Farming Silliness - 7/24/2009

Ruined shoes.... okay well, they could be washed, but for the purpose of everyday go to the store or visiting friends use.. they are ruined.

I sunk up to my ankles in farm goo while involved in serious farm silliness. It's a form of learning process. While things inside of me are ruminating into new thoughts and values, I'm physically learning what will work on a farm and what doesn't, in a less than clean way.

My first bout with silliness happened last fall and it has been a regular occurrence ever since. I'm getting the gist of it now. It's really all about food. Plain and simple. Food has the power to control farm silliness like nothing else. Here are some examples:

Last fall I took in three wethers and a doe so I could experience what having goats would be like before investing in them. We worked to get all the elements in place that were needed. We fenced a small area for their outside play and we laid out wood chips and straw for their comfort. We made our goat barn the goat barns of all goat barns.. if not a five star goat barn it was at least a four star. We were ready with the food, too. We had extra hay on hand, a bit of goat chow and a big tub of water. I'd read all the best books on goat care. I'd talked to friends about goats endlessly. All that was missing was the experience these goats were going to give me. And they did not fail in their task.

They provided ample opportunity to learn many things: goat burps are repugnant; never put the feeder close to the door no matter how handy it may seem; four goat heads crowding into an enclosed feeder means one of them is at serious risk of strangulation'; you can never have enough wood chips and straw on stand-by - goat berries pile up fast; and despite whatever you've heard, goats do not eat everything. They are picky, picky eaters. There is no 6 second rule when something falls on the barn floor - to a goat it is immediately unacceptable. Looking at the barn floor, I couldn't blame them... but oh the waste of sloppy eaters. And goats are sloppy eaters.

Of course, I read about how tricky, smart, and creative goats can be. I thought I was prepared for their antics. When we fenced their pen we layered fencing generously over each other at the seams and wired it like it was stitched together. We believed there was no escape. And there wasn't - via the fencing.

One afternoon my dear husband came running in from the barn with the dire words "I need help NOW.. the goats are loose." The rush of adrenaline I felt was much like a mother's when she hears that certain cry from her child.

I raced out to the barn hearing that cry the minute I left the house. Whatever was going on with the goats in the barn, they were not happy. Opening the door carefully, I braced for a rush of animals, instead their cries were over my head. Literally. I looked up at the panicked faces of three goats looking down. They were in the barn loft.

Somehow they'd escaped their pen. Three of them had climbed the stairs to the loft and couldn't get back down. The fourth goat had stayed below and was consuming as much alfalfa (a favorite) as he could. This goat seemed like a minor problem until Joe turned him towards me and his belly looked as if there was a canoe lodged in there sideways.

We got him back in the pen and began the painful process of getting the goats down from the loft. It was easy to understand why old time barns had ladders instead of stairs. Animals couldn't climb ladders.

The easy up/hard down rule was right when it came to these goats. They weren't about to come down without a fight. Joe and I had to push and shove each one together all the way down and back to their pen.

What had inspired their escape? Food. Alfalfa to be precise, but only one of them had the wherewithal to actually eat the food. Perhaps a grass-is-greener-in-the-loft lure got the others upstairs, saving them from looking like small water craft, but feeling cheated.

Later in the year, we accepted the gift of two alpacas from a friend and again carefully fenced an area where they would eventually live. Until we got our spring cattle, however, it seemed fine to let them roam the smaller cattle pasture and take advantage of all the forage. Everything seemed fine until we the moment we HAD TO move them unexpectedly into their new field. The HAD TO moment came when it was cold, raining and dark. Of course.

We knew NOTHING about moving alpacas. Think about it, city girls aren't often called upon to walk in cloudy darkness through a rainy night herding alpacas in a lumpy pasture. My son was helping but he's as much a city boy as I am a city girl.

At first the alpacas herded peacefully, but the minute they thought their escape options were down to a confined space they panicked and darted between us back to the expanse of the pasture. Over and over we herded them that night. Over and over they darted. We were soaked to the skin. Our shoes were wet, muddy, cold and ruined. We'd pulled the dark hoods of our sweatshirts over our heads and kept at it.

In desperation I decided to try the lure of food. I certainly wanted some, and a hot drink, too.

I grabbed an armful of alfalfa from the barn (a foragers favorite) and went into the new pen. With the gate open I stood there calling the alpacas waving alfalfa. No favorable response. Feeling the full misery of wet cold and dark hopelessness, I carried the now wet alfalfa, to the garage near the pasture and turned on the outside lights. I pushed back my dripping hood and looked for any sign of the alpacas in the field. Instantly the alpacas came running. Right towards the light and me, their expressions and behavior telling the tale.

