Checkpoint Charlie

Phil needed to get more wire for his fencing project, so he ran to the hardware store. Unbelievably, there was a CHECKPOINT on the road right by our house. Really. Like we live in the West Bank or something. Is this a common rural practice? I can't imagine driving down any road in Boulder and having a checkpoint set up. Really.

He was cited for an unsafe vehicle (we have a broken windshield; we almost always have a broken windshield); for not updating his license in a timely manner, and for not updating his plates.

Incredibly frustrating. He has actually gone to the DMV multiple times since moving here. But because we don’t live in a permitted structure, we don’t have an address. Because we don’t have an address, we can’t register our vehicles. When he went to Vermont to get the cows, the clerk couldn’t figure out how to register the truck, so she put down our old Boulder address—in effect, she perjured herself.

As a rule follower in general, it ruined my afternoon. First, to be stopped at a checkpoint like we all are criminals living in a nanny state. Second, to have tried to do the right thing several times and be cited for lack of compliance, when we have no ability to comply.

So maybe I need to say, “We do our best to live rightly, and that doesn’t always mean legally.”

Enough on that depressing topic.

Phil almost finished surrounding the meadow with fence. (By the way, a “meadow’ is a field for grazing, not intended for haying. Hay is simply grass that is cut, dried, and baled in order to use as feed at a later date.) It was a long, hot day, but he is ready for the cows to be more comfortable.

With the strawberry rains of last week, their paddock quickly became inches deep muck. It had been a fairly solid surface until the strawberry rains, but we were both surprised at how unpleasant the terrain became, almost overnight. We aren’t thrilled with the number of flies breeding there. On the other hand, composted organic matter absorbs water quite well, so the fact that the paddock retains water is, perhaps, a good thing in the end. Just not for the cows right now.

I spent a good hour on the phone with the talkative expert on the genetics of the American Milking Devon. He, too, said that the Milking Devons are extremely challenging to artificially inseminate, but, if we wanted good milky lines (and, oh, we do!), there are a few good straws available. And, if we wanted to improve our chances, we could try to use AI twice in the same heat, about six hours apart.

Sadly, Milking Devons don’t have obvious heats, and their heats are shorter than average, running less than 12 hours usually. Most Milking Devon owners also own a bull.

Our plan at the moment is this: we’ll pray we see when Fern, our only cow to breed, is in heat in mid-June, and have the technician come twice that day. We’ll have two more straws ready, though, for three weeks later (early July), when we’ll try twice more.

If that one, also, doesn’t take (and we ask the Lord that it PLEASE will), we will hopefully know by the end of July. At that point, we’ll reassess.

So I know where to order straws, and I know what straws I want. Next step: how to store straws. And, not surprisingly, you can’t just keep them in the freezer (more’s the pity).

No, you need to keep them in a liquid nitrogen tank. And since we don’t have one of those lying around, we’ll need to find a place to store them. I called the vet, but they close early on Wednesday. Wait until tomorrow.

To round out this day of many new experiences, I finished spraying the apple trees with kelp; I mulched my strawberries; and I weeded several of my garden beds (my dear, neglected garden). I pulled up this monstrous example of a single bolted spinach. The chickens were happy to have it.

We also have both oats and spelt growing. Oats have the weeping willow look, while the spelt looks more like wheat. Both very pretty.

When we look out our trailer window, we can see a lot of spelt growing. It’s taken over, out grown the weeds! And outgrown the trees, too, just about, so it’s good that the spelt will be ripening here soon. I’m amazed at what a great stand we have!

Fruit Planting: All Done; Fruit Maintenance: Begun

After I finished planting all the strawberries this afternoon, I looked at a few apple trees, really for the first time since they went in the ground.

Some leaves have spots, perhaps with rust or some other bad-for-apple-trees thing. Bugs chomped some leaves.

Hmm. Now that fruit planting is ended, fruit maintenance begins.

I soaked some kelp granules, and sprayed half the trees with the water. I hope that foliar feeding will help; we'll see. Until I have a spare moment to research more in depth, the trees will have to survive with prayer and seaweed.

