If You Drive Through a Muddy Trench, You Will Get Stuck

Yesterday we woke to more rain. Mid-morning, I grew concerned about our van. We had parked it up near the road, but I knew we had Bible study in the evening and did not want a repeat of last week. Phil went to back the van out.

And promptly got stuck in the ditch that opened up beneath him (yet another ditch from when we buried our hydrants). The ground looked solid enough, but when he drove over it, the front wheels sank into the red clay so that the bumper touched the ground.

He was not a happy camper. “We aren’t going anywhere—why did you want me to back out?” And, due to the angle of the van, the truck couldn’t pull the van out this time.

Phil went to the quarry to get a load of gravel. We needed to widen our driveway, and now we needed it for a parking area up near the road. On his return, he spread gravel until he figured we could get the van out.

As he drove the truck into position, the truck sank into the trench dug on the other side of our driveway for our electrical lines, and was stuck.

I was not a very supportive wife. Grumpy, bickering children, two stuck vehicles, chill rain, and, perhaps, sleep deprivation made me throw up my hands in despair. Phil shoveled gravel under the wheels of the truck, and got it out within a few minutes (I couldn’t believe how quickly). Then he shoveled gravel under the van tires, and he and the older boys pushed the van and I drove it out.

Shortly after that, we went to the Bessettes. I think I fell asleep for over an hour, so I must have been tired. Amazing how much better my perspective was after that nap!

Phil continues to battle whatever bug he picked up flying to Colorado last week. Today Abraham and Jadon also fell mildly ill, enough that they lounged around and had no appetite, but nothing came out of their bodies that shouldn’t. I am quite thankful for that. I fear that they may still be ill when we travel for Thanksgiving, in which case we shan’t be the poster children for healthy country living.

Despite his continued convalescence, Phil picked up another load of sawdust for our trees and latrine, and moved the sheep and the goats again. Last year when we camped on the land for two weeks, Phil had dug ridges in the soil where we intended to put our garden, and we sowed a large quantity of cover crops there. The cover crops did not germinate very well, we thought when we returned in July, but now the troughs are filled with grasses (though the ridges remain almost bare). When we turned the animals in to their new paddock, I was thrilled to see the grasses come up to Crystal the goat’s belly. And when we set their next paddock up, some of the oat grass came above my knees. It is a thin stand, but it has good height!

The 50 chicks and 5 guineas enjoy their outdoor home. There are several tallish grass clusters, and they hide in those clusters, as if it’s a jungle playground.

Phil moved a straw bale today and we found two skinks underneath. Isaiah and Abigail played with them for a while. I didn’t ask what happened to them in the end—I’m not sure I want to know. I will hope that the skinks are happily hidden somewhere far from chickens that might find them palatable.

Children with Chickens

Abraham and Abigail held chickens on top of the children's fort. Isaiah joined them, holding his special bird, Strangey (because it's strange, or, at least, different from the others).

Our Fragile Palisade

On Tuesday, Phil spent part of the morning butchering the deer. We had hung it for a day—a warm day, unfortunately, so we had to give some of the meat to the pigs, as it had maggots. Most of it was good, still, and he skinned the buck and took off large roasts and other meat. I helped by holding the hanging meat to keep it more-or-less still.



I enjoy working towards self-sufficiency. (My garden still looks great!) I enjoy composting humanure and deer entrails, and feeding the pigs the deer meat we can’t use. I am pleased that we’ll burn the deer skin in hopes of gaining protection from the deer. It makes me happy that our oats feed the deer, and the deer feeds us.

And I am pleased that, when we lived in Boulder, we took the meat Phil shot to the butcher, but now, in the country, we do it ourselves. As a good homeschooler, I like learning new things and gaining new skills!

In the afternoon, Phil went to a local sawmill and shoveled in a load of sawdust, in preparation for our trees’ arrival. I don’t know why we hadn’t done that before, but now that we know where to find free sawdust, I think we’ll head there regularly (if only to use with our humanure, rather than spoiled hay, which isn’t as absorptive as I’d prefer.

This morning, Phil oversaw the boys as they shoveled all the manured wood shavings out of the barn. They put most of them into the outdoor shelter for the chicks, and they did a good job with minimal complaining. Then, as a reward, Phil tilted two pallets against some hay bales, then covered the pallets with hay. The boys could wiggle in under the pallets, and this became their very secret fort. It looks just like a lot of hay.



Around lunchtime, the UPS truck backed down our driveway, and left us with four small boxes (Christmas presents) and eight large boxes: the 366 fruit trees for our future orchard. Phil and I went to work.



We carried the boxes, which weighed between 46 and 64 pounds, one by one, to the trench beside our barn. (To review: we opened the trench initially to lay electrical, and left it open for water. With the water line laid, Phil hadn’t quite gotten around to filling it in, which ended up working well for our purposes.)



After we opened the burly boxes and torn open the hefty plastic bags, I put the bareroot bundles of trees into the trench.



Phil backed the truck up and shoveled sawdust on them until their roots were well surrounded.



When all eight boxes were empty, Isaiah watered the sawdust and I checked the labels and looked at the bases to make sure no roots were exposed. I have heard that roots wick moisture, so if even one is exposed, it can kill the tree. That’s sobering (although perhaps not true).

The different colors of bark, the different sizes, the different names all thrill me. I remember little details about the trees, like “Esopus Spitzenburg” apples were one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, though he couldn’t grow a truly great one at Monticello. I figured trying four of them would be fun. Or “Beni Shogun” apples are actually a strain of Fuji, which I guess makes sense: Mt. Fuji is in the land of the Shogun. The tree apricots came bundled together, three little unique trees in a sea of fruit. The cherry bark is all the color you’d expect from cherry wood. The peach trees were noticeably larger than any of the others.

Now the fruit trees stand near my barn, a fragile palisade that, we hope, will offer food and funds to us for many years to come. We welcome them with joy.

The Eight Point Buck

Since I last wrote, Phil bagged an 8-point buck. Single shot, perfect, right to the heart. We found the bullet in the skin on the far side of the buck, a mangled mass of metal and flesh.



