Trick: New Toys

               

It’s been a long, boring winter.

Dewey Kitty, the indoor/outdoor cat keeps running inside to warm his paws by the fire.

The farm mistress comes to the barn and does chores, but she’s spends no time in the garden and little time with the horses or working the dogs on sheep. I so miss pouncing the dogs as they circle around the sheep.

And, to make matters worse, my novelty with the hens and ewes is gone. No longer can I plop down among the chickens, flick my tail, and expect a reaction. They just roll their beady little eyes and cluck, “Oh, it’s you.”

When I try to entice the ewes to play the follow-the-leader game, they just trot to the barn and say they’re too old for kid stuff.

 But new play toys arrived this week.

 Lambs! I love lambs.

When a lamb finishes nursing, I like to grab the lamb by its neck and lick its lips. Milk. Yum. The ewes do not like this. They stomp and charge me. So, I have to be strategic and plot my escape route.

I also like to play the follow the leader game. But that too has to wait until the lambs are a few weeks old and released with the flock.

So for now, I sit on the stall doors and talk to the lambs and laugh when the ewes stomp at me. They can’t get me from my perch.