Oh, happy day!

Once again, if I think things suck, it doesn’t take long for it all to turn around. Today was a great example. I went to my sister Norma’s about noon and she was to accompany me to a farm that had  buffalo roaming about.  I have pictures of buffalo from the zoo park in Ashland, but you have to keep your vehicle on the road, and if the buffalo decide to hide in the trees there isn’t a lot you can do to coax them out. I have good ones of them frolicking in water and rolling in the dirt, but I can get real close to the farm buffalo.  Right?  The first thing I noticed when I left home was that it was raining. I hoped the buffalo dude wouldn’t be put off by a few raindrops, and it turned out that when we were there, not one raindrop fell. Really. Seriously.  Nothing.  The buffalo were out playing in the grass, as they are known to do, and they were a long way away even with my sort of zoom lens, so Mick I think the guy’s name is (Buffalo Daddy) got some buffalo yummy pellets in a bucket, and rattled the bucket. The sound of pellets hitting the feeder attracts them, but today ‘them’ were three cows. There were two others, a big fluffy one and one with a calf, and they wanted nothing to do with us or pellets.  It was overcast, so there were no harsh shadows, actual perfect picture taking weather. However, I was at the fence, and the fence was right by the feed bunk, so with a zoom lens, I wasn’t getting the greatest body shots but I did get some lovely ratty head shots. The cool thing I like about buffalo is that they’re kind of a big old mess.  From there we stopped at Wakefield to get my 18,000 pieces of beef jerky.  I cannot find beef jerky like this anywhere. It’s kind of a red color in the shape of a disk, and it’s flat. Looks a lot like pepperoni.  For all I know they threw pepperoni in a jar and put a jerky sticker on it, who knows? But I bought a bunch of that, and then we went to Norfolk to Menard’s so I could buy a new shower head, since mine leaks.  On the way back, I spotted of all things, Camels! Really? I believe those were my exact words, “Camels, really? Are those camels?” and then I saw zebras so I added, “And there’s zebras!”  My sister said, “Let’s stop there.” We did.  I pulled up through the yard but there was no place to turn around so I backed up to the driveway and this bald dude materialized out of nowhere.  I explained that I am clinically insane, and that I wondered if he would let me take pictures of his critters.  Well of course I could.  He took us through the camel pen and we talked to Roo and Camilla, and then we went on to the zebra pen.  He has seven zebras I think, they start blending together but there are six or seven. Zeus, Zelda, Zimolla, Zachary, Zally, Zim and Zoger.  Just kidding.  There is a Zeus and a couple of other Z names, and I said, “Do they all start with Z?” and he said, “Not Mahoney” or whatever, so I figured the Z was silent.  I need to take notes so I know what it is I am talking about when I get home, but the bottom line is that those zebras are way cool, and he said they are considered livestock (exotic livestock?) and he can get me whatever I want but a giraffe costs something like $70,000. I passed on owning a giraffe. 

  After the zebras we talked to the camels again, and when I say talk I mean Roo tried to chew my head clean off my shoulders.  “She doesn’t bite,” the guy says.  “She does that” – and that is growl, snarl, bare her teeth and lunge her big camel head at you.  “She’s letting you know she’s had enough.”  Enough of what? Me telling her how fluffy she is? What a snotty camel. She did not spit (he said she doesn’t) but while I was taking pictures, she might have been standing 40 feet away, their necks are 35 feet long and suddenly her camel nose was shoving up against my camera lens.  He also has a  mule that’s half appaloosa, and he was cool looking.  I decided we should leave before he gave us the rundown on all 75 cats.  We did learn about the first one we saw, who came to the farm as a stray, and had about lost an eyeball so the vet said, “You can either pay a fortune in bills or I can lance this eye” and the only thing odd is the cat has one brown eye and one blue eye after  having the bad one lanced.  The guy saved his money for camel treats, I guess.  Lucky for Roo and Camilla. So today I got to take pictures of camels, zebras, buffalo, and a half-appy mule. The entire time I was out with my camera it did not rain one drop. Ha ha, someone somewhere likes me!