Lazy Sunday

Things on the ole rancho have been a bit crazy the last couple of months. Several of the sheep have come down with Pink EYE--Chlamydia. Shelly has been treating with shots and eye ointment almost non-stop. The aisle way of the barn a mess. Sheep come in, sheep go out. Hay and poop stay in. Since Brother Dutch as been helping Shelly with dog chores and other chores I have had a bit of a vacation. I've been busy looking for funding for 4 Mile ES, playing on the computer and now playing with my new camera. The Shelly and I had a monumental anniversary on the 5th. Okay, maybe it wasn't monumental to some but it was to me. Can't believe that she's hung around me this long. She gave me a new camera for our special day and I've been playing with it ever since. Here are a few pictures of what I see everyday.

Clover
She has a permanent position at the hay bale.



Snow
I think he envisions himself as a Budweiser Clydesdale.
I just don't have the heart to break it to him that he's not.



One of the chickens.



Prize Horse was hoping for a treat.

Made it through another Spookfest

Dirty Ashtray--YUM!

Well, we did it. We made it through again with awesome costumes, awesome food and a fantastic family. I think next year we will dress up the dogs and maybe a horse or two!

My little Plastic Army Man!


Shelly and I as Big Ole Boobs!

We also ate the traditional, Kitty Litter cake and the ooeey gooey brain too! Jolene was a hit at her school party. I miss seeing homemade costumes. I was upset as a kid that my mother wouldn't buy me a store bought costume and I swore I would never do that to my kid. And look her I am, forcing her to paint her face with wall paint and pose at doorsteps with her eyes closed because plastic toy soldiers don't have white eyes! Thankfully she enjoys it as much as I do...or she's doing a really good job at acting like she does!

Kitty Litter Cake

Halloween is a comin'

We've been busy her on the ranch. Well the wife has been busy, me not so much. I've been on vacation from ranch duties since Brother Dutch has been here. I've slept in on some days, worked at Evergreen on some days, went to the fire station on others. It's been pretty awesome. Shelly has had to deal with Chlamydia in the sheep, broken fences, and moving the long haired hippie cattle. I've spent a lot of time thinking about and putting off the Bean's Halloween costume. She's decided to dress as a plastic army soldier this year. I tried to get her to be a yellow plastic Indian or a red plastic cowboy but she just wouldn't hear of it. I try to remember that she's the kid and I should let her have her way once in awhile. I love Halloween. I've only come to love it in my adulthood, more importantly my mommyhood. All I wanted when I was young was a store bought plastic costume. My mother wouldn't have it. All my costumes were made and I can only remember picking the subject once or twice. I vowed that I would never do that to my kid. Oh well, some vows get broken. I let her pick some things. Luckily the Bean and I have similar personalities. A couple of years ago she approached me with her costume idea of a cattle guard. I initially thought of a the ugly metal thing that keeps the cows in. Not what she had in mind. She wanted me to dress her up as a guard,

like in prison but add some touches like horns and an udder. I've got a funny kid. She comes up with great costumes and she doesn't beg me for a store bought one. This year is going to be great. We've got gooey, gross treats all lined up for the class party. She sat on the living room floor the other night and carved her pumpkin. She got Shelly to print off a pattern of an alien, and she scooped and cut it out. The dogs hung around watching her work. I snapped a picture here and there. I'm into Halloween but not so much into the pumpkin thing. She asked me to take her picture next to her work of art. So, today


as I'm watching Shelly scrape off what was left of the snow on the deck, I see Jane, running amok about her feet. Jane suddenly spots the pumpkin, stops and eats on the alien face that Bean worked so hard to carve. Goats love pumpkin. Now Bean's poor pumpkin has a big gaping hole where the alien once was.

Stretching OUT!