Strange dark things had been chasing them in the pasture and they were afraid. In the pool of light by the garage they could see me and since I was a familiar figure bearing the inevitable food, they came running. I went through the fence, cooing and luring them with the alfalfa. They followed me right into the new pen where I dumped the food and moved away so they could eat. Food is a big motivator.

Recently we've had six steers in our back pasture. The summer is turning out to be brutally dry and the fields are pathetic. Except of course, on the other side of the fence.

True to form some of the steers, lured by waving green grass, found a way out of our field and into our neighbor's. His field isn't fenced which means that there were miles of open fields and forest on their side of the fence and only three dumbfounded farmers on our side of the fence trying to figure out how to get them back inside.

They were celebrating with kicking heels and mocking moos at the four steers that had not followed them into their field of dreams. We were near panic putting together plans to be sure those other four steers didn't do just that.

A check of the fence line showed no obvious escape route so there was no obvious re-entry route. Joe cut the barbed wire fence open and curled it back to make a gaping hole. Again we tried the 'walk them back' approach where you stay behind the cow within his vision and walk towards him. This usually makes him move forward, sometimes where you want him to go, sometimes not. In this case it not. After several failed attempts that sent the steers kicking their heels further away, we needed a new plan.

The new plan was, of course, in reality an old plan. Food.

This time a wheel barrel full. These, after all, were bigger foragers. It was again alfalfa. The nectar of the gods for steers. At first we took handfuls and tried to get them to come like Hansel and Gretal following the dropped plops of goodness back home. It didn't work. What we did notice however was that they always retreated when fearful back to the corner of the field where the other steers, on our side of the fence, stood watching with avid bovine curiosity. Another plan began to form. Herd pressure. Sort of like peer pressure only for .... well, herds.

Insanely or bravely, we dumped the load of alfalfa on our side of the fence about ten feet in from the gaping hole Joe had cut. Then we called the crew to lunch. When the first, and smartest steer responded with a fast jog towards the alfalfa the rest came. Including our boys on the wrong side of the fence. It was successful and scary at the same time. They sounded like a stampede (this is the insane part) as they ran towards us. But the escaped steers were anxious not to miss their lunch break and darted back into the field through the provided hole. All we had to do was get out of the way and fix the fence behind them when they re-joined the herd.

Food and herd power did the job.

Twice since a renegade steer has managed to get out and wander the neighborhood, but every time the collective herd, still safe in the pasture and huddled around an enticing pile of food, inspired the renegade steer to get back into the pasture. It didn't matter how far he wandered around the neighbor's houses or if he crossed the street for a stroll through the Christmas trees, he came right back because of the crowd of steers eating together as a herd.

When you think about it we aren't a whole lot different. Really.

How many times when you're away from home have you picked a restaurant based on how many cars were parked outside? That's right. The herd was eating and you wanted in.

If only we'd paid attention in the first place to our behavior we would've figured out the goats, alpacas, and steers easier. Instead, we do as is done in the city. We over-think it and end up with ruined sneakers, dripping hoodies and feet stumbling around in dark pastures.

Weird Changes (1/31/2009)

I will not claim that a complete transformation from a City Chick to a Farm Chick has happened, but there are weird changes in the air this year.

First of all, just this week I found myself pulling a label off of a metal rack that will occupy the space beneath the pedestal sink in my master bathroom, providing much needed storage, and noticed that it was attached to the rack by a stretchy rubber-band-like thingy. Weirdly, my mind did not think garbage when I looked at it. Instead I removed it carefully, tore off the paper tag for recycling and carefully scrutinized that stretchy band trying to figure out what I could use it for. And the next thought was even worse. I was elated to realize that I had purchased three racks which meant I was the proud owner of three of these things.

Don't tell me that doesn't shock you. It shocked me enough (evidence that I am not all Farm yet) that I did a double-take at who was thinking these thoughts.

And let's not stop there. It does get worse.

My best farm friend Valerie was over at the house. I confessed to her that I'd found something incredibly male on my computer during my week of browsing that I just had to show her. We hurried into my office, closed the door and I brought 'the picture' up on the screen. We both gave out a huge sigh of admiration at the same time and jumped into a full analysis of this incredible creature.

Don't get too excited though, it was a Boer goat buck.

Honest. I have to admit that one scares me. In fact, I think I am close to being out of control when it comes to goats completely. I am not skilled at finding the best, only at admiring many. So much so that I have begun collecting them. Luckily I realized what I was doing soon enough to stop myself from making a Boer buck-sized dent in my checking account and filling my barn stalls up with dainty does (which is not a good thing when you're talking meat goats).

