Farm Fresh Blog

If this dog had thumbs I wouldn't even need to come outside in the morning. The chores would get done without me. She knows the routine and can pretty much do everything herself. She just needs you to shovel out the feed for the livestock, and open and close the gates.

Like a bee to morning glories, chores on the farm begin as soon as the sun rises.

     The first order of business, after pouring coffee, is to get the Nubian bucks out to pasture. They are pretty docile, but stinky so I don't like touching them. There is nothing like fresh buck urine on your arm to ruin the taste of coffee. The bucks are moved from their night pen behind the barn to a 150 acre pasture (of which they only utilize probably 3 acres, but it's there if they want it)  The trick to getting the bucks out without incident is to pour the feed into their bucket in the pasture first, then go get the bucks. Mesa then merely guides them to the pasture when they choose to stray from the intended route. This is 90% of the time during breeding season because instead of eating, they want to loop around and go see the girls.

Do not attempt to move the bucks without a Border Collie. It looks easy when the dog does it. It's a freaking trainwreck without the dog.

     The next order of business is to put the rams up for the day.

      The rams freely roam the barnyard pasture at night while the ewes are locked in pens behind the barn. In the morning they must be moved into a separate pen in the barn before the ewes can be turned out to pasture.  Because of their differing temperaments, moving the rams is a delicate dance. Mesa must put just enough pressure on Wilson, the yearling ram, to stir him out of his comfort zone, so he moseys toward breakfast, but not so much pressure on Chance, the weanling ram, that he freaks because he has a wider flight zone. Wilson doesn't get in a hurry to do much, so Mesa must gently annoy him to the point where he leaves the fence by the ewes and follows me to his day pen. Put too much pressure on Wilson and he will ram a dog with those horns. Mesa has figured this out, so instead of wading in (like Lily!) and causing a fight, she just flits around him like a butterfly, darting at his face and his heels to steer him. As Mesa does this, Chance zigzags back and forth wishing that Wilson would just come on so the dog would leave them alone.

     With the rams secure, Mesa then sorts the Angora goats from the Nubian goats.

The angoras eat with the rams because they don't need the high-octane diet the dairy goats eat. With the goats sorted, they are then fed, and the ewes are moved out to pasture.

After the goats finish eating, they will be pushed out to join the sheep.

Mesa goes through this routine every day, 7 days a week. In the evening, she does the same thing in reverse. Sometimes Lily helps, but her penchant for putting holes in anyone who doesn't immediately tow the line is annoying and unfair enough for me to keep her by my side and let Mesa do the job herself. Lily and I just supervise.

    Wyatt often bounces along beside Mesa. He's getting pretty good at putting the Nubian bucks out. He trots behind them and peels off himself when they arrive at their destination. I don't use him on the rams though because his bouncing would freak Chance out, and if he got too pushy, Wilson might slam him and damage his little psyche. It wouldn't be fair to Wyatt or Wilson. When he's older and more confident, then Wyatt can move the rams.

For now, he'll keep right on helping Mesa with her other chores, watching and learning. If I could ever figure out a way to have them sling feed and open gates, by next year I'd be able to just send Mesa and Wyatt outside while Lily and I eat bacon and eggs and sip coffee at the kitchen table.

     Most of you know that I retired from the Houston Police Department and our farm was located south of Houston. And unless you've been living under a rock with no television coverage, you also know that this area was whacked hard by Hurricane Harvey. Because we moved to the ranch in North Texas, we are fine, but our family and friends still living in the south took it on the chin.

     Few people were left untouched as the hurricane raged through most of Southeast Texas before storming off to Louisiana. In the area where the storm made landfall, people lost their homes and businesses to wind damage and the storm surge. Deeper into the state, it was the massive rainfall that got us as this slow-moving storm rolled across Texas, angling back and forth through the state like an indecisive Ouija board. Yes, homes and businesses were destroyed, but not communities. The buildings are damaged but the sense of community is strong, and it extends across the state and the nation.

     Like the forest fires of Montana, this was a slow-rolling disaster. Rather than the 'hurricane makes landfall and fizzles out after it smacks the coast" story, Harvey moved as slowly as a toddler eating greenbeans. This dumped a record-setting amount of rain, resulting in a week-long disaster that still isn't finished. While some can begin the arduous clean-up,  others still watch the floodwaters creep closer to their homes. People who evacuated once must evacuate to another spot because the waters are reaching for them again.

     For many people evacuation isn't as simple as loading the kids and the dogs into the mini-van and heading for higher ground. In these rural areas evacuation means moving livestock. It means cattle drives through flood waters. It means leading swimming horses by boat. It means loading the family pig into a rescue boat.

     And by scores the boats came. Not only were highly trained swiftwater rescue teams from across the nation dispatched to the Houston area, but countless Bubbas in Bass Boats rose to the call. From Jim Bob, your neighbor down the street, to Boudreaux, a highly skilled member of Louisiana's illustrious Cajun Navy, they all motored through floodwaters to rescue a drowning state. Instead of waiting on the government, aided by social media, neighbors banded together to help neighbors. Texas and Lousiana are family, cousins who grew up hunting, fishing, and giving each other wedgies and noogies, but last week Louisiana heard the call of a drowning Texas. Even knowing full well the storm may rape Texas and then march into Lousianana, the Cajuns still came. And Texas will not forget it.

     For this week, the nation forgot about race, riots, statues, police brutality, and bigotry. The nation focused on Texas. They saw no racial divide, only neighbor helping neighbor. It was a brutal storm, and although it did tremendous damage, it also allowed us to see this nation at its finest.

  "Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness."  

