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Thursday, September 29, 2011

The never-boring Farmwife life



I was never so bored as when I lived in Taipei City, Taiwan. I’m one of those annoyingly optimistic morning people but I would wake up on a Saturday and think, ‘now what’?? Sure, I could go shopping or to the gym or the movies or an art show or a museum...but it was just observing. It wasn’t doing. It wasn’t living, as far as I was concerned. Now I live on a farm, and I enjoy every minute of my day because there is always something going on. Something real. Something fulfilling and exciting.
Many cityfolk imagine life on the farm to be uneventful and boring. This is not the case. Let me tell you about my week. First, I had to catch two of my barn cats and fast them overnight for their spay operation. I baited the cages and caught one relatively tame cat and one that was quite wild. All night long I could hear the wild cat, captive in the powder room. It repeatedly threw its body against the door in an attempt to get out. At one point I peeked in and it was scaling the side of the mirror. We were both up for most of the night. In the morning, I opened the door and it ran up my body, jumped over my head and scooted down the hall. I decided it was too stressful to deal with that cat, and I let it go.
The next day, I had to take our gentle-yet-dumb Gordon Setter and our extremely high-strung Border Collie to the municipal rabies clinic. I hung a sheet in the Explorer between the back seat and the cargo area so the two dogs couldn’t see each other. They could smell and hear each other of course, so that just drove them nuts. The anxiety had the fur flying and my car was covered in an inch of dog hair by the time we drove the 15 minutes to town. Once at the clinic, Andy Parent (animal control officer) came out and helped me to muzzle Chelsea so that the vet could give her the shot. I am still amazed that I accomplished this entire feat with no one being bitten and I didn’t have to drive with a wild dog on my head.
On Thursday night, we were informed that our bull was on its way home from the farm where it had been doing its summer breeding. When Dennis the drover backed the cattle truck up to the fence, the cows all started running toward the gate, bawling and mooing. They knew someone was either comin’ or goin’. Young Angus hopped out of the truck onto the ground and cautiously entered the barnyard. It took him about 5 minutes to realize he was home. The last time I saw him, he was standing in the middle of the pasture, surrounded by his four wives and four children.
Saturday, our middle daughter announced her engagement to her longtime beau. This is exciting news for everyone in our family, though we aren’t really surprised. And we went to my high school reunion Saturday evening. On Sunday, we were brought back down to Earth when the Farmer discovered that a coyote had killed another of our lambs.
Sunday afternoon I met many readers of this column at the Kemptville Farmers’ Market. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and say hello. It has been a good week. Full, and eventful, and worth waking up for. Every single morning.



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