Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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introducing… Rhett McTavish

Exciting announcemet! A few weeks ago, we added a new member to the Lazy W Farmily. Rhett McTavish is a ten month old Highland with long auburn red hair, abbreviated horns, and deep set, sparkling brown eyes topped with the most ubelievable long, straight lashes. His expression can be described as permanently contended. His disposition is truly sweet with a dab of onery. And he has an overall sense of curiosity about the world. We are all smitten over here, as I know you will be once you meet him.

((rhett mctavish, march 2024))

Why do we keep doing this, you ask? Why do we keep bringing home animals when we know that one day, either terrifyingly soon or many years down the road, their death will break our hearts? Because we are gluttons for punishment, ha.

No. We are not. In fact, this was a hard choice and one not made lightly, with so much grief from wintertime still fresh.

Really, we found Rhett because Miss Scarlett Rose needs a proper companion. While she and Klaus did bond fast and true over the winter months, as she approached her first birthday in February she began showing signs of sexual maturity. Or, if not maturity, then at least exuberance. Enthusism. Our happy go lucky little man was bewildered, unprepared, and basically unsafe playing chasing games like soccer, hide and seek, chase, etc. I had started carrying a “NO MA’AM” stick with us on back pasture walks, and really that is no way for any of us to live peacefully.

As for the horses being potential herdmates, they eventually did relax about her presence in the middle field. She had started sharing hay with them a little, and they all three even napped in the same general vicinity of each other, with no incidents. But Dusty is fifteen, Chanta is twenty five, and neither of them seems interested in soccer or high strung little cows.

Scarlett is a herd animal and just seemed lost. Back in October, we had intended for her to be with Shelby and Shelby’s baby, after all. So. We decided to get a cow for our cow. And the exhaustive search led us to a ranch just north of Stillwater. A woman there had acquired a pregnant cow with no record of the calf’s paternity, so he had no market value as a pure Highland. But he has perfect value to us.

He is as beautiful and endearing as you can imagine, and we care zero for his paternity. We only care that he could travel (which he did, like a champ!) and was young enough to be safe to handle and maybe train a bit (check) and potentially a good match for our girl (time will tell, of course, but so far so good). We just want him to have a long happy life here, grazing and napping and being brushed, you know, just doing lots of cow stuff! And helping Scarlett feel less alone in the world, as she can do for him in return.

If you are wondering whether we intend to breed Rhett and Scarlett, the answer is no. Despite their Gone With the Wind monikers, we intend for them to be companions and hopefully platonic roomies and BFFs for the next very many years or so. He will eventually outgrow her, though for now she has the advantage on not only age but also size.

Edit: Since writing that last sentence a week ago, I should tell you that we have noticed that he has noticed that he has horns. So.

((rhett feasting on hay in late march 2024))

To my point about not breeding Rhett and Scarlett: Before we loaded him into our trailer that day, he was directed into a squeeze shoot and endured the mild indignity of banding, a quick process by which he became a steer, no longer a bull. At nine months old, we thought that surely he was several months away from being ready to mate; but still we felt good about taking this precaution right away.

The last few weeks have been pretty wonderful.

Scarlett spent the first few days bossing him around, making sure he knew it was her pen and her cow cabin and her hay and her mama. But he was undeterred. He just followed her everywhere. They quickly began to move almost as one animal, and he picked up on our farm day routines like magic. It has been fun to watch them interact, bump into each other for treats, and nap within a few feet of each other. He learned immediately that the garden cottage is where we keep their proten feed, so anytime I work in there I can feel someone wacthing me.

((rhett sending me telepathy about needing a little treat))

For one day and one day only, we did observe some romantic behavior between them, but the geometry didn’t quite line up, so we are not worried about an unplanned pregnancy. Also, his banding should soon have taken full effect.

I could tell you cow stories all day. They are both so funny, just full of innocence and insistent about their needs, like toddlers. They terrorize the horses, but gently, and they get the zoomies when loose in the middle field. We love them. Klaus loves them. I think Klaus is also relieved to have someone bigger and sturdier to absorb Scarlett’s considerable energy, ha.

The learning curve has been solid. My husband has a bank of childhood memories from his grandfather’s ranch, and we are surrounded now by cattle ranching friends who help us naviagte the ocean of internet answers when we have questions. We also love our vet. I am fully enjoying it all. I hope that Rhett will soon accept grooming like Scarlett does, but I am in no hurry. He comes straight to us when we walk outside, accepts treats and fly spray, and has shown zero agression. This is a very good beginning. And Scarlett Rose is no longer a lonely cow.

