Lazy W Marie

friday 5 at the farm: goose attack

August 29, 2014

Happy Friday! For this week’s edition of Friday 5 at the Farm, I thought I’d share 5 photos of geese (6 if you count the one of my arm) and tell you a little story.

A few days ago I was minding my own business, feeding treats to the very harmonious cats and chickens in our front yard, trying to catch a nice moment on camera, when the Gangsters (that what we call our gaggle) showed up and caused a ruckus. It was noisy and confusing and ended in violence. Violence directed at me. So, pride wounded, I posted the following photo to Instagram.

goose bite — A goose attacked me and I almost died. “That’s gonna leave a mark!”

All my internet friends were immediately on my side, declaring how scary and vicious geese are, and possibly evil, and how they can’t believe I probably need a tetanus shot and maybe amputation of the offended limb. Goose bites are horrible, right? Then I felt bad. Because, in retrospect, the Gangsters tried to warn me. I was just too caught up in catching a great photo of cats and chickens to pay attention. I’ll tell that part of the story with our Friday 5 photos.

Canadian gosling domesticated — Duck-duck, our adopted Canadian gander, approaches from the right while the hens make a graceful exit.

South African goose happy posture — The other five, the South Africans, enter the scene quickly but Mia in right in my face. See his different posture? This is a goose in love.

South African geese on high alert — This is where the tide turns. I was way too close to their beloved Duck-duck, as you can plainly see from the straight necks on Mama and the other three. Mia, as always, is still curve-necked and honking his love softly.

Gaggle of geese protecting their adopted baby — That’s Duck-duck still in the middle of it all. Mia is on the right, trying to protect me. I should have listened to him.

goose attack — This is Johnny Cash. He had enough and charged me, biting my tender forearm and not letting go for what felt like hours. (It was probably like ten seconds.) I screamed like a little girl and Mia honked wildly and Handsome came to my rescue.

That’s pretty much the whole story. Except that since Johnny Cash has tasted my blood (yes, it bled a little) his bullying has gone to new levels. I cannot go anywhere on this farm without looking over my shoulder. He honks with this particular tone of arrogance that just drives me batty. I woke up from a goose-related nightmare last night. He doesn’t even care.

I still love the geese, even Johnny Cash. Mia has to be careful not to show me too much affection in front of The Gangsters, but his heart still belongs to me.

The End.

Have you ever been attacked by a goose? Let’s have all the gory details.

We’re goin’ ballistic, Mav, go get ’em!
~Goose to Mav in Top Gun
XOXOXOXO

in which my bellydancing career ended abruptly

August 26, 2014

I haven’t told you guys this yet, but I recently took some belly dancing lessons. It was a fun summertime diversion which I really enjoyed. But now it’s over (the dancing, not summertime, not by a long shot), and I want to share the story with you. If you’re embarrassed to be friends with me after this, that’s cool. I get it.

It started off nice and easy. The lessons were weekly for a month, that’s it. And I paid for them on Living Social where I already had a nice credit balance, so the lessons were practically free. I have always wanted to learn how to dance a “real dance” and this particular discipline has always held a certain allure for me. This can probably be traced back to my childhood fascination with I Dream of Jeannie. Anyway, I showed up for class. I paid close attention. I gave it all I had and even managed to wear a gauzy scarf around my hips. Still, my success was painfully limited.

The class consisted of about a dozen women of varying ages and styles. We all faced an expansive mirrored wall and followed our fearless leader and she guided us through different steps and exercises. The music was rhythmic and peppered with desert magic and mystery, everything I hoped belly dancing music would be. But the magic had limits.

Whenever the class was working toward the right, I was invariably wandering to the left. I was physically incapable of doing pretty things with my hands while managing my feet. And apparently all the beat-box style pulse dancing one does at home while cooking does not necessarily translate to controlled, choreographed sequences. Not the same. Who knew?

And you guys… Shimmying is a lot harder than it looks! When the instructor tried teaching it to us, I could only either stand very still, stuck in the necessary muscular contraction, or shivver like I was imitating a full body freeze. Shivvering is not shimmying, and I was lost.

When the instructor walked hip-circle loops around her right foot in a sultry, fluid motion then invited us to the same, all I could do was sort of skip on one foot, more or less in a circle but really more of a square. Had I added in a little curved-back loopy action like I was trying to gain momentum on a playground swing, it would have been the boot-scootin boogie for sure.

When we did just plain hip circles, standing still and rotating first clockwise then back around, the circles were supposed to be even and precise. The instructor watched me sideways for a while then walked over to gently correct me, saying I was putting just a little too much in the back half of my circle. My knees were straight; that was a nice, clean, non-stripper move. But the hip circles were supposed to be even and symmetrical. Mine were… leaning. Yep, message received ma’am. I have a big butt.

