Never Enough Hours in the Day

This week is our annual inspection at work meaning a slew of people come crawling through our workspaces from the capital double checking everything off their little lists ( kind of like Santa except not in a nice way). So the uppity ups are all freaking out as usual. I get the much envied ( not) position of providing refreshments to these folks. My theory is that if there are enough calories and carbohydrates in their food that they will be semicomatose and happy. So no high pro for them. It's candy pizzas, chicken cordon bleu, home made onion rolls. I got FOUR phone calls this morning in the space of 30 minutes asking me if I had taken care of the COFFEE. Coffee for God's sake. I'm like yes I always do, (for the past 15 years). I should have said hell no, I'm bucking. Then they took my chief cook and bottle washer ( kidding about the bottle washer part) and had him painting the numbers on units today. That is a completely brilliant use of highly skilled kitchen labor.

Speaking of work I celebrated ( well that is much too excited of a word) 20 years on the job the first weekend of March.

Then today after all the craziness at work I got home and had a sick goat and sick sheep with scours. Oh fun. Went to the coop picked up some oxyterramycin ( probably misspelled that) and boluses of time released Albon in case its coccidia instead of enteritis. The ruminants had been penned up so at least I didn't have to do that but oh the JOY of struggling with two stinky beasts covered with liquishit ( a new word I made up for diarrhea) who do NOT want to swallow that huge bolus that might make them better. No, I do not have a bolus gun that you can shove down their throat but believe me I will before the next time I try this. I make a couple of grabs finally snagging one, loop a noose over its neck, straddle it squeeze hard with knees, left hand squeezes mouth and pulls it open, right one shoves bolus in as far as possible while watching in amazement as the bolus is forcibly ejected from the side of the animals' mouth. Well crap start over, and over and over. Finally I have my gloved hand halfway down the throat tilting the head back as far as I can leaning over to the water trough and slopping water in its mouth with my gloved right hand. Eventually after about 5 ejections of the bolus it went down. Now for the next one. Same trick. These are supposed to work for 3 days. I have to go to work at 4 am the next three days so I sure hope these critters get better. I may not be Mary Poppins if I have to do this again

Livestock

Decided the other night to try out one of those online free local sales networks and see if anyone was in the market for some sheep. We have had two good years of lambs and have several sheep for sale. Before I even got the second ad uploaded I already had someone from around 30 miles away ready to buy what I had . So I tells the husband, "Husband I need this ewe and that ewe in the catch pen and such and such ram. I get home from work, ewes are up the ram isn't. Jeeze boy will that be fun. People arrive in a semi with a stock trailer behind it, after mucho careful maneuvering they back it mostly into our driveway. Without too much ado I go in the small catch pen and snatch up the 3 lambs they are leaving with, then grab the ewe by the tail and throw a loop over her neck. (no these are not nice tame halter broken show sheep) She and I go for a rather wild run across the front yard mostly with me in tow hanging on for dear life as the girl's husband is walking behind her to make her go towards the stock trailer. OK she is loaded. Now they want their ram. I'm like OK I'm gonna need a little help (now this photo is not the ram they bought but it is his father, the young ram is a year old probably about 120 pounds and half this much horn. I remove one of the 16 foot stock panels take it in the ram enclosure and attach it up in a corner so we have a three sided enclosure. Then I go in the house and get some feed and pour it up against the fence. I walk out of the enclosure and turn my back on the sheep ( you aren't as threatening if those forward facing predatory human eyes aren't watching them) in run three of the yearling rams, I whip around and grab the fence and block their escape holding on to that fence like well like I'll get kicked and jumped over if I don't because that is exactly what will happen. I reach in and grab the one we are fishing for by a horn, he is on his hind legs so he has no traction. Her husband grabs the other horn then we slip a noose over him. Between the noose and the horn we walk him out to the trailer pretty calmly. (OK once or twice he did jump 4 or 5 feet straight up in the air like a deer but no harm was done) Whew he was loaded. They decided they wanted my very pregnant goat who is due to pop anyday. She had triplets last time and you be the judge looks like she will again. She was easy to load though. Just took a bit of food in the trailer. All of this after a days' work .

You know though, I would rather slide around in barnyard mud, be up at night with ewes lambing, and dive after wild sheep than do paperwork, file reports, or deal with bureaucracy. It's too bad farming is so hard to make a go at financially, I could be a happy sheepherder.