Week 8 - Storytime!

Not so very long ago, there was an ox named Ochs, who lived a pretty boring but reliably comfortable life on a farm. All day long, Ochs would pull the plow with a poor, intellectually-challenged fellow named Alber 'encouraging' him as he followed behind. It wasn't a bad life. Yes, Ochs had to work hard. But every morning he'd stand at the ready, his horns with their long points straight ahead while Alber yoked him to the plow. All day long he'd pull the plow, from the time the sun rose until it drifted down from the roof. And every evening, after a long day of work, Alber would rub Ochs down, polishing his horns until they shone bright as a unicorn's.Then he'd turn him loose in the barn with warm, sweet straw and his favorite salt lick. Ochs wasn't really happy, but he was content.

One day though, Alber got it in mind that having to care for Ochs was too much effort, and he came to resent it. If a stupid ox can pull the plow, surely I could do it just as well. He turned Ochs out into the field to wait until market day, when he planned to sell the beast. Alber took up the plow himself, and began dragging it along behind him. His rows were all crooked though- hau was he supposed to pull straight when the plow was so heavy? An hour later, he was determined to finish on his own. Two hours later, he was glaring at Ochs where he leaned nonchalantly against the fence. Three hours later, he was sure Ochs had planned all of this, and determined to put him back to work.

Now Ochs was a very forgiving beast, but even the forgiving get angry when someone tries to steal their job. In this economy, an ochs needs to pull all the pflugs he can, before fools like Alber move in and try to unterhau his salary. Lousy scabs. The more he thought about it, the angrier Ochs grew. It really tweaked the ochs' tail, having to work all day long just to earn his keep and get a few licks of the communal salt block with his hourly water breaks. But he had done his job without complaint, and so now enjoyed watching Alber struggle all day with the plow. Hours passed, and Ochs watched as Alber grew hot, and tired, and angrier with every pass. Finally, Alber gave up. Stalking over to Ochs, he threw the harness down in front of him.

If oxen could smirk, Ochs was hiding his as he savored the ever-reddening face of the Alber the fool, who had convinced himself he'd been outsmarted by one of the bovine persuasion. All day long Alber had tried to pull the plow, and failed miserably. He reached out to grab Ochs' horns to strap him back into the harness. Ochs danced backward, neatly stepping to the side and half squishing Alber against the fence. Alber cursed under his breath and tried again. Zwerchhau! Ochs stepped away, thwarting Alber's sudden attempt to grab his yoke and drag him back to work. Alber made another grab for the collar, and Ochs puffed angrily, lowering his great head so that his horns hung at the ready. I can do this all day long, fool, he snorted. He tossed his horns to the side and lowered them, squinting at Alber and daring him to try again. Aw, schiet-elhau, Alber mumbled, looking away. Muttering to himself he wandered off, he left Ochs to his rest. The tired ochs stepped deliberately (no fairy-footing for him) toward his favorite cork tree, where he leaned on his nebenhut and sniffed at the flowers, debating whether it was too early to go for a lick of his salt block.

Alber was a fool, but he was no idiot... in his own mind anyway. He knew better than to try grabbing Ochs by the horns. Whistling nonchalantly, he moseyed over to the cork tree and sidestepped around to Ochs' rear. The key, Alber thought to himself, is to grab the tail. He moved at angles, first one way, then the other, shifting his path ever closer to Ochs' rear. When he judged he was finally near enough, Alber reached out and grabbed hold of Ochs' tail...

Alber discovered the power of flight as Ochs' kick caught him square in the chest. He groaned and hefted himself off the ground, just in time to see Ochs' horns descending in a wicked oberhau. Alber scrambled out of the way, but the horns caught him with an unterhau instead, flinging him up into the air to land hard over a low-hanging branch of the cork tree. He hung there, nose at his knees, with his belly crushed against the branch, completely winded. Ochs lunged toward where Alber was hängen, aiming his horns in an absetzen at the unfortunate fool's backside. Alber jerked his legs upward, winden them in the branches of the cork tree just in time to save his tail. He pulled himself up into the tree and rested safe in the branches. All the rest of the day long, and all night too, Ochs kept him confined to the tree, where he spent hours contemplating one simple truth:

Only a fool pulls a plow when he has an ox who can do it all day long for just a lick-an-hour.

