We've spent the last few days primping our farmstead. All the little building pieces for various toys now returned to their proper places. All the pallets, scattered here and there where they were initially needed are now stacked neatly in a useful spot. Phil did a dump run, and I've dragged branches and made a burn pile.
Our farm, for the next day or two, will look as good as it gets. For now.
It doesn't often look like this, for good reason: we have done basically nothing productive all week.
We had one good scare, though. Phil was pushing the emptied garbage cans back into the truck after dumping them, when he noticed a black widow inside one of the handles. Since we had both carried the cans over to the truck, that means one of us had our hand within inches of the spider, without knowing it. I'm thankful the spider wasn't more aggressive.
That brings our total to four we've seen or killed. I don't want to know how many are hiding where I can't see them.
Our Bianca is bagging up, which means her udder is growing larger. I think the Bessette's cow bagged up about three weeks before giving birth, so it's no indication of anything but, well, her day is getting closer. As it has been since the day she arrived here.
One more chick died. So we're down to 49 chicks. Attrition has set in.
After hearing about bottle jaw in sheep, where blood-sucking parasites cause such great anemia in the animal that they eventually die, we've been monitoring BB the lamb more closely. The first day, his entire jaw was incredibly swollen. The second day, it was perhaps half the size. Then it split into two small swellings, one on either side of his face, until yesterday it was just about gone.
Phil thinks maybe BB ate something, or had a sting, that made his lymph system go crazy, but he is gradually getting better.
However, the protuberance under the chin in bottle jaw also tends to reduce in the morning and return by night, and there is a bit of that pattern going on.
Sometimes it's hard to know what to do.
Phil tried to fix the power steering pump on the truck. He'd already replaced the hose, which was leaking, but the pump, too, appeared to be leaking. It didn't go well, and the new pump the store said was the right size was not the right size. He can't get one bolt on the old pump re-threaded, either, so the truck is not drivable.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Fire and Firewood
Labor Day was a restful day. Phil began a general clean-up of our land, so my family will not be too horrified when they come to visit. He picked up saplings he'd chopped down back when we were planting the orchard and chipped them; he burned a LOT of cardboard boxes and feedbags, and burned some ugly large roots that had been clustered in the orchard for almost a year. He had the fire going most of the day.
I decided to take down the unsightly fence that keeps the chickens out of my garden. After an hour's hard labor, I gave up for the day, half done: weeds had grown up through the netting, and I could release the netting inch by inch. No fun.
A second chick died. We have now the 50 we ordered, plus Tux.
We noticed lamb BB had an enormous swollen jaw. I wondered if it was a toothache, but he didn't appear to be in pain, and he was eating normally. Thankfully, today the swelling is much reduced. Maybe a histamine reaction to a bee sting?
Today we had a delightful visit from Berenice, an older woman who attended Bible study with us at the Doug Bush's house. I had run into her at the post office, and mentioned that we had questions about how to make firewood. Her husband Reggie has a small business selling firewood, and since we have about 40 acres that need to be cleared, I am interested in any method of income we can get from all that land.
Reggie lives in the house he was born in, the house his grandparents built at the turn of the last century. He remembers when they got electricity in the 50s, and when they got indoor plumbing. He said that last year's winter was more in keeping with the severity of winters several decades ago: maybe more snowfall, but the extremely cold weather was more normal.
Anyway, he said that he seasons his wood for two years. He doesn't bother to stack it as a cord (8'x8'x4'), but loads up his truck with firewood and sells the whole thing, at a price about 25% lower than the competitors. It's about a cord, but not stacking it saves him time.
On the production end, he will get a call for some downed trees. He cuts the tree into sections 16 to 18 inches apart, loads the rounds into his truck, backs the truck next to the hydraulic splitter, and splits them as he unloads them. So simple! Brilliant.
He thinks this is his last year, though. He retired from his job 11 years ago, and started the firewood business on the side. The work is catching up to him. (I would guess so, being in his 70s!)
So I will not expect income from a firewood business this year, but it probably makes sense to purchase a splitter at some point. Not yet, but someday.
I decided to take down the unsightly fence that keeps the chickens out of my garden. After an hour's hard labor, I gave up for the day, half done: weeds had grown up through the netting, and I could release the netting inch by inch. No fun.
A second chick died. We have now the 50 we ordered, plus Tux.