Although Phil field dressed a deer once in Colorado, and once on his own here, this was a much larger animal. And he was really not sure what he was doing. I tried to give moral support through my physical presence, but watching the gradual disemboweling of a large mammal is not high on my list of favorite things to do.

But, for those who know that I have fainted—twice!—when losing a tooth, and once when having blood drawn, you can be duly impressed that I picked up the entrails with my hands and put them in a bucket and dumped them in the compost heap. I did this to help my husband, who has been a bit under the weather since his return from Colorado, and finally reached the point where a nap became necessary. Entrails are smelly and mushy, and I did cover my hands with leaves before handling the small intestine, which had a greenish-hue. But having processed chickens last year, I found myself a bit fascinated by the innards of the deer. I like that many of the parts are as readily identifiable as you would expect from a textbook: esophagus, small intestines, lungs, liver. The heart, as I mentioned before, was blown to smithereens, but I could see where it should have been.



Phil spent the afternoon finishing the chicken house. When he finally got the house constructed, and surrounded by electrified netting, we moved the chickens in, four at a time. They are, sadly, small enough to fit right through the netting, and stupid (or stubborn) enough to go right through it. Thankfully, they go right back in to their pen.



When dusk fell, the 50 chicks and 5 keets set up a loud racket. We think they were confused about where they were supposed to go. So Phil ran an extension cord down to their house, and put a feeder inside. Then they went in happily and quieted down, presumably all snuggled together for warmth and companionship, as they did in the barn.

They are happy to be outside, “expressing their innate chicken-ness” as hippie farmer Bob Cannard might say (if that’s not a direct quote, it’s pretty close!). They ran and flapped and pecked and scratched.

In other news, we finally got our delivery of 305 10’ fiberglass stakes for our apple trees. Even unloading that many stakes from the truck takes time; I could carry about ten at a time; Phil could carry 20. Ten trips each.

I saw my second snake on the property. While moving hay for mulch, I uncovered a pencil-thin, foot long black snake. Despite its small size, I agree with Emily Dickinson's assessment of snakes: I, too, "never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone."

Abigail was outside with me while I was making potatoes for dinner. I asked her if there was a song she would like to sing, and she belted out some lines to a song from church that we’ve sung a few times here. I realized suddenly that she is an aural learner. I have noticed that she has a great memory for songs and nursery rhymes, but, being the antithesis of an aural learner myself, didn’t recognize what I was noticing until this evening.

(For those not “in the know,” current educational theory believes that people learn primarily through the eyes (visual), through the ears (aural), or through movement (kinesthetic). I am strongly a visual learner—I take notes during sermons so I can read back what I was supposed to be hearing. My brother Luke is an aural learner—he can quote movies almost verbatim after a single viewing, and he would rather listen to an audio book than read a paper book. And I think my brother Justin is kinesthetic, but I’m guessing that mostly based on the fact that he had a lot of energy when we were young.)

And, thanks be to God, our house in Colorado closed today. The buyers moved in within hours, from what we understand. I am thankful that that chapter in our life is closed. Just a few weeks less two years of paying a double mortgage—may we never have to again. That was a burden grievous to be borne, and I am thankful to be out from under it.

Lykosh Petting Zoo

We needed to move the sheep and the goats today, so we asked Michelle Bessette, who will watch our farm when we’re out of town, if she’d like to see how we manage paddock movement. She came by for the first time since we got the Babydolls, and said, “Oh, we must get some of them! I would like them just to look at!”

It is so satisfying to watch the animals in their new pasture. They dash through the opening into the new pasture and take great mouthfuls of oats and broadleafs (also called “weeds”), perfectly content and focused.

We talked to Michelle for a while. After she left, Butch stopped by to free us from our driveway. The sunk ditch that high-centered the FedEx man also prevented us from departing in the van. Butch used his Bobcat to spread some of the well tailings and to rearrange some gravel. Now the ditch is mounded up, and we can drive away.

We talked to Butch about planting our orchard. He grew excited: “I love working with my machines. I’m just a little boy at heart. If I stay around home, I have a To Do list that doesn’t just let me play with my equipment.” We talked about the best way to go about digging the holes for the orchard. As a more-wealthy-than-most-of-us landowner, he has some lovely landscaping. I had considered not digging massive holes, but our clay soil is so incredibly heavy, he said that he did what we are planning: excavate large holes, then backfill with some original soil and a lot of compost or leaf litter (he said that he had used soil from the forest floor).

One of God’s biggest blessings to us in this place is the many helpful friends he has given us. In this case, a retired man with all the equipment we need, with time and inclination to help, and experience to share!

The Zach Bushes called us to see if they could come visit “the petting zoo.” Zach has had a herculean work load of late, wrapping up with a grant proposal due this last week, the culmination of five years of work. And now it’s over, and he has free time again.

I don’t think Rachel has been to our house since she picked me up the first full day we were here. What a lot of change since then! We slopped the pigs so they could pet them in relative peace (Isaiah even rode one of them for a few seconds until he fell off onto a pile of slop). The Babydolls were ruminating, so we were able to pet them, just a bit.

Expert gardener Rachel gave me some good ideas about my garden (including just mulching the lettuce beds for the next while, so they will shoot ahead in growth when the spring flush hits). And, like Michelle this morning, she suggested that if I have too many trees, I could find ready buyers. Phil, though, I think, is willing to plant all 403 trees, even if it does take up most of our clearing. While we talked, the children played hide-and-go-seek among the hay bales, in a sort of cliché farm moment. But a good cliché.

Phil and Zach worked on constructing a pallet-house for our pullets (the word for laying hens before they start laying. Sort of like “heifer” means a cow before she gives birth). The rapidly growing chicks are able to fly out of their enclosure in the barn, so their lack of containment, along with the faint-but-ever-present smell and ever-thickening layer of dust on every surface (and especially on my cooking surfaces!) make an outdoor home a priority for me. The shelter is not completed yet, but they made good progress on a chicken house that costs almost nothing.

After the Zach Bushes left, Phil had an absolutely delightful idea. He took a bit of the grain the sheep breeder gave me. We took the lead rope and tied up the goats, who I held. And then Phil shook the grain and the sheep gradually approached him. There he sat, with three little Babydolls and one big Dorset all around him, like a sheep Pied Piper. He even hugged one little lamb, which made me green with envy—until he traded places with me and let me hug the Babydoll. Ahh.

