Someone makes a grand entrance on the scene...

I don't post people pictures here very often, or photos of myself...  

I don't talk about family, or the farm's location very much, because this blog is about the FARM...and not everyone in the family *wants* to be mentioned or connected with the farm stories that you are here to read...

I write a LOT about the wonder of newborn baby animals, because that makes my "job" so rewarding ("Job" in quotes, because what I'm doing here does not feel like a job, even though it is definitely work!)  

I love that part of things, obsessing about how a birth will go is part of the role I play here.   I wait impatiently for weeks, just to be the one observing a birth and helping if it is needed.  

The learning process and attention to detail in this animal care-taking is awe-inspiring for me, believe it or not.  

There is delight to be experienced in successful births that I am allowed to witness, and a sense of joy when I can offer something from the farm back to God, who blesses us with so much...  (A lot of rather self-centered-sounding "I's" in those comments.  Hmmmm....)

The farm has been a blessing in so many ways.

And now, here is this precious human baby arriving in the middle of feeding hungry/squealing mouths and shoveling messes and putting up enough hay for the winter, and everything is changed, just like that.

Here is one photo and one baby that make all the other farm stories pale in comparison.  You won't read much about her here. I just wanted to share this one photo on this day that my heart is filled to overflowing.

HER story is not about the farm animals or the strange adjustment that we've made from suburban family to farmer wanna-be's.  She and her parents didn't ask to be in a farm-blog!  So mention of this sweet little girl will be minimal, if at all from this point on!  :)

But life with a grandbaby puts everything else into quite a different perspective, that's for sure.

I will still be thrilled with the barn kittens when they venture out of the silo, and with Cameo's piglets when they arrive in just a few days.  

I will stare in wonder as Bessie's new calf takes it's first steps.  

I am still in tune with breeding season coming up, and when to put sheep and goats with their intended suitors for babies in March, and in April.  

The pigs will still have their December and January bar-talk match-ups, for piglets in April and May....

It's where my focus needs to be as caretaker of these animals.

But this baby takes center stage compared to anything that happens on the farm from here on out.  

As it should be!  

What a precious blessing from God.

Love to all! 

Laura

Farewell, dear Rose, but not "good-bye"

Farewell to my good, calm girl Godsblessing Rose.   She is off to a great home, and I will see her again when I visit to choose my piglet from her upcoming litter.

Rose's story begins in Niota Tennessee, at Godsblessing Farm.  I came to know her breeder Rico through facebook, as I read everything I could find about American Guinea Hogs.  I respected him as a knowledgeable guinea hog breeder and one who really seemed to be raising quality hogs.  He answered all of my questions and set a good example of how a livestock purchase can be conducted.  All details up front.  All payment agreed on.  Deposit reserves your hog and is not refundable.  No hidden costs, or surprises.  A written receipt at the end, covering all costs and details of the transaction.  Honest, well-thought out information.  A good knowledge of the breed that you are offering for sale, and attention to detail in what the breed association requires.  I try to conduct my business the way he does, because it makes the most sense.

Tennessee is quite a ways from northern Illinois.  

Enter the second new friend, Sam.  Sam was on a cross-country trip to deliver his sought-after Large Black hogs from northern Wisconsin through the southern states, and was bringing back American Guinea Hogs from Texas and Tennessee for his mother, Deborah.

Rico set things up with Sam, to bring Rose to me along with her sister Tiger Lily.  Their sister Pansy was going to Deborah's farm to be one of the matriarchs of Deb's new breeding program.

At some point, maybe 4 months after the two gilts (unbred young female hogs) arrived, Tish (breeder of Taffy, our English Shepherd) took Tiger Lily all the way to her farm in Oklahoma, and Rose's personality started to be even more friendlier and appreciated here on our farm.

Through that first year, Deb and I were in contact, comparing notes, getting ready for piglets, sharing photos and news of the piglets once they were born.  

(Facebook can be a good thing, you know...  :)  Lots of good conversations and connections have come about through messaging option of facebook.  All of Rose's story, and Taffy's too, came about because of Facebook conversations.  I would not be able to find, buy, or sell most of my livestock if not for the connections I've made there.)  

