Update

It IS nice to see where the grass will grow (and to see what trash has accumulated over the winter), and to find things that had gone missing (snow shovels stuck in a drift and then lost in the next snow-storm, feed dishes set out to thaw and then covered in snow and refrozen until they stuck to the driveway at the bottom of the ice-pack)

Yesterday two sandhill cranes flew low over our farm, disturbed by the sight of Rocky running in the back acre.  They must have spent the night at the tiled drainway that is diagonal across the farm field behind us.  (Rocky the husky WOULD look like a threat if you were a crane and he was running anywhere near where you and your mate were just waking from a sound night's sleep!)  Last night, coyotes were close, so I'm hoping those cranes found a safer place to stay last night.

Sheila the rabbit miscarried 6 babies at day 25 of a 35 day gestation.  They weren't forming right, from what I can find about such topics on the internet.  It's the second rabbit litter that has not been successful in the past 2 months.  

The 3 kitties from last year have been exploring outside the barn.  It's fun to see them in different places where we only saw Spartan or Charlie before.  All of our barn cats are male orange tabbies, so when you see a fluffy orange critter out in the pasture, or high in a bush chasing birds, or sneaking around the side of the garage, you know that they belong here.  Even though Charlie is gone, his brother Spartan seems to have made friends with one of the new cats, and they tussle and explore together.

The melting snow and ice have caused a bit of a problem with the front entrance to the barn.  I'm sure the whole barn structure has sunk since it was built, because the melted snow from the driveway becomes water that pools in front of the barn entrance, trying to run into the barn and collect damply in the corner.  It has become part of our daily routine to get our little pump out, hook it up to the hose, and move that water away from the entrance (yes, there is that much water to deal with!)  The wooden door is now seeming quite rotten on the bottom, so there's one more thing on the unending to-do list for summer maintenance.

Because the front door of the barn can't be opened fully (ice is still caked on the walkway, keeping the door from swinging open all the way) there are still many bags of feed stacked on the porch of the garage.  Jeff and Michael have been bringing them one-at-a-time into the barn when I need them, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to move them all inside tonight....

The geese have a nest again, with 12 eggs in it, adding to it daily.  I saw the gander being protective of that nest yesterday, so maybe.....maybe we'll have a successful hatch of goslings this spring.  If the goose doesn't start sitting on the eggs soon, I may remove one each day until I have 12 to put in the incubator, just to see if they are fertile.

We have 100 chicks on order for next month.  10 of those will be Barnevelders to replace my favorites and start a new flock.  The rest will be raised for "freezer camp".  (A nice way to say that they will end up as someone's dinner, whether ours or another family's).  Turkeys are on order, too, supposed to arrive in mid-April, although this year I'll be ready a few weeks early.  Last year the hatchery gave us a phone call which basically announced that our turkey poults were on their way, and it was a full 2 weeks before we had expected them!

Jeff has started work on a chicken coop to keep these new chickens out of the barn, where the killer chicken virus is probably still viable.  We got as far as clearing the snow off of the old foundation that was probably a chicken coop in a former lifetime, and Jeff installed one of the boards that will be the beginning of the framework.

The raised-bed gardens are finally clear of snow, and I can let myself start thinking about what upgrades we need to make and how much composted manure we'll need to move and what veggies to plant in which beds.

We scavenged through windows that my parents brought down from their house in Wisconsin and some that I've picked up at various places around here, and have enough windows for the front of the chicken coop and also for the front of the barn (when we get to THAT repair!)  :)

Bessie's milk is flowing again after a week of regaining the all-important "schedule".

The awning that collapsed has left us with 4 usable pillars and 4 sheets of metal roofing.  The rest of the cedar boards that were used are splintered and will eventually make a nice fire.  The wreckage is out of the way and sorted through.

Birds are singing.  I think it's just the mammoth flock of starlings that seems to migrate through here every spring and fall.  But in the background, I hear chick-a-dees and have seen cardinals and robins, we know that the sandhill cranes are starting to migrate through, and the snow is melting, and the animals are shedding, and the remaining hens in the barn are laying eggs again.....

That's the update for today.  

It's foggy and trying to rain, but the temperatures are nothing to complain about.  

