Denise Domning's Blog, page 25

Let there be fire!

My neighbor Al

One of the best things about living the rural life are my neighbors. Not that I haven’t had great neighbors in the past.  My Scottsdale neighbors, Amy, Carol, Gary and Wendy, were wonderful.  As I’ve mentioned before, the ex traveled a lot for work, most of it international so I was often alone for long periods.  Even though I rarely called on them for help, it was reassuring to know there were people looking out for me.  But I would never have asked any of my city neighbors to teach me how to work a chain saw, well, mostly because I never needed to work a chain saw when I lived in the city.

Yesterday, I asked my neighbor Al to show me how to work the saw.  But, after he’d done that he wouldn’t let me use it.  Instead, he insisted on taking on the big wood pile for me.  He claimed it’s a thank you for helping them with their computer.  (Chain saws=hard; computers=well, suffice it to say I built my first one in 1985 and have been going strong since.)  He took on the Not-So-Big wood pile on the upper half of the property.  The Really-Big wood pile is on the central portion of the property, toward the back, where a hundred years (I might be exaggerating here) worth of floods have driven massive logs up against the Cottonwoods.

A few years back we had a tree service thin the spindly overcrowded trees on the hillside above the ditch.  Spindly is a relative term for this property.  In this case, it means the Cottonwoods were only a one-and-a-half-person trees, i.e., if two people wrapped their arms around the trunk their hands would overlap on one side.  Stunted because they grew too thickly beneath the Cottonwoods’ canopy, the dozen or so Ash trees were only probably a foot in diameter, the half dozen Walnuts were a little smaller.  The service dropped the largest logs–the Cottonwoods mostly–into the blackberries to compost.  Much to my surprise, Cottonwoods turn out to be Oyster Mushroom fodder.  They’ve since sprouted some really tasty Shrooms, which I can harvest should I wish to risk my skin.  I usually don’t go too far into the brambles, but the mushrooms don’t go to waste.  The turkeys love them and the blackberry thorns don’t seem to bother them.

Most of the smaller logs got piled up at the edge of the path that allows access to the upper half of the property.  The pile’s been there now for two years, neatly stacked, as tall as I am and three times as long.  That’s a lot of wood just sitting there drying out and NOT sprouting tasty mushrooms. What else is there to do with it except burn it?

Being a conscious consumer (most of the time) I checked.  It turns out that burning wood you harvest from your own land is considered Carbon-neutral.  That’s a nice perq for someone who loves the look and smell of a fire.  Even better, this house has a fireplace fitted out with a blower, so the heat is channeled back into the room instead of up the chimney.  Reassured, I went down with a wheelbarrow to bring up a few logs only to discover that most of what’s in the pile is about five feet long, much too long for my hearth.  Funny, the logs looked a lot smaller against the backdrop of the barren sandstone/limestone/conglomerate hillside.

That left me no choice.  I was going to have to figure out how to use the chain saw.  That meant calling on my neighbor Al.  It turns out there were more things to know than I thought, like which cap is the oil and which is the gas, and how to tighten the chain.  And that no matter how hard you try, you’re going to spill said oil and gas while filling the tanks.

By the time Al got through showing me all that, he had decided he wanted to cut the wood for me. There was no dissuading him. He made it look easy.  Wood chips flew, the saw buzzed and in a few hours there was neat pile of wood just outside my laundry room door.  Because the service also added the smaller branches to this pile of “short” logs, there’s plenty of kindling.  I’m using old tax records beneath the kindling to start the fire.  That may not be Carbon-neutral, but I don’t care. It makes my heart happy to watch my past be consumed by a beautiful flickering fire that’s warming the home and life I love more each day.

 

The Mouse Loses

I took the full four days of the “Thanksgiving Holiday” off.  That meant I only handled my usual daily and weekend chores: feeding and moving birds, milking the cow, making cheese and yogurt, cleaning the coops, washing the waterers, moving bales of hay (apparently they weigh 100 pounds but someone forgot to tell me that so I’ve been moving them without thinking about it). It was an easy weekend without all my usual website work, kindle book coding and writing.  I really didn’t have much of a choice.  There was a really deep cut in the tip of my “I, K, comma” finger and it needed time to heal.  Typing is much more pleasant today. Just so you know, there aren’t as many words with the vowel “I” in them as there are words with “E” but there were still way too many for me to manage.

