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.
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