Permaculture and Orchard Layout

After our late night at the airport, I got up to more rain on Friday morning. I went in to see the sheep, and a babydoll came up to me and let me scratch her head briefly. First time on our farm I’ve been able to touch a babydoll! Yippee!

Then she promptly shook herself like a dog, and the other two lambs joined her.

I thought about the reactions of our farm animals. The sheep warily avoid me (usually). The chicks and guineas flee from me, squawking loudly. During the rain, the goats ignore me (as if I’m responsible for the weather). The pigs, however, stalk me. If I so much as step outside the barn and into their line of sight, no matter where they are, they come running, snorting with glee.

Such enthusiasm would delight me more if they didn’t bite my pant legs when I go in to get the slop bucket and bring it back. I actually try to let Phil do it: stepping over the electric fence with two over eager animals salivating for me—I me, the slops—is not an adrenaline rush I enjoy.

I understand why farmers used to build troughs just inside the fence and pour the slops over the top.

In the early afternoon, FedEx brought me 405 rodent guards for the little trees. As the driver backed out our drive, he bottomed out and was thoroughly stuck. (In placing a hydrant at the northwest corner of our land, Phil and Butch cut a trench across the driveway. That trench appeared to be properly filled, until we got five or six inches of rain in a couple of days. Then the trench became treacherous.) I was thankful that the driver hadn’t made the delivery the day before, when Phil was still out of town! Phil was able to get our truck and tow him out and send him on his way.

With our trees shipping early next week, Phil and I tried to lay out the orchard on paper. It was not a happy task. Uncharacteristically, when I ordered the trees, I just assuming they would all fit, rather than actually checking the specifics. After all, I had charts that claimed that, with proper spacing, an orchard could fit 300 or 400 trees to the acre, and I knew we had over an acre. I neglected to thoroughly research the various rootstocks I ordered, though; small trees with dwarfing rootstocks fit many to the acre; as trees get larger and rootstocks more vigorous, the number of trees per acre decreases dramatically.

Besides that, what I didn’t realize until this last week was that, while the 300+ apple trees probably will fit, more or less, in our upper meadow, the 40 cherries and the 40 peaches, the ten plums and ten pears (and three apricots) I ordered all have different, larger spacing needs. It could be that our entire cleared area becomes dedicated to fruit trees, which is not what I envisioned, nor what I hoped for.

I fell asleep frustrated.

I woke up energized to try to get the orchard to work. And, really, I shouldn’t be too bummed about fruit trees. There’s a lovely philosophy of homesteading called “permaculture,” which seeks to make all things on a farm have multiple uses. For example, the humble laying hen. She provides eggs for food, and, eventually, her body for stewing. If allowed on pasture, she sanitizes the pasture by scratching through manure and eating the worms and eggs. She fertilizes the land herself with her manure.

Furthermore, permaculture seeks to “stack” the land. They might have nut trees growing tallest, with fruit trees under them, and berry bushes below the fruit trees. Then sheep can graze around the berries and maybe chickens run through after the sheep.

Although I have not read extensively about permaculture, I think it an elegant (and invigorating!) way to farm. And an orchard is a good thing to stack. We’ll have the trees, with the sheep running underneath. Then maybe we can plant raspberries between the trees, or, for the first few years anyway, a garden in the center of the rows. I have heard that peas and potatoes work well.

I spent much of the day figuring apple tree spacing. What rootstocks I have; what ideal spacing they need; what the harvest dates should be. And although I don’t think I have accomplished all I wish, I think it’s better than I feared yesterday night.

Besides Phil towing the van out of its muddy trap, the other thing worth mentioning today is that this is the start of hunting season. About 7:30am we heard a shot nearby, and Phil said, “Sounds like Dennis is up.” Shortly after, we got a call from a very pleased Dennis, who had shot an 8-point buck. (He considered stuffing the head until he had a quote for $450. The triumph will live in his memory, but not on his wall.)

All day long we heard shots, and trucks with dog kennels in their beds drove slowly up and down our road all day.

For my part, I hope the deer population is quickly reduced: they are eating down the oats intended for my sheep!

My Ida Adventure

Tropical Storm Ida brought rain as we drove Phil to the airport on Tuesday. The gusty wind and constant rain continued through the day on Wednesday, when Michelle Bessette called to let me know that the storm was not supposed to let up until Friday, but we were welcome to take refuge in their house. I suspected we would need that, but as the day wore on, we managed.

Because we’ve decided to get the trees next week, I spent the morning researching rodent guards and ways to connect the trees to the stakes. I ordered Deer Away, an organic product made of putrescent egg solids that supposedly really does keep the deer away. I also looked into making a repeating mouse trap that sounds pretty clever: a 5-gallon bucket rigged with peanut butter on a paper plate, that neatly drops mice in to their drowning death. (See the design here.)

Just once did I bundle all five children up. We ran up and down the driveway twice, but it was so chilly, we didn’t last as long as I had hoped to eliminate all high spirits and high energy. I was looking up at the clouds blowing across the sky, and then looked back to Joe, who had left my side. He had headed to the side of the driveway, where he waded into a puddle up to his knees. I felt like I was receiving a recently-baptized convert as I took his hand and drew him out of the deep puddle. He seemed a bit surprised at the soaked pants and shoes, but not unduly distressed. Silly guy!

In late afternoon, we started Sonlight Core 1 Science. I’d read the appropriate pages, then watch the experiments on DVD. The boys enjoyed seeing Grandma’s house and Uncle Justin. That segment of Science happens to be on water, so we opted against doing any of the actual experiments. Some we have done in the past, but I figured it would be too much to have water inside as well as outside.

Thursday we woke to more of the same. More rain. More wind. More chill. I am pleasantly surprised by how little time the morning chores take: perhaps twenty minutes to get everything fed and watered and check on their general well-being. We’re much faster at moving their paddocks, too. The last time, it took Phil and I only a half hour from the start of gathering up the electric netting to end of moving their pen. The oats they recently grazed appear to be regenerating, even at this late date.

