Once in a Blue Moon

In Boulder, I never paid much attention to the phases of the moon. Here, it’s much more obvious. When I turned out the light last night, I had to double check to make sure that all the lights were off, as it was still so bright in the bedroom. All the lights were off, but the moon is full today, for the second time this month. Happy Blue Moon Day, and Happy New Year’s Eve.

Phil, incredibly, felt ill again yesterday. So much for moving to the country for better health. He had managed to place 15 cattle panels in three days, which made me despair of ever actually getting our place fenced in. Five panels a day would finish the job in about 50 days, but he’s working on the easiest section right now: the level, cleared area near the road. I need to not stress about it. But I do!

I decided to attempt the ram lamb post-mortem. I managed to cut the animal open and see the guts, but then I didn’t know how to proceed, or how to keep extracting without making a big mess. And I didn’t think the really pertinent parts (reproductive organs) were large enough for my untrained eyes to observe what they needed to see.

But for someone who fainted after losing a tooth, and who passed out when having a blood sample drawn, cutting open a dead mammal is a pretty big step in toughness. Good for me!

Today Phil did more fencing. I kept an eye on Acorn, who I think has dropped (since last Saturday or Sunday). Is she acting oddly? I actually touched her and she didn’t bolt, which means she’s more friendly. Is her udder filling, or is it just my imagination? Is labor imminent? At some point in the next month, yes.

The older boys and I had a great time reading Ella Enchanted until after 10pm this evening. We did that most of the afternoon, too. I was glad they liked the story so much—it’s a good one.

A few photos of our farm on this, the last day of 2009.

Our view across the creek

Our incredibly slow growing pigs

Our 80 augered holes, with no trees

Our driveway and dwelling, partly obscured by the brush pile

Abigail

Most of our flock, with Chrystal the goat lying in front of the lambing jug in the background

Greedy goat Annabelle

"Gotcha Day" for Babydoll Ewes

Yesterday was “gotcha” day for our three babydoll ewes. Hopefully they have been bred, and I will be watching for lambs starting in early April.

I had only seen the ewes twice before, and had forgotten/not remembered how very much larger they are than the little half-year lambs we have. Apparently, the babydoll sheep are the original Southdowns, from England, first registered in 1780 and reaching America in 1803. They are, apparently, hardy, with tender meat and good flavor.

Around the time of WWI, the Southdown breed was bred for larger, quicker growth. In 1986, Mr. Robert Mock went around and found all the old Southdowns in the world that still looked like the Southdowns of the early 1800s. In four years he found 26 sheep; a longer search finally turned up 350 (some with papers that went back to 1780!). These few animals became the foundation of the breed he renamed “Olde English Babydoll Southdown Sheep.”

Phil would like to point out that adding the name “Babydoll” effectively rules out the breed for half the population: the male half. What man really wants to have a babydoll? For female hobby farmers, though, the breed appears to be popular enough. And, as I suppose I am a female hobby farmer, I was not immune. I own babydolls.

The main website, despite mentioning the taste and quality of the meat, markets the babydolls as mostly good for companionship/pets; for grooming an orchard or vineyard (our main purpose: they both trim and fertilize, and, supposedly, do not harm trees; they are too small to eat the fruit, too, apparently); and for their wool. The wool has “more barbs per inch” than any other wool type, which makes it “ideal for blending with other fibers.” I’m more impressed with its 19 to 22 micron diameter. It is soft stuff, but pretty dirty at the moment.

The chickens love to sit on the ruminating sheep’s backs. This is pastoral, but also crappy (the chickens poo on the sheep’s backs).

One book I read suggested putting jackets/covers on the sheep. The fleeces are worth twice what an uncovered sheep’s fleece sells for: it is premium quality and delightful right away. That does sound pleasant. But, as Phil said, it’s not very natural. Do we really want to look over at the flock and see a lot of vinyl jackets? We haven’t decided yet. Will economics or aesthetics win the day? For this year’s wool, it’s too late to make a change, so we’ll enjoy the natural look for now.

I arrived home with the three ewes in the back of the minivan. I like the smell of sheep, but these poor stressed animals had kicked the tarp I had laid down, and then made the back of my van dirty. We’ll see how much I like the smell of sheep next time I get in the van.

