virginiaisforlykoshes

Lumberjack, Sore Back

2012-02-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

Phil headed down to the sawmill this morning and worked there most of the day. He sawed probably about 300' of boards, mostly fifteen feet long 2"x12" planks.

He's learning about how to manage the sawmill effectively. One of the things he noticed is that sections of mostly straight trees have segments where branches connected that can create a lot of waste. He explained his idea for a workaround, but I didn't fully understand it. (I'm not gifted in seeing descriptions without an actual image or example. And I'm not mechanical at all.)

He came up late in the afternoon, pleased with his efforts, but sore. It takes a lot of strength and leverage to move a stationary, waterlogged tree.

My homesteading accomplishment for the day was getting sweet potatoes started making slips. I have heard that if you put a chunk of sweet potato in a glass, half covered with water, after some time, the sweet potato will start sending up shoots and roots. One chunk can, apparently, produce 50 slips!

Since slips are about half a buck each, I would prefer to grow my own. (Especially since the $200 I planted last year produced absolutely no sweet potatoes for me.) I just bought some at the store. We'll see if it works.

Cod Liver Oil Trumps Fear

2012-02-09T16:29:00.001-08:00

I realized on Tuesday, in the midst of fear, that I felt run-down. I took a full teaspoon of fermented cod liver oil before bed, and awoke Wednesday morning feeling ready to take on the world: cheerful and capable. When Phil wanted to go down to try to budge the truck once again, I went along, did what I needed to do, and we got the truck unstuck! Our path to the lower pasture is unimpeded once again, for the first time in five days. Excellent.

In other news, I knew absolutely nothing about puppies. I wasn't surprised that their eyes were closed, as I think kittens also come out closed-eye. But I was expecting the physical waste from nine puppies to be a bit over the top (Bitsy has enough control that she waits until we let her outside). But so far, the puppies have utilized all their mother's nutrients to perfectly that they have not soiled anything at all. The little bathroom has started to smell like dog, since the puppies eat very regularly and are growing apace, but I certainly appreciate their current innate continence. May it long continue!

While Bitsy was out at one point, Isaiah laid down by the puppies and thought it amusing that they all nestled up to him, looking for a snack.

I'm amazed that they even come to eat while Bitsy is still sitting up.

Again switching subjects, Phil went down to set up the sawmill in the lower pasture today. At this point, after many iterations, we've decided to just pour the perimeter foundation for the metal building. To do that, we'll need wood for concrete forms. So Phil is sawing the forms.

Before he went down to the lower pasture, he loaded several pallets on the back of the tractor. Quite ingenious. (If it was up to me, I would probably have just carried them by hand.)

He started the first of the massive tulip poplars, and came up as dark fell, physically exhausted, and wishing, a bit, that we had the hydraulic lifts to get the logs up on the mill.

Fear on All Fronts

2012-02-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

Right after breakfast, the three younger boys ran out to see the puppies. Phil found them a bit later, moving them around and talking for them, as if they were dolls: "Hi, my name is Socks!"

He said it was adorable, but probably not the best for day old puppies, so he shooed them out.

I learned how to sex puppies. We have six boys and three girls (which actually made me feel better: when we had a pile of about six yesterday during delivery, I picked them up and looked at them, and they all looked the same. I was appalled at my lack of observation skills. Considering I could have picked up the same one more than once, and only picked up maybe five, I certainly could have seen only male parts the whole time).

The father is, by appearance, an American Boxer, so Phil was hoping for the brindle coloring. But they are all a glossy black.

I am happy they are in the motor home and not in the house trailer. They peep all the time they aren't fast asleep or nursing. It sounds a bit too much like baby cries; a little unsettling.

Phil and Jadon spent half the day surveying. I helped at times, and also spent some time taking down fencing. I was amazed at how wimpy I have grown: the 16' cattle panels felt quite heavy, and I didn't get much accomplished on that project.

Yesterday, I took my few osage orange seeds, which I had soaked for a week, and put them in a jar with sandy soil from the spring and some compost, as per online instructions. We'll see if they sprout.

I also found a two-year-old bag of stinging nettle seeds. Stinging nettle is an excellent plant to use as a foliar spray, apparently: put the leaves in water, let it ferment for a time, then spray. I haven't yet found any stinging nettle growing wild on the property, so I'm trying to sprout my own. I sprinkled them on a flat of potting soil, then put them in the shower, to bask in the warmth that the puppies are enjoying in the motor home bathroom.

Will either of these work? We'll see!

The ground froze yesterday night, and Phil went down Monday morning to drive the truck up from the lower pasture. He didn't quite make it, getting stuck near the top of a steep slope. That afternoon, I tried to help him get the truck unstuck: he rigged a tow cable between tractor and truck, and I drove the tractor while he maneuvered the truck.

We got about twenty feet up slope, before the truck truly stopped. It was a unique experience for me: I would get the tractor moving forward, and the truck could jerk me back, just a bit.

I think the time last year that the steering wheel popped off in my hand has affected me. I felt physically ill before driving the tractor; afterwards, I trembled for a half hour. I tell myself it's not that scary, but it hasn't worked yet. I think the tractor is a bit too big for me: I have to sit on the edge of the seat to get the clutch depressed, and I don't think I've yet been able to set the parking brake, since I have a hard time stepping hard enough on the brake to set it. So I'm stuck in limbo until Phil comes to take over.

Really, I think this last year in general affected me. I feel fearful around the cows, always remembering that Fern got me on her horns. Today I went to check the bee's monitor tray under the hive, and there were enough bees circling that I opted not to. I was afraid of being stung! I've had my eye swell shut three times now, and it's always discombobulating. I don't look like myself for a week, and it's eerie to look in the mirror and not recognize the face.

I'm hoping to figure out how to function here with a healthy respect for the creatures and equipment, how to protect myself, and how not to live in fear.

I'm not even sure where to start.

The Curse Is Come Upon Me

2012-02-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today was a happy day for Isaiah.

The calendar showed today as Bitsy's due date. She had noticeably dropped yesterday morning, and this morning, when she tried to enter the motor home ahead of me—very unusual—I figured this would be the day. Once inside, she hopped up on the sofa and began pawing, a definite sign of labor.

I took her into the tiny bathroom and brought in a little space heater. Puppies apparently like the temperature about 80 degrees, and since the weather is a good 50 degrees colder in the morning, the space heater would be a life saver.

She was still nesting while I made eggs, but when we finished eating, I heard unfamiliar squeaks as I reentered the motor home. Two tiny black puppies born during breakfast!

Half an hour later, I peeked in again to see a third baby born.

From then on, I spent the morning standing and squatting in the shower while Bitsy continued to labor and deliver, like this.

She would stop licking her pups, stretch out, maybe stand up and turn around. After a moment of what appeared to be internal focus, a little black water balloon would emerge swiftly. Bitsy would whip her head around, tug open the sac around the baby, and eat it in a few seconds, along with the placenta that followed instantly (I only saw it on the last puppy: this was the most incredibly clean birth ever). The little baby would sneeze, and Bitsy would lick the baby off.

She would keep licking until the next baby arrived. The fourth came. Then, for the only time, Bitsy stood up and pawed the carpet again, this time in what looked like pain management.

The puppies were all piled up around the heater. She had nudged them there, usually before they were allowed to eat. They were all crying pitiful little mews, but they were warm and safe, out of the birthing area.

Though the actual space was a bit small.

Then she settled in for the fifth.

The sixth followed only a few minutes later.

Then a seventh.

After lunch, Abraham wanted to see the puppies, so we went over to find an eight.

Bitsy drank then, for the first time. She looked tired.

And Abraham and I were sitting there when the ninth and final baby came out.

Almost immediately, all nine headed straight for the teats, and piled up for a good drink.

And that was our February 6!

Low-tread Tires Tie Up Progress

2012-02-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

Thursday morning we had a third of an inch of rain, which cleared up by 9am. But the ground was left too wet to drive our hills (without ag times on either tractor or truck: it's the equivalent of road tires on a bike when we want to go mountain biking). We had left the chipper and tractor in the lower pasture; happily, our animals were okay on hay and water. Phil and I did spread the wood chips in the truck, though, just to do something outside.

Friday Phil went to a friend's house to look at how they've managed their woodlot. He had a great time. Before he left, I suggested we get in a good hour or so of chipping. With hesitation, he agreed, and we all headed down to the lower pasture. We just about finished the pile we had started (there are a few large trees that Phil will need to saw up, maybe? Or turn to firewood?) when Phil realized he needed to head out.

And then his hesitation was proved right, when the truck spun out on the level lower pasture. We hadn't even reached the hill, and we were stuck. (I admired the earth the truck tires churned up: so rich and black! I look forward to planting there one day, in the well manured land.) The six of us hiked up the hill, leaving both tractor and truck behind.

Happily, the ground froze overnight. Phil got up and headed right down for the tractor so he could bring hay to both cows and sheep (the six sheep took a month to finish one hay bale! They are a lot less expensive to keep than I realized! Only a quarter of what I expected). He moved the water wagon, too, but by the time that was done, the earth had thawed and he could not move the truck back upslope.

I think it's going to be a long spring with a lot of immobilized vehicles. We'll have to consider what to do about that.

The three older boys and Phil headed out for a Kid's Night Out with the church. They went ice skating, ate pizza (I sent some homemade along for the boys), and went across the way to get frozen yogurt. Abraham, surprisingly, loved it the most. "I went fast!" he said, eyes shining. Apparently they had something like two buckets stacked for children to use to balance, and Abraham availed himself well of that crutch. Isaiah had a blister and a good time. Jadon would rather stay home and read if the opportunity came again. (He chose not to use the crutch and had to gut it out. Ah, the trials of being nine.)

Joe stayed home with me. Since he had been acting very tired all day, I expected he would fall asleep early and I could get some work done. But no. With Mom as a captive reader, he was not about to doze off. So I read for almost four hours straight, until I would get up to check if maybe the boys were coming down the driveway.

I've never done that for Joe before, but he now has new book friends. Especially Lentil.

Mulch on the Apples

2012-02-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

Phil was able to get the truck started this morning without any difficulty. He spent the morning putting the entire quantity of beautiful chips around the drip line of the apples. He spread them heavily: that huge quantity only covered about 60 trees. What a great recycling: the nutrients flowed downhill, the trees took them up, we shredded the trees, and the nutrients are back upslope again now, where we hope they will suppress the weeds, feed the trees, and improve the overall appearance.

Phil and I headed down to chip again for a few hours this afternoon.

This pile was more difficult than what we had yesterday: so many wild grape vines, so many branchy tops, a tricky combination of large trees and tiny twigs. We made good progress, despite the belt coming off. I even shredded some branches, until I stuck in an oddly shaped one that got stuck. In the end, Phil managed to extract it, but that was the end of our efforts for the day. (The sun had set, so it wasn't just me.)

Phil says that he loves lumber jacking. I think the "TIMBER" aspect is a bit intense for me, but I love working at chipping and shredding. I love that we're getting the ground cleaned up, that we are generating useful fertility out of "waste"; I love being outside in 60 degree weather, without bugs, breathing the clean air.

Two Long-Standing Hopes Fulfilled

2012-01-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

The year before we moved to the land, we learned as much as we could. One of the most elegant things we heard was that, given a choice of minerals, cows will eat the proper nutrients that they need, and then excrete those minerals onto the deficient soils. A biological soil test of sorts.

After we moved here and got ruminants, we tried to always make sure they had kelp and salt; we offered clay and humates, but they weren't terribly interested. But it's never been as good as it could; we've grieved for our cows and their gradually releasing placenta; grieved the slow breed-back. We figured it was a matter of nutrition, and when Phil headed to his veterinary class in spring 2010, he learned of the Helfter Free Choice Minerals. That sounded like what we needed.

But the special box, which had spots for the 14 separate mineral supplements, was $1000; double that with minerals included. And so the cows have been stressed while we tried to earn the money needed.

But now, behold Phil's brilliance. He figured that if he bought a rubber mat, that could be strong enough and water-proof for a lid. Put in wooden divisions (sealed well with caulk), and there's a box with fourteen spots.

He labeled each box, so we'd know what to put in each container, and know what the cows devoured most quickly. (He had bought metal brackets, but realized after the fact that the wood worked even better.)

We love the healthy smell and beautiful colors of the minerals.

In order to prevent the bottom rotting out, he put 2"x2" runners on the bottom. The whole box rests on those, shielding the box from friction and damp.

How to move the minerals regularly, though? With about 140 pounds of minerals at any given time, plus the heavy wood box, even he can't carry it about when he moves the cows daily.

Creatively, he designed it to fit in the tractor bucket. He ratchets it down, and moves it easily.

With minerals on the front, and hay on the back, the tractor becomes a cow support system.

The curious cows came over to see what the new box contained. We suspect they stayed there most of the day, as when Phil went back at dark, one was still there. The cows had almost finished the Sulphur, the B-vitamins (especially important for stress), and the Iodine.

When we watched how happy and focused the cows were—what a great moment. Delayed for a couple of years, but finally accomplished.
***
This afternoon, we headed down to the lower pasture, new chipper in tow. For about two hours, I separated branches while Phil fed them into the chipper, which shot them out into the bed of the truck.

We ended two hours later when the truck bed was overflowing with beautiful, tiny chips.

Phil had us start at the entrance of the lower pasture. Two years ago, he had knocked down a swath of trees. We couldn't quite feel motivated to burn the downed trees, and so the lower pasture has been covered with debris for two years. And while piles of downed trees isn't as bad as, say, a pile of concrete rubble, it's not very beautiful.

So we were ecstatic—truly overwhelmed—at how wonderfully the chipper took our downed trees. It truly did self-feed, and the power of the PTO, combined with the 8" diameter, meant that the chipper took just about everything.

We cleared a section, well covered in downed trees and branches, about 40'x40'. Not bad for two hours.

Phil then couldn't get the truck to run, so it is stuck in the lower pasture, but he'll deal with that tomorrow.

While we worked, the boys had a great time. Isaiah took photos.

Jadon played in the creek and took photos, too.

Joe and Abraham found little twigs that fit their hands: light saber bases. They had wonderful fights, complete with sound effects.

***
To round out an exciting day, I went to check on my bees. I expected to find them mostly clustered, hibernating still. And there was a section that was doing that, presumably surrounding the queen, who has (presumably) begun laying already.

But there were bees crawling on both inner and outer cover, bees foraging, moving. I had expected few; I saw so many. I had expected tranquility: I found vitality. Marvelous. I had one pesky girl who kept trying to sting my face. The whole time I was checking on the food stores and overall hive health, this bee kept flying into my veil: thwunk, thwunk, thwunk.

After the hive was all assembled and I was walking away, another bee achieved her desire: she stung me on the forehead through the veil. Because another bee was buzzing my head all the way up the driveway to the house, I couldn't check the sting. It wasn't until later that I actually looked at it: stinger still intact.

And though I tried to scrape it off with my fingernail, it would not come.

Through the afternoon, my vision was unimpaired, but now my left eye is (again) swollen shut. It is very odd: half my face is normal, and half is puffy.

But the thrill that the hive is doing well, that the cows are fed, and the pasture will be cleared without burning: a swollen eye is not enough to dampen my enthusiasm.

Osage Oranges Sans Seeds

2012-01-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

I had a great time going through my Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog! I still have plenty of seeds left over from my seed-buying frenzy last year, but I enjoyed going back through the catalog to see the things that did well.

I was surprised by how very little did well last year. Absolute crop failures on all varieties of winter and summer squash; no melons, no corn, no sunflowers, no beans. Early expiring tomatoes, early expiring cucumbers. Almost no cabbage.

But we had some successes, and it was fun to remember that. We had beautiful greens, as long as the spring weather held. The chard planted last spring is still producing now, nine months or so later. I had nice basil, adequate parsley, more than enough drying tomatoes. And some of the flowers did well: celosia, strawflowers, globe amaranth. Other flowers were epic fails (almost no marigold, cosmos, nasturtium, zinnia), but I think the plants that were started in the greenhouse did well, and the broadcast seeds did badly.

How satisfying to have my seed order placed!

I had two little reassurances that shed light on last year. Another epic fail was the osage orange fence I attempted to establish last year. We had gathered the osage oranges, let them freeze and thaw all winter, then dribbled the sludge into a trench in the spring, hoping that we would eventually have a living hedge. Great in theory: no sprouts in practice.

I tried again this last fall, carefully gathering the osage oranges off the ground, where they fall when fully mature. Today, I went to check them, and was amazed to find only about 20 seeds total in about thirty of the fruits. Since good osage oranges can have 200 seeds apiece, these fruits were almost 6000 seeds short. No wonder I had no germination: if the fruits themselves were almost sterile, it's awfully hard to grow a hedge!

Not my fault, and I could, perhaps, have been more observant (and maybe that wasn't the problem at all): there are plenty of things to take into consideration.

Second, we had our forester come by with a plan for our woods. I was chatting with him, and he mentioned at one point that there is a band of rich farmland, just about six miles north of us, that runs east-west across the central part of the state. That band has topsoil a foot and a half deep. No wonder we've been languishing here, and nearby friends have thriving gardens. Our soil needs some help!

And that's fine. But it's another piece of the puzzle in why 2011 was such a rough year. (I had forgotten that our first composite soil test came back with a score of 3 out of 100. It doesn't get much worse than that!)

Isaiah borrowed the camera and took some great photos.

Original sheep Ashley (still not in the freezer!) and her daughter Bethlehem.

One of the skinny, incredibly productive Leghorns. They had a rough week last week, producing only about three dozen eggs all week, after the dog attack Monday. They stopped altogether for a day or two, then produced at half pace the rest of the week. I think they're approaching normal rate now, though, after a week.

The orchard, still dormant. I am tempted to prune, since I think the trees are getting ready to bloom, with the warm winter we've had ... but I didn't start yet.

And since I've tried ever so many times to get good photos of the birds, I am impressed with Isaiah's ability to capture a clear, striking image.

A very satisfying day, my 33rd birthday.

My dear in-laws sent me a cake mix, so I actually had a birthday cake on my birthday, which I haven't had for some years. I borrowed a page from Isaiah's playbook, and would like to share the underlying meaning of the cake: I am both well-rounded and not quite square.

Chipper Assembly

2012-01-28T20:11:00.000-08:00

Phil's task for the day was to bring the chipper from shipped state to assembled state.

It took most of the day.

Not only were the directions unintelligible, the steps were out of order and, in the end, the three-point hitch didn't fit with all the bolts in place. Oh—and they didn't send all the proper hardware. He borrowed bolts from the metal shipping crate itself.

But by midafternoon, he chipped a small tree. We'll be ready for action come Monday.

Bitsy might be ready for action in the next week, too. Her teats are distended, and her belly chubbed out. The puppies are coming!

I had a much more fun day. I have realized that Jadon is a fan of regular cleaning. He cheerfully reassembled the bed after I shook the sheets out the window and swept under the mattress. Joe likes to help sweep; Isaiah is usually good for a vacuum, and Abraham begrudgingly picks up the scattered toys.

By the end of the day, though, the cleaned room had returned to a state of toy scattering, though the dirt had been removed. Jadon said, "Ahh! We just cleaned this up!" (I think it is a mystery of nature that when I only cleaned every several months, I would get a pile of dirt, and a full vacuum canister. But now that I clean every week, I still get a pile of dirt and almost a full vacuum canister. Where does it come from? Where did it go before?)

January is supposed to be a good month to plant onions. I haven't received seeds yet, but I took the little failed onions from last year, the ones that only grew to the size of a pea or a marble or a plum, and went and put them in the ground in the uncovered greenhouse, then mulched with hay. Most of them had sprouted already, and maybe they'll live and grow large for me. I hope so. We eat a lot of onions. And if not, I'll start some from seed soon.

While I was planting onions, I heard a familiar buzz. One of my honeybees was foraging nearby. It's not even February yet, but my hive had awakened! I went down to visit, and there were bees. I was amazed to see that some were returning with pollen bags full! What's in bloom in January? A mystery. (I noticed later that I have a few dandelions blooming. Perhaps the bees were harvesting dandelion pollen.)

I have wondered at times if the 10,000 daffodils will be a total bust. I walk by the swales where they're planted and see ... nothing. But that changed today. Down by the beehive there was one precious shoot poking up.

But that was nothing. A little later, I walked through the apple orchard and found several trees with almost an entire ring of green already up: eight or ten out of twelve bravely poking up about the ground. It's enough to make me cheer!

I belatedly remembered to check the biodynamic calendar (it's been some months since I actually planted), and realized that it was a leaf day, so I also seeded my first tray of greens: two varieties of mustard, arugula, collards, and kale. Since I only need enough for my family, I figure a flat is sufficient for the week. It's a much more manageable pace than many flats for many people.

And how lovely to have a year's experience with making soil blocks. What took hours last year, both in failed attempts and research in how to do better, took minutes this year: right amount of soil and water right from the start, a flat of soil blocks done with no mishaps.

When I think of this day last year, when we had wrestled with getting the truck fixed for a solid month, where everything felt frantic and behind, hopeful but frustrated, I'm deeply grateful for a month like what we've had. Time to read to the boys (me) and play card games with them (Phil). Time to dream and work indoors. Maybe we're not moving forward swiftly, but to not have major repairs for a solid month, like last January—that's a blessing in itself.

