Farm Fresh Blog

Oh my! Where has the time gone? The holidays are here!

The leaves are dropping and winter is creeping up on us. Cattle have been moved and so the pasture south of the house is available for sheep now.  Because this isn't fenced for sheep it means I have to go with them to loosely keep track of their comings and goings lest they end up too far from home. Most of the time I take a few Border Collies. On this day I took a camera instead. And as always, a couple of Livestock Guardian Dogs.

The nice thing about tending sheep is that it gives me time to study them and find their personalities. The flock is now split in half because the ram is with the Navajo Churro and so the Dorper and Jacob ewes have been moved to another pasture. This gives me more time to photograph and study the churro alone. Without the Border Collies, the churro are more relaxed and I'm able to get better pictures.

The south pasture is much more wooded and some of the sheep have developed a taste for the acorns underneath the oak trees. Avis is normally an easy-going ewe but when her honey hole is threatened, I see another side of the unassuming little ewe.

She has discovered a stash of acorns. Judge, the Anatolian, is curious to see what has her attention so he horns in on her honey hole.  Her first reaction is to run.

Then she changes her mind,

and gets pissed. Judge notes the change in mood and hastens to assure her that he has no bad intentions.

She decides to leave anyway, and storms off, but then gets madder and decides to give the dog a piece of her mind.

She rushes forward and stamps her feet at him.

Then she marches right up front to take charge of her honey hole again.  The dog, who had no interest whatsoever in her acorns to begin with, backs down in the the face of her temper. (Yes, I know he's skinny. For the life of me I cannot tape weight onto this dog.  He gained a little bit after he was neutered but then lost it again when the temperatures dipped and he became more active. I really do feed him, he just has the metabolism of a hummingbird.)

Judge doesn't get upset at the sheep's display but still insists on holding his ground.

They reach a compromise. The dog settles down beside the fence to glare at cattle on the other side, and the ewe goes back to snarfing acorns like a toddler eating Cheerios.

Seriously. Who needs cable television when you have a farm? A farm is much more entertaining than any Reality T.V.

     You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that chicken on the boat. I don't know why. If living in the middle of nowhere has taught me anything, it should be to expect the unexpected. This adventure started before the Daylight Savings time change. Two weeks earlier to be exact.

     I have seven chickens. Correction. I had seven chickens. Now I have six. They pretty much all look the same - Golden-Laced Wyandottes. With the exception of Bald Butt, and The Molter, everyone else looks the same. This makes it hard to differentiate which hen was Darwin, the escape artist. For almost a year, one goofy hen would hopscotch her way to the top of her pen and then leap down to freedom, thus allowing herself evening time free range. Each night I would have to return Darwin to the chicken pen so she could roost in the coop. If I was late, Darwin would simply climb onto the 4-Wheeler and wait for me. When I arrived, she'd hop down and talk to me as we walked back to the coop together. I honestly didn't think a bird who flew the coop each evening would survive, so I named her Darwin. But survive she did. And she pecked and scratched her way into my heart. Even though I was certain one day I'd find nothing left of her but a pile of feathers, against my better judgement, I grew fond of the silly bird.

     Her adventures gave me to the courage to let the rest of the flock out of the chicken yard and let them free range. The deal was simple. Stay in the yard. Stay close to the Livestock Guardian Dogs. Stay alive. If you leave the barnyard to explore beyond the fence, you are a Dead Chicken Walking.

     What did they do?

     Within three days they had discovered the field fencing had chicken-sized gaps in the woven wire which allowed the enterprising bird access to hidden truths and treasures on the other side. Five of them became regular morning visitors to the Forbidden Land. Fortunately for them, from time to time their Livestock Guardian Dog went along as a body guard. But nevertheless, the writing was on the wall.

     And one night, there were only six. Bird #7 did not come in to roost. Alas, we found a pile of scattered feathers not 50 feet from the fence, not 150 feet from my back door.