Phil put the halter on the ewes, then lifted them out of the car. He could not believe how heavy they were. And stubborn! I led the sheep and Phil pushed them from behind. Eve (from the Bible family) stamps her feet when she is frustrated, which is very dear. Isabella (from the Royal family) lays down if she doesn’t want to move, and a limp 100 pound woolly animal is not easy to steer. Tsarina (or Zara, from the Russian family) is the best mother, apparently. She is also the most dutiful: first to catch, easiest to get to the paddock. (In the photo, left to right: Eve, Tsarina, Isabella, the black ewe with sunbleached wool.)

They appear to be adjusting well, and I enjoy the larger flock. It feels more full, more natural to have nine sheep. More like a flock and less like a dabble.

We also opened stuffed stockings, courtesy of Phil's mom Cheri.

Phil has spent several hours closing the books for his engineering firm (end of the year taxes and paperwork—blah). Consequently, he hasn’t been able to work as much as he would wish on the fencing. He has put up nine 16 foot cattle panels, which is about a quarter of our road fenced. A bit less than 4% of the project. The boys are helpful: they hold the flimsy fence and he pounds the T-posts.

The older boys spent much of today playing with one of our family Christmas presents, Piano Wizard. I am pleased that they are getting a bit of music instruction in our teeny trailer, while our lovely piano remains in the storage section of the construction trailer. After five or six hours, I had them put it away.

We Finally Make It to Church

We had all bathed since Christmas Eve, and haven’t been outside much since then. Our dirtiness factor was quite low. So we decided to go to church this morning for the first time since we’ve been here. (We have been faithfully attending Bible study, so we have not been entirely separate from the body, lest any grow concerned.) Martin and Molly Bush go to Charlottesville Community Church, a startup church that meets in a school, similar to our home church in Boulder. It felt, architecturally anyway, like home. (The homey feel may also have been because the entire Bush clan visited today, about doubling the congregation, which was mostly visitors from out of town anyway.) Phil enjoyed talking to the teaching pastor afterwards.

No red flags, so we plan to return next Sunday.

One of the families moved here in July, and has a daughter age 4, just like Abigail. They had a good time playing together, and the mother gave me her number. I don’t know how soon we can do a playdate, but it was good to meet new people.

I went into the paddock to see the lamb and noticed that Acorn the ewe no longer looks round like an acorn. Yes, she has dropped, so the wait for her lambing begins. Thankfully, there are no more hundred-year storms in the forecast. (I heard that the last time a single storm dumped this much snow was 100 years ago. The deep snow of 1996 was two storms back-to-back.)

We Open Presents for Days and Days

On Christmas Eve, with foot-deep snow on all sides, we hunkered down and opened a few more presents. I wrote five clues, one for each child, and sent the children out to find their presents. The sheep had tried to open the one I left in the jug, but we had a good time.

In the photos you can see three children filing out to find a gift under the tarp covering the hay; several of us returning to the house to open a gift hidden in the sheep pen (notice Isaiah petting the ewe lamb as she nurses); Jadon getting his gift off the pump house, with a tower of wood chips to the right of him; Abraham asleep in the middle of the afternoon, characteristically resting his head on his hands; and Phil playing pirate Playmobil with the boys.

At 9pm, we went to the Bessettes for dinner (prime rib from their Jersey!), and the children hung in there well until midnight.

The ram lamb was, thankfully, dead that morning. Emotionally, it was not as bad as the death of the first two chicks back in Boulder—that was the worst. Or maybe I had worked through the grief the day before.

UPS was unable to deliver some of our boxes. There are disadvantages to living four miles down a country road. That was a bummer.

Christmas Day was rainy and chill. We opened (more) presents, until our little trailer looked like a Lego and Playmobil factory exploded all over. In the evening, we headed to the Doug Bushes for six hours, where we sang and snacked and talked and laughed.

Today reached the 50s, which, combined with the rain from yesterday, finally started to reduce the snowpack. Abigail and I spent the morning at Johanna Bush’s house, where we had girl time with her and her daughter. This afternoon Phil and I walked down to see how high Hog Creek has risen. It hasn’t overflowed the banks yet, but is definitely running high.

