May the Lord Grant Fern a Pregnancy

Three weeks after her last signs of heat, Fern was, as far as we could tell, in standing heat. This time Isaiah was the one to notice: "Fern is mounting one of the babies," he said.

I'm not terribly surprised, or even disappointed. Three weeks ago was still unrelenting hot temperatures, and a day late in her cycle. And, as she had never had AI before, she bled a lot.

Professional cowmen would not try AI again, but would use a "cleanup bull" to impregnate her. We don't have a "cleanup bull," and don't really want one, either.

May the Lord grant Fern's AI works this time.

Oh! Giovanni the technician is here! I must go!

Our Most Disgusting Experience EVER

In retrospect, we should have known better. We know the story of Lazarus, and how, when Jesus instructed the folks to roll the stone away so he could raise the man, Martha said, in the incomparable King James, "Lord, by this time he stinketh."

But, despite our biblical knowledge, after we killed and skinned Chrystal, we wrapped her in gardening cloth and left her to hang, for a more congenial hour (as 1am was really pushing it). Phil had an idea that it would be good to have a table for the actual butchering process: trying to cut up meat when the carcass is hanging, and swinging, is not terribly pleasant.

The first day was a fairly cool day, too. The second day was not. But Phil wasn't feeling well, and we had other things to do.

Even today, when we noticed a smell, we didn't immediately connect it with the hanging carcass.

I know: what were we thinking? Maybe we were remembering the good times, when the temperature was in the 30s? The extra 70 degrees makes a big difference!

To spare you all the horrific details, Chrystal ended up being a total loss, and our compost pile is one animal richer.

But we are richer in experience, I suppose!

I gathered the remaining guts out of the pig pen; they were gross enough I, with a fairly strong stomach, almost disgorged. My most disgusting moment ever. (I now know that I could try cooking the innards, thanks to helpful comments on the blog.)

Phil, standing in the compost pile in order to create a good burial spot, unwrapped the body. He realized that gardening cloth will not be sufficient to keep the flies—and their offspring—away from meat. That was his most disgusting moment of all time.

So we know that whatever butchering we do, from now on, must be start to finish in one long stretch.

I keep mentioning "sale barn, sale barn," but we aren't quite that desperate yet. We shall see.

About a year ago, we realized that all the top quality beef we'd frozen and brought with us for our first few weeks here had gone bad. It was a devastating day.

A year later, we are still, apparently, not quite aware of how quickly heat deteriorates meat, but at least our spirits are high and we can even laugh about it ... on the same day.

In other news, we moved the 14 chicks and their two surrogate mothers into the main chicken pen. All 14 chicks went with one mother, and the other chicken has been wandering freely, pleased to be freed of her brood, it appears. Her maternal instincts stopped with hatching, I suppose.

Phil, after a day of much paperwork, had made it down to the lower pasture, working to fence off the final stretch before we move the cows down, when he noticed a very dark cloud. He scrambled to put his tools into the truck, but before he was quite done, sheets of water poured from heaven and thoroughly soaked him. That's the second time in two freak thunderstorms that he's been soaked like that. He wrung the water out of his socks and went and sat in the office.

I remember last year when we were still in the tent and the incredible rain fell. How to keep dry, when all the housing for six people is a tent? And all the sleeping bags are all around? It was really challenging! And I could hardly write about it, because we had no electricity, and no internet, and my computer had almost no battery! What great, great strides this year.

Finally, a brief (it's a pun, as you'll soon see) brag on my son Joe. I had thought to potty train him a few months back, but he refused to sit on the wooden toilet in the trailer. I tried to run him over to the motor home, but that was, well, a lot of running for me. And he ended up liking the motor home bathroom a bit too much. He would sit, with me, on the toilet and wave and smile at himself in the mirror, totally hamming it up and not getting down to business. For forty-five minutes! Argh!

After two days of deep breathing and reminding myself that patience IS a virtue, I gave it up until I could find a good potty chair.

But we just don't go to stores that sell potty chairs very often. Amazon came to the rescue, and Joe got his potty chair yesterday afternoon.

Since last night, he has been completely and perfectly dry. If he needs to go to the potty, he lets me know, sits happily in his little chair, does what he needs to do, then VERY proudly stands up and just beams from ear to ear.

What a guy!

Endorphins Make You Happy

After I spent fifteen minutes exercising last night, I woke up today in such a cheerful frame of mind, I couldn't help but think, "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't!" (from the marvelous Legally Blonde, in case you missed the reference)

I was pleased that my first T-Tapp "Basic Workout Plus" was not as brutal as I remembered; the shaky legs of past first workouts didn't materialize. I love that I get a comprehensive workout in fifteen minutes. And I'm especially pleased that I felt like I had fifteen minutes to dedicate to my own health and well-being.

That was good.

What is not so good is that I've been missing promptings lately. I would say they are from the Holy Spirit, but Phil thinks that might be a bit much, so maybe I should just say intuition. Like on Monday: I called to place my feed order for the month, so that it would be delivered near our house on Tuesday morning. As we finished the conversation, I thought, "I should ask him to repeat the order." But I didn't, and we'd never had a problem before.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and noticed that my phone was dead. I thought, "I should really plug that in," but I wanted to read my Bible, and the charger was in the motor home. I didn't really want to leave the house with sleeping boys, and couldn't think of any compelling reason to plug the phone in. Who would call before 8am anyway?

