Those other sorts of weeks

I suspect when most folks think about farming they envision physical labor under a beautiful blue sky in a heavenly pastoral field. There's the freedom of working for yourself and the joy of not being tied to an electronic device. It's a peaceful image.

This is true of most weeks on the farm. I love it.

There are other weeks though, that are a bit more stressful. We just got through one of them.

Kaylee, our goat with the funny ears...you know her:

She's the timid one. A bit smaller than Saffron, but a tough little goat. About three weeks ago she started limping and falling over for no reason. We probed her legs and thought she had pulled a muscle, so we locked her up for a few days of rest.

(Try keeping a 5 month old goat restful. Just try it.)

After a few days she wasn't getting better. In fact, she was getting worse. So we called the vet. By the time he was able to come to check her out, Kaylee wasn't even able to stand on her own. I was terrified she'd get dehydrated and was out in the barn every 20 minutes propping her up near the water bucket. She remained perky, was eating and pooping well, but she continued to lose function in her front right leg.

Our vet suspected she had a weird, rare parasite or virus that ended up in her nervous system. He wasn't sure if we could help her, but we threw the goat medicine kitchen sink at her - two shots a day along with an oral dewormer for 5 days.

She started to improve every day, and keeps reaching new milestones (today she got both legs up on the second rung of the barn gate for the first time in weeks). She's been running and head butting and can keep up with everyone now, though I still worry about a relapse. It seems like she is going to be ok and we're impressed with her tenacity. I have now formed a rather strong attachment to her, but she's recovered enough to remember that she doesn't really like being hugged and keeps evading my embraces, which both delights and saddens me.

During Kaylee's downward phase, when I was going to check on her at regular intervals, one of our ewes died suddenly. I have read about sudden sheep death, but found it totally shocking nonetheless. On one trip to the barn Donna was totally fine, scampering about and vexing me by trying to escape from the pen to chomp on mulberry leaves. 45 minutes later, without any warning, she had died. We're not sure of the cause yet. We took her to the Purdue diagnostics lab and should be getting a report soon.

Donna was nearly 6 years old, which is middle aged for a sheep. She was the crazy-looking, loud-mouthed one. Even though we only had her for 4 months, we liked her and are glad we got to know her.

(Donna on the left. Her lamb Clara is in the foreground.)

So, it was one of those weeks. It's hard to face the realization that we don't control everything, but figuring out how to deal with these emotions and move forward is part of our learning process.

We're learning.

Frosty!

The 90% first frost date in our area is early October. But, of course, this is an exceptional year and our first frost was on September 22.

We have gobs of green tomatoes and lots of Thai hot peppers that aren't ripe yet, so we covered most of important stuff in plastic.

Bill also built me a cold frame for the top of a couple of raised beds. I started broccoli and beets in here a few weeks ago and recently added some lettuce and radishes. We'll see how it works! Hopefully we'll have some homegrown lettuce for tacos throughout the winter.

My head exploded

Warning - this post is overtly political...something I don't typically do here, but I am feeling a particularly overwhelming rage at the moment and want to speak up.

When we moved to DC in 2002, I went as a believer in the system. I moved there to "change the world, man," and thought the political process was the way do to it. Five years working with advocacy organizations changed my mind and I left DC thinking most people involved with the national system were worthless and just playing a game to amuse themselves and gain individual power.

As a result, I haven't voted for a major party candidate for a national office in many years. I have consistently made use of the write-in option - even when I knew my vote could actually count. Both Virginia and Indiana have been battleground states in years that I've lived in them and cast votes for Gandalf and The Doctor. I believed that the "lesser of two evils" was still evil and I didn't want to endorse it.

In two sentences, Mitt Romney guaranteed my vote this year for Barack Obama. Sorry, Atticus Finch, you don't get my vote this time.

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.

This sentiment is so blatantly stupid, I can't even stand it. When I heard Romney utter it, I couldn't do anything but scream. Loudly. For two full minutes. I believe I now understand how people feel when they say their heads have exploded. 

And he said it in a year when vast sections of the midwest are experiencing record drought, costing states, farmers AND FAMILIES billions of dollars.

To not understand that environmental issues are economic issues displays a serious, willful misunderstanding of how life works.

I know that drought is not always caused by climate change. I know that the dust bowls of nearly 100 years ago can't be blamed on our current use of oil. Sometimes drought is just a naturally occuring event that is not influenced by human action. And, THIS is exactly why we should be addressing environmental concerns within our control. There are going to be times that Mother Nature screws us over. We can recover and thrive in those years if we aren't screwing ourselves over in all the other years.

