Farm Fresh Blog

On every farm there are some animals that are different from the others, animals that just don't quite fit in. And the more soft-hearted the farmer, the more animals like this he or she has tucked away, animals that could live on the Island Of Misfit Toys.

There is nothing wrong with them. These animals are just different. Special.

If you recall, last spring we bought Liam, a young bottle-baby Pygora goat.

Shortly before we picked him up, some friends found a tiny white goat about Liam's age, wandering on a game ranch, living with Axis deer.

They scooped the little girl up, fed her a bottle, and brought her to us where she lived with Liam. For the longest time, Natty and Liam were inseparable.

And then something happened.

Natty grew up.

And she outgrew Liam. Natty developed a fondness for Older Men - Dangerous Men.

When Natty started coming into season, she made it her mission in life to get to these adult bucks. This was a problem because Natty was still tiny and would try to crawl under fences to get to the big bucks. The Nubian bucks are so large that if Natty were accidentally bred, she could never deliver the babies.

Natty had attached herself to a Nubian wether, Tim, who was happy to bask in the glow of Natty's crush.

Soon Natty, Tim, and Liam were a trio. Still, Natty wanted a real man. The reality of life on a farm is that if you can picture "worse case scenario," you'd better plan accordingly, because it's coming down the pipes. With that in mind, I started to consider re-homing Natty.

Dear Friend Claire, was happy to provide a safe haven for A Promiscuous Teenaged Girl and her Current Crush, but that left Liam. I didn't want to lose Liam. The whole point of having Liam was his fleece. On the other hand, Liam was attached to Natty and Claire promised to give me his fleece when she sheared her sheep, so I agreed to let the Three Musketeers stay together.

But I had to shear Liam before he left!

 Twenty minutes later he was bald and ready for travel. Like a Marine at bootcamp!

When she arrived to pick them up, Claire fell in love with Jerri Springer, the little black "Who's ya daddy?" lamb. Since she wasn't part of my breeding program, and it would be next spring before another lamb crop went to auction, I happily agreed to let Jerry Springer go with Claire too. AND . . . since Claire said she wanted anything not in my breeding program, I showed her Ewok, the half churro/half Southdown wether.

"Load him too!"

Claire and I were both pretty happy. She was getting some tame pets, I was getting a great home for animals I didn't want butchered, and Other Half was tickled because that was five more off the feed bill. Claire's poor husband did seem a bit green however. As she and I were happily negotiating who was headed south in the trailer, he looked like he'd been hit by a truck. I think he thought he was coming for one, maybe two, goats. I recognized that look because I've seen it on my husband many times.

Claire has a donkey and a llama, so my little citizens from the Island of Misfit Toys should be safe with Claire. I'll miss them, but they're better off with her. Natty is safe. Liam gets to stay with Natty. Tim gets to keep his girlfriend and can finally be Big Man On Campus, Jerry Springer won't make her date with the butcher next spring, and Ewok can be in a pet home where he won't have to fight as hard for attention and cookies.

I will still get to have Liam's fleece, and he will still get to stay with his beloved Natty.

Behold the future in ranching technology - the drone. Ranchers all over Texas are buying these little rascals to make checking on cows a little easier. (Well, maybe. Or maybe Big Boys just need an excuse to buy another toy.) Other Half has been flying his drone all over the ranch and in addition to finding cattle, it is a lot of fun.  I named it Angry Hornet since it has a loud buzz. (Note: this buzz attracts Border Collies.) He's been flying it often enough now to get pretty comfortable, so today he decided to just sit at the picnic table by the back door and check cows.  It did not go as planned.

Since dogs are not big fans of drones, Other Half had me lock up all the dogs. The sheep put themselves up, but we failed to consider the Norman Factor and as Other Half was setting the drone out on a suitable 'take-off pad' Norm spotted Dad and ran for a possible bottle. Other Half had to run away from the drone lest Norman decide the drone looked like a $600 bottle.

Something about this picture just tickled me.

Norman was quite interested in the Angry Hornet.

So were the dogs. Jury really, really hates buzzards. He is quite certain that Angry Hornet is merely a white buzzard. If he can ever catch it, that will be a dead drone. Note MoonPossum knows that everyone is excited about Angry Hornet but she's looking in the wrong direction, because, duh, she can't see it. She can't hear it either, but even a deaf dog that can't see well KNOWS everyone is barking at something.

So Angry Hornet takes off. And for some reason, Other Half gets distracted and instead of sending the drone up, up, and away, like he usually does, he let it hover over the little pond. And just about the time I quit taking pictures and called his attention to the trees and the pond, Angry Hornet just slowly buzzed into a tree and commenced to chewing limbs.

Other Half commenced to stroking.

And screaming. At me. For help. I asked him later why he was yelling for my help. What was it he expected me to do? He said he wanted me to catch it like a football.

"Do what?"

"You know, like a football!"

"But... but... it has blades. Blades that are moving very quickly.... blades...."

He then growled something about blade protectors on the blades. Okay, whatever. It was a moot point because Angry Hornet went straight from treetrimming to scuba diving.

I'd like to point out that Other Half can still move amazingly fast for a old man wearing bedroom slippers. (We can kiss those $60 sheepskin slippers goodbye.)