Before I get to the mouse story, I’m going to update you all on the Hannah weaning process.  I lost. I now know why dairy folk take the calves off their moms right away and choose to bottle feed, something I shudder at the thought of doing. Three weeks of keeping mom and baby apart and nothing has changed.  Hannah still rushes straight for Elsie’s teats at the first opportunity.  In fact, she’ll even put her head through the corral fence, twisting her neck to an uncomfortable angle, and suckle away.  I got tired of the constant bellowing and all the stress, so I decided I’d let them be together for a few hours each day.  This means Hannah has the opportunity to nurse from 1 PM to 3:30 PM every day and that I have to milk Elsie at a frigid 7:00 in the morning.  However, it seems that the artificial insemination took and Elsie is pregnant, and that really was my overall goal for weaning Hannah.  So now Elsie gives me 1.5 gallons a day, which means plenty of yogurt, cheese and hot chocolate.  Like raising kids, I decided I just need a little more patience.  Most likely, Elsie will be tired of Hannah in a few more months and by then we’ll be out of winter and onto good grass again.  More importantly, I’ll have had a few months to get my electric tape fences reinstalled and have more options for keeping them apart.

Back to the mice.  Because I had so much extra time in my day this weekend, I ended up cleaning up the hay storage area.  I’m expecting another hay delivery soon and I really wanted to rearrange the bales.  This means mice and mice means Moosie.  That dog doesn’t discriminate.  He’ll hunt anything: big, small, water-dweller, land mammal, bird, he doesn’t care.  I think he especially enjoys the mice because they’re so small and so quick.  A real challenge to catch.  The minute he realizes I’m moving bales, there he is, his tail wagging and his nose pressed to the ground, waiting for the first one to appear.  Trust me, they never disappoint him, or the three hunting cats who spend a good part of their time down there.  And, as I’m sure everyone knows, the good Lord provides more mice in the hay than three cats, one dog and now forty turkeys can eat.

Sure enough, the minute I lifted the pallet (it was definitely time to clean–it was hard to tell it was a pallet, what with so much grass crammed into its spaces), a little gray rocket exploded out from beneath it.  Moosie was off, back legs windmilling as he clambered over me and my pitchfork, hot on the trail.  The mouse darted under the corrugated roofing that serves as stall siding.  Almost as quickly, Moosie slithered under the pipe fencing gate.  Up on his hind legs he went and pounced, just like a cat.

Then he snorted.  The mouse had him by the nose.  He shook his head.  A small gray missile shot across the corral toward the clutch of turkeys who were suddenly on the alert. As I just mentioned, turkeys, like Roadrunners, aren’t adverse to eating small and tasty mammals.  Unlike the Blue Heron, the turkeys draw the line at gophers.

Moosie darted across the corral, snatched the rodent by the tail and tossed it into the air.  As the mouse returned to earth, the dog was on him again…and again, Moosie snorted as he got his comeuppance from his prey. This time when he shook his head, trying to remove the mouse from his nose, he sent the little critter flying back to the stall where it landed right in front of a little red hen.  She’s no fool.  She snatched what for her was more than a full meal, and gave the rodent a quick shake.

By this time, Moosie had joined her in the stall.  He reached down toward the tail hanging out of her mouth.  Dog or not, she wasn’t about to give up her prize.  She feinted one way. That took Moosie by surprise.  He’s not used to uncooperative chickens.  They usually scatter when he gets close to them.  This one simply turned her back on him, making that chirping sound that chickens make when they’ve found something they’re really looking forward to eating.

Moosie wasn’t ready to give up.  He came at her with–I swear I’m not making this up–an outraged “Hey that’s mine!” look on his face. The hen didn’t care.  Killer dog or not, she took off, burrowing under this bit of fence and around that bale.  That mouse was hers.

Still laughing, I called Moosie back as he started after her.  He came reluctantly, but then I started to pick up the next pallet.  His tail begin to wag and down went his nose. Sure enough, another mouse dashed across my shoe and he was off.

 

Thanksgiving

I can hardly believe that a full year has passed since the ex took his nose dive into “Crazy Time”.  What a year it’s been!  Not only did I lose my 28 year marriage, but two cows (both of them died of milk fever on my birthday, no less).  It’s really odd to look back at the year from this end of it and realize that I miss the cows much more than I miss the husband.

I guess it’s happened.  I’ve transitioned to my new life, and discovered that it’s pretty darn wonderful over here on the other side.  So for this post I want to give thanks to the many people who’ve helped me arrive at what I thought was an unwanted destination but instead turned out to be just where I needed to be.

First, thank you Justin. Not only are you an awesome son, you’re a great listener and a good counselor.  Stephanie Allison and Peggy Wong, more than once you guys offered up a life raft just when I needed it. To Gene and Sandy Lindow as well as the rest of the Lindow clan, thanks for keeping me.  I love you all!  You’ll always have a home here with me.

