Lots of updates on the critters

Boy, this is going to be long. Three and a half weeks is a long time on a farm. Lots has happened.

Here we are, middle of March, and we've already had days of putting sunscreen on and using AC in the car come afternoon. Still feels weird to this Yankee.

After rain and rain and rain (6 straight weekends of rain), we finally have gotten break and have been celebrating glorious SPRING! The wildflowers are going nuts after such a wet winter, and now insanely blue skies and warm sun. The front yard is getting scraggly, and I was going to mow, but after watching one of the horses having a treat and kids picking widlflowers, I decided our old-fashioned style of mowing suits me just fine right now. :-) So I am going to bring a horse out each morning and afternoon to work on the lawn.

Our lovely niece, from upstate New York, visited for three weeks. She is a horse girl (woman! she's 20 now), has been riding since she was 9 and is very gifted with horses. She wants to be a horse trainer. She did awesome things with the horses while she was here, gaining compliments not only from Stephen and me (who are impressed with just about anything) but also from people who actually know and work horses. She was great with the kids, and a few times the three of them made treats for the horses.

Feeding the horses home-made horse cookies:



For us, it has been so helpful to get to know the horses better. We have ridden them, spent a lot more time with them, learned how to saddle them, and just generally feel more comfortable around them. To the extent that one of them has an abcess under his tail that requires twice-daily spraying for three weeks, and I am feeling fairly confident about doing this (yes, standing behind a horse, lifting up his tail and squirting his buns!)

The Horse Whisperer (our niece) left us on Tuesday. We were all very sad to see her go and hope she will come back soon.

The roosters are huge and loud and generally boorish. They have a sex drive that is insane. The whole reproductive thing for chickens is a pretty hit-or-miss affair, so the roosters compensate by doing it A LOT. Unfortunately for the hens, we bought a straight run, meaning we have roughly 30 roosters and 30 hens. These are very bad odds for the hens. We need max 1 rooster per 15 hens. So the roosters need to go. I can't believe it, but I am actually seriously considering killing a few myself, just to get started. There are so many of them, and it is really hard for us to coordinate it with Stephen's work schedule.

You may remember that when we processed the last batch of cornish-rocks, Stephen left one behind because she had a cold. Well she got better and integrated pretty quickly with the other birds. But for some reason the boys find her irresistable. A few weeks ago Stephen discovered her horribly pecked and practically dead. We nursed her inside for a while, but it seems that no matter what she is going to be attacked by the roosters. She now lives a weird life outside under the car port in a dog cage, let out only when there are people around to fend off the roosters who keep jumping on this hen hotty and ripping her scabs off her neck. Farmer Boy has named her Queen Suzanne. If she were not the one he had claimed as his special pet, she would no longer be with us. She has a sweet friend who has been named Lady Robert. Lady Robert is a RI Red hen on the smallish side, who is quite tame. The Princess carries her around for long periods every day. Molly the dog also has taken a liking to Queen Suzanne, and considers it her personal mission to run off all the roosters that approach QS... unless Molly is distracted by something else. So we do not let QS loose unless there is a human around. Here are Molly and Queen Suzanne sharing a meal:



The black stuff on Suzanne's neck is pine tar. Poor baby, it's like she has a target on her neck. Even the pine tar doesn't keep them off her.

The hens have started laying! Yippee! Since they are free range, I am positive there are lots of eggs somewhere that we are missing. I won't be surprised to some day see a mama hen waddle out with a bunch of babies. We have 30 hens, have had eggs for about 7 days, and only 9 eggs so far. I made some really slapped together nest boxes that someone has laid in once. I need to make better ones, and once the roosters are gone, close the girls in at night and let them out after sun up so that they have to start using the nest boxes. More incentive. Right now these birds are totally free range, and most eggs we find are in the dog house and in an open bag of pine shavings! If they wanted to they could all fly away in the middle of the night, but for the fact that some weird trance comes over them between 6:00pm and 4:15am. Note that this starts before dark and ends before sun up. Pretty wacky.

Here's an egg we got recently, so tiny! Next to a store-bought egg for comparison:



You know how roosters are loud? They're really loud. Under your bedroom window. At 4:15am. In stereo. Thirty of 'em. Time for chicken soup.

Um, what other critters... cattle! We hired some cowboys (really) to come and round up our cattle for us, load some to take to auction, and teach us how to worm them. Being newbies and working with poorly managed pastures which we have not had the time or money to fix, these girls have definitely gotten worms. As we move into a greater understanding of organic management practices we'd like to move away from the wormers. The stuff we chose actually is acceptable under the USDA organic beef regulations but it is still a drug.

So we sold 6 bull calves and a cow with a broken leg. We now have 6 cows, a heifer calf and a bull. I am pretty sure one of the mamas is pregnant, but they are all in rough shape due to the worms and having REALLY big calves nursing. I watched a 15 month old calf nursing off one cow a few weeks ago. In managed herds the calves are weaned at 6 months. We have zero cross fencing on the range they use, so there is zero management. After we finish the goat fencing, the next project is a cattle corral so we can begin to manage these animals better.

Here is one of the calves last November, right after a good milking session. Look at all that cream on his face!



Wednesday the guys came back and tried to load the old bull who was sick and dying. They barely got him in the trailer and then he couldn't get up again. They won't take him at auction like that. So we had to make the hard decision to kill him. :-(

There sure are some hard edges to this real life we are learning to live.

We bought a new young bull who is just a beauty. He is younger than some of the calves we sold. His youth will help keep him close and allow us to work with him to keep him gentle.

So on to goats! We have made definite progress in our strivings toard goat ownership recently. The rain has done dastardly things to our plans. Since Stephen has to keep working at his off farm job, most major farm work has to happen on the weekend, and it has rained for 6 weekends in a row. We also picked a most frightful place to put one side of the fence. Well, at least from the perspective of what is under the soil.... rocks!! Very very hard to get t-posts into a bed of rocks and clay. Stephen has been banging these 5 foot t-posts in manually. Actually, they are longer than that out of the gorund... they are 5' when they are installed. I tried to do it, and couldn't even lift the post driver over my head, on a stool. But he prevailed and as of today we have almost all the posts in that need to go in, so the hardest part is done. Now we just need to attach the wire, which should be do-able this weekend. A few days ago we visited Snowy and Sylvester, the two goats we are buying. They sure are funny looking! LaManchas are pretty unusual in appearance. And sweet as can be!

Dogs: There seems to be some inexplicable attraction of the doghouse to our daughter. A few weeks ago I was searching everywhere for her and finally found her standing on the dog house, barefoot. Yesterday I was looking for her and asked Farmer Boy where she was. "In the dog house. " Silly me.

Luke, Fred and Molly have found their peace with one another. Molly came back into heat, but Fred is just too ancient and exhausted to do anything. He must be Alpha Male, because Molly shows no interest in Luke. Since Fred is not willing to coooperate with Molly, Molly just hops on Fred and gets out her frustration.

Hank the horse stepped on Molly's paw a few days ago. She bled pretty badly at first but it didn't break. She limps every once in a while and favors it, but she can still run with the boys.

While the Horse Whisperer and I were attending to Molly's paw, I saw something odd out the kitchen window and did a double take. Here's what I saw:



Yup, that's a rooster swimming in the pool. Big oops! I like to think it went something like this:

"Ooh, maybe there's something delicious up there." Flap flap flap... "WHOAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" Splash! "Hey, what the... help! Get me out of here! Heyyyyyyy!!!"

He was cold and wet so we wrapped him up in a towel, and put him in the nice heated bathroom to dry off.

And Miss Kitty...

I didn't write about this because I didn't want to face it... our cat didn't come home. She didn't come home after she followed the kids and Stephen on a long walk to the other side of the property . That night there was a big rainstorm. Well, she didn't come home for a long time. I finally realized she was gone for good. Two weeks after we lost her, Stephen and the kids went for a walk up the road. They came to a neighbor's whom we haven't met. Somehow during the conversation S mentioned we'd lost a cat. "Is this it?" the guy asked... and there she was! She had gotten lost way up on the other side of our property, and his tom cat had found her and brought her home. The back of their land abutts ours at one place. So Snugglebug is home. :-)

Here she is at 8 weeks old:



And now:



I adore this cat!

If you've made it this far, you must be one weary traveler. If you were here I'd boil some water for a cup of spicy Good Earth tea, and we'd sit on the couch and drink tea and eat chocolate chip cookies (assuming my family has left some in the cookie jar). Since you're not, I'll just say "Cheers!" from here, and imagine you making yourself a cuppa. :-) Happy day to you!

It's a nice day here in Texas; in the seventies, and we have our windows open.

About an hour ago, I was in the office, and I heard a strange noise out front. The kids are out with Stephen, so I knew it couldn't be them (the usual source of strange noises). I look out the dining room window and see:




Yes, that is a rooster eating dog food.

And where are the dogs?






Watching him.

Guess I need to buy a different brand of dog food.

Mr. Teen Roo apparently went off to the back and had this chat with his buddies:

"Guess what I did?"
"What?"
"I went to the front."
"The FRONT!?" Young hens start to look him up and down appreciatively.
"And I ate the dogs' food!"
{{gasps}}
"They didn't chase you?"
"Nah, I'm too much rooster for them. They were too scared to bother me. Farmer lady looked out the window too, and she made a funny cackling noise, then there were lots of clicks, but she was too amazed by me to shoo me away."
"What's it like?"
"The front?"
"No, the dog food!"
"Aw, man, you should taste it... it's smoooooth."
"Come on let's do it!"
"No, you, do it!"
"Well, let's go TOGETHER!"

And so they did...

Bad Attitudes

Seems there are a lot of grouchy mammals around here today. Okay, true confession: just the horses and me. I am irritable and unmotivated, and the horses are just plain mean.

After pondering it, I think there are two things going on: the weather and physical discomfort. Almost all the horses now have rain rot, a skin fungus that causes them to lose patches of hair and must be itchy. Shows up when it is really rainy, and it has been. Of course, with rain comes no sun, and no sun for a long time apparently makes not only mamas but also horses a bit touchy.

