Children with Chickens

Abraham and Abigail held chickens on top of the children's fort. Isaiah joined them, holding his special bird, Strangey (because it's strange, or, at least, different from the others).

Our Fragile Palisade

On Tuesday, Phil spent part of the morning butchering the deer. We had hung it for a day—a warm day, unfortunately, so we had to give some of the meat to the pigs, as it had maggots. Most of it was good, still, and he skinned the buck and took off large roasts and other meat. I helped by holding the hanging meat to keep it more-or-less still.



I enjoy working towards self-sufficiency. (My garden still looks great!) I enjoy composting humanure and deer entrails, and feeding the pigs the deer meat we can’t use. I am pleased that we’ll burn the deer skin in hopes of gaining protection from the deer. It makes me happy that our oats feed the deer, and the deer feeds us.

And I am pleased that, when we lived in Boulder, we took the meat Phil shot to the butcher, but now, in the country, we do it ourselves. As a good homeschooler, I like learning new things and gaining new skills!

In the afternoon, Phil went to a local sawmill and shoveled in a load of sawdust, in preparation for our trees’ arrival. I don’t know why we hadn’t done that before, but now that we know where to find free sawdust, I think we’ll head there regularly (if only to use with our humanure, rather than spoiled hay, which isn’t as absorptive as I’d prefer.

This morning, Phil oversaw the boys as they shoveled all the manured wood shavings out of the barn. They put most of them into the outdoor shelter for the chicks, and they did a good job with minimal complaining. Then, as a reward, Phil tilted two pallets against some hay bales, then covered the pallets with hay. The boys could wiggle in under the pallets, and this became their very secret fort. It looks just like a lot of hay.



Around lunchtime, the UPS truck backed down our driveway, and left us with four small boxes (Christmas presents) and eight large boxes: the 366 fruit trees for our future orchard. Phil and I went to work.



We carried the boxes, which weighed between 46 and 64 pounds, one by one, to the trench beside our barn. (To review: we opened the trench initially to lay electrical, and left it open for water. With the water line laid, Phil hadn’t quite gotten around to filling it in, which ended up working well for our purposes.)



After we opened the burly boxes and torn open the hefty plastic bags, I put the bareroot bundles of trees into the trench.



Phil backed the truck up and shoveled sawdust on them until their roots were well surrounded.



When all eight boxes were empty, Isaiah watered the sawdust and I checked the labels and looked at the bases to make sure no roots were exposed. I have heard that roots wick moisture, so if even one is exposed, it can kill the tree. That’s sobering (although perhaps not true).

The different colors of bark, the different sizes, the different names all thrill me. I remember little details about the trees, like “Esopus Spitzenburg” apples were one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, though he couldn’t grow a truly great one at Monticello. I figured trying four of them would be fun. Or “Beni Shogun” apples are actually a strain of Fuji, which I guess makes sense: Mt. Fuji is in the land of the Shogun. The tree apricots came bundled together, three little unique trees in a sea of fruit. The cherry bark is all the color you’d expect from cherry wood. The peach trees were noticeably larger than any of the others.

Now the fruit trees stand near my barn, a fragile palisade that, we hope, will offer food and funds to us for many years to come. We welcome them with joy.

The Eight Point Buck

Since I last wrote, Phil bagged an 8-point buck. Single shot, perfect, right to the heart. We found the bullet in the skin on the far side of the buck, a mangled mass of metal and flesh.



Although Phil field dressed a deer once in Colorado, and once on his own here, this was a much larger animal. And he was really not sure what he was doing. I tried to give moral support through my physical presence, but watching the gradual disemboweling of a large mammal is not high on my list of favorite things to do.

But, for those who know that I have fainted—twice!—when losing a tooth, and once when having blood drawn, you can be duly impressed that I picked up the entrails with my hands and put them in a bucket and dumped them in the compost heap. I did this to help my husband, who has been a bit under the weather since his return from Colorado, and finally reached the point where a nap became necessary. Entrails are smelly and mushy, and I did cover my hands with leaves before handling the small intestine, which had a greenish-hue. But having processed chickens last year, I found myself a bit fascinated by the innards of the deer. I like that many of the parts are as readily identifiable as you would expect from a textbook: esophagus, small intestines, lungs, liver. The heart, as I mentioned before, was blown to smithereens, but I could see where it should have been.



Phil spent the afternoon finishing the chicken house. When he finally got the house constructed, and surrounded by electrified netting, we moved the chickens in, four at a time. They are, sadly, small enough to fit right through the netting, and stupid (or stubborn) enough to go right through it. Thankfully, they go right back in to their pen.



