K-Mag Applied

Phil spread 400 pounds of K-Mag around the orchard today. We are so pleased to get the minerals on the ground. Most of our trees have grown very well: straight up. Phil read that the lack of lateral growth means that the trees are lacking in magnesium and copper. K-Mag will supply both of those.

We were so thankful that, after the fiasco of spreading minerals last fall, Butch's little spreader worked well. Phil did get stuck on stumps a few times, but managed to free himself.

After a little discussion, we decided that we would mow the weeds down while he spread the minerals. We considered having the sheep rotate through again, but we want our grass to grow a little taller before we send through the sheep. But the weeds are tall enough to graze now, and they will shade out the grass. So our sheep will consume purchased forage, but our orchard will hopefully grow well.

The other interesting thing that happened was that the pigs escaped while we were moving their pen. Thankfully, they enjoy
whey and I lured them back easily.

Our guinea continues to sit on her nest. Since Phil discovered the nest, 24 days have passed, so the keets should hatch in the next four days, if they ever do.

Labor Imminent? Or Delayed?

When Phil came in from chores this morning, he said, "I think the cows are getting ready to calve." That had been my thought lately, too. I noticed Bethany had a swollen vulva earlier this week (and I read about uterine prolapse, which made me wake once in a cold sweat, convinced that I was going to have to stitch the baby back in side).

Bianca's back end has now also swelled up. Phil noticed a viscous fluid oozing out of Bianca this morning; that could be the mucus plug, in which case, labor is imminent. (It could be something else, I suppose, but I don't know what.)

We purchased a used commercial refrigerator on our way home from church. With the promise of milk to come, our teeny dorm fridge and the motor home small fridge are not, we hope, going to be sufficient. I had looked at cragislist at intervals for the last several months, and never saw a commercial refrigerator. Didn't see one in the local swap paper, either. This week, though, I checked rather randomly, and there was one for sale, for the exact price I had in mind. God so faithfully provides!

When we reached home, Bianca's head seemed lower than normal. She lay down, and, while we sat in the car and watched, stood up again. That's a sign of labor!

The book said to check certain ligaments for loosening. I am not sure I checked the right ligaments, but what I felt, felt relaxed. But maybe I'm just feeling skin?

In watching Bianca closely, she appears, at times, to strain. I watched her urinate, and while she did so, she panted heavily, and continued to strain for a few seconds after voiding. A contraction? Maybe. But it is so infrequent; can it be labor?

Ack! What a learning curve!

And what makes it worse is that we thought we saw two contractions about two minutes apart, right as I was on my way to a ladies' night out with women from church. So I stayed home, and spent an hour watching the cow do pretty much nothing. I hate making the wrong choice!

After a short nap, I awoke to strong fears about birth. With a 50% live rate of sheep, and with such a strong desire for healthy calves, I am fighting panic.

Farming is not for the faint of heart. But sometimes I am faint of heart.

P.S. We decided what to do about Fern, if her AI didn't take. We considered buying a bull for Fern, just in case she isn't bred, and then either keeping the bull for the cows in a few months, or killing the bull for meat for us.

I think we've decided not to purchase a bull. We might change our mind, but for now, we're within three or four months of the cows needing to be bred. If Fern's AI didn't take, maybe we buy a bull in December, and use the bull for all three cows.

I'm hoping the AI takes, though.

P.G. Wodehouse

The last few days, I've tried to write my posts with the boys' favorite radio program, Adventures in Odyssey playing in the background. Since I recorded them off the radio more than a decade ago, and my siblings enjoyed them all repeatedly, too, I have them half-memorized, and it suppresses the creative muse to have the noise in my house and my head. QUIET!

I am thankful the boys are learning valuable life lessons, but the inability to escape the noise is one of the more challenging aspects of living in 224 square feet.

Phil has run errands every day this week. He stopped by Costco yesterday, on his way home from picking up K-Mag, which we plan to spread beneath our trees. Apparently, a 200 pound/acre spread of this once a decade will help the copper levels in our trees, which keeps their trunks elastic.

We hope to avoid the trauma of mineral spreading last year: 200 pounds for two acres is much easier than 3000 pounds for five acres.

But I digress. Phil stopped at Costco and happened to see a DVD series he (and, subsequently, I) desired, and bought: the complete Wooster and Jeeves, done by the BBC and based on the books by P.G. Wodehouse.