We noticed lamb BB had an enormous swollen jaw. I wondered if it was a toothache, but he didn't appear to be in pain, and he was eating normally. Thankfully, today the swelling is much reduced. Maybe a histamine reaction to a bee sting?
Today we had a delightful visit from Berenice, an older woman who attended Bible study with us at the Doug Bush's house. I had run into her at the post office, and mentioned that we had questions about how to make firewood. Her husband Reggie has a small business selling firewood, and since we have about 40 acres that need to be cleared, I am interested in any method of income we can get from all that land.
Reggie lives in the house he was born in, the house his grandparents built at the turn of the last century. He remembers when they got electricity in the 50s, and when they got indoor plumbing. He said that last year's winter was more in keeping with the severity of winters several decades ago: maybe more snowfall, but the extremely cold weather was more normal.
Anyway, he said that he seasons his wood for two years. He doesn't bother to stack it as a cord (8'x8'x4'), but loads up his truck with firewood and sells the whole thing, at a price about 25% lower than the competitors. It's about a cord, but not stacking it saves him time.
On the production end, he will get a call for some downed trees. He cuts the tree into sections 16 to 18 inches apart, loads the rounds into his truck, backs the truck next to the hydraulic splitter, and splits them as he unloads them. So simple! Brilliant.
He thinks this is his last year, though. He retired from his job 11 years ago, and started the firewood business on the side. The work is catching up to him. (I would guess so, being in his 70s!)
So I will not expect income from a firewood business this year, but it probably makes sense to purchase a splitter at some point. Not yet, but someday.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Our Chickens in Suburbia
In the two years between the time we first decided to move to a farm and our actual move, we did what we could to experiment. (Which, in retrospect, wasn't a whole lot.)
Phil composted. He LOVED it: turning kitchen scraps into humus. It's like magic. Or, as some ego-ag people say, it's alchemy!
I tried to garden. I dug up two raised beds in our front yard (when a neighbor came by to ask what we were doing, I said, "I'm just burying a body," and he got such a queer look on his face! But the two mounds did look rather like burial plots). I grew some tomatoes from seed, and had a good crop of cilantro and lettuce. A few radishes and some flowers.
We bought a few egg layer hens from a friend.
And we raised two batches of broiler chicks, from babies to processed meat in the freezer.
Phil wished we had started with chickens when we first moved into the neighborhood. We actually met our neighbors! When we were outside moving the chickens, the neighbors would stop by to talk to us. Most couldn't believe it was legal to have chickens in suburbia! Phil had made a rectangular pen, framed in wood with chicken netting for the sides, and a corrugated aluminum top, and we marched the chickens twice a day around the small yard.
Our grass never looked better.
We'd catch neighbors bringing their toddlers over to see our birds. We'd talk about the different colors of eggs, about the feed requirements, about the personalities.
Our neighbor across the street called one day and asked why the chicken crossed the road. (We always did have one persistent hen that liked to explore.)
We had a few traumatic moments. When we first moved our beautiful chicks outside, they were so happy to scratch and eat. But the first time we moved them, we didn't know what we were doing, and ran our pen over two of them. They were so tiny, and so injured. We needed to put them down, in their fluff and beauty. But none of the methods we'd read about worked. Those little birds were so persistently alive. Phil and I would screw our courage to the sticking place, and try to kill these trusting, injured chicks. Several times over.
Even now I think we've done nothing more horrific. I was so thankful we were still close to my parents. We went down and verbally processed.
If we hadn't felt truly called, I think we'd been done right then. I'm a suburban girl! I have to lie down when having a blood sample taken, lest I pass out.
And then we did chicken processing. We didn't actually check the Boulder codes to know if that was legal, but did the first batch at a friend's house, and the second batch in our backyard. The first bird we actually had to kill was really emotionally tough. There is a distance between knowing that my food comes from animals, and killing those animals myself.
But we did it. It wasn't easy or pleasant, but we did it. Our first batch had about a 50% success rate, from chicks to chickens.
The second batch of chicks came during a freak cold snap. Rather than vigorous, happily cheeping chicks, we opened to box to find several dead chicks. We lost more almost every day. Maybe chicken pneumonia, acquired from the initial chill as babies? We had ordered about 30, and by the time we came to process, we had only about 15 birds.
As we raise our first batch of broilers here in Virginia, I am so thankful I've dealt with some of the challenges of chick raising already.