To Barbara Dimperio, friend for 35 years and many more to come I’m sure, and to the other ladies of the “birthday group”, love you guys.  Gail and Bob Haugland, thanks for being here for me whenever I needed it, as well as loaning me a truck and delivering fences.  To the fabulous Neeses, who never took sides and moved to Prescott so I get to see the grandkids more often!  Connie Flynn, paranormal writer unparalleled, and Holly Thompson, amazing regency author, thanks for listening even when I’m sure you guys were ready to gag when you saw my phone number show up on caller ID.  To Al and Elana Sepulvada for being the best neighbors in the world.  To Jacquie Robinson: cheap wine is okay when we’re sharing it.

A huge thank you to Eric Marcus and Su Petersen for being wonderful friends, and for showing up to support my use permits along with Kevin O’Melia, my other best neighbor in the world, Ron Brinkman and Bruce and Tambrala of The Vineyard B&B.  One more meeting to go!  For that matter, I have to give thanks and compliments to the Yavapai Planning and Zoning department, especially Tammy DeWitt, for helping me navigate the permit maze.

To Leah and Logan, Jim and Sharon, and Kai and Meghan for offering to help any time I need it, but especially thanks to Meghan for the lard.  The pie crust yesterday was AMAZING.  Gary and Mike, thanks for making my first ever solo Thanksgiving a great day!  To Penny and Aaron for loving my old house in Scottsdale while supporting me up here.  Alice and Ronnie, I’m so glad Kodi loved the turkey foot.  Richard–Shao Lin has a foot waiting for her here too.  I know…this farm is truly a dog heaven.  And speaking of dogs, thanks to Chet for the beautiful portrait of Moosie and Bear.  Who knew I could love those two mutts so much?

Thanks so much to Jim, Mario, Michaela, Ashley, Thalia and Dennis–all part of my new Wednesday night home at the Up the Creek Grille.

Lastly, to the tens of thousands of readers whose love for my books helps to keep me on the farm:  THANK YOU!  Now that Thanksgiving and the slaughtering is over, I’m getting back to work on the newest mystery.  I fear I left poor Faucon and Edmund standing by a well as they ponder an unlikely circle of suspects.  I’m sure they’re ready to move forward by now.

 

Harvest Time

Harvest time.  Euphemistic, I know.  Over the last four days I’ve processed 49 birds, not all of them mine.  My personal best was 17 birds in one day.  That was the day I decided my limit is 16 birds a day.  I had to slather my hands with Traumeel to get my fingers to bend at that night.  Thank heavens the weather held.  The first two days were perfect.  Two mornings ago I had to drum my fingers in impatience waiting on frozen hoses to thaw until I remembered I have a hot water spigot outside. Yesterday, I started slaughtering wearing a shirt, sweatshirt, coat and down vest under my apron.  By the middle of the day I was thinking about changing into a tee-shirt.  Arizona!

These last days have been no easier on Tom than me.  As he did for last year’s “harvest”, Tom carefully kept his flock at the far end of the property, where they can’t see what’s happening.  If you think this is an accident or coincidence, let me assure you it’s not.  He’s not stupid and neither are they.  When I’m finished, he’ll bring his few remaining sons up to review the slaughtering area and say their good-byes.  Once they’ve done that, they’ll settle in for the winter.

Now that the work is done, it’s time to think about what went right and what went wrong.  Strongly In the “right” column is allowing the hens to raise their own broods.  Needless to say, free poults is a good thing.  In the wrong column was my inability to get the girls to nest where I want them.  Still, even with mountain lion attrition, I ended up with 140 birds in May.  That number descended through accidents, dogs and predators, to 80 birds by Autumn.  Given that I can apparently only do 50 birds within the window for supplying fresh (never frozen) birds for Thanksgiving, I actually think 80 birds is a good number.  Over the winter, I’m going to build nesting boxes in the permanent turkey coop.  I’ve never been successful moving the hens and eggs–the hens all abandoned “touched” eggs–but maybe locking them into the coop with their clutches will force the issue.

Another couple of ticks in the “right” column was feeding them at night and accidentally installing a gate in the middle of the not-so-permanent coop.  Not only did I have no turkeys roosting in trees, but I was able to lock the birds I meant to process inside that small interior coop.

A huge tick in the “wrong” column is the cost of the feed.  For my peace of mind and my health, I need all my birds (and other animals for that matter) to eat non-GMO feed.  I’d love to be all Organic, and the birds do love the Modesto Milling Organic food, but a grown bird will take 1/2 pound of food a day, especially after the grass and insects die off.  I found myself supplementing with local non-GMO feed when I realized just how much I was spending.  Frankly, raising your own birds isn’t cheap–and it shouldn’t be, despite what Big Ag would have the world think.  It’s the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) principle. Every one of the birds I processed had a thick layer of fat, which is where the body stores all the vitamins and minerals. So I’m assured that eating their meat and making broth from their bones will supply me with what I need to stay healthy.  I guess I’m trading my profit for my health, but it’s a good trade and I believe it’s saving me money in the long run.  I haven’t had so much as a cold in three years, not since I started eating what I produce.

