Animals in the snow

The sheep, apparently, don't mind the snow. In fact, Clara rather likes eating it.

The goats want nothing to do with it.

The people avoid it by sitting near the fire, playing board games and drinking homebrew.

Frosty Fall Morning

Lots of work was done around here this week, and I was going to tell you all about the wood hauling, garage cleaning and beer making (and smoke detector battery changing - change your batteries when you change  your clocks!), but when I went out to wake up the animals this morning everything was frosty and foggy. I thought you'd like to see that more than you'd like to see piles of wood, or de-walnut-shell-ified garage floors.

Martha, being dignified:

Rose has recently decided that people aren't all that bad and she'll now eat grain from  my hand, chew on my coat, and stare at me as if to say "why is there no grain in your hand?"

Kaylee started climbing on the straw bales again this week. Her ability to reliably climb was the last sign we were waiting to see for her full recovery. She's still a bit smaller than Saffron, but watching her jump on top of the Barn Mountain warms my heart.

Group shot! Everyone says "Good Morning."

"Now, feed us grain, Woman!"

Chili and chickens (and goats)

I'm not a very good food blogger and always worry I make things look far less appetizing than they are...but here's what we've been eating this week - local chili:

It's totally time for chili. The beef was purchased directly from the farmer the tomatoes and peppers are from our garden. Bill made the bread and the beer is a home brew. Yummo.

These pumpkins have been dedicated to the highest purpose to which a squash can aspire - pumpkin ale. We bottled it this week and just have to wait a bit while it carbonates. Waiting!!!

This is Minion, the youngest chick we have. He was odd and unexpected and is still totally attached to his mom even though they should really being going their separate ways by now. Basically, he's a big baby.

On the other side of that coin are the Patooties (as in Cutie Patooties), a pair of chickens that were raised by a turkey along with their sister Duck (who clearly has identity issues). The turkey hen is not convinced that her babies are big enough to be on their own yet and is still trying to mother them. The Patooties rather think they are sheep, though, and spend most of their day in the pasture.

The goats are doing well:

Whenever I see these kittens playing or cuddling together it makes me unreasonably happy that we could keep them together. When we went to the Humane Society we knew we wanted "up to two kittens" and  chose these guys because they were the only siblings. I mean, all the kittens were adorable and any that we brought home would have been wonderful, but these guys tug at my heart strings. I'm sure they don't remember, but they had a tough go early in life and whenever I think I of the long, cold night they spent together abandoned outside Animal Control, and the illnesses they battled through as result, I am so glad they still have each other for snuggling. And biting. And squirrel watching.

Is this really a job?

On Monday and Wednesday of this week, I spent nearly the whole day splitting wood. Check it.

Monday morning:

Monday evening:

Wednesday evening.

A few things to note:
1) Some of this is cherry, so it smells FANTASTIC
2) Yes, I do periodically stand in the woodshed admiring the growing pile
3) We have an electric splitter, so I'm probably not as badass as you're thinking, but it was still a ton of work with much wheelbarrowing involved.

Splitting this wood - all of which is from trees that fell on our land as the result of storms - provided me with a clear example of why we're doing what we're doing. I was confident when I quit my job of our choice to live this sort of life, but it could seem a bit odd to others. There are not a lot of 2013 examples or cultural norms of a woman having no job and no children (it's rather the antithesis of "having it all" by the common current definition). So, I was pleased to realize how directly all this wood splitting could be used to explain the choices we've made.

We (Bill and I...and Sugar Pie and the cats) have a need to keep our house warm during the winter. It's one of those basic requirements that even Thoreau, the king of simplicity, would call a "necessity of life." Previously, I would work at a job that paid me money that I would then exchange for heating fuel in order to meet this need. It was a very fossil-fuel intense process. A car transported me to work, where I sat at a computer for most of the day and earned a paycheck that allowed me to purchase propane gas to be blown throughout my house using a furnace fueled by coal-powered electricity.


An alternative way to provide the heat we need during a cold Indiana winter (and the method that was used when our house was built), is by burning local wood. Now, instead of spending my day earning money to buy propane to heat my house, I spent my time providing heating fuel in a more direct fashion - one that also makes much less use of fossil fuels (the chainsaw and log splitter, and even some of the person-energy rely on fossil fuels in some way, but I am confident it is far less than the previous method). So, even though Childless Woman who Earns No Money is not often considered a job or even a productive choice to make, I think of the work I do here as an employment of sorts - one that meets the needs of my household while making fewer demands on community resources and our environment. It is a weird, but totally viable way to spend a week day.

On a less philosophical note...Kaylee wants you to know that she is feeling better and cavorting around the field at will.

Clara wants you to know that she is still the cutest thing in the barnyard.

Bill and I went apple picking for our anniversary yesterday...

...and added this photo to our collection of arm-length snapshots.

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.

BABY ANIMALS!!!

They're cute! They're cuddly! They make you forgive me for being so negligent at blogging!

A chicken being raised by a turkey:

Clara. Seriously, this must be the most adorable lamb ever born.

Kaylee and her ears. What is she looking at??

Do you see the white speck at the top of the photo? That's Bill at the back of the field and the goats certainly can see him.

They love him because he spoils them. Kaylee especially loves him. She isn't really sure about me, but whenever Bill is in visual or auditory range, she cries for him. And he always goes to scratch her ears and give her some fresh mulberry branches. Totally spoiled.

Let's pretend I'm going to start blogging regularly on Fridays. I think can handle that?

The farm in Early June

I have these visions of monthly updates showing the progress of very specific things, like the gardens and animals...but the follow-through has been lacking. But, I'm willing to try again if you are. It's not very exciting in the beginning (a lot of photos are for reference), but there is some serious cuteness at the end.

Here is the state of the farm on June 6, 2013. It's been amazingly temperate and appropriatly rainy. After a few hot summers in a row we are very glad! It was like this the first year we lived in this house and we have fond memories of a friendly summer.

The kitchen garden currently has a mostly-finished drip irrigation system, tomatoes, peppers and 4 eggplants.

Over on this side are mounds of winter and summer squash, plus a few melons.

This time last year, the black caps were nearly done but today they are still very green. This is more consistent with 2009 when we picked two jars full in late June...except this year we have about 100x more plants as we stopped mowing much of the property and the black caps have taken over. These are our cultivated ones with some netting to protect them. Suck it, songbirds!

Our pasture is green! There is a haystack in the middle of hay Bill scythed earlier this week. This is the first year that we're farming grass.

Cauliflower and beets (background).

Carrots:

Dent corn:

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Pumpkin patch.

Oymygosh this is so boring!! How about some Martha and Rose to make it more interesting?

Kaylee and Saffron in perspective with some really tall (and yummy) thistle.

Kaylee and her ears.

Saffron chewing on my finger...

...and being a snuggle goat.

This chicken and the two turkey hens are co-parenting four chicken babies. It's odd, but seems to be working.

This chick was born yesterday. The knitted one was completed today.

That's it! Maybe I'll be back with a review of how all this stuff is growing in July. Well, not the knitted chicken obviously...but the other stuff.