After we did some magnet experiments, the children basically settled in to play happily all day long. It was glorious! They didn’t bicker; they didn’t irritate each other. They came up with imaginative games and stories. A few times I considered stopping them to do school, but realized I think my philosophy of schooling for this season is don’t disturb playing children. (Rather like my philosophy for sleeping babies. Just let them be!)

I read. “Famous” farmer Joel Salatin (the farmer you would know by name if you know the names of any farmers in the US) described his winters as a time to hunker down and research. I felt like that was my day, too.

I visited the sheep in the afternoon. The whole paddock smelled of wet wool, and the sheep looked noticeably thinner, as their wool was wet through. I put up a tarp as a windbreak, but they didn’t appear distressed. I hope not.

After dinner, we got ready for Bible study. I felt triumphant: two days in 224 square feet with five children, by myself, on time to study God’s word, then on to the airport to pick up Phil when his flight landed at 11:30pm. Excellent. I was a bit concerned about getting up the driveway, but figured all would be well.

Sadly, it wasn’t all well. After I got five children into their five boosters and carseats, I started to back the van up the drive. I don’t think I’ve backed up in the dark before, let alone with rain, and felt like my visibility was nil. Not ever the most confident driver-in-reverse, I decided my only option, in order to keep our van out of the treacherous ruts and safe from the electric and satellite poles next to the drive, was to turn around.

Bad mistake. We don’t have enough gravel at the bottom of the driveway. In good conditions, this doesn’t matter much, since we can drive on the pasture. But with five inches of rain in 48 hours, we didn’t have good conditions.

Moreover, I backed up, unfortunately, right over the ditch that Phil and Butch had uncovered last week in order to put in a hydrant. The hydrant will be useful, but the ground was not hardpacked.

In the frustrating twenty minutes that followed, I tried everything I could think of to get the car out of the mudhole it had sunk into. I brought fistfuls of gravel from higher up the driveway (the wheelbarrow has a flat tire, so I couldn’t use it). Then I got smart and shoveled gravel into five gallon buckets, hoping to get some traction. I also was unkind to my transmission (as Dennis pointed out later), by revving it in hopes the car could escape from the miry pit. I put boards down under the wheels. I shoveled the sloppy mud out from under the most-sunken tire.

I even had Jadon go up front and put the car in drive while I pushed from behind. That was, perhaps, the most pointless of all. I do not have Phil’s brute strength, and in tennis shoes, slipping in the mucky mud, I had no purchase anyway. Besides asking Jadon to do something he was not comfortable with.

When the van had sunk down low enough that I could hardly fit a board under the body, I gave up in defeat, and called the Bessettes. (What else could I do?) Dennis came over right away, singing, “Here I come, to save the day!” He did not drive all the way down the driveway, not daring to get too close. (He mentioned that his old neighborhood in Norfolk is under 18” of water. Michelle said, “This is a hurricane, or at least, the tail end of a hurricane. This is not usual weather!”)

We unloaded five children and one carseat into his truck, and drove to the Bessette house. The four older children happily ensconced in the living room watching the latest Pixar movie, and ready to spend the night, I left in Dennis’ truck for Bible study. An hour or so late, but I arrived at last.

The truck freaked me out a bit; besides being manual transmission, it was really big, and felt like riding in a silent spaceship. I would have driven to the airport, slowly and carefully, but Martin Bush offered to drive me instead, and that seemed better to me.

In the continued swap of cars, it looked like this: Amy’s van stuck at Lykosh homestead. Bessette truck at the Doug Bushes. Martin car up to airport with Martin and Amy (and Joe)—get Phil. Drop Martin at his house in Charlottesville. Three Lykoshes drive to Doug Bushes. Drop off Martin car, get Bessette truck. Drive Bessette truck to homestead. Phil gets Lykosh truck (not stuck, thankfully). Amy drives Bessette truck to Bessette house (so Dennis can get to work in the morning, when he leaves before 7am). Phil follows in Lykosh truck to get Amy. Amy worries about 3-year-old Abraham, so goes in to the Bessette home to get that one sleeping Lykosh. Barking dog wakes several other Lykosh children, so all four remaining children end up in Lykosh truck.

By 2am, all Lykoshes are home where they belong, with just Martin’s displaced car and the Lykosh van thoroughly stuck to give any indication that such mishaps occurred.

Doug asked, “Why didn’t Phil drive himself to the airport?”

And we have no answer for that. We even brought the little Corolla from Colorado so he would be able to drive it to the airport when he needed to fly out. But it never crossed either of our minds that Phil could drive on his own.

After Doug asked that question, he offered to go and get Phil himself, so we were, as always, abundantly cared for.

Phil Flies Away

Phil and the boys worked well today. They shoveled out the remainder of the ton of gravel from the back of our truck, and reburied many of the trenches.

In preparation for heeling in our trees, which I realized are supposed to be buried in an 18” trench, covered with sawdust, then thoroughly wetted, with mice traps on top (well, officially it should have mouse bait, but that seems a bit too risky to the children and nasty to the mice). We have driven past a sawmill, and I called about their sawdust: they have plenty, and it’s not too expensive for a pickup truck load.

What made me really rejoice was when Phil and I looked around for a good spot to heel them in. I don’t want them too far from our living space, as I think deer pressure will increase the further the trees are from our trailer. Suddenly, the area next to the barn came into focus: it already has a trench, from when Phil ran electrical line and water line. It’s about 18”, and only feet away from our living quarters. The perfect spot! And we wouldn’t need Butch to come back and trench for us.

We decided to get the trees delivered next week, then.

After Phil finished the trench, we were going to begin to lay out the orchard. However, the stakes didn’t arrive today, and Phil got a work “emergency call” from his biggest client (a great client who actually pays bills on time! How rare!). So he booked a flight this evening to Denver, and will head up to the job site tomorrow morning.

This form of commuting is not inexpensive. A week ago, Phil turned down a job in Denver from a potential new client: “We’re really busy right now, and I can’t make it out today.” After that call, he said, “What should our family policy be about work-related calls?”

What we came up with is that we will take any jobs that the Lord chooses to send our way, and trust that whatever calls come will help pay the bills, not cost more than the eventual checks. Earlier this week, in passing I thought, “Lord, you need to send us [meaning Phil] work, as I am not finding as much time to work as I had hoped and expected.”