We are talking about where we want to site our house; we’re thinking we’ll put it below the clearing, in the deciduous trees on a steep slope. This will be more central to the entire property, as well as leave some extra area for the orchard. And it will be further off the road, so more private.

The best homestead thing of these past days is the little lamb. Phil and I watched her chase chickens today—she did the adorable lamb leap! Oh, what a cutie!

Fun and Not So Fun, or, What I Considered Not Posting

The children had a good time today. We have enough presents waiting to be opened that I’m not sure where we will put them all. Not in a merely academic way, but in a literal THERE IS NO SPACE way. So we each opened a gift this morning, in hope that I’ll be able to find proper places for them. It was really fun! We watched Abraham’s DVD; Jadon worked on his activity books; and Abigail carried her Beanie Baby around everywhere. Phil opened a book on Forgotten Arts and Crafts which he loved. Seeing the section on thatching made him want to do a thatched roof. I think that sounds delightful, but I’m not sure it would be practical.

In the afternoon, Isaiah insisted we read Twenty and Ten, a great true story about how some French children save some Jewish children during WWII. We had read it earlier this year, but Isaiah wanted to hear it again, so we spent a few hours doing that.

And after dark, we broke some glow sticks that had been floating around since the summer. The children spent a happy hour or so in the dark, playing light saber and whatever else children think is fun in the dark with a glowstick.

So there was fun today.

But there was a dark side, too.

At some point this morning, Phil and I realized that our ram lamb’s failure to thrive is due to deformities, not insufficient or misguided care. Had we had the good fortune of seeing a healthy ram lamb at some point, we would have recognized much earlier that he was not going to make it.

But who would have guessed that we’d get a deformed lamb at the first? I assumed that all ram lambs have separate testicles that will later join to form one sack. And I knew that proper urination comes out of the proper shaft, near the center of the belly. So what is the yellow draining liquid from an unusual slit below the tail? The clincher for me came when, in a final effort to make sure that I had done all I could for the lamb, I gave him an enema. Rather than helping him expel meconium, or gain greater comfort, the water drained right out of that same unusual slit.

As Phil said, “There is something really wrong with his internal organs.”

Why did our first ram lamb have to be deformed? Why did we perhaps torture it in our misguided attempts to help it? Why on earth did God call us to farm? It’s a rough task! And while it makes for interesting cyber communication, it also makes for real tears.

We debated putting it down. We decided that, if it appeared to be in pain, Phil would put it down. That’s stressful for both man and animal, though. So since it is not in apparent pain, we’ll let it continue for the time.

Oh, little lamb, sleep near your mother, cradled by your sister, and drift to eternal sleep in the cold winter’s night.

Ram Lamb

Phil came in this morning with greater concern about the ram lamb. He hadn’t stood up since the first day; he lay, curled up, shivering, under the heat lamp, with dull eyes and lack of interest.

When I went out to see him, I had little hope for his survival. I was sure that the title for today’s events would be: “Ram Lamb: December 18 to 22, 2009.”

But instead, today became “diagnose the ram lamb” day. First guess: selenium and Vitamin E deficiency (it fit the dull eyes and the shivering). I had both the mineral and the vitamin for human consumption: how to deliver it to the lamb?

Well, I had purchased a drench, which looks like a syringe with a rounded metal tip. It is meant to deliver dewormers or other chemicals into the sheep’s mouth, but I hadn’t purchased anything to use with it. In fact, when I unpacked the box, my first thought was, “Why on earth did I order this?” But the drench was the perfect tool for delivering the vitamin and mineral to the lamb.

A bit later, we used the drench again. This time, we gave the baby all the colostrum I had milked out of Ashley that first day. Perhaps he was simply unable to nurse for a time and became dehydrated. And after he had eaten all of it (about two drenches worth), he stood up for, perhaps, the first time in a couple days. So that was good, but not great.