One thing I am considering for next year is selling a lot more poults.  That’s easy profit and no long term food costs.  But, I like the babies, even though I spend the first month of their lives turning over the ones that have been knocked onto their backs and can’t get up (that’s a serious turkey-design flaw; they can’t right themselves until their little wings develop), or leaping into the water to catch the ones who’ve fallen into the ditch.  Why, oh why, do the mothers nesting across the water always try to get their newly-hatched babies to fly over?

I guess it all comes down to me being a sucker for turkeys. No matter what it costs me, I can’t imagine not raising them. So no matter how the “right” and “wrong” columns balance out, my plan is to winnow the flock down to Tom and 20 hens including the two moms who are presently poults, but not including their 10 babies.   On New Year’s Day I’ll look at that turkey coop and once again spew a farmer’s mantra: “This year!”

Success!

My beloved tom

Maybe I should say “Successes!”  Every time I log into my site to post I have to answer a simple addition or subtraction question.  Every time I get the answer right is a success for me.

Beyond that, this week has been a great week even though my propane burner died and little Hannah is NOT taking to weaning well. I’ll leave the big success for last and start with the smaller ones.  First, I bought a REAL propane burner to replace the “Turkey Fryer” burner I originally bought three years ago to dip my first batch of turkeys (all twelve of them) before plucking.  At first the burner had a timer on it, which I burnt up.  The ex replaced it with an open valve, which turned out to be too open and burnt up the rest of the mechanism.  This new burner hasn’t got enough PSI to heat cold water to the 145 degree water (at least in my lifetime) I need for proper feather removal in a timely manner, but that’s okay for this year because I have a hot water spigot outside the commercial kitchen that will give me 135 degree water in the pot.  An hour at a slow burn should bring that into range and the lower PSI might actually keep the water from getting too hot.  Just in case, I’m filling the second propane tank.  Because I didn’t get any birds done yesterday while waiting for the new burner to show up I hope to do at least ten today.

Which brings me to my next success.  A friend (Mike of The Village Gardens) brought eight of his ravaging horde over to process last Saturday. They’d been escaping their property and taking off toward parts unknown, something turkeys love to do.  I started at 1:00 pm and was cleaning up at 3:30.  That’s a huge leap from from the full day it took me to do my first five birds.  Practice, as they say, makes perfect. Okay, not perfect but at least quick.

My third success has to do with the cows.  As you know if you read my last post, taking Hannah off Elsie gave me milk again.  Whoop!  I love hot chocolate (I expect I’ll have to be careful about that if I want to keep off the weight I accidentally lost on the “divorce diet” over these past months).  What I didn’t expect was Elsie to cycle into heat.  I don’t know why I didn’t think this would happen.  A lot of human women don’t cycle while breast feeding, and cows are mammals too.  But there she was yesterday morning, bellowing like crazy.  All morning I was scratching my head, thinking, “I wonder why she’s so upset about not being with the calves this morning when she wasn’t that way a few days ago?”  Then I brought her up for milking and did the dope slap.  Duh.  A quick call brought Gary Mortimer out here at dusk and he confirmed it as he made her pregnant again.  I was torn about inseminating her this month instead of waiting for next month and doing her with sexed semen (things I never knew I needed to know, right?) to give Elsie a better chance at producing another heifer.  I guess if she doesn’t take this time, I’ll be better prepared 21 days from yesterday.  Hopefully by then Hannah will have given up on the suckling, although I think that little girl has her mother’s stubborn streak.

All of this brings me to my final success, the BIG SUCCESS and the reason I went ahead and AI’d Elsie this month.  It looks like I get to stay on the farm, that this place will turn out to be my forever home–or at least be my home long enough to gain the value I need in order to get another place big enough to keep all my critters.  Seriously, I’ve been fretting over the possibility of losing this house because I couldn’t get the commercial kitchen approved.  I mean, what apartment manager is going to allow me to keep a Tom Turkey on my back patio?  I’m stating this here and now: I’m not going anywhere I can’t take Tom.

It happened Wednesday and I’m still struggling to take it in.  The Yavapai County Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to allow my use permits for the commercial kitchen. The permits are 1) to allow me to have two kitchens in my house–one residential kitchen and one commercial kitchen and 2) to allow me to rent out my commercial kitchen.  Mind you, I still have to appear before the board of supervisors in December, but for the first time since I closed the gate after the ex departed for the farm-less life he craved so badly, I feel certain I’m going to keep my home, my animals and the life, and community, I’ve come to love.