What a day! I'm sure that we have all said that a time or two. Today hasn't been that eventful. At least not for me. I started my day by taking a long shower, cooking and eating cinnamon rolls, and talking to the Hound. Shelly on the other hand, got up early and fed the 50 plus dogs at the boss's house. Upon her return she and her new hired hand (Brother Dutch) zipped down to the barn to finish the daily chores which include feeding, watering of the new 90 or so sheep. Last week when Brother Dutch, was gone on vacation to sunny Florida last week, I helped with chores. I don't mind helping with chores, sometimes it's the only time Shelly and I have to spend with each other. I just don't like when I'm expected to do it, but that's a whole other rant. As I was feeding some of the stinky sheep, I noticed that a few had runny noses and cloudy eyes. I made mention to "Ranch Manager" Shelly of the symptoms. Shelly decided that we should treat with antibiotics in the water. So we poured the neon green goop in the water trough and that was that. Well today she rushes back up to the house and with a frantic, foaming at the mouth like attitude she tells me that the sheep are sick. Huh..(I use HUH a lot in response to a lot--just a sidebar) Shelly decides that the doc needs to come out, AGAIN. She just visited Phoenix yesterday to give rabies shots to dogs, and the day before to squeeze the puss out of an abscess on a boarder's horse. She seems to be here a lot lately. The Doc rearranges her schedule to come out and check out the woolly beasts. I am asked several times if I would like to come down to the barn and check things out. I decline. Asking me if I want to check out sick sheep is code for, "Wanna come rip your fingernails off in wool?" or "Wanna come down so we can get into a knock down drag out fight because I (Shelly) can't communicate?" So I'm sure any sane being would have made the same choice as I. Since the Boss is in the Springs, cruising around in her super cool Astro Van that smells like petrified dog poop and Twinkies that have been stored in old sweat socks, Shelly was left to try and separate a flock of sheep, sick from not so sick. Shelly does not have any of that "Border Collie Sense" in her "Ranch Manager" body. It's kind of funny when she tries to herd the flock of dog broke sheep. All it takes is a shake of a grain bucket and they will do anything that you want. Problem is, we've 90 or so new sheep that aren't dog broke or bucket broke. They pretty much give you the finger and tell you to F*$@ off in a BaaBaa dialect. Shelly does her best but only manages to get the dog broke sheep up into the catch pens. She, Brother Dutch and the Doc get started checking out symptoms. The Doc decides that the sheep have clamidia. That's right...Clamidia, or Chlamydia, you pick the spelling you prefer. The same STD that your health teacher warned you about. I'm racking my feeble brain trying to figure out who came to visit and stole away to infect my sheep when I wasn't looking. Apparently Chlamydia in sheep isn't quite the same as it is in humans. Well, it is still transmitted sexually or at least it can be. So Shelly has to sheep with symptoms away from the sheep with no symptoms, without the aid of a dog. When she has the sick sheep separated; she has to flop the poor things on their bum, slap some ointment on their eyes, put them back on all fours, listen to their lungs, and then get intimate with them to get a temperature. She only has to do this about 40 times, pretty easy day. Not me, as Shelly is down sticking thermometers up butts, I'm here in my chair. I'm trying to decide which program on television to watch. The one that takes John's side or the one on Kate's side. Who gave those people a license to have children? I wonder which one would be better at treating sheep with Chlamydia? Lots of things go through my head. I make a mental note to have Shelly wash thoroughly when she returns, I certainly don't need Chlamydia no matter what strain it is. I think about what I'm going to wear to the Salida High School Homecoming game on Friday night. I rid the wardrobe of purple a long time ago. I have a momentary flash of spraying a sweatshirt with the bandage stuff that we put on Hound's head when Izzy bit her last but decided just as quickly that it probably wouldn't work. In the end a purple spray bandage sweatshirt would just be stupid, not crafty. I decided to flip through channels and catch Will Ferrell licking white dog poo, which made me decide to flip the channel again quickly. I would have done so except my chair is not aligned so that the beamer works efficiently. So I get a flare of red and cuss at the remote, beat it on the arm of my chair until it moves to the next channel. My little tirade wakes up Hound dog who struggles to get up from her bed at the foot of my chair. As she gets to her feet she farts. Hound's gas problems are legendary, at least here in our home they are. The smell distracts me from channel surfing. I escape from my chair for a moment, if only to escape from the smell and refill my glass with tea. I return to my chair in time for the phone to ring. It's the Boss. She's wondering how everything is coming along down at the barn. I lie, as if I really know, and tell her it's great. I return to my chair, my computer, my T.V. and my glass of tea. Hound comes by and lays her flappy lipped head on my lap, grunts and decides to return to her bed. When she removes her head I notice a slobber spot. I'm up again to clean up Bloodhound saliva. As I'm cleaning up the spit, Shelly booms in the door. She's limping and is very dusty. I ask if she needs to go to the ER, she declines my offer of treatment. Shelly says that they have gotten all the sheep separated but it has become too dark to slap temperature indicators up bums so they have put off all other treatments until the morning. Then she asks what I have cooked for dinner. Humpf...the nerve, doesn't she know what kind of day I had?

