This little calf was born last fall. Smedley came up with a cute name for the calf on the spot, but just like every cute name Smedley comes up with, I forget it in minutes and end up renaming the animal several times. I'll call this one Bacon.

Yes, I'm well aware this is a BEEF animal, not a PORK animal, but you still remember that name, don't you? More importantly, I still remember it. Let's move on.

Brand-new Bacon was asleep against the side of the barn on this day last fall, lying in the same place for at least three hours. Cows often stash their calves in high grass or in low spots -- any place where they are somewhat hidden and protected -- and then the cows are free to roam, graze, and watch Oprah. Add in the fact that mother cows have no diapers to change, not do they have to carry the little buggers (who can weigh as much as 100 pounds), and bovine motherhood sounds rather pleasant. (Until you remember that in the end they are Mama Hamburgers, that is.)

So I tried to sneak up on the calf to get a photo. Bacon's nap spot was just on the other side of our back yard fence, which is less a yard fence to keep people out than it is a pasture fence to keep animals in. Bacon woke up with a bawl and stood up on shaky legs -- aren't they cute?

That's when I spied Mama Hamburger, quite a ways away.

She was feigning nonchalance, but she was all over me like a duck on a junebug as soon as that calf stood up. (I was still outside the fence and a safe distance from Baby Bacon, because I know better than to get between a cow and her calf.) Here's Mama Hamburger's good side, as she chews and considers the Middle East situation:

Little Bacon tottered off to meet Mama Hamburger and to nurse while Mama finished grazing and watching Oprah.* The end.

*This ending is an obvious fabrication. Cows NEVER finish grazing.

If you enjoy this post, head on over to my other blog, Foolery, for some old barn photos. Hurry, though; I don't think the barn can stand much longer.

The horses are back.

Last year my dad leased barn and corral space to a guy who boards Canadian Standard Bred brood mares for the winter. A new group of pregnant mares arrived the other day, about 25 in all. They have access to pasture right now, but Chas has already started feeding them hay.

Once a day Chas takes the girls and walks over to the dairy, through the idle and deteriorating barns out to the west pastures and hay barns. Sunday I went with them in the late afternoon and took my camera.

Here's the hay . . .

. . . and here's some more . . .

. . . and here's a cut bale to load by the armload into the back of the pickup.

The pickup. Ah, that's a good place to set my camera and sunglasses while I'm throwing hay, except that Chas locked it. Chas? Why did you lock the pickup? Can I have the keys?

The keys. Here they are . . .

. . . and there they stayed. Usually Chas loads the flakes into the pickup, then drives out into the pasture while the girls kick and throw the flakes onto the ground. No truck, *sigh*.

Chas monkey-climbed to the top of one stack and threw down three bales to the waiting horses below. The girls and I stayed on the ground, hauling armloads of hay to the front of the barn. 3 1/2 bales makes a pretty big stack of flakes.

The horses were getting pretty hungry by this time. They're extremely nasty to each other, and a lot of kicking and snarling was going on. It did make things interesting walking the hay out to them, one armload at a time. I finally made the girls stay in the barn because I was sure they would get kicked.

See any ears flattened back? There were a lot of hungry, pregnant, bitchy horses with bad attitudes that afternoon.

There were some terribly curious and jealous cows just across the fence as well.

Everyone calmed down and it was time for us to go home to our own dinner.

We watched out for meadow muffins, too. There are so many after only a week that it was hard not to step in them.

There. My requisite horse post for the year. Now I can get back to cows and chickens.

(Posted concurrently at my other blog, Foolery)

Here are some photos of the Sundial Bridge, Redding's most prominent feature these days and one of the architectural and engineering jewels of Northern California. If you haven't seen this bridge in person, try to get here. It's truly spectacular.

Hello, Bridge Zamboni Guy. That's what I will call you. That's what I want to do for my next job.

Santiago Calatrava, the designer of the Sundial Bridge, has given Redding quite a gift in this bridge. Please come see it.

It got a little windy here last week.

Not exactly, "Dorothy, don't let go of Toto" windy, but rather windy.

The kind of windy for which the local weather guys often use the word breezy.

