Denise Domning's Blog, page 26

New and Improved!

The Old Coop

New and improved…that’s the title not only of this post but for my life, and it’s all thanks to my “Brother of Another Mother” Gene Lindow.  My ex-brother-in-law came to visit last week with the promise to help me retrofit the turkey coop so it’s otter-proof.  But he did so much more.

Gene and I are kindred spirits in so many ways.  Both of us are unrepentant workaholics who truly love our work and the challenges of what we do.  In his case he runs Glo-Bowl Fun Center in his home town Marengo, Illinois–and let me say that running a bowling alley is not an easy task in today’s economy.  Despite the stress to which we subject ourselves, we also both love to laugh and find the funny in whatever plagues us.  Doggedly loyal, emotional and opinionated.  Sometimes in need of a 2 x 4 upside the head to catch our attention.  We both use physical work as a stress-reliever.  Yeah, we’re kin.  And, as Gene so casually said without realizing he changed my life when he did it, we’ve known each other for half my life.

Simple words, big effect.  I don’t know why I hadn’t realized that I’d spent half my life married to his brother.  Maybe the years slipped by so quickly and were so full of activity that it never occurred to me so much time had gone by.  For some reason, that realization makes it possible to let go of a lot of the agonizing.  And it opened the door to the word “Forgiveness”.

I’ve been struggling with that word for a good while now.  When you grow up in a dysfunctional and abusive family, words and their meanings can become really powerful control tools. “Our family is no different than anyone else’s” is a great example.  So is “Tomorrow will be a better day”. Forgiveness was definitely a word in that arsenal.  In my family it meant excusing or ignoring the harm someone did to me while never expecting (or receiving) a reciprocating promise from that same someone to change their abusive behaviors. The other description for that is “Doormat”.

No matter what else I can say about the last sixty years, I’m absolutely certain I no longer have “Welcome” stenciled on my back.  But neither do I want to carry my past into the suddenly wide open future of my next thirty years.  But to be able to step into my future I knew I needed a new definition for forgiveness, and I discovered it this week. It now means I acknowledge that the person who hurt me (that includes me hurting me) is human and that humans sometimes make catastrophic and stupid mistakes (or have long-term issues of their own that cause them to do terrible harm to others), even those they love most.  What forgiveness no longer means to me is that the act of forgiving means I then “welcome” that same person back in my life.  I don’t have to give anyone the chance to do me further harm, no matter our past history.  My future just got more spacious and easier to enter.

As for the turkey coop, Gene created a miracle with just $150.  The coop has a wonderful new roof (corrugated metal sheets found in the hayloft) that rests on sturdy rafters (metal well piping long ago extracted from one of the two wells on the property, neither of which worked).  These “rafters” rest on braces screwed to the sides of the barn (the braces are pieces of the 2 x 4’s from an old chicken coop I dismantled).  More well piping tied onto old pallets, which are tied to the chain link panel coop sides, with baling twine serve as roosts.

 

 

There’s even a permanent half-door made from a chain link panel (thank you Gail and Bob Haugland) that prevents cow intrusion–as long as I keep the door closed.  I had it open for an instant when I went inside to retrieve food pans and Elsie dashed through the opening.  That’s me shoving her back out of the door.  After that, you should have seen the cows studying that door.  I think Georgie even considered getting on his knees but swiftly realized that cows can’t crawl.

As for the turkeys, they absolutely love their new space.  I think it’s having a solid roof overhead that does it, especially since I suspect they’ve seen a number of their natural predators crossing the previous chicken wire ceiling.  They go in easily and settle nicely on their roosts, making that sweet little peeping sound that happy turkeys make…just in time for Thanksgiving…

 

Autumn Pancakes

The trees are beginning to change

I’m absolutely enjoying this wet fall weather of ours.  Cold weather means it’s time for WARM food again!  Give me a soup or cooked veggies over a salad any day.  So, waking up to a overcast chill morning this morning instantly sparked a need for pancakes.

I’ll start by saying that I’ve been at the stove, cooking from scratch and loving it, since my early teens.  One of my sisters reminded me recently that I cooked my first complete Thanksgiving dinner (for eight, no less–I’m the oldest of 6) at 16.  There’s something inherently creative about making a meal.  Moreover, mealtime is often the best puzzle of the day. Being a writer and not a carpenter, I guess it’s no surprise that I like crossword puzzles, but am not too keen on jigsaws.  The refrigerator door opens and I see a few sausages, a bit of chopped onion and a half-empty jar of olives…and, voila, pasta!

