Rainy Season Babies and Stuff

Despite having limited outside options because of the rain, our little ranchito is growing by leaps and bounds.  We’ve had two new sets of kids. The first set was another Biggie Small pair. The solid black male was literally twice the size of his black and white sister. The other set were both girls. All of the wee ones are doing fine and enjoyed their first foray to greener pastures yesterday with the herd.

The quiquiriqui (little hen) hatched some eggs this week too. Three little chicks the size of your thumb were born. One seemed to have been born malformed. There was something wrong with its leg and it died later that day. However, the other two little pinguinos (penguins) are doing fine. My son is a nervous wreck over them. He gets panicked when mama hen leads them out on an adventure. He’s concerned the Puppers might scare them and that Cocoa might chase them. Cocoa isn’t allowed outside unsupervised right now for that reason. He’d cause too much pandemonium. 

My husband decided to sell Rojo, which sort of surprised me. It’s true we don’t have enough space for a young stallion, however since Rojo was born on my husband’s birthday, he’s had a special fondness for him that I thought might cause him to want to keep him. We still have Lady and it seems as if she has just begun her first heat cycle–so removing Rojo from the premises was a good move. 

Rojo hasn’t gone far. He’s moved up the hill with Azul the vet. And my husband still sees him on the caminatas (group horse rides), which have now become a weekly event. Although with Lady in heat, I’m questioning his decision to participate this week.

Lady has moved into Rojo’s stall, which is more sheltered from the rain than the back pen. The Puppers have moved into Lady’s pen to keep out of the wet. We’ve had torrential rains most of the week and some flooding in the backyard.

My husband also sold the truck, which we affectionately named Butch, to another neighbor. He and I still have our motorcycles and my son has his bike, so we aren’t stranded by any means. My husband is looking for a replacement vehicle, but nothing has appeared on the horizon just yet.

We’ve also discovered that Fuzz Lightyear is blind or partially blind in one eye. He has had no eye injuries or infections since we took him in, but he’s always been a bit of a clutz. Now that we know, it’s obvious that limited vision in one eye would make him less than graceful. His impairment has become more pronounced in the last few weeks. Honestly, the vet in town isn’t skilled enough to do much to help Fuzz, so we’ll just manage his condition the best that we can. 

And the construction project on the new lot is coming along, slowly but surely. The idea is to have a small front room with a cooking area and the rest of the lot dedicated to plants, plants, and more plants. My husband has already moved a few of our smaller fruit trees over and planted some corn, beans, and squash to take advantage of the new dirt fill. 

So it’s been quite a week as you can see!