This chunk of barn roof nearly took out my dad's zebra finch house. The roof was a bit damaged, but no birds were harmed. Of course, two did get out, and then they remembered that they have no idea how to deal with out, and tried to get back in. The last I heard one of the two was living in a mobile, parked just outside the bird house door. He's now zebra trash.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas at all.

While there have been wild mallards around this ranch for a few years -- at least, according to my limited awareness -- this is the first year I have ever noticed any mallards try to make a home in the corral across the road. Again, as a caveat I cite my not-particularly-sharp powers of observation. There could actually be throngs of ducks and I have overlooked them.

But I don't think so. I think the three mallards who are trying to keep their tenuous foothold in that grassy corral are new. I did write three; you got that right. Three seems odd, right? As far as I can tell, there are two drakes competing for the attention of one female. I don't actually know what you call a female duck -- probably hen, but I don't know, and I'm too lazy to look it up. FEMALE wins. The boys chase one another around the skies every now and then. I can't tell who to root for and I know if one wins I'll only obsess about the loser.

They have been setting up house for a little over a month. When our big rains came in mid-February there was only dry ground, but it quickly ceded to a massive puddle which has always formed in that spot. The puddle isn't very deep, but what it lacks in depth it more than makes up for in geographical reach. Same concept as American Idol.

There were over a dozen ducks at first, all doing duck things in the shallow puddle they thought of as a pond. We watched out our dining room window as we ate meals, charmed by the many carefree ducks paddling, waddling, and flying by. I didn't know how to tell the little guys that it wouldn't last; Walden West was doomed.

One by one the ducks decamped, until only three ducks remained, and they didn't seem to notice their shrinking habitat. Soon the puddle was maybe the size of a queen-sized bed, and slightly muddier.

Nothing else really threatens the ducks here: no large dogs roam the area, and the only cats passing through are in a hurry to get to Laurie's Cat Cafeteria, so they aren't likely to cause ducks any harm. The horses in the above photo have gone back to Canada to foal, so no large animals will step on small ducks. Coyotes don't usually come quite so deep into human territory, so the only real threat left to the ducks is the rapidly-advancing Valley Heat. Puddles don't stand a chance against spring north winds and summer heat waves.

But just when I was wondering how far a hose could be made to stretch while still maintaining water pressure, an unexpected thing happened: my father irrigated his fields. The runoff from the irrigation turned Sometimes Puddle into Walden West again. The ducks were saved for another week! Unfortunately for ducks, the irrigation water comes every 12 days in a normal year; with lake levels at the top of the water system being low, I haven't heard what the water schedule will be this summer, but water delivery can't be as plentiful as a normal year. I hope the ducks like mud baths and have a good sense of humor.

So I am worrying about ducks now, too.

(Original photo stolen from Steven Pinker)

Sparky screamed as I stepped out through the kitchen door. I hesitated on the step a moment to hear her excited explanation: "There's a TURKEY on the lawn!" I closed the door behind me and headed for my car. Sure there's a turkey on the lawn, I thought. We don't have wild turkeys near the house, and if we did, why would one brave the neighbor's yappy dogs to walk onto our lawn for no gain? That's crazy. We do have turkeys around here, but they stay in the pasture, out of sight up against the berry bushes. I've seen turkeys on the ranch only two times, ever.

Two more steps and I saw the turkey.

It was tall. Did you know that turkeys were tall? I didn't know they were tall. This one could have ridden any ride at Disneyland that he wanted to ride, as long as he kept his wings inside the car at all times, ba-dump bump. This one would have had to stand in the BACK row for Smedley's second grade class photo. This one would have made me nervous in a dark alley, so I readied my arsenal of turkey-fighting words: cranberries, gravy, mashed potatoes, green been casserole, and, of course, STUFFING. Them's fightin' words.

The turkey was not looking for a fight, and he moved on, nervously. Of course my camera was in the house; I watched him closely since I couldn't photograph him as he made giant strides away from the house. I followed slowly, only to watch. He, being bird of extremely small brain, ran crazily in a zig-zag pattern, back and forth across the road and then wildly veered onto the dairy driveway and behind a manger, out of sight. I let him go.

I drove to work dreaming of Thanksgiving.

On my way home from work tonight I saw a hot air balloon. We see them a lot in September, early on weekend mornings. Other than that we don't ever see them, so this was a rare treat.