Sadly, our delivery guy was running an hour early, and did call before 8am, and again a bit after 8. By the time my phone was working, he had made our delivery at the regular drop point: not a short 8 minutes to the top of the drive, but a good twenty, in the next town up.

And the most important of all feeds somehow got dropped. The five bags of pig feed simply didn't make the invoice. I asked for them, but my phone reception isn't always great (someone wondered if it was the tree foliage, blocking the signal), so I didn't fully communicate what I needed. Which meant that Phil had an extra hour of drive time today. So he had to drive all that way, and we paid $20 for the delivery. What a waste.

I hate it when I'm not listening to the Holy Spirit (or my intuition)! I hate it! It makes a bad situation seem so much worse, because I could have prevented it. Bah!

And poor Phil. We'd bought ice cream at Whole Foods for my Dad's visit (which we didn't actually eat while he was here—sorry, Dad). Phil had a moderate amount on Monday and woke on Tuesday just not feeling so great. But by the evening, it wore off, and he had another moderate amount. By this morning, he was pretty sick. No more ice cream for him. (And the ingredient list wasn't even a bad one: the Tara gum and natural vanilla flavor were the only things somewhat questionable, although I suppose the cream and milk was not hormone-free, and the sugar may have come from GM beets; still, it didn't have corn products. I wouldn't have thought he would get sick.)

Despite not feeling well, he managed to build lovely shelves in our metal barn, using scrap wood from a friend's construction site. The unopened bags of feed have a handy place to rest, and we have gained a bit more floor space with the new, floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Also, our chickens had dropped production by half the last two weeks: rather than two dozen a day, we were getting maybe 12 or 13. I figured they were hiding their eggs in the woods, but after Abraham and I looked and didn't even see much evidence of chicken scratching, let alone 12 dozen eggs, I wondered if Phil's hypothesis (too hot to lay) was correct.

It certainly may be: after a second day, yesterday, in the 80s, we had 20 eggs.

Finally, perhaps a note best skipped by the squeamish. On Monday night, we processed Chrystal until a bit after 1am: gutting, skinning, and so on. She had the most incredible layer of yellow fat I've ever seen on a ruminant. (I know where all our hay was going!) We filled two five-gallon buckets with her innards, and at that point, we weren't sure that what was left was worth keeping. There wasn't much. She certainly wasn't a meat goat.

The next morning, we gave one bucket of entrails to the pigs. They went for the fat right away. (I would have, too. Wow, was it a beautiful yellow!) The second bucket, though, the one with liver and kidneys and other such "high vitamin" organs, they weren't interested in. I'm a bit mystified by that. Oh, well. Our compost pile will happily accept whatever they don't eat.

One-Year Anniversary

A year ago today, we woke up in Staunton, Virginia, and drove the last hour or so to our land. We'd arrived.

It's been a good year.

***

My Dad came out for a whirlwind visit: late Friday night until Sunday morning. We drove around most of Saturday looking at properties for sale in our area.

With the declining price of land across the nation, I've wondered (grumpily) at times whether we weren't hearing from God correctly, or whether we'd overstepped our bounds and purchased the wrong plot of land. It feels sometimes like it's so costly: economically, emotionally, relationally.

I read in Psalms that morning, "Rejoice in the Lord always." And I purposed that I would do that, no matter what the properties looked like; even if I liked something better than ours, I would rejoice.

But as the day passed, my spirits rose. I didn't like any of the properties better than ours. Not remotely. More than that, I realized that, though I feel like we live at the edge of the world (45 minutes or so outside of Charlottesville, a fairly small city of about 100,000), we could be A LOT further out.

And we could be in a much less congenial place. Rather than Butch, the Bessettes, and the Bush clan around us, with other friendly, helpful neighbors dropping by at times, we could be in a place with Confederate flags and thick accents. Rather than opera and God and gardening, we might have had to figure out how to talk about ... the mind boggles.

Even the basic shape of our land, a lovely rectangle, felt so well-defined, so easily fenced. I've been grumpy in my mind at times because we all know that a square would be the easiest shape to fence, and require the least fencing for total area. A long, thin rectangle seems so, well, wasteful.

But that was only until I considered the alternative: a giant's mouth, full of missing teeth as a perimeter. Or a diamond shape, with bites cut out. Maybe a squashed hat? No thank you. Straight lines and four clear corners make me smile. Ahh.

So I returned to my paradise, after the hottest day, perhaps ever, in Central Virginia (Dennis Bessette said, "It hit 115; hottest I've ever known it here"), and rejoiced.

Today, incredibly, the weather hardly hit 90. After what may be about four weeks of 100 degrees or more, a day in the upper 80s is livable, workable. Phil went to the lower pasture and, when pulling the cedar didn't work, he pushed it into the creek and kept on fencing. Three sides are now done, and he's working on clearing the fourth side. There is lush growth in that bottom land. We are excited for the cows to get down there.

The boys and I have been doing more school work. It's very pleasant for me to read to the boys, and I enjoy the little insights they have. Today we read a paragraph about muddy rain, that falls when volcanic ash mixes with rain. While the example volcano was in Southeast Asia, Jadon said, "Something like that probably happened at Krakatoa" (see The Twenty-One Balloons for that story), and Isaiah said, "Yeah, and at Vesuvius" (he reads and rereads a book about Pompeii).