Anne Frank

     As all good adventures begin, this one started with smoke. Summer in North Texas is never a good time to see smoke on the horizon. Frankly I probably would have slept right through the whole thing if Other Half hadn't picked up the phone.

    I was on the phone myself, in deep conversation with a girlfriend. My evening chores  were finished early, so all that was left to do was lock the chickens up when the sun went down. By my clock, I had a good 45 minutes. I was basking in the cool blow of the air-conditioner, happy under the whirl of my ceiling fan, when Other Half burst into the bedroom and blurted,

     "Looks like a fire to the north of us, Sonny saw smoke from his house on the ridge. Come drive out with me so we can see where it's at and which way it's headed!"

     That seemed like a reasonable request at the time. All adventures seem reasonable at first. My chores were done, so I didn't see any harm in loading up the Labrador and a Border Collie and heading out. (Because we cannot go anywhere without a dog, or two. Or three.)

     Since our first impression was that the smoke was in the pasture of a neighbor who wasn't home, we drove that way. Nope. Farther. So following the smoke on the horizon of the setting sun, we drove onward. On the gravel road we met neighbors doing the same thing.

     Where is it? Is it coming our way?

     The general concensus seemed to be that it was far northwest of us and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. Unless something really got out of hand, we were pretty safe. The neighbors left to go back home. I assumed we would too. Here's where things got dicey. Other Half is always game for an adventure. The dogs are always game for an adventure. When the sun is going down in fifteen minutes, and you're in the middle of nowhere but Rattlesnake Central, and the flames of a brushfire are being backlit by the last rays of the setting sun, I'm not big into adventures. But wait - there's more!

     Other Half did not go home. He drove in the opposite direction, toward the fire. I grumbled loudly when he darted off the main gravel road onto an obscure mountain road. He assured me that he knew where he was going. This road would spit us out onto a familiar road.

     Really? I bought it for the first few minutes. Then I GoogleMapped that shit.

     Wrong. He was lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. The sun was closing on the day. The rattlesnakes were slithering out, and he was taking us towards a brushfire. I was not amused. I shouted. I cussed. I showed him the GoogleMap proof. Okay. Okay. He reluctantly agreed to follow the map back toward home. And that's when we heard the pop.

     It was a loud bam! Followed by a rhythmic whack, whack, whack. We had blown a front tire.

     I blew up.

     It is here that I must point out that for the past month I had been riding him about those tires. They were bald. They needed to be replaced. He brushed my concerns aside. The most he would allow was they needed to be rotated. No! Those front tires were bald. Screw Lincoln's head on a penny! There was no tread left!

     As often happens in a marriage, one spouse is right, and the other refuses to accept it until he's hanging his head out the truck window watching rubber slap the wheel-well of his Ford.

     Now the other spouse, the right one, may just have had an absolute shitfit and been reduced to screaming and flinging a rather expensive iPhone so that it bounced into the windshield and skittered across the dash like a hockey puck. It is, sadly, a character flaw on her part, but since she was right, right, right, we shall gloss over that tiny glimpse of psychotic bitch that peeps out from time to time.

    And here is where the adventure of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, Tomb Raiders, begins. Lara Croft, ever prepared, has brought the items needed for most adventures in Texas: A Border Collie, a gun, a pocketknife, a flashlight, and a fully charged cell phone. Due to the reliability of an Otterbox, the iPhone has survived its journey as a hockey puck and Lara Croft retrieves the phone and uses the one smidgeon of a bar of cell phone reception to text a friend the exact address of their location as Indiana Jones is able to steer the slow-rolling beast to a grinding halt in front of a Wind Turbine Maintenance building on the side of the mountain.

(Nevermind that the friend is currently in South Texas and Lara Croft is in North Texas. There is absolutely no way the friend can be of assistance, but in case of Chainsaw-wielding Zombies, it always helps to have a last known location.)

    On the other hand, Chainsaw-wielding Zombies would have run in fright from the scene when Lara Croft, armed with gun and flashlight, gets out of that truck and stands over what was left of the tire. Indiana Jones tries to weakly explain that the hard gravel road caused the flat. Lara Croft rides the "I Told You So" pony until Indiana Jones is forced to admit that just perhaps, maybe, she was right. This time.

     She is momentarily satisfied. But satisfaction won't change a tire.

     It is a curiously unknown fact, that despite having the truck since 2008, Indiana Jones has never actually had to change a tire on this vehicle himself. It goes without saying that Lara Croft had also never changed a tire on this truck. Thus began the tomb raiding part of our adventure. The thing about changing a tire in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, is that two angry people must work together, using tire irons, flashlights, and other heavy items that people use to kill each other. They must do this as the western sky glows with the flames of a wildfire. It might be a reality show worth watching.

     Indiana Jones prepares for this labor by chocking the rear tires so the truck can't roll on the hill. The underbelly of a ranch truck is coated in hard red mud, over which is a heavy layer of fine white dust. This, and the fact that no person has removed the spare tire in years, makes it feat worthy of Hercules. Hercules, or two Tomb Raiders. While Lara Croft holds a flashlight, lying on his back, Indiana Jones cautiously reaches underneath the truck and tries to open the lock holding the spare tire. This turns out to be reminiscent of explorers coaxing an ancient lock to open and reveal treasures hidden for centuries.

     It turns out the tire cannot be released without a key. A key? A key? Lara Croft is clueless as to where this key may be hidden. Indiana Jones finds a plastic baggie in the glove box containing a small round metal 'thing.' This thing turns out to be the elusive key. Another go in the bowels of the beast, and it reluctantly spits out a spare tire. 