Oh my goodness, getting to this point has taken just about all my time for the past three months.  It meant setting aside the new book (which I should be  finishing this month but am not) as I did a whole lot of other paperwork.   I swear I spent all of September following cyber-mazes on Google looking for answers to questions I wasn’t certain I understood asked by someone connected to my property via these use permits.

I’ve learned a lot in the process.  For example, I now know that my septic tank is big enough to accommodate two kitchens and that eggs should never be stored on the top shelf of a refrigerator (in case they break and spill all over other things below them).  This bit of information resulted in me moving my eggs to the cool storage room.  This way I don’t have to worry about who-knows-what dripping on my eggs. Why I worry about this I’m not sure, since I don’t wash my eggs and they often have you-know-what all over them.  And that it’s not a bedroom if you don’t have heating and cooling ducts in the space.  Who knew!

Well, I do now.  Was it worth it?  I’ll let you know next month after the Board of Supervisors meeting.  But for the moment, I’m home and filled with optimism.

A Time to Wean, A Time to Make Cheese

I’ve separated Hannah from her mother and I’m sure my neighbors are thrilled.  Not.  The bellowing is pretty much continuous.  Hannah is calling to Elsie, Elsie is calling back and Georgie is just joining into the chorus because he can.

I’ve got Hannah locked into the orchard garden with Georgie to keep her company.  It’s actually a great place for both of them.  There’s still very green grass, lots of Endive (coming back on its own) and bunch of bird-nibbled squash as well as tons of arugula.  So I lose some tat soi and bok choi.  They were volunteers from last year anyway. Most importantly, there’s a 10 foot tall Elsie-proof chain link fence around the garden.

That fence was a “dude” mistake.  I’m not sure why we thought a taller fence would keep the critters from getting into the garden.  One night, Moosie “treed” two raccoons on top of one of the fence posts.  Now that I’m more seasoned in the ways of the wild, I can’t wait for the chance to take 3 of the 4 sides down.  I’ll keep the side nearest to the pasture, extending it all the way across the expanse with a gate at either end of this wall of fencing.  If I can figure out how to do it, I’d like to extend it across the ditch.  That would leave me with almost half an acre near the barn to use as a garden that is nearly cow-proof.  Well sort of.  It’s certainly won’t be bird proof.  And there’s the issue of bringing the cows up to the stanchion at milking time.  More puzzles to be solved.  But at least with 3 of the sides down I’ll be able to use some sort of tractor to rototill the garden.

Speaking of tractors, I sold the old John Deere.  Good riddance!  It left spouting hydraulic fluid like a geyser.  Next spring I’m going to be looking for something smaller and newer, like the Kubota I drove a few months back.  What a difference between a vintage (read: piece of junk) 1985 tractor and the mini-tractor of today.  Wow.  But I’m still struggling with the three-point hitch problem.  Whatever I get, I have to be able to change the implements on my own.  When I dream of farm equipment, I fantasize about a skidsteer.  They have a-sixty-year-old-woman-can-attach-it-herself implements.

Back to forlorn and bellowing Hannah and the cow-proof fence.  Trust me, I’m sure it’s cow proof.  Hannah and Elsie have tried it all to no avail.  Hannah’s even willing to let me pet her as much as I want, trying to trade compliance for “O-o-o-o-o-ut!”  I swear that’s what she’s bellowing.

Elsie, to her credit, is behaving like she’s almost upset.  Or at least almost upset as long as there’s no food involved.  All I have to do is show her the dish I use for her milking treat (1 cup of barley seed, a scoop of kelp and organic molasses to make it tasty) and enough of that broken heart and unreachable baby!  Up she comes to the stanchion.

Even better, she’s not dry!  However, it seems that Hannah is a left-side girl.  I’m getting about 1.5 gallons from the left two teats and about .75 from the right.  In another week or so that should balance out.  But I’m thrilled.  This means CHEESE!  And cheese means my favorite comfort foods.  Did you know it doesn’t matter what sort of cheese you put between lasagna noodles and under lasagna sauce, it still tastes like lasagna?  Since I’m the only person I know who has to make the cheese before I make mac and cheese, I tend to keep to the simpler cheeses, like Ricotta, Cream Cheese, Feta, Cheddar and Gouda, with the occasional Romano (Romano is occasional because it needs to age 6 months).

Ricotta and Cream Cheese are incredibly simple.  Ricotta is supposed to be whey and milk (but can be made with just milk) brought to 185 degrees, then “broken” into curds with an acid such as lemon juice or cider vinegar or ascorbic acid.  Once it’s broken, you let it sit for 10 minutes, then drain it, pop it in a container and use it within a week.  Cream Cheese is a gallon of milk to which 4 drops of rennet have been added–culture is optional.  Let it sit on the counter for 24-48 hours at room temperature, then drain.  If you love the Philly stuff, you won’t recognize this as cream cheese, though.