Really, most trees look great. Some have grown over my head already. I have one cherry that I think drowned; one pear that never leafed out; one apple that looks very bad, almost like bugs and deer both attacked it; and one apple that the sheep chewed (we'll see if it lives). And the other 400+ trees are doing well. Thanks be to God.

Phil did yeoman's work today, putting up fence around the lower pasture. He looks to be more than halfway done, so by later this week, we hope the cows will get to start rotational grazing.

I thought today about our needed bull, and considered anew that we should probably just artificially inseminate. I mean, we could spend a couple thousand to get a bull here for our one cow, and he could impregnate her. Our vague idea was that we woud then put him on the other side of the creek (maybe with the two babydoll rams for company?) until we need him again at the end of the year.

But then the logistics expert in me wondered how will we get him to the other side of the creek? We have no ford (yet). And I doubt we could put a 1200 pound ball of testosterone on a leash and lead him merrily away from his harem. That doesn't sound practical at all. Maybe tie him to the back of the truck and let the truck do the heavy pulling? (That's a trick our hay guy mentioned. Let the livestock fight the vehicle, not the man.) But then we're at the unfordable creek, into a nonexistent paddock, with, um, what to eat?

Yes, please, let's try to artificially inseminate! We are motivated to watch for signs of heat! And I am on the hunt for the best bull genetics I can find. Stay tuned.

The one female guinea had gone broody on us, and sat on eggs for the last week. Today she wandered off, and Isaiah collected 38 eggs from the hen house. (Fifteen or 20 would be a normal gathering, so you can imagine what a hoard she had collected!) I have separated those eggs from our for sale eggs—nothing like cracking an egg to find a dead chick inside. That would sour me from local farm food pretty quickly! (I have no idea if that would actually happen, but what a horrific thought!)

I renewed my dedication to cook like Nourishing Traditions. I am soaking grains, soaking beans, using the garden vegetables we have, planning what garden vegetables to put in now that fruit planting is done.

And that makes me feel like I'm at home. Not so harried that dinner is a package of rice noodles with a can of tuna and some garlic for "tuna noodle casserole," thrown together at the end of an eight hour planting session, but a thoughtfully prepared lentil salad with leftover ham after a couple of pleasant hours of planting and spraying. Hopefully no more quick-rise yeast breads, but in a week or so, delicious sourdough.

The latter I can do long-term. The former—that was an exhausting season.

What else makes me feel at home? Having a sink with running hot water (in the motor home).

And having Phil home. That's very good.

Strawberry Rain

My sheep magazine's almanac called the rain we've had lately "Strawberry Rain," as it falls when the strawberries ripen. Delightful name, I tell you. The little wild strawberries we have all over are delightful, too.

Strawberry planting continues, but I hope to finish tomorrow. The garlic sent up scapes, the flower stalks in the center of the leaves. I pulled the scapes because we want the garlic to grow larger root bulbs, not put out flowers and seeds. Most of the time the scapes broke off in my hand, but sometimes I could pull them from deep inside, and they'd emerge with a pop. Very satisfying, and impressively long!

"A lot of farming is just planting something, watching it die, figuring out why, and planting it again." Local farmer Whitney Critzer said this, and he's an older man who's been farming all his life. It helps me to know that even "real" farmers struggle with growing things. Almost all of our trees appear to be doing well, though, leafing out and growing. So hopeful!

Phil's trip out of town was more-or-less a bust. I realized that the policy of "we don't turn down work" is a bit too much like the main character in the movie Yes Man, who says yes to everything without considering the pros and cons. This ill-advised trip to Colorado meant that I missed my beloved beekeeping class, and Phil spent four days out of town with little (not nothing!) to show for it. And probably didn't pay for the price of his ticket. Wisdom, Lord, we need wisdom.

The bees are hanging in there, despite my lack of class attendance. In fact, the Queen of Sheba hive appears to be thriving, though the queen herself is not yet out of her cage (she's getting there--the bees who are eating her out have to tunnel so deep inside the box, they almost vanish). There are always more bees on the feeder, more humming noise from the hive than the Queen Esther hive. I hope the Queen Esther hive will have babies coming soon. The time is running out for them both. Worker bees don't live forever, and if no new workers are born, that's the end. (Be anxious for nothing, I tell myself.)

