Bitsy's Behavior

Saturday morning, Phil headed out to try to make the last swale in the peach orchard, and we hoped to transplant our plums there. He drove about five feet, slipping down the whole time, and turned and drove directly up, ignoring a previously plowed swale. He managed to get out of the quagmire, but his swale-plowing was done for the day.

I planted all the daffodils I could (only about 200), and the planting was done for the time being.

This afternoon, Phil tried to plow again. This time he was successful. Tomorrow morning, I have a new project to work on.

Saturday afternoon, Phil installed a full-farm water filter. All the water from the pump will go through the filter first, and we are interested to see how quickly the filter clogs from sediment. That's been a "honey do" project almost since we moved, so it's quite a triumph for the farm to have that done.

The weather has finally turned cold, almost dipping to the teens. While last year, I think our water line froze in October for a few days, we didn't have frozen lines until yesterday morning: the 11th of December! While we waited for the water to thaw so we could shower, we had a relaxing morn, and showed up at church for the final prayer. Some days are like that. And, while last year we had no running water for days after that first freeze, this year we were without for only hours. We're doing better in our systems management.

Today, Phil spent much of the morning getting sixteen bales of hay from a couple sources. We wanted to get all the hay we need until after Christmas, and we think we're set. That's a good feeling.

And we made a new bale feeder, in hopes that the dry lotted cows won't waste half the bale as they have been. Fern was more persnickety than usual: I hopped outside the fence and watched Phil deal with her grumpiness. It was hard to watch.

Last Thursday, I mentioned to Phil that I thought maybe Bitsy had been spayed. After all, we'd had her seven months, and no sign of heat. Friday morning, a male dog came around, and Isaiah, barely awake, glanced out the window and exclaimed, "He's mounting Bitsy!"

Since we've never dealt with a dog in heat, we needed to look at what that meant. Apparently, an average dog has a heat that lasts 21 days: a week coming in to heat, a week in which she can conceive, and a week of coming out of heat. She will bleed some, too, and attract male dogs for miles around. Of course, since conception is a natural process, there's plenty of leeway in that.

The boy dog, "Brindle," we call him, seemed pleasant enough. Friday through this morning he has been a fixture around the farm. We kept Bitsy inside overnight, and he slept in her doghouse. We took Bitsy up to church, and he was waiting for us when we came home.

We tried putting Bitsy in the cattle dry lot, with her doghouse in the cattle trailer. This worked well for a few hours, when one of the cows raked her with her horn. About that time, Brindle apparently tried to go after our chickens in the electric net. Phil and I knew nothing about it until we heard a terrific yelp, and saw the hapless fellow tear up the driveway, tale between his legs. We haven't seen him again.

Bitsy was relieved to be out of the cow pen.

So is Bitsy bred? We'll know the first week of February.

For the record: I feel sick about this, and have spent many hours blaming myself for not taking her to the vet and making sure she was fixed. I was practically hysterical after the potential breeding: it seems so trashy to have mutt puppies, a confirmation of white trash that I secretly wonder if I'm becoming. Phil, however, always regretted that he fixed our previous yellow lab, and is hesitant to do anything permanent. While on one level, he realizes we don't need the hassle of puppies, on another level, he's intrigued by the newness of the opportunity.

Because We Couldn't Plant ...

The ground remained soppy. Jadon and I planted about 100 bulbs, slipping in the mud, hoisting heavy bulb planters caked with mud, tromping around in shoes heavy with mud. Once we reached swales with surface water still running, we gave up.

Instead, as Phil and I talked about what to do in the market garden, we came to a surprising conclusion: we are not satisfied with the placement of the road, with the water runoff of the various swales. We had taken the advice of a friendly expert about nine months ago, and, as we've learned more about water management on the land, we've seen that our starting point was incorrect.

One benefit of running out of time and money before planting the market garden to perennials: we have little we must move in order to redo the layout.

So Phil and I laid out new swales. From the very first one, we grew excited: "This feels right!" And then, as we progressed, the angles of water movement continued to match what seemed to make sense; the road placement shifted precisely as it should.

After some discussion, we agreed to leave some of our slope as it is. Our lovely planting of ryegrass, with swales planted to daffodils and places for future blueberries, will stay as it is.

After such drastic shifting, Phil headed off to fix the tractor (a part on the three point hitch finally broke late Saturday).

And the boys and I, in lieu of anything productive to do outside, continued our progress through The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I get such a kick out of the absolute exuberance of the boys when it's time to read. All of them wiggle and giggle and bounce with glee.

And in those rare strips where Calvin and parents, or Calvin and Hobbes, celebrate life and relationships, Jadon says, without fail, "That was a nice one!" And he's right.

After the Rain

Wednesday morning I woke in the night to the sound of heavy rain. It was predicted and expected: first an inch and a half, then two and a half. From a daffodil planting standpoint, this was close to disastrous: water-logged clay soil is heavy and messy to work in.

After a full day of heavy rain, it finally tapered off around 10pm. Just over four inches had fallen on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday morning, I headed out to test the ground around the last 52 apple and pear trees. Would the bulb planters work?