To round out a pleasant one-year anniversary on the land day, we had the unpleasant task of beginning to destock our animals. The count was at 25 mammals, not including people or pets: 13 sheep, 3 pigs, 5 cows, and 4 goats.

When Phil and Ara killed the pigs, Ara actually did the shooting and the sticking (throat-cutting). But for an old goat, we didn't think it worth the money to pay someone else, or worth the hassle to bring her to the sale barn.

But it is so hard to kill a living animal. I'm actually tearing up over Chrystal, one of the first two animals to come to our farm. She was crotchety, and didn't breed, so she's been, more or less, a freeloader and a money sink since she came.

But she taught us about the importance of decent fences. And her coat changed from coarse black in the winter to a softer tan and black in the summer. She had a name and a history (Bessette farm to Tocci farm to Lykosh farm).

I won't miss her. I am happy to have her meat.

But we had to entice her out of her paddock with grain. After she had walked a little distance away, she refused to go any further. Phil took his .22 rifle and, while I held the lead rope to keep her head steady, Phil shot her between the eyes from about two inches away. She didn't flinch and died instantly.

Phil told me that he didn't close his eyes while taking the shot, but did when cutting her throat.

For Phil, who didn't cut the umbilical cords when his sons were born, to kill one of our animals: it's a big deal.

We're really in this life. We're doing it.

First Lumber

Phil finished assembling the sawmill today, and dragged (by hand!) one of the logs we've had next to the driveway (cut down from our stone fruit orchard, and dragged out with the truck over the winter).

He started with a termite-eated pine, which was a good idea, because first attempts are always a bit tenuous, even though he's watched multiple movies about how to saw.

In order to make a round tree into square lumber, first you must clamp the tree in place, so it won't roll while sawing. (I guess, really what comes first is felling the tree, then limbing the tree, and somehow man-handling it onto the mill. For a large tree, I think that would be a job in itself!)

Next, you take off the top, in order to create a flat surface.

This can be tricky: how can you tell if you've taken off enough? If you don't have it low enough, the blade will emerge out of the side of the tree, rather than the end. And if you try multiple times at almost the same depth, you might end up with a very fine sheet of wood: almost like paper. It took several goes, but Phil was finally satisfied.

With one flat edge, professionals turn the log 90 degrees, and saw off the top again. This gives them a square corner, and they can stop using the guides after that.

Then the third side, and either the fourth, for a square log (above), or simply leave the three-sided log in place and cut boards off the top, leaving the bottom rounded.

As you may tell from the photo, Phil's first attempt didn't work out quite so smoothly. His square, for whatever reason, was not square; no 90 degree angles anywhere. So frustrating!

He took a break in the air conditioning, and researched what he might be doing wrong. For the next logs, he would get one side flat, then flip the log over, so the flat side was down. This gave him a good, workable surface, and he cut some very serviceable poplar boards. Non-standard dimensions (not 2x4s), but beautiful, pretty much square boards. Really fun!

In other news, Tyson, our regular hay guy, came today and mentioned that it is so unusually dry in Virginia right now that many people are feeding hay already. (We are, but that's because we have very little grass to begin with, and our lower pasture isn't fenced yet.)

To make matters worse, the first cutting of hay was only half what it usually is, and the second cutting might not happen. The price for stocker cattle (where you buy a young calf, maybe 350 to 600 pounds, and feed the calf until it's ready for the feedlot or, if grassfed, processing) has dropped about $.30 per pound in the last couple of weeks. Instead of $1.20 per pound, they are selling for about $.90. That's a pretty large percentage drop.

Phil and I have been learning about stocker cattle, and it's interesting to actually witness what we've learned: drought and destocking (where you sell cattle because you don't have enough feed), price drops and hay shortages.

We are so thankful to have hay supplied. If we had to try to make it ourselves, there is just no way. The cutter alone runs about $25,000. Farmers who need hay might have to ship it in from other states, or destock. Oh, the pain!

All these things I never thought about when living in town. Hmm. Lack of rain makes life difficult for farmers.

Most of our trees appear to be doing well. We are thankful, especially, for irrigation!

DMV Rules: Virginia Is NOT for Lykoshes

Butch came by yesterday morning and helped Phil lift the 800+ pound engine part of the sawmill off the track part, since it was shipped at a 90 degree angle from how it should end up. (The photo shows the right way.)

Phil has spent some time, off and on, assembling it further, and it's coming along, as you can see.

He took a break and went to the lower pasture to put up more fence. Abraham soon followed—ever eager for a chance to use the machete. While there, the sky opened and a deluge struck. Poor guys. They were soaked by the time they made it up the hill: just in time to see the sun come out with the rainbow.

Phil went to the DMV twice today. First time, they needed proof of social security (yet another piece of paper they hadn't mentioned the first three times). When he finally arrived the FIFTH time with all the paperwork he can supply, the "gatekeeper" wouldn't even grant him a number, since he couldn't furnish any of their proofs of residency. She wouldn't allow him to talk to a supervisor even: just a flat refusal. She didn't care about the contradiction in the law v. the code. No. No. No.

