Farm Fresh Blog

The Christmas Party

Or . . .

In Which Pooh Bear Attempts To Be A Girl

Between my work schedule and and farm schedule, getting "Girl Time" is rare. Most of my girlfriends are also trying to juggle full-time jobs and farms, so we spend more time on the phone than face to face. But each December, we have a Christmas party where we all drop what we're doing, take time off of work, leave the husbands at home, toss some feed at the horses and the kids, put on a clean shirt and get together for "girl time."

Girl Time means you can shamelessly talk about horses, leopard-print underwear, and bling-bling and know you are with like-minded women.  In fact, since one of our members was lifeflighted off the beach after a bad fall from a horse and it was discovered that she was wearing leopard-print bra and panties, we have adopted leopard-prints as well as bright purple as our group colors.  (You don't get more girly-girly than THAT!) We are the "Red Hat Society" on horseback - a posse of purple and leopard!

So yesterday I took off work for my total immersion in "Girl Time."  The Girls always lay out one helluva spread. You won't go hungry at a Girl Party. The problem is that not only do I not cook worth a darn, I worked the night before so there was no guarantee that I'd even have time to cook before the party. Since the bakery in my little town makes awesome cake balls, I planned to swing by the bakery on my way to the party. (The best laid plans of mice and men . . .)

And thus began the adventures of the typical middle-aged premenapausal airhead . . .

Admire cute black holiday horse sweatshirt in mirror. Find matching earrings.  "Damn girl!  You look good!" Pack up purse to leave.  Crap! Go back in house to get White Elephant gift. Crap! Wrap White Elephant gift. Start out door again.  CRAP!  Forgot to unload shavings from back of truck.  Since a cold front is supposed to blow in, decide to unload shavings and spread in sheep stalls.  Manage to accomplish this without getting too dirty.  Amazing.  Decide it is hot.  Very hot.  Too hot for cute black holiday horse sweatshirt.  Damn. Go back in house.  Stare at closet.  Volumes of clothes. Nothing to wear.  Decide on black t-shirt that matches earrings.  Tug on shirt.  It is wrinkled.  Damn.  Decide that at least shirt is clean. With visions of leopard-printed bling-bling dancing in my head, I grab purse and climb into Monsta truck.

Pull into bakery.  It is closed.  Do WHAT??!!!  Uh oh!  Refuse to let Holiday Spirit be dampened. Head to Kroger's. Find chocolate-covered strawberries. (mmmmm . . . BETTER than cake balls!)  Buy outrageously expensive strawberries.  Decide that since it is now 1:45 PM and I have not eaten, I must buy something to eat NOW so I don't eat everything including the paper plate at the party.  (learned that little trick from Scarlett O'Hara)  Buy Spicy California rolls and some potato chips.  I never get to eat California Rolls at home because Other Half flips out and squeals "SUSHI!  How can you eat RAW fish!  GROOOSSS!"

So I get a package of Spicy California Rolls and feel all "urbane" at the idea of eating this yuppy food even though I am fully aware that a piece of fake crab and a hunk of avocado wrapped in a slab of rice is definitely NOT sushi. Decide that Other Half needs a bag of Peanut M&Ms. Rush through check-out line. Climb into Monsta truck. Carefully unpack Spicy California Rolls and place on center console. Tear open package of soy sauce. Pour onto rolls. Pop roll in mouth.  Savor sensation.  Have a Happy Fake Yuppy moment.  Follow roll with a potato chip.  Mmmm. . . perfect balance of salty.  Mmmm . . .

Notice time.  Damn!  Running late.  Plug address into Tom-Tom.  I have been here 4 times already and I STILL have to use the damned GPS.  Oh well, at least the address should still be in there. It's not.  Three tries later and still cannot find it. Damn!  Damn!  Damn!  Give in and call hostess.  AHHHH . . . wrong city.  (Have major Gray Hair Senior Moment) She understands.  She's been there too.

Find directions in Tom Tom.  Pop another roll in mouth and cruise through parking lot. Package of Spicy California Rolls falls into floorboard.  Lots of cussing. Put truck in park and look in floorboard.  Rice and fake crab everywhere.  More cussing.  Begin to pick up hunks of what use to be cute little wheels of rice, avocado, and fake crab and chunk them back into package.  They are covered in Border Collie hair.  Still very hungry.  Debate the idea of picking off the hair and eating them anyway.  Mentally calculate how much microscopic sheep poop and cow patties are on floorboard.  Dismiss the idea.  Stomach growls.  Decide that if the Donner Party could eat their companions, perhaps a few Border Collie hairs wouldn't be a problem.  Begin pulling off dog hair.  Find a Belgian Tervuren hair.  These are quite distinctive crinkly multi-colored hairs. My Belgian Tervuren died in June.  Decide this is Kona's "Hi Mom!" from the grave.  Smile and throw hair back in floorboard. (I have always said that I could never commit murder because anyone who suspected me would have the forensic team look for Belgian Tervuren hairs at the murder scene since I always manage to carry them everywhere I go.)  That dog never even rode in Monsta Truck and yet, here are his hairs in the floorboard.