Physically for me I am, I guess, just having a bunch of normal getting older things happening, none of which are worthy of mention really, they are just aggravating and uncomfortable. And lack of sun has always proven a problem for me. In fact, moving to Texas greatly alleviated the winter depressions I suffered in New England.

So really I suppose I am just having a pity party. ;-) Bleh! Enough of that!

Back to the horses... it has become increasingly difficult to get them into their corrals for dinner. Bunny, the mean mare, goes in readily, then no one else wants to. Can hardly blame them. Despite the fact that she has her own corral, own dish, etc, she bites at anyone who comes near the outside of her corral, which means no one wants to go in the corrals on either side of her.

Quite frankly, she scares me, but I am trying to be firm with her and not let on. It is a weird little dance I play with the horses, especially given my lack of experience managing them and the fact that I have never ever been with a person who knows what they're doing, who has guided me in handling them.

Stephen loves working with them, and whenever it works out, he does the evening feeding. He is bolder than I, and is the one who first got Quervo the donkey in a halter and put the kids on him for a little ride. This past week he has gotten a halter on all the horses except Chester, the super shy elderly horse. I'm impressed! He really wants to learn how to ride, as do I, but he is much more of a learn-by-doing kind of guy. When it comes to 1500 lb mammals I lean more toward the learn-from-someone-who-has-a-clue-and-is-standing-right-there-with-me method.

Bunny isn't the only one biting. Everyone except Cherokee has been biting each other, the donkey only in self-defense, but biting nonetheless. Poor Cherokee just runs away if he can; he is clearly low man on the totem pole. He and Quervo have very sweet dispositions.

As far as major changes to the farm (of which we have many planned) I kind of feel like we are a videotape that is either paused or occasionally set to frame-by-frame slow motion. Oh, let's be honest. This applies to minor changes as well. In a word, NOTHING seems to be getting done. This despite the fact that we get up at 5:00am and seem to be going constantly. By the time the kids are going to bed, we are often so exhausted we fall asleep with them!

Rain certainly is causing much of our slow-down. It is nastily wet and muddy here. I tried to dig holes for fruit treees, but our clay soil is now a bog, with standing water on top of it. I have been gathering leaves and buying compost and humus to mix in with the soil we will plant them in if it ever stops raining. Our own compost is too new to use directly on plants yet.

The chickens are fine. They make us laugh. I just love seeing them run around; but it sure would be nice if they would, um, "use the restroom", BEFORE they set off for a picnic lunch in our front yard. It is kind of embarassing to walk out to speak to your neighbors and realize there is a big fat chicken poop on the front walk. :-P

I have still not figured out how to put pictures up here. Anyone have any advice? I am working on a Mac if that makes a difference.

I love watching birds

Not much going on with the farm these days. It is cold and wet here, not great weather for working outside. Of course, not as cold and wet as it is in New England, where we grew up. As one brother-in-law from RI put it "I live in an igloo."

The animals are faring well despite the cold and rain. We did have one chicken die, probably from internal injuries sustained from a horse. The horses don't really notice when they step on the chickens.

The chickens we have left are not big enough to eat or lay eggs yet, so we are just feeding, feeding, feeding them. I so enjoy having them around. They are totally free range and we find them in all sorts of places. Amazingly, as far as we can tell, without exception they all pile into the chicken house each night.

One night I blocked them in to help keep the rain and wind from coming through their door (which is just an opening), and in the morning counted them as they poured out like a poultry waterfall. I was reassured, as the number I came up with seems like more chickens than we ought to have, given the number who have died at the hands of various mammals, ourselves included. So they are apparently not running off and eloping or giving themselves over to provide fine dining for the coyotes. Good news for us!

We do have a lot of songbirds coming through in large flocks these days. Just beautiful. I'm sure I'll feel differently once our garden is bearing, but right now it is enchanting to see dozens of bluebirds happily sitting in a tree in our backyard. I had never seen a bluebird until I moved here, and WOW! They are SO blue, with orange bellies. We see birds here that we had not seen before in Texas.

Because we are inside so much these days, we've been making plans to rearrange the house somewhat. This is exciting for me, as we are converting the current office into a school room, which will make managing our bajillion school projects, papers and books much easier.

We've also been enjoying visits from beloved out of town family members, and are soon to celebrate Farmer Boy's eighth birthday. Hard to believe.

Life is busy, and life is good.

Head Counting

Phew... we do keep busy here. Seems there's not much time for blogging.

Our chicken world has changed since I last wrote. All the white birds have been slaughtered except for one, who has been claimed as a pet by Farmer Boy. After a week of slowly integrating her, she now comfortably waddles through the masses of smaller chickens with the superiority of a know-it-all older sister. She had to go through a series of challenges by the teenage roosters who are busy establishing the pecking order, but by sheer bulk she has subdued them all.

A few weeks ago we spent an afternoon at the farm of our friends who, until recently, ran a commerical poultry farm. They have a state certified processing facility, and were kind enough to allow us to use it and teach us some tricks. I still have not done, or even seen, the killing, but I actually can eviscerate fairly quickly now.

Can you believe it? I can't. I have a lot of dead birds in my freezer. Big ones... up to 8.5 lbs! That's practically a turkey!

The other chickens continue to grow, and we awaken to genuine cock-a-doodle-doos every morning. We still have a few months until we get eggs.

As for dogs and chickens, to date 11 chickens have been killed by mammals other than us. The last we actually know of for sure as having been killed by a dog was on Christmas Eve.

If the courts can distinguish between murder and manslaughter, I suppose we can distinguish between canine-poultricide and equine-poultricide. One of the 11 deaths falls into the latter category, and was amusingly referred to by Stephen as "an unfortunate industrial accident".

Seems horses haven't read the books that say they shouldn't eat spoiled, poopy hay. Nor have they grasped that they should be appreciative of the fact that their grain ration is way up because it is winter and they are getting fed more than twice what they were in December. To them, food is food, and they don't hesitate to use their considerable mass to increase the size of the openings to places that harbor hidden treasures of food, like, say, the opening to the chicken house and its trove of nasty hay.

Hank the wonder horse, known around the farm for his stubbornness and extremely small personal space zone, crashed his way to the front of the chicken house, in the process knocking down our makeshift hardyplank door. It wasn't until several hours later, when Stephen went out to pick up after him, that he discovered the, er, chicken pancake.

The next day Hank knocked down the extension ladder and further damaged the door, necessitating a brand new and innovative door design hammered together as the sun set by none other than your fearless blog author. :-D It remains as our chicken house door, in all its makeshift, ugly glory.

And dogs... with Christmas came guests, freezing weather, two new dogs, and an end to canine-poultricide. Weird, eh?

I actually think this supports my theory that Molly was bored, and was just playing with the chickens. She *would* eat them, but I don't think that was her original plan, if dogs can be said to be of the planning sort.

Fred and Luke are settling in. They both very much like being here, although both were a little confused and mellow at first. Now they are annoyingly spastic, so to speak, at times, but we are managing.

Our current trial with Luke is that he got bitten by the "Let's bark at cows!" bug when his brother came to visit, and has had a terrible time restraining himself since. This is mildly annoying when it is our own cattle... it is very unneighborly when the cattle are across the street.

Fred just likes to bark. And I think he is going deaf. I have to get his attention physically and try to distract him away from whichever critter he's in the middle of haranguing. He is an ancient dog, and while well endowed with sweetness and a huge heart, very minimally endowed with brain cells. I don't think Fred is going to be with us for long, and I'd like his retirement here to be pleasant, but I simply can not have him tormenting the horses and cat. We are working on it.

So our chicken head count is going down, and our dog head count is going up. Still no goats because we still have not finished either the fencing or the repairs to the barn. We continue to be amazed by how much work there is to do, how much more time than we expect each job takes, and how little time we actually have available for farm work. We have other small matters eating up our time, like off-farm work, home schooling, and tending to the every day needs of all the critters (human and otherwise) who already live here.

I am working on planning our first gardens. I will be putting in some fruit trees tomorrow, and have picked the spot to put veggies and flowers for this year. I think I will ultimately want the garden space to be elsewhere, but with all the animals I have to find a spot that won't be trampled or eaten up. The space I have picked is the easiest to manage fencing-wise. I still have to put in some fencing, but it can just be metal t-posts and chicken wire... it's in place where it doesn't have to keep out a 2000 lb animal.

Loving Your Enemies

Today, on this day set aside in the US to honor Martin Luther King Jr, I had the privilege to read, for the first time, the following sermon on love by the great preacher:

Loving Your Enemies

I hope you will take the time to read it. It isn't just theology, it is real. Do it and your life will be transformed. Mine has been.

organic certification

So back when I was writing my thoughts on humane slaughter, I ran down a bunny trail about organic certification. The humane slaughter topic was all together enough for one post, so I clipped the organic certification bit for later posting. I read an article tonight that prompted me to pull it back up and have a go at being generally annoyed online.

What exactly is "organic certification" do you think? The USDA organic standards are actually lower than many small farms are keeping to, out of their own sense of what is right for the environment and for their families. But these farms can't afford the certification. The paper trail that is required to be kept is virtually impossible to maintain for a small operation. We are talking about people who spend 7 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, working out in their fields and with their animals. When do they have time to keep a complicated paper trail? They don't, so they have to hire someone, but they can't afford that, etc.

On top of that, many of the products that you buy in the grocery store that are labeled organic may technically be meeting the organic standards set by the USDA, but the corporations behind them are not necessarily practicing sustainable agriculture or environmental gentleness. Great, you used seaweed instead of synthetic fertilizers, but you are consuming huge amounts of fossil fuel running those big farm machines and trucking product all over the country. And just because you feed your cattle organic grain in the feedlot doesn't make being in the feedlot a great idea.

Have a look at this article on organic dairies in today's Chicago Tribune.

You might be surprised by the debates that go on in Washington about your food. Did you know, for example, that in February 2003, a modification was made to a Farm Aid bill at the last minute, allowing organic livestock farmers to feed their animals non-organic feed if the cost of organic was more than double the cost of conventional feed? And still label them organic!

