I’m not sure why I’m reporting this but somehow I managed to fall head first into our manure pile this morning. Ringo was teasing me and his sisters so I grabbed him up and ran out side and pretended to throw him in the oozing, smelly mound that has been soaked by the buckets of rain we’ve had this past week. Squealing and pleading he promised to be a good boy, never to tease again, and to eat all his vegetables. After letting him go he bounded out to fill up the water trough just like he also promised. I turned and grabbed my milk pail and attempted to lift my leg over the electric fence. I’m sure it’s a definite sign of getting old but my back leg snagged the top wire and as I tumbled over head/face first into the heaping mound I wondered how I would explain the smell to Milly when I came back in the house. I thought of several explanations while in the air:

• I put on my old cow clothes this morning
• I milked from behind Rosebud instead of on the side this morning
• Ferdinand finally let me ride him but I ended on my back after he bucked me off after a 2 minute ride around the pasture
• Ringo stepped in a cow pie with his flip-flops and wiped the remnants on my gum boots. (that actually happened this morning so I wouldn’t have been stretching the truth that much)

I swear I thought of all those things while I sailed toward my eminent landing destination. I was in the air for a long time. After wiping off a few of the drier pieces of mud and crud I disgustedly and quite humbly stood up and looked across the field to a beaming Ringo. “What happened Dad?” was all he could say. I knew he really wanted to tease me some more but he knew he was on thin ice as I’m not above dumping an almost innocent kid into a slough pit just to make myself feel better. After milking the cow and composing myself a bit I went inside to take care of the milk. Molly sniffed around and said “why do you smell like cow so much dad?” “I haven’t showered in a week, Molly” was my response. I thought that one up while sitting in soaking wet clothes while I was milking the cow. There you go. Hot off the press. I smell like a cow and am getting too old to step over an electric fence.