Conversation with Rufus

I said, "How is your hay, Rufus?"

"Not bad," he said, "it tastes like it did yesterday.  It's dry."  

"Have you forgiven me for twisting your ears?"

"Did you twist my ears?"

"I think I can understand why Eeyore was portrayed as a gloomy donkey."

"Thanks for noticing."

Chickens, Eggs, and Chickens

After a few weeks of warm weather, it's been a bit of an adjustment to be thrown back to frozen water buckets, cold feet, and extra hungry livestock.  Last night the temp dropped into the teens, but the baby chickens and the baby herbs in their salad boxes were toasty warm in the greenhouse with their heat lamp and with a piece of plastic draped over them.   I haven't been able to keep the seed trays consistently warm, so my germination rates have been very low.  Except for basil and cilantro - I've got lots of each of those.  Cilantro is Brandon's nemesis, so he's very excited that it's one of the things I can grow!  

The chicks are five weeks old now, and they are crowded in their brooder.  I've been promising them that they will get to move to the big chicken coop when they are six weeks old.  They are counting the days.  

On Sunday, Brandon and I finally butchered the spare roosters.  Mom had a spare, I had a spare, and my friend had two to spare.  Even though my spare rooster was small, we decided it was time for him to meet the freezer.  He had a bad habit of sleeping in the nest box, which meant he was pooping in the nest box and making my eggs dirty.  Bad rooster!  Finally - we're getting some photogenic eggs around here!  I collected fifteen last night.  

Such pretty eggs.  Good chickens.  

I noticed one of the buff Orpington hens walking funny, like a toddler with a dirty diaper, and then she squatted and out popped this weird squishy egg.  It had no hard shell!  It was like a warm water balloon, only filled with egg.  Wendigo thought it was delicious.  

Can you see the chicken wire attached to the opening in the greenhouse?  With zip ties and some screws and washers, we made the greenhouse chicken proof.

Pst!  Get out of here, chickens, it's seed planting time!  

Twisted Ears and Smelly Feet

Yesterday the farrier came to trim Rufus's hooves.  Brandon couldn't understand why I was so nervous.  Actually, I couldn't understand why I was so nervous either!  I was awake hours before the dawn, trying not to nervously anticipate this new experience.  I worried that Rufus would resist and would have to be tranquilized, or traumatized.  Despite my good intentions, I haven't been able to handle his back feet.  He kicks hard when I try to pick them up, which scares me and discourages me from trying, so I couldn't imagine how the farrier would be able to trim them.  

The farrier had me hold Rufus firmly by the halter, and had the first front hoof trimmed so fast Rufus and I were caught off guard.   Rufus resisted some, but the farrier just had me hold him firmly in place, and he got both front feet done quick.  I had hoped to watch his technique so I could learn how to do it, but all my attention was given to holding Rufus who decided that if he couldn't stand on all four feet, I could support him.  I was a donkey prop. 

The back feet weren't so easy to do.  Rufus jumped and squirmed and jerked his leg back and forth so hard I was surprised the man was able to hold on without dislocating his shoulder.  No wonder I haven't been able to do that!  He finally asked me how I felt about an "ear twitch."  He said with horses you can twist their upper lip and they will hold still.  With donkeys, their ears are most sensitive, so he showed me how to hold Rufus's head, and twist the base of his ear a little.  I felt awful, but I did it anyway, just a little.  It worked too.  He stopped kicking and the farrier quickly trimmed his hoof.  I had to twist his ear for the other back foot too, although I tried not to twist very much and let up as soon as he stopped kicking.  Poor Rufus.  

My regret is that I haven't been able to train Rufus to hold still while his feet are handled, but despite having to resort to holding his ears hostage, I'm glad he was trimmed.  We had already waited too long.  I noticed a bad smell while the farrier was working on his back feet.  Hooves that are dirty and wet, and don't get enough attention, get infections.  The farrier didn't say anything was wrong, but he recommended that he get trimmed every two months, and everything I've read says I'm supposed to clean out his hooves with a pick at least every week, if not every day.  In six months, I haven't cleaned his back hooves a single time.  I will renew my commitment to hoof care, and hopefully the next time I won't have to twist his poor ears.  Thankfully, Rufus doesn't seem to hold it against me.  

