Army

So I've been on military duty at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO for just under two weeks now. From time to time, I get called up for various reasons. Minus 15 months spent hanging out in Iraq, typically, I'm never away from home for more than a month.

For those of you that don't know, I'm in the Army and have two years to finish off in the Reserves to finish up all my military obligations. I'm a Staff Seregent, (E-6), and I enjoy leading troops, but if I wanted to be in the Army, I'd go active duty. I'm not complaining, I'm just ready to permanently hang up my stripes and begin the 100% civilian chapter of my life.

So things at the farm have been rough in my abscense. Carla's been doing a great job holding down the fort (pregnant with a 19 month old Simmey monster, and a 40 hr job), but we've got a VERY LARGE bobcat - 30 - 40 lbs that has been terrorizing all of our critters around the house. By terrorizing, I mean eating. The bobcat has killed half of Carla's ducks, and Rattlesnake the broody hen, orphaning her chicks. It's killed ducks up to 10 ft from the house, slipping past 2 (probably sleeping) mutts. I've got some trapping to do when I get home, luckily, we keep rooster for just such an occasion.

The layers out in the pasture suddenly decided to stop laying in thier nesting boxes, and are laying somewhere in the brush. I'll have to stop this when I get back. This will entail penning them up for a few days, as well as trying to find the egg "honeyhole". The biggest deal is that we've missed the egg sales that would have paid for me hiring help for Carla (pregnant women and slinging sacks of feed is not a good combo).

Also, Alfredo, one of our Great Pyrennes, has chosen to regress in his training, and has killed his first hen. This isn't a big suprise, livestock guardian dogs have a very "motherly" instinct to thier charges, especially smaller ones like chickens. Unfortunately, this attention can be fatal for a hens. The thing is to correct the behavior before it becomes too entrenched in his brain. So when I get back, Alfredo is going to go to "jail" for a while and take a step back in his training. When he's trustworthy enough, we'll post bail.

Army Strong (and the Bobcat's Full)