Yesterday morning was one of those aggravating mornings that make you want to crawl back in bed. I was up early and got an early start to the chores, which turned out to be a good thing because I needed the extra time.
When I fed the lambs they all ran out of the pen. Luckily they followed me back in; the lure of grain was no match for freedom. As they were mobbing me, I realized I was hearing a lamb calling from much farther off. At first I thought it might be the new ewe, who is penned up in isolation behind the barn. But it was not quite the right timbre and not coming from quite the right place to be her. As I was pouring out the lambs' grain I saw two things. First, the source of the bawling was a lamb on the outside of the fence who was not able to get back in (funny how that works, you can get out, but not back in). Second, Leroy the llama was making his escape out of the field through the open gate. I was not close enough to do anything about either of these events immediately. It was one of those slow motion, no-this-can't-be-happening moments.
I went after the lamb first because I had no idea how I was going to get the llama back. The little lamb refused to come through the fence where I took it down, despite the large, inviting opening. No, instead she ran straight into the netting and proceeded to get her head and all four legs tangled up. Luckily, that tends to slow down an otherwise athletic young lamb. I grabbed her before she tore up the fence, disentangled her, and released her so she could run pell-mell down the hill to get her share of the grain.
Sheep that have recently been tricked into following a bucket for a delicious grain reward can sometimes be hard to trick again. You have to wait at least 10 minutes. I'm only partly joking. Nonetheless, while I was helping the lamb caught in the fence, the only possible scenario I could come up with for catching Leroy was to move the whole group to new grass. That was on my to-do list anyway, I just hadn't planned to do it while it was 20 degrees and frosty. So, I opened up a section of netting and called for the lambs, who by then had polished off their grain and were beginning to wander around, soon to be scattered to the four corners of the paddock. Thankfully they came at a trot and Leroy sauntered in behind them. It almost didn't work because the whole group started to come back through the fence, as if dismayed that they had been tricked into thinking I was giving them more grain. I got enough of the fence back up to turn them around, and they wandered off into the new pasture to eat crown vetch. Whew. My thought at this point was that Brian sure knows how to pick when to drive off into the sunrise and leave the morning chores to me.
I fed the chickens and went back to the house for some coffee, planning to return when the temperature got above freezing to move the lambs' water tub and refill it. Shortly after I sat down at my desk to begin my day, the neighbor called and wanted to know if I had lost a chicken. Now, surely somewhere there is a farmer who knows exactly how many chickens she has at every moment. But that is not the case here. The occasional predator has made me lose track, plus chickens are hard to count. Especially when they are basically free ranging. Ours do not always have the run of the place, but right now they do. Apparently one of the young hens did not come back to the coop the night before and was caught somewhere in the night by something. My neighbor assured me it wasn't his dogs since they weren't out overnight and the chicken was stone cold when he found it, although he would be glad to make restitution if I thought it was the dogs. Conversations with this man are maddening and you never know if he really has any idea what he is saying or if he will remember it two minutes later. I declined restitution for the chicken since it is a free ranging bird-brain that was probably getting broody and her not coming back to the coop to be locked up for the night was not the neighbor's fault. Probably should fence the chickens again, and I'll put that on my list.
At lunch time I went down to move the waterer for the sheep. As I was unhooking the fence I encountered the neighbor who again offered to pay for the chicken and let me know he had put the chicken aside so Brian could see it when he got home. When I told him Brian wouldn't be home for a couple of days, he wanted to know if I wanted to see it, and reminded me to ask him for help should I need anything. No thanks, on both counts. I thought to myself, I am not some helpless female and really you are the last person I would ask for help. I had moved the tub, set up four hoses, and started the water running. I went back to grab the mineral feeder, and just as I got to it, the four wheeler sputtered and died. Out of gas. I considered asking the neighbor for help. Decided against it and walked up the hill to find a gas can. All three were empty.
I repeat, I am not some helpless female, but at that moment I was really wishing that Brian had filled the gas cans. Isn't that a man's job? Oh, wait, I am not some helpless female. Drat.
So off to the gas station I went. Came back, filled the four wheeler up, and finally finished my morning chores at about 1 pm. Although it didn't get off to a great start, there was a bright spot in the day when I fed the ewes and checked on the rams' progress. I found that just one week into our breeding season already a third of the ewes have been marked.
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