Of Stewing Hens and Caffeine Highs

2012-01-27T18:08:00.000-08:00

The great burst of sorrow dissipated quickly. Isaiah went to bed Tuesday night, and woke the next morning without any sign of real gloominess. (I, however, fell asleep sniffling, sad that the beautiful coasting of the little Mallard wouldn't be seen here again.) We totaled the price of the two birds, and expect we probably spent $120 total to feed them and raise them. Not that the price is the real total of their value, but it made it seem within the realm of possibility that we would have ducks again.

Today ended the Persephone Days, the period of less than 10 hours sun when plants do not actively grow. Here in Central Virginia, we have about an eleven week period, from November 19ish until now. Phil is looking forward to the pasture greening over again. And since I still haven't received my favorite seed catalog in the mail, I'm looking at starting the growing season a bit behind. Ah, well. Maybe the catalog will be in the box next time we check.

We received our new chipper today. Rather than asking neighbor Butch to help us with his skidsteer, Phil realized that our tractor hauls half ton hay bales around; surely the tractor could unload a less than half ton chipper. And it did, without any trouble. Another little way that we've become more self-sufficient (and we are thankful every day for the tractor!).

Because we'd had .4" of rain fall in about 20 minutes this morning, the ground was too soggy to actually test the machine, but we're excited to start using it.

On a totally random note, Phil had been a two-pot a day coffee drinker for a couple of decades. He could drink a couple of cups after 11pm and fall asleep at any moment after.

Last year, he suddenly said, "I'm not in bondage to this," and he quit one day. He might have a cup for fun at church, or a friend's house, but he realized lately that if he drinks a cup in the afternoon or evening, it keeps him up until 3am. (At least, that's what we suspect, due to the 1:1 correlation between drinking:sleeplessness.) It's even got to the point that if he drinks a cup in the morning, he can't sleep in the night, fourteen hours later.

I shudder to think what his poor adrenals must have been dealing with. If his natural reaction is such sleeplessness, his body must have been massively overriding the natural systems!

Rooiboos tea has been the beverage of choice, and I expect that will continue.

***

As we have, yet, six freezers filled with meat, I have needed to figure out ways to use the more unusual things. Sliced side meat (uncured bacon), sausage, and broiler chickens are all fairly straightforward.

But what about duck? I cooked my first one this week. The recipe said 300 degrees for four hours. The skin did get beautifully, tastefully crisp, but the meat dried out. Maybe three hours next time. The boys weren't big fans (duck is dark and rich, and they are white meat eaters, if at all).

I had also cooked a stewing hen, a tough old layer. It was a disaster. The tough tendons prevented the meat easily coming off the bones, and the meat itself was chewy so as to be almost inedible.

But old timers rave about the rich flavor, so I did some checking and came up with a recipe where I put two stewing hens in a pot and covered them with water. I simmered them for about five hours. THAT worked well. The meat was falling off the bones, tender, juicy, still quite flavorful.

Then I used the broth to cook homemade noodles, which were actually much easier to make than I expected. A cup of flour (I used freshly milled spelt, but any flour should work, I expect) and two eggs. Stirred, then kneaded, with however much flour added to make a smooth, not sticky dough.

I rolled the dough as flat as could be with a round glass, sliced into strips, and dropped in the broth and boiled for a few minutes.

A rich, comfort-food use for the stewing hens. And that's a relief, because we have plenty of them!

Devastation/Restoration

2012-01-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

I awoke to a frantic crash: the duck had, apparently, emerged from her private hiding place and stumbled either upon the cat, or upon the boys' Playmobil, or something. It was a terrific noise in the silence, and as I staggered up to let the panicked duck escape the confines of our little house, she was so scared she hissed at me, and briefly attacked my leg.

I managed to get the door open finally, and the Mallard flew-fell to the ground. She sought sanctuary immediately in the electric-net protected laying house, quacking loudly all the way. She called her friend; her friend could not reply.

Half an hour later or so, I heard a sudden rumpus among the birds, and I came out to find the predator dog back on our land, but no birds in her mouth. The dog yet lives, an unpredictable threat.

But the mallard had gone missing. For an hour, Isaiah and I searched all the hideouts we could imagine, high and low, protected and open. She was gone. Missing in action, presumed dead.

We realized, too, that the Barred Rock, who had finally (!) started to lay eggs last week, was also gone. I found a feather. Recent? Who knows. Perhaps she was carried away on Sunday.

As the realization that his pride and joy, the Mallard, was gone, Isaiah's broken-heart was horrible to see. Made so much more poignant by the beautiful daylight that now settled on his shoulders and head, the first sunny, warm day in a week.

"Why did you let her out?" he asked me. And I had no real explanation, other than that she wanted to find her friend, to get out of the unnatural house environment and eat, poop, lay in her normal places.

How can it be that such a simple action as opening the door can lead to such devastation?

How can one mother bear up under the grief of her son?

***

That was a bad time. Certainly one of the worst hours of my life.

Abraham, on hearing the news, said, "Well, may the Lord help her to be safe." Oh, to have the faith of a child!

Phil and I talked through the events of the morning. I wanted some resolution, but that isn't always possible.

We walked over to the layer house. And there was the duck, where we had looked so many times before, huddled down, very much alive and not dog fodder.

I went to get Isaiah. I didn't tell him why, but he came with me, and so I saw his sad, tragic face lighten in a quiet smile as he saw her again.

Phil and he agreed that she should come back inside. They caught her and brought her in, Isaiah again faithfully cleaning her messes. She stood on his hands in the sunlight, feathers gleaming.

All was well. Restoration; Abraham's answered prayers; beloved pet recovered from the jaws of death.

***

For a few hours.

The Mallard had been spot-bleeding even yet. I watched her poop a great puddle of white liquid. She was not doing well.

And then Isaiah came, sad-faced again. "The Mallard died."

Whether from a broken-heart, companionless; whether from internal injuries; whether the loss of a friend made her lose her desire to live, the Mallard was, indeed, dead.

But what a difference than a traumatic loss to a dog. She has a permanent place on the farm, buried next to Chloe. Isaiah and I put daffodils on her grave, put a Sharpied headstone at her head. Rather than the unrestrained grief of the morning, this was simply deep sadness.

When my heart is overwhelmed, hear my cry, give heed to my prayer.
And my eyes are dim with tears, oh, Father, make them clear.
From the ends of all the earth, when my heart is fainting
Let me know that you have heard, and lead me into safety.

Lead me to the Rock, the Rock that's higher,
Lead me to the Rock that's higher than I,
Lead me to the Rock, the Rock that's higher,
Higher than I.

You, oh Lord, have been to me a refuge from my enemies.
Let me live within your strength, in the shelter of your wings.

Classic Animation

2012-01-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

After several hours of crying over the duck, I figured I was in an unproductive cycle of sadness, and needed to get off the farm. Time to think of something else. As a family, we headed out to see the re-released Beauty and the Beast, courtesy of a Christmas present.

It was a shock to see both the beauty of the 20-year-old animation, and the difference that computer animation (a la Pixar) has created. The colors and vistas still amazed me, even as they did when I saw the movie in the theater as a 12-year-old. (Phil said that he had seen it three or four times in the theater with his college friends.) It was, perhaps, mean to take the littlest Lykosh. I had forgotten how very mean the Beast is, and he burst into tears at one point, "I don't like this movie!" But with a running description of what was about to come, he made it through. He admits he liked the library, but everything else ... not so much.

We went to Chipotle, too, after dinner, as I had nothing thawed or prepared. There was a family with five young children, cute, trim mother in a NorthFace jacket. It was like looking at who I would have been (or at least wanted to be), had we not moved to the farm.

And then we headed home. I idly asked if the electric fence protecting the chicken was on, and one of us was reasonably sure that it wasn't. That last hour took forever, as I wondered what kind of carnage I would find on the return. If we had no egg layers left living ... but it was too dreadful to contemplate.

And, thankfully all were living. The duck will stay the night inside, faithfully tended by Isaiah, who warms cloths for her back, and picks up her dung.

Not all was bad. Abraham made Joe an impressive Duplo sword and shield. They weren't much good in actual combat (perhaps I should be grateful), but they looked good.

And, for the record, we have had snow now. A light sprinkling Sunday morning, just enough to make the trees look pretty for an hour or two.

Death Comes Down the Driveway

2012-01-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

We sang the song, "10,000 Reasons" at church yesterday.

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning;
It's time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.

This brought to mind several really hard days over the last few years, when we've lived through hard things. Most devastating, certainly, when my niece died. Personally hard when yearling lamb Blessing died in birth; when we had a dog attack that killed twenty-six almost ready-for-processing chickens.

The chorus of that song continues

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul,
Worship His holy name.
Sing like never before,
0 my soul.
I'll worship Your holy name.

I woke to that refrain.

Perhaps, then, it shouldn't have surprised me to casually glance out the window to see that same chicken predator mauling a white bird. I shrieked for Phil, but by the time we got outside, the dog had taken off, bird in mouth, down the road and quickly out of sight.

We have debated putting a gate across the driveway to discourage such predation. It seems it would also discourage deliveries, and make chores more difficult—Phil has to drive the tractor over to the cows several times a week. Not to mention the hassle of opening and closing the gate for every errand. But it is worth it? How many tears, how much loss is worth the inconvenience?

Any layer bird is a loss, both in our kitchen and in dollars. But the loss struck deeper this time.

Phil said, "Look at the mallard." She was hobbling under the office trailer. "Was it the Harlequin duck that died?"

And it was. Our one, beautiful, faithful laying Harlequin duck. Our sole companion for Isaiah's beloved mallard. And while we are thankful the mallard isn't dead, she had dog saliva on her feathers, and a bloody patch on her back. I can only speculate: how does a little duck escape from the maw of a deadly predator?

Perhaps when her friend flies to her defense and dies in her place.

The weather continues grey and dreary; a fitting, sorrowful sky for a sad, sad day.

And Then There Was One

2012-01-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

Around 5pm yesterday, Phil headed over to check on the cows. He found that they had knocked part of a hay bale over the electric line, grounding it out. Then thirteen of the fourteen had headed out of the paddock for the open fields. He called me to come over, with flashlights and shepherd's crooks.

For the next half hour, in the fast-falling night, we stumbled through brambles and over swales. I almost tripped myself twice with the crook, and once I snagged the flying end of the (non-electrified) electric line. It had come loose for a second time. (Phil had caught it the first time.)

But the reality is, Phil knows how to manage the cows. It wasn't traumatic; it wasn't unreasonably difficult. Really, it was almost a non-event. Which I suppose shows how far his animal husbandry abilities have progressed.

And happily, this all happened before a very little bit of snow fell: our first snow of the season. Just enough to dust the ground. Then a half inch of rain came.

I continue to read through Harvey Ussery's book. Last night I read about how to improve a breed. Mark each chicken with a toe punch. Weigh each chicken at about eight and 16 weeks (or 12), to see which are the heaviest. There is also a way to select for egg production, or meat production. So interesting! One of these years I hope to get 250 birds from one of the critically endangered breed of chicken, and start to improve that breed.

It was an interesting exercise, to think about what I would like in a bird. Of the chickens we've had so far, my favorite is Tux, who is (I think) a Black Australorp. She's a faithful layer of nicely proportioned brown eggs. I like her chunky, squat body, in contrast to some of the skinny, leggy, long-necked birds. Compared with the flighty Leghorns, I like her calm temperament; she lets Isaiah interact with her. The colored sheen of her feathers is visually interesting. She forages for food diligently.

From a cursory scan of the critically endangered breeds, both the Holland and the Redcaps appeal to me, though Phil pointed out that a dual-purpose breed isn't as necessary in chickens: they're small enough to run two unique flocks.

Always something new to learn; always something new to try.

Creative Design

2012-01-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

Phil has done some creative thinking the last few days. Rather than calculating the diameter of timbers for a reciprocating roof, or trying to lay out a compact dwelling design, he went back further. We had once talked of what rooms a normal house should have: a kitchen, a bathroom, at least two bedrooms, if not three or four, a living room. But he went back even more.

He calculated the size each room would be, at a minimum. A kitchen needs space for a refrigerator, sink, range, and a certain amount of cabinet/counter space. A bathroom needs a tub, sink, and loo. What square feet does a standard dining room table require, with the chairs around it? How about a standard bedroom?

He figured a "normal" dwelling would need about 900 square feet for a small but comprehensive dwelling. If the bedrooms were to be a bit larger than 10'x12', perhaps 1400 square feet at the outside.

We had a 2600sqft home in Boulder, and it had plenty of wasted space. And although 900sqft seems small, compared with 224 here in the construction trailer, it sounds palatial.

While Phil has been creative, I have been having little bursts of creative insight, which Phil tolerates when he emerges from the design cave. A stray comment in Mother Earth News made me think, "We can put a spring house over our spring!" Someday.

Storey Publishing will soon release The Organic Backyard Vineyard. Incredibly, an acre of wine grapes can produce somewhere between 1800 and 5400 bottles of wine. And if it's not terribly edible, it seems one could use it to run a vehicle. "We can put in an orchard!" Yup. Someday.

One of the little gulches on our land could be transformed into a series of descending little pools, slowing down the runoff to prevent the rapid erosion. It won't happen this year. But someday.

From mushroom cultivation to rice paddies; from fast-growing and fast-spreading bamboo to the desire for sugarcane (if not quite the proper climate): the world is full of so many things to think about, research, and try!

Mouse Damage

2012-01-18T18:21:00.001-08:00

Phil was on such a roll designing that he stayed up till 2am. Then he suddenly realized that all his design efforts of the last week have been an exercise in futility. He did some rough calculations and realized he would have needed something like 18 beams, 20' long and 18" wide. And while I pointed out this morning that that shouldn't be too hard to source, the question of how to hoist them to their proper place on the roof certainly brought a halt to any design progress.

With all his time in the office lately, a few days ago Phil came face to face with a mouse there. He bought some mouse traps and caught four in two days. He hopes they are all gone now. I do, too. I went out to the barn and thought, for some reason, to look in one of the drawers.

The smell of mouse wafted strongly up, and I noticed that one of my pairs of "good" shoes had been thoroughly chewed by mouse. I shook mouse droppings out of the other three pairs, relieved to see neither babies nor apparent damage, and decided the barn is probably not a good place for personal goods. Seeds, tools, and freezers, fine. Shoes and clothes: no.

Phil checked the water filter he had installed at the pump house. It was so caked with silt, he had to scrape silt away with his finger before he could even pull it out. Then he brushed it off, not realizing I would like a photo of the half inch of silty buildup. The animals would have had that in their water: it's just as well we're filtering it out.

After that, Phil went and shoveled sodden hay for a few hours. I'm sure he'll be sore tomorrow, but he wanted to build a wind block for our six sheep. And the hay does need to move off our road at some point. I think he was just ready to do some manly labor, clear his mind, get away from the design board.

While I was doing dishes, I watched a movie about Rainbow Valley Farm, a permaculture farm in New Zealand. Although the original farmer passed away a few years ago, for the previous twenty years, he and his wife transformed the barren land into a paradise of 13,000 trees, a hand-made home, a self-sufficient system. They lived for two years without electricity or phone, and began with thorny gorse bushes which they removed by hand. But their system worked, and with enthusiasm and hard work, they created beauty.

Success stories inspire me!

Sprouting

2012-01-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

Sunday night I was reading Harvey Ussery's most excellent book about chickens. I had reached the part about feeding chickens from homestead produced feeds, and he mentioned that he is playing with a permanent boundary hedge of Goumi, Goji, and Siberian Pea Shrub, all of which are useful for animal feed. (He has other ideas that fit with permaculture: planting mulberries, pawpaw, and using the extra fruits for chicken feed; using acorns or beechnuts as feed.)

He also settled a little concern I had about the hazelnuts I've interplanted with a few of the apple trees. When I ordered my hazelnuts, the photo looked like a nice, perhaps three-foot shrub, very cute. I came across a photo in a nut-grower book, though, which showed massive, 15 foot, multi-trunked shrub-trees. There was no way those enormous plants would fit in my dwarf apple orchard.

Harvey cleared up my issue. Somehow I didn't know this, but there are Corylus americana, which I have, and Corylus avellana. My type produce nuts only about a half inch, and are small bushes. The dessert-type, grape-sized hazelnut is the other version (and, certainly, the type in the book.) This is good to know. It will not ever be worth my while to harvest by hand little nuts the size of peas. They shouldn't go in my orchard. They are certainly useful for chicken feed (or pig, or cow, I expect), so they will be just great as part of a hedge or a forest garden.

I had even ordered 500 hazelnuts last fall, but was able to cancel that order when the workload compounded around here. Makes me quite thankful.

Anyway, the vision of the productive privacy hedge must have captured my mind, as I awoke in the middle of the night, ready to get to work researching what trees to plant at what spacing; what trees can grow from seed, since I'm not in a desperate hurry (I had read about goji sprouting).

Many hours later, I had a list of 43 trees, bushes, and vines, and the approximate height they would reach, from the 100 foot tall pecan, to the three foot tall huckleberry. Inspiring, if not immediately actionable.

I love the winter hibernation: so many interesting thought paths to pursue.

The boys and I have been entranced with the growth of the sprouts. After soaking the clover and daikon overnight on Sunday, we saw tiny white sprouts on a few seeds already on Monday morning. By this evening, the clover has taken off!

Phil has spent many hours lately in the office, designing something unique to him. We feel like this is a building year, and it was interesting, then, to have our sermon on Sunday be out of Joshua 17. At one point, Joshua says to some of Joseph's descendants, "[G]et thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land." Basically, clear the land and build your house.

It feels like a time of sprouting all over: ideas, plans, seeds. Latent excitement building.

Fresh Turmeric

2012-01-15T16:32:00.000-08:00

Saturday was bitterly cold. Phil spent the day designing on the computer, until late in the afternoon. We had gone out to replenish the chicken's feed bin, and discovered that, in the month since we last checked it, mice had done incredible damage to feed bags. And, worse, they had eaten into our $1000 worth of free-choice cow minerals. We had hoped Phil would be able to make a feeder for them already, but, as usual, we ordered and haven't yet put it to use.

We ended up putting the minerals into covered 5-gallon buckets, hopefully left in the open enough that our cat can catch those rascally mice!

I spent some time re-cleaning what I cleaned last week (and was amazed at how much dirt and grit had accumulated; I never really want to clean unless there's a noticeable change, and I was amazed at how great the change was!); then I made some further progress. I actually uncovered Jadon's dresser, and the books that had been buried thereon.

Sadly, that meant that I just paid it forward to my own desk, but since last week both the dresser and the desk were covered like that, and perhaps even worse, I feel like I've made progress.

We all went in to a local grocer today. Although the prices were higher for butter and yogurt, we were impressed with their selection of locally grown vegetables and fruits. And, since we had looked at leeks in a seed catalog, Isaiah asked if we could get one. Hmm ... a request for vegetables. I think I'll say yes!

Another fun purchase was sprouting lids. As a thrifty woman, I have resisted these sprouting lids for years. I can make do with wash cloths! But because it's not fun to wrestle with wash cloths and rubber bands, I usually don't. But sprouts should be a good homegrown winter vegetable. Currently soaking: daikon radish and clover seeds.

And we bought fresh turmeric! I have only used powdered, dried turmeric in curries, but I read an article last year about fresh turmeric. Supposedly a wonderful medicinal plant, as well as nicely flavored, I figured we could grow it in the greenhouse, but I have never tasted it fresh. So I bought some today (with fresh ginger in the background for comparison: very similar in shape, but the turmeric is smaller and much more yellow).

On Friday the 13th, We Peruse Seed Catalogs

2012-01-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

With heavy, cold winds today, we stayed inside as much as we could. Quite a change from our first winter here, when I was so frenetically concerned with progress, I sent Phil out to build fence in similar weather. He remembered today, after he brought a hay bale to the cows, how long it took for his chilled hands to thaw out, after he struggled to put up five cattle panels. Today, five cattle panels takes him perhaps 15 minutes, especially if he's not out working in the cold wind.

While I made dinner, I listened to a lecturer emphasize the importance of school gardens, in part as a way of providing hope to the young people of today. My favorite catalog for this area, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, hasn't arrived yet (I'm guessing the postal service lost it, so I have another one on order), but the boys and I had a rousing discussion over dinner.

What to look for in a catalog? Preferably, you want one that produces seeds close to your environment. That's why Southern Exposure is my favorite choice: their place is about an hour from me.

Also important to us: a catalog that proudly refuses to sell genetically modified seeds (find a list of GM-free seed catalogs at the Safe Seed Resource list). Which leads us to another interesting topic.

While heirloom seeds have been grown for over 50 years, and open-pollinated seeds reproduce naturally (so you can save them year to year), hybrid seeds have been, basically, inbred. They have, generally, advantages of size, uniformity of appearance, and sturdiness during transport, which make them good candidates for commercial growers. However, the brilliant and fascinating William Woys Weaver makes a good case for the improved nutrition, taste, and interest of the open-pollinated varieties. I try to use open-pollinated seeds. Last year, I had a difficult time sourcing organic onion seeds, and so opted for hybrid onions; this year, I hope to use no hybrids.

But worse than all are genetically modified seeds. These "frankenseeds" have had bits of foreign genes shot into their genetic material, randomly. Just like I would prefer not to have a bit of fish genes spliced into my genetic code, I imagine the tomato doesn't much appreciate it, either. The apparent benefit to GM seeds is that a person can spray the plant with glyphosate and the plant won't die. This makes farming and growing very easy: plant, spray, harvest. However, despite whatever "evidence" is offered for the non-persistence of glyphosate in the environment, I don't believe it.

