Apple Orchard

The year is not getting any younger. It would have been wise to prune the apples some weeks (months?) ago, but the building felt so all-consuming, the idea of taking a few hours, even in the rain, never crossed my mind. But some of the apples are beginning to bloom, and Phil had a bit of extra time on his hands today, so he headed up to at least take care of suckers (growth from the roots) or dead branches.

I haven't been in the orchard in months, and I was amazed at what I saw.

Some blossoms were totally white.

Most had bits of pink and white.

Such a pretty combination

I saw a shockingly pink bud.

The upper rows glowed green with health, a beautiful four or five inches of grass and clover thickly covering the orchard floor.

Not every tree has blossoms, and even those that do are not covered, but the whites and the greens: it's spring!

I saw my first crimson clover of the season, that beautiful flower that the bees adore.

While I was leaning in to take a photo, I thought I was stung by a bee, but it turned out to be a cricket, either pinching my leg or chewing on me. Ouch! (And my leg is not normally that dirty, but we had just been wrangling Belle and her baby, which left me more muddy than normal.)

My little comfrey patch is filling in. Less than eleven months old, those plants left beautiful circles of black soil around them as they composted down during the winter. I weeded a bit around some: it looked like mustard setting seed, probably from my garden compost.

And the pulsing green, the spring green, was all around.

During those long weeks that I stayed in bed, I would sometimes find myself visiting random wedding photographers, just in search of something pretty to look at. Perhaps what I was missing was just the beauty in my own place in this world, invisible from a sick bed.

One Cup

Phil's parents left yesterday. I have been desperate to try anything to help me feel better, and at 14 weeks, I really think it's about time. I saw a mention of tapping, a quick tap of pressure points on hands, face, and chest. That seems to help. I am taking some homeopathic remedies appropriate for this stage of pregnancy (Calc fluor, Mag phos, Nat mur). And I found a box of vitamins my sister sent me two months ago, buried under a stack of stuff on the coffee table. I had tried them once and felt so much more horrible the next day, I gave up. But I tried again yesterday, and was impressed with a boost of energy.

This was good, and just in time.

I had gone to bed reading my new copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child's famous first contribution to the cooking world. Happily, the first recipe uses potatoes and onions, butter and salt, all ingredients I had on hand, so I woke up ready to be in the kitchen. Sure, there was a certain amount of early in the morning gagging, but, poof, that's to be expected. And while I was at it, I made rice and an easy ground beef stir fry.

I say this mostly because it has been literally two months since I last managed even those simple tasks. Quite an achievement.

While I was savoring my breakfast, Phil came to tell me that Belle had finally (finally!) calved. He had noticed her bag swelling more yesterday, and her mucus plug had come out, so it was definitely time. For a heifer on marginal feed her entire life, she did a great job, though she did have a little tear in her vulva. Considering her farm-twin Beatrice died giving birth, I'll take a little tear.

We had an unexpected cloud burst this morning, strong enough and prolonged enough that everything turned slippery. So we decided this would be an animal day. We had hoped to pick up some chickens today; in the end that didn't happen. But the question was, where to put them? We suspect the white leghorns brought some sort of infertility virus that infected all other chickens. The last of the leghorns was eaten by a neighbor dog some weeks ago, so there would be no direct transfer. But the pen?

Phil disinfected it while I did some school work with the boys. We decided to put about 10% of the birds in that pen for a week or two, and see if they cease laying. If they do, that's a good indication those nesting boxes and that pen just needs to be burned.

So then Phil and I moved our old, rotted chicken tractor to another location. Phil put up the chicken netting for the 90% who aren't experimental. If there is some mysterious virus, we won't lose all our new stock.

I am thrilled to see nettles springing up at the back of the chicken pen. I bought 15 roots last year, and though not all made it, the ones that took are doing very well!

We had another major task of the day. We decided that we would move Belle and her baby (named Elle or Emily, depending on which son you ask) up to join Babe and baby Einstein.

This hadn't been too difficult with Babe on Monday. She was so pooped from delivery, she just stood there when Phil clipped her leash on, and her baby was so pooped, he followed along. Babe didn't exactly heel (she stubbornly refused to move without intense tugging), but it was not a strenuous exercise.

Enter Belle. Not only is she still almost plump, despite having delivered a large calf (I would guess about 15 pounds heavier than baby Einstein), but she is wily! She saw Phil coming and moved away. Between the two of us, we kept her in one section of her paddock, but she was not keen on being captured. After three or four near misses (because it's not enough to just touch her collar: Phil had to hold it long enough to clip it), Phil rigged up an amazing electric wire walkway. The problem was, it headed into the green growing section where all the other cows wanted to be! So we had to keep the other bovines from going where rebellious Belle refused to go.