Week 7.5 - That's some guard dog

My animals think I'm nuts. They probably thought that before, actually, but now I'm positive they think they have proof. It's weird... they'll normally ignore me all day long unless they want something, but the second I pick up the sword, I gain an audience of three, no matter where I go. If I head to the front yard, the dog and two cats, none of whom get along normally, all line up at the window to watch. If I go out back or on the porch, the dog comes with me, and the cats sit at the door or on the windowsills to watch. It's a little creepy. I half think they're watching to be sure I don't slice something off that interferes with dinner time. Or maybe they're hoping that I do....

Tonks is enjoying our increased exercise, but not the fact that half of it doesn't involve him. Mostly now, he just sits on the table on the porch as I practice my drills. I'll be pushing my oxes off the roof, having them land on fools and dragging plows, and I'll turn suddenly to see the fuzzy pup with his head tilted to the side, eyebrow cocked like he's seriously worried about my mental stability. He's just as nuts though, so I went back to my drills.

A short while later, I was taking a quick break from my absetzens (which are no longer practiced on doorknobs, since that was totally not useful) and stacking chairs to get them under cover for winter. As I came back up the porch stairs, I had to grab my camera. Tonka apparently decided that I'd done enough practicing for one day. I snapped a pic and sent it to a friend, who declared:

that is one SERIOUS guard dog

I finished with the chairs and went back to practicing. My footwork is awful. I keep getting accused of having 'fairy feet,' which I wish meant I shared some kind of delicate quality with Tinkerbell, but really seems to mean 'moving with a great sense of uncertainty.' That's pretty accurate really, since I've no idea how I'm supposed to move. As a four-year old ballerina, I played a duck and a shamrock in our dance performances- neither of which are known for grace of movement. I tried to remember my ballet lessons, but that was a long, LONG time ago. So I muddled through, trying to move with purpose, stepping through and whatever else I was told in practice but can't seem to do. I thought maybe it would be easier without trying to concentrate on sword movements as well, so set the sword back on the table and focused on not tripping myself as I tried to pivot (note to self: Docs are not good for pivoting). Turning on the spot for what seemed like the fiftieth time, I looked up to see a very forlorn-looking furball:

aren't you done practicing yet?

How could I resist? He doesn't care if I have fairy feet. So I quit for the day, and we went out for ice cream. 

Week 7ish - And there was much rejoicing

Practice was cancelled on Sunday before last, so I tried to practice every day during the week instead. I kinda rot at that. I'm not a daily anything sort of person, I've discovered. Anyway, I did manage a few days of practice, which actually seemed to help- to the point I wanted to share my success with my instructor. This is the sort of thing the poor guy has to put up with:

jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake!!
jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake
jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake
jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake

Looklooklook! Three swings, three cuts! I just practiced until I got the whistles three times in a row then stepped up and I sliced 'em up! ZWERCHAU! First was an oberhau, and it worked perfectly! There's still water in the jug and it barely moved, just the top went skittering off across the table you can see. The other two were unterhaus, only I wasn't sure I was doing it right because they're so slow they barely whistle but it worked! I was too far away on the middle one so just clipped the side and knocked off the cap but the last one sliced almost all the way through but the sticker held it together so I must've turned the sword a bit at the end but I did it! And no bottle bruises from baseball-batting them either- not one dent!
 * * *

Apparently I channel a six year old on a week-long sugar high when I get excited. That of course glosses over the repeated shouted exclamations of "Zwerchau!" that startled the dog and the squirrels, and my trash talking of the innocent plastic jugs that I was decimating. A girl must ever maintain her ladylike demeanor, after all.