Oz

This is Oz.  As you may or may not have guessed by his name, he is from Australia.  And he is our housekeeper.  You don't even know much it delights me to know that our housekeeper is male.  Although, that means he gets pulled to maintenance a lot.  But he'd better not get out of it on a Saturday...that's our main housekeeping day.

Anyhow, that's unimportant.  Let's talk about Oz.  

Oz is a pretty darn cool guy.  He did let me take this picture of him under a pig's tail, after all!  And he is a male housekeeper, let's not forget that point.

Anyhow, let me tell you a little story about this hat.  As you may or may not be able to tell, this hat is sort of painted camouflage.  It's really wonky - bent all out of shape.  Let's just say it's got character.  As you can see the side of it bends up sort of like a traditional Australian hat.  So one day I asked him if he brought the hat from home, thinking he had some good stories behind it being so banged up, as cowboys tend to do.  No, he replies.  So I gently prod some more (as gently as I could ever prod) to find out why he is wearing such a hat.  I ask if he got it on his trip to the East Coast (more about that in a minute) - no, he found it here.  

He found it here?  Now let me just tell you, we have hats here!  We have tons of hats here!  And none so awful as this hat.  So I continue to prod, "Why didn't you pick a better hat?"  His answer?  First, let me just note that he was the first male here.  "I figured if I picked the ugliest hat no one would swipe it."  

Now how is that for reasoning???

If you're wondering what he's doing here, he just graduated from college, where he studied mechanical engineering and is taking some time off before joining the real world.  That mechanical side of him, I might add, has already come in quite handy for us and our machinery!

Speaking of machinery, I think he might have found his calling in life.

We put him on that tractor and the man just went.  And went.  And went.  It was kinda like Forrest Gump.  Only scraping manure, instead of running...

He plowed that manure until we told him he had to get off.  And begged to do it again the next day.  What can you say?  When you love something, you just really love it.

As I mentioned, he took a trip to the East Coast, kinda.  When he got to the US, he bought himself a little 70s Honda motorcycle, which wasn't running very well when he showed up at the ranch.  He tinkered with it a bit the next morning and took off for one of the Carolinas.  Apparently, he made it as far as Mississippi (I know, I asked him if he had a map...), where his motorcycle broke down.  He got a good taste of good ole southern hospitality.  The people he met were very kind hearted, took him in, fed him, gave him a place to stay, bought his motorcycle, took him touring, and then took him to the airport so he could make it back here in time for work.  I tell ya, some people gots them some goooooood karma!

Now, as good of a guy as Oz is, he does have his flaws.  I walked out about a month ago to find this.

Yes, Oz had made friends with Selene, the devil goat.  And not only that.  He was feeding her!

He was encouraging all of her bad behavior.  And worse, saying she was a nice goat!  Thankfully, she is gone now and I don't have to keep my on him any more.  At least in regards to her.

All in all, he's a pretty good dude and I can practice my Aussie accent on him.  I know he enjoys it.  He has to.  Because I said so.

And now you've met our male housekeeper.  Next up, our cook.  You're gonna love him!