Thankfully, this slipped-in modification was repealed a few months later. You can read more about it here.

Eliot Coleman, a leader in the grassroots organic movement, writes in his super cool book The New Organic Grower that really the only way to be sure of what you are eating is to know the name of the farmer who grew it.

Coleman has some thoughtful things to say about the effects of national certification on organics and the coopting of terminology.

Around here, we are partial to the phrase "sustainable agriculture". We think that does a pretty good job of summing up what we are trying to do. We want to be kind to our animals, kind to our soil, air and water, kind to our children and the many generations to come that will be left with the fallout from whatever we have done. We fervently hope that what we will leave them will be a healthier little 40 acres, and a rich heritage of living fully with God's creation.

Stephen Brown on Chicken Management

"Man to the moon? Trivial. Keeping the chickens from pooping in their drinking water... now that would be one of the great accomplishments of all mankind."

Christmas poem

Flocks feed by darkness with a noise of whispers,
In the dry grass of pastures,
And lull the solemn night with their weak bells.

The little towns upon the rocky hills
Look down as meek as children:
Because they have seen come this holy time.

God's glory, now, is kindled gentler than low candlelight
Under the refters of a barn:
Eternal Peace is sleeping in the hay,
And Wisdom's born in secret in a straw-roofed stable.

And O! Make holy music in the stars, you happy angels.
You shepherds, gather on the hill.
Look up, you timid flocks, where the three kings
Are coming through the wintry trees;

While we unnumbered children of the wicked centuries
Come after with our penances and prayers,
And lay them down in the sweet-smelling hay
Beside the wise men's golden jars.

Thomas Merton (1946)

Merry Christmas from the Goats!

This wonderful goat Christmas card got me smiling! Can you identify any of the breeds? The four "ladies" that first sing are LaManchas, the breed we are starting with.

Goat folks love their babies and go to great lengths for them. :-)

Cccccooooollllllddddd

Well, cold for us. Down into the twenties over the next few days, with a twinkling of an idea of snow on Christmas. :-) Snow is just a twinkling of an idea here all the time, so for it to converge with Christmas... essentially impossible. Or???

I mean after all, it is impossible that we are here. Insane. Who'd have thought we seaside suburbs kids would end up tending livestock on a Texas farm?

I love it here. I really do. I have a very hard time getting my buns out the door to do morning chores (cold or not... I just am a slow mover in the morning). But once I get out I don't want to come back in. Cold or not.

Today I got quite a lot done in my three forays out into the bitterness. Wrapped outdoor pipes for the freeze, emptied hoses, moved chickens, put up heat lamps, insulated walls with hay, taped windows, cleaned up building scraps around the chicken shed, fed the cattle, tended a chicken with a cold in my tub hospital, did the usual outside chicken chores several times.

The horses are now supposed to be fed every day (we had been doing it three times a week), and are getting different rations, so I now have to corral them before feeding so they each eat the right things. I haven't actually had to do it yet; tomorrow their owners will be out and I will watch the process. I do pretty well handling the horses as long as I don't have children or dogs with me.

We are heading into the last days before Christmas. Tomorrow will be filled with baking and sheet washing as we anticipate the influx of beloved company.

I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude these days. On the verge of tears, even. I doubt I can convey what I feel... a sense of profound beauty, a tangible presence of God, a certainty that I am where I am meant to be right now. I don't know that I have ever felt this so deeply. The underpinning is the rock solid foundation that God is trustworthy. I of little faith did not ask for proof, per se, but it has been given to me over and over and over.

Dogs, dogs and more dogs... and goats!

If there were a Chickenholics Anonymous, our dog would stand up and say:

"My name is Molly, and I have a problem. I like to chase chickens and kill them. My owners abhor this. I know they do, and I hate to make them upset, but I just can't seem to help myself."

She has now killed three.

Stephen has killed two.

I have saved one.

We need the odds stacked better.

Oddly enough, it seems like we are stacking them against ourselves shortly, by accepting delivery of two more dogs who have never lived with chickens.

Elderly Fred, my parents' dog, is coming at Christmas to live out his golden years on the farm. He is a tremendously sweet, thoroughly daft, black lab and something, maybe chow. A mutt stray who showed up at their house 10 years ago and fell in love with my dog Lucy. The two of them lived together (they were miserable when apart), going back and forth between our house and my parents' until last December, when Lucy died at almost 14. Lucy is buried up in the big pines. It took Fred quite a while to get over her death. He wouldn't eat for days. He really never has gotten back to his old self, actually.

Luke will be coming after New Years. He is a beautiful Australian Shepherd whose family had to move to an apartment. He is miserable there and loves his visits here. He has a very strong natural herding instinct with the cattle, and is very responsive to commands. He has received extensive obedience training.

You may be thinking, "She says FRED is daft? They have a problem with the dog and chickens and they are getting MORE dogs?"

Well, it might not be the perfect timing, but I don't exactly control the universe. These two dogs need homes now, and we think this would be a good place for them. In addition, we ARE going to fence the dogs out of the chickens. Which really means fencing the chickens in, but we are working on ideas for doing that portably so that the chickens can continue to range in fresh grass daily.

Stephen and I are going to spend the week after Christmas fencing (hooray!), and renovating the area of the barn that will be for the goats.

Goats!! Yes, goats! The long awaited goats are hopefully coming to their new home in January. I've made arrangements to purchase two purebred LaMancha does. One cycled this month so their current owner brought them to breed at another farm with a LaMancha buck. Rosie did breed, but tragically, died suddenly the next day from unrelated problems. Her sister, Snowy, is staying there until she cycles in the hopes that she'll breed this year. If she gets pregnant, she will kid in May. So we will have milk in June!

Since Snowy will no longer have the companionship of her sister, I have decided to purchase the wether ("fixed" male) that Snowy and Rosie grew up with. Sylvester will obviously not give milk, but he will serve an important purpose... keeping Snowy happy. Goats are very social and are miserable when alone.

I actually think this is a big part of the problem for Molly. Imagine... you grow up on a farm with your best buddy. He gets you pregnant. You have a nice litter of puppies. They get big enough and one by one they get taken away from you. Then your owners move, taking your best buddy, and leave you with people you don't know and just one of your pups. Two weeks later your pup is hit by a car and dies.

I think Molly is lonely, and I think she is bored. She is still pretty young and very playful. I suspect she is herding the chickens when we are away, a natural instinct she has whenever she sees anything run. She nips at them, just as she would at a cow's leg to herd it, and actually breaks skin. Then she either eats it because it is too tasty to resist, or plays with it until it is dead. Two of the chickens she killed have been dismembered. The one I found today was whole, and had been dead for quite a while, so perhaps she did her best to restrain herself once the deed was done? I don't know. It really is an awful sight, these poor birds.

But I don't cry about it any more. My feelings like that have turned to people. I have been thinking so much about the huge number of people so much less fortunate than we are, in such dire circumstances. Well, that is food for another post, but it has been weighing heavily on my mind.

Our chicken babies aren't babies any more

The chickens are all growing, including Trill who has reintegrated with her playmates. She is afraid to come out of the chicken house/shed, due to the dog, but the other chickens seem to have accepted her. She is significantly smaller than the rest, and her hop makes her stand out, but so far it looks like she is going to be okay. Of course in the chicken world things can change very fast.

We had a crazy freeze. Dropped from the 50's or so to the teens, and back up to the low 40's in about a 15 hour period. I did my best to protect the chickens, and everyone survived. Thankfully they are all pretty big and well-feathered, and have the advantage of each other's body heat.

The most frustrating thing about the chickens these days is not the chickens, it's the horses. Since moving the trailer into the back, the horses have become much more interested in our comings and goings. It took several attempts before we found a horse-proof location for the fat-boys' feeder (under the axle of the trailer). We've kept the other chickens' food in the shed for just this reason.

Nevertheless, come sundown each day I was confronted with trying to catch 22 chickens assisted by Farmer Boy, while Molly randomly barked at 5 horses and a donkey whose noses were in my... well, they were VERY close. Add to that The Princess shouting at Molly to stop barking, and we had a recipe for disaster. A few of the horses are not very even tempered, and even the calm ones can get spooked. A horse is not light, exactly. They scare EACH OTHER when they kick, imagine how I feel with my precious children exposed!

One evening, the boy left the gate open and the horses got on the lawn. Stephen managed to lure most of them back with some horse feed, but it took so long the sun set. It wasn't until morning that he realized he hadn't closed the barn. 150 lbs of horse feed had been eaten and scattered throughout the barn.

The only thing we can absolutely count on is that one animal or another is going to be somewhere or eat something that he or she oughtn't. It's merely a matter of who and where. And when. Now is usually the most reliable choice.

So I moved the trailer back into the yard, but not really the part we use as a yard. It is within the same fenced apart area, but away from the house in some bushes... an area that may some day be a garden anyway. We no longer have to catch the birds because we can lure them with their food. With the horses around this was not an option. It is a much more civilized way to manage chickens! You'd be surprised how difficult it can be to catch a waddling obese chicken.

The smaller birds are now set up to have free access day and night to the outdoors. I love to look in the back yard as the sun rises on birds happily pecking in my grass. They are a beautiful sight. They almost all go in at night on their own. Managing them has become so easy.

Humane Slaughter and Factory Farming

We ate the chicken. It was delicious. Farmer Boy said it was the best chicken he's ever had. At which Stephen said, "So I take it you've changed your mind about becoming a vegetarian?" Apparently the sight of the chicken's death had temporarily had him considering becoming a vegetarian again (he was until he was almost four).

So, as promised, my thoughts on raising animals for slaughter...

Let me start by saying I haven't eaten lamb since I was seven. I stopped then because I couldn't bear the idea of such a sweet little creature being sacrificed for my dinner.

I became a vegetarian when I was 20 and remained one for 11 years. When I did start eating meat again it was for health reasons, and was a rather agonizing decision that involved a lot of prayer.

I have always loved animals, and I find myself talking at great length with our animals and calling them "honey" and "sweetie". Yes, even the chickens.

So killing them for dinner?