Llama Wrestling

A couple of weeks ago the woman and I were in the feed store. Nothing interesting about that, it usually happens at least once a week, sometimes more depending on the flow of estrogen around the ranch. I can't even remember what we were shopping for, doesn't matter really. What matters is that my wife is a complete push over when it comes to animals. A couple of years ago we wanted to start a large animal rescue, it didn't work out but by the looks of the ranch one would never know. Some months ago we came home to find a new goat in one of the runs. Some lady, who knows some lady, who knows the Cripple Creek Medical Chief who knows the 4 Mile Medical Chief, said to some other person that we would be happy to adopt it. We got the HOUND DOG in the same way. Hound climbed into the Professor JoDee's truck, JoDee told Shelly to see if she could find the owner and here we are a year later happily adjusting to Bloodhound farts at 2 a.m. Life is good! At any rate, as I said we were in the feed store. Turns out that DC needed to find homes for two of his llamas as he was selling his house and moving. Llamas don't rank in my top ten favorite animals. I don't completely dislike them, they are just "there." We already had four llamas that do an outstanding job of guarding goats and sheep. They are low maintenance, poop in "llama bathrooms", and don't spit very often. Three of them are girls and one is an intact male that was born here at the ranch. The male, named Q-Tip is a huge ball of fiber that lives across the street at the in-laws and roams 70 acres with Buster the Donkey. Shelly has been mentioning for too long that she would like to get Q-Tip a girlfriend. I just don't see the point. We don't need more llamas and just because we have a boy with jewels doesn't mean that we need wee ones. So, when she would mention something, I would do my best to ignore it. If Q-Tip really needed a woman we have a couple, we would just need to bring them together. Handling our llamas is not exactly easy. They are halter broke, and will eat out of your hand and once in awhile they will let you touch them. Like I said, they are just there. Last fall we decided that we had better get them vaccinated and dewormed. We managed to get two out of four stuck! Spot was easy and I had hoped that Oreo and Mama Llama would be the same but I was mistaken. Oreo has personality, she hums at me when I pass her pasture, she chews on my shirt sleeves and has bushy old man eyebrows. When it comes to leading her to the vet, she turns into a seizure on the end of a lead line. I managed to get her head tied to a post thinking that if I immobilize her she will be easier to handle. Instead of throwing her head around, she kicked me in the thighs. The vet lovingly refers to it as a "little rodeo." So, I really didn't want new llamas. DC however saw Shelly walking in and knew that he had a new home for his girls. Despite my protests Shelly made arrangements to bring them home. DC offered to transport them from his house to ours but said he might need help getting them in the trailer. I have learned that if someone needs help loading their own animals it is best to just stay home. No good will come of it. Then again we aren't really talking about me. Shelly jubilantly says that "we" will be over after chores one morning. So after chores one morning we take a very scenic route to DC's house. His llamas, Cinnamon and Tierra are in a small pasture with a catch pen in one corner. Shelly is quick to point out that there is a catch pen so it shouldn't be too bad. We drive up and retrieve DC from his workshop. DC says that he hasn't really worked with them since he got them THREE YEARS AGO! BUT....he thinks that we will be able to halter them with no problems. DC kills the zap on the fence and darts in the catch pen with a handful of grain. Both llamas follow him in and he quickly secures the gate. When Tierra heard the click of the gate she spazzes out. She's darting from corner to corner, kicking grain, and trying to climb the fence. Llamas don't normally climb the fence but her funky black toes were three squares from the top hot wire and she was towering over Shelly. DC finds some halters and leads and when Tierra sees them the spazzing is upgraded to a full on psychotic fit, complete with foaming. DC calmly says not to worry about her if we can get Cinnamon out, Tierra will give up and calm down. Hmmm, Okay...no problem. Cinnamon is getting irritated because Tierra is kicking around all of the grain. Shelly instructs me to stand gate guard in case they opt to jump over it. Whohoo, I'm thrilled. I'm not overjoyed about new mouths to feed and I certainly don't want to be on the end of a vile, bile filled spit bomb either. DC works out a plan with Shelly. DC is going to wrap the lead around Cinnamon and trap her in a corner, Shelly is to then simply slide the halter on and clip it. Simple and effective? Nope! DC gets the lead around the neck of the gangly beast. Cinnamon starts whipping her head from side to side, whipping DC around with her. DC instructs Shelly to help in get her in a corner. As the two of them are being shaken about, Cinnamon decides to abruptly sit down and folds her legs underneath of her. DC gets thrown over the back of the llama and is now wedged between Shelly and a mass of fiber. He looks puzzled but shakes it off and attempts to right himself on the opposite side again. Cinnamon