On Sunday, while Phil slept, I pulled out a kite and the boys entertained themselves for some time trying to keep it aloft, despite the gusty wind. It was idyllic and fun...
...until it stuck 50 feet up in a beautiful tree. Hmm. I remember why I don't particularly like kites.
Yesterday I watched Eve continue to butt away her daughter, and the little rejected lamb wandering around, trying to nurse from the wether (castrated ram), the rams, undelivered ewes, and it made me furious. I had made her a formula out of extra creamy cow milk, karo syrup, and cod liver oil. It filled her, but made her scour. I try to catch one of the ewes to let her feed periodically, but it's another burden at a time when life feels full of burdens. Should I offer her, free, on craigslist? Phil reminded me that we could shoot her (which sounds horrifically cruel, but if you think about Charlotte's Web, farmers kill runts because they have other things that MUST get done to provide for their family. If I spend my time feeding this baby and don't get plants in the ground, was that a reasonable trade? What a balance this farming life is!).
Merely having options was enough to calm me. And when my friend Melanie mentioned today that her grandmother used to keep some bottle lambs every year, just because it is fun to have a little devoted follower, I came around to the charm of a little lamb that nuzzles my nose and comes to greet me when she hears my voice.
I've decided to hold an ewe for as long as possible to let the baby eat, then give her a few more ounces of the imperfect formula. She is already noticeably lighter than her birthday mates, less playful and much more pathetic.
Phil and I, together with the boys, spent a few hours yesterday and today cutting swales on the neighbor's land. Every forty feet, down the slope, Phil cut a trench with the plow, to help keep water runoff on the land. One of the boys walked in the trenches Phil cut, and I placed flags forty feet downslope, so Phil would know where to cut the next trench.
Afterwards, Butch came with his bulldozer and made every other swale deeper and wider. It makes the hillside looked tiger-striped. I hope it helps keep the precious water where we want it.
Phil managed to get the rest of the peat bales placed where he wanted them. THAT is a relief! The hill is now dotted with peat bales, like a giant's blocks left out in the rain.
We've been considering how to spread the peat. After all, half an acre, two inches thick is not the work of an hour. What Phil ended up doing was using rakes, with the surprisingly enthusiastic aid of the two older boys, to spread the peat.
After he'd got one bale well spread, he used the plow to plow the peat moss in as deeply as possible. When that is done, he will use the tiller to create a good seedbed, and then I can plant!
Butch came over to begin our greenhouse pad.
With the peat bales out of the way, the area is clear to work on. As you can see, one of the peat bales split on the site of the greenhouse, which isn't necessarily the end of the world: we'll just hope it doesn't get mixed in too deeply with the backfill.
He got quite far for the short while he was working. (It helps that the site is fairly level, compared to much of our land, to being with.)
I can't believe all you did in a day! What a transformation. Hazel kept a bottle calf, she never had lambs, but with the cattle the advantage is tremendous and humorous. All the other cows get extremely jealous of the little "Joseph" that gets special treats and attention throughout the day, so all Hazel had to do was call the name of the "favored calf" and all those big boys and girls come running. This is hillarious...watching a stocky, proud bull come running at the sound of the little playmates name. When I was a little girl it was the name "Tinkerbell" that brought the whole herd up. This worked for me - a little, lanky ten year old girl squeakily shouting "Tinkerbell!" across the pasture, and here everybody would come running. So you can feel completely guiltless about babying along a little rejected lamb...it is an investment in an agreeable herd that does what you want when you ask - even in your most pathetic voice.
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