Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Pheasants are funny. Turkeys are too.

Pheasants in the distance running across a field look like little "v"s. It always reminds me of that commercial for some sleep aid where there are "z"s with legs running around.

When you come upon them on the road, if you slow down, they will just run along in front of you. Turkeys do this to. Hello! Get off the road! If there happens to be ice patches on the road, they might take a spill. It's kind of funny. I kind of enjoy watching turkeys fall down. Does that make me a bad person?

The other day, from inside the house, I was watching several pheasants near the road. I kept cringing because there were cars on the road, and I didn't want them to get hit.

One truck actually stopped. I thought maybe they had hit one. A man got out, dressed in an orange vest, went to the back of his truck, and pulled out a rifle. I immediately started yelling obscenities at him, perhaps casting aspersions on his mother and questioning his virility. The problem was, I was still in the house, and he was far away. He took a few steps away from his truck, and either the pheasants flew away, (likely) or he realized that he had no clear sight lines to shoot, he would have been aiming for my house or the neighbor's house. Since he was idiot enough to stop and get out his gun in the first place, I don't think not having a safe shot would have stopped him. As far as I know, it is illegal to shoot from a roadway in Minnesota. If he would have stepped onto my land, he certainly didn't have permission to hunt on it. Idiot!

I generally don't have a problem with the concept of hunting, as long as the person actually eats what he/she has hunted, is respectful of the animal, and is sportsmanlike in methods. Baiting, shining or spotlighting, or hunting from the road? No. Hunting purely for sport, for that trophy, I also have a problem with.

If you are in the least bit squeamish, do not read on!

You know what else makes me laugh? The label on some organic eggs stating that their chickens are fed an all-natural, vegetarian diet. Chickens are not vegetarians! Mine eat thousands of crickets and grasshoppers, and frogs, and toads, and even mice if they can catch them. I was cleaning out some old hay one day and uncovered a mouse nest full of babies. Those chickens were on it so fast, I couldn't have saved them.

I debated whether I should tell this next story. If you are squeamish, or a guy, or a squeamish guy, you definitely don't want to read this. Stop now, go back, save yourself!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Ok, so one day I had the vet out to geld a few llamas. With llamas, this involves an actual operation, putting the llama under, and removing the testicles. We had three to do, so we finished with one, and moved on to the next. Once removing them, the vet had just put the, shall we say, nut sacks, in a little pile.

We were working on the next llama, when out of the corner of my eye, I see the chickens chasing each other. What the? One of chickens had a hold of the nut sack, the nut swinging to and fro under her beak, while the others would chase her. She would drop it, and another chicken would pick it up, and the chase would begin again. Chicken nutsack football, my friends! Who needs professional football when you have this kind of entertainment in the back yard! (Yes, the chickens eventually ate them.) The vet was probably wondering why I was crying. (Laughing so hard!)

So, when are you all coming over for breakfast? HAHAHAHAHA!

7 comments:

Robin said...

Oh...now that's funny! The picture of a chicken running with a llama nut hanging from it's beak is hilarious!
It is funny to read the "labels" on organic eggs (and other things), all the chickens my grandaddy had ate anything that moved, or in your case didn't move!

cornbread hell said...

too, too funny.

glad you're feeling better.

Annie said...

Unfortunately, not really feeling better. Fever is higher than yesterday despite Ibuprofin. So today's post was probably the feverish rantings of a madwoman. So far though, Mom is not showing symptoms, that's all that matters.

Anonymous said...

lolo. you are sooo bad, lolol. i once had a kitten that would bolt whenever he would see the vacuum... i kind of thought it was funny... then i felt guilty, lolol.

Olga said...

Oh, those tales are priceless! There is a phesant pharm(just kidden) farm on the road I drive and there is always ton of road kill in front of the house! Lots of them are dead pheasants, I wonder if they are excapees or what. But you are always bound to spy those birds peeking out at the road when you drive by.

OhAmyKP said...

Oh no....Chiken Nutsak football. Thank you, I needed that visual. :)

Unknown said...

I know nothing about llamas mind you. But I know plenty about cattle. Every year we either emasculated or castrated the steers. Young calves were emasculated. We had these things called emasculators that basically put a very strong and tight rubber band deal around the scrotum. Castration is where you actually cut the scrotum and then cut out the testicles. The latter are prized as a delicacy by many. My mother was not of that opinion however.

I never liked the castration part much though because we always dehorned at the same time and that was a bloody mess.

I'm kind of glad I don't do any of that anymore.