Stimulating Activities

I have been reprimanded for not posting enough, and for not taking enough pictures of baby animals. One of those “problems” is easy to remedy. As you may be noticing, this post is awash in photographs of cute baby sheep and goats and even a bad puppy. Enjoy!

As far as writing more, I suppose I’ll have to just write about the minute doings of my current life. I guess maybe that’s interesting. Today, I drove a tractor. A tractor with a bucket thingy and separate pedals for forward and reverse, and separate left and right brakes. It seems like a really good idea to me, to have four pedals available for maximizing your messing up potential.

I used the tractor to do two things: After we mucked out all the stalls this morning, I had to scrape the bedding away from the barn and scoop it into the big steamy pile of cow goo. I feel like the bucket control lever could have a much more intuitive interface (perhaps a scroll wheel or a trackpad?) but I managed to get the hang of it just fine. In the afternoon I had to take water up to the oxen, who are out on pasture finally (they were very happy to be out of the barn, and I wish I had shot video of the terrifying sight of a 1600 pound oxen jumping and bucking with glee whilst stumbling down the hillside towards the tiny yet apparently effective portable electric fencing). This involves filling a basin and toting it up the hill in the tractor’s bucket, whilst not spilling too much. I got it all the way up the hill, and dropped it as I was setting it down inside the fence. Round two was more successful, with the boys receiving not only fifteen gallons of water, but also their surprisingly heavy mineral block for licking upon.

It only took two days for me to get zapped by the aforementioned fencing. It felt similar to when I plugged in my Lite-Brite incorrectly (read: while squeezing the prongs together to fit it in the outlet), only this time no thoughts of turning into a robot crossed my mind, and I find that terribly disappointing.