Naturally this time I wanted to show Decibel in full herding action, but...
... while Decibel was there and ready, just after this picture, Maggie let out the "I got a rat up a tree, come quick" bark, and Decibel ran off to help her sister.
I tried yesterday to get some shots of her herding too, but it was not meant to be. It's like getting a picture of kids doing something cute... nearly impossible.
First there was the whole shoe incident:
After the heifers arrived, Ruby has been plotting how to make them her minions, or how to trade up from the two steers. Because she is a smart cow, Ruby knows which gate and pasture connects to where and it did not take her long to get to the paddock right next to the new herd of heifers. That's where she was in the morning, and I had to take her by the bell and drag her back to the barn, because Ruby (for once) was more interested in having a big herd than having a big meal.
The morning got more complicated because I had locked the pigs into a small section of the corral the night before, and now they were away from their milk trough. Two pigs were leaving, and I didn't want to spend too much time chasing them. Now of course the pigs want their milk, and I had used a rubber tub the night before, but not retrieved it, and it was now buried in the muck. So I had to get in the small pen with big hogs, who promptly poked me and shook mud on me, get the tub, rinse it off, go back in there (same mud bath), and get the milk in the tub before the pigs got wise to it, and get back out. So by the time I got Ruby milked and the pigs fed I was pretty much covered in mud.
Then I had to go back to the horses and let donkey out, (he eats separately, because he has few teeth left, and needs to take his time), and re-unite the steers with Ruby, who was licking the Jersey heifers through the gate.
Just after coffee the truck for the pigs that were going came, and loading them was another adventure, but it finally got done, and I was really muddy from head to toe, and I think that was the third pair of shoes that needed to be hosed down for the morning. So when the time came that I wanted to take herding with Decibel pictures, I put on an old pair of sandals. I got half-way up the pasture, when one heel falls off!
I figure this is not going to work, so I head back to the house, and the other heel falls off, so at least walking is easier, if odd, since now my heels are lower than the toes.
So I thought, well I try again this morning, which was less disastrous where muck and shoes are concerned, since the remaining pigs have access to the big pen again, but Maggie managed to override that.
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| It's up there... |
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| ...right up there... |
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| ...or maybe up on that tree! |
Where's the rat?
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