Rose established herself here as a quality hog who produces beautiful babies.  

Beautiful long bodies.  Our vet always remarks on how "correct" Rose and her babies are, in terms of conformation.

Glistening thick black bristles.  

Flopper personalities (you scratch behind their ears and the flop on their sides for belly rubs)  

Curious, bright, intelligent little hogs, like their mama.

She had a few "faults" that also show up in her offspring...

In a beautiful row of 14 nipples, two or three are inverted (can't release milk).  Coupled with our boar, who also carries that trait, their babies have sometimes had up to 2 inverted nipples.  Those can't be sold as breeding quality, because there need to be enough working spigots for a large litter of piglets.  

And...she walks "pigeon-toed", with her front ankles turned in.  Coupled with a boar that has strong, straight ankles, her weaker front ankles are corrected in the offspring.  

Any of the hogs has "faults", and these were not something that would mean not continuing to breed her.  The selection for traits in the piglets that would go on to be breeders at their future farm homes just needed to be done with attention to those details.

And then I brought in a new boar, with a different pedigree, and all of a sudden, there was an idea that makes sense for breeding along one line of the guinea hog population, and Rose was not part of that line.

I started thinking of whether I could part with her.

When I knew I was going to be a grandmother, and that I might occasionally have the privilege of watching my granddaughter, I knew also that some things on the farm had to change... 

Rose was already bred to Ham Sweet Farm Lawnmower, our resident boar.  

"J", a friend of mine (who had bought piglets from me one year, and came back to buy Lawnmower's full-brother from me a year ago) had just met Deborah (the owner of Rose's sister) at the Mother Earth News fair...  They had discovered their common acquaintance:  me.  A flurry of facebook messages followed.
Too many coincidences; it seemed a match that was meant to be.  

Rose could not go to just anyone, I needed to have peace in knowing that she would be loved and cared for.

I offered Rose to J, and she came Tuesday afternoon to get Rose settled in her new home.
Piglets due on Halloween, just over a month from now. Plenty of time to get settled. 

Due with her third litter, my pregnant girl left in a small horse trailer, looking a little confused but quite happy because she had a stash of apples to munch along the journey.

I will look forward to having one of Rose's Halloween babies returned to me after weaning, but for now, there is an empty pen where my easy-going guinea hog from Tennessee used to live... 

The other hogs are clamoring for their afternoon buckets of windfall apples, so it's time to head out again...

Thanks, J, and Applegarth Farm, for giving her such a great home, and for your enthusiasm and excitement to add her to your hog family!

 

Laura

Silo kittens, part 3

Mama cat, litter #3.  

Sired by the local Vagrant, a black and gray tabby male who ONLY is seen in daylight when the females are....um...."receptive".  Last year he tried to take shelter in our barn during the winter and our own neutered males eventually drove him out.

Looks like another calico kitten in the litter, maybe a very dark tan and black (tortoiseshell?), an orange and white, and a buff/peach colored one that is probably tabby underneath the pastel coloring.  

She usually has 3 or 4.  Maybe there are more this time, but we will wait to check.  In spring, it was disappointing that Mama took all of her babies and hid them in the barn ceiling for 2 weeks, after a collapse of scaffolding inside the silo endangered their safety...so we haven't moved her silo shelter to look closely this time.

Doesn't she look content?  

But I think three litters is enough for this one young cat...

 

Laura

Paring down for winter...and getting ready to celebrate new life

The countdown has begun....

The ducks have been up for sale and quite a few have actually left the premises alive, going to farms where the owners are excited to introduce or even breed this heritage black duck with the beetle-green sheen.  We had over 48 ducklings hatch this year, some in incubators and some under very possessive hens (ducks).  Lots of beautiful Cayuga ducks were strolling around the barnyard, quacking loudly, preening baby feathers out and grooming shining feathers as they grew in, nibbling grass, mucking around in the cow yard.  For whatever reason, this year my advertisements for them have brought customers.  It was going to be way too many of them for our freezer, so I am thankful for all of the duck customers who wanted breeding quality!