One chick came to us ill in appearance, and it died today. Fifty-one broilers, and Tux, remain.
Phil composted. He LOVED it: turning kitchen scraps into humus. It's like magic. Or, as some ego-ag people say, it's alchemy!
I tried to garden. I dug up two raised beds in our front yard (when a neighbor came by to ask what we were doing, I said, "I'm just burying a body," and he got such a queer look on his face! But the two mounds did look rather like burial plots). I grew some tomatoes from seed, and had a good crop of cilantro and lettuce. A few radishes and some flowers.
We bought a few egg layer hens from a friend.
And we raised two batches of broiler chicks, from babies to processed meat in the freezer.
Phil wished we had started with chickens when we first moved into the neighborhood. We actually met our neighbors! When we were outside moving the chickens, the neighbors would stop by to talk to us. Most couldn't believe it was legal to have chickens in suburbia! Phil had made a rectangular pen, framed in wood with chicken netting for the sides, and a corrugated aluminum top, and we marched the chickens twice a day around the small yard.
Our grass never looked better.
We'd catch neighbors bringing their toddlers over to see our birds. We'd talk about the different colors of eggs, about the feed requirements, about the personalities.
Our neighbor across the street called one day and asked why the chicken crossed the road. (We always did have one persistent hen that liked to explore.)
We had a few traumatic moments. When we first moved our beautiful chicks outside, they were so happy to scratch and eat. But the first time we moved them, we didn't know what we were doing, and ran our pen over two of them. They were so tiny, and so injured. We needed to put them down, in their fluff and beauty. But none of the methods we'd read about worked. Those little birds were so persistently alive. Phil and I would screw our courage to the sticking place, and try to kill these trusting, injured chicks. Several times over.
Even now I think we've done nothing more horrific. I was so thankful we were still close to my parents. We went down and verbally processed.
If we hadn't felt truly called, I think we'd been done right then. I'm a suburban girl! I have to lie down when having a blood sample taken, lest I pass out.
And then we did chicken processing. We didn't actually check the Boulder codes to know if that was legal, but did the first batch at a friend's house, and the second batch in our backyard. The first bird we actually had to kill was really emotionally tough. There is a distance between knowing that my food comes from animals, and killing those animals myself.
But we did it. It wasn't easy or pleasant, but we did it. Our first batch had about a 50% success rate, from chicks to chickens.
The second batch of chicks came during a freak cold snap. Rather than vigorous, happily cheeping chicks, we opened to box to find several dead chicks. We lost more almost every day. Maybe chicken pneumonia, acquired from the initial chill as babies? We had ordered about 30, and by the time we came to process, we had only about 15 birds.
As we raise our first batch of broilers here in Virginia, I am so thankful I've dealt with some of the challenges of chick raising already.
One chick came to us ill in appearance, and it died today. Fifty-one broilers, and Tux, remain.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Pigs Eat Acorns (But Maybe Not OUR Acorns)
After we moved the pigs this morning, we talked about where to put them next. Their log home is so heavy to move, and we're in the newly cleared section of the stone-fruit orchard, which means we have to pull the pen, with pigs inside, over stumps. Phil is the Incredible Hulk in terms of muscles, but I am not, and lifting a log cabin, even a small one, is not very fun.
Besides, we've run the pen downhill since we got the pigs, and now we were looking at uphill, over stumps. No thanks. I'd like to preserve Phil's back for many more years.
So we set up a two-strand electric pen, and the pigs went happily inside. They are large enough now that they can't fit through our cattle panel perimeter fence, and they have experienced enough jolts from the electric fence strung around the top of their log pen, they really respected the fence and gave it room.
They are in the woods, among the acorns. I read recently that pigs don't like all acorns, and I have no idea if they will like the acorns they have, but maybe they will. That would be nice!
***
I read a book this week about the Oregon Trail, and I was so convicted. Those folks had a really difficult time: cholera; Indian attacks; loss of animals through drowning, starvation, overwork, exhaustion. Mothers would give birth in the middle of nowhere, and keep moving the next day because, well, what else was there to do?
I have, at times, complained about our little house. But how large is our house compared to a covered wagon! How easy my cooking, with a fast and efficient propane grill, compared to a campfire made of buffalo dung. How easy my water, that comes out of the spigot, compared with drawing water from a creek—when there was a creek close by.