The book said that dehydrated lambs need an enema, in order to clear out their meconium, the tarry poop from their time in utero. What an adventure! From lambing to enemas in just a few days. Or, as my sister said, “It’s amazing the things you can learn from books!” I got my soapy water all ready, but, I’m embarrassed to admit, was unable to locate the small anus. In fact, I am even more embarrassed to admit, I worried about an extra hole that should be there. It looked like a slit, that was maybe peeing? But shouldn’t pee come from the penis?

I had Phil come and look, and he was clueless, too. At this point, the ram has two fuzzy fingers dangling from his underbelly, identical in size and shape. Our guess is that one is his penis and the other his not-quite-all descended testicles.

All I can say is, it’s a good thing we didn’t try to castrate yet. (!) And I cannot report the results of the lamb enema, because that didn’t happen either. Probably just as well.

The next round of save-the-ram-lamb required the other thing I had no idea why I ordered: a sheep halter. We put it on Ashley and Phil held her while I milked her. A few more drenches of fresh milk went to the baby, and by now, he was standing up regularly. He still refused to nurse, and he still shook, but his back was not so hunched.

An hour or so later, we gave him another drench of mother’s milk. I figured, though, that this was the end. His sister was out frolicking in the snow with the larger sheep. He lay under the heat lamp with chickens crawling all over him (I’m assuming they were ecstatic to have found their missing heat lamp, because they did not want to leave). I went out to pick up his carcass a bit later, and found him walking around the jug with a babydoll.

Is the ram lamb in the clear? I have no idea.

What went wrong? I’m not sure. Shock from the early and incorrect tail docking. Then he got stuck at some point overnight in the pallet. It could be that that second night he was stuck for hours, unable to nurse, and oozing blood from his tail. That was also the night that the heat lamp—and all our electricity—went out. So the next morning, Phil and I were focused on our children, and getting us all to safe and warm quarters. When Phil checked on the lamb, he didn’t know about the hunched back symptom of shock or hypothermia, and I didn’t pay enough attention to look.

So although the lamb may yet die, I no longer feel like I would be a tail-docking murderess. I can see that the ram had a lot of strikes against him, from horrible weather during birth to inexperienced shepherds every step of the way, and that he’s made it this far is the grace of God.

This afternoon, Phil made Isaiah a lofted bed above my dresser. My old pastor’s wife Alona once said, “For spatial management, think UP,” and we have just about perfected that advice. Tonight it will be just Phil and I, Jonadab, the dog and the cat in our full size bed. What luxury!

Only Little Notes

For breakfast at the Bessettes this morning we had some of their incredible breakfast sausage from their own pig. Incredible. The children spent much of the day sledding. For children who like to be indoors, I’m so proud of them. Isaiah even cut his chin on the sled at one point, but after a little Neosporin, he headed right back to the slope.

For lunch, Michelle made tortillas out of spelt flour—delicious!

When we finally returned home about 4pm, Phil found one of the lambs stuck in the cattle panel across the entrance. Stuck as in, head through one metal square and legs through another. We have heard that sheep have suicidal tendencies, but I had no idea it could be so constant. First stuck in the pallet, then stuck in the cattle panel! Phil thought it was the ewe lamb, but looking at the two lambs a short time later, the ewe frisked about, while the ram stood with hunched back, a characteristic “chilled” sign. We’re guessing it was the ram lamb (again) who got himself stuck. (His mouth was still warm, though, so I think he’ll be fine.)

The ewe lamb cracked me up, though. Phil had finally let the chickens out of their entrapment in their house (with the snow covering their door, we figured they should just stay inside). One of the chickens had wandered into the jug, where the ewe lamb bounded up to it, curiously. The chicken left in haste.

This snowstorm is the deepest the Bessettes remember; I think the last deep snow like this in Virginia was in 1996. Butch said that the last time it took the county four days to plow our road. What a time for the lambs to be born!

I should mention the pigs. With the snow covering both electric lines, I had a small concern that they would either freeze or escape. Phil didn't even bother to check on them while the snow fell heavily. He figured they would be hunkered down in the hay. Sure enough—when he went to see them the second day, he brought food with him. A pile of hay exploded with pig flesh. I had a repeat performance today, as I approached them with the scraps of two days and two families. All I could see were little ears, until they bounded out, hay flying.