      Indiana Jones then pulls the high-lift jack from behind the cab and commences to search for the perfect place to set it up so that he can safely crank the truck up. This is easier said than done. The truck is on a hill. The left side is sitting lower than the right. Since Lara Croft spent many years working in a career which can be summed up as "1001 Ways To Die" she is a tad bothered about the whole jacking up business. Indiana Jones decides that perhaps an additional jack might need to be employed since the truck is on a hill. For once, Lara Croft is without an opinion on this, as her only real experience with jacks is when they fail and thus crush people. Indiana Jones appears to know what he is doing. On the other hand, he also appeared to know what he was doing when he adamantly proclaimed the tires still had plenty of life in them, so one can never know for certain.

     Experience has taught Lara Croft that when things are working out, that's when the next big adventure is around the bend, and sure enough, having the spare tire secured and the truck precariously on jacks, only sets them up for the next big twist.

     Indiana Jones has carefully removed all the lug nuts. Lara Croft has carefully stacked each lug nut so that none are lost. Indiana Jones goes to lift the tire off - and nothing. It does not budge.

     Years of dog piss and rust have cemented the tire into place. This comes as no surprise to Lara. Indiana Jones has a bit of a meltdown and makes derogatory remarks about dogs. Lara Croft points out that the male dogs pissing on the tires belong to Indiana Jones. They have another explosive argument about the number of dogs he brings home. Since she has the flashlight and the gun, he shuts up.

     A ranch truck is much like the backpack of a Treasure Hunter, it contains all manner of items that you haven't thrown away, you never knew you needed, and you might need one day. Indiana Jones finds a bottle of motor oil behind the seat, and Lara Croft finds a needle and syringe in the glove box. Ranchers and heroin addicts keep things like that just lying around.

     Lara Croft does another flashlight sweep of the area for rattlesnakes as Indiana Jones coats each exposed screw on the tire with motor oil. Using the needle and syringe, with careful precision, he squirts oil deeply into and around each screw. Then he takes a hammer and commences to banging on the tire. Lara Croft has flashbacks to '1001 Ways To Die' as the truck vibrates on the jacks with each bang, but in due time the truck gives up its grip on the tire. The flat tire is pulled off. The spare is slipped on. The flashlight battery is fading.

     The lug nuts are tightened and after a final sweep of the area, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft are back on the road. Indy announces that this adventure was really a good thing. He points out that instead of blowing out here on a cool evening in the middle of nowhere, the tire could have blown in the middle of the day, on the highway, at 65 mph. Lara Croft watches the smoke in the distance through her rear view mirror and wryly points out that if Indiana Jones had bought new tires a month ago he wouldn't have been flat on his back on a gravel road, in the dark, with the rattlesnakes and a wildfire on the horizon. But then, where's the adventure in that?

     It's been a while since I've posted and I'm beginning to get notes from readers asking if they need to send out search teams for me. Bless your hearts! No, search & rescue teams aren't necessary. I'm alive and kicking, but things have been busy. The Farm Fresh Forensics book has finally been written, revised, rewritten, revised again, and is now shopping for agents. (and once it lands one, it will almost certainly be re-written again, but each time it gets better and better.)

   I finally finished shearing sheep and began processing all that wool, spinning it up into yarn, and starting projects again. I have started making purses using Navajo Churro sheep yarn, angora locks, and recycled saddle and bridle parts.

I've also started my Navajo weaving. This one is destined to be a purse too.

The month of June was a busy one. The dairy goats were kidding.

No sooner were baby goats on the ground than I was packing my bags to head to Tsailes, Arizona where the big Sheep Is Life event was being held on the Navajo Reservation at the Dine College.

This is a celebration of the Navajo Churro sheep. These sheep are to the Navajo what the bison was to the plains tribes. The sheep is a gift from God which provides meat, milk, and wool. Theirs is the fiber used in the beautiful Navajo rugs.

While there, I picked up three more churro ewes and two young churro rams.

Vanilla (left)  Rowena (right) Chance (top)

Chance - weanling ram

Wilson - yearling ram

Avis - yearling ewe

Since I've been having so much fun needlefelting Angora locks onto my projects, I picked up these adorable colored Angora yearling wethers. I'm really looking forward to using their curls in my weavings.

Buzz, Woody, & Peter

And while I was in Arizona, someone sprouted legs - and ears!

Wyatt continues to grow like a weed after a rain. He is old enough now to participate in chores. This mostly entails trotting along with the older dogs while they move stock from pen to pasture and back. Wyatt is already getting the hang of it and has a presence that gains respect from the sheep. Right now his only commands are "that'll do," "here," and "AHHHHH!"

Here he follows Trace who is putting the goats onto a trailer.

Once the goats were on the trailer, I called both boys off and Wyatt happily bounced back, certain that he moved the goats all by himself.

And so there it is, a whirlwind month of ranching, writing, and learning to create from fleece to fiber.

Given my career as a cop and a crime scene investigator, one would assume that I've had plenty of opportunities to scream, but apparently dead men and drug dealers are not as frightening as copperheads and skunks because only now, here in my retirement, I am discovering that I have a pretty healthy set of lungs. Screaming is becoming a somewhat frequent occurrence.

I now look more carefully for skunks in the haybarn, and copperheads, well, everywhere. The scream is all about the surprise, and if you're expecting something, it doesn't surprise you. Nevertheless, while I have come to expect these unpleasantries outside my back door, I'd like to say that inside my humble abode I can let my hair down and relax.

Apparently I have been mistaken.