Angry Hornet & Angry Man

Who knows why Other Half had a brain fart and quit paying attention. Maybe he got distracted. Maybe he hit the wrong button. Or maybe. Just maybe. Maybe someone put a curse on the Angry Hornet.

"DIE, White Buzzard! DIE!"

Here are a few tools you should own if you live on a ranch:

1) Some kind of All Terrain Vehicle or a horse
2) A truck suitable for hauling feed
3) A stockdog

Let's expand upon Tool #3. A good stockdog is like a Leatherman Tool, a Swiss Army Knife, and a Trunk Monkey. (google it) I carry one almost everywhere I go. Seriously. My Border Collie is almost small enough to fit in my purse. Okay, maybe my backpack.

These are the chores in a typical day for my stock dogs:

Push sheep out of pen in morning while preventing goats from leaving.
Push goats off door as they crowd to mug the grain bucket.
Enter Buck pen as escort. Do not let bucks touch Mommy with their stinky faces.
Find Possum, the deaf Aussie.
Feed chickens. Keep Possum from entering chicken yard.
Find Possum again.
Move goats out of their pen after they finish breakfast.
Find Possum again.
Load up in truck to go to town. Move sheep away from front gate so truck can exit.
Move cattle away from next gate so truck can exit.
Say ugly things to anyone who comes near truck in parking lot.
Smile lovingly at the cashier in the Dairy Queen drive-thru.
Move cattle away from gate so truck can enter.
Move sheep away from gate so truck can enter.
Herd Darwin the Chicken back into the chicken yard with the other birds.
Take Possum on a walk. Find Possum multiple times.
Return Darwin to the chicken pen again before Possum finds her out.
Supervise Norman the Bottle-baby Calf on his walk.
Clean Norman's butt.
Make sheep that are afraid of Norman walk past him to enter their pen at night.
Point out to Mom that we missed some sheep. Pick up stragglers and push them into pens.
Take Possum for a walk. Find Possum multiple times.
Help return Darwin to her pen again.
Watch as Livestock Guardian Dogs receive an egg in payment for not killing Darwin. Point out the gross inequality in this system to Management. Receive a token egg. Leave it to go find Possum again.  Return to find that Livestock Guardian Dog has eaten the egg.

Some version of this is repeated each day. If the sheep leave the pasture for grazing then stockdog duties also include 'tending' sheep to make sure everyone stays within the boundaries and returns together as a group.  Mesa makes it her duty to find Possum for me and Lily has assigned herself the role of Kitchen Alert Dog, loudly announcing when the coffee pot and microwave alerts sound. If she had thumbs, I think she'd bring my Yeti full of coffee to me in the barnyard. Such is the nature of a good stockdog.

If you are trying to run a ranch without one, you're missing out, and working way too hard.

Don't short yourself and the dog by running out and getting just any dog. You need a dog that has been BRED to work stock. That is not your Labrador Retriever. He may be fine with your kids. He may be a terribly sweet, kind and loving pet. But he's not a bred to be stockdog. Don't set him up for failure and get pissed when he eats your chickens.

That said, do not run out and buy a wonderfully bred Border Collie (with papers and grandparents from SCOTLAND!) and then toss this pup out in the barnyard and expect him to just figure it out.

"But you said they learn stuff on their own!"

I also said I carry my dog everywhere with me.

A good stockdog knows the routine. She knows what's normal and what's not normal. A good stockdog has the desire to insert herself into the farm routine to make it flow. (Because all stockdogs are really into world domination.) A lot of professional trainers do shut their students away so the dogs can't learn bad habits. Those people know what they're doing and are trying to create the perfect learning environment for their students.

I don't do that because it doesn't work as well for me. (Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing.)

I start out with the best of intentions but I'm simply too far away from a professional herding dog trainer for regular lessons and I'm not sending my dogs away to boarding school. So I'm left with the Learning By Immersion method. We have a job to do. The dog and I. Together. I stack the deck in my favor by buying pups that are bred with the desire to both manipulate livestock (world domination) and be biddable (I get to be the bald-headed guy with the cat and the dog is happy being my minion.)

 If you have no background in dog training whatsoever and want a stockdog, invest in some lessons to at least get you and the dog on the same page. I get away with it because I've trained dogs my entire adult life so although I could benefit tremendously from professional herding lessons, my dogs still end up being pretty handy.  (Just not as good as they would have been had everyone gone to school.) Our lifestyle is such that the dogs are part of the family, not a pets, but as valuable, contributing employees on the ranch. Okay, Possum and Dillon are just plain pets, but the others punch a time clock, fill out a work card, get workman's comp, and retirement benefits.

And it starts with living with them, working with them, and letting them help. A good stockdog is more than just a collection of the right genes, it's a collection of the right experiences. Your job is to make sure your pup gets that experience so she can make it her job to make your life easier. And I'm all about that.

Mesa then.

Mesa now.

I got a note today from Tina in New Mexico. She was checking since she hasn't seen a blog post in a while. That's so incredibly sweet. And humbling. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to check in and say "Whuzzup?!"

