Denise Domning's Blog, page 18

Storm Break

Well, this time my post is late due to the weather. As I sat down to the computer to write this post on Monday, I glanced out the window to discover that the sky had gone black and the wind was howling.  Figuring I had about 30 minutes to get all my critters into their safe zones, I dashed outside.  If you live in the Cornville area, you know what happened after that.  The wind went from howling to tornadic (I made up that word and I like it). Seriously.  At one point as I was chasing chicks into their new coop, a small whirlwind/funnel zipped past me, tearing up grass as it went.  The turkeys know the drill so they had already put themselves away in their coop. Miss Piggy tolerated the frenzied flapping of her tarp for a few minutes, then called for me to let her out.  I knew exactly what she wanted, so trotted ahead of her to the turkey barn to let her into the brooder coop.  I left her there with the door open.  That girl’s at a size that I’m pretty sure makes her predator-proof.

Up on the hillside above the barn, the sheep had hunkered down into the brush, their heads tucked into their feet.  That is, all of them expect Peanut.  He was bleating away, calling out to remind me that I’d missed his regularly scheduled bottle moment.  I had to ignore him.

Wouldn’t you know it!  On Sunday I had moved my newly fledged chicks to their permanent home in the big white coop in the pasture.  Chickens, if you don’t already know, are creatures of rigidly fixed habits.  Move their coop more than five feet from its original spot and the birds will stand there at dusk, staring at the empty space, telling each other, “It was here this morning, I know it was.  Where is it now?  Oh lordy, we’re all going to die!”  No amount of effort will convince them that the thing that looks just like their coop really is their coop and they should go inside.  No, they have to be caught and physically placed inside the coop to acknowledge its existence.  Three days seems to be the necessary time element for them to reacclimate.

As for these chicks, I’d put their food inside the coop because they’d never seen a ramp before.  On Sunday, the ploy had worked really well and they’d all climbed into the coop at dusk to reach the food.  But on Monday, with the storm wreaking havoc around them, they weren’t interested in doing anything but running in circles, which they did steadily for an hour.  By then, the rain had started and I had sixteen of them inside. It took almost another hour to get the next three in.  By then, I was cold, tired and drenched.  And Peanut was still calling.  I left the last five huddling under the coop.  Derek, bless him, arrived home at 7 and offered to rescue the bad girls.  I let him, knowing that by now the chicks were night blind.  That makes them much easier to capture.

It was after 6 by the time Peanut and I hit the doorway to my now pitch-black house. Sigh.  Rural living. This area is on one of the oldest transformers in the state.  So, as often happens here with a big storm, the power was out.

With no way to heat Peanut’s milk I gave him a few refrigerated ounces, then dashed back into the screaming wind to bring in firewood.  Luckily, an electrician friend had given me a chargeable LED lamp, which I had had the foresight to charge before I actually needed it, something that’s not typical for me.  It’s a great light. Whatever room it’s in is almost as bright as day.  Yay, no candles were needed.  That was pretty wonderful, considering I can’t remember where I put them.

Once I got the fire going, I put the rest of Peanut’s meal into a pan and put the pan on the flames.  I don’t think he cared how warm it was.  He was clear that what he wanted was in that bottle.  Then together, we settled down in the living room.   With nothing else to do, I pulled out crackers and cheese, poured a nice glass of wine, and read my book as the flames danced until bed time.

The power came back on at 2 AM.  Dang it!  I’d turned off all the lights I thought I’d left on before the electricity disappeared, but I forgot that my second refrigerator has an alarm that (somewhat uselessly) tells you that the electricity has been off and that the fridge is warmer than it should be.  Dope slap.  Peanut followed me out as I went to mute it and somehow took that as an indicator that it was time to get up.  He bounced after me, his rear legs shooting right, then left as he came.  It took another bottle to convince him that we should all still be sleeping.

That is everyone except Bear.  Poor guy.  He’s having to work for his living right now.  With the sheep fenced in on the hillside, someone has to spend his night outside guarding them from INSIDE that fence.  Moosie is supposed to be with him.  The morning after the first night I put the dogs out there for the night, I found Moosie sleeping in his dog house at dawn. The second evening, I put both dogs inside the fence and waited.  Sure enough, Moosie climbed the hill, and found an impossibly small gap in the fence that protects my raspberries from marauding grazers, dropped to his belly and squeezed through it. He then trotted perkily through the raspberries, around the length of iron fencing I installed to prevent those same marauders from coming down off the hill at the house, and made his way back to the porch.  That gap is now on the “to-be-fixed” list.

Bear tried begging.  I can’t afford to give in.  The coyotes know exactly where the sheep are.  Every night since I put the sheep up there, the pack has walked the exterior fence along the road, then followed it down to the creek, yipping and carrying on.  Bear is threat enough and they won’t come over as long as he’s there.  I remind myself that if they try it Moosie will join Bear.  If he knows how to get out, he also knows how to get in and that dog never backs down from a fight.  I couldn’t keep a flock without those two.

So, thinking I’d get up early on Tuesday and write this post, I went to the computer yesterday morning and…no internet.  A call to Cable One confirmed the worst.  Emergency repairs were being effected.  They were still working on the problem yesterday afternoon.

Well, imagine that!  I had one whole day without email, voice mail or phone calls, since my phone also runs off the internet.  What was really weird was that for the first time ever, my cell phone almost worked in the house. Apparently, my wi-fi interferes with cell reception, even though I have wi-fi turned off on the phone.