And Jeffrey Smith has produced several well-documented books on GM foods. Avoid genetically modified foods at all costs.

So open-pollinated, maybe heirloom seeds are the way to go. Beyond that, organic seeds have been grown with (hopefully) a dedication to healthy soils, healthy crops, and healthy people. Biodynamic seeds (such as those from Turtle Tree) have gone beyond organic, incorporating the influences of the stars and planets in their cultivation. (Does that seem too bizarre? I think the butterfly effect is fairly well known, in which a small change at the outset can result in large changes in the end. Using the cosmos, like the effects of the moon, makes sense to me.)

The boys and I then spent some time looking through various catalogs. We had to figure out the various symbols, but Isaiah enjoyed the flower and herb sections of one catalog; Jadon looked at an entire flower catalog. He and I both drooled over some of the more striking displays: lupines, fuchsia, dahlia, astrantia. Amazing the colors and diversity.

Although we didn't get far enough in our conversation to talk through actually selecting which vegetables we think we might like to grow, and then choosing varieties based on need and taste, I was surprised by their enthusiasm with the "magazines," as Isaiah called them. When finished with the flowers, Jadon actually sat and read descriptions, one after another, in the Seeds from Italy catalog: a family business that started the year we finished the American Revolution (1783!) and has remained in the family ever since.

It's the first time I've felt like this coming growing season is something to look forward to. After the colossal flop of last year, I haven't been much interested.

Soggy Lower Pasture

2012-01-12T16:26:00.000-08:00

During our inch-plus rain yesterday, Phil and the older boys went to see Tintin in the theater. Jadon received the complete collection of Tintin books a few years ago, and I think I pick up one or more of the books every day ... definitely the most popular books at this house. So the movie was a fun treat for the boys. They went out of their way to pick up a wooden barrel afterwards. We hope to make a biodynamic barrel compost in a couple of months.

The ground was quite soggy, but the sun shone merrily, so I made the family hike to the lower pasture. Phil and I had watched an interesting (though not comprehensive) DVD on cordwood construction, and I was curious about how many more trees we would need to cut down to get 40 face cords of wood (each face cord measures 4'x4'x18"). I think we'd need a good many more trees down, and all debarked. That's a large project.

One of the little wonders: Phil dropped a large tree and it fell and crushed our fence in two places (one for the main trunk and one for a large limb). The cherry trees we planted there this last November, though, emerged unscathed, though the dropped tree and limb landed only a foot or two away from two cherry trees.

The lower pasture needs some remediation. Every large rain deposits sheets of water. We need to divert the rain runoff differently.

Duck Responsibility

2012-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

At one of his conferences last year, Phil noticed that Greg Judy put his electric line over his gates, rather than digging a trench and burying the electric line under it. So Phil ran the line up the posts, then up fiberglass poles left over from tree planting he stuck on top of the posts: it gives him plenty of headroom to drive under.

Phil went to our friends' last night to watch the BCS title game. Our friend was an Alabama grad, so to watch Alabama shut out LSU was a treat. Despite the late night, Phil went down to lumberjack. By the end of the day, he was physically exhausted, and surrounded by tree debris. I think he's done cutting trees for a while: he'll start sawyering next.

When Phil went to the dump, we found a bunch of night crawlers under the trash bags. Since I'm wishing for worms, I grabbed all I could find, and put them in a measuring cup until I had a chance to find a better home for them. I finally made that home today. It was quite fun to scrape the layers of dirt away, and admire the night crawlers' amazing paths through the soil. I had hoped to find some egg cocoons, but they eluded me. Hopefully those big worms will generate offspring!

Meanwhile, Isaiah wanted to capitalize on his duck ownership, so he asked if he could bring Mrs. Mallardy inside. That was fine with me, as long as he cleaned up after her. Happily, I came in to find him cleaning up her mess—he didn't try to duck his duck responsibility.

Cows Back to Rotating

2012-01-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

With the new perimeter fence up, Phil started the cows rotating again. Not a bit too soon: as we opened the gate for them to move, we noticed that they all had winter dysentery: diarrhea. It is good for them to have room to roam. The calves cavorted around their new paddock, running neck and neck, with tails up, like little racehorses. Adorable.

They had a little bit of grazing available, but mostly they will eat the hay bale rolled on the ground.

With a light drizzle falling, Phil spent the afternoon sharpening a few chains on his chainsaw. He watched several online movies about proper chainsaw maintenance. He realized he had been running the chain too tightly to the bar. And he learned that he was supposed to sharpen the teeth after every three tanks of gas. He needs to sharpen it more often.

The boys and I have continued to read every spare moment, and that is quite pleasant.

Booker and Birthday

2012-01-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

I have been reading through Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, I was interested in his description of some of the more self-respecting poor people: shabby but clean. (Indeed, he emphasizes cleanliness, devoting paragraphs to the toothbrush.)

I wonder if part of my feeling of hopeless trashiness comes from simply not caring a great deal about appearances. It seems so impossible. For example, last Sunday I had clean clothes on for the trip to town. Back on the farm, I had to go from the car to the trailer, and just three feet from the car, Bitsy came up and attempted to shake; her toenails streaked my jeans with orange.

With a trip to the laundromat every six weeks, I certainly don't have clean clothes for all six of us every time we get dirty. What would be the point?

Another example: dishwashing. Now I have never been good about keeping up with the dishes. But here, when I know that I'm paying for propane every time I turn on the hot water, and I know that I have fifteen minutes to wait for the water to heat up—it seems ridiculous to do dishes after every meal. But to get to the dishes every two days means that the kitchen is rarely clean; even when I have cleaned it, by the time I'm done, there is usually less than two hours before the next meal must be prepared. The current method of 90 minutes of concentrated effort every few days, while listening to a sermon or lecture, suits me well. Except it feels vaguely uncouth.

Also, I have had extremely little free time over the last year. Even tasks like dealing with paper filing or mending often get pushed off for months. It all has led to some hopelessness.

I wonder if I have allowed the hopelessness to translate into general inertia about my surroundings. I haven't ever washed the windows here, for example. And if the boys happen to smear a muddy orange hand on the trailer, that's just part of life.

But reading Booker's book made me reconsider: maybe a little pride in my dwelling, small and cheap though it may be, is in order.

Isaiah saw me cleaning the accumulated handprints of 30 months off the interior of the door (the exterior proved too difficult, the dirt too entrenched for my patience or fledgling hope). Isaiah volunteered for the cleaning job, and I was happy to hand it over.

My "desk" (Phil's dresser top) remains a wreck, but the rooms were vacuumed and swept, the most dirty of the walls washed. And it does feel much better.

Phil finished the 1000 feet of fencing he's been working on. In three days he did as much as he's been able to finish in the last year. Why was it so hard, and suddenly not so hard? I'm not sure, but I am grateful for the speed now.

When the middle boys went with Phil to get hay, Jadon and Joe went up to the orchard and dug together.

It was so precious to see, but when I snapped a photo, they heard the click, and commenced to dance. The rascals.

Isaiah wanted the mallard for his birthday. One friend commented that this would be rather like giving your mixing bowl to your daughter and saying, "This is for you. Now I'll just put it back in the cupboard until you move out." I suppose she's right, but he certainly seemed glad to hear that the mallard is now his, rather than ours.

For the cake decoration, Isaiah came up with the idea of the 8 candle standing up, with the 7 candle lying on its back, defeated. And he wanted a small blue beeswax candle that he'd made himself as one of the candles on his cake. I appreciated his input in the cake decorating: I would never have come up with such ideas.

Three, Five, Seven, Nine

2012-01-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

Phil has realized that he has difficulty sleeping after a night with friends drinking coffee. He had some at Bible study last night, and was up until 3am or so. (He was a multiple pot coffee drinker for years, and the caffeine had so little effect, he would drink it at midnight; now that he drinks only on special occasions, he's realized that his caffeine immunity has worn off.)

He had decided to work on fencing today; sleep deprivation wouldn't be a danger. Had he planned to do lumber jacking, that would have been a problem: the life-and-death danger of tree felling requires a sharp mind, not a groggy one.

A year ago today, Phil started perimeter fencing. Last January 6th, he struggled with augering holes for posts. The last year, actually, was a long struggle with the auger. He jury-rigged it today, though, and did multiple long stretches of fencing, with beautiful cross-bracing. He has a few more small tasks tomorrow, and he'll have completed a major section of perimeter electrification.

He was asleep before 8pm, after a long day with a job well done.

My mom shipped us all the presents and crafts we couldn't fit in our carry-on luggage, and we had a great time today unpacking our treasures. Jadon had made a cat out of Perler beads, and somehow its ears both fell off in transit. Jadon looked pretty bummed, but Phil suddenly let out a guffaw—the cat does look pretty funny now. Jadon perked right up.

Happily, the star he hung on the exterior door, where it catches the light whenever the door opens, is fully intact.

This is my last day to have boys ages 3, 5, 7, and 9. I asked them to head out for a last few photos, not realizing that Joe had fallen asleep in the last few minutes. He, awakening to find that I wanted him to stand or sit in the wagon, was not at all interested. The five of us ended up laughing hysterically, as I would set him down, and his brothers would grab hold.

After a few seconds he would wriggle away and take off running in stocking feet, always towards the house.

I would grab him, and get another photo of the back of his head before he'd wriggle away again.

The last time, he must have had an extra few steps head start, as he made it to the steps into the house before I caught up. I carried him back to the wagon, only to find it abandoned, and silence on every side. How could three giggling boys be so quiet and so vanished, so quickly?

We found them hiding behind the truck. The late afternoon winter sun glared, but we giggled all the more. What a moment to remember.

Isaiah's Beloved Birds

2012-01-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

While Phil worked on fencing the property next door (what a relief it will be to have electric line strung around the perimeter, rather than just along the road!), the boys had a chance to play outside in the sunshine. Jadon had made a sign of cut out post-it notes: "Beware of snakes, lions, and crocolators" (a combination crocodile-alligator), as a deterrent to his lower-bunk hideout. Very creative, but the energy can only stay contained inside for so long.

After a week indoors, this was a welcome change.

They all found creative things to occupy them. Joe headed over to watch Dad work. Jadon rode the wagon down the driveway, and played a game of spy—or something that required hiding and watching. Abraham jumped on the trampoline, then gathered an array of tools to help him as an archaeologist (a yellow flag, a garden claw, and a squirt gun were chief among his tools).

And Isaiah, the one who grumbled the most, had a day of bonding with his beloved birds. First he caught Tux.

He has trained her to sit and stay. She doesn't stay long, but she did hold still long enough for him to jump away so I could snap the picture.

After a period of intense pursuit, he then managed to capture the mallard duck. She is wily, and makes wise use of the available hidey-holes, whether under the cattle trailer or under the office trailer, or simply wherever she can flee on earth or through air. But his persistence paid off, so we had a photo shoot to commemorate his catch.

She has such alert eyes: not at all reptilian, the way the chicken eyes are.

The beautiful purple band on her wings is such a contrast to the understated colors on her body.

The energy in that little body, the beautiful curve and form.

Like all of us, Isaiah sometimes feels his life is challenging. The birds are a bit of relaxation for him (perhaps like the bees for me).

And then, to round off his fowl day, he caught one of the flighty White Leghorns. Such skittish birds!

Overall, he had a good day outside, despite the protests.

The Icicle in the Faucet

2012-01-04T17:41:00.000-08:00

Last night was the coldest night in a year. Bitsy, poor dog, was shivering nonstop outside. I put her in the motor home: the shivering continued. Around midnight, when he came in to bed, Phil hoisted the dog up into the trailer for the first time. She nosed around for scraps, tail wagging to beat the band, then joined us in bed.

Now Joe still shares the twin bed with Phil and I, and adding a dog who has never been part of a bedroom proved to be a bit much. Bitsy just wasn't sure of her place. Phil would push her down at our feet, and she would stay for a moment, then creep up until she had her doggy face inches from our own.

Once she flopped on Joe, who woke up enough to say, "I don't like it. I want komBUCHa," before he fell back to sleep.

But after a time, I could tell that Phil had dozed off, and the dog seemed to have settled into her spot. I fell asleep.

Apparently, though, Phil's brief doze was soon interrupted by an eager-to-please dog trying to shake, toenails extended. Patience exhausted, Phil got up and put her out. But his doze had reset his sleep enough that he couldn't fall asleep, so he headed to his office (heated with just a space heater), climbed into his down sleeping bag, and then, at some point, fell asleep. Only to come to bed much later, quite cold. And while I was sort of glad to be a help meet to my cold husband by warming him, I sort of valued my warmth, too.

Despite running the heater on high all night, it felt cold in our house this morning. I could see my breath in the bathroom.

And there was an icicle hanging off the water faucet in the motor home.

Happily, the outdoor spigots still run, so the animals were watered. And though the sourdough starter was frozen on top, it was still thawed underneath, so I could make bread.

I read to the boys much of the day. Phil, having stayed up much of the night, slept much of the day, played card games with the boys, and read books on various forms of construction the rest of the time.

Warmer weather is coming even now. Our trailer feels warm again. It was just a little adventure in cold.

A Day of Near Misses

2012-01-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

Phil drove a new bale of hay into the dry lot. This is always a tenuous experience, as the cows have generally finished their previous bale and eagerly anticipate the new food, crowding around the tractor while it is still backing. I am supposed to try to push the cows out of the way and manage the gate—which can mean blocking animals from escape.

Phil had several pallets on the ground, to keep the clean hay bale from sinking into the muck when the ground thawed. He set the bale down without difficulty. And then it rolled off the pallet and headed downhill.

Now I don't remember much from college physics, but I do remember that velocity increases with rolling downhill. We braced ourselves as the half ton or more bale hit the perimeter fence, cattle panels held in place by only little twists of wire.

And the fence held! Bowed out, only accessible on three sides, not protected by a bale ring (and thus subject to wastage) but not burst through! We did not have to round up fourteen cows and six sheep! A good day.

***

Phil headed down to lumber jack (he went to Charlottesville yesterday to buy new bars and chains). He managed to take down a pine try that was "hung up," a dangerous situation where a tree is cut down but doesn't fall to earth, getting stuck on a surrounding tree.

He began to cut down another tree. He noticed some debris around the base of the tree (the old chain, for example), so he gathered it. He glanced up and noticed that the tree was actively falling: directly on him!

He jumped aside, realized he'd left his chainsaw underneath, grabbed that, and jumped aside again.

He was fine, the chainsaw was fine. Two sections of cattle panel fence were collapsed. He decided to be done for the day.

***

To stay productive, he decided to run to town for propane, as our second tank was running low. He also went go get mail and make a bank run. He reached his destination before he realized that he had forgotten both tanks.

With such a day of near misses, I was relieved when he made it home a second time without a run-in with a deer!

Welcome, 2012!

2012-01-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

I have no recollection of being awake at midnight the last two years. This year, though, Jadon was still up reading, I had just finished my blog retrospective of 2011, and Phil was looking at straw bale construction. When the year changed, I embarrassed Jadon with my happy jig. Happy New Year.

With the start of a new year, I am pleased to have finished the first year of records in my ten-year garden book (shown with the annual, incredibly valuable biodynamic planting calendar, which we use almost daily). There was a period of about a month in the summer when I was too depressed to record much in the journal, but when I gathered myself together, I got the daily high and low temperatures from accuweather.com, and reconstructed what we accomplished based on the blog writing. So I have a reasonably complete record of the weather, the tasks we accomplished, and the monthly rainfall. I don't have a complete record of gardening itself, though, as the garden pretty much self-destructed in June.

One of the most startling things in looking at photos from the end of 2010 was the absence of shaping on what is now the market garden. We had no road, no tall weed stalks, no swales. It was a smooth hill. What a difference a year makes.

Phil suggested a different angle for the peach orchard slope.

The apple orchard, lacking leaves, is still a stand of white fiberglass poles. In the future, I think I'd prefer to plant trees that need no staking.

And, for posterity, a photo of our dwelling, looking west. (There is a reason I usually take only close-up photos: the standard number of random artifacts is just a bit depressing.)

2011: Year of Growth

2011-12-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

In this, the third annual retrospective on the farm, I was surprised to find how much grew and changed this year. (With special thanks to Isaiah for his aid in taking photographs. While my heart initially sank at the 377 photos we took today, it is a joy to see his creative vision, to see the farm with his eyes.)

We have radically changed our animals from New Year's Day to New Year's Eve. Of the birds, we have the same Chanticleer cock.

We have our beautiful black Tux.

Otherwise, other than the lone remaining guinea, we have an entirely new set of laying hens.

Incredibly productive, the White Leghorns might actually earn their keep: the first of our animals to do so.

And we have two faithful ducks, Mrs. Mallardy and the Welsh Harlequin.

Of the sheep, we have culled to just six. Of those six, I suspect two may be long-term residents on the farm. After two years of heart-rending lambings, we have no plans for lambs in 2012. (The garden, behind them, disappointed us. But it will be great, one day!)

Our cow herd, though, doubled, from seven at the start of the year: two calves, three heifers, and two cows.

To fourteen now, with the addition of our bull, another cow and calf, and four calves. Our milk production has dropped to nil, however: until this mama finds more time, and the milk cows have feed enough to make their milk quantity worth my while, the Lykoshes continue a water and kombucha family. One day.

And though we bought and lost a Jersey in the space of a month, we persevere in cattle because we love them, and we love what they do to the land. And we happily have management of the pasture to the north and south of us now, too. We went from three months of pasture-feeding last year to six or more months this year. In 2012, I'm hoping that once the spring flush hits, we'll have no more hay feeding—ever.

Though I had to combine hives, I ended the year with one, hopefully healthy hive. Infinitely more than last year. I love the bees.

I do plan to move their hive about 30 feet, though, into this sweet moon-shaped flower bed next to the driveway.

And we added sweet Bit of Honey, or Bitsy, for short.

The apple orchard grew, and we even harvested a dozen or so fruits from the most precocious of trees.

For the rest, their branches reach eight feet; some more.

I noticed there were a few red leaves still on the trees. On closer examination, they were all water sprouts: branches that grow vertically out of "real" branches. I'll need to prune those soon.

In the rows we tilled and seeded, the cover crop came in well.

In the stone fruit orchard, we removed the cherries, and transplanted the peaches on contour, with swales for water retention. The aesthetics improved immensely.

The peaches, for the most part, have done well.

We hope for even better things to come, both from those in the ground, and from the future trees we plan to plant.

My kitchen garden moved entirely. The truck can now park where the vegetables grew.

We planted almost 10,000 daffodils around the bases of the trees, and now are finding creative uses for the plastic crates.

I planted a couple hundred hazelnuts. Although less than half survived, those that did look great. Some of the male plants are now putting out catkins, the male flower that will (hopefully) pollinate the females.

Down in the lower pasture, Phil cleared some more trees. He milled lumber which we've used all year.

And, going forward, there is plenty more to clear and plenty more to mill. Plenty of uses for the lumber, too.

We are blessed to have so many large trees to use.

From a construction standpoint, the farm looks different now. We started with the little greenhouse back in February. It served us admirably for the intense time of seedling starting. But, since we're unlikely to do that again anytime soon, the greenhouse now is Phil's shop, for now.

We also have the big greenhouse. Mostly up, it needs more board feet of lumber for the base, and the cover put on, after the soil has had a winter to leach away the excess sodium. (Directly downslope is the green manure crop, just waiting the spring planting of blueberry bushes, and below that, the asparagus.)

Phil also carved out a little level section for the trampoline. The boys have used it both on top, for jumping and reading, and underneath, for intricate canals and pools.

Phil made himself a butcher block, and butchered four or five pigs and piglets on it. (And we've used bright flags all year: to mark swales, future trees, future bushes.)

Phil built an outdoor storage area for our animal feed (currently surrounded by the purchased compost we haven't yet spread in the orchard).

And he built a new compost area, away from our direct line of traffic, closer to the woods. Much preferred, aesthetically.

And although we bought a metal building, it remains on the ground.

The pad for it, though, has been of much use to us as a parking lot. (And the trailer has been of much use to us as we move the cows from paddock to paddock. It's not, perhaps, the most efficient, but it allows us to water the animals on land that has no well.)

I laughed to read that, a year ago, we had plans for placement and purchase of a yurt. How long ago that seems. This year, we're liking this spot, closer to the bottom of the finger.

And the idea of a yurt is long gone.

Interpersonally, the boys have done well this year. Phil and I were glad to see Joe and Abraham, not usually much interested in books, quietly looking at books this morning. Both resting their cheeks in their hands, identically. (I suspect Joe watched his brothers at some point, and learned that that is the proper posture for perusing pictures.)

Joe remains the constant companion of both parents.

And while I don't know how much longer I will be greeted by a child running to my arms, I treasure it while I can.

Thank you for reading my writing, and encouraging me on this journey. May the Lord bless and keep us.

Worm Bucket and Shoe Bin

2011-12-30T15:30:00.000-08:00

In order to get the tractor down to the lower pasture to free the chainsaw, Phil spent the morning forking hundreds of pounds of wet hay.

He cleared a room-sized area (barely visible in the photo, but about 10" in depth or so), and spread the stack on the acquired mud and muck in the dry lot.

Then we moved a fresh new hay bale into the original confines of the dry lot, and all the animals went it. We put the gates back, and the additional area they'd accessed during our time away, our farm road, was then accessible.

