Curiosity

Fellow blipper Waipushrink recently passed on to me a quotation by Samuel Johnson which he felt was applicable to myself.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Well, I'm always poking my nose into things,checking up and sussing out, as anyone can tell from my blips, whether it be a derelict building, a hollow tree, a neglected wasteland or an obscure notion - so that means I must have a vigorous intellect, right? How gratifying!

But then it occurred to me that possibly the most curious of all beings are cows. Yes, the simple cow is always keen to investigate something new.
The cowshed of the neighbouring farm abuts our yard and by climbing on a pile of blocks I can peep over the wall and peer down on a sea of brown backs. I thought it would be a good way to capture the curiosity of cows as they reacted to my unexpected presence.

It was. But what I hadn't anticipated was the panic reaction to my flash as they turned and stampeded for the far end, creating an explosion of the shit soup in which they were standing. My best camera was splattered with the stuff and I whipped off my scarf to wipe the worst of it from the lens. The cows turned and came back to satisfy their curiosity and I took this picture. Then I went back to the kitchen to clean up my camera properly and received a horrified/hilarious reaction from my sons. I had gobbets of liquid manure all over my face and clothes, and the smell...!
I was able take a shower and wash my clothes but my camera is still richly redolent. How do you freshen up a camera?

So much for curiosity. Who got the last laugh?

Thank you for all the appreciative and sympathetic comments regarding the yesterday's fox. Last night, after dark, there was a disembowelled hen in the yard. I assumed it was one of mine that I must not have noticed was missing at bedtime but in the morning I was surprised to find they were all there. So it looks like it was someone else's, left as a warning: 'you're next'.