Irma, Hawk Encounter, De-Worming

We had a visit from Irma over the last two days. We were told by the weather forecasters repeatedly that we were going to see a couple of inches of rain and sustained winds of 35mph. 35mph winds are laughable to those who experienced Irma at her worst, but still not something we typically see here. The occasional gust during a thunderstorm yes, but sustained, no. We put our porch furniture in the garage, I took down some of the big fly traps, and we generally relocated anything that was susceptible to being blown away.

Apparently Irma hit some much cooler air as she was working her way through north Georgia, and thanks to that she was nothing but a rain shower by the time she moved into middle Tennessee. We got almost two inches of rain through steady, soft rain over the last couple of days, but we never got so much as a puff of wind. I could have left a napkin on the ground and it wouldn’t have blown away. Since Irma had already caused enough damage and destruction I was thankful the wicked witch had melted by the time she made it to Tennessee.

In other news Ewen, in a classic Ewen move, decided to face off with a hawk today. We’ve all seen this hawk sitting on the fence in various places around the farm several over the last couple of months. The hawk was fine, we saw him walk and fly, but he was clearly very focused on hunting some rodents and he was sitting on the top of the fence. Ewen kept running at him barking, and the hawk held his ground on the fence at first. But when Ewen wouldn’t let it go he decided to come down and face off with Ewen.

As is Ewen’s way, he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was about to take some talons or a sharp beak to the face. After screaming his name until I was hoarse (I’m still hoarse a few hours later for that matter), Ewen reluctantly gave up his game with the hawk and followed us to the house.

Ewen not processing this is a stupid move; this is happy stance with his tail up and smiling

all of the human screaming made Ewen finally start to question if this was a good idea or not . . .

. . . back to tail up and smiling. “Why are you screaming at me??” . . .

. . . after one last attempt at play Ewen finally gave up and came with us

we see this hawk around frequently, it likes to perch on the fences

After we finally got Ewen to leave the hawk alone and follow us we returned to our activity already in progress which was de-worming. While Irma visited yesterday we had a farrier here in the morning and the horse dentist here in the afternoon. Today it seemed like a good day to de-worm as the horses were too wet to do any grooming. Once the hawk encounter finally ended we went back to shoving tubes in horses’ mouths. Just another day on the farm.

Wilson and Sushi were feeling playful