I've been meaning to reread Jared Diamond's Collapse and Romney's ignorance (and the ignorance of the people who would believe him) has prompted me to do it publicly. For the next few weeks, I'll share summaries of the chapters as I read them. Despite its title, Collapse is a very hopeful book. Jared Diamond - winner of a MacArthur genius award - describes why advanced societies have failed throughout history (spoiler alert: it's usually an environmental reason) and how we can learn from them to avoid their fates. He also shares examples of how good environmental policy enhances economic conditions and the health and stability of "you and your family."

Environmental issues have nothing - NOTHING - to do with saving whales and pandas. It's about saving people. It always has been.

We got rain! And firewood!

 

It finally rained last weekend. We could have guessed that it would have to be a pretty powerful storm to make it to us, given that all the smaller storms were either deflected around us, or broke up before they reached us. Apparently drought is self-reinforcing, and it took a mighty storm to break through all the dryness.

 

The winds were about 80-90 mph and trees were toppled everywhere. The trees that didn't fall over lost huge branches, or their entire tops. We've got a ton of firewood for next year, and today the sounds of dueling chainsaws are echoing throughout the street.

The storm woke us up Sunday morning around 5:00. It was powerful enough that Bill suggested going downstairs to check the radar. By the time we were half-way down, we could hear branches slamming up against the house and decided to skip the radar and head for the basement.

When we were in the basement, the power went out. And then we wished we had thought to bring a flashlight on our evacuation.

As soon as it was light out, went to inspect the damage.

We're not entirely sure what happened to Bill's stove. Perhaps the wind pushed on the walls and the insulation leaked out. Besides that, it is unscathed.

 

The chickens, turkeys, garden and outbuildings are all fine. Our neighbors are all safe and power was restored by noon.

The 'hood looks a bit wind-tossed, though. What surprised me was how far branches flew from their trees. The branch in front of Bill is from that silver maple tree about 50 yards behind him.

 

The corn across the street was all bending in one direction, so we knew it had been straight-line winds and not a tornado. 

 

Our sad, scraggly old peach tree fell, missing our car by a few inches. 

 

Even after the big storm, we're still way, way down on rainfall. We've had about 2.5-3 inches this past week, but the creek down the road is still a bunch of stagnant, disconnected puddles. 

 

We'll be busy for a few weeks cutting up firewood. We've got maple, mulberry, locust, walnut... such a lovely variety. 

 

This is our neighbor's tree. Our neighbors on the other side lost a bunch too...they moved in 2 days before the storm. Such a crazy way to be welcomed to the neighborhood! We met them last night as they were clearing some brush. We're all bonding over the hum of chainsaws.

It's Super, I guess

The Super Bowl is here. It's...whatever. I'm not gonna be a downer about the BIGGEST MOST AWESOME EVENT EVER TO COME TO INDY OMG!!!

But, I'm not gonna pretend to like it either. Bill and I went down to the Super Bowl Village earlier this week to see what it was all about.


This is what Bill thought of it:


There was a zipline. It went a whole city block.


And a couple of Indy cars.


And a lot of people sort of standing around and drinking Bud Light.


That thing in the center of the road is like, a Fire and Ice lounge or something. It's the only food available in the village and I think it's actually all beer. I don't know who runs those. I heard a rumor it was the Indianapolis tourism board perhaps. But until it's confirmed, I'll assume the money goes to the NFL. And Budweiser.


There was also the NFL Experience. You pay $25 a person to stand in a really big line so that you can get inside a building and buy the official NFL gear (which is only sold inside that building). There were like games for kids and stuff too, I'm told. Apparently there are more checkout lanes in there than in a Super Walmart (I'm beginning to think the word "Super" ain't all that great), and they were all full constantly. Presumably all that money goes to the NFL.

But look at how much fun everyone is having.


Us too!

After about 20 minutes, we were just spent from all the fun, fun, fun, so we walked the 8 or 9 blocks back to my office and our car. We walked up Mass Ave, the center of awesome, independent Indianapolis. Lots of restaurants, shops, art, the best cupcakes, yummy truffles, an independent toy store, bars, (passable) pizza.... It's usually hopping every night of the week. These were the small, local businesses that would benefit so greatly from the unparalleled AWESOMENESS of the SUPER BOWL.


Or not. Where are all the people???

Oh, right.

Happy Solstice from Indiana

We are in Indiana.

"Well, duh" you're thinking. "It says that right up there in the header ^."

Well, we're supposed to be in New York with our families for the holidays. But events have conspired and we're not. I'm not gonna lie. It sucks. It sucks a lot.

But we're trying to have some holiday spirit anyway. Today is the solstice and we celebrated with a Yule Log. The log must be cut by us on our property, so Bill picked out a great locust round.

We decorated it with a turkey feather for our birds, a (spouted) potato from our garden, and a bit of wool - all things we hope will be prosperous and abundant in the new year. We also included a cough drop for Bill and a bit of tape from my finger splint incident to keep us both healthy. Finally, on the very right is a bit of wrapping paper with a heart drawn on it - for happiness of everyone we love. We chose wrapping paper because the wrapped presents we won't be taking to NY this week are the most tangible reminder of our families right now.

