Only One Casualty
The Farmer has returned from her California trip, refreshed, renewed, and ready to jump right back into letting me do chores every day.
Ha. Not so fast, I said.
She’s now outside checking on all the animals, making sure I did, in fact, keep them alive.
All went well. The steers got themselves locked into a pen by pushing the gate closed, which I didn’t discover until the next morning. No wonder they were whining like a bunch of 700-pound babies the night before. (There is no sound like a steer’s angry ‘moo’ when he’s excited or frustrated.) The sheep are happy that the grass has begun growing, so they’ve abandoned their hay bales to rip the tiniest blades of grass from the ground.
I’m sad to report there was one casualty. One morning it was cold, so I wore my lovely wool fleece earmuffs out to do chores. Of course I quickly heated up and thoughtlessly draped the earmuffs over a nearby fence, forgetting that the steers now had access to that pen, and to that fence.
Thirty minutes later I’m done with chores, look for my ear muffs, and find them ground into the mud inside the pen. One of the steers had pulled the muffs off the fence, used them as a soccer ball, stepped on them a few times, then—shudder—enthusiastically sucked on them.
I was mortified and raced inside with the poor muffs. I will try washing them, but I’m not sure how interested I am in hugging my ears with something that was once drenched in cow spit.
Sigh.
7 Responses
Hey, Hon. It’s alright. Spit happens.
I’d be gettin’ the heebie-jeebies about something ELSE other than spit up against my ears!
So sorry to hear of your earmuffs. I just found a favorite glove I’d inadvertently composted in my potato patch. The hardships of farm life…
Yep the material casualties of life on a farm [to say nothing of time, joints, the lower back, and the ideological innocence one takes with them to ‘a country life’ that is often the very first immaterial casualty] I’ve thrown away a shirt after a difficult lambing not even I thought was salvagable, a really nice shirt that was just my color and met my jeans just right. Never shoulda worn it out to work.
Spit happens! Ha! I want you to ghost write all my future blog posts!
And Mama Pea…euuw. You’re right. Spit might be the least of my worries.
Jessica and Caryl, think of all the clothes sacrificed on the alter of Farming….Melissa just ripped a great pair of fatigue green cargo pants diving for an injured pigeon…which doesn’t really fall into the category of farming, but more under the category of Bird Crazy.
At least you just have steer spit. When we had our bull, he was a freindly fellow, eating various treats by hand. His “spit” was not always his own, as he was often “checking” his girls, if you get my drift. And it was difficult to ever give him anything without getting your hand at least a little slimy. And you certainly did not want to be nearby when he would whip his head around to scratch his back, and a stream of snot went flying. Yuck!
A washed earmuff does’t seem too bad, maybe washed twice is better?
Carol B…. eewww!
Washed the ear muffs… I think they’ll make a full recovery!