Life after graduation

Rainy days in Kaysville

Although I just graduated with a very useful degree in English last month from BYU, I've been putting my English skills to other uses.  Like farming and sheering sheep.  And when you think about it, literature and writing papers aren't so different from working the land and torturing sheeplings, right?  Maybe.  

I'm basically in Limbo right now - no job and still trying to figure out what to do after college.  So here I remain, in beautiful Kaysville, job hunting and trying to figure out my life.  College  is such a liar!  College wants you to believe that right after you graduate you'll go on to get a great job helping the world and making a difference and being amazing and famous.  But apparently when you graduate you just have to get a boring, menial office job like the one all the rest of your adult friends have been complaining about for years.  And all these past years in college you knew those kinds of jobs existed and that people had to do them but you thought to yourself, no way!  I won't have to do that!  I'm getting a fancy college education so some amazing employer will want me and see how impressive I am with this degree.  Ahhh....I have had a very rude awakening since graduation.  

I guess I just had all these lofty dreams of making a difference in the world with my little English degree and getting a job that made me feel fulfilled every day I went into work.  I'm not saying all jobs out there will make you feel like your life is worthless and that you're just another cog in the system...but...well....

The poppies are in bloom!

I just am now realizing now that I went through college with all these existentialist ideals (especially being an English major) and dreams for my future.  You read all the fine literature about changing the world and encouraging humankind to become better in English classes and think you'll go on to learn from their lessons and apply them to your life.  Which you can, of course, but I've come to the realization that I want my career to be more than a means to and end.  I don't just want to go to work so that at the end of the day I've earned some money that I can spend on the weekend and pay bills with.  I'd really like to feel fulfilled in some way when I go home after a long day of work and feel like I did something important in the world.  

I know there are jobs out there that can help me fulfill this desire deep within my idealistic English bosom, I just have to do more research, maybe more schooling, and find it!  Until then I'll just need to get in that job market and work for the man a couple years to save up money.  Exciting!  

I think it's more terrifying for me to realize that I can do literally (well, almost literally) anything and go literally (well, almost literally) anywhere in the world right now!  I'm not tied down to anyplace or anyone (yay for graduating BYU unmarried!  (but this is actually part of the reason why I'm chilling at my grandparents' house in Kaysville right now - I have been exiled from my dear home in California as punishment for graduating from BYU unmarried.  I mean, that's what we're sent there to do, right?  Just kidding though.  Pretty much just kidding) right now and can do anything (and here's where I again take out "literally", cause I realize I do not have the brain power to become a mathematician or scientist or seafood eater).   I think this potential scares me almost as much as job hunting right now.  I'm just afraid to make a mistake and make the wrong choice.  And in so doing I end up not making any choice at all - which is just as bad.  

Oh dear, I really just meant to talk about the sheep-sheering in this post, but it looks like I've drifted off on a tangent.  Back to the sheeplings!  Enough of that other stuff!  And here's a fun picture of pretty dandelions to get us back on track...

So it seems that you don't actually stop learning after you graduate from college!  Weird, I know.  I have learned many fine, outdoorsy, useful talents that will hopefully help me seduce a willing attractive farmer/cowboy man one day.  Like cutting down trees.  And pulling weeds.  And chopping up trees.  And moving pots with a wheel barrel that has a flat wheel (alot harder than it sounds.  I figured I should just move the pots on my own and get a good workout.  But after moving two of them across the yard I decided to use the wheel barrel (of course I couldn't use the 4-wheeler and trailer, ha!  That'd be toooo easy and I wouldn't get my workout!).  But the wheel barrel had a flat tire and I didn't want to bother grandpa to show me where a pump was.  I figured it wouldn't be all that hard to use it with a flat tire, right?  Nope.  What a silly little Californian city-girl I am.  That plan failed right away.  Grandpa saw me struggling (and I hope he had a good little laugh at his embarrassing granddaughter dragging the dumb wheel barrel backwards across the yard and eventually just carrying the pots the rest of the way) and came over to help me pump the tire.  Ahhh, what a good kind soul he is.  Anyways, you get the point - I'm obviously learning great traits that will snag me an attractive tough man (with scruff, of course).

All the sheep (pre-shearing obviously)

Back to the sheep!  I know half the reason I was so excited to shear the sheep was just for bragging rights - just so I could tell all of my "city friends" that I was super hard core and had sheared a sheep.

Man, you just gotta love that little G-Pa of mine

And these little sheep have NO idea what horrors await them...

