Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Galleries, F boy, and messing with karma

The past weekend was a busy one, mostly spent doing things this ol body wasn’t quite up to not feeling after effects of. Friday afternoon Mark and I began finally putting paint on the walls of a space which will soon be opening as our downtown gallery. There were only four walls to cover, three colors, and looked simple enough to knock it out pretty quickly, problem being that these walls are probably near 16 ft plus tall and required our not so nimbly scampering up very tall ladders and multiple layers of not so stable scaffolding to cover the edges and cut ins around duct work and pipes, and said work being done by two folks with height and falling issues. Luckily the worse accident either of us had was Mark stepping backward right onto the lid of the color “dolce.”


This project has had its roadblocks for several months for varying reasons, so it was good to finally be making head way into perhaps one of our bigger projects. Finally there will be a place for Mark’s life time of taking photos to be hung and seen by many others. Most folks who know Mark know him as a business guy, or a musician, and many don’t even know of his talent for taking incredible photographs. His photographs are of his amazing view of people, landscapes, fashion, still lifes, whatever, and they are stunning and unique.

Friday was F boy’s second week and this was the week he changed from being the sweet innocent cute thing to being bold and becoming a real brat. He has no doubt now that he rules and is pretty hot stuff. For the first week and a half he was a bit shy and was quick to try to get away from me. Once I did get a hold of him, he would stand and take my rubbing his head and legs and such, desensitizing, but didn’t like it. Then on Wednesday out of the blue he came walking up to me and reached his little muzzle up and tried to take a plug out of my shirt. I followed with a poke at him on the side of his nose and he retreated a bit but then stood while I scratched him all over and then picked up each foot, no protest. His social light bulb had just come on. His mother is hoping for a very early weaning however. She is seriously tired of being chewed on, jumped on, being demanded to feed his majesty NOW, that, and its hot, humid and she cares nothing for running and bucking with the little monster.

I do have to make a decision today tho, on the "F" boy's official name to send in the forms to get him registered. The lastest choices are between Fandango, Fedora, Fosse, and Fresco, all having something to do with either his movement, coloring, and/or his siblings/parents' names. I may just put them into a hat a draw. There have been so many good ideas sent my way for this one, really good ones. I am leaning towards Fandango and Fresco the hardest. Off to the post office now still undecided.....hmmm?


On a different note, very often on the farm there is an event, something that happens, that if not witnessed and acted upon, the story would have ended another way, usually not so well. I feel sometimes my job as ward of these animals and this farm is one of crisis awareness, management, and hopefully diversion. I wonder tho, in the big scheme of things whether nature has its own path and maybe I should let it go its own way, but I just can’t let some things do that when I see them happening and know I can do something to change the course.

Yesterday when I was picking veggies in the garden I heard the purple martins raising a ruckus about something so I went to check it out. I saw there was something hanging out of the most southern gourd in the colony and when I got closer I saw it was a baby, some feathers on wings and tail coming in but still in fuzz. It was hanging by one foot, upside down and it could not get back up into the house. There were two other baby faces looking down at it as it tried in vain to flap its little wings and many adults circled the the pole squawking. I ran to the house and got a tall extending duster and went back out and gently pushed the bird back into its house. It was so exhausted it sat at the door not pulling its wing in with it. I gave another push and on in it went. The parents returned and all settled back down.

Then, after a trip to town I stopped at the barn where my ancient mare, Limerick lives and was surprised to see her laying in the field. She whinnied to me but did not rise. Not a good sign. It was obvious when I got over to her that she had been down for quite a while and the grass all around her was pressed down where she had been laying. She was saturated with sweat and both her belly and her nostrils rose in giant swells in desperation to get air, obviously the heat and humidity had overwhelmed the poor girl. It took quite a bit of slapping and hollering at her to get her to attempt to get up, and on her first attempts she fell forward onto her knees and crumpled back down with a big grunt. Finally she got her forelegs out of the way and made one more try, and rose, staggering. I spent the next half hour running the cool hose water over a very grateful animal. She just stood there with her head touching my shoulder, looking me in the eye, until her breathing quieted and her protruding veins retreated, and she sighed.

Another few minutes of her being down and so over heated that I think she would have given up and died in this near record disgusting heat. Certainly the baby bird would have died had I not pushed it back in the nest. Did I mess with karma for them both? Did my pushing the bird back in its nest jeopardize the lives of the other two babies in there who might have needed the extra room in the hot gourd to survive? I cant’ know. I do know that it is involuntary for me to act, to try to help, to be a shepherd. I can’t help it. Well, that is except for snakes. There is a serious line drawn there, especially the ones with big heads. They die. This one ate my baby martins a few years back. Bad move on his part.

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