As for pancakes, they’re basic and so darn easy I can’t understand why anyone wastes their money on that mix that comes in a box, or the one in the bag.  Talk about creative!  Pancakes are the bomb.  Because the batter can be thinned a little without losing flavor or cook-ability (a homemade word, I’m sure), various children over the years have eaten Teddy bears, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and certain flowers. Although I’ve done a Yoda, I draw the line at Transformers.

So here’s the pancake recipe I’ve been using for the last 45 years.  (Holy smokes! That’s a really long time!).  Before I throw the ingredients at you, I’ll add some notes.  If you’re using CAFO eggs, you’ll need two instead of one.  Free-range eggs are seriously different than CAFOs.  I use vanilla sugar for my pancakes.  This is regular sugar into which I’ve stuck my used vanilla bean pods.  They give the sugar–and the pancakes–a wonderful flavor.  If you don’t have vanilla beans, consider adding 1/2 tsp vanilla extract to the batter.  I make my own baking powder because I don’t want the metal. Again, it’s dirt simple:  2 parts Cream of Tartar to 1 part Baking Soda.  This mixture tends to clump (no additives to keep it smooth), so I run it through a small sieve if I want it as powdery as the commercial kind.  Generally, clumpy doesn’t make a difference, though.  A “milk-like substance” is the liquid of your choice.  Outside of my own cow’s milk, I’ve used Almond milk, Rice milk, Soy milk, Oat milk (really tasty!  too bad we don’t have it in the US), and I bet Hazelnut milk would be delicious!  This morning I used a cup of goat yogurt plus 1/2 cup of water to thin it.  Salt…if you’re going to use salt, make it an unrefined salt that’s full of all the trace minerals the average US diet lacks: Remonds, Celtic, Himalayan, your choice.   As for the pan, choose one you know heats well, whether cast iron or stainless steel.  I’m not a fan of no-stick but I hear they work well enough. Me, I prefer butter, real butter and lots of it.  It’s worth it.

As for toppings, I suspect by now you know I’m going suggest real Maple syrup.  Not Grade A, though.  Grade B is not only cheaper, it’s got a lot more flavor and body.  I grew up on the corn syrup version of syrup because my father said Maple syrup tasted like metal in his mouth.  Imagine my surprise when I first had the real stuff!  I never went back.  But these days I’ll trade off between Maple syrup and my homemade Raspberry Shrub for a topping. Yum!

Pancakes (depending on size, makes about 8 dessert plate sized pancakes)

1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup of a milk-like substance
1 cup of flour, gluten-rich or gluten free
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

Put your medium-sized skillet on the stove and turn it to somewhere between medium-low and medium.  Whisk together the egg, milk-substance and sugar.  Stir in the rest of the ingredients until thoroughly mixed.  Let the batter stand for a few minutes.  Add a tablespoon of butter to your pan.   Using a serving spoon, ladle a SMALL amount of batter in the pan.  The first pancake is always a bust.  I don’t know why that is, but after 45 years, it’s just one of those truths I accept without question.  Throw away the first pancake, then spoon in more batter, filling your spoon this time.  As your pancake cooks small bubbles will appear on it’s surface.  If you’re watching, you’ll see that the bubbles burst then close up until, suddenly, they burst and stay open.  That’s when you can flip the pancake.  Once it’s flipped, press lightly with your spatula and you’ll see batter ooze up out of the cooked surface.  Over the next moments, press lightly a few more times until batter no longer shows up on top. Remove the pancake and repeat.

 

 

 

What a Week!

Hamburger and Hamburger’s Helper

Sorry about missing the second post last week, but I lost control of my life.  As always happens when I do that, sprockets spring, springs sprocket and colored streamers and confetti explode out of my head.  At least it was a somewhat productive breakdown.  First, Moosie succeeded in teaching Hannah Mae how to dig for gophers.  This has been his mission with each and every calf here.  And each calf has indeed stood next to him while he digs, watching in fascination, including Hannah. It’s like they’re saying to him “Oh, yeah!  This is fun.  We’re having fun, aren’t we?  But what exactly are we doing?”  On Friday, while I was herding turkeys into the coop, I caught Hannah pouncing over and over on a pile of loose dirt stirred up by the dust-bathing turkeys.  She was lifting onto her back legs then bringing both front legs down with pretty decent force as she tried to kick the dirt out behind her.  It took me a moment recognize “cow digging”.

Other successes include many more pages of the new book written, new jelly sales and the accidental creation of Hell Jelly.  My son suggested the name.  This last batch of Jalapenos turned out to be really, really hot–much more than they should be.  The jelly is all heat and not much sweet.  I’m thinking about giving it away for Halloween.

But the most important success is that I’m no longer a provisional commercial kitchen.  I passed my final Health Department inspection.  It’s for real!  The kitchen is completely legal, I’m fully vetted and we’re both 100% working!