And I trust he will honor that prayer. I am thankful that the call came through today, when all our water lines are buried and set for winter; when we have no pressing animal needs; when we aren’t dealing with major shipments of trees, or going on vacation, or, really, anything else vital to the working of our farm.

Besides that, Phil will be able to sign closing papers while he’s there, rather than Fed Exing them back and forth.

I delight to see how God works out the details of my life.

The Trees Are Coming! The Trees Are Coming!

Phil ran errands in the morning, and then installed three hydrants in the afternoon. It was dark by the time he finished, and there was one little leak, but that’s the first little plumbing leak he’s had since being here. That is reason to be thankful. And I have a hydrant now between the house and the barn—so close!

I received an email from Cummins Nursery, asking whether I would like most of the trees delivered this month, rather than waiting until March. After considering, Phil and I decided that, yes, we would like to receive those trees (about 350 of them) sooner rather than later. Which means, Lord willing (and weather permitting), the week after Thanksgiving.

We’ll have to heel them in, which means dig a trench and bury them shallowly until ready to plant. I had expected to heel some in, since no matter how fast we are, the bareroots on trees number 20 and up would dry out before we could get to them. This way, though, we’ll have them “in house” to plant at our leisure until March, when the remainder come in.

Tomorrow Phil will (hopefully) finish the massive water line project. He brought home a ton of gravel in the back of the truck, and he and the boys will have to shovel it out of the truck and into hydrant holes to help them drain well. (Without the gravel, the drainage holes would get stopped with standing water whenever it rains here.)

And at some point tomorrow, we will get our shipment of 305 apple tree stakes; then we can lay out our orchard in situ. I confess I am a little bit concerned: just how much of our clearing will 408 trees take up, anyway? We will see soon!

Farmer John's Cookbook

When I was a newlywed, I set about learning to cook. If I found a cookbook I liked, I cooked almost every recipe in it. I cooked through my college boarding house Big Haus Cookbook, a Hershey’s chocolate cookbook, Salsas That Cook, and Healthy Foods. Before I had multiple children, I would spend easily an hour and a half preparing dinner: sweet potato galettes, stuffed grape leaves, mushroom risotto, chicken-broccoli crepes, steamed dumplings!

With an ever-growing family, my time in the kitchen became limited, as did the palette I had to work with. Little people don’t tend to enjoy spicy or exotic food. So I began to cook without recipes some of the time. Most dinners could be prepared in half an hour, using minimal pans.

Yesterday, though, I received a cookbook (courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law Cheri): Farmer John’s Cookbook. I looked up “radishes,” because our radish harvest is just about done. And my mouth started watering. Over radishes! I eagerly awaited the new day.

So this morning I went to pick whatever radishes I could find. I sliced some thinly and put them on buttered bread with salt: canapés! I sautéed the radishes in butter, then added the greens. Pressed some lemon juice on, added salt and pepper—delicious! I did the same thing with turnip greens.



Then I took the turnips, peeled and shredded them. Also an apple: peeled and shredded. Pressed lemon juice, added olive oil, salt, pepper, and some raisins. Not too bad!

I haven’t cooked something from a cookbook in many, many months. Perhaps not in all of 2009, the year of house showings, moving, and kitchenless living. Cooking things today from a real cookbook, a gourmet vegetable cookbook, felt like a return to normal life, in a way.



And if you want a way to prepare YOUR daikon radish (see photo above!) or regular radish, your chard or your kale, I’d highly recommend this book!

Other fun things about today: Phil and I sat in the sheep paddock and just watched them. They have settled down, so that if the ewes do not love the babies, they tolerate them and no longer flee.

We also went down to the “bottom land” (the flat land around our creek). Phil used his machete to hack out a path through the denuded brush. It’s actually possible to see the forest now that the leaves have fallen from the trees and the brush, and we were thrilled to see about four acres of potential grazing land. It will need to be cleared, then seeded to grass, legumes, and herbs, but wow! Four acres would more than double the land we currently have cleared.

I found a persimmon on the ground during the hike. About the size of an apricot, with similar orange flesh and six flat seeds, the first lick was delicious. Then my mouth felt like all the moisture was gone—I think that was the astringency coming out. As I looked to find more, I realized they were growing at the tops of many trees: 80 to 100 feet up. Ah, well.

P.S. A quick note about the Babydolls. We took the three lambs born in spring 2009 home yesterday. They are too young to be bred this year. Breeder Michelle put her ram, Starbucks, in with the three ewes yesterday afternoon, so he will, Lord willing, breed all three. The sheep have 18-day cycles, I believe; in 2009, she had one lamb born on May 1st and one born two and a half weeks later. Clearly, the late ewe missed her breeding opportunity by about a day.

My plan is to pick up the three bred ewes in December. All three ewes could potentially have twins: that is what I am praying for. We are pleased that we will have lambing and kidding in January and February, then a few months hiatus before the Babydoll babies come sometime in April.

Oh, and Phil’s arm remains somewhat swollen, but is definitely on the mend. Thankfully, we had no red line heading to the heart, so we avoided a trip to the hospital!

Baby Babydolls!

I find it interesting that little things can become big problems. In this case, a little bee. While Phil was digging yesterday, he was stung three times in quick succession, most likely by a ground hive. The stings on his cheek and underarm were normal, sharp pains that quickly subsided. The sting on his wrist was stronger and hotter from the beginning. Overnight it swelled his entire forearm with such pain he got up for several hours. At one point, teething Jonadab woke me, and when I saw Phil’s light in the other room, I figured that today’s intended trip to the quarry wouldn’t happen. (Which was probably not all bad—the quarry may not have been open today anyway.)

So Phil went to the Bessettes to process his white-tailed deer meat. I weighed the results when he came home: 14 pounds of ground meat, 7 pounds of roast, and another roast that Dennis had cooked for us. Not a lot of meat, but well over $100 worth, were I to buy it.

While he did that, the children and I went to get the sheep. I have been looking forward to it all week—the excitement of new life coming here, of new woolly bodies grazing our fields. Breeder Michelle showed me how to clip the hooves and trim the wool around the eyes (and the private parts, if needed). We talked about proper emasculators and dewormers, about rumens and lambing. Then we loaded the three lambs into a tarp spread with hay in the back of the minivan, and drove away: one adult, six children, and three lambs. Not a bad load.