Happily, they worked beautifully. In fact, with Phil's help, we did all the remaining pome orchard trees, well over 600 bulbs. We have less than eight of the original 29 bulb crates to go.

Looking up at the orchard from below, the plants are brown and dormant.

Looking down at the orchard from above, the tilled earth and broadcasted ryegrass is green and growing.

Perhaps tomorrow the peach swales will have dried somewhat. By this evening, they were still long pools of water. (Phil was pleased yesterday to see how the swale water was actually flowing out toward the ridge: exactly what a well-designed swale will do.)


***

A few other things of note: back in mid October, I suddenly started burning food in the toaster oven. It took about a week of diagnostic baking, but I finally realized the element was only capable of full heat. Since then, I have baked many loaves of bread at full heat. Sourdough bread cooks to completion at 450 degrees in 40 minutes, rather than the more standard hour at 350. (The charred top of each loaf does need to be trimmed.)

I had ordered what I thought was an identical oven (same make and same store), but when it arrived and was fully unpacked, it was ridiculously too small to cook a chicken or two loaves of bread. Soon we will return it.

But today arrived our new toaster oven, large enough to cook a five pound chicken. We inaugurated it with a batch of brownies.

The garlic is coming up well. I need to mulch it soon, but I like those green sprouts!


We have four different types of eggs right now. The white leghorns are opaque and fairly large. The mallard duck lays little white. Tux, the black Australorp lays brown eggs. And the Welsh Harlequin lays white eggs with a little translucent sheen.

It may be hard to tell the difference from the photo, but the leghorn egg is on the left, the duck egg is on the right.

And, finally, some animal photos.

I spotted Charity grazing on hay today. She's eating solid food, and appears to be growing well at three and a half weeks of age.

Day of French Fries

With almost two inches of rain forecast, I hurried to plant as many bulbs as I could before the rains began. Right around 10am, I finished 2/3 of the bulbs as the rain began to fall. Just a drizzle, but a drizzle in red clay soil makes for mighty heavy going.

So we had an indoor day, and that was fine with me. For lunch, and then for dinner, I cut up potatoes, fried handfuls in coconut oil for about seven minutes a batch, took them out and sprinkled them with Celtic sea salt. Then, in true European fashion, we dipped them in homemade mayonnaise. Phil was away for lunch, but between the boys and I, we polished off a five-pound bag of potatoes.

And were very, very content.

I Make BD 500

This morning I put about half a box of bulbs (about 175) into a bucket and told Isaiah that he had to pop them in the holes I made, but when the bucket was empty, he was done. This was surprisingly effective: the definite completion kept him on task. Each bulb walked up to its hole and fell, unexpectedly, to its death. At least, that was the sketch Isaiah performed for his own amusement, over and over again. Jadon's bucket went quickly as he recalled line after line of his favorite Jeeves and Wooster scenes and lines (he is reading P.G. Wodehouse for himself now, which I think quite impressive). Abraham and Joe came out for their bucket and stuck with it all the way to the bottom. Good for them.

As we close in on 2/3 of the bulbs planted (we ended the day at about 64%), I took a break today to make BD 500, a biodynamic preparation that I hope will serve as a potent homeopathic treatment for the land.

Two years ago, I ordered seven cow horns from the Josephine Porter Institute. They supply top quality biodynamic preps to customers around the world, but they encourage people to try to make their own. Some day, I suppose, I will have my own cow horns, but for now, I am thankful to get started with any horn. You can tell that these are cow (female) horns because of the birth rings: bull (male) horns are smooth. And not usable for making the preps.

Into the horns, I troweled as much cow manure as I could from, I hope, the lactating cows in the dry lot. At the risk of being indelicate, it was all fairly fresh, as the cows spread their hay around and cover previous manuring daily.

I vaguely recall reading an article about the importance of a clay cap for the manure, so I dug a few more holes with the bulb planter in order to get a good compressed clay plug. The end result was neither attractive nor, I'm afraid, impermeable, but it was what I had patience and ability for this day.

And then I had to bury them in the earth. Phil and I discussed options for spots reasonably rich in humus, but, in the end, I opted for the site of Chloe the dog's grave. I knew the soil had been recently disturbed, which made for easier digging, and I knew we will do no land improvement things there over the next six months (if ever). So I dug a small hole and placed my seven horns, with the openings down to prevent water from soaking in. I have seen beautiful, radiating spirals of horns about to be buried. That would have required a bigger hole, and I have dug enough holes lately to want to enlarge this project.

So there is BD 500, in process. I'll dig it up sometime between Easter and Pentecost (which is May 27 next year) and see what I have.

We Pass the Halfway Mark

When Abraham woke me before dawn and asked for a drink, my first waking thought was that my body ached all over.

And when Phil came up to plant daffodils, his hands were rubbed raw and he could hardly bear to touch the planter. After a time, he put the Dr. Scholl's moleskin on his blisters and was able to carry on.

The round circles on the swales show the spots where bulbs lie.

This scene of brown will hopefully spring forth in a few months.