Concurrently with that conviction, I think my understanding of "home" has fundamentally changed recently. I had been thinking of my sleeping and cooking places as my home, and the outside was, well, the outside.
I realized last week, though, that my home is where I live. I had been forgetting that I live on acres of land, that that was part of the trade between upper middle class comfort in Boulder and white trash trailer life in Virginia. If I just think of 2700 square feet v. 224, it feels quite restrictive, like I made a bad choice. But that's not the whole package, and, on balance, I think we came out ahead.
***
I recently read a really stunning poem about women aging. It gives me great hope that, despite little wrinkles at the eyes and all the other bits of aging, that a greater beauty may await.
Besides, we've run the pen downhill since we got the pigs, and now we were looking at uphill, over stumps. No thanks. I'd like to preserve Phil's back for many more years.
So we set up a two-strand electric pen, and the pigs went happily inside. They are large enough now that they can't fit through our cattle panel perimeter fence, and they have experienced enough jolts from the electric fence strung around the top of their log pen, they really respected the fence and gave it room.
They are in the woods, among the acorns. I read recently that pigs don't like all acorns, and I have no idea if they will like the acorns they have, but maybe they will. That would be nice!
***
I read a book this week about the Oregon Trail, and I was so convicted. Those folks had a really difficult time: cholera; Indian attacks; loss of animals through drowning, starvation, overwork, exhaustion. Mothers would give birth in the middle of nowhere, and keep moving the next day because, well, what else was there to do?
I have, at times, complained about our little house. But how large is our house compared to a covered wagon! How easy my cooking, with a fast and efficient propane grill, compared to a campfire made of buffalo dung. How easy my water, that comes out of the spigot, compared with drawing water from a creek—when there was a creek close by.
Concurrently with that conviction, I think my understanding of "home" has fundamentally changed recently. I had been thinking of my sleeping and cooking places as my home, and the outside was, well, the outside.
I realized last week, though, that my home is where I live. I had been forgetting that I live on acres of land, that that was part of the trade between upper middle class comfort in Boulder and white trash trailer life in Virginia. If I just think of 2700 square feet v. 224, it feels quite restrictive, like I made a bad choice. But that's not the whole package, and, on balance, I think we came out ahead.
***
I recently read a really stunning poem about women aging. It gives me great hope that, despite little wrinkles at the eyes and all the other bits of aging, that a greater beauty may await.
W.B. Yeats' "The Folly of Being Comforted"
One that is ever kind said yesterday:
"Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience."
Heart cries, "No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze."
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Broiler Chicks and Behemoth Refrigeration
Yesterday morning we didn't get a call from the post office. I had hoped that Cheri would still be here, to experience the magic of driving home with a box of cheeping chicks, but the chicks could arrive any day from Thursday to Saturday, and it was just a little hope.
We picked Phil up in the early afternoon. We were driving home, when I listened to a message: the Cville post office called! They had the chicks! And we were, literally, one block from the post office when I listened to the message. We didn't even have to make a special trip for the cheepers.
For all such provisions, small though they may seem, I am so thankful.
Back home, we scrambled to make a pen for the chicks. We planned to use the cattle trailer as their home (when we bought egg layers last year, we had space in the barn, but the barn is packed to the gills now). I needed Phil's strength to subdivide the trailer.
When we last had chicks, we bought wood shavings for their bedding. Yesterday, though, I simply drove the tractor to one of our several wood chip piles and shoveled them in. A little bit of self-sufficiency felt quite delightful!
So we put our 52 broilers, plus one odd-ball into their new home. They will live there for three or four weeks, spend four or five weeks in the field, and then be ready for processing.
Isaiah wants to name the new odd-ball "Different-y," in keeping with "Strange-y," the last odd-ball. Since the baby looks like a penguin, I like "Tux" better, if only because it is easier to say.
The weather has been warm enough, we have been able to forego the heat lamp in the day (they only need 95 degrees, after all). They cheap and eat and drink, and I enjoy thoroughly the Peep stage, since their fluffiness will pass in just a few days, and lingering ugly chicken adolescence will set in.
As I feared, we had no survivors of the two keets who had been trying to hatch, and the abandoned living one we tried to rescue. But the adult guineas proudly marched their six living keets (you can see them all in the photo) to join the chicken harem. Teeny striped babies!