It started with a bottle of furniture polish. The bench in the barn aisle neaded a touch-up and so Other Half dutifully polished and spit-shined it until the wood gleamed. It was a nice gesture which would last all of one day since the bench, an old church pew, is sitting in a dusty barn. As husbands often do, instead of returning the bottle of furniture polish to its assigned spot underneath the kitchen sink, he left it in the barn aisle beside the bench where it would have undoubtedly stayed for another month or so had I not moved it.

I appreciate the words of Gomer Pyle, "A place for everything and everything in its place!"

Gomer Pyle did not live with my husband.

When we moved into this house, my rules were simple. No clutter. None. But Other Half doesn't see clutter, he sees a collection of his 'stuff' in easy to reach places. This has led to more than one marital 'knock down, drag out' fight over property rights. It is a constant battle, one which leads us straight to the kitchen sink.

The cavern underneath the kitchen sink should have a box of trash bags, a couple of cooking pans too large to fit in the cabinets, and one plastic milk crate which holds cleaning supplies. That's it. I should be able to open that cabinet and count the occupants at any given time.

It lasted about two months. Bit by bit Other Half started stashing more and more 'crap' underneath the sink. Egg cartons, old cooking oil, and other miscellaneous stuff began to stack behind closed doors. I complained. I ordered him to clean that shit out. He nodded his head in agreement, watched another episode of Gunsmoke, and never left his recliner.

That's when I drew the line in the sand. This was his mess and by golly, he was gonna clean it! The problem with refusing to do it for him is that he really doesn't care. He 'knows where everything is' and is thus a happy camper.

I was an unhappy camper, but in marriage, you pick and choose your battles, and I had bigger fish to fry. The kitchen sink could wait. So I thought. It was about the time I put the furniture polish back, that I had a change of heart.

Actually, it was a heart attack that I almost had.

Holy crap on a cracker! I reached under the sink to toss the furniture polish back in the milk crate and stuck my hand in a spider web with a black widow! The very moment my fingers got tangled in the web I recognized the texture. I glimpsed the black widow as I jerked my hand back.

Nope. Nope! Nope!

A handgun does not eject a bullet casing faster than my hand was ejected from that cabinet. This set forth a round of screaming and cussing so loud that even the deaf dog could hear me. The new Border Collie puppy learned vocabulary words that he normally wouldn't hear until he watched us work cattle.

While the dogs stared, jaws slack in open-mouthed Os, I danced around the kitchen floor, screaming obscenities and flicking spider webs off my fingers. It was ugly, folks, it was ugly. It was karma.

I have a friend who is afraid of spiders. I regularly dump spider memes on her Facebook page, because, well, I'm a bitch, and an evil friend. And so I thought of Teresa and karma as I danced around the kitchen floor screaming.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. By a black widow.

I had survived my encounter with a tiny beast which Wikipedia informed me was the most dangerous spider in North America with venom 15 times the potency of a rattlesnake. (under my friggin' kitchen sink!) and my next order of business was to get it out.

Without squishing it.

It would have been easy enough to squish her. She was sitting right there, glaring at me with all eight eyes. (Thank you, Google)

How much Farnam Citronella Stable & Fly Spray does it take to kill a black widow?

I don't know either but there is now a half a bottle of it covering everything underneath my kitchen sink.

 
This slowed her down, or pissed her off, to the point where I could use a big spoon and a spatula to get her inside a paper towel and put her in a mason jar. My favorite long spoon and spatula may have to be burned.

Why, you may ask, did I put a black widow in a mason jar?

Evidence. Proof. Proof that she existed. A crime scene must be properly documented. Not only must we have photographic evidence that said suspect was indeed, underneath the kitchen sink, but we must have proof that said suspect was in fact, the very dangerous, (but shy and reclusive, and often misunderstood) black widow spider, otherwise, my husband would have sworn I was making much ado about nothing.

I normally have no qualms with spiders. I don't stomp them. Most of the time, I name them, take a picture of them, and splash them on Teresa's Facebook page like a drive-by shooting. But not a black widow. Not underneath my sink.

"Use your eight eyes to find it and your eight legs to walk yourself to the door, because Sister, you are not welcome here."

The upside to this whole experience is that I found something more unnerving than a copperhead at your door step.

And the kitchen now smells lemony fresh like stable spray.

     The Boyz went to the vet to be 'tutored' this week. They are approaching two years old now and almost fully grown so I felt comfortable neutering them. I'm a fan of neutering late when possible. Sometimes it's just not realistic but when it is, I wait because I want those hormones available for growth and development. It's time now. They have, hopefully, reached their full height, and although they could stand to fill out more, I feel like they're almost finished growing.

     Neutering giant dogs isn't as simple as loading them into the family car and driving off to Doctor Snip-snip. No. Livestock Guardian Dogs live outside. With the livestock. They stink. Not only do they stay in and out of the ponds, but they haven't perfected the art of killing a skunk without getting sprayed. When I scheduled the appointment I promised my vet that I'd bathe them. She said she'd appreciate that.

     The night before I locked the boys in outside kennels because "no food or water before surgery." I awoke the next morning to find that Jury had spent the night excavating an elaborate escape from Alcatraz. He was asleep under the tractor, not twenty feet away from the pen he put so much effort into breaking out of.

     It was time for a bath. Regret is realizing you've forgotten to train your puppy to take a bath and he now weighs 110 pounds. At least. And has teeth.

     This was a two-person job. Other Half held the leash while I went through the motions of bathing Judge. Imagine bathing a calf that isn't halter broke. By the time we were finished everyone was wet but the dog was clean. Jury watched all this with narrowed eyes.

