Farm Fresh Blog

I am so thankful for morning walks. It is hunting season now and so the sheep have been pulled into the lower pasture and barnyard because the Anatolian Shepherds must remain locked up. This leaves an old Pyrenees cross and an adolescent Pyrenees pup to guard the flock. They get by, but without the Anatolians, the coyotes get bolder. They come to yip at the fence to test for Anatolians. The old dog must stay locked with the chickens and the young dog doesn’t leave her sheep to address cheeky coyotes. 

When the sun comes up we take a walk in the pasture to read our pee mail and run the Border Collies. I sip coffee as I am followed by nine dogs, five guineas, and one black cat. There is a lot to be learned on that walk. 

We can choose to crash through the day with the wild abandon of a Border Collie breaking through the mist to hit the pond. 

Or, like the old Livestock Guardian Dog, we can choose to thoughtfully map out our day by going through the details of yesterday and last night. 

Or, like the five guineas, we can choose to dart here and there, and ricochet through the day like a pin ball bouncing in whatever direction life sends us. 

The choice is ours. Choose wisely. 

I always knew my life would go to the dogs. I added it up a couple of days ago and I’ve been training dogs over 45 years now. Training dogs and training people to train dogs has been really rewarding, and I’ve made so many lifelong friends doing it. My perspective has changed a lot over the years. Now I no longer have my show dogs, trial dogs, search dogs, or police dogs. There are only my ranch dogs. These scruffy farm dogs have less obedience training than my other dogs but far more responsibility. They aren’t my toys, they’re my tools. Truth be told, they’re more - they’re partners. They’re co-workers. They aren’t pets, but they are family. 

Things change when your paycheck depends upon the work the dogs do. It gets serious then. A hobby farm with outside incomes can take the hits that a small working ranch cannot. Around here a dead calf is a mortgage payment. I depend upon those Livestock Guardian Dogs, they aren’t just decoration. And the Border Collies do so much work that I cannot even imagine how someone runs a ranch without them. 

This week an internet bully on a large Facebook group poked a stick at me because I said that I always have my Border Collies in tow when I’m doing farm chores, thus the house dogs and the LGDs must interact. She said that if the BCs were so needy that they couldn’t be separated from me when I was doing chores then I needed to train them. Pardon me? 

Isn’t that their freaking job? 

I bowed out of the discussion because I don’t entertain internet bullies but I chewed on her words and wondered why someone would believe such foolishness. She wasn’t a Border Collie trial person. I could understand her logic if that had been the case. Often trial people want to control every time their dog is exposed to livestock. I can wrap my mind around that concept. What I don’t understand is anyone who thinks you can create and use a good stockdog without actually using that dog for the chores. 

My Border Collies are handy for two reasons – they are there, and they know the routine. The dogs have work ethic. They see everything and want the world to spin according to the rules. Let us take, for instance, this morning. 

I never move rams without having a dog with me. If you think your tame ram won’t hurt you, then please sign me up as beneficiary on your life insurance policy. Normally Wyatt handles the rams and the calves, but today I allowed Lily to come with me to open the gate and let the rams back in with the calves. She’s getting older and is retired now, but since she just had to be a presence, I brought her. Neither of us counted on what would unfold. 

As I was locking the first gate behind me, the adult ram left the group of rams and rushed across the pen at Lily. She sidestepped his assault but fell into a deep crevice created by recent rains and he bowled her over. Lily was able to get out from underneath him as I yanked the gate open to release Wyatt. 

And that, Friends and Neighbors, is why you take Border Collies along when you’re doing chores. It’s not because they’re needy, it’s because YOU NEED THEM. 

Wyatt easily handled the ram with his signature M.C. Hammer “can’t touch this” move. The ram respects the young dog and obediently rejoined the group. Wyatt then moved them back into the pasture without incident.  Lily’s pride was hurt but otherwise she seemed fine. 