And I must say, I LOVE these sheep. As soon as the three little bodies were in the car, and I felt their incredible fleeces (one has the finest fleece I’ve ever seen), and I smelled their earthy smell, I was so SO thankful that we’d decided to buy them. All my doubts and concerns vanished, and I called Phil to tell him how pleased I was. On our way home, we stopped at the Bush house. Their daughter Johanna said, “They have Ewok faces!” And that is exactly the word that’s been eluding me. They look like something familiar, but not quite a teddy bear.



When he saw them for the first time, he was astonished. “They’re so much cuter than I was expecting!” he said. “Make sure everyone reading knows how incredibly cute they are!” Phil, though, hates Ewoks, so maybe they are not quite like Ewoks.

Phil carried the brown baby ewes to the pen first, then the white wether (a castrated male). The brown babies have black legs, and their fleeces will be black on the inside, but the outside has bleached in the sun. I was thrilled to see that one of my questions the first day was correct: they didn’t look small because they were all proportionally small. Next to our regular-sized sheep, they are adorably teeny, yet completely proportionate. One of the most wonderful observations: these are quality animals from a quality line. Their breeding shows in how they move.



And we got to see them move quite a bit. Our sheep and goats were completely freaked out by these little brown babies. The white wether looks like a baby regular sheep, so our two white ewes tentatively accepted him. The brown babies, though, were personae non gratae. Where they went, the larger animals fled. Here was an unexpected turn of events: two large ewes, running around the pen, pursued first by a small white wether, then two more brown ewes pursuing their flock mate. Around and around they go!



The goats watched this all carefully, and kept their distance.

Dinner was the first meat harvested from our land: the roast venison, courtesy of Phil’s rifle. After dinner, I read to the children, until their high spirits reminded me that we had been in the car the better part of six hours today. Although it was pitch dark, we all tumbled outside and did driveway laps: up and down, up and down. Jonadab held my hand and did his fair share. When we first went out, we couldn’t see a thing, but as the minutes ticked by, the stars shone brighter, the outline of the driveway faintly came into focus, and the dark shadows on the driveway became, more clearly, little children hiding for a “surprise” attack.

A happy half hour that was, full of running and shouting and laughter. At one point, I picked up Jonadab and tossed him just a bit in the air, with a backdrop of the Milky Way.

Marvelous!

Water Matters

Yesterday Phil was working on the final detailing of the pump house, when Martin Bush called. Martin ended up coming over to sight in his rifle, and he and Phil ended up talking for most of the day. Phil was in college when he met Martin, a little 8-year-old, youngest child of Doug and Denise. Now Martin is married, and settled in Charlottesville.

I watched them interact from a distance. And I was so thankful that Phil had a man to hang out with. He’s talked to Dennis a few nights while I’ve stayed back with the children, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized that he used to get together with other men about six times a month, whether going to coffee with Tim or men’s Bible study with the Hillsiders. I think that survival has been so pervasive a concern, the less immediately important things, like interpersonal relationships, have been put on hold. Maybe it’s time to rejoin humanity. Or maybe we’ll wait until we have running water, but after that, we’ll have no excuse.

Because of all the hanging out, Phil didn’t quite finish the pump house. So he woke at 6am this morning, while it was yet dark, and did his morning routine: feed and water the chicks, make coffee, read the Bible. When the sun rose, he went up and did the final touches on our adorable pump house by the time the rest of us woke up.



We’ve been trying for a week to get in touch with our excavator guy to come and backfill the trenches we’ve had open for the last three weeks, as well as dig more trenches for the other two hydrants. It got down to 26 degrees last night, and Phil is worried that our pipes will freeze. So he called Butch at about 10:30 this morning.

Butch was here within the hour. He and Phil dug ditches for six and a half hours. It was 6pm and very dark by the time they were finished, but they got the job as done as they could. Tomorrow Phil hopes to install the two remaining hydrants.

I will say, Phil has a vision. I liked having the water running in the hose down to the garden, but I still had to fill the watering can, because the hose itself was not quite long enough. Well, today I tapped into the water line close to the barn, and was able to water with my fine Haws watering wand. It was so, well, normal, to turn on the faucet and use the hose.

What used to be a normal part of life has become so miraculous, it’s worth writing home about.

(Parenthetically, speaking of the miraculous: at Bible study, I washed my hands. When I turned on the tap and the water came out warm, I stared at it in disbelief—warm water, at the turn of a handle. And then I laughed at myself—I had forgotten about such fine accommodations.)

The Great Rice Debacle of Ought Nine

Phil finished gutting the deer after midnight last night. Today he skinned the deer, removed the head and lower legs, and hosed it down, then wrapped it in cheesecloth. It looks like a mummy hanging in a tree. We aren’t sure what to do with the venison, but will probably turn it into jerky and sausage (courtesy of the Bessette’s meat grinder). For now, though, it can hang in the tree and age.

I spent more time than usual lately making dinner. I picked turnip greens from our garden. The garden has been an interesting experiment. I think the planting chart in the seed catalog was not terribly accurate, or, perhaps, more useful for the Deep South. We are rapidly heading into mid-November, when the earth hibernates at this latitude (I think when there is less than 10 hours of daylight, the growing season ends. In D.C., there is less than 10 hours of daylight from November 17 to January 24). Many of my plants from October will be fortunate to have an inch of growth. Perhaps we will cover them, and hope for early growth in the spring (after January 24th!).

My garden has surprised me in more ways. I planted two types of turnips in a bed. The leafy greens turnips did absolutely nothing, while the purple root turnips have provided us with greens for several dinners a week over the last month. And the bed gets more full all the time, as the leaves grow to support the roots.

The cherry belle radishes are almost gone, but in one bed they produced heavily. In the bed immediately adjacent, they did not do nearly so well. In my bed of beets, the standard beets are mediocre; the red and white striped Chioggia are stellar. In my bed of random greens, the daikon radish took over the center in dinner-plate whirls, while everything else stays a careful three inches tall.