     We locked Judge in the dog box compartment of the cattle trailer which is a roughly a five by six foot addition to the front of a normal stock trailer. It's designed for calves, or cowdogs, or saddles, or Livestock Guardian Dogs that are too big to fit inside the truck. While Judge stood in the trailer and dried, we got a leash for Jury.

     I snapped the leash on Jury's collar and he raised his eyebrow like Spock. I handed the leash to Other Half while I got a length of rope to tie around his neck and secure the dog to one of the poles that holds up the house. When I slowly turned on the water hose at his shoulder the giant dog whirled around on the hose and threatened the water. I continued the gentle spray. He then thrashed like a marlin and threatened the hose, the water, the rope holding him, and the leash holding him. It would be a short trip to threaten Other Half.

The rope around his neck came untied.

     Now here is where dog trainers fight. I didn't want to quit. Quiting was failure. Quiting would teach the dog to fight. I wanted to re-group, start slower, and try it again.

     Being on the end of the leash holding the dog, Other Half was all for avoiding an ER bill and an insurance deductible and quitting while we were ahead. Deleting the expletives, I will paraphrase,

"I'm not going to the Emergency Room over a ******* dog! The vet can just deal with a dirty ****** dog! He's a ******* Livestock Dog! It's okay if he's dirty!"

He had a point. So Other Half and Jury voted against trying the bath again. I was outvoted. We loaded the dog up with his brother and drove to the clinic. I went in to see where the vet wanted them while Other Half went back to check on the dogs. It was decided to bring them through the back door straight into the kennels rather than go through the front waiting room and chance being attacked by a poodle.

     I went back to the truck to tell Other Half. He interrupted. We had bigger problems than poodles in the waiting room. Jury had a mud blow-out and had stress-shit all over the dog box. The faint aroma of skunk on Jury paled in comparison to the way he smell now.  He and his formerly clean brother were smeared with dog shit.

     Nothing makes a vet question their life choices more than a frightened Anatolian covered in shit, so I'm not sure who was having a worse day, Jury or Dr Harvey. We snapped leashes on the boys and walked them across the parking lot to the back door of the kennels. A vet tech opened the door and Other Half led Judge inside. I followed with Jury. The big dog stuck his head into the threshold, saw a terrier or poodle or some small dog that resembled a piranha (frankly it happened so quickly I can't remember) and ran out faster than a teacher on the Last Day of School. I was a kite of a string as he sailed across the parking lot. No stranger to be dragged by large animals, I dug in my heels and got him stopped. While Other Half settled Judge in a kennel, Jury and I stood in the parking lot and thought about life, small dogs, big dogs, and why you should socialize large dogs before they exceed 60 pounds.

     When Other Half came outside, we pushed, pulled, and dragged the giant chicken into the building and put him in a kennel with his brother. The other vet came over to have a peek at them. He stood in front of the kennel and joked about ripping out balls. Judge quietly informed the vet that he kills feral hogs, and has no problems with killing vets too.

Alrightie then. When a 110 pound dog demands respect, it's really best to just give it to him. The vet backed off. A tiny vet tech came over to put a chart on the door. Judge smiled and wagged his tail. Tiny women bearing clipboards were okay.

I had serious doubts. How were these people going to be able to handle two frightened dogs the size of calves?

Never doubt a nurse or a vet tech.

Better living through chemistry.

The vet handed us pills to cram down their throats. Judge was moved to a separate kennel for ease of handling, and we left as the calm-down pills took effect. I apologized once more for their appearance and behavior as the vet tech smiled sweetly and assured me that everything would be fine. (Better living through chemistry.) I could pick them up tomorrow.

As we drove out of the parking lot, one fact nibbled at the back of my head. The Anatolians weigh more than the vet tech.

     "Why can't you wait for one dog to die before you get another one?"

Because when one dog dies it's already two years too late.

     The difference between working dog folks and pet dog folks is that working dog people know that if you aren't already training another dog to take the reins from your primary work dog, then you are two years behind.

     There is a big difference between working dog homes and pet dog homes. A pet dog home can enjoy the luxury of raising up a puppy without worrying about whether or not that pup will be ready for a job, whereas a working dog home knows that one freak accident can sideline or even kill your best employee and you are left in the pasture with a bucket of feed screaming at livestock who know you can't make them do anything.

     While our dogs enjoy the lives of pets, (living in the house, riding in the cab of the truck, getting their own ice cream cone at Dairy Queen) they are still primarily working dogs. I would wager that we spend more quality time with each of our dogs than the average person spends with the one or two dogs they keep as pets, and I think that's the part people don't understand about having working dogs. They take a lot of time. They are a lifestyle.

Meet Wyatt.

     Wyatt is the next generation of cowdog around here. His parents are working trial dogs. His sire is from cowdog lines. His dam is from sheepdog lines. Wyatt is bred to work. MoonPossum already loves him. She thinks he's the neatest toy she's ever seen.  Everyone else takes him in stride. In a multi-dog household like ours they tend to accept new pack members easily.  As long as there is enough love, kibble, and stuffed animals to go around, life is good.

     My last post angered a small handful of Blue Heeler folks who felt I was slamming their breed of choice and implying these dogs were stupid. Au contraire. Do you say your child is stupid because he isn't good at math? Perhaps she isn't an athlete but her talents lie in other directions. The boy who cannot throw a baseball today may be tomorrow's software design tycoon.

     A child, or a dog, may be more talented in one venue than another. Is anything wrong with this child? That dog? Certainly not. To jump to the conclusion that I think Blue Heelers are stupid is to entirely miss the point of the post.

