A1A South

The ol’ blind Rambouillet ewe that suffered obturator nerve paralysis during lambing and that subsequently fell on and smothered her lamb recovered, as you will remember, and was happily wandering around with the rest of the flock, albeit bumping into things along the way.

Sometime during the day on Sunday, she met with another mishap. Perhaps she was startled by a sudden noise, or the lambs racing by frightened her. (I have actually been in the barn when two ducks got into a fight and a lamb that was sleeping with her front leg under the wooden fence was so startled and leaped to her feet so violently that she shattered her thigh.) I found old Rambouillet Mon Ami in a partially down fence, legs entangled, as though she had tried to leap through the woven wire fence and didn’t make it. Once untangled, she could not get to her feet unassisted but could stagger along if helped. I took her to a protected area of yard and let her graze on the fresh green grass where the other sheep could not bother her. That night, I was able to help her stagger into the dog kennel where she demonstrated that her appetite for food and water was quite unharmed. Monday morning, she was not able to get to her feet at all. I did my best to help her up before I went to work, but she couldn’t even stand. I placed feed, water, and hay within reach, then left for work (arriving late). *Sigh*

Monday evening, she was again unable to stand. I put her on a wagon and took her a particularly green area, removed her from the wagon, returning frequently to drag her to fresh grass as she grazed it down. I left her in the yard all night but decided to move her under shelter with hay, feed and water in case of rain. I power lifted her onto the wagon again, arranged her comfortably, did the rest of the feeding and bottle feeding of the lamb, and arrived to work 5 minutes late again.

This evening, her paralysis doesn’t appear to be getting any better, but her appetite is intact and she doesn’t appear to be feeling any pain. I loaded her onto the wagon again (who needs to go to a gym for weightlifting!) and pulled her out and unloaded her for some grazing before the thunderstorms arrived, hoping the neighbors were watching t.v. and not calling each other and saying things like “do you think we ought to call the authorities and Baker act her?” “Better not. Remember her shotguns?”

While Mon Ami was greedily grazing, I bottle fed the lamb, let the rams out to graze with the horse briefly, went out to eat (early bird special–15% discount!), picked up some snacks for the school kids at the grocery store, came home and fed the ewes, dropped hay to the ewes, fed the horse, fed the rams, bottle fed the lamb again, fed the dogs, chicks, chickens, ducks, duckling, and fed the cats. By this time, the lightning was flashing continuously and I ran out with my lil’ red wagon to load up the ewe, praying that if I got hit by lightening and B-B-Qed, the papers wouldn’t mention the sheep in the wagon. Oh, you KNOW they would.

On the way back to shelter, I kept looking back to make sure none of her legs were falling out of the wagon near the wheels because all she needed was a broken leg in addition to her possible spinal injury/inflammation. Her head was lolling off the wagon. Was she injured? Going into shock? Nope. She was grazing as I pulled her along. Talk about adjusting to life with a disability! I tucked her away under the shelter with feed, hay, and water once again, and dodged rain drops and lightening into the house. This was a great relief to the duck on the nest that she had put inside an empty muck bucket under the shelter. She dealt with my comings and goings with equanimity. The sight of a sheep on a red wagon was just too much for her to bear and she took off, watching suspiciously from a distance until I removed the sheep from the wagon and went inside. Maybe she thought she would be next.

Now, I know that I am not supposed to take a shower during a thunderstorm because I can get electrocuted, or so they say, and I’m sure they’re right. On the other hand, I couldn’t bear the thought of the electricity going out and smelling of sheep urine all night, so into the shower I jumped. Despite scrubbing myself down with various perfumed soaps and anointing myself with the smelliest of lotions, I still smell of sheep urine.

I wish I could report that sheep urine has a miraculous effect on wrinkle removal, but it doesn’t, really. People just stand so far away from you that they can’t see the wrinkles.

Sam, the German Shepherd pup that has been gallumping around the yard, destroying flowerbeds, dog beds, kitty beds, shoes, screens, tarps, and anything else he can sink his teeth into has heretofore been a big happy, gamboling goof. That all changed in a split second when our neighbor came up to the gate to ask if I wanted him to trim a tree out front that had sustained some winter damage.

