And there I was.... naked

With the major line break that has caused our water to be off most of the last eight days, my life has been pretty disrupted.  I was thrilled last night to arrive home and find the water on.  It had been off again when I got up and was still off when I left for work.  Despite the cold brisk wind, I went immediately to work filling waterers, especially for the hogs, who love to dump theirs if they can possibly find a way.   I fed the dogs, and came inside and plopped down in my recliner.

After resting a few minutes, I made a salad for my supper and ate it while I watched a bit of TV and surfed the internet.  I wanted to take a shower, but I'd started the dishwasher and with the water pressure so low, there was not enough to do two things at once.  So, I delayed taking my shower.  Because I'd gotten so chilled watering in the cold wind, it took me a while to recognize that it was cold in the house.  I had not been thinking about it, but the heater was off due to the really warm weather lately.   I turned on the heater, I saw that the thermostat said it was 62 in here.  I really didn't want to take a shower and get out and freeze, so I decided to go to bed and just take a shower when I got up.  Yeah, right.

I got up early, so I could get all my chores done, take a shower, and go to the feed store on my way to work.  You've already guess the next part - the water was off.  Of COURSE it was.

Disgusted with both the water department, who's been unable to permanently fix the line in eight days, and with myself for squandering my chance to shower last night, I headed out to start feeding.  I was grateful I'd filled all the waterers last night!

I fed Fern and her bunch, and came back inside to get a different jacket.  Out of habit, I turned on the kitchen faucet to wash my hands - which I always do when I've been messing with the animals.  Surprise!  There was water!  Very little pressure, but it was running water.  I decided that I'd stop right then and take a shower - knowing that the water might not be on long - but praying it would be long enough to rinse the shampoo out of my hair!  The shower was more of a dribble and it took about three times as long to wash and rinse off - but I did get my hair washed and rinsed.

We had a hard freeze last night, so no way was I going back out to finish feeding with wet hair, so as soon as I was out of the shower, I started using the blow dryer.  As I turned the dryer off, I could hear the dogs and knew immediately that something was wrong.  From the tone of the barks, I knew there were two likely causes - either someone was here that should not be (and they would have had to be close to the house from the way the dogs were barking) or I had animals somewhere that they do not belong.   And there I was.... naked.  I couldn't deal with either of the possibilities without some clothing!

I have to stop at this point to say that I realized later in the day that there are an inordinate number of events in my life that upon recounting, include the phrase "and there I was.... naked."  I'm not a stripper, or a nudist, or an exhibitionist.  I wear clothing 99.9% of the time - and yet there are a fairly substantial number of very memorable events that occurred when I was naked.  I need to reflect further on why that is.   There are enough stories in the "and there I was.... naked" story collection that my co-worker today suggested (not for the first time) that I write a book.  She thinks the title "And There I Was... Naked" would sell well.

Okay - back to my morning.   I grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants and slipped my feet into some clogs.  On the way to the door, I grabbed my gun, thus disqualifying this event from the "and there I was... naked, with my gun" story collection.

Meanwhile, the dogs' barking had not abated in the least - in fact, they sounded even more crazed.  I looked out the window to see if I could see a vehicle in the driveway.  Nothing.  The dogs were, however, barking at something toward (or possibly past) the driveway.  I opened the front door and stepped out onto the deck.  I immediately saw the object of their wrath - a pig was trotting through the pasture.  Happy I wasn't going to have to engage a trespasser, I put the gun down and started trying to figure out where the pig had come from.  It was a smallish pig, and that meant it was either Grizelda or Lily.  I was sure hoping it was Grizelda, because Lily has been in Festus's pen for breeding.  If you read my previous post, you know that Festus is the one pig I don't want to encounter accidentally.

I can't see Festus's pen from the house, as there are two sheds between here and there.  Since I could not see him roaming, I was hoping that he was either a) in his pen (that was actually a prayer, not a "hope") or b) at least hanging out near his pen.   I decided my best course of action was to get a bucket of feed from the bin that is out of sight of Festus' pen.  There is another bin with hog feed closer to Festus - but I didn't want to get run over while I was trying to get feed in the bucket.   I got my big walking stick (which Feather thinks is a whacking stick) and grabbed a bucket, and went out the back door.  I started out with a normal day's ration for Festus and his two female companions... and then decided it would not hurt a thing to have extra "in case".