Can't do anything about that. When he goes to court next month, I suppose it will be incumbent upon the prosecutor to prove residency, and Phil thinks that will be an easy decision in our favor.

Yet another day wasted to impossible paperwork. We're looking into other options, since this has fairly large repercussions. After all, it's hard to file taxes in a state when you're not a resident.

I moved both broody hens into their new cattle trailer pen. They have seven living chicks each. Of the three unhatched eggs, when I gently shook two of them, they sloshed around, so I'm assuming they are rotten. The third, though, didn't slosh at all. I'm guessing that one was a chick that just wasn't quite ready: maybe it got pushed a bit too far from the warmth of the mother's breast.

We Like Chicks

This afternoon, we all headed up to the DMV. Phil's third (fourth?) time to try and get licenses and registration. He has poured over the law and the code, and thinks he has figured out a way, legally, to allow us to register despite having no address.

This time, though, inexplicably, they required birth certificate and passport, which they hadn't needed the previous two times. We couldn't supply them, so we left. Third time wasn't the charm.

I hate anything that feels counter-productive. And while I realize that dealing with the DMV is a requirement to living and driving, and, therefore, non-negotiable, the loss of man-hours (the loss of time, and, therefore, life!) just about puts me over the edge.

I know it is worse in third world countries, where missionaries sometimes go to the post office for days to pick up a package; I cannot imagine being one of them. If I am ever called to Nepal or some such country, I will go, but I will plan for ulcers!

In happier news, barn hen now has six chicks, with a seventh breaking out. She is much more mild-mannered than the previous hen, so we picked up her surrogate chicks and loved on them.

Isaiah is holding a chick from the first batch, now a little over three weeks old, and a 24-hour chick. Those birds grow so quickly!

Jadon also noticed, around noon, a wet head poking out from under tote hen. Her dozen are hatching, too, though that single glimpse is all we saw today.

The sheep have grazed our apple orchard sufficiently, so we moved them across the driveway to the cherry orchard (the pigs are not moving quickly enough for our needs).

While Phil set up fencing, he had the younger boys block the way for the sheep. Little Joe really got into the part. He'd put up his little arms and growl. Then laugh. Honestly, they weren't very effective, but that's okay.

Cedar, Spider, Jellyfish, Chick

We have not been home much the previous two days. We took a day trip to the Chesapeake Bay, which was a good long drive, but fun, too, to play in the sand. Jadon went kicking out into the bathtub-warm water on a boogie board and came back shortly, complaining of an itch. I went out into the water to solve this mystery, and soon felt itchy myself.

What a shock it gave me to look down and see a jellyfish there in the water! Eek! And another! And another!

We stayed close to the shore after that. Blech!

On Sunday, we had three hours at home between church and Bible study. On a whim, we stopped by the Doug Bush's, and Doug and Denise were just heading out to set up their electric netting for the first time. "What great timing!" they said. "Think how many arguments you saved us, since you are already competent at putting up this netting!"

Today, then, I was faced with a backlog of dishes, and a backlog of paperwork. The boys were happy to be back at home, and played happily all day. I kept going over to see if they wanted me to read to them, but they were always so engrossed in their little stories and adventures, I didn't have the heart to disrupt them. I even caught Jadon doing Flashmaster, a wonderful electronic "flashcard" game, with his TOES! I'm glad he's voluntarily practicing his math facts, but my goodness: what a level of added difficulty!

Three weeks ago today, we seeded the broody hen with 12 eggs. Two didn't fit underneath, so the first day, we reduced her to ten. I found one rolled away about three days ago, whether because she could tell there was no sign of life, or simply by accident, I couldn't tell, and I wasn't about to crack it open. I'm not that tough yet! So I put it in the slop bucket, and let the pigs deal with whatever it contained.

Of the nine remaining eggs, I actually got a glimpse of them today, when the hen walked off briefly. One egg had cracked significantly, and I could see the little membrane moving in and out. Another three eggs had little cracks, and one whole egg wobbled, just a bit.

It is surreal to watch a rock-like inanimate object suddenly move without an outside force touching it. Beautiful, really.

And then, in the midst of this observation time, the original broody hen and her remaining ten chicks descended. They ate the food set out for Miss Still-Broody, fought the frantic mother off, and stepped on her hatching eggs! The rotten chicks! I hadn't considered how terribly vulnerable the hatching shells would be: a shell remains incredibly strong until it cracks a bit. Then it is fragile, susceptible to even little chick steps.

We finally shooed Little Red Hen and Co outside, and the broody hen ran in and sat back down.

As of tonight, I heard one cheeping, and saw a part of a shell, so one, at least, is alive.

We have a beautiful spider on our barn door. I think he shed his exoskeleton and emerged, larger. Not everyone has such a striking companion in their kitchen.

Phil continues to slowly fence in the lower pasture. He cut down a cedar tree today. It didn't fall where he wanted, but landed in Hog Creek instead. I don't know that we'll be able to get it out, which is too bad because it is beautiful and smells delicious. Such a lovely red color! You can see in the background the cleared swath he has worked on. Bushes and brush, small trees and downed timber all pushed aside to make room for the new fence. What a project!

Workshop with a Master Breeder

After a couple of fairly dull days, I woke up this morning before 5:30 and drove up toward DC to attend a breeding workshop.