Things have been pretty busy here the last few months. I've been trying to finish a Farm Fresh Forensics book so I can start sending query letters out to agents. Before the holidays I was approached by a television production company that was interested in doing a Farm Fresh Forensics television show. While it was an intriguing proposition, I'm not sure it'll ever pan out because they wanted to do a reality show and didn't realize I had already retired. They'd have to do the show with actors and that costs more money. Regardless of whether or not anything like that ever comes to fruition, it was still flattering that we attracted the attention of Hollywood (or in this case, Burbank.)

But life here is less about Hollywood and more about firewood. It's winter now and never do you more appreciate living in a barn than when you have to feed and it's 24 degrees outside. Deer Season is finally over and things can return to some semblance of 'normal' again. We don't really hunt but there are hunters on the properties around us. One set of hunters has a camp very near our main sheep pasture. The Anatolians are quite interested in the hunters who have petted and fed them. The camp is definitely more entertaining than a sheep pasture and thus Judge regularly sneaked over to visit his new friends. Jury was caught red-headed trying to pull a butchered hog out of a tree at 3 AM one morning. In his defense, the carcass was less than 100 yards upwind of the pasture. Apparently that was more temptation than his juvenile brain could handle. So to keep good relations with the neighbors, I opted to keep the sheep at the house and put the boys on lockdown when hunters were here.

Keeping track of MoonPossum is a full time job.

She has grown quite a bit and is as big as Mesa now.

While Mesa is built like Demi Moore in the GI Jane movie, MoonPossum is a 'full-figured' girl who is more like the Meghan Trainor song, "All About That Bass." (If you haven't heard this song, google it. Guaranteed for a smile.)

 Possum is deaf, but her vision appears to be better now. She isn't squinting as much and seems to navigate quite well except for dark shadows in bright sunlight. Possum lives in a silent world colored with smells. Her nose is exceptional and she follows it everywhere.

Because our barnyard is large and oddly shaped, it's easy to lose Possum around buildings and trees. We put a bell on her collar so we can keep tabs on her by the jingling but it's easy to get preoccupied with chores and find that you've misplaced Possum. This has resulted in racing around the barnyard in a panic calling, "Where's Possum?"

Since MoonPossum is deaf, one would think this activity would be fruitless, but far from it. Mesa is Border Collie. Border Collies excel in teaching themselves new things. Mesa has learned that when I lose Possum she is to locate the deaf dog, and do a drive-by on the little stinker who then sees her black and white friend and follows her back to me.

This works quite well. Mesa retrieves Possum no less than fifty times a day. Often it is no more than a casual poke to get her attention and let her know that everyone else has changed direction and is ready to leave.

The newest act in our three-ring circus is the addition of Norman, the bottle-baby calf.

Norman is a Shorthorn. He may have been a twin. Other Half got him from a friend who wasn't in the position to be able to raise him. We've had Norman for two weeks. He's already bonded to Other Half.

I have no clue what we're going to do with him. My suggestion to put him in the freezer was met with stony silence from Other Half so I'm guessing that's out. Most likely he will end up as another pet. If we ever get a milk cow then Norman can be a yard companion for it. After he is eating solid food well we can try to introduce him into our herd so he can ultimately go out onto the ranch. In the mean time he is penned beside the sheep and goats who are terrified of him. The dogs enjoy time with the calf because they normally never get to satisfy their curiosity with calves. Norman finds them to be a minor annoyance. As far as he's concerned dogs are only good for butt-cleaning and racing in the yard.

"And it's MESA by a length!"

Norman gets turn-out time in the barnyard where he can zoom and play. The dogs run beside him and Possum gets to pretend she is a cowdog.

Mesa keeps track of Norman and herds him back when he strays too far.

So in a nutshell, we're doing fine. It's still a circus here, and we've added a few more acts.  The book is almost finished and I'm already planning the next one.

You know you're a punk when you can't catch a half-blind deaf dog. In my defense, she's really fast.

Because severe storms with possible golf ball size hail had been forecasted I busied myself with getting my trucks under cover before I went to bed. I tucked in sheep and Livestock Guardian Dogs, set up my weather radio in the window, and crawled into bed. Other Half had been planning on leaving his truck outside in the elements because he's one of those "gotta touch the wet paint" people. Then he listened to the weather report and saw the radar. Hmmmmm. . .

Still stinging from the broken pipes fiasco, I think he knew he'd never live it down if he left his truck out and ended up with a broken windshield, so at 1 AM he moved the tractor out of the haybarn and drove the dually in.  (For you city folk, that's just a farm truck with four tires in the rear. Very common in rural areas where people haul heavy loads.) The problem was that the roll-down door wouldn't close because the truck was longer than the tractor. No worries. He just tied the door to the trailer hitch. Problem solved.

The storm was a non-event for our little area but I'm not complaining. Any time we dodge hail it's cause for celebration. So the next morning I made my coffee, let the dogs out, and greeted the day. MoonPossum, the deaf, visually impaired, Australian Shepherd puppy, wears a bell on her collar so we can keep track of her as she toots around the barnyard. On most mornings, the tinkling of her bell is a welcome addition to the normal din of sheep bleating, goats screaming, chickens cackling, cows mooing, horses neighing, and dogs barking. On this morning it was absent.