Can you see the cedar tree fence posts that Brandon installed yesterday?  They look just like trees that grew there naturally, but with the branches sawed off.  Brandon is on spring break this week, and his plan is to divide our pasture with some interior fencing that will allow the goats and the donkey to each have their own yard attached to their stall, with gates to the big pasture.  This will allow me to manage who gets access to the grass, without having to keep anyone confined to their stalls.  Brandon said the cedar posts, which he recently harvested, were super heavy and hard to work with since the bases were bigger than the size hole the post hole diggers or auger make.  He got a good workout wrestling these heavy posts.   

Thinking About Ayla and Peaches

I just finished reading the the Earth's Children series, by Jean Auel.  Oh, wow.  I've read the first book, The Clan of the Cave Bear, more times than I could say, and I've read the next three in the series so many times I have them practically memorized, but this is the first time I've read all six books straight through.  It is an epic story, but the writing of these books is also an anthropological achievement.  It's more than an exciting story with my favorite heroine, Ayla, it's the story of humanity, back when humanity included different species of humans.  It's a tale of adventure and love, too, but what it communicates is our collective human experience during an ice age in our past, when humans used sticks, stones, and fire, to thrive in a landscape that was harsh, a climate that was extreme, and with other life forms that were massive and abundant.  We're talking woolly mammoths and gigantic cave lions, even.  And the human species that became us, now, not only survived in that world, but created.  Tools, art, society, medicine, knowledge, spiritually, all the things that make us unique among our fellow animals on this planet, that is the story.  It's the kind of story that makes me want to write a book report, just for fun! 

I understood, as I was reading these books, that we humans are very tough and adaptable animals.  Not most of us individually, these days, but inherently we have the capability to survive and prosper in extreme conditions, with more simple technology.  I find it reassuring, and I hope that when my worries about our planet and future of our species start to creep in, I can remember that we are old.  Our ancestors thrived in world that was different than it is today, and it's likely that our species, or whatever species we become, could thrive in a world that is different too.   

So, I've been thinking about Ayla and her prehistoric adventures lately.  With over four thousand pages of adventure, it's safe to say I've been a little distracted as I immersed myself in the story.  As an animal and plant lover, I don't get bored with the descriptions of edible, medicinal, and hallucinogenic plants, or the detailed accounts of animal behavior and hunting strategies.  

Ayla lived in a time before animals were domesticated.  The animal characters in her story are tame, but they are wild animals.  They were not selectively bred.  There were no miniature goats in her world.  She didn't get to have a goat named Peaches.  That's my story!  

I'm trying not to be frustrated with myself as I consider the non-pregnant status of my dairy goat.  Brandon likes to remind me that we aren't going to starve to death if we don't have goat milk, but he's missing the point.  What kind of goat farmer can't even figure out how to get her goat pregnant!  Peaches had a visit to the vet, and she does not have any diseases (CAE or CL) that could be transferred to other goats, so it's safe for me to take her to a buck.  I did find someone with Nubian bucks for hire, but ultimately decided to breed her to my friends miniature Nigerian buck, so her kids will be smaller, but still make nice milk.  The plans were laid, the buck is on standby, but now Peaches isn't going into heat anymore.  At least not that I can tell.  Sigh.  Apparently, goats take some time off in the winter months.  I must wait until I can see signs that she is receptive, then get her to the buck within forty-eight hours.  Ayla may have had to live by her strength and wits, but she never had to analyze her goats tail wagging to determine if it was time for a goat rendezvous.  

