[Jacob-list] rams

[Betty Berlenbach]

I wrote this to Neal and Louise, and Louise thought it merited posting to the entire list, so here it is.  (Sound familiar, Katrina?)

Last week I put one of Horatio (senior, peace-keeping jacob ram)'s sons in with the three rams, Horatio, his grown son and new to this place, Abner,third in the pecking order, and Ramsay, made second in command by Horation the day he arrived or shortly thereafter, after several years of Ramsay's dominating the whole passel of rams.  In no uncertain terms, Horatio "explained" to Ramsay that he was no longer in charge.  ANyway, Horatio spent some time "explaining" to his this year's son, Joseph, that there was a pecking order and he was at bottom and there was certain worship of him involved in the whole deal.  Meanwhile, Abner, seeing Horatio occupied, decided to challenge Ramsay for place #2, and in the process broke off half of one ofRamsay's significant horns, which meant blood, blood, blood.  Horatio looked up, straightened out their hash, explailned to Abner that although he might think he'd won, he, Horatio, determined who was second, and he'd decided it was Ramsay, and as punishment for thinking he could decide for himself, he was to take on Joseph as acolyte and train him up.  So, now Ramsay, who suffered from a two day headache, while being protected from further harassment by King Horatio, who really IS a peace lover, has been restored to second place and poor Abner has become a babysitter, which he doesn't seem to mind too much, and even if he did, he wouldn't DARE challenge Horatio, who rules with an iron hand.  While all this was going on, I thought maybe I'd made a mistake putting Joey in there, since he was being beaten up rather badly in the explanation process, but he wouldn't come near the fence (one of Horatio's rules: no one but him approaches the fence line), and I was for sure not going in among the roiling mess to retrieve him, so I had to trust Horatio, which worked out: all four are alive, and though Ramsay's horn occasionally still oozes, and he is decorated for Christmas down one side of his chest in blood red, he seems fine.  Joey trails after Abner like any little pain in the ass brother,.  Abner pays him just enough attention so as not to get in trouble with Big Daddy.  And Horatio reigns supreme.  It amazes me that he comes over every morning to the fence line to say goodmorning, but will not tolerate any of the others approaching.  So, he is the only one who gets scratched beneath the chin.

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