But my biggest surprise came today, as I once again admired my kale bed. I love kale. Besides being the most nutritious of all vegetables, it tastes great! (I cut off just the bottoms of the leaves, chop the whole thing, stems and all, fry in butter with some fresh garlic pressed on top—yum!) It doesn’t cook down as much as spinach, and retains enough crunch so as not to be insipid.

To ensure a constant winter supply of this tasty (and pricey) vegetable, I planted two types, green and red. Surprisingly, they all came up red. I have been thinking for weeks now that the two types would differentiate themselves—at some point, the green would be more green. The red stems were all lovely, but so uniform.

As I looked today, I noticed some green kale. Way off on the edge, about one-fifth the size of the red kale. For some reason, it never took off. So strange!

But I digress from my story about dinner. I picked the turnip greens. I cooked a Bessette chicken in my cast iron Dutch oven. When the breast was done, I put some brown rice on. With a single burner, it can get tricky to juggle the various parts of a meal, but that’s okay. The last two times I have made rice, we haven’t eaten it all. In Boulder, I had a pot of rice cooked at all times, though now I don’t recall what I did with it. I had hopes that this night, we would eat the rice, and in time, the rice was done, and we sat down to eat.

The meat was still raw. Not all of it, but enough. Apparently, when a chicken is frozen, the breast is not the part to check; the part of the leg next to the body would be more indicative. In the future, Phil reminded me that we can use our toaster oven to roast. That would alleviate the single-burner stress.

While we waited for the chicken, we snacked on bread with butter and jam. As the chicken continued to cook, and the children ate three thick slices of bread apiece, my hopes for rice consumption rapidly faded.

When at last the meal was done, the chicken picked clean of meat, ready for the stock pot tomorrow, I surveyed the table. I considered bringing the chicken and the rice pots outside, but it was cold out there, and the children needed their bedtime books, and Phil would probably go out before me, anyway. He could bring the pots out.

I should have asked him to.

He went to the office while I was reading Bible stories to the A’s. Apparently, the stories were enthralling, for Isaiah and even Jadon soon joined us. Neither adult realized that Joe was alone in the room with the pots, until I said goodnight and stood up to find rice … everywhere. Joe had gleefully removed the lid of the pot, and spread great fistfuls around the room. The newly-vacuumed carpet had heaping tablespoons of rice mashed into it. Joe’s pant legs themselves were sticky with rice up to his knees. Rice on my sheets; rice on the floor; rice on the chairs and the table and the Ergo baby carrier.

And not much rice left in the pot. Yet another meal where the rice goes uneaten. What was salvageable will go to the pigs. “Cheer up,” said Phil. “At least rice is cheap. Isn’t it?”

Jadon, to make the encouragement complete, continued: “And the bacon is free!”

Several hours removed, I can see that this was not the end of the world. We summoned Chloe the dog, and faithful Dyson the vacuum. We changed clothing and used baby wipes and hands to get those sticky grains from every place we could. Jonadab somehow missed getting rice on the basket of clean clothes waiting to be folded—amazing in such a small space. But at the moment of discovery—oh, ick. Hundreds (thousands?) of sticky, mashable grains all over my living space.

And that, faithful reader, was the Great Rice Debacle of Ought Nine.

Evening Excitement

As evening progressed, I was bewailing the lack of interesting things to happen today. What a normal, dull life! Nothing interesting to report.

BANG! A rifle shot sounded from up towards the road. A bit later, Phil came to the door. “We’ve got deer meat.”

Well, we will, anyway. He first had to figure out how to drag the dead deer down to the woods (used the little John Deere riding mower), then try desperately to remember how to gut a deer. He’s only done it once, several years back. I checked his progress at 10:30pm, and he had almost disemboweled the animal. In the light of the flashlight, the steam from the innards rose constantly. And there was my husband, hacking away with knife, leather gloves on his hand. There was the deer, looking remarkably like our goats, cavity filled with blood, guts hanging out but not cut free.

My husband, who refuses to cut the umbilical cord at our children’s births, dealing with this bloody processing like a pro.

As I walked back to the trailer, mainly pleased that I now had something worth writing about, I realized that more happened today than I remembered at first glance. Phil and I compared symptoms of mange with what is on Annabelle’s neck, and we didn’t think the symptoms were at all similar. We don’t know what the problem is, but we are reasonably sure it is not mange. That is a relief.

Phil worked on siding the little house. At the end of the day, he was surprised with how little he got done, and how quickly the day had passed.

Besides normal duties, I reread the lengthy description on the “right” way to plant fruit trees (see “Fruit Trees on Steroids” at http://www.highbrixgardens.com/general/downloads.html). Or, if not the right way, the way we plan to plant. There were some encouraging points, such as the need for 10 pounds of soft rock phosphate per tree. Well, we have leftover soft rock phosphate from our mineral spreading adventure, probably even 4080 pounds (what we’ll need for our 408 trees). What a blessing not to have to buy more totes, at least until next fall.

The most discouraging point was that the grower recommends digging out a cubic yard for each tree. In the bottom foot, put in “muck” or leaf litter, compost, animal wastes. The middle foot gets the topsoil that was removed, and the top foot gets, again, the muck/compost layer. So each tree needs, basically, 18 cubic feet of compost-like material. Phil figured we would just order some from our compost company again, until he realized that we would need about $11,000 worth. That’s really not feasible.

We do have 40 acres of trees, though, and the leaf layer right now is quite voluminous. I am not thrilled about taking the fertility of the forest to give to my orchard, but I’m REALLY not thrilled about an $11,000 bill, so I’ll probably transport leaves.

But before I can do that, I need to know where to transport them. And before I can do THAT, I need to figure out the spacing of the trees, and for that, I should probably have stakes to mark the spots, rather than spray paint. So I ordered 305 stakes for the apple trees (the cherries, peaches, plums, pears, and apricots don’t need stakes). And that was really great. The nursery recommended AM Leonard’s stakes, and I figured the fiberglass ones would be best. I called and asked for a discount for my bulk order, and I got a good one, over 25% off the regular online price! Yay!