A few roosters have been given to deserving homes.  I certainly don't mind helping friends who need a rooster to take the place of one that has been lost, or one that became too aggressive.  The Barnevelder roosters are beautiful, and it is always hard to load up the "extras" to take them to the butcher.  That date is fast approaching, before cold weather really sets in.

The rabbit population seems to be paring itself down.  We had another one die, and the liver was covered in yellow spots.  This could mean the end of breeding rabbits and the end of keeping them at all....I suspect coccidiosis of a type that could be passed on through our rabbits to the colonies of any people who would buy from us.  So we are taking a hard look at the problem and getting a vet's advice before selling any more or taking further action.

Mama Rose the Guinea Hog will take up residence (and have her late-October litter) in Wisconsin, probably leaving this coming week.  I hate to see her go, but her new owner has other hogs from us and is an excellent care-taker.  She is going to a good place.  And one of her piglets will return to us after weaning, something to look forward to!

Two lambs were taken to the butcher, getting things started on the fill-the-freezer campaign before winter.  It's sad to think of, but also a necessity and the very real rhythm of life here.  Some need to be raised for meat or for sale, to pay for the ones who stay another year.  The feed bills over the winter months can be pricey, so the numbers need to be as low as possible (breeding season starts in October for goats and sheep, no need for extra mouths to feed during that important time!)

Two more lambs will leave in early November, around the time that three grown-up guinea hogs from last year go to "freezer camp" in ours and customer's cold-storage....

The three turkeys that we hatched from eggs this spring will grace three Thanksgiving tables, the extra geese (probably 3 of them) will be Christmas dinners, the extra ducks and chickens will fill the freezer space for winter chicken-and-dumplings, or golden-yellow duck stock for soup...

And today, one little late-July-born fainting goat left for Ohio, with her two cousins leaving this coming week for new homes in Illinois and Wisconsin.  The mama of those twins is also going to Wisconsin, and then we are down to breeding numbers (and the separate small group of 3 young doelings who will be kept separate so as not to get pregnant too soon....)

Coming up in terms of new life:  Cameo the Guinea hog is in the maternity ward/stall, a week away from delivering her second litter of piglets.  Bessie is due the first week in October with what will probably be her last calf.  The barn cat mama is due any day now with her third (and most likely last) litter of kittens.  We will have her spayed before any spring kitties can be sired by the Vagrant male with this over-worked and very thin mama.

Not to be intertwined with farm and livestock news....  Notice the EXTRA-LARGE spacing between paragraphs!!!

Exciting news that I haven't shared here before now.  Our first grandbaby is due this week, Wednesday.  She is to be named Lily, born to our daughter and Jake.  

It all seems very unreal, even though her birth is finally so close!

Exciting times, for sure!!!

 

Laura

"Normal" tear-jerkers

Photos of Sly, the black kitty who was with us for 12 years.  And Shadow with Jake, Carrie, and the dog-crew, awaiting treats on command....

Sometimes the strangest, normal things bring back the most powerful memories of pets that are no longer here.

Last year around this time, we didn't know it, but our house cat Sly was nearing the end of his life.  

A very normal thing, that I've done since before most of our current pets were in the picture is.....opening a can of tuna.  Two weeks ago, tears welled up because I did just that.

The pets KNOW.  They hear the can opener break the seal of the tuna can.  They all rush to the kitchen and wait expectantly.  I drain the tuna, then portion it out with water added, an equal amount in bowls or the tuna can for every cat and dog.  It's not much more than a few licks, but they KNOW!  (Even Midnight the cat (who HATED the dogs) would deign to enter the kitchen and sit in the throng, looking up at me and tapping me with her paw.)  

We hit on a little routine that kept Sly unbothered by the dogs as he licked the tuna can clean.  Our trash bin slides out, and there is room under the hanging bins for an overweight cat to crouch down and be shut in....with his can of tuna-water.  The dogs might be waiting eagerly for him to push the door open and leisurely stroll out, but he got his flavored water all to himself until he was ready to admit that it was gone.