So, what’s a writer to do?  Why write the first chapter of her next book, that’s what.  And so I did.  How cool is that?!

As much as I enjoyed having a day without intrusive communication technology, I’m pretty sure I don’t want another night like that storm.  At least, not until I have storm-ready coops and shelters for the chickens, turkeys and pigs, and trees that don’t lose massive branches.  Right.  Like that will ever happen.

At least I’m prepared enough to charge a lamp.  And once I post this, I’m going to search the house for the cord to that light so I can recharge it again.  Wish me luck.

Sheep Deprivation

Peanut is killing me.

Once upon a time, back say about fifteen years ago, I had no trouble working twenty hours a day, grabbing four hours of shut eye, then going at it again come 7 AM.  If that sounds stupid to you, I’ll admit that even farther back, say in 1994, I wrote Summer’s Storm on the same schedule while eating pretty much only peanut M&Ms. Needless to say, the crash came in the middle of the following book, Spring’s Fury.  Some time later, I ended up off all food, consuming nothing but Ultra Clear for two months, then went on the food rotation diet for almost three years. There’s always a price to pay.

However, even a health crisis wasn’t enough to stop my long days and night owl ways.  It’s how I write.  I need long blocks of time and quiet to turn the stories in my head into the written word.  Back when I was married and still a city dweller, it was far easier for me to write in the middle of the night.  Of course, that was when I owned only cats. There was no dog barking at every errant smell.  In the middle of the night no one interrupts your self-induced hypnotic state, startling you out of your intense concentration to ask foolish questions like “What’s for dinner?”   That was usually the moment I realized I’d missed both breakfast and lunch while the words flowed.

Given my past experiences, I do know that playing fast and loose with my bio-rhythms is not a good idea. Apparently, there’s some science to support this. A friend of mine who is an ace researcher and is presently battling cancer informs me that not getting enough sleep AT NIGHT–it’s not good enough to sleep late or take a catch-up nap in the middle of the day–is one of the conditions that helps invite in cancers.

Then I became a farmer and my sleep patterns had to shift.  I have no choice but to be up at dawn when the chickens, turkeys and sheep want to get out and start consuming grass.  Just now, Miss Piggy couldn’t care less if she stays in her comfy, presently composting hay bed or wanders down to the former sheep pen/turkey brooder coop where she sleeps in the other comfy, presently composting hay bed she created there.  She is playing the pregnancy card with all her might.  “I’m pregnant.  Can you just scoot my food a little closer?”

Of course, as my sleep patterns shifted, so did my writing hours.  Unfortunately, there are fewer hours available for my use during the sunlit portion of the day than there are at night.  And, getting up before dawn then doing some seriously physical work during the day means I’m tired by sundown, making it more difficult to write in the evenings.  (I refuse to admit that age anything to do with this.)

Then came the sheep.  First, it was walking out all those nights to check on Tiny before her delivery, which, as you may all recall, happened in the middle of the brightly lit day.  Pfft!  Now, it’s Peanut and bottle-feeding.  For a while I clung to the false hope that he might go through the night outside with his siblings.  That’s definitely not on his agenda. It seems he’s scared of the dark.  As dusk falls he makes his way up to the house and calls to me from the base of the porch stairs.  He hasn’t figured out how to climb stairs yet although he has mastered the art of tumbling down them to follow the dogs.  This resulted in a quick plunge into the ditch one day. Thankfully, sheep swim instinctively and he was on the bank before I reached the ditch to rescue him.

Having a lamb in the house at night has turned out to be less intrusive than I expected.  Other than the piddling, Peanut is pretty low maintenance. All he asks is a nice towel, a bucket full of alfalfa flowers and Moosie on the couch for him to sleep with. Well, that and a bottle at 11:30 PM and another one at around 5:00 AM.

He doesn’t need to make a noise to get those bottles.  I am not only a night owl, I’m a terrible sleeper.  One of my ex-husbands once said that ants walking across the windowsill could wake me.  In this case it’s the tippy-tapping of Peanut’s hooves as he leaves his dog for my bedroom and his bottle.

After managing to tread water on so little sleep over the last few months, it’s finally caught up to me.  I’m addled these days and it hasn’t been pretty. Last week, I missed two appointments because I marked them incorrectly in my calendar.  Writing has been impossible.  I’ve begun to forget little things, like closing the extra door on the turkey coop or leaving out one of the waterers.  It’s not hot so there was no harm done, but that’s just unacceptable.

Given that, I’ve decided to try returning to bed after all my critters are out and doing their thing.  Not only does that cut two good hours from my already foreshortened day, it’s a hopeless endeavor.  The sun’s up and so am I.

That leaves me only one choice.  Now that Peanut is over a month old, I keep repeating “I can wean in three weeks.”  Yes, three months on the bottle would be better than two, but I’m not sure I can take much more.

That’s not true.  I have two choices.  I could sell the bunch of them and really be sheep deprived.

Not happening.  Dang that little guy.  I really like him.

A sprung spring

My apologies to everyone for skipping a week on the posts.  The delay was the result of a perfect storm of events.

First, spring fever hit with a vengeance.  The temperatures soared into the 80s (very unusual) and everything bolted.  Dang.  It looks like I can forget about planting lettuce and go straight for beans and tomatoes.  And that means broad forking or rototilling, raking and furrowing when I’m supposed to be writing.

Next came a trip to my homeopath in Phoenix, which resulted in a detox program.  If you’ve ever done a homeopathic detox, then you know the cure is almost as bad as the original ailment.  Yuck.

