1. The sheep are back from WH. There is lots more grass left (probably another two or three weeks) but the coyotes are getting bolder and hungrier this time of the year and I don't feel good about leaving the sheep there by themselves even during the day. It's pretty empty area too - we're probably the closest alive people to that area (yep, it borders an old cemetery) and we're a good half a mile away. BTW, for the last week or so we brought the sheep home to their barn every night and drove them back there every morning. Turned out, you can't do much during the day if you only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep every night and that's what I was getting between wild animals, my dogs chasing them, cows jumping the fence, calves crawling under and mosquitoes. It also turned out, driving the sheep there and back not half as bad as I thought it will even though we need to go through 3 closed gates and cross a road. DW helped. I probably could have done it myself but the road was a concern - it doesn't get a lot of trafic but people are speeding sometimes, going 2 or 3 times the speed they should begoing. The sheep are on DSP today.
2. I tried to use Volk to help us drive sheep and it went reasonablt well a couple of times but we had to stop when Paul (our ram-in-chief) decided that he needs to protect everyone else from the dog. These two had a lot of fun sorting it out but that made driving a bit too difficult.
3. I know this blog needs more pictures (it's amazing how much the lambs have grown) but our trusted camera died. Do they even fix them nowadays? It's about 6 or 7 years old. Need to find out.
4. We had visitors with who brought their toddler to see the sheep and pet them. Watching the kid and sheep interacting once again made me think how similar animals are to little kids. A one year old is pretty capable of hitting you on the head with something heavy (and don't get me started on hits in the nuts) and they will do it on purpose, too. But they don't really understand what they're doing, so there is no sense in getting mad at them. The analogy works the other way, too - many animals depend on us for very basic things. They will quite literally die if we don't do our jobs. They will never understand why you kicked them to improve your bad mood and they will forgive you for that immediately - just like kids. So, yeah - there is something to the idea that people torturing animals are probably just a chance away from doing it to anyone weaker then them.
Permaculture forums
Posts
2 comments:
#2 - "had a lot of fun sorting it out..." haha, I bet. :)
#3 - they'll probably charge you a bunch to fix it... but you can probably get a new one for 1/3 of what you paid before. We ended up with a $200 digital camera that was originally a gift to inlaws... they prefer disposable cameras... far better camera than our first digital that we probably spent about $500 on (back when we thought money was a renewable resource)
#4 - the similarities between humans and livestock are disturbing in some ways. I'm pretty well convinced that we all have a lot of chicken in our blood. :)
Ron
#2 - seriously, I'd sit down, open a beer, take bets and have a lot of fun watching - beats whatever you can see on PPV for sure :) The only problem was the rest of the flock slowly dispersing in all 8 directions :)
# 3 - that's what I suspect. I think I paid about $200 for the camera back in 2003 or whenever I got it - I'm sure there much better cameras out there now for less money. But I have a lot of problems with "it's all disposable" mentality (I'm sure you can relate). Then again, missed some great pictures today - the sheep on a mulch pile with the sun setting down behind them :)
#4 - If you think about it - first, we invest in our kids. Then, we expect them to provide for us. Yep, disturbing is the word :)
Post a Comment