And This Year's Jumper Is......

MAUD!!!!!

Every year one kid discovers that it is not vertically challenged. So far it has always been does, don't know if that means anything.  There is always one kid that will jump up on top of Big Mama and proclaim herself "Queen of Everything."  A couple of weeks after that, the same kid will jump up on top of the 4 ft high cable spools that we have.  And then they figure out that they can jump the fence.  Sooner or later, though, they grow big enough that they start having trouble clearing it.  Am thinking their udders get big enough to catch on the twisty parts at the top of the fence, and suddenly the consequence begins to outweigh the reward.

So the usual modis operandi is jumping over the doe fence to try to get into the dairy barn, where the feed is kept.  And that usually occurs when someone with opposable thumbs who would be able to get the lid off the barrel is in the barn.

Until this year, the gold medal winner was Lucy, who continued to clear the fence well into her second year.  At the end of the run though, she started getting a back hoof caught in the fencing, and would be stuck with one leg high in the sky until one of the two-leggeds heard her cries of agony and would come and literally pick her up level with the top of the fence to dislodge the wedged hoof.  I bet we had to do that at least a dozen times before she finally quit.  I always marveled that she never broke her leg.

Unfortunately, Lucy's daughter this year was not so lucky.  I heard tell from up north that little Spice has taken to jumping the fence like mama used to, and DID break her leg.  Got a little cast and everything.  Awwww.  Poor Baby.

Back to Bawdy Maudy.  That's what i call her.  She's a PIP!  We all love her and her sassy personality.  But let me tell ya, fellers, if the circus came to town i would sell her in a heartbeat and make a small fortune.  What you are about to hear is the truth, the whole truth, and the unembroidered truth.  I kid you not.

Maud has gone through the usual stages of a jumper...The Queen of Everything, the top of the spool, and over the fence...the usual one way jump.  But a couple of nites ago, as Ellie May was milking, Maud started jumping back and forth in and out of the kid pen, and apparently went several times, just because she could.  The next day, she started jumping into the kid pen, then using the side of the barn to sort of richocet herself out into the back yard.

Here comes the one you won't believe.  We have an old blanket folded in half over the fence that separates the kid pen from the does, to create that separate but included feeling while we are integrating kids into doe herd.  Ellie and i were doing the milking, and Maud did the jumping in and out thing a couple of times, and then JUMPED ON THE TOP OF THE CHAIN LINK FENCING AND STOOD THERE!!!!

ON TOP OF THE CHAIN LINK FENCE!!!

FOR LIKE 30 SECONDS!!!

AND JUST STARED AT US!!!!

Then she jumped down like it was nothing.  Ellie and i looked at each other, speechless, with mouths open.  Then we looked back at the fence.  Then we looked back at each other and said in unison, "DID YOU SEE THAT!!!!!"  And we looked back at the fence just in time to see her do it again!!!  This time we busted out laughing.  And then she did it AGAIN!!

Am so sorry we didn't have a camera.  I have put Ellie on the mission of getting a picture of that.  We need evidence. 

Am concerned, however.  Got home after a trip to town last nite, and Maudy was standing in the middle of the drive, chewing on a mouth full of something green, looking at us like, "It's about time you people got home.  Where ya been??"