The Lykosh Darwin Award of the Day

Phil and I have scared wildlife a few times. Phil was putting up new fence for the cows when a turkey mama and about six little babies suddenly flew out of the brush only a few feet away. It really startled him! I saw the mama and babies, too, a few days later, but they were not super close to me.

I have seen fawns a few times, and I saw a deer cross my path right behind me, soaring over our fence. A deer leap is so powerful, so floating: it appears to defy gravity. Amazing.

After the great progress on Friday, Phil went to help build a treehouse on Saturday. On Sunday, we slept. We slept in (Phil took an extra two hours, rising at 7:15, still tired). Then Phil had a bit of difficulty moving the sheep: they were in their new, large pen, and suddenly decided to bolt out of the fence. Somehow he managed to corral all of them, by himself.

We came back from church, and Phil went right to sleep. I slept, too, and then went to a party. Came back, made dinner, and went back to sleep at 9pm. We were surprised at our apparent inexhaustible fatigue.

Life (and death) don't stop, though. We found a lamb, dead, in the electric netting (not one of the Babydolls). It looked like she tried to head straight through two levels of electric net: not under, not avoid, through. If she had been a week old, it may have made sense, but after three months of electric fence training, I would have expected her to be a bit more wise.

Acorn was baaing pathetically, so we think it was Caterina, winner of the Darwin award for most creative removal from the gene pool.

And, on the life front, Buttercup looks like she's getting close to her due date. Her teats have grown for a while, but her mammary glands are now filling out. The books say that she should deliver in the next week or two. I hope we're ready.

The boys and I harvested about two five-gallon buckets of peppers today; beautiful, chemical-free peppers. I planted many because I don't like paying $7/lb for organic peppers at the grocery store, but I realize now that I don't eat that many peppers. Maybe we need some roasted peppers?

I made a marvelous cream of tomato soup today. Except for the salt, it was all from our farm: lard to cook the onions and garlic, then tomatoes, stock, a few handfuls of basil, all blended together once cooked. Fresh cream added, with salt. So great!

In less happy moments, I had a massive melt down on Saturday night. I went to milk Reese, who had already started to walk up the hill. We want to encourage her eating as much as possible, so I let her walk the quarter mile or so up to the pasture, expecting that Phil would be along in the truck soon, so I could tie her in. But the truck didn't come, and my attempt to milk Reese while she stood and ate her therapeutic aloe pellets lasted about 25 seconds, until she realized that I hadn't tied her at all. Then the hooves and the head started flying, and she soon walked away.

I had walked the better part of a mile at that point, when I could have been doing a good many other wonderful things. I am not a confident truck driver, the cow needed to be milked, and I was just furious at the wasted time, about the most stressful thing in my life right now. (When I go to bed every day feeling a bit more behind than I had been in the morning, it wears me down.)

Phil showed up around that point and bore the brunt of my shrieking rage. Reese, wandering by grazing, stopped in front of me and butted me with her head. I saw red to the point that I took a karate pose and threw punches. Not to hit her, of course, but just to demonstrate my extreme irritation.

You know it's a bad meltdown when you shadow box a cow.

I understood why she kicked me in the knee the next morning, and felt like I deserved it.

Phil came to milk this evening, and when Reese kicked over the bucket, despite Phil's holding her leg, he said, "That's enough. Next time: we hobble."

I'm ready. The constant dancing and kicking has not gotten better. We'll see if hobbling helps.