Joe was the surprising helper of the day. Phil gets in a rhythm planting along swales, where he can dig holes almost as fast as a helper can drop bulbs in. Joe had come up to the swales with some construction trucks, but as the middle boys flaked out after helping a while, he stepped up voluntarily, and refused to quit, cheerily dropping bulbs even after being sorely tempted by interesting play happening all around him. What a guy.

But when the planting was done, he and Isaiah put the trucks to good use. Isaiah rode one down the driveway, and Joe ran in front.

With sore bodies and sore hands, even with our best effort we only got about 500 bulbs in the ground, but that passed us just over the halfway point. It's all downhill from here.

Phil also had to move the sheep from their grazing area near the road into the dry lot. Until we free up space in the freezers and find a little available time to process the three larger animals, they'll eat purchased hay, which is a bummer, but will also contribute their manure and hopefully break pathogen cycles for the cows. With these benefits, I can be patient.

The last two nights have been almost in the twenties. Yesterday, after the sun had dropped below our ridge so we were in shadow, a flock of 14 geese flew directly overhead, so low that Phil figured we could have almost shot them out of the sky. We heard the wind through their feathers, and saw the underside of their wings lit with the setting sun. Magnificent.

Since Phil and I have asked the boys to help a bit more, they are taking their free time more seriously. This morning I came in to find that Jadon had made little passes for his brothers, then created a hiding place on Joe's bunk where I overheard some serious storytelling going on.

I love that.

Daffodil Hope

Today and tomorrow are biodynamic flower days, so Phil and I, with the boys, headed out this morning as soon as it warmed up enough to thaw the frost. Except for a short lunch break, we worked steadily until dusk.

The apple orchard is slow going, but Phil spent the afternoon planting in the peach orchard. In the time it took me to ring ten apple trees, Phil not only ringed 17 peach trees, but also popped about 20 bulbs in the ground between each tree. We hope that bulbs every six inches will keep down the weed load on the swales.

When we headed down the driveway, we figured we had put about 1000 bulbs in the ground.

This is why Phil has not been stressed about the daffodils. While I've been watching the days of fall fly by, calculating every day how many days it has taken us to plant what we have done, and extrapolating that out to see how long it would take us to finish the planting if we kept up the same pace, Phil calmly finished various other projects that needed to be done (get Buttercup into the freezer; get the cherries down to the lower pasture; get dry lot and shelter for the cows completed). Somehow he figured there would eventually be a day to spend the whole day planting bulbs.

And when that day came—today—his relaxed attitude proved tenable. We are almost halfway done with all bulbs, and if we can find five or six more full days to plant daffodils this fall, we should be fine.

Why did we order 10,000 bulbs?

Let me go on record to say that, had I known it would be this hard to plant them, I am not sure I would have been so voracious. I had hoped for an easy 200 an hour, and expected the entire project to take little more than a week. But even if it did take a long time, I had hoped for them to arrive a month before they did. Had I known the shipping delay, I would probably have just waited until the end of the season sales. (As I fully expect to do in all future years.)

But why 10,000? Well, daffodils are both grass and rodent repellent, and, as such, excellent shields to fruit trees.

They also bloom a few weeks before apple bloom, which both lures the bees to the orchard where they'll be needed during blossoming, and feeds the bees during the early spring when their winter stores may be low. And since I love my bees, I am happy to aid them however I can.

Furthermore, after our nightmare weed troubles this last year, we are hoping that, by planting daffodils along our swales, we will begin to take control of those wild areas. Not only in the peach orchard, but in the market garden, too.

It wasn't until we had the daffodils in house that Phil suddenly asked, "Why did we just order daffodils? We could have ordered tulips or other beautiful flowers." And, happily, before we had long to regret our purchase, friend Melanie pointed out that daffodils are remarkably unappetizing to rodents who might choose to feast on the (apparently) more scrumptious tulips.

***

As we transplanted the peaches, we dug up two trees that the chickens had absolutely girdled. Apparently, trees can survive a good bit of damage, but if a tree loses all the bark all the way around, like a donut of destruction, this gap eventually kills the tree.

On one of the peaches, the chickens took off every bit of bark from the ground to above my knee: stripped bare.

I hesitated to declare them a complete loss, so I put the two trees in some water and covered their roots with a wet bag until I could figure out what to do. So, after a quick tutorial on how to graft peaches, I headed out today to take cuttings of 1/4" to 3/8" diameter branches.

Happily, Phil the engineer has calipers. There were surprisingly few branches that were the right diameter. One tree had plenty of larger branches. Both trees had branches closer to the size of noodles than pencils. But I now have about twenty cuttings, wrapped in wet paper towels, waiting for me to figure out where to store them until the spring.

***

And for something totally different: as the older boys worked with us this morning, we were talking about multiplication. Phil's trick of multiplying eleven by a double digit number is to take the number, split the two digits, then drop the sum of the two in the middle. Using 11 x 21 as an example: put the two in front, the one at the back, and the sum (3) in the middle: 231.

Jadon shared his own method of multiplying single digits by nine. If he wants to multiply 9x7, he goes to 60 (the ten below what 10x7 would be), then calculates 9-6 (using the six from sixty), and adds that to 60: 63. For 9x3, he goes to 20, subtracts two from nine, and gets 27. How did he come up with this? I have no idea.