For Wyatt, it was just one more task in his already busy day. He and Mesa are the backbones around here. My day runs smoothly because when it doesn’t, I whistle for a dog to solve the problem. And they are there. Because they are always there. Watching. Waiting. Wanting to help. That’s the way Mesa learned to be a ranch dog, and that’s the way Wyatt is learning to be a ranch dog. They can’t learn the chores if they’re not there when I’m actually doing the chores. 

And so my perspective on dog training has changed a lot over 45 years. For dog people it’s easy to let your ego get wrapped up in the performance of your current working dog. Most of us have been guilty of it at some time, but hopefully after a while, we gained the wisdom to see past that, and we’ve become better people and better dog trainers because of it.  The other pitfall I see is that with years under the belt, it’s also easy to talk in absolutes, to see the world in black and white, with no gray, to bully people as you proclaim there is only one way to train a dog. I see it all the time. Mostly on the internet. Far too often it comes from someone with many years in the game, but few real experiences outside the familiar.

 Aristotle said, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” 

That’s pretty much my yardstick for assessing someone’s experience in anything. Not the years, but how much they think they know.  Often these people are simply victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect, an overconfidence born of limited experience. Not years, but experience. There’s a difference. The people with the most experience in a subject tend to be more open-minded and less apt to pound their beliefs into someone with a stick. 

So despite the advice of someone with 30 years of training dogs, I’ll continue to bring my Border Collies along when I do chores – because it’s their damned job. 

This little dude is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t trash a “late bloomer.”

He’s finally got his head in the game and now he’s becoming handy. Handy is good, but the real question is “When it’s crunch time, will you reach for that dog?”

This evening was crunch time. And yes, I did. And he hit it out of the park.

We siphoned off some weanlings to keep at the house for Wyatt to work. I don’t believe in training pups on pairs. On our ranch, a cow will try to kill a dog who doesn’t bring his A game. Better to learn the skills on calves. They still kick and charge though. They still have to be dogbroke.

Today I was returning from town and discovered that one of our unweaned calves had somehow managed to get out of the pasture and onto the dirt road near the house. Figures. One of the rare times I didn’t have a Border Collie with me. Since both sides of that road are fenced, it wasn’t that big a deal to push the calf into the barnyard by myself. The problem was that the barnyard is over three acres and I wanted the calf to move away from the pasture containing his mother and into the pasture containing Wyatt’s weaned calves.

I tried Mesa at first, but the calf went ballistic. Frantic to get to his mother on the other side of the fence he was working himself into a foaming wreck whenever Mesa got near him. Mesa isn’t really a cowdog, she’s my go-to sheepdog. She was chosen because she has bells and whistles that Wyatt doesn’t have yet. But she doesn’t know cows.... and this little snot was kicking to beat the band. I opted to leave him in the barnyard until it cooled off some and he calmed down.

By evening it was cooler but it was crunch time. The calf HAD to be removed from the barnyard. He was ready to be weaned anyway so he might as well go in with the closest group by the house.

Enter Wyatt. I opened the gate that led to the weaned calves and whistled Wyatt to pick up that calf. And held my breath.

This calf was not one of the sane ones. No such luck. He flipped his tail over his back and ran straight into the trees on the other side of the pond. With his back to the fence the calf had a pretty good fortress in there. But he didn’t count on Wyatt to go THROUGH the pond to reach him. Wyatt never hesitated. He went straight across the pond and eased into the brush like a thief in the night.

Wyatt was calm and controlled but firm. It took that dog less time to pen that nut-job calf than it took me to walk out there. I was beyond elated. He’s beginning to understand his power and use it without getting into a scuffle or a rush. Although Mesa is tremendously talented, she doesn’t have the power in her eye and the confidence to handle something that much bigger than a sheep. Wyatt does.

I caught a glimpse of the dog he will become today. And I liked what I saw.

I stared at the chicken wing on the ground, its feathers waving in the breeze. Maybe the joke was on me. That chicken had
been alive an hour ago. Perhaps the fuzzy bobtailed butt I saw running in the dark a few nights earlier hadn't been a
stray cat, but was instead a young bobcat. Maybe. I chewed on that thought as the dog and I pieced together what was left
of the chicken.

