Day one

First day at the farm and I staggered home as if I had been crawling across the desert on my hands and knees. Talk about out of shape, though I wonder how anyone can actually BE in shape when you find yourself head down, butt up, legs spread and shooting pumpkins down a hill. What would they even call such an exercise? The Butt In the air so everyone can see just how BIG my tushie is. And that was just the very first thing in the morning with the rest of the day to get through.
I have the Boar again. This one is Turk and smaller than the last two I dealt with. I was all ready to get in the pen with him when he made a snort of a sound and parked his big body across the gate , effectively blcoking my entrance. Obviously he wasn't ready for company and because he is HUGE, I saw the wisdom in staying outside the pen.
I've been told that Turk is a sweetheart with a bad habit on nipping one's butt. I can just see me wandering into an Emergency room to tell them a pig bit my butt. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to join him, just as long as I don't turn my back on him.
Boars are never a big hit. The girls are popular especially when they have babies but the boar usually just lays there and interest wanes. Except for today. I had two boys who kept coming back just to gaze at the Boar. Not trouble making kind of kids but they kept showing up, obviously taken with Turk. Late in the day, one of the kids, Tommy, asked if he could pull a woody weed that was growing up in the pen. I told him he could and I watched at he worked ard to break it off. So now he had a stick. I waited just to see what he was going to do. He reached over the side of the pen, stretched the stick out and shooed the flies away from Turk's ear. Tommy muttered something about flies on Turk's ears and the whole time he and his friend remained at the pen, Tommy waved the flies away. When it was time for them to go, he firmly pushed the weed piece back between the board it had been growing through and went his way. I'm glad I said nothing about him not hitting the pig with it, especially since it porved that that was the last thing on his mind. I hope his parents appreciate me.
My pen has a direct line of sight to the ducks and geese and during a lull I watched one girl gently hold a duck still so that the other kids could pet it. Later I watched her rounding up stray ducks that had gotten out of the pen, somehow catching them and taking them back to the pen. Have you ever tried to corrall a Duck? I did. It ain't easy. Of course it's not my fault that I was rather unsuccessful today. It's hard to catch them when you are laughing so hard you can hardly see. There was what I could only call a bustle ass duck with an odd weaving wobbling walk that gave the impression od a chubby lady with a shopping bag full of groceries heading home to start dinner. I mean really. Evertime I reached to the bustle ass I'd start laughing again. Eventually I gave up but only because the ducks squeezed through the fence and got themselves back into their pen.
When I finally headed toward my car I realised that I should have left 5 minutes early. I could hardly breathe, my chest hurt and I thought I was going to get sick. I made it to my car, poured the rest of my water over my head and waited for it to pass. My face was still bright red when I got home and the Old Pooh says he thinks I got a touch of heat stroke. I'll have to be more careful tomorrow because I will be going back. I love this farm and the animals and the kids and if I run across a Tommy or a duck girl each day I'll consider myself lucky. That's it for now. I gotta crash for a bit. ---me---