Master breeder Ken McDowall of New Zealand developed a particular line of Devon beef cows over 35 years. You can see some of his bulls here. Many of them look like a rectangle with tiny little supporting legs. Amazing animals.

When we wanted to retire a few years back, he sold the entire herd to Ridge Shinn of Massachusetts, who just happened to develop the American Milking Devon Association in the late 1970s (yay for us!), and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which seeks to preserve American animal breeds that aren't currently in favor. That's pretty smart, I think: although Devons were disliked because they gained too much weight in feedlots, they are perfect for the resurgence of grass-fed beef today.

Devons thrive on rough forage (as opposed to nice pasture). Ken said that, when he first went to manage his farm, he had nothing but ferns growing, and ferns are supposed to be poisonous to cattle. But his original animals had to make do. The neighbor's fence gave out shortly thereafter (I think there was a bull and some cows in heat involved), and the neighbor's animals came to join the Devons. Sadly, five of those 13 escapees died of fern ingestion!

I found the workshop helpful in answering some basic questions I have had, like should I be concerned about the rougher hair coats on my Vermont cows, compared to the Tennessee cows? (No: rough coats traditionally are more hardy animals.)

How close is too close in breeding? (Ken dislikes actual inbreeding. We skips two generations, and waits until the third generation out to rebreed a great-granddaughter to her great-grandfather.)

Does "100% grass-fed actually mean NO grain, even if a little oats happen to be growing in the field? (NO GRAIN means none for enticing, none for feed, but if a small bit happens to grow in a field, that will probably be okay.)

I came away feeling encouraged and excited: there is plenty of potential for a Milking Devon herd! I can figure out how to breed my babies well!

After the 2 1/2 hour drive, I arrived home to find Phil laid up with a migraine (he ate a burger at our church's swim party, and we think the burger had a seasoning on it. I'm frustrated because I noticed that, but didn't mention it right then, and forgot. I hate that Phil loses entire days of his life to the MSG allergy. Days that never return).

He had managed to unload our sawmill, which arrived today. I'm fairly certain he won't get it together for the next several days, but simply unloading the 1800 pound machine is a good effort for an ill man.

Little Things of Little Consequence

No major changes since Saturday, just the little things of life.

Before we released the chicks to the big pen, one chick got "pasted up" (its vent (anus) was sealed off). I had assumed that an observant mother hen would notice such a problem and deal with it, so I hadn't been watching for that trouble. By the time I noticed, the chick looked sick: hunched up, eyes closed, standing off by itself.

I had no idea such a little chick could have been stopped up so far. I cleaned it out, and cleaned it out for probaby half an hour.

The next day, the chick was scrambling with its siblings, and all appeared well.

But a day after we moved the chicks into the large pen, one chick wasn't following its mother. I gave it a box on its own, but it kept hopping out, so we let it be. It must have died, since we never found any remains, and we had only 14 chicks.

Now we're down to 12. Phil figures that something picked off two during the day while they're out scratching around. At night, they're all under the mother, so much much chance for murder then. Too bad!

The twelve remaining are strong and large, and that is good.

The sheep have made it through one pass of the pome (apples and pears) orchard. On Saturday, Phil set up a long, thin path with our movable netting, and they went back and forth on that path over and over. Now they are racing through the growth on the orchard floor. Phil is trying to move them faster, and let them leave more on the ground.

We accidentally left the sheep without water all day on Sunday, while we went to church, ran errands, and went to Bible study. Thankfully, despite the heat, they must have had enough water in their grazing plants that none of them were prostrate or dead (or even distressed in any way) when we got home. We were thankful.

Phil's been reading several grazing books during the day right now, trying to figure out the best way to set up the new cow paddock, and how to help the sheep and pigs help our orchard floor. It's an intense learning curve.

The pigs appear to be growing well. We spent a couple hours last Tuesday visiting with our goat-cheese making neighbor Gail, who "makes some of the finest goat cheese in America," according to magazing Southern Living. (She didn't say that herself, but I read about it before meeting her). She had some extra whey, so our pigs have been sucking that down. I appreciate that they are growing well with less money out of pocket.

Phil was getting water in the barn, when a big insect flew in the door, stung him on the lip, and flew away. Bah! He had a very swollen lip, and even a little swelling in his cheek, but it wasn't too bad.

I have been trying to get back to a more normal routine, which means more time homeschooling the boys and working, and less time helping around the farm. If I do only two hours a day in farm work, that helps me keep balanced.

I've been rereading How to Grow More Vegetables, which may be the most impressive gardening book ever. I couldn't do his intensive beds last year when we moved in, since I had no running water, but now I'm ready to start. I've compiled a few layers of a compost bed the way John Jeavons recommends, and I did the first step of actually making a double-dug garden bed: I used a garden fork to loosen the top inches of soil.

The boys do funny things often. One of Isaiah's sandals split in three pieces a bit ago, and while he waits for new sandals to arrive, he and Jadon have been sharing a pair. Usually one will go barefoot, but the other day they made us laugh: they each put one sandal on and hopped to dinner.

Artificial Insemination: A Pictorial

Phil and I were up early to make sure Fern was in the chute and ready for Giovanni. Michelle said that cows behave differently when they're in heat: they're more willing to put up with strange behavior from humans. It was as if Fern knew that she was the star: she headed right into the pen without struggle or fuss, and it took all of 30 seconds. I couldn't believe it.