     That said, perhaps I should address another issue. Border Collies. It might be easy to also jump to the conclusion that I feel a Border Collie is the smartest dog in the world and the greatest thing next to white sliced bread. Wrong again. Animal intelligence tests have always intrigued me, but by and large, dog intelligence tests often merely measure trainability and not actual intelligence.

Einstein said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

     The very people incensed when they thought I was bashing Blue Heelers may be quick to proclaim their dog is smarter than a Bassett Hound, or a Bloodhound, yet stack them beside each other on a trail and the Blue Heeler receives a failing grade. Does this make him the Village Idiot? No, certainly not. He was not bred for trailing.

     This brings us full circle to the point of their rage. I dared to stack up a Blue Heeler against a Border Collie and declare the Border Collie the better working dog on cattle. Now you can argue until you're blue in the face, but the truth is that many herding dog trials allow competition from all dogs that can herd, and the Border Collies and Kelpies are whipping everyone else in pretty large numbers. Does that mean there are not certain dogs that can be very competitive against Border Collies and Kelpies? No, of course not.  Your Blue Heeler may just be the Michael Phelps at the swimming pool, but most of them aren't because they aren't bred to do that.

     Yes, I said it.

     The large majority of Australian Cattle Dogs, also known as "Heelers," aren't bred to work cows anymore.

     Most of them are bred to be good farm dogs and pets. That's not the same as working cattle. A few folks may still be breeding Heelers to work cows but you'd be hard pressed to find a line that has any significant number of actual working dogs. I'm talking about parents and siblings, and grandparents, and great grandparents, and great great grandparents who really do the dirty, dusty, muddy, sometimes bloody, work of herding cattle.

     And that's okay. It's really okay. That doesn't mean there is a damned thing wrong with your dog. There's not. But don't try to beat me over the head in indignation when I compare them to dogs who have been, and continue to be, bred for herding.

     We can also get right down to the nitty gritty and offend the Border Collie people too by saying they aren't bred to work cattle either. They're not. Most of them weren't and still aren't. That's why a lot of hardcore cowdog folks prefer the Kelpie or crosses. They feel the Kelpie is a tougher dog. I'm not gonna argue with those folks. They might be right, but it doesn't hurt my feelings any, or make me feel any less of my dog because my self-esteem is not wrapped up in my dog's working ability.

     That said, I'm still running a ranch, not a petting zoo. I need dogs that work. With the exception of two dogs who found a home here as pets only, every other dog on this farm either works, or is retired from working. That said, the bulk of the work is shouldered by just two dogs now, a two year old Border Collie, and a six year old Border Collie. The other Border Collies are retired. The Blue Heeler is older than the youngest retired Border Collie, so he's retired too. When he was actually working cattle, he was used to drive cows because that's what Heelers do best - they heel.

Let's go back to the fact that although we have a large number of dogs in this household, factor out the Livestock Guardian Dogs, and the bulk of the work is being done by just two dogs, Mesa and Trace.

     Mesa has turned two years old and is invaluable as a sheep dog now. She was purchased so that Lily could retire from working cattle but Mesa is so good on sheep and goats that she has now assumed all sheepherding responsibilities while Lily yells coaching advice from the back of the ATV. Mesa is so valuable to me as a sheepdog that I don't want to use her on cattle. She might get hurt, and then I'd be out my working sheepdog.

     Trace works cattle, but he's six years old. His style of working cows allows him a much longer career than Lily or Cowboy, who tend to go in close and get more confrontational. They are older and slower now, and confrontation will get you killed when working cow/calf pairs. Time to pull the plug and take the retirement package while they can still enjoy it. Cheering from inside an air-conditioned truck while Trace works cattle is a perk of retirement.

     Trace will retire from working cows in the next two to four years. It takes two years to train a working herding dog to the point where they are of real use, so realistically we should begin looking for another dog now before we need it.

     On our ranch we need dogs that work sheep, goats, chickens, and cattle. There are certainly individual dogs within many breeds that may be able to do the work here, but in all fairness should we not stack the deck in our favor and select from a particular line of dogs within a particular breed of dogs that has been bred for generations to herd just about anything that moves? I think so. For that reason, Other Half put his money down on another Border Collie pup and will spend the next two years getting him ready to replace Trace.

     Does that mean retired dogs get shuffled off to kennels where they are forgotten? Absolutely not. Retirement is a pretty good gig around here. It is rare that we go anywhere without a dog, or two, or three in tow, so in addition to car rides to town, there are also always rides to check cows, feed cows, and move cows. Old dogs do the easier jobs and pups learn from the old dogs.  All of our working dogs are also house dogs, so retirement just means fluffier beds that are closer to the heater.

Green cowshit splashes against the gravel as the dozen or so steers stand at the driveway gate, stomping with impatience, waiting to be let inside. Their tails whip back and forth like windshield wipers slinging a green shitty slime against the gate and each other. They are not happy. They want in. They are not my cows.

The neighbor has turned these steers out on the rich pasture next door and they are just a tad bit confused as to where they belong. No worries. Life in the country. But I have to manually open and close that gate every time I leave the house, so I don't want it looking like the loading chute at a cattle auction, therefore I dispatch a dog to take care of the problem.

I have multiple dogs who could handle the task, but using one of the Border Collies for this was like using a fine wood chisel to open a paint can. The Blue Heeler, who isn't much good for any kind of cow work that requires finesse, is perfect for this job. The chore demands little more than rushing the fence and barking like a madman. Right up his alley.

The short fat blue dog puffs with pride as cattle back off in surprise. He feels so good about himself. He'll never be as talented as the Border Collies. But today. Right here. In the moment. He can do this. And he feels good about himself.