Phil went to finish the K-Mag spreading this morning, to find that the riding mower had a flat tire. He knows about tire repair now, though, and after we bought a tire repair kit, he fixed it up.
He also went to pick up our monstrous refrigerator. It has a 45 cubic foot capacity (or four Lykosh boys) and weighs 521 pounds! Thankfully, the man we bought it from had a skid steer, and Butch let us use his for unloading. I kept worrying that the fridge would tip the skid steer, because it is so oversized (83" tall and four feet wide), but then I remembered that only totes of minerals that weigh 3000 pounds really daunt that little skid steer. It managed the fridge just fine.
Of course, in order to put the fridge where we wanted it, first we had to drive the motor home up the driveway, which meant unleveling it and unattaching it from water and electric. Then Phil backed it back into place. An effort in itself.
I spent the day running errands; some unpleasant ones. One example: for the first time in a decade, we sent off bills without stamps, or return addresses. I assumed that such envelopes ended up in the dead pile, but, sadly, no: they MAY go on to their destination, where the addressee MAY choose to pay the postage. Or MAYBE not. In the dead letter office, they MAY open the letter and send it back. Frustrating that they PROBABLY won't reach their destination, but they MIGHT.
In all this uncertainty, and knowing that, while I can afford both credit card and mortgage bills once in a month, I cannot afford them twice, I had to stop payment on both those checks.
Seriously, people, be smart: either write the return address, or pay your bills online.
However, if a $64 bank charge is the worst financial hit we've had due to miscommunication in a decade of marriage, I must consider myself blessed.
(Lest you wonder at my amazing ability to capture on camera four happy young sons, you are not seeing the 53 other photos that I took, none of which I would be happy to post. What wigglers they are!)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Soil Report Comes: So Pleased!
Father-in-law Ken drove Phil to the airport at 4am Tuesday morning. (I'm glad it wasn't me!) They were a mile down the road when Phil realized he didn't have his wallet. What a relief that they didn't get any further. Once again, God took care of us.
We keep watching the cows. I'm driving myself a bit crazy watching swelling on their backends, wondering if it has increased. Really, there's not much change.
Joe's potty training continues in fits and starts. He has finally wet or messed through all his undies, and all his brothers', so I did laundry today in my handwasher. I hadn't used it before. The actual washing took only several minutes, but the double rinse, and subsequent hanging up of a couple dozen undies (and shorts and shirts) ended up taking an hour total. Less time than I feared, but a good chunk of time nonetheless.
I didn't do any sheets or jeans. Those would be heavy and tiring, I suspect.
Some weeks are filled with blessings. For us, this week is one.
When Phil reached my sister's house, he found a check with part of payment that's been due since May 2008. Wonderful!
We are thinking about increasing pig production right now. If we bought feeders, they would just about be ready for the holiday market, since a pig takes about 4 1/2 months to raise (any weanling we bought would already be 1 1/2 months old). There are't many piglets for sale on craigslist; we'll see what we can find.
It's been so nice that, while I've been looking into pig rearing, Phil's parents are here to take care of the boys.
Our guinea eggs finally hatched. I understand why guineas are said to be bad parents: they hustled their keets away, over rough terrain. I'm not sure where they've hidden their few survivors. There was one tiny, chilled keet that couldn't keep up with the incredible pace the parent guineas set. I held it, and put it into a warming box. It did die after a few hours, but I am thankful it died in comfort.
Even as I write, another little keet is still breaking out of its shell. One wing is free. Sadly, I suspect it won't live long, even if it does hatch all the way, but who knows?
At most, of the 21 eggs the guinea sat on, she has seven live babies. We'll see if any of them survive.
For me, perhaps the best part of these last two days was the soil sample report.
As you may remember, last year's soil report was abysmal: we had 13% of the calcium we should have, for example. Our composite score was 3. Out of 100. It could hardly be worse.
So we spread minerals, and ran animals, planted an orchard, and hoped that all the expensive minerals didn't wash down slope in the rain.
I have heard that it takes organic farms about 7 years to get their soils fully ready. I hoped for progress, maybe even triple the number we had before.
So I opened the email with excitement and trepidation, to find this comment:
And our composite score was 38! Almost 13 times better than last year!
Our calcium is at 25% of where it needs to be. Still not good, but just about double a year ago. And other numbers are not great, but are getting better.