Feta, Cheddar and Gouda are more complex, with the milk needing to be heat to 86 degrees, culture added, then an hour later rennet added, then stirring and heating and stirring and draining, then forming and pressing–or in the case of my cow Feta, being placed in a sack made from a cotton tea towel and left to hang on the faucet for 24 hours.  But no matter the work, the taste is unbelievable, so unbelievable that a friend named my Feta “Betta Feta” because it’s better than any feta he’s ever had.

So here it is.  The Betta Feta Mac and Cheese recipe I love.  It makes an 8 x 8 pan of macaroni and cheese.

1/2 lb of elbow noodles, cooked and drained
1 small onion, chopped as finely as you like
3 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
2 tbsps butter
2 tbsps flour
1/2 tsp salt
ground pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken broth
8 oz shredded Betta Feta (or cheddar or whatever other cheese you like)
12 oz cooked spinach, chard, or other greens but don’t use all arugula

Set your over to 400 degrees, then grease the pan with butter.  If you prefer your onion and garlic sauteed, do that.  I don’t bother but I don’t mind crunchy onion.  You can leave the sauteed onions and garlic in the pan as you add the butter.  When it’s melted, whisk in the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg until thickened and browned.  Whisk in the milk.  When that has thickened, add the chicken broth.  Then, switching to a wooden spoon because you’ll NEVER get the whisk clean again if you use it with cheese, add the shredded cheese.  Taste your cheese sauce and add more of whatever it needs.  Put about half the noodles in your greased pan, top with the greens, then add the rest of the noodles and pour your sauce over the top.  If you want, you can make a bread crumb topping by mixing bread crumbs with olive oil and grated Romano cheese, but this is fine without that.  Bake 35-40 minutes.  Cover with aluminum foil if it starts to get too brown.

 

There’s a dead otter on my porch

As I returned home last night, I saw a black mass at the top of the porch stairs.  At first I thought it was one of the cats.  Impossible!  None of the cats would ever think to sleep there, not even Bear’s cat,.  No one wants to be in Bear’s 115 pound way when he comes racing down the stairs as he heads out to confront whatever critter he expects Moosie to take care of.

My next thought was that it was one of the small dark turkey hens.  My heart started pounding.  Could Moosie have found a way into the new coop?

I hurried up the steps only to stop in surprise.  There, dead as a door nail (Door nail?  Really?  I mean, if we’re going to use that sort of metaphor wouldn’t it be better to say dead as a coffin nail?) was an otter.

THE otter.  The marauding otter who I’m sure killed at least one of my turkeys.  The same one that was looking to get its fairly impressive canines into my neighbor’s bird the other night.  I leaned down to look closer.  There were no bite marks on her, no blood.  She looked like she walked up the steps and curled up to sleep.

I knew instantly who had broken her neck.

Just then, Moosie came out of his dog house.  He has a really nice dog house.  It used to be the entrance to the laundry room, but then the remodeling happened and a wall went up.  That left a useless doorway leading into a 4 foot by 8 foot closet of sorts.  So, the doorway came out and a dog door went in, as did a little insulation and the cushions from the porch furniture which the dogs had already ruined.  Moosie loves it. Bear would rather sleep in the middle of the parking area in the rain, but Moosie occasionally talks him into joining him.

As Moosie stopped next to me he looked up, his forehead wrinkled (he’s part Shar-pei) and his tail low and wagging.  I could see it in his eyes.  “I was good to do this one, right? You didn’t say I couldn’t kill this kind of thing, did you?”

We’ve both been working very hard on him controlling his instincts.  I say we, but I mean me.  I’m learning how to be a dog owner.  He now lays down about a dozen yards from the turkey coop while I’m moving the flock in for the night.  He’s not allowed to follow me when I’m holding birds, as that tends to excite him.  I’ve even seen him sleep while the birds squaw and mill around him.  This is all great progress and I’m hopeful that–if I remember that I always need to be in charge–he won’t have another turkey incident.

I stared down at my amazing dog and was really torn.  I love knowing there are otters living around me.  There’s something so magical about them and what they stand for: a stable otter population means healthy water and healthy land.  But I also know that if the otter had been in the ditch, Moosie could never have caught her.  He’s fast for sure, he’s even nabbed a trout once.  But I can’t imagine he could ever be fast enough to catch an otter, not when otters are the masters of their element.  That can only mean one thing.  She must have been on dry land when he came across her.  And the only place I could think that she would have been was investigating the new turkey coop. Moosie had done exactly what I expected of him and kept a dangerous predator from my livestock.