Always afraid that Possum will find a hole in the fence and slip out with large livestock or the everpresent BoogeyBeast, I dropped what I was doing and marched out in search of Tinkerbell. There was a muffled jingling inside the haybarn. Damn! With the dually's ass sticking out of the barn, the barn gate couldn't close and thus MoonPossum had gained access to the Forbidden Palace.

The Hay Barn houses the tractor, the hay (duh!), pallets of cow feed, the bobcat (tiny bulldozer-like Tonka toy for men), tools, more tools, and Nikita the Barn Cat - Queen of the Night. Nikita is a hired assassin.  Like most contract killers, contact with her employers is minimal. We place catfood (payment offerings) in her bowl (altar) and in turn, she leaves the bodies of her victims targets lying either by the altar bowl or on the hay.

Rats equal damaged bags of cow feed. Rats attract copperheads. Close contact with live rats gives me gray hairs. Thus Nikita the contract killer is exhalted to supreme status on the farm and given whatever she wants. Therefore copious amounts of cat food are placed on the altar.

The altar (cat food bowl) is set on the pavement near the tractor where Nikita sits on her throne (tractor seat). From this position the Queen of the Night lies in wait for any and all rodents attracted to her altar. It is not at all unusual to find one or two dead rodents (sacrifices) each morning. Her top number was three large rats and a mouse in one night.

And so it was that I heard Tinkerbell shuffling around inside the Hay Barn. As I untied the string on the door the sound of the altar (cat food bowl) scraping across the floor announced that MoonPossum had found the cat food. After I freed the door, it rolled it up and sunlight flooded the barn to reveal a smiling MoonPossum with a rather large dead rat in her mouth. The rat's tail bounced in rhythm to the tinkling of Possum's bell as she bounced across the pavement.

"DROP THAT!"

The curious thing about a deaf and blind dog is that they cannot hear you scream at them, and so Possum settled down at the altar and commenced to gagging down that rat, tail first.  The rear-end of the dually was sticking out of the barn door like Winnie-the-Pooh stuck in a honey jar. I tried to squeeze through on the right side but it wasn't happening. Too much sourdough bread. Too much winter clothing. So I sucked in my breath and squeezed through on the left side. The front of the truck was pulled up so close to some tools that I couldn't pass without climbing over. Possum saw me coming and momentarily stopped choking down her rat to run under the the truck and out the door.

I squeezed my fat ass back past the truck bumper and out into the barnyard where Possum lay in the sand poking her rat.

At this point I paused and whipped out my phone to preserve this moment so I could roll it out the next time she was licking Other Half's face as they played in his recliner. I am wicked that way.

With photographic proof in hand, I then snatched up a barn rake and marched toward Possum. She smiled at me as I approached. With the sun to her back the half-blind dog was able to see me and the rake and read my intentions, so she grabbed up her rat, and danced off gagging it down as fast as she could. I tried cajoling her. I tried threatening her. I tried chasing her down. You know you're a punk when you can't catch a half-blind deaf dog.

I resorted to ordering the Labrador to steal the rat. This was fruitless too. Apparently possession is 9/10ths of the law no matter how small you are, and as such, Dillon had no intention of stealing a rat from a baby. MoonPossum settled down in the driveway to crunch the rat. The puppy grinned at me before turning her head sideways and crunching that rodent's skull like a child with a Tootsie Pop. And that was it. Down the hatch. All gone. It was enough to make me barf up my sourdough pancakes.

Rat down, MoonPossum burped and smiled at me. I gagged. The puppy was then happy to wiggle up to me. She tried licking my hand as I snapped a leash on her collar. I then locked her in a kennel run and went inside to scrub the rat cooties off my hands. And then scrub out the kitchen sink. And change coats. Cuz there were rat cooties on the sleeve.

Back outside I backed the dually out of the Hay Barn and rolled my garden cart inside for fresh alfalfa. Nikita meowed and curtsied to me as I hoisted a bale aside and uncovered a hidden graveyard of rat heads.

I plopped the bale at my feet in disgust. Nikita meowed again and stepped back and forth on her front feet kneading the air with her toes while I swallowed the rising bile in the back of my throat. Briar shuffled up beside me. After one quick glance to assess the situation, the big white dog snarfed up rat heads like popcorn shrimp. I gagged and stumbled outside into the fresh air and sunshine.

The only good thing about starting a day with dead rats is that things can only go uphill from there. Farms just ain't for sissies.

     The leap to murder is not that far when you're standing naked in a cold shower and the water runs out. The line between holy matrimony and homicide blurs even further if it was a loving spouse who promised there would be enough water.

     I ask those of you north of Texas to withhold judgement on those of us who had a fifty degree thermometer drop in one day. I awoke Sunday morning to find that it was 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Water freezes at well above that temperature. Ask any newscaster in North Texas. They advertise that kind of information freely. They even tell you days in advance that temperatures will plummet like a roller coaster at Disney World. Prepare for it. Doomsday cometh!