The dogs had announced his presence under the tractor mower deck that night. Since it was the dead of winter and I wasn't 
worried about rattlesnakes, I leaned down for a peek. The dogs crammed in beside me. The cat shot out the other end. In
the dark he appeared to be tabby and white, with no tail. I was dumbfounded. How did a cat find his way to our ranch? He'd
have had to brave coyotes and Anatolian Shepherds to even get close enough to find a bowl of catfood. But as his
bobtailed butt disappeared beneath the cabin, I had to grudgingly give him credit for making the journey. And I filled the
catfood bowl. 

So days later, I stared at the chicken wing waving in the winter wind and questioned both my eyesight and my judgement.
Did I see a domestic cat? Or juvenile bobcat? The catfood bowl and the chicken coop were a mere twenty feet from each
other. 

A few days later all hell broke loose in the haybarn. I rounded the corner to see my black barn cat in a knock-down-
scratch-his-eyes-out with a large tabby and white bobtailed cat. On the one hand, it was nice to know that my eyesight
wasn't failing, on the other hand I was not happy to see a strange tomcat beating up the rightful inhabitant of my
haybarn. I slung a shovel at them and the tomcat ran off behind the tractor. The black cat spat out a few cuss words and
left. And thus Stage One of Bob's plan for Occupation was complete. 

He started in the haybarn. It was winter. He was hungry. We made no effort to evict him. Instead we left a bowl of food  
near the tractor and bid him good hunting. Because he had no tail and we had no imagination, we named him Bob. For a few
months he was a tabby and white shadow, skulking around corners. Then one day, one curious day, Bob appeared in the feed
room. Unbeknownst to us, Stage Two of his Occupation plan was unfolding.

We live in a barndominium. A house in a barn. With the animals. My living room door opens up into a paved barn aisle with
three stalls and feed room. The feed room is simply a stall with a metal gate. It contains several feed bins, a saddle
rack, a woodburning stove, and a shelf that is filled with items which should be tossed but that Other Half has declared
that he cannot live without. They are covered in dust and he has no clue what is on any of the shelves but he squeals like
a kindergartener at the mere mention of tossing them in the trash, so there they sit. Collecting dust. And bobtailed cats.
Bob took up residence in the feed room.

The first few weeks, much like Alice's Cheshire Cat, he was just a pair of eyes floating in space. Sometimes on the dusty
shelf. Sometimes behind the stove. Sometimes behind a bag of feed. We got used to Bob being there and enjoyed our glimpses
of him. The other four barn cats keep the rodent population under control, so we didn't need Bob, but we admired his
pluck. He had somehow managed to avoid being killed by coyotes and Livestock Guardian Dogs to end up in the barn. Home
base. Tag. You can't kill me here. 

And he was right. They couldn't kill him here. There is a strict NO KILLING CATS policy in the barnyard and this extends
to stray cats too. Bob basked in the glow of his newfound safe base. He had everything a cat would need here. Food. Water.
Shelter. The humans even gave him a real bed. Stuffed. Like from a Pet Store. It was a hand-me-down dog bed that the other
cat had peed in and the chickens laid eggs in, but Bob wasn't choosy. A bed was a bed. A bed was a home. Stage Two of
Occupation was complete. 

The beginning of Stage Three was heralded in with a yowl. A demanding, mournful yowl. The kind of yowl that announces to
the world that a cat is ever so hungry, and in fact his belly must surely be rubbing his backbone despite the full bowl of
catfood not three feet away. It was that kind of yowl. Bob began talking to us. Humans are easily trained and so each time
he yowled, we talked back to him. We made sure his little bowl was full. Humans are clever that way. Soon Bob became
bolder. He spent more and more time in plain view. No longer content to eat from his little bowl behind the stove, Bob
wanted to eat on top of the feed bin with the other cats. In plain view. When he caught you watching him, Bob froze, and
hissed soundlessly, then slunk back behind the stove. After a couple of months of this, something changed. Bob changed his
mind. It was so sudden that it caught me by surprise. Like a summer thunderstorm. Or a plant sale at Tractor Supply.