Ants and Yard Art

March really did blow in like a lion, keeping us up all night huffing and puffing and trying to blow our house down.  You know what else arrived with the first day of March?  Ants.  I returned home from work yesterday to find a sink full of dirty dishes which were crawling with tiny ants.  Sigh.  Yay, spring is here...

But lets not focus on my terrible house keeping.  Instead, lets admire our new artworks!  An artist  and potter friend recently gave us some large ceramic sculptures, and we've been having fun finding places to display them outside.  

It's always risky to give us breakable art, since we don't have very much room to display things inside the house, and sometimes bad things happen to art displayed outside. These cool pieces survived the recent storm, and I think they make our wood pile even prettier.  

   

Seeing the completely spherical clay piece makes me want to get out the potters wheel and see if I could do that.  

This piece found a home at the bottom of the wood pile.

Brandon placed this huge clay sphere on the cut tree stump in the front yard.  The green glaze on the bottom looks good with our green door.

It's heavy, so we really hope no one (I'm talking to you, Wendigo) knocks it over.

Things are starting look a little more tidy and organized around our place these days.  It helps that the grass is starting to green.  Green is prettier than mud.  The buds on the pear tree are opening already. I've noticed that the hay I've spread around the barn to keep the animals feet out of the mud is starting to disappear, which means it's been warm enough for the decomposers in the soil to make some progress turning organic matter into the raw materials of life.   

Remember the tall ceramic totem sculpture we put up a few years ago?  It fell apart this winter.  The low temperature clay and wax wasn't strong enough to withstand the outdoors, and it fell apart.  It was cool while it lasted.  

Taking the Top Off

This morning, as Brandon and I both slumped in our chairs and stared into our coffee, one of us would occasionally moan a little and then comment on our exhaustion and wonder how we were going to make it though the day.  We hardly slept at all the whole night because the wind threatened to blow us down.  Every loose piece of house and barn was groaning and squeaking, and I could feel the loud crashes of thunder rattle the lungs in my chest.  I worried that the lightning striking so close and illuminating the windows was going to hit the house or our tree.  It was actually a relief when the rain would pound so hard on the metal roof that we couldn't hear the pieces of the farm banging and shuddering in the wind.  Around one in the morning, Brandon braved the elements by flashlight so he could move boxes of camping gear off the board over the creepy root cellar, just in case we had to quickly hide from the tornado that was being watched for.  

We were glad to detect the sunrise through the rain, and I was only a little worried that I would be struck by lightning while scratching hay from the giant bales with a pitch fork and tossing it to the goats.  The goats looked at me from their warm beds and wondered what I was doing out there, dressed in rain gear and pajamas.  Brandon left for work first, and sent me a message to let me know the creek wasn't over the road so deep that I couldn't get through and go to work.  Darn it, there goes my nap!

But, even without a nap, I wanted to tell you about they way we solved one of our long time problems last weekend.  As you may know, Brandon drives a big blue truck.  Despite my doubt that we needed such a big truck, it has proven to be one of our most useful tools.  During our years of house renovations, that huge truck bed was loaded with building supplies and tools for every work day. The truck has a big camper top over the eight foot truck bed, so it's water proof enough to haul things like artwork and goats.  The only problem is that the camper top is too heavy for Brandon and I to take off, and there are times when what we want to haul just won't fit inside the camper.  That's no longer a problem!  See those straps hanging from bolts placed in the roof of the tractor shed?    

Brandon climbed into the back of the truck, detached the camper top, and used his back and shoulder to lift the camper just enough for me to slide boards between the camper and the truck.  One board is near the cab, and a second board in near the tailgate.  He attached some bolts to the ends of the boards, and then attached the ratchet side of the ratchet strap to the board, and connected that to the long strap hanging from the roof.  

Then, all we had to do was crank the four ratchets and the camper top was lifted off the truck!

Ta-da!  We were able to fetch the giant roll of fencing that has been waiting for us at my parents house.  Brandon's spring break it coming up soon, so we'll be putting that fencing to work.  

