A small blessing

Well!

I spent two days going to different hardware stores, looking for a faucet adapter, or a heat cable for the outside spigot, or any number of things and gadgets that would allow me to hook up the hose to something with running water and fill the cows' water trough.  

The faucets in the house are all the wrong size, so a faucet adapter would be possible (if only I could find the right one!)

The outside spigot was frozen, even UNDERNEATH it's little styrofoam cap which was supposed to keep it from freezing.  (It worked up until this week's sub-zero wind chill)

The guys were hauling water, and then I was hauling water a half-bucket at a time (I can't manage a full 5 gallon bucket in each hand.  That's why my carpal tunnel syndrome was so bad the first year that the cows were here!)  I was bringing gallon-milk containers full of water out to the barn in the morning and again in the evening, to give the barn critters something to drink.

The nifty little "pocket hoses" work, with four 50-foot hoses hooked together to just barely reach around the back of the barn and to the water trough.  They are rather cheaply made, and you can't run water through them at much more than a trickle.  You have to pack them back up and store them without letting water freeze inside of them, or the water pressure the next time will burst the plastic ends right off of the things.  They do the job of moving water out to the back of the barn, but they DO require a source of water that will attach to the end of the first hose.....

We were stuck hauling water into the next few months, as the situation looked just yesterday morning.....

And then last night, I was bringing feed bags into the barn, and the "stuff" (droppings and bedding) underfoot was feeling a little spongy.  The top of the frozen sheep-water looked a little shiny and slushy instead of frozen and gray.  The pig water had not frozen over just yet.  The atmosphere in the barn felt almost balmy.....

So I took a chance, and carefully turned.....the.....spigot....on.......the outside of the house.  And water flowed out of it!  A minor miracle!  I didn't think we'd be able to use the hoses until we got a nice spring thaw, but the few degrees' difference made just enough difference.  

I ran the hoses at a trickle for over an hour, and the 200 gallon water trough was full.  The cows came over to investigate.  (I think they like hose water better than filtered water from the house anyway.)

Another half-hour at trickling speed, and a 55 gallon barrel in the barn was full as well.

Hoses are now carefully drained and rolled up, and  ready for the next time when the spigot is unstuck, or when we have the right type of adapter for hooking up to an indoor faucet.  

The cows have their fresh water, the sheep/pigs/geese/chickens/cats have fresh water for me to dip into inside the barn, and the boys/men get a nice reprieve from water hauling.  

Today, the outside spigot is frozen shut again.

Sometimes, things on the farm cause me to breathe an inaudible prayer of thanksgiving, and this small blessing was one of them!

Fresh water where it is needed, in the middle of the harshest winter I can remember.  

What's not to be thankful for?!

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Overactive imagination

Photo:  The beautiful barn from the 1920's, withstanding sub-zero temperatures, complete with glistening icicles....and still standing despite my imagination running wild last night!

The current waking nightmare at 2:00 this morning (note to readers---this only happened in my MIND!):

The nightmare:  The barn burns to the ground and we don't even wake up to know it's happening.  Everything inside is lost, which (obviously) includes all of the barnyard menagerie which have been closed into the barn for safety.  I start up from a sound sleep, panicking, and my brain commences to play out the entire gruesome scene from initial spark to igniting hay loft to crashing roof to smoldering remains......

A few days ago, while looking on-line for building plans to build a few stalls inside the barn, I came across a "thread" with hundreds of entries, all about barns burning to the ground, losing everything, and "safe" electricity inside a barn (IS there such a thing, with all the flammable bedding and hay and stuff that would go up in flames with the slightest spark?)

About the same time, I typed out a reply to a chicken group about what the area farmers have warned us about.  (As transplants to farm life, we have occasionally had a vet or friendly farmer give us strong warnings about extension cords, heat lamps, and the risk of causing a fire in our  noble effort to keep the animals warm).  The one story that our friend Bruce told me is:  A family moved to the country and burned down their 100  year old barn fairly soon afterward.  They had a pet rabbit that they were keeping in the big empty barn, they wanted him to be warm, they set up a heat lamp over his cage, and......when the heat lamp broke or malfunctioned or heated the straw inside the cage to combustion temperatures, the rabbit and the entire barn went up in flames.

So, it's on my mind, especially with the cold.  Have I taken enough measures to keep the barn from burning to ashes during the dead of the night?

We've cut way back on the use of extension cords, and currently have only one heavy-duty "outdoor" rated one in the barn, which provides the electricity to keep the cow water-trough from freezing solid.  It stretches from the grounded outlet that Jeff installed, out the window, past the cow shelter, and down to where the tank de-icer plugs into it.  The same extension cord powers the charger for the electric fence, when I need to use that.  It's still a potential source of malfunction, but it's a necessary evil at this point.

Once in a while, I use a smaller extension cord to keep a 55 gallon barrel of water de-iced, but it's so cold out there right now that the bird-bath de-icer is no match for sub-zero temperatures....meaning that THAT particular extension cord is not one I can obsess over at 2 in the morning!

I no longer hang heat-lamps (those red ones that use 250 watts and could start a fire just by having dry material next to the bulb!).  The animals are much healthier, too, without all the supplemental heat.  And truth-be-told, unless the animals were very close to the lamp, the heat was lost quickly in the vast space of the barn.  (One sick chicken insisted on sleeping directly under a lamp which was meant for smaller growing chicks, and had scorched the feathers on her back.  Not safe, although it is rather humorous to imagine a scorching chicken running around and igniting flames everywhere.  Or not....)