     The nice thing about all the birds looking the same is that I wasn't sure if Darwin was #7. Because the hens were now free-ranging, there was no need to fly to the top of the pen and hop down to freedom and that was the only way I had to identify Darwin. Although it was highly likely Darwin was #7, I held out hope.

     Saturday night I was losing hope. I went out after dark to shut up the chicken coop and noted the gate had swung shut, locking the hens outside the chicken yard. They had roosted outside the chicken yard, but where? I heard a soft cackle from the dog kennel. Sitting on top of a dog house were four hens. One by one I gently carried the girls to their coop. None of them acted like they'd ever been handled before. Damn. Perhaps Darwin was #7 after all.

     The remaining two birds had actually gone inside the dog kennel. One was sleeping inside the dog house in a pile of fresh shavings and the other was pacing back and forth outside the dog house. Since they were safe, I just closed the door on the dog kennel and left them there.

     The next morning I turned them out with everyone else and walked off to do chores. I was feeding the cats on top of the boat, when one of the hens flew onto the boat and helped herself to the bowl of catfood. Like me, the yard cats were stunned. Wow. Bold bird.

     Sunday night. Daylight Savings time. Move the clock back. Fall back. (Which I never quite understood, because I can fall forward too.) Anyway, it was dark an hour earlier. That evening I padded out into the night with my flashlight, and shut the chicken coop door, thus locking the inhabitants safely inside. Monday morning I walked out to feed the cats and lo and behold, there was a chicken waiting on the boat!

     You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that chicken on the boat. Because I didn't count chickens in the dark, I must have locked her out of the coop. Alone. In the dark. When the moon rises and the zombie apocalypse begins. Somehow she survived the night by herself.

Okay, she wasn't really by herself.

In all likelihood she had a friend nearby.

     Nevertheless, I stared at her with slack jaw. That's one lucky bad-ass bird. So I named her Chuck Norris. Then a friend on Facebook suggested we call her "Chick" Norris. Perfect!

     Monday evening The Ninja cat decided to come home. Ninja is a feral cat who moved with us from Houston. Shortly after we moved in, Ninja disappeared. She was gone for months. Then I saw her lurking around a nearby hunters' camp. Wild. Many months after that I saw her crossing a red dirt road. She disappeared into the forest. She was clearly hunting and living on her own. Just this year, The Ninja cat decided that regular meals were more important than her dislike of dogs, so she started coming in every week or so for meals on the boat. The yard cats always give the Ninja a wide berth. She is, after all, a bad-ass cat.

     So imagine the suspense when Chick Norris and The Ninja squared off on the bow of that boat.

      The Ninja Cat had already tied a napkin around her neck and was leaning in to dine on Little Friskies when the bird landed on the boat. I stood there in shock. This could be the fight of the century. Time to whip out the cell phone!

The cat hissed and backed up. The chicken eyed the cat. If she had an eyebrow I think she cocked it.

Then Chick Norris, bad-ass bird, leaned in to peck her share of Little Friskies. The Ninja glared.

I've seen that cat kill rabbits. A chicken was certainly not outside her range. But Chick Norris is such a bad-ass that even the Ninja cat had to pause.

After careful study, the cat backed down. And left. That's one bad-ass bird.

Chick Norris finished her Little Friskies, hopped off the boat, and waddled off into the sunset.

I'm seriously hoping that Chick Norris is actually Darwin, and the pile of feathers that is what is left of #7 actually belongs to a bird with less personality than Darwin and Chick Norris. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

Texas is well known for its fickle weather but Texans are quick to point out that our state has 4 seasons:

*Dove Season
*Bow-hunting Deer Season
*Rifle Deer Season

and *Football Season.

     This weekend was Opening Day of Bowhunting Season. For some hunters this is IT. What they train for. For other hunters Bow Season is like the post parade at the Kentucky Derby. It is the event leading up to the main event.