So now my fingers are coated with sticky rice and spicy sauce. There is orange spicy sauce dribbled down the side of the center console and the floorboard.  Bits of rice and orange sauce are on my wrinkled black shirt, and the thighs of my blue jeans.  Yep . . . I'm ready to go to a Party!

Roll out of parking lot and drive down highway, listening to Tom-Tom and picking dog hairs off my food.  Decide that if I get stopped as a Drunk Driver for weaving on the highway then I will show Highway Patrol Officer my floorboard.  He will feel sorry that Other Half is stuck with such a DingBat and not give me a ticket.   OR . . . he will be so appalled at the idea that the abovementioned DingBat would actually pick doghairs off the food and eat it, that he will be afraid to loan me his pen to sign the ticket. (especially since my fingers are still coated in orange spicy sauce that is now drying and sticky.)

Decide that the rest of the rolls are too mangled, hairy, and disgusting for even the Donner Party to eat. Still hungry.  Work on potato chips.  Look longingly at Other Half's M&Ms.  Decide that since he never KNEW I BOUGHT the M&Ms, he wouldn't necessarily know that I'd opened and ate some of his M&Ms. Calculate length of arms and distance to reach M&M bag.  Since numbers don't add up, decide against M&Ms.

Am making good time down the highway until a little blue Honda Civic looms into view.  Almost run over it like a skateboard.  It is going 40 MPH in a 60 MPH zone. Roadway is now down to two-lane highway.  Cannot pass little Pokey Car.  Mentally picture that Little Pokey Driver is a Half-Blind Elderly Woman.  Envision driver as Teenager-On-Cell-Phone. Since that brings up "less than Christian" thoughts, opt to envision her as Little Old Lady instead. Do not wish to intimidate Half-Blind-Elderly-Woman by being so close she can read F.O.R.D. in her rear view mirror. Slow way down. Speed limit changes from 60 MPH to 50 MPH.  Half-Blind-Elderly-Woman changes from 40 MPH to 30 MPH. Still cannot pass her. Follow her down roadway for an agonizingly long time.  Note long line of cars in my rear-view mirror.  Note that since they cannot see around my Big Ass Monsta Truck, they are probably blaming me for the slow down. 

Little Old Lady FINALLY pulls into the grocery store, sparking the start of the Indianapolis 500, but by now the speed limit is 35 MPH.  Decide that despite the fact that I am now thirty minutes late for my Girly Party, a city cop would not be impressed if I tried to explain to him that I was speeding through his town because I had been stuck behind a Little Old Lady for the last seven miles and felt I was entitled to "split the difference" as far as the speed limit was concerned. (Cops can be such downers where that's concerned.)

Finally emerge into something resembling a decent speed limit when Tom-Tom announces that it's time to turn right.  Really?  I have been to this house numerous times and this does not look remotely familiar.  Consider arguing with the computer but look at the time and decide to follow directions instead.  A few minutes later we emerge into familiar territory.  I'm sure I heard a smirk in Tom's voice.

Roll up to a house with horses in the back yard and a front yard full of farm trucks. (40 of my favorite people!) I am now late, wearing a wrinkled shirt covered in spicy orange sauce and potato chip crumbs. Bits of rice are clinging to my blue jeans, and I have rice and fake crab in the tread of my cowgirl boots - "Let the Party Begin!" 

While walking in the pasture last weekend, I stumbled upon this:

It begged for a tagline but I simply couldn't think of one.  So I posted this picture on my Facebook page and we've had so much fun trying to come up with a caption for this shot that I decided to see what your creative minds could come up with!

Whatdaya think?

We have already established that I like high-drive, thinking dogs. Now on the surface, most people will step up and shout "Me too!"  BUT . . .  do you really?