When dusk fell, the 50 chicks and 5 keets set up a loud racket. We think they were confused about where they were supposed to go. So Phil ran an extension cord down to their house, and put a feeder inside. Then they went in happily and quieted down, presumably all snuggled together for warmth and companionship, as they did in the barn.

They are happy to be outside, “expressing their innate chicken-ness” as hippie farmer Bob Cannard might say (if that’s not a direct quote, it’s pretty close!). They ran and flapped and pecked and scratched.

In other news, we finally got our delivery of 305 10’ fiberglass stakes for our apple trees. Even unloading that many stakes from the truck takes time; I could carry about ten at a time; Phil could carry 20. Ten trips each.

I saw my second snake on the property. While moving hay for mulch, I uncovered a pencil-thin, foot long black snake. Despite its small size, I agree with Emily Dickinson's assessment of snakes: I, too, "never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone."

Abigail was outside with me while I was making potatoes for dinner. I asked her if there was a song she would like to sing, and she belted out some lines to a song from church that we’ve sung a few times here. I realized suddenly that she is an aural learner. I have noticed that she has a great memory for songs and nursery rhymes, but, being the antithesis of an aural learner myself, didn’t recognize what I was noticing until this evening.

(For those not “in the know,” current educational theory believes that people learn primarily through the eyes (visual), through the ears (aural), or through movement (kinesthetic). I am strongly a visual learner—I take notes during sermons so I can read back what I was supposed to be hearing. My brother Luke is an aural learner—he can quote movies almost verbatim after a single viewing, and he would rather listen to an audio book than read a paper book. And I think my brother Justin is kinesthetic, but I’m guessing that mostly based on the fact that he had a lot of energy when we were young.)

And, thanks be to God, our house in Colorado closed today. The buyers moved in within hours, from what we understand. I am thankful that that chapter in our life is closed. Just a few weeks less two years of paying a double mortgage—may we never have to again. That was a burden grievous to be borne, and I am thankful to be out from under it.

Lykosh Petting Zoo

We needed to move the sheep and the goats today, so we asked Michelle Bessette, who will watch our farm when we’re out of town, if she’d like to see how we manage paddock movement. She came by for the first time since we got the Babydolls, and said, “Oh, we must get some of them! I would like them just to look at!”

It is so satisfying to watch the animals in their new pasture. They dash through the opening into the new pasture and take great mouthfuls of oats and broadleafs (also called “weeds”), perfectly content and focused.

We talked to Michelle for a while. After she left, Butch stopped by to free us from our driveway. The sunk ditch that high-centered the FedEx man also prevented us from departing in the van. Butch used his Bobcat to spread some of the well tailings and to rearrange some gravel. Now the ditch is mounded up, and we can drive away.

We talked to Butch about planting our orchard. He grew excited: “I love working with my machines. I’m just a little boy at heart. If I stay around home, I have a To Do list that doesn’t just let me play with my equipment.” We talked about the best way to go about digging the holes for the orchard. As a more-wealthy-than-most-of-us landowner, he has some lovely landscaping. I had considered not digging massive holes, but our clay soil is so incredibly heavy, he said that he did what we are planning: excavate large holes, then backfill with some original soil and a lot of compost or leaf litter (he said that he had used soil from the forest floor).

One of God’s biggest blessings to us in this place is the many helpful friends he has given us. In this case, a retired man with all the equipment we need, with time and inclination to help, and experience to share!

The Zach Bushes called us to see if they could come visit “the petting zoo.” Zach has had a herculean work load of late, wrapping up with a grant proposal due this last week, the culmination of five years of work. And now it’s over, and he has free time again.

I don’t think Rachel has been to our house since she picked me up the first full day we were here. What a lot of change since then! We slopped the pigs so they could pet them in relative peace (Isaiah even rode one of them for a few seconds until he fell off onto a pile of slop). The Babydolls were ruminating, so we were able to pet them, just a bit.

Expert gardener Rachel gave me some good ideas about my garden (including just mulching the lettuce beds for the next while, so they will shoot ahead in growth when the spring flush hits). And, like Michelle this morning, she suggested that if I have too many trees, I could find ready buyers. Phil, though, I think, is willing to plant all 403 trees, even if it does take up most of our clearing. While we talked, the children played hide-and-go-seek among the hay bales, in a sort of cliché farm moment. But a good cliché.

