Joe is pretty much a cattleman at heart. According to him, beef cows are ideal because they are low effort. You go out in the morning, you count them, and you’re finished. No egg gathering, no horns to get unstuck from fences, and so on. Of course in reality, there is a little more to it than that, but to Joe even cow manure on the shoe is a pleasant thing as compared to even one dusty footprint from Roxanne the perching chicken.

Most of the time, he’s good about tolerating these “lesser creatures,” though there are times when they make steam come out of his ears. Here are a few of his (least) favorite pictures.

Here Crackle and her son Lightning McQueen are lounging in the cow’s feed trough- the NERVE of them!

For a while, the goats took to letting themselves out of the fence (holding their breath and pushing through the electric wire). Being that they love us so and want to be close to us (hee hee), they made the porch into their evening bed-and bathroom. Back when they were small enough, they slept on the chairs sometimes.

I never did get a shot of the goats playing king of the mountain on the cows’ hay rolls. That REALLY got Joe’s goat!

I guess this chicken needed to relax on the porch swing. If only she had a glass of lemonade…

This hen had been comfortably reclining until she saw me. When I approached, she braced herself for the usual “Shoo! Shoo! Get off the porch, poultry!!” It’s really time to get the chickens back in the tractors. (We had released them when we went on vacation to make it quicker and easier for a friend to feed them for us. But no more Mr. Nice Guy).