To get electricity to the rabbit shed, I have two extension cords connected, running under the snow from the outside outlet of the house.  The rabbits have heated water bottles and a light in their shed, and there IS the possibility of fire out there because of the extension cords.  Oddly enough, I don't sit up in a panic in the middle of the night  because of a vivid image of the shed burning.  It's always the barn.

So last night's panic revolved around the outlet that Jeff installed most recently.  It's in the cow area, and is much appreciated.  It lets me plug in a light, which is suspended securely (high enough that they couldn't break the bulb, secure enough that the lamp itself couldn't be knocked off a nail and land in the dry straw where the cows sleep.)

The outlet is extra-nice, in that Jeff also installed a light switch, so that I can turn the whole outlet "off" when I want to.  I keep a nightlight plugged in, and the light, and it's got one of those low-wattage spiral bulbs in it.....but it still played a part in keeping me awake last night.

Why?  It's a long, twisted story, and really shouldn't have resulted in any panic of any sort.  

The spiders in a barn leave webs all over.  Those webs gladly attract all the dust that chickens and bedding fluff up into the air.  The spider webs then clump together in unsightly dusty masses.  The combined webs are strong enough to hold bits of flammable material.  

And this is a fire hazard because?  All around the light, all around that particular outlet are dusty clumps of webbing, covered with tiny bits of straw and hay.  I know that Jeff installed the outlet correctly, but at the same time, I'm being irresponsible by leaving all that flammable stuff right near a source of potential fire.  Would you feel safe if an outlet inside of your house was covered in something so easily ignited?

At 2 in the morning, in my mind's eye, those bits of spider-webs somehow caught fire, started the cows' bedding on fire, which engulfed the entire barn in no time, and left a pile of smoldering ashes for us to discover in the morning and grieve the losses.  (Yes, it's that vivid, like the worst nightmare when you can't get away from the tiniest details.  The scenarios play out in my mind while I'm wide awake in bed and debating whether to throw on jackets to go out RIGHT THEN to right the situation!  Scary!)

One good thing when this happens is that my mind won't quite playing through the most awful circumstances, detail by detail, until I truly give the whole situation up to God, asking Him to protect the people or critters who are in danger in my imagination.  I am awake anyway, and can't get back to sleep.  What better thing to do that say "God, I KNOW it's in Your hands.  Please reassure me that I can leave their safety with You until the morning".  Usually, that's enough to cause me to finally give up the hellish picture in my mind and be at peace again.

The other good thing about this "awfulizing"  (my Mom's word?  My Aunt's word?) is that it spotlights what needs attention.  If you jerk awake in the dead of night over something you didn't think was a problem until just then, why not reason through it and see if there's a solution?  Sometimes I can't do anything about it.  Sometimes it gives me the task for the next day, which results in a safer environment for animals, children, family.....

So today's task, after the feeding, and the watering, and the milking?  Cleaning cobwebs away from the beautiful outlet that brings much-needed electricity to the cow's shelter area.  

I might wake up with a dreadful scenario playing in my mind tonight, but it won't be the same one as what kept me awake until early this morning, that's for sure!

God is good.  (All the time!)  

At 2 in the morning when my poor, overtired brain can't let go of a nightmarish "reality"?  (All the time!)

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Coping with the cold

Over the past few days, it's been very obvious how resilient our animals are, at the same time that they are totally dependent on us.  They have the warm winter coats that we hot-house humans lack, but.....they can't get their own water, and they desperately need shelter, whether it's inside the barn, in the rabbit shed, or just the 3-sided additions to the barn where the cows live.

While I put on long underwear, turtlenecks, sweatshirts, two or three jackets, hat, gloves, scarf and boots, the animals are breathing out clouds of moisture and not really seeming to be too upset that it's colder than a typical January should be.  But take away their shelter, or forget to bring fresh water out to them, and there would be some fatalities as a result of that kind of neglect.....

It's been below zero, with wind chill low enough that the kids' schools called for two days off because of the extreme cold.  

The spigot on the outside of the house is frozen, and (even if it wasn't frozen), the hoses wouldn't work.  Jeff and Michael have been hauling 5 gallon buckets of water to the cows' water trough, trying to keep it half-full so that the de-icer can work to it's potential and keep a small opening melted in the ice on top of the trough.  (Bessie herself can drink a whopping 30 gallons of water each and every day).

Michael took the water-hauling task to the extra-ordinary level yesterday, leaping over the livestock gate because the snow drift wouldn't allow it to open (although Jeff and I had to chuckle.....because a few swipes with the snow shovel would have cleared the path with much less trouble).  Much more fun to hoist buckets over a 4 foot fence, and then vault over it yourself.....

One night, I thought the little calf was in trouble.  He doesn't like me, so every time I go out by the cows, he bolts out the door.  This time, it was frigidly cold, with the wind whistling right in the open doorway, and there he was, huddled in a little ball on top of the matted down straw, right in the line of wind/snow/chill.  Mama Bessie usually positions herself in front of him, and he can bask in the glow of her warmth as she shields him from the weather.

I brought fresh straw out and nearly covered him, and he didn't move.  Only when I put a clump of fresh alfalfa hay in front of his nose did he perk up, and when I tried to scratch behind his ears, he finally hoisted himself up to get away from me.  

That's when I debated:  

Do I close the door, stop the wind from whistling in all night, but block the access to drinking water for the night?