If you haven't read any Wodehouse, and have a bit of free time, he is quite funny, in a British humor, slapstick sort of way. Not everyone's cup of tea. Before the farming bug hit, I realized that Phil spent about $25 a month on coffee beans, and I treated myself to $25 in Wodehouse. (Whether that is incredibly parsimonious or incredibly profligate I suppose depends on your point of view. For a period, I had read so many missionary biographies about people around the world in dire circumstances, I had a hard time spending much at all on "fun" purchases for myself. Hmm. Which is probably why I can live as we do now.)

I would recommend the Blandings series. My absolute favorite, which left me (literally) screaming with laughter, is Full Moon.

The boys and I joined Phil down at the lower pasture this afternoon. He had been lumberjacking much of the day, and cleared enough of the bank to find our one spot of easy access, where we can just walk all the way down. The boys played in the creek and Phil showed me his progress through the brush.

We're wondering now if we could bush hog some of it. There are plenty of large trees that a bush hog couldn't take out. And we can't really take out the trees until the brush is gone. Maybe it's a catch-22, and there's no real help but manual labor. But, wow, does it take a long time.

The Lord Is Good to Me

Phil and I have discussed how to graze the neighbor's land. We're paying for hay right now, and the forage growing next door calls to us.

I suggested that we simply move them up with the electric netting that's held them in the last week. We've had sheep, goats, and cows all together grazing.

However, Phil hesitated to move the animals into the neighbor's land without a strong perimeter fence. Should the netting fail, how would we possibly recapture them?

His wisdom proved right today, when we went outside to do chores and found all 20 animals happily grazing where they pleased. We suspect that, since we hadn't electrified the netting, the cows snagged the fence on their horns, and took it down. (That Fern is one smart cow. We witnessed her systematic take down of netting later in the day.)

We both wandered around the animals, shaking our heads in disbelief. I was ready to get them some new minerals, when suddenly one of the large cows (due almost any day—for the next two months) mounted another cow.

Suddenly I realized: it was FERN she mounted. Fern was in standing heat!

I called Phil in disbelief—this was five days later than I had calculated her heats. He was fairly dismissive until the big cow did it again.

We called Giovanni, who came, yet again. (In answer to previous query: we were charged the paltry sum of $10 transit time and $22 per AI. Should AI work, it will be quite a deal, compared with the price of purchase and upkeep for a bull!)

Phil and I barely managed to get Fern corralled before Giovanni arrived. In between another brief deluge and Fern's prescient caginess, which allowed her to slip away long before she should have known that we wanted to corral her, Phil had quite the task to round her up.

All three of the remaining straws we had ordered exploded on thawing. For whatever reason, four of our eight straws were defective, and when Giovanni went to thaw them, they popped. In fact, the quickly thawing semen shot out of the top, and stayed, two inches up. Giovanni held the bottom of the straw, and as it warmed, the semen sank back in; or, most of it.

Between the three defective straws, we hope that one took.

We saw such a hopeful moment, too. When Giovanni first went into Fern's backend, a huge blob of mucus came out: a great sign of fertility. And it was the right degree of clearness/cloudiness! So great.

At this point, we've done all we can do. We have to figure out what to do about a backup bull now.

SWAT Visits the Neighborhood

While I was working on math with Jadon, we noticed a helicopter drone overhead. One pass; two. One minute; five.

Phil came in after a while and said, "There's a bunch of cop cars parked at the top of the driveway. About six guys in camo, with assault rifles, just ducked into the field across the street. They brought a K-9 unit, too."

Apparently, he and Isaiah had gone up to watch, when suddenly Phil realized that, if there was going to be a shoot-out, he and Isaiah could be in the line of fire. When he asked a cop near the cars whether he should send Isaiah away, the man (probably lying) said, "We're not looking for anyone." Ha. Assault rifles and camo just because it's kind of fun? Whatever.

Our neighbor filled us in later. The helicopter, circling, had spotted pot growing with their infra-red goggles. SWAT guys went to the vacant land across the street in order to find the growing patch and remove it.

They removed several bags of the contraband. But, as our neighbor said, "Why didn't they bust the illegals up the street making speed?"

Well, that was the first I'd heard of the den of illegals making highly addictive substances, but I would agree: get rid of the speed lab.

And 12 pot plants hardly seems terrible enough to warrant tax payer dollars for helicopter, SWAT, and hours of search and destroy.

High drama in the country. And the only part I witnessed was the sound of the helicopter.

Focus on This Moment

I was reading Numbers 16, and came across another verse that really struck me. Korah was angry with Moses, and said, "thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards."