Phil and Zach worked on constructing a pallet-house for our pullets (the word for laying hens before they start laying. Sort of like “heifer” means a cow before she gives birth). The rapidly growing chicks are able to fly out of their enclosure in the barn, so their lack of containment, along with the faint-but-ever-present smell and ever-thickening layer of dust on every surface (and especially on my cooking surfaces!) make an outdoor home a priority for me. The shelter is not completed yet, but they made good progress on a chicken house that costs almost nothing.

After the Zach Bushes left, Phil had an absolutely delightful idea. He took a bit of the grain the sheep breeder gave me. We took the lead rope and tied up the goats, who I held. And then Phil shook the grain and the sheep gradually approached him. There he sat, with three little Babydolls and one big Dorset all around him, like a sheep Pied Piper. He even hugged one little lamb, which made me green with envy—until he traded places with me and let me hug the Babydoll. Ahh.

Permaculture and Orchard Layout

After our late night at the airport, I got up to more rain on Friday morning. I went in to see the sheep, and a babydoll came up to me and let me scratch her head briefly. First time on our farm I’ve been able to touch a babydoll! Yippee!

Then she promptly shook herself like a dog, and the other two lambs joined her.

I thought about the reactions of our farm animals. The sheep warily avoid me (usually). The chicks and guineas flee from me, squawking loudly. During the rain, the goats ignore me (as if I’m responsible for the weather). The pigs, however, stalk me. If I so much as step outside the barn and into their line of sight, no matter where they are, they come running, snorting with glee.

Such enthusiasm would delight me more if they didn’t bite my pant legs when I go in to get the slop bucket and bring it back. I actually try to let Phil do it: stepping over the electric fence with two over eager animals salivating for me—I me, the slops—is not an adrenaline rush I enjoy.

I understand why farmers used to build troughs just inside the fence and pour the slops over the top.

In the early afternoon, FedEx brought me 405 rodent guards for the little trees. As the driver backed out our drive, he bottomed out and was thoroughly stuck. (In placing a hydrant at the northwest corner of our land, Phil and Butch cut a trench across the driveway. That trench appeared to be properly filled, until we got five or six inches of rain in a couple of days. Then the trench became treacherous.) I was thankful that the driver hadn’t made the delivery the day before, when Phil was still out of town! Phil was able to get our truck and tow him out and send him on his way.

With our trees shipping early next week, Phil and I tried to lay out the orchard on paper. It was not a happy task. Uncharacteristically, when I ordered the trees, I just assuming they would all fit, rather than actually checking the specifics. After all, I had charts that claimed that, with proper spacing, an orchard could fit 300 or 400 trees to the acre, and I knew we had over an acre. I neglected to thoroughly research the various rootstocks I ordered, though; small trees with dwarfing rootstocks fit many to the acre; as trees get larger and rootstocks more vigorous, the number of trees per acre decreases dramatically.

Besides that, what I didn’t realize until this last week was that, while the 300+ apple trees probably will fit, more or less, in our upper meadow, the 40 cherries and the 40 peaches, the ten plums and ten pears (and three apricots) I ordered all have different, larger spacing needs. It could be that our entire cleared area becomes dedicated to fruit trees, which is not what I envisioned, nor what I hoped for.

I fell asleep frustrated.

I woke up energized to try to get the orchard to work. And, really, I shouldn’t be too bummed about fruit trees. There’s a lovely philosophy of homesteading called “permaculture,” which seeks to make all things on a farm have multiple uses. For example, the humble laying hen. She provides eggs for food, and, eventually, her body for stewing. If allowed on pasture, she sanitizes the pasture by scratching through manure and eating the worms and eggs. She fertilizes the land herself with her manure.

Furthermore, permaculture seeks to “stack” the land. They might have nut trees growing tallest, with fruit trees under them, and berry bushes below the fruit trees. Then sheep can graze around the berries and maybe chickens run through after the sheep.

Although I have not read extensively about permaculture, I think it an elegant (and invigorating!) way to farm. And an orchard is a good thing to stack. We’ll have the trees, with the sheep running underneath. Then maybe we can plant raspberries between the trees, or, for the first few years anyway, a garden in the center of the rows. I have heard that peas and potatoes work well.

I spent much of the day figuring apple tree spacing. What rootstocks I have; what ideal spacing they need; what the harvest dates should be. And although I don’t think I have accomplished all I wish, I think it’s better than I feared yesterday night.

Besides Phil towing the van out of its muddy trap, the other thing worth mentioning today is that this is the start of hunting season. About 7:30am we heard a shot nearby, and Phil said, “Sounds like Dennis is up.” Shortly after, we got a call from a very pleased Dennis, who had shot an 8-point buck. (He considered stuffing the head until he had a quote for $450. The triumph will live in his memory, but not on his wall.)

