The Pecking Order

As a Latin teacher, I expend a great deal of mental energy parsing words and explaining the meanings of their component parts to my students. Every now and then, there's an overlap between agriculture and etymology. For example, the Latin word pecunia, which means "money" and gives us the adjective pecuniary in English, is itself derived from another Latin word, pecus. Pecus means "herd" or "flock," and the connection between the two words is fairly simple: in the early days of agrarian economics, head of cattle (or sheep or goats) served as currency.

I'm continuing to learn the etymology of additional agricultural words and phrases as I spend some time on the farm. One such expression is "pecking order." In a community of birds, such as the roosters and hens at Gwen's farm, those at the top of the pecking order, like Giorgio the attack rooster (pictured above; see the entry from Monday, July 19th for further details), have all of their plumage intact. Birds lower in the order have some of their feathers missing, such as the hen seen here drinking whey...

...because birds higher up in the chain of command have plucked them out. That's the pecking order.

I've also learned the history of scapegoat and bellwether, but I won't bore you with the details now (I'll do it later, of course). Instead, I'm happy to report that the third time milking was a charm for Shelly and me. Shelly milked the first two nannies, Ginny and Jedda, and I milked the other two, Rose and Daisy, and we filled a pail with nearly a gallon of clean, useable milk. The first two tries, as previously mentioned, were futile; both times the milk was dirtied by the stomping hind legs of the nervous goats, so Gwen gave it to the pigs.

As we milked, Kenya, Gwen's herding dog, kept herself cool in the opposite corner of the shed.

Kenya is a true working dog: she spends all her days and nights with the goats and sheep. Last Monday she smelled pungently of skunk; she did her duty and attacked the poor critter because it had wandered into the wrong paddock. No wonder she was so tired...

So anyway, Friday morning's visit to Gwen's farm was satisfying. We both can milk goats. Yahoo. Next Wednesday we return for another round of practice. In the meantime, we will spend Monday out at Lucky Penny, and Shelly will work at the creamery next Tuesday. So there will be much to post about soon. Until then--