then bounds up from her down position and again whips her head from side to side. DC is still pinned between the llama and Shelly. The entire time DC and Shelly are contending with Cinnamon, Tierra continues to pace between the corners of the pen, climbing up the fence each time. A couple of times the two llamas collide and ears are thrown back in the familiar, "get the heck out of my space or I'll spit" stance. Dust is flying, grain is tossed and DC and Shelly have been molded into one. Somehow they get Cinnamon smushed into a corner and Shelly attempts to slide the halter on. DC is still wedged in between her and the llama. Each time Shelly gets the halter near Cinnamon's nose she flips her head to the other side. Shelly attempts to hold the llama's head but DC's girth prevents her from getting a grip. I offer, not very loudly but still I offer, to help out. My offer is declined. At this point I'm trying very hard not to laugh out loud. My abs are hurting from holding it in. I motion to Jolene and tell her to get the camera from the truck. I can't believe I have been muffling my giggles for this long and haven't even thought of getting pictures. Cinnamon continues the bob and weave for several more minutes until Shelly has decided that she has had enough. Shelly grabs the llamas head, pulls the neck down toward her pinning the head between her forearm and bicep. Like a wrestler executing a headlock. DC's cries became muffled for a second or two and the halter was placed on the llama. One down. DC instructs Shelly to clip the lead on and then let Cinnamon go until we can get Tierra. Shelly gives him a look, Gary Coleman style-->"Whatcha you talking about?" and reluctantly lets the lead go. Cinnamon drags the line over to a couple of kernels of corn that have somehow remained untouched during the match. Tierra is still darting back and forth across the small pen. I ask again if I can help and Shelly enthusiastically accepts this time. Jolene has returned from the truck with camera in hand and offers to gate guard in my place. I climb over the gate and ready myself for round two. DC picks up his lead line and hands me the halter. He says again that Tierra will eventually give up. Eventually? I'm not a stickler for specifics but "Eventually" is just a bit too broad for me. DC instructs Shelly and I to use the same tactic on Tierra that was used on Cinnamon. Hmmm.....? Exactly what that was I am unsure. DC does get Tierra to calm down and quit darting around by humming and talking to her. For a second I think that this might not be so bad. I was wrong. I've been wrong a lot lately. As soon as he flops the lead on her back, Tierra returns to her diagonal laps across the pen. She again collides with Cinnamon and ears are thrown again. DC chases her back and forth and halfway up the fence with the lead but manages to get it round her neck. He gasps instructions to get her in a corner and Shelly and I commence to smushing the llama against the corner post. Instead of sticking in the corner Tierra kind of oozes along the fence line, and soon we are in another corner. She continues oozing along, dragging us with her as she goes. DC is telling me to slip the halter on her, and I'm trying. Tierra does a bit of a bob and weave like Cinnamon, except instead of side to side it is more of an up and down motion. We have now oozed around the entire pen and are back in the initial corner. Jolene is giggling, taking pictures and cheering. Between chuckles she yells at me to pretend that the llama is an ostrich. What a smart kiddo I have. I'm thankful that Jolene and I like to watch Dirty Jobs, as recently we saw an episode on an Ostrich ranch in which the birds were blinded with a sock of sorts in order to get them on a trailer. I'm not gonna blind the bouncing llama but I decide to take Jolene's suggestion. I slip the halter over my left hand, letting it dangle in the crook of my elbow. I then grab the nose of the llama with my left hand and use my right hand to pull the halter over the face of the oozing mass of fiber. I managed to get the halter on, and after a few bounces get it hooked to the lead. I throw up my hands as if I'm a champion goat tying rodeo queen and collapse into the dust. DC lets go of his end of the lead and bends over hands on knees and sucks up some dirty air. Shelly slides down the corner post and sighs with exhaustion. Jolene is sitting a top the gate, congratulating us. Both llamas are haltered with leads but Tierra continues to do her diagonal laps. After a few seconds of recovery we decided to "Git er Done" and grab for lead lines. Amazingly once the leads were in hand the girls settled down. DC reminds us again that Tierra gives up. Gives up after it's all in place! Jolene opens the gate and we lead the llamas around to the trailer, slap them in and head down the road. The rest was pretty uneventful. The girls were offloaded in Q-Tips pasture and introductions were made. I check on them every day from my front porch. Shelly asks each day if I have seen any love connections, to which I reply, "I don't give a Poo!" I can't remember what the gestation period of a llama is but I will find out and I will be away from the ranch around then. It ended okay, I didn't get a face full of llama spit, Jolene got a good laugh, and Shelly got two more animals. I think I'm gonna design a neato "Champion Llama Wrestler" belt for her to wear with her Wranglers.


*****On August 5, 2009 DC (David Carr) died of a heart attack. Dave owned Divide Feed with his wife Marina. Shelly and I spent a few dollars there from time to time. I dedicate my "Champion Llama Wrestling" title to Dave...where ever he may be.******

Same stuff, different animal.

Sometime last week, both Shel and I became blind or just didn't care enough to realize that we had another baby. Belle one of the new red girls, calved a pretty little girl. Finally another girl. Belle is being a good mommy and the fold is helping out with babysitting. Everyone is back together again since Mickey can't seems to stay in one place. We picked up a couple of new does from a lady in Rye. They are in milk but are first fresheners so they aren't producing a bunch. I really miss my Opal goat. We've been making lots of verbal plans for a new chicken coop and a new goat shed. I ordered 80 roaster chickens about two weeks ago. They dude at the feed store told me that the hatchery is about 4-6 weeks behind. I ordered them with this in mind. The feed store called last night to tell me that my chickens were in. SO...now the barn has duckies, chickies and more chickies. The coop is not built yet either. Oh well.

Along with all the new babies around the ranch my sister-friend Kelly and her husband John had their first baby on May 6, 2009. A beautiful lad named Cooper William Jackson. I was honored to spend a little time with mom and baby on Thursday afternoon. Since the loss of my blood family (which I'm not mourning too much) I am elated to welcome a nephew. Jano, is expecting in October as well. I can't wait to spoil them both with all the things the aunts did for the Bean against my protests. Over all, life is awesome...Life is good.

Another one.

I'm doing well on predicting babies even though we had no idea when the girls had their last encounter with the bull. This morning, early Daisy calved a red headed boy. Another boy! Mickey, Skye's baby from last year has been busy exploring the ranch, breaking down fences in his path. Adolescents males have always been my nemesis, human or otherwise. The little woman is finally done with EMT-I school so maybe I will have a minutes rest, I'm not going to count on it though. Ducks arrived on Friday as well. They aren't ours, I'm just being a surrogate of sorts. One of the gals that practices herding out her requested some ducks. So, the boss told her that I would be happy to rear them until they are old enough to run away from her horrid dogs. Now my tack room is filled with duckies and chickies. Sheesh!