Well, almost.  Part of the hiccups this week was discovering that certain pieces of paperwork are missing from my records regarding the kitchen’s construction.  The most important missing piece is the fire marshal’s inspection of the commercial hood.  Both I and the folks at Abreeze Fire Protection, who installed the hood, remember the marshal coming to the house, but neither of us have a copy of his report and approval, which we also remember verbally getting.  Mind you, this all happened more than a year ago and the guy who did the inspection was apparently infamous for not getting his paperwork done.  I need that inspection, so I’ve been trying to get in contact with the new guy at the fire department so he can come out and look at the kitchen.  So far, no success in getting him to return my calls.

I gathering my paperwork because I’m finally staring straight at the Mother of All Hurdles: my November 18th appearance before the Yavapai County Planning and Zoning Board.  Since I can’t use my kitchen every day, not working all the other jobs I do, I’ve asked the county to allow me to rent it out in 4 hour blocks to young food entrepreneurs trying to bring new products to the market.  I’ve also asked them to allow me to keep two kitchens in my home, one for residential use, the other strictly commercial. This isn’t a whim on my part.  The Health Inspector tells me that the first time I wash a cat bowl in my commercial kitchen, he’ll have to pull my license.

I must conquer this hurdle.  If I don’t, I not only lose the ridiculous amount of money that I allowed the &@#% ex to pour into the construction project–Yes, I’m an idiot and I should have taken the checkbook away from him, but I thought we’d suffer the deprivations together and work it out together as we’d done in the past.  Dastard!–but the small and steady stream of baseline income that the kitchen can generate. That income will be enough to cover the basics here and allow me to maintain my animals.  Without it, especially if it’s coupled with a demand for me to remove one of the kitchens, I’ll have no choice except to put the house on the market. I’m told by someone in one of the county supervisors’ offices that the ultimate criterium by which Planning and Zoning makes its decisions is property value.  Trust me, NOTHING is going to tank the value of my neighbors’ homes more than me selling this place right now. I don’t think I could even get what we paid for it five years ago at the moment, not with two useless kitchens (one of which the new owners will have to remove), wallpaper half on/half off walls, three different sets of flooring none of which match, baseboards missing, bathrooms decorated circa 1985 or older.

On a slightly less stressful note, or maybe not, my tom turkeys are now fully in their “tom” phase.  Lordy, are they annoying!  They’re hooligans who roam the property in a pack.  Yes, I meant to use that word.  They’re like a bunch of teen-aged boys, arguing with each other, bopping each other on the heads just to see if they can, and showing off to every available female.  Their daddy, my real Tom, has been dancing up a storm to remind them that he’s still boss.  It’s a good thing they still respect him.  More than a few are substantially bigger than he is now.  Thanks heavens it’s almost Thanksgiving and they’ll soon be gone.  Like last year, I’ll keep Tom and 20 hens.  The rest are Thanksgiving dinners or ground turkey and bone broth.

The final note on my list of stress inducers is one that’s both funny and teeth-gritting. Hamburger and her helper decided to help me clean the chicken coop yesterday.  Or rather they helped me re-clean the chicken coop.  If it stinks or gets poop in it, I clean it on Sunday: coops, corrals, cat boxes, food bowls, waterers, etc. Yesterday Elsie and Georgie took a liking to the fresh bedding I’d just put in the chicken coop.  The picture above shows them jostling to get their heads far enough into the door to be able to eat.  I’m so sorry I didn’t take my camera with me when I went down to chase them out.  By the time I’d reached the field, Elsie had won the battle for the doorway and She Who Weighs More Than 1000 Pounds was standing on the tiny little chicken ramp trying to squeeze her massive body through the coop doorway.  I’m not sure what I would have done if she’d managed to get in, because I don’t think she could have gotten out on her own.  There’s not room enough in there for her to turn around.

Maybe, I could have called the fire department to help me extract her and had them do the hood inspection while they were here?

Wish me luck!

 

 

 

“Barn” Cats

Before I go into my rant about my cats…what an amazing storm this morning! At 4:00 AM I woke up to what I was sure was the sound of gravel pouring down the hillside behind my house. This is certainly possible, given my hillsides and the way the road is situated. In fact, there have been times when I’ve seen water and debris cataracting–sorry, turning nouns into verbs is one of my worst habits; it’s probably better to say “tumbling”–down the stairway that leads from my pump house to the ditch. In fact, it turned out not to be rain or gravel but the strange quality of the thunder with this storm. As I lay in bed listening I grew more and more convinced that there was some guy in the field shaking a big metal sheet. Not that I’m complaining. The more rain, the merrier! Anyway, onto the cats.