It struck me that Korah was angry over something that was his own fault (his and the other Israelites). God had brought them to the edge of the land, and they refused to go in.

And it struck me that Korah was angry too early. The Israelites were brought into a land of milk and honey. The Lord kept his word.

But Korah did not see it.

Good reminder to me: stay the course.

I liked the verse in chapter 19 that said, "bring thee a red heifer without spot," because I know what red heifers look like. Maybe they were Devons. (Though not named such, since Devonshire was not yet founded.)

And to round out the wonderful Numbers observations: God told the Israelites to kill the first of all cows, sheep, and goats as a sacrifice, but the meat was for them. Interesting that, should the meat be not terribly good-tasting, at least the line would end then, and the mother wouldn't be bred repeatedly. I suspect bad-tasting meat was rare in Israel.

Melanie suggested that I report on what has worked well in my garden, and not just report on the failures. I am happy to say that we have okra almost every day, despite planting only a small patch, about 2' x 2'. I planted a transplanted Sungold cherry tomato, and since i have been more faithful watering, I get 20 to 50 small tomatoes every day. They usually don't make it out of the garden (heh heh heh), but I have been well-fed.

Other than that: the corn grew tall, but did not fill out in the husks. More water next time. I have pulled quite a few onions, and I like them. I think, though, that I did not make the bed deep enough, as the onions are half-exposed. Now I know: deeper beds.

Gardening is more challenging than I expected.

We had two inches of rain fall in the night. It sounded like a flood, and Phil and I did not sleep well. Rain is a good sound, but I kept thinking of the tent of tools down in the flood plain. What if the chainsaw washed away?

No flood. Chainsaw still usable. All is well.

Phil continues to clear a path for our fence. He cut down a tree in his path last week, and only later realized that it had fruit on it: a pawpaw! Too bad, but there's nothing to do about it now.

As children head back to school, and students head off to college, I've been reflecting on the swift passage of time. I hugged Jadon yesterday and wailed, "You're almost ready for college! You will leave me, which is good, but I will be so sad!"

He shrugged me off and reprimanded: "Focus on this moment!"

Wise beyond his years, and oh, did I laugh!

Forbearance

Abraham and I went out at midnight last night (he had taken a late nap and didn't fall asleep until quite late!). All animals appeared to be just fine; they were having a midnight snack in the moonlight.

This morning, Isaiah noticed Fern mounting one of the babies (our yearling calves); Toots was in standing heat. Isaiah also said he saw one of the babies licking Fern, but I didn't observe it. Perhaps she went into heat in the night. Perhaps she's bred. Without standing heat, we won't call Giovanni again. Cautiously hopeful, we'll wait until the next cycle. And maybe the one after that.

Phil and I pulled soil samples this morning from our land and the property next door, which we're now care-taking for the owners in absentia. I think our soil is better this year than last. Or maybe we just pulled samples in slightly different places. But I am optimistic that it is more well-balanced than before.

In the afternoon, we moved the chicken house. So far, we've been moving it downslope only, so we could push it. Today, though, we had to pull it upslope. The truck handily pulled it up into one of the cows' paddocks, but when Phil went to drive it out of the paddock, the wheels spun freely in the muck (hardly an inch—it didn't seem deep enough to lose all traction). Phil finally had me drive while he pushed, and I think I gunned it a little too hard (the clutch and I have never been friends). He was sprayed with dung, but took it in good humor.

While the boys and Phil went swimming, I stayed behind for a bit of quiet. I was reading through Numbers and came across the story of the spies who saw giants in the land, and returned and said that it was too hard to conquer. Chapter 14 begins thus:

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

This story always used to make me wonder what on earth the Israelites were thinking. I mean, God had worked mighty miracles to get them out of Egypt; he'd worked more miracles to provide for them (and chastise them) in the wilderness. Why didn't the Israelites get it?

But today, I realized what they were thinking, and it was very sobering for me. For me, since we moved, there have been times (especially at the beginning) when I have wondered if all the ways God has provided in the past have been leading up only to a cataclysmic flop. I've wondered if God was stringing me along, providing in smaller ways so that when all of our savings, all of our retirement, all of our previous home's equity was gone, then we'd be destitute. And that way we would learn something about how powerful God is and how he can smoosh us at will.

Obviously, a very twisted view of God.

To write that out now, months after I last felt like that, I grieve for my little faith. If God provided before, he will provide today, too. And tomorrow.

And I am thankful for the forbearance of the Lord, who did not destroy me (as he did that generation of unbelieving Israelites).

Thank you, Lord.