Hung Up

Hung up

The calf is in the orchard. Again. Number 250, staring me down with an innocence that melts reason. "I will love him and pet him and name him George."  My IQ falls by tens in the beam of his stare somehow made more intense by cud
chewing. Maybe he can stay in the orchard. Is he really harming the trees?  The bent branches make their own plea.

It's a mile around the pasture. Long pants I bought at the Goodwill are tucked into the leather farm boots. The handle of my "fence fixing" pail squeaks as left then right foot land and avoid the hoof ruts on the beaten down grass path.

We take for granted smooth lawns. Nature doesn't lean toward smooth, it is full of nooks and ridges where it can store more life like an excessively pocketed purse. Snakes dwell in those pouches of nature and grass half covers the ground
hog holes.  Intentional steps and laser focus slow the pace allowing the brain to sort out the fence while 13 calves and 7 sheep look on. 

 Sheep "Baa" loudly sounding more like "Maa" appealing for food, activating the guilt lobe in the brain. If you are a woman, you know the guilt lobe. It's located near the lobe that makes us crave
chocolate.

Squeak squeak, Baa, buzzing cicadas, 20 pair of eyes, tops of boots swishing through dry grass, smack a horsefly dead... The fence is hung up on barbed wire
here and on a branch there. The wire breaks in the untwisting and more wire is patched in. Begin and stop, bend and stoop, drooping branches pruned, the electric wire free now to corral the four legged.

Confident steps propel me toward the barn feeling I've all but finished.  Then eyes catch poison ivy growing fresh and bold at the fence corner. The
pruners do their work, but in the stooping, an "aha!" The corner wire is jammed and sneakily twisted around the wires that hold the insulator in place. The root of all hang ups and the whereabouts known only from a tattletale ivy. The wire is pulled tight and tangled, stretched by the greedy gait of number 250 no doubt. A few thistles pulled, then grass laid low under a hand scythe, and finally the fence is switched on. The orchard is safe.

I am safe from making yet another cow my pet, and this a borrowed pet at best. After the losses of last summer with 3 dead cows in less than 3 weeks my own fencing guarding a heart too soft is roughly patched and hung up precariously.

250 belongs to a farmer friend who graciously agreed to bring calves to graze our pasture.  Steers that belong to him, medical bills that belong to him, and guilt and sorrow that belong to him in the event of tragedy.

I carry the green plastic scoop filled with molasses covered grains to the demanding and greedy sheep, and greet each friend- Spanky, Indigo, Larry,
Darryl, his other brother Darryl, Mo, and Birdie.  A quick stop back  inside the house to change into cooler shorts and shoes to return to planned chores in the already sultry garden. 

 I grab a water bottle then reach for a piece of chocolate on the way out.