When I did start eating meat again, I made a promise to myself that I would never forget that it was a real animal that I was eating, and that I would remember to be thankful for the life of the animal. I bought whole chickens to help myself grasp this. Despite the fact that it is missing a significant number of parts that make it look like a live chicken, a whole chicken at the grocery store is a lot more obviously an animal than a styrofoam package of boneless breasts.

So number one: I do know I am eating an animal.

Number two: While it appears that animals were not eaten before Noah's time, after that they have been. I also know that my body (and mind) function so much better now that I have meat in my diet. I know that God provides for our physical needs, and I believe that animals are part of this. I suspect heaven will be like the Garden of Eden, no one eating each other. But what do I know? I am a romantic. I imagine all creatures living in harmony. Here, we simply aren't. And when all is said and done, I will choose to eat meat and be a more coherent mother to my children than abstain and be in a fog all day like I used to be.

And number three, to which I have only recently come: If you eat meat, you should not eat factory meat. From a human perspective it far less helathy for consumption (high rate of contamination, lots of medications given due to crowded unsanitary conditions causing unnatural rates of disease, etc). From a humane perspective, well it just isn't. Plain and simple, factory farming is cruel. There is a complete disregard for the welfare of the animals... the only value considered is the bottom line. If you don't believe me, google "factory farming" and prepare to be horrified. It just might turn you into a vegetarian.

You have probably seen The Meatrix. If not, take 10 minutes and learn some new things... it is well worth the time. It is pretty tame, no actual photos; it's a cartoon.

So my personal goals, as a farmer raising animals for slaughter, are:
1) to provide the healthiest and happiest life an animal could hope for, in a farm setting, which to me includes lots of sunshine, good food, safety, no junk, and us genuinely loving being with them and demonstrating that to them
2) to practice the most humane methods of slaughter we can find

Okay, so that's me. But I live on a farm, we do raise animals for our own meat. We know what they eat, where they live, if they've been sick, who's tops in the pecking order, etc. What about you? Do you eat meat? Live in the city? Want to eat humanely raised meat?

I have ideas for you! :-) For starters, you can buy from us! ;-) Well, eventually. But really, support your local farmer. This is far more important than I ever grasped, not just for farmers, but for the future of the world as we know it. Look for a farmer's market in your area, or a consumer supported agriculture (CSA) farm. If you have neither, ask at your local health food store about the farms that they buy from. Check out this website that has lots of links to help you find local food:

Sustainable Table's Shopping Guide

I challenge you: the next time you walk into a grocery store, look around and think about this: Someone, somewhere had to grow everything in front of you. Who did it, and where? Kinda freaky, eh?

The deed is done

And completely without my presence.

Stephen came in with a bird that looked like it was from the grocery store. Not that it WAS completely... he spent the next hour "eviscerating" it... gutting it, basically.

Farmer Boy said it was awful and he doesn't want to watch again.

The Princess said she would watch it again.

Oy.

A friend of Stephen's showed up unexpectedly, which granted a stay of execution for the remaining three birds slated for the chopping block. So I have yet to see the deed done.

I have, however, cried a lot today. Working through this emotionally is a bit harder than intellectually, evidently. Thankfully, my family is wonderful and not expecting any more of me than I can handle.

Farmer Boy and I discussed it later. We both agreed that we are good at caring for the animals, but not so good at the killing part. After talking about how different people are made in different ways and able to do different things, he said, "I think I would be good at being a vet, but you're too tender."

I suppose the fact that I cried and cried when Trill was attacked was an indication to him. ;-) My natural ability for empathy is perhaps being pushed a little hard here in the life-and-death world of farm animals.

The dead bird is currently cooking in my oven for dinner. Maybe I am getting a harder heart.

The Moment of Truth

The moment of truth is at hand. Stephen is about to kill four of our chickens. I have spent the last week or so thinking it all through, and intellectually have come to resolution on it. Obviously emotionally I still have a steep mountain ahead of me, as I am sitting here crying.

My children on the other hand were both eager to go out and participate. Do I feel like a schmuck or what? When the Princess said she wanted to go, I wanted to make sure she understood what was happening.

"Do you know what Papa is going to do?", I asked.

"Yes, kill them, maybe with a hammer?", the Princess answered.

"Well, a knife," I said.

"And then we will eat them," Papa said.

"But not the feathers," she said.

She gets it.

Last night the boy and I had to pick out some for today. It was not hard picking the biggest and healthiest looking ones, but it was hard putting them in their separate housing for the night. I talked to one as I went, thanking it for helping sustain our lives, and wishing I had provided a better life for it here. When I told Stephen, he pointed out that our chickens *have* had a better life than most chickens, and that is true. But I want to make it better still.

My kids are definitely more cut out, naturally, for farm life than I am. I think I would be good at running some kind of small animal sanctuary. Taking care of Trill (yes, after everyone agreed our rescued bird is now my pet, I felt free to name her), I am reminded that I am good at these nurturing kinds of things. But the chaos of a farm and lots of big animals and predators and slaughtering... ugh. Once again, God is getting a chance to be glorified because the only way I am going to manage this is in His strength, not mine.

Farmer Boy told me last night:

"I think I will have to quit school soon."

"Why?" I aked.

"Because there is so much work to do on the farm."

Of course I negated that idea (quitting) post haste. But really, I don't know what I would do without him. He is a genuine help. He can control the horses better than I can, he is not afraid to catch a big rooster, he is strong and brave about slaughtering the chickens. He is seven.

I am a wuss.

I will post what I've written about the intellectual part later today... and let you know how we fared with the actual slaughter.

{{{deep breath}}}

Out I go.

Chickens, gardens and fences

The white hen that Stephen brought in on Saturday died Sunday morning. She was looking awful when I got up, and wouldn't take any water. I knew then that she would not make it. An hour or so later, as I was coming in from checking the outside chickens, I heard mad flapping... she was in the process of dying, poor thing. The final moments were mercifully short, then Stephen buried her, well away from the house and garden areas, with rocks on top to discourage any critters from digging her up. In the afternoon he burned a pile of brush and included the boxes she had been in. We used the opportunity to clear some land for the gardens.

In the late afternoon I decided some of the woody weeds looked just the right diameter for roosts, so I nailed together some makeshift roosts for the shed. It made me so happy to look in later and see hens up there!

Today I moved and cleaned out the trailer our lost hen and the other big birds have been in. They all seem so much happier to be able to be out all day. I don't blame them! Some of the roosters are getting quite the bright red combs. It makes me happy to see them pecking around in the grass. I want to make their lives with us enjoyable and fulfilling. For a chicken, that means food, clean water, a clean place to sleep, sunshine and protection from predators. As simple as that seems, it can be tough to provide all of those things. They sure poop a lot!

Amazingly enough, I can start planting in about a month, so I am feeling an increasing urgency to get the soil ready. I have picked where I will put in the cut flower garden and the vegetable garden. Now I need fencing. Our endless refrain.

I am hoping the big birds will help till up my vegetable garden, and the little birds my flower garden. I am dreaming up ways to move them slowly through the areas we need tilled. This will involve more fence. I want to do it for nothing (using what we have here), but moveable sturdy fencing is not simple. That's why it costs A LOT if you buy it.

Fencing, fencing, fencing. What would I do if I won the lottery? Pay someone to put in all the fences I want, and renovate the barns!

And get a sheep to mow the lawn; a goat (or 100) to eat the browse, milk and generally make me happy; and a pig to REALLY till the ground (that's what their snouts are made for! Honest!). Oh, and a "swift and strong pony" for Farmer Boy. :-) Never heard of a swift pony? That's okay. He wants one for his super hero deeds, so I am sure that all that superness will rub off on the pony and "swift-ify" it. :-) It's tops on his wish list today.

Our little injured RI Red hen is still alive, and very alert. Last night (Sun) she flew out of the box. It was very hard for her, and painful, I think. We got her a bigger box so she has more places to hop and fall (poor baby). I caught her looking intently at me during dinner. I think she is lonely. :-( It is supposed to be nice tomorrow so we may take her outside to sit in the grass and sunshine for a while. I'll confess I am feeling anxious about her. I have become quite attached, and I fear that her future is not bright. So much of the muscle on her leg is exposed. I fear that her whole leg is going to just die off. I am definitely in danger... I am thinking of naming her. We have a rule on the farm: no naming anything you might end up eating. I do not want to eat her. I just hope she is really a she, as all evidence suggests, and that she will be a happy little egg layer.

Stephen tells me I should not keep you (and him!) in suspense about my thoughts on slaughtering. I think he pesters because the time is at hand. Alas, you will have to remain in suspense, because this is already long and it is already late. :-)

Midnight chicken drama

Oy! I had barely had enough time to post that picture when the drama started up again. I heard a chicken distress call and thought it was one of our invalids, but realized it was coming from the back yard. Turned on the light and both Molly (dog) and Snugglebug (cat) were playing with another RI Red. He was not hurt thankfully (by the call, I'm pretty sure this one is a he).

With the dog and cat distracted by the door opening, he went under the back steps, under which grows poison ivy... one of only two spots I've found on the entire 40 acres. We put the dog and cat in the laundry room and I coaxed the bird out and put him back in the shed along with about 10 others who had decided to sleep outside. As I was out there it started to rain.

In case you are wondering, chickens have a brain the size of a pea, and it works about that well. Once it is dark, you can do just about anything to them. They peeped a bit at me and stretched when I picked them up, but no alarm calls. I had to force them to move inside the shed, because they would sit down right inside the opening, and wouldn't move in. It is actually a common problem for chickens to smother because they pile up on each other in the dark.

Of course I noticed my right hand brushing poison ivy while I was actually touching it. I have bathed my hand in diluted bleach (I know, I know, but for Pete's sake, my RIGHT hand... I do not have time for poison ivy!). Now I'll probably end up being pregnant... the last time I used bleach like this was 8 years ago and shortly thereafter found out I was pregnant with Farmer Boy. I do of course understand that it was not cause and effect! :-) But being a first time pregnant person I naturally freaked out about the fact that I had soaked my poison ivy exposed legs in bleach not knowing I was pregnant.