I have eight cats. All but one of them was intended to be a barn cat. You know, a working cat. One that lives in the barn, eats mice and rats and doesn’t want to sleep on my bed with me. Of the eight felines that inhabit this property, not one of them can actually be called a “Barn Cat”. That’s because all of them would really rather sleep on my bed. I don’t let them. If I did, I’d have to sleep somewhere else and give them the bed. I suspect that’s their ultimate aim and I’m not giving in.

Let me start by saying I’ve always been a cat person and all of my cats are rescues. At the core of my being I’m a crazy cat lady. This is why I have so much trouble understanding Moosie’s messages to me, information a born dog person would immediately understand. I’m trying to communicate in a language I don’t naturally speak, one I’m only learning late in life and my  accent is really horrible.

I think it’s required of writers to be cat people, part of the job description. Dogs and anything that isn’t writing or reading are very “Yang” (outward and energetic) while cats and writing are very “Yin” (inward and passive). In one of my previous lives (one of the three before the dastard) the cats that came into my life were given names beginning with the letter “W”. This went on for quite a while, starting with Wilson in 1983 (I should have listened to him when he clearly told me he didn’t want the dastard in our lives) and working through to the last of them, Waku Oni, who appeared in 2013.

Waku whosits? Back in the 90s I lived in Japan for half a year. After leaving my four cats–Watson, Wilfred, Wilhemina and Winston–in the US with my sisters, of course I found a tiny little calico kitten in the bike garage of my apartment building. She became Wazuka Oni, very bad Japanese for “Little Devil”. And she was just that, a tiny little she-devil with all the amazing intelligence you expect of Japanese Calico cats. Since the US and Japan have a very nice treaty, it was easy to bring Oni cat #1 home to the states, where she was incredibly disappointed to discover she had to share her house with other cats. It was a given that any future calico would have to be an Oni cat. I’m not sure what Waku means only that Japanese friends had named their son Waku Waku. No matter. Waku is living up to the Oni part of her name, terrorizing the other cats and the dogs by ambushing them whenever she can.

As for the rest of the felines who now share my life, since they were supposed to be barn cats I didn’t want to name them. To me, names equal pets, and these guys were supposed to be feral and uninterested in humans. Our only interaction was to be me putting out a bowl of kibble once a day. Instead, they got epithets. There’s Spots, Socks, Adventure Boy, Fuzzy, Shy Girl and Funny Face (who later became Fat Girl). Oh, and let’s not forget Useless. That’s the dark torty given to me by an acquaintance who swore she was a feral cat. Instead, she turned out to be former house cat with a love for sitting on my computer keyboard. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she swears she will never be hungry again! That doesn’t mean hunting for anything. That means staring at me until her food bowl is filled, even if she isn’t ready to eat yet.

For the record it turns out epithets also equals pets as you can see from the picture. At least all but Useless hunt. Two of the cats spend most of their time in the barn, Spots and Socks. That doesn’t mean they don’t want their lap time. Today, Socks is out and about, hunkered down in a dry place no doubt. That’s Spots dashing toward me, trying to convince me to stay and do that petting thing for a little longer.

Sigh.

Hamburger!

Oh LORDY!  I think I’m done with my cows, hence the title of this post.  I just can’t deal with their never-ending search for ways to get to my very expensive, mostly organic bird food!  How could I have lived most of my life never realizing how crafty and intelligent bovines are?  Or how persistent!  They never accept defeat.  Just when I think I have them contained, one of them figures out a new way to get around the barrier, lock, blockade, gate or fence.

It was the turkey coop wall this time.  As I mentioned in my previous post, my coop is less than stellar in the first place.  Although it stands in the center of my open pole barn.  One side  is up against the corrugated metal barn siding, but the other three are 6 foot chain link panels bolted together.  There’s only chicken wire for roofing.

So I thought I was being clever–at least more clever than a cow–when I left the turkey food in their coop yesterday and pulled the very heavy metal feeder trough (thank you Don Goddard!) in front of the door.  I mean, it’s too heavy for the cows to push far, and even if they did push it where would it go but forward?  Forward means it would still be blocking the open door.

And cows don’t pull things, right?  Wrong.  Sort of.

Although cows don’t have fingers or toes, Elsie has a very big nose and an extremely hard head.  I’m guessing she put her head between the trough and the chain link panel, thinking to lever the trough back from the doorway.  But as she shoved it wasn’t the trough that moved, it was the wall.  At that point the little light bulb must have gone on over her head, because–I am not joking–she somehow got her head positioned just so and LIFTED the panel.  How do I know this is what happened?  Because two of the bird food bowls were in the exact place I’d left them, empty of course, while the fence panel was behind them.  That could only have happened if she’d lifted the panel over them.  Once the fence was away from the trough, it was an easy saunter for the cows to walk in through the coop door and empty the rest of the feeders.

