Waiting is no laughing matter; just ask our sheep ladies.
As their tummies get bigger and even bigger and (cue Chandler Bing) Can they GET any bigger (certainly in the case of new flock matriarch, Ivy) they sit and wait, and stand and wait, and eat and wait, and there’s not a lot of guffawing to be had. Once the lambs are here and fate has been realised, then instinct will kick in, the paddock mood will relax, and life will have a bit of bounce again. But for now…oh, it’s all very serious.
Of course, not being privy to the insides of our flocks heads, I’m not sure what prompts this solemnity or even if we human Homesteaders are using our love of categorising everything to interpret what is simply mild-mannered, pre-birthing rest and rumination as a worry filled, anxious, nailbiting wait. Let’s face it, that’s what we’re doing.
But at least we know we’re doing it; that’s half the battle, right? And as we agonise over whether this is the lambing we end up with our arms lubed up ala James Herriot, or what we thought was lamb was simply shoddy Lifestylers over feeding, we have been talking a lot about what makes us laugh. I mean us as humans rather than us personally. Maybe you should make a pot of tea…this may get a bit deep.
Take Monty Python for example. I can see the humour (albeit dated and probably (most definitely) un PC) in The Lumberjack Song for example, but it doesn’t reduce me to the tear-spurting, thigh slapping paroxysms of mirth I’ve witnessed over the years in those around me. My little brother, he of the Dover Division, spent a good segment of his teenage years (to my recollection) conversing entirely as a member of the Gumby family and our resident Engineer was very taken with the Dead Parrot skit (“The palindrome of bolton would be notlob“). Farm Girl has now discovered the Pythons (thanks Netflix);
even mention of the Batley Townswomen’s Guild reinacting The Battle of Pearl Harbour renders her unable to speak (I worry about her breathing) for at least five minutes. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this as I fear it’ll boil down to intelligence…and that won’t look great for me.
Tim Minchin is another case in point. I love him. He can be irreverent, rude, opinionated, foul-mothed, crass… and I can overlook all of that because he comes across as being very real, his music is very, very clever, and his lyrics makes me belly laugh. He was recently in Christchurch and a Homestead contingent were very excited to secure seats.
A word must be said about these seats as he performed in my favourite Christchurch venue, the Town Hall Auditorium, and we got my absolute favourite seats in the house (no, I’m not sharing where they are because they’re mine!) so before he pattered, bare foot, onto the stage it was already a good night. He didn’t disappoint; I howled with laughter throughout the evening, in fact, I annoyed myself because I missed some wonderful lines because of it, and some of the material I laughed at doesn’t put me in a very good light. Hmmmm…
All this laughing has helped while away some pretty scary, large scale waiting; but on Friday it was over
Oh the sleepless nights, the worries, the what-ifs… and our wonderful girl returned from her day with a smile, a wordfind, a coloured-in butterfly, some pretty cool knowledge about rust, a page and a half of copied information in a subject she’s not actually taking
and some pretty hilarious stories.
Union Homestead 
Good luck to all those mothers and well done Farm Girl on her first day.
It was such a relief that she enjoyed herself. We knew she’d be fine but we worried the beginning would be a little rough.
A very smart looking pupil.
I went into a cinema in Aberdeen in the early 1970s to see a Monty Python film, thinking that it might be quite empty as MP is an acquired taste and very English too. The place was packed and rocked with laughter from start to finish.
I hope all goes well with the sheep.
MP is definitely an aquired taste … and an enduring one, too. Three generations in my family have folk who laugh to the point of asthmatic wheeze at their shenanigans!
A right thinking bunch, then.
Wow, I hope lambing goes well for all concerned – will the huge one have triplets do you think? Monty Python was big when I was in the Navy, so a lot of our humour was MPesque – we thought we were hilarious. I had never heard of Tim Minchin and checked Youtube – and actually had trouble finding a comedic routine, he seems to have turned largely to music at least that’s what’s on Youtube, but I did find a lovely sketch about Tony the fish developing feet and leaving the ocean having been deserted by his friends for being different. I can see what you enjoy about him. Also, it’s apparent from his performance and a couple of Aussie shows I’ve seen on TV lately that we up here use the F bomb differently than Down Under- the things I learn from your blog are amazing, lol. FG looks pretty smart in that uniform, glad to hear the first day was survived. It’s hard being new, but it sounds like an OK start…hopefully she’ll find people to hang with and it all becomes better from there. Also, good news….you can no longer boast of going to the theatre – we are allowed to go to the movie theatres again…and we can “gasp” have people in our homes – as many people as we want! This is bad – I have to step up the housecleaning standard again.
Ivy, the monster sheep, has only had singles up til now. Whatever happens, fingers crossed she can manage it but we have the emergency supplues (and YouTube) if it all turns to custard.
Interesting about the F Bomb usage…will need to look into this.
FG is one of those folk who always finds someone ti hang out with. She makes us cery proud.
Hooray for being able to go out…and have folk in. Not so great its back to maintaining the ckeaning tho…ick!!
Well, thank goodness! Good for Farm Girl! I hope she continues to enjoy school life. Good luck with the expectant mothers too 🙂
It all seems to be ticking along nicely 😁
🙂
So any new arrivals yet? Whilst I can appreciate Tim Minchin, the humour of Monty Python goes largely over my head. I hope your paddock is soon filled with the sight and sounds of frolicking lambs.
Still waiting; to be fair our lambs are really only due from the beginning of August but the mood among the flock has definitely changed to one of moony-eyed waiting. Monty Python passed me by, too, but it seems it keeps revisiting me just to make sure!