My sentiments, exactly!

The sentiments of a goat owner, posted eloquently on Facebook by Shannon Hersey.  I couldn't agree more.  

I am so thankful that the temperatures today should be in the mid thirties.  Below-zero windchill and drifting snow cover is not normal here for December.  The animals are much more relaxed with the "warmer" temps, and my days are more worry-free (yes, their very lives can hang in the balance if water and shelter aren't adequate!)

But read what Shannon has to say below...  Wearing pajamas from the night before under the warmer layers....not a surprise (yes, I've done it!)  

A hasty count of the hungry mouths out in our barn and pens has the count around 85, including dogs, cats, poultry, and piglets who are waiting to be picked up...

 

"The temps are frigid. And survival can't abide a thirsty existence, so the water buckets for all of the animals are a big deal.

Hay for goat-body