So yesterday about two in the afternoon, CM looks at me and says "Hey honey, lets go fishing!"
Sounded good to me, so we started gathering things, and as we gathered the discussion turned into "Lets go camping!"
Now, normally, I'm a pretty good camper. I've got my personal camping routine down, I can load the car and be on my way in about an hour... if I'm at the old homestead.
Since I wasn't, it was a bit more challenging. Find tent, got sleeping bags, changes of clothes for the kids and the adults, food, stop by Wally World to renew the fishing licenses and oh we need buns and chips and worms and OH! S'mores ingredients!
Get out of Walmart after eighty bucks worth of "oh, yeah" and get headed to the lake.
We went to John Martin Resevoir... well technically we went to Hasty Lake which is on the other side of the dam from the resevoir. Let the kids swim for a while... oh crap, we forgot towels.
Back to the campsite for some supper, after buying firewood from the parks service at six bucks a bundle, then let the fire die and go fishing just at dusk. That was fun, we had Eldest Daughter's friend with us and she'd never fished in her life... she was the only one to land a fish, a nice sized crappie.
I had a honkin big fish, easily two feet long... and he broke my line right at the edge of the water. Bastard.
So we went back to camp and made s'mores and roasted hotdogs, the kids told scary stories ("Once upon a time, there was a big sized monster and an itty bitty baby living in a house. The monster ate the baby. Amen" - Youngest Child) and went to bed.
Whoops, forgot pillows. I used CM, he used my hoodie, and the Middle Child used my feet. Did I mention it was a little tent?
Well long about midnight Eldest Child's friend got to wanting to go home. This has become a pattern, and CM and I agree that it's pretty useless to invite her to stay over any more. She gets upset in the middle of the night and has to be taken home. Last night her mother had to drive for thirty minutes to come get her.
If Eldest Child somehow convinces CM to let that friend stay the night again, I'm dosing her food with sleeping pills.
Well, once her friend was gone, Eldest Child didn't want to sleep outside the tent alone. She tried the back seat of the car, and that didn't work for her. So, three kids and two adults wound up in a tent that, honestly, is only comfortable for two people.
And Eldest Child kicks in her sleep, as I learned the hard way. Right in the face.
So yeah, it was a long night.
Next time I'm home, I'm kyping our tent, and the rest of my camping gear. I'll find somewhere to stash them.
That way, I can put the air mattress in the big tent and be comfortable, and use the little tent for the children. Little ones tent, big people tent. That way I don't get booted in the face at four in the morning. (And react badly, leading to me nearly beating the crap out of CM because he was the one holding on to me....)
And next time we go camping, (and I love camping, so we will be going again) we'll be better prepared, because I'll just rework my emergency camping kit for four people instead of one. All we'll absolutely have to remember will be the food, and clothes.
Now, I have to go shower, and then take a looong nap.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Talk About A Hook...
I was at Wal-Mart today and in the treating myself mood. Give me a break, I'm menstrual, and I wanted a new pair of pajamas.
So, as I can rarely resist I took a swing through the book aisle, and they'd got a new shipment in. Perusing the covers for one that looked like a book I'd read (step 1 in the Farmgirl Buys A Book Guide to Literary Addiction) my eye caught on one that isn't really my usual style, a street scene with a dark motif.
The title was The Man with the Golden Torc, by Simon R. Green. I was just barely intrigued enough to pick it up and read the back.
The back copy was iffy.
They say, in writing, you have to have a kick ass first page. When submitting to agents, or publishing houses, you have to capture their attention in a few pages, or they'll just toss off a form rejection and call it a day. Every writing guide I've ever seen (that I was sure wasn't a joke) has instructed me to make my first page pop.
Simon R. Green has mastered this concept. I flipped the book open to take a peek at the writing to see if I wanted to give it a chance, and with just a skim down the first page of the first chapter, I knew I had to own this book.
