Adventures in House Sitting
Oct. 25th, 2004 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velessaI've finally returned from my house sitting job. It's hard to go without the internet for five days! They did have satellite TV, though, and I found a channel that showed pretty much nothing but stuff about horses and horse training. I need to look up what RFD-TV stands for.
Anyway, overall I enjoyed my time at their house in the woods. It was up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and so very peaceful; it was like going camping with just myself and a bunch of animals. The dog went with me everywhere as a sort of companion and guardian. He's a great big golden retriever and does a good job protecting the house. Once in a while he would start barking at something and chase it off; this morning he scared away something...I couldn't really tell what it was through the trees, but it was pretty big. I felt safer out there with him because the owner told me there are mountain lions around! But every morning he would also run off where I couldn't find him and then come running back after a while. I don't know where he was going but I didn't like him being way out of earshot. Plus when he came back he had this look on his face like he'd been getting into trouble :p
Every morning and evening I spent about 1 1/2 - 2 hours taking care of all the critters. There were four horses, and each had to get their own special mix of grain and supplements and medications, then some hay. Three of the horses are very friendly but one of them is skittish and doesn't like to be touched, so I just left her alone. Today I caught a mouse in the hay! I kept seeing one everytime I went into the hay shed, but today it got into my wheelbarrow; it must have been hiding in the flakes of hay I took. I let it go outside. One of the horses is on stall rest for tendon problems, so after feeding I had to walk him for five minutes. That doesn't sound very long, but for some reason that part always felt like it took forever. I also had to squirt medicine into his mouth every other morning. Finally all the stalls had to be cleaned and rebedded.
After the horses I took care of the chickens; I was kind of nervous about being around those birds at first, but I got over that quickly. The chickens were all perfectly harmless, I just let them out in the yard and watched them peck and scratch for about 20 minutes, then cooped them back up. There were usually a few stubborn ones that wouldn't go in when I chased them, so I had to pick them up and carry them inside. The first time I tried that I was worried it would bite me or something, but they didn't care at all. I like bird feathers, they're so soft. Other than that all I had to do for them was make sure their food and water were clean and collect eggs. These hens laid green eggs which I thought were interesting and the owner let me keep them.
After the six chickens I fed the dog and four cats inside. They were all friendly except for one cat; for the first two days I thought I had somehow accidently let him outside and lost him. But then he finally came out of hiding and I occasionally caught glimpses of him. The other three cats were practically overly friendly. Two of them sat on me all the time; the other one lives in the kitchen and won't leave it, but anytime I was in there she demanded my attention.
The hardest part of this job was getting up before dawn to feed the horses and trying to sleep. I think the getting up would have been easier if I had been able to get much sleep at night, but I couldn't really thanks to all the animals in the bed. The huge dog and two of the cats took up much of the space on the bed, plus the dog put his head on my feet and one of the cats kept sleeping on my chest, so I couldn't really move or get comfortable. I kept waking up every few hours, so that wasn't much fun. They did keep the bed warm, though. It was always cold up there in mountains.
Anyway, overall I enjoyed my time at their house in the woods. It was up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and so very peaceful; it was like going camping with just myself and a bunch of animals. The dog went with me everywhere as a sort of companion and guardian. He's a great big golden retriever and does a good job protecting the house. Once in a while he would start barking at something and chase it off; this morning he scared away something...I couldn't really tell what it was through the trees, but it was pretty big. I felt safer out there with him because the owner told me there are mountain lions around! But every morning he would also run off where I couldn't find him and then come running back after a while. I don't know where he was going but I didn't like him being way out of earshot. Plus when he came back he had this look on his face like he'd been getting into trouble :p
Every morning and evening I spent about 1 1/2 - 2 hours taking care of all the critters. There were four horses, and each had to get their own special mix of grain and supplements and medications, then some hay. Three of the horses are very friendly but one of them is skittish and doesn't like to be touched, so I just left her alone. Today I caught a mouse in the hay! I kept seeing one everytime I went into the hay shed, but today it got into my wheelbarrow; it must have been hiding in the flakes of hay I took. I let it go outside. One of the horses is on stall rest for tendon problems, so after feeding I had to walk him for five minutes. That doesn't sound very long, but for some reason that part always felt like it took forever. I also had to squirt medicine into his mouth every other morning. Finally all the stalls had to be cleaned and rebedded.
After the horses I took care of the chickens; I was kind of nervous about being around those birds at first, but I got over that quickly. The chickens were all perfectly harmless, I just let them out in the yard and watched them peck and scratch for about 20 minutes, then cooped them back up. There were usually a few stubborn ones that wouldn't go in when I chased them, so I had to pick them up and carry them inside. The first time I tried that I was worried it would bite me or something, but they didn't care at all. I like bird feathers, they're so soft. Other than that all I had to do for them was make sure their food and water were clean and collect eggs. These hens laid green eggs which I thought were interesting and the owner let me keep them.
After the six chickens I fed the dog and four cats inside. They were all friendly except for one cat; for the first two days I thought I had somehow accidently let him outside and lost him. But then he finally came out of hiding and I occasionally caught glimpses of him. The other three cats were practically overly friendly. Two of them sat on me all the time; the other one lives in the kitchen and won't leave it, but anytime I was in there she demanded my attention.
The hardest part of this job was getting up before dawn to feed the horses and trying to sleep. I think the getting up would have been easier if I had been able to get much sleep at night, but I couldn't really thanks to all the animals in the bed. The huge dog and two of the cats took up much of the space on the bed, plus the dog put his head on my feet and one of the cats kept sleeping on my chest, so I couldn't really move or get comfortable. I kept waking up every few hours, so that wasn't much fun. They did keep the bed warm, though. It was always cold up there in mountains.