I am so thankful that spring is on it's way!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Putting a dollar amount on productivity

Photo:  The kitties, who would say that their morning milk is.....priceless!  :)

This past weekend during a family gathering, my brother-in-law asked me if we lose productivity when the animals are off of their usual schedule.  It was after 10 in the evening by that point and I had yet to head home to feed and water all the critters in the barn.  It would be hard to put a dollar amount on things, but the business-minded answer would have to be "yes".   If I'm looking at the farm as a business, if I need to make the feed costs balance out with the products (milk, eggs, meat) that feed produces, then we ARE losing money if I stay out late or deviate from what the animals are accustomed to.

  

By the time I got home an hour later, the cows had not had their second helping of hay for the day (equal to about one full bale), the temperatures were cold enough that any water I'd given in the morning was frozen (except for in the cows' water trough outside), the chickens were already roosting for the night, the piggies were bedded down, the sheep were dozing.....

The cow and 2 steers had decided to bed down on filthy, soggy straw and someone had been helpful during the day and turned off the light to save electricity.  In the pitch blackness, with three dark and heavy animals lying where I needed to walk, I decided not to try to separate the calf out from the "herd".  That decision costs me the one or two gallons of milk for the next morning.  It's one of the few obvious "losses":  Milk can be sold for $10 a gallon, and I potentially lost the value of 2 gallons of milk.  

Now, to be fair, Bessie is off her schedule already and I have only been getting one or 1 1/2 gallons per day for about a week now.  Half a gallon goes to the kitties and the pigs every morning before I even bring it into the house.  They wait expectantly, dancing in place and tails twitching (both species), squealing and shoving (just the pigs, NOT the cats!)  :)  That half a gallon is not considered wasted, but I do need to consider that it offsets the other feed that I provide for kitties and piggies.  If I don't bring that milk in for our use, or don't get enough from Bessie to sacrifice half a gallon for the other critters, that has to figure in somewhere.

At any rate, if I choose to leave Caspian the calf bedded down with Mommy and not separated from her, there is at least a $10 loss.  Even if I don't plan to sell that milk, it means less cream for butter, less milk to make cheese or yogurt or just to drink at dinner.  That much I can put a dollar amount on.  I can't put a dollar amount on how I need to chase him down the next night because he really would rather be next to his Mommy, having had that luxurious experience the night before...we should have named him "Spunky", with his head-tossing attitude.

Not quite so easy to nail down in a business-sense:

Bessie lying on filthy bedding because I wasn't there to shovel and then put down fresh straw could lead to a return of the mastitis we've been fighting all winter.  (Mastitis is an infection in her udder).  That could mean loss of milk for days or longer.

Chickens not having fresh water during the day or being disturbed after they roost for the night can lead to lower egg production, but (since only one of them has started laying this month) I'm not too concerned about that.  

Pigs not having fresh water or food could lead to lower growth rate, but not just because of one day.  We're not trying to pack on the pounds with them, anyway, and they always have hay to munch on even if they'd rather have grain.

A pregnant rabbit that runs out of food or thawed water could potentially lose her litter, I guess.  So far Sheila seems to be fine, despite three days of interrupted feeding schedule over the past weekend.  (She's due to deliver her kits around the 24th of this month, right at the beginning of spring break!)

The sheep are hardy, so I'm not worried about them.  They sometimes choose not to drink their water, and they are sleeping on mounds of wasted hay.  They probably didn't even notice that fresh hay and clean water was delivered to them hours after the appointed time.

So yes, I have to be mindful of potential losses when I don't stick to the schedule.  But no, I don't have things set up in such a way that I can't be out late one or two nights, or adjust the feeding schedule for critters in order to give myself some time away from the farm.

The one thing that is a saving grace, even if it sometimes costs us our milk the next morning, is that I leave the calf with Bessie all day.  I milk her in the morning until there's nothing left.  Caspian the calf gets to drink everything else ALL DAY LONG.  I am not tied down to being home at an appointed evening time to milk her for the second time each day.

If I don't shut him up in the stall at night, though, he will finish off all of the milk for the next morning before I have a chance to get out there. (Sometimes, that's exactly what I want him to do!  Just not always.)  

It's important to be mindful of how much milk I need from Bessie, and what I need to do to keep her producing that amount.  It does translate into dollars-and-cents when I am gone or lazy or just not on time...and it costs in terms of milk production when she can't fill up on hay because the supply has run out....