Or do I leave the door open and allow the wind and wind chill (minus 30 degrees!) to blast the cows all night long just so that they can get water at some imaginary point during the dead of night.

It seemed obvious---cows who have frozen to death wouldn't need much water.  So the door was shut, and they were cozy for the night, and (surprisingly enough), there was no stampede out the door and to the water trough in the morning when I opened it for them again.  And little Caspian was his usual spunky self after a night spent without the wind thoroughly chilling him.

The next day, it was apparent that whenever little Miss Bea, the guinea hog piglet, was out from her snug burrow of straw and hay, that she was quickly chilled.  The pigs' temporary home is inside the barn, out of drafts, in a large chain link dog kennel with about a foot and a half of straw for bedding.  Buddy, the older pig, has coarse black hair that seems to keep him somewhat warm, but Bea's hair is still sparse and short, better suited for a summer piglet than a piglet trying to survive the winter.  

Of course, to get any food when they see me coming, they can't stay under their bedding, so they come out squealing, shoving, pushing, and jostling for position.  She is still less than half the size of the big guy, but she sure holds her own.  Three times that day, she shoved for her rightful portion of slop, and then shivered as she nosed around for any scraps that they'd missed.  

I dumped in more straw for them to burrow in, and made a bank of straw bales on the outside of the chain link, to help hold in the heat around their chosen bedroom corner.  (It didn't help that she had tried to bed down next to a frozen-solid pumpkin before Buddy came back to lie down after eating.  Nothing warm about that!)

I was worried for her, and even remarked to Jeff "Well, if the little pig is getting sick because it's so cold, I'll be setting up a dog crate and bringing her into the house.  She can become friends with the dogs and have the run of the kitchen".  That was met with a look of alarm, which is why I added the last teasing sentence......so it's good that it didn't come to that!

I'm not worried about her extra fat at this point.  Seeing her shiver yesterday was enough to remind me that she is small enough to be grateful for the extra layer of warmth.  Today she seemed just fine.

This morning, Bessie was shivering uncontrollably after she was let out for a long drink of very cold water.  

It worried me for a while, because.....well, MAYBE the cold was going to prove too much for the old girl.  And if it was too much for HER, then her calf was in danger.  And if Bessie was having trouble, the heat of the steer and the smaller calf would not be enough to warm her back up.  And if she laid down and couldn't hoist herself back up, we'd have a big problem getting her into the main part of the barn (which wasn't much warmer than where she was, anyway).

Then, I texted a friend, who said the same thing.  Her cow drank 5 gallons of cold water first thing this morning, and was shivering uncontrollably.  

I started thinking about it.....a one-thousand pound animal, nice and cozy all night, drinks 5 gallons or more of ice-cold water all at once.  It would be like me eating a bowl of ice cream and getting goosebumps on a 90 degree day.  

Bessie lost her night-time warmth to get to the water trough, and then her body had to warm that huge amount of icy water as it sat in her stomach and sapped the heat out of her.  No wonder her haunches were reacting with violent shivers.  

Just to be sure, I checked on them all mid-day.  With the door left half-way open since the morning, the wind had shifted just slightly to the north (meaning that it didn't whistle directly out of the west and straight into the cows' bed-chambers), Bessie and crew were contentedly munching, not shivering, and doing just fine.  They looked up at me as if to ask "Well, what are YOU doing out here?  We weren't expecting you!"  and then nearly dove into the fresh hay that I brought out for them.

Rabbits?  Fine, as long as they get fresh water at least twice a day and extra straw and hay for bedding.  Although now we've kept Sheila's babies long past the 12 week mark, and they need to be brought to the butcher ASAP, before there is a case of sibling incest to deal with.....

Chickens?  The rooster died before the temperatures reached extreme lows, and one hen is growing in more than half of her feathers (she looks a bit like a pincushion at the moment).  Otherwise, they're fine.

Ducks/Geese:  Happily splashing in the water dishes, leaving messes behind themselves all over the barn, nibbling the hay and straw, and.....two of the geese don't seem to realize that it's the middle of winter, because they have been taking turns laying one huge egg in their nest each day.  The eggs aren't fertile yet, so the piggies get a nice fattening goose egg almost every day, which isn't such a bad deal for them.

Sheep:  No problem.  They prefer a frozen pumpkin to fresh water, they eat the leftover hay that the cows think is beneath their standards, they mob the grain bowl when they get fed.....they have such thick wool that you have to look hard to see eyes in those happy faces.

Barn cats?  Doing fine.  I take pity on them and make sure they have plenty of cheap cat food in the winter, because the rodents don't seem to come out often enough to supply any sort of reliable food source this time of year.

Oh, the cats LOVE, love, love their little tins of warm milk, and the pigs now know what sounds mean that I have a bucket of fresh milk, and they squeal at the top of their lungs in anticipation of warm milk to fill their tummies.

We ARE a bit off schedule with the milking, though.  I take pity on more than just the barn cats when the temps get down this low.  

All three cows sleep together when it's this cold.  It seems cruel to put Caspian in a stall when he could so easily get chilled without the heat of other cows close by, so he gets to sleep cuddled next to mama Bessie, and then he helps himself to all the warm milk he can fit into his tummy in the morning.  Leaving none for us, or for the barn cats, or for the always-hungry piggies.