However, they didn’t make a clean getaway.  Both Georgie and Hannah Mae, who even at her young age votes wholeheartedly for eating grain instead of milk, managed to exit, maneuvering into the sharp right turn between the trough and the wall.  Elsie was too big to make that tight a turn.  She was standing in the doorway when I found her, her face dusty and a contented look filling her eyes.  This morning the coop has a second front panel, so any attempt at pushing will only drive panel one back into panel two, and a new attempt at a barrier across its door.

Hamburger!  I reminded the cows that the dogs they love are on the BARF (bones and raw food) diet, and both dogs just love hamburger.

Speaking of the dogs, Moosie has been self-policing since his “Incident”, refusing to come down to the pasture without me.  And something about the whatever-it-was that broke into the turkey coop flipped a switch in Bear.  Over this last week he’s become “Bear, the Livestock Guardian Dog”.

Like Moosie, Bear is a rescue.  The powers-that-be believe he’s a Hungarian Kuvasz, the breed from which the Great Pyrenees descend.  The description fits: “Quick to grow, slow to mature.  Almost impervious to inclement weather.”  Yep, that’s Bear.

Bear upon arrival at the Farm

He was found south of the Grand Canyon after having been shot (although not badly injured). There was a time when I would never have condoned such a thing.  These days, I not only condone it but I can imagine shooting a strange dog that invaded my property, especially one as large as Bear.  Not knowing the dog, but knowing just how expensive my birds are and how very little profit there is in them, protecting my livestock is far more important than approaching a potentially dangerous dog.

It was through the miracle of the internet and mutual friends that Bear came to live here with his best bud Moosie.  I took him because of Tango, my first experiment with a Livestock Guardian breed.  He was an Anatolian/Pyrenees cross and had been trained to his job.  Oh, how I loved Tango!  He was fast, reaching at least 35 miles per hour in his sprints; he used to race along the fence line, keeping pace with the cars on Page Springs Road, and let me say no one goes 35 miles an hour along my road.  Forty, sixty, even motorcycles going close to a hundred, yes.  Thirty-five, no. One day I watched him go from a sound sleep to biting at a coyote’s tail across the pasture in less than thirty seconds.  He drove a Black Hawk into the ditch.  It nearly drowned.  He had just one quirk, one similar to the cows.  At about 2:00 PM he’d offer me a jaunty salute, find a new hole in the exterior fence and go for a walk, usually a twenty mile walk.  Later, I’d get the call that began with, “I found your dog…”. Tango now lives in on a 2 acre farm that has an inescapable iron fence.

As for Bear, I’ve been waiting for some sign that he even has the guardian gene.  It like writing.  You either have the talent or you don’t, and no amount of training or technique will help if you don’t have it. So, as the months passed, I grew more convinced that Bear had been dumped by his original owner/breeder because he was a failure and the owner didn’t need one more expensive mouth to feed.  Then this week, out of disaster came success.

Whatever-it-is has been trying to come back, and Bear is determined not to allow it. Breaching the coop seems to have been an insult he cannot t tolerate.  He now spending his nights down by the far bar, near the turkeys. I think it helps that the local coyote pack has been walking the fences at night, yipping and going on, adding injury to the insult.  With Moosie holding back, Bear has stepped forward and I couldn’t be more pleased. Good boy!

 

Something in the Turkey Coop

Something broke into the turkey coop two nights ago and I don’t have a clue how it was done.  There’s no doubt that it happened.  It was around 7:30 pm and all of a sudden the turkeys were making a huge ruckus and Bear was raging.  For the record Bear doesn’t usually rage.  Most of the time he moves at an ambling pace, even if I’m offering treats.  He has a deep, “I’m a really big dog” bark that’s seriously off-putting for almost everything, but he’s a gentle giant and pretty much a committed underachiever in his livestock guardian duties. I’ve actually seen him laying on the porch with his head on his paws as he barks in warning to whatever’s out there.  Over the two years that Moosie and Bear have been partners on the farm, I’ve learned that it’s only serious if Moosie barks.