So to explain the tears.  I guess I hadn't had tuna salad for quite a while.  I open the can.  The dogs rush to sit at my feet.  Without thinking, I portioned out Sly's serving and my gaze fell on the half-open trash bin door.  And tears came up quite unexpectdly, almost a year after I grieved his passing.

Now with Shadow.  

The most normal thing when I have a dirty casserole or baking pan is to let the alpha dog lick it clean.  

That was Shadow, no matter what strong-willed Rocky thought, no matter how Taffy might try to sneak in, I always called "Shadow!" and blocked any other dogs who tried to push their way in before she arrived.

Without thinking the other night, I put the Crock Pot down on the floor and called "Taffy!".  She was right there, licking goat stew off the edges before it was completely out of my hands.  

And that's when I realized Shadow was really gone.  I didn't even make the mistake of calling her.  She is just absent.

Miss you, old girl!  And Sly, and all the other pets that have held a fond place in our family's story over the years.  With the fond memories still come tears, at very unexpected times.

 

Laura

Sordid cat affairs...

The reprehensible lives of Mchenry County barn cats... 
Mama had babies in spring of 2015. She was supposed to be a "he". The daddy of her babies was her brother (who actually WAS a "he") He irresponsibly disappeared 2 weeks before his babies were born and has not been seen since...
Orange and white short-hair female was in that litter. 
Mama got pregnant early this spring by the local, vagrant, wild tabby, and had orange tabby male and three others...taking good care of them as she did last spring.
Orange and white 2015 female got pregnant by the same vagrant later this past spring/summer, and delivered her babies on the third floor of the barn where we couldn't get to them. She ignored her own babies and nursed her younger, 2016 brother who had been weaned for over three months... They have bonded as if they were born in the same litter. She may be pregnant by him.
Meanwhile, Mama is hugely pregnant (again by Vagrant) and due any day.
Time to get some kitties to the low-cost clinic before we have cats taking over everything!
If anyone is looking for a barn kitten, there will be some here, very soon...and ready to go in about 8 weeks.

 

Laura

Shadow

Here is my Dykstra's Farm facebook caption and photo for the day.  I had a story forming in my mind, and it's just too soon to type it all out.

"Our old girl on the farm this summer. Taffy's puppies mistakenly thought the alpha female should play with them... She humored them for just a while. And then there was no mistaking that they were out of line with their energy and fiestiness. :)

Ten years she was with us, 5 of them here. 

Today we buried her under the redbud tree with the other barn kitties, house cats, and pets that have left us since we moved to the farm. RIP sweet Shadow. Thanks for sharing the beginning of our adventure with us."

One day, I'll share more.  Tonight, the emotions are still too raw.

 

Laura

A goat named after ice cream

Once upon a time there was a spunky little goat...  His baby photos caused a new farmer to fall in love with his crazy personality...

He was named after an ice cream flavor because of the chocolate, and caramel, and vanilla coloring of his crazy coat.  Rocky Road.

He came to live at a small farm in Illinois, along with his friend, from the place they were born.

He was not a fainting goat, but just half fainter, and half Nigerian dwarf.  This combination of genetics made him able to leap tall fences with a single bound.  (Unlike the purebred fainting goats, who cannot even leap over a 30" tall hog panel of fencing and who willingly stay wherever I want them to stay...)  

This little goat became an escape artist, and hopped the fence all the time, going wherever he wanted.  He did so whenever we turned our backs.  He leaped and twirled and schemed at every opportunity.

He did what he wanted, and went where he pleased.  He ate the good hay that was supposed to be rationed out.  

He left his friend with....gasp!...the young male sheep while he himself hung out with the flirtatious and tail-wagging female goats...  (Luckily, it was his FRIEND who would sire babies, and he himself was, sadly, thankfully, unable to do so)...

He challenged the little farm dog, who challenged him right back and took great delight in making him jump back to where he belonged. But it wasn't enough for this overly confident goat to break all the rules and challenge the rule-enforcer.

