Dancing with the…Bucks?

We just love watching Dancing with the Stars. How happy we were to see Jennifer Gray take the trophy this year after her challenging battle with injuries and her own emotional ups and downs. How gratifying to see someone fifty years old perform with such grace, agility and flexibility!

Today, we were surprised to realize that we have our own dancing stars—right in our own barnyard!

We had to move Carlo, our youngest buck, back in with the other boys. He’d had adequate time to perform his duties, and we wanted to let the ladies back out into the pasture. As you may know, catching a buck isn’t always the easiest task. We’ve raised Carlo from birth and he’s always been a sweetheart, but when you try to convince a young buck that he has to give up wining and dining the women to return to the bachelor pad, you’re bound to run into an argument.

We’re used to running around. We’re used to kicks, bites, and the occasional hoof strike. We’re not used to dancing.

Gerald maneuvered Carlo into a corner. The buck decided to make a mad dash for it, and reared up to jump past him. Gerald caught one of his legs. Carlo wasn’t too keen on that. Since he was already half in the air, Gerald took the other leg. Suddenly the two were locked in an embrace, the buck standing on his back legs, Gerald holding tight to his forefeet.

Shall we dance?

Gerald started to sing an old German polka. Then he backed up.

Carlo walked forward.

Gerald took a few more steps backward. Carlo stepped forward. Easy as you please. No argument. No fight. No head butts. No hoof strikes.

They danced the length of the barn. All the way from the main area to the bachelor’s pen, about 25 yards away. Carlo walked on two legs, holding tight to Gerald’s grip. Gerald moved backwards, singing away.

If I were Carrie Anne, I’d have given them a “10” and praised the fact that their feet didn’t come off the ground. I’d have said their form was great. Posture, perfect. They moved in rhythm to the music. They had a certain…chemistry. Carlo’s eyes never left Gerald’s. All the way until the music ended and he went to join the other boys, his golden eyes were trained on Gerald’s baby blues.

Bruno would have called Carlo a true romantic, and told him that he moved with the power and grace of Antonio Bandaras. As for Len? I’m not sure he would have liked how they got into the dance—too much of all that extra stuff—but once they got going? Even he would have had to admit: It was a show-stopper.

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Heat Lamps Are Up!

Believe it or not, we got all the heat lamps up before it got too cold. It’s just not pleasant stringing wires and clipping lamps when the temperatures are below 25!

As you can see here, though, these heat lamps are indispensable on cold Colorado nights. Last year Christina and her two babies loved huddling down into their warm pen when the sun went down. Of course it didn’t hurt that we gave them some hay to munch on.

We have about 10 pens total ready to go, so we should be able to accommodate all the babies we have coming this winter. We split the barn into several smaller pens enclosed with wire panels covered in chicken wire. We didn’t used to do the chicken wire, but after seeing a few babies get their heads stuck in the panels, we learned our lesson! Now we line all the panels where the babies are going to be so we don’t have any more of those incidences!

Now all we have to do is wait. We brought a lot of our young moms in from the pasture a few weeks ago to be with the buck. They were disappointed at first, but have now adapted to life in the barn where they will spend the next little while. Chores have gotten a little harder with the cold as well, as now we have to drain the hoses after every use. Great exercise, but tough on the shoulders!

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