I saw the balloon again after I picked up Smedley from dance class. It hadn't moved too far up the valley; the wind was very light. I walked into the house and promptly forgot about the balloon.

It was Sparky who saw the balloon after dinner, nearly two hours after I had first seen it. "I'll have to call you back," I told my friend Gubby. "I have to go find a balloon."

About two miles away the balloon dominated a local pasture. "Hey, that's Becky's pasture!" I told the girls. "Who's Becky?" they asked. I can see I need to get out to see the neighbors more often.

Here is a photo pictorial of the balloon as it was carefully deflated and put away. The balloon in its bag was about as big as a beanbag chair. The whole process was very elegant and took under half an hour.

I'm pretty sure this heralds the end of winter and the coming of spring.

I used to mow the east pasture for my dad in the summer once in a while. Had I worked dawn to dusk it might have taken a full day, I don't know; I remember completing the job in two afternoons.

Dad's little John Deere tractor (sadly, it's no longer with us -- may it rest in peace) provided the horsepower, and the mower rolled along behind, cutting a swath just a bit narrower than the tractor through the thick pasture grasses. There are many things I cannot do, but even I could manage to mow the field with the tractor, slowly lowering the chopper, engaging the PTO to start the blades slashing, putting it into gear and starting around the perimeter of the pasture.

Round and round, clockwise, hugging the edge of the tall virgin grasses, the marked line of demarcation shorn by my previous pass.

Round and round, no radio, no air conditioning, only my thoughts as I watched for large rocks or boards in my path; occasionally I had to throw the tractor out of gear to jump down and move something that didn't belong in the pasture and certainly couldn't be mowed over.

Round and round, not fast enough to create a breeze. Funny, I had terrible grass allergies as a child which kept me from mowing the lawn and feeding hay, but the grasses never bothered me on the tractor -- oh, except for the one time I forgot to wear sunglasses. It seems that sunglasses keep the grass pollen out of my eyes and completely block my allergies. I didn't forget twice.

Round and round, uninterrupted . . . unless . . . sometimes the rhythm was broken when I hit a mound of dirt or a hidden piece of wood. When that happened, the mower did what it was supposed to do: it sacrificed its weakest link, called the shear bolt. A shear bolt is a fail-safe weak point which keeps a motor from slogging too hard against an impediment, such as a tangle of tough brambles -- anything which creates a lot of torque for the engine. So when I hit a rough patch with the mower, BAM, I'd shear the shear bolt right off, and I'd have to stop mowing, leave the field, and take the tractor all the way back to the dairy yard for my dad to replace the bolt. Yes, I was a weenie and I didn't replace my own shear bolts, or at least not often. I think I had done it but maybe I was really terrible at it (probably). I remember going through two bolts in one afternoon once.

Mowing was a zen experience, other than the occasional shear bolt. But once in a while I would hit something else. If you are squeamish, you must stop reading now. You won't miss anything you can't live without.

On one long straightaway pass I looked to the right of the tractor, where I had mowed on the previous pass. There was a scene of great carnage, and I had to look away before I truly understood what had happened. On the next pass I was certain: I had mowed over a nest of jack rabbits. The poor little guys never knew what hit 'em. The rest of the afternoon was spent going round and round, bawling my eyes out.

Round and round, *sniff*, round and round.

(Photo stolen from SigmaEye on Flickr)

Oh, the neighbor's German shepherd is out, I thought to myself as I watched him through the kitchen window. He was out in the east pasture, just beyond the ditch bank, digging. He jumped back and landed on four stiff legs, never taking his eyes from the freshly-dug earth. He was quite a distance from me, yet close enough that I could watch him doing doggy things.

Whatever he was digging must have gotten away, or he lost interest, because he sat down and scratched a flea, presumably, behind his ear. Wait, the neighbor has TWO German shepherds, and they are inseparable, I thought.

Oh.

