Sunday, March 31, 2013

No Church for Us Today

Phil's alarm failed to go off for the sunrise service this morning.

Looking back, that was a blessing, though we didn't realize it.

The family was up and about five minutes from leaving for church when Phil noticed that behind Abraham's ear looked sore. Abraham's bath had required a good bit of scrubbing yesterday (all boys were quite orange from playing and hiking and general living). Further investigation showed that his neck had a rash, too. We checked his back: tiny chicken pox all over.

Joe had them, too, on further looking. So did Isaiah.

I had a splitting headache (and I am not known for headaches, so this was horribly upsetting). I wasn't going anywhere. But the idea of staying home alone with three rowdy boys with chicken pox, who mostly all felt fine—that did not appeal.

So on this day that we celebrate Jesus's resurrection, we all stayed home from all services.

Nevertheless, he is risen!

So where did these chicken pox come from? Jadon broke out in spots two weeks ago today. Where did he get them? Most people immunize against them, so although I hoped the boys would get them as children, that didn't seem terribly likely.

Here's my best guess. Four weeks ago, the rest of the family headed up to church. Afterwards, they ate out and went to the grocery. None of these would have exposed Jadon to more chicken pox germs than the other boys. They go places together. They see the same people.

But I suspect that someone had their baby immunized the Friday before, rendering the child just a little contagious. Chicken pox is so highly contagious, I don't think it would take much. Perhaps that baby (or the parent) then went to the grocery and used a cart. Later, Jadon, helpful boy that he is, pushed the cart, too. (Phil had chicken pox as a child, so none showed up for him.)

Is this plausible? I have no idea. Sounds reasonable to me, though.

Abraham has the worst case. He was really upset (though not necessarily feeling sick) until Phil mentioned that it is good to have them when young, since when you have them as an adult, the illness is much worse: "Some people have even died." So Abraham has reminded his brothers that, "It is a blessing to have chicken pox now, because if we did when we were older, we might die."

All the boys have been extra dear lately. Joe knocked on the door to give me a little purple flower. Abraham remembers the blessing in a bad case of the chicken pox. (He also showed Grandma every one of the Waldos and all the other things to find in our four or five Waldo books—that 45 minutes was, I'm sure an exercise in patience, but also a joy to see how eager he was to show off the result of all those painstaking hours looking for scrolls or tails or books or whatever else.) Isaiah helped Phil all day, happily doing whatever was asked. And Jadon walked at Grandpa's pace over a two-mile trek across rough terrain, just keeping Grandpa company. The boys help Grandma learn some of our simple recipes, and help her find things in the kitchen.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Spring Blossoms

Feeling a little better today, I went out to see if anything besides daffodils were blooming. I even took photos, but my download cord is very buried on my desk; sometime I will dig myself out, and catch up on photos and filing and everything else.

Peaches are showing pink bud tips; plums are showing white buds. I am thankful they didn't open already: we had a heavy snow fall on Sunday.

Besides odd precipitation, the temperatures have remained stubbornly low, too low for Phil to get many hours in with block in any given day. His window of warmness is about five hours, and he plugs away during that time, but we both wish he could do more.

He finished laying the bond beam blocks on the top today, and did two bags of mortar, which filled a surprising length: the short west side and perhaps a quarter of the longer north side. We can hope for tomorrow to be the end (finally) of those two walls.

Phil's parents came out on Sunday. They arrived in a heavy snowstorm. The power went out in the night, so the morning was chilly in the motor home for them (well, chilly for all of us). It has been a great blessing to have them here: we've eaten more than just hotdogs and cold cuts. The boys have gone on walks with Grandma, picking up trash. Jadon my game lover gets to play plenty.

And every night the boys show Grandma and Grandpa another favorite movie. Tonight they are watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The boys watched this last week, and, perhaps because of their homeschooling, they found it hysterical. They were up until 11pm quoting and requoting their favorite lines. Which was pretty much the whole movie.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Construction Update

Though I haven't described it much (and haven't taken the photos I should have, nor downloaded the few I've taken), Phil has continued to work on the top layer of the north and west walls. Before he did that, he had to grout cells, and that took many days. Grouting done, he went to set the lintel over the window and realized it wouldn't offer the stability or load support he needed. (Something like: it has rebar embedded, but the rebar is smaller than desired; plus, the lintel is fully formed, so rebar leading up to it cannot overlap, creating extreme weak spots right at the corners of the window: no good.)