  

If I was chained to twice-a-day milkings at specified times, or had no leeway in timing for when the hungry (squawking, mooing, squealing!) mouths out there were fed and watered, it wouldn't take too long for all of it to become drudgery and nothing but chores.

It's a juggling act, and I truly am trying to learn how to run the farm production as more of a business than a hobby.  

Being gone this weekend until late in the evening did not risk production on too grand a scale, but I did need to stop and consider whether I could join the family at my brother's house for dinner or whether I should head home for farm chores instead.  

I'm happy to report that, even if we lost the milk for the next morning, it was so totally worth it to spend a few more hours with family.  :)

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Cows gossiping at the water cooler

The thaw that we're having is so nice.....

It's nice to walk outside and not feel your lungs shrink back from the frigid air that they've breathed in.

It's nice to hear the chickadees singing outside instead of only hearing a forlorn chirp once in a while.

It's nice to have the chickens singing (squawking, screeching, you pick the word) as they announce that they've added an egg to the nest.

It's nice to have the front door of the barn thawed from where rotten wood had become waterlogged and then frozen, along with the solid slick of ice that was seeping under the door......  

It's nice to hear the sound of water dripping instead of watching the roof-line for icicles or sheets of snow that might be ready to fall as you walk underneath.

It's nice to milk Bessie without frantically shoving my hands back into my warm gloves as soon as they leave the warmth of her milk-producing parts, or having the milk spray freeze instantly as it showered the edges of the stainless steel bucket......

It's nice to see the cows moseying along to stand in the sun and chew their cud by their big water trough, instead of huddling inside the barn.

Not so nice:  

Being gone for a weekend (well, about 10 hours each day for about 3 days in a row) as everything thaws.  That means.....

The cows were bedding down in (sleeping on) a months' worth of soggy straw mixed with their own filth because I wasn't home to shovel it out.   When it's frozen, you can top if with a nice layer of straw.  When it's thawing, it gets gross and unsanitary very quickly.  

I'll be watching Bessie for signs of mastitis setting in again, and will be shoveling dripping gunk every day for the foreseeable future (actually, shoveling manure is a joyful spring/summer/fall job anyway, but what I need to do now is play catch-up after a winter cold-spell by setting a goal of 5 wheelbarrows full of dripping, saturated stuff until the cement floor is finally visible!)

The frozen mess under the bedding in the pigs' barn area was also thawed and feeling squishy underfoot as I walked in to feed and water them.  I dug in and started shoveling, when I realized that I could double their living space by moving the free-standing 6x12 chain link pen and attaching it to the barn wall.  Chain link isn't ideal for pigs, because they can nose through the existing openings and force them bigger and bigger.....so the chain link is still a temporary solution.  Now, though, they have a dry, 12x12 area, with fresh straw for bedding and better lighting than before.  I had to put it where we've been planning to build a 10x12 stall, but.....that project was supposed to be done in January soon after the pigs arrived, and it keeps getting put off, weekend after weekend.  It won't get done in the near future, either, so this is a good solution for the time being.  

Kind of funny:  I looked at the water trough outside, and stopped to consider why it seemed to have sunken down into the ground so much over the winter.  It took a while to realize that everything in the cow-pen is at least a foot higher than it was last summer.  Other winters since we got the cows, things have not frozen quite so well, and that means mucky, muddy stuff being plodded through and spread around, rather than platform upon platform of frozen cow "stuff" building up all winter.

When the cows drop their steaming piles, those piles freeze in place and mound up to surprising levels.  

The trough is sitting in a pool of water, but it isn't because it sunk.  It's because the cows have stood around, gossiping at the water cooler, and raising the level of the frozen "ground" on a daily basis with their splattering additions.

It's more to shovel if we don't want the cows to be knee-deep in the stuff when it finally thaws completely, but at least we can look forward to using it for some good reason (compost, soil enrichment) after it sits in a big mound and rots for a year.

That's the next big shoveling project, when the winter bedding and droppings are cleaned up in and around the barn:  setting up this year's raised-beds, and filling them with a mix of well-composted cow droppings from last year.  I'm almost certain that's why we had a bumper crop of cucumbers this past summer.  Nice, rich, black compost.....  