Bob wanted to be a pet. A pet. Like, me touching him. Petting him. This cat, who for months hissed and spat at everyone
who noticed him, suddenly flipped a switch and announced that he wanted to be a housepet. Well, not in the house. In the
barn. He "wanted" in the house. He started lurking at the back door. Demanding attention. The very cat who slunk in the
shadows for months made every effort to convince us that he was a most friendly chap who was quite deserving of a head rub
and yes, please, a back scratching. He arched his back and rubbed against my leg. I wasn't buying it. 

I like cats. I do. I like cats that I have raised from kittens. Cats who have had their shots. Tame cats. Cats who do not
ask to be petted and suddenly change their mind and bite you. Forgive me if I'm leery of a feral cat who swam through a
moat filled with raccoons with distemper to get to my back door. So I refused to pet Bob even when he rubbed against my
leg repeatedly. Other Half gave in quickly. He's friendlier than I am. He hasn't shot a raccoon with distemper yet. Soon Bob
and Other Half were friends. But Bob was not satisfied. Bob wanted the complete conquest. Bob wanted in the house. 

I assured him that was not going to happen. And even as I made this promise, I wondered. How did that cat get here? I
reached out to neighbors. Nobody was missing a tabby and white bobtailed cat. From his behavior, it was clear that Bob had a
home at some point. He loved. He was loved. My first clue came when he shed out for the summer. 

Being quite pushy, it was hard to see the back view of Bob's butt because his head was always in your face, demanding
attention. But as he got friendlier, Bob moved his homebase from the feed room to the top of the dog kennels at the back
door. (Just in case you changed your mind about letting him in the house.) This put Bob's butt at the right height to view
his tail. Bob did not appear to be a natural bobtailed cat. In fact, he appeared to have an anal prolapse. (No, I'm not
taking him to the vet for it. He has functioned quite well since last winter, it hasn't killed him yet. His next trip to
the vet will be to have those balls cut off.) After Bob shed out it was easy to see that he had two scars on either side
of his body. I had a cat with scars like that once. He'd been caught in the fan belt of a truck. Perhaps Bob had been
caught up in a fan belt thus resulting in scars and an anal prolapse. It is possible that Bob was either dumped
on the main gravel road a mile away or he rode in the truck until it stopped or he jumped out. No matter what happened,
Bob managed to survive his injuries and ended up in our barn. 

The true tale of Bob's journey to us may never be known. We were not looking for another cat but it appears we have been
conquered. I have given in and am now scratching his head and giving him back rubs. I realized that Stage Four of Bob's
Occupation was complete when I took pictures of him and posted them on Facebook to see if anyone could provide more clues. 

"If you don't want, we'll take him," a neighbor friend answered.

Oh dear. Getting rid of Bob hadn't quite crossed my mind. After all, he'd worked so hard to fit in here. My neighbor was not more than two miles away, so Bob would probably end up back in our barn anyway. Besides, he was annoying, but Stage Four of his Occupation was complete. Bob already had a home. 

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

Alice Walker, The Color Purple

A sea of purple ripples in waves as we pass. With the humble name of Plains Horsemint, a single flower grabs attention but a carpet of purple glory is nothing short of spectacular. Majestic purple wildflowers clamor for their place in the sun. Their place in the spotlight. It’s their time. They line the roadway between my home and the nearby town. Shouldering in beside the Black-eyed Susans.

First came the Indian Paintbrushes, the welcome color of spring. Orange spikes filled pastures and lined the highways. They gave way to the warm goldens and reds of Indian Blankets, followed by the Black-eyed Susans and Plains Horsemint. City and country folk alike took the time to drive the highway, stop for pictures, and admire the show.