For every cute and clever thing they do to amuse you, there are five not-so-cute dangerous things their brains also concoct. Take, for instance, our intrepid young Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. (Trace)

The Crocodile Hunter discovered sheep last week. Actually, that's wrong.  He had discovered them before, what he discovered last week is that he could GET TO the sheep.  No longer content to stay in the yard while I fed livestock, The Crocodile Hunter would race along the fence line until he found an impossibly small spot that he could slither his tiny ass through.  Thus, I would be mindlessly feeding sheep, annoyed that they were stepping all over my new Crocs, when suddenly I would get that feeling that I wasn't alone.  (Mostly because sheep would be magically moving in my direction.) Casting around for the source, I would find a pair of little blue eyes slithering sheep in my direction. EEEEKKKK!!!!  Not good!  Very, very NOT GOOD!

On the surface, you would assume that you could just throw his butt in a kennel until you were done feeding and then let him out after the excitement was over.  Right?  Wrong!  Steve Irwin makes his own excitement!  Immediately upon release from prison, Trace would begin running the fence line, looking for any spot he could slither his multi-jointed, snake-like self through.

So we commenced to fortifying the back yard like Fort Knox.

We tacked up cattle panels on top of the board fence which already contained hog fencing. Yes, it is the most Hillbilly Trash-looking arrangement you've ever seen.  (Thank God you don't live next door to us.) I keep telling myself that when he is older I can take the cattle panels down and re-use them somewhere else.

 I was amazed with how quickly he figured out that all he had to do was run to the end of the cattle panels and find another spot that had washed out where he could squirm through.  I soon ran out of cattle panels. What to do? What to do?  AHH HA!!!  Cinder blocks! (Yes it just keeps getting trashier and trashier!)  So we lined the rest of the fence with cinder blocks!

And then we tested it.  Turn out the sheep . . . . and wait.  Trace ran up and down every inch of that fence . . .  

. . . but he didn't get out!

 Don't feel sorry for him.  He's plotting.

(To read why we call Trace "The Crocodile Hunter": The Crocodile Hunter LIVES! )

The Gate - Revisted

My mamma always told me, "Give the hardest job to the laziest person, and they'll find the easiest way to do it."

As we have already established, I'm a lazy person. That's why I have high-drive dogs. I like my dogs (minions) to make my life easier. Yes, I'm shamelessly lazy and give them all sorts of jobs to do! 

One of those jobs is closing the gate after the sheep come into the paddock. During the rains, the gateway is often muddy, (ewwww) and I developed the perfect solution to the problem: Get a slave (Border Collie) and ask them to walk through the mud and close the gate for you!

Lily absolutely LOVES to slam that gate closed, over and over and over again.  She grabs a lead rope which has been tied to the gate and pulls it shut. (If a lazy person puts a magnet on the gate, it'll stay shut!)  Now this is all well and good until a 35 lb Border Collie swings on the gate so much that the gate hinges break. (imagine that!)

Then the gate has to be LIFTED out of the mud and pulled shut. This particular lazy person has not yet figured out how to train a Border Collie to lift the gate and then pull it shut, thus, this particular lazy person has had to tromp out there herself and shut the damned gate.  (grrrrr)

BUT . . .this week Other Half fixed the hinges AND put a WHEEL on the gate.  Woo hoooo!  The wheel makes the gate roll through the mud quite nicely.  So Lily and I are back in bidness!

Lordy, Lordy, I do love a good dog!

Watch and learn, Little Dude, watch and learn!

Steve Irwin & The Coffee Table

All of our dogs eventually end up with a nickname, so it's no surprise that Trace ended up with one too.  The surprise however, is that he has assumed the unlikely name of "Steve Irwin."  Yes, the Crocodile Hunter lives!

We began calling him Steve Irwin when we noticed his fascination with Oli, the Current Patrol Dog.  Oli is young. Oli is fast. And Oli looked at young Steve Irwin like he was a fast & fluffy bunny rabbit. Steve Irwin was definitely on The Menu.  (along with sheep, goats, cows, horses, and trespassers)  But Young Steve Irwin was drawn to Oli like a moth to a flame. 

He would dance right up to her kennel, peer through the bars, and say (in a thick Australian accent) "Blimey!  Look at the Dangerous Beast!  I wonder what would happen if I tugged its tail!"

Yes, our intrepid young Crocodile Hunter wanted to PLAY with the Dangerous Beast. And the Dangerous Beast wanted to play with him too.  It was a match made in Mommy Nightmares.  So we juggled Oli and Steve Irwin for weeks, waiting for young Steve to either grow up enough to get some common sense (not likely), or grow up enough for Oli to realize that he was a D.O.G. and not a bunny zooming across the yard. We'd been doing pretty well until Friday night.

