You may recall that one of the two black cats that I took in trade for Mr. Red (Bubba) came to me with a nasty wound at the base of his tail. I believe that this wound was causing him to lick his tail, belly and hind legs raw. I treated him homeopathically, but for the longest time, both Wally and I thought his tail was going to rot off it looked so bad.
The tail has since healed and the hair has almost completely grown back around his tail and in the other places where it was missing. I realized, however, that if his tail had rotted off, he might have been more adoptable. No one wants a plain old black cat, especially one with so much hair missing, but if his tail had rotted off, he could have been marketed as a new breed: a Bald Belly Manx cat. I’m sure someone would have adopted him then and while his hair may have eventually grown back, they’d have a really nice cat.
He is a really nice cat, as is Boo Boo. Their downfall was their color. It’s a shame people are so drawn to flash and oddities.
While I worked until 11:30 (and couldn’t get to sleep for several hours after I got home) I still woke up at my usual time. Got the milking done, animals cared for and ate breakfast. It’s been raining off and on all day which is really quite nice. Wally and I watched some television for a few hours, then headed out to set the posts to fence in my agility field. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to spend the money to fence it in or not. I really don’t want the animals (any animals other than the cats) to have access to the equipment. The goats climb on it, the sheep rub on it and Fern loves to run laps back and forth across the dog walk and over the A-frame. While her enjoyment of the equipment is a good thing, I don’t want her running on the equipment without my interaction. So, we measured out where we wanted the fence and set the posts. If all goes well, we’ll run the fence tomorrow. I hope to be able to plant Morning Glories along the fence line. That will be really pretty, but it’s only pretty if I can keep the goats away from it. The fence for the agility field is going to have a dual purpose: it will keep the animals away from the equipment and will keep the goats and sheep from being able to come up from the back field on their own. The sheep are behind ElectroNet and will stay there for the foreseeable future now that we’ve mastered moving and setting it. The goats have done really well with going out into the side and front pasture and eating, but they know how to come up through the back. The fence will put a stop to that.
Until later …