Wormin' Time
Sunny, 68/30, Fair to Fair. Been sunny here for a week and a half. Both boys play basketball, so its hard to get the chores done before their games. Most farm chores are happening on weekends only now. Last weekend, I fired up the ol hand cranked sheller and finished up this years feed corn shelling. It went pretty well, I also ended up with enough seed corn to plant for next year. More than I expected with the drought this year.
With this seasons drought it was bound to happen. Worms!! A couple of my nannies were looking a little peaked, so along with my wife, we went out for a two hour bout of wrestling, chasing, and being chased that we around here call worming. While my wife was finding all the medicine and syringes and stuff, I rounded them all up to the sounds of the Commodores. Now if you think these goats just happen to like the funky sound while their owner is getting down with his bad self, you are wrong. While “Brick House” is being sung at the top of my lungs, I’m also shaking a bucket of corn. I tell my wife it’s a combination of the two, she thinks its just the corn….. she may be right…
Well, they all get into the pen… all except Billy. He’s looking at my wife kinda suspiciously. He looks at the corn, then looks at her and then me with a “What’s she doing here?” kind of look. Finally, Billy can’t stand others eating food while he’s not (my wife says I have that problem too), and he runs to the food trough. The gate slams, and the fun is about to begin.
Our pen is square, with an alley for running the goats up to a gate. I follow them up the alley, and when they reach the end, I grab them. Then Kathy reaches through and gives them the worming medicine and we open the gate and let the goat out and move on to the next one. This works pretty well on everyone except Billy, who tries to leap or butt, or crawl through and known barrier or pursuer. We try to get him out first.
For me, catching Billy is a delicate balance of maintaining my manliness, and staying alive. Any given Billy catching session will contain tough talk with an occasional curse word, while not trying to dirty my drawers when I realize Billy sees his only way out is through me. I swear my wife just comes along to laugh at a 6’3” 230 lb man trying to regain his bravado after screaming like a sissy man when Billy lowers his head and charges.
Well I finally had Billy cornered next to the hay rack. The other goats had moved to the perimeter of the pen and were watching the two wills collide. The whole catch pen was taking on a football stadium kind of atmosphere. Billy looked at me……then the hayrack….and I saw it!! My wife screamed at the top of her lungs “Did you see that? Did you see that look? That’s the man look I’ve been trying to tell you about!!”
Ahhhh….. the man look. The look my wife says I get just before I go and do something really stupid. It’s the look I get when I go to show my Varsity football playing son how to block even though its been 30 years since I played football and he’s in the weight room all the time. It’s the look I get when I strap on water skis and decide that at 44 years old, I’m just as nimble as I was in high school. Its also the look I get when while standing in Wal-Mart, I get the bright idea that a Hoover upright vacuum cleaner is the right gift for our 20th anniversary. Anyway, lets just say… I know the look.
Well Billy had the look too just before he decided the only way out was to jump the hayrack…. He didn’t make it. Now stuck on top of the hayrack, he tried to scramble over. While scrambling, he got his leg caught in one of the steel hay supports. He let out a bellow and my wife screamed “Do something”.
So with the grace and elegance of a fine herdsman, I quickly moved in and calmly let his leg go from being caught. Then upon freeing him Billy jumped off the hay rack and stood there looking at me, I knew from the on…we’d be best friends.
“Do Something Brad!!” I quickly snapped out of my day dream. The only way to get him unstuck was to lift him off the rack. At close to 200 lbs. it wasn’t going to be easy. So I ran behind him and lifted him off the rack while trying to avoid his ol’ spread out Kiko-like horns. I pulled backwards until his leg pulled free. When it pulled free, I lost my balance and fell backwards. Billy fell on top of me and scrambled trying to get up. I ended up avoiding most of the flailing hooves and with Billy on his feet and my wife laughing her… uh… head off. After Billy was gone, and I was laying there flat on my back, I decided to open my eyes. There above me was one of my nannies chewing her cud and staring down at me. She looks at me and lets out the most obnoxious bawl I’ve heard in quite a while. I got up quickly, brushed off the dingle berries and continued the chase.