He drove the tractor down. The tree that had trapped the chainsaw had fallen during the night: the wrong direction. A bit of the chain was still pinched, so Phil tugged the tree and rolled it a bit. It rolled so much that it fell off the stump and crushed the bar and chain of the chainsaw.

It could have easily destroyed the chainsaw itself. We're grateful it didn't. But since that was the second bar and chain ruined in the last two years (one ruined by a friend who was borrowing it: Phil isn't that destructive), lumber jacking was done for the day, until we get to a repair shop.

I finally got around to making holes in my worm bucket. I drilled seven holes in the bottom, and an array all the way around. I have the lid beneath it, to catch any of the valuable worm liquid. They live in the bathroom (where it might get a little below the ideal 40-80 degrees), and I have covered the bucket with a towel to keep it warm, insulated, and away from the light. Worms don't like light!

I am not feeding the worms any animal products (Bitsy appreciates those, and if not Bitsy, the chickens). Sepp Holzer says that he thinks his earthworms don't like garlic and onions, so I might avoid those, too.

These red wrigglers are supposed to be isolated from "wild" worms. I'm hoping to get a good quantity of naturalized worms, too, in their own bucket. But those might need to wait for warmer weather: my bathroom is full enough.

Sepp Holzer actually has four varieties of worms. Maybe I'll even try nightcrawlers one of these days!

My Mom had a bin in her closet to keep shoes. On our return, I realized that I now have 29 bins, that held 10,000 daffodil bulbs, that I can use. One of them fit perfectly in the available space, and I have a much cleaner entry.

And, just because it's pretty: a necklace my sister made for me during our bead nights. Very chic.

In Which I Prevent a Terrible Tragedy

2011-12-29T18:41:00.000-08:00

Phil had strung electric line between hay bales when we left for vacation. He didn't have a way to electrify the line, but expected the cows would be well trained enough to avoid it until our caretaker came and rolled it up.

The cows must have forgotten their previous shocks, though, since they somehow managed to trample down several lines, and then bury them in a few feet of dung and spoiled hay, before our return. Compound that with several inches of rain, and the mass of moist, heavy, soiled hay effectively hid the ends.

Phil managed to uncover two of the three lines the first morning we were back. But the third was simply buried.

The cows have continued to eat through their hay bales all week without problem. For some reason, though, every time I went outside today I noticed a cow with a foot in that line. I would think, "Someone's going to get hurt. Lord, protect those cows."

I'm reading a book right now about a missionary who needed to learn much about prayer. And it struck me, just before dark, that I kept praying for the Lord to protect the cows, rather than just grabbing a pitchfork and shoveling for a while.

And so I found a pitchfork and dug in. How hard could it be?

There's a reason pitching hay isn't high on anyone's favorite activity list. The top inch was fluffy and light. Deeper than that, it was slow going. And, since the stalks of hay are easily two feet long, it was quite difficult to actually get a good purchase on the hay: like a heavy chain, the stalks immediately on top of the line connect to the hay on either side.

After I had cleared a few inches, and the sun continued to set, I came up with an alternate plan. If worse came to worse, I would just cut the line. It would be too bad to lose the line and hook, but better that than a cow.

I think it was the first time I've had to work in close proximity to the cows since I was gored. I've been extremely chary since then, but my personal discomfort was not important today: saving the lives of the cows was foremost on my mind. And so I worked, feet away from Snowman while he grazed; I looked up on occasion to see cow noses just inches from my face, driven by curiosity. At one point I stood up and a sheep tumbled where I had just been bent over.

And then the red end came! The wire ensconced outside the enclosure, I could thank the Lord for his protection of the animals, and go inside, easy in my mind. I had done what I could. And there is no doubt in my mind that there would have been a terrible tragedy. It had that sort of feel, that sort of advance warning. I've felt that way before and not acted; regretted it, too. How satisfying to act in time today.

Phil headed down today to do some lumber jacking. He said that he had dropped six or so tall pine trees when the chainsaw got stuck with less than an inch to go. He took the hatchet and cut a notch right above his chainsaw, but even that was not enough to free his tool. Perhaps it will fall in the night.

If not, we have ideas.

This is a good time of year. I have more time to read to the boys. And I head outside and just stand, looking at the spaces, trying to get a handle on what we've done, what we have yet to do. I went to look at the bee board. They are yet living, though I wouldn't have known it by the activity at the entrance (which was nil). They gave a gentle hum as I pulled the board, and then returned to their hibernation.

I watch the cows: not because they are more interesting than usual, but because it's startling to see how large the six-month bull babies are, how noticeably larger the two month-old heifers are (they grew so much just in the ten days we were gone).

This year flew by; it's nice to spend a little time just standing still.

A Day of Missing

2011-12-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

I made rice last night, using a beautiful half gallon of top-notch stock, painstakingly made by peeling chicken feet, until it was thick and rich: incredibly nourishing.

And I forgot about that pot of rice, and let it cook not 45 minutes but three hours. (Once I left the frigid motor home kitchen, I had little thought to leave the warm trailer again, and our hunger pains were assuaged without the rice.) While the charred flavor is not intense at the top of the pot, it is present in every kernel. What a waste.

My first thought on waking was, "Buy a rice maker!" This seemed prudent, so I began looking at options.

It was not easy to find one that is not nonstick. (I do not trust DuPont when they say that their nonstick coating is harmless. I wore out several pans early in marriage, and I am sure those nonstick chemicals are lurking somewhere in our bodies. Nasty!) Hours later, I finally found one. But I'm not positive I want it (as apparently, without a nonstick surface, the rice sticks and burns anyway, which doesn't seem much different than what I'm doing now, except it would turn off when done).

Then I went to look for our books on cordwood construction. While I have always loved the polka-dot look, Phil has never been terribly enthusiastic with cordwood as a building material: as an engineer, he views them as giant drinking straws, sucking water into the house from the outside. But maybe he's changing his mind. We certainly have plenty of trees that we could use.

But after opening dozens of boxes, each pulled from the depths of our storage area and labeled "Homestead," I could find no books. Another hour or two later, and out of options, I reordered. (Especially frustrating as I found plenty of books I didn't need to have bought, or really care if I ever see again! Argh!)

Later, I went to make dinner, and I had put a binder of recipes ... somewhere. It has had a set home for months, but in my last cleaning, I must have moved it, to an unremembered destination.

Some days are like this, I suppose. Blah.

55.1 Inches

2011-12-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

The near inch of rain we had on Tuesday brought the annual total to just over 55 inches. That's a lot of indoor days. A lot of runoff. There is no more predicted for the remainder of the year; that's fine with me.

While on vacation, I read a book about Sepp Holzer, a permaculture farmer in the mountains of Austria. I've watched several television specials about him, too: his 100 acre farm shines like a jewel in the midst of surrounding spruce forest, with 70 ponds and wetlands, 14,000 fruit trees, various animals and market garden beds.

He advocates building raised beds in a unique way. He digs a trench about a yard down, and drops in a downed tree. He piles dirt on, and sod with the grass facing in, ending with topsoil on the top. He aims to have the final bed about a yard or so wide and a yard or so high, so it looks, from the side, almost like an inverted ice cream cone. The tree in the middle offers free nutrients to growing plants for about a decade.

This is quite inspiring.

Quite inspiring, too, is his idea that you simply scatter 40 or so varieties of seeds as you walk the land, and then harvest the crops as they come up. And if you don't harvest 80% of your crop, that's fine, as the animals will come and consume the produce.

So I got to thinking about our farm. How could we be Sepp Holzer in Virginia?

I also had begun to wonder about milk production as a long-term goal. After all, it was not the easiest thing to find someone to come and care for the animals for ten minutes each day (truly: just check the water and check the chicken feed; not onerous tasks). If we had milking to complicate the absentee care, would we ever get off the farm? And even once a day milking becomes, well, extremely regular. Any task that's supposed to be done once a day is, by definition, a chore. Do we really want more chores?

Phil pointed out that last year at this time I read a book that really inspired me. We spent six months trying out the full-service CSA I'd read about in The Dirty Life. This was a good reminder. It's fine to be inspired, but to completely overhaul our own plans because I want our place to look like an established, successful farm is a bit ridiculous.

Before bed, I read the first chapter in one of my Christmas books, Harvey Ussery's Small-Scale Poultry Flock. I have eagerly read Ussery's articles in various magazines for several years, and the first chapter was just what I expected: elegant, informative, easy-to-read, persuasive.

He spoke of why chickens and eggs are so inexpensive, of the horrors of industrial production in America. It was helpful to hear that, even as an "expert," his chicken and eggs "cost me (considerably) more than I would pay for either equivalent in the supermarket." This has certainly proven true for us. Our feed and bird costs alone came to $4/lb., not counting infrastructure or time. To spend $3000 on broiler chickens felt like the height of ridiculousness, and I have had plenty of bitterness over that.

But Ussery makes the point that laying hens in commercial houses do not have space to stand up fully; that they are debeaked (mutilating and painful), fed GM waste materials, fed antibiotics every day of their life so they do not die, processed inhumanely and in filthy conditions. Two-thirds (yes, 66%) of supermarket chicken have salmonella, campylobacter, or both.

Foodborne illness costs about $1850 for each person who gets sick. My chickens started to not seem so expensive.

Ussery also mentions the moral dimension. If you eat a bird who has lived in horrific conditions from birth to death (and he details this much more extensively), he argues, "we are eating that anguish."

On a day that seemed dark, dreary and discouraging, I am encouraged to say that I did not eat that anguish.

And I will not grieve over the expense of my food again.

Homemade Rainbows

2011-12-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

We spent this last week in Colorado, visiting family during Family Fun Week. We ran the boys pretty hard, until one night Joe fell asleep on the futon in a very odd position, striving to watch just a little more of It's a Wonderful Life.

One of the highlights for me was we went to see The Nutcracker. Isaiah's comment at the end was, "It wasn't as boring as I was expecting." I thought it was magical, to see people who move with what seems to be less than the normal amount of gravity. And during the dramatic Russian dance, two males dancers did leaps in which they touched their toes, in unison, seven or eight times. It gave me goosebumps.

I came home with a collection of beaded necklaces. My Mom had a collection of garage sale finds, mostly extremely ugly clunkers that needed a makeover. With my sister and sister-in-law, we spent several evenings exercising our creativity to create beautiful works of art perfectly suited to our own personalities and colors. My favorite, I think, was a recreation of either my dad's mother or grandmother's necklace. Although my grandmother died when I was in kindergarten, and my great-grandmother followed shortly afterward, I have vague memories of both. The light blue glass beads are, possibly, a century old.

And I made three suncatchers. My Mom has windows with dangling crystals that produce rainbows, and I was ready for some rainbows of my own (though her window does not have a guinea in the background, as does mine).

The sun came out this morning and produced the hoped-for rainbows. Very cheery.

The the charm on the bottom of the longest is a stained glass made by a friend of my mom. I like having the warming red at my window.

As we pulled in to the driveway close to 11pm last night, the stars shone bright in the moonless sky, and a hint of pleasant bovine smell wafted to me. Home again.

On rising, the bovine smell became more clear. The rain gauge showed 1.6" of rainfall during our week away.

The fourteen cows and six sheep had treaded multiple haybales and the resulting manure into what was our driveway. The standing water did not help the conditions in the dry lot, so Phil spent much of the morning forking hay over the deep manure so the cows would have a nicer place to rest.

I went to check on the bees. When I pulled out their tray, there was a faint buzz, so I know they are yet living, and hopefully doing well in this thus-far mild winter.

While away, I picked up a bag of worms from one of my sister's neighbors. This neighbor has raised worms for years, and had a simple and helpful set up: a rubbermaid with holes drilled in the sides and bottom. I took the worms out of their plastic bag (where they had gone through airport security without fatal consequences) and put them in a new box.

I was curious about my old box of worms, and was horrified to find that it was entirely moldy, with dehydrated worms. I could have figured that the cardboard would wick the innards dry, but I had been so focused on the joy of decent air movement, I had ignored the drying peril.

I plan to get Phil's drill tomorrow and make holes in a five gallon bucket, so the new batch of worms will live and thrive. No more dehydrated worms for me!

A Word for the Year

2011-12-22T06:28:00.000-08:00

As the year nears the close, I've asked friends and family what word they would use to describe their year. What a great question! One retired this year: Relaxing. One changed perspective from what the Lord was withholding to what the Lord was giving: Shift. One celebrated a milestone in such a joyful way: Jubilee. And one friend chose the precise word (even in the precise tense) that I had chosen.

Growing.

This has been a year of growing for me. I can think about my thought-processes and ideas at the start of the year and I feel like I've grown in maturity. I grew in thankfulness, grew in understanding.

My involvement in teaching healthy eating and cooking grew. What a joy to teach young ladies how traditional cultures maintained health and vitality into old age.

The farm grew. After the crash-and-burn of the attempted market garden, we could say we grew in knowledge of what doesn't fit our family. We created a full farm plan that we like.

The boys, who we interact with hourly, grew. They get along now better than they ever had. They have passed benchmarks in their education, in their understanding of humor and permaculture and God, in their helpfulness around the farm. It's been a great year with them.

Our circle of friends grew. At one point, I went to a women's retreat for a few hours, and looked around the circle of ladies. I had spent over an hour one-on-one with seventeen of them. What a privilege!

***

Phil's word was similar: Phoenix. Out of the ashes of the failed farming endeavor, something new is springing forth.

Happy Winter Solstice!

More Thoughts

2011-12-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

Continuing my collection of pent-up thoughts, these are primarily religious, and quite personal.

There was a time earlier this year when I was (again) bemoaning my lack of standard house. I thought then of Jesus' promise to prepare a place for followers, that in his house are many rooms. And I thought, who knows me better than my Creator? The idea of a house, perfectly suited for me, decorated with my (perhaps not fully formed) idea of beauty—it was a great joy to know that that is coming one day.

***

I have had several examples of God's gracious provision. Though there are other examples (for example, the fig tree), but one sweet one came this summer. With the weather so hot, I had been wearing a cami to work outdoors. I only had the one, so I kept it despite its holes (generally speaking, I don't wear holey clothes. When something gets an unrepairable hole, I figure it is worn out). Finally one day, though, the stitching fell apart. The garment was shot.

And then my sister sent me a care package with not one, but four camis. Lavish provision.

Another example: with all the daffodil bulbs we bought, we opted not to order any bulbs on clearance (hard decision though that was). I was sorely tempted by the beautiful giant purple alliums, but I resisted.

And my friend Melanie gave me some of the very bulbs I had most drooled over. Like the fig tree, it felt like a kiss to my soul.

***

At a bee class earlier this year, Gunther Hauk mentioned something to the effect that often the right, or proper, calling is hidden under pesky, brash thoughts on the surface of the mind.

This was an interesting idea. Since then, I've noticed several times that I will have driving ideas, some that even wake me up in the night: order comfrey tomorrow; order blueberries. Unlooked for, these thoughts keep pounding.

But if I resist a day or two, I have seen that those precise orders would have been at just the wrong time. The pesky thoughts are not the right ones.

It's an interesting contrast to me. I think I have had times when God has clearly led me, and those are never pesky. Persistent, yes; but grounded, centered, right.

***

Jesus tells his disciples in John 15 that they should go and bring forth fruit, fruit that remains. With the little harvesting that we accomplished this year, we still lost some to bugs, to rot, to mold. What would it be like to have delicious fruit that springs forth and is not wasted?

In some ways, we have no concept of that in this world. This world needs fruit to compost or breakdown in order to feed the microorganisms, in order to keep the system as a whole healthy (the whole "circle of life"). This elegant system of growth, reproduction, and decay works well.

And yet, because of the aspect of death, which passes on us all, there is no fruit that remains here.

Jesus calls his people to a very different "agriculture."

A Smattering of Thoughts

2011-12-18T05:26:00.001-08:00

As I rest from my labors, here is a smattering of thoughts I've been saving up.

On the practical side: I have heard that if you are traveling to a different time zone, a glimpse of the sunrise soon after you arrive is the most effective way to reset your body clock.

If you are feeling ill, a pound of baking soda and a pound of salt in a hot bath is soothing and detoxifying. Phil tried this once this year and turned the tub orange. He felt much better.

***

On the philosophical side: I heard a lecture by author and farmer Shannon Hayes, talking about her book Radical Homemakers. It sounds like she drove around the country meeting women like me: interested in learning and trying new things, trying not to base their lives on the consumer culture, trying to produce and gain independence in food or clothing or entertainment. Not all the women lived on farms (and, come to think of it, I don't think they were all women!), but they all shared those characteristics.

One of the things she said is that, in order to avoid burnout, all the women had to complete three steps. First, they had to renounce the normal consumer culture (note my move to the country). Next they needed to reclaim the life they wanted, to have a working farm, or homeschool their children in the suburbs, or whatever that looked like for them.

Interestingly, though, if they stopped there, they would burnout. The homemakers needed to then rebuild: to work toward allowing others to have a fulfilling, rich life. For me, perhaps I have a little of that with cooking classes, and Phil has that with leading Bible study. It's the step of reaching out and helping others, rather than just oneself.

I thought that was a good point.

***

Emily Dickinson, perhaps the foremost female American poet, was known for her private, insulated life. She rarely left the family home. She said once (to her sister-in-law?), “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

I can relate.

***

Recently I watched a fascinating movie on what motivates us. Financial rewards or punishments (also called carrots and sticks) are not as effective as three things. Autonomy, or the ability to choose what is meaningful; mastery (fairly self-explanatory); and purpose. We want to work towards something that excites us, that will make the world a better place.

On the farm, I think we're still working toward mastery (probably a lifelong task), but that certainly made sense why, for the most part, we enjoy farming. We have all three.

Bulbs: Finished!

2011-12-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

We finished planting the daffodil bulbs. (Lest you be overly impressed, in the end, we figure about 750 were not viable and we didn't bother planting those, so we didn't do a FULL 10,000.)

And then, because I had some spare time, I finally got around to mulching my garlic beds. That's 540 square feet of garlic, coming up well, and now sheltered from the coming winter cold.

The newly ploughed swales in the market garden area left me with a cool, moon-shaped garden bed. I planted the eight extra trees there that didn't have a clear place in the new layout of the peach orchard, and I hope to grow flower beds for bees in that space.

Phil brought all the cows to the dry lot, bringing the total there to fourteen cows and six sheep in that area. Snowman, separated from three of his harem for a month or so, quickly reacquainted himself with their smells. When they pee, he tastes in and puts his head out to focus well on what he is smelling.

He especially showed an interest in Fern, and though we didn't see any actual mounting, he put his head on her back hips, in preparation. We would be happy with a September baby.

In various magazine ads, I've certainly seen Angus bulls that are broader and thicker in every dimension. But we love Snowman.

And his little son Clover, born in July, is shaggy and scrumptious. (Every time I look at him I think, "Aww, he's so CUTE!") Phil read that if we only kept bulls from cows that were eight or older, the cattle industry in this country would be drastically different. After all, if a farmer has a cow for eight years, she is clearly a good cow, and her sons would also have productivity and longevity in their genetics. I think Clover's mom is only seven, but he might be a good herd bull.

Our New Outrigger

2011-12-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Phil and I finished transplanting the stone fruit orchard today. Isaiah helped dig holes on the first eleven, and then, after a brief break, Phil and I tackled the last eight. Joe was with us, and he clambered up on the backhoe, pushed the levers to put down the outriggers (or stabilizers, which keep the backhoe steady as it digs). He climbed down, Phil climbed up, dug, and then, when finished, Joe climbed back up and put up the outriggers.

Then he hung on tight to drive to the next spot and put the outriggers down again.

To say that he was proud of himself is hardly enough. He was thrilled, eager, focused.

To see his enormous grin over and over was incredibly precious.

So if you happen to see Joe in the near future, you might comment on his outrigger abilities. You might get that same big grin.

I had a big, if tired, grin, too. I started the final flat of bulbs. Nineteen trees transplanted, 400 bulbs planted, and several new swales cut (along with food procured, animals tended, Calvin and Hobbes read, and our every six-week laundry trip undertaken): it's been a great day.

Wood Chips and Daffodils

2011-12-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

Phil brought down wood chips, donated by the last road crew that came by. The tractor easily carried load after load, and the incredible soggy mess of rain-drenched, manured hay is now covered with good carbonaceous material, that will compost eventually and form beautiful humus.

The boys, Phil, and I spent a solid six hours planting daffodils. We have only about 700 more bulbs (after we planted about 1400 today!), and we finished all three newly plowed swales.

The boys again amused me with their independent planting styles. Abraham stood up straight, and would "secretly" stock up bulbs in his hand so he would be ready to drop them in the holes. He would drop them from his waist level, so they would frequently flip in midair, and land upside down. Isaiah would lounge, elbow on the swale, pushing a pile of bulbs in front of him. He would use a funny-shaped bulb to plop the others into the holes.

Jadon plants just like me: he focuses enough that I never have to remind him to keep his mind on his work. He planted twice as much as his brothers. He's a good boy. And an excellent tree-climber.

Bitsy's Behavior

2011-12-12T17:44:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning, Phil headed out to try to make the last swale in the peach orchard, and we hoped to transplant our plums there. He drove about five feet, slipping down the whole time, and turned and drove directly up, ignoring a previously plowed swale. He managed to get out of the quagmire, but his swale-plowing was done for the day.

I planted all the daffodils I could (only about 200), and the planting was done for the time being.

This afternoon, Phil tried to plow again. This time he was successful. Tomorrow morning, I have a new project to work on.