Thankfully we had Isaiah, because it was more than a two-person job.

And when more wily Phil had finally captured wily Belle, he was tying her up for a bit to get the baby, when the nylon leash broke! Belle was free to run around the acre pasture! And the leash was just long enough for her to step on and snap again, so she had about six inches of leash dangling uselessly from her neck. Her horns are longer than that!

Happily, Phil had brought a halter, so after more fancy maneuvering with rope and gate, he got her haltered, I stood the baby up and directed her up slope. In some ways, I think Belle was a bit ready. She had just given birth maybe eight hours before, and here she was, being hounded by some crazy humans (and a naughty dog we had forgotten to tie up at the RV).

But that was not the end of the struggles. Belle fought every step of the way, whether her baby was ahead of her or behind her. We stopped to let the baby nurse about halfway up, and that was sweet to see.

In all, it was about 2 1/2 hours of intensity before the baby was in the pen and Belle was in the rye. Babe hasn't wanted to eat the rye much preferring the clovers and low-lying weeds. But Belle immediately went to town on the rye. She gobbled it!

We have had to learn about bottle feeding a calf. Since both the calves have eaten from their moms, they weren't ecstatic about trying the big rubber nipple. Einstein fought a good bit, but now, after about five feedings, he is a champion eater. He can down a half gallon in about five minutes. The new baby, having had real colostrum just hours before the night feeding, had no real interest in the bottle. Tomorrow should be different.

We banded Einstein today, too, which will turn this bull into a steer. I know that there are advocates for cutting bull calves man parts: quick and effective. But the idea of making an incision there—Phil and I are both sketchy on that. I gave the calf some Arnica before the banding, and then held his head. With all our palpitations (important to make sure everything is in the band that should be), he didn't move. Phil put the two bands on, and, hoping all goes well, in about a month, the band will have squeezed off the potent parts.

We had to again catch Babe in order to milk her. Phil caught her on the second go round. She never got quite close enough to the fence to tie her tightly, but after a few minutes of tugging we realized she had set her feet and wasn't going anywhere.

And so I milked a cow for the first time in two years. It was such an absolute joy. Her teats are perfectly shaped, her udder beautiful. She let down immediately. And though she gave only a cup, I figured that isn't bad. She was nursed only hours before, has had an extremely stressful day, and has been living on hay for the last four or five months. A cup is great! And with unlimited access to beautiful rye—I am very hopeful for this beautiful Belle.

Building Progress

How fun to see building progress all at once! From the north wall blocks not quite finished.

And then the blocks were done. Then came grouting down into the cells, hoisting the mortar up to the top of the wall and dumping it in.

Then the horrible realization that, cells grouted and finished, the lintel wouldn't fit. After a day of chipping away, and maneuvering the heavy lintel all by himself, twelve feet in the air, Phil ended the day with a workable window space.

The next day he had the top level bond beam in place. Rebar went in to add horizontal support, and Phil cut away all the vertical rebar that poked out of the top a bit.

Later, he had the full bond beam set in place.

With both walls as high as they will be, the space began to feel more like a real space.

Then Phil poured the bond beam and put in regularly-space bolts for the roof to connect to one of these days.

That brings us to the end of March. Considering how many days were too cold, or too rainy, or spent running unavoidable errands, or caring for the basic needs of the family, that is reasonable progress.

In April, Phil shifted to the south and east walls. But first, he had to pour three central column supports. First he scraped the gravel to create a level building site.

Next he built the forms and made the cute rebar grid for support.

After building three of them, he poured some concrete.

In a flash of typical Phil humor, he saw the camera go up and pretended to shoot the "dead" animal. (Shadow was not harmed in the taking of this photo.) I would never think to do such a thing. Gender difference? Probably.

We debated whether to bring all the blocks into the work area inside or to leave them out. In the end, we decided to leave them out: with three foundations, two scaffolds, and various tools, not to mention the fact that Phil would have to carry most of the blocks from one side to the other, we opted to leave them out. That may have been the wrong decision, but once made, too bad. Phil pulled the ramp and epoxied in the rebar supports we had had to leave out to offer tractor access.

Next: fill in the space where the ramp had been with 12" blocks and 12" bond beam, then pour the bond beam. And wait a few days for the bond beam to set.

Since then, he's laid half-high blocks and worked on the fourth corner.

As the wall grew higher, he needed an easier way to bring block in. A ramp helped.

And that brings us through about last Friday.

