A friend of ours used to say she always wanted to hug a yaks. Well, these photos are for Aster. :)
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Friendly fellow
A friend of ours used to say she always wanted to hug a yaks. Well, these photos are for Aster. :)
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Happenings around the farm
I've been awful about keeping up on the blog lately, for various reasons that don't really matter.
There have been a few exciting things that have happened. Kai went from being super skittish to being Mr Friendly with the simple application of apple and oat cookies. Yay! I'm still working on getting him to lead a bit better with the halter, but he's been so receptive to just following us without it that I'm letting him get used to that before I start messing with him again.
The big excitement happened on Saturday evening. I heard a bunch of coyotes howling, and watched the yaks bolt off to the East. Not that noteworthy, these things happen a lot. However, when I was heading out to work with Kai a few minutes later, I noticed...hey...the yaks seem to be one fence too far to the East...OH CRAP. Yes, led by Snort, the herd (sans Kate) had managed to make it over the 5 string barbed wire fence and the electric fence on the other side. I shouted at Daven (who was lifting weights at the time) that the yaks had escaped, and then called our neighbours to let them know, hey! Yaks! Visiting you! Sorry about that! We will fix anything they damage!
Because our neighbours are awesome, they mostly found this to be pretty hilarious. They turned off the electric fence so Daven could try to lead the fur-beasts back through to our land. After a lot of cajoling (with Kate following along on our side of the fence), Daven nearly had them through the gate...when Kate spooked. The wrong way. Well, good, now everyone but Kai was next door. Cussing (loudly) ensued. Daven continued to try to get them back for 2 hours, until it was quite dark. At that point, our neighbour called and said, basically "He's going to kill himself in the dark in that pasture. We've put up protective fencing around our house, just leave 'em for the night and try again in the morning."
It was not a good night.
I woke up unaided at 0600, thinking "MAYBE THEY CAME BACK!" No. They did not come back. They had settled in on a little hill and were not interested in coming back. And yet, on his first (more patient and less sweary/shouty) attempt, Daven got everyone back on our side of the fence. He fixed up all of the electric fencing that had been knocked down and was back inside by 0700. Awesome husband!
At the end of that, Snort had a slightly cut up nose for his troubles. I'm hoping he won't try that again, but it is a little unnerving that if properly motivated, he will just go *through* whatever is in his way. On the upside, Snort has calmed the heck down in the last couple of months, to the point that whilst Daven was leading Kate with cookies, he was leading Snort by skritching the furry one's face. Considering my concerns about Snort after the whole "picking me up with his horn" incident, this is a fantastic development.
So, we have good days, and bad days. The yaks are still fascinating critters to have around, even if they can be bloody frustrating on occasion.
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