My sleeping bag! It had drifted close to our new space heater! Thankful we hadn't all cooked to a crisp in our beds, I moved the bag many feet away and fell back to sleep.
As I finished milking this morning, Joe came out to find me, sobbing. I picked him up, and we entered the house to find acrid smoke: my down sleeping bag, apparently irresistibly attracted to the space heater, had touched the hot surface and immediately charred.
A nice North Face bag, from the DINK (double income, no kids) salary days—a financial blow indeed, but it was difficult to be very upset. It could have been our lives; it could have been all our possessions. In the grand scheme of things, a ruined bag is not that big a deal.
Thankfully, the rest of the day was mellow in comparison. (Or, as I've heard, "Eat a live toad first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen the rest of the day.")
Since the weather has (so thankfully) warmed up to the upper 70s, Jadon spent the morning dragging the wagon to the top of the driveway, then riding it all the way down.
After a time, he recruited Isaiah, and the two of them took dozens of trips from the top, down as far as they could go: the gate to the animals. Where they would crash (gently) with rascally giggles.
Ashley, one of the original sheep, was in standing heat this morning. As I milked, I watched her, with Benny the ram paying attention. I have heard that lions will mate every twenty minutes around the clock for something like 24 to 48 hours. Benny the ram bested the lazy lions: I lost count, but about a half dozen copulations in the twenty minutes I milked left me amazed. How can a single dose of AI ever work?! No wonder bulls lose body condition during mating season! Wow!
No comments:
Post a Comment