THE “HERE A PIG, THERE A PIG, EVERYWHERE A PIG, PIG” INCIDENT

The piglets arrived.  I quickly learned that they are deceivingly fast – I mean NASCAR fast.  And nearly as impossible to catch.  You wouldn’t think that a big-eared, fat-bodied, stumpy legged animal could have such an unbelievable amount of horsepower under the hood and be as sure-footed as a billy goat – they are like cheetahs… ninja cheetahs, to be exact.

After a lot of squealing and carrying on, everyone was safe and secure in their pen and I went to the house to wash up.  You see where I’m going with this…

Unbeknownst to me, the latch on the pen was rusty and stuck in the open position.

Five pounds of cat food and a half-bag of goat dewormer later, I located them rooting around inside a 50 pound feed bag of cow corn.  They almost became pork chops that night.

THE “ELECTRIC FENCE” INCIDENT

I wanted to get an early start pulling weeds in the garden.  I threw on my boots, grabbed the remote turner-offer thingy for the electric fence and marched out through the dew-soaked grass to the garden, which is surrounded by three strands of electric fence to keep the critters away.

The remote tuner-offer-thingy works like this:  you place the hooky-part on the fence wire and it controls the main electric fence box in the barn.  Just like a TV remote control – on, off, on, off. It’s a great time saving gadget – you don’t have to constantly run back to the barn to turn the electric fence off and on.  HOWEVER, if you’re not paying close enough attention to the indicator on the remote tuner-offer thingy, sh*t happens.

So, as I was saying, I walked out to the garden THROUGH THE DEW SOAKED GRASS, placed the remote on the fence wire and hit the OFF button.  Or so I thought…

Now, 5.7 kilovolts doesn’t sound like much.  Until you’re standing in wet grass, firmly grasping the electric fence wire that you thought was turned off, feeling the pain of 5700 volts of electricity coursing through your body.

Not only did my heart miss a few beats, but I momentarily picked up a radio station from Japan through my dental fillings.

THE “THIS CALF IS STRONGER THAN HE LOOKS” INCIDENT

Summer is calving season.  We put ear tags on all the newborns so we know which ones are bull calves and heifers calves.  The glitch to all this is that our calves are born outside in the field and are usually up and running immediately.  Trying to catch a calf is not as easy as it sounds, especially when it has a protective mother.  But the ear tags must go on, and a frantic “calf rodeo” usually ensues after the arrival of each calf.

So when my husband showed up on the three-wheeler with an unhappy bull calf across his lap, I ran to get the ear tagger.  Normally, it’s bing, bang, boom and off they go back to their mother. Normally.

I got the signal from my husband to jump in and place the ear tag.  “I got him,” he said.

Yeah, nope.  He shot toward the barn door knocking us both out of the way.  We both leaped like panthers, trying to grab him, or a leg or an ear or something to slow him down.  Thankfully, his newborn legs betrayed him long enough that we were able to get a hold of him again.  “OK, hurry up!” my husband yelled.  This time, the calf plowed me over, ricocheted off the wall and knocked all the shovels down.  The shovel kerfluffle distracted him and we pounced again. After a flurry of kicks to my shins and a big broom falling on my head, I successfully completed my mission and got the ear tag on him – which, by the way, he pulled out a few days later.

THE “SLIPPERY MANURE” INCIDENT

We all know fresh manure is slippery.  And running through fresh manure on wet concrete is like wearing roller skates on an ice rink – it’s not going to end well.

The cows and donkeys had come into the barn together.  I wanted to get the donkeys to their pen, but the cows weren’t in the mood to cooperate.  After a long frustrating game of “get over here – no, not you” I almost had everyone where I wanted them.  Until the dogs came running in…

As the cows and donkeys scattered every which way, I over-zealously took the corner by the outside door and ended up ass-over-tin-cups, landing flat on my back in a fresh pile of poop.  I never did get the donkeys in their pen.