Balls of Steel

WARNING.  GRAPHIC CONTENT.  ALL MALES BE WARNED [proceed at your own risk]

I cut off a lot of balls today.   A LOT.  7 to be exact.  All on unwilling sheep patients.

*I will try to refrain from making ball jokes.  Key word TRY* 

As you can guess, our day started out like most of our early morning farm calls do.  Wake up.  Get Dressed.  Breakfast [french toast today].  Discuss weird dreams [Aubrey had one today.  Something about Elton John on a Unicorn that jumped over a rainbow as soon as my alarm (Tiny Dancer) went off].  Get in Van.  Go EXTREME off-roading to a remote farm in the middle of no where.  Have the van break down on the way there [its been fixed 3 times now].  Arrive at "Middle of NOWHERE" farm.  Get Down and Dirty with some animals. 

Today we were lucky enough to be taken to a farm with over 200 sheep/goats that needed to be dewormed and castrated [but only 20 needed their balls cut off].   

To any woman, castrating is a very straightforward procedure, that when done correctly is very quick with minimal bleeding.  For a male, castration is an excruciating form of torture invented by females to get back at men for every wrong they have committed against their gender [no suffrage until 1920, never asking for directions,  forgetting to put the seat down, etc.].

To castrate a sheep [general anesthesia is NOT used], first the end of the scrotal sac must be removed by pushing the testis upwards and using a scalpel to cut through the skin like so" 

Once you visualize both testicles, pick one to begin with and begin to slice through the tunica layers until it "pops" out of the sac

 [Exposing the Testis]

[Removing testis from tunica layer]

Next, the connective tissue and muscle must be torn from the testicle in order to better expose the spermatic cord, where a zip-tie is attached to act as a ligature.

[Ripping the muscle and connective tissues]

[Pulling out spermatic cord]

Last, an emasculator [we tried to decide if a man or a woman came up with the name] is used to simultaneously crush and cut the testicle to stop bleeding.

[Using the emasculator]

[ALL DONE]

[Knows how to handle balls can be a skill on my resume]

 [Our proud pile of balls]

[Just call us "Nutcrackers" or maybe "Ball Busters"]

After brutally removing the manliness of 20 sheep, we proceeded to stop at a waterfall/lake thing in the jungle to cool off and wash our disgusting, sweaty selves. The rest of the day included tanning by the pool [and then getting rained on], watching some Gossip Girl [Dan and Serina finally hooked up], and making a late night sweet tooth run to Sweet Ting.  However, on our way out of Sweet Ting, one of the single greatest things to happen since I've been here occurred.  Right next store to the bakery is a video store [that we somehow never noticed over these last 4 weeks] that sells films for $2.  We bought the Mel Gibson film Apocolypto which is about Mayans [it is also CRAZY WEIRD, but Chelsea and Aubrey swore it was good].  Although some parts are like a bad acid trip, we saw some cool things in the movie that we learned form various Mayan decedents here [such as using leaf cutter soldier ants as sutures to close a wound].

Its going to be a busy day tomorrow, but somehow we will fit Harry Potter in along with finishing our presentations and studying for the exam Friday...

Cheers!