This was no dog; this was a coyote. A big coyote, to be sure. I have seen him before -- once very near, on the road, as I turned out of the driveway and headed off to work. I don't think this coyote is quite as big as the neighbor's shepherds, but he's close. His thick winter coat, so beautiful this time of year, probably hides a lean animal, though not for lack of available critters to eat. He makes his den somewhere in the acres of berry bushes that encroach on the pasture and abut a marsh. The same berry bushes house rabbits, opossums, skunks, a host of birds, and feral cats. The adjacent fields are home to gophers, squirrels, moles, pheasants, and sometimes wild turkeys. The marshes support an increasing population of wild ducks and herons, and lately a chorus of cacophonous frogs, who are thrilled by the new network of puddles in the fields.

This coyote is at the top of the food chain in predator paradise.

No one ever takes a shot at him. There are very few large dogs roaming the area. His main competition is a den or two of foxes, and raptors in the air. He has all the food he can catch. And, as long as he does his part to keep the critter population under control, no human will bother him.

As long as he doesn't come for the chickens I plan to get this spring. We'll have to have a talk if he crosses that line.

I heard two or more coyotes on the west side of the property the other night, neither yipping nor howling, but singing a song I hadn't heard before. They seemed to be enjoying making Carlos's yappy dogs bark themselves silly. Let 'em bark, the coyotes were thinking. We have free range and total access.

Remember, Coyote, I thought as I watched him from the east window. No chickens, and you and I will get along just fine.

We are surrounded.

Drier than a Dick Cavett/William F. Buckley interview.

Drier than the skin on the backs of my hands right now. Yeah, that dry.

Make no mistake about it, the rain that has been washing over us in sheets the last few days is beyond welcome and sorely needed. And the skies have been wondrous. Here are a few pictures from a thunderstorm that passed through a couple of weeks ago.

I played with the color just a tad, but not too much.

I took this one and the one that follows on my knees out the dirty dining room window. Even so, the sky was drenched in color, which I didn't mess with at all.

This last one was taken Friday morning. I was in my car, hand on the shifter, engine running, when I noticed how beautiful the view through the garage door was. No adjustment of your screen is necessary; the garage is crooked.

I have to remember days like these during our seven-month summers.

I grew up on a dairy; that is well- (shorthand for "overly-") documented. Dad loves cows, and continues to collect them.

My sister is a horse fanatic.

My brothers and I raised chickens.

With 70 acres of land, lots of barn and corral space, and a father extremely knowledgeable in all things bovine, not one of us ever raised a steer for 4-H or FFA (an activity which, let's face it, is really a license to print money come sale time) or any other market animal. Why not? Were we idiots? Well, I'll come back to that question.

We didn't raise livestock because 4-H and FFA animals don't get to ride home in the truck with you after the fair. No sirree; they go on to places like Bob's Big Boy, Kibbles & Bits and, heaven forbid, Taco Bell, to become Extreme Value Meals.

Poor Fluffy.

But chickens have a Get Out of Abattoir Free card. They have return tickets from the fair. So my brothers and I raised ornamental bantam (miniature) chickens, and gave them names like Cluck, Brewster, and Fluffy. Poor Fluffy. (Pet names have never been a LaGrone family strong suit.)

But do you know what it takes for Fluffy to bring home the blue ribbon? Well, I'm gonna tell you. As much as I remember, anyway.

First, the chicken must be healthy, and healthy looking. No scaly leg (a condition I battle myself in these dry, dry months); you've got to grease up the chicken's legs. (At least we didn't have to wax them.) If I remember right we used Vaseline on their legs, combs, and wattles, which made them look plump, shiny and very rosy.

If you're gonna enter that bird in the fair you'll need to dust it regularly for mites and other nasty bugs. My brother Mantel Man usually was in charge of dusting with Malathion, which is why he still walks funny to this day.

But you're not done. Beaks must be kept trimmed, so we used nail clippers. This is every bit as tricky as it sounds with a feisty bantie rooster, or even a hen. So to calm the chicken you've got to cradle it on one hand, with the wings held down with your thumb and pinkie finger. If you do this right, it's very easy to invert the chicken with one hand -- that is, hold it upside down -- while you trim its beak and talons (claws, fangs, nails -- whatever they're called). This is apparently calming to a Bird of Very Little Brain, and it's fairly easy to groom them once they're calm.

And, for the pièce de résistance, you must bathe your chicken, especially if it's white.

I'm not kidding.

In the utility sink. Yes, bathe. Go on, you're wasting time. Chop chop.

