Not a Typical Day
As usual, life on the farm is busy. Not awful busy, just busy with all kinds of things to do. When you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s work, but of a different, enjoyable kind. Sweetpea and I decided to do some hoof trimming. With fourteen horses, it’s something we often have to do and a sunny day with a slightly cool breeze, is perfect for it. We also wanted to put up some summer fence for Spirit to enjoy the grass that grows between the trees. It saves us mowing, and with the price of fuel, it makes sense.
Sweetpea went out before I did, as I had to wait for the pain killers to kick in. Hoof trimming is hard on the sore joints, but give me a couple of Tylenol threes and twenty minutes, and I’m good to go. Well, mostly good to go, anyway. Between the girlchild and I, we can get quite a bit done. So, I was finally ready to get to work. Grabbing a few carrots, I stuffed them into my pockets and headed for the back.
We have about five acres of yard with a big lawn to the east of our house and driveway. Cutting across one corner of the lawn is a graveled lane that goes through the bush, out to the back where all the pens are. Walking along, I could see the girlchild waiting for me in Spirit’s pen. It seemed as if she was intently watching something, something out of my sightline.
“What are you looking at?” I asked. Before she could say a word, I had my answer. A huge jackrabbit crossed the lane not far in front of me, “Oh, that’s a big one, eh?”
“That’s not the half of it,” she laughed, “You won’t believe what just happened. That rabbit just chased Roo up a tree.”
“What,” I laughed, “what in the world?”
“Yup,” grinning from ear to ear, she was still chuckling, “Roo came running, his tail all puffed out, straight from a back pen, across the open and into the bush. He’s up in that oak tree,” she pointed at the black cat, perched way up in the big tree, “The rabbit chased him into the bush and up that tree. Then it was huffing and puffing, hopping around looking for him. It was so angry. I guess, Roo was after the babies.”
I looked and yup, way up in the tree was our black cat. The rabbit had left when I showed up, but Roo wasn’t taking any chances. I so wish, I could’ve seen it happen. Bet he doesn’t do that again. At least not anytime soon.
We trimmed hooves, eventually being joined by all three feline inspectors and had to smile when the giant jackrabbit hopped around in the pasture adjacent to us. Roo isn’t the smartest cat. Chances are, I’ll get to see for myself what it looks like, when a rabbit chases a cat up a tree.
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