The Secret of Doug Revealed at Last

Well, it's fully summer here whatever the calendar says. Like much of last summer it has been hot and dry and, as usual, I am still catching up on spring work... probably from 2015 or so...

At any rate, despite the ongoing building and infrastructure projects, the never ending repair and maintenance projects and the also never ending seasonal work, things are managing to sort themselves out despite my best efforts.

The meat birds are fattening happily, and managing to find a few crickets and learning to really enjoy grass. Each day, they rush the door when we attempt to move them to fresh pasture. They cannot wait the moment it takes to get there, and try desperately to get themselves run over, or, worse it seems, separated from their buddies in the flock.

Katie says these ones are almost too friendly, and they follow her and the feed bucket without fail. We learned long ago not to befriend or name meat animals, but we do strive to make their life better than they would have had otherwise.

Ditto, the lambs. Since we have been culling for the bad behavior, we have rediscovered the joy of friendly sheep. The ewes follow us around and demand nose scratches even though they are farm animals and not handled as pets. The ewe lambs are going to be kept for replacement ewes, and they have been getting their names. The ram lambs have been docked and unless they will be kept for breeding, usually either don't have names, or the names tend to be something like "Lambchop" or "Gyro." One exception we seem to have almost every year is "Doug."

Like many of our less respectable family traditions, this is entirely my fault. My family really doesn't understand the origin, and I suppose I should keep it to myself - although as you already know I am probably incapable of that.

"Doug" is a name we apply to the one lamb every year that is always lost and crying for his mother. Every year there is a lamb who doesn't notice as the herd gradually moves across the pasture. As soon as he realizes he is alone he cries and hollers and demands his mother to come get him. He is not willing to go to her even after she calls out to to him, but continues to yell and cry and just generally throw a fit until even the other sheep are seemingly annoyed. We are accustomed to listening for trouble with the sheep or chickens or otherwise, but we soon learn when it is just Doug and we can relax. In fact, he is bellowing now. I can see him. His mother is not a hundred feet away, in direct sight. Even she is learning to ignore him.

The name simply came when I noticed these lamb's similarity, both physically and behaviorally, to a fellow I grew up with who had similar habits. Although at the time the kids tended to call him "Homer" because he always needed to go home, especially if he had helped us to cause some kind of mischief. I know it seems mean, especially since I haven't seen this fellow for nearly fifty years, but this guy was older than I was, and larger, and was a bully to us smaller kids. I grew, and the bullying was soon stopped, but the slight edge between us was always there even as we reached adulthood.

I haven't borne him any animosity in half a century, though I doubt he'd think this naming convention an honor. An admittedly simple, silly observation I made once, but my kids caught it without understanding it and a tradition was born. Doubtless some of you have enjoyed an evening meal with Doug without even a polite introduction. But now you know the secret of "Doug."

Thanks for Listening,