Sam turned from frolicking pup to guard dog from hell in an instant. The hair stood up on the back of his neck all the way to his tail. Those fangs of his that he’d been using to chew up buckets, books, and shoes were bared. He started barking and growling and raced toward the fence to ward off the threat to momma.

The neighbor’s lab who had been staying sedately in her yard heard the racket and ran out to protect HER master, and then the two of them were fighting through the fence. I had to grab Sam (BAD PUPPY!) by the collar and shake him a couple times to get his attention and make him sit.

Bad Puppy has been lately calmly lying in the front flower bed (which is now a big dug out hole, damnit), quietly watching the hens and chicks, ducks and ducklings, squirrels, kitties, boinging lambs and grazing ewes. SwampMan said “I think he’s guarding everything.” I didn’t think so because I didn’t think Sam was old enough, but it looks like I was wrong.

I watched this afternoon as Sam made his rounds around the perimeter, checked the sheep pasture, and ignored the chicks in the protective cage in the yard. He acted like a guard making his rounds. He’s taller and longer than Odie now, and his feet are twice the size of Odie’s.

I’m not surprised that Sam is a “guard dog”; after all, all the dogs that I’ve taken in have been fierce guardians of hearth and home. I was just surprised that the guardian instinct was coming out at such a young age. He’s always happy to see the family, so I wasn’t aware that it was kicking in. Guess I better do some more training in order to make sure that he will instantaneously drop if I give the command.

I caught Sam with an egg, made him spit it out, and scolded him severely. “BAD puppy! You do NOT steal eggs!” (Sam thinks his name is Bad Puppy and no longer even answers to Sam.) I went back to feeding the hungry ewes and lambs.

Coming back with the bucket, I saw a hen and rooster energetically attacking an egg. Coming closer, I saw that it was a duck egg with a tiny little motionless resident. Picking it up elicited no response, but there was bright red blood where the chickens had pecked it. I knew there was a duck nest behind the woodpile, and checked. There were 3 empty shells, 2 unhatched eggs, and this lil’ apparently lifeless egg. *sigh* She’d hatched a few, then taken off with them. Puppy, smelling the scent from the hatched eggs, had grabbed one and, finding it occupied, went into hiding before he got scolded again. I took the cold eggs and little bleedy egg with beak showing and put them into the incubator. I checked in 15 minutes….no response. I checked again about a half hour later. No response. The third time, I thought it looked as though the beak were protruding a bit further out than previously. I tapped the beak, and got a weak “peep” in return. I peeled a bit of the shell and found that the resident was all tangled up, with a webbed foot over the lil’ head, and a wing firmly wedged under the beak. I took the egg out to show SwampMan.

“AAAAAAAH! Get that THANG away from ME! What the hell is it?” he screeched, which I would have thought difficult to do with a deep, rumbly voice, while simultaneously throwing himself back as far as possible in the recliner.

“Um, it’s a little duck hatching.” Sheesh.

“That’s a duck?”

“What did you think it was?” I mean, really, how many things hatch out of eggs? Chicks? Ducklings? Maybe he thought I’d gotten an alligator egg.

“I don’t know! It looks like one of those things from Alien that’s fixin’ to kill somebody. Get it OUT of here! It’s creepy!”

Sheesh. Put a tool that needs fixing in front of that man, and he can tear it down and rebuild it. Put a teensy little hatching duck in front of that man, and he gets all weird.

Guess he wouldn’t have liked the cute lil’ possum that was growling out in the barn last night either. I fed it some cat food.

Update: I brought very noisy duckling out of the incubator this morning prior to placing him in a brooder and showed him to SwampMan.

“That’s what was in that egg?”

“Yes. Isn’t he cute?” (and he is, now that he’s all dried with poofy down).

“Yeah!” He bent the reading light over toward the duckling.

“What are you doing?”

“He’s shivering, I’m moving the bulb over so that he can get warmed up.”

“That is a fluorescent energy saving bulb. They don’t emit heat like an incandescent bulb.”

“They don’t?” He put hand up to bulb. “I’ll be danged. I didn’t know that!”

I guess that’s why he has me around to take care of household stuff.