So you get the idea that I was struggling. And that the instructor noticed. Okay.

Remember how I told you this was a Living Social purchase? The deal offered four consecutive lessons to sample then encourages you to commit to three months of progressive lessons as a beginner. You know, get you hooked. Well, I have been to time-share sales pitches before, folks, so this weren’t my first rodeo. As my final class approached I knew a sales pitch was coming and was prepared to gently but firmly decline all offers because of so many reasons. Mostly, shimmying. I actually practiced my decline speech in my head on the way to that last class, while listening to Shakira.

Shakira is excellent belly dancing music, and it mixed up my feelings.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the class ended and our instructor did not approach me with any literature or coin-trimmed scarves or other luring tactics. Nothing. In fact, when I approached her and mentioned saucily that it was my final class (sub-text: don’t you want to convince me to stay?) this is what happened:

She said, “Oh, huh. Is that so.”

“Yep. Last one. All I paid for was four.” I might have even held up four fingers to drive the point home.

“Oh. Well, what did you think? Did you enjoy it?” She was complete elegance in yoga capris and a shredded tank top.

“Oh I did! It was so much fun, I absolutely loved it and I practice at home and everything. Just can’t believe the month went by so fast!” I am hopeless. Never play poker with me.

“Yes, the month is over.” Nodding and smiling politely, “I’m glad you tried it and had fun. We enjoyed having you! Now I guess you can go back to doing…” and at this point she glanced up and down my body, “whatever it is you do.” Just a trace of pity. But elegant pity, you know?

I was nonplussed. This was not even close to how I imagined things going down between us. I mean my speech declining the up-sell! What follows is something I am not proud of.

“What… what… whatever it is I do? I’M A RUNNER, BITCHES!” Then I balled up my fists, thrust my skinny, sunburned arms into the air and let out a whooping, high-pitched scream like what you might hear on Xena Princess Warrior. “AAIII YAI YAI YAI YAAAIII!!!” And I ran out of the studio, a feral cat released. I just abandoned my purse, my phone, my Jeep keys, everything, and ran barefoot (because belly dancing is a barefoot endeavor) all of the seven and a half miles home to the farm.

By the time I reached our front gate, the sun was setting and I regretted leaving my phone there, because now how could I log my miles? Runner problems.

hula hooping at the medieval fair... close enough — hula hooping at the medieval fair… close enough

I should impress on you that the woman teaching our classes was not only elegant; she was also very sweet and a consummate professional. I am totally kidding about how we parted ways. But part ways we did, as there are other adventures on my horizon.

In the mean time, back to running.

The End.

friday 5 at the farm: bison trivia

August 15, 2014

Hello friends! We’re winding down another work week, and to cap off all the chores and cooking and cleaning and gardening and errands and bee stings and intense office hours (not for me obviously) and general toil, how about a quick Friday Five?

It occurs to me that not all of you have visited the actual dirt-and-hooves Lazy W, so you don’t know all of our animals personally. Well, in the coming weeks I’m gonna try to fix that. They are each so lovable and interesting, and we have learned so much just by living with and caring for them.

One of the most unusual creatures here is a young male bison. His name is Chunk-Hi, and he pretty much has us wrapped around his little hooves. Here are five things you might not know about bison, as taught to us by Chunk.

Our beloved Chunk-hi, male bison, four years old in this photo. Gentle giant. xoxo

And yes, for the record, we usually call him a buffalo. It might not be scientifically correct, but we don’t get too worked up over that. We have more important things to fret over, like the cost of sugar for the welfare bees.

Okay.

Bison-buffalo facts:

#1. They start off as calves looking completely different! They are born with a gentle little hump, but still their body shape is much closer to a traditional cow compared to how they look as adults. And bison calves are a golden, caramelish, yummy bronze color, not dark and nearly black like they are later in life (thought that color scheme is also striking). I’ve always understood this coloring would help the babies stay concealed from predators in the golden prairie grasses that grow in this part of the country, their native land. Seems legit. Calves are woolly, curly, and 100% precious. Those eyes! They stay like this for several months, about as long as they nurse their mamas. In Chunk-hi’s case, it was about as long as we bottle fed him.

Jessica was almost 12 that summer and indispensable in helping me keep the bison calves full of milk! They learned to love the sight of the big plastic bottles and would suck on our hands for a long time after each feeding. Very sweet bonding time. — Jessica was almost 12 that summer and indispensable in helping me keep the bison calves full of milk! They learned to love the sight of the big plastic bottles and would suck on our hands for a long time after each feeding. Very sweet bonding experience.

