FRANCIS'S BLOG 05/13/2026
It’s sunny now, but. . .
. . .this morning it was rainy and cold, so we had breakfast hay in the stable:
Cozy! 🐴
Chavez makes dreamy doe-eyes 🐎
He's happy too, because yesterday Mara and Christina took Iris and him for a ride.
Ravenous roosters 🐓
Mr. Peepers, Zoom-Zoom, and Baldy insist on helping the cats finish their breakfast,
whether the cats like it or not. 😿
Way to go Mary! 🐎
Friday we flew to Tallahassee, Florida, and signed Mary into the IHSA Semi-Finals:
Here we are today (Sunday) celebrating Mary’s 4th place—which qualifies her to go to the finals next month, in Massachusetts! Only the top 150 of the 2500 at semi-finals get to go, and Mary is one of them!
Congratulations, Mary! A happy Mary is a happy AHF! (I only wish I was tall enough to try that Spanish Moss 🐴)
No one takes a lickin’ — ‘cause everybody’s chicken! 🐓
The victor takes on Angelo the Annihilator:
We break it up if anyone looks like they are even getting close to
hurting each other, which might happen when they grab another by the
beak. 🐴
Little brown lays an egg. . . 🐔
. . .which is normally no big deal. But what’s new is that she laid it in one of our new nesting boxes.
Two of the eggs are not real (“china eggs" put hens in the mood to nest). But the egg closest to her left leg is all her own.
Kanna takes a drink 😺
Cats are funny. They get their water changed at least once a day. . .
. . .then they go drink out of a puddle. 🐴
Luigi admires his handiwork. 😺
A clean car shall never leave AHF without paw prints—that’s the pussycat pledge!
Schroeder does some bird-watching 😺
This morning we found Schrödinger watching a sparrowhawk in the hay barn:
It eventually found its way out, after we opened one of the loading doors.
It’s 45℉ today! 🔆
It means saying goodbye to the ice sculpture provided by the furnace exhaust pipe:
It’s above freezing today 🐴
So it’s a little nicer enjoying my quiet time with the hay, while it’s still “a la carte."
The roosters did a little tractor shopping.
Shopping for a perch, that is. They usually use our hay (which mercifully is kept completely covered 🐴).
That bad Schroeder was over at the school again, which we all know is a—
-Cat Crime!
Feline Felony!
Mouser Malfeasance!
Pussycat Perpetration!
Tomcat Trespass!
(I’m done now. 🐴)