Then came the spring allergies.  Everyone, literally everyone I know is suffering from histamine reactions.  We’re all blaming the Junipers, which has a nasty pollen and are blooming like crazy because of the huge amount of winter rain.  My neighbors to the east are bed-ridden and Elana’s whole face is swollen.  My stepdaughter Amberly’s eyes won’t stop running.  Other folks are sneezing or congested or itchy.  Me, my eyes itched some but what felled me was brain fog.  I tried to write–not just this belated post but on the synopses for the upcoming books–but the best I could do was open the files and stare at the existing words.  It might as well have been written in Chinese.

Of course, when I couldn’t write I had no other option but to go outside and catch up on chores. Hey, I have ADHD and no television.  You don’t want to be around me when I don’t have anything to do–the pacing, the compulsive talking, the complete inability to channel all that energy into housecleaning.  Since I didn’t want my face in my blooming garden in case my mild (by my standard of allergic reaction) reaction to Juniper became something a lot worse–anything from constant sneezing to my hips freezing up so I can’t walk. So, what to do instead of gardening?  Why, raise fences of course.  I’m putting in alleyways so I can mob graze the sheep and soon-to-appear piglets.

The worst of the incidents that felled me was Tom.  A week ago Tom’s sons turned on him.  Working together the two younger birds had their father bleeding, somewhat plucked and cowering.  I rescued him, and am now cycling the boys.  Tom is out in the morning and the other two are out in the afternoon.  TommyTwo and Little Tom are staying in the isolation pen at night.  Much to my surprise, they aren’t turning on each other.  Then again, that isolation pen has a bad rep with the flock; it’s where I keep the birds I intend to slaughter the next day.  What made me saddest is that I now this means Tom is on the decline.  I really can’t imagine what this farm will be like without him.

And lastly, there’s is my biggest time drag at the moment:  Peanut.

Fat Girl and Peanut
Hanging with his biggest buddy

OMG, he is the cutest little thing ever!  He’s completely bonded to his dogs–especially Moosie–and has even won over the cats.  Waku Oni, my calico, was thrilled to discover that Peanut gets the “night crazies” just like she does.  At about 9:00 PM Peanut starts to bounce and no bounce is quite the same as the last.  Some are straight up, some to the side, some to the back.  After the bouncing comes the rapid tippy-tappying of racing hooves as he tears after Waku, then turns so she can chase him.  Finally, he’ll leap onto the fainting couch to turn circles. Yes, that’s what it’s called.  The couch has a long base for stretching out your legs and a gently angled back just in case some Victorian beauty wants to drape herself over it should Waterhouse decide to paint her portrait.   Shy Girl has come to terms with having a lamb in her space, choosing to watch the other cat play with the alien beast, while Fat Girl has claimed Peanut as “hers” just as she’s done with the dogs.  This means she cuddles with him on his towel and tries to clean his ears.

At almost a month old, Peanut has more than doubled in size and is almost as big as his siblings.  I think this is because he has no competition for his meals where as the other two have to share Mama’s milk.  That he’s thriving so well let me reconnect him with his family.  To do that I confined all five sheep in my orchard and the area between the orchard and the front barn.  Tiny is NOT happy.  She’s accustomed to wandering anywhere she wants on the property and eating exactly what she wants, which means the stuff she likes and not necessarily the stuff that’s good for her but isn’t that tasty.  Now that she and Cinco have cleaned up the tasty grass, Tiny can’t stop complaining.

It’s worth the noise.  Peanut is in heaven.  He has completely bonded with his brother Mekko and is slowly winning over Mari.  The three of them practice grazing for a while, then give up “work” for play.  They bounce, run, dash, nap and, when they want to be daring, climb my new hugel, which I have fortunately not yet planted. In their play they’ve kicked off some of the dirt to reveal a chunk of the buried log at its core.  They’re using this protrusion to play “Ram of the Mountain”.  This is the lamb version of “King of the Mountain” but includes headbutting the winner off the wood so that he or she falls to certain death about a foot below.

I show up about every couple of hours with a bottle for Peanut.  Both his siblings find this odd but intriguing at the same time. They’ve both put their mouths on the nipple only to make that face any breast-fed baby makes when confronting plastic instead of flesh.  I thought I might be able to let Peanut sleep outside with his family, but like any toddler as dark fell that first night he began to call for Mama.  So our routine is now that he spends the day with his own kind then cuddles with the cats at night.

As much as I’ll miss his chipper presence in the house (but not the piddling), I’ll be happier when he’s weaned and grazing.  For me, writing means hours of deep concentration with no interruptions. More times than not, I’ll start working only to raise my head from the computer six hours later with no awareness of what’s happened while I was “gone” and no sense that so much time has passed.

I’m taking this post as a good sign.  It means the tide of that storm is turning.  This wave of allergies has passed and one day Peanut will be all grown up.  Yep, Spring has sprung.

 

Peanut

So, I lost a fortune on YouTube today because I cannot keep my phone/camera on my person.  I blame this phone-avoidance on the fact that my first “real” job was in 1973 as an AT&T LongLines telephone operator. This was back in the day when there were corded plugs and manual switchboards.  (I’ve already admitted that I’m old, but in case you missed it–I’m old :-D)  At any rate, after spending many hours placing calls–some of these calls could take my full work day to complete, say if someone wasn’t home or if, in the case of US military bases, someone had to be located to take the call–to Southeast Asia and Australia, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any more time on the phone.  I often say that email was invented just for me.  I’d much rather type than talk.

