Primo has his first round of college midterms this week, so in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere a bit, my husband has been texting him a "joke of the day."
Yesterday's joke: Why did the ram fall off the cliff? He missed the ewe turn!
You get the idea, though they aren't all necessarily sheep jokes.
Today's joke, quoted directly from my husband's texts:
"Joke of the day (?). Farmer walks to the back pasture to feed Rams, finds pens empty,
"Calls Farmer's wife to report stolen Rams, wife looks out to find them all mixed with ewes and lambs one big happy family!"
Except as you may have guessed from the question mark, this was not a joke. Most definitely not a joke.
This was our horrific discovery this morning: all four rams mixing it up with whomever they pleased, after breaking down a gate and a cattle panel to get to the ewes. The true pairings have yet to be revealed and won't be known until 145 days from today, give or take three days. My fingers are crossed that they don't include sister-brother or mother-son pairs but that would be a lucky break, since chances are unfortunately all too good that this may have happened. Same thing for bred ewe lambs, which we don't do because we like to give them another year to grow out before subjecting them to the stress and strain of pregnancy.
This was our horrific discovery this morning: all four rams mixing it up with whomever they pleased, after breaking down a gate and a cattle panel to get to the ewes. The true pairings have yet to be revealed and won't be known until 145 days from today, give or take three days. My fingers are crossed that they don't include sister-brother or mother-son pairs but that would be a lucky break, since chances are unfortunately all too good that this may have happened. Same thing for bred ewe lambs, which we don't do because we like to give them another year to grow out before subjecting them to the stress and strain of pregnancy.
The miscreants: locked back up but still making eyes at the ewes.
That is actually a ewe looking directly at the camera but
we booted her back out into the ewe group.
We managed to kick the boys out into a (hopefully) secure pasture but the damage is already done. What is also done are our hopes for a quick family vacation starting next March 17, when my husband has to fly to Las Vegas for a conference. We were deliberately holding the rams out so we could leave and not worry about lambing but the rams had different plans.
The one high note was my middle son, who reacted with excitement when I mentioned that we would need to DNA test any lambs born in the suspect period to identify the father. "I can do that at school! That's just gel electrophoresis! [insert his description of the process here] I will ask to use the machines and it will be my 4-H project for the year!" The benefits of your kid going to a science-centered school.
Speaking of my middle son, he turned sweet sixteen today, and he is indeed a sweetheart, at least when those teen hormones aren't raging.
Gatorade squirt bottles and Quench gum:
that's what he asked for,and Primo obliged.
We headed over to Princeton tonight so we could enjoy a family dinner celebration with Primo. The benefits of your kid going to a local college.
The rams did that to me, too, this year! Breeding started only a few days early, though...and I am pretty sure that some lambs have been bred, even though I wanted to wait a few more months. --Rebekah in Oklahoma
ReplyDeleteHey Nate, wishing you a late Happy Birthday wish! Thank you for the soap order and good luck with the DNA tests - been there, done that...must be your turn!
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