All day long we heard shots, and trucks with dog kennels in their beds drove slowly up and down our road all day.

For my part, I hope the deer population is quickly reduced: they are eating down the oats intended for my sheep!

My Ida Adventure

Tropical Storm Ida brought rain as we drove Phil to the airport on Tuesday. The gusty wind and constant rain continued through the day on Wednesday, when Michelle Bessette called to let me know that the storm was not supposed to let up until Friday, but we were welcome to take refuge in their house. I suspected we would need that, but as the day wore on, we managed.

Because we’ve decided to get the trees next week, I spent the morning researching rodent guards and ways to connect the trees to the stakes. I ordered Deer Away, an organic product made of putrescent egg solids that supposedly really does keep the deer away. I also looked into making a repeating mouse trap that sounds pretty clever: a 5-gallon bucket rigged with peanut butter on a paper plate, that neatly drops mice in to their drowning death. (See the design here.)

Just once did I bundle all five children up. We ran up and down the driveway twice, but it was so chilly, we didn’t last as long as I had hoped to eliminate all high spirits and high energy. I was looking up at the clouds blowing across the sky, and then looked back to Joe, who had left my side. He had headed to the side of the driveway, where he waded into a puddle up to his knees. I felt like I was receiving a recently-baptized convert as I took his hand and drew him out of the deep puddle. He seemed a bit surprised at the soaked pants and shoes, but not unduly distressed. Silly guy!

In late afternoon, we started Sonlight Core 1 Science. I’d read the appropriate pages, then watch the experiments on DVD. The boys enjoyed seeing Grandma’s house and Uncle Justin. That segment of Science happens to be on water, so we opted against doing any of the actual experiments. Some we have done in the past, but I figured it would be too much to have water inside as well as outside.

Thursday we woke to more of the same. More rain. More wind. More chill. I am pleasantly surprised by how little time the morning chores take: perhaps twenty minutes to get everything fed and watered and check on their general well-being. We’re much faster at moving their paddocks, too. The last time, it took Phil and I only a half hour from the start of gathering up the electric netting to end of moving their pen. The oats they recently grazed appear to be regenerating, even at this late date.

After we did some magnet experiments, the children basically settled in to play happily all day long. It was glorious! They didn’t bicker; they didn’t irritate each other. They came up with imaginative games and stories. A few times I considered stopping them to do school, but realized I think my philosophy of schooling for this season is don’t disturb playing children. (Rather like my philosophy for sleeping babies. Just let them be!)

I read. “Famous” farmer Joel Salatin (the farmer you would know by name if you know the names of any farmers in the US) described his winters as a time to hunker down and research. I felt like that was my day, too.

I visited the sheep in the afternoon. The whole paddock smelled of wet wool, and the sheep looked noticeably thinner, as their wool was wet through. I put up a tarp as a windbreak, but they didn’t appear distressed. I hope not.

After dinner, we got ready for Bible study. I felt triumphant: two days in 224 square feet with five children, by myself, on time to study God’s word, then on to the airport to pick up Phil when his flight landed at 11:30pm. Excellent. I was a bit concerned about getting up the driveway, but figured all would be well.

Sadly, it wasn’t all well. After I got five children into their five boosters and carseats, I started to back the van up the drive. I don’t think I’ve backed up in the dark before, let alone with rain, and felt like my visibility was nil. Not ever the most confident driver-in-reverse, I decided my only option, in order to keep our van out of the treacherous ruts and safe from the electric and satellite poles next to the drive, was to turn around.

Bad mistake. We don’t have enough gravel at the bottom of the driveway. In good conditions, this doesn’t matter much, since we can drive on the pasture. But with five inches of rain in 48 hours, we didn’t have good conditions.

Moreover, I backed up, unfortunately, right over the ditch that Phil and Butch had uncovered last week in order to put in a hydrant. The hydrant will be useful, but the ground was not hardpacked.

In the frustrating twenty minutes that followed, I tried everything I could think of to get the car out of the mudhole it had sunk into. I brought fistfuls of gravel from higher up the driveway (the wheelbarrow has a flat tire, so I couldn’t use it). Then I got smart and shoveled gravel into five gallon buckets, hoping to get some traction. I also was unkind to my transmission (as Dennis pointed out later), by revving it in hopes the car could escape from the miry pit. I put boards down under the wheels. I shoveled the sloppy mud out from under the most-sunken tire.

