Finally, time for evening chores rolled around and I made Jay come out to take pictures while I fed the babies.

This little cutie has a mommy, unlike the two I had to bottle feed.  But it's only 24 hours old and super, super cute, so we had to get pictures of he/she/it.

Now, it's bedtime and I'm plum tuckered out.  I suspect tomorrow will include a much longer nap than this morning did :)