     We live in prime Texas hunting land. I'm not much of a hunter, but I have hunters in the family so I'm well aware of the seasonal changes. As far as I'm concerned, if there's already a butchered calf in my freezer, Bambi is safe from me. If the freezer is empty though, Bambi beware. All bets are off. But for the most part, Other Half and I prefer to watch the deer rather than shoot them. They are welcome neighbors. So much so, in fact, that hunters on neighboring ranches complain that the deer are hiding on our place instead of coming to their feeders. Probably true, but not my problem. This is my home. This is their home. Hunters are merely seasonal visitors.

     That said, some of the visiting hunters have become our friends, like Fred and Brian. These guys have a hunting camp along the mile long dirt road that is in essence, our main driveway because we are the only people who actually live here. Fred and Brian enjoy watching the wildlife too, and pretty much just hunt hogs. That's why what happened Friday night was so surprising.

     Friday night marked the beginning of the exodus. Hunters from the city flocked to the country. Beer and bows at the ready. Other Half and I were on our way back from town that evening when we drove past Fred's empty camp. To my knowledge, Fred isn't a bowhunter, so it didn't surprise me that he didn't come up this weekend. It wasn't dark yet, but was getting there fast. As we crunched down the road, the most unlikely sight came into focus.

     "Stop! Stop the truck! Back up."

     There.

     What. The. Hell?

     Standing in the middle of Fred's camp was a big buck. A perfect buck. He was standing broadside, but staring at us. Big as Dallas.

     We stared at him.

     He stared at us.

     The windows were down so the deer could clearly hear our whispered conversation.

     "What the hell?"

     "Look at him!"

     "Wait. He's not moving. Is he even real?"

     So thus began the discussion. Other Half honked the horn. The buck didn't move. Honked again. We called to him.

     "Hey buddy! You better hide. There are bowhunters just down the road."

     The buck didn't move.

     We sat in the truck for a good 3 minutes talking to a very realistic plastic shooting target. Oh my! We finally laughed at ourselves and drove off. What kind of goofy city slickers think a shooting target is a real deer? On the day before Bow Season opens? What idiot falls for that?

     We did. Color me embarrassed.  In our defense, we drive the road every day and never see shooting dummies at that camp. Oh well. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and accept that you're an idiot.

     The next morning we headed to town again. The sun was high in the sky.

    "Wait! Back up!"

     "Holy. Shit."

     The shooting dummy was gone.

     Apparently the only dummies on the road Friday night were the two dummies honking and talking to the big buck grazing in an empty hunting camp. The joke was on us, and the bowhunters down the road who wondered where the deer were hiding. As Other Half and I drove away from Fred's camp that morning, a beautiful little doe stepped into the dappled sunlight. She saw us staring at her and froze. Then she bounded back into the forest. We drove on to town. The hunters down the road reported that they didn't see any deer.

     I trotted out today with my camera to take some updated pictures for Wyatt's breeder's, Scott & Teresa McDonald. (Names included because each time people see the little fart I get multiple requests of "WHERE did you get that pup?!" and they should get all the credit for the little beast.

Yes, this is the same little pup who took the adorable boot rack series of pictures.

He's roughly 6 months old now, so he's all legs and his ears haven't decided what they want to do yet. Normally I wouldn't do a whole blog documenting one photo shoot but as a dog handler, this series of photos was so priceless that I had to share them not only with his breeders, but with The Sheep Goddess, his herding dog trainer who will be meeting him in a few weeks.

So off to the garden I went with a camera and a puppy. I put him on a down stay and proceeded to snap away.  It didn't take long before he was bored with this new game.

Very bored.

Then through the lens, I saw a spark. Some new addition to the game was showing promise.

And just like that, a Photobomb walked right into my photo shoot.

Pavarotti strolled into the frame with practiced nonchalance.

I snapped away. As the cat left, the look Wyatt shot me was priceless.

"I'm still on my down. See?"

Yes, yes, he was still on his down. I laughed out loud at his expression and was glad the camera caught it because a few weeks from now, when I am walking through the pasture with knee-knocker sheep and a rambunctious 6 month old pup, Joy, the Sheep Goddess, will wonder if he has any obedience training at all. He does. Well, as much as any 6 month old  Border Collie can.

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.