Saturday afternoon, Phil installed a full-farm water filter. All the water from the pump will go through the filter first, and we are interested to see how quickly the filter clogs from sediment. That's been a "honey do" project almost since we moved, so it's quite a triumph for the farm to have that done.

The weather has finally turned cold, almost dipping to the teens. While last year, I think our water line froze in October for a few days, we didn't have frozen lines until yesterday morning: the 11th of December! While we waited for the water to thaw so we could shower, we had a relaxing morn, and showed up at church for the final prayer. Some days are like that. And, while last year we had no running water for days after that first freeze, this year we were without for only hours. We're doing better in our systems management.

Today, Phil spent much of the morning getting sixteen bales of hay from a couple sources. We wanted to get all the hay we need until after Christmas, and we think we're set. That's a good feeling.

And we made a new bale feeder, in hopes that the dry lotted cows won't waste half the bale as they have been. Fern was more persnickety than usual: I hopped outside the fence and watched Phil deal with her grumpiness. It was hard to watch.

Last Thursday, I mentioned to Phil that I thought maybe Bitsy had been spayed. After all, we'd had her seven months, and no sign of heat. Friday morning, a male dog came around, and Isaiah, barely awake, glanced out the window and exclaimed, "He's mounting Bitsy!"

Since we've never dealt with a dog in heat, we needed to look at what that meant. Apparently, an average dog has a heat that lasts 21 days: a week coming in to heat, a week in which she can conceive, and a week of coming out of heat. She will bleed some, too, and attract male dogs for miles around. Of course, since conception is a natural process, there's plenty of leeway in that.

The boy dog, "Brindle," we call him, seemed pleasant enough. Friday through this morning he has been a fixture around the farm. We kept Bitsy inside overnight, and he slept in her doghouse. We took Bitsy up to church, and he was waiting for us when we came home.

We tried putting Bitsy in the cattle dry lot, with her doghouse in the cattle trailer. This worked well for a few hours, when one of the cows raked her with her horn. About that time, Brindle apparently tried to go after our chickens in the electric net. Phil and I knew nothing about it until we heard a terrific yelp, and saw the hapless fellow tear up the driveway, tale between his legs. We haven't seen him again.

Bitsy was relieved to be out of the cow pen.

So is Bitsy bred? We'll know the first week of February.

For the record: I feel sick about this, and have spent many hours blaming myself for not taking her to the vet and making sure she was fixed. I was practically hysterical after the potential breeding: it seems so trashy to have mutt puppies, a confirmation of white trash that I secretly wonder if I'm becoming. Phil, however, always regretted that he fixed our previous yellow lab, and is hesitant to do anything permanent. While on one level, he realizes we don't need the hassle of puppies, on another level, he's intrigued by the newness of the opportunity.

Because We Couldn't Plant ...

2011-12-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

The ground remained soppy. Jadon and I planted about 100 bulbs, slipping in the mud, hoisting heavy bulb planters caked with mud, tromping around in shoes heavy with mud. Once we reached swales with surface water still running, we gave up.

Instead, as Phil and I talked about what to do in the market garden, we came to a surprising conclusion: we are not satisfied with the placement of the road, with the water runoff of the various swales. We had taken the advice of a friendly expert about nine months ago, and, as we've learned more about water management on the land, we've seen that our starting point was incorrect.

One benefit of running out of time and money before planting the market garden to perennials: we have little we must move in order to redo the layout.

So Phil and I laid out new swales. From the very first one, we grew excited: "This feels right!" And then, as we progressed, the angles of water movement continued to match what seemed to make sense; the road placement shifted precisely as it should.

After some discussion, we agreed to leave some of our slope as it is. Our lovely planting of ryegrass, with swales planted to daffodils and places for future blueberries, will stay as it is.

After such drastic shifting, Phil headed off to fix the tractor (a part on the three point hitch finally broke late Saturday).

And the boys and I, in lieu of anything productive to do outside, continued our progress through The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I get such a kick out of the absolute exuberance of the boys when it's time to read. All of them wiggle and giggle and bounce with glee.

And in those rare strips where Calvin and parents, or Calvin and Hobbes, celebrate life and relationships, Jadon says, without fail, "That was a nice one!" And he's right.

After the Rain

2011-12-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning I woke in the night to the sound of heavy rain. It was predicted and expected: first an inch and a half, then two and a half. From a daffodil planting standpoint, this was close to disastrous: water-logged clay soil is heavy and messy to work in.

After a full day of heavy rain, it finally tapered off around 10pm. Just over four inches had fallen on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday morning, I headed out to test the ground around the last 52 apple and pear trees. Would the bulb planters work?

Happily, they worked beautifully. In fact, with Phil's help, we did all the remaining pome orchard trees, well over 600 bulbs. We have less than eight of the original 29 bulb crates to go.

Looking up at the orchard from below, the plants are brown and dormant.

Looking down at the orchard from above, the tilled earth and broadcasted ryegrass is green and growing.

Perhaps tomorrow the peach swales will have dried somewhat. By this evening, they were still long pools of water. (Phil was pleased yesterday to see how the swale water was actually flowing out toward the ridge: exactly what a well-designed swale will do.)

***

A few other things of note: back in mid October, I suddenly started burning food in the toaster oven. It took about a week of diagnostic baking, but I finally realized the element was only capable of full heat. Since then, I have baked many loaves of bread at full heat. Sourdough bread cooks to completion at 450 degrees in 40 minutes, rather than the more standard hour at 350. (The charred top of each loaf does need to be trimmed.)

I had ordered what I thought was an identical oven (same make and same store), but when it arrived and was fully unpacked, it was ridiculously too small to cook a chicken or two loaves of bread. Soon we will return it.

But today arrived our new toaster oven, large enough to cook a five pound chicken. We inaugurated it with a batch of brownies.

The garlic is coming up well. I need to mulch it soon, but I like those green sprouts!

We have four different types of eggs right now. The white leghorns are opaque and fairly large. The mallard duck lays little white. Tux, the black Australorp lays brown eggs. And the Welsh Harlequin lays white eggs with a little translucent sheen.

It may be hard to tell the difference from the photo, but the leghorn egg is on the left, the duck egg is on the right.

And, finally, some animal photos.

I spotted Charity grazing on hay today. She's eating solid food, and appears to be growing well at three and a half weeks of age.

Day of French Fries

2011-12-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

With almost two inches of rain forecast, I hurried to plant as many bulbs as I could before the rains began. Right around 10am, I finished 2/3 of the bulbs as the rain began to fall. Just a drizzle, but a drizzle in red clay soil makes for mighty heavy going.

So we had an indoor day, and that was fine with me. For lunch, and then for dinner, I cut up potatoes, fried handfuls in coconut oil for about seven minutes a batch, took them out and sprinkled them with Celtic sea salt. Then, in true European fashion, we dipped them in homemade mayonnaise. Phil was away for lunch, but between the boys and I, we polished off a five-pound bag of potatoes.

And were very, very content.

I Make BD 500

2011-12-05T16:56:00.001-08:00

This morning I put about half a box of bulbs (about 175) into a bucket and told Isaiah that he had to pop them in the holes I made, but when the bucket was empty, he was done. This was surprisingly effective: the definite completion kept him on task. Each bulb walked up to its hole and fell, unexpectedly, to its death. At least, that was the sketch Isaiah performed for his own amusement, over and over again. Jadon's bucket went quickly as he recalled line after line of his favorite Jeeves and Wooster scenes and lines (he is reading P.G. Wodehouse for himself now, which I think quite impressive). Abraham and Joe came out for their bucket and stuck with it all the way to the bottom. Good for them.

As we close in on 2/3 of the bulbs planted (we ended the day at about 64%), I took a break today to make BD 500, a biodynamic preparation that I hope will serve as a potent homeopathic treatment for the land.

Two years ago, I ordered seven cow horns from the Josephine Porter Institute. They supply top quality biodynamic preps to customers around the world, but they encourage people to try to make their own. Some day, I suppose, I will have my own cow horns, but for now, I am thankful to get started with any horn. You can tell that these are cow (female) horns because of the birth rings: bull (male) horns are smooth. And not usable for making the preps.

Into the horns, I troweled as much cow manure as I could from, I hope, the lactating cows in the dry lot. At the risk of being indelicate, it was all fairly fresh, as the cows spread their hay around and cover previous manuring daily.

I vaguely recall reading an article about the importance of a clay cap for the manure, so I dug a few more holes with the bulb planter in order to get a good compressed clay plug. The end result was neither attractive nor, I'm afraid, impermeable, but it was what I had patience and ability for this day.

And then I had to bury them in the earth. Phil and I discussed options for spots reasonably rich in humus, but, in the end, I opted for the site of Chloe the dog's grave. I knew the soil had been recently disturbed, which made for easier digging, and I knew we will do no land improvement things there over the next six months (if ever). So I dug a small hole and placed my seven horns, with the openings down to prevent water from soaking in. I have seen beautiful, radiating spirals of horns about to be buried. That would have required a bigger hole, and I have dug enough holes lately to want to enlarge this project.

So there is BD 500, in process. I'll dig it up sometime between Easter and Pentecost (which is May 27 next year) and see what I have.

We Pass the Halfway Mark

2011-12-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

When Abraham woke me before dawn and asked for a drink, my first waking thought was that my body ached all over.

And when Phil came up to plant daffodils, his hands were rubbed raw and he could hardly bear to touch the planter. After a time, he put the Dr. Scholl's moleskin on his blisters and was able to carry on.

The round circles on the swales show the spots where bulbs lie.

This scene of brown will hopefully spring forth in a few months.

Joe was the surprising helper of the day. Phil gets in a rhythm planting along swales, where he can dig holes almost as fast as a helper can drop bulbs in. Joe had come up to the swales with some construction trucks, but as the middle boys flaked out after helping a while, he stepped up voluntarily, and refused to quit, cheerily dropping bulbs even after being sorely tempted by interesting play happening all around him. What a guy.

But when the planting was done, he and Isaiah put the trucks to good use. Isaiah rode one down the driveway, and Joe ran in front.

With sore bodies and sore hands, even with our best effort we only got about 500 bulbs in the ground, but that passed us just over the halfway point. It's all downhill from here.

Phil also had to move the sheep from their grazing area near the road into the dry lot. Until we free up space in the freezers and find a little available time to process the three larger animals, they'll eat purchased hay, which is a bummer, but will also contribute their manure and hopefully break pathogen cycles for the cows. With these benefits, I can be patient.

The last two nights have been almost in the twenties. Yesterday, after the sun had dropped below our ridge so we were in shadow, a flock of 14 geese flew directly overhead, so low that Phil figured we could have almost shot them out of the sky. We heard the wind through their feathers, and saw the underside of their wings lit with the setting sun. Magnificent.

Since Phil and I have asked the boys to help a bit more, they are taking their free time more seriously. This morning I came in to find that Jadon had made little passes for his brothers, then created a hiding place on Joe's bunk where I overheard some serious storytelling going on.

I love that.

Daffodil Hope

2011-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today and tomorrow are biodynamic flower days, so Phil and I, with the boys, headed out this morning as soon as it warmed up enough to thaw the frost. Except for a short lunch break, we worked steadily until dusk.

The apple orchard is slow going, but Phil spent the afternoon planting in the peach orchard. In the time it took me to ring ten apple trees, Phil not only ringed 17 peach trees, but also popped about 20 bulbs in the ground between each tree. We hope that bulbs every six inches will keep down the weed load on the swales.

When we headed down the driveway, we figured we had put about 1000 bulbs in the ground.

This is why Phil has not been stressed about the daffodils. While I've been watching the days of fall fly by, calculating every day how many days it has taken us to plant what we have done, and extrapolating that out to see how long it would take us to finish the planting if we kept up the same pace, Phil calmly finished various other projects that needed to be done (get Buttercup into the freezer; get the cherries down to the lower pasture; get dry lot and shelter for the cows completed). Somehow he figured there would eventually be a day to spend the whole day planting bulbs.

And when that day came—today—his relaxed attitude proved tenable. We are almost halfway done with all bulbs, and if we can find five or six more full days to plant daffodils this fall, we should be fine.

Why did we order 10,000 bulbs?

Let me go on record to say that, had I known it would be this hard to plant them, I am not sure I would have been so voracious. I had hoped for an easy 200 an hour, and expected the entire project to take little more than a week. But even if it did take a long time, I had hoped for them to arrive a month before they did. Had I known the shipping delay, I would probably have just waited until the end of the season sales. (As I fully expect to do in all future years.)

But why 10,000? Well, daffodils are both grass and rodent repellent, and, as such, excellent shields to fruit trees.

They also bloom a few weeks before apple bloom, which both lures the bees to the orchard where they'll be needed during blossoming, and feeds the bees during the early spring when their winter stores may be low. And since I love my bees, I am happy to aid them however I can.

Furthermore, after our nightmare weed troubles this last year, we are hoping that, by planting daffodils along our swales, we will begin to take control of those wild areas. Not only in the peach orchard, but in the market garden, too.

It wasn't until we had the daffodils in house that Phil suddenly asked, "Why did we just order daffodils? We could have ordered tulips or other beautiful flowers." And, happily, before we had long to regret our purchase, friend Melanie pointed out that daffodils are remarkably unappetizing to rodents who might choose to feast on the (apparently) more scrumptious tulips.

***

As we transplanted the peaches, we dug up two trees that the chickens had absolutely girdled. Apparently, trees can survive a good bit of damage, but if a tree loses all the bark all the way around, like a donut of destruction, this gap eventually kills the tree.

On one of the peaches, the chickens took off every bit of bark from the ground to above my knee: stripped bare.

I hesitated to declare them a complete loss, so I put the two trees in some water and covered their roots with a wet bag until I could figure out what to do. So, after a quick tutorial on how to graft peaches, I headed out today to take cuttings of 1/4" to 3/8" diameter branches.

Happily, Phil the engineer has calipers. There were surprisingly few branches that were the right diameter. One tree had plenty of larger branches. Both trees had branches closer to the size of noodles than pencils. But I now have about twenty cuttings, wrapped in wet paper towels, waiting for me to figure out where to store them until the spring.

***

And for something totally different: as the older boys worked with us this morning, we were talking about multiplication. Phil's trick of multiplying eleven by a double digit number is to take the number, split the two digits, then drop the sum of the two in the middle. Using 11 x 21 as an example: put the two in front, the one at the back, and the sum (3) in the middle: 231.

Jadon shared his own method of multiplying single digits by nine. If he wants to multiply 9x7, he goes to 60 (the ten below what 10x7 would be), then calculates 9-6 (using the six from sixty), and adds that to 60: 63. For 9x3, he goes to 20, subtracts two from nine, and gets 27. How did he come up with this? I have no idea.

Today's Trauma

2011-11-29T18:24:00.000-08:00

Phil came back after checking the cows at midday. "Clara's missing."

This was especially bitter for me, as I had gone to bed last night, exhausted by the exertions of the day, with a nagging feeling that I should have brought Clara and her mother to the dry lot before the baby's first rainfall, which fell overnight. Phil and I had actually tried to walk Bianca over the day after she birthed, hoping her daughter would follow properly, but Clara was too disoriented, too little, to follow, and the distraught mama cow was intractable. At some point, the stress of trying to walk a stubborn cow a half mile, while also gently steering an uncollared and wobbly calf, became too much. We left it for another day.

I woke up convinced that yesterday was the proper day. But, really, in the dark after planting, it hadn't seemed reasonable.

And so now we had a missing calf, perhaps wandered several farms away in the inch of rainfall, perhaps chased by dogs or shot by hunters.

I hate thinking about losses to our herd. Each animal is so full of potential; each has such a precious pedigree (at least to me); each has been a gift.

I walked through the woods that bordered the neighbor's field, calling Clara and listening, wishing, for an answering call. I even checked Hog Creek, hoping she hadn't stumbled there and drowned.

Phil took the truck and circled the 15 acre field, cutting through sections, driving carefully through the tall, dried grass.

We converged after some time, having seen no signs of her, having heard no peeps.

I was ready to go and ask the neighbors, far-flung though they may be, to keep an eye out for her. Phil pointed out that Bianca, by far our most vocal cow, seemed unworried, but her udder seemed quite full, and she was devouring large mouthfuls of newly delivered hay. Would a hungry mama really be that worried about a missing calf? Wouldn't she need to satisfy her own needs before she would grow alarmed? Wouldn't her bag need to fill and become uncomfortable before she started calling?

I joined Phil in the truck and we headed toward a different section of woods, crossing a part of a field we hadn't been on before. Phil had just finished saying how uncomfortable he felt driving through the tall grass, where visibility for a small red calf might be slim to none, when he said, "Whoa!" and stopped the truck instantly.

At the side of the truck, actually touching the running board, was the recumbent calf. Why she hadn't jumped up when the one ton dually approached I still don't know. It wasn't until I had exited the cab and come around to the driver's side that she jumped away from us—heading under the cab. Phil, with his quick hands, grabbed her, and I carried her on my lap as we drove her to our dry lot.

As I rather suspected, sitting in the arms of a strange person in a truck's cab while roaring up a slope and along a bouncy gravel road was enough for the calf to come loose. First the yellow, milky poop of an infant, followed soon by a thorough drenching from the same place, meant that we were both glad for the ride to come to an end.

The image of that baby, lying serenely in the direct path of the back wheels; the knowledge that the front tires must have missed her delicate legs by literal inches; Phil's unbelievable vision that spotted the calf practically underneath his window at the last second before tragedy ... all of this was almost too much to handle.

In the future, we'll pay better attention to the actions of the mother. Bianca was unworried; we could have been, too. When we walked over to bring her to the dry lot, she was quite unwilling to go with us. She knew where she had left her baby, and she wasn't interested in going in the opposite direction. But a half hour of tugging brought mother and baby together.

For the moment, peace returns.

And, finally, on a completely different note: Joe has recently begun to make himself mustaches from tape. I don't know why. It seems like a painful method to create an unusual facial hair style. But it definitely makes me smile.

We Move the Peach Orchard

2011-11-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

The biodynamic calendar said that this was a "specially good" fruit day, so we have planned for a few weeks to transplant as many of our peaches as we could.

Phil had plowed swales a few weeks ago, but started this morning replowing. That went shockingly well: the ground was dry enough to easily work, and he quickly cut most of them. The bolt broke with about thirty feet to go, but that wasn't worth the time to fix it. So we were off!

Phil dug up the first few varieties. I had made notes of which trees were in the ground, and checked each tree to see if it was damaged. Thus, each row was to be an orderly single variety or two. Isaiah dug the holes in the new location, while Phil and I placed the trees and shoveled the dirt back on them.

And the transplanting went so well! Today was warm but overcast, absolutely ideal for transplanting trees. Roots do badly in direct sunlight, so the lack of sun was a definite boon. Especially because some of the peach tree roots were ridiculously large—it was impossible to fit them in a bucket for moisture and protection.

To say that we are pleased with the new layout is a definite understatement. I think it fits the land, aesthetically and emotionally, so much better. Phil is thrilled with the improved access. He can drive the tractor down the rows, and turn at the ends, without feeling tippy. Future spraying, future mulching, future harvesting: it's all much more reasonable now.

We had finished twelve trees when we stopped for a late lunch (every tree was large, and Isaiah was sometimes digging holes to China, which required a LOT of backfilling). We did seven more and then Phil and I discussed what to do. The cloud cover had continued to gather, but we had probably another hour before the light completely failed. We decided to do nine more peach trees that were hard to access in inclement weather, leaving a few more along the driveway for the future.

Phil dug a tree, I carried it to its new spot. Again and again. After about the fourth tree, I realized that we had a problem: one more tree than expected! So we did ten trees.

Isaiah was such an expert by this point, he would look at the position and rootball on the tree, often dig a single scoop, let me set the tree, and then dump out the bucket of dirt. This left very little shoveling, and meant that we completed the task as dark fell. Twenty-nine large peach trees transplanted.

Back in the house, I realized I had misread my diagram notes, and thus every row (except the top) has a tree that belongs to a different row. It made me laugh ruefully. So much for my perfect planting.

But it's okay. I'm learning to be okay with myself when I make a blooper.

And Now, Thirteen Cows

2011-11-26T18:03:00.001-08:00

Phil came back from moving cows this morning. Despite the cold night, baby Clara slept wedged between her mother and Catherine, so she was warm and happy.

Bianca's placenta was dragging, but not entirely released. We must boost the nutrition for our poor animals!

And then Phil realized that Catherine was not able to stand up. She thrashed a bit, got up on her hind legs, but couldn't get her front legs under her. Apparently, she hobbled on her knees before settling back to lie down. Her right front leg was bent at an unnatural angle, enough that Phil didn't want to touch it. (And he's not as squeamish as he used to be.)

Back home, he read that cows with a broken leg who weigh under 500 pounds can have comfrey, a bone-knit herb, and a splint on their legs. We have not yet planted comfrey, and Catherine is certainly not under 500 pounds. So we called the vet, who was not terribly encouraging. Downer cows have only one option. But he agreed to come out.

This was not welcome news. Although Catherine is the most stubborn cow we have, she has a good body conformation, has been an excellent mother, and gave 2 1/2 gallons of milk a day for the previous owner. (She gave us a few tablespoons. Another symptom of bad nutrition.) At least she wasn't down from our management. Gopher holes are just a random accident, not much to do either in prevention or treatment.