Last Thursday, Phil managed to get the several hundred pound lintels raised up to the 12' wall and put in place. That was when he fully realized that his plan was not going to work.

Friday he had the undesirable task of cutting away a few blocks, already hardened in place and grouted, in order to drop the lintel one block down. This will allow a complete bond beam above, which is perfect. But moving the several hundred pound lintel over, and not dying while he did so, then moving it, on an angle, down into place ... I expect Phil never wants to do that again.

After three days of rain and a half day to let the precipitation dry, Phil went to grout the lintel. The mortar had to be extremely stiff, lest the heavy lintel squirt it all out. Finally, though, that task, too, was done, and he could lay block.

The bond beam of one wall is laid, but not mortared. "This is taking a lot longer than I expected," Phil said today. "But now I know what to do on the other walls."

When he knocked off work for today, he went over to check on the cows. He had mentioned yesterday that he thought Bianca might give birth soon, which is good because her due date is Saturday. She gave birth today successfully to another heifer. Yay!

Monday, March 18, 2013

We Get By

Phil called this morning from the pasture. I had just gotten up and done my morning retching, happily had not yet eaten (digestion takes all my energy, and, frankly, hurts. So I lie down after eating). "All the cows are gone. I need you to get dressed and come help."

This was actually a relief. Phil had gone late yesterday, despite feeling ill and run down, to move the cows into the next pasture, which required extra line stringing. He had about 100 feet to go, and the cows were far away in the previous pasture. He decided to open the pen, so he wouldn't have to hike back again later.

Sadly, the reel he grabbed to finish the job happened to be broken, and as the eager cows moved rapidly towards the opening, the entire 3000' of line suddenly balled into an unusable mass. How to keep 16 cows from escaping, without electric line or aid? And with a rotten dog chasing them where he didn't want them to go?

Almost impossible. A fall in the creek. A lot of running. An extra hour of work. And when they were finally corralled, night had fallen so deeply that he couldn't find all the posts he set up. So the line wrapped around some trees, and he didn't turn it on.

In the night, I heard dogs barking. When we moved here, there were reports of nasty packs killing calves, and I had horrible visions of dead calves littering the pasture.

By comparison, lost cows were not much to deal with.

While Phil fixed the line in the corral, I headed out to bring the cows back. They had ranged further than ever before, grazing almost up to neighbor Butch's house, three properties away. Once I reached the lead cow, I turned her around and then the whole herd headed back where they were supposed to go.

But I only had 15: one of the calves was missing. A little calf, somewhere on three properties, could be almost anywhere.

The cows reached their proper spot, and then kept going. (To keep their access open, the line was down, and they looped back out.) So Phil and I headed them off again. Somewhere along that stretch, we picked up the last calf. What a relief!

In other news, we've had a lot of rain. And snow. I have reached a point of morning sickness where I can hardly focus to write (hence, no posts since last Wednesday). I read as much as nine hours a day when I first started feeling ill, but I don't have that stamina any more. We have watched about a movie a day lately: the boys had their first taste of Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It. Also The Blind Side (Joe slept through that, which was probably good) and The Importance of Being Earnest. And Pixar. Lots of Pixar.

I don't know how chronically ill families manage. Phil is about at the end of his rope, trying to deep with cows and construction, basic cooking and cleaning. And parenting. And errands. I'll be ten weeks tomorrow. I usually feel better around week 20 (though maybe the worst is over before that? I don't remember). When he realized he might have ten more weeks, he said, "I don't think I'm going to make it."

We will make it. We have before. Perhaps it's nice that, when one has the flu, other people's angst fades in the moment to moment need to survive. In some ways, that's where I am. I'm sorry Phil is struggling, I'm sorry the boys are stuck inside watching more movies than I'd willingly choose, but physically I feel bad enough, I am not offering up much sympathy.