An Unexpected Calf

For the last four weeks, Phil has gone to check on the cows morning and night. Heifer Belle has looked like she is ready to birth, based on her bag and her backside, for the last three weeks, but, so far, nothing.

Our cow Babe did not do well last year. She needed help pushing out her calf (she had pushed out the nose, and was just so tired, we helped her get the calf out. Then Babe didn't produce much milk and her baby, whether through oxygen deprivation at birth or simply not ample nutrition, did not grow quickly. One day she had a horribly swollen face and quickly died, which we heard from a neighbor was what happened to his dog after the dog was bit by a copperhead. They're around, so that's what we consider to be the cause of death (it was certainly unlike any other death we've seen).

But Babe continued to struggle. As with Fern, another of our Vermont cows, I think she found it challenging to acclimate to the Virginia climate and, like Fern, lost much of her hair coat a few months after birthing. Fern now is a beautiful cow, but for several months there we weren't sure she'd make it.

Same with Babe. We figured we'd fatten her up and process her, but she refused to fatten by the fall, so we've fed her all winter.

On Saturday or Sunday, Phil checked on the cows and said, "I think Babe is going into labor. She's off by herself, and her tail is up like she's pooping, but nothing is coming out."

This seemed utterly ridiculous. We have had only two cows breed back in 14 months, and the idea that emaciated Babe would be the next one ... it was past belief. We assumed she was miscarrying.

But nothing happened that day or the next, and Babe seemed to be acting normally.

Yesterday morning, Phil fed the cows. Shadow follows Phil always, and while he was haying the cows, Shadow went off somewhere and came back carrying what looked like afterbirth. Shadow didn't communicate where she found this placenta-like object, but it appeared fresh. Phil tramped all over their paddock and found nothing. All cows accounted for.

It was a drizzly morning, so he came up to take care of paperwork, but his mind wouldn't focus. So he headed back down, and this time, he watched where Shadow went.

And there was a small calf, doing just fine. Babe hadn't bagged up at all, though, so Phil went to buy some powdered colostrum and milk replacer. This little bull calf will not be part of our permanent herd, and even if it was, better to feed some supplemental milk, even if disgusting, than let a baby starve.

I went down with Phil and we fed the baby. It took almost a full quart, gulping the liquid down. Then Phil pulled Babe, and I pushed her, and the calf followed shakily behind, all the way up next to the house. I could direct the calf with my knee, which was right about the level of his nose. Bitsy is about the same height and a bit wider.

Phil built the calf a little pen.

He fenced off a section of the rye grass that has shot up in the last week for Babe. We intended that rye to be a green manure crop. Perhaps it will be green manure and cow feed.

I was so tired from that walk up the hill that I took a 20 minute nap and then slept for twelve hours through the night.

Though we've tried to feed him several times, the baby takes only maybe a pint at a time since that first gulp fest. Babe lets him suckle, though I have felt her teats and there is almost nothing there.

So we have an extra calf we wouldn't have met had we brought Babe to the processors. Though we might need to figure out a way to keep her separate from the bulls, lest we perpetuate the cycle of breeding and birthing.

Our other animal news is that Mr. Bigglesworth the excellent mouser is gone. Whether coyote or dog or something else, we don't know what gets our cats on occasion, but his mouser skills are already missed. (Phil's mom came face to face with a mouse when she went to put something in the toaster oven!) He and Shadow were buddies. Biggles would sleep between Shadow's paws. That's what the blurry photo commemorates.

The Weather Jumps from 50 to 80

Most people love spring's gentle warmth, those glorious days in the 60s and 70s.

Virginia, sadly, skipped those days. We went from weather in the 40s and too cold to lay block last week, to weather in the upper 80s. From heater at night to fan in the day in about 48 hours.

The beautiful thing about last spring was that everything bloomed at once: daffodils, redbuds, dogwoods, peaches, apples. Last year by this time, my beehive had swarmed three times.

This year, our spring is coming at a more moderate pace. The daffodils are about done now. The peaches and plums are in bloom.

And we wait in hope for the rest.

This morning, Jadon poked his head in the door. "Abraham, Joe and I are going to go across the creek and hike around on the other side. Do you want to come?" Abraham didn't, but Joe and Jadon, 4 and 10, headed off together to trek the wilds of our woods. It was a very sweet sight, a couple hours later, to see the two of them return, Jadon with a new walking stick.

Abraham made an amazing train track outside. The dogs knocked it down. Jadon made a different amazing train track, and put up bulb crates as a wall of protection (a visual barrier, if only a mediocre physical barrier). The dogs knocked it down, though it did stay up long enough that time to show Grandma.

Phil's parents have returned. There was great rejoicing.