I started to think about the ramifications of having to process a cow: after the killing, the processing of a cow will be a massive amount of work. And we have no space in the freezers, but we could make a trip to Costco tomorrow. Which would require huge reshuffling in the barn, and maybe more electrical work. I am looking forward to the day when we have beef to eat again, but this doesn't seem like the right time.

Phil prayed that, somehow, we wouldn't have to kill her.

When the vet came, we headed over to see her, far down in the neighbor's pasture.

And there she was, standing.

She walked naturally. Phil grabbed her collar and the vet palpated her hip, her knee, her foot. ("She's a calm one," was his comment. "I don't usually get to touch the feet of a cow just standing in a field.") No problems whatsoever.

So my title isn't really accurate. Thanks be to God, we still have fourteen cows. But if you felt a little sinking in your heart, you have experienced a little of the sorrow of farming.

Catherine's baby bull, born in July, would have been okay without continued nursing. But he does still get some good nutrition from his mom: his nose was smeared with milk when he looked up afterwards.

The vet did recommend that we get our cows more food. So Phil rolled the hula bale out along their pen. They will graze for an extra day or so in that spot.

I planted bulbs (and Phil helped some, too). We are about halfway done with the apple orchard now, and 35% done.

Thirteen and a Half Cows and a Runaway Hay Bale

2011-11-25T18:59:00.001-08:00

Hunting season has arrived in full force. We heard multiple gun shots over breakfast, but when we heard dogs close by, Phil went out. He was walking by the cows when he noticed that Bianca had something hanging out her backside.

"We have thirteen and a half cows," he said as soon as he could reach the house.

Now I watched Bianca's breeding,nine months ago, and she wasn't due until December 4. I had intended to walk her over to the dry lot next Friday—the other Milking Devons with fixed due dates have birthed within hours of the expected time. I understand that ten days early is fairly extreme for a cow.

Would the baby be okay? Or was Bianca miscarrying? What a blessing that Phil "just happened" to be walking by the pen at that moment.

We headed over to look, and when we reached her, she was already licking a very new, wet, living calf. Keen-eyed Phil stood in a strategic spot and, when Bianca licked to lift the baby's leg, he saw teats! Another girl! Welcome, Clara!

The boys and Phil left shortly. I find myself though absolutely in awe of that beautiful first hour. Good Bianca licking the mucus off the body. Clara blowing bubbles of mucus out the end of her nose. Bianca's constant, gentle lowing as she acquaints her baby with her voice. Clara's first butt-up attempt to stand. That attempt ending in a complete tumble as the four legs got entirely mixed up. The next three attempts, with time in between to rest and catch her breath. Bianca laying down to, hopefully, birth the placenta (which didn't happen). The baby shivering a bit, despite the warmth of the sun (I was in short sleeves).

I asked Bianca, while she was laying down, if I should cover her shivering baby with my sweatshirt. She rolled her eyes and immediately got to her feet. The baby, then, seemed much more motivated to stand. So I kept my sweatshirt to myself.

Then the first stumbling steps. The immediate urgency to nurse. Clara poked around the neck, by the tail, behind the front legs. But when she reached the back teats, even though they neatly framed her face for a moment, she then stepped forward, walked underneath her mama, oblivious.

About that time I decided to leave. I figured that Bianca has raised plenty of babies without human intervention, so I needn't panic that this toddling sweetie would be the first to simply not figure out how to nurse.

A couple hours later I walked back to check on them. They had moved a good ways upslope, and in the shadow of her mama, the baby rests well.

The baby also knew exactly where to go for food. Bianca knew exactly how to nudge her baby into place. Such beautiful focus and assurance on the part of both baby and mama.

I noticed with delight that the tip of her tail ends in white. Strikingly unusual in our herd of red.

Finally, an artist's impression of the day: Isaiah asked me for things to paint, and when I suggested an egg, he did a blue egg, as Pertelote used to lay. He also painted Bitsy, the house (with corner of the barn showing a bit), and Bianca and Clara. For what could be just a few smudges, I really like that mama and baby!

***

The dry lot cows were in need of hay. (But to quickly offer praise to the Lord: we knew we were running low. Yesterday morning, a neighbor who had promised a square bale a few weeks back showed up with it. On Thanksgiving! Exactly when we needed it, but would not have dared ask.)

Phil went to pick up a few bales this evening. He reached the farm right as the sun set, and quickly got the two bales loaded. About two miles from our house, right where the dirt road transitions to gravel, there's a little used gravel road. And there, in the rapidly increasing dark, one of the haybales slipped over the ties and rolled away.

For some reason, Phil had suspected this might happen, and he stopped right afterwards and rolled the 1200 pound bale off the road and into a ditch.

Later this evening, we went to try to roll it up some boards (our "ramp") and into the truck bed. And while we did get it out of the ditch, despite Phil's strength, the force of gravity completely defeated us. How aggravating to have the bale be just four (vertical) feet from where we needed it!

So we drove home again and then put into action Phil's original plan. He drove the tractor, I drove the truck behind as his buffer. I had been expecting this trek to be excruciating. So I was pleasantly surprised that the tractor didn't go at just 3 or 4 mph, but went about a zippy 10. Back at the bale site, it did not appear that any vehicles sustained damage (we hadn't had the heart to push it back into the ditch). Phil put the bale on the hay spear, and then drove home, with me following the strange, shaggy round yellow face. It was unlike any view I'd had before: two and a half miles behind something that looked like an enormous hula skirt.

Happily, the bale stayed together, and we are safely home now, with feed for our cows for a little while.

The Thanksgiving of 1400 Bulbs

2011-11-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

In the afternoon, we knew we were headed to our friends' house for a fabulous meal and pleasant fellowship. Before that, all six of us went down to plant furrows of daffodil bulbs.

Phil plowed six trenches between the two swales. We had hoped that we could easily set the bulbs in, but immediately realized that was a pipe dream. The dirt from the trenches fell back as the blade moved on. So while we didn't have to actually pierce the soil, we did have to scoop out everything that fell back in. There is no easy way to plant bulbs.

So while I removed dirt mostly by hand, and Phil removed dirt with the shovel, the older boys set bulbs in the trenches. I had hoped that we could use the tractor to easily push the dirt back over the bulbs, but that, too, proved unrealistic. So Phil shoveled soil back on top of all the bulbs.

In two and a half hours of very concentrated, physically exhausting labor, we planted four crates of bulbs (twenty crates to go). That was fourteen hundred, and we are done with 31% of our planting.

And we headed off for many hours of laughter and good conversation, full of thanksgiving. A good Thanksgiving!

No More Pig Meat to Process!

2011-11-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

The Almanac in Countryside said, "Historically, today and the 27th are the wettest and cloudiest days east of the Mississippi during November. After the precipitation, expect much colder weather."

So I wasn't surprised when, sometime after midnight, driving rain on our thin metal roof woke me, and I wasn't surprised to find that almost an inch of rain had fallen during that pounding.

The swales in the peach orchard did their job well. Even by midafternoon, about twelve hours later, standing water waited to be gradually absorbed into the earth. Without the swales, all that water would have run into Hog Creek and off the farm. Now, it will percolate and, hopefully, replenish ground water.

The rain has been a boon to the cover crops planted. The sheep will continue to eat down the rye grass planted in early September (see behind the sheep), and they will come to the rye planted in late September, not nearly as strong a stand (to the left of the photo).

Somehow, we still have six sheep! We were going to kill off the three large mixed breed ewes so we wouldn't have to feed them through the winter. But with the state of our freezer, I'm not sure how we'll be able to manage that.

The best of the cover crops, though, is in the future blueberry patch. That side of our road is a stunning emerald compared with the unsown, scratched over, remains of market garden mess on the other. The beautiful growth is so rich, though, I admire it, even while I wish for more of it.

When Phil started his butchering this morning, the weather was bright, sunny and warm, with great gusts of wind. About the most horrible conditions possible for trying to cut up a pig. Wind blew the leaves around, and, after living in the gusty wind corridor in Boulder, we have no affection, and little patience, with wind. The sun glared in Phil's eyes and on all cutting surfaces, and green eyes let in more light, which makes sunlight more painful for green-eyed folks than the rest of us (or at least, so we've heard).

But the worst of it was the warmth. It is quite difficult to cut meat that is not completely chilled. But since it was really to warm for hanging, it was really too warm to leave it out, so there was nothing to do but carry on.

Happily for Phil, the weather cooled off. At one point, there were corrugated clouds to the southeast, unlike any clouds I have seen.

And round clouds to the southwest. Quite dramatic and beautiful.

Butchering takes an inordinate amount of energy. By the time Phil has sawed, hacked, cut, wrapped, and labeled, and I've sent 75 pounds of sausage through the KitchenAid grinder—twice—the day is done and we are drained. Every time we have processed a pig we comment on how thankful we are that we needn't do it every day.

So, for the last time for a long time, half a pig, ready for processing. The haunch was turned into sausage, which I use more frequently than ham.

We had a bit of a bad moment when we realized that the three piglets had filled our last freezer much more than we realized. We had thought that six chest freezers would be sufficient! With some rearranging, though, we managed to get all the meat in. And when the power went off temporarily, I managed to not entirely panic at the thought of six freezers with defrosting meat. I suppose that will be my constant, underlying concern until we eat (or sell) the contents.

Perhaps a little reminder to not store up treasures on earth. In this case, I take comfort in the fact that we had no intention of storing more than a third of that much meat.

***

And, for the grandparents especially: cute things about the boys.

After watching part of the fascinating movie Black Whole, Isaiah made a cube out of Geomags.

And Joe has taken to falling asleep with Jadon's Build-a-Bear, now slightly orange from life in the trailer. His little furrowed brow, framed between two stuffed ears, made Phil and I laugh as we went to bed last night.

Happy Dance: No More Pig Feeding!

2011-11-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Friend Martin came down today and he and Phil dispatched Buttercup, our final pig. It went so quickly that I had gone in to get a sweater and they were done by the time I came out. Didn't hear the gun at all. The skinning and gutting took a few hours, and now our last pig is hanging until we butcher tomorrow. The constant bleeding of money to pay for feed for the last year and a half is done. I rejoice.

As this was a biodynamic root day again, I finished planting the largest of the garlic cloves: 1320 total, in three 44' x 4' beds. I considered putting in another bed, but the cloves got significantly smaller, and since the squatting position to plant got old, and I wasn't sure I'd end up with bulbs larger than a golf ball, I just didn't have the heart to head out into the damp and rain, and so quit for the year.

It's definitely the season for longer time indoor to read to the boys. And I'm good with that.

The Rogue Ram Is Gone

2011-11-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

While I taught a cooking class during most of the daylight hours on Saturday, Phil spent a few hours doing a major cow move. And then rested.

We had a great visit with friends on Sunday evening, but the boys didn't get to bed until after 10pm, which meant that Joe was a tearful basket case most of the day. Poor guy. Phil had a sinus headache, but managed to get through the full twelve hours we were away from home.

Today he continued to have his odd headache. He said that he didn't feel stuffy, but when he went to do the neti pot, his sinuses were completely blocked. While I did dishes, I kept glancing at him, and he was just sitting in his chair, eyes closed.

Our friend Martin came in the afternoon. He and Phil went to the lower pasture, with Isaiah, to sight in rifles. I would hear little pip-pips from Isaiah's .22. But Martin was once stationed in Alaska, and he had bought a gun that outfitters there use for protection from Grizzlies. BOOM! It was always really obvious when that gun fired.

When they came up slope, they took care of the rogue ram. Phil is quite proficient at butchering at this point, so even though I'm not sure we'll eat the little guy (my original plan was that he would just go to the dog), they skinned and dissected him. So they never did get around to killing Buttercup. Tomorrow.

I spent several hours planting 440 more garlic cloves. The earliest few I planted have already poked up—what a fulfilling crop garlic is. What else is springing up at the end of November?!

In less happy news, I again visited little Charity, who remains tame and sweet. Isaiah loves her, too, and he knows to approach her slowly. He spreads out his arms and approaches in slow motion, which reminds me a bit of a scary mummy movie. The calf doesn't often stay put for the extremely slow-moving creature to reach her, but Isaiah is persistent and generally gets some good boy-calf interaction.

I have checked Bethany's udder a few times, just to make sure that she isn't developing mastitis. It seemed unlikely, with a baby on her at all times. But today, when I checked again, her right rear quarter felt like there were baseballs hiding in it. Rock-hard lumps = mastitis = frustration and sorrow.

I tied Bethany and tried to milk out that quarter, but it was almost completely blocked. I would massage for half a minute, get out 1/16 of a teaspoon, massage some more. It felt like I made no dent in the quarter. Bethany took the intervention in fairly good humor, but I remember the one time I had a blocked duct and how incredibly painful it was.

For so long I have wanted to produce raw milk for the family, but I feel like I have been thwarted and thwarted again.

How a Bulb Is Like a Farm

2011-11-18T17:21:00.001-08:00

The gentle sprinkle of Wednesday turned in the night to 2.5" of rain by Thursday morning. Even though Thursday was not cold, it was much too wet to do much outside.

Phil has continued to learn more about water management (which is good with multiple inches of rain at a time). Where to put ponds, where to put swales, which gully goes with which watershed. He feels like he's constantly gaining a better understanding of what this land is doing, and where we should place different structures. That's great.

The indoor space feels ever smaller. The little boys spent most of Thursday playing with a stuffed dog and a laundry basket. Abraham would position both stuffed dog and Joe just so, and cover them with blankets just so, then they would wait for me to snap a photo before they would adjust minutely and pose again.

Isaiah made a house of paper and tape, and it interested me to see how he populated the structure. House, yes, along with vegetable garden in back. Table with fork, spoon, bowl, and plate. Also shovel and pitchfork. And sled. Later he added a spring, creek, and pool. Quite a homestead, really.

I am fairly certain that when I was seven, pitchforks and springs, let alone vegetable gardens, were not on my radar.

Charity had a bit of calf scours yesterday, but she recovered quickly. Bethany had no visible placenta by Thursday morning. This morning, though, sometime between 8am and 10am, she must have strained her left front leg, as she was limping badly. Phil cleaned out the hoof and looked at it, but there was no sign of foot rot or laminitis. Watching her, he thinks she looks like she strained an ankle or knee. With the great amount of rain, the soil was certainly softer than normal, which could have caused a stumble. We gave her Apis and Rhus tox homeopathy for swelling, and left her alone to rest.

This morning, the family hiked down to the bottom of the finger to debate the benefits of a future structure. Is it better 20 feet upslope or down? Better nearer the trees or faraway? It was interesting that Isaiah had a feel for the site right away, and Jadon agreed as well, discussing the number of benefits for each respective site. It was good to get their feedback.

Isaiah is eager to plant more trees with the backhoe, so Phil went to cut swales for the revised peach orchard. The moisture in the soil proved too much, though, so on the final swale he cut, the tractor slid more than he preferred.

And so we planted bulbs.

I have been thinking about bulbs a good deal lately. I woke a few days ago and my first coherent thought was that the bulbs are a picture of our farm. They aren't much to look at yet: brown, onion-like, monochromatic. But we have hopes for the colors and diversity, the cheerfulness, in spring. And, so with the farm. Ugly right now, with piles of industrial stuff (fencing, building materials). But it won't always be like this. I like that.

And I liked planting today. Phil had Jadon come out for the stooping part of planting. I would lay out bulbs and then use the Badger if I had time. Phil, using the Radius planter, realized that he could plant a bulb and then plant the next one without emptying the dirt in between. As the second bulb's plug pushed up from the bottom, the first plug, like a pop-up toy, pushed out the top automatically. This cut the planting time in half (or maybe faster). And with the rain water to soften the earth, slightly less clay soils in places, and Jadon to help with the actual ground level work, we got 35 trees done in about three hours.

Counting by bags, we've got through 1700 bulbs in the last 11 days.

Charity in the Rain

2011-11-16T17:56:00.001-08:00

Bethany dragged the placenta around for a second day. When I read that there is little a vet can do except give antibiotics, and that the connections between placenta and uterus will gradually break down up to eleven days later, I just dosed Bethany with homeopathy and prayed against infection. By the end of day, the main part had broken off, but a little bit still trails out. Poor girl.

A warm rain fell intermittently today. The moisture made some soil plugs come up more easily, but the mud made planting a bit miserable. I'm still enough of a city girl that mud all over my jeans distresses me, and I planted 72 bulbs and was done, feeling a bit of a martyr for planting at all. The plan now is to get through as many trees and bulbs as practical, then take some of the resting garden beds, plow long furrows, and drop the bulbs in for the winter. When needed in spring, they'll be ready. And it takes a good bit of the planting pressure off.

That little Charity is such a dear! At one point during a drizzle, I looked over to see both cows grazing hay under the tarp, dry and comfortable. Charity was no where in sight, so I climbed the fence and found her, alone, at the edge of the paddock. She was quite wet, but not shivering. Her ears were cold, but her mouth was warm (I later checked Bethany's ears, and they were cold, too). So I squatted there and just petted her.

When I walked away at last, she gave a very soft call—or maybe I imagined it—and stood up, facing away from her mother and shelter. I turned her around, one hand under her chin and the other hand on her rump, and guided her along until she was only a few yards from her mom. Then she mooed, and her mom came and fetched here, giving me the gimlet eye as if *I* had been the neglectful one!

Later, I couldn't resist, but hopped the fence again. Dry now, I rubbed her curly head and felt the nascent horn buds, yet well below the surface. She has soft, curly hair on her neck and sides, such a rich auburn color.

Isaiah, too, went out in the rain and had his fill of calf loving, something he has been longing for these past months. (You shouldn't touch bull babies, and that's all we've had since last September.)

Even with much time indoors, we had a fine day.

The Definition of Fall

2011-11-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

When Phil went out to do chores, Charity was up and eating. The boys and I went out and admired her, resting right by the fence for our viewing enjoyment.

Abraham said, "It's like she's in a cow nest!" And it certainly was.

Although Charity was our fifth calf, she was the first one we watched during birth. And of the previous four, one we were away on vacation, one was born in six inches of rain and almost died, one was born in the midst of an incredible heatwave and almost died of heat exhaustion, and one was cared for very well by the mother in a secret place, where we didn't even see him for some unknown amount of time.

Which is to say, we have never had the pleasure of watching the first day of life for a healthy calf. It was an absolute joy. She stood, back legs shaking, just gaining the strength to stand.

She would go and curiously try to nuzzle Fern, and once, I could tell, she debated whether to go under Fern's belly to get to the other side (Fern stepped aside before she could complete this rash plan). With the nuzzling, we wondered if she was hungry, but as soon as she'd get near her mom, she'd suddenly frisk all about. Once she kicked up her heels a bit too vigorously, and crashed down in a little heap of long legs. But she jumped up again, completely undaunted.

At one point, I brought her mother some aloe pellets. While the mother licked the bowl clean, Charity came up to me, and let me pet her head and scratch her ears. None of the other calves have been nearly so brave. My heart enlarged at least one size, if not two.

This morning, Bethany had not yet fully released the placenta. I haven't dealt with a retained placenta, and the four resources I checked all said different things. Of the reasons for such a problem (stress, twins, heat, nutrition), only nutrition seems to be a possible reason. We dosed her with the homeopathic remedy Caulophylum, and gave her plenty of aloe vera pellets, but as night fell tonight, though the placenta was a good bit further out, it had not quite fully released. There are, apparently, 70-90 connection points, or cotyledons, that need to separate naturally, lest infection or hemorrhage begin, so no tugging on the dangling mass (not even trained vets do that).

Other than the retained placenta, it was a perfect day. The grey skies kept the warmth close to the ground, and as we worked outside, the oaks began to release their leaves, and we stood in fall, the very definition.

Jadon was on top of the cattle trailer and when the first gentle gust blew the leaves down around him, I stood and watched him watch the leaves come down. Such a moment.

Perhaps I've mentioned before how some years Colorado has the 24-hour fall. The leaves start to turn when a massive wet snow knocks all the leaves to the ground. (I think it was 1995 when this happened in September, before the leaves had even started to turn. That was a long winter.) Because snow on the ground in Colorado rarely lasts more than 48 hours, and January sometimes reaches 70 degrees, winter is not onerous there. But it seems like it might, and usually does, snow through all the usual "fall" months, as well as "winter" and even, maybe, "spring," that the reality of a fall where leaves fall: even though this is our third fall in Virginia, it amazes me yet.

Abraham had, perhaps, the most ideal way to celebrate fall. He pushed all the leaves that fell on the trampoline into a pile, then jumped in the pile.

Anyway, Jadon was on the cattle trailer because he was helping us construct the cows' winter protection, a lean-to built against the cattle trailer, made of cattle panels and a tarp. (Note the wood resting against the side: that's our method of drying lumber. Phil had seen a photo of a farm where they made teepees of drying lumber, which he thought would work well. It makes a great ramp for the boys.)

It took perhaps an hour, and then we had a very nice shelter: covered from rain and snow, blocked on the windy side. The cattle trailer is right there, should we need to succor any struggling calf (which is good, because my living room is generally packed with toys, books, and sundry items, I don't think we could get a calf in it again). Our husbandry is a bit better: we are a bit more preemptive, rather than reactionary.

When it was finished, Phil wanted to make sure Charity knew what it was used for. So he went over and picked her up and carried her into it.

I rather wonder if he just wanted an excuse to be close to the little sweetie.

And in the afternoon, we planted bulbs.

Evening Excitement!