For months these wildflowers have put on a performance to rival any fireworks display, but rather than the pop and roar of the following wave, there is merely a quiet costume change for the next scene along the highway. The change is seamless. It’s hard to define when the last Indian Paintbrush faded to seed and when the first Plains Horsemint burst into bloom.  It is a well-choreographed Broadway show. Each flower blooming in its own time.

And perhaps there’s the lesson. In its own time.

I watch the lanky pup race across the pasture to pick up the calves. It’s not pretty but he’s getting the job done. In his time. He’s a late bloomer. Silly. Playful. Soft. His work ethic was as thin as a butterfly’s wing. He had flashes of brilliance surrounded by acres of mediocrity. But then something changed. The bud began to open. Slowly. The bud split open and a working dog bloomed. The pup got more serious. His brain began to catch up with his body. Now I still catch glimpses of that silly teenager but more and more I see the hardened glare of a stockdog at work. He is blooming. In his time.

“He’s my slow child.”

The words seared through me as the boy’s mother spoke them. Embarrassed, her son’s eyes darted away from mine. My heart cried for him. Perhaps like the pup, and like the wildflowers, it simply isn’t yet his time to bloom. How many of us are so hard on our children and ourselves because we haven’t learned the lesson in the wildflowers?

From the first cardinal that soared over the first Indian Paintbrush of spring to grasshoppers that play hopscotch over fading Black-eyed Susans on this hot July day, each scene has been choreographed to seamlessly shift into the next, providing months of glory. But what if?

What if they all bloomed at the same time?

There would be a brief riot of color that would explode and cascade to fading emptiness. And that would be it. Pollinators would work overtime like UPS deliverymen at Christmas but after a quick, glorious opening of packages we would be left with nothing but faded colored ribbons on the floor and a faint longing.  

Timing. It’s all about timing. Time those blooms. Everything isn’t meant to blossom at the same time. Slow down. Relax. Sit back and enjoy the show.  And so it is with pups and people and purple flowers.

It has been firmly established around here that dusk marks the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse. Everyone on the lower
rung on the Food Chain needs to be locked up or have a Livestock Guardian Dog, or both. The dogs pretty much keep my close
encounters with skunks, raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, and the occasional cougar, to a minimum, but snakes are another matter
entirely. We used to live by the policy that all copperheads and rattlesnakes met an early demise, but rat snakes in the
barnyard were relocated. This policy bit us in the arse when we discovered that large rat snakes not only eat eggs, but
will also kill guineas and chickens in their misguided attempts to eat something woefully too large for them. This makes
for wasted birds and pissed off farmers. We amended our relocation policy. 

Since once they are locked inside the coops for the night the birds are pretty safe, we added Chicken Wrangling to the
list of evening chores. The problem is that I'm ready to get things locked up for the night long before the chickens are
ready to go to bed. If I wait too late to lock things up I run the risk of stepping on a copperhead, or finding a rat
snake already inside the chicken coop. That's where the Border Collies come in. 

I've heard it said that an adult Border Collie is as smart as a 3 year old human child. As a retired police officer, I can
assure you, an adult Border Collie is smarter than many 33 year old humans. That said, I've found that teaching a Border
Collie to herd chickens is really just a matter of having a dog that wants to help you, and communicating that you need
help with a task. A well-bred Border Collie should already have work ethic, so scratch that off the list. You should already have that.

Communication is the biggest issue. I'm a dog trainer, but as a herding dog trainer, I still suck - mainly because I'm too
poor and too far away from a real trainer that can train me. That said, I don't let it hold me back. And neither should you. My
dogs don't know that I don't know how to properly teach flanking, but they always want to help, and that's half the
battle. I present the chore at hand (one of the twelve labors of Hercules) and I give them a well-timed "good dog" when
they do what I want. Over time we shape the behaviors. The communication starts with a foundation of trust. I trust that
they really do want to help me, and they're trying their best, and they trust that I'm fair and that I'll guide them through
the steps of a task until we're both on the same page. That system works pretty well for most of what I need done around
here. It ain't always pretty but the job gets done. 