That night I came home from work, and took Steve Irwin and the Pack for a walk.  Then I crammed The Crocodile Hunter in the house and took Oli out.  She cruised along with the rest of the pack while I checked the rams.  When I was done I whistled them in. Lo and behold, Oli came zooming in with Steve Irwin bouncing along beside her. (Apparently I had failed to notice that the Doggy Door was opened.) I'm sure I paled.  There he was, a pre-schooler with arm floaties, swimming in the ocean with a Great White Shark. Despite the fact that he bounced all over her shoulders, she trotted along, oblivious to the little remora on her neck. I swallowed the urge to snatch up that little pre-schooler, pull off his arm floaties and throw his ass in the outside kennel before she could change her mind. Instead, I watched them.  Oli knew he was there.  She knew he was a dog.  And she knew he was a puppy.  Oli was okay with her little remora.  I removed him before he pushed his luck too much, but it was clear that they'd reach The Day - the day that the Crocodile Hunter became a dog and not a bunny.

Today we let them play in the house. At first she didn't see him as a playmate, but he was persistent . . . and cute, . . . and so she finally gave in and played with Steve Irwin.    

They started on the couch . . .

 . . . and moved . . .

. . . to the floor . . .

And like an idiot, I watched them, happy they were having such a good time. Yep, I watched them.  I watched them crawl under a glass top coffee table. (why do Dog People have glass furniture!!!) And then I watched Oli stand up . . . taking the glass top with her. And then . . . then she said, "Holy Shit!" and she dropped like a rock . . . and so did the glass table top. 

Steve Irwin was delighted.  The resulting crash was very impressive. Oli ran.  The Crocodile Hunter bounced beside her, "Blimey, Dangerous Beast!  Do that again!!!!"

No, no one was hurt.  Yes, we now have a new coffee table.

When you have goats,

you learn to expect this.

 But . . .

. . . these are lambs! 

(Somebody (bodies?) didn't get the memo that sheep aren't goats!)

 "Whut?"

There is a wealth of wisdom to be mined from the experiences of our elders. During a discussion on people who retire and then get bored, today's words of wisdom come from a long-time rancher and county judge:

"If you have a black bull and a windmill,

you always have something to do."

Black bull?  Check!

Windmill? Not yet. 

Clearly we are only halfway there to saving ourselves from retirement years of boredom.  On the other hand, something tells me that we'll have enough to keep us busy . . .

I'm just saying . . .

Over the years I've discovered that dogs recognize members of their own breed.  They speak the same language.  They play the same games.  Belgians play a distinctive "wolf & the sheep" game that other breeds don't necessarily understand. 

"I am the wolf. You are the sheep."

They play this for a while and then the roles are reversed.  It's fast. It's loud. It sounds like a dog fight.  It's great fun for everyone. Since Ice lost her brother, Kona, in June, there has been no one to play "reindeer games" with her. Until now. . .

I cheerfully announced that she and I were going over to Grandma's to meet her new little brother. 

Ice said, "Oh dear God, it's not another Border Collie, is it?" 

"No! It's a two year old Belgian Tervuren.  Just for YOU!  You can play with him. And Lord it over him. And impress him with your Greatness!"

She allowed as how this DID have possibilities, so we went next door to G'ma's house. Stone was simply delighted to meet her. He dropped down into a play bow and spun around the room.  Her ears touched and she pulled herself up on her tip toes to impress upon him that she was certainly the most exotic and queenly creature he had ever, or would ever, meet in his life.  He was most impressed with her royal self.

 He zoomed.

And they played a bit.

He checked back with Mom from time to time.

And got hugs. . .  

 before running off . . .

. . . to play some more.

 Ice settled down in the leaves.

And while she watched him run, I couldn't help but wonder . . .

. . . if she missed her brother as much as I did.

"Preludes Kona Winds" - Cadaver Dog & Best Buddy (2002-2010)

              I'm toast!

Christmas arrived early for my mother!  Santa Claus (Lynne Foster!) drove all the way from Illinois to deliver CH M.A.J.I.C.'s It's A Family Affair (call name: Stone) to his new mommy in Texas!

  It's a win-win situation for everyone!

Lynne and his breeder, Melody Jensen, know that Stone will receive a forever home where he gets to be the ONLY dog of a retired person who already has experience with Belgians. Stone gets his own Special Person. My mom gets the companion that she needs.  And neither of them will ever be alone again.

Thank you so much Melody Jensen of M.A.J.I.C. Belgian Tervuren & Groenendael and Lynne Foster of Frostfire Dalmatians for making this possible! And God bless Lynne for making that marathon drive across the country to make someone's wish come true!

To read about why Mom was alone:  Godspeed, Penny

To read More about people like Stone's breeder, Melody Jensen:  The Unsung Heroes