On the first page an unnamed political figure ("Lets call him Mr. President, and no, not the one you're thinking of,") has contracted a supernatural venereal disease during a goodwill tour of Thailand, subsequently becoming pregnant with "something the very opposite of a love child."
If this is the first page, I can't wait to see the rest of the book.
On a related note, I now feel like my first page is a flop...
I'm off, to start reading the book. And yes, Farmmom, Farmdad, you can have it when I'm done with it...
So, as I can rarely resist I took a swing through the book aisle, and they'd got a new shipment in. Perusing the covers for one that looked like a book I'd read (step 1 in the Farmgirl Buys A Book Guide to Literary Addiction) my eye caught on one that isn't really my usual style, a street scene with a dark motif.
The title was The Man with the Golden Torc, by Simon R. Green. I was just barely intrigued enough to pick it up and read the back.
The back copy was iffy.
They say, in writing, you have to have a kick ass first page. When submitting to agents, or publishing houses, you have to capture their attention in a few pages, or they'll just toss off a form rejection and call it a day. Every writing guide I've ever seen (that I was sure wasn't a joke) has instructed me to make my first page pop.
Simon R. Green has mastered this concept. I flipped the book open to take a peek at the writing to see if I wanted to give it a chance, and with just a skim down the first page of the first chapter, I knew I had to own this book.
On the first page an unnamed political figure ("Lets call him Mr. President, and no, not the one you're thinking of,") has contracted a supernatural venereal disease during a goodwill tour of Thailand, subsequently becoming pregnant with "something the very opposite of a love child."
If this is the first page, I can't wait to see the rest of the book.
On a related note, I now feel like my first page is a flop...
I'm off, to start reading the book. And yes, Farmmom, Farmdad, you can have it when I'm done with it...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Eep.
Well, folks, it looks like I'm going to be spending my weekend nights driving in circles. Just got a txt message from my buddy asking me to be his pilot car driver on Saturday and Sunday nights.
I'm not real fond of nights, but it's a paycheck, and a good one. And, frankly, I'm gonna need that money. I need that money now, to be honest.
So, lets take a look at what it's gonna be.
Saturday. Up at six am for class at seven thirty at the barn, take care of the horse, get a little riding in maybe. Go home and sleep as much as I can. Go to work at six in the evening. Drive for twelve hours.
Sunday. Get off work at six am, go to the barn. Take care of the horse. Go home and sleep. Go to work at six pm.
Monday. Get off work at six am, catch a nap, class at the barn at ten. Get out of class at eleven thirty, catch a nap, go to Management at one, and Computerized Farm Records at two thirty. Collapse as soon as possible into a nice warm loving bed.
Tuesday-Friday. Classes all day. Start over on Saturday.
Something tells me I should scrape up the money to buy stock in energy drinks, and possibly No-Doze or caffeine pills.
Yeehaw, let the games begin.
I'm not real fond of nights, but it's a paycheck, and a good one. And, frankly, I'm gonna need that money. I need that money now, to be honest.
So, lets take a look at what it's gonna be.
Saturday. Up at six am for class at seven thirty at the barn, take care of the horse, get a little riding in maybe. Go home and sleep as much as I can. Go to work at six in the evening. Drive for twelve hours.
Sunday. Get off work at six am, go to the barn. Take care of the horse. Go home and sleep. Go to work at six pm.
Monday. Get off work at six am, catch a nap, class at the barn at ten. Get out of class at eleven thirty, catch a nap, go to Management at one, and Computerized Farm Records at two thirty. Collapse as soon as possible into a nice warm loving bed.
Tuesday-Friday. Classes all day. Start over on Saturday.
Something tells me I should scrape up the money to buy stock in energy drinks, and possibly No-Doze or caffeine pills.
Yeehaw, let the games begin.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Tennis, Anyone?
I got some interesting news while I was at the Old Homestead this weekend, about the local Sheriff and his goon squa... erm. Deputies.
Anyone who reads regularly knows that I am not anti law enforcement, far from it. I am, however, against the kind of ineptitude that has been displayed by the current Sheriff's department, mixed with a sadly mistaken over-all god complex.