Have your sink full enough to partially submerge the chicken but not so full that you can't find Fluffy in the bubbles. Water should be the same temperature you'd use for a baby. A very gentle shampoo is best, but if your chicken is white, get a shampoo with bluing in it, like you might use on a (drop-kick dog) white poodle.

before

after

See what a difference (PhotoShop) bluing makes? In theory?

The chicken may try to get away, so have the door closed. But don't worry -- they can fly only a little bit. Did I mention you should clip their wings first? Oh, sorry. You should have done that.

Rinsing the chicken may actually be more challenging than lathering it, but you'll get the hang of it. Plus, that bird won't have much fight left after it's flown around the laundry room a few times and smacked the window.

Lightly towel dry the chicken. You'll probably want to use the one-hand-upside-down method as described above. Then get the blow drier from the -- what? You didn't have your blow drier out and plugged in already? Well, that was a mistake, because now you have to carry your wringing-wet bird through the house to your bathroom to retrieve the drier. Please don't use the hot or high settings, or your

will get all

and you don't need that. Gently blow dry your chicken. It could help to have some soulless European house music thumping in the background. I know that's how the big-time hair dressers do it.

Those are the basics for getting your chicken ready for the fair. Next time, Judging Day Etiquette: How Not to Be a Backstage Mother. Thank you for your time. Also? We are idiots, very likely.

So what did I do with my Saturday? I went to the Red Bluff Bull Sale*, of course. The girls and I go every year, usually with my parents. Rather than bore you to death with a blow-by-blow description, how about a few highlights and some photos?

The auction. This is a good place to sit on one's hands, because things happen very quickly, and the merchandise is living and eats a lot of hay. You don't want to accidentally outbid Cowboy Bob when these things fetch $2000-3000 each or more. Dad was pleasantly surprised that the bulls seemed to be bringing good prices, in this tough economy. We talked to a seller who was very pleased, as well.

Smedley leaned over and asked me why the cowboy kept looking at us and then yelling at the auctioneer. "He's not looking at us, Smed -- there's a man behind us who is bidding. So don't point at anything, okay?"

"Look, Mama," said Sparky, "that cow pooped."

"That's a bull, Sparky."

"Oh. That bull pooped."

I didn't take any photos in the auction itself because I thought it might be bad etiquette. And things moved so fast there was never a break to take advantage of.

We wandered through the commercial booths, which is usually fun, but my crowd anxiety** reared its head after getting sandwiched between three too many cell phone-wielding saunterers. I was glad to be able to duck out a side door, back out into the warm January sun.

The best part is looking at the animals, near-perfect specimens of bovinity. We wandered through the barns where the children of bull sellers romped and played in their Wranglers and scuffed cowboy boots. These tiny kids have no fear of bulls whatsoever, I reminded myself. I overheard a mother yelling to her daughter as she raced by, "Don't eat any more sugar cubes, okay?" A universe unto itself within that sentence.

Here are a couple of impressive guys, both Gelbvieh bulls from the same ranch, the Cardey Ranches of Turlock, California. They look like boneless, soft leather bags full of melted butter, don't they?

And here are their ribbons, above them. The red one was grand champion of his breed (Gelbvieh) and the black one was reserve champion. Not bad from one ranch, huh?

This guy was Sparky's favorite. He's a Polled Hereford, and we thought he had the biggest head we've seen in a long time.

I'm pretty sure he was the Reserve Champion Polled Hereford, and he brought over $3000. Since he weighed about two and a half tons, there was just no way to get a single photo that would do justice to this massive animal.

This is the Bull Wash Area. I just made that name up, but that's what they do here. A nice shampoo and set for the boys.

"Smedley," I said to my elder daughter -- you do know that's not her real name, right? -- "You could be an auctioneer when you grow up, if you want to." Smedley nodded silently. "Of course," I continued, "You'd have to learn to talk slower." Smedley just glared at me. Her payback will be swift and sure someday. I'll have to wait another year to make that joke again.

It was a good day. We'll go again next year. I'll try not to be frightened, but it's pretty hopeless.

*Full name: The Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale. Apparently all entrants are prequalified by their genitalia, or lack thereof.

**Do I sound a tad neurotic? Yeah, that's what I thought.