With such a cheery post as this, I feel like I should end on a happy note. Maybe something like, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Wait. No. That's not a happy note!

(And that is actually the happy note. I can still make a literary joke, even from my super sick bed! Hooray for The Great Gatsby!)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Good Phil Stays Busy

From Monday night to Tuesday morning, I suspect Phil was up until around 4am. We ordered lintels to go above windows, but when he checked the specs, the lintels would not be strong enough to support the roof. Hmm. He always likes to do his engineering design work into the wee hours. He gets in a groove and time passes. When he worked outside the home, this would drive me bonkers. Eight pm: are you coming home? Oh! I thought it was 4:30! Yes!

This overnight design fun would have been no problem. Except that I had noticed that it had been raining on and off all night, and in the middle of a particularly stressful dream, I suddenly woke, heart pounding: "We have a newborn calf, who we haven't verified has eaten yet. Soaked overnight in rain like this, she might be almost dead. But our house is so crowded and our bulb syringe broken—where and how will I keep her alive?"

Not up for hiking next door in the rain, I woke Phil. He lay stunned for a bit, then got up and headed out. I had suggested he try maybe leading Cleo and carrying the baby, bringing them to the barn.

That wasn't one of my brightest ideas. Perhaps an hour later Phil returned, drenched (none of his waterproofs are waterproof any more), all cows and calves in their original places. The calf had been shivering, but did not appear worse for the wear.

Soon the sun came out, and though the building site was flooded, the air was warm. Phil went to check again and the calf rested on dry hay and all was well.

Phil needed clean clothes, so he took the boys (all tempted by the root beer that Phil gets any companions who go with him) and the five of them did laundry for a few hours.

He unloaded the bags of clean laundry, then took the boys up to town. They ate there, and did the grocery shopping. Phil was beat by the end of that trip.

In the snowstorm last week, the awning over the motor home collapsed. This made the farm look even more decrepit than before. Phil figured out how to fix it, though.

Then he went with me to add supers to the beehives. I checked on them several days ago, and now, just a few days later, am amazed at the frantic activity showing on the board below the hive. Fun though swarming was last year, the idea overwhelms me this year, and so we added a super to each hive, hoping the increased space will allow the bees to build up in freedom, and not grow agitated from too tight quarters.

Just in the last three days, the daffodils have burst into bloom in earnest, and the comfrey has finally poked up. No sign of asparagus yet.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Successful First Delivery

Saturday evening when I visited the cows, I noticed that Cleo had mucus on her backside, the cow equivalent of a mucus plug. Her teats seemed filled out: I suspected 12 hours until birth.

Nothing yesterday. Phil reported no change when he brought hay to the cows this morning.

He poured grout today. It was rough. He was back to nasty, sticking to the back of the mixer, half hour extra per batch grout. He said that he spilled so much that, had he had help, he might have been done today. As it is, he has probably two more batches to do.

I'm sure he was fighting exhaustion by the end of the day, but he headed over to check on the cows.

And Cleo had given birth, without difficulty. Her daughter was walking around.

What a huge relief.

One more first time heifer to go. She's due in two weeks.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Phil's Accidental Poisoning

When Phil found Beatrice yesterday, the day was far spent. He realized he could not extricate the backhoe from the depths of the blue building before dark, so he brought the forks over and moved Beatrice out of the paddock.

I didn't mention how stressful this was. My first walk in weeks, and I had to pull the electric line free. This was only a problem because when Phil would lift her off the ground, one of the rear tires came a foot or two off the ground. The hill was just enough to severely overbalance the tractor.

Unflappable Phil practiced a few times, standing up while steering to see his clearance. I threw my hands up in alarm, but that distracts more than aids. I stood out of Phil's line of sight.

And so he progressed downslope, foot by foot. Beatrice probably weighed close to 1000 pounds, the limit for the forks. He could not keep both back wheels on the ground, no matter how he angled the tractor. So, in the end, he drove away on one back tire, inching his way toward level ground.

Two years ago, we buried Reese. Phil put Beatrice down there and headed home for the night.

We debated going to church today. But after church and grocery shopping, Phil wasn't sure he'd have time to get the cow buried. And, really, how much of a coyote/fox/dog target do we really want to be?