I suppose I ought to get some sleep. Chickens and dogs don't seem to have a sense of civilized hours for drama.

New picture

In honor of the birds who are getting so much air time, I have changed the photo. You'll note that the fat boys (and girls) are doing what they love best... eating and drinking!

Chicken hospital

Seems I've taken up chicken nursing. Just walked out to the laundry room and saw that Stephen had brought another chicken in for care. She is a hen (one of the "fat boys") who is going to need some extra garlic and cayenne. She seems to have a cold. Chickens get respiratory illnesses easily in wet conditions, and we've had lots of "wet" here. Several of the Cornish Rocks are sneezing, but she seems weak as well as snuffly.

Today we are going to try to figure out different living quarters for them as the trailer has gotten too small to comfortable hold them, poor things. Hard to believe that 100 chicks had oodles of room in there, but 24 six week old birds are cramped.

The bird caught by the dog is improving. She is still having trouble with her leg, but is alert and eating and drinking very well. She has come to really trust me and lets me stroke her. I think she will have to be in for quite a while, at least until the ripped area is scabbed over. Even then, I worry that the other birds will peck at her, so we will have to play this by ear.

Update on injured chicken

Our hurt bird made it through the night. I got her (him?) to drink a bit of water last night, which definitely increased her alertness. She wouldn't eat. I tried to clean her up with mild soap and water, but the best time for doing that had long passed. I swabbed some homeopathic calendula on the wounds, because it was what I had. I really wish I had some comfrey leaves right now to make a poultice. I will definitely be growing comfrey; it is an amazing healer.

This morning she drank a LOT of water, but still refused food. I put a touch of blackstrap molasses in the water and she guzzled more, even peeped. Then she moved around the box a little, so I offered her some food and she ate it all! Hooray!

Her side is clearly bothering her. She has a hard time putting weight on the affected leg. I suspect she will never grow feathers on her left side because I think I am looking at muscle, not skin.

Saving her to what I end, I wonder. If she is a hen, she may be able to live a relatively normal life, although she will likely be at the bottom of the pecking order, and will have reduced ability to escape predators. I don't think she'll be able to fly. If she is a he... wow, I don't know. I think it might be hard to do all the things roosters do with the kind of restrictions this bird will likely have. Time will tell.

I have learned a great deal about alternative emergency animal care in the past 15 hours. I will do some things differently next time, like cleaning up the wound immediately. I also now have a better idea of what I'd like to have on hand for emergency first aid for our animals.

I have also begun to actively process, emotionally, the raising-animals-to-eat thing. I have a lot of thoughts on this, so I will save it for another post.

Drama with chickens

Molly, our dog, is a herding dog. Australian Shepherd, maybe with some Blue Heeler (also called Australian Cattle Dogs). Very intelligent breeds, very strong herding instinct. Molly, not so much instinct, but she's getting there. She is very protective of me, in particular, and is excellent at herding everything away from me. This is not necessarily the direction I am hoping for of course.

We have begun letting the chickens out to range around. They are old enough and sturdy enough now, and hopefully big enough that the chicken hawks will ignore them (wishful thinking). Their presence in the yard has been a source of endless temptation for Molly. In addition to the now easy access to warm bodies that she can chase, there is the lure of the chicken feed, which apparently is delicious... the dog, cat, horses and donkey, as well as the chickens, find it quite delectable.

So Hank the horse dumped the feeder when it was on the ground out of the chicken house. And Molly dumped it when it was in. Stephen rigged up a tiny door, big enough for chickens to come and go, and small enough for Molly to be prevented from going in. This works for keeping Molly out, but oddly, the chickens seem less interested in coming out (at least today).

About 20 of them were out this afternoon, however. We were getting ready to go into Austin for our monthly food coop pick-up and trip to Whole Foods and Costco. We had let "the fat boys" (the Cornish-Rock broilers) out in the front, so rounded them all back up by hand as their "house" does not have a door (it's a trailer).

We checked on the other birds back in the shed, filled water and feeder, and saw there were a few birds out, so I left the door open figuring they would go in when it got dark. We loaded up our coolers to go, but as I got in the truck to drive off, Farmer Boy shouted "Mama! Molly has a black bird!"

Sure enough, across the yard was Molly with a dark bird in her mouth. I shouted her name and started running toward her and she dropped it, then dropped on her back with that guilty look on her face. The poor bird (a RI Red it turns out) looked like someone had decided to get some boneless breast without killing her. I burst out crying.

What to do? I was just going to make my first appointment if I'd left when I was getting in the truck. The bird was alive, but should it be? Should I put it out of its misery? I really had no idea what to do, but I had to do something.

After conveying my displeasure to Molly (if anyone knows how to train a farm dog... HELP!) I ran into the house, crying, found a box, filled it with pine shavings, cried some more, got some gloves, said a bad word, cried and ran back to the bird. Farmer Boy had come out of the truck and was standing over the bird keeping Molly away from her.

I put her in the box and carried it into our bathroom, putting her in our chicken hospital (our non-functioning tub). I gave her a little food and water, and hoped for the best. Yes, I did say a prayer for her. She is one of God's creatures after all.

Then I cried some more.

But there was no time for being emotional, so I cried as I ran to the back yard to figure out what on earth to do with the other chickens. We gathered up the ones we saw and put them in the shed, and just as we were about to leave discovered a big lump of them all settled down for a nap in a toasty patch of sunshine, on the other side of the fence. There were too many of them to catch, so again, praying for the best, we left.

And when we returned 6 hours later, the injured bird was still alive, and there were only 5 birds still outside. No sign of carnage, so I am assuming the others did as I'd hoped and hopped up the ramp back into the shed at dusk. We popped the remaining birds in and closed them up for the night.

Now I am off to research healing this bird...

Storms and weeds

We have been having an ongoing battle with the weather here. We received so much rain last week that the Colorado River flooded. We are far enough away that the flooding did not affect us, but we had to miss our weekly homeschool park day as the town park was completely submerged. If we had been sitting where we parents usually do to chat, our heads would have been under water.

Around the farm the impact has been felt. I found myself out under the carport several days, building berms and digging ditches as the water rose. No water in the house, but a lot under the carport. We clearly have some landscaping to do to fix this issue. Gutters will help too.

The shed was not finished (still isn't). The tar paper tore off in places, and a lot of rain made it into the building. Amazingly, not one chicken has been lost since those first two chicks the first days. All the rain made it impossible for Stephen to finish when planned because it was either raining or everything was too wet to shingle. And just when it finally dried enough, he hurt his back.

Did I mention Snafu Farm as a name?

The wood all throughout the house swelled. Drawers stuck, doors stuck.

The cat was irritated by the rain, the dog didn't really care except when her dog house flooded and the little raised area in front of the house was soaked. We let her in, even though she doesn't really like to be in the house. The cattle didn't care either, because they had just gotten a nice big round bale of top quality hay. They just stood with their backs to the rain and ate.

At the tail end of the storms, as the cold front pushed it all out like a steam engine, we had vicious winds. Texas weather is rarely gentle. The winds brought down a good number of dead tree limbs, which turned out to be handy. With the cold weather we started using our fireplace regularly so had a great supply of firewood in the front yard. It's all gone now... we have to go back into the woods to get more.

I keep marvelling at how much abundance there is here already. We have our own cedar, which is a fabulous wood for pest repelling and an excellent choice to use instead of pressure treated lumber becuase it is slow to rot. We will use a lot of the downed cedar for fence posts since they'll be in direct contact with the ground. We'll also cut them for Christmas trees and wreaths. We have copious amounts of mesquite, good for smoking. Both mesquite and cedar are considered pest trees... weeds of sorts. Amazing what blessings weeds can bring.

When I was pregnant and almost due the second time, I kept a miserable rash at bay by daily eating dandelion leaves at lunch in my salad. They are a very effective liver detoxifier. Plantain, another common lawn weed, is a remarkable bug bite easer and has other healing properties. Jewelweed, which grows where poison ivy grows, is a natural antidote to poison ivy rashes.

As I write this, I am thinking about other storms and weeds in my life. The storms in the last weeks crashed through our lives, making us stop and settle in close to each other, they cleaned up the dead limbs and filled our ponds and soil with life giving water. The common weeds that so many consider a nuisance can bring healing and beauty (and tasty bacon!).

The emotional storms that crash through my life are inconvenient just as the weather we have had, but I do see that they clear out and make fresh, when I ride them out in my Father's hand. I pray that He will help me to see what I see as weeds, in a new light, and find their beauty and usefulness, even if it is to pluck them and use them to heal.

I've opened the door a crack

Here's what I've gotten from The Big Guy so far:

LAUGH! Have a sense of humor!

BE THANKFUL. So half your coffee spills while you're driving in the rain at night. You still have half left, and didn't get in an accident! Hooray! Reread the essay you wrote last year about being thankful.

HAVE FUN. When things are at their worst, turn up the music and dance with the kids. Just be silly for no reason.

TRUST ME. Just when your business account is not going to have enough money to pay for your monthly expenses next month, I'll bring you two big orders. Just a little reminder that I have not set you adrift.

Oddly enough, I have heard all these messages before. Many times. I did mention that I have a thick skull, right? :-)

Patience

I have to keep reading 1 Corinthians 13 lately. My kids are driving me bonkers. And I'm not really taking all the farm mishaps in stride (note the comment on cursing in the previous entry). So I keep pulling out my bible to try to remember what love is.

Well, love is "patient". Among other hard to manage things... like "not easily angered".

Upon reflection I realized that I am currently living through the time in my life when I have been least patient. Yikes.

The things that try my patience appear to be endless. Bickering kids; an easily frustrated 3 year old whose first line of defense against the trials of her life is to scream at the top of her lungs; animals that are driven by their stomachs and not their sense of what might be convenient to, say, ME; poop everywhere, crumbs galore, endless mud and dirty laundry; rain that insists on falling at the wrong time; brooder lamps that break when you crack your head into them; etc, etc, etc.