A Fun Gift

Several weeks ago, I read a blurb that, for those born in 1973, Red Roof Inn is offering, on the birthday night, a stay for $19.73 (40 years ago, the year they opened). Happily, Charlottesville has a Red Roof Inn, and it wasn't graduation week or sometime when it would have been full to capacity. So Phil headed up for a night with a bathtub while I stayed with the boys with chicken pox.

The boys and I had a good time watching (again) the dance scenes from Strictly Ballroom and Legally Blonde in its entirety, my two feel-good-while-feeling-pregnant movies.

Phil purchased a jar of bath salts and soaked repeatedly in the tub. When he left in the morning, he said he had no more towels or washcloths or anything else. The tub had an orange ring. The bath salts were gone. And he was so relaxed and detoxified he could hardly move all day. His muscles had turned to jelly.

He had been fighting a sinus infection for several days, so to spend some time just letting his nose drain and his body rest was really restorative.

Definitely Phil's idea of fun.

When he came home, he showed me his hands. They were pink. By comparison, I held up my hand. It was yellowish-orange. When not overlaid with Virginia soil, I naturally have a more pink complexion. It was a bit shocking just how dirty I am at the pore level.

In other news, Phil's parents have gone away for a few days to visit another relative. Within twelve hours, there I was, throwing up again. It was quite discouraging. Though I haven't necessarily felt much better while they were here (I wasn't getting out of bed to work or clean, for example), I had a full week where I kept all food down. I hate retrogression. Fie!

To ease the parting, Ken bought his grandsons root beer float fixings. The boys are in heaven. A teacup is about the largest cup we have, so they don't get a massive quantity at any one time. Every time Phil would go in to wash his hands or get a drink today, the boys would ask, "Can we have more root beer float?"

Yesterday Phil found my box of maternity clothes, well buried in the storage trailer. I remember with the first pregnancy, I was still wearing my regular clothes at four months, a bit embarrassed at how much my belly was sticking out (an extra inch perhaps?). Ha! I was grateful to make it to eight weeks in regular jeans this time, and since I haven't gotten out much the last month or so, I've made do with yoga pants and boxers. But when even regular shirts start to get a bit restrictive, it's time and past time to move to maternity clothes. I am just about done with the first trimester.

A Story about Phil

Some years ago, my extended family was enjoying lunch in the outdoor dining area of a restaurant. Maybe it was Mother's Day. Suddenly Phil said, "Look at that!" A car tire was rolling across a neighboring parking lot.

Now I had read enough Richard Scarry children's books at that point that a random rolling tire didn't strike me as incredibly unusual. Until I thought about it: a random rolling tire is pretty unusual.

After a few more seconds, someone commented that maybe we could spot the car it came from. And, sure enough, there was a car, now sans tire, stopped a little way past an intersection on a busy road.

Again a pause. Then Phil said, "We should go help them."

Of course! While Phil and my brother-in-law helped the young family retrieve the bouncing tire and find all the lug nuts (yay!), my brother redirected traffic to keep all the workers safe. Apparently, the bouncing tire was already the spare, and the young family, in trying to get to visit Mother, had not tightened the spare sufficiently.

That, to me, encapsulates who Phil is. As a problem-solver by trade, he sees problems, both large and small, and figures out how to solve them. And he is more willing than anyone I know to go and serve others. I confess I would never have considered going to help that family. (Changing tires is not part of my skill set, but even if it was, I don't know if it would have occurred to me.) I am capable of caring for my family, but beyond immediate needs, I don't have a servant's heart. Phil has a servant's heart.

Today Phil turned 40. We had briefly considered a party with friends, but knew we would need a sunny day. Happily, we scrapped that idea. Besides three sons with chicken pox and several of us with sore throats and sinus issues, a cold sleet started to fall around 5pm. It would have been an incredibly miserable party.

Instead, we enjoyed pizza and cake, made and decorated by sons and Grandma. The boys made paper chains to decorate the motor home and cards. Phil got a large Lego set and the boys got small ones in goody bags. A good time was had by all.

When Phil turned 30, he had one son, not yet a year old. In his thirties, he added three more sons, and more recently, the promise of another life. He went to grad school full time while he cut back work to part time, and finished his master's. He left his stable employment where he was doing very well in order to start his own engineering firm. That earned him more money for less work.

And then we moved to unimproved land, and he has had to acquire a whole new skill set: shearing sheep, butchering hogs, wrangling cattle. Concrete work, metal construction, masonry. Fencing, tilling, planting, composting.

It's been a busy decade for him.

Before we married, he said he didn't think he would live to be 40. I'm glad he has.