A Greenhouse Salamander and Baby Basil

I flipped over a pile of old straw and donkey dung that's been stashed in one corner of the greenhouse, and accidentally uncovered this sleepy salamander.  At first glance, I thought he was a giant slug, so I squealed like a girl and nearly decapitated him with an angry swipe of my hoe.  Luckily for the salamander, I realized my mistake in time.  I remembered to wet my hands before I picked him up, so I didn't dry out his sensitive skin.  He was very cold, and could barely move, and I realized that he was hibernating in the center of that cold pile of straw.  A herpetologist friend tells me it's a streamside salamander (Ambystoma barbouri), which is a type of mole salamander.  I didn't want to disturb his rest, so I placed him back in the straw and flipped the pile back together.  I think this is the first salamander I've found at the farm!  I hope he eats slugs.  

I'm slowly figuring out what I want to do with the greenhouse. Weed seeds are sprouting in the warm soil, so I used the hoe to turn up the dirt in several small beds.  I think I'll leave walkways between the beds, and cover them with bedding from the goat shed, even though I know this will provide slug habitat.  I poured perlite left over from the rocket mass heater project into one of the beds that seemed to have tight clay soil, and used the hoe to mix it in.  I have plans to chicken proof the sides of the greenhouse so I can roll open the side flaps.  Until I do that, any seeds that get planted will just be chicken food if I have to open the flaps.  The recent warm weather makes me feel like I'm already behind with the garden, but then I remind myself that it's not even March yet, so I should relax.  

But then again, look how far along the weeds in the greenhouse are - dandelions are already blooming!   If I can figure out how to use the greenhouse wisely, I can see how much of an advantage it will be for growing food early and late in the season.  

The first of the herb seeds I planted have sprouted already.  Baby basil plants!  Also, a few very tiny thyme sprouts.  So exciting.

At night I place the salad boxes with the egg cartons of seeds on top of the chicken brooder, and the little chick's heat lamp keeps them from freezing.  In the morning I move the seed boxes to the table, and prop the greenhouse door open so it doesn't get too hot for the chicks.

I'm still excited each evening when I've taken care of all the animals and the sun has not set.  I walk around the gardens and flowerbeds with the dogs and make plans.  I'll never do it all, but that's okay, there's no rush, right?   

Practicing Dialogue

The leading character and the love interest...

"You want to go scratching for grains, Cogburn?"

"Sure.  What else is there?"

Mrs. Hall used her long pointed middle toe to peel back the top layer of hay, and then looked him right in the eye.  "We could search for worms in the compost pile," she said.  "There are always lots of worms to eat."

"Yes, worms.  I like worms."

"And then we could scratch in the manure pile, for dessert," she said.

"We could," Cogburn said, as he stretched one dark wing low to the ground and executed a perfect hop and skip in her direction. "But I've got a better idea."

"Squawk!"

A Flowerpot Story

I spent a few minutes recently looking at various methods on-line writers promote to encourage good writing habits.  There seems to be consensus that writing frequently, even daily, is good practice. There are websites devoted to writing challenges, and writing prompts - all with the goal of sparking the imagination so stories and ideas can flow freely from the minds and fingers of writers.   

One suggestion that popped up several times during my leisurely research, was to use a random word generator to give yourself a starting place for a story.  When I gave it a try, the word I was given was "flowerpot."

Rain's Flowerpot Story

Once upon a time, in land far, far away... well, actually, it was circa 1993, and I, a soon to be senior in high school, was in the gift shop of the amusement park called Kentucky Kingdom.  I didn't expect to have one of my greatest philosophical epiphanies while perusing the t-shirt rack after an afternoon of roller coaster rides, but you can't plan these things.  