I even had Jadon go up front and put the car in drive while I pushed from behind. That was, perhaps, the most pointless of all. I do not have Phil’s brute strength, and in tennis shoes, slipping in the mucky mud, I had no purchase anyway. Besides asking Jadon to do something he was not comfortable with.

When the van had sunk down low enough that I could hardly fit a board under the body, I gave up in defeat, and called the Bessettes. (What else could I do?) Dennis came over right away, singing, “Here I come, to save the day!” He did not drive all the way down the driveway, not daring to get too close. (He mentioned that his old neighborhood in Norfolk is under 18” of water. Michelle said, “This is a hurricane, or at least, the tail end of a hurricane. This is not usual weather!”)

We unloaded five children and one carseat into his truck, and drove to the Bessette house. The four older children happily ensconced in the living room watching the latest Pixar movie, and ready to spend the night, I left in Dennis’ truck for Bible study. An hour or so late, but I arrived at last.

The truck freaked me out a bit; besides being manual transmission, it was really big, and felt like riding in a silent spaceship. I would have driven to the airport, slowly and carefully, but Martin Bush offered to drive me instead, and that seemed better to me.

In the continued swap of cars, it looked like this: Amy’s van stuck at Lykosh homestead. Bessette truck at the Doug Bushes. Martin car up to airport with Martin and Amy (and Joe)—get Phil. Drop Martin at his house in Charlottesville. Three Lykoshes drive to Doug Bushes. Drop off Martin car, get Bessette truck. Drive Bessette truck to homestead. Phil gets Lykosh truck (not stuck, thankfully). Amy drives Bessette truck to Bessette house (so Dennis can get to work in the morning, when he leaves before 7am). Phil follows in Lykosh truck to get Amy. Amy worries about 3-year-old Abraham, so goes in to the Bessette home to get that one sleeping Lykosh. Barking dog wakes several other Lykosh children, so all four remaining children end up in Lykosh truck.

By 2am, all Lykoshes are home where they belong, with just Martin’s displaced car and the Lykosh van thoroughly stuck to give any indication that such mishaps occurred.

Doug asked, “Why didn’t Phil drive himself to the airport?”

And we have no answer for that. We even brought the little Corolla from Colorado so he would be able to drive it to the airport when he needed to fly out. But it never crossed either of our minds that Phil could drive on his own.

After Doug asked that question, he offered to go and get Phil himself, so we were, as always, abundantly cared for.

Phil Flies Away

Phil and the boys worked well today. They shoveled out the remainder of the ton of gravel from the back of our truck, and reburied many of the trenches.

In preparation for heeling in our trees, which I realized are supposed to be buried in an 18” trench, covered with sawdust, then thoroughly wetted, with mice traps on top (well, officially it should have mouse bait, but that seems a bit too risky to the children and nasty to the mice). We have driven past a sawmill, and I called about their sawdust: they have plenty, and it’s not too expensive for a pickup truck load.

What made me really rejoice was when Phil and I looked around for a good spot to heel them in. I don’t want them too far from our living space, as I think deer pressure will increase the further the trees are from our trailer. Suddenly, the area next to the barn came into focus: it already has a trench, from when Phil ran electrical line and water line. It’s about 18”, and only feet away from our living quarters. The perfect spot! And we wouldn’t need Butch to come back and trench for us.

We decided to get the trees delivered next week, then.

After Phil finished the trench, we were going to begin to lay out the orchard. However, the stakes didn’t arrive today, and Phil got a work “emergency call” from his biggest client (a great client who actually pays bills on time! How rare!). So he booked a flight this evening to Denver, and will head up to the job site tomorrow morning.

This form of commuting is not inexpensive. A week ago, Phil turned down a job in Denver from a potential new client: “We’re really busy right now, and I can’t make it out today.” After that call, he said, “What should our family policy be about work-related calls?”

What we came up with is that we will take any jobs that the Lord chooses to send our way, and trust that whatever calls come will help pay the bills, not cost more than the eventual checks. Earlier this week, in passing I thought, “Lord, you need to send us [meaning Phil] work, as I am not finding as much time to work as I had hoped and expected.”

And I trust he will honor that prayer. I am thankful that the call came through today, when all our water lines are buried and set for winter; when we have no pressing animal needs; when we aren’t dealing with major shipments of trees, or going on vacation, or, really, anything else vital to the working of our farm.

Besides that, Phil will be able to sign closing papers while he’s there, rather than Fed Exing them back and forth.

I delight to see how God works out the details of my life.