I leaned down and gave him all the love and praise he deserved.  I even let him keep his prize on the porch for the rest of the night. (Oh yuck.)

I only thought to reach for my camera as the last group of toms was studying her.

This morning, I moved the corpse down to the far edge of the parking area, intending to bury her later.  Before I got to the digging part, the morning parade of turkeys appeared.  I didn’t pay any attention to them gathering in that corner until I noticed the silence.  That’s very unusual for turkeys; they’re always talking to each other.  I watched them as they moved past her in small groups.  Each group would pause for few moments, cocking their heads from side to side as they eyed her cold dead form.  None of them moved to peck or investigate, which is what turkeys usually do when they encounter something new.  Instead, when each group finished studying the dead otter, they simply turned and walked away, doing so together.

That left me wondering if they recognized the predator they’d seen too often in their coop.

Otters and Coons

There was a time when I thought raccoons were cute. That was back in a different incarnation, when I lived Scottsdale.  Not the “Snobsdale” you’re thinking of, the high-falutin, fancy place populated by the bejeweled and overly blonde.  I know it’s hard to believe but there are pockets of Scottsdale where you can buy a rundown 1200 square foot home in development of equally small homes built in the late 70s.  That house was supposed to have been my forever home.  After moving eleven times in thirteen years (two of them international moves), I wanted roots.

Well, the minute I started growing those roots in my new garden, I got wildlife.  Yep, right there In the city.  Javelina walking down the middle of our quiet side street.  Coyotes as large as German Shepherds showing up.  A Great Horned Owl hooting away on the light pole behind our fence.  One of the cats noticed the owl and went into full “hunt” mode, dropping into the tail-twitching crouch, slinking along the top of the cinder block fence, his eyes on the prize some ten feet over his head.  I could see the wheels spinning in his head, “That’s the biggest darn piece of chicken I’ve ever seen and I’m getting me some!”  Id-jet.  I snatched him off the wall and carried him into the house.  But I never expected raccoons.  In fact, if you’d told me there were raccoons in my neighborhood, I would have scoffed.  How, when every house around me had dogs?

Back when I was a city dweller, I did things like go to yoga four nights a week because it was only a five minute drive (instead of a twenty-five minute drive) to the studio.  I was alone a lot because the ex traveled extensively and often for weeks at a time.  I didn’t much like coming back into a dark and quiet house, so I’d leave the television on while I was gone. I can’t do that any more as I gave up TV four years ago, but that’s okay because now I have dogs.  They make much more noise than the telly ever did.

Apparently, my schedule was so predictable that even the critters took note.  I say this because for nine months prior to the big reveal I was finding dissolved cat food in the cats’ water bowl.  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how it got there.  Now, I did have a cat who liked to put her little fur-covered mice in the water bowl so she could find them when she wanted to play again.  But cat food?  With their paws?  Not likely.

Then one night I skipped my yoga class to hem pants for my sister, doing so while sitting in front of the television.  The back of my couch faced the sliding glass door that had the cat door in it, and I had my head bent over my sewing.  Two of my then four cats were on the couch with me when I heard the plastic cat door flap hit the frame…once, twice, thrice (Medieval writers use the word “thrice”)… .  I straightened in surprise.  You see, three strikes of the cat door was one more cat than I owned.

At the same instant that my cats took off for the bedroom at high speed (apparently they had been far less clueless than I about the dirty cat water), I turned around on the couch,  And there they were, three young raccoons sitting on their haunches, their very human-looking hands folded as if in prayer.  Their mother was pacing back and forth on the other side of the slider, chittering, as her babies all stared at me as if saying, “But you’re never home this time of night!”

I stood up, the raccoons flew back out the cat door to took off to parts unknown.  All of a sudden the light bulb flash to life over my head.  For the past nine months, they’d been coming into my house and helping themselves to the cat food, which they’d been washing in the cats’ water.  There’s a reason for sharing this old story because it leads right into last night’s otter story.

I had the pleasure of sharing dinner with my neighbors two doors down last night.  Two doors out here means I have to drive to their house, because it’s almost a half mile away and the road is too dark and dangerous for me to walk at night.  Over very tasty stew, I was telling Jacquie and Chris about the otter getting into the turkey coop and killing one of the turkeys.  Chris scoffed.  He’d never seen an otter here even though he’s lived here a long time.  Beaver, they’ve got, as do I.  But my orchard is fenced.  Rather than fences, they keep charged metal lines 6 inches off the ground to keep those somewhat scary-looking water rodents from taking down their fruit trees.  Which they do with ease.  I’ll never forget walking out to check on my beautiful nectarine tree that was along the ditch, only to find the whole tree gone overnight.  Jacquie added that she’d never seen otter either, but that a fox had recently gotten caught and killed in the electrical line as it was scoping out her chicken coop.  Despite my assurances that it had to be a small, slithery predator that had gotten into my turkey coop, neither of them were convinced.

