Sometimes at a later point I will question the sanity of certain decisions and actions of mine.  Here are some examples:

1) We had received our first lot of chickens in the mail.  It was a new experience for all of us.  Everything was going quite well until one chick got sick.  The invalid was Fluffy, one of the buff silkies (the other was Buffy).  She had crookneck (neck goes all twisted and strange), water on the brain (a little kooky), and constipation (not going poop without assistance-don’t ask).  So we took care of her.  Somehow we must have gone a little kooky ourselves, because we had assumed that if she not only came inside but slept on my bed, Fluffy would have a faster and more wholesome recovery.  For a few nights she slept on my bed (something I’m not proud of), with my dog, Crumpet.  In the end, she got so sick I had to cull her (using my mother’s best kitchen knife).  Reflecting on this past experience, I think there might have been some better solutions.

2) When we first got the goats, they escaped.  No real big surprise here, but it was in the night so it was very dark.  With no clear idea of where they might be, our search began a little off course.  Pretty soon we heard the neighbor’s dog bark.  We rushed over to investigate, where we found our two newly acquired goats cornered nearby a barn, with the farm guard dog keeping them paralyzed with fear.  There was nothing else to do but to make friends with this huge barking dog (as the owner wasn’t home), so I talked in my best puppy dog voice and inched over to my goats.  I grabbed Maybelle, and my mom grabbed Kitty, and we dragged, carried, pulled and pushed them all the way home.  Lesson learned: guard dogs are good for cornering goats and like being talked to as though they are still a puppy.

3) Some of you may not know this, but we own a heifer (not a cow).  One day she will have the noble job of milk production for our family, but for the moment she is just really big, mobile, yard art.  Although she doesn’t do much more than eat all day, she is quite happy to play games every once in a while.  One of her favorites is tag.  You run, she chases.  Sometimes I wonder if people driving by think I am being chased by a wild bovine.  

4) “Breeding like rabbits.”  We used to rely on that saying.  Not anymore.  For a long time we wanted baby bunnies.  Anything with lop ears.  Cute, sweet, grass-eating, fluffy, huge eyes that stare deep into your soul, multiple colors, that will soon have cute miniature versions of itself.  This is not our experience.  Our bunnies were biting, clawing, peeing-on-everything, spaced out little monsters.  Most of them are now dead.  First rabbit’s demise was caused by a wild dog.  Second rabbit’s cessation was all thanks to an infected ear infection and my brother’s .243 rifle.  Third rabbits termination was by some predator that we are not sure of yet, suffice to say, it has never returned.  Fourth rabbit’s annihilation can be attributed to stupidity, both of the car driver and the bunny that stepped foot in the highway.  Not one of them ever had any offspring.  We are currently left with a miniature, male, Holland lop that we rescued from the stew-pot off of someone who posted something on Craigslist.  Another piece of mobile yard art for our collection.

5) This is another Uffie story.  Our crazed little girl, who was raised in a closet for most of her childhood, and who also needs therapy sessions every week decided to go broody.  In all her infinite wisdom, she perceived that Christmas Day would be a great time to start sitting on eggs.  Brilliant for us.  So she hatched some babies in January.  One froze to the water trough.  This was the only one we cared about.  So sad.  Overcome with despair Uffie just about gave up on her attempt to raise the chicks.  Thankfully, Cookie stepped in.  She mothered the lot as though she had hatched them herself.  If not they probably would have died.  And now there are four chickens showing up at the therapy sessions.

6) Here is a short story about the oinkers.  We look at them.  We go home.  We make them a home to sleep in.  We go buy them.  We go buy milk replacer (their mother had died).  We drive home.  We have our ear drums blasted out by their squealing.  We take some headache relief medicine.  We wait for months in gleeful anticipation for bacon.

 7) Yesterday, we saw one of the ducks limping.  Just to make sure nothing was wrong (we can always hope), we ran it down and immediately noticed that its leg was wounded. Our poor little Drip comes inside.  Using a white rag, we wipe off her leg and foot, simultaneously making the presumption that she had been attacked by a predator (they are the cause of most of my troubles).  So we brought her in the house and gave her spa treatment (i.e. splash around in our bathtub), gave her luxury food (dandelions, grass, leaves), put her in her own suite (the stock tank/brooder), and she has access to an all you can eat buffet of her favorite food. Despite all this care and attention (and potentially saving her life) she hates me.  Alas, I was hoping this inconvenience of mine would strengthen our relationship and bring us closer together.

