Tuesday and Wednesday and Rain and Sheep and Tigers

 

 

Tuesday slipped past me—Tuesday is normally my Blog-day.

         

I’ve been working so hard on my Prairie Report, I haven’t thought of much else. Although I scared myself last night when I was complaining about the state of the state, not just Oregon, all of the states. I gave myself a headache as a result.  So, I went inside the house, took two aspirins, and got rid of it.

And ripped up those pages.

 

Wednesday

Morning, I am out in my truck again with Sweetpea and coffee. This time, I parked next to an abandoned house for sale on 126 acres, not far from where we live. I figured I could sit here, attempt to get some rays, and watch the sheep in the field while I write to you guys.

It has begun to rain.

And those sheep in the field are out in the wet, and so are their babies. They don’t seem to pay much attention to the water falling on them—I guess those coats are pretty water repellent, with all that lanolin coating them.

Those babies know which dam is their mother, although I see a group of youngsters running together—whoops, two twins decided to stop by their mother for a snack.

The babies are youngsters, not babies, and run with the pack rather than huddle under mother most of the time. The rain stopped almost as fast as their snack time.

The fields are immense, 126 acres on this property so the ad says. $1,475,000 for the property with a house built in 1915. The land is rented for the sheep although their aren’t many sheep on it, only about 50 spread out over the abundance of green that covers the land.

This is a Zillow picture, I was curious about it. There were no vehicles parked beside the house when I was there, and I don't see any sheep in the fields, but they were there today.

 

 

Wise words:

“Healing is so hard because it’s a constant battle between your inner child, who is scared and just wants safety, and your inner teenager, who’s angry and wants justice, and your adult self, who is just tired and wants peace.”

--vensachingautamtero

 

Good news--tigers

Praise for the people in Kazakhstan who are implementing a reforesting of the land and a return of the tigers.

Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia bordering Russia, is gearing up to bring the tigers back by planting 37,000 new trees for refuge and cover.

Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, and the Botai culture there is credited with domesticating horses around 3700-3100 B.C. The nomadic people of the country were pasturing their herds at about the same time as they traveled.

Now a team is making a grand effort to bring the tigers back to the wild places in the country’s south along the IIe River and Lake Balkhash. This area once sheltered the big cats.

The re-wilding isn’t just about the cats; the team has carefully chosen willows, poplars and other trees known to support deer and antelope that the tigers need to survive.

Already, wild grazers are foraging among the new growth, evidence that the landscape is slowly coming back to life. And soon, a pair of Amur tigers from the Netherlands may become the first of their kind in decades to roam Kazakhstan.

I didn’t know where Kazakhstan existed. It’s among other countries that end in “stan.”

 

 

 

 

Once You're Over 21

 Remember, growing old is a privilege denied many.

 

 

Nobody needs to know your age once you’re over 21.

 

I had an impulse a few days ago to start an Instagram account with a #picture a day with pithy sayings about aging. If a photo a day is too much pressure, I will post regularly in whatever time frame I choose.  I thought I would begin it on my #birthday that would come in a couple of days.

 

But it’s #February, I thought. Many places look dreary. But not all places. I decided to drive a short distance from my house to a #field of sheep. It's lambing season, so I figured I would see #lambs frolicking on a green field. Upon arriving, it tickled me to see a lamb with her nose close to the ground following a little bird who didn’t fly away but just kept hopping, with her nose in tune with his hops. That’s the reason I wanted a picture a day, to look for the simple joys that make our/my #heart sing.

 

I caught these two guys practicing being grown up Rams.

 

 

 

A bumper year for lambs, Many came in two's this year, and many black ones. What does that mean?

And I always wondered how the lambs found their mothers out of a sea of sheep. And how a newborn baby survived when it was born in January, and fell on cold wet ground.

 

 

I am following my mother-in-law’s practice to never tell her age. Instead, she would have un-birthdays, and I think it demoralized her when she had an eightieth birthday party, for then people knew the truth. Truth? Phooey. Go for #fun. Nobody needs to know your age.

 

I have an Instagram account already. (joycedavis747) However, I thought a new one would focus on aging, which everybody does, and everybody doesn’t know how to do it—it’s something that happens to us, yet, I wonder, how much is under conscious control?

 

Instead of taking photos and beginning a new Instagram account, I took myself on vacation to a hotel in Portland, where my niece joined me, and we had a ball. I didn’t use my computer, a daily event at home. However, here I am now. I had to stop myself from spending the day cleaning up emails, for I had a pile, but not good ones—like from you.

 

Before checking out of the hotel the morning after my niece left, I thought of the photos I said I would take. I suggested to the universe (fill in your own name for that force) that she provide something pretty for me to photograph on my way home. My eyes immediately fell on the flowers my niece and her kids gave me. So, I snapped this picture.

 

 Keep your paws warm:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1487832074270613505

 

P.S. about sheep:

 

I'll be darned. I didn't think sheep were high on the intelligence scale. I was wrong. :Look at this:

• Sheep have very good memories. They can remember at least 50 individual sheep and humans for years. They do this by using a similar neural process and part of the brain that humans use to remember.
• Sheep have been shown to display emotions, some of which can be studied by observing the position of their ears.
• Contrary to popular misconception, sheep are extremely intelligent animals capable of problem solving. They are considered to have a similar IQ level to cattle and are nearly as clever as pigs.
• Like various other species including humans, sheep make different vocalizations to communicate different emotions. They also display and recognize emotion by facial expressions.
• Sheep are known to self-medicate when they have some illnesses. They will eat specific plants when ill that can cure them.
• Sheep are precocial (highly independent from birth) and gregarious (like to be in a group).
• Female sheep (ewes) are very caring mothers and form deep bonds with their lambs that can recognize them by their call (bleat) when they wander too far away