Just Another Day at the Abbey

God said : ”Hello Moto”


Halloween is over and Thanksgiving will soon be upon us here at the Abbey. We have much to be thankful for: the alpaca are all healthy, our girls are pregnant, and their fleece is growing thicker each day. The horses are gaining weight due to a constant diet of hay and grain now that the pasture grass is gone. They will need the extra fat when the winter temperatures drop to simply COLD. If it gets too cold everyone comes into the barn.

The fog has begun to roll over the fields at sundown … God is a magician, slowly fading everything from sight … trees, barns, fencing and animals all disappear behind the faint gray curtain that hangs just outside the windows. I need to go out to throw hay for the horses. They are somewhere in the pasture. Our barn is just a short walk, but in the fog it’s easy to lose your direction. I ended up at the paddock fence. At first I thought I would just throw the hay over the fence but being 5’1, and the fence at 5 foot it poses many problems, the worst being hay down your shirt. I hate that! So I drag bales into the paddock and break them up into little piles for each horse.

Calling them, I can feel the ground start to quake and hear the sound of their thundering hooves coming closer and closer. Then it hits me, here they come, and here I am. I’ll never make it to the barn…RUN! No, they’re coming … where? I can’t see anything! Here they come … OH SHIT; they’ll be here before I can get to the gate. Grabbing the barn overhang post I cling to it like a drowning person clings to floating debris, my only thought: “Stupid, really, really stupid.” These guys are gentle giants but giants all the same, and I just called them BEFORE I got out of the paddock. They say that if found in front of stampeding horses they will try to avoid stepping on you. I don’t know who “they” are and frankly, I don’t want to challenge this saying. Before I can blink they are all around me. It’s okay, it’s over. I really love these guys!

My friends, including the kids, tell me I am crazy to be in with these animals. I am beginning to wonder myself. Standing there, my next fear is the sounds of the coyotes. Their barking, yipping and howls are very disturbing and sounds quite close. One of our two chickens has disappeared and we suspect the coyotes, but don’t really know. I didn’t think they were brave enough to come into the yard until a few nights ago; when returning from the barn, I walked around the house to find two coyotes standing about 100 yards in front of me. There we stood for what seemed about an hour. They, looking at me, and me looking at them. A Mexican Standoff. No one moved. What to do, what to do? Turn and run? Stand there and yell? Then it came to me, the old football adage “the best defense is a good offense. “ Attack! Off I went straight at the enemy, a mad woman leaping up and down, flailing my arms and yelling like a banshee. They instantly disappeared, and I with knees trembling and heart pounding walked back to the house. I really need a cup of coffee!

Morning comes clear and frost free. The cat lies on the patio apparently asleep except for a slight twitch of her tail now and again. The chicken and the cat have bonded. They are special friends. Susie the cat usually naps basking in the sunshine on the patio and Moto, the chicken, likes to sneak up though the bushes, alongside the house and patio, until she is within striking range. Then suddenly she’ll burst out through the bushes, wings back and neck outstretched to grab the cats tail. Then the game is on. The cat leaps up and is off after the chicken until the chicken, suddenly stops. Then the roles are reversed, off goes the cat with the chicken in tow. Later you can find them, chicken and cat, laying together on the patio basking in the sunshine.

The cat is allowed in the house now, and Moto sits by the door and waits. Jesse tells me that if that chicken is coming in the house, he will have me committed. I know he secretly likes the chicken though. If we are eating out on the patio, he is the first to give Moto bits of food from his plate. Moto will jump in the air and grab the food from his fingers. Several times I have found Jesse, chicken in lap, napping on the chase under the awning.

Moto is old, she was an old chicken when she came to us, and just before Thanksgiving she left us for that big hen house in the sky. We buried her alongside the house, in the sun shine, where she loved to make holes. I know Susie misses her, I sure do; Jess, well, not so much, but then again it’s just another day at The Abbey.