I said that it would be a disaster when the King of the Idiots was elected, and I was right.
Let me put it this way, when I was a young Farmgirl, we had a city officer that had the entirely irreverent nickname of Cool Whip, because of his last name. Whether he refused to believe that he was not the coolest adult living, as far as we underagers were concerned, or he honestly thought it was a compliment, I don't know, but he took the nickname and ran with it.
To the extent of telling a group of fourteen year old girls, with a straight face, "They call me Cool Whip because I come in lots of flavors." Clueless to the point of being freaking creepy. Or just freaking creepy, take your pick, no one could ever agree on that point.
The King of the Idiots makes me miss the good ol' days with Cool Whip.
Well, there's been a steady increase in the "stupid kids" kind of theft and general mayhem in the county since the KOTI took over the helm. Pulling copper wiring out of grain trucks, abandoned houses, things like that. With the price of scrap metal these days everyone pretty much figured some youngsters with a future in numbers (on their pictures, on their shirts, on their sentences..) had figured out how to make some partying cash without actually getting a job.
When nothing happened to stop that kind of stuff, the county critters started getting restless. The last Sheriff had gotten them pretty much scared back into their holes, for the most part. No one wanted to tangle with him, and I can't blame them. I've known the man all my life and when he had his Sheriff face on he scared me. And he calls me "Button!"
Well, in more recent days, the critters have gotten entirely too bold. One little old lady left her house one morning, went to town, to the grocery store, and returned to her home thirty minutes later, to find it ransacked and missing several valuable and sentimental items.
One of the grain cooperatives had the door of it's offices ripped off, and the office denuded of anything that might be of value. They had to do business, so they replaced all the essentials and fixed the door the next day. That night, the door was again ripped off, and the replacement equipment stolen. I'm not talking about the door was kicked in, or the hinges were removed, or anything as mundane as that. Someone took a truck, attached it to the door, and then started driving. From what I hear the doorframe was pretty much missing.
So far, the Sheriff's department has solved precisely one of the multitude of these kinds of incidents, resulting in the return of approximately twenty five thousand dollars of tools, welders, and such.
Now, ask me how they solved that one.
I'm so glad you asked. The guilty parties stashed the goods at a buddy's house. Said buddy got into a fight with his woman. Said woman proceeded to rat the whole lot of them out, knowing where the items came from, where they were, and who did all the totin'.
The KOTI's method to catch the culprits for all the other thefts is to have his goon squa... er... Deputies... patrol the county roads, stopping every pickup they see, and looking in the back. If you have tools, or a welder, they ask you to prove your ownership of said items.
Not the brightest investigative plan I've ever heard, really. Frankly I think a blind, deaf monkey could run the department in a more efficient and friendly to the public manner, but then, I might be a little prejudiced against the KOTI because of my own personal history with him and his family. And the fact that he slung more mud than a monster truck rally in a monsoon during his campaign.
But I digress. In addition to this oh-so-brilliant investigative technique ("open your tool box" the officer tells Farmmom. "Kiss my butt, get a warrant," she replies) one of the goon squa... er... oh screw it. One of the goon squad has a "drug dog."
A black Lab. Not the best scent hound in the first place, and knowing the caliber of the "handler and trainer," I doubt the dog could find a pound of marijuana if you mixed it in his Alpo. Anyone who has ever been around a Lab knows that they're big, clumsy, happy-go-lucky lumps. I love the breed for a pet, but you couldn't pay me to try and train a Lab for police work. They just don't have the right kind of mindset for it, in my opinion.
Anyway, Numbah One Goon has this dog that he keeps in the truck with him and calls a drug dog, and every time he makes a stop, he takes the dog around the vehicle. Since Numbah One Goon is another of the "I have a badge, I am God!" types, he manages to annoy the crap out of people on a regular basis.
