today it was Sunny Ray's appointment with the Vet. He usually chooses to come at 11 oclock on Wednesdays. His half day. The end of his half day. But for whatever reason, today it was 8 oclock. Pushing it for me. It had RAINED, all last evening and into the night, Stormed. Lightning. Thunder. Buckets of RAIN dumping down from the sky. NOT September. But, yes, last night. It continued this morning when i got up at 5 oclock something in order to be ready for 8 oclock. Thunder. Lightning. I kept hoping the phone would ring and we would set a different day, but no and 8 oclock came and went till it was almost 8 Thirty and they arrived. By the Grace of Whatever, there was a break in it all, a reprieve and tho not Sunny, it was Light and he and his assistants, 2, came in and we walked directly to Sunny Ray and Jack Flash's yard, entered and as the gate opened and they went in, Tay took a chance and bolted in too and I yelled HEY! and she rushed back out...but gave it her best try..... and Sunny and Jack flattened themselves to their back fence and he was slow, as he is. Just standing there, the Vet, and watching them as they watched him and his assistants just stood there and i stood there calling out to Sunny Ray...Ray Ray...it's ok, it's ok....and for some moments and then the Vet threw the lasso and it caught one of his rear legs, he fell and we moved and the one assistant stradled him just behind his shoulders and i held his horns and pressed his face into my body and the Vet took out his surgical bone saw from his pocket and began. Sunny has thick scurs. Had he been left natural, his horns would have been magnificant. What he has now are the result of unsuccessful disbudding as a baby. This Vet did that disbudding. i mentioned it. But Nigerians are the most difficult to disbud. So no surprise. We tried.
Anyway, it was WORK to saw that scur but he, Sunny, did well and pushed his face into me and did not utter a sound. and then DONE! Moments. and we were Done. Undid him from the ropes and he ran to the back fence...stood there, quivering. He quivered. He is the only one who has quivered.
it's Done. all the scurs are dealt with. Done. I have a basket full. I added his from today. a basket full of my own Fear,... for them, something different. I look at this.
A basket full of scurs. I should have taken a pic.
When i went back in the first break in the RAIN, i took a pocket full of peanuts...salted, in the shell, and it's always so interesting to me that they are so forthcoming after that trauma, almost more than normal, how they WANT connection and both he and Jack Flash were so easy to receive the peanuts when i said their names.
And then, Sunny Ray's father, Old Gideon, the old man, this morning, his coat was damp and spikey from the leaks in his tarp that covers his hut and so a trip into town for yet another tarp and swapped it out...the one covering that half ton of alfalfa that i have repaired twice with duct tape...the new one, which i don't have much hope for, put in place with some small struggle and then the ripped one folded and tied down over Gideon's hut
and it's RAINING
AGAIN
and MORE right now and it's true, that this life Scares me sometimes. I get afraid of stuff, but the Just Going of it...it is
well
it is so Worth Doing.
and i almost forgot. Tomorrow, at 8 am, i am expected to be, by law, at the county court house. I have a summons for jury duty. I filled out all the appropriate things ON LINE but still MUSt appear. According to the phone conversation with the court clerk. I told her that i am leaving the state in October and she said there will be no question, BUT i have to appear or there will be a warrent for my arrest. Ok.
ADDENDUM
and it's still Raining and it doesn't stop and it's not Normal for September and my brother's son Charley who drags around the "diagnosis" of schizophrenic, calls and we talk and we feel OK about stuff and each other and he says ok, he is tired and going to sleep and i think, me too. I am tired and going to sleep.