My father's company would give tickets for Kentucky Kingdom to the employees and their families each year. It was like a company picnic, only with roller coasters.  My two younger brothers and my best friend and I, rode all the way to the park on a mattress in the back of dad's pickup truck.  The truck had a camper top on the bed, so we were comfortable back there, playing cards and looking forward to rattling our bones on rickety wooden rides.  We each had some cash to spend on trinkets and food, and when we needed more we knew to look for dad somewhere in vicinity of the beer trolley.  Good times were had by all.  

I'm getting to the flowerpot - so hang with me.  Over the summer, I'd been going to my job, driving my car, hanging out with my friends, and occasionally thinking about life after high school.  Like other teenagers,  I'm sure, I was planning my escape.  I was going to go to college, and was pretty sure that a college really far away would be good.  Somewhere cool and adventuresome.  You know, like... Wisconsin.  Whoa.    

On that day, as I flipped through the t-shirt rack, I stopped at a maroon shirt with an image of a flowerpot with three big blooms sprouting from it.  Under the flowerpot it read "Bloom Where You are Planted."  Cliche? Sure, but remember, I'm seventeen at the time and my exposure to one-liners was limited as meme's weren't yet invented.  I decided to spend my cash to buy the shirt, despite the fact that two of the big sunflower-like blooms were situated so they they fell neatly onto the peak of each breast.  

With my senior year peppered with college prep exams, campus tours, interviews, and even some information and calls from recruiters (according to the brochures, students in Wisconsin get to spend their days kayaking on gorgeous lakes with gorgeous boys wearing expensive outdoor gear, instead of going to class), and my parents pointing out the advantages of in-state tuition and the good state school only an hour and half away, it helped me to think about that flowerpot and the big blooms on my breasts.  I could just bloom where ever I got planted, right?  

I planted myself at the school in Kentucky, right next to Brandon, and we bloomed together.  I wore that shirt for so many years that it disintegrated, but I still appreciate the wisdom of the flowerpot.    

Herb Seeds in the Habitat

I still can't believe we actually have a greenhouse!  It's such a big space, I get carried away with my day dreams, but slightly intimidated by the actual use of the space.  I ordered seeds, and salvaged what was left from the mouse chewed box of seeds I accidentally stored in the barn over the winter, but when I spread out my bounty of seed packets with ideas of getting started, I can't seem to take the next step.  What is the next step?  And when do I take it?  

I decided to narrow my focus to starting some herbs in little pots, which has helped me take some action toward making plants in the greenhouse.  I have the brooder box full of baby chickens to keep me company, and this weekend, I spent a few nice hours working at a folding table, planting herb seeds.  During the day, it's bright and open inside the plastic, but it's also way too hot!  I've started propping the door open during the day, so the chicks don't get overheated.  This meant I had to scrounge up a fence panel to block the door so the big chickens and the dogs can't wreak havoc while I'm away.     

 

In years past, I've started seeds in newspaper cups, but this time, I opted for some paper egg cartons filled with seed starting mix and placed in plastic salad boxes.  If I can get any of the seeds to sprout, I might have to re-pot them into something bigger.  

Herb seeds are super tiny.  I planted sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil and even some cilantro and parsley.  Some of these can take up to two weeks to germinate, so I'll have to be patient.  Last year I bought potted thyme plants, but planted them in an area with too much foot traffic and none of them survived.  At around four dollars a pot, it was an expensive mistake.  If I can get even a few plants from some of these seeds, I'll be saving money by starting with seeds - or at least not wasting as much if I kill them.  Hopefully I'll get enough that I can share.  

I struggle to get the soil to absorb water.  Do you have this problem?  I remember this from the last time I tried this.  After carefully arranging all the little seeds, I add the water and the soil repels it, so instead of soaking the soil it washes around and makes me worry that the seeds are getting displaced.  I finally decided to just put an inch or so of water in the bottom of the plastic box and let it slowly absorb through the egg carton.  

Now that we have the greenhouse, I feel like our little homestead looks like a planetary settlement.  It's a habitat structure, right?  To control the planetary atmosphere and manipulate it for our survival.   Cool.  I feel like Matt Damon on Mars.