Almost makes shoveling the "fresh" stuff worth it, if I can just keep in mind the garden bounty that will result a year later from all the hard work I need to catch up with now!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Two close calls

Rocky's tie-out cable was starting to fray.  With the cold, the plastic coating had crackled, and the cable inside the coating was losing strength as individual strands broke and frayed and threatened his safety.

As a husky, he is strong.  He wants to run.  He has a high prey drive (trouble for the neighbor's chickens, should they happen to be free-ranging).  He is independent.  

Legally, a neighbor could shoot him if he was terrorizing their livestock.  It's true, and when he's been running free the few times he got away from us, I've been listening for gunshots as a clue to where I should be looking for him.

So being confined by a secure cable is pretty important.  

I stopped by the pet store and bought a more sturdy cable, looked at it as I hooked it up, wondered if I should somehow test it, and then proceeded to make absolutely sure that the clasp closed firmly and that it was going to keep him secure.

Last night it was fine.

This morning, after once again checking both the clasp on the cable AND the clasp on Rocky's collar, my heart sank as Jeff said "What is Rocky doing, running around out there?"  There was Rocky, on the snowy driveway, with the new cable hanging limp where he had left it.

He trotted in the front door, acting (for once) as if he was totally confused as to what had just happened.  This wasn't his usual routine.  He doesn't usually come in the front door.  He usually gets to run in the pasture, and this particular dog LIKES HIS ROUTINE.  He curled up inside of his dog crate and gave a sigh and looked at me with mournful blue eyes.

We tried again later, after I tried to think through every possible scenario that could have allowed him to get free.  I checked and double-checked that both clasps hooked together and were secure.  But once again, I glanced out through the back door and my heart stopped as I saw the cable lying limp on the ground, no husky attached.

The saving grace?  I had cleaned upstairs yesterday, and the trash bags with cat food cans were on the front porch.  

Around the corner of the house comes Rocky, cat food can in his mouth, settling down in the snow RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOG CABLE to lick the can clean.  There were 3 other cans already scattered in that area.  He was going back and forth to the front step, claiming a new can each time, and trotting back to his accustomed "den" to eat whatever scraps were left inside of each can.

I grabbed a frozen meaty-bone from the freezer and pasted on a smile as my heart started beating again.  Using my best "good doggie" voice, I lured him over to the back step and into the house by offering the bone and telling him what a good dog he was.  

Safe!  Not hit by a car, not shot at by a neighbor, no animal-control officer coming to the door to say "We're sorry, ma'am, but your dog destroyed the neighbor's property and we're here to confiscate him."

Third time's a charm, I hope.

I've taken the clasp off of his collar and hooked the cable directly to the loop on his collar.  The carabiner clasp that we added to his collar was necessary for hooking him up to the old cable, but the combination of new cable clasp and carabiner on his collar seem to have been the problem.  He had been licking or chewing on the new combination, and must have sprung it by sheer luck.

Just in case, I left all of those cat food cans on the front step, and am checking Rocky's presence (or lack of it) every minute or so as I bustle around the kitchen and first floor.  

For whatever it's worth, he's settled down in his usual spot, on top of the picnic table, in the sun, and is dozing off. 

One more potential escape averted, but one more very compelling reason to get the front of the property fenced in.

 

I'm not ready just yet to believe that the new cable is foolproof....I might be able to return a faulty cable, but that would be small comfort if Michael's dog was gone because of it!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Blessings, and waiting for spring

Everyone is talking about how tired of winter they are.

I know it's normal "talk" for this time of year, but usually Februaries have been gray, bleak, little or no snow on the ground, and what IS there is black with gunk and even more depressing to look at than bare dirt.  

Now it's March, and the snow of this winter just won't quit.  

I went to put the dogs outside this morning, too tired to look out the door before I opened it, and was stunned to open the door to a swirling snowstorm.  

Listening to the weather radio yesterday, I nearly cheered at the news that it *might* get up to the mid 20's yesterday and today.  And then the glum feeling set back in as the robotic weather announcer went on to describe another roller coaster of below zero windchills and highs into the low 30's over the course of the next week.  I hadn't made a mental note of the coming snowstorm, apparently.

So, I was thinking that it might take an effort to be thankful, and have been working on a mental list:

The 20 year old furnace has kept working through the worst winter it's probably ever heated this house for.