Good thing the cold snap is about to give us a break, because we are down to our last gallon of milk.  Little Caspian needs to sleep in his stall, and we need to get back to our school/farm routines, complete with fresh milk on a daily basis.

 

Laura

Caspian's traumatic day

Photo:  The stunningly handsome bull-calf, Caspian, before the drama of this morning reduced him to "steer" status

Our youngest member of the livestock family had quite the traumatic morning.

His little horns had grown to about an inch long, long enough to poke up through his black Afro hairdo.  

His male-hormone producing um....."parts".... had apparently already been sending signals to his brain, and he was attempting to mount the steer who is twice his size.  He's only 2 months old!

He also would have been a reliable indicator of when Bessie should be artificially inseminated, but we'll leave the details out of how he alerted me to the fact that she was cycling....  Anyway, we don't need her to be AI'd until about April or May, so we don't need Caspian to continue maturing as a hormone-charged bull for that many more months.  

So, the vet came out this morning, and, at the tender young age of only 2 months, little Caspian the Belted calf became a steer and (to add insult to injury) had his horn nubs scorched off as well.

He got a few kicks in as the vet bent down to cut certain.....parts.....  'Guess that's fair, for what he had to go through.  He won't be producing any calves of his own, which is too bad, because he is probably the most handsome bull calf I've ever seen, with an attitude to go with it, and a beautiful specimen of Dutch Belted genetics.

At least for the horns, he was given some pain treatment.  Caspian struggled, but shouldn't have felt any pain.  The scorchy smell was something else, though.  Twice before, we've had the vet dis-bud a calf (Ruby, and then Charming), and neither time was as bad as this time, probably because there were actual horns being burned away this time.  The last 2 times, there were little buttons where horns would eventually grow, but nothing like little Caspian had already sprouted.

Unknown to me, the vet had pocketed the hard, scorched points of the horns, and as we came into the kitchen for him to make out the paperwork, he offered one scorched horn-point to each of the dogs.  Without even thinking, I remarked how gross that was, and he assured me that he's been to other farms where horns had to be sawn off of grown cows or bulls, and that dogs would trot off with them and be content gnawing on a horn for the entire afternoon.  Bleah!

Bessie welcomed the traumatized Caspian back into her company with a motherly "Moo" and an immediate offer for him to comfort-nurse.  Like the true mama's boy that he is, he dove right under and started nursing.

He'll be fine.  

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

An infestation of...."something"

We knew that there were critters running in the wall of our bedroom.  Sometimes it would be a loud gnawing noise, sometimes just scurrying.  Usually during the night, when we were trying to sleep.

Something ate through some crocus bulbs that I'd forgotten in the bins which were stashed out of sight in our closet.

About the time I discovered the crocus husks, Rocky (the husky) was in the bedroom waiting for me to get out of bed, and he snapped at something that streaked across the floor.  (If you've read about the dogs hunting rats in the barn, Rocky is always the one to see movement and react in an instant, usually coming up with a rodent hanging off of his lip)  So I knew the move and what it meant, but he didn't come up with anything in his mouth this time.  Even though he was not successful, he was immediately on high alert and dashing after something that I hadn't even seen.

I followed him into the living room, where he was whimpering and peering underneath the couch.

Then I noticed Sly in the corner, crouched by the book shelf and twitching his tail......  

Like when we are in the barn, I started moving things aside, always being sure to position any moved bales of hay (or games and photo albums, in this case) so that a fleeing rodent is directed towards the waiting hunter.....

Sure enough, something small and gray streaked past Rocky, away from the cat, and got away.  Rocky dashed up and down the basement stairs, back and forth from living room to bedroom, but couldn't find where the creature had vanished.  

That's the first time we've seen a live rodent in the house since we moved the cats up here three years back.

A few nights ago, both dogs were sleeping in our bedroom, and became very alert to something moving around in our closet.  The crocus bulbs were gone.  The bottom of the closet was cleaned out and there was no reason for anything to be moving in there.  But the dogs were both very eager to pounce on anything that might creep out from under that door.

Time to set out traps.

The first thing to be caught was a field mouse.  I reset the trap.  Then another came out for the peanut-butter and cracker bait, then another.  All within less than 24 hours.  Sly ate all 3 of them.

Expecting that we'd found the source of our infestation, I reset the trap for the fourth time and we went to bed.  Sometime during the night, there was the sound of crunching and nibbling from inside the closet and behind our wall, but no trap snapped.  The dogs were once again jostling for position outside the closet door, but I didn't get up to check.  Kind of wish I had!

Next morning, there was no longer a trap in there.  The closet door was still closed.  The tiny hole that the mice seem to be using is too small for the trap to fit through.  I grabbed a flashlight, and was incredulous that the trap was no-where to be found, even in the darkest, farthest corner of the closet. That's when I saw the way the back wall did NOT come down to the floor.  There is a 6 or 8 inch opening where a PVC pipe from the vacuum system comes up out of the floor, and anything dragging a trap could have wedged itself down in there and not been found.

This leaves two possible scenarios in my mind, and I can't decide which is worse.  First, small rats in the barn sometimes get caught but not killed in a trap, and drag it a ways before they die.  Second, cats in the barn sometimes drag a trap with a mouse or rat in it, and eat the rodent right out of the trap.  Either something was trapped and crawled away to die in our wall, or something larger came and took the trap away, complete with whatever smaller animal was trapped in it.