We have three chicken coops. All birds free range during the day and then are locked in their assigned coop at night. 
The adult chickens are easy. For the most part they cooperate because Mesa has already trained them that resistance is
futile. The twelve juvenile gray birds are another matter entirely. If you have ever seen the movie "Kindergarten Cop"
with Arnold Schwarzenegger then you get the idea. Every evening this group of half-grown nitwits splits and runs in twelve
different directions, none of which is aimed at their coop. Enter Border Collies. Two. You need two. One is not enough.
This chore has been a good learning exercise for Wyatt. He has to balance off me or Mesa, not get frustrated, not go too
fast, not get sticky, and be ready to try it again, and again, and again. 

The chickens don't make it easy. They hide in the sunflowers. They hide in the roses. They run for the rocks by the old
homestead. In general they force a Border Collie to go every possible place a copperhead would be lurking at dusk. We've
tried doing it without the Border Collies. It is simply impossible and results in a unhealthy amount of cussing and a lust
for chicken salad. The Border Collies have the task down to five minutes - and they're getting faster. 

Last night we discovered that if you use board panels to make a flow gate the dogs can funnel the silly birds straight
into their pen. They still have to run around the yard flushing them out of sunflowers and roses, but at least once they
get them near the coop, the job is easier. I look forward to when these birds get old enough to pull out the roosters for
butchering. That should reduce the number by half. In the mean time, Mesa is always happy to work, and Wyatt gets more
practice honing his skills. The dogs make a irritating chore somewhat enjoyable because I do love watching a good stockdog
laugh in the face of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. 

As a former crime scene investigator, one would think I had a stronger stomach than this, but alas, the sound of 
crunching bones disturbed me enough to leave. 

The dew was still heavy when I took the sheep out to pasture. The grass, weeds and wildflowers are so high that sheep were
soon wet as they browsed their way through the jungle. It is thick and wild here, but I always have a dog or two to keep
the lambs safe. It's easy for predators to hide in the brush and lambs are easy prey. So this morning I had Judge.

He's the size of a small pony but he easily moves through this jungle like a tiger. I photographed the sheep as we followed
them and he poked around the wildflowers and trees. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, deep in my lens, in my world of
wildflowers and lambs when Judge walked into my frame carrying a dead rabbit. 

It was like a turd in a punchbowl. 

I never even heard him catch it. There was no rush. No running. No squealing. Nothing but silence. A tiger in the jungle.
Apparently freezing isn't much of a defense against an Anatolian. I was less than amused. He brought his bunny up to a
grove near us, settled down in the shade and commenced to eating breakfast. Curious, I ventured near to see if it was
fresh or not. It was. The normally food-aggressive Judge smiled at me as if to say, "Look what's for breakfast."

This is why the Easter Bunny never leaves us anything. 

Head first. Down the hatch. I gagged a bit and went back to the sheep. We all moved on. Away from the crunching of bones.
When I could no longer hear the crunching, I stopped to resume photographing sheep. It takes a lot of beautiful
wildflowers to erase the image of innocent bunnies and tigers but I was slowly getting there when he arrived. He wagged up
beside me and accused me of leaving him. I allowed as how yes, indeed, we did leave him since he was the only one who
wanted to dine on rabbit this morning. He wagged his tail and grinned. No worries. Then he barfed up the rabbit at my
feet. 

With the first retch, I'd already turned around and was walking away. The sheep and I left the sound of crunching bones
and went deeper into the pasture.

A few minutes later he joined us.

"You really shouldn't be this far out here without me," he panted as he flopped down under a tree to watch the flock. And
he barfed again. That's when I realized what he was doing. His stomach was his "to-go" bag. It gave a whole new meaning to
the term "doggy bag." As long as the flock kept moving, he could simply use his tummy to hold that bunny in pieces for
later. The image of bunny pieces made me gag a little in the back of my throat as I left him. 

No problem. He had a to-go bag. 