Something is afoot. My feelings and behavior are not meshing with my beliefs. When this happens it usually means that God is knocking hard on the door that is my thick skull, with a message. I'll have to get back to you when I screw up the courage to open the door...

A good day on the farm

We got a lot done today. One would not think that moving cattle and chickens would make one feel like a success in life, but if you haven't done it before, you find yourself feeling rather self-satisfied.

The shed, while not quite finished, was declared to be chicken-ready after sunset the night before last. It did not yet have a door, but had plastic sheeting firmly in place. At least firm on the top and side, but open enough for us to get in and out. Us, and our dog and cat, not to mention the coyotes and bobcat that have been spotted in these parts. In addition we needed to hang the brooder lamp, and put plastic on the window opening. I needed to buy the chain for hanging the lamp, so we weren't ready to actually do the work until today.

First I had to move the cattle. The sound of the plastic shed "door" reminds them of the sound of a bag of delectable cubes being opened for their dining pleasure, and they had been rather cozy yesterday when I had gone into the shed to see how much chain I needed. Molly had been with me, and she spent the whole time I was in there barking and herding them away. They still were right outside the door when I came out. So I knew we could not be going in and out moving chickens, with cattle hovering, and little kids on the loose.

So I drove the truck - pulling the trailer filled with cubes, stuff to go the barn and the chicken feed - down to the barn courtyard. I poured a bag of cubes into the grass, and let the eager cattle through the gate. The horses were standing there wanting to get in on the action as well, so I had to close the gate before all the cattle got through, in order to keep the horses in. I drove in quickly, fed the horses, then tried to round up the other cattle. I got a cow through, but the remaining three calves just wouldn't go, so I gave up. Then, realizing it was going to be too much to try to maneuver a truck and 16' trailer backwards (my only option to get the chicken feed back to the shed), the kids and I grabbed a few of the small things we needed to do our work and walked up to the shed. The calves mostly stayed away, except the bigger one whom Molly bullied a few times.

I was in the shed trying to figure out how to attach screen to the window opening that was 1/2" wider than the screening, when I got a funny feeling. I looked out and it seemed the horses were mighty interested in our trailer. Most of it was hidden from view by the barn... aack! The chicken feed! The other bag of cubes! Sure enough, they had gotten into both. And this after I had fed them a generous portion of sweet feed!

I'm embarassed to say I think I have cursed more since moving here than during Farmer Boy's entire life (the point at which I really upped my efforts to speak like a lady).

So I ran back to the barn, shooed the horses away, moved the broken bag of cubes to the barn, and dragged the VERY heavy metal can of chick feed up to the shed, then through the gate into our back yard, where the lid can not be reached by any large mammals other than humans. I hope.

Back to work in the shed... attached the lamp, pulled in and configured the extension cord set-up, spread around the wood shavings, constructed a make-shift wooden door. I also popped the window into the frame, which was easier than stapling screening and plastic, and is a real window with a real screen. Stephen will have to eventually get it in right, but for now it works great.

At last we really were ready! The boy and I grabbed some gloves and emptied a Rubbermaid tub of outside toys, then started loading up birds. We did it by breed so we could finally get a definite count of how many we have of each. When we had put them in the brooder the first day, we'd had a really hard time keeping track of the count as we were unloading, and it is darn near impossible to count moving chickens.

In relatively little time we were done. The 25 Australorps, 26 Buff Orpingtons and 26 Rhode Island Reds are now safely in their new shed, and the Cornish Rocks have the whole brooder to themselves. It was dark when we were finishing up. Everything takes so much longer than you expect! I think it took about 4 hours to do all this.

I feel so accomplished!

Who I voted for

My post about the boy's ideas for election reform have garnered a few questions. If you really want to know who I voted for, just ask. But more importantly, here's who I WANTED to vote for:

Joe Schriner

Silly, uninformed, doesn't watch tv, busy homeschooling, moving and now farming me. I thought a write-in candidate was someone you wanted for president and could WRITE IN. What a big fat dumbhead. A write-in candidate is someone who has been approved to be a write-in candidate. Nice.

Where I live I COULD have actually written in Joe's name, because I voted by filling in an oval with a pencil. But my ballot would have been discarded. Where my parents live, there wasn't even an option to write in someone's name to be discarded, because it was all levers and buttons. There was a selection of so-called "write-in candidates".

I have no concept of how the electronic voting works. I haven't talked with anyone who has done it. You realize of course that the very technology we want to use is now dictating how our governmental process works. Scary.

Now that I understand, I am going to work to get Joe on the ballot in Texas in 2008. He's already running. I really admire this guy.

P.S. Please excuse rampant abuse of prepositions in this post. They are dangling everywhere. If only we could get our government to limit their abuses to such as this...

Happy Party

We had a great time at the party yesterday. It was, well, chaotic to say the least. Lotsa kids and chicks (the avian type) running around, lots of laughing, lots of plastic beads scattered on the floor during a craft project, not enough forks, cake iced by my sister-in-law and her mom DURING the party, beer arrived after the guests, unsupervised kids with horses (aaack... that was nipped in the bud quickly!), general mayhem and fun.

I told my brother beforehand, "It's a good thing my friends and family don't love me for my organizational skills." He replied, "Don't worry, Pat, we never have." "And you never will!" I answered. :-)

While I hope that is true - I'd rather people love me for who I am, not what I do - I would like to grow in this area. Once again my inability to be organized was highlighted in a dramatic fashion. We did still have lots of boxes against the walls (in every room), my mom was sweeping the floor a few minutes before people arrived, and I had to have a lot of help to get the food on the table... an hour later than I'd planned. I have this idea that other people would have been unpacked and more prepared, so I wonder what it is about me? Is it because I want to do all the cooking from scratch? Because I wanted to have crafts and activities? Because I rarely have a moment without kids interrupting me? Because I procrastinate? Dingdingding! Correct answer! Well, at least partly. The other stuff does play in as well.

Anyway, enough dwelling on that, gotta just get up and walk on and unpack and organize, etc, etc. Just jump in where I am. :-) Got a lot of work to do... off I go...

Gleaning from the snafus

So remember how I wrote about worrying about people getting hurt? And that Stephen seems to be the one on the receiving end of the pain?

This afternoon I came home from the Farmer's Market and Wal-Mart (should it be legal to write those two in the same sentence? My loathing of Wal Mart shall be saved for a different post), and found the chicken brooder wide open. No husband or son in the back yard working on the shed. Bad feeling.

Open the door, shout Stephen's name, he answers, rather weakly, and I say "Are you okay?" "Mostly," is the reply.

So I walk in, find him lying on the couch, he has hurt his back, and hammered his thumb three times. He is stoic about it. He grudgingly puts a bag of frozen corn on his thumb and asks "Why are you always trying to make me feel better?"

Mostly I think he is sick and tired of all the setbacks on the shed. And he is DEFINITELY sick and tired of hardy plank. He told me that he has become convinced that after Satan's incarnation as a serpent in the Garden of Eden, he became hardy plank. Stephen even composed a song about hardy plank, and how it is the source of all his problems. He recorded it on his laptop. Maybe I'll see if we can that up on the blog. It is a thing of beauty.

This morning I'd joked that we might name the farm, or at the very least the shed, "Snafu." Snafu Farm. Snafu Shed. Snafu Chicken House. ;-)

The big snafu for me, now, is that we are expecting an ever expanding list of guests tomorrow; my house is 1/3 put away, 1/3 in boxes, and 1/3 strewn on the floor; I am baking a monstrous flower cake as requested by the princess, spaghetti sauce from scratch and the other assorted preparation one must do for such things; I'll need to to supervise the farm chores so that Stephen does not further injure his back; I've got a bunch of craft projects and activities to set up for the party, not to mention decorating; and everyone except my brother and his wife are coming for the first time to the fabled and long-awaited Brown Family Farm, so are expecting the grand tour. Deep breath

Here's the thing: I AM SO HAPPY HERE!!! :-) Really! I am not the world's most organized person, so my house is a mess, but I am a person who really likes the fact that she has to put on her boots at 9:00 at night and go out and check on the chickens. And when I do, the beauty of the stars makes me catch my breath. No eclipse, no shooting stars, no Mars glowing red. Nothing special, just the dark night and the stars, like most people over the course of time in all the world have been able to see, but most of us only get to see on a ski trip to some tall and remote mountain. We have gained so much in these years, but indeed, we have lost much too.

When I was pregnant for the first time, and we were exploring the possibility of a home birth, Stephen observed what an odd thing it is that people would choose in advance to dull the experience of perhaps one of the most pivotal moments of their life. That has stuck with me, the notion of living life as a flat line... by avoiding the lows, we somehow restrict the highs.

We are so afraid of pain, of loss, of the unknown. I am basically a fearful person. But I believe I am a recovering fearful person. Part of it is because I have had to face some fears by them coming true. I discovered that I am stronger than I thought, that God is bigger than I understood, and that the saying "If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger" is actually true.

All this philosophizing isn't getting my house any cleaner, obviously, but it does help me focus. :-)

I've always wanted to have a home that is wide open. I love to have people over, I love to share what we have, and it seems that lots of people want to come over now that we are on the farm. This so exciting to me! My prayer is that I can grow enough to have a home and heart that are welcoming without fretting. I have learned that the little things can make a difference, but some little things are only nurturing when they have been thought out and implemented BEFORE your guests arrive!

On that note, I'd best get to work. Hi ho, hi ho.....

Growing chicks and growing in other ways

Our chicks are two weeks and two days old today. They are not cute and fluffy any more. That period goes by reaaally quickly when you're a chicken, especially if you're a Cornish-Rock cross. These guys, also referred to as broilers (guess why), grow at an astonishing rate. They are voracious eaters; in fact, we have to remove the feed from them for 12 hours at night or they could actually die. This is called "flip" and it is caused by them having heart attacks. Their legs also can not manage the rate of growth... too weak to sustain them... so they do a lot of sitting down, especially after having just eaten. It is pretty freaky, frankly. Doesn't seem right. I am inclined to not get this breed again. We have 25 of these, and had to separate them from the other birds after less than a week. They are slaughter weight at 6-8 WEEKS!! Isn't that nuts? These guys are the kind you buy at the grocery store.

