Last week Spork and I traveled to South Dakota to go pheasant hunting. It is our second time out there, and Spork was super excited. Anytime to spend time alone with his old man is a good time to him. Add in that it’s a lodge with 13 other men and no women in sight and it’s a testosterone fest. Since he is home with three women every day, any chance to do purely boy stuff is golden. Since I’m working so much of the time, any chance I have to take him is one I jump on. This year it wasn’t easy to get there but it was worth it.
The men were super impressed that Spork jumped with in on the processing table, helping gut birds. I didn’t dissuade them by telling them he helps gut cows, chickens, and pigs on the farm so this is old hat to him. Can something be old hat when you are only 10?
Of course, you can’t get off the farm without something going wrong. While I was gone, Miguel let me know that Benjamin was sick. Since I couldn’t do anything else, I told Miguel to call the vet and to put Benjamin into the head gate. I received the following picture later in the day.
Oh good. Looks like everything went fine. Later I received the following video.
Ok, still looks ok. He walked right in and was his usual calm self. The vet texted that Benjamin effectively had a cold and he’d treated him for that. Looks like all is well.
It’s only later that Miguel tells me that just after that video ends, Benjamin decided he didn’t like being in the head gate and nearly turned it over trying to get out. He said that he’d never seen anything like it. He said Ben’s neck is so big that the head gate couldn’t lock around it but since he is so big he could get out of the enclosure. Basically he was trapped in a box. Luckily everything held, barely, and Benjamin got some medicine for his cold. He is doing much better now so all’s well that ends well. Benjamin was treated on November 6th. He was given an injection of Banamine and Excede. He was treated by Dr. Maxwell from Summit Equine.
On the way home, while boarding a flight in O’Hare, the Captain grabbed Spork and offered him a tour of the cockpit. It was a flash back to the old days when kids used to get to do things like this. Spork thought it was pretty cool and as you can see, he was sporting his Ninja Cow Farm shirt. American Airlines is once again my favorite airline thanks to this very nice Captain.
The Captain did give me a quiz at the end. He gave me three chances to answer, “What makes an airplane fly?”
Do you know? I got it on the first try, but I’m a pilot so it’s cheating for me.