     I believed them. I believed them because I am a rule-follower. If I read a sign on a park bench that says, "WET PAINT," I do not touch the bench to see if the paint is really wet. My Other Half, however, is "paint-toucher." He must touch the paint. He must pee on the electric fence. And so like the ant, and the reluctant grasshopper, we busied ourselves for the coming freeze. The chicken coop was winterized with bubble wrap and burlap. Cows and horses were fed extra rations. Dog beds and stalls were packed deeply with hay.

     Friday afternoon the wind shifted and a arctic breeze began its low steady push south. At 4 pm I was watching water in the troughs freeze so I told Other Half it was time to turn the water system off and drain everything to keep the house water from freezing. The grasshopper argued that the heat lamp would be enough. The ant again pointed out water freezing in troughs.

     By then we had a fire going in the house and it was toasty warm. I fed the dogs their supper while he installed a heat lamp in the pump house which contains the water filtration system. After supper I went to bed early. I didn't take a shower and wash my hair before bed because the water had already been turned off.

     At 1 am Other Half woke me to inform me that he'd gone outside to turn off the water before coming to bed and the pipes were already frozen. Wait! Wasn't the water already off? Didn't we see water in the troughs freezing at 4 pm? Was it not then the logical conclusion that water in the pipes would also freeze? The grasshopper had not leaped to the same conclusion as the ant and had chosen to wait until bedtime to shut off water. By then it was too late.

    Hell hath no fury greater than a woman who missed a bath the night before she is to participate in a big Christmas program at church. Although 15 degrees Fahrenheit may be a heat wave in Canada, it is enough to make Texans loose their minds. At 2 am two people standing in a polar wind will make no attempt to be nice to each other. Imagine two grizzly bears yoked together. There is a lot of roaring but not much work gets done.

     I texted Son, "I will need bail money. I'm killing your father."

     "U chose him."

    So while I was singing "A Great And Mighty Wonder" at church, my Other Half was at home working on frozen pipes. Sunday night the temperatures dipped even lower. I awoke at 6:30 am and texted Son, "Holy shit! It's 8 degrees!"

     According to the weatherman it was actually only 11 degrees but really, when it's that low in Texas, what difference does a few degrees make?

     Apparently, quite a bit.  The pipes that didn't burst on Saturday night, burst on Sunday night.

     We were blessed with a half a pallet of bottled water and much of it was still in the hay barn, so we hauled four cases to the house. That water was used for drinking, cooking, and washing dishes. Tired of sponge baths, Other Half decided that water would also be used for a shower. He hauled the propane camp shower out of the horse trailer and busied himself with hooking it up.

     "There's not enough water to wash my hair. I'm gonna go over to Virginia's or Nora's and bathe there."

     "We have plenty of water. Cases and cases of water!"

     "That's drinking water! I have long, thick hair. I need a lot of water to rinse it."

     "There's PLENTY of water. It won't take that much!"

     In an effort to convince me, he took a shower himself. The propane heater was set up on a dog crate he had pulled to the shower stall. A pump was placed in a bucket of water. Water was sucked into a propane heater, then sent through a shower nozzle and came out in a weak stream. This was a two-person job. One person worked the propane heater and pump while the other person showered stood in the cold waiting while water which alternated between frigid cold and seering steam dribbled through the flacid hose.

     "See! I only used a quart of water."

     "You used a gallon."

     "It's your turn."

     "Dude! There is not enough water to wash my hair."

     "Yes, there is!"  (And the paint isn't really wet.)

     By this time I was an enraged grizzly yoked to Yogi the Bear, so in a effort to prove the point, I climbed into the shower. In hindsight, this was really stupid. I am much like a cat. I do not like to be cold. I do not like to be wet. Why I would choose to be cold and wet just to prove my point, merely illustrates the depth of a blinding rage.

     "Hey, are you almost done?"

     "NO! I'm rinsing my hair."

     "Uuhmmm.... We're running low on water. You need to wind it up."

     Yogi the Bear was finally realizing the problem, but by then he had a wet grizzly in the shower. He shuffled off for another case of water. The grizzly shivered and cussed as bottle after bottle was uncapped and poured into the bucket to be heated.

     Yogi the Bear peeked behind the shower curtain at a very angry wet grizzly.

     "Oooh sexy..."

     "I will kill you."

     And there you have it, the recipe for murder. In his defense, even had he turned the water off and drained the pipes before the freeze, the pipes would probably still have burst. One pitiful heat lamp was not enough against that kind of polar shift. Tricks that normally worked for people up here didn't. Pipes burst all over north Texas this weekend. Plumbers are no longer answering their phones. Hardware stores are running out of PVC.

     We still don't have running water. Hopefully we'll get it back in order today. Warm and dry, the grizzly has calmed down and had time to reflect on the situation. The upside is that we now know where our weak spots are, and are much more familiar with our water system. Apparently there is more to it than simply turning on the kitchen faucet. Huh, who knew?

     After a 911 call to Dear Friend Sue, in Wyoming, I got more tips on tried and true methods for handling extreme temperatures. My next order of business after the water is flowing is to insulate the pipes again. This time, in addition to the fancy foam we will also be packing that sucker full of sheep wool!  Yes! Sheep wool! The poor man's insulation! With plastic baggies, socks, and duct tape, I should be able to insulate every bend of pipe, every nook and cranny, and every spot that cold might creap. Oddly, even though we still have the fancy foam insulation, I have more faith in the wool. As Sue pointed out, if you could only pick one animal, pick a sheep. A sheep meets so many needs.