I watch him and make mental note to select him more often for these tasks that he can do which make him feel good. When surrounded by Border Collies, it's easy to feel like a failure. As the cattle stare from a respectful distance he parades back and forth in front of the gate with a jaunty Barney Fife swagger and I am reminded of myself in an 8th Grade Algebra class.

I hated Math. Sucked at it, in fact. Sitting in a Middle School Algebra class, I was a little fat Blue Heeler dog surrounded by Border Collies. A country kid, I had just moved to a new town and was still overwhelmed by it all when I was plopped down in Mrs Pauline Thorogood's 7th grade Algebra class. The woman scared the shit out of me.

She was a tiny, wiry thing who chainsmoked and with the confident air of a Border Collie used to understanding everything, she tried in vain to teach Algebra to a country kid who didn't understand that numbers could be combined with letters.  It was a dismal failure. The one positive thing to come from that first year was my new best friend, Neecy Buchanan. We had three things in common: we lived in the same neighborhood, we both sucked at Algebra, and we both scared witless of Pauline Thorogood.

Like survivors of a shipwreck, clinging to each other in a lifeboat that was tossed around by the high seas of Algebra, we barely passed 7th Grade.

But guess what?

Eight Grade Algebra was also taught by Pauline Thorogood.

And we sucked at it too.

We were two little fat Blue Heeler Dogs in another class of Border Collies. Our expectations were lower that year so it wasn't as bad. Keep your head down. Hold onto your life raft. Weather the storm.  It wasn't pretty but on the last day of the 8th Grade, we were two little fat Blue Heelers confident that we had Ds in Algebra. It was enough to get us into 9th grade and out from underneath the withering disappointment of Mrs Pauline Thorogood.

And so there we sat, on the last day of school just trying to blend in and not be noticed as Mrs Pauline Thorogood handpicked students to leave the classroom for minor end of the year clean-up tasks. Run these papers here. Collect these Math books and take them to this work room. Have the Guidance Counselor sign this. Hands shot up in the air as volunteers eagerly leapt at the opportunity to help.

Pauline Thorogood's gaze swept across the classroom like a security search light at a prison before it landed on me. I think she saw me breathe.

"You! You and you! I haven't given you anything but trouble all year. You two can go do this for me."

And as Neecy Buchanan and I stood in front of Mrs Pauline Thorogood to pick up our assigned task, I did something I probably hadn't done in two years. I look Mrs Pauline Thorogood in the eye.

She smiled back at me warmly.

And in that moment, I realized that Mrs Thorogood didn't hate me because I sucked at Math. She didn't hate me at all.  And I didn't really hate Mrs Thorogood because I sucked at Math. For the first time in two years it occurred to me that Mrs Thorogood might actually like her two little fat Blue Heelers in a room full of Border Collies. Away from Algebra, and the fear of having to slink up to the front of a classroom and be handed a piece of chalk to finish a math problem that may as well have been written in ancient Hebrew, Mrs Thorogood might be a pretty okay person.

So we finished the day, and 8th Grade, basking in the glow of Mrs Thorogood's smile. And instead of remembering how terrified I was of her, I would carry the memory that I had misjudged Mrs Throrogood. But that lesson, like so many others, would probably have been lost had it not been for one thing.

The explosion rocked our neighborhood on that summer day.

Neecy Buchanan and I stopped pedaling our bikes and just stood with bare feet on hot pavement gaping as black smoke billowed into the distant sky.

The next day the newspaper would report that our Algebra teacher and three friends had been killed in a freak accident. We were all in shock. Even the Angel of Death should have been afraid of Mrs Thorogood. As only an 8th Grade girl can do, I put a lot of thought into it, and though the details of the tragedy still horrified me, I found a bit of comfort in one thing.

My memory of Mrs Pauline Thorogood would not be one of fear, or a hatred of Algebra, but of that one act of kindness when she said, "I haven't given you anything but trouble all year."

For in that act, she acknowledged a relationship I was too shy to change. And in that one act, she became, not a chainsmoking dragon, but a person who perhaps didn't understand the deep-rooted fears of a shy child. She was just a Border Collie trying to understand a Blue Heeler.

It wasn't until college that Algebra made sense. The instructor was not a mathmatician but a grad student from another field who just happened to be teaching the class that semester. He presented Algebra in a completely different way than I'd seen it before and it finally clicked. Perhaps it was the new twist on instruction or perhaps my brain had just grown up to the point where it could handle the abstract concepts better, but either way, I was proud to earn a B in the course, and as I walked back to my car with a spring in my step, I wanted to share the good news with Mrs Thorogood.

I am not normally a screamer. After a career in law enforcement, it's hard to scare me, but this did it. I screamed like a Hollywood actress in a B-Movie Horror flick.

Days like today should start with an ominous musical soundtrack, but it didn't. I had absolutely no warning. My day began, like most every day, with a mug of coffee in hand and a trip to the hay barn for feed. I had just set my coffee down on the truck and opened the gate to the barn when I heard one of the Border Collies barking. Stroking was more like it.

Like me, Border Collies don't normally scream in fright. They tend to be masters in the art of controlling the order of their universe and thus the deep alarm bark coming from the back side of the hay barn galvanized me to action. Mesa had something. Something not in her databanks.

Something that scared her.

It is spring in Texas. The winter was mild anyway, so all manner of dangerous things could already be out. Freezing nightly temperatures had lulled me into a false sense of security. Certain that Mesa had a copperhead or a rattlesnake, I cursed myself for leaving the gun in the house, and so dropped my wagon to hustle toward the back side of the hay barn.