The doors of the barn are frozen, but there is still one door in the back that we can trudge to with bags of feed going in, or just to go in and out doing the usual chores.  We won't need to break any doors down or climb a ladder to the second-floor hay-mow doors in order to take care of the animals inside the barn.

The feed ran out for the cows and the chickens, but the feed mill was able to bag and deliver enough feed for the next 2 months.

The feed bags needed to be unloaded onto the garage porch (front door of the barn is frozen shut, remember), but no rodents have discovered the feed.....yet.  It will be hauled a bag at a time around the back of the barn as needed until the front barn door is unfrozen.

The driveway may be a slick of ice, but both of our vehicles are 4-wheel drive.  And I've found unexpected challenges in getting into and out of our driveway, but in the process have become familiar with that 4 wheel drive.  Unexpectedly, I am doing better than ever as the tires slip and slide and now I don't panic if the car slides just a little bit.  In fact, it's been kind of fun (to the point where our adult daughter laughed at me as I plowed into and out of the driveway with her in the passenger seat one wintry day.  "Jeez, Mom!  You and your 4-wheel drive truck!").  Kind of fun to surprise my daughter with a bit of new-found tough attitude.  :)

With temps getting not just to the mid 20's yesterday but into the low 30's, I was able to get the outside spigot to work, unfurled the Pocket Hoses (4 of them, end to end, making up 200 feet of hose) and filled the water trough, all 200 gallons of it!  (The 5 surviving goldfish were quite happy to have water again, instead of a few inches of sludge at the bottom!)  AND, the flash of bright orange fishies swimming in the cows' water in the middle of winter made me smile.  :)

At least one of our 2 babydoll sheep is looking a bit rotund.  It could be winter fat.  It could be winter wool.  Or it could be a lamb (or twins?) that would be born in late April/early May.

The pigs are growing and entertaining us with their gross noises and boisterous presence and funny wagging tails......The remaining chickens are surviving without their rooster's presence....The flock of 6 ducks is getting a little twitter-pated and ACTING like spring is here at least.....the geese are toying with the notion of sitting on their 2 nests of eggs.....the cows are starting to shed (a sure sign of spring, right?) and playing in the pasture.....the rabbits have survived and are also shedding everywhere.......the barn cats are venturing out into the snow to explore.....the new roof on the barn has worked wonderfully.....the pasture seed arrived.....the garden seeds are sorted and waiting.....we planned accurately and still have a good supply of hay instead of scrambling to line up a few bales to buy here and there to take us through until spring.....

See, there are so many blessings, just on these 2 tiny acres.

Winter could continue in earnest for the next 3 weeks (I sure hope not!), but if I just keep reminding myself of the blessings that occur on a daily basis, I think the looming seasonal depression can be banished.

It might be the most challenging winter in memory for just about anyone you talk to these days, but.....

if you can look back at it and know that you fought and won and maybe even learned some new things, that's a blessing right there.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

A barn on fire

(Not ours!)

Last night, while driving home from a coaches/parents vs. players basketball game, Michael smelled something burning.  We thought "bonfire", but it was so cold out that anyone burning things in those temperatures could have been crazy!

We got a very quick glimpse of the largest fire I've ever seen, flames shooting higher than the trees, looking as if an entire house had been doused in gasoline and ignited and burning all at once.  

I said to the boys, "If our barn ever catches fire, that's the kind of blaze it would be.  It would scorch everything inside of it within seconds.  There would be no time to save anything."  And added the mother's required admonition:  "It's really important never to do anything in the barn that might cause a spark!"  (Because, you know, boys and matches.....boys and remote spaces to hide and experiment with magnifying a sunbeam to burn something.....boys who spray oily room freshener into an outlet in the bathroom to see if there will be a spark.....boys who put a knife-blade into an outlet and get shocked.....THAT's why the admonition was absolutely necessary at a time when their mouths were already hanging open and their minds were engaged!)

It wasn't in a terribly remote area, but there were no sirens screaming or fire engines racing to the scene, so we doubled back.  By the time we got turned around, the flames were noticeably smaller and more contained, and the structure wasn't a house, but rather, the blackened skeleton of an old barn BEHIND the newer house, with a glowing bed of coals where the flames had been just moments earlier.  A full-sized back-hoe was parked next to the smoldering foundation, which makes me think that it wasn't an accidental fire.