Eventually I caught Billy and all the other goats (with the exception of one kid who squeezed through the gate). We wormed and doctored them. When it was finished, I looked out to the edge of our pasture an along the tree line. All the goats were grazing contently. All except Billy, who just stared at me. I have a feeling Billy might be causing another headache come spring worming time.
With this seasons drought it was bound to happen. Worms!! A couple of my nannies were looking a little peaked, so along with my wife, we went out for a two hour bout of wrestling, chasing, and being chased that we around here call worming. While my wife was finding all the medicine and syringes and stuff, I rounded them all up to the sounds of the Commodores. Now if you think these goats just happen to like the funky sound while their owner is getting down with his bad self, you are wrong. While “Brick House” is being sung at the top of my lungs, I’m also shaking a bucket of corn. I tell my wife it’s a combination of the two, she thinks its just the corn….. she may be right…
Well, they all get into the pen… all except Billy. He’s looking at my wife kinda suspiciously. He looks at the corn, then looks at her and then me with a “What’s she doing here?” kind of look. Finally, Billy can’t stand others eating food while he’s not (my wife says I have that problem too), and he runs to the food trough. The gate slams, and the fun is about to begin.
Our pen is square, with an alley for running the goats up to a gate. I follow them up the alley, and when they reach the end, I grab them. Then Kathy reaches through and gives them the worming medicine and we open the gate and let the goat out and move on to the next one. This works pretty well on everyone except Billy, who tries to leap or butt, or crawl through and known barrier or pursuer. We try to get him out first.
For me, catching Billy is a delicate balance of maintaining my manliness, and staying alive. Any given Billy catching session will contain tough talk with an occasional curse word, while not trying to dirty my drawers when I realize Billy sees his only way out is through me. I swear my wife just comes along to laugh at a 6’3” 230 lb man trying to regain his bravado after screaming like a sissy man when Billy lowers his head and charges.
Well I finally had Billy cornered next to the hay rack. The other goats had moved to the perimeter of the pen and were watching the two wills collide. The whole catch pen was taking on a football stadium kind of atmosphere. Billy looked at me……then the hayrack….and I saw it!! My wife screamed at the top of her lungs “Did you see that? Did you see that look? That’s the man look I’ve been trying to tell you about!!”
Ahhhh….. the man look. The look my wife says I get just before I go and do something really stupid. It’s the look I get when I go to show my Varsity football playing son how to block even though its been 30 years since I played football and he’s in the weight room all the time. It’s the look I get when I strap on water skis and decide that at 44 years old, I’m just as nimble as I was in high school. Its also the look I get when while standing in Wal-Mart, I get the bright idea that a Hoover upright vacuum cleaner is the right gift for our 20th anniversary. Anyway, lets just say… I know the look.
Well Billy had the look too just before he decided the only way out was to jump the hayrack…. He didn’t make it. Now stuck on top of the hayrack, he tried to scramble over. While scrambling, he got his leg caught in one of the steel hay supports. He let out a bellow and my wife screamed “Do something”.
So with the grace and elegance of a fine herdsman, I quickly moved in and calmly let his leg go from being caught. Then upon freeing him Billy jumped off the hay rack and stood there looking at me, I knew from the on…we’d be best friends.
“Do Something Brad!!” I quickly snapped out of my day dream. The only way to get him unstuck was to lift him off the rack. At close to 200 lbs. it wasn’t going to be easy. So I ran behind him and lifted him off the rack while trying to avoid his ol’ spread out Kiko-like horns. I pulled backwards until his leg pulled free. When it pulled free, I lost my balance and fell backwards. Billy fell on top of me and scrambled trying to get up. I ended up avoiding most of the flailing hooves and with Billy on his feet and my wife laughing her… uh… head off. After Billy was gone, and I was laying there flat on my back, I decided to open my eyes. There above me was one of my nannies chewing her cud and staring down at me. She looks at me and lets out the most obnoxious bawl I’ve heard in quite a while. I got up quickly, brushed off the dingle berries and continued the chase.
Eventually I caught Billy and all the other goats (with the exception of one kid who squeezed through the gate). We wormed and doctored them. When it was finished, I looked out to the edge of our pasture an along the tree line. All the goats were grazing contently. All except Billy, who just stared at me. I have a feeling Billy might be causing another headache come spring worming time.
posted by Brad Bachelor at 3:56 AM
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