After a month or so of peace and quiet, that rancher kid drove another herd of cattle onto my stomping grounds. The boys are very excited about this. I guess I’ll count my blessings, at least so far it hasn’t come to shooting.
A few days ago LB managed to hurt one of his front legs bad. Can’t tell what’s wrong, it’s clearly not broken. It’s not swollen, there’s no blood and nothing stuck in it that I can find. He’s not licking obsessively or mooning around, but he’s favoring that leg worse than ever. That puts us on light duty for morning walkies, which this morning led directly to…
Me taking another fall on some mud on a sunny slope. It’s always the same – my good foot goes out from under me and I come crashing down on whatever hand instinctively reaches out, giving my arm and shoulder a nice sharp jolt. Then my left leg buckles under me and if I’m lucky (I was) the prosthesis comes off and I don’t fracture my knee. Again. It was nice soft mud, so probably nothing suffered injury but my dignity and my jeans. Won’t know for sure till tomorrow, of course, because these aren’t 20-year-old joints I’m working with here.
In good news, though, Seymour has discovered sex.
Yes, Principal Seymour Skinner considers himself aaaall grown up. And apparently all the mature hens agree.
He is extremely pleased with himself. And I must say it has changed the dynamics in the Fortress of Attitude, which remained dangerous for months as the two sub-flocks failed to integrate and older hens incessantly picked on younger hens. And Seymour. The younger ones have clustered around him since it became clear there was a difference, but now the older ones are treating him quite a lot differently.
Of course now I’m watching for the next step, because every cock bird I’ve tried except Smithers (who became dinner for being too damned loud) went to the stewpot for abusing or, um, over-exercising the hens. So far Seymour isn’t guilty of that, but if it’s going to change this is when it will.
Ouch! Better start taking your walks with golf shoes on.
As to randy roosters, one word: saltpeter.
Joel you have got to remember that at our age gravity is not our friend. Add to that fact that help could be a long time coming and there could be problems so take it east and engage brain before putting body in motion.
Nice news about the rooster if you want some chicks. Other wise…
Joel, do you have a good walking staff?
Re LB, check his feet for the possibility of rocks stuck between his toes and look at his pads. We had a dog who often got little rocks stuck in his feet with the fur between the toes holding the little rocks hard in place.
What M J R said. Who ya gonna call for help???? It is very easy to get into serious difficulty in winter conditions. Maybe avoiding mud that isn’t frozen would be a really good idea. Two carbide tipped walking poles with baskets or a pointed tip walking stick – would they be useful? or just in the way.
No, I’ve never used one.