I hope that it was a planned blaze and not a heat lamp that ignited a whole barn.  I hope there were no animals inside.  I hope they had insurance so that their farm plan isn't up in smoke, literally.  

I hope it doesn't happen to us.....

I went out to the barn later and unplugged two extension cords that I've so far seen as necessary.  After seeing that blaze, I realized that we could cut back even more on what is left plugged in.

One cord brings electricity out to the spare water trough, to try to keep it from freezing.  That trough is frozen solid anyway.  No need for that cord to be plugged in.  I will replace that one with a heavy-duty outdoor-rated cord today.

The other cord attached a bird-bath deicer in a 55 gallon barrel of water to the electricity.  I moved a more powerful de-icer to that barrel, with a cord long enough to reach the outlet without needing any extension cords.

I looked with suspicion at two 7 watt lightbulbs that I leave burning so that we can see inside the barn if it's pitch-black outside.  I made sure that all the fluorescent bulbs were turned off, because one of them exploded, once, and scorched the ceiling. 

I still woke up in a sweat at the nightmare hour, sure that something was causing the tiniest spark, which would ignite the whole barn:  hay, 100 year old timbers, and everything living inside of it.  Listening for muffled explosions or the roar of a terrible blaze.  It didn't matter that I knew it was a dream, the adrenaline was pumping and I almost couldn't bear to stay in bed.

We don't have running water in the barn.  The doors are all frozen shut or blocked by snow (except for one in the very back).  There are no fire extinguishers.  There's not even a baby-monitor or fire alarm that might give us a clue that a fire had started.  

Not that any of that would matter if there was a barn fire.  It would be a helpless experience, one where you could only stand back and make sure no-one frantically rushed in to try and save anything.  With the situation the way it is now, we couldn't even wrench the doors open and hope that the animals who weren't tied in place could find the open door and run out into the pasture.  In nightmare terms, this is one that ranks as the most terrifying, at least for me.  It's the "helpless" part of any nightmare that makes it most terrifying, isn't it?

As for the animals who live in our barn....

I do think it's necessary to take every precaution for their safety, since they have been taken into our care.  (Much like I put outlet covers on EACH AND EVERY OUTLET after a toddler-who-shall-remain-nameless stuck a knife into an outlet years ago.  Precautions, and more precautions, and action taken where needed, for children then, for animals now).

Maybe the sense of heightened awareness is just the new normal that comes with devoting your time and energy to living creatures who don't sleep under the same roof with us at night.  I don't panic about tragedy befalling the dogs, for example, because they are sleeping on the floor by our bed and I know what's happening to them.  

The animals out in the barn kind of fend for themselves until I come out to feed and water them in the morning.  It's our job to be mindful of their safety in the daylight hours, so that they can safely make it through the night until the next morning.

If only my sleeping brain could grab hold of that thought and be convinced that it's all been taken care of.

In the end, it's all in God's hands, anyway, and THAT knowledge is something that finally lets me go back to sleep.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Let's go on an ADVENTURE.....

I was typing out an e-mail to my cousin, and mentioned imaginary farm themes.  Seemed like a good thing to type about on this sunny but cold morning (as I put off trudging down to the last un-frozen barn door to let myself into the barn and commence with morning milking and chores!)

Theme #1:  

"Anything For Food"  

This applies to Rocky the husky (as well as the other animals).  He will come running if he knows I have a piece of bread for him.  When he is out in the pasture, he ignores my calls to come in unless he can see that I have a treat for him.  Then he eagerly rushes over, sits like a model canine citizen, fixes me with his unsettling blue-eyed stare (the command is "Watch me"), and gobbles down the bread as I take hold of his collar to bring him back to the dog cable by the house.  

When he got away from us and ran free, I finally went out to look for him with bread in one hand and the leash in the other.  As I noticed people watching me from their cars while they zoomed down our street, Rocky's furry little nose poked up from behind me, where he was trotting obediently.  All because I had bread, and he was willing to give up his morning of freedom and sit obediently for bread while I clipped the leash to his collar.  

This dog could be trained to do anything, as long as there was a tasty reward.  No bread crust in the pocket?  Forget it!  Bread crumbs in hand?  "Master, your wish is my command" would be his thought as he wags his tail and willingly gives up being head-strong for just a while.....

