Late yesterday afternoon was a definite
DO NEW. An area outside the barn was roped off and the younger sheep
corralled into a section inside. It was worming time. I was invited
to help. "You are not going to stick stuff up their butts are
you?" I asked. No, thank goodness. Worming is done orally.
Whew.
The process is simple but not always
easy. The bigger sheep weigh 150 + pounds and give a fight. You can
get knocked around pretty well trying to catch one and hold it still
for examination. The lambs are smaller and much easier. The process
began with Bruce first catching a lamb. He would guess it's weight
by picking it up off the ground so that Gwen could prepare the proper
amount of liquid wormer in the syringe. He would flip the lamb on
its rears and it would go docile as if he was Merlin casting a magic
spell. The song from Camelot quickly ran through my mind, “How to
Handle A Woman.” How to handle a lamb? Carefully and with love.
They are really sweet animals.
Each lamb's lower inner eyelids are
checked. The inner lids should be a nice rosy pink or red. If the
color is pale or white then it is a sign of anemia and the lamb needs
to be wormed. As each lamb is held still the syringe is placed in
its mouth and the liquid wormer is delivered. The sheep swallow and
lick their lips and then, in this case, they are sent out into the
barn's sealed off hallway and the next lamb is captured and examined.
What a fun experience to document.
The big pig in the stall next door was
very animated and verbal because something was going on. Bruce had
poured water over him to keep him cool. The big pig loves his mud.
I laughed when I processed the photo into my computer as it looks
like he was a bleeding “stuck pig” but it is only water. He was
happy. 
We all chilled out last night. It was
nice. We ate great food, drank a tiny amount of Riesling and/or
Malbec, me preferring the Argentine Malbec that Bruce had picked up
for $5 a bottle. Actually it was a very good private label Malbec.
Much better than what I have been getting for the same price in
Argentina. We then relaxed into the second half of an old classic
movie, Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Why the
last half? Because bedtime is early and work goes late. An hour for
relaxation is about all that is afforded on a farm. There's no land
line phone here, no TV satellite or cable, no DSL or WIFI and I don't
miss it much. I only miss it when I need to coordinate some things
through email and when I want to look something up. I realize that I
have become dependent on Google Search. Inquiring minds want to know
and I have been trained for instant information gratification.
This morning is Sunday. I slept a
little late. I got up at 7:45 to a cool morning with fog. What a
fantastic time to shoot some photos. It felt fresh on the farm and
the morning light and mist coming off the hollows was brilliant. I
mentioned to Bruce that the farm was so peaceful in the mornings
without a bigger rooster blaring cockadoodle doo. He replied, “Oh
we used to have of those but we ate him.” I laughed. I wondered
if it was the chicken we have been grazing on the last few days but
that was a hen. LISTEN READERS: It is a farm. The food is being
raised to eat. Get over it vegetarians. The goal here is to be
self-sufficient and to not depend on outside food sources, and to
eventually retire from in-town jobs and live 100% off what the farm
produces. A good deal of that is for personal consumption and the
rest for market. There are no Shaw's or Winn Dixie supermarkets near
here and even if there were they don't trade eggs for bread, beets
for gasoline, chard for electricity or lambs for property taxes. The
produce (including livestock) that goes to market provides the cash
to pay for goods and services that are definite and real and hard to
entirely eliminate.
So moving on, there is a NEW article
brewing in my mind spurned by conversations and realizations of
cultures, religions and just people. How we come up with
preconceived notions of how “some people” with differing
backgrounds other than our own are supposed to be. Stereotypes that
I have had in the past, and others have had as well have been blown
away in my mind. Perhaps it is that the people that participate in
HELPX and in COUCHSURFING communities are of a different breed.
Writing more here in this blog venue would make the post way too
long. I need to save the ideas running through my head for a
different writing space. The times I have spent on a pecan
plantation in Georgia that is a Christian commune and the birthplace
of habitat for Humanity, camping in Chile with a faction of the
Rainbow (Hippie) Family, the Mennonites that home school their
children in the Amish country of Pennsylvania, and here at the farm
with Methodists that go to church, teach Sunday school and are the
former owners of a Christian bookstore all defy stereotyping. And
there is more. We create these pictures in our mind through hearsay
and the frame is so darn limited. And what about “those people”
that live in West Virginia? You need to watch out for them because
they are of a “different” sort. GOOD GRIEF!
Expect the unexpected, throw away your
preconceived notions and be OPEN to NEW experiences and people. You
will be so happy that you did.
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