I am at a controlled level and learning how to maintain. By the time all the does I'm committed to buying are on the farm I will have five. After all unlike my Victorian salt shakers (I have over a hundred) and my books (I suspect thousands), goats require a regular investment in food and maintenance like stall cleaning, immunizations, trimming hooves, and health checks. No matter how much I want goats, I don't want so many that my life goes the way of the alfalfa I feed them so generously.

On top of this there is one other thing that is so surreal it really shakes my City thinking. It's embarrassing to even admit. I often smell like goats. That isn't good. It's not really pleasant. But it also doesn't bother me a lot. Not like it would have a year ago.

Back then the cat's box was nauseating beyond words, the fur she shed was irritating, and and any occassional mishaps in the house were reason to seriously think about opening the back door and hoping she ran away on her own.

That all went by the wayside slowly over the course of almost a year on the farm, when some form of animal poo was frequently tread into the house on the bottom of everyone's shoes because animals don't use toilets and we had animals. I know it's disgusting, but it's also natural, and I cleaned it up dutifully knowing that complaining wouldn't change anything, I didn't want to get rid of the animals.

I even liked the idea of some of this poo because of the power it had to make my gardens so much healthier. I had Joe avidly collecting and depositing the chicken manure from our little Eglu into the compost bins. I longed for him to go out and haul me in some dried cow patties for the same reason, something he never really did. It was becoming easier to think of poo as something desireable when I realized how good it was for growing food and flowers.

On top of that, on a farm animal waste is a frequent topic of discussion. There are actually farm workshops designed to do nothing more than discuss the management of poo. I have been asked several times where the manure pile is on our farm. Interesting. This was not even thought of in the city. Only people with dogs worried about such things and they often deal with it in a citified fashion, such as buying scientifically designed dog food that ensured their pet's feces would crumble nicely within a matter of hours and disintegrate naturally into the lawn without leaving any nasty signs or tell-tell smells. Or, they hire someone to collect it once a week while they are away at work and before the weekend when they will be out back barbecuing or gardening and such unpleasant things would prove to be a downer to deal with themselves.

Here poo is a way of life and the sooner you learn to deal with it the better. It's true that sometimes in dealing with it you drag a bit around with you. So what? Better to know it's there and know you need to take care of it instead of pretending it doesn't even exist.

I like goats and if being with them means smelling like them until I can clean up and change then I'm okay with that. I hardly even notice, but I do know about it and I take care of it.

And that is another change. In the city I ignored poo as much as possible and hated even seeing signs hinting it might exist, hence my disgust with the cat. Now, if I don't see it I worry. I know it should be there and if it isn't something is wrong on the farm. I encourage poo. Lots of it. Because it is a sure sign of life.

Looking at something I would have thrown away without even a first thought a year ago, such as the little stretchy band holding labels on a metal rack, and not seeing garbage but a possibility is definitely a change. It may even be a good one, just like learning to deal with poo.

By the way, here's "THE" picture. Wish I owned a buck like this.

A New Year (1/9/2009)

I'm going to ask you to bear with me on this entry. Although this blog is dedicated to what it means to be a city girl moved to the farm, I'm going to focus for just this one entry on just being me.

This time of year always inspires deep desires for time management. Perhaps that is part of the harried city life I lived. Where every moment in my job was accounted for in fifteen minute increments and only deemed worthy if it produced money for the company I worked for. It sounds bad but I did get paid for it, and paid well.

But the case of time management frenzy I get this time of year goes a little deeper than that. As does the desire for setting goals for the new year.

Interestingly, when I think of goals in January I think most about my writing goals. Household goals, farm goals, and even sadly, spiritual goals all slide to the back burner, or in the country, are piled somewhere behind the barn.

This happens mostly because with the coming of a new year there is the marking off of yet another birthday within the same week. Birthdays, especially those within the higher number ranges, always bring reality.

Although I do not feel it in my heart, time is ticking away in my body and my mind. I am growing older and with growing age comes a growing fear that I might not accomplish in my life what I believe I was born to accomplish.

In order to push that fear aside I turn to organization and time management. Believing in the power of these things to bring about amazing results. My fingers fairly itch to pull out a fresh new daytimer and to fill in all the empty lines with precise plans on how, this year, I will finally achieve something important.

There is only one good thing about this compulsion. For a moment when I am setting goals, I am not looking back in my life, I am avidly focused on looking forward. Outside of that, all my carefully written plans are a futile effort.

Within a week all the rigid walls confining the minutes of my days, carefully written in clear pencil (with the 0.5 mm lead), give way to the terrible reality of my predictable humanity. I ignore them and I live. One day at a time. Whatever is given to me each day. Life happens.

I guess this means that I am not meant to be a powerful woman who sets aside life's twists and turns and, more troubling, its commoness, to live a life of precise, single-vision achievement.

This January however, I know that however glorious a life of achievment appears each January, it is just a mirage. One I imagine up to chase away the panic of growing too old to achieve anything useful.