An old dusty trap was in the back of the closet, and I set that with peanut butter and a cheesy cracker.  Within 6 hours, that trap had disappeared, too....completely unaccounted for.  The doors had been closed, and the dogs and cats had been kept out.  It was looking as if something larger was preying on the smaller things which set off the traps.

I got a rat trap and another mouse trap from the barn and set them in the closet, close to each other and hoping to get some answers.....

After a long weekend of basketball tournaments and driving in snowy/slushy/icy conditions, Jeff and I turned off the light and settled into bed.  No sooner than we were comfy did the simultaneous noise of "SNAP!" and "SQUEAK!" sound off inside the closet.  This wasn't a field mouse OR a rat, but a small gray mole or shrew, with eyes so small that all you could see where the eyes SHOULD have been were tiny pinholes, and a tiny little tail.  It was dead, but not before it had licked the mouse trap clean, and only gotten caught as it licked the peanut butter in the rat trap.

Phase 3 (or 4?)....setting both traps again with fresh bait.  By this morning, both traps were still in place, and both traps still had their bait intact.

No answers to why two traps walked away and left no trace.  No idea if we've gotten to the end of the problem.  As of right now, both traps haven't been touched since they were reset last night.

Whatever is in that wall, however it is getting into our house, the moral of the story seems to be.....that cats can only catch what they have access to.  Our house has been mouse-free, but only until the mice (and voles/shrews/chipmunks/rats/moles found a way into the wall where they are safe from the prying paws and vicious jaws of the formidable Midnight and Sly.  Maybe it's time to let the CATS sleep in our room, and banish the dogs to the kitchen while the cats can prowl and eliminate whatever vermin are making their home in our closet.

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

These are a few photos which I promised last month or even back at the beginning of the summer.

The first one is of our Dr. Seuss-style Christmas tree.  It was the top of a tree that was being sandwiched between two more vigorous trees.  We tried to make it work.....and this is the result.  Not terrible, but the angel at the top seemed to be diving off for as long as the tree was standing.  And the whole thing crashed to the floor on the day after Christmas!

The other photos are of the "new" kittens which we brought home from Barrington Natural Farms.  Their cat had kittens, and we needed a few new barn kitties, so we took all 3 brothers from that litter.  They lived in the hay loft for the whole summer, and it was on the day that the first one went to the vet to be fixed that poor Charlie the original barn cat met his match as he tried to dash across the road to come back to our farm.  

The smooth-coated one is Milo (named by Carrie for one of her favorite movie cats, "Milo" and Otis), the white-and-orange one with the luxurious coat is "Velcro" because he used to cling to anything with his tiny kitten claws, and the longer-haired orange one is not really named, but we decided to call him "Aslan" because the new calf was named after a Narnia character.  (In case you're wondering, they are clustered around a cat-food-can of fresh milk from Bessie.  They come running when it's milking time, and it's their favorite treat of the day.  Bessie has a fit if cats are anywhere around her, so they don't dare to come in and beg for a spray of fresh milk, but they sure arrange their schedules so that they are ready and waiting when the milk is coming in from the buckets.)

Also, if you look at the tips of their ears, you might see that one ear on each cat is not pointed anymore.  When you bring in a cat that is either feral or a barn cat, the county spays or neuters them for a very reduced fee, but you have to agree to have the ear "tipped".  Then, if someone is trapping cats to reduce the feral populations, or for trap-and-release, they have a ready way to see that this particular cat has already been spayed or neutered.

Ongoing at the farm:

Piggies are doing well and are already looking up eagerly when we come into the barn. 

Rabbit cages got cleaned today.  

Goose eggs in the incubator seem to not be fertilized at this point in the laying cycle of the geese, so we'll feed those to the pigs and wait until a few weeks later to try again. 

Rocky got to run in the slushy pasture and get the cows all riled up.  

Caspian the calf found out that if he bangs on the stall's gate enough, he can pop the hook and let himself out to be with mama and drink all of her milk.  He also has a date with the vet this week to have his little horns terminated/cauterized, and to become a steer rather than the fine-young-stud that he was shaping up to be.

Sheep are happy with a pumpkin from the frozen stash in the silo.  

The last rooster seems to be wheezing more and more and probably will not live long enough to give us fertilized Barnevelder eggs in the spring.  He is the remaining original from Mrs. Rathe's preschool class, and has lived a rather privileged life.

Cow manure did not get shoveled and is sloppy and soggy, although I DID get half of the frozen pack shoveled out two days ago when it first started thawing.  

Tomorrow there will be time to get more done.....

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Piggie introductions

Let me introduce to you.....

"Bud", and "Miss V" or "Miss B"

"Buddy" was easy to come up with.  He was bought as a companion for the little female, so "Bud" is a good thing to call him.  I didn't want to have one lonely pig, because they are social animals.  He will stay for about 6 months, at which time we hope to have a breeding-quality male and then "Bud" will move along.  "Bud" is fun to say to him in a deep, gruff voice, like I used to do when I approached the Berkshires (gruffly say just one word:  "Pig!" and they sprang up from wherever they were lounging and rushed to the gate to see what treat I had for them).  :)  "Bud-lite" was also in the running as a name, since guinea hogs are a very small breed compared to other commercial-type hogs.

The little gilt was harder to name, and we'll try out a few names until one sticks.  

Jeremy, clever boy that he is, said "Why don't we call her "V".....As in.....Victoria......because she has a Secret".  From there, amid the laughter, came the idea of taking a photo of Miss V and making her look like a Victoria's Secret model, complete with angel wings and racy lingerie.....