But Moosie wasn’t outside that night, because…well, because he’d had another ‘incident’.  Moosie is an amazing dog.  Training him not to leave the property took four attempts.  First, he went East.  I brought him home and he spent an hour leashed to the porch.  The next time he had the chance to escape, he went North, and spent an hour in time out.  The third attempt was to the South.  Ditto on time out.  He went West with his last attempt.  As I leashed him to the porch again, he looked up at me and I could see it in his eyes.  “I get it.  I’m not supposed to go outside the fence.” And he no longer does. As I’ve often said in these posts, he’s also a hunter and utterly fearless.  I never understood the attraction of dog fights until I saw Moosie in action.  It’s breathtaking and awe-inspiring to see him do his job. The problem with Moosie is…well, all of the above.

So three nights ago the birds weren’t quite in their coop at sundown because of Georgie, my little steer.  That &@$# calf!  Every time I think I have that critter locked out of things, he figures out a new way to break in.  This time, he opened the gate to the hay storage area by putting his head through the bars and lifting as he stepped back, the chain slipping through the slot as he went.  I know this because I saw him try it again after I found him and Elsie dining on bird food, then fixed the issue.  Because of the spilled food, the turkeys weren’t hungry enough to go into their coop at their usual time and I didn’t realize Moosie had a new rule about hunting birds.  He’s got that he’s not supposed to take them during the day (I hope), but if they’re out at night, then they’re prey just like everything else.  Five hundred dollars worth of birds.  Sigh.

That brings me back to Bear raging two nights ago.  Needless to say, I’d made certain the birds were all locked in tight in their coop, which, I admit, is built of chain link panels for walls and chicken wire for a roof, held together by chewing gum and baling string.  (I built it.  ‘Nuf said.)  As Moosie and I joined Bear at the turkey coop I could see the pile of feathers in the corner of the coop closest to the door by the light of my headlamp.  There’s no mistaking what that means: dead bird.  Sure enough, I walked around the corner of the barn and found the turkey’s head, but nothing else.  I checked the the coop doors.  Both of them are absolutely closed and locked.  There was no hole in the panels, however the chicken wire roof did have a new gap where it had once been attached to the walls.

If not Moosie and no break in the fencing, then what got in?  For the past week, I’ve watched the dogs work the ditch bank, watching the water.  I suspect Otters.  Two years ago, there was a den across the creek and the mama raised five little ones. She took them for a tour of my place, swimming them up the ditch and showing them the plethora of crayfish available here.  Hey, wait a minute!  Don’t otters also eat eggs and chickens?  Why, yes they do, if they can get to them. What about cooped turkeys?

Well, whatever it was, it got in without using a door and managed to get back out again with a good-sized turkey and leave no obvious trace.  I’ve sewn the roof back to the panels using at least four times as much baling string and added bird netting (nothing likes touching that stuff, not even Javelina) around the edges while I go back to the drawing board to build a better enclosure. The hard part is going to be convincing the turkeys that going into their coop at night means safety not death.

Farming.  It’s always something.

(Many thanks to Chet Provorse “the imagyst” for this photo of my boys.)

Red Sky at Morning…

I love that saying: Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.   I didn’t know know until my fabulous step-daughter Amberly Neese informed me that this saying has its roots in the bible, in Matthew 16, v 2-3: “When in evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: For the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today; for the sky is red and lowering.”  Or, that Shakespeare had used it in his play Venus and Adonis. “Like a red morn that ever yet betokened, Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.”

As a committed (committable?) sky watcher and novice weather soothsayer I want this adage to be true. This is because I don’t have a television and never get around to listening to the radio, therefore I never know what’s being predicted weather-wise.  If I could trust this little ditty, if it were a hard and fast rule, then foretelling the weather would be easy, or rather easier for me.

Then yesterday morning, after I thought the wonderful pluvial storm had moved on and we were in for a spate of dryer weather, there I am standing under a dawn sky that was tinted a beautiful red.  Or at least what I consider to be red as far as sky colors go.  As dawn progressed, the clouds got even rosier.

That totally shot my theory to pieces.  How could the sky be red when the storm had been and gone?  So I went to my go-to research source, Google.  I think I’ve said this before, but what did we do before Google?  Oh yeah!  We sat on the floor in the library stacks and pulled out book after book, scanning content for the ONE fact needed to move the story forward.

And of course there’s a page that explains the post-storm red sky. My long ago high school science classes had taught me that the colors we see in the sky are because of the dust and water vapor in the atmosphere.  If the sky is full of dust and moisture, we see red because the color red has the longest wavelength and are less likely to be broken up by the particles in the sky. At sunrise and sunset, the low sun is sending light through the thickest part of the atmosphere, so there’s more likely to be a colorful display.

Since weather usually moves from west to east for those of us in the mid-Latitudes, being driven by the prevailing westerlies (now, there’s a sailor’s term), our storms most often move in from the West.  A red sunset should then indicate the forefront of a high pressure system, or stable air coming our way.  Good weather should follow.  However, red in the sunrise, especially a fiery red–not the tepid rose color in my photo–could mean high water content in the air, or that the high pressure system has moved on.  So, rain could be on the way. Or not.

