The life of bill, part 2.

[ford_prefect42]

Yesterday was an odd mix of productivity and frustration. Many days, my life reminds me of the old song "dear Liza".

https://youtu.be/MAfCQ-t7xY0

Comments

[banner]

*sigh* I miss farm work...

Okay, not really! :-)

[kharmii]

A friend of mine had to bury a cow with a back hoe.

Interesting googling the sheep problems. My parents were thinking of keeping them when we get to Indiana.

[ford_prefect42]

Eh hem:

NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! DON'T DO IT, YOU'RE A YOUNG MAN! YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!

One confounding aspect of the sheep health concerns is that the shearer came last Saturday. The same thing happened last year, a number of animals developed health issues a few days after the shearer came. We're wondering if there's a correlation, and if so, what it might be.

[banner]

my guess would be that his equipment is spreading disease or parasites from one flock to the next.
How many nicks or cuts do the sheep pick up from shearing?
Have you talked to this or other shearers about this sort of thing happening?
Animal diseases, for some animals, will carry on the clothing of people handling the animals.

Also, it just may be that the 'shock' of being sheared is depressing their immune system, opening them up to infection, in which case, you might want to does them with antibiotics a day or two before they get sheared.

[ford_prefect42]

The shearer always nicks a few. It's something that happens.

We're leaning toward a thiamine deficiency in the feed being "triggered" by the shearing stress. Of course, that has nothing to do with the prolapsed ewe, or the convulsing lamb, but it might explain the 2 blind dead ewes.

[gwendally]

It sounds like the only actual problem with this day is that you had expected to do something else. A little Zen releasing of desire would come in handy here. You were thrown around by blustery winds, it's true, but if your expectation had been to be a leaf on the wind then you could report that you had a wild (and productive) ride.

But also, in an unrelated way, I caught how your worker last year is sort of a broken window fallacy thing. Look how productive you were cleaning up after the clusterfuck he left.

[akilika]

We get any number of broken windows when Bill's dad assigns folk to do things they are in no way equipped or capable of doing...

(I'm not SURE this is one of those. But it rather fits the pattern. You can't even blame the hired guy, since "I can't do that" always gets the response of "Try.")

[ford_prefect42]

Sorry for such a slow reply.

Believe me, I leaf on the wind with the best of them. Truth is, this day wasn't particularly noteworthy for me (other than the mass grave thing, which hasn't come up before). However, zenning is surprisingly taxing.

Actually, last year's worker wasn't overall a bad one. He's a better small engine man than I am, and we got some good stuff out of that, and he was a willing worker that brought his own equipment out to play. I have no gripe there. However, every worker will leave a few loose ends. It was just time to tie these ones up.