Another weekend has come and gone but this one was spent with friends. My friend, Emily, came Friday night so that on Saturday morning we could do a practice run on her hair and also meet with the woman who is doing all the flowers for her wedding (St. Bridget's Flower Farm). The rest of Saturday was spent by taking naps, reading but mostly chatting. Her fiance, who had spent Friday and Saturday with friends (celebrating the end of bachelor-hood) came Sunday, when he promptly took a nap to help recover from so much celebrating. Art was working Sunday evening when the three of us took a walk around the farm. Neither Emily or Joey had met Ferdinand and we discovered that Ferdi must be part goat as he tried to eat Emily's dress, Joey's pants and would lick various parts of Emily's car. While we were out walking around we watched Peggy walk through the fence- literally, she just walked through it. Art had turned off the electric fence earlier to get the tractor and forgot to turn it back on. With Joey's help and a bucket of corn we were able to herd Peggy back into the barn and all was well again on the farm. We need to replace that part of the fence but have been debating about whether to do it ourselves or hire someone to do it. As long as the electric fence is on the cows stay away from it, but Peggy just got lucky last night.

Art has also been letting Ferdi run around unsupervised. I know, I know- you'd think we had learned our lesson when we lost Helen and Keller for six weeks, but Ferdi is different. You call his name and he comes (like a dog) and he just hangs around the fence line or the edge of the pasture. Neighbors have stopped by in a panic at seeing a cow out walking around, but it's ok, Ferdi is trustworthy. The only problem is that Ferdi is at a stage in his development where he wants to play, but he doesn't realize that he is bigger and heavier than I am. He gets a little pushy; his favorite game being that he will walk behind you and suddenly shove his head into your backside. This doesn't hurt me, but I did warn Joey to be careful as Ferdi has rammed Art's boy parts on several occassions. Ferdi walked around with us and we ended up near one of the apple trees. There were a few that were overripe and buggy, so I pulled one off and gave it to Ferdi. He licked it, but showed no interest. The other cows love apples- L-O-V-E them- so I broke the apple in half and showed it to Ferdi, thinking he would eat it. He sniffed at it and darted away. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried again. Again, he sniffed the piece of apple and, again, darted away like he was afraid.

There you have it- Ferdi is afraid of apples. I knew something would have to happen; Ferdi was the only normal (if entirely useless) cow we had ever had. Now he's the cow that's afraid of apples. Apples.