A light rain had fallen all night, the first precipitation we've had in weeks. We were grateful. It was a good morning.

Why did we not use AI last night, when Fern was in standing heat? A bull would breed during a heifer's standing heat, and the sperm would swim towards her cervix. At some point in the next day, she would release an egg, right about the time the sperm arrive.

For AI, though, we hope that the egg is there waiting, since the semen is deposited right into the cervix. Hence, this morning's attempt.

When Giovanni arrived, he pulled a huge canister out of his truck. I had no idea it would be so large. It stores liquid nitrogen, which keeps the straws frozen. We had purchased 8 straws of semen, for $80, and to ship those straws was over $80. I was surprised about that, but after seeing the container, it made sense. (We pay to have the canister shipped both ways. The semen sales place shipped them to Giovanni, he transferred them to his canister, and then the shipper picks up the first canister and it returns to the semen sales place.)

Giovanni pulled out a little straw, covered in ice.

He put it in a cup of water, to bring it to cow body temperature almost instantly.

Then he loaded the straw into a long metal syringe which pushes the semen into the cervix. The long syringe went into a larger plastic straw (see above for comparative sizes). The plastic straw has a trap on the end, which prevents the semen straw from getting pushed permanently into the cow. Finally, he put on a flimsy sterile sheath (the texture of cheap sterile gloves), which, I suppose, prevents contamination.

Next he put on a shoulder-length gloves, secured with a rubber band, and Giovanni went striding off swiftly to work with Fern.

As far as I can tell, one hand went into her rectum, and from there, he could manipulate her cervix (perhaps through a membrane?). The straw itself went into her vagina, and from there, into the cervix.

As a heifer (unbred cow), her cervix opening was small and tight. There are three layers he had to open in order to deposit the semen, and it took a long time: about twenty minutes. No kidding. Usually, he said, it doesn't take so long. Poor Fern. She held up well.

Then, because Milking Devons are notoriously difficult to settle (impregnate) with AI, he did another straw. This time it was only maybe ten minutes more.

I have to remind myself that a bull would not be more gentle, necessarily. Bulls actually jump on their hind legs, so cows hold their tales out for a day or two afterwards; they are sore!

Giovanni grew up on a dairy farm in the Piedmont of Italy. Now he lives here, in the Virginia Piedmont, with his wife, also a vet. They run the Piedmont Veterinary Clinic, which I think is a clever name for the two of them. We enjoyed chatting with him while he worked. Joe was on my back, and, like many Italian men we've met, he loved smiling at, and talking to, the child.

But then, Joe is such a smiling boy, just about everybody likes him.

Hallelujah, What a Savior!

In contrast to my nightmare, stressful last night, I awoke this morning with the chorus to "Hallelujah, What a Savior" running through my mind. So much better!

I had been asking the Lord that, if Fern would still go into heat, that I would please not miss it. If it's passed for this cycle, it's passed, but if not, please let me see it.

I went over to look at her this evening, and 1-year-old heifer Toots was licking her backside. Now that's not normal cow behavior, which made me hopeful. I knew that cows will sometimes rest their heads on the rump of a cow in heat, and figured it might work for people, too. I hopped the fence and put my hand on her rump, just a little pressure.

She didn't move away! Standing heat! Thank you, Lord!

Giovanni will come at 7am tomorrow. (He is a funny man. He has a French accent and an enthusiastic voice. He said, "I will not be pulling you from your bed? Well, if I need to, I will do it!")

A Nightmare, and the Reality

I awoke in the night from a horrid nightmare, in which our heifer strained to deliver a baby, but when the calf came, it was actually a dried out, green, rotten embryo, rather than the vibrant calf we had expected.

Since today was supposed to be Fern's day in heat, I spent a couple of hours in the night, dozing and praying, and woke to greet the day discombobulated and demoralized, almost despairing.

And Fern showed no signs of heat. After three clear cycles, the one week when we finally have time, semen straws, and the technician in the country, Fern appeared to skip her cycle altogether.

Despair. If a heifer is bred too young, she has to build too much of her own frame while growing a calf, and that shortens her life. But if a heifer is bred too old, she gets too fat and becomes sterile. So I have, hanging over my head, two more months of summer (though hopefully not two more months of consistent 100 degree weather); a two-year-old heifer in a breed that doesn't take AI (artificial insemination) well, and no knowledge of where to find a bull, all while the clock is ticking on Fern's window of potential breeding.

No wonder I had a nightmare. I talked to Giovanni, our AI technician, and he advised to wait until the next cycle. Or maybe she'll show signs tomorrow. But with the heat this month: it's stressful on the animals.

Stressful on the people, too. I understand why tempers "flare" when it's hot; hot heads lead to hotheads.

The good news? The boys and I finished The Cricket in Times Square which is so superb, I can hardly express it. That was very good.

And Phil finished the pig pen. I think it's adorable, fitting perfectly between the rows of peaches and cherries. He propped up one side, and the pigs happily followed me, as I made the sound that means "food!" It feels good to have them contained, and they appear happy in their new digs.