He caught up with us at the pond, where he gagged up the bunny, took a swim, and then re-loaded his to-go bag as we left
him again. As he galloped to catch up with us, the sheep scattered. They'd had enough of his antics and raced back to the
barn. I stood with them in solidarity. We voted him off the island. He followed us back to the barn anyway. The sheep
settled in the shade to digest wildflowers. Judge barfed again. I stomped back into the house.

There is not enough coffee in Texas for this. 

This post is for all the folks who've written to ask about an update on lambing. Sorry. I've been crazy-busy lately and I tend to forget that not everyone does Facebook. (But if you DO, follow us at Farm Fresh Forensics, and Red Feather Navajo Churros, and well, duh, Sheridan Rowe Langford!)

Lambing should end on May 28.  All the brown ram's babies landed on the ground in March and we impatiently waited for the white ram lamb's babies. And waited. And waited. Two weeks ago we sheared the ewes so we were better able to monitor any pregnancies. Nobody appears to be bagging up enough to be pregnant. Unless someone seriously surprises me, we're done for the season. I was hoping the young ram lamb would get a crop this year, but appearently none of my older girls took him seriously. No worries. He'll be the primary ram for the next crop. 

So here are some obligatory pics of some of the lambs from this year! All these lambs were sired by the brown ram, MLC Chance. 

If you raise animals, spring is like having a second Christmas - except you can't shake the boxes. I was so happy with my 2018 lamb crop that I used the same ram again for nine of my ewes before I loaned him to a friend
and then sold him.

I used a young ram lamb with a completely different look on the rest of the flock.

He's small and young and I'm not sure how many of his breedings took, but I figured I'd give him a shot this year anyway. Next year I'm hoping to use him on the 2018 daughters of brown ram. And so now I sit, waiting as impatiently as a 5 year old on
Christmas Eve. March 6 was the earliest possible due date for the first group. They are like 55 gallon drums waddling
around the barnyard. Even heavily pregnant Navajo-Churro sheep can be quite agile, and just yesterday I noted one of my 55
gallon drums leaping a low spot in the fence like a deer to gain access to some tasty spring grass on the other side. 

Because I don't want anyone lambing in the pasture, I've got all the girls locked in the barnyard until lambs are safely
on the ground. Understandably this does not sit well with pregnant ladies who want more than pickles and chocolate ice
cream. 

I also shut my Livestock Guardian Dogs away from my pregnant ewes at this time because I don't want any accidents. I'll
return them when lambs are safely on the ground. In the mean time, the dogs are confined around the sheep so their
presence can deter predators. Confinement keeps them honest, discourages any bad habits, and allows ewes to lamb in the
barnyard without the stress of a large hulking white dog impatiently waiting for the afterbirth. 

While it's tempting to think of a farm as a lovely Walt Disney film, with everyone getting along, the reality is that dogs
are still just dogs and I don't want accidents. It happens too often on too many other farms. I must also consider the
personality of the sheep. My dorper sheep are quite fond of the dogs and most probably wouldn't mind a dog hovering near
them when giving birth. They consider the dogs part of their flock.

My Navajo-Churro sheep are wilder. They know without a
shadow of a doubt that a dog is a predator. My churros do NOT want a dog near when they're lambing. They also do not want
a dog around their young lambs. Churros will not hesitate to t-bone any dog near their babies or someone else's babies.
These sheep will beat a dog up.

For the welfare of my dogs and my sheep, it's easier to lock up the dogs and keep the
sheep close to the barn. And wait. Impatiently. For Christmas morning. 

The walk of shame. I'm all too familiar with it. If you run a farm you probably walk that walk too.  You are late to
meetings, choir practice, and any other important functions in your life. Despite your best intentions, the farm has once
again forced you to slink into a meeting which has already started. Sometimes you apologize, sometimes you just grab your
choir book and slither to your seat. Others pause briefly to nod a wordless greeting. Late again. They've come to expect
it.  Your shame is compounded by the fact that not only are you late, you are also dirty. You often have the stains from
animal bodily fluids smeared on your jeans - even after they leave the washing machine. You have stomped your boots in the
parking lot so hopefully there is no cow shit in the tread. There was no time to change clothes. 