#2. Buffs (see? I call them whatever I want) are skittish. Despite their enormous size and mass, despite how dangerous they can be, these animals have extremely fragile sensibilities. You can hurt their feelings by looking at them the wrong way, and especially young buffs will jump and bolt at a sudden noise. Our Chunk-hi has stiffened his nerves over time, but still it is not unusual to see him running for his life, high speed away from Mama Goose, who is basically a mean and bitter old woman. You can tell a buff is upset by watching his body langiuage. For example, and I do not know if this is true for regular cows, a tail raised stright up in the air is bad. Real bad. I call it the exclamation point tail, and it means he is on high alert, and you should be too. Just give him a cookie and stand your ground. Do not run. Walk slowly away, sideways if possible, without giving the appearance of retreat. Which brings me to my next point of bison trivia…

#3. They love cookies. I mean, LOVE them. We have an inside track to rejected Nabisco product, so every few months the farm is restocked with about a million packages of Oreos, Triscuits, graham crackers, you name it. Once upon a time I would eat a lot of that myself, but you know… Running. So now they all belong to our animals. Chunk’s favorite is probably Chips Ahoy, and I don’t blame him. Even slightly out-dated, those things are good. I’d pay big bucks to see him use his hooves to dunk a sleeve of cookies into a big bowl of milk. Visitors to the farm are usually game for feeding him sweet, crunchy treats, and they always get slobbered (bison are profuse slobberers) and sometimes gently bit.

Nabisco, if you are reading this, would you like to sponsor our farm? Our buff loves Chips Ahoy. So much.

#4. Bison also love to be loved. Like any creature, they need loads of affection and attention, and they also thrive on good philosophical conversation. Chunk loves to have his fuzzy, oblong ears stroked and scratched. He loves to have his eyes cupped and play gone-gone peekaboo. And he loves to press his massive forehead against the wire fencing so you can scratch him riiiiiight there, thank-you-very much. It helps that a bison will eat a big meal then go sit in a sandy wallow to digest it and perhaps chew some cud, because this is prime time to chill with him and just talk things over. Get it all out, you know? Catch up with each other. He is not in a hurry during cud time, and he appreciates you not being in a hurry, either. Sometimes he even lets you paint his horns fun colors.

Handsome was working in his car shop one winter afternoon when Chunk was probably three years old. The overhead door was open. Chunk snuck up him and was rewarded with colorful paint stripes. The look on his face. I cannot get ENOUGH of it!! xoxo

#5. American Buffalo are shed machines. Each winter they grow these thick, truly impressive, impenetrable manes and full body coats of water-resistant, woolly fur. It keeps them warm and indifferent to the ice storms and heavy rains. Chunk actually seems to enjoy snow. When he was a baby he would run and flip around in it just like a kid. But when the days warm up, of course, this incredible heavy garment is a problem. So starting in the springtime he begins to let loose the fluff and we find great big heaps of it all over the farm. He rubs against trees, fences, and horses, much to their chagrin. He lets me scrape him with a plastic garden rake. And it hangs in tightly woven, continuous sheets off of his barrel belly. Native American legends tell us that if a bison “gifts” you his fur, in other words, if he releases it to your hands easily when you have not sought after it, then he is lending you his magic. And buffalo magic is very special. I’ll write more about that another time.

Chunk-hi's first winter. He had just sprouted little tiny buffalo horn buds! When I first posted this photo to my private Facebook page, people didn't know what he was. Someone guess a groundhog. : )) — Chunk-hi’s first winter. He had just sprouted little tiny buffalo horn buds! When I first posted this photo to my private Facebook page, people didn’t know what he was. Someone guessed a groundhog. : ))

So there you have it! Five things you might not have known about bison-buffs. Do you know any fun trivia you’d like to share? Do you have any questions we can try to answer? Have you been to the W and taken photos with Chunk? If so I would be SO HAPPY if you posted those to this blog’s Facebook page. How fun. We love collecting happy memories.

Thanks for joining me today! I wish you a beautiful, restful weekend filled with exactly what you need.

Tune in next week for Marathon Monday stuff, an Alfredo recipe, a chicken photo shoot, and more.

“You can lead a buffalo anywhere he wants to go.”
~old adage we try to never forget
XOXOXOXO

Buffalo Running

December 28, 2011

Our sweet little Chunk-Hi is happy doing lots of things in this world. He is just one of those ~~people~~ animals who is easily pleased, easily amused, and easily satisfied. But a few things in life really put him over the top. One of them is running free.

He always has free run of his own field, together with our horse of choice, and he employs that liberty with zeal. But when we release Chunk to roam the range, so to speak, he really kicks up his skinny little heels. Following are a few photos of our sweet buff enjoying a little elbow room.