I headed around the side of the shed and was so very relieved to see both Festus and Keller in their pen!!  I fed them quickly to keep them busy while I figured out how on earth I was going to get Lily back in the pen.  The far corner of the pen was wide open.  This corner is not the same one they'd opened up earlier this week.  (And yes, Anthea, I heard you tell me to chain the corners.  I intended to do that. Really.  I was going to get some chain.  Soon. ;)

About this same time, the dogs realized that I'd come out the back door.  Since I have dogs in heat - and am NOT wanting anyone bred at this time, I have all the grown  and intact dogs "secured".  The dogs that were loose outside of the dog yards were Feather's pups and Obie - Obie is not their father, but he's responsible for them being here.  They are half English Shepherd and half  traveling Beagle.... because Obie brought the stupid fence-scaling beagle home with him!!  Up to now, they've not shown one iota of herding drive.   But idiot puppies that they are, my appearance signaled them that the time for alerting me had ended and it was time for action!  Six puppies took off after Lily.  Lily took off running and the pups fell into formation - encircling her.  It hadn't occurred to me to get any of the "good" dogs out to help me.  Now it was a bit late.  The pups were "on the job!"   They didn't seem to have a plan... or maybe Lily wasn't cooperating.  They ran and barked and ran and barked and ran and barked.  I was grabbing stuff to fix the fence, still trying to figure out how I was going to deal with getting Lily back in....  And then suddenly - they ran Lily back into the pen, through the opening in the corner.  Wow!  An English Shepherd moment!  How easy was that???

And then... all six pups followed her into the hog pen.  Carp!  Well, I didn't have time to deal with that right that minute.  I figured if I was lucky, Festus would eat all of them.   :@)

First thing I needed to do was close up that opening.  Fixing that corner looked nearly impossible,  There is a barbed wire fence on two sides of the hog pen - and this is the corner that is inside the corner of the two barbed wire fences.   Because of the way the hog panel was bent out, I could not get between the barbed wire fence and the hog panel.  I was going to have to find a way to fix it from the outside of the barbed wire.

While the dogs kept the hogs away from the opening, I got a ratchet strap strung through the fence and was able to pull the panel back closer to the corner post.  Not good enough, but it was closed enough to keep the pigs in for a second.  Actually, it was like a bandaid on a spurting artery, but at least I was making progress.

What I needed was a way to push that panel back into place... but how?  The tractor would be strong enough to bend the panel back - but I could not get it to touch the hog panel because of the barbed wire fence.  Push it with a post?  Nope - that wasn't going to work.  What I needed was something that I could use to push through the barbed wire fence.  Something that would push firmly against that hog panel.  And then it hit me... Pallet!  I grabbed the tractor key and pulled over to pick up a pallet.  I got the tractor in position, and maneuvered the pallet to get it through the barbed wire and squared up with the front end loader.  It took me a few moments of inching the tractor oooooh sooooo slowly, but I finally got the panel pushed back to it's original position, and shut the tractor off so it would hold the panel in place while I worked through the barbed wire fence to secure the panels.

And then.... I got six REALLY MUDDY puppies out of the hog pen, lifting them over the fence, one at a time.  I was soooooo happy I'd already had my shower.  (at least my hair was still clean!!)  The pups were all obviously very proud of themselves.  And then a butterfly flew by and they were off...

And as I started catching my breath and putting my tools away, I noticed this:

See that white lump?   Can't tell what it is?   It's this....  Obie-"Pigs are NOT my job"-the livestock guardian dog.  You can see that he was highly stressed by the morning's events.   He seriously never moved as I walked over there - gravel crunching under my feet.   (And there he was.... naked.  LOL)

Edited to add... 

My old high school chum, Curtis Dougherty, posted this picture (of people we do not know) on Facebook just moments after I posted this blog entry.  Serendipity!

The caption for the photo is:  It's that awkward moment when your friend's arm fat makes YOU look naked!

I can't stop laughing.  LOL!!

What do you do if....?

Anthea warned me about Festus, our largest boar.  She said that they never went into his pen without first walling him off in a section, using another hog panel.  Festus was raised in a petting zoo.  As with all male livestock animals that are raised with too much human contact, he fails to have appropriate responses to humans.   Thus, when we bought Anthea's hogs a month or so ago, she warned us to be careful around Festus.  Note taken.