“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.”
~Menicus
XOXO

little lady marigold xoxo

Little Lady Marigold is the precious, diminutive, wild sheep I have always wanted. She is opinionated, lucid, brave, and full of energy.

She got her fancy name by two strokes of beautiful timing. First, I asked Handsome and Jessica separately for name ideas, and within an hour of each other they both texted, “Little Lady.” Then I added “Marigold” because the day she arrived here at our farm was the first day my French marigolds bloomed that spring. So she became Little Lady Marigold, LLM for short.

Little Lady Marigold is a Shetland sheep, diminutive in stature but bold in spirit. Her fleece is mostly white or white adjacent, dirty after many months of growing free and wild, and her face and legs are coal black. Lovely. I cannot get enough of gazing into her domed eyes and slotted pupils.

LLM is lightning fast and agile, able to glide and bolt low and quick, in and around both trees and horse legs alike. She is skeptical and fussy and makes you earn her trust, which I respect. When Klaus is being just too much, she raises one of her stiffened front legs, tiny black hoof shining with anger, and bows her forehead as if to warn him of a good noggin ramming (which, in fact, she is very able to deliver). We call this warning the Stick Leg Treatment. It looks like a great, fluffy praying mantis preparing to do battle, and it almost always shoos Klaus and any other nearby animal, including her huge pasture mate Romulus the King of Llamas, right away. On the rare occasion that the Stick Leg Treatment does not work, she squares off, keeps that woolly head lowered, and charges forward in mean, fearless thrusts until her opponent is properly humiliated and retreats. No one has bested her yet, and she is the tiniest of all our animals, save the cats and chickens.

Nephews Greg and Connor wanted her way too much.
She can smell it. She eschews sincere desire.

Marigold was borderline feral when we first brought her here. It took many weeks of slow, quiet movements and cautious approaches to convince her to eat sweet grain out of my hands, and now she practically climbs my leg when I swing it over the gate to her enclosure. I love scruffing her pretty face and stroking her slender, knobby legs. Her hooves are unbelievably tiny! And that wool, you guys, oof!! It is voluminous and full of mystery (also sticks and dried leaves). If I have a lucky day and get to handle her enough, my hands feel oily and a bit slick from the lanolin. She is usually pretty content having the heaps of gray and white wool on her back scruffed. Or, perhaps this is the truth, there is so much there that she cannot always feel me scruffing her?

Speaking of that massive woolly burden, our Shetland sweetie is destined for a spring shearing this year, so I have begun desensitizing her to a halter, noisy with metal buckles, during hand feeding. I wear it on my wrist like a bracelet, making it necessary for her face to be almost up against it while she nibbles grain from my palm. Occasionally I jingle the buckle and flip the straps, so she gets used to seeing and hearing it while staying safe. She absolutely hates it, ha! But if this slow, steady process works, it will lead to her next level of elegance and domesticity and to my next life accomplishment. I’ll keep you posted.

Little Lady Marigold’s favorite song is Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, followed closely by Never Gonna Gove You Up by Rick Astlee, if I have just left the duck pond and chicken coop.  Soft songs. Easy words. Pretty things that cool her hot temper. She sleeps either beneath a wild cedar tree near the pond-facing hill or in her little shed. Also in the hay! Rather than calmly eat from the outer surface of a large hay bale, she burrows deeply in it, snoot forward, then naps in the tunnel she has eaten away. Upon waking she emerges with an ill balanced hay bonnet. I love this more than words can say. Which is another song she might like. I’ll try it.

Little Lady enjoyed a good, healthy, stress free week of winter here, for which we are so thankful. She is spicy and personable, and I just love her so much. If you ever visit the farm and want to meet her, don’t be shy! I’ll take you over and make the proper introductions. Just know that so far, my little sister Genevieve is the only other person who has successfully hand fed this animal. I think the secret is that Gen didn’t care that much. She lacked the stench of desperation most visitors emit, ha.

Okay that’s it for today! I just wanted to share some of my sheep love.

I hope you’re having a beautiful weekend filled with everything that refreshes your soul. Remember you are deeply and wildly loved, your potential is untapped, and your emotions and imagination have actual creative power in this world.

“Patience is passion tamed.”
~Lyman Abbott
XOXOXOXO

P.S. President Roosevelt also kept Shetland sheep, but one of his rams attacked several people and killed a small boy, so he had to relocate them all to Monticello. The End.