We play bridge in town on Tuesday nights, sort of no matter what. It’s a barometer of A Good Life. If we have stuff enough under control that we can reliably play at 6:30 pm on a Tuesday, then we are doing something right. We didn’t play for a couple of years, and this last year, we’ve played a lot. Good sign!
Since we are in town on Tuesdays, then, we tend to leave lots of errands to run, have sushi before hand as our weekly splurge. I love sushi so much. Last night, we stopped at Agway to look for a trough water heater for the sheepies that wasn’t horribly expensive, and would work. Hauling water buckets sucks so very much, and we are quite happy with the heater we got for the horses. They sure are expensive. We have four sheepie breeding pens, and the pigs. Ouch.
We also pick up left-over bagels from Bagel Works, if we can time it just as they close. We get probably 100 or so bagels each trip? Wow do all of the critters love the bagels. The mama chickens in particular go ga-ga over the fruit bagels. They pick all of the soft bits out of the inside, and leave the outer tougher crusts, which the pup seems to enjoy. He at least buries them, so they must be yummy. The baby chicks in particular are now running to me when they see me, in case I might have bagels. It’s so cute!
Hermione and Genevra got their first taste of bagels today, and heartily approve. They got used to eating the scraps from the restaurant at East Hill Farm, I think, when they were visiting Harry. They were sticking their nose up a bit at the concept of eating pellets. But I gave them some bagels this morning, and now they love me again. We were getting slop buckets from the cafe this summer, but when we didn’t have the pigs, they started giving it to another farmer, sadly for us. I’ve got a call into the local elementary school to see what they are doing with food scraps.
I have to be much more careful with giving bagels to the sheep, so I limit it to about half a bagel each, much to their dismay. They love afternoon treat time of bagels, and were very unhappy to watch me giving the pigs all their favorite ones this morning, poor sheepies. They are, however, all breeding now. With a bit of drama this morning that is now all sorted, we (finally) have all of the right sheepies in the right pens, and they seem to be holding. I’ve seen curled lips on all rams, and several mountings already.