Rocky gets zapped, and other thoughts

Well, I wasn't sure until now, but.....Rocky finally learned the hard way that there's an electric fence to stay away from. Shadow didn't want to come out this morning.  Usually she and Rocky run together while I milk Bessie.  Then I bring the dogs inside the house when I'm done and they get their bowl of yesterday's milk with an egg in it. That was one difference in this morning's schedule.  The other was that last night I left the gate open between the cows' "area" and the rest of the fenced acre (not a mistake, I just wanted to see if they'd be watching over the main fence in the morning, and they were).  That meant that the cow's gate was open while I was milking Bess, because Lucy wasn't inside the cow fence when I started. Rocky had the run of the full acre that way, including the cows' area.  He'd been in and out, sampling cow-pies, sniffing noses with both cows, not being too much of a pest, which was nice.  It wasn't until I was cleaning out the ploppers in the barn that I heard his agonized yelp.  He tucked his tail, slunk over to the gate, and just sat there dejectedly waiting for me to take him in.  It was hard to feel too sorry for him when I thought about the chicken that's still recovering because of his trespassing a few weeks back. I THINK that Shadow doesn't want to go back to the fenced area for 2 reasons:  She's just plain tired of Rocky aggravating her, and--she got shocked on the first day after we put up the fence, and isn't sure where or how she got zapped. Now Rocky, on the other hand, will probably happily prance back out to the gate and joyfully romp in the back yard without even remembering that he got his little nose shocked.  We'll see.  The electric fence IS working like we wanted it to.  The cows don't test it, and stay inside their area unless the gate is open.  No chickens have died since we set it up because they ended up in Rocky's jaws.  I do need to adjust it a bit, though, because the chickens need to be able to get under the fence and into the straw and manure in the cows' area to get rid of the fly larvae that will be hatching soon.  Flies appeared in near-swarms a few days ago, concentrating on the lovely fresh piles of poo.  Yesterday brought mosquitoes that were big enough for me to THINK that they were flies all over Bessie's back.  I checked on-line, and mosquito season around northern Illinois isn't supposed to start until late-April/early-May.  It's going to be a bad year!  Farmer Bob suggested a company that I can contact for a fly-spray that might help. I'm expecting to see a tick any day now, too, and am convinced that it will be crawling off of Bessie and onto me as I'm trying to calmly milk her.  I can't imagine what a sudden scream will do to her quiet munching, or if the milk-bucket will survive without being kicked over (by me, as I scramble to get the hated tick off of myself!).  ;)  Chickens are supposed to eat ticks, too, and guinea fowl are even better, but....whatever birds are allowed to roam in the fenced acre are also possible food for Rocky.  We'll see how bad the ticks get, and maybe he'll just have to live with running in the early morning or late evening, after poultry-type critters are tucked in for the night.  Maybe if the cows keep the grass cropped short enough, we won't have as bad a season as if the grass grows as tall as it did last summer. Change of topic:  Jeremy is visiting Immanuel Lutheran in Crystal Lake today.  It was his request, and his smart mind is evaluating the extra time he'd be able to sleep in, how convenient it would be for him and Michael to ride to school together in the mornings, the possibility of being in more sports, the additional time he'd be home every afternoon......and he's convinced that his grades would be better because he'd be better rested.  I was given a tour of the school, and it is pretty impressive.  The building is only about 4 years old, the classes are about the same size as Immanuel in Palatine, uniforms are a plus.  It would be really hard to leave our church and school home, though, after being there since Chris was 3 (that puts us at 21 years as an Immanuel school family in Palatine!) As for both boys in Lutheran schools next year, we haven't signed either one up yet.  Jeff is concerned that, if the house in Palatine doesn't sell, we won't have the money for tuition.  I'm trying not to worry, which is hard, sometimes.  I'm convinced that God will provide the tuition if we can't, or that He will give us the assurance that the public schools are where He wants them to be.  It wouldn't be a bad thing, even for one year, if the boys met some of the kids in the surrounding areas because they attended a local school.    It does seem, though, that God is teaching us to rely on Him.  With our first offer on this house, another offer was accepted instead and we thought it wouldn't happen for us.  With our attempts to get the cows, it sure seemed like it was all going to fall through and not happen.  At both times, we were leaning towards thinking that we'd just step back, take a break, and wait until the timing was right, and that's when things fell into place.  The first accepted offer on the house fell through and we were the next in line (thanks to the quick reaction of Pat Larsen, who gave us the immediate inside-scoop about what was happening!).  The options to transport the cows were all hitting a brick wall, and that's when the vet suggested his friend Dan, who was the one who quite willingly drove almost to Davenport and back to deliver them to us.  I think sometimes that we just need to stop depending on our own efforts, maybe even throw up our hands in frustration because things aren't going the way WE want them to go, and let God do the working to make things happen in His time! Whew--from the pup getting zapped to a school visit to a little sermon-ette.  I'm glad that I can sit down and type whatever is on my mind, but sometimes you're going to get a whirlwind of thoughts, ready or not! Laura.