    The Navajo use the expression, "Sheep is Life," because they consider the sheep to be a sacred gift from the Creator to meet their needs. I think they're right. I, for one, will be wrapping the heck out of those pipes with sheep wool today.

With a hypnotic whisper their eyes tapped me on the shoulder.

"Turn around."

So I did.

Reason #467 for having a Border Collie.

In the years BB (Before Briar) it was my custom to have Lily herd the chickens back into the coop around 2 o'clock in the afternoon before I left for work. Since birds behave about like cats, this wasn't an easy task but in time, she trained them.

Now that I have Livestock Guardian Dogs, getting chickens into a coop before dark is not such a pressing issue, but before I retire for the night, I like to have the birds locked inside their coop in the chicken yard.

Birds work on their own schedule and sometimes getting them to bed is like putting down a Girl Scout slumber party. They don't want to go inside the coop until the sun has completely set. Since I greatly dislike having to tromp back out in the dark to lock the coop, I recently hired a new Troop Leader.

One part Nanny McPhee. One part traffic cop. One part Clint Eastwood. Mesa gets the job done.

Tonight I didn't get the birds in until well after dark, so they were already inside the coop. All I needed to do was lock up.  I was still leaned over, locking more devices than a New York City apartment door, when I felt the stare.

Then there was an angry squawk.

"You want this one?"

I turned around. Lily and Mesa were outside the chicken yard, poking an indignant bird toward me. One dog on each side, steering a chicken. My Darwin Award Winner. Aptly named "Darwin."

This bird flies out of the chicken yard on a regular basis. I doubt clipping a wing will solve her problem as she is a master of the artful hop. Her study of aviation would make the Wright Brothers proud. And she could definitely be a contestant on the television show, Wipeout. I have been assured that as she matures, she'll get too heavy to accomplish these feats of grace. Maybe. If she lives that long.

Darwin gets out every few days. Sometimes multiple times a day. Her record is four. I have ten dogs. The chicken is playing Russian Roulette. One day she is gonna roll a Blue Heeler.

But not today. Thanks to Lily and Mesa, Darwin will live to see another sunrise. And you can add that to your X Games list of extreme sports. There beside BASE jumping, skydiving, and wingsuit flying, you can add the extreme sport of Wipeout Chicken Hopping.

This sport consists of a young bird, preferably a heritage breed of laying age, who will use objects in the court of play to provide a take-off point for launch. Objects may consist of, but are not limited to, the coop roof, the shade cloth tarps, feeders, waterers, and the metal hoophouse.  Bird may use any of these objects in any combination to achieve her desired launch. Bird must take into account weather conditions such as prevailing winds and humidity which may adversely affect feather frizz and lift-off potential. Points will be added for each obstacle used in combination. No points will be awarded if player is eaten by dog on the other side of the chicken yard fence.

Thus far, our reigning champion in the extreme sport of WipeOut Chicken Hopping is Darwin.

Don't get too fond of her. Her days are numbered.
 

     As the car slowly crunched to a stop beside me I looked up from the sidewalk and read the pity in the woman's eyes. Perhaps I shouldn't wear my barn clothes in public.

     Other Half had business at Best Buy, our local electronics store, and as usual, we brought a dog or two. On this day the Chosen Ones were MoonPossum and her best pal, Mesa. After a short potty break the dogs and I sat down on the sidewalk outside the store to wait for Other Half to exchange his new cattle-hunting drone for another one. He seems to think a drone will replace riding the ranch on horseback or 4Wheelers in search of stray cattle. I imagine that now we'll be riding the ranch on horseback or 4Wheelers in search of a stray drone. Nevertheless, it is an itch he has the scratch, and so the dogs and I waited patiently outside the store.

     We could have waited in the truck, but Possum is a pup and needs to see the world so we plopped down outside the main doors. On the sidewalk. Yes, the ground.  If you've worked with cattle then you realize that on the Cleaniless Continuum, a sidewalk outside an electronics store isn't all that bad.

     So I leaned my back up against the wall and engaged in a bit of people watching while the dogs chilled. Ranch dogs. Just chilling. I was impressed by how calm they were. They were as calm as Homeless People Dogs, just sitting there, watching the flow of human traffic. Chilling.

From time to time dogs in passing cars said hello. This bulldog rolled past us several times.

I was thinking that perhaps we looked a bit Bohemian, me in dirty clothes with a scarf on my hair, and two scruffy dogs at my feet. Somewhere between rancher and writer, I was okay with that look.

Just me and my girls, chilling like some Bohemian artist hiker. I was okay with that image until the car slowed to a stop beside me and an older woman with kind eyes held a Whataburger bag out the window.

"Do you want this for your dogs? They look like they'd like a hamburger."

I gaped like a goldfish as my romantic Bohemian vision crumbled into the cold reality. "She thinks we're homeless."

On the one hand I wanted to explain myself. On the other hand, it was What-A-Burger. I didn't want to cheat them out of What-A-Burger.