Piglets, Chicks, and Hot Weather

We've had 100+ degree days here. Phil got our new window A/C unit installed just in time. I understand why homesteaders would make outdoor kitchens in the summer. I stand in the motor home and wash dishes and, even using tepid water, the sweat rolls off my chin. It's a unique experience!

So we head into the trailer and bask in the 80 degree cool. The boys and I have spent more time doing school work, and we've laughed a lot.

After I was so happy the pigs returned, they got out again Tuesday morning. We haven't bothered to corral them. Thankfully, they recognize that we are the source of all things feed and slop, and they are hanging around. Phil built them a lovely pen in the woods yesterday evening, and right before we headed up to lure the pigs down, we looked at each other and realized that we don't want the pigs in the woods. We want them eating down the growth between the trees!

So Phil worked this evening on a portable pen. He didn't quite finish before nightfall. It does make us nervous to have the little piglets wandering around; it's certainly less stressful when they are all contained.

We watched our Fern carefully all day; tomorrow is her expected heat, and we can do nothing but wait and watch. And pray.

Our chicks were ten days old today, and the book said that they could join the old hens and should be okay. Good thing, too, because the chicks escaped their strawbale pen today.

The hen herded them around, wings outstretched for protection. The chicks enjoyed the larger area, I think. No signs of aggression from the older hens, so it was a good integration all around.

And totally off topic, but worth mentioning: most mornings after breakfast, we read a chapter in the Bible. The boys need to either ask us a question or make a comment.
This has been an excellent method to make them listen, to find out what confuses them, and to talk with them about our view of the Scriptures.

A Pig Adventure

As I was feeding the pigs last evening, I thought, "I am so pleased that I will never again be a first-time pig owner. We've kept these pigs contained, and they are content, and I like them so much."

Michelle Besette stopped by today, on her way to an appointment. "Your pigs are running down our drive!"

We didn't believe at first that they could be ours. Our little piglets wouldn't go a mile and a half away. But as we searched through the brush in their pen, their usual hiding spot that obscures them completely, all we found was Buttercup. She had been foiled in her escape attempt by the ear tag, which was, again, entangled in the mesh fencing.

We took the younger boys, and drove off to find our two piglets.

Forty-five minutes later, both were again captured and returned to their pen.

It was indeed a mercy: the one person on our four mile road who reads our blog and knew we had piglets, happened to leave her house at the time the piglets reached her driveway. And then, rather than the piglets continuing on across fields and through forest, they stayed on the long Bessette driveway, so we spent no frustrating time searching (though the catching was a challenge). The pigs know us, at least a bit, so they came near our food. That's how Phil caught the first. The second, more shrewd, led us on a wild chase around and around the car, but we finally cornered him and Phil snatched him by the back legs.

At a mile and a half away, those pigs were not coming back. We would have been two pigs the less, and none the wiser, had it not been for our good neighbor.

The funniest part of this story, to me, is that Michelle was on her way to see neighbor Butch. She called right before she left and said, "I'll only be ten minutes, unless a cow got out."

Because she came to tell us, she was longer than ten minutes, but Butch didn't mind. He was happy to hear what the two black "dogs" he had seen run across his yard actually were.

Phil stayed out late last night, helping our church provide the entertainment for the carnival and fireworks in Charlottesville.

This is certainly in keeping with his character. Eleven years ago, when we were just friends, the 4th of July also fell on a Sunday. At 4:30am on Monday the 5th, he and I got up to take a friend of mine to the airport (I delayed getting my driver's license, so I couldn't take her on my own). As we dropped her off, well before 6am, I said, "Thank you so much for helping me bring little Lindsey to the airport. I'm sure you had something better to do on your day off."

He said, "Better than serve someone in the name of Christ? I don't think so."

That was the minute I fell in love, and pretty much expected we'd get married from that point on.

Good story, I think!

Lower Pasture Fence: Beginning

Since the cows have just about finished the upper pasture, Phil is ready to fence in the lower pasture, near the creek. (Really, right now it's more like forest, but it WILL be pasture eventually.) He had helped Martin Bush with some engineering calculations, so Martin came this afternoon to help clear the fence line.

First, they loaded dozens of cattle panels into the truck, and drove it down to the lower pasture. In the background of the above photo, you can see the area he cleared with the bucket last year: the more fertile bottomland has grown grass well.

They wanted to clear about a 5' swath, for ease of access and workspace. Back at the homestead, I could hear the whine of the chainsaw periodically: they would cut, then push debris into the clearing area; cut some more, and drag some more.

Some sections required massive materials handling. They cut through dense underbrush, and moved the downed material into the future pen, creating, in spots, walls of timber and brush five feet high.

It was a good afternoon's work. I loved the look of the future fencerow, set up and ready to go.

While Abraham was showing me the cleared areas, he was running downslope and took a hard spill. The sharp edge of a newly cut sapling avoided his head by fractions of an inch, and he came up, bawling, with a tiny scratch on his throat. Yet another protection.

Earlier in the day, piglet Fox escaped from his pen, burrowing under two fence lines in order to get to my garden. He rooted up some lima beans and some sweet corn, before I grabbed him by his hind legs and pulled him up. I wasn't sure I could swing him over the six foot high fence, to return him to his proper home, so Phil helped.

That little rascal immediately tried to rediscover his original exit point. He was shocked about 15 times before he gave up, and burrowed under a weed pile, with his two fellow piglets, for an afternoon rest.