So Phil got up and headed out to get the backhoe. It probably took an hour or so. Then another hour or two to dig the hole and bury her.

It was probably noon when he returned. I had fallen asleep, but woke to hear Joe knocking on the door (he is too short to reach the door handle, so if he's shut outside, he can't get in on his own). Bless Phil—I think he had fallen asleep, too, but he roused himself and let the boy in. Then roused himself again a bit later to wipe him.

"I'm poisoned," he said, as I dozed. "Carbon monoxide. I was in the barn with the tractor, moving stuff around, too long. I am queasy and have a headache."

Concerned wife that I am, I think I woke up then, but didn't say much. I didn't look up handy homeopathy for accidental poisoning. I just sat in a stupor. Phil fell asleep for a few hours. He's sitting up now, so I assume he's better.

Our life: where a dead cow almost kills a tractor and a man.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Twenty-One Percent

Phil went to town to play poker last night. Five bucks for four hours of fun with friends—he had a good time. He got up early and went to hay the cows while the ground was still frozen. All was well.

Back home, he went down to continue to grout the walls. The first batch seemed awfully runny, but it wasn't until he was finished that he realized he had only added half the cement he should have. There was no way to scoop ten vertical feet of wet grout out of a small cell with rebar up the middle. What to do? Be thankful it wasn't at either a corner or the center of a long wall, and trust that the Lord works despite our humanity.

Isaiah wasn't as helpful today as he had been yesterday. I heard Phil yell, "Isaiah, where are you?" He and Joe were on a pallet in the air, and Isaiah had been distracted by snowballs in a bag or something equally enticing. He did come back and let his family members down, but the focus of yesterday had vanished today.

I walked as far as the asparagus patch (so, maybe 50 yards), which felt like a triumph. No signs of asparagus yet. Isaiah and I watched the bees, with full pollen pockets. The air was buzzing, the energy palpable. I picked a small handful of what I think was garden sorrel, and a bit of kale. I am starving for fresh greens!

So all was well until I got a call from Phil, with the final bit of battery before his phone died. I could tell from his voice that not all was well.

Phil had gone over to water the cows and found Beatrice dead.

Beatrice, named for the Dutch queen; first calf born on the farm, delivered without difficulty on the one day we were incommunicado at Colonial Williamsburg. Beatrice, Phil's favorite cow, both in personality and body conformation.

She was in the middle of delivery and had flopped onto the electric wire. Presumably, the electric shock had killed her. But it was a single strand wire and she wasn't twisted in it, just resting on it. Normally, a cow would have no difficulty bounding away from a single strand. A cow in labor would seek the perimeter to avoid companionship, so that makes sense.

Phil thinks the delivery itself killed her: just bits of hooves showed. He figures she was too exhausted and just gave up, somehow flopping onto the wire. It could be. Inability to birth would have been a death sentence, electric line or no: pulling a calf doesn't work well.

In some ways, though, I hope he's wrong. We have two other heifers set to give birth in the next few weeks. Should Beatrice have died due to inability to birth, we might have two more deaths coming.

This wasn't a scenario any of the range ranchers mentioned. Once again, the reality proves worse than anything we read about.

Of the nineteen cows we've had here on the farm, we've had four deaths, all accidental. Twenty-one percent. No meat from all those animals.

It was not a good find for Phil.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Actually, We Have an Elizabeth

I woke at 4am, in the midst of a surprising dream in which Eugene Meltsner of Adventures in Odyssey had just discovered he was Superman and realized that he spoke only in Superman language. I was trying to make him a rice pudding in the RV, but everything was going wrong: I'd burned the rice in the microwave (as if I would ever use a microwave!) and the coconut milk had spoiled.

And then I was coughing violently in real life, trying to inhale but just hacking short little barks, out, out, out. I opted not to wake Phil, but propped myself upright, forcing myself to breathe in. Then I went and threw up a lot of stomach acid. I was too scared to go back to sleep, so I went and heated up some tuna noodle casserole.

I think I probably aspirated some stomach acid in my sleep (nothing like bad coconut milk in a dream to bring up the stomach acid). Should that happen again, I'll wake Phil. No more independent middle-of-the-night choke fests.

