Frustrating Implements and a Sheep Penis Operation

Man what a frustrating day. I have a true love/hate relationship with hardware stores and farm supply stores. Trying to find the exact thing, whatever that thing is specifically is not important, trying to find it is sometimes impossible. It doesn't help that the people they hire have no clue what-so-ever usually either. I don't blame the poor sales clerks. They can't say I don't know without getting in trouble and they don't pay em enough to live, eat and breath hardware.

Seems the hardware or farm supply stores are always out of what I need or the choices once I get there are so overwhelming I am afraid to pick one because sure as a Femocrat is going to try and ban my guns, it will be the wrong choice.

Take the tiller for instance. I am sure the PTO drive shaft for that thing is a 1" square inside diameter shaft. Finding one seems impossible anywhere. They have the rectangle ones, the slightly larger ones, and one that may fit but I am just not 100% sure. The simple thing to do would be to take the half shaft I have with me. Ya simple until after I fought with the shear pin for two hours and used about a gallon of penetrating oil it finally came out. Then it had a fitting key in it I had to take the holding nut off of so that was another 30 minutes and a quart of penetrating oil. Once I removed those things I figured out the universal joint has somehow become melded as one to the drive shaft on the tiller. Wouldn't budge even a millimeter and no matter what I did I couldn't get anything in there to get any leverage to get it unstuck.

Not sure what I am going to do now. So that project is stuck until I can figure something out. Or maybe just load up the entire tiller and take it to the parking lot of tractor supply and ask if a clerk can come outside with the drive shafts....hmmm....

So I turned my attention to the plow. I been trying to cut the extra long front off this plow to rig it up as a three point and it has been eating through sawzall blades like they were made from pop rocks. This old plow was made back when they smelted good steel. Finally I decided to try a cutting wheel on a hand grinder. I took the tractor with the boom on it and drug the thing out away from the barn as I didn't want any sparks burning the place down. Then went to buy some cutting wheels for my grinder.

I got halfway into town and figured out I had left my grinder at home in the shop. Damn. So I get to the hardware store and of course there are like more different sizes of metal cutting wheels than there is the national debt. So I say screw it and just buy a new grinder and ask the clerk which cutting wheels fit it. He gives me a pack of five and says they will fit fine.

I should have known better.  This may sound racist and ya know what I don't care. Never take hardware store advice from the Black clerks. I have yet to meet one that actually knew anything about the tools they are selling. Sorry but there it is. 99% of these clerks are just there for a job but at least with the White guys there is a chance they may have some experience with the tool you are buying.

So I get home and start getting the grinder ready to use. Put the cutting wheel on and sure as the DNC hates me because of my Blue eyes the damned grinder won't tighten all the way down on the thinner cutting disk. So I start making cardboard spacers for it and finally get the thing working. I am cutting away on this old plow tang and damn if I am not finally making some progress. I get about 3/4's of the way through this 4 inch by 2 inch chunk of steel harder than my head when I was 19 and the %$$#*& grinder just stops working. I mean just stops. Dead.

About this time I am so frustrated and thinking about selling the entire farm when I walk over to the ram pen and notice his grain has not been touched.

Now that is like a sign of impending doom something akin to I don't know, a meteor the size of the moon blocking out the sun all of a sudden and heading our way or a sudden fireball and mushroom cloud on the horizon. Real biblical stuff let me tell you. I mean this ram is like 300 pounds and not but a week ago was more interested in his grain than his harem getting away.

That is saying something when you're more interested in food than seven ladies. May I never get to that point.

Then I notice he is laying down inside his stall groaning and by this time my mother is frantic thinking the poor guy is dying. I watch him a bit and make him get up and he poops but I soon determine he is straining to pee. That isn't good. So it's emergency Vet call on a Sunday evening.

Can we all say CHA.......CHING!!!! $$$$$$$

OH trust me here my lovely readers it gets even better. Stay with me.

So the Vet shows up and him and I are in the stall with this Ram, who luckily is actually taking this whole affair better than I expected but we have to wrestle him to the ground and then hold him. He made a little charge at me but I got his head and then swept his front legs putting him on his side while the Vet pulled his back legs and we trapped him between the wall and slowly worked his way down onto his back and rolled him over.

This is where my super shearing training came in handy as I got him into position with his legs in there air and my foot under his shoulder blade and held his head so the poor guy was trapped. Had I known what was in store for him I might have started feeling bad about this time but as it was I had a front row, up close seat to this horror show. I tell ya I think getting amputated during the civil war period might have been more pleasant than what this ram was in for.

The Vet determined he had crystals built up that were blocking his urine and it can kill a poor sheep in less than a day. So as this 300+ pound ram is on his back with me holding him the Vet starts pushing the ram's penis up into the sheath from the back so he can grab the end with a pair of hemostats and pull it out.

My junk still hurts from watching this as it took like I don't know a week to get his poor penis out. I was so horrified and felt so bad for the ram who had his eye balls rolling back into his head like he was dying and looking at me with this expression somewhere between kill me now and I am going to mess your entire life up when I get out of this. I can't say I blame him one bit for either actually.

It didn't help that the pregnant ewes were looking into the stall and screaming "Cut that thing off he did this to us, castrate the Bastard" in a loud kinda bleating way.

So once the vet has Lamar's (the rams name) stuff out he then proceeds to cut it open and sheep pee literally goes everywhere. Well everywhere except on me. This was the entire and only bright spot from my whole day right here that I managed to dodge the massive spray of sheep pee. The poor vet was not so lucky.

Now I am awake because the gestation period for the ewes hit today so they are on round the clock check up. The ram needs to be checked on periodically and the dog came home from the hospital where she had two doggy transfusions (know what those cost btw?) and also has to be walked every hour or two.

Oh and the cat just came inside limping.

I swear I am getting out of animals all together and just raising tomatoes for now on.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!