So what is this amazing piece of video that you and I missed?  It was Peanut out in the field spending time with his siblings.  Peanut remains about half the size of the other two lambs, but that didn’t stop him from initiating a game of “head butts”.  He lowered his head, backed up with his rear end wiggling in preparation, then launched himself at Mekko’s side–and promptly flew under the larger lamb’s stomach, missing the target completely. Undaunted, he did the same thing to Mari, this time connecting with his startled sister.  But she quickly caught on and the head butting began in earnest.  There was some bouncing and a few sideways leaps before Mama Tiny called to her bigger babies and put the kibosh on the whole game.

This game came about because I’m committed to reintroducing Peanut to his family.  So, since I returned from vacation, I’ve been taking Peanut outside at least three times a day.  There’s more to this than saving myself from cleaning up puddles and other things from my floor.  (More pee outside is always better–I may be investing in disposable diapers even though I’m philosophically opposed to them.)  I want Peanut to be accepted by his rightful flock.  Being new to raising sheep, I figured the best way to make this happen was to take him out and watch the interactions.

The first thing I noticed was that Tiny keeps her new babies on the move.  She grazes for a few minutes and walks, grazes and walks.  If they don’t follow, she calls to them, keeping them with her even if they’ve settled down for a nap.  The only time she lets them rest is while she chewing her cud, or whatever it’s called when sheep rework the contents of their stomachs.  That’s twice a day at about 10 AM and 2 PM.  So, Peanut is now walking out with me as I do my morning chores, then we go out again to work in the garden at the same time his parents and siblings are rotating toward the orchard to clean up after Miss Piggy.  Today, we also walked to my neighbor’s house, then spent time with the workmen who came to do a few things.

The next thing was that Tiny doesn’t allow her twins to suckle for long before she’s pushing them off and moving away.  This caused me to stop allowing Peanut to drink a full 4 ounces at one go.  Instead, I’m limiting him to two ounces a pop, although it means feeding him more often during the day.  Much to my surprise, he doesn’t call or beg to eat at night.  I’m not certain if this is the way it should be or just the way it is because he doesn’t vocalize much. Just in case he’s starving at night, I’m making sure he takes more before bed and gets more first thing in the morning. I noticed today that he’s starting to self-regulate, stopping on his own after a few ounces. I’m guessing his tummy is happier with the smaller amount.

The last thing–probably the most important thing–is that, as I joined the flock with him, Tiny’s and Cinco’s reactions to him changed.  The first day both his parents rudely head butted him away from their bigger children, clearly saying that he wasn’t wanted.  However, in walking with them while Peanut follows me, I seem to have established myself as another ewe in the flock, one with a small but cheerful lamb. Today, Tiny’s head butts were gentle nudges, as if to say “I’m not your mother, it’s that weird looking sheep over there.” Cinco sniffs, then ignores him…UNLESS he thinks Peanut is getting more attention from me than he is.  I’m not quite sure how I got to be Cinco’s favorite–most likely this had to do with food–but I’m sort of glad I am.  It’s uncomfortable walking in front of a ram you can’t trust not to slam into the back of your knees, especially one with horns.  For the record, Dorpers are supposed to be hornless but there are occasional throwbacks to the Hampshire side of their gene pool and Cinco is one of these.  Speaking of which, I need to trim his horns again; they keep trying to grow into his head, something that can happen to sheep. Yuck.

All of this is to say that instead of a post that includes a charming video of lambs at play, you’re getting a photo of Shy Girl glaring at Peanut.  She hasn’t yet forgiven him for yesterday.  I bought a good-sized dog crate to keep him in at night.  To make it comfortable I added a well-worn pillow used by the dogs, both of whom he considers to be his real flockmates, and topped it with his favorite sleeping surface, an equally worn terrycloth towel. Before he even had a chance to try out his new bed, Shy Girl made herself at home, curling up on the far end of the pillow.  For some reason, that enticed Peanut to step into this new, airy room of his.  He curled up on the front of the pillow.  Shy Girl didn’t move a muscle as she glared bullets at this alien intruder into what was obviously a cat space.  Oblivious to the silent feline death threats being hurled his way, Peanut had the audacity to go to sleep.  Foiled, Shy Girl had to resort to–oh, the horror!–actual physical activity.  She leapt over him and through the crate opening in one bound and beat an embarrassed retreat to my desk chair.  There, she licked herself, her every movement transmitting that it had always been her intention to stay in that crate for just a few moments.

So there you have it.  Life on my farm in a nutshell.  I love it.

Lambs!

I finally got those stinking lambs…Thursday the 23rd.  Not between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM as predicted (so all those nightly walks were in vain). Instead, Tiny gave birth to twins, a boy and girl at 11:30 AM. I was there by accident, having just that moment returned from running errands.  Tiny chose to do the deed high on the hillside under a bushy and very thorny tree.  Cinco came to watch as well.  But the guy on the ball was, of course, Moosie.  He watched with fascination as the little lambies were born, then promptly went to help Tiny clean them. Tiny at first tried to drive away the dog, then, after a moment, decided “the more, the merrier” and paid no more attention to her impromptu inter-species nanny.  Moosie is such a strange dog.  Although these little guys aren’t anywhere near the size of the calves he adopted, it’s obvious he can’t wait until they’re big enough to play with him.

