onlythejodi

My first day working in the barn at Green Chimney’s. You know how excited I was, I could barely sleep. I arrived eager, ready to work, ready to help, ready to nuzzle sheeps and goats. Apparently I will nuzzle anything with fur, wool or hair and cannot tell one critter from another.

What kind of goat is that?   It’s a sheep.

Hey, chickens are laying eggs in the goat pen. That’s a rooster, I wouldn’t worry.

I embarrassed myself repeatedly like this while I cleaned pens, mucked out stalls, rebedded pens and watered pigs. I learned pigs need a LOT of water, goats and sheeps, not so much.

Helping move a horse trough across one paddock and into another, I was grateful for my work boots. Goat berries are small and neat, but there is no avoiding horse poo in a paddock full of horses & ponies. I learned ponies are not young horses, or even just short horses, any more than zebras are stripped horses. I discovered the easy way to tell if a mare is in heat is to take note of the hung like a horseness of the male hot on her heels.

I helped lay grass seed and learned that hay and straw, not the same thing. Hay is for eating, straw for laying down on. Who knew? I know now.

Both chickens & peacocks like to take dirt baths.

Menstruating women should beware of  sows.

Emus, like raccoons and magpies, like shiny glittery things. And they’re fast boy oh boy. This one tried to whip my rhinestone studded glasses off my face. Twice.

I learned that when everyone is bahhing, braying, and cackling it is very loud and very funny.

My first day of farm work. At 52 I’m still a teacher’s pet, kiss butt, apple polishing overachiever. Each stall in the barn needs to be cleaned once a week, but they didn’t all have to be done in one day.

I’m exhausted.
I’m hungry.
I can’t stop smiling.