We also have 25 Rhode Island Reds, 25 Black Australorps and 25 Buff Orpingtons. Together they make a pretty picture (one breed is white, one black, one buff yellow, and one reddish brown). Well, pretty except for the fact that they are gauky teenagers right now. ;-) They are too big for the Princess to hold at all now. Farmer Boy can manage, but it is a struggle.

This week we have been working on getting into our chore routine. Stephen and I are getting up at 5:00 and having time to drink coffee, talk, and read our bibles, then get working on inside chores. At 6:30, Stephen wakes the boy, he gets dressed and they go together to feed and water the chickens and freshen the litter (pine shavings). Then the boy feeds the dog and cat. We eat breakfast at 7:00 (theoretically... in practice it is later because it takes a half hour for the chores, which leaves no dressing time before!). We still need to tweak the schedule. School work starts at 8:00. As we get the rhythm of this, and get more animals, the Princess will also have her own farm chores.

Stephen has been working very hard on the chicken house/shed. It is awesome. I am going to try to throw some pictures online of the sequence. He is doing it all alone, with occasional assistance from the boy, and once or twice I hammered a nail or moved a board. Princess likes to walk around the work area talking to her 5 sisters. ;-) A three year old with a rich imagination.

I am trying to make all our bread myself. It is fun to try new recipes... tried a whole wheat Italian bread a few days ago. I need to work on my technique. I love to cook, but I am not very good at time management. To whit: we have technically lived here for two months and you would think the moving truck came a week ago. I find it very difficult to do the moving in, when the day-to-day stuff is so time consuming (homeschooling, cooking from scratch, no kid-free time). But we are getting there slowly. Sunday we have our first gathering here, in honor of the Princess' birthday. Most people coming will be here for the first time, so it would be nice to have it a little less, well, pig-sty-like. I mean, this IS a farm, but the only sty should be the one back behind the corral, not behind the front door!

Election Reform a la Farmer Boy

Took the boy with me when I went to vote this evening. Voted in a little community hall at long tables with pencil and paper. The way everyone used to vote I guess. Our town has a population of about 500.

He had a lot to say about the process, and here is how he wants to see it changed:

1) Voting eligibility: Must be able to read, and at least three years old
2) Voters may vote for anyone they want. No more having to get lots of signatures or pay lots of money. Write-in candidates are just that... don't have to be an "official" write-in.
3) Ballots will include information about each candidate, submitted by the candidate. A minimum of 1/4 page per candidate.

I think he has some good ideas, how 'bout you?

Wow, October

Well, just a quick post so SOMETHING is in October. :-) The kids and I went on a long trip (almost a month). It was planned before the house came available. We went to a family reunion (Stephen was able to join us for this), visited friends and family in RI and MA, and had two long stops in PA visiting our best friends who just moved there.

It was a pretty intense trip for me. Wonderful to see so many people I love. Interestingly, while in New England, I was working through a lot of emotional issues related to the move to the farm. Perhaps the juxtaposition of my childhood environment and my current home in Texas got the emotional fires burning. I spent a lot of time thinking about my life when I was Farmer Boy's age. I wondered a lot about what his life would be like if we lived there. I wondered if we are doing the right thing.

I felt confronted with the safety issues involved with living on a farm. There just seem to be so many more opportunities for accidents! I had to slog through that one with God, again being reminded to trust Him, and take one day at a time. Undoubtedly we will all get hurt in some way or another. Must just face that and walk through it when it happens. So far, Stephen has been the most injury prone. He got whacked in the chin by a cow in July (not intentional on the cow's part I don't think, just two heads in the same place at the same time and hers was MUCH bigger). It split his chin. He also hurt his hand while we were gone.

Then there is the life-and-death stuff. Farm animals come and farm animals go, and the going part is something we have to accept. Already, Fleck, our puppy, is gone. While we were away he was hit by a car in front of our house. We live on a dirt road, but people still can drive pretty fast out there, and I guess his mom hadn't taught him about cars (maybe it was silly of me to think she would, but I did). The kids actually took it very well. Maybe because they had only had 2 weeks with him before we left. I was the one who cried.

And of course, as I was feeling emotional, why not throw in worrying about homeschooling! I cycle through that, as do most homeschooling moms I know. I actually think it is a good thing. I never want to become apathetic about my child's education, and it is good to periodically assess things to make sure we are doing the right thing. Verdict? Once again: absolutely! Funny thing is that usually in my most worried moments (several times this has happened WHEN I have been talking with other hs moms about it) Farmer Boy will come up to me and say or do something that makes it clear that I am being silly. In MA I was fretting to my cousin, and he came in and told me that he and his cousin (age 4) were playing Swiss Family Robinson, which he and Stephen are currently reading. Guess his education is going okay. ;-) At the park the other day he and his hs buddies (ages 6-8) were playing Civil War. I didn't even know about the Civil War until 4th or 5th grade. I had to laugh when they told me they were all confederates. We definitely live in TX. Today he came to me after dinner and showed me what he and Stephen had been huddled over so intensely at the table... working on absolute values and greater than/less than with fractions. He is 7. They just did it for fun. That's the thing... what he does for fun shows me he is learning and more importantly, he LIKES to learn. Math is not boring to him. He actually wiggles with excitement when he learns something new in math.

On top of that, I have decided that if anyone asks me again about socialization for homeschoolers (this is absolutely the number 1 concern people raise), I am just going to say, "See for yourself," and point to my son. Okay, I'll grant that the fact that he is homeschooled is not 100% of why he is so well liked by his peers and so able to interact well and enjoyably with people of all ages. He is a very special person (I know, every mom thinks that (and is right!) about her child, but indulge me!). He has always had a nurturing spirit and a strong sense of compassion and empathy. Of course I could get on my soapbox about the KIND of socialization he would get at school anyway, but I won't go there. ;-) Unless you want! 'Cause I have a lot of thoughts on the subject! :-D

Anyhow, summary of the MA and RI part: whirlwind visit, constant activity, lots of wonderful people who NEED TO COME AND VISIT OUR FARM IN TX!!! (hint hint), worked through some good stuff. Great 12 days.

The other part. Pennsylvania. Emotional too, very, but differently. These friends have had a vison, with us, of community living for the past 9 years or so. We actually all lived together 8 years ago (4 adults and 3 kids in a 3 br house), and wanted to buy a bunch of acres and put two housees on it. What our family is doing, we all wanted to do together (now we are 4 adults and 7 kids). But they were called elsewhere. The dad is now going to seminary. It is awesome to see God's plan unfolding, but so hard to be so far from each other, for so many reasons.

My dear wonderful friend was expecting her 5th baby, and was overdue during the first part of our visit. She actually gave birth while we were flying from PA to RI. It was SO hard to leave her while she was in labor, and I prayed about staying, but clearly got that her support during this time was meant to be her husband. And he did an amazing job! Their beautiful little girl was born after a fairly short labor, in their home.

It was wonderful to go back and meet the baby after being in RI. We had another week with them before returning home. It was a lovely visit, until day 5 of our visit, when the new baby suddenly stopped breathing, was resuscitated by her 16 year old brother (he is a life guard) and rushed to the hospital. She is still in the ICU, they do not know what is wrong. It is a nightmare for my friends. I became "house mom" to the remaining kids (my 2 plus their other 4) until we left, after which extended family cycled through helping with the big kids. It was even harder to leave this time. In fact it has been very hard to get motivated or excited about things back here because my heart is with my friends in PA. I am trying to just keep working and doing what needs to be done, and all the while I am praying, praying.

Well, so much for this being a short post. A month is hard to sum up quickly. I will have to post about the chickens later. :-)

On chickens from Stephen

The following is an e-mail by Stephen, sent out to a friend:

A few weeks ago I bought all the materials necessary to build the shed which is intended to be the chicken brooder/coop. Everything except the plans, which they didn't have, but which would be available by the weekend. Weekend comes, no plans. They'll be here Monday. Well, I'll be out of town from Monday to Thursday. I'll have to wait until Friday to pick them up, and get started the following weekend.

Next Friday arrives, and so do I. But not the plans. Sorry - we'll get them up here by tomorrow. Saturday - plans arrive. Wrong plans. Found another set of plans in San Antonio - The'll be here by 2:00. Ya, 2:00, and I'm headed back out of town on Monday. Chickens are to arrive Thursday. No way a shed's getting built in a day. So on to plan B. What? There is no plan B?

Plan B becomes to convert a trailer into a brooder. It is a 4' x 8' flatbed trailer which has 4' high walls of plywood. After a severe mental workout, I come up with a design that I think will make this thing work. So I work at it on Sunday and again Wednesday when I've returned from my trip. Almost done by dark on Wednesday.

Patti received a phone call at 7:00am Thursday saying that the chickens had arrived at the post office, and she could pick them up. She drove to the post office, and there were no chickens. No one from the post office had called to tell anyone that there were chickens. What was going on?

Well, eventually someone figured out that perhaps the chickens were sent to our previous address - College Station - which was the billing address. Call College Station post office. Sure enough, that's where they are. Patti returned home, picked up the kids, and headed to College Station.

Three hours later she showed up with 100 chicks. I've made more progress with the brooder/trailer, and there is a space for them to live now.

Patti and Farmer Boy climb into the trailer and start pulling chicks out of the box, dipping their beaks in the water, and moving on to the next. There is one dead chick in the box.

I think that the two of them stayed in the trailer for well over an hour. They had a great time. Patti worried the whole time that something was wrong - not drinking enough, not eating enough, too cold, too hot, too something. But the chicks continue to get more energetic.

Chicks, though, occasionally get poop stuck to their butts. If you don't get it off, the chicks will die from having their digestive tracts blocked up. So I peel off this stuff, but the chick starts to bleed. Long story short, that chick eventually died. Guess I should have left the poop on his butt.

Today Farmer Boy discovered that the chicks like grasshoppers. And in case it isn't clear - they don't like them as friends, they like them as lunch. He had a great time catching grasshoppers (which is a skill he perfected long ago), throwing them into the brooder, and watching the battle ensue. The chicks chase each other around, each trying to steal the delicacy away from each other.