Just when I thought she was finished, Tiny turned around and produced a third baby–a teeny little boy half the size of his siblings. She immediately rejected this third lamb (no doubt thinking she was protecting the babies more likely to thrive) and went back to her twins. Thank heavens Moosie the Nanny was there to lick the little guy clean.  Then my friend Jacquie showed up to take pictures of the newborns.  She arrived wearing her stylish (almost antique) red-flowered Marimekko boots.  After oohing and ahhing over the babies, she agreed to help me move them off the hillside.  When Tiny refused to be moved, we picked up the babies and started away.  That sent the new mother into running panicked circles as she looked for them.

Not wanting to stress her, I reluctantly decided to let her stay there for a bit longer.  But as we put the babies down and started walking away, the twins rushed close to Jacquie’s legs.  They were clearly after those pretty boots.  As she started to walk, the babies followed close on her heels.  And close on their heels came Tiny, followed by Moosie.  I brought up the rear with the tiny little guy in my sweater.  Much to our surprise, those boots lured the twins all the way to the sheep pen.  At that point, I knew their names…Mari and Mekko.  What else?

Once in the pen, we tried again to get the new mother to consider her tiny little boy.  It was clear she wasn’t having him.   Although she would respond each time he called, when he came closer she would head butt him to drive him away.

I’ll pause here to say that I just knew bottle feeding was in my future.  That’s because I was scheduled to leave (and did leave–I’m writing this from a wonderful B&B in California) for vacation two days after the lambs came. All I can say is a huge “Thank You”, to both Su Petersen and Lea Ann Jundt for coming to the rescue–they’ll be feeding and tending the little guy until I return from vacation.  And, since Tiny is no milking sheep and barely has enough milk for her twins, another “thank you” goes out to Doug Morgan and the other goat friends for the donated goat milk.

And what, might you ask, is the little guy’s name?  Peanut, because that’s what Su calls all her babies before they get an official name.  I thought it fit him, so Peanut he is.  He came into the house, got an official “lamb box”, a borrowed bottle and a special formula made from goat milk and a colostrum-heavy yogurt.

So here I am, enjoying this vacation for all it’s worth because once I’m home, I’ve got a four-legged toddler to feed and wrangle as well as a dog just dying to teach the little guy some useful trick the same way he taught all my calves to dig for gophers.  I really hope it’s not “let’s chase the cats because they think you’re really freaky”, but, judging from the cats’ reaction to the newcomer, I kind of think that’s what it will be.

Skunked (briefly)

OMG. Moosie got skunked this morning. He tried rubbing it off in the sewage-scented dirt left by the septic pumping crew, but both Bear and I believe this was a failed strategy. He’s outside for the duration and Bear is keeping his distance.

Yes, I know I could bathe him in baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, but this requires a dog willing to get into and stay in the bathtub as well as an owner willing to get close to him.

Thank heavens I’m leaving on vacation soon.  He’ll smell better by the time I get back.

UPDATED 3 hours later…

And Moosie gets even.

I found him out by the end of the property where the previous owner had used three culvert pipes to support a hillside. Moosie was digging at the buried end of the bottom pipe. As I came closer I was knocked sideways by the smell. No question. The skunk was in the lowest pipe. The stink suggested that she’d sprayed again. That was a poor choice on the skunk’s part because (according to Wikipedia) once a skunk discharges everything in their stink glands it takes 10 days to recharge.

That Moosie hadn’t already crawled in to get her suggested that this pipe had been crushed by the weight of the earth and the upper two pipes. He has no trouble crawling through those pipes and uses them as a way to play hide-and-seek with Bear.

I joined Moosie at the buried end. He heard something I didn’t and rushed around to the open end. I guess she must have backed away from me. Moosie squeezed into the open end. I didn’t hear anything from inside, not a growl or a squeal or even a squeak. I didn’t even hear him leave the pipe. When I finally realized he wasn’t with me any more, I called for him. No response. I climbed the hillside. I found him guarding her very pregnant body from the sheep, who as we all know are renowned for stealing dead skunks from victorious dogs.

 

Chicken “Coop”

Once again I choose a title that doesn’t reflect the total lack of lambs in my life.  OMG!  She’s driving me crazy!  Now that I’ve vented, I’ll tell the story the way I think it should be told.

First, this is what I wrote in my 2016 day planner for September 25th:  “Cinco is finally tall enough to reach her.  Tiny pregnant?” This is followed by several observations in early October that Cinco had tried to mount Tiny and was rejected.  I remember thinking then that she must have taken in late September.  Now, if it’s true that she took in or around the end of September (and let me say the term “hysterical pregnancy” has been bandied about lately), then she should produce lambs on February 25th…which just happens to be Day One of my vacation. Sigh.  Best laid plans and all that.

So why was I so convinced that she was delivering in January?  Because she was giving me all those “signs your sheep is about to deliver.”   That had me thinking that maybe Cinco HAD been able to reach her before I thought he was tall enough to do the deed. Sometimes the internet is a curse rather than a blessing.  And she does appear hugely pregnant.  The possibility of triplets, should this be a real pregnancy, looms.

Or maybe the lambs didn’t make it.  Maybe she’s resorbing them and there won’t be any lambs at all.

Whatever.  I’m ready to move on. And in that vein, I’m moving on to describe in more detail than last week this marvelous new chick coop I (sort of) built.

As you can see from the picture and if you read last week’s post, you know this is a true work of…um…bubblegum construction, from the pallets lined with padded aluminum insulation and cardboard, topped that with a tarp and greenhouse plastic.  Nonetheless, the baby girls love their new home and the chicken run that gives them safe access to the outdoors and the sunlight, something seriously lacking in their bathtub in the barn.

