Water Worries

It's the yin and the yang that gives life it's meaning.  Would this sunny, glorious day with not a cloud in the sky be so beautiful were it not for the grey, icy dampness of the last couple of days?  Would I appreciate the water coming out of my faucet if it was not turned off all night in the hopes that the epoxy on the tank rupture would hold?  Well, it did not hold and we had to turn the water back on to fill the sheep containers - and chickens, and rabbits, and dogs and cats and ducks.  Water on a farm is of paramount importance.  We can get by on a couple of gallons for coffee and teethbrushing, but livestock lives on water.  If I could let them all go and wander they would find water in a couple of ponds and the many underground streams here on the farm.  I am reminded of the first year I lived here, in the little 14 foot RV, when the water pipes froze and I was sneaking sink baths in the bathrooms at school.  The principal found out (why do they always find me out?) and offered me the shower in cosmetology.  Now I have my classy, giant, claw foot tub and I do a ceremonial water-worshipping soak in remembrance of those times.  Matt is working on the tank, not the way he wanted to spend his long weekend.  He bought more epoxy and thinks he can stop the leak.  Chris Kupris told us he put that pressure tank in back in the 1960's, so it's lasted 50 years.  If I had $2,000 burning a hole in my pocket I would buy a new one, but I am hay poor and that can't happen right now.  Speaking of hay poor, I sent six souls to heaven today.  I am out of hay and paying a ludicrous $4.00 a bale for decent hay and am lucky to have found it.  I took six sheep to the Farmer's Place today - four fat wethers, bullies who push the smaller ones away from the hay and don't have a lot of wool, and two crippled old ewes.  I hated to do it but see no way out of it.  The lady who helped me - I don't know her name - is so friendly and nice and made a very unpleasant trip and little less stressful.  Matt was pushing for me to call a truck to pick them up but there ain't no way.   I won't doom my sheep to a terrifying ride to a horrible fate, in a dog food factory, or a crate going overseas to be sacrificed in a violent Islamic ritual (yes, exposed in a NY Times article a year or so ago) - not after I have cared for them so lovingly all these years.  Nor will I give them away any more.  I worry about them constantly and have no way of knowing how they are being cared for.   Loren came and we loaded them into the back of my mini-van for the four mile down the road where they will only be alive a few minutes.  I'll get the meat back along with tongues, livers and hearts for the dogs.  I have to pay for this service, but it is so worth it to me, and I have good quality dog food for weeks.  I'll send six more when I pick up this load.  I just can't do it any other way.  I'll get the flock down to a manageable number and take even better care of them.  My heart aches but that's just the way things are.