'You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat.' - Author Unknown

This quote is especially true of semi-feral barn cats, which were one of the first animals we acquired for our farm.  I justified to my husband that getting them would be part of our clean-up effort (rodent control), but he knows and I know, I really just love cats.  We picked them up courtesy of Barn Cats (http://www.barncats.org/contact.php), a fantastic organization that spays/neuters semi-feral stray cats, giving them any shots and veterinary care they need before delivering them right to your barn door.  The cats are housed in a small metal run with a litter box and food and water for two weeks, and then, they are released with the hope they will stick around and keep mice and rats out of the barn.

Barn Cats knows that sometimes the cats don't stay, but this way, they at least have a chance.  If they were left in shelters, they would likely be euthanized, because they are not cuddly, tame house cats.  Out of the three cats we initially adopted, only one of them stuck around - a handsome white and tabby splotched manx named Blue, named for the color of his eyes.  None of us have ever had the pleasure of petting him, but he is an excellent mouser, and he loves to follow us around the farm when we are working (at a safe distance, of course).

Inside the barn we've built a simple cat shelter that offers Blue another level of protection from predators and a place to keep warm on cold nights.  Blue has certainly kept his side of the bargain.  Even with the significant amount of mice I've seen in the field this spring, he has kept them from getting in our house and our barn.

We put the cat shelter on a couple of water barrels to get it off the ground, and we keep Blue's food inside the shelter, which keeps unwelcome visitors like possums and skunks at bay.  It's not anything fancy, but Blue likes it.

I'd love to post a picture, but Blue is very camera shy, and the few photos he's in are so far away, trying to find him in them is like playing "Where's Waldo."  I wish I'd had a camera with me several weeks back when I found him in the field.  He was laying low in the tall grass, in the middle of a circle of 4-5 mouse holes, waiting for an unsuspecting mouse to pop up.  It was kind of like the kitty version of Whack-a-Mole. It had me laughing a better part of the morning.

Two weeks ago, we adopted two more barn cats.  We've had so many fat, fuzzy field mice on our land the past few months, the guy who mows our acreage said, "It looked like Fievel Goes West."  We felt like Blue could probably use a few extra hands (or paws), so we contacted Barn Cats with a request for two more cats, preferrably female, since Blue has had plenty of time to stake his claim on the area, and we wanted to avoid territorial tomcat fighting.  We were also hoping to get cats, which although weren't lap cats, would occasionally let the kids pet them.

Apparently, our timing was perfect.  There was a family who was moving, who had some outdoor cats and couldn't take them.  They really wanted two of the females to be adopted together, somewhere they could be outdoors, and preferably to a family with kids.  Because adopting adult cats together doesn't always work well in a shelter situation, and because the cats are skittish around people, Barn Cats 'took them into custody,' and then brought them to us.

We let them out a couple of days ago, and hopefully they'll decide to stay.  Again, pictures are hard to get - the girls mostly stayed huddled in the cat carrier anytime a person came near.  Unfortunately, they weren't as friendly as we hoped, but as long as they catch mice, I don't mind if they prefer to be incognito. The picture below is the best one we have.  Since it was dark and fuzzy, I decided to go a bit Pop Art with it.

Greenhorn Tips:

• Barn cats need some type of box, shelter, loft or other place they can hide in even though they're in a barn.  The barn itself may offer them protection from the elements, but they generally need something smaller and more cozy to feel safe. A shelter will offer better protection against predators if it's off the ground.

So You Want to Be a Farmer...

We bought the beginnings of our dream farm in early September of last year.  We moved from a home on a single acre of land, to almost 13 acres, complete with a barn, a loafing shed and various other things to get us started with our own little hobby farm.  My husband and I both work 40 hours a week, and our kids are busy teenagers, so even though we've had grand visions of self-sufficiency, bumper crops and excellent show and breeding stock, we've reined ourselves in and avoided the temptation to try and do everything at once. 

As one of our friends said, there will always be plenty of projects on a farm.  Decide what your priorities are and do a little bit at a time.  If you try to do it all when you first get started, you'll never have the time or money, and you'll burn yourself out.  Great advice!  So, as a family, we discussed what kind of animals and crops we wanted our farm to have, and from there, we made a game plan of what we needed do.  Our kids are all animal lovers, so animals were at the top of the list.  My husband and I pointed out that we needed appropriate housing and fencing for the animals to be healthy and safe, so that became our first priority.

The fencing around our property was not sufficient to contain animals like cows or goats, and although we had a barn, it had no stalls.  Also, the entire north half of the barn had over a foot of packed horse manure and soiled hay on the dirt floor *yuck!*.  We might be greenhorns, but we were smart enough to know that we needed to clean things up for the health of any future animals (not to mention odor control).

We set to work clearing the manure.  Our first goal was to clear enough that we could properly close the north doors to the barn again.  I was afraid that getting the kids to help with this unpleasant task would be more of a chore than actually shoveling the manure myself, but they were all so excited about our plans, they dug in - literally - and in a short time, we accomplished our goal of being able to close the doors.  The mess was so packed down, however, rather than trying to clear out the rest of the area by hand, we enlisted the help of one of our friends, who brought over his tractor and used the front-end loader to scrape out the rest of the barn.  There was enough manure to create a large compost pile for us, as well as fill another friend's 18-foot trailer to overflowing.

I'm sure there are many of you readers who will shake your head and laugh at the fact we own a farm and not a tractor (at times I do that myself), but we don't want to accrue unnecessary debt, and so we are holding off purchasing any large farm equipment until we finish a few more projects.  In the meantime, paying someone to tractor mow our acreage and calling in the occasional favor is much cheaper than a monthly tractor payment.
 
Greenhorn Tips (i.e. things that should be obvious, but sometimes aren't):

• The right equipment makes a world of difference!  It will always save time and headaches, and it's usually safer than 'winging it.'  When I saw how the tractor scraped out the crude in the barn in minutes, compared to the small section the kids spent hours on, this really hit home for me.
• Have a variety of tools and equipment at your disposal.  As efficient as the tractor cleanup was, we still needed to use shovels, rakes, etc. in the corners where the scraper was too big too reach.