A day in the life of a ranch hand-
I find that life never seems as real if you take to long to write it down. I mean the activities that have taken place in my life over the last week have now been damaged by time. You go see the ruins of the ancient Roman coliseum and stand quite in awe of it all, but I would have to presume that you would be much more awed if you were standing in the same place while standing in the same place watching a lion rip a man, with the saddest excuse for armor on, apart, or even if you were standing in the pit just after the fight had taken place and you ran your finger across the fresh blood. But as time goes on things become more and more ruined, time takes its toll on memories, other people’s ideas and memories mingle in. Time cooks raw emotion, and it changes the substance of truth, it does not necessarily make it a lie, but it changes it. Like ice and water, still made up of the same substance, but different. And if you were writing about H20 a reader would get too very different ideas about what was being talked about if you wrote about a glass of water when you first pour it or after it had been left outside over night in the middle of winter in Minnesota. Some people say history is written by the winners. I say history is written by about an event frozen over.
In any event my week did involve animals though they are of a smaller, fluffier, more herbavoric nature. I find myself house sitting again, this time there are less plants, unless you consider dead grass a plant (and no I didn’t kill it, it was dead when I got there), about 20 more acres and a lot of animals- six fish, two cats, three dogs, three horses, three donkeys and seven (though the number changes) sheep.
The problem was the sheep. See fish I know, dogs, cats and horses I’ve been around since I was a child and donkeys are close enough to horses that I wasn’t worried. But sheep? I’d rather deal with plants at least I know what’s going to happen to them when I’m around them. I’m prepared for the carnage with plants. But with sheep I wasn’t sure what would happen. Maybe if I touched them they would mutate into gigantic man eating gerbils, I’ll admit the chance was slim and scientific evidence is probably against this hypothesis, but like I said I don’t have a lot of experience with sheep.
So I knew, absolutely knew, that when something strange happened (and it was always does when you are in a situation that is completely new) it would be the sheep that would be the ones causing me problems. Still I started Wednesday and by Thursday night I had convinced myself that the man eating gerbil situation was probably not going to happen, and I had dismissed several other theories about aliens coming down an probing them after mistaking them for the intelligent earthly species. So my fatal downfall wouldn’t be not being creative enough, it would be overlooking one of the basic needs that you learn is inevitable to all living creatures, at least on this planet-
After I had dispelled most of the fears about the sheep I wasn’t too concerned when Friday night I saw flashlights moving through the fields that I was watching. Not the FBI looking for a landed UFO, I said to myself, probably just the neighbors. Besides my parents were over and Bill was playing his guitar so voicing these concerns was out of the question, much better to talk to the dogs about them when no one else was around, they wouldn’t turn on me for being a loony. So you can imagine my great concern when my mother's phone rings and the half of the conversation I hear goes like this.
“Hello. Oh, well we just assumed you were looking for Buttons…”
“No, she counted six, but she saw the seventh in the barn already…”
“Oh!”
“Oh my. Well was should we do?”
“Yes, I guess nothing to be done till morning…”
“Should we call Kathy Lee and Barron and tell them?- No, not telling them would be best, you’re right. Well I’ll tell her you’ll be over to help you take care of this in the morning.”
See, you’d be near panic too if you were watching someone else’s animals and that’s the conversation you heard. See, the basic I need I had over looked was reproduction. So in the course of about 3 hours I had gone from seven sheep to eight. Made me feel like the servant in the Bible who is given some money and his master goes away and he invests it.
There are a lot more stories that go along with little Pepe and his few days of life so far- he’s hit the major first week marker. But I’ll leave you with this- Milking sheep isn’t easy.
In any event my week did involve animals though they are of a smaller, fluffier, more herbavoric nature. I find myself house sitting again, this time there are less plants, unless you consider dead grass a plant (and no I didn’t kill it, it was dead when I got there), about 20 more acres and a lot of animals- six fish, two cats, three dogs, three horses, three donkeys and seven (though the number changes) sheep.
The problem was the sheep. See fish I know, dogs, cats and horses I’ve been around since I was a child and donkeys are close enough to horses that I wasn’t worried. But sheep? I’d rather deal with plants at least I know what’s going to happen to them when I’m around them. I’m prepared for the carnage with plants. But with sheep I wasn’t sure what would happen. Maybe if I touched them they would mutate into gigantic man eating gerbils, I’ll admit the chance was slim and scientific evidence is probably against this hypothesis, but like I said I don’t have a lot of experience with sheep.
So I knew, absolutely knew, that when something strange happened (and it was always does when you are in a situation that is completely new) it would be the sheep that would be the ones causing me problems. Still I started Wednesday and by Thursday night I had convinced myself that the man eating gerbil situation was probably not going to happen, and I had dismissed several other theories about aliens coming down an probing them after mistaking them for the intelligent earthly species. So my fatal downfall wouldn’t be not being creative enough, it would be overlooking one of the basic needs that you learn is inevitable to all living creatures, at least on this planet-
After I had dispelled most of the fears about the sheep I wasn’t too concerned when Friday night I saw flashlights moving through the fields that I was watching. Not the FBI looking for a landed UFO, I said to myself, probably just the neighbors. Besides my parents were over and Bill was playing his guitar so voicing these concerns was out of the question, much better to talk to the dogs about them when no one else was around, they wouldn’t turn on me for being a loony. So you can imagine my great concern when my mother's phone rings and the half of the conversation I hear goes like this.
“Hello. Oh, well we just assumed you were looking for Buttons…”
“No, she counted six, but she saw the seventh in the barn already…”
“Oh!”
“Oh my. Well was should we do?”
“Yes, I guess nothing to be done till morning…”
“Should we call Kathy Lee and Barron and tell them?- No, not telling them would be best, you’re right. Well I’ll tell her you’ll be over to help you take care of this in the morning.”
See, you’d be near panic too if you were watching someone else’s animals and that’s the conversation you heard. See, the basic I need I had over looked was reproduction. So in the course of about 3 hours I had gone from seven sheep to eight. Made me feel like the servant in the Bible who is given some money and his master goes away and he invests it.
There are a lot more stories that go along with little Pepe and his few days of life so far- he’s hit the major first week marker. But I’ll leave you with this- Milking sheep isn’t easy.