The cows will willingly trot behind me if they know that there is fresh hay or grain to be had.  In fact, I need to be careful that they don't plow me over and trample me into the dust (or manure, as the case may be) in their eagerness to come when called.  But only when there's food waiting.

The pigs run willy-nilly through the entire first floor of the barn during their morning exercise session, bouncing off of my legs, dashing through the flock of ducks, scavenging for dropped grain around the chicken feeder, nosing through the bits of hay and straw on the floor.....avoiding their chain-link pen.  UNTIL!  They hear their particular feed barrel being opened.  This is when I have to be sure that Buddy doesn't side-swipe me in his enthusiasm and take out my knee-cap.  They trip me up, twining between my moving boots, circling around me and following eagerly as I walk with their feed back to their own pen.  No problems as I shut them in.  They don't fight me as I shut the door and lock them up for the day.  They pay no attention to anything other than.....FOOD!

But the other theme is too good to be ignored:

Theme #2:  "Always an Adventure".

The collapsed roof of the walk-way, frozen in place so that it can't even be cleared away from the front of the barn.

The frozen baby rabbits, tucked into a nest that was lined with fur too late to save their lives.

The knowledge that if we hadn't put the metal roof on the main barn this past summer, then this winter would have most likely caused a serious cave-in of the leaking parts of the roof (and meant the death-stroke for our 100 year old barn!)  Whew!  One more season of soggy timbers could have meant that we no longer had a barn!

The danger of a busted knee-cap because I let the pigs out of their pen to scavenge and explore.

The challenge of figuring out what works with any of the animal species, how to win them over or train them, how to feed them just the right amount, how to care for them and keep them healthy.

The frozen barn doors, and gates that won't open wide enough.....and having only one sheltered doorway or an open window-hole as entry points into the barn at this point in the winter.

The water-hauling and determining when the spigot and hoses MIGHT be able to deliver 200 gallons of water around the back of the barn, rather than 5 gallon bucket by 5 gallon bucket.

The sub-zero temperatures, and the adjustments that needed to be made to keep all the critters warm enough.

The pig manure and soiled bedding, which couldn't be moved out of the barn (because the doors are all frozen or blocked or too small for the wheelbarrow), and had to be piled in the dirt pit in the corner of the barn for now (not sure if it's a spontaneous-combustion problem!  Another adventure waiting to happen?  Hopefully not!).

The not-knowing if our 2 sheep are expecting babies, or when those potential lambs might make a surprise appearance (May?).

The waiting for our poultry order to be delivered, and hoping it isn't delivered in freezing temperatures a full two weeks before anticipated (like last year!)

The constant manure-management, complete with the stench of failures and also composted black-gold successes.

The challenge of raised-bed gardening on a 2-acre property where big trees are beautiful but cast so much shade that most veggies don't get enough sun, anywhere I try to raise them.

The slightly-sloping driveway which is a solid and slick ice-rink of 3 inch thick iciness.

The pasture management, and trying to determine if I should seed it again (every year?), let it get eaten down to nothing, or something in between.

The fencing arrangements, and how to most effectively use our tiny 2 acres for grazing to the maximum potential.

The problem of rats in the barn and staying one step ahead of their conniving little minds.

The tap-dance routine of getting the steer out of the way so that I can milk Bessie without having him trying to muscle past me to get at her grain.  

The inevitable thaw, which will send water seeping under the front door of the barn again and knowing there's nothing we can do to divert it.

The countless projects that are continually being pushed aside for the more important things that need immediate attention.

And on, and on, and on.

  

It IS an adventure, believe it or not.  It isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, for sure.  This morning, the "adventure" is not MY cup of tea, but the animals are out there waiting, and the work won't be done by anyone else.....and once I get out there, I will go about the chores and love it, like every other morning.

If I can just remind myself that it's an "adventure" and not just drudgery and chores, then every day looks bright and every task has some purpose.  

What was it that our real estate agent said every time I called her about a property that she KNEW would not fit the bill?  

"Let's go on an ADVENTURE!"  We went on numerous adventure outings, until one property out-shone every other that we'd investigated, and the real adventure began.

Not a bad theme as we muddle through things that we know nothing about......and hopefully learn through it all!

And now I've reached my absolute-latest self-imposed time to head out to the barn.  Enjoy the sunshine today, everyone!

 

Laura