I should say - Festus (as with all our hogs) is an American Guinea Hog, a small, rare, heritage breed of hog.  I like them because they are not as big as more "modern" or  "improved" breeds, and because I do most chores around here, I like smaller animals that are a bit easier for a woman to handle.   But a boar, no matter how "small", can hurt you.   (This "small" boar probably weighs 400 lbs)

 

(Picture of Festus in his pen, taken last week a few days after the 6" rainfall, smallest pig behind him is Lily, larger sow is Keller)

After Anthea's warning, and knowing that I regularly go in with all the other pigs, Cliff made me promise that I would never go into that pen when he's not here.  I promised.  But - one day, I'd backed up to Festus's pen to unload some fruit & veggies I'd brought home for the hogs.  My tailgate was just about the same height as the hog panel.  It seemed mighty convenient, at the time.... for about a second and a half.  Then, Festus jumped up and put his feet in the back of my 4WD truck.  YIKES!  I started wondering what would happen if Festus got out.

So, every day as I go out to do chores, I ponder - what will I do if Festus is out?  I've never come up with a good answer, other than "get to the nearest food and dump some on the ground."  And then what?  I'm not sure.   I do NOT like being without a plan....I'm a planner.  It's just what I do.

I have a plan for what to do if there's a tornado.  I have a plan for what to do if there's no electricity.  I have a plan for what to do if there's no water (and got to practice that plan when our water was out for 5 days last week!).  I have a plan for what to do if the cows are out.  As a matter of fact, I have plan A, B, C, etc for most every situation.  I'm not a worrier... because I have a plan for most anything that can happen.  If you know you can handle something, what's there to worry about?   I have a plan for what to do if any of the other hogs are out.... but I have no good plan for what to do if I'm home alone and Festus gets out.

Well, this morning, I almost got to find out what I'd do.  We had a very heavy rain during the night (which followed 6" of rain a week ago), so there is a lot of mud this morning.  As I carried some food to Festus and his girls (Keller and Lily), something caught my eye.  The corner of their pen was almost completely open!!!

 They ( "they" meaning almost certainly Festus) had been forcing the panel out - and had broken all the wires holding the two panels to the t post except for one wire at the top of the cattle panel.  Both panels were forced out so far that it took every bit of my strength to bend them back even close to the post.  The opening was large enough that Lily could have walked right out - and one more good push would have let all three of them out.

I want to pause right here and offer public thanks to the Holy Spirit, who had to have been the one who prompted me to change my normal morning routine, so that I went out to feed the pigs an hour and a half earlier than usual.... and went to Festus's pen first, when he's always last.  I was likely just a couple of minutes from having all three pigs loose.

I fed the pigs in the dry spot farthest from the corner where I needed to work, so that they were distracted.   I wasn't strong enough to completely bend the panels back, but I finally managed to get them close - and I have about 57 lbs of wire holding that corner together.  Well, maybe not 57 lbs, but a lot.  :)

I didn't  pause to take pictures (and maybe not even to breathe) until I got the fence fixed....   In the picture below, the white line is where the bottom of the panel should be.  You can see (I think) where it ended up after I bent it back.  The point of the pink arrow is where it was when I went outside.

Yeah - I need a plan (or four) for what I'm going to do if I'm here alone and Festus gets out.

Feather's very bad awful day

Feather is having a very bad awful day.  She's just started her heat cycle and she's mopey.  But add to that, I was swatting flies in the kitchen.... and she's very afraid of people with "whacking sticks".  She's never been shot or beaten, but you'd never know it if you see her when someone has a gun, or a yardstick, or a fly swatter.   She's so afraid of flyswatters that she even hides if she's outside and I'm swatting flies inside.  LOL

But - the worst part of her day is that I'm making her wear her "doggie britches" in the house.

How humiliating!

She mostly stays in her crate when she's in the house even though I rarely tell her to go into it and very rarely shut the door - it's her private place.  I tried to get her to come out of her crate so I could get a picture of her in her doggie britches.  She's so depressed she refuses to come out... just lays in her crate with her head hanging out the door... and giving me the sad dog face.

Anyone who's ever had PMS can relate.