Me being a smartass, (who, me?) when Farmmom told me of the tactics that they're using all over the county, my first thought, and of course the first thing out of my mouth since my mental filter was on vacation that day was:
"Well hell just start carrying a tennis ball in the pickup."
I got confused looks, which is unusual, since I was sitting in a room full of the people who raised me and taught me to think the way I do. Usually at least Farmmom can hear the distant whistle of my freight train of thought, but this time she was blank.
"The next time Numbah One Goon stops you, as soon as he unloads the dog and starts up to the truck, just pitch the tennis ball out the window and watch the show."
After we cleaned up the puddles on the floor, the bag of a dozen tennis balls was duly dug out of the closet where it lives out of the sight of my pup. If she can see that we have more balls for fetch, she'll pop them right and left. If she can't, she takes care of her toys, but she still destroys them with enough regularity that we buy them by the dozen.
I think I might have created a monster, because when I left, Farmmom was trying to figure out who she was going to give tennis balls to, and who she was going to encourage to buy their own.
Anyone who reads regularly knows that I am not anti law enforcement, far from it. I am, however, against the kind of ineptitude that has been displayed by the current Sheriff's department, mixed with a sadly mistaken over-all god complex.
I said that it would be a disaster when the King of the Idiots was elected, and I was right.
Let me put it this way, when I was a young Farmgirl, we had a city officer that had the entirely irreverent nickname of Cool Whip, because of his last name. Whether he refused to believe that he was not the coolest adult living, as far as we underagers were concerned, or he honestly thought it was a compliment, I don't know, but he took the nickname and ran with it.
To the extent of telling a group of fourteen year old girls, with a straight face, "They call me Cool Whip because I come in lots of flavors." Clueless to the point of being freaking creepy. Or just freaking creepy, take your pick, no one could ever agree on that point.
The King of the Idiots makes me miss the good ol' days with Cool Whip.
Well, there's been a steady increase in the "stupid kids" kind of theft and general mayhem in the county since the KOTI took over the helm. Pulling copper wiring out of grain trucks, abandoned houses, things like that. With the price of scrap metal these days everyone pretty much figured some youngsters with a future in numbers (on their pictures, on their shirts, on their sentences..) had figured out how to make some partying cash without actually getting a job.
When nothing happened to stop that kind of stuff, the county critters started getting restless. The last Sheriff had gotten them pretty much scared back into their holes, for the most part. No one wanted to tangle with him, and I can't blame them. I've known the man all my life and when he had his Sheriff face on he scared me. And he calls me "Button!"
Well, in more recent days, the critters have gotten entirely too bold. One little old lady left her house one morning, went to town, to the grocery store, and returned to her home thirty minutes later, to find it ransacked and missing several valuable and sentimental items.
One of the grain cooperatives had the door of it's offices ripped off, and the office denuded of anything that might be of value. They had to do business, so they replaced all the essentials and fixed the door the next day. That night, the door was again ripped off, and the replacement equipment stolen. I'm not talking about the door was kicked in, or the hinges were removed, or anything as mundane as that. Someone took a truck, attached it to the door, and then started driving. From what I hear the doorframe was pretty much missing.
So far, the Sheriff's department has solved precisely one of the multitude of these kinds of incidents, resulting in the return of approximately twenty five thousand dollars of tools, welders, and such.
Now, ask me how they solved that one.
I'm so glad you asked. The guilty parties stashed the goods at a buddy's house. Said buddy got into a fight with his woman. Said woman proceeded to rat the whole lot of them out, knowing where the items came from, where they were, and who did all the totin'.
The KOTI's method to catch the culprits for all the other thefts is to have his goon squa... er... Deputies... patrol the county roads, stopping every pickup they see, and looking in the back. If you have tools, or a welder, they ask you to prove your ownership of said items.
Not the brightest investigative plan I've ever heard, really. Frankly I think a blind, deaf monkey could run the department in a more efficient and friendly to the public manner, but then, I might be a little prejudiced against the KOTI because of my own personal history with him and his family. And the fact that he slung more mud than a monster truck rally in a monsoon during his campaign.
