Walk the Land

As a family, we hiked to the far side of our property and back this afternoon. It took 2 ½ hours. I have only been to the back side one time, the day we hiked the land with the realtor. Phil and the two older boys hiked there last October, but I only made it about halfway back, with 8-week=old Jonadab on my back, and 2-year-old Abraham at my side.

What a difference a year makes! The older boys are not at all whiners: they made up little stories and games as they went. Abraham made it all the way there on his little legs, and had a shoulder ride from Daddy most of the way back. But Abraham spotted a lizard, and he tried to climb some trees like his big brother. He bravely stepped over branches and climbed little hillsides. What a trooper!

As we traveled the land on the far side of Hog Creek (almost 2/3 of the land, I think), my heart sank. Phil had said, after reading a book by grass farmer Newman Turner, “I want to BE Newman Turner.” But with five acres of cleared land, and seeing the steep angle of the land on the far side of the creek, I thought, “Oh, there’s no chance he can be Newman Turner. Not on this beautiful, but harsh land.”

And the forest is mostly junk forest: 5-inch diameter trees, or dying pines. We have some massive oaks down near our creek, trees that haven’t been logged in, perhaps, 100 years, if ever, but they haven’t been logged because they are too hard to access. And they are so beautiful, would we really want to log them?

Despite the perfect weather and my sons’ happy laugher, my spirits sank. What are we doing in this wild, untamed place, with winter coming on, without a house or the chance to get a house? What are we doing?

I asked Phil on our return if he was feeling a bit blue. What an optimist he is! Rather than feeling stifled by what the land is not, he sees infinite possibilities. After all, the lots on both sides of us are not using their land. If we needed to, we could probably work out a lease agreement. And with the land as it is, we can do many smaller enterprises, and grow at our own pace.

The Permaculture idea of “Start at your own front door and work your way outward” is very helpful in this situation. We don’t need to worry about the junk forest on the other side of the creek. We’ll stick with the tasks we can do in our five acres for now.

As our realtor Burt said, the day after hiking the land with us: “When we hiked that land yesterday, I got EXCITED!”

After our hike, I was concerned for fat Acorn, who was lying in the sun. For some reason, Acorn looked ill to me, and I knew that there was goldenrod in their pen, which is not good for sheep, should they consume it in quantity. (In general, I prefer to believe that animals instinctively know what is good for themselves, but I have heard that sheep are suicidal.) This caused me a moment’s panic: I have no way to treat sick sheep, and wouldn’t know what to do, even if I had the proper supplies.

In reading up on sheep (reviewing a book I read some time ago), I realized that I really should handle the girls a bit: check their toenails, check their weight (I should feel their spine under their wool to determine how they are doing). So I went to get our new shepherds’ crook, made “for the range.” It catches the sheep’s rear legs, rather than catching them around the neck. Great! I would finally be able to touch the skittish creatures!

Ha! First of all, the sheep were not fooled. They knew that my hands were not empty, and they avoided me accordingly. Second, I wasn’t really the most confident person. I mean, once I caught the sheep, then I had to somehow tilt it back enough that its front legs were off the ground. AND, the advice from the people who sold the sheep to us to “just grab by the wool when all else fails” is actually awful advice: it bruises the animals and destroys their wool. So I had to somehow grab these distrusting animals, without utilizing the one easy hold available to me, tip the sheep toward me (but they weigh a good bit! And they have sharp little hooves!), and then do an exam.

When I finally grabbed Acorn’s leg, she somehow pulled it out of the crook. Phil took a turn with the increasingly stressed out sheep, and then we gave up for the day. I think real shepherds somehow confine their sheep (permanent gates and so forth), but that’s not in the budget this week or next, so we’ll see what happens.

In other news, Phil let Bouncer the barn cat out of her cage into the metal shed and closed the doors on her. I didn’t know he had done so, and merrily went in to get the shovel. It was hot in the metal building, so I left the doors open.

Bouncer bounced away somewhere—I didn’t see her go. Goodbye, Bouncer!

Current Lykosh animal count: six. One cat, one dog, two sheep, two goats. (Not counting an unknown number of babies gestating in the sheep and goats.)