Only One Casualty

The Farmer has returned from her California trip, refreshed, renewed, and ready to jump right back into letting me do chores every day.

Ha. Not so fast, I said.

She's now outside checking on all the animals, making sure I did, in fact, keep them alive.

All went well. The steers got themselves locked into a pen by pushing the gate closed, which I didn't discover until the next morning. No wonder they were whining like a bunch of 700-pound babies the night before. (There is no sound like a steer's angry 'moo' when he's excited or frustrated.) The sheep are happy that the grass has begun growing, so they've abandoned their hay bales to rip the tiniest blades of grass from the ground.

I'm sad to report there was one casualty. One morning it was cold, so I wore my lovely wool fleece earmuffs out to do chores. Of course I quickly heated up and thoughtlessly draped the earmuffs over a nearby fence, forgetting that the steers now had access to that pen, and to that fence.

Thirty minutes later I'm done with chores, look for my ear muffs, and find them ground into the mud inside the pen. One of the steers had pulled the muffs off the fence, used them as a soccer ball, stepped on them a few times, then---shudder---enthusiastically sucked on them.

I was mortified and raced inside with the poor muffs. I will try washing them, but I'm not sure how interested I am in hugging my ears with something that was once drenched in cow spit.

Sigh.

Roll Call

The Farmer has flown the coop. As I type this, she's somewhere over the western half of the US, heading for San Francisco to help friends with a house project. She foolishly has left me in charge for six days.

So with trusty camera in hand, I took roll call this afternoon to make sure I was starting my shift as Head Farmer with all the animals I'm supposed to have.

Four beef steer?



Check.


Too many chickens scattered around the farm?


Check.

Nest of eggs?



Check.

Peacock named Ben?



Check. Up in the opening in the house.


Golden pheasant named Pharoah?


Check, and his mate Trixie is hiding in the grass.

Sheep?


Check.

Two lambs left from the February breeding debacle, which definitely is going in my next book?


Check. (They are the round butts in front.)

Elderly #66, who's 13 and could leave us any day now?



Check.

Three llamas?



Check,


Check,


And check.


Two rams?




Check and check.


Two barn cats?


Too lazy to show up for photo, but check.


Three dogs?


Check.

Writer?


Check


Okay. Everyone is present and accounted for. Let's hope the same is true six days from now!

Don't Believe It!

So I must take a minute and comment on a farm-related topic, but not our farm. The topic is a youtube link being passed around called "Extreme shepherding."

I've been sent the link by many people. The first time I watched it my mouth dropped open. What? That's impossible! Sheep would never do that. Then I realized the unbelievable parts were generated on the computer, and I found it funny.

But the more I chatted with people, the more I realized that many people actually believe the video depicts reality. That's almost funnier than the video itself. (Sorry---if you were drawn in and believed it, I'm laughing with you, not at you.)

I suspect people are easily convinced because of the skillful editing job. The video shows some real sheep, some real border collies, and some real men. There's herding going on, sheep baaing, and whistling for the dogs. You think, Hey, that's cool.

Then the camera pans way back so you're looking at a far hill, supposedly the one with the sheep. The dogs suddenly herd the flock into the shape of a huge sheep that begins walking across the hill. Ha! Funny, but impossible.

Then you once again see reality---men attaching coats to the sheep that light up. Dusk falls. You see the far hill again, and it's dark. The only lights are attached to the sheep, and now the dogs are herding the sheep into a game of Pong. (Google this if you're too young to remember the now-dinosaur of a video game.) Then they're herding them into a fireworks display.

Uff-da, people. First, sheep won't run like that in the dark. They can't see where they're going. Second, border collies are brilliant, but they can't split up flocks into exploding fireworks. Unfortunately the world's expectations of these brave dogs have now been unfairly raised, and people will expect them to herd sheep into the shape of the Mona Lisa. I see therapy in many of their futures.

The 'night' scenes are computer-generated. But because the video showed real men, dogs, and sheep first, your brain wants to believe that's what you're seeing.

Here's the link, but remember, it's not real!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw