no camera available
☆ June 2, 2010
Sometimes I don’t have a camera & I just try to memorize the moment:
Pulling into the driveway and seeing Daisy standing over Frisco, Frisco lying in the grass suckling her teat. Drinking from Daisy whilst lying down. Yeesh.
Charlie going absolutely nuts for the fringe surrounding a hole in the knee of Mike’s jeans. Obsessive nibbling. It looked like it tickled.
Frisco falling asleep with his head on my chest (drooling on my shirt, even) as I lay against his chest. If Escher did farm scenes, this would be it.
The smell of marjoram.
What didn’t you take a picture of today?
Sir Baby Becomes A Man
☆ June 1, 2010
On Sunday, we put Sir Baby in a gorgeous pasture filled with lush, knee-high grass. Bushy alfalfa. Two huge shade trees. Fresh flowing water. And twenty plump, eager virgins. It’s time for Baby to earn his keep!
Sir Baby trotted through the gate. He stopped for a breath as the heifers surrounded him. Then he ran.
And the girls took off after him.
And when he stopped, the herd of heifers surrounded him once again.
(that’s Sir Baby in the foreground, and a hussy in the back riding another heifer)
And so he ran across the pasture,
and they chased him that way, too.
They want him bad.
My Baby has a lot to learn. And a lot to do.
☆ May 31, 2010
my new favorite place to write
is in my cast iron tub
under the leaves
under the sunset
under the moon and stars
submerged in heat
feeling the breeze above the waterline
lavender wisps in the mist
melting, smiling,
after days of digging
digging
shoveling
raking
pounding
carrying
loading rocks
and
unloading rocks
and
moving rocks
and
moving them again….
(a fantastic project I soon shall share!)
but right now the heat
the breeze
I melt.
Boy + Toy
☆ May 30, 2010
Ricardo’s Story
☆ May 27, 2010
When I met Mike, he had five geese who lived at the corrals. They were known simply as “The Geese.” They would go on walkabouts, and bathe in puddles, and terrorize me. But, one by one, they got killed off. One was killed by a neighbors’ dog. Two were hit by cars. Another died mysteriously in the corrals, and we don’t really know the cause. For the past two years, there has been only one goose. That goose is Ricardo.
After all his geese-mates were killed, Ricardo adopted a cow. Cow 234. The “2” which begins her tag number represents the last digit of the year she was born. For most ranchers, a cow whose number starts with 2 is a cow that was born in 2002, and is eight years old. But Mike keeps all his cows until they die of old age and Cow 234 was born in 1992. She’s 18. She be old. Spry and full of vigor, to be sure, but she is old enough to warrant special care, and she is one of Mike’s Special Project cows who do not take the long walks to spring, summer, and fall pastures. She, along with a select few, travel just 1/4 mile down the road to the fields Mike leases for his Special Project cows ~ the injured and the old.
So. Two winters ago, Ricardo adopted Cow 234 and they became mates (in the Australian sense of the word). That spring, Mike and I slowly trailed the Special Project cows to the nearby fields. As we began our short journey down the road, we heard frantic honking, and, lo and behold, there was Ricardo waddling down the dirt road, trying to catch up to his cow.
Mike scooped him up and carried Ricardo on his lap to the new pasture, where he spent summer and fall with the Special Project cows. The families who lived around the fields were delighted by Ricardo, beau of the bovines. He became the talk of the neighborhood. Soon, the Special Project bunch had been renamed the Goose Group.
When all the cows come home for the winter, the Goose Group cows stay in the corrals along with Daisy and Frisco, near Sir Baby, Houdini, and Sunshine. Here, from left to right, is Frisco, Cow 234’s calf, Ricardo, Cow 234, and a cow recovering from a broken hip:
Ricardo is recently named. This winter, while I was spending so much time at the corrals waiting for Daisy to calve, I decided “the goose” was no longer an appropriate moniker for this force of personality. He needed and deserved a name. And it was Ricardo.
Ricardo immediately grew fond (and possessive) of Sir Baby and Frisco; if I dare interrupt while Ricardo is with one of the two of them, I get quite the earful. And threatened with pecks.
Ricardo and Daisy have little to do with eachother. She tried to roll him twice (she does not like small animals and has tried to take Eli as well) but now she ignores him, and he ignores her. He gets plenty of love from the black bovines, and he loves them right back.
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