But I like "Miss Bea", because she reminds me of a bumbly little bee.  She trundles around, with a little stinger-of-a-tail pointed out straight behind her.  She is fat and round, like a black bumble-bee.  So I thought of "Bea" (as in Beatrice).  Carrie also suggested that "Brigitta" would fit for "Miss B", thinking of the chubby little girl in the original Sound of Music.  

She actually has a registered name with the American Guinea Hog registry, and it's 

"Anna-Suey".  We'll see which name sticks over the next few weeks.  The registered name will always be hers, but maybe she'll have a nick-name, like a pedigreed pure-bred dog.

So there they are, potential/probable names for cute little piggies.  

The male is the larger one (6 months), and the female is the smaller one (3 months old).  The photos don't do them justice.  Of course, I think they're adorable, but the rest of the family hasn't been won over yet. Their skin is kind of rough under the bristles, like elephant or rhino skin.  Different from the Berkshires, for sure, and we've already noticed that they are much more vocal, too.

The entire way back to the farm from their home farm, they talked to each other from crate to crate--small, questioning little pig-noises.

Bud squealed in alarm when I scratched him behind the ears for the first time, but tolerated me scratching him under his chin when he could see it coming.

Miss V didn't know it, but I reached in through the chain-link and scratched her round little back when she had her nose buried in the straw.  Instead of running away in a panic, she suddenly stopped moving at all and just stood there.  She liked it, even if she didn't know what was happening.

They both were very curious when I brought in a bale of straw and sat down in the pen with them.  While I was snapping photo after photo, they were busy nosing down through the straw for every last crumb of a biscuit that I gave them, and then making happy piggy noises as they discovered the absolutely AWESOME taste of alfalfa hay.....

Well, at least I think they're cute, no matter what anyone else says.  

 

Laura

Today's the day, today's the day.....

Despite the temperature outside not following forecast (it was supposed to be up to 30 degrees today, and is maybe a nice and warm 15 degrees instead), I am driving up to Wisconsin to pick up two guinea hogs.

We've been talking about this heritage breed for almost 2 years now.  

There is a very nice young lady (breeding quality piglet) about 2 1/2 hours from here.  Her companion will be a 6 month old "feeder" (castrated male).  Eventually, when an unrelated spring litter is ready, I will drive up to the same farm again and pick up a breeding-quality male.

The piglet and feeder will both need names.  Suggestions from my family have not met with joy or enthusiasm from me:  "Lardo", "Bacon".....  But it can't be "Wilbur" or "Miss Piggy" or "Petunia" or "Babe".  Maybe the Muppet Show or Sesame Street will be the source of their names.  "Guy Smiley", "Fozzy (Bear)", "Animal", "Oscar (the Grouch)".....

The little lady weighs just 15 pounds at 11 weeks of age.  The young man (ahem....can I call him a "man" if he's been fixed?!) weighs 50 pounds at 6 months.  If we grew each of them out to the breed's mature size, it will be between 150 and 200 pounds, well below what Little/Big Pig One and Little/Big Pig Two turned out to be at only 5 months (they weighed in at 260 and 280 pounds!)  280 pounds of muscled pork was a monstrous thing to look at, out in our small barnyard.  150 pounds x2 with (eventually) little 10 pound piglets running around will be much more manageable.

The reasons to choose guinea hogs (as opposed to guinea "pigs", which are small and live in cages and their tiny ears flap up whenever they squeal):  

They are small.  

They can survive on grazing or on hay.  

They need minimal grain.  

They will not consume $60 worth of feed in one week by the time they are 5 months old (true story, from trying to keep up with the Berkshires this past summer!)

And, they are a "heritage" breed, rather endangered, and a breed worth keeping around.  

So, we'll add to our experiment.  

True to my own fearful nature, I had a mini panic-attack last night around 2 in the morning, complete with pounding heart-rate and overwhelming, stressful doubt.  

Happens every time we change something in the normal routine.  Questions came out of nowhere:  "Can I REALLY make it work?", "What am I thinking?", "Why would I ever think I can succeed at this?", "Will it be a total failure?!!!"  And thanks to Jeff, those fears were finally put to rest and I could sleep again.

Today, the car is ready, the big dog pen is full of fresh straw and ready for two little pigs to make it their temporary home (thanks, Mom and Dad, for the old dog pen!), donated dog and cat carrier/crates are full of straw and already in the car for transport, and I'm all set to leave on time (for once!)

More when we return, or when I can catch my breath enough to send some photos.  :)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

The cold (what else?!)

I've found out that the farm animals are much better suited to extreme cold temperatures than we are.  I bundle up in multiple layers and still feel as if the sub-zero temperatures will freeze my eyes, since they are the only thing left uncovered.  

House-dogs and cats don't fare so well as the animals out in the barn or bunny-shed.  Sly the black cat won't go out at all and had to grumpily use the litter box.  Poor thing.

I thought that Shadow the lab mix was simply going to lie down and freeze to death yesterday.  She went out, took care of business, and then didn't want to walk back.  I think her paws just didn't want to step in the freezing cold snow, but when she faltered out in the middle of the yard and acted like she would go no farther, I mentally debated whether I'd throw on all the snow stuff yet again to go out and rescue her (shame on me!).  She came in after all, and then was whimpering to go out again in half an hour.  Grrr....