In case you missed last week’s post, the metal uprights that surround this new chick area were already in place, part of an early greenhouse system that turned out to be too hot to use even in the coldest months.  Why? Because that side of the barn faces due south and the trees don’t have leaves in the winter.  I’ve covered the uprights with shade cloth and grown lettuce there in July, though.  Now, I needed to find a way to keep my new babies safe from predators–both wild and domestic.  Moosie’s been eyeing them as the tasty little morsels they are.

That took me back behind the barn where I stash fencing I’ve used and reused a few dozen times.  I had just enough metal chicken wire to cover the lower half of their run.  That was perfect because I knew exactly what I wanted for the upper half: black bird netting.  That’ll stop just about any animal, even humans.  Even ravens and, believe me, they stop at nothing if there’s a chick or an egg to be had.  The stuff feels like spiderwebs and catches on every little edge.  Very creepy.

I covered the place where the two fabrics meet with plastic chicken “wire”.  I have tons of that stuff. I use it when I start seeds in a garden. After I plant, I lay this plastic fabric out over the soil to keep the cats from digging into what I’ve spent hours carefully turning, raking and planting.  As the seedlings grow I either remove the plastic mesh or cut into the open circles to accommodate the burgeoning stems.

After the coop was enclosed, I needed a door.  That meant a quick trip to Restore.  I came back with a screen door that I rehinged and mounted all by myself.  (Good girl!)  That left only one thing to complete the job: the door to the coop.  I tried a couple of things and didn’t like either of them.  Then, two nights ago, I remembered that I had leftover snap-together knotty pine boards that had been used as a ceiling in one area of the house.  That was it.  I had my door.  Or rather, I had the idea and just the guy I needed to help that idea become reality.  Thank you, Derek!

He quickly assembled a box made from wood I rescued from a previous coop.  Together, we snapped together the plastic-coated knotty pine pieces and screwed them in place. Then, we traded off screwing in the hinges while the rain poured down our backs. That was okay as it gave me a chance to observe the coop in action.  I could hardly believe it stayed warm and dry inside, because Lucifer the hurricane dropped enough water to flood my septic tank.  (I don’t want to talk about that, double sigh.)

With the door in place, I hung the heat lamps, moved in the waterer and feeder, then scooped the chicks up from their bathtub into a bushel basket and carried them out to their new home.  They weren’t quite certain what to think.  They huddled under the heat lamps and listened to the rain pitter-pat on their roof.  The next day I opened the door for awhile even though it was still cold out.  A few of the braver girls came to look outside the door, but swiftly backed up.  Today, the sun came out.  I opened the door wide this time.  It’s like a game of “double dare”.  One or two dart outside, do a quick recon then dash back inside as the next pair take a gander at what’s outside in the big new world.

Me, I keep singing, “Here comes the sun and I say…it’s all right…”.  And it is.  Even if I don’t have any stinking lambs.

 

 

Pumps and chicks

It’s a lame title but that’s because I can’t use “Still No Lambs” twice.

STILL NO LAMBS!

I don’t know what to do with that ovine girl!  She isn’t in any distress so I’m still willing to wait (im)patiently for the big event.  My worry now is that the longer she goes, the bigger those lambs get and the more dangerous the birthing experience is.  Ah well, I’m on the ride and there’s no getting off now, so I’m willing to let things run their course and move on to other successes.

I have thirty new babies!  The Brahma chicks arrived last Friday.  The picture showed them as sort of golden speckled birds but these babies are mostly black with hints of yellow.  I’m hoping they mellow out to something less dark.  Then again, I won’t have too much trouble telling them apart from my remaining eight girls.  Brahmas are called Brahmas because they’re big.  They should be nine pounds full grown.  They’re also said to be calm and rarely broody and lay a big brown egg,  My existing chickens include one Rhode Island Red, two all black pudgy Australorps (they escaped on slaughtering day because Moosie opened the chicken coop door to see what I was doing), and five small, stringy, excitable black Australorp/Jungle Fowl hybrids. The eggs I’m getting from them are more ivory than brown and five out of the six being laid are small.  (Guess which birds are laying and why I slaughtered.)

Getting chicks in the mail is one of the most interesting things about being a farmer.  It’s hard to imagine boxing up these bits of fluff for a two day jaunt across the country, but that’s how they come.  It gives new meaning to running out to pick up a box of peeps.  The only reason this works is because chicks are born with a two day internal reserve.  This is because when a hen sits on eggs, each egg hatches in its own time (sort of like lambs being born–no lamb before its time). The first babies born will likely have to wait a day or two, or even three for peep number ten to make its entrance into the world.  But Mama won’t wait forever.  After day three she’ll take her living chicks and leave the rest of the eggs, even if babies are still hatching.  That’s when I really appreciate a broody girl.  Two years ago I used a broody bantam cochin hen to hatch out almost a dozen turkeys.  After each turkey hen left her nest, I’d check to each abandoned egg, listening for peeping.  If there were sounds, I’d slide that egg under the cochin and she’d hatch them out, one by one.  She didn’t seem to care about them after they hatched.  I think she was just sitting for the pure joy of sitting.  Unfortunately, a hawk took her.

