Day Six: If Not One Thing, It's Another

With threat of rain and snow, my Dad headed out to plant. Phil went to plow and subsoil for him, and after a few feet, the subsoiler twisted entirely out of shape. Ruined. And without a subsoiler, the planting is almost impossible. Dad still made some good progress, but he has a ways to go.

Phil and I debated: should he drive up to town to buy another subsoiler? Or disc my garden bed so I can plant greens that are a week overdue to go outside? What would the rain do? Decisions! Argh!

The greens were calling, so Phil went to disc when Butch stopped by. He needed to run to town, and offered to make a special trip to get a subsoiler. What a blessing to have such a good neighbor!

My Dad has had a good opportunity to see what real farming is: good progress every day tempered with frustration that it's not more; equipment working until it breaks (and it breaks way more than it seems it should), constant decisions about spacing, land use, tree treatment. It's intense.

When the new bed was all prepared, Phil and I went to deliver hay to the Bianca paddock. (Thankfully, the rain had not yet started.) I opened the fence for Phil so he could drive in, and watched as the enormous bale set down, then rolled very slowly, then faster and faster until it burst through the fence, all animals following behind.

Phil, though, managed to get to the fence break before the cows, bull, and bucks built up the bravery to cross the downed fence. What a relief! And, even more incredibly, the enormous bale had stopped only a few yards downslope, in a maneuverable spot. So Phil was able to regrab it.

I was happy the animals stayed put. This morning, Phil and I spent some time trying to corral the escaping calves, Beatrice and Cleo. They have figured out that if they go fast enough through the weakly pulsing fence, they can graze the growing ryegrass on the neighbor's land, so they aren't terribly eager to return to their proper paddock. It took some effort, but they are again corralled and should not be able to escape again.

In other random tasks today: we moved the Freedom Ranger chicks outside into their movable pen, where they will grow out their lives eating clover and bugs and other forage.

The insulation arrived for the metal building. It is supposed to be kept dry, but since the building isn't up yet, that might prove challenging. (It needed to arrive by the end of the month, so clearly, we put it off as long as we could.) We put the rolls up on skids, and then covered them with greenhouse plastic and a canvas tarp. The rolls dwarf the car in front.

Surprisingly for me, Ewok's lamb, named Chestnut, continues to live. She is a peanut, and her relationship with her mother seems tenuous to me, but Phil has seen her nursing, while Ewok stands stock still. I witnessed this for the first time two days ago, and it brought me to tears. I had despaired of the baby's life and succumbed to extreme bitterness against the wretched mother. Abraham, though, in morning prayers, asked very purposefully that, "Ewok please stand still so her baby can eat." And that happened later that day.

Abraham continues to pray, and Chestnut continues to live.