     And so we kindly accepted the charity of a stranger who drove away feeling much better. The dogs got a double meat cheeseburger and I was reminded to clean up before I went to town. It is still nice to know that if I'm ever homeless, the good citizens of Weatherford, Texas will make sure my dogs are fed.
 

He leered at me with a smile that was supposed to be charming but the charm was lost by the beads of urine on his nose.

I just wanted a walk. A simple walk. I live in a wild and beautiful place that rivals any state park, and yet I can't enjoy it on foot because of the damned animals. Not the wildlife. Oh no! There are copperheads, rattlesnakes, coyotes, bobcats, feral hogs, and at least one cougar, but am I worried about them?

Not in the least. No. I can't take a walk because of my own animals.

Hunting season officially opened this weekend, thus I have to lock up my young Livestock Guardian Dogs. They simply cannot grasp the idea of seasonal visitors who set up camp right along our fence line, and cook sausage and bacon, and all manner of delicious food. These are temporary neighbors who offer an exciting relief from the boring ho-hum daily grind of barking at buzzards, bobcats, and coyotes.

It is simply impossible to leave the dogs loose to guard the livestock without having at least one (Judge) abandon his post for a vacation with the neighbors, who thought he was cute at first, but since he:

1) crapped on their front porch
2) raided the garbage they left out
and
3) hiked his leg on their deer feeder

I'm sure he has more than worn out his welcome.

So the boys are in lockdown. The sheep have to be kept at the house, and the Boys have to be in pens or in the barn. That's a lot of confined energy. Since I'm fat, out of shape, (round is a shape) in need of exercise, I decided to start walking the boys on leash after chores. I'd have safe companions and they could burn a little steam.

Because the buck pen was sloppy due to rain, I'd left the bucks out last night with Briar. Instead of returning them to their pen this morning, I tossed them across the fence into the lease pasture where they could trim trees along the fence line when they finished breakfast.

After chores I leashed the Anatolians and headed out for my walk. Since the horses were still finishing up their breakfast at the gate, the plan was to slip out through the lease pasture, walk down the fence, and then slip back into our place from another gate. That was the plan. That didn't happen.

I opened the gate to walk through with the Anatolians and the spotted buck bulled his way past me to get into the yard with the sheep. He then proceeded to try to rape my ewes. I slammed the gate in the brown buck's face and turned to watch the chaos in the barn yard. It was like a pervert on a merry-go-round. Suave is not in the vocabulary of a billy goat.

I slammed the kennel door shut on confused Anatolians and raced off in pursuit of a spotted buck who couldn't understand why none of my ewes were interested in a relationship with a total stranger from another species, who landed on their backs like a child having a pillow fight while bouncing on a newly made bed. After several futile attempts to catch the bastard, I seriously considered shooting him. Seriously.

There was a gun in my back pocket, because, well, one never knows when a copperhead will rudely enter your morning. Shooting the buck was a dancing temptation in front of me. I own both his parents, so he can easily be replaced. A buck in full rut can be a nasty, obnoxious creature who pees on his face and tries to screw anything that will stand still. If I'd already bred him this season, I think I would have shot him right there in the yard as he knocked down my churro ewes. I was that mad.

It was time for a Border Collie. There is nothing like having a Border Collie grab a back leg to make even the most horny of bucks change his way of thinking. Lily penned the buck. I caught my breath, put the Border Collie back in the barn, and tried to start my walk again.

With leashes on the Anatolians, I started through the gate once more. The brown buck trotted toward me with a smile. I stomped past him. One does not want to encourage the attention of a billy goat. Especially a friendly one coated in urine.

"Hey, would you like a little company?"

"NO! Go away!"

Not quite as obnoxious as his son, Jethro, the brown buck, still wasn't going to put off by my rude behavior, so he opted to amble along behind the dogs. With a happy bobble, he followed us down the fence, his long ears swaying with each joyful step. We were taking a walk! Together! He was a happy camper.

Disgusted. I was not a happy camper. One cannot enjoy the smell of the forest with a billy goat in tow, particularly when the goat wants to rub his urine-soaked body against you.  We made it to the gate and the dogs and I slipped back through, leaving the buck to himself on the other side. Not to be discouraged, he called behind us,

"Hey! Hey! You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up with you as soon as I cross the hill and go around the pond. Don't worry. I'll catch up with you!"

I ignored him. His bell jangled in the distance as he sought a way to keep up with us. And true to his word, he joined us on the other side. The cattails around the pond parted to reveal his bright eyes. He reminded me of Joe Pesci in the Lethal Weapon movies.

"Hey! Hey guys! I found you! See? See? I told you. I told you I'd catch up!"

I growled and ignored him. We reached the fork and struck out north toward the creek. The buck stood at the fence and called.

"Hey! Hey! Uhm... there's a barbed wire fence in the way. I can't really go there. Well. Maybe I can. I guess I might can climb through the wire. Give me a second. Oh crap! That hurts. Well. Hang on. Wait. Don't go. I'm coming with. Wait!"

I left him.

