learning to follow the lead

Its funny how the things that you learn and the experience that you have when you are young , those things that you never though would useful can come back to you almost 1/2 a century later.   

When I was a boy, we lived on a small hobby farm, and beside a full time farmer, so I had exposure to all sorts of farming, including the odd little trick .  We had a Donkey, his name was Moses.  Time to time, farmers would borrow Moses from us, and use him to train their calves to walk on a lead.  Today I decided to give that a try.  We have 6 calves right now, and 4 of them are terrible to try to lead anywhere , and continually fight you, and it is almost imposable to move them.  So today I started  Donkey training.  I hitched the most unruly calf up to Jeff, and then simply took Jeff for a walk. 

At first the calf pulled an fought the rope, and Jeff simply walked along beside me dragging the calf along.  but soon the calf learned to walk with the rope, and just took minor correction in its course from time to time, but with in about 20 minutes, he would walk along, stopping and starting with no fuss at all.  I was quit pleased with myself, but after about a ten minute break, the calf was right back to square one again .. I thought that this must be one stupid calf so I walked him extra hard the second time .. When I was done, Julie and the kids said how well the second calf learned as well .. what I did not know is that they switched calves on me when I took a break ..   

For those interested, I have posted a couple video's at the end of the post. 

Vanya, our newest boy is settling in well.  He was working hard all day, then in the evening he came to me asking if there was any more work that he could do.  He is fighting a Nicotine addiction, and wanted to stay busy . Please pray for him to have the strength to deal with this.

I stoped at the Bazaar and ordered toys and stuff for some gift bags for Children's day.  We are sponsoring the celebration in the village where the farm is, and need to pack 100 bags.  I placed the order and gave a deposit, then took a picture of the order for my records.. the guy was most insistent that we include him in the photo as well. 

 The gardens continue to grow.  The Romain lettuce we started in the hot beds are doing great, and will likely be ready to pick in just a few weeks. Some of the sunflowers are already a foot tall .. just 13 feet more to go.

 we  even have flowers starting to come on the tomato plants already.  The trees were starting to get too dried out from the direct sun, so we have put cheeses cloth over them.  This will let the rain and some sun through but will keep them shaded from the direct sun.   We also found some peppermint and some spearmint that we planted as well. 

Julie and some of the kids have been working on painting the guest house.  We want to get it set up for guests before we go.  We have one room with Michele staying in it for the next month, so she will be our test guest .  

Here are the videos of the calves learning to walk on the lead.