Even Rocky, Siberian Husky that he is, was frantically trying to force his way into the barn as I did my chores, instead of eagerly running off all of his excess energy out in the pasture.  No rats to hunt, no cows to chase, and he wanted to get his frozen paws out of the snow.  He goes out on the dog cable later in the day, and wants to come right back in (he'd usually curl up in the sunlight, on top of the snow, and sleep for a few hours).  Some sled dog HE'D turn out to be!

But out in the barn, the cows are cozy, with frosty whiskers and eyelashes, and little Caspian the calf is covered in frozen "breath" from the other cows who were sleeping close to him.  Their area is warm enough that the pack of bedding could almost be shoveled out, if it wasn't so cold just outside the doorway.  There's even frosty "breath" marks near where they eat their hay, as they stood munching and their breathing left billows of mist to make cloudy shapes on the walls.  Something that my brother-in-law said sticks in my mind.  His father told him that if he ever got locked out during the winter, to go in with the cows, because their body heat would keep him warm.  True.  The warmest chore out there on frigid days like today is milking Bessie--right up next to her big bulk and warm, warm, warm.  :)

The sheep are covered in frost but quite happy, and trot on over for their morning grain and some fresh water as if the cold isn't an issue.  To be sure, their fleece is probably 3 or 4 inches thick, and you can hardly burrow your fingers through it to reach their skin.  You can barely see their eyes, they are so well insulated by the fluffy wool.   I don't think that the sheep are suffering at all.  

Sidenote:  There also appears to be a very faint green crayon mark on Iris' wide rump.  The ram is in there with Iris and April, and Iris was making nice with him the other day.  The marking block is harnessed to him, and, despite the cold, he seems to have responded to her shoulder-bumps and head-blocks and circling, flirting behavior.  We'll find out for sure at the end of May, when we hope the temps are much nicer!  Miss April, young ewe that she is, seems to have some fuzzier fleece on her backside than usual, so maybe she has been flirting with the ram as well.  

The ducks and geese are actually enjoying the snow that has blown in through the broken window pane.  When the wind picks up, they position themselves in the fine snow that sifts in through the opening, and act as if it's the most delightful fountain that they've ever bathed in.  Kind of fun to watch.

The chickens aren't happy, but aren't really miserable either.  They sit fluffed up in whatever ray of sunshine they can find.

Rabbits are huddled in their cages, but still doing fine.  I was worried about Red the New Zealand as she huddled and refused to drink her fresh water one day, but if she can make it through this cold snap, I think she's hardier than I expected.  The hay and straw for insulation is now about 4 inches thick on the bottom of their cages, and they have boxes or burrows to huddle inside.  I spent a small fortune on heated water bottles, but the rabbits still prefer to drink out of an open bowl.  In this cold, I'm not going to insist that they use the bottles.  Anything to get some liquid into them and keep them healthy!

The catch to all of this "comfort" is that the animals couldn't really survive without us.  They need to be fed, and they need fresh water.  Three times a day, the rabbits and sheep get fresh water brought out to them.  Chickens and other poultry have a heated pet-water-bowl that the ducks make a mess out of.  Cows have a heavy-duty de-icer in their water troughs, which keeps 200+ gallons of water from freezing into a solid mass.  I don't know if they would even consider licking up snow if there water froze.  The 55 gallon barrels of water in the barn have frozen solid, even with bird-bath de-icers suspended just below the surface.  It's just too cold for any but the strongest de-icer to make a difference.

Contrast to all of the animals' coziness:  We've had two "snow" days, because either the buses were not going to start or it was too cold for children to stand outside to wait for those buses.  Truly, a human being  would freeze quite quickly if exposed to these crazy temperatures for very long.  I have to be careful when I take my gloves off to milk Bessie.  Not more than a second or two between gloves coming off and hands touching warmth, or I can feel the crinkly sensation of frostbite trying to take hold.  

We had a rather solemn moment at the dinner table the other night when I realized (out loud) that people would die if they hadn't found shelter for the night.  Both schools help various homeless people, and reality set in as we thought of someone curling up under a sleeping bag in the stand of trees outside one of the schools, and not waking up again.

Inside, we are snug, but we've found that the heater will turn on and shut off incessantly if the slightest bit of sifted snow gets blown inside the air-intake pipe.  Jeff has had to unclog that several times with a long stick.  It's a 20 year old furnace, and this is not the time of year when we want to be forced into buying a new one.

We now know that the radiant heat in the kitchen floor can't keep up with temps like the last few days, and have been baking things in the oven to raise the kitchen temperature from low 50's to low 60's, for some degree of comfort.  

The dishwasher won't work, because (we think) the water pipe is too cold or may have some ice in it.  We've had to resort (gasp!) to washing lunch-time dishes by hand in warm soapy water.  Jeff removed the bottom panel so that warmer air can circulate under the unit and maybe we'll be able to run it before a pipe bursts open.

There is ice forming on almost all of the windows inside the house, especially the decorative "transom" windows above the doorways.

Along with everyone else, we are looking forward with eagerness to when the temperatures will reach the single digits ABOVE zero, or even the teens.  It will feel like summer!

Despite the record lows, we have a new awareness of the need to thank to God for shelter, and food, and for allowing us to care for the animals who have no idea how much they rely on that fresh water, three times a day!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

New Year's Eve on Greenwood Road.....

The excitement of the holiday season in the country is certainly hard to beat....

New Year's Eve, Christmas snow was falling, the temps were hovering around zero, the traffic was doing a little less "zipping" than usual, when the car in question gave a lurch and everything came to an icy halt. 

