farmtalk

Headed Home the long way Tree 608

Farmtalk

Yesterday I was horned, rammed, doused in hot water, and sunburnt. Today went better.

I had agreed with Boss at the Fiber Frolic that I would fill in for P yesterday and today, and woke up yesterday knowing exactly what the day would bring.

I helped R finish graining, then did Moonbeam's hooves. She is a two year old doe that thinks she is better than people. Such as, she has no problem cramming you one with her horns if she feels like it. So, I picked her to start. She was fairly reasonable, only gouging me once in the kidney while I was working on her-when I released her, she turned around and butted me in the leg for good measure and trotted off.

Then I was sent up on the hill to comb Duke, formerly Nix's small star. He is very easy to catch, but jumps around like hell when being combed. Homer took the opportunity to show me how much he loves me by rubbing his head all over me as I kept shifting position to comb his jumping buddy. Finally I had most of the visible cashmere cleaned off, and fearing we were both going to suffer heatstroke, I decided to finish him off the next day (today) as long as R could hold him for me.

R has weedwhacked the fenceline the last two days at Jenny Nash while Boss walked the bucks and I did all the cleaning, collaring, and most of the graining, before taking up Grey (Hippolytus) for combing-a nightmare. All his cashmere was matted up close to the skin and his long silky guard hair-7 inches or so, needed to be teased out to free the cashmere. We mostly finished him off today.

While I was combing him yesterday, he started jumping and all of a sudden, the water pipe the tenant had run from the house down to the cottage started spewing water all over us. I quickly undid his chain and moved him, exclaiming, "We have a problem!!!!"

Yes we did have a problem-turned out there was a board hidden in the grass right there with two 16D nails sticking up, and he had tromped the pipe onto them, piercing it in TWO places-which we found out much later after shutting power, water, and then trying to empty 1000 feet of 1/2 pipe of water for taping, with no success. I mean, the tape didn't work.

The tenant was a bit peeved, so I stayed on did it the right way, and cut out the bad part and spliced it back together with a coupling and a couple of ring clamps...A trip to the hardware store, many trips up to the house to turn the water on and off and finally just cutting the hose full of solar heated water, having lost patience with draining. Yeah, she has good pressure there, as my wet clothes would have testified.

On the way home, my neck and shoulders started burning. OH, what a sunburn! Of course I had chosen to wear a tank top and found myself in direct sun at Nash's from 10:30-1:30. Still hurts today.

I stayed late again today helping boss finish Grey(Hippolytus), and told her if she gets in a jam to call me.

Really, I like a good challenge. :D