When the evening ended, Jacquie and I walked outside and stepped onto the bridge that crosses their very pretty lily pond, which sits in front of their house kind of like an attractive moat.  (Don’t get the Medievalist going on the pros and cons of water moats over mined moats…I can bore you for hours.)  There was a sudden and loud splashing from right under our feet.  Both of us stood there watching in surprise as the lily pads shifted and bent, then out popped an otter, tangled in the lily stems, but an otter.  A young one, given its size.  Still startled by our unexpected appearance–no doubt it had been under the water under the bridge and hadn’t heard the door opening–it wrenched one way then the other, broke free of the foliage, then bounded in and out of the water in its haste to escape us.

As Jacquie gaped after the departing “clown of the river” in astonishment, I said, “And there’s your otter.”

Then I reached out to poke the turkey hen (I gave them a couple of poults earlier this year) roosting on the bridge railing.  “Still think it wasn’t an otter that broke into my coop?”

Jacquie told me later that she has a couple of carp and a koi that someone gave her in the pond.  Somehow, I doubt they’re in there any more.

 

Bear and his pet

I’ve been trying to catch this photo for more than a year now.  This morning I turned around in the kitchen and there they were, doing what they do.

Bear and “Adventure Boy”, as the orange tabby is called when he’s not called “Little Orange Thing” or “Hey you! Get out of that!”, bonded almost as quickly as Moosie and Bear did.  And it was clear from the beginning that Bear thought about Adventure Boy as his pet.   Bear cleans him, nibbling at burrs and such, and wraps his paw around him to keep him safe. They sleep together outside on cold winter nights.  The poor little orange thing doesn’t have a choice if he wants to sleep with his “owner”.  Bear, being a Kuvasz, is “almost impervious to inclement weather”.  This means that throughout the last rainstorm Bear was sleeping in the middle of the parking area enjoying the cold and wet.  That pretty much makes him a brown dog and results in him being banished from the house.

At least he’s got the cat to keep him company.

 

Hope

Even from a distance, she can’t take her eyes off him

Hope came home two days ago.

No…not that hope.  Hope the Tennessee Walker.  A horse.  His actual name is Bandit’s Legacy, but when my next door neighbors bought him they named him “Hope” as in “I hope we can ride him.”  Hope replaced Trigo, also a Tennessee Walker, but Trigo–his name is a play on “Trigger” as in Roy Rogers’ horse and means “wheat” in Spanish, which was Trigo’s color–who made a point of throwing everyone who got on his back.  More than once.

But the day came that my neighbors had to give up riding and their horses.  Mirame (“look at me” in Spanish) went right away.  He was a buckskin Paso Fino and an excellent horse.  Hope lingered, then was sold to a woman who, it turned out, couldn’t get him to leave his food trough.  Now this could be because Mirame made a point of bullying Hope over food and this was the first time Hope could indulge himself in eating.  But whatever the reason, she returned the horse, much to my neighbors’ consternation as the next day they were leaving on vacation.  So off he went to a local rancher where she did her best to market him.  My neighbors returned home this week and Hope arrived here again the next day.  Only this time he was leaving a herd of mares. Never mind that he’s a gelding.  He knew a good thing when he saw it.

Little did he know that he was trading mares for a heifer.

Knowing he would be lonely for his herd, I offered to let him over here until he settled in.  Hannah took one look at the tall, silvery-white, black-dotted BOY and started batting her long black Jersey eyelashes.  She followed him like a puppy,  even tossed her head in his long silvery-white tail.  For the record, Hope may have noticed and appreciated all that cow-adoration, because when Georgie tried the same tail-tossing thing he got kicked.

Then Hope started to run.  That was it.  Hannah was in heaven.  At last!  Someone to run with!  I don’t know what it is with calves, but come evening they start running.  It’s happened with every calf I’ve had on the property.  ‘Round and ’round the pasture they go just before entering the corral for the night.  But, unlike the other calves, who came in pairs, she’s had to do her evening runs all by herself.

So, around and around the pastures the two of them went, Hannah at Hope’s heels, her big brown eyes alive with pure joy.

Not so the turkeys, although they, too, raced after Hope as he ran circles around the pastures.  It was pretty comical,  Now that the toms are so big, they don’t so much run as waddle.  Imagine.  Eighty turkeys, all chasing the running horse and heifer, the toms gobbling up a storm as they did their best to challenge the interloper.

Hope didn’t give them the time of day.  I think he was far too busy flirting with little Hannah.