Efficiency. A well-structured farm is the epitome of efficiency. Even though the Mullers lane Farm (MLF) does not have that many animals, it still needs the efficiency to take care of the animals. It still needs a place to keep feed dry – protecting it from the elements and to keep it from the varmints, or the critters such as mice that will get into it and spoil it.

Also whether you have one horse or many horses you still need a place to put up saddles and tack. If you look carefully in the barn you will spy the saddles in one room and outside that room are rows of nails set up for the horse’s tack.

Mullerslane Farm -Animals and Buildings 2

Another aspect of efficiency is: Am I working for the animals or are the animals working for me? Another question that might be asked is: Do the animals need to be confined to pens or will they do just as well feeding free?

In the past years the MLF kept their birds confined in pens. That means that every so often Paul and Cindy and the rest of the family had to clean out the pens and lay down new bedding for the birds as well as the daily filling of the feeders with water and feed. Stay tuned for Part 3 of Mullerslane Farm Animals and Buildings.

Dogs on the Farm Part 1 Click here
Dogs on the Farm Part 2 Click here

You know how they tell you to never feed stray animals. Well, the kind soul I was, I had to test the theory. One purebred Pyrenees and one half-breed showed up on our farm. I threw them some bread. They would ride away, but would come back in the evening. Yes, ride away; the Pyrenees was the size of a small pony. One week. Two weeks. They did not leave. They were friendly to me, but to our other dogs, they took over.

One day as I was relaxing on the lawn chairs next to our 5 foot hedge, I saw the farm cat coming out of the barn about 40 to 50 feet away. Like a tornado just erupting, the purebred Pyrenees, from a lying position in one motion, jumped over the hedge and chased the cat back into the barn. Then, he sauntered back like nothing had happened. To me everything had happened -my nerves were shot- and when neighbors told the owner I had them, I was only too glad to be rid of them.

On the farm, one of our dogs was Hosanna, a purebred border collie, mostly black with a white boots and white underbelly. She was so very gentle and loyal, but like most collies didn’t fair too well in a thunderstorm. When we newly had her, we started searching for her among the neighboring farms the next day after a storm. Amazingly, since it was harvest time, almost everybody had seen her within a 2-mile radius. But when we were making an almost full circle back to our farm, the trail went cold…and so we prayed she would become calm and find her way back home. Two days later, she did, and from then on we put her in the house when it got stormy, even letting her creep under the bed if it suited her.

Ah, the adventures with our dogs and ah, the memories- if only they could live an average of 25 – 30 years instead of 12-15 years.