Well, darn.  It turns out that the color of the sky is pretty much the same guessing game that the weatherman plays.  I may have to repurpose this little ditty as something I just happen to sing to the turkeys as I’m opening their coops and appreciating a beautiful morning sky.

 

Pluviophile

Pluviophile: noun, someone who loves the rain, who finds joy and peace of mind on rainy days.

Many thanks to my friend and fellow author Christine Eaton Jones for posting this definition today on Facebook.  I am definitely a Pluviophile.  When I woke up this morning and discovered it was raining–not an Arizona downpour but more of a steady Dutch sprinkle (goedje weer voor een eend or good weather for a duck), I was thrilled.  Outside, the clouds have lowered until they’re cloaking the hills that surround me in wispy mist.Of course, the turkeys and cows are less enthusiastic about the wet than I am, but that’s their problem.  I’m hoping it rains all day so I can have hot chocolate while I see what Sir Faucon and Brother Edmund are up to in the new mystery I’m writing.  Best of all, there’ll be soup for dinner.  Frankly, if I could move this farm (and Oak Creek) to Seattle, I’d do it.  Since I can’t I’ll take my pluvial joy when I can get it.

Unlike folks who suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), especially if those people have the misfortune to live in Holland or Illinois where the sun stays hidden for more than 200 days a year, I love gray days.  Then again, I live in Arizona where the sun beats relentlessly down at least 340 days a year.

As with everything, there are consequences to encouraging the rain out here on the farm, and it mostly has to do with the creek.  A good rain in Flagstaff or Sedona can significantly raise the water level.  Last spring when the “great flood” hit, the water came well up onto what the county calls “the flood fringe”, almost pulling down my perimeter fence.  That was water ten feet deep and moving at an incredible speed.  In fact, it was moving so fast and was so high it hardly looked like it was moving at all.  It was only as I watched it carry off a 20 foot length of a 3 foot diameter cottonwood trunk (bye-bye oyster mushrooms!) that had been laying next to my fence when I moved in that I realized just how powerful the creek had become.  Needless to say, I was suddenly wondering if I would have to bring the cows to the upper terrace where the house is–6 feet out of the flood fringe or so I’m told–but how the heck was I going to herd the turkeys up here?

So this morning after releasing the animals from their corrals and coops, I went down to check on the creek.  Yep, it’s Willy Wonka brown and moving fast.  But it hasn’t risen much yet, and it may not.  That previous flood shifted the creek’s path, moving it to the other side of the “island” that stands between me and my neighbors on Willow Point Road.

Good and bad, I suppose.The good is that I don’t have to worry about moving animals in the muck.  The bad has to do with the tons and tons of wood that previous floods have deposited at at the far end of the property.  I’ve started moving the branches and trunks down to the creek-side terrace where there’s nothing but rock.  Eventually I ‘ll set it on fire and be rid of it at last.  Yes, I have burn permit and, in case you’re concerned, burning wood on your own property is considered carbon-neutral.  It’ll be quite the bonfire.  But you know what would have been easier?  If I’d gotten all that wood moved down there last year, and this year’s flood had carried it away. Nt going to happen now that the creek is diverted.

But that’s a concern for another day.  Today, I’m grinning in the rain.

 

Calf Games

Little Hannah Mae is doing very well and growing like a weed (and now taking almost all of her mother’s milk–no cheese for me!).  I’ve learned some interesting things about a heifer over these past weeks.  For instance, the little girl cows don’t really liked being touched.  Until now, I’ve only known little bull calves.  Like Georgie, they’ve all been bold in their curiosity and quick to attach themselves to the human willing to give them a pat and a scratch. I guess this makes sense.  If they were wild, the bulls would all need to be aggressive in checking out the situation in case there was danger while the cows would back into a circle, waiting to see if the coast is clear.

Knowing that I will someday want to milk Hannah, I’ve been making sure I give her some pats and scratches every day.  It is NOT her favorite thing.  Walking slowly, I maneuver her around the corral until she’s cornered, then start with the horrid routine of rubbing her face, scratching her neck and ears, under the chin (she’s sort of fond of that) and then rub her tiny little teats.  The whole time she’s tense and her eyes are scrunched almost shut.  This morning I had a break-through because she simply backed into the corral fence and let me do it.  I could see it in her eyes: “Whatever, let’s just get this over with!”  Meanwhile, Georgie is following me around like a dog, to see if I have any pats and scratches for him.