Isaiah spent all day Sunday throwing up. As our pastor's wife said, "These things always seem to happen when the husband's out of town!" Blech! Abraham started, too, and kept it up all evening. Where did it come from? I have no idea.

We had a good time continuing to read through our picture book collection. I've been surprised that even Jadon listens in. He seems so old and mature. Then I remember that he's not even eight, and his age resumes proper perspective.

Jadon is down to single digits until his birthday, and of his own volition made a paper chain so he could count down properly. This seems a bit too high pressure. What can I possibly get him that would live up to a paper chain countdown?!

I've decided I need to eat through the meats in my freezer. So I pulled out a ham today, brined it, rubbed it, and baked it. The baking part took forever (a couple of hours, when I was expecting only one), but the end product was absolutely delightful, albeit a bit dry. I'm okay with dry—I'm a white meat kind of girl.

Since Phil returned home after midnight last night, he reset the sheep pens, rolled a big bale of hay into the cow pen, scooped up the stinky kitty litter that Abraham had spread around, loaded the truck to do a dump run (and did the dump run), and started to put up fencing around our pasture. He got six panels up in what felt like very short order. We're excited for the cows to graze our meadow. I'm sure the cows are ready to get out of the paddock. The rain has turned it into quite the mucky place.

But I won't think about my mucky paddock. I'll think about the joy of the Strawberry Rains falling on my baby strawberries, keeping the temperature mild and the air moist.

Leaf Comb

Last November, when we got our orchard trees, we heeled them in, using the trench just dug for our water and electric line, and a load of sawdust from a local sawmill.

Now that the trees are planted, I want to use the trench again, this time for asparagus crowns. But first I have to remove the sawdust.

The boys and I worked together for a time. It was hot in the sun, but somewhat happy to see the progress we made. I am so thankful for the garden cart! How nice not to have to haul the sawdust in buckets!

And I did plant one-sixth of the asparagus crowns. Fifty to go.

In the afternoon, I planted another set of strawberries. Two down, four to go.

I also weeded the garden a bit, moved the sheep, and checked on the bees.

The bees are not anxious to free their caged queen. A few bees are always on her cage, and the errant swarming bees have not swarmed again. In fact, they moved across the hive to join their companions. I am hopeful that the queen's pheromones are already exercising a cohesive influence on the hive.

I found today why the bees did not all fly away when I began to dig. On emptying their abandoned part of the hive, I came across comb they built on a leaf. Crazy bees.

The Queen of Sheba II

Jonadab, in keeping with his middle name Asaph, the writer of Psalms, entertains us with his singing. He strums the grate in the door between rooms, scrunches up his face, and sings in a thin falsetto, a wordless song of (I hope) praise. I always enjoy hearing it, though the decibel level sometimes fills our home (and then some).

Our replacement queen bee arrived today. I headed to the post office, wondering what fantastic, adorable package she would be in. Surprisingly, she was in a standard mailer, and fit easily in my post office box.

It seemed so, well, unimportant! But even that small envelope dwarfed the little queen box.

After much thought and some prayer, I ended up doing the following. I left the Queen Esther hive alone. I opened the Queen of Sheba hive and looked at the comb that the few bees have been building, just to make absolutely sure that the original queen was not around. No blue-dotted abdomens showed themselves, so I pulled the cork out of the new queen's cage, and set her on the bottom of the hive. If no bees eat their way to her by Sunday afternoon, I'll tape the box to the top of the hive and hope they do more for her. (If I can wait that long—we'll see.)

The bees that had been a ground swarm since last weekend, I actually shoveled up. I was wearing my bee hat for protection, and dug with trepidation, concerned that once I started digging, they would all fly up and circle around me. But I first sprinkled them with powdered sugar, and they remained clustered on the weeds while I shoveled them up. I put the bee-covered weeds in the opposite side of the Queen of Sheba hive, and I do hope they will all integrate.