But I digress. In addition to this oh-so-brilliant investigative technique ("open your tool box" the officer tells Farmmom. "Kiss my butt, get a warrant," she replies) one of the goon squa... er... oh screw it. One of the goon squad has a "drug dog."
A black Lab. Not the best scent hound in the first place, and knowing the caliber of the "handler and trainer," I doubt the dog could find a pound of marijuana if you mixed it in his Alpo. Anyone who has ever been around a Lab knows that they're big, clumsy, happy-go-lucky lumps. I love the breed for a pet, but you couldn't pay me to try and train a Lab for police work. They just don't have the right kind of mindset for it, in my opinion.
Anyway, Numbah One Goon has this dog that he keeps in the truck with him and calls a drug dog, and every time he makes a stop, he takes the dog around the vehicle. Since Numbah One Goon is another of the "I have a badge, I am God!" types, he manages to annoy the crap out of people on a regular basis.
Me being a smartass, (who, me?) when Farmmom told me of the tactics that they're using all over the county, my first thought, and of course the first thing out of my mouth since my mental filter was on vacation that day was:
"Well hell just start carrying a tennis ball in the pickup."
I got confused looks, which is unusual, since I was sitting in a room full of the people who raised me and taught me to think the way I do. Usually at least Farmmom can hear the distant whistle of my freight train of thought, but this time she was blank.
"The next time Numbah One Goon stops you, as soon as he unloads the dog and starts up to the truck, just pitch the tennis ball out the window and watch the show."
After we cleaned up the puddles on the floor, the bag of a dozen tennis balls was duly dug out of the closet where it lives out of the sight of my pup. If she can see that we have more balls for fetch, she'll pop them right and left. If she can't, she takes care of her toys, but she still destroys them with enough regularity that we buy them by the dozen.
I think I might have created a monster, because when I left, Farmmom was trying to figure out who she was going to give tennis balls to, and who she was going to encourage to buy their own.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Pictures!
I promised, and here are a couple. You can see how Monkey is filling out, really fast now it seems like, even faster than when he was on the high powered alfalfa.
Without further ado...
You can see in that last one that Monkey is starting to get hot and tired. You can see the sweat running down his flanks in the second one... I had that too, but you can't see it... it was freakin hot!
Now, if ya'll will excuse me, I need to go strip naked and lay in front of the air conditioner.. it's freakin hot today, too!
Without further ado...
You can see in that last one that Monkey is starting to get hot and tired. You can see the sweat running down his flanks in the second one... I had that too, but you can't see it... it was freakin hot!
Now, if ya'll will excuse me, I need to go strip naked and lay in front of the air conditioner.. it's freakin hot today, too!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
I WANT To Go!
To the finals of the Extreme Mustang Makeover.
I really, really want to go. Two small problems... it's in September, smack in the middle of classes, and it's in Fort Worth, Texas.
So, I sort of doubt I'm gonna be able to go, between the time out of school and the cost to get there, and stay if I were to go for the top ten finals.
I want to go, because I think it's a great thing, they take mustangs from BLM land, and give them to trainers for a hundred days. At the end of the hundred days, they show in Fort Worth, and at the end of the show, they're adopted by auction. The money goes to the Mustang Heritage Foundation.
I also want to go because at the finals, the top ten horses and trainers get to freestyle, and show off any special tricks, skills, or thingymabobbers they may have accomplished.
Last year, the finals included a dude swinging a chainsaw around on the back of his mustang, and a woman shooting balloons from the back of hers.
Stuff like that is just too cool, and I want to see it in person!
CM is accusing me of wanting to adopt a mustang, and I wouldn't be against having a mustang, but not through that program. Last year, one horse that went off pattern and didn't even make the finals was adopted for $50,000. Horse Town USA and the Mustang Heritage Foundation partnered on his adoption, and he became the official mascot of Horse Town USA.
I can't afford that kind of adoption fee!