8) Pancakes and raw meat have something in common.  Can you guess what it is?  No.  Didn’t think so.  Both of these are foods that Bonnie (our puppy) will jump on the table or countertop to snatch.  What about goat poop and feathers?  No, you couldn’t figure that one out either?  These are things that Bonnie will always chew no matter how many times we tell her otherwise.  Dreadlocks and ticks?  Of course you didn’t get that one.  Bonnie gives both of these things to our three other dogs.  Last one.  What about bunnies and ducks?  I’ll just tell you.  These are the animals that Bonnie has the most fun ‘herding’.  Summary is that Bonnie is capable of making connections between anything. 

These are only a few of the Farminsanity moments.  More have happened, more to come. 

There are nine ducklings at Walnut Kitchen Homestead. They arrived late one night, procured by Farmer P. from one of those places that supplies all the farming equipment imaginable. Farmer P. brought to WKH: four Rouens (Hooey, Dooey, Looey, Fooey), two Fawn and White Runners (Drip, Dunk), two white ducks – probably Pekins - (Donald, Daisy), and one Magpie (Passamaquoddy). Adding ducklings was not a spur of the moment idea, rather an accumulation of months of research and discussion by our family. Hence, there were some preconceived notions formed. Never believe everything you hear when it comes to animals. Foolishly, we had assumed that their behavior, growth and appearance would resemble that of chickens, just with more of an attraction to water. We were wrong.

Our fellows turned out to be real complainers. Without ceasing, they complained from morning ‘til night. For some reason, they find fault with everything. You can imagine the remarks:

“These pine shavings are too spiky.”

“This water isn’t deep enough.”

“I don’t like the interior décor, the metal is not of my taste.”

“There is no green.”

“This food is repulsive. I want dried currants.”

“I find the company of other ducks demeaning to my personal integrity.”

“Why did they give us such awful names? Seriously, they could have been more original than Dunk.”

“How do they expect us to make ourselves comfortable with this red light shining on us all the time?”

“I want to play explorers, but there are no hats that are our size.”

These complaints continued for a few weeks. To minimize the possibility of us hearing their whining, we placed the ducklings outdoors in a pen during the daytime. Very soon, we found that the ducklings were ready for more than just their small amount of drinking water. We accommodated this wish. Then they wanted more than just two inches of water. We found ourselves more than willing to supply a deeper trough. The ducklings now had six inches of water. It didn’t take them long to start complaining how shallow the water was, so I asked my dad what to do, because we had no other containers that were suitable for them to climb in, swim in, and poop in. 

With one day’s hard work from my dad, the ducklings had a new home. Reusing the old pig house (from when the pigs were little piglets), some chicken wire and t-posts, a comfortable run overlapping the creek and a shelter for night was constructed. The ducklings stopped complaining for a few days. 

Soon enough, with hot weather and little rain, the creek began to dry up. This sparked a renewed interest in the ducklings to explore farther than ever before. Before they embarked on any sort of perilous journey, they agreed that they must acquire supplies, so no one would die of hunger. Drip thought it would be best to record all of their comings and goings in a papyrus book they made from the grasses on the creek bank. Somewhere along the journey, a few of the pages blew away with the raging Kansas wind. These I have recently found, and below you can read them.

Day 1All nine of us explorers headed out to face unknown danger. We expect to face many obstacles in the days ahead. Passamaquoddy thinks it is quite likely that we shall find a dragon. Daisy hopes nothing more dangerous than a skunk will cross our path. Personally, I think it would be nice to see a real raccoon. None of us (except wimpy Daisy) have any fear of being eaten or hurt, because Dunk has some very sophisticated strategies to help us escape danger, or if need be, fight. Most of us prefer the idea of fight, compared to flight. It is not that we can actually fly, because our wings feathers are not in yet.

Day 2Our travels have led us to the bend - the bend that hides our home. All of us have started understanding what homesick means. Hooey wishes to go back and call it quits. However, ducks do not just quit. We persevere. Passamaquoddy gave an invigorating speech about the duties and dignity to which all ducks should adhere. Needless to say, the speech was long and very time consuming. Our party did not travel  much farther than the bend.