I feel confident now that I have done everything I can to help these bees. If they live, it will be the mercy of God, since they have had a rocky start!

I think the bees took more effort and time than I realized, as the only other thing I accomplished today was gathering up some saplings and hauling them, in the wonderful garden cart, to the cows. The cows come running; so gratifying!

While I was gathering up the downed saplings, Isaiah came up. He had been "strawberrying," picking the little Alpine strawberries around the land. He said, "I have a surprise for you, Mommy." I was pretty sure it was a berry, but acted like I had no idea. And it turned out to be a perfect little wildflower. I put it behind my ear, and he picked another so I would be well balanced. What a sweet gift.

(And note the new glasses! I had my last prescription for two months before I got pregnant with Joe and my prescription changed. I was too mad about spending all that money needlessly to get glasses that worked well, but I bought new ones while in Colorado. I'm loving how all the grasses and leaves have such perfect definition!)

Sheep on the Move; Phil on the Move

Yesterday was the first time in seven months, four days that we had just the Lykosh Six here on the farm. (Phil drove Gramps up to the airport in the morning.)

I've been reading picture book after picture book to the two middle boys. How fun, to rediscover so many jewels on our shelves. (And a few books I figure I can box up, which will free up valuable shelf space.) The steady rain continued, leaving us with almost two inches so far this week. How nice to have both cooler weather, and an excuse to read inside.

Yesterday was also my first day to wash dishes at a sink here. Since we have the motor home, I brought a week's worth of dishes (or thereabouts) and washed them with a faucet and hot water. What great, great inventions were the water heater, sink, and faucet.

Phil decided that, since we're fencing the trees outside of the paddocks, there's no reason to keep the larger sheep away from the Babydolls, so he brought the four bigger sheep over, bringing the total in the orchard to 13. I watched him capture and drag the last of the recalcitrant sheep, BB, the wether (castrated ram) born on Palindrome Day, 01/02/2010.

BB was quite cagey. He evaded capture for quite some time, even though Phil had the shepherd's crook, and used his lightning fast reflexes. (My muscles are slow-twitch, so I don't react well. I keep going forever, though!) Phil could, perhaps, have caught the sheep more quickly had he not been wearing Crocs in the three-inch deep muck in the paddock. Somehow, he emerged quite clean. Amazing.

Once Phil finally caught BB and put the halter on him, BB would flop over, as if dead. Phil would pull on the halter, and BB would roll, from one side to the other. I would push BB's bottom, and he might stand up and move forward a few feet before falling on the ground again. What a stubborn fellow! He would even baaaa for his mother, who would respond, but he gave no joyful leaps in her general direction.

With all the sheep finally enclosed, Phil created more paddocks. Somehow he can create paddocks between the trees, so that the sheep don't graze the new leaves. Most of our apple trees have 10 or 12 feet spacing between trees, and 14 or 16 feet between rows, so Phil makes paddocks that are about 12' x 30', and then just makes sure to move the sheep once or twice a day.

They eat just about everything in their paddock before they move. One day we noticed they had left one particular type of weed growing, with all else around that weed mowed completely. We left them a little longer, and next thing we knew, they had overcome their distaste for the weed and eaten that one, too. (In the photo below, they have a few more hours of good grazing before they'll be ready to move.)

One grazier advises using at least 90 paddocks, rotating once a day, which gives the pasture a three month rest. We'll see how we do—maybe grazing through both the pomes (apples and pears) and the stone fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, apricots) will allow 90 days.

I still have dreams of planting the cherry orchard to corn and beans, but that seems a pipe dream more and more as the days pass.

I did manage to plant 25 strawberry plants today, all in a row. Several more rows to go.

In lieu of other pressing needs, Phil began to chainsaw a pathway for fencing the clearing. Soon we can start to rotational craze the cows! He started by clearing the smaller trees around the clearing, in order to use all the flatter land we have, but soon decided against that. The cows will clean it up better than he can.

So today he started to fence within the tree line, in order to just get the cows moving. We'll do more with the trees and flat land a bit later.