I do want to go and watch, though. I'll probably spend that week whimpering and whining about not being able to go.
*Sigh*
I really, really want to go. Two small problems... it's in September, smack in the middle of classes, and it's in Fort Worth, Texas.
So, I sort of doubt I'm gonna be able to go, between the time out of school and the cost to get there, and stay if I were to go for the top ten finals.
I want to go, because I think it's a great thing, they take mustangs from BLM land, and give them to trainers for a hundred days. At the end of the hundred days, they show in Fort Worth, and at the end of the show, they're adopted by auction. The money goes to the Mustang Heritage Foundation.
I also want to go because at the finals, the top ten horses and trainers get to freestyle, and show off any special tricks, skills, or thingymabobbers they may have accomplished.
Last year, the finals included a dude swinging a chainsaw around on the back of his mustang, and a woman shooting balloons from the back of hers.
Stuff like that is just too cool, and I want to see it in person!
CM is accusing me of wanting to adopt a mustang, and I wouldn't be against having a mustang, but not through that program. Last year, one horse that went off pattern and didn't even make the finals was adopted for $50,000. Horse Town USA and the Mustang Heritage Foundation partnered on his adoption, and he became the official mascot of Horse Town USA.
I can't afford that kind of adoption fee!
I do want to go and watch, though. I'll probably spend that week whimpering and whining about not being able to go.
*Sigh*
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Flying Lessons, Farmmom Style
Well, Farmmom and I have been excited for the past week or so because we needed to move cows. And, well, what better excuse to go for a ride?
I went out yesterday and got on Monkey to make sure he wasn't going to decide it was time to play since he hadn't been ridden in a couple of months. We didn't get really excited, mostly just reminded him of what he's supposed to do when a person is on his back. By the time I got done with him it was farking hot, so I didn't get on Legs. I figured, heck, she's too lazy to dump me out of spite anyway. The plan was that I would ride Legs and Farmmom would ride Monkey.
Well the plan changed. I rode Monkey, because, as Farmmom said "He's the best horse we got for chasing down runaways, and I'm out of practice."
Cue Ominous Music.
So, we get the horses loaded, hauled, and saddled. Farmmom gets a leg up to get on the Giant Horse, except that Legs has other ideas. Well, it's sort of excusable that she got excited and gave a few hops, she hasn't been ridden in a year. I swung up on her and convinced her that being evil was a bad idea, we got Farmmom loaded up, and off we went.
It probably would have been fine if our... ahem... help... hadn't had the World's Biggest Brain Fart. Instead of dropping the trailer and then heading off to help gather the cows up, he took off across the pasture banging and clanging dragging the four horse along behind.
I probably don't need to tell ya'll that the horses were a bit nervous about that loud contraption. So were the cows.
I looked up from a short discussion with Monkey about how he really could go towards the noisy thing, just in time to see Farmmom faceplant. Luckily, Legs wanted her buddy so she came right to me, and I was able to get to Farmmom just in time to provide a bit of a block to keep the cows from stepping on her as she gathered her wits, since our... ahem... help... wasn't paying attention and was gleefully driving cows hither and yon at a high rate of "get me the hell away from that thing."
Farmmom swore she was ok, in spite of the lovely cut on her temple from her glasses. Which she refuses to have photographed, so the Injury Chronicles will have to stay photo-less on this one.
Anyway, she swore she was fine, got back on the horse, and we made it back to the cows in time to stop our... ahem... help... from running them through the fence.
Bout this time, Farmmom hollered for me to flag Farmdad down and have him take Legs.
"I think I got dumped, but I can't remember."
Uh Oh. I got Farmdad over there to check her out, and held the herd with Monkey while we determined whether or not Farmmom needed to make a visit to the nice Emergency Room doctor.
Legs was wound enough that she wasn't going to be able to work, so she got loaded and hauled back to the corrals. Farmmom spent the rest of the morning as a passenger.
She remembers what happened now, she's oriented and all, she just got her bell rung pretty well.
