No Such Thing As a "Typical Day"

There's no such thing as a typical day here on Zephyr Hill Farm.  But this was yesterday.

If I was up this early every day, a sunrise like this would be typical!

This bouquet on the dining room table is definitely not typical; it's left over from Kara's art project.  Thank you, Kara, for the bouquet and the photo!

Hero regularly finds things to bark at, but it's unusual for him to see something from the back porch that makes him go tearing off toward the back pasture.  His urgency compelled me to hop in the Doodad and go check out the "disturbance."

Are you serious, Hero???  A squirrel up the pear tree???  I know he's a "sight hound," but I had no idea he could see a squirrel from that far away!

At least I know the pears are ripening.   And the Back Pasture needs bush-hogging.  That's typical!

It's typical that the cows start mooing when they see the Doodad.  They know it's the Great Purveyor of Treats.  Not this time, though--I wanted to finish my morning coffee.

For the past week it has been untypically typical to have a new bovine around.  Ebony and I have bonded enough that I was ready to put her out to pasture, but I wanted to try an experiment first.  I opened the gate to the stanchion and put feed in the box and another tub of it on the stanchion platform.  She stepped right up to trim the long Bermuda grass growing up behind the gate.

I clipped on her lead rope and encouraged her to step right up onto the milking parlor floor and then the stanchion.  With the tiniest pressure on the lead (immediately let up) she was quite curious and willing to explore.  Once she found the tub on the floor and got the taste, I dumped it into the feed box--and she stepped right into place.  I didn't close the neck bars, but just petted and scratched her all over and told her what a good cow she is!

When Ebby finished eating, I used the lead rope to guide her to step backwards off the stanchion and head to the door.  She stopped on the way to trim some more grass.  Move over, lawn guys, your job is in jeopardy!

 The first part of our walk to the pasture is through an unfenced area, so I kept it very relaxed.  When Ebby wanted to stop and eat, we did.

As soon as we got into the pasture and started down the hill, six heads shot up and 24 feet came galloping across the Lower Pasture.  That's typical, too.  Nobody misses a trick around here!

A large, nosy greeting committee lined up along the fence so everybody could get a look at the "new girl."

Ebby was excited and eager, but she let me lead her to the water first.  When I let her go, Boudin got to touch noses first.  Nothing is typical with him since he's new, too, but I get the impression that he's the self-appointed Spokesman for the bovines.  (Well, maybe until Royal arrives and grows into his job as Spokes-Bull!)

Sir Loin came down to the bottom of the Home Pasture, so I managed to finagle the sheep and turkey away from the gate and get Sir Loin out into the pasture with Ebby.  The sheep being that cooperative is definitely atypical!

After meeting the other cows through the fence, Ebby wandered off to explore her new pasture.  She reminded me of the Pied Piper with all three black cows stringing along behind everywhere she went.

And that was our Tuesday.  Typically, a pretty good day!