Things started out most normal today. As normal as we get anyway. Before heading out to feed the mass of dogs we stopped of at MeMo's. MeMo has a couple of long haired hippie cows from our herd as well as a few others he purchased last fall. MeMo also has three donkeys and a zebra. This morning the vet was out at his place, trying to vaccinate the whole lot of them. The vet is awesome, the same vet we use. She's about 5'4" and weighs a buck ten at most. She has no issue having little rodeos when attempting to doctor animals. She only asks that we do have them penned up or easily accessible when she arrives. Seems like a normal request to me. Well, I'm guessing MeMo either didn't know about this rule or thought that it would be no big deal. So many people think Dr. Hill is a genie and when she arrives and snaps her fingers the animals just line up. This is not the case. She pulled into the drive and all of the animals were roaming a thirty acre pasture. MeMo gets them into a smaller area, about 3 acres. MeMo acts as if 3 arces is small. He says to the vet, "I'll got get Loki (zebra) and you can give him his shots." So off goes MeMo with his scraggly pony tail whipping about and captures the zebra. After making verbal promises to him and coaxing him with cookies. (Real Cookies, Chips Ahoy) Loki reluctantly makes his way toward the vet. MeMo and the striped fool stand in front of the vet, MeMo says, "Okay, stick him." The vet looks at MeMo and then looks over at Shelly and says, "Is he serious?" Okay, I exaggerate a little! The zebra is a wild animal so he's a little tricky. MeMo has a great relationship with him, they love each other. However, the amount of love in the air didn't make a difference when the vet came over with the needles. Poor Loki ended up getting smushed between two fence panels with his head tied to the ground. One of the donkeys got held down by MeMo, Victor and the Shel too! I didn't do much. I spent most of the time chatting with the vet about the Highlands, making bets with her as to when MeMo's cows would calve. I also walked around and felt up Lucy (Higland) and admired her wide load. MeMo and Jane's house is always fun! After that we headed out to feed dogs. Choring dogs lately has been interesting. I have to give supplements to a bunch of girls in the puppy kennel and six dogs in the big kennel. Generally it takes a minute or two to feed sixty dogs. When I have to measure out powders and push pills it takes longer. Thanks to our wacky weather I haven't had to break ice much so in the end it evens out I guess. Today Shelly and I had to walk a couple of fence lines as Azul (a blue dog) escaped last evening and terrorized one of two roosters. The rooster is fine today, missing a few feathers but he still runs after me. I had a talk with Azul and recommended the next time she either take him out or do a better job at correcting his Bx. I hate birds. After feeding dogs we unloaded the boss's van and fixed some garden beds. No big whoop. We didn't return to Rolling Thunder until after noon which just messed things up for me. I'm not a "stick to the schedule or else" kind of girl but I do like some organization. We return and eat some vittles, leftover egg salad from yesterday and then head down to the barn to do the rest of the chores. Everything went pretty swimmingly at first. After feeding the goats and sheep in the barn I headed over to feed Stern (Fjord), he's in the pasture behind the outdoor arena. I usually have a truck in which to haul hay but today we are tooling around in the Suburban. TomTruck is in the shop, getting stuff fixed that should have been fixed a month ago by the other guy, but that doesn't matter. So instead of taking a small bale of hay over, I decided I will just steal a big flake from the big bale that Shelly put in the goat's pasture yesterday. In theory its a great idea, just a hop over the fence, throw some hay over the fence and I'm done! Well it didn't work, not as I had planned anyway. I have the goats separated right now, girls from boys. The pasture I was stealing hay from WAS the boy's pasture. It was yesterday anyway. As I'm sawing off a flake of hay I look up and notice this goat running toward me. I think nothing of it, put my head back down and continue trying to free the flake from the bale. Then it hits me...SHE shouldn't be in this pasture. I look up again, in time for this Boer doe to hit me square in the side and knock the wind out of me. As I'm gathering my breath and my thoughts she's leaning over and flapping her lips in my face. I'm still dumbfounded that she's in the wrong place. I get things collected and look around. I notice that the Boer is in with the llamas and the wethers (fixed boys) but the bucks (intact boys) are in the next pasture with the geriatric