Day 3Today we met our first enemy. He insulted us by calling us “vile, tiresome, noisy intruders.” None of us liked him much. After him taunting us for a while, Dunk called on us to execute plan #8. We charged. That puny pathetic snake slithered away. In light of our first victory, we threw a party. It was a real whopper. We had flower balloons and firefly glow bands, chocolate mud cakes and slug slushies. It was a productive day, and we made it to the first dam.

Day 4This morning Donald thought he would lead us in a community service project. “This,” he stated, “would be the epoch of helpfulness, the climax of constructiveness, this would mark an era of enthusiasm for energetic behavior.” Admittedly, it took some questioning to understand exactly what he was referring to, but it ended up that he wanted our help to clear some of the algae that had accumulated in the creek. Although there was some concern as to whether this undertaking would be of much use, we decided to approach this task with zeal. By the end of the day, the stream had such a sparseness of green that we suspected that algae has become an endangered species of plant.

Day 5We spent the day singing. This is not a pleasant sound when compared to a nightingale or a robin, but it does have a unique tone. Possessing a party of nine, with girls and boys alike, our voices mingled nicely. In this account of our doings, I think it only right to include a few snippets of the songs we sang.

“Oh, a willow, a willow, we laid you on a pillow, so precious to me, to grow a tree, until we met an armadillo.”

“We came upon, a snail so dear, that glorious escargot of old, with tree leaves bending near the stream to touch their boughs of green.”

“‘Cause I’m a country duck, I got a four dam creek, climb on my bill, I’ll take ya for a swim. Up winding rivers, down moving streams. Hey, I can get ya where you need to go, ‘cause I’m a country duck.”

“Ding Dong! The algae’s dead. Which green algae? The massive algae! Ding Dong! The green algae’s dead! Wake-up sleepy duck, preen your feathers, get out of bed. Wake up the green algae’s dead!”

“In sleep he clucked to me … In streams he came … That roo which calls to me, and crows my name. And do I dream again? For now I find … The Phantom of the Chicken Coop is now inside my mind.” (Only the girls sang this song.)

A hint of wisdom from the farmers at WKH. If you ever get ducklings, remember, they are adorable when they are babies, but they grow ever so fast. Have a structure already built for them before you buy any. Ducks also have a strong flock mentality, so don’t expect to ever be able to separate them. They love water, so buy lots and lots of bedding material, because it gets sopping wet every night. If you see any slime stuff in their drinking water, it is most likely regurgitated food. Oh, yes, they are a whole lot of fun!

“Let me go! Let me go!” It was a wail, a holler of complete distress. “Please, I beg of you, let me go!” No matter how much noise she made, the captor continued to pull and half drag the unfortunate Kitty across the field. “My poor little babe! What shall happen to Meringue?” One of the captors quickly showed the hollering goat doe her wee little lass. She continued to scream. The two terrorists did everything they could to quiet her down, but not even oats would work. 

“How dare you! You ...“she stammered, “I thought of all people you would be my friend. I trusted you.” The doe resisted being dragged further, but the humans were too strong. She demanded that they let her go, she pleaded for them to let her have rest, she groveled for them to bring her back to her pen, but the captors continued to ignore her cries.

They tied her up in a green pasture that was lacking a fence, that had trees and weeds and berries and so many other good things, but Kitty knew that all these were meant to torment her. Kitty knew that these two humans only wanted to keep her quiet long enough, so that no one would know her whereabouts. Kitty remembered that if you ever find yourself caught, you must make lots of noise. She did her best and let out a banshee cry. Then she paused for a second, getting ready to make another yell, but she heard her two captors talking quietly with each other. 

“I told you she would holler if you didn’t bring Maybelle along.”

“Yes, but you know how strong and smart Maybelle is, she would probably eat whatever we tied her to, and then we would have to catch her."

“Hmmm. Quite. That would be a bit of a problem then, if she escaped.”

“Exactly, you remember how much she hates being tied up.”

“Then do we let her scream?” The captor known as Farmer R. pointed to Kitty.

“I suppose that is the only thing for it, but I must say, I thought having Meringue beside her would calm her down a bit.”

“You thought, but it didn’t work.”

Kitty again let out a noise that would have startled a lion should one have heard her.

Now, the humans left. A short time later, one returned with a bucket of water, and showed Kitty that it did indeed contain water. “How dare you think that I am so simple that you could get away with poisoning my water?” she screamed again. “And how dare you kidnap the daughter of Queen Maybelle (for she is queen now after her coronation), and the granddaughter of the queen as well?” Then she said with an air of authority, “If you should but let me go, I am sure that my mother would be quite happy to pay the ransom.”