On the bright side, Monkey performed really well, in spite of all the excitement, and especially in spite of our.... ahem.... help.
He and I had several times that we were the only ones with the herd, and he did everything I asked of him, even if he didn't know why. He even went over a fence that he'd seen a cow get caught up in for me. He wasn't really happy about it, but he went.
For only the second time he's moved cows, and the amount of new stuff that got thrown at him, he performed really well. I'm proud of my big ol' boy. Everyone says they got pictures of us workin, so when I get them I'll share any good ones. Even though Monkey boy was lookin pretty rough, I didn't have a brush for his mane and tail.
Legs and I will have discussions on the proper behavior for an equine whilst at work. If E takes Etta, we'll have those discussions at school, if not, Farmdad is saying he's gonna learn her hisself.
I went out yesterday and got on Monkey to make sure he wasn't going to decide it was time to play since he hadn't been ridden in a couple of months. We didn't get really excited, mostly just reminded him of what he's supposed to do when a person is on his back. By the time I got done with him it was farking hot, so I didn't get on Legs. I figured, heck, she's too lazy to dump me out of spite anyway. The plan was that I would ride Legs and Farmmom would ride Monkey.
Well the plan changed. I rode Monkey, because, as Farmmom said "He's the best horse we got for chasing down runaways, and I'm out of practice."
Cue Ominous Music.
So, we get the horses loaded, hauled, and saddled. Farmmom gets a leg up to get on the Giant Horse, except that Legs has other ideas. Well, it's sort of excusable that she got excited and gave a few hops, she hasn't been ridden in a year. I swung up on her and convinced her that being evil was a bad idea, we got Farmmom loaded up, and off we went.
It probably would have been fine if our... ahem... help... hadn't had the World's Biggest Brain Fart. Instead of dropping the trailer and then heading off to help gather the cows up, he took off across the pasture banging and clanging dragging the four horse along behind.
I probably don't need to tell ya'll that the horses were a bit nervous about that loud contraption. So were the cows.
I looked up from a short discussion with Monkey about how he really could go towards the noisy thing, just in time to see Farmmom faceplant. Luckily, Legs wanted her buddy so she came right to me, and I was able to get to Farmmom just in time to provide a bit of a block to keep the cows from stepping on her as she gathered her wits, since our... ahem... help... wasn't paying attention and was gleefully driving cows hither and yon at a high rate of "get me the hell away from that thing."
Farmmom swore she was ok, in spite of the lovely cut on her temple from her glasses. Which she refuses to have photographed, so the Injury Chronicles will have to stay photo-less on this one.
Anyway, she swore she was fine, got back on the horse, and we made it back to the cows in time to stop our... ahem... help... from running them through the fence.
Bout this time, Farmmom hollered for me to flag Farmdad down and have him take Legs.
"I think I got dumped, but I can't remember."
Uh Oh. I got Farmdad over there to check her out, and held the herd with Monkey while we determined whether or not Farmmom needed to make a visit to the nice Emergency Room doctor.
Legs was wound enough that she wasn't going to be able to work, so she got loaded and hauled back to the corrals. Farmmom spent the rest of the morning as a passenger.
She remembers what happened now, she's oriented and all, she just got her bell rung pretty well.
On the bright side, Monkey performed really well, in spite of all the excitement, and especially in spite of our.... ahem.... help.
He and I had several times that we were the only ones with the herd, and he did everything I asked of him, even if he didn't know why. He even went over a fence that he'd seen a cow get caught up in for me. He wasn't really happy about it, but he went.
For only the second time he's moved cows, and the amount of new stuff that got thrown at him, he performed really well. I'm proud of my big ol' boy. Everyone says they got pictures of us workin, so when I get them I'll share any good ones. Even though Monkey boy was lookin pretty rough, I didn't have a brush for his mane and tail.
Legs and I will have discussions on the proper behavior for an equine whilst at work. If E takes Etta, we'll have those discussions at school, if not, Farmdad is saying he's gonna learn her hisself.
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