The festive (old, rusted) red hay wagon's back axle swung free onto the road as the back of the hay wagon hit the frozen  pavement.  The truck pulling the wagon came to a stop as driver and teenage boy leaped out to inspect the damage.  

Cars came to a hesitant stop, drivers wondering just what to do or how to maneuver around such a monstrosity.  One car parked protectively behind the frozen axle as the teenager struggled to wheel it back through the snow on the road's shoulder to where the wagon had come to rest.  A cop car arrived, while traffic slowly funneled around the mess.

As it all happened, one thought popped into my mind:  "This will all be funny in about an hour or two".

You see, we were pulling that hay wagon, country-bumpkins that we are......  

We'd been waiting for our delivery of straw since well before the new calf was born (he's 6 weeks old now).  I'd been buying 2 bales here, three bales there, at garden-store prices, waiting and making reminder requests for the promised delivery to make it's way from the barn where it was stored to our place, about 20 miles north.  

The load was finally delivered two days before the "incident", just as the temperatures plummeted from what felt like summertime (an unexpected 46 degrees one day) to 20 degrees (with a below-zero windchill) by the following evening.  We had struggled to unload our meager 50 bales of straw the day after delivery, as mustache-hairs froze to the condensation inside of our scarves, and fingertips seemed to freeze through the heaviest gloves.  (The family thinks it hilariously funny that it was MY mustache-hairs that were freezing to the inside of MY scarf.....while Michael's clean-shaven face had no trouble at all).  :)

We were determined to get the wagon out of our driveway, especially as snow started falling, and everything except the extreme cold seemed to be in our favor.  Roads were passable, skies had been clear up until the snow started, there was no blustery wind, and we needed to go right past the farm where the wagon belonged.  

So, Jeff hitched it up, we piled in the car, made it just past the "unincorporated Woodstock" border and into "Bull Valley" (about halfway between our driveway and the neighbor's driveway just south of us), when the Trailblazer gave a lurch that we weren't familiar with.  It probably only took a split-second, but it seemed like a slow-motion eternity, as I looked into the passenger-side mirror and said, "Ummm, Jeff....., looks like the whole axle fell off."  Understatement of the year. 

Bouncing behind us on the road was the axle from the big hay wagon.  Scraping behind us was the back end of that same wagon.  We were almost too far past the neighbor's driveway to pull in.

While I talked to the policeman, who didn't really know what to advise us to do ("can't pull it onto private property, but can't drag it on the roadway or you'll be liable for any damage", as if we were going to drag it for 20 miles that way!), Jeff put the truck into reverse, scraped backward a foot or two, and then angled my Trailblazer (pulling the scraping metal frame of the wagon) into our neighbor's wide driveway.  The cop was cringing the entire time.  (Funny, he was only there until the Bull Valley cop came, because we were just past the "Bull Valley" border.  Once the Bull Valley guy got there, he basically said "Got it off the roadway?  That is all I need to know.")

I walked home to find the neighbor's phone number and write a note about how sorry and mortified I was that an old rusted hay wagon was parked on their driveway, missing an axle.  Jeff and Michael worked to bring the axle close to where the wagon had come to rest.  The cold continued to get worse as the pretty Christmas snow became more of a blizzard.

Just as soon as I tucked the note into the mailbox up by their front door, they pulled into the driveway.  

Big grins split their faces, as they rolled down windows and said "We THOUGHT it was you when we were pulling in".  Their grandson unbuckled and peered out at us from between the front seats.  We shamefully told them the story.  It didn't seem to faze them at all.  

In fact, Bruce rather excitedly told us that he had a tractor big enough to lift the back end of the wagon and reattach the broken axle, and all of the equipment to weld pieces back together.  Unfortunately, after a few phone calls to the owners of the wagon, we had to tell him that they wanted to come and fix it themselves.  He did his best to hide the disappointment of the unexpected project that had slipped through his fingers.  (Pieces of the axle were already warming up in the garage, in preparation for whatever he instinctively knew needed to be done).

Not to minimize our lack of neighborly interaction.....we haven't been very good at getting together with our new neighbors.  I think we talked to them once when we first moved here, when they had a small tractor for sale.  Again when I was wondering about getting cows, and I looked up their number and talked at length to Bruce, who used to work around dairy cows.  Once more when Rocky the husky escaped, and Bruce and I got to talking for half an hour while the dog ran loose in the corn field and the boys panicked back at home.  That's about it.

But Jeff and Michael worked with Bruce to prepare for the project that was not to be, and I sat and caught up with Becky about some recent heart-wrenching things that had happened.  If the axle hadn't broken, we would have sailed right past like normal, me looking to see if their horses were out in the pasture, or waving if I saw them out by the mailbox.

Yes, we did laugh about the adventure, by the time we were done chatting.

I guess excitement in the country is all about:

A hay wagon that crashes to the road, with the axle bouncing merrily along behind it

The exciting prospect of a project that almost literally lands at your doorstep

Time with neighbors who you otherwise would have waved at time and again, but not gotten around to inviting over

A story that can be told over and over, with embellishments added each time, until it becomes larger than life.

For the record, this is the original version, at least from the passenger-side of it all.  Ten years from now, sitting around our pasture-bonfire and swapping memories, let's see how different it all sounds!)

 Happy New Year, everyone.  And may all the axles stay on your hay wagons, all year long.  :)

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/