Animals at Play


I used to think farm animals pretty much stood still all the time, since that’s what they were doing when I’d drive by them on the highway. Farm animals were just part of the lovely rural scene spreading out before me, so I never really considered they might have personalities or an interest in playing. That they run, jump, and play was one of my biggest surprises when we started farming.

Now that we have over 70 lambs scampering around the pasture (and about 5-10 left to be born,) it’s a joy to watch the flock at dusk. This is when the more adventurous lambs form a ‘gang’ and run like crazy animals up and down the pasture, kicking and bucking and popping straight into the air. Newborns stick close to their moms, but watch in wide-eyed wonder as the older ‘kids’ race by. In four or five days, those newborns will start venturing farther and farther from Mom, and eventually join in the play.

Lambs love to climb on anything ‘climbable,’ including our llama Chachi, a very patience uncle. (See photo above.) The bolder lambs start hanging around him, each daring the others to climb atop this great brown mountain. Finally one hops up, holds for a second, then leaps off and races away. Chachi’s ears are back as a warning, but a second later his ears returned to normal. He doesn’t mind that lambs climb on him; he just doesn’t want to look like such a pushover. By the end of the summer they’re chewing on his wool, sleeping next to him, and walking underneath him.

Our new baby goat, smaller than most of our chickens, plays by trying out her new legs, jumping and running. Our calf, close to 300 pounds, gets all excited when I bring him his grain, popping up and twisting and wagging his tail. He does the same thing when we sprinkle straw on his back—he acts like a kid running through a sprinkler. Weird. Don’t know if this is normal.

We’re pretty exhausted from 2 ½ weeks of lambing (thank you Mary H. and Amelia H. and Phyllis R. for helping and or feeding us!), but the one thing we always manage to do is watch the animals play. We’re just glad someone’s got some energy around here.

Remember, We’re Laughing With You

Here’s a photo of our four-wheeler, the most critical component on our farm, after Melissa. Take note of the two slender rods which run from the front basket down under the four-wheeler and out the back end. (Note the pink tape on the rods.) These rods play a critical role in this story.

Farmers love to entertain themselves, and since we don’t get off the farm much, we look for on-farm sources of amusement. One of the best sources, I’m afraid, is city people visiting the farm. That would be you.

Imagine you’ve fled the city and come to our farm for a visit. You hop onto the back of the four-wheeler, and I take the driver’s ‘seat’ as we head out to check on the sheep. The sky is bright blue, the sun warm on your face, and it’s fun riding down the road on a four-wheeler. I stop at the gate to our pasture, get off, open the gate, drive us through, then shut the gate again. You are confident I know what I’m doing.

As I head out into the pasture, some people see the fence ahead right away. What comes next is hardest on them, for they have the most time to worry. Three strands of wire stretch between slender white, bendable, fiberglass posts. I continue heading straight for the three-foot high fence, my thumb not letting up on the throttle.

You begin to squirm in your seat. Should you say something? The four-wheeler heads straight for the fence, now fifty feet away.

“Ahhh,” you say.

“What’s that?” I throw over my shoulder.

“Ahhh, hmmm, well...” Thirty feet away.

“Say again?” I bite back a smile. Ten feet and still full throttle.

We are seconds from hitting the fence. You have no choice now but to cry out, “Fence...Fence...FENCE!”

Thwap. We are over the fence. You whirl around and watch the fence snap back upright as we continue on our way. I am laughing so hard now I must stop and wipe my eyes.

Your heart is racing and all you can say is, “Wow.”

I explain that the thin rods push the fence down so we can drive over it. The secret is to hit the fence at exactly a 90 degree angle. If you’re off by only a few degrees, the fence will become hopelessly entangled in the four-wheeler’s undercarriage and you will say many bad words and finally cut the wire, hoping your partner will blame deer for the damage.

Melissa read about this four-wheeler adaptation in a book, and it works beautifully, allowing us to cross fences anywhere instead of finding a gate. My favorite prank may be less successful now that I’ve written this, but not to worry. I’m sure we’ll come up with something equally as entertaining. It’s what we do.

