Robbo over at Llama Butchers doesn’t live on a farm.

While perusing a nature book with his child, they came across a picture of a pair of elephants propagating the species. His wee one gleefully pointed out that the elephants were playing leapfrog.

This reminded me of a farm tour we gave a year ago. We had a preschool over to the farm and the ids and their parents were walking between the paddocks learning about farm animals when my Tunis ram George Washington* began doing his duty to God and country. A preschooler piped up: “What are they doing?”

My wife, horribly embarassed blurted out “They’re playing!”

Only to be corrected by our three-year old. “No they’re not, Mommy, George is breeding her!”

Ah, the farm life.

My daughter also helps with the lambs when they are born and there is much rejoicing when we get a female. She understands how to tell them apart. At preschool this year, she was playing with a stuffed animal and identifying it as a female. One of her classmates was upset because he wanted it to be a male. The teacher, attempting to mediate, told them that it could be whatever they wanted it to be. Emilie, unconvinced, asserted that she knew it was a female, turned the toy over, and triumphantly declared: “Look, no penis!”

At our recent small town celebration, one of my ewes gave birth in front of a large crowd (Polymath has a pic).

Emilie was dissapointed that it was a male lamb. She mournfully reported this to her friends: “Daddy says we only need one ram.”

But then she brightened: “Maybe we can cut his testicles off and keep him for wool!”

I’m waiting for social services to show up at the door.

* Tunis sheep were popularized by our first President so I followed a historical naming pattern until my daughter began naming them after her friends and assorted Disney princesses. I wondered if I was tempting fate when I named the ram - our first president was sterile and that would be a major problem in the herd sire. I shouldn’t have worried. Old George is dedicated to his job and breeds everybody on the first heat. I loaned him to another shepherd who was preserving the Tunis breed and he went above and beyond the call of duty. My friend has several different types of sheep and she carefully calibrates which ewes go in which paddock with which ram. While George was there, he bred the Tunis girls and then battered down the division fence, assered his dominance over the Rambouillet ram, and bred those girls too. My friend locked him in the barn and called me to pick him up. He destroyed the gate and bred a third set of ewes before I could get there. Father of his country, indeed.