We Bought a Farm: Take a Deep Breath and Look for a Pony

Why does it seem that tough farm days follow bad nights of sleep? Last night, I slept badly. And this morning, at 6:30am, we were up and at 'em attempting to take two of our males pigs to the butcher.

By 7:30, we only had gotten one of the two boys into the trailer. Dad, JB and I debated what to do. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," Dad said, and we took his advice. Man we wanted to get that other pig. We didn't want to have to go back to the butcher another day. But we also didn't want the one who was already in the trailer to get out.

We decided to take just one pig to the butcher. The other will live another day. Or week. Or month. Or whenever we can get it into the trailer.

I had to race around to do other animal chores and then to the house and get our seven puppies ready to go visit the vet. But on the way home, JB and I were taken a back when a pony ran across our path. A pony. No joke. You can't make this stuff up folks. Truly.

(By the way, we do NOT have any animals of the horse variety here on the Bauernhof.)

We knew it was our neighbor's pony. We had seen it at their house and running down our road escaping them a few times before. We had left our front gate open while loading the pig, and it had decided to join our farm. Only thing is, we have 100 acres. That's a lot of space for a pony that doesn't want to come home.

JB hopped on the four-wheeler, told our neighbor, and then we headed to the vet.

But the fun didn't end there. The day just got better. After healthy check-ups, we returned home. One of JB's coworkers who is going to be buying one of our puppies, brought her kiddos by to check in on their newest family member. Only thing was, she also brought a cat in her engine from her house. It was her neighbor's poorly cared for feline.

This poor cat was on death's door -- and not from the engine ride. I took one look at it, called JB, and he came over. We quickly made the decision the cat needed to be put down. I won't get into the gruesome details, but take our word for it. Anyone who saw that cat would agree that it didn't deserve to be faced with pain for one more single second. It was truly the most sick looking animal I have ever seen.

Thus began a little game of cat and humans as JB and his co-worker attempted to get the cat out of the engine and in a place where JB could put it down without getting scratched to death in the process. I had the lucky job of holding her little toddler -- too bad to not have to help catch a cat.

In the end, the cat was put out of its misery.

P.S. Oh and the pony is home. It had actually run back out another one of our gates and was on our neighbor's property. We saw it headed home late this evening.