2011-11-14T18:21:00.001-08:00

Phil went to do laundry this morning. I attempted to plant bulbs, until, after about an hour of punching the planter into the soil so shallowly that the bulbs' tops came near the top of the holes, I gave up in disgust.

Phil arrived home and together we went to plant. The top of the planter bent almost immediately (or maybe my incredible jumps had bent it), but Phil was able to plunge them in quickly and deeply. I cleared the weeds around the next tree and placed the bulbs where they would go.

Then UPS delivered a new bulb planter, the Badger. A very sturdy piece of equipment (with a lifetime warranty), Phil plunged it into the ground with a sigh of pleasure: "That's the way it should feel."

And then we spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to eject the clay plug from the planter. Eventually we figured out that if we push hard on the top, the plug will go out, much compressed. (In perfect soil, the spring-loaded top pops the plug out, but in our soil, it takes full strength to push it out.)

Then FedEx showed up and delivered another new bulb planter, that attaches to the cordless drill.

Phil didn't like it that much: it took a good amount of time for each hole, and then, in order to eject the soil plug, the device came with a little stick to poke the soil out.

And so it went: the Badger worked well. Except sometimes the clay soil (perhaps with a rock stuck in it) would be so compacted that we needed the cordless drill planter to dig it out. When the Badger worked well, Phil appreciated that he didn't have to bend down at all.

After doing about a gross of bulbs, Phil's muscles were spent. Twelve trees done in good time ... but we need to do the equivalent of 30 trees a day until Christmas. We hope for stronger muscles in the near future.

***

Nine months ago, our bull Snowman came to live here. He headed straight for Bethany and, after a purposeful 18 hours of pursuit, he bred her. Due tomorrow, I have been somewhat concerned over her lack of robust rotundity. Last year, she was so round for the last month of her pregnancy that Phil and I were convinced every day would be the day. This year, I wasn't sure she was even expecting until Phil noticed yesterday morning that her udder was filling.

Last evening, we walked her over from the paddock where the cows are grazing and put her in the dry lot with Fern. Bethany immediately tore into the hay and spent all day today eating.

About 8pm, Phil went to bring multiple baskets of laundry in from the car and went to check Bethany. "I think she's in labor," he announced, and the boys and I went to see.

Bethany was munching hay, but suddenly her tail went out as if she were going to poop, but no poop came out. Her body was hunched over for perhaps 30 seconds or so, and her backend vibrated a bit. We waited perhaps five minutes, but saw no more contractions.

Less than an hour later, I went out to check on her. She was making little grunting noises and had little white hooves sticking out! The baby was almost here!

I confess that human excitement is not the best labor and delivery aid for animals, but Jadon, Isaiah, and I were so eager to watch the birth. (Phil was more circumspect: he didn't feel the urge to follow her quite as closely.) The hooves came out a bit more, retracted a bit, then poked out a few inches.

And then Bethany lay down in the hay! The baby was coming!

The boys and I walked sedately around to her back end. In the weak flashlight beam, we could see a little white and a little black. And the black quickly grew: head, back, hips, out.

There was a weak gurgle, and then a very faint, wet moo. Bethany swung her head, saw her baby, and immediately stood up and began to lick the babe.

We all giggled silently at the first true "moo" by the little calf. It was like gurgling underwater: very wet. But after a few delicate sneezes, the moos were properly dry sounding, and Bethany kept up her calm soothing mama moos.

We watched for a time by the flashlight, hoping to see the first stand, but we shifted about, crunching dry leaves, and flashlight beams in the eyes are certainly not relaxing, so we headed in.

Forty minutes later, Phil went back out to ensure that the baby had stood up. After birth, it had gradually moved downslope until it was resting next to the boundary cattle panels, wedged against the extra panels stored right there. Because the book said that after thirty minutes it is good to aid a little one, Phil helped it up.

And found it's a GIRL! Welcome, baby Charity!

So wobbly, she kept backing her hind legs into the confounded cattle panels, and Phil would gently put her hooves back out again. After perhaps ten minutes, she took some tentative steps forward, and ended up facing forward, licking her lips, her mother's udder about even with her udder. Bethany is an experienced mother, so she turned around, so the calf is in better position.

And, again, we returned to the house to give them a chance to sort out teats and tongues and such.

The weather could not be more ideal for this time of year. The high today was 71, and even now it is 66. The forecast shows no drops into the thirties until Thursday night. Although Accuweather did predict 1.7 inches of rain on the way.

Funny: last year Bethany gave birth in the midst of three days when we had six inches of rain. Little Belle lived, but it was touch and go.

I will hope for better with baby Charity.

Rejoice!

How I Beat Despair

2011-11-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

We've been working so steadily, I haven't had time for photos, which makes for a visually boring blog, I'm afraid. Please console yourself with photos of the boys' creativity. (Since they have realized that they might get a blog mention, the boys have been asking for photos after almost every accomplishment, no matter how minor.)

Oh, and Abraham in his new sleeping bag, which we use on their beds instead of sheets. Much lower maintenance, and they don't show the dirt.

After planting over 400 garlic bulbs this morning, I found myself giving in to despair. My unhappy companion for so long, I had not regretted the month or so without Despair, so to have a visit today was unwelcome. Weary to my bones, I went to take a nap.

But for me, naps don't always work. It is better for me to write down all my frustrations (I even have an "Anger" file always available). Usually when I'm that frustrated, I don't know why. But after writing for a bit, some of the underlying frustrations start to emerge, and then I feel, if not justified, at least sane.

Today I had several issues: convinced that chickens would scratch up the garlic, that the spacing of the blueberry beds (not yet even planted, mind you) would be a nightmare to us for the rest of our days, angry at the unclaimed ram (and angry at myself for being so angry—after all, it's not his fault he's mangy and stray), frustrated by the 9500 daffodil bulbs yet to plant, wondering about the role of entertainment in modern life. There were probably other reasons.

But in the midst of my pique, I had several absurd little bursts of good humor that meant I really had to struggle to maintain a bad attitude. "You have a happy hive of bees!" was one. How can I stay irritated when thinking of happy bees? It's impossible.

So after lunch, four of us had a great time digging up the remaining cherry trees and planting them in the lower pasture. (Abraham was feeling a bit under the weather and Jadon generally prefers reading to, well, just about anything else.) Isaiah eagerly used the backhoe, and Joe helped fill in holes with "the claws," as he called his hands. He made appropriate mechanical-sounding noises to ensure we understood his robotic function.

At one point while Isaiah was digging a hole with the backhoe, Phil said, "Look at him. He is using the backhoe as an extension of himself. He knows exactly where the bucket is, exactly how deep he is going. He is using it like I would use it." And it's true. Seven-year-old Isaiah uses the backhoe with focus and gracefulness.

Of the 25 cherry trees we dug up this last week, I think 24 have a good chance of living. One was dropped a bit and the trunk fractured, right above the graft. Phil hammered brass tacks into it (which he claims is what famous tree expert Tom Burford does), but I (horribly) dropped it again. Poor little Danube. You were a sweet little tree.

In Which I Am Knocked Off My Feet by a Leaping Ram

2011-11-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

At 11:11 this morning (and certainly at 11 seconds), 11/11/11, I sang out a celebration song, and all the boys begged me to please be done. Perhaps they will remember this historic moment when they are old. Perhaps not.

While Phil ran exciting errands in town like replacing the car windshield, getting a new 9' hose for the hydraulic line for the tractor, and getting the car inspected, I stayed home with the boys. We had a nice visit from neighbor Butch (who mentioned he had seen a sheep grazing his land this morning), another no show for people coming to buy the lambs, and some hours spent planting bulbs.

I can plant about 48 an hour. That seems ridiculously slow to me, and it means that I will need upwards of seven hours a day to get them all planted before Christmas. And that is only if all the rows of trees prove as easy as this first one.

When Phil finally returned home, his first comment was that we had a sheep out. The sheep had been out this morning, and gone down to visit with Buttercup, but Phil had easily herded them back into their pen. Then he had charged the fence powerfully, so we were mystified at how the sheep had gotten free.

The sheep's tail was not docked: it was the escapee. Phil easily herded it into our sheep's pen, and went to call our neighbors who may own the animal.

Then he noticed that the new sheep was sniffing around our Babydolls. It could be normal "getting to know you," but no. It was a ram. And it was decidedly interested in one of our little ewes. And since one of the most traumatic events of the last year was the horrible birth and death of our yearling ewe, the idea of going through that again, especially with a scraggly ram: no thanks!

So Phil and I spent the last hour of daylight trying to cut the sprightly fellow away from the girls. But lambs are known for their herding instinct, and I am not a skilled helper. Early on, I went face to face with the fellow when he showed a remarkable ability to leap. He hit me, shoulder to chest, and knocked me off my feet. I have never been rammed before (and, literally, I suppose he didn't ram me with his forehead, so perhaps I still have never been rammed). And though I wasn't hurt, I stood up and felt my face crumple.

"Why are you crying?" Phil asked. I don't know. Too many new experiences for this city girl, I suppose.

Eventually, though it took several more attempts and two shepherd's crooks, we managed to get the ram and Joseph the wether separated and electrified. The ram showed signs of wanting to go through the electric netting, but only until we got it turned on. Hopefully it will hold him overnight. Should no owners come, I think he will have to go into the freezer, and trust that he will keep his private parts to himself in the interim.

Driving in a Pumpkin

2011-11-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

Despite cloudy weather, Phil and I headed down to the lower pasture with Joe and Isaiah. He drove the truck and I drove the tractor. I am not fond of driving the tractor. I don't have an innate appreciation for, nor understanding of, the mechanics of the thing.

But as I headed down the slope, I was amazed by the orangeness of my world. Orange leaves on the ground, in the trees that surrounded me. And because of the steep slope, there was orange, really, in every direction. Like driving in a pumpkin.

The surreal moment passed, and we proceeded to plant the 12 cherry trees that Phil and Isaiah had dug up yesterday afternoon. It took us about three hours, which, considering the size of the needed holes, was not much time. Phil dug a few of the more difficult holes (whether from location or large roots impeding progress), but Isaiah dug most of them, which left Phil free to shovel dirt back around the trees, and left me free to plant bulbs and get water from the creek to pour on the dirt when done.

I must say, it is much easier to plant bulbs (even in rocky soil) when the dirt has just been turned over.

When the trees were in the ground, it had been sprinkling for some time. I had begun to follow the truck up the slope when I needed to step on the brake. The seat of the tractor is permanently stuck a bit too far back for my comfort, so in order to get enough leverage to step on both brake and clutch while going uphill, I grabbed the steering wheel from the bottom.

And it came off in my hand!

The tractor immediately began rolling backwards down a slight incline, and I had no control at all. I shrieked to Phil for help, completely beside myself about what to do.

I don't know what I did, but I didn't do the most logical thing: turn the tractor off. It never even crossed my mind. Phil starts it up for me, so I don't even touch the ignition switch. It was like it didn't exist.

That's a pretty good story, though: small wife pulls steering wheel off tractor and rolls backwards down an incline out of control.

It's a more interesting story than the afternoon, when we went to dig up the rest of the cherry trees. About the fourth one, the hydraulic line suddenly sprung a leak, which ended our productivity for today. Phil will head to town tomorrow to buy another line, and hopefully the uprooted cherries will be happy enough overnight in their buckets.

Two Percent

2011-11-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

The weather has been stunning, brilliant. Clear skies, upper sixties. An absolute joy and privilege to be alive and outside.

Phil and Jadon laid out the new contours for the peach orchard (Isaiah helped near the end). We get excited looking at the beautiful S-curves across the land. Phil has the vision for two little pocket ponds, and we know better how to manage access and potential parking for guests. The eagerness and expectation increases, I feel, daily, as we get new, exciting ideas for how to properly manage the land.

With the peach orchard laid out, it was time to dig up the cherry trees. After digging three by hand, Phil switched to the backhoe, and that went quickly and easily. As each comes out of the ground, the roots go into a five-gallon bucket, get covered with soil, and doused with water. Tomorrow the trees will move to their new home.

I had a great day, too. Shortly after noon I went out to plant daffodils (with faithful companion Joe). I calculated that, in order to get all the bulbs in the ground before Christmas that I'll need to get about 350 planted per day, which seems ambitious but possible.

I experimented with different planting tools. The shovel is, perhaps, the easiest, but it cuts such a large plane, I fear for my trees' roots. The Dibbler, a skinny shovel which my Dad used to plant chestnuts, went into the ground to the proper depth, but made such a slim trench that I couldn't get the bulbs in the ground.

And so I stuck with the Radius Bulb Planter. Sometimes it went into the ground very nicely, but most bulbs required about five jumps (or more) for me to get the tool in the ground. More often than not, I couldn't get it all the way down, either.

Phil came by to see what I was doing. He happened to come right as I started the smallest tree in the orchard. He planted all twelve bulbs around that tree in record time. He practically just had to stand on the tool and it sank into the ground. If he jumped twice, the tool was below ground level. It was uncanny.

So I ended the day with 17 new trees surrounded with rings of 12 bulbs each, nicely spaced about 6" apart, forming a lovely three foot circumference of tree protection. It's very satisfying, even if that used a mere two percent of the daffodil bulbs.

10,000 Daffodils Arrive

2011-11-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

I went out this morning to weed the orchard. The daffodil bulbs finally shipped yesterday, so I knew I would soon have planting to begin.

Phil headed out for the unpleasant task of looking at the tractor. He came over after a while. "I think we need a new tractor."

I must say that I was not surprised. I'm a pessimist, so the worst case scenario had already presented itself to me. I took the news rather well.

"No, actually, I fixed it." And he had. A connection had come loose, and though it was difficult to access it with the wrench, he simply needed to tighten it.

He tilled the garlic bed, then reconnected the backhoe. He dug out the oak stump that he started on yesterday.

Next he pulled a tulip poplar stump, with incredibly long laterals.

The third large stump took hours and made an enormous hole, but in the end, it was pulled.

While Phil was digging, a large FedEx truck arrived with a pallet shipment. More than half a ton (1090 pounds) of daffodil bulbs. Phil backed the truck up, and with the FedEx man handing boxes to me, and me handing boxes to Phil, we unloaded the 29 crates of bulbs in short order.

My friend Melanie was visiting, and she said she would be happy to help plant bulbs. Nicely for me, she has planted bulbs before, and had good suggestions on spacing around the trees. I wanted to plant them just inches from the trunk, but she suggested, and I agree, that it would be more prudent to put them a bit further out.

I had pulled a crate, hoping to get a good many in the ground. We have a bulb planter that supposedly helps people plants hundreds (thousands?) an hour. So it was with great chagrin that I hardly was able to plant eleven around the first apple tree. Branches in my hair. The gravel placed around the tree at planting stopped the planter at every step. The concern for the tree's roots to not be entirely cut off.

We headed down to Gracie Lou's grave to plant 100 or so. Amidst the roots and rocks, I think we got about 15 actually in the ground before night fell.

And then, reading the instructions that came with the bulbs, they needed to be unwrapped from their plastic bags and stored in a place where they will not freeze. Hmm.

We moved the 29 crates into Phil's office, and will trust that the bulbs will not freeze in there. It is frustrating ... I ordered these at the end of September, and if they had arrived in shorter order, we would have had the glorious month of October to plant, and not buried the entire office in bulbs. Ah, well, it can't be helped.

***

Isaiah's new shoes arrived today. (He was so pleased, he asked to sleep in them.) He stood on his tiptoes with his feet crossed, and put on my hat. "I'm a pencil," he said. Pointed black shoes as the lead, and fluffy eraser. Very creative!

Fern Moves to the Dry Lot

2011-11-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

After several days of productive labor, Friday dawned cold and wet, and neither Phil nor I was terribly motivated to do much outside. And some days just don't quite roll well ... any time I'd try to get a project underway, an interruption would come quickly. Some days are like that.

Saturday I cleaned and vacuumed and sorted most of the day. Some days are like that.

On Saturday, Phil shot two bullets, dropped two piglets, and skinned and eviscerated them. He even had the energy to butcher one of them, but then his body (and the daylight) were done. We have one pig, Buttercup. We expect she'll eat her 350 pounds of food and then join her friends in the freezer.

Sunday came and went, and today we had visitors in the morning, while Phil butchered the second piglet.

He brought Fern down to the dry lot he'd created. She may be nursing her baby a bit yet, but he is getting supplemental milk from Catherine. And Fern looks emaciated. Way too many ribs showing, much too prominent hip bones. She's the only one, of the twelve, who looks like that. So we wanted to give her some TLC.

Phil walked her over, like a big puppy on a leash. But a bit later, after she had wandered her pen for a time, I heard him say, in an odd voice, "You almost got me that time."

I called, "Did she almost gore you?" It seemed unlikely, but Phil's voice had sounded so odd.

Yes, she had. Not just a head toss, like they do for flies, which he views as part of cow ownership ("If I'm annoying her, it makes sense"), but a toss and press, a dangerous, aggressive motion.

And, yes, Fern was the one who gored me and lifted me off my feet a few months back. That had been an intense situation, and seemed partially justified at the time. (And, as Phil admitted, I am not patient, nor any kind of an animal whisperer, so he wondered if it was just me. And callous as that sounds, it actually makes sense. I'm not as in tune with the animals.) But for Fern to behave like that towards Phil ... well, at some point we'll butcher her.

It stinks, really. We paid a premium price for her genetics and her youth, and we had hoped to enjoy sixteen years with her.

After that, while I shoveled compost and spread minerals on the future garlic patch, glancing at Fern to grieve her eventual departure, Phil headed up to use the backhoe to dig out stumps from the peach orchard. We hope that will make the space more usable.

And on the first hole, the hydraulic line suddenly began to gush fluid.

The number of repairs needed are adding up: car windshield, car understory, bush hog, auger, tractor.

And all I really want to do is plant! It's frustrating. Not intensely discouraging, but more disappointing.

I'm not known for my patience.

Dry Lot Done

2011-11-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Before breakfast, Phil came in with quite a find: the most enormous night crawler I'd ever seen. It had been growing under the remains of our bag of potting soil, and apparently found the accommodations most invigorating.

Right after breakfast, Joe and I went to transplant five more hazelnuts. These five were thriving at the edge of the woods, but the cow's dry lot would have left them in danger of trampling, so we moved them up. Joe is now quite adept at finding buds, and he dug an entire hole or two all by himself.

Which is especially impressive because he uses a full-sized shovel, but is too small to step on it. So by sheer force of will, he plunges it into the ground and lifts out what he can.

After we planted those hazelnuts, I kept on weeding around the apple trees. The 10,000 daffodil bulbs have been delayed beyond imagination, but in order to be ready to plant whenever they arrive, I have grass and weeds to remove around the base of the trees.

I ended up finishing three rows, 82 trees cleared up and awaiting bulbs. And when Phil brought down a tractor bucket of pine wood chips, I mulched around the blueberries planted yesterday. I like the feeling of covering the plants with a moist blanket.

Phil again spent the day working on the cow's winter dry lot. He first had to take out some 60 feet or so of fence in order to make the uppermost garden bed more even in shape (it had ranged from 22 to 29 feet in width, but now is a wonderful 29 feet all the way).

Sadly, we had stacked all the T-posts and extra cattle panels along that section of fence, so he first had to move them out of the way, panel by panel and post by post. Then, because the posts weren't quite far enough over, he had to move them again.

All told, we figure he probably put up some 350 feet of fencing in the last two days, carrying many panels down and up the gully, weaving 16-foot panels between trees, pounding well over 60 posts eight inches or so into the ground. Each post needed three bits of wire cut and tightened.

And, finally, he put up the gates.

Since they realized that I have been watching Jeeves and Wooster movies while I do the dishes, the boys have been most solicitous of my kitchen habits. "Are you going to wash the dishes now, Mommy?" was a frequent question during the day.

In the meantime, Abraham went to dig holes.

And Isaiah armed himself with an arsenal of ball, bat, frisbee, and rock tied to a string.

I Love to Plant!

2011-11-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I actually focused on the side of the door to the motor home and recognized that I had the remains of the 20 blueberry plants ordered in May that have been heeled in (badly) and somewhat neglected since then. So I went to set flags where the top bed of blueberries will go.

I laid out the first row yesterday, then pulled up the flags in order to work the other direction (Phil's suggestion: great advice). After laying out the four rows this morning with the boys, I asked Phil if he thought we'd be able to drive the riding mower next to the swale. It worked on paper (inches to spare!), but actually looking at the layout on the ground was a different matter. So I pulled the flags again, not with good grace, and Phil helped me lay out the entire space again.

Specifically designed for our equipment, keeping in mind weed control, future mowing, where the mulched strips will go, and what we'll plant in the swales.

We've been learning this year.

Joe had a great time helping me dig holes. He hefts a full-size shovel over his head like a weight-lifter, and cheerfully accepts compliments ("Yes, I strong. I big boy"). Due to my negligence, I had only 13 yet-living blueberry plants, but I also transplanted the two larger blueberries I had bought at Costco, and 15 bushes in the ground out of the projected 42 in that bed is a good start.

I love to plant.

I then cleaned up around the motor home. The compost in boxes where the blueberries have sat was filled with the most amazing worm castings. I gave handfuls to the blueberries, but that felt almost too generous. Those precious castings! And I gathered all the red wriggler worms I could find, and put them in a shoe-box shaped shipping container. I have no idea how long a cardboard box will last with moist tea leaves and apple cores inside, but I am eager for more worm castings and more worm babies. I want boxes and boxes of them!