Soon the forest was silent except for my boots squishing into the red mud and the bell ringing  on the dog's collar. That's when I rounded the bend to see the cattle coming through the creek in my direction. Nothing can ruin a walk with dogs faster than a cow trying to stomp your dog.

We shrank into the forest before they saw us. So much for my walk. I turned around and headed back home. Much to the relief of the billy goat pacing the fence, we emerged from the forest beside him. With his world now back in balance, Jethro bounced down the trail on the other side of the fence. I was still trying to salvage my walk in the opposite direction of the cows, when we ran into the horses.

Montoya stood in the road ahead of us. Delighted. What a pleasant surprise! Mom. Out here. In the middle of nowhere. Perhaps Mom has more breakfast with her.

Sigh. No. No close encounters with horses either. Like cows, the horses aren't big fans of dogs. I plowed forward and slipped through the gate into the lease pasture before the horses could get too close. No worries. They would just follow us down the fence. The cattle trailed behind the horses. Jethro was beside himself with pleasure. We had finally joined him again. As he walked with the dogs beside me, he would stop and look back over his shoulder with a coy grin.

"Hey! I'm cute. I'm sexy! Really. Don't you think I'm sexy?"

I slapped the end of the leash across his ass. "Get out of my way, you stupid goat!"

"Ooooh! S & M! Okay! Not really my thing, but I'm game. I can play that if you want!"

I ignored him and stomped off. He angled in front of me, but then had second thoughts.

"Where's your little black and white dog?"

I ignored him.

"She's not here, is she? Ahhhh . . . she's NOT HERE, is she?" He leered at me.

I put an Anatolian Shepherd between us and kept walking. The buck stopped to pee on his face and then trotted to catch up with us.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Food Lady! Wanna screw!"

"Go $#@! yourself."

"Already done that!"

He leered at me with a smile that was supposed to be charming but the charm was lost by the beads of urine on his nose. I walked faster and made mental note to never again leave the house without a Border Collie. So there we were. What should have been a peaceful walk was instead a barnyard parade. I was flanked in the protective custody of two Anatolians while a horny billy goat leered at me,  four horses followed us down the fence line, and cattle trailed along bringing up the rear.

The buck was clearly disappointed when we arrived at the barnyard gate and his walk was over. As I stuffed the Anatolians back into the goat pen it was hard to ignore her stare tapping me on the shoulder. The Border Collie's eyebrow was arched across her forehead like Spock as she silently accused me.

Why do I fight it? Without a Border Collie there is chaos.  Why do I ever leave the house without a Border Collie to provide order and stability in this world?

No matter how bad your Monday was, you still didn't have to grab a bull by the penis. Or maybe you did, in which case I tip my hat to you, because you're probably a rancher in North Texas.

"I think that little yellow bull calf got bit on the pecker by a copperhead."

"Do what?"

"The end's all black and it looks like the tip is sloughing off."

It really takes more coffee to have a conversation like this. Aside from the monetary loss of another bull, I was really pretty fond of the little guy. His sire was a Charolais bull that belonged to a friend of ours. We bred that Charolais to an assortment of Braford heifers and each calf that hit the ground was really nice. Since we moved up here and no longer had access to that young bull, we opted to keep a bull calf from this year's crop.

I like to work with the 'heir and a spare' approach to breeding bulls since they're so important to a cattle operation. If something happens to your only bull, there is no calf crop, and around here, it's entirely possible to lose a bull to a freak accident. Since we moved the cattle to North Texas, we've lost three bulls already. One was lost to age and blindess. His loss was no surprise. Another jumped a barbed wire fence and hung his penis, thus moving him from breeding bull to auction barn, to Taco Bell. The other one somehow damaged his shoulder enough to become permanently lame, thus he ended up in our freezer.

So I stood in the kitchen gaping like a goldfish. And that's when I remembered. Like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver I snatched at that thought.

"Cockleburrs!"

"What?"

"Cockleburrs! I bet he has cockleburrs in his hair! That's probably the black stuff you see!"

Days earlier I'd spent thirty minutes picking cockleburrs out of the paint horse's mane and tail, so it was entirely possible that the bull calf had simply walked through the same field and collected burrs on his penis. Ouch.

Other Half penned the cattle up and a sure enough, rather than a nasty infection, our young lad just had a major owwie which could be treated with a pair of scissors. So while he sorted cattle, I hiked to the house for a pair of scissors. No, I will not be using them in the kitchen again.

Never trust a cow not to kick the crap out of you. Especially when you're holding his penis. In addition to the lovely calf crop he put on the ground this year, the thing I liked most about the Charolais bull we borrowed was his temperament. He was easy to handle. I named him Groceries. We kept him for a while, and I worked with him daily. Groceries was just a nice, sensible bull. And he produced nice, sensible calves.

When you're standing in the pasture, holding onto a bull's penis, you appreciate a good nature in a cow. I mean, really, how exactly does one explain those injuries to an ER doctor? On the other hand, an ER doctor in North Texas has probably heard that one before.

So I stand and tip my hand to Groceries for passing on a nice temperament to his calves. Son Of Groceries stood like a placid plowhorse for his 'manscaping,' and soon joined the herd where they admired his new Beach Boy Clip and fitted him for a Speedo.