I had a picture in my head of me grabbing one of the sheep by their horns, slinging it to the ground (as dirt and dust poofs from under the sheep on impact, clouding the vision of all the stunned cowboys surrounding me), and having it's little sheep-legs thrust straight into the air with the sheep too stunned to even fight my magnanimous strength.  That was the idea, anyway. 

They've already been traumatized enough being forced into this little pen.
And trust me, they were NOT happy about it.

 I have a sneaking suspicion the rest of my family had met up earlier and agreed to try to keep me from handing the sheep as much as possible with my "city hands" (I'm sure they sneered here).  Or more like they were trying to save me from being trampled by the sheep (which, in their defense that could have been a real outcome.  Those sheep are freaking crazy!).  But anyways, it turned out I actually didn't do much sheep-wrastlin.  I basically just shooed the sheep in to their pasture when they were all good and naked.  And terrified.  

Photo credit goes to Regan for capturing my part in the sheering-madness

Ya know, just hard at work watching the sheep get tortured

After watching my Uncle Paul snag a couple of sheep and throw them to the sheering board I decided my talents would be better used greeting the naked sheep and ushering them into (literally) greener pastures.  First I realized that those sheeps didn't have any horns to grab.  Basically you just have to snag one ("snag" being a very loose term here), drag it kicking and crying out of the pen, and plop (again, a very loose term) it down on the ground.  

A very mad sheep

Uncle Paul made it look pretty easy, and I actually did want to have a try...until I really realized how dang big those sheep were.  Like, really big.  And fat.  And mad.  So I just stayed with the job I had been assigned and mastered it fully.

This is me, hard at work, and the sheep is tied up in the back.
Poor sheep.

 A rhythm quickly developed amongst us sheep-herders.  Paul would rip one of the sheep out of the pen, haul it to the sheering board, and the Master Sheerer would do his worst.  Someone would help hold the sheep down and cover its head (so it wouldn't freak out so much.  Silly sheep - why would you need to freak out?  It's just a terrifying razor giving you the most violent haircut ever!) and Master Sheerer would go to town.  After doing one side he'd usually lasso-up three of the sheep-legs and flip it over to do the other side.

This was definitely one of my favorite sheep-pics.
Just look at it surrounded by it's wool basically suffocating it!

Yup.  Hold that little sheepy-head away from the scary razor.

Then he'd pull off the rope, nudge it to its feet, and it would come staggering over to me.  I say staggering because, well first off it had just had the most traumatizing experience of it's short sheep-life.  And second, it was probably staggering because it probably had no feeling in its rope-tied legs.  After a couple of drunken steps the full realization and horror of what had just happened to the sheep would come crashing down on its sheep-head and it would bolt like a crazy bat into the pasture.  Or at me.  And then I'd point the way into the pasture and it would follow my pointing finger.  So you could say my part in this endeavor was very useful and basically vital.

This stuff is basically gold

  You gotta stop and think for a minute about how this is all going down from the sheep's perspective.  I mean, you're minding your own sheep-business, eating up some disgusting grass with all your sheep-friends and then you're being herded into a small enclosed area.  You wait alongside your friends for something to happen and then see a gate open.  "Ok" you might think to your sheep-self "maybe this is how us sheep get out of this here pen" until you see a terrifying hand reach in and grab your cousin by the ankle and drag her out of your "safe" pen kicking and screaming.

Grabbing the sheep by the leg

Terrifying.  You hear a creeptastic electric sound and then minutes later you see the same cousin inside another area, completely naked.  You can only guess that this same fate will eventually befall your own sheep-self.  Time is your enemy and all you can do is stand and wait, hoping that stupid electric knife machine will somehow break.  Poor little sheeplings.

If that isn't the face of pure fear, I don't know what is

"Save me!"

Somehow or another all the sheep got through this horrible ordeal and raced off into the beautiful sheep-sunset.  And I'm sure they were alot happier after the shearing - it has started to get pretty warm outside and those wooly coats are freaking hot!

The final three victims awaiting their impending fate

I thought this was just wrong - to put back two that
had been sheared with the last sheep.
Basically showing him what he was soon about to become.

All-in-all it was a very successful day.  The sheep were now cool for the summer.  I had added yet another impressive skill to my farming repertoire (for purposes of attracting a scruffy attractive farm man).  And the beaver watched the sheep shearing and took it as a warning - that the same fate could await them if they got out of hand (as had obviously happened with the sheep).