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Floss, a farm heading dog, in point position – she’s spotted a shag. She held this pose when she found the teeny kitten we named Cheetah.

I was a little put out when Rae questioned my intelligence in a previous blog, therefore I’ve put paws to keyboard in the name of the truth – it’s the boss who’s the space cadet.

It’s true I’ve had mishaps but these next questions all have the same answer: Who put me on the back of the ute which I fell off and broke my leg? Who turned her back on the chocolate cake I ate? Who let me run on the beach where I cut my foot? And who left me in the car for the time it took me to destroy the box of staples she thought I’d eaten?

While I’m at the computer, let me share more of the boss’s dim-witted moments.

When she started gardening, she froze silverbeet in little plastic bags. Everyone was too kind to make fun of her. (If she’d exercised the same restraint, I wouldn’t be writing this). She now knows silverbeet grow year round.

Tara the cat was about to deposit her first kitten on the bed when the farmer said, “Quick, get hot water and towels.” The boss was heading for the door when the farmer confessed he’d been joking. Tara hates water so she picked up her kitten in her mouth and, without leaving a smear of yickiness, decamped to a spare wardrobe where she gave birth to two more in a similarly squeaky clean fashion.

Then there was the day she was too scared to climb into the water tank when it needed cleaning. She’s scared of climbing ladders. She bleated (up till then the domain of sheep) to the farmer that she was sure to fall off the ladder, crack her head on the side of the tank and drown.

Rex phoned his mother who nimbly scampered down the ladder and set to work cleaning the tank. The boss’s next job was to coil lengths of alkathene pipe. It was like putting snakes in a box and she very nearly failed at that too.

To be fair, farmers often do dumb things. One told her recently that his tractor had a flat battery and no gas. He filled it up, started it with jumper leads and left it idling to recharge the battery. A couple of days later he remembered the tractor . . . once again with a flat battery and no gas.

Then we had a visitor who said, “That electric fence can’t be on, there’s a sparrow sitting on it.”

The farmer and my boss did eventually stop laughing. Now whenever she needs reassurance after a space cadet moment she thinks about that . . . ummm . . . really gifted sparrow.

Woof, Floss.

PS: A while back the farmer caught a fly blown sheep and when the farmer asked her to hold it down while he got the ute, she actually did that! Eughhh! Talk about smelly. She lay on the ground, hugged it and fended off blowflies. See what I mean, she’s not that bright. But she feeds me and loves me, so I guess I’m stuck with her.

(Dear blog followers – thank you all – 15 people get my blog via email and one via Networked Blogs. I hope you enjoy reading my yarns. Warm wishes, Rae)