And speaking of that - chicks can move! I thought that they were going to be fairly helpless little things. Not! These guys are strong, fast, and know what they want. They'll fall asleep in the middle of the floor, and others will run right over the top of them. That awakens the sleeper, who usually jumps up and scampers off as if he had been right in the middle of some important business all along.

And that's where we are now. Roughly 100 chickens - we didn't get an exact count when we took them out - mostly alive and healthy, living in a trailer. Now is the big adventure. Build the shed, move them there, and watch them grow.

Meanwhile, I'm about to try to sell some of my cattle. I've got three yearling bulls who are ready to go. I've also got a sick-ish bull (his crank is a bit messed up, if you need to know), and I've got a cow who does not seem to be producing any babies and has an injured foot or leg. So the five of them are going to go. Four will go to the Auction block, and one to the butcher's block.

Oh my oh my oh my

Well, we're here. Been offline for a while... no computer, then no time. :-)

So we didn't exactly EASE into farm life. My first full day here:

1) I discovered the house was full of fleas thanks to the kitten
2) the cows got onto the lawn
3) one of the horses trapped me in the barn

That was nothing compared to day 2, the drama of which was centered around the cows being back on the lawn. On day 1, I had come home to them on the lawn (gate was closed thank goodness) and they actually followed me up the road (on the other side of the fence) into the upper pastures, hoping for a snack. They recognize our truck, as it has been the bearer of all things delicious since we got them in January, so they get quite excited when they see or hear it. They stayed up there since it was dusk and it is a long walk at a cow's pace to get back to the lawn.

Anyway, come morning they meandered back down to the lawn (now we're on day 2). So we were in Farmer Boy's room working on school work, when I noticed something big and brown out the window. They saw me too and greeted me ("Mooooooooo" which means "You sneak, where are our cubes? We ran all the way up that hill and you disappeared. We are not amused.") Note that I had no cubes (range cattle supplemental feed), which is why I didn't give them any.

This lack of cubes proved to be my undoing as the day wore on. The girls were well aware I was there, and the leader (whom we've cleverly taken to calling Scarface, due to, well, the scar on her face) watched me through the windows constantly. I had to go out and get them to stop eating the pool tubing, stop drinking the pool water, stop eating the flowers, stop eating the fishing poles.

You are now wondering why I didn't just go out, herd the cattle through the gate to the pastures, and fix the fence. Here is the tip of the iceberg of reasons:

1) there are 15 head of cattle
2) I have no experience with cattle
3) they are big
4) I had nothing to feed them
5) I was scared

:-) You get the picture.

Now it is late afternoon. The cattle are still mowing the lawn. I have no feed. I have no fencing materials. I am expecting a washer, dryer and fridge to be delivered at 8:00am the next day. I need to get these animals OUT OF MY YARD.

At one point they were mostly in the back yard, so we got into the truck to go get those cubes, but alas, dilemma... have to open the gate. The cattle follow the truck. I wasn't about to have my 7 year old stand at the gate to open and close it against 15 cattle. The gate is not electric, so I was going to have to open the gate, get in the truck, drive out, get out of the truck, and close the gate. It also swings much wider than the truck, so the cattle could come out next to the truck if they wanted. As soon as I started the truck they came running. They were right behind me so I was STUCK in the yard. I realized I was just going to have to give up and try something else, when Scarface herself stood in front of the truck and would not move. I drove toward her, nothing. Honked, nothing. So I ended up backing up, parking, going back in the house, and freaking out a little. ;-)

I thought and thought about who could help me and thought of Ruth Noel, whom I had just met at a homeschooling group. Ruth and her husband Denny run Tesoro Tierra Farms and raise organic poultry, cattle and pigs. Ruth was very sweet and gave me a few ideas, most of which I could not implement because I am, um, clueless, basically. Mostly she offered moral support. Which I needed. Probably the most valuable four words she said in that conversation were "You are not alone." Mind you, Ruth lives 45 minutes from me, so she wasn't saying "I will be right over" she was saying "You are in the country now. Your neighbors WILL help you, even if you have never met them." She's right of course. It is remarkable... all those cliches are true. People ARE nicer here.

I digress.

After hanging up with Ruth I heard a suspicious noise, looked out the window and realized that the bull across the street (the little dirt road "street") had caught a whiff of our cow who was in heat, and he and our bull were talking rather loudly about just whose cow she was. Our bull started to paw at the ground under our puny barbed wire fence, and this, this was the moment at which I lost it. Yes, I went striaght to the bathroom and bawled my eyes out. I did mention to God in this moment that this was not really looking like it was going to work out for me, I just might have to live in the 'burbs after all, and was He really sure that I could handle this whole farm thing?

Then I took a deep breath, said to the kids, "Let's pray", sat down in our big empty living room and prayed. He knew our situation. He knows what I can handle. So I asked Him to just help us figure out what to do next.

A few minutes later, I looked out a front window, and where there had been 15 cattle, all clustered around the bull who was digging up the ground at the base of our fence, there were none. Looked all around, and found them all, every single one, in our back yard. Our back yard is not big, AND it has a swimming pool in it. I said to the kids, "This is our chance, don't make a sound." I grabbed my purse, carried The Princess and her shoes, and got the kids in the truck. Not a cow in sight. I ran to the gate, propped it open with a garbage can just enough for us to squeeze through, jumped in the truck and sped out. As I ran back to the gate to close it I saw a cow rounding the corner of the house. Miracle! We were out and they weren't!!

Now to the next scary question... would the feed store still be open? It was after 7:00 and I was 15 minutes away. Thankfully they were open until 8:00! But they were out of cubes! Aaargh! I was able to find something comparable, chose some fencing, then back we went.

The trick of getting the cattle to follow the truck up the road to the upper pasture worked again, and this time I had food for them. We headed home for a very late and very exhausted dinner.

That night I explained to the boy that I was going to have to get the fence fixed very early, before the cattle made their way back down again (and before the delivery guys showed up). I told him I'd take a walkie talkie and leave the other on the bed next to him. I didn't have an alarm clock (we still had almost none of our stuff in the house... that would come several days later when we rented a moving truck), so I just prayed that God would wake me up early. And He did.

At sunrise, I got up, got dressed, grabbed wire clippers, pliers, the walkie talkie, a bb gun (we have coyote and bobcat, and I just felt more confident having it) and a cattle whip (for making noise, again a confidence booster), and headed out. I got the roll of fencing from the truck and began to search for the break. Didn't take long to find it. The fencing around here is all so old, it needs to be completely redone, not just repaired. In this case, a tree had grown up, weakening the wires' attachment to a post, and either the tree or a cow, interested in the grass on the other side of the fence, had popped the wires. I ended up having to go back to the house and get a saw, and took off about a third of the branches in order to get the new fencing I had bought to attach. It took about an hour and a half to find it, fix it, and feed the horses. Near the end of that time, I got a call on the walkie talkie from my children, who had awakened, dressed and gotten themselves cereal. I was SO proud of them!!!

And I can't tell you the feeling of joy that shot through me when I heard mooing an hour or so later while the delivery guys were here. I looked up, expecting the onslaught again, to find the cattle instead quite contained behind my makeshift patch. I couldn't believe it! I had solved the problem! I, with no clue about fences, had actually fixed a fence that was now keeping many tons of cattle out of my yard! It was not a permanent fix, but it did what I needed it to do (and has continued to do so for 2 weeks!).

Over the past 2 weeks, my confidence has been growing. I have an insane amount to learn. Before me lie challenges I can't even imagine yet. But the events of my first week - while challenging, exhausting, and downright scary at times (did I mention I also saw and killed my first brown recluse spider (the deadliest spider in the US)?) - have shown me that I am capable and resourceful, that I can be brave when I have to and creative when I can't, and reminded me that I am not here by mistake. There is a design, there is a plan, and my job is to walk on, and to trust.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

Earth's Glory

Today we leave my parents' house. It is bittersweet for all of us. I will be offline for several days until we get things straightened out at our new place.

As I go to pack and sweat and create a new haven of blessing and peace, I'll leave you with these beautiful words that capture, ever so fleetingly, the emotion I feel as I walk upon the land we have been given....

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise
somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a
shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal
sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gleaming,
on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn,
as the round earth rolls." -- John Muir, 1913

A Good Measure

We took our first load to the house today. It was so sweet to walk around, knowing it was ours, to go out and see the animals, to watch the sun set behind the barn, to see the tiny frogs leaping in the pond... to know that this tender gift of a dream come true has been handed to us. I feel so honored, so trusted, to have been given this responsibility. I pray fervently that He will continue to conform us each to His will, and that we will take each baby step holding His hand. What a privilege!!

"A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap." Luke 6:38

Amen to that! What abundance!

saying goodbye

We spent quite a bit of time this week saying goodbye to friends we have made in CS over the past year. We had several play dates, and every one of the moms gave us pictures of her children to take with us! It was so sweet. We will have to get pictures of our children made so that the kids can send them off to their buddies

On Wednesday we went to the Star of the Republic Museum and learned about the 10 years in the 1800's when Texas was a republic. Its own country! Grasping this concept makes it easier to understand why Texans are so fierce in their love for their state. Texas is not an easy place to live, climate-wise. It astounds me not only how hard people had to work, but the conditions under which they lived. These folks made a life for themselves against the odds, and it is no wonder they were willing to fight for it. The museum staff taught the children about what life was like for kids their age in the 1830's in Texas. They all agreed that they have it easy now!

Farmer Boy loved it. In the afternoon we went down the road to Barrington Farm, which is a living history farm. It was named after Barrington, MA which was Dr. Anson Jones' hometown. Dr. Jones lived on the farm and was the third and last president of the Republic of TX. The boy got to pick cotton and has announced he is going to grow cotton as his cash crop. :-) He'll start with the seeds from the bolls he picked. He also loved trying the old fashioned toys, especially trying to keep a hoop rolling with a stick.

This weekend we have begun the process of actually moving our things. Wahooooooo!!!!