But beyond that ordeal, she’s liking her life here.  After all, there is a big brother to chase and torment.  I watched them on the hillside last night.  She so tiny and light that she practically flitted up the rocky slope then danced like a mountain goat from outcropping to outcropping. Georgie was following her along the lower path, running for all he’s worth.  As they met, he half-kicked at her as she passed.  It was such a “boy” thing to do:  “Ha!  I could have gotten you if I wanted to.”

Yesterday, my relief milker came with his two children, who are 4ish and 2ish.  Hannah was fascinated.  She kept getting closer and closer to them, watching their every move.  I could see what she was thinking in her eyes:  “They’re just little like me!  Maybe we can play.”

Think I’m wrong about that?  Then you haven’t watched one of my four-legged babies play.  Dog or cow, they recognize a toy or a playmate when they see one.  The swing is a favorite.  Every calf that’s lived here long enough to discover it has developed his own game with it.  If you headbutt it just right, it’ll go swinging and twisting and hit your buddy in the back.  That’s the best fun!

So yesterday, I caught Georgie ‘splaining the rules of swings to Hannah.  She was unconvinced at that moment, but later when I got in it and started swinging, she actually came close to watch me.  It won’t be long before she’s dashing beneath it and sending it flailing at an unsuspecting Georgie.  I can see it in her eyes!

 

Autumn Dances

Finally!  The weather is cooling off and the mornings are glorious–almost cool enough that I could use a jacket.  The only downside to the beginning of Autumn is the new tension that’s overtaken the farm.

They start like this:
And end up 5 months later like this:

See all the tom turkeys in that second image?  Don’t know the difference between a tom and a hen?  The toms are the ones that gobble.  If I laugh loudly at them, the toms will all gobble back in response.  It’s sort of like having my own sitcom laugh track.  The toms also fan out their tails, and, like the prairie chicken, they have a membrane in their breasts that they can fill with air then release with a distinct “poof”.  It’s kind of a bagpipe without the screech.

And, of course, they fight with the other toms.  Oh yes.  The testosterone has hit the fan.

For the record, turkey hens can be just as rough and ready as the toms.  They’ll make a show of feathers, grab each other by the skin of the neck and twist viciously.  This summer I even had a hen confront a Black Hawk.  I have a pair of Black Hawks that nest nearby.  They’re a funny hawk because, unlike the myriad other hawks, falcons and #!%$ ravens that survey my livestock, these guys aren’t flying hunters.  Instead, they hang out in the trees and wait for prey to pass beneath them, then drop down to snatch it.  This ploy worked better on the Blue Heron, who consistently lost whatever he/she had just fished out of the creek–the Black Hawk was literally stealing food out of its mouth. That ploy didn’t work so well with my turkeys.  As the hawk plummeted toward the babies, one of the hens took off.  Backstroking her wings, she came flying up breast first, and crashed into the dropping hawk.  Needless to say, the Black Hawk beat a hasty retreat.  She was the bigger bird.

Back to my too-many toms.  At five months old my little lads are now all teenagers.  If you’ve raised children, then you know what this means.  They beginning to think “SEX”!   They start playing “boy” games.  That means fanning the tail, puffing out the feathers, and shifting the colors of their heads from red to white to blue as quickly as possible.  By the way, this is why Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as our national bird–because their heads reflected the colors of our flag, sometimes all at once.

I’m not looking forward to next month.  That’s when the dancing will start.  If you’ve ever been to a Powwow and watched the heavily feathered guy strut his stuff, you know what a tom turkey looks like when he does his mating dance.  The feet pound, right a few times, then left.  He spreads his tail feathers, shifting the fan from one side to the other.  His wing tips scrape the ground (so much so that my precious Tom has permanently flattened wing tips–he’s worn off the curves) as he turns, shifts and prances.  That dancing is serious business.  It says “Ladies, I am the one and only guy for you.”

And here’s the deal.  If that particular tom thinks he’s the only guy for the ladies, then all the other guys are threats to his domain. It’s a challenge that can’t be ignored.  The boys start scrumming–they circle each other, five or six at a time, prancing, biting, poking, grabbing caruncles and twisting until the blood flows.

That’s when I start watching out for my Tom.  This year all his sons have done so well that they’re bigger than he is.  In previous years his boys have deferred to him until just before Thanksgiving when they finally think they can give him a run for his money.  By then, I’ve got the knives sharpened and I’m not averse to removing one capable of damaging Tom if need be.  But I’m afraid with such big boys the scrumming will start earlier this year .  It’d break Tom’s heart to be separated from his flock, but it’d break mine to lose him. I guess he really is the only guy for me.

Turkey Anatomy 101.  Here he is, Tom “the Dancing Fool” Turkey