Saturday, September 22, 2012

That Horrible Moment...

when you realize that the two ram lambs you castrated 4 months ago slipped their bands and you have four rams and one wether instead of two rams and three wethers.  Sigh.  I think I am going to have to invest in a Burdizzo or learn to castrate with a knife. 

Audrey's limping and I can't figure out why.  Caught her and inspected her hooves and dipped them in hoof solution, but can't see anything.  Hope it works belatedly.  It brings back memories of years of dealing with Ohia's hooves.  I still miss that horse - found a picture of him while cleaning today and hit me kind of hard. 

Our small chest freezer is full of meat - up to the top.  We defrosted a couple of steaks for a barbecue tonight and they look GREAT!  I can't wait to try them. I am a little bummed I wasn't here to help load up the freezer because I don't know what all is in there and I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to how the meat got loaded in.  That's the one drawback of a chest freezer - the digging around you have to do to see what's inside. I do love grass fed beef, so I am happy in spite of the hassles of excavating the freezer. 

I had a great day on Maui - stimulating professional conversation and the long flight back wasn't too bad, because the second leg was on the same plane as the first, so we just all had to move seats.  I know I have mentioned it before - but I really love my job.  I love teaching, I love teacher geek work like yesterday, and I love the organization at which I am so blessed to have a job.  And then I get to come home to sheep (mixed blessing) and Gibby (great blessing) and the dogs and cat and the garden. 

I do feel blessed. 

3 comments:

Chai Chai said...

Of course that will affect the taste of the meat.

Julie said...

Well that is an interesting comment. I have heard that it is important to castrate goats and cows to avoid changing the taste of the meat but that it doesn't make that much of a difference in sheep. What has your experience been Nancy? (Glad you had a good time on Maui. See, we're not so bad ; )

NancyDe said...

I actually haven't eaten an intact ram to know whether they taste different.

Hope I didn't offend, Julie, with my Maui comments - just had a run of nasty people down in Kahului and am doing some foolish generalizing. We went up to Pukalani and had a great time with people from several different campuses working on standards! Two of my favorite fellow teachers are from Maui!