Even the hope that this might be the last year of 3000 pounds of minerals to broadcast per acre gives me good hope.
The land is healing! Praise the Lord!
We keep watching the cows. I'm driving myself a bit crazy watching swelling on their backends, wondering if it has increased. Really, there's not much change.
Joe's potty training continues in fits and starts. He has finally wet or messed through all his undies, and all his brothers', so I did laundry today in my handwasher. I hadn't used it before. The actual washing took only several minutes, but the double rinse, and subsequent hanging up of a couple dozen undies (and shorts and shirts) ended up taking an hour total. Less time than I feared, but a good chunk of time nonetheless.
I didn't do any sheets or jeans. Those would be heavy and tiring, I suspect.
Some weeks are filled with blessings. For us, this week is one.
When Phil reached my sister's house, he found a check with part of payment that's been due since May 2008. Wonderful!
We are thinking about increasing pig production right now. If we bought feeders, they would just about be ready for the holiday market, since a pig takes about 4 1/2 months to raise (any weanling we bought would already be 1 1/2 months old). There are't many piglets for sale on craigslist; we'll see what we can find.
It's been so nice that, while I've been looking into pig rearing, Phil's parents are here to take care of the boys.
Our guinea eggs finally hatched. I understand why guineas are said to be bad parents: they hustled their keets away, over rough terrain. I'm not sure where they've hidden their few survivors. There was one tiny, chilled keet that couldn't keep up with the incredible pace the parent guineas set. I held it, and put it into a warming box. It did die after a few hours, but I am thankful it died in comfort.
Even as I write, another little keet is still breaking out of its shell. One wing is free. Sadly, I suspect it won't live long, even if it does hatch all the way, but who knows?
At most, of the 21 eggs the guinea sat on, she has seven live babies. We'll see if any of them survive.
For me, perhaps the best part of these last two days was the soil sample report.
As you may remember, last year's soil report was abysmal: we had 13% of the calcium we should have, for example. Our composite score was 3. Out of 100. It could hardly be worse.
So we spread minerals, and ran animals, planted an orchard, and hoped that all the expensive minerals didn't wash down slope in the rain.
I have heard that it takes organic farms about 7 years to get their soils fully ready. I hoped for progress, maybe even triple the number we had before.
So I opened the email with excitement and trepidation, to find this comment:
I know this program is expensive but you are building a foundation for a high yielding top quality orchard. By next year the quantities needed in the Broadcast will begin to reduce. You have made some good progress.
And our composite score was 38! Almost 13 times better than last year!
Our calcium is at 25% of where it needs to be. Still not good, but just about double a year ago. And other numbers are not great, but are getting better.
Even the hope that this might be the last year of 3000 pounds of minerals to broadcast per acre gives me good hope.
The land is healing! Praise the Lord!
Monday, August 30, 2010
A Few Fun Photos
On downloading photos today, I realized it has been a while since I posted any. Here is one from about ten days ago, soon after we combined all animals. If you look closely, you can see cows, sheep, and goats.
And a fun picture of Cheri, Phil's mom, who jumps in to help. Here, she is mowing over some trampled hay. We hope that will break it down more quickly, so it adds organic matter to the soil. In this first year, we have hay stay on the surface of the soil for months. We need to get the microorganisms breaking it down much, much faster.
While I spent a frantic hour or so watching Bianca yesterday, doing, apparently, nothing out of the ordinary, Isaiah spent an idyllic hour with the sheep. He just sat in the shade of the riding mower, and skittish Bethlehem, our first lamb survivor (born right around Christmas, in the blizzard). When I expressed surprise that Bethlehem didn't run away, he said, "I helped untangle her from the netting a few times, and now we're friends."
Isaiah is not known for his patient silence, so his hour of quiet peace was beautiful to witness.
One day last week, I had been in the office trailer, talking to Phil. When I came back, I found this.
Joe had fallen asleep standing up! I loved this little view of his belly. His potty training gets better every day, though I'm still not confident of his anticipation or communication to allow him sans diaper in public.
Quick comment: the Causticum homeopathic remedy was VERY effective. After several days of bed-wetting, I gave him two little pellets (full dose is five). No bed-wetting. The following night I bumped the dose down to one pellet, and he did wet that night. Five more nights of two pellets was 100% effective, and after those five nights, I stopped giving him anything, and he hasn't wet since. Excellent.
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