Our grazing land, though growing well, does not have a good thatch. A look straight down shows plenty of red clay soil. A good grazing meadow will not show any dirt, so we have a ways to go.

The cows should help, though, as they manure the land, and spread their nose exudates on the plants. I can hardly wait!

After a short time of clearing, however, he got a call this afternoon from a favorite client in Colorado, wondering if Phil could meet him tomorrow at a job site. Well, since it is physically possible (there were four tickets left), and since we do our best not to turn down work, Phil flew out this evening.

Happily, although the meeting tomorrow is just a meeting, Phil has another small job or two in Colorado that he can do while there. (He was asked about one small project just yesterday, and hadn't called them back yet.)

I ask the Lord to continue to provide for our needs. May these projects not only cover the cost of the trip, but help with our expenses as well.

The pasture will have to wait.

Better Food for a Healthier Family: Our Journey's Beginning

My eye's swelling finally decreased enough to slit open around noon today. It felt like a long time to live without 3D vision. Made me feel empathetic towards all who have to wear an eye patch for life. (And I do have a photo of my swollen eye, but it's gruesome and the computer is actually refusing to load it, so I'll leave it out.)

Rain kept me from working outside. I was thrilled to stay inside and read to Abraham and Isaiah, picture book after picture book, hour after hour. Jadon played games with Gramps, the Skip-Bo expert. In the afternoon, the family went to mail off a water sample. I'll be interested to see what contaminants, if any, we have.

I also have us now registered at Local Harvest, apparently the premier website for finding locally grown foods. That's a bit of marketing finally completed.

And now, a brief history of our dietary journey, or, why we eat as we do.

Shortly after we got married, Phil made me quit the Pill. I was relieved: it had been a rough couple of months feeling so crazy-emotional. Since then, I have talked to maybe one woman who didn't feel the Pill made her crazy; almost universally, women feel like it's a harsh drug. (I've since learned that hormones in the body are measured in parts per trillion. I wonder how heavy the doses in the Pill are.)

After marriage, I also had odd rages at odd times. Those rages were really odd—I wouldn't feel particularly angry one minute, then would hit the roof, but still have a little voice in the back of my head saying, "Amy, you're not acting rationally. This isn't like you." I would say it felt almost like demon-possession, like something took over my body.

My brother, too, had rages. We both tried eliminating wheat. The rages ceased.

Was it psychosomatic? Well, my brother once ate teriyaki chicken and went off running around the hills, screaming for three hours. The teriyaki sauce had soy sauce, and soy sauce has wheat. No kidding.

And I would take communion until I realized I had rages every Sunday afternoon. No more communion for me. (Only for a short time, though. By the time we left Boulder, though, eight families of about 15 also had at least one person avoiding wheat, so we took rice crackers instead of bread.)

My oldest son had night terrors. This, too, looked a bit like demon-possession. He would shriek in the middle of the night, sometimes for an hour or two, eyes open, but no cognition. And so, no comfort. I took him off wheat, and from that day on he's had no night terrors.

As an extra benefit, my sister, who had only seen Jadon on rare occasions, said two weeks later, "When did Jadon become so nice?" She noticed an entire personality change that I hadn't really noticed.

For a time, grandparents would treat the boys with cheese puffs or candy. The boys cries changed, becoming more high-pitched and pervasive. They became more aggressive, more unhappy. We cut off such treats, and the emotions stayed normal.

Most dramatically, perhaps, was Phil's change. He suffered debilitating migraines several times a month since junior high. He would miss work, staying in bed for days at a time. We hadn't suspected MSG until I came across a link to Hidden Names of MSG. Apparently MSG has many names, and is difficult to peg down.

Once we started to eat primarily whole foods, it became easy to peg which foods still triggered migraines, whether hot sauce or salad dressing or Mexican take out. Chocolate and red wine also triggered them on occasion, but migraines hurt enough, he was willing to give those up, too.

Which is all to say, we are happy to eat mostly whole foods. We like being (mostly) emotionally stable and (mostly) healthy people.

This wasn't the only reason we started a farm, but the lifestyle of eating better quality food was the beginning of our farming journey, I think.