Two Cuties

So, once again, it’s begun: lambing on our farm. The black cutie in the photo is #6003. He was born on May 14, the third lamb born in 2006 on Rising Moon Farm. On May 13 twins came, signaling the start to Melissa’s favorite time of year (and my most stressful.)

The white Midwestern cutie in the overalls is Melissa. She loves the challenges of lambing—watching a ewe for signs she’s going into labor, then deciding when labor’s gone on too long and whether the ewe might need help.

Last evening this very situation arose, so Melissa called for reinforcements: me. It was raining lightly, but the sky was clear to the west, so the rain would soon end. We surrounded the flock with a portable fence, then Melissa chased the ewe in question, finally grabbing her by one back leg. I watched as the ewe dragged Melissa across the pasture. “Could you stop her?” came the polite request, so I belatedly sprang into action and planted myself in front of the ewe so she stopped running. “Thanks,” Melissa said, face down in the wet grass.

“That’s why I’m here,” I replied.

We got the ewe down on her side, then while I held her, Melissa pulled on a plastic glove, lubricated it, then reached inside the ewe. Chatting happily to the lambs inside, she sorted them out, then pulled out first one big-headed lamb, then the second. I am pleased to report I didn’t cry, but just calmly manned my post at the ewe’s head. At my end of the sheep all you see are long eyelashes and clean wool and nostrils slightly flared in alarm. (At the other end there is blood and mucus and placenta and...oh lord.)

Once the lambs were out and their nostrils clear, we gathered up Melissa’s gear and stepped back, letting the ewe do the rest: licking the lambs dry, getting them up on their feet, nosing them back toward the udder.

A few hours later Melissa returned to perform another favorite task of hers: ‘processing’ the lambs. Here’s how that works. She approaches the nearest lamb (now dry and alert and fed), who looks up at her in total innocence (the last time he’ll do that) then picks him up. The ewe stomps and snorts and bellows, circling nervously ten feet away. Melissa sits down, puts the lamb in her lap, and does her thing: ear tag for ID, rubber band on tail to dock it, iodine on the navel, and a shot of vitamins. The most important step comes just before she sends the lamb back to its mama, and that’s a kiss on the head.

Normally I might be a little jealous of all the kisses Melissa dispenses, but I can’t blame her. It’s impossible to hold a clean, dry lamb in your arms and not kiss its head. By the time lambing is done, Melissa will have kissed 70-80 lambs. I don’t know who is luckier—Melissa or the lambs.

True Confessions

Some memoirists make things up. Others omit critical or damning information. While I don’t believe I’ve committed either of these offenses, I am wracked with guilt over one offense I did commit. So before someone finds out my secret and spreads the word via some scorching blog, I hereby confess to my Failure to Update.

I finished revising my memoir several years ago, and let my agent do her thing. When she sold the manuscript to Marlowe & Co last fall, I needed to make a decision: did I bring the farm totally up to date in the book, or just stop events where I had stopped them? A farm is constantly changing, so the idea of being up to date is a little impractical. Most importantly, however, was that if I were to update, I would have to reveal my secret and ruin a perfectly good chapter in the book.

Attentive readers may remember my comments about a book called Fifty Acres and a Poodle. While it was a lovely book, I said, and I quote: “If you owned a poodle on a farm, should you really be admitting this to the rest of the world? I think not.”

I hate eating my own words, but this is me, munching away. I learned a few years ago that poodles don’t shed, and I was so sick of dog hair in the house that I decided we should give a poodle a try. This reveals some sort of deficient logic on my part, because adding a poodle does nothing to eliminate the dog hair shed by our two other dogs.

But add a poodle we did. (See above photo of happy girl.) She’s an elderly standard poodle named Porsche whose owner had health problems and didn’t want to send poor Porsche to the pound. Turns out Porsche had a few health problems of her own. Our vet had to remove most of her teeth because they were rotting, so now we soak her food until it’s nice and mushy. We put her on one medication for incontinence, and another for upset tummy, so now she doesn’t pee or vomit as often.

Good news is she’s really a sweety. She’s very well-behaved, doesn’t let the border collie or the Great Dane push her around, and doesn’t shed.

So, do I now think that if you own a poodle on a farm you should admit it? Yes, you should, but not in the book itself. Best to admit this in your blog and hope no one reads it!