Since I’m starting all new in the chicken department, I decide to try a new brooder setup.  A few weeks back I bought a used cast iron claw-footed tub from a local antique store with the intention of using for the next time I slaughter pigs, but when I got the tub home, I realized it was the perfect brooder.  There are no square corners where a chick can get caught behind the press of little bodies and suffocate, the sides are high enough to adjust the heat lights and the top is wide enough that it’s easy to change the food and water.  I filled the bottom with fresh dirt, added a few bugs for interest and put in the food and water, then made the most important piece of equipment–the cat-proof top: reclaimed hardware cloth in a square frame with a handle so I can lift it off.

So far, the brooder has worked great and I’ve only lost one chick due to an epidemic of pasty

Cheery front door!

butt.  This is a real thing and it’s really called pasty butt and I really have spent two nights checking every chick for dried poop stuck to its little rear end.  I added more Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar to their water and everything seems to be moving properly now.

Then I decided to build these new babies an outside pen and temporary coop.  They need fresh air and grass, and my barnside garden needs work. Note that I use the word “build” casually as I don’t really build anything.  I screw together pallets because they make a square and start stapling things to them.  This makeshift coop is definitely my masterwork, or will be when I finish it in a day or so.  Not only are the pallets screwed together well (Derek just stood on top of the cube and it didn’t collapse), I actually insulated the interior so the new babies will stay cozy.  They’re going to start with a chicken wire run that follows the barn wall, but as they get older I’m going to widen their horizons and let them explore the whole garden area.  Hopefully, they’ll make a dent in the cabbage loopers and sow bugs. Now onto the really important stuff.

THE PUMP HOUSE HAS BEEN REBUILT!  

the old pump house

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. (Who in their right mind gets excited about a pump house? Seriously!)

The pump house needed to be rebuilt when I first arrived here, but the ex wouldn’t hear of it.  Why?  Who knows?  So for the last six years I’ve been saddled with massive thirty-year-old sand filters that would use more than 200 gallons of water to backwash, two broken pressure tanks out of three (complete with packrats living under them), 1 rebuilt boost pump and 1 boost pump barely limping along and a spring pickup pump that was never intended to be a spring pickup pump.  It was costing me about $200 a month in electricity to get water into the house.  So much for “free” spring water.

There’s room for tools in here now!

And now?  Hoky Smokes, Bullwinkle!  Two energy efficient pumps took the place of the other four.  A tiny sand separator now does the job of the two old filters with help from a small water filter.  I still have the arsenic filters and a charcoal filter, and the UV lights (they take the place of chlorine in the system), which are finally working the way they should.  And all of this was achieved for less than a tenth of what someone long ago suggested it would cost to do the rebuild.

Thank you, Northern Arizona Pump.

Still no lambs!

Yawn.

This is getting ridiculous!  For over two weeks now, I’ve been walking out between 2 and 3 AM to check on Tiny.  Stumbling out is more like it.  Sleepwalking is really close.

She looks so slim here!

Over those weeks, I’ve watched her belly slim as those babies–I know there are at least two of them in there but I’m sincerely hoping there aren’t three–drop into position for birth.  Even Cinco the ram has gotten tired of the never ending wait.  About three weeks ago he became really aggressive, his rancor aimed only at females no matter their species.

Miss Piggy swiftly put him in his place and he knows better than to head butt me, but a few human girls took the brunt of his bad behavior.  I assumed it was an instinctive reaction, him trying to keep potentially jealous and dangerous ewes away from the one that carries his genetic material.  Whatever the source of his bad behavior, he gave it up a few days ago.  I think he’s suffering from the same exhaustion that I am. In any case, he’s now back to his normal, pain-in-the-rear self, following me around begging for more chin rubs and ear scratches.

Just to be sure that something wasn’t really wrong with Tiny, I called on my goat friends to take a look.  They all agreed she looked ready to pop. Then Doug said the fateful words.  “I’m guessing she’ll hold out for the full moon,” he told me.  “That’s when all my girls go.”

I groaned because the full moon was then ten days away and I couldn’t deny the possibility that she’d hold out until then.  That’s what my cows had all done, too.  Now that there are only five days left until the full moon I’m beginning to think he’s right.

Through the miracle of synchronicity, Mike, the guy who turned me onto Dorper Sheep, dropped by and offered to look at her.  (I love it when things like that happen.) His input was both helpful and terrifying.  Although he also agreed that she was close, he said that there were a few signs she hadn’t displayed yet.  At least not completely.  Cows, sheep and goats will ‘bag up’–their udders filling with milk–just before delivery.  Although Tiny’s udder had gone from non-existent to something the size of a small muskmelon, Mike said it should get larger still.  Poor girl!  She’s already walking like she’s got a rock between her back legs. Then he told me the story of the ewe who delivered twins only to fall over dead three days later because the third lamb had been breech and hadn’t delivered.  Yikes!  I guess that’s why I’ve been consistent about going out every night even if every walk is a disappointment.  I know all-to-well how bad things can get when they go wrong.

My worry only got worse when I actually caught on to the possibility of triplets, and that set me to repeating a new mantra: “Two teats, two lambs.  I am not bottle-feeding the third one.”