sheep, donkeys and the other does. UGH! No matter, I'll feed Stern and then return goats to the proper pastures. I have finally gotten what hay I wanted and I walk about five steps to the fence to throw it to Stern. As I get the hay in the air the Boer doe slams me again. What the heck? I have not had this goat long, about a week and a half now. It seems that most people that know us in Teller County have this strange idea that we run a rescue. So this Boer goat, Bandit (but I always call her Bridget) was an older woman's pet goat. The woman picked her up as a kid at an auction about three years ago. According to the woman, the goat was SOOOO CUTE! It was a baby. I have yet to see any kind of baby that is not SOOOO CUTE!, maybe a baby kangaroo is not so cute but if I saw one FO REAL I might change my mind. Anyway, the woman is on oxygen and the kid goat has grown to 250 pounds with no other goats to be around. Apparently for the last couple of months, whenever the woman tried to leave her house the goat got cranky and pushed her down. After having her Os knocked offer her face a couple of times and getting a nice shiner the woman's family said NO MORE GOAT! So now I have a new goat. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her yet. I kept her up in the barn for a couple of days to make sure she wasn't going to give my herd any cooties and then turned her out in the pasture with the does. I have no idea who decided to change up living arrangements without consulting me first. It's not a huge problem but has set my pseudo schedule back even more. I get goats flipped around again, got knocked around by Bridget/Bandit a couple of more times and run off to change water. By the time I get back Bridget/Bandit is with the llamas and the wethers and two of three bucks are back in with the geriatrics. As I stand scratching my head, Smokey my youngest, most handsome buck sails over the fence to join the does and the moldy oldy sheep. I can understand Smokey jumping over the fence and I can imagine the other bucks climbing over but what I can't fathom is that 250 pound furry Boer climbing or jumping over a fence! I have no idea how she got back over. I walked the fence line to make sure I didn't have a hole somewhere..No Holes. At this point I decided to leave them as they are. I finish watering, give my donkeys their peppermints and return to the barn to get feed for the chickens. Shelly tells me that she's done watering on her side and tootles on down to the coop with me. As we are ducking through hotwire she notices this big white egg out in the open yard of the coop. "Holy cow," she says. "Who laid that?" I tell her it was probably the duck. She disagrees. I ask her how many of our chickens lay white eggs and even if they did who would lay one that big? So concedes that it was probably the duck. She wonders what we are going to do with it. I tell her to have it for breakfast. She decides that Jolene wants the duck to lay eggs. Humpf..I think the duck decided to lay the egg not Jolene. Anyway I suggest we get Gizmo's (Duck) barrel and set it inside the coop and see if she will lay more. Shelly agrees and off we go to the house for Gizmo's barrel. The ducks use to be in an area behind our house between the dog yards. Since we had the late night visit from the kitty, the two uninjured ducks went to vacation down with the chickens and Goosey (another duck) is still in the house recovering from her experience. Gizmo has a black metal barrel with straw that she likes to nest in. As Shelly is running in the daily collection of chicken eggs I throw a bale of straw in Gizmo's barrel and load the barrel into the plow truck. We head back down to the coop. Now...as I said today was pretty normal, for us. I don't usually get knocked around by my goats, nor does Shelly have to smush a zebra. Things happen though so I have come to expect them and I don't get too wound up about it. However, somethings just set me off and even though my pseudo schedule was messed up we were nearing the end of chores and I was in a pretty good mood. Until...I climb down from the back of the truck, unloading the barrel and straw. I put the goods on the ground and stand up. As I stand up my only pair of really comfortable, worn in all the right places, Wrangler Jeans rip! Shelly, of course laughs! I lost my other pair of really comfortable, worn in all the right places Wrangler Jeans trying to help doctor her ram. This was my last pair, no more, closet is empty of good work jeans! I was able to wear the other pair a couple more times, who looks at my crotch anyway? This pair ripped right in front by the fly, big as life! I think I will just refuse to do chores until I get a new pair!
My best jeans are no more!
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