The piglets make me laugh. Their previous owner really liked them, so they are fairly used to handling already. We can give them food scraps, and rub them all over while they eat, and their tales don't even uncurl (or at least, not all the time).

On Friday, Phil and I were moving their pen. Two piglets hopped out from their weedy haven right away, but I almost stepped on Fox. I wasn't sure he was still alive, he was so still. Then his nose twitched, and I felt him all over: "Are you sick?"

Suddenly he hopped up, and Phil laughed. "Not sick, just really, really asleep."

Cagey Cow

I went to order meat chicks for an end-of-August delivery this morning. Phil and I thought it would be fun to also have some ducks, and a couple of turkeys, too. I was hoping for the standard Khaki Campbell meat ducks, and preferably the Midget White turkeys (which win taste tests), or maybe Bourbon Red turkeys (also very good).

Incredibly, there were no ducks to be had, of any variety, after the week of July 12, which wouldn't work for us. There were no turkeys, to be had, at all. For the interested party, get into duck and turkey breeding: there's a shortage, apparently.

I weighed my "Music" garlic harvest today, and was surprised to see that I, again, had only about a four-fold increase. This time, though, I did an experiment, as many of my heads seemed quite robust. Indeed, the top 20% of the garlic was over eight times larger than the initial planting. However, the bottom 20% didn't sprout at all. So somehow I need to figure out how to make more of my garlic grow as well as the top 20%.

This afternoon, we tried to again corral Fern. After all, if she is to be bred this next week, we need to know that she can be corralled. That cagey cow, though, figured out that she could go under the electric wire Phil and I held, and she tried that. She figured out that she could jump over, too, and she tried that.

Phil went to buy more fencing. When she goes into heat, we will be ready. (We hope.)

I would like to introduce the fantastic "Super Trunks," the young superhero, accompanied by his sidekick "Bobby."

Jadon and Isaiah have enjoyed hours of pleasant imaginative scenarios with their inventive personas.

One Last Glimpse of Bees

As a quick commemoration, I would like to mention that, as I picked bugs off the cherry trees yesterday, I found a single cherry. I ate it. It tasted like a cherry.

Phil sheared two sheep first thing this morning. He did it the "professional" way; rather than sitting almost on top of the sheep to control it, he stood up, and rested the sheep against his legs. After the first sheep, he said, "I feel like I've run about six miles, after not exercising for years."

Shearing is hard work, but he did another, B.B. the lamb. The lamb looked fluffy, but it didn't have much wool. He thinks he won't do the other lamb, which means that shearing is done for the year.

In the afternoon, we managed to corral Fern. She is a smart cookie, but with both Phil and I holding (non-electrified) electric line between us, we got her into the headgate we'd made for her on the fourth try or so. We fed her treats, and brushed her. Phil put her collar back on her, and led her around with the halter for a while. She calmed down significantly in the twenty minutes or so he walked with her.

Towards the evening, Phil and I went to shovel more minerals under the trees. Incredibly, he glanced down at one of the trailer wheels and said, "Oh, my! That wheel is about to fall off." Sure enough, the bolt that holds the wheel on had fallen off. And Phil had spotted it! Out of our whole farm, he knew just where to find the bolt.

How that wheel hadn't fallen off, with the hundreds of pounds of minerals in the trailer, over the very rough terrain: it's another provision of the Lord. (Phil carefully tried to drive five feet further to get to a better spot, once he spotted the problem, but the wheel immediately loosened so that Phil stopped.)

Phil shoveled so many minerals that he finished off another of the final three totes. He is so happy that those totes will soon be empty. He moved aside the pallet it was on, and found many nightcrawler earth worms. So we captured them, and have them in a bucket in the kitchen. They don't seem to be doing a whole lot.

I went to cook dinner, but Phil kept on. After a bit, he called me over: he'd found a small swarm of bees on a tree branch. It was a tiny swarm, no larger than a cup. But I glimpsed a swollen abdomen: an unmarked queen! I looked in the beehive, and, sure enough, the final queen had emerged at some point in the last week. I'm guessing she flew her matrimonial flight, and swarmed with any bees yet living.

They have flown away now, but it was a happy, sort of hopeful ending to the Spring Forth honeybees of 2010.

The weather cooled a bit now, down to the mid-80s. I had heard that June 24 was a record-setting day, three degrees hotter than the previous record, set in 1914. But I didn't realize, until Phil heard on the radio, that normal June weather is in the mid-80s, not 95-100.

This makes much more sense about why I had multiple recommendations to plant my sauerkraut cabbage in mid-June. Usually, it wouldn't be too hot. Cabbage does fine, according to the books, even at 85. But I suspect that 100+ is, truly, too hot for it. So I plan to buy more seeds, and try again, a little later.

In the evening, I planted 96 broccoli seeds. I use styrofoam egg containers, with a hole punched in the bottom as my inexpensive planters. We'll see if I do a better job keeping them alive than the tomato seedlings earlier this year: those ones I set out in the garden way too early.

The boys and I planted more corn. I rammed the spoke into the ground, and the boys took turns dropping seeds in the holes. I liked that method very much; less stooping for me. And we were thrilled to see tiny shoots from the corn I planted several days ago; something is growing!