We are considering purchasing a few Dexter cows, so their manure will help restore our land. We might wait until after our Thanksgiving trip, when we’ll be away for nine days (and the regular busyness of life might force us to wait anyway!), but to get a few small cows will be fun. Phil spoke with a Dexter breeder yesterday, and the man recommended that, since Phil plans to seed new pasture, he do so in February. The freezing and thawing of the ground, he said, will suck the seeds in to their appropriate depth. Pretty slick!

Mice, Mange, and Multiplier Onions

Saturday was gorgeous. I woke up and Isaiah came to hug me (or something like that). We looked out the window and he said, “Look, Mom—helicopters!” And it was true. We saw little leaves behaving like orange helicopters, twirling down into our clearing. And later, when the breezes blow, the clearing is full of orange leaves, gently floating on currents of air, not ready to rest—quite. I love it!

As it was, once again, close to a full moon, I shoveled minerals out of one of the remaining totes into the wheelbarrow, and wheeled them upslope to the former pigpen, where I spread them over the spelt seeds. I understood why Chinese coolies would run while pulling their loads—the momentum really helps! And then I popped a tire, so I should look into the foam that you can spray into tires that then hardens. Makes it really hard to pop a tire, when it’s actually basically solid!

I also got impatient with my multiplier onions. I should probably have waited until around Thanksgiving, but who knows what the weather will be like then? So I planted my shallots and my potato onions, and my Egyptian walking onions. According to the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog, “According to the National Gardening Bureau, multiplier onions can produce a larger yield per area than any other vegetable except staked tomatoes.” (Trees and ponds can produce more, since they have the potential to stack.) The multiplier onions will, apparently, grow clusters of onions at ground level from the single onion bulb planted. The Egyptian walking onions I am excited to see: they grow like a green onion, then send out bulblets at the top, then another shoot, and more bulblets. Eventually (after two or three stories), they topple over and re-root. Perennial onions that walk around—that’s pretty cool!

Dennis Bessette came by to visit, driving his old farm truck. After he left, I was walking down the driveway, when I came across a tiny, living mouse in the center of the gravel, so small its eyes were not yet open.



It was breathing, but just barely, and it would emit teeny squeaks. Now I know that mice are nasty, that they pee while they run, and chew through purchased goods (car engines, chick feed), and attract other pests, like snakes. But the tiny perfection of this baby, and the certainty of its death, made me want to sit and watch it die, to be with it in its last, dignified moments.

But then interested children came to see and touch the tiny animal, so I picked up its tiny chilly body and hid it in the straw of our compost pile, where I hope it found some measure of privacy and warmth as it died.

That’s my life in the country: something profound and beautiful that passes in a slew of other events, almost forgotten. How fortunate I am that I have profound and beautiful moments.

I called the sheep breeder to tell her that we would like her flock. Although I had strong certainty until I called, after the call I had a bit of buyer’s remorse, wondering at the frivolous purchase. Miniature sheep with cashmere wool are not exactly stern, strong farm animals. They are the hobby farm animal of choice; an animal that makes a good pet or photography prop. How will they fit on our farm?

Thankfully Phil remained the voice of reason, reminding me that, rather than spraying our orchard floor with Round-Up, like the local orchards do for ground cover control, we will have natural lawn-mowers, who also produce wool, lambs, and, in a pinch, meat (though because of their cuteness factor, their pet quality would bring a high enough price that their meat would not be the best use of any offspring).

He is right, and I am excited about becoming a shepherd to a larger flock.



Phil spent Friday and Saturday building an adorable watertight hut around the pump’s pressure tank. Martin Bush came on Friday, while I was away, and helped Phil build the foundation and the framework, as well as offering suggestions and being a sounding board for ideas. That is not my strong point, at all.

On Saturday, Phil tarpapered the exterior and put up siding. The little hut is, so far, adorable, far more cute than our trailers. But, since it is more-or-less permanent, and our trailers are temporary, that is as it should be, I think.

Thankfully Phil made the hut water tight when he did; on Saturday night, it began to pour. It poured about two inches, and when we woke the next morning to pounding rain, we figured we would head to the Bessette’s sooner or later.

Jonadab is teething, which means he is more cranky than usual. And, when we eat bread or toast with butter and jam, he has developed the sweet/annoying habit of dipping his little pointer finger into the butter. Or the loaf of bread. Or he’ll pat the already-jammed bread. Or drop pattern blocks or pen caps into the jam jar.

If all those amusements are out of reach, he likes to charge Abigail and grab her around the waist, or by the shirt. He’s only 15 months old, but his grip is incredible, and I must pry him off of her, finger by finger. She, for her part, hates his charges, and defends herself as best she can, protesting his advances (loudly).

So with such shenanigans, and the high-spirited boys playing, and the loaf of bread I’d baked for breakfast coming out raw in the middle, I lost it for a few minutes, and found great relief in running up the driveway by myself, shrieking. Michelle Bessette later said that “You couldn’t have lost it that bad—we didn’t hear you.” I maintain that they had their windows closed against the chill and rain.

Amazing, though, what a shower, three and a half loads of laundry, children playing happily upstairs away from me, and adult conversation did for me by the end of the day. It was a good day.

And today, Monday, the weather was sunny. I worked and Phil took the children on a nature hike across Hog Creek. They helped him move the sheep and the goats, into a beautiful new paddock. The oats are up to about six inches in places (the rain has helped them grow significantly), with a lovely rich green. The small leaves on tree stumps are reds and oranges, and there are tiny purple flowers in the mix. It all glowed in the sun.

The one blot about the animals is that Annabelle the goat has a strange patch of hair on her neck, almost like someone has stroked her the wrong way. I looked at it more closely today (it has been there for, perhaps, a week and a half), and realized that the hair is actually gone in spots, almost like it has been chewed short. Looking in my book of basic animal problems, I wonder if it is mange, which would require medicines of some sort.

Do you buy medicine for a free goat?

I should figure out what that is before we get our precious sheep.

Current animal count: 2 pigs, 2 goats, 2 ewes, 5 keets, 49 Rhode Island Red chicks and 1 exotic, 1 cat that comes around (and maybe another feral cat), 1 pet dog that comes with us everywhere, and 6 sheep that will join us sooner or later. W expect to get the three lambs on Friday or Saturday and have the three ewes bred. To ensure that breeding is successful, we will get them about six weeks later.