I'm very sorry for not posting in a while, but, it's been pretty busy! (I know that's always my excuse...but it's a good excuse!:)
Anyway, this May, in the third week, I and my family will be off to Memorial Day held at Scott Brown's farm in Wake Forest NC. We will be leaving for the Home school Conference that is held a few days before, and then move on to another hotel for Memorial Day. Scott Brown has a HUGE farm, and it's TONS of fun to go there. This will be our second year, and I'm very excited! (as you can probably tell:)
My Spring/Summer is going to be VERY full: we have several events coming up, and we'll be traveling a bit. We're also planning, Lord willing, to breed our horse Belle. If all goes well, she will have her foal next late Spring/early Summer. This will be a HUGE task, and a first time, too. Needless to say, we'll be very busy. We're also hoping to get our horse Silkie trained so that we can actually ride her. :) And of course that involves transporting her and so on. Red, our 28 year-old gelding, is getting very old and is having problems more frequently, and it will probably get worse in the future. I mean, they're not bad problems yet, but it will get worse, more than likely. We've still got a ton to do on the barn, and we need to get the other stall done (we only have two done) before we can do anything with Belle. Dad also wants my brother and I to learn entrepreneurial ship and start a family business. This will take up quite a bit of our summer. Which is okay. :) (We're actually thinking on selling farm fresh eggs) Which leads me to another task; we're hoping to turn our shed into a chicken house and get some chickens...which is going to be...how should I say? Crazy? Let me explain:
It was still dark outside when my alarm clock (which is my music) went off on the CD player. I sat up in bed drowsily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and peering at the clock. It was exactly 6:00 AM. I stretched a bit and then stumbled out of bed, turning down the volume on the CD player. It was hushed and dark in the house, and dad had gone downstairs to his office. Mom was awake, but was in the shower. I poured myself some coffee, stirring in the creamer quietly with a spoon, careful not the clank it against the sides of the mug. Walking over the computer, I sat down to check my mail...but then, Marshall, our Great Pyrenees, started barking. I tried to ignore him, but he just kept on and kept on, and our neighbors dogs were barking. I finally got up and glanced outside, and noticed that my horses were running around the pasture at an alarming rate, and looking as if startled over the hill to my uncle's house. They were all prancing around up there, silhouetted by the rising sun. 'What on earth?' I thought as I stepped outside. It was cool and nice, but all I could hear was the dogs barking and the horses snorting VERY loudly. Now, when a horse is startled, and sees or hears something that it doesn't know what it is, it lets out this very loud snort, that's more of a loud blow than a snort. If you've never heard it, I can't describe it. Anyway, that's what they were doing, so I knew that SOMETHING SOMEWHERE was wrong. I ran to mom's bathroom and called her to come outside. There we stood on the front porch, both of us in bathrobes. The horses were still acting up, and running around snorting and looking towards my uncle's property. We both ran up the drive way to see what was wrong in the dim morning light, and as we ran, we heard this strange, haunting noise. It sounded like a high-pitched whistle at first, but then as we got to the top of the driveway, it became clearer. I got to the top first, and mom came up behind me. "Why," she said, "that's a rooster!" Sure enough, that was a rooster's call. Belle, Silkie, Red and the goats came running to the front gate, and pranced around, jumping each time the rooster crowed. Belle, bless her heart, was scared half out of her wits. She stood there at the gate, snorting very loudly and head held high. Her tail was arched and her eyes were wide. Same with the other horses, they too were scared. Well, no one around where we live owns chickens...so, that was strange. Mom and I ran down the road (and no, there are hardly any cars on the road we live on:) and to my uncle's driveway. Well, there's this old car parked there that hasn't been
moved in ages, and the rooster must've been under it, because that's where the noise was coming from. He must've seen us coming, because he went silent as we approached. We couldn't find him, so we came on back. I walked up to the gate and patted Belle's head, who was still quite nervous. She's so sweet! She looked at me and layed her head over my shoulder, seeming to want comfort. I rubbed in between her ears, talking to her quietly, and she seemed to calm down. Well, that was an interesting experience, and then that evening, when my brother and I went to feed the horses, who were STILL startled, (we couldn't even get them to eat) and we heard it again. My brother and I ran over as fast as we could, and still couldn't find it. I asked my cousin, and he said that he had seen one out there, and planned to have "fried chicken" for supper. :) Anyway, that settles that...my horses DON'T like chickens!Alright, I've rambled about that enough....I'll let you go now. :) Thanks for reading such a messy post...sorry about that. :)
In Christ,
~Miss Rose