Farmer R. spoke up. “You think we are keeping you for ransom? Silly thing, I just brought you here so that you would have lots of fresh weeds and things to eat.”

A long and piercing shriek came out of Kitty. “How foolish you must think I am, if you suppose that I can be so easily tricked into thinking that I have not been kidnapped, when I have most certainly been treated with such discourtesy, that I realize can only mean that I have been kidnapped.”

Princess Kitty’s wails, cries, pleas, begs and all other manner of loud noises proceeded from deep within her vocal chords. Meringue at this point fell asleep to escape such awful sounds. She lay there curled in a ball on a fresh lot of soft grassy stuff dreaming about playing on pallets with Eclair. Farmer R. got up off her tuffet, a patch of grass at the base of a tree, and walked away.

Kitty rejoiced. Her walking away could only mean one thing. She was going to ask her mother to pay the ransom. She thought about this for a bit. After some calculating, she decided that she would probably be worth a hundred yellow flowers or fifty mouthfuls of barley. Her mother would easily be able to pay such a sum, because they keep a very full treasury of stores in case a disaster like this should occur. Soon Farmer R. returned. 

“Do I get to go free?” asked Kitty. “I am sure my mother wishes to have me released without further delay.” Without a word, Farmer R. plopped a chair on the ground and sat down. She placed a glass with water in a cup holder and pulled out three books. “Which would you prefer to hear?” Farmer R. asked. Kitty was determined not to be so easily won over, and sniffed at the three books and walked as far away as she could, but she was tied down, so she ended up only a hundred feet or so away.

Farmer R. poked Meringue and coaxed her into waking. Kitty saw her touching her child and panicked. Running back over to where Meringue was, she had to make sure that the petting and pats from Farmer R. left no mark or smell that could show, even to a very well trained nose, that a human had ever touched her precious Meringue. The human looked at the three books in her lap and decided to start reading aloud a hardcover book that had a wolf-looking thing on the front. She began, “The Call of the Wild by Jack London.”

Kitty wished she could cover her ears with her hoofs in the same way she saw the humans do with their hands, when they did not wish to hear something. She realized that this special ability belonged solely to humans (and something called a monkey). Thus, she had no choice but to listen to “And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born.” Kitty scowled, thinking how she used to live among the place that she was born. She thought, I never had to put up with being kidnapped and placed on a lead around super green grass. She took another look at the grass.

When she was quite certain that no human from near or afar was looking, she bit off a huge mouthful of delectable greens. Farmer R. had just finished a paragraph of the book, and looked to see if Meringue was enjoying the story. She saw Kitty eating the grass, and Kitty spat out the grass as though it were some foul, bitter thing. Her captor continued to read her story about a sweet dog changed by a series of actions, which finally led him to kill for his own food. She read “The End” and looked up. 

Looking at the sky, it was getting late. Kitty figured that Farmer R. would soon be making camp in a place where nobody would be able to find them. She was right. That human untied her and started to drag her around again. However, Kitty was not going anywhere without a fight. She sat down, so that she had to be practically carried for at least ten feet. Kitty finally managed to comprehend that she was beaten.

Therefore, she reluctantly followed Farmer R. There was not anything else for it. She was either going to get many grass stains on her beautiful coat or have a sore neck and head. Kitty had made up her mind that she did not like halters. The way that they were walking seemed familiar to Kitty, but she did not know where they were heading. It was a treacherous journey. They passed a wire that could fry a bug if it touched it, and the propane tank that looked like a beached whale. All these difficult obstacles were easy to avoid compared to THE SWAMP.

The swamp is a terrible evil that makes itself known after a rain storm. It is a low part in the cow pasture where water collects. Among the goats, they considered it something that you should avoid at all times. If you step in it, the drowned bugs of many years past will look up from the water and steal your soul. When this happens, you get a cold feeling on your hoof (or foot), as though you had stepped in snow. Right through this horrid swamp, Kitty, Meringue and their captors walked.

The stories they told before bed on a thundering night brought all their horror back to Kitty. She kept her eyes fixed closely upon the ground. This is why it was quite a surprise when she almost bumped into the gate to the goat pasture. “Mother! Mother!” Kitty cried. “I am here. Mother, turn around!” Maybelle turned around and bounded over to Kitty and Meringue. The gate was opened, and the goat family was reunited. 

THE END!