We'll get there.

Joe and I then transplanted the only four living hazelnuts in the peach orchard, of the 117 I planted in May. That's not a good success rate, but I heeled them in late and badly (I've had almost 100% success with those I planted the day they arrived). I moved the four in between apple trees. The sheep have done well grazing between the rows, but in the rows, the weeds have grown thick and undisturbed. No longer. At some point, I will put hazelnuts between the trees, as a bushy weed deterrent. For now, the idea of weeding tough, two-year-old weeds around 300 trees is a huge project. I weeded around seven today.

After helping me, Phil worked on a winter dry lot for the cows. The dry lot in years past has rotated around the finger. This year, it will be just downslope from the motor home, across the driveway from the greenhouse. And rather than only in the opening, he's extending the cattle panels into the woods and to the property line. We hope the trees offer the cows some measure of protection from the elements.

Gramps (Phil's grandpa) found a nifty wire bender tool, and Phil figured out how to use it. It basically spins the wires around each other swiftly and perfectly, rather than the tedious twists with the pliers that he's been doing the last two years.

Phil didn't quite finish by dark, but the amount he accomplished was quite impressive.

All Saint's Day

2011-11-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to town for a day of gut-wrenching horror for Phil. We first went to the passport office to get five passports. From there, we headed to the DMV for the sixth time (well, my second time). On the way, I had just finished asking the Lord for a bubble of protection around our car when Phil went to change lanes ... and was inches from being side-swiped by a vehicle that truly came from nowhere. (We have talked through every option about where the car may have been in the seconds before. Our best guess is that he had been behind us and, perhaps, cut over and accelerated through the intersection.) It was quite surreal.

And so we pulled into the DMV and came away less than 90 minutes later with car registration and two temporary licenses, with the real ones to follow by mail. It took some finagling.

Phil was exhausted enough from the ordeal that he went to bed at 8pm.

Today, the start of a new month, we talked through the tasks we need to accomplish. Phil keeps trying to fix the bush hog, but he has about exhausted his options and ingenuity. Hopefully we can get it to the shop soon.

We figured out where we intend to transplant the 25 cherry trees. That has been a mystery to us. You would think that, with almost 44 acres to play with, 25 cherries would fit almost anywhere. But since we have little cleared land, it was more of a mind-bender than you might expect. We figure we'll line the fencing of the lower pasture, and make sure to fence out the cows, so they won't eat the cherry leaves, with all the cyanide in them. (Very bad for cattle.)

And after some discussion, Phil ended up just butchering the piglet, rather than attempting a pig roast. We liked the roast in idea, but to rig a turnable spit, and sew the piglet onto the metal rod, to man the fire for the necessary hours, and then to eat the 80 pound (?) piglet before it went bad: too much effort! So he butchered, which took a good amount of time, but we have meat for multiple meals in the freezer.

We didn't keep the feet. I spent an hour or so this morning scalding and scraping Chunky's feet. I split them lengthwise, and then boiled them for hours. But when I opened the lid, I felt a bit ill on the amount of dirt and hairs showing. I took a little nibble of the gelatin, and it was tasty. But then I tried to imagine eating all eight half feet by myself, and I thought about the smell in the motor home. And I decided to be done. Bitsy or the chickens or the worms or the microorganisms in the compost pile will have to finish those feet for me.

In other news, Abraham, at age five, entered the world of crafts, as he designed and wove his first potholder. To say he was proud of this accomplishment would be an understatement.

With the colder weather, the cat leaps in the door as Phil comes in for bed. Isaiah snuck him up onto the upper bunk, and then called for photos.

And Jadon modeled my new warm winter hat. He looks like the Cossacks he's descended from!

And a special hello to all the saints!

Matching Grandsons

2011-10-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

After the full day of killing, Phil awoke Saturday feeling like he'd been beaten with a baseball bat. And the rain that had started on Friday night as soon as the guys were done with their work had turned into a steady, almost inch of rain by Saturday morning. Cold, dreary, wet.

When Phil couldn't find his marvelous how-to butcher DVD (despite knowing where he'd seen it last), he headed back to bed.

An hour or two later, he awoke, looked in the spot again and found his DVD, so he went out to butcher. I think it was sometime after 3pm, though my sense of time could be skewed.

He began to saw the carcass in half with his saw, but when his headed felt like it would spin off, I took over. It takes an incredible number of back and forth saw strokes to saw through five feet of pig backbone. Seriously.

But after the hog was split and Phil began to butcher on his special butcher table, he made both primal cuts (dividing the pig half into main sections) and the specialty cuts, and wrapped all the pieces in butcher paper by 7:30pm, working by just a lamp the last hour.

I ground the sausage meat, just shy of 60 pounds. And since last time the sausage was a bit coarse, when I ran the meat through the KitchenAid grinder once, I ran this meat through twice. It took a long time.

Then I rendered the fat (only eight or nine quarts, so a bit less than before) and cleaned a bit, but it was midnight, so I headed to bed.

(But I must say: I watched the first three episodes of the A&E Wooster and Jeeves series and I laughed out loud over and over. What a great last three hours of processing!)

We woke today to a hard, killing freeze. All the basil is done for the year. It was cold in the house: we hadn't turned the heater up quite enough, and I suspected I could see wisps of my breath. Brr.

But the weather turned sunny, and the boys looked smashing in their new sweaters, courtesy of Phil's mom. When we walked into church, we heard a noticeable stir. One of our friends came up and said, "That was the highlight of my morning, watching those boys come in. The Lykoshes have arrived!"

And though I took 84 photos of the boys, with Jadon the photo-hater, Isaiah's attempts to cross his eyes or stick out his tongue, and Joe aping all his older brothers did (or simply being oblivious), it wasn't easy to get a good shot of them in their true cuteness.

Such is life.

And a few photos from earlier this week. The colors really popped finally, especially the red maple leaves.

We have three pigs left to deal with.

After seeing Isaiah's termite mound, and hearing Isaiah's wish for slightly different capabilities, Phil bought some new tips for the Dremel tool. Jadon went right to work on something.

And Jadon was quite proud of his tower. He must have been quite proud, as he's neither grimacing nor running away in this photo, so do admire it well.

We're in the Meat Now (with photos)

2011-10-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

After a day of errands yesterday, Phil and I had a good day of animal processing today. The weather turned from the mid-70s and sunny yesterday, to low 40s and cloudy today. Which felt a bit chilly at times, but meant we had no flies to combat. On balance, we couldn't have asked for better weather. The trees, too, had on their orange in almost shocking brilliance.

We started after breakfast with a piglet. At fifteen weeks, they aren't small any more (suckling pigs are more usually processed at six to ten weeks), but after Phil cut the little guy's throat, we were able to carry him out of the pigpen. Phil did use the tractor to bring him the distance from their pen to the scalder.

We have never scalded a pig before, but we figured this little guy could fit in our chicken scalder. After rinsing the carcass (such a good idea, compared with the past, when we've fought a muddy body, which is no fun at all!), Phil and I dunked the guy.

The directions said that a pig is done scalding in two to six minutes. After about a minute, Phil tested the hairs around the pig's hoof, and a huge patch peeled away. In fact, it peeled away so easily that the skin around the hooves where we were holding the piglet began to pull away, and the pig slipped. I had to run to get gloves (the skin was hot) and then we moved the piglet to the table for scraping.

The little dew claws on the hooves peeled away very easily, though the main toenails stayed put.

Scraping was really fun at first. I could pull away hair on the outer layer of skin, and then with a spoon (Phil) and a canning lid (me), we scraped one side just about clean. But by the end, it was not easy going: the hair was really sticking.

On the theory that either the hoof skin was easier to peel away than the more entrenched back hairs, or perhaps that the carcass had cooled enough that the hairs were sticking, we dunked the pig again, longer. This was an utter mistake. It set the hairs, so the other side of the pig was an exercise in extreme frustration, and the carcass was not really clean (or able to be cleaned) when we gave up.

Next: cut open the body cavity. Phil used knife and saw in order to split the piglet from neck to tail. Usually the pig is hung to facilitate excavation, but this little guy was little enough, we kept him on the table.

We have done enough eviscerating, the internal organs of an animal are almost friendly at this point. Once the carcass is open, the intestines, large and small, bubble out.

The spleen on the piglet was quite beautiful.

The liver seemed a bit spotty to me.

And the light pink kidneys look just like you would expect: kidney shaped. The large white stomach, an enormous balloon even on a little pig, swells next to it.

Once the heart, lungs, and aorta were cut out, the piglet was done for today, a scant two hours after we went down to kill him. Not too bad! Our initial hope had been to attempt roasting it on a spit, but we had more to accomplish and couldn't take the time to set up the spit, stitch closed the pig, and start the fire. Another day.

On to Barred Rock laying hen processing. After a week of tracking their egg laying, the most eggs in 24 hours was three. Some days we had none. I wondered if they were eating all their production. (By comparison, the 16 white layers laid 16 on their best day, 11 on their worst.) So, having run the test of profitability and miserably failing, we killed these eight month old birds, despite their picturesque appearance next to the few remaining sheep.

I can report with satisfaction that, of the 15 birds I killed, two had fully formed eggs inside. Two had soft-shelled eggs, which have a translucent membrane around some white and yolk.

Perhaps three more had almost-formed eggs, although there was an unhealthy yellow-ish future egg amongst the normal, orangey future eggs.

And the remainder had not started laying yet, and showed little sign of doing so. Despite the fact that a bird should start laying at five months. I don't know what happened with these birds, but I expect we'll try to purchase chicks from a different hatchery in the future. As bird after bird yielded little sign of fertility, my thankfulness for this quick, weeklong test increased. What a blessing that we could process them, knowing that they were a drain on our limited funds.

The highlight of the chicken killing, though, was the last of the Freedom Ranger roosters. This big boy has been taunting Phil with his luscious weight, though his demise was not so much gleeful and sorrowful. He's become a character around the farm.

Does he not look that large to you?

The straight on view shows his magnificent thighs, and his wingspread, too, was quite impressive.

Phil laughed ruefully when he went into the killing cone. We put the birds into these cones, head down, to help them relax as they bleed out. The head and neck poke out the bottom, and sometimes we're lucky to have a few toenails poke out the top. This bird had not just toes, not just feet, not just legs, but bum out the top, too.

Our Chinese friend Jenny knows what to do with all parts of a chicken: head, neck, intestines, etc. We are giving her this bird, so we didn't do anything to it once plucked. Phil weighed it: 8 pounds, 15 1/4 ounces (if it had left on another few feathers, it would have reached that lovely 9 pounds).

Goodbye to the Big Boy. While I won't miss him necessarily, he has certainly made life around the farm more varied and interesting.

Altogether, we got through 15 birds today in about two hours, and Phil said he thought 20 birds per processing day seemed ideal. Just a few hours, so we wouldn't have to set aside a full day for it, and not quite so emotionally and physically draining. Perhaps expensive from a propane standpoint (heating the tank of scald water), but may be worth it.

While I was finishing the chicken processing, Phil went to make a gambrel, a piece of wood to hang meat on. As he finished, our friend Creigh, and his friend Andrew, came to help Phil with his big project of the day: killing Chunky.

Chunky is right about a year now (since we bought him as an eight-week old the first week of January). I think he's been losing weight gradually since we tried to take him up to the butcher in July, and his carcass was less fatty than Charles' carcass of last month. If I think about it too much, I grow frustrated over the extra feed pumped into a shrinking pig. But no matter. He is done eating on our farm, and I am so thankful for that.

While I stayed in the kitchen to make sourdough doughnuts (fried in our farm's lard!), Phil, I am told, managed the second mammal killing of the day very suavely. He had bought special, solid-tipped bullets for his handgun, and that incredibly powerful combination, shot right behind the ear, dropped Chunky very well.

With two (male) able-bodied assistants, and the marvelous gambrel, the three had the pig upslope swiftly. After washing him down, they peeled the pig with innumerable knife strokes (none of which were done by me!).

And then they opened the cavity, exclaimed over the internal organs (even touched them—voluntarily!). The bladder was outrageous: in my mind's eye, it seemed to hold about a quart of fluid, really unbelievable. The stomach was even more incredible, filling the better part of a five gallon bucket.

And so, three hours later, without traumatic mishaps of any sort, we enjoyed farm-raised sausage and eggs, with doughnuts, along with cheery conversation.

And when the guys left, Phil went to wrap the carcass with the special body wrap he'd bought at the hunting store yesterday, large enough to cover mule deer. It covered almost the bottom half of the pig, which was a funny coda to a fulfilling day.

Phil went to bed at nine. He was wiped out.

Two New Tables

2011-10-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Phil has built two tables in the last two days, with help from his oldest two sons.

On Monday after our hike, he went out to his new work area in the little greenhouse and built himself a workbench. We had a workbench in our home in Boulder and he has missed that for the last two years. He has bolted down his clamp and his grinder and is thrilled to have a workspace again.

I was impressed he got it done, start to finish, in a single afternoon.

And, when the sunlight overheated the greenhouse, he took a tarp and covered the plastic, blocking the rays and keeping him comfortable.

On Tuesday, he began work on a more ambitious project, a butcher table. We had a kitchen-sized butcher block in Boulder, brought over from Germany when he was a boy (and still in storage, waiting for us to be in a larger dwelling). But somehow I'd never thought much about what a butcher block actually meant.

Phil had researched it. First, you take board and line them up on end.

Trim the tops and bottoms, so the boards are more or less the same size, with the heartwood intact.

Drill holes through each board in about five places, and then pound wooden dowels through the board. Not surprisingly, this takes a good bit of strength. As I understand it, Phil took the first board, and pounded all five dowels in. Then he took the next board and pounded the five dowels through that second board. The incredible amount of friction meant that this part of the project went very slowly, but he had twelve of fourteen boards pounded by the time the sun went down on Tuesday.

Wednesday, he pounded the final two boards on. (He confessed that only one of the five dowels actually went all the way through correctly. The holes for one dowel were off a bit on the last two boards, so those are not really supported by the dowel. And, despite using his incredible farmer muscles, a few dowels simply refused to budge toward the end, so Phil plugged those from the other end. (If he hadn't told me, I would never have known. But he did use a few screws for added support for those last boards.)

Then came the lengthy process of planing the boards, to even them all out. He had a little handheld planer, and, by the end, felt like he had learned a good bit in how to use it: certainly not an everyday skill. Jadon, too, took a turn at it.

I admired the beautiful, almost paper-thin shavings that they generated.

When planed enough, Phil sanded it, too.

He was pleased with his accomplishment at the end of the day.

(I was pleased that we could both lift it. It's heavy, but we managed to pick it up a few inches in a test run. I think we'll be able to forego the tractor for transport.)

In other news, though the day turned wonderfully warm, when I went to pick basil for our dinner, I noticed that this last week has been unkind to the basil. The light frost has browned some leaves, though my intrepid bees continue to forage for food among the basil blossoms.

(Since I started the mite treatment last Friday, the bees have not finished even a quart of sugar water. They are close to their hibernating winter state.)

Isaiah found a book with interesting facts about insects. He read that termites can make towers up to thirty feet high. So he went to Phil's shop, found a drill and some other things (?), and created a termite block. That's certainly not anything I would have imagined.

And finally, something to make you go, "Hmm." Have you ever paid much attention to what insects will eat? When we have a cup of kombucha sitting out, we have fruit flies (and regular flies) dive bomb into it. Some mornings I find that last half inch of drink covered with drowned insects.

And, on occasion, a son will drop a raisin or two in the house. I keep expecting to see an army of ants carry the whole thing away. There is sometimes a little string of them from the door to the raisin.

So I found it shocking that I left out a cup of pasteurized apple juice (bought for a specific cleanse—not something we usually drink), and after almost a week, no bug went near it.

Now I realize that we have a different digestive system than worms and, presumably, flies and ants. I'm not entirely on board with the argument that an apple is really good because a worm is eating it. (I mean, aren't bugs on some level nature's cleanup crew? They eat the things we aren't supposed to?)

On the other hand, if there is so little life in pasteurized juice that no bug goes near it, should be really be drinking it ourselves?

Hmm.

Some Natural Wonders

2011-10-24T23:00:00.000-07:00

Abraham found an interesting mushroom.

Joe was impressed with a tree canker.

Isaiah had a good time locating the tree blazes on the edge of the property.

Some trees had incredibly deep grooves in their bark.

A few weeks ago, the forester explained how some of the oddly bent trees become oddly bent. A flexible tree bends down for some reason. A low-lying branch grows up as the new trunk, and eventually the original trunk breaks off. The most exaggerated example on the land is enormous, even when foreshortened.

It's nice to have that puzzle cleared up.

Another example of the flexible trees is smaller, and younger.

I love the little waterfalls along the spring fed creek.

There's an incredible stump from a downed tree that positively dwarfs all the boys, especially Joe.

The forester said that Running Cedar is a sign of fertile soil. We are happy to see a good amount of Running Cedar on the forest floor.

Abraham found several spice berries, bits of bushes that smell delicious. He was very pleased.

Near the end of the hike: Abraham rested on a pile of firewood.

Abraham (and others) loved finding acorns.

The intersection of roots and rocks remains long after a tree has fallen.

I found one untouched beech nut (I think): two bristly triangles revealed two small brown nuts.

Once the skin peeled off, the white triangular flesh was quite delicious: Isaiah asked for more. I think the squirrels beat us.

The October Hikers

2011-10-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

In October 2007, Phil and I walked our land for the first time. The next year, we came camping for two weeks with our two-month old. I carried him on my back, as 2-year-old Abraham and I walked 2/3 of the land, while Phil took the older boys all the way to the back. In 2009, we had been here about two months when we again hiked, this time with our temporary fifth child. That one stands in memory as the horrible hike, with bee sting and feather fight. Last year was beautiful, but still despair-inducing for me. So much to do! So overwhelming! So little accomplished! But this year, the hike was fabulous.

Maybe it helped that we had enthusiastic participation. Before we left, Abraham vehemently protested. But once we got started, he made the best of the inevitable, and even apologized as we neared home: "I'm sorry I had such a bad attitude before we left."

For a five-year-old, that's pretty mature. Such a sweet little guy.

Intrepid Joe exclaimed repeatedly, "I love hiking!" And he climbed steep slopes, walked along downed trees, beaming the whole time.

He embraces this life with his whole heart.

We didn't see much of Jadon this hike. He and Isaiah took a different route on the way out, and then while Isaiah stayed closer to us (I think to make sure he would be well-documented in photos), Jadon headed off alone. He is an impressive tree-climber, though, even without branches to cling to.

And though it scared me when he would be out of earshot (I've read too many stories of boys with broken legs and no one to hear their cries), the fact that he found his way through two acres of mostly unfamiliar forest is more than I could do at nine.

Isaiah exudes enthusiasm in the woods. He tried to walk across a slippery, damp, barkless tree, and remained undaunted at his absolute inability to do so.

Run up a large hill? Sure! Cross the creek multiple times just to see what it looks like from a different point of view? Of course! Jump on a downed tree just to see if the force will make it jiggle? No problem.

He's a passionate fellow, and the woods can absorb that passion.

And as for Phil (shown emerging from the back side of our land into the neighbor's clear cut), he carried three water bottles to the far side because one year we all felt completely parched with only one bottle. We must be faster walkers now, because we forced ourselves to drink one bottle, and then Phil dumped the rest when we reached the far side.

He walks the land and sees the future silvipasture (pasture with stately trees intermixed).

In the end, I felt rested and physically at ease. Not carrying any children any of the way makes a big difference.

A Fig Tree

2011-10-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

This morning Phil found frost on the ground for the first time this fall. The weather is turning colder.

We had a very pleasant, real meal at a friends' house after church. They made an Italian family-style dinner, and we basked in the luxury of a table that seats all six plus guests, real plates and cloth napkins. It's been quite some time since we had such a meal, though I remember that we, too, used to host dinners in our old home.

While I found home ownership a burden, if not an outright bondage (our old home went through the 40-year, everything breaks problems during our stay there), I am starting to remember the good things, too. A home of our own, in the Lord's time, will be a blessing.

But, as we contemplate digging up our peach orchard and replanting it, Phil said, "What a relief that we didn't build a house two years ago when we moved! Think how many changes we would want to make if we had!"

I did bow to the inevitable, though: I hung up a few pictures for the first time. We have few walls that are both devoid of books or far enough out of the line of boy enthusiasm (juggling attempts, climbing and jumping, door swinging) to make me feel confident of hanging frames that might survive, but the bathroom and the wall right outside offered good surfaces.

It's a sign of how starved for home we must be that I had comments from husband and three sons about the newly hung pictures.

Two bits of animal life: Phil found a box turtle when moving the cows this week. We've watched Bitsy try to reach the soft innards, and the older boys have watched and waited for it to emerge, only to go off for a half hour and come back to find it completely vanished. Turtles might not be cheetahs, but they move surprisingly fast for an animal defined by slow-movement.

The wing of the white Welsh Harlequin duck has such a beautiful band of purple. Incredible.

And yesterday we sold the last of the Babydoll ewes. A man drove up from North Carolina to pick up Maybelle, the smallest of ewes, but a good mother.

And then he gave us a family gift: a fig tree! I could hardly believe it: I have looked at fig trees online, salivated over fig trees at Whole Foods, but always turned away, waiting for another day. He said, "Well, God told me to get you a fig, and they weren't easy to find this time of year, but I finally found a place that still had one."

"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it" (Micah 4:4).