Attack of the Laundry
We’re still lambing…up to 65 babies now, all running around the pasture like little hoodlums. For the last week our friend Mary H. (holding lamb above) has been living with us, helping Melissa out on pasture. At least three times a day they bring in a bag full of towels, which they’ve used to clean off lambs. I gingerly carry the bag to the washing machine, tip the bag upside down, and avert my eyes. When the load is done, I happily transfer the clean towels to the dryer.
Today didn’t go as smoothly. As I was pulling Melissa’s jeans from the load of clean towels/jeans, something cold and long and well, slimy, leapt from the jeans and wrapped itself around my wrist. I might have shrieked, but in a brave, mature way, then noticed this same filmy stuff was all over M’s clean pants, one glob right next to my other hand.
I summoned Melissa and Mary to the laundry room. “What is this? What is this? What is this?” (Take note: An effective technique for communicating distress is to ask the same question several times in a loud, slightly frantic voice.)
Melissa pulled the goop off the pants with her bare hands, examined it, then pronounced it to be the film or sac that the lambs are born in, sort of a biological Saran Wrap. It must have been on one of the towels. I might have begun jumping up and down at this point.
Mary H. stared at me. After a week out on pasture with Melissa, she failed to see how adorable and endearing it is to be grossed out by this stuff. She frowned. “What’s the big deal? At least it’s clean.”
Ugly rumors have begun circulating that I then walked around the laundry room shaking my hands and saying, “icky, icky, icky.” These rumors are totally unfounded.
I’ve learned my lesson. It isn’t enough to fear my dirty laundry. I now must fear my clean laundry as well. What will I pull out of the washing machine next time? More “Saran Wrap”? Placental material? Laundered lamb poop?
Mary’s right. I should just relax. After all, it’ll be clean.
Here are more photos if you need a lamb fix:
7 Responses
Lovely, laundry room discovery 🙂 But if its clean, it
really is OK. Hope all continues to go well with the lambing.
Debbie
Your site is great!
I am reading your book now and can’t tell you how much I love it (okay, I guess I am telling you cause I said it here). Blog is great too!
Hello Farm Tales…wanted to let you know Fiber Femmes reviewed your book, Hit By A Farm, at http://www.fiberfemmes.com/review.htm
Fiber Femmes then had a contest, Deneen won our copy and is now reading “Hit”. I see she’s just left an entry as well…
So, when she finishes, she’s going to have a contest on *her* blog to send the book to the next reader.
Thanks for a great read!
I love the idea of a book making its way from contest winner to contest winner…might have to start my own as well!
Thanks for letting me know!
I LOVE these stories. A friend, who has begun to raise Boers, told me about your book and the website.
I think I can top your story about the “stuff” in the laundry:
At my mom’s house, the washer and dryer are in the basement. The screen in the in-line for the hot water had clogged up pretty badly and it took forever for the washer to fill. So, while it filled, my sister hung laundry on the line in the basement and then dumped in the towels and soap and closed it up.
When she came back for the finished laundry, there was something in with the towels that looked like a frog with no skin … except there was fur all over the towels.
We still haven’t figured out how that bat got into the washer, but we’re glad it didn’t fly out into her face or she might have keeled over right then and there. There washer repairman that came the next to day to deal with the clogged screen commented, after I told him what had happened, that he would have run out of there shreiking like a child if he’d had a bat fly out of the washer at him!
We ended up throwing away all the towels instead of trying to bleach them and get all the fur off of them …
A bat!???!
Lordy. Don’t know who to feel sorrier for—your sister or the bat.
Laundry, always an adventure…