Leaky Buckets, Foxtails and Mary...

Let me first begin by sharing this morning's "fun on the farm" story with you...

Every morning, on weekday mornings that is, I take care of all of our farm animals.
Sheep, ducks, hens & roosters, Guinea fowl, dogs and cats...

I begin by first bringing Hannah to the bus stop, about 6:45 a.m....so needless to say, I'm still wearing my jammies. and it's cold.

Once Hannah is on the bus, I drive back to the house, park my vehicle and set about getting everyone fed & watered.

now you know it's been cold, as I've been mentioning lately...and thusly, our hydrant near the barn froze up.
This simply means that I must carry buckets of ice-cold water from the shop, to the animals on the other side of the farmyard....not really a long trek, but when it's 14 degrees, and your carrying 2 five gallon buckets full of ice-cold water, AND you're wearing your jammies...it starts to feel like a longer trek than it is...

SOOOOooo...I go fill up the buckets, and on my way to the barn, while carrying them, I notice that my right foot is getting colder and colder.
Hmmm....oh...how nice.
the bucket on my right has sprung a leak.

Lovely.

So I am now waddling faster, still carrying both buckets,

trying to get to the barn before ALL of the water is gone from the right bucket...

*whew*
i made it. still a little water left in the bucket....
(although I could have easily poured out my right clog if I needed more.)

So I proceed to water the sheep...who, by now, I know are laughing at me in their sheepish way.

I empty the buckets, but still need more for the chickens....so I head back to the shop's spigot.
by now, my right foot is completely numb.

I fill up the 'good' bucket

(after throwing the leaky one a good mile away in spite)

and head back to the chicken house...

oh...by the way...I usually am accompanied every morning by Lazy & Buddy....
but this particular morning they were nowhere to be found
& I enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to trip over them...

back to the story...

while carrying the good bucket-full back to the barn,
I noticed something 'furry' out of the corner of my eye...

not wanting to have to pick up a dead squirrel,
or worse,
so early in the morning, with a numb foot, and in my jammies,
i gingerly walked closer to the 'fur'....

it was a Fox tail...Hmmm again...
& where are the dogs?
Oh, yeah...here they come...bounding up behind me...
(still holding my bucket of water and trying not to tinkle myself now because I was SO cold and you know how we Ladies get in the cold...ya just gotta tinkle!)

and I didn't want them to get that stinky Fox tail...
...so I bend over to pick it up.

Buddy, now seeing me bending over with my back to him, holding a stinky fox tail and a bucket of water, must have thought it was time to jump up on my back for a little 'fun-time'.

wrong.

the bucket emptied out all over my left foot,

the foxtail ended up in buddy's mouth,

and I landed on the ice-cold ground.

in my jammies.

*ugh*

I swear when I stood up, the sheep were absolutely guffawing at me...

I threw that bucket a mile and a half away, and it landed in the woods somewhere...

maybe a Fox with a really sore hiney would find it....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the other little doll I made last night...her name is

Mary

i gave her a little quilt to cosy up with...
the paper heart that is pinned to her reads
"my heart is full..."

I gave her brown glass-bead eyes...
she sort of has that far-away look, don't you think?

Maybe she's looking for those blasted buckets...

Hoping your day was a little better than mine,
although I did get a chuckle out of my morning!

~Lori~