Red, White, & Moo With Ewe

Happy 6th of July!

On the 1st of July, I was like, (in my head of course) “hey, you should enter the Farm.ily in the parade”… so I did. Eek. I shared the exciting news with my aunt and uncle, exciting because I also entered them in the parade as helpers! When discussing ideas and a lack of decorative supplies left at the dollar store, my aunt mentioned that if I planned ahead, well ya, for sure. No planning ahead here. Thank goodness for Walmart.com and the 2 headbands they had left and for red and blue temporary hair spray.

Figuring out the parade roll call was a little rough as there are way more mouths here than I have arms. Luckily my cousin is in town, on leave from the Army, so she was enlisted for any of the more type A animals.

I was seriously hoping to take the Donks, but when I got them last fall they weren’t exactly halter broke, borderline wild enough to say ah hell nah. Since they’ve come here I pet them and talk to them everyday, but have I put a lot of effort into haltering and leading them? Also no.

Again with the lack of planning… July 2nd we’re out here working with the Donks and it went like this…

Walk this way, please?

We were not deterred! Until… the morning of July 3rd. I caught both Donks, my son offered to lead one, but being the expert I am, I said, “I got this” well where’s Maury Povich, because that was a lie, I did not got that. Those Donks split the sheets between me and a tree and 34 seconds and a brand new crappy nylon lead rope burn later Daddy & Sonny Donk were outta there and I was dropping F bombs. I was able to get them both caught and took them down to the arena for a “supervised by a fence” leading session filled with treats and “atta-boys” so past our minor lapse in communication that occurred earlier I was feeling pretty good about our hopes for walking in a parade and NOT making it an interactive 4th of July parade by screaming out, “catch that donkeeeeeeey!”

However, later that afternoon when my cousin came out to help me take them for a walk down the county road as one lost safety check… this is how the Donks responded to our request:

Leave me alone they said. Please and thank you.

After a lot of running in the hot July sun, my cousin needed a rest stop but me and the Donks powered though until we came to somewhat of a join up. It wasn’t as beautiful and harmonious as I hoped. But I was able to put my hands all over them without them taking off for dodge city again. But they weren’t exactly happy about it either.

When you’re pissed but you’re also smart

Plan B was necessary. Plan B was BoBo. I mentioned the idea of bringing BoBo (my 4 year old longhorn cross) to town for the parade to a couple people and was met with only shocked eyes and not any helpful comments. Thankfully when I texted my cousin she was down and replied, “if we’re going downtown might as well make a scene!” I like it. I do like being a little extra. Safe of course, but still extra.

He’s horny 😉

To be honest. I was a little stressed about subbing BoBo in for the donkeys. If I didn’t take the donkeys I could lead my Blueberry. But that didn’t feel like enough extra. Then, the night before, while hanging out in front of a giant inflatable bounce house, one of my friends sat and chatted with me. She asked if I was bringing BoBo. I laughed. Of course I wasn’t. His horns and the horns. And his horns. For some reason, her request stuck with me and I thought, why not BoBo? So I mentioned it to a few people who were like absolutely not, hell no. So of course I had to ignore that because I know my BoBo and yes he has horns and yes they are stressful to be around… ESPECIALLY in fly season when he’s always waving his head around. But I know my Bo, I know I can lead him home from down the county road with a piece of twine tied around his neck that I found on the ground… I know he’s a good boy. Everyone else should see it too. Plus bringing BoBo seemed like a great way to level up. So I brought him. And it was AMAZONG!! He was so good. Everyone was SO GOOD! My kids were great and all my animals were wonderful. It was such a great experience that I am grateful for.