I spent some time in Mississippi in my youth and one of my most vivid memories is seeing the cottonmouths' heads bobbing the lake. Lots of heads; no swimming for me altho there were those who went in anyway. Today, as I staggered out of the filthy water (runoff from animal effluent), I was reminded of that cherished childhood scene.
This afternoon started out pretty nice. It was overcast but no rain. In fact, it hasn't rained for several days so I decided to do an 'up close and personal' check of the sheep. They were in paddock #2 and I wanted to go up the hill through paddock #3. For some unknown reason, I decided to explore. Perhaps it was the freedom of not having to wear my down parka, perhaps it was because I hit the big 70 recently and wanted to prove something to myself. Oh, I proved it all right - I'm not as young as I was.
So I decided to jump that itty bitty creek instead of circling around the entire paddock. I took a slight running pace, slipped on the grass, missed my footing and ended up staring at the sky. Note to Dan: that creek is deeper than you think. It was above my knees when I was finally able to stagger up. I am 5'3". You do the math.
I would have been humiliated except that no one saw me except me and I'm used to my pathetic antics. Well, there was an observer. RAMbo had ambled over to watch the fun. He didn't look pleased to see me dripping wet. I got the distinct impression that he was considering whether or not this was the time for a pre-emptive strike. Lucky for him there were no hostilities. I would have wiped the paddock with him. In my mood I might even have caused him serious bodily harm.
Oh, who am I kidding? It was a dumb stunt and I should have known better. I was evaluating this whole thing as I squelched my way home smelling of paddock and animals. In my last blog, I called steer #104 stupid and implied that he had an IQ in the single digits.
I now apologize to Mr. Stupid. Your IQ may be in the single digits but mine IS a single digit. So I offer you a picture of #104 - the smarter of the two of us.