So, with no new lambs to report on this week, I thought I’d share my latest garden experiment.  I’ve leapt into hugelkulture and started building my first hugel, which looks like a tangled mess at the moment.  What is a hugel?  Why, a large log (of which I have so many) packed tight with branches, leaves, used chicken straw, dried leaves and compost. In a few weeks that tangled mess will be a dirt-covered mound that is busily composting away while I grow my spring veggies on it.

the beginnings of the hugel

The log at the base of this section came out of the orchard where I put it back in 2011.  Year after year, I piled dirt, clippings, chicken straw, cow poop and branches on top of it.  At some point a plum or apricot pit made its way into the center of the pile and turned into a little tree.  I’ll be interested to see if it ever bears fruit.  Pulling the pile apart today revealed the most gorgeous dark brown soil I’ve ever seen. Moosie helped with the digging and turned up a buried toad.  There’s hope for Moosie.  This time he remembered not to pick it up.  I reburied the toad inside a cinder block–nothing better than a toad in the garden! The chickens and turkeys were very excited to work over the newly exposed area.  And well they should be.  It was full of insects and worms.

I thought Miss Piggy might be interested in putting her snout to that dirt, but not so.  Ah, the life of a pregnant pig.  She eats her pig chow and takes naps, occasionally going out to see what the sheep and turkeys are doing.  That, and begging me to come tuck her in at night after I make my first walk of the night to check on my recalcitrant ewe just after dark.  On the way back to the house I stop in the pig coop to say goodnight to my piggy girl.  By then, she’s burrowed deeply into the hay, but that leaves one side of her body exposed to the cold.  So while she grunts plaintive “thank yous”, I pile hay on top of her like a blanket and give her ears a final scratch.

After that, I go to bed to catnap my way to 2 AM when I’m up and about again. Five more days to the full moon.  Yawn.

 

IPM

I was hoping this would be the post where I happily announce the arrival of at least one lamb, but NO!  That ewe is purely obstinate.  Every sign that points to imminent delivery has occurred, but she continues to hold onto her progeny.  That meant I was out with her three times over the course of the night.  I add that not to win sympathy, but because lack of sleep may cause this post to be a little disjointed.  If it is, I apologize.

I’ve actually wanted to write a post about IPM (Integrated Pest Management) for the past month.  You see, I have acquired a pair of Troglodytes aedon.

Troglodyte.  Wasn’t that the name of a class of beings in H G Wells’ The Time Machine? Indeed, it was (I had to check–I haven’t read that book since I was a teen). The meaning from Wikipedia:  “from the Greek  trogle “hole, mouse-hole” and dyein “go in, dive in”, so literally “cave goer”, “cave diver”.”

For those not fluent in the taxonomy created by Linnaeus, the common name for the Troglodytes aedon is the House Wren.  Now, isn’t that just the cutest little bird you’ve ever seen?  Absolutely Disneyesque, and even cuter in person.  And bold!  We’ve met eye-to-eye through the window, the LBB (little brown bird) cocking its head as it studied me with as much interest as I studied it.

And what, might you ask, was this bird doing on my porch?  Burrowing into every nook and cranny, chasing spiders, picking up bits of leftover dog and cat food and generally acting as my unpaid clean up crew.  The whole time they work their tails jerk sharply upward as if to remind themselves that there are cats watching.

Although I knew these two were making the porch their hunting grounds, I didn’t realize until last week that they were also working away in the orchard.  That’s probably because they were hidden in the thick grass that’s sprouted and grown like Topsy despite the weather. As awful as it is, I love that grass.  It not only insulates the plants I want to survive the colder months, it makes an exceptional fresh fodder for my piggy girl and the sheep.  Every day, I harvest a short section (as in pull up), tossing it over the garden fence for the critters to eat.

Anyway, back to the birds. As I entered the garden to pick turnips, the two of them darted out of the grass.  They’d let me get so close before making their escape that I nearly stepped on one of them.  They didn’t go far–only to the closest of my two ancient apple trees, where they clung to the bark and watched me, tails jerking.

Interested, I knelt down to examine the area they’d just left.  It was my broccoli that had attracted them.  I instantly knew why. This winter has been far too warm and none of the nuisance bugs have died out the way they usually do.  This is especially true of the cabbage loopers, those pesky little green worms that love to dine on plants from the Cruciferous (or Cabbage) family. That family includes broccoli, which I especially like in soup (see my recipe here.)

All winter long I’d watched the leaves of my broccoli plants become tattered remnants of their former beautiful selves, and all I could do was sigh in frustration.  I don’t use chemical pest control and winter means my usual crew are unavailable: the praying mantis have died off after laying their eggs, there are no more ladybug larvae or green lacewings or true plant bugs or lizards or toads or…  You get the idea.

I poked through the plants, turning over this leaf and breaking off that tiny little green head looking for those nasty worms.  (I’ve gotten to be such a farmer that I’m no longer squeamish about squishing them on sight, then wiping my fingers in the grass.) Not one worm remained to be found.

By the way, if you look closely at the picture you may notice that there are lots of little heads on the stalk.  Broccoli is a multiple harvest plant.  Sure, it’ll give you one big head, but if you leave it growing it will sprout tons of smaller heads. These are perfect for stir fries or salad, or nibbling when freshly picked–as long as you’ve got a wren or two to eat the worms first. I actually had broccoli plants at my Scottsdale house that were 2 years old and 6 feet tall, and covered with good sized “heads” almost as big as the ones you buy at the supermarket.  Just sayin’.

I turned around on my knees and looked back at the avian pair, who were regarding me with bright eyes.  “Go for it, guys,” I told them, then quickly backed out of the garden.  And they returned to the task at hand.

The funny part of this is that they’re fairly rare to my area.  But then, not everyone has a porch littered with a constant food supply, a veritable feast for a small but brave bird.  I’m hoping that they like the farm enough that they find a nice little hole to dive into and call home.