A Good Twenty Minutes

This is my farrier Derek, along with Duke. Derek was born the year I graduated from high school. For some reason I find that endlessly amusing. Perhaps because in important ways I’m forever 18 (and in blue jeans). Not that I would want to actually BE 18 again, lawd no.

So Duke and donkey got their hooves trimmed today. One huge, one little. It is easier and far and away safer to use a shoeing stock with drafts which is the structure you see around Duke. We use ropes and dog collars to help lift and hold his feet while his hooves are being trimmed. And with Duke, it goes better when Derek works quickly – he’s good for about twenty minutes and gets impatient after that.

I should perhaps not mention the little episode with the lead rope, but I will. I have three good lanyards. One I’ve been using to clip the cow to when I milk so it is tied to the milking shelter. One is attached to Duke’s halter. And one is “floating”, kept with the grooming tools, used for donkey or dog or whatever else needs it temporarily. So being the prepared, thinking ahead sort of person that I usually am, I took Duke’s halter and lead and the extra lead to the field when I went to get Duke. Later when husband needed to get donkey, I tried to tell him where the lanyard was.

Except I have something we affectionately call “noun aphasia”. The name for something just disappears from my brain. I can describe it often but not name it. I think that is one reason we often have multiple names for things around here - the more names it has the more likely I am to be able to think of one of them. It is like a stutter or a hiccup in that a pause, bringing a quietness to my brain, relaxing and I can usually come up with it - but it takes a few seconds.

Which is 20 minutes to husband. So instead of waiting for me to come up with “on the spreader” which is where I had left the lanyard, he made some smart aleck remark and headed off, untying the lead from the milking shelter and using it. I didn’t realize he had done this. Until I went to milk tonight that is. I was already a little late milking and it was dark and she was waiting for me. I went in the field and got things ready then, no snap. Woops. Irritation. Back to the house. I immediately found my leads but not ones I was willing to leave tied up down there. “Hey, husband, where did you put my milking lanyard?”

Oh, he didn’t really know. To his credit, he did go look, and he found it. A good twenty minutes later. And milking proceeded. And in the end we decided we liked each other anyway. A little.