Don't they look pretty??

The orange bobble ribbon is for my sister because she is funky and fun and her present should be too.

(sad face)

Ok - back to the Yule Log. We lit this year's log with the shard we kept from last year. Apparently keeping a bit of the Yule Log all year protects your house from lightening.

It totally worked for us.

Though, we did get hit by a tornado.

But it was a little tornado. It menaced our neighbors much worse than it did us.

So, anyway...that black coal in the center - that's last year's log chunk.

We saved a much bigger piece of this year's log - like half of it. Bill seemed to rather enjoy taking a flaming hunk of wood out of the stove, placing it on the ground outside and throwing water on it.

Boys.

We also cracked open the Rumtopf. We put this up with fruit leftovers from throughout the summer and fall. There's not a lot of drinking going on here this week, but we each ate a (very potent) peach slice.

We hope you all had a lovely solstice.

THIS!

Today was the sort of day for opening all the doors in the house and drying roving and sheets on rope strung between trees.


The sheets, you will note, are not flannel. This is a milestone. Also, the roving is green. I am craving some green. Fortunately, Mother Nature is obliging.



It was also the sort of day for having dinner outside. Homemade bread, local cheese and salami and the very, very last of the wine we brought back from New Zealand. Cards too. We always play cards when eating dinner at a picnic table. It's a thing. Should you ever eat dinner on our picnic table, expect to be presented with cards.



Today was also the sort of day for replacing fuel lines chewed on by red squirrels. Mmmm. Gasoline coated rubber is so delicious!

Turkey pen

Last week Bill built a small barn yard for the turkeys. They're ready to go outside and eat up yummy ticks, but we'd still like a little control over where they go, so now they have their own little pen.

We also clipped their wings. This was absolutely as terrifying as it sounds. Bill was in charge of grabbing and holding the turks, while I cut the feathers on one wing. With just one wing cut, they can still hop up a few feet, but they can't fly over our fence and on to the neighbor's roof.

At first, of course, they didn't know their wings were clipped and they kept trying to fly away from us, resulting in hilarious nose-dives. Ok...it was mostly sad, but a little funny.

We can really see the difference between the jakes and jennies now (I think those are real turkey words?). The males are developing waddles and snoods, while the females' feathers are becoming lighter in color.

Sadly, the day after these photos were taken, we found one of the males dead. We suspect an evil-doer dug under the fence and killed him. I've read lots of reports of people loosing whole flocks in a single afternoon, so we're glad it was just one. We don't think it was a sky monster like the one that got a hen last year - the turkeys are much bigger than the chickens now and the dead guy still had his head, unlike our hen who got hit.

Today the turkeys spent the day safe in the barn and Bill filled in the possible entry under the pen with cement. Hopefully the 13 that remain will be a lucky number. No more unintentional turkey deaths!

The baby chickens are doing great. Photos soon! We think we can start telling their sexes. We ordered straight runs of some birds, which means the chicken packers pick a random handful and throw them in the box - it is cheaper and more adventurous that way. Unfortunately, of the 6 wyandottes, it looks like 5 are males.

Also doing great...socks:

I think that we have a problem...

...fungus?

I don't know if it was all the rain that we had earlier in the springtime or what, but we seem to have a fungus moving through our garden. Started with the peas, hit the snap peas harder than the snow peas. Moved on to the beans, and now it is attacking the tomatoes. I just pulled out 4 plants. That makes me sad.

Contributing factor: heirloom plants? Last year the heirloom tomatoes were so much tastier than the hybrids that we planted, so I only planted heirlooms this year. I fear that this might have been a bad idea....

Much of the garden remains OK - so far no sign of trouble on the squash, pumpkins, watermelons, muskmelons, cucumbers, pole beans, potatoes, onions, lettuce, or corn... but the success of the garden is judged by the tomato crop in my mind. Keeping my fingers crossed. Any suggestions?

Two pesky inches :(

We're working on the pretty part of our fireplace:

The slate comes in two types of fun and heavy pieces...the 2 foot long flat pieces and the wonderfully assembled corners.

They all fit together like a nice slatey puzzle. Except that our fireplace is about two inches too wide to make this easy on us. Two corners and two flat pieces on the front leave this little gap:

So close!!

Fortunately, the chimney is less than a foot deep, so cutting one flat piece roughly in half gives us enough for both sides and a little extra for the gaps.

More to come!

The curious incident of the bat in the nighttime.

Don't snuggle with bats.

A course of rabies shots is not fun.



P.S. Wear clean undies to the ER because they are gonna stick you with more stuff than your arms can take, and before they start in with 2 each on your thighs with those oh so large needles, they stick 'em in your rear.

I love living in the country!