The Things You See

********Or love in the great outdoors....

It is spring.

Spring is a good time to make babies if you are a bird, an insect, mammal or herptile.....or plant, as far as that goes...you wouldn't believe the pollen.

Thus I end up feeling like a voyeur whenever I go outside. When I came in for breakfast, Mr. Fluff, the big white rooster, was cut-cut-cutting, over a pile of chicken feed, as he lured the little black hen, Michelle, in for a hot date. He looked like a Matre D, spreading his bright, white wings and bowing and sweeping before her. He also looked kind of silly, but I guess he can't help being a chicken.

There are millions of mosquito wigglers in the garden pond....evidence of an assignation I truly don't need to know about. I put the sunfish back out to take care of that situation...she will get fat and they will get gone.

The big flocks of geese are breaking up into twosomes now and making plenty of noise about it too. I was just finishing up prepping Pecan to be milked this morning when a pair flew right past the barn window behind her. They were lovely against the light of the rising sun and their calls were purely haunting.

I was even nearly an unwilling participant in some of the lusty spring activities this morning. I bent over to prep a little black Holstein named Magic and she threw her chin on my back and started to just hop right up. (It's nice to be loved, but dang.) She isn't a very big cow, but even a little bitty cow in the mood for love is more than I want to tangle with. I jumped right out of that stall in a heck of a hurry and let the boss finish prepping her. (AI service has been attended to. We bred her to a bull from the eighties, Woodbine Ellason. He throws nice big, framey daughters, so maybe if she has a calf from this service it will be a somewhat nicer-looking cow than she is.)

And yesterday morning...I was out in the barnyard just at the break of day, sending ETrain, Encore and Bayberry back up the hill after milking. The sky was bright orange, fading to clear ice blue; the air was as fresh as ice water melting off a glacier. I heard killy killy killeeeees call coming from right over my head. I looked up and there was the kestrel pair, performing their mating flight against the brilliant sky. They swooped and fluttered in huge circles and figure eights, chattering excitedly, then landed in the dead elm to actually mate. I was awed to be standing there in the swelling morning light and seeing their wonderful flight...and I am so happy to have them still nesting in the barn.