Isaiah and Phil made bread this morning. Then they went over to see the cows. Fern's baby had wandered under the wire, so Isaiah was able to get his hands on the baby. There were teats! So she's Elizabeth, not Einstein.

We continue to talk about destocking. Phil said that Fern should probably go: she is so smart that when she saw Phil coming with a lead, she danced away. Between her horns, her hooves, and her caginess, she will probably never be a milker.

And yet ... she's delivered twice without assistance, has a beautiful body conformation, comes from a wonderful bull. She's quite willing to go from paddock to paddock, and, without a leash in sight, she's happy to have Phil pat her. So maybe she becomes a cow-calf (and, thus, beef) producer. There are worse things.

Phil was able to get the tractor free of the mire very early this morning. He and Isaiah started pouring grout in the completed cells. Phil wasn't sure how he would do it alone: with the walls up about 12 feet, how would he get the grout from the mixer at the back of the tractor up to the top of the wall?

Enter Isaiah. Phil stood on a pallet on the tractor forks with buckets of grout. Isaiah lifted him up. Phil poured the grout in. There are about 28 cells to do, and Phil and Isaiah managed 10 in about a half day of work. Phil is hopeful that the two of them can finish in another day.

A productive day for Phil. And a happy day for me: the company I work for, Sonlight, announced some coming changes to the high school programs that have been eagerly anticipated for years. The rejoicing was very great, which makes me glad! So gratifying when my work is well received.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Calf the Second

Phil mentioned yesterday that Fern's bag had filled in a bit. Surprisingly, though, she had delivered already by this afternoon. That was fast!

Phil headed over with Shadow, who barked and presumably freaked Fern out. By the time the dog was tied up, Fern was dead set against Phil stripping her teats (once tied, she couldn't horn him, but she slashed out with her hooves, the rascal). Phil didn't see any teats, so he thinks the calf is a bull, but without a certain visual, there's a possibility the baby is not male. For the moment, the baby joins the older brother with an impressive moniker: first came Charlemagne, now Einstein.

The slush of yesterday made the ground so slick, Phil couldn't bring the tractor back upslope from delivering hay. Really, it was too slushy to do much work on the structure, so this was another indoor day for Phil.

With my 23.5 hours a day in bed, the boys have had to step up in responsibility. This is not actually very onerous: Jadon needs to cut bread for his brothers and slather butter, for example. Today, though, Joe said casually (with that typical 4-year-old casualness that means he knows what he is saying is a big deal), "I buttered this piece of bread myself."

And yesterday, he had gone through 4" of slushy snow, in his flip flops, to get to the RV for dinner. Phil was finishing dinner and was just going over to carry the littlest one when he showed up. He's growing up!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Interminable Days

My parents find excellent birthday cards. Whether pop-up or batik, cut straw to make flowers or embroidery, they have an incredible stash of beautiful cards made by women in third world countries. This year on my birthday my card said, "May your year be unexpectedly fruitful."

I knew what that meant. A Lykosh baby is on the way.

And, as usual, I am flat in bed, every day. I have not yet resorted to all day movie marathons as I did with sons three and four, but I do nothing except make myself turkey sandwiches and try to keep them down. I've read a lot of mediocre books.

While I realize that I am being creative in a unique way, I am doing nothing around the farm. The last time I was vertical, a week ago Monday, I headed off to learn about seeding. Some day I will write about that. A completely different method than I've done before. That was the creativity I anticipated this year: vegetables and flowers, permaculture and increased fertility.

In between a heavy rainfall last week and a heavy snow today, Phil has finished the second wall. We received shipment of the remaining blocks and waterproofing and cement yesterday. Phil needs to figure out how to pour grout into the cells, and then how to make a bond beam along the top of the wall.

We also welcomed a bull calf on March first. It was almost exactly ten months since we had had our last birth. Our poor Snowman: we had let his fertility tank. This is the E-year, so his name is Elvis, and mother Catherine had no issues. She delivered on her due date, and since she hadn't given birth since July 2011, we were happy to finally have a baby.

So that's the news: survival and new life.