And that's really what it comes down to, time. Some people, the non-ranching variety, will point an accusing finger and
say it's really about time management. Poor time management on your part. Irresponsible. You. Yes, you. The person who
rises before the sun to care for animals that cannot care for themselves. You, who have a calf in the kitchen, and chicks
in the laundry room.

I would argue that the root of this kind of irresponsibility is in fact, responsiblity. You are responsible for so much
more than the average nine to fiver. You have lives depending upon you. Animals have to be fed and watered. Outside of the
simple animal welfare part of it, if you run a ranch, it comes down to dollars and cents too. Every young animal that
doesn't survive is money taken from your wallet. Around here cattle pay the mortgage. Each calf eaten by a coyote is a
direct hit to my pocketbook, so it's in my best interest to monitor calving closely. I simply cannot afford to feed
coyotes. 

I'm not sure which is worse, being late, or not showing up at all. Sometimes the farm won't allow you to simply be late,
the drama is of such magnitude that your attendance is required more at the tail end of a straining cow than at the tail
end of a meeting. Such was my last Sunday. I sing in the choir. Don't get excited. I'm not any good. I'm the poster child
for the phrase "joyful noise." Nevertheless, when you sing in the choir, even badly, people still count on you to be there
and I hate letting them down. But I had a cow down. A pregnant cow. An expensive pregnant cow that I cannot afford to
replace. 

The cow appeared to be in labor. Not hard labor. Just thinking about it. The problem was she was "just thinking about it"
the night before too. And she was walking like a foundered horse. We watched her for a while and made the decision that
church would have to wait. We couldn't afford to lose this cow in a bad delivery. So once again I fired off a text
explaining my absence.  While I looked through binoculars and pondered why I bother to try to have any kind of life off
the ranch, my Other Half left to feed more cattle in another pasture. Normally he would have done this after church, it
was just a twist of fate that we were skipping church so he fed early that morning. 

My cow who was thinking about labor decided that she really just had gas, so after a good fart, she was bellying up to the
hay bar when Other Half rattled into the barnyard and announced that my help was needed in the other pasture. A cow that
we hadn't even been watching had given birth early in the  morning and the calf couldn't walk properly on its back hooves.
The tendons were contracted and the hooves were flipped back so the baby was forced to walk on her joint. She had nursed,
but keeping up with the herd was not a possiblity. Thankfully her mother had brought her back into the relative safety of
the big herd and so Other Half found her when he fed them. But she couldn't stay there. 

This baby was a Coyote Happy Meal.

So instead of going to church, we were kidnapping a calf and slow-rolling the calf and her
mother from the lease pasture all the way to the cattle working pens below the house.

There we would be able to monitor
her and give her a little bit of physical therapy to help loosen the tendons. She would also be close to the sheep and
would thus enjoy the protection of the Livestock Guardian Dogs. 

Each day the tendon loosened and by Wednesday we were able to turn the baby and her mother out with the other cows which
have temporary residence in the lower sheep pasture.  My heart smiled as I watched her run for the first time on working
legs.

She loped away taking with her any guilt I had about skipping church that Sunday. I doubt God minded anyway. In
fact, I cannot help but wonder if God didn't have a hand in this little drama. The cow who had us convinced she was in
labor on Sunday still hasn't calved, yet if we had not skipped church and fed the main herd early, in all likelihood we
would have missed the lame calf. The herd would have moved on and the baby and her mother would have been left alone. Our
experience in the past has been that a single cow cannot protect her calf from a pack of coyotes. She needs the herd. Or
an Anatolian. 

When I let that calf out to run, I let go of some that guilt too, because when you live on a farm,  and farm drama gets in
the way of a 'normal' life, oftentimes the main person pointing the accusing finger of blame at you is really just you. Let that guilt just gallop away.