So, I won't do that this year. I was ready to. I had my pencil out and full of lead, I had a notebook to record all my wonderful goals. I was going to map out the incredible steps I would take this year down the path of achievement and, lets face it, the all desireable glory.

Instead, at 53, I'm going to simplify things. I'm going to redefine achievement. I'm going to rejoice in some already achieved achievements. Because now that I've slowed down and begun to reorganize my thinking, I've noticed these really cool achievements lurking on the fringes of my yearly panic. They are:

1. I am loved eternally

2. I love eternally

These achievements are irreversible and they are, simply stated, enough.

Especially for a life that was given for years to the despairing belief that this would never happen. But it did. Miraculously so. And it stands as a testimony that sometimes despite our lack of detailed day planners, the overwhelming busyness of life, and our boring commonness, we have achieved a great deal more than we give ourselves credit for.

Furthermore, I am determined to believe that without having achieved these two things first, accomplishing anything else would be meaningless, if not impossible.

So in view of this and without one pencil mark of planning, 2009 is going to be a good year.

I believe that 53 is going to be incredible and not too old to be even more incredible.

And that what is yet to come is a bonus when added to what has already been achieved.

Farm Life as a Whole - According to Me 1/4/2009

Living in the city - any of them I've lived in - I found it hard to make friends. I don't really think I was that unusual. Except for my friend Patty, who is a profoundly great friend to numerous people and extended family members, there have never been really close women friends in my life.

When Patty decided I was friend material she brought that special element into my life - a good woman friend. She's one of those people you can bounce crazy ideas off of and know, whether she says it or not, exactly what she thinks. She has been a great reality check for me through some pretty difficult years. I've enjoyed and still enjoy her friendship.

Here in on the farm, both Joe and I worried whether or not we would make the kind of friends we needed. People who could give us advice, helps us find our way around town and suppliers and be there when something goes wrong that we don't know how to fix. Farming is not quite like being a homeowner. There are a few more buildings, a few more pieces of equipment and a new set of problems that can happen here on the farm.

All the books I read about farming assured me we would be just fine. Our neighbors would become friends and we would find people who had shared interest who would become friends. Not just acquaintances, but friends.

Those books weren't wrong.

This Christmas every single neighbor on our street made sure they let us know they were glad that we're here. One neighbor left a beautiful handmade wreath on our door, another brought over goodies and sparkling cider, two more brought baked goods on beautiful plates that we were told to keep. When the snow came it took only one afternoon when we could finally get our truck out before the neighbor up the road surprised us by clearing our driveway with his tractor while we were gone. What a blessing. He'd been taking care of the private road we lived on every day since the snow started piling up looking for nothing more than a wave when he tractored by.

The woman who was our son's temporary homeschool teacher is now a friend. We go shopping for goats together. I rejoice in her good purchases and she comes over to see mine. We are buying our goat supplies together. Her son's Christmas presents - two lovely mares - are stabled in our barn and in him we've gained an unpaid hired hand ready to do whatever we need help nwith so the mares can stay there. They've also offered to share their hay crop next year to help care for whatever animals we may have. They are grateful for our help, we are grateful for theirs.

The lady who bought our heifer, Wendy, from us now teaches me how to spin wool. We've been to visit her farm and she comes to visit ours often. She is such a wonderful lady and a real help with my new spinning efforts. She also raises goats and cattle so we have lots to talk about. She also hooked me up with her cleaning lady so that twice a month I get a little help around the house.

Today we bought a third boer doe from a couple on a farm in Ethel, about a twenty minute drive from our farm, I get the feeling they will be friends, too. While we visited with them we found out that she actually bought the prized boer buck I had hoped to buy for our farm. I was thrilled for her. She'll make good use of that buck with all the does she has. She has also agreed that I can come see him when he arrives and his services will be available to my does should I desire it. That's nice. No, that's more than nice.

I'm also part of a great writing critique group. All of them have lived in small country towns for years. Most of htem have farms of various sizes and have livestock or small animals. They are fun, supportive and writerly wise. I feel really blessed to have been accepted into their small group.

Honestly, there is something special about people who make their living raising animals. People who care for and love them. Those people seem to have a great capacity for being good friends, too. Maybe finding freinds in the country is easier because we often share many common interests just because we are here in the country living very similar lives. Lives that aren't too busy to make time for some goat shopping, fiber spinning, canning and visiting over the fence.

Now the big challenge is learning to be a good friend back. Next year I am so going to be ready with the neighbor gifts at Christmas. If I make any kind of resolution for 2009, its learning how to be a good friend to these people who are becoming good friends to me. It seems to be another step towards becoming a country lady myself. It's part of the life.