He took over the flock of does (goats), ewes (sheep) and ewe lambs, and became a bully without his buck-friend to keep him in line.  

He stood tall on cinder blocks, watching over "his" charges.  He slept on the roof of the shelter, where none of the other sheep or goats were able to jump.  

He started ramming sheep in the sides after a long day of grazing (full stomachs!), and was seen tossing young goats with his horns.  (Yes, literally hooked one baby with a horn and tossed it a few feet into the air).

His time was up.

From an irresistibly adorable young ice cream flavor, to the brute of the barn yard, in the course of one year...  Power and leaping ability had gone to his head.

I made an appointment with the butcher.  And something came up sooner.

Friends were willing to help out, and had the experience necessary.  I took them up on their offer.  It needed to be done.  

I did not feel one hint of remorse.

Arriving this morning, they got set up in the back of the pasture under a large tree.  

I calmly walked into the middle of the sheep and goat flock, acting as if I was going for a different goat.  Deftly, I caught the collar of Rocky Road and slipped a noose around his neck.  

Happily, he trotted along, anticipating that he was the FIRST to be let out of the barn, the FIRST to be taken out to the pasture (bypassing the usual dry hay that I insist they fill their bellies with before they get any grass).  His arrogance even then was astounding.  

He was handled gently, led gently to the tree, and dispatched....as gently as possible.

A couple of hours later, the friends came to the door with a white bag full of our share of the meat.  

I thought I would be sick, as the friend pulled out chunks of goat meat and enthusiastically explained the quality, the part of the goat it was from, the suggested way to cook it.  Surprise!  I wasn't sick.  I was even a little bit interested.  

I had to rinse the meat before chilling it.  Surprise!!  Not sick in the least.  Kind of curious about the texture.

There was a little bit of hair on some of it.  Surprise!!!  I was OK.  Picked off the hair and moved on with packaging...

All morning, I thought something was wrong with me.  I didn't feel sad for him.  I had no trouble putting the rope on him and leading him out.  

He was not the first nuisance animal that we had to "dispatch", but he was the first one to meet his fate here.  Maybe that made all the difference.  He had lived a good life here, despite making other lives miserable.  And he did not know that anything was different.

No crate to be loaded into, no car ride with panic setting in as he left familiar surroundings.  He was at home, where he had relished his "freedom"...

I did not watch, did not listen to what was going on behind the barn.  I did not help to dig the hole for the remains that were left after the event.  

We did not have goat for dinner tonight....  But I AM thinking of a few recipes to try.  

I AM grateful that the female goats and sheep were able to bed down tonight without trying to avoid a bully who could have injured any one of them with his forceful dominance.  

I AM grateful that no more young kids (goat babies) will go sailing through the air when their only transgression was that they came too close to his royal majesty, as he stood with front hooves on a cinderblock and considered "his" domain.  

I AM grateful that relative peace has once more been restored to the barnyard.  The resident nanny goat will again take her rightful place as the flock bully, but it will not come close to what we saw from this particular wether.

We fed him for just over a year (a costly endeavor!), but he was never friendly, never going to stay within the fence I wanted him to be in, never going to follow the rules of being a good barnyard citizen.  I tried to find a home for him, but when the best option fell through, it was not a moment of panic for his sake, but a moment of realization of what had to be done...  Unlike Brock the mean ram (who I kept around for an extra full year before I could bear what fate was necessary), we did what needed to be done and did not second-guess how we could possibly DO such a thing.  

He had never won my affection, apart from this adorably, cute and spunky photo of him as a young, gleeful kid.  He WAS a young, gleeful kid.   With a mind of his own.

I am sorry that we couldn't find a better placement for him, but surprisingly, I am not sorry that he is no longer out there in my barn or in my care. 

Progress?  Maybe.  There was no hand-wringing or tears shed for an animal that made things difficult.

Rest in Peace, Rocky Road.  Thank-you for the lessons you taught me, and the part of the farm experience that you joined us for.

 

Laura