The odor hit me first. Mesa did not have a snake. Like a shark's fin coasting just underneath the edge of the water, a black and white tail eased behind a fuel tank propped against the barn. Mesa had a skunk.

Fortunately the skunk didn't know it yet.

And that's when I screamed. God help me, but I sounded like that blond chick in all the horror movies before she gets axed.

I had not one, but four Border Collies, and one deaf and partially blind Australian Shepherd puppy, all within twenty feet of a skunk at 7 AM. And I hadn't had my coffee.

So I screamed.

The good thing about skunks is that they don't see very well. The skunk was beebopping along, in his own skunk world, oblivious to the fact that he was surrounded by four confused Border Collies, one screaming B-Movie Chick, and a half-blind deaf dog who was wandering in his direction.

The barnyard became like Edvard Munch's famous paintings "The Scream." Everything just stopped as the shockwaves of something the Border Collies had never heard before echoed across the sand.

Shock waves.

Then silence.

And MoonPossum, the deaf Aussie, continued her blundering collision course with the skunk. Just like that, the echoing scream stopped. The deafening silence afterward ended. And the carousel music sped to a dizzy tempo.

"Must stop Possum!"

I leaped for the puppy just as she located the source of that unusual odor. My arms clasped around her middle and I whisked her 38 pound hiney into the air. And I ran.

I screamed for the Border Collies as I ran toward the house with a puppy wriggling like a greased pig.

I just want to take this moment to point out that in January I made no New Year's resolution to get fit. I'm about 40 pounds over what I consider my idea weight, but what the hell, I'm not chasing drug dealers over fences anymore, and I like bread. That said, 24 HOUR Fitness has no program like this. Even an overweight, over 50ish woman with gray hair can run with a 38 pound squirming puppy in her arms when faced with a skunk.

We arrived at the house and I counted to make sure I had four Border Collies and one Aussie puppy. Check. So I dropped the puppy in the breezeway and went inside to inform Other Half that we had a problem.

Morning chores could not be started until the skunk was removed from the area. The sleeping man underneath the comforter was less than sympathetic. I went back outside to do it myself.

Leaving the dogs locked in the breezeway, I crept to the backside of the hay barn to get a location on my suspect. The entire barnyard was still. Sheep and goats who would normally be screaming in protest were curiously silent. Horses gazed across the fence in quiet contemplation. What would the Primary Caretaker do next?

A large white dog bounced through the cattle and squirmed underneath the fence by the horses. My Missing-in-Action NightShift Livestock Guardian Dog had returned. Apparently he had been in the pasture with the cattle when he heard my screams. He emerged from a newly dug hole under the fence and wagged his way in my direction.

And that's when the skunk sashayed right out between us.

The blond chick from the horror movies screamed and pointed at the skunk.

The dog needed no warning. Jury snatched it up and shook the crap out of the poor thing. Right there. In front of me.

He shook it.

And he shook it.

And then he dropped the still figure in the sand, trotted over to me, and announced,

"Sector 12 is now clear."

Then he said, "Oh my, I can't breathe."

And it hit him as he staggered off into the brush.

"I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

He said it just like George Lopez. "I can't breaffff....."

Jury rolled around in the sand. This would have been a tad bit comical except for one thing -
the skunk got up.

The giant dog was rolling around in the sand, "I can't breathe. I can't seeee!" And the skunk got up and slowly wobbled off.

The B-Movie chick started screaming again. "Jury! Jury! The skunk! It's not dead!"

The only thing worse than a live skunk at your feet is a maimed skunk at your feet, so I peddled backward, still screaming for the dog while the skunk wobbled to the front of my hay barn.

Along his journey, the gyroscope in his head partially righted itself and he was able to walk a wee bit better. Instead of continuing south and exiting the barnyard, the skunk came to the gate at the front of the hay barn and squeezed his fat ass underneath it.

(Note to Self: stop leaving excess catfood in the hay barn for the cats.)

The skunk wobbled behind the Bobcat.

A large black barn cat came shooting out. He looked back in shock,

"What the *@$< was THAT?!"

Jury recovered his breath long enough to respond to my screams and came trotting around the corner. The big dog took one look at the black cat and questioned my vision.

"Bbbb..bbbutttttt.... It's just the cat...."

The cat assured the dog there was indeed, a suspect in the barn. I opened the gate to let the dog inside. He stood there, unsure what the cat and I were pointing at.

Not only could he barely breathe, he could barely see, and the whole barnyard smelled like skunk.

On the other hand, he was willing to take our word for it that something nefarious was in the back of the hay barn. His ears confirmed this.

And that's when I heard the votes being cast.

Standing in the pasture, on the other side of the fence, four horses voted not to let the dog kill the skunk in the hay barn with 1400 pounds of fresh alfalfa hay.

Hmmmmm... point well taken.

So I called the dog back. Breakfast would be delayed. I was able to sneak a third of a bale out before the skunk moved behind the stacked hay. This effectively ended the Cafeteria Lady's participation in serving breakfast. The partial bale of hay was evenly distributed to the stunned and curious onlookers.

The Dayshift Livestock Guardian Dogs were advised that their shift would be covered by the Nightshift Livestock Guardian Dog since he already smelled like a skunk.

I then stomped into the bedroom to give Husband an update. He informed me that Jury was not the only one who reeked of skunk. Crap on a cracker.

So there you have it. My farm is on lockdown. I cannot switch shifts of dogs. None of the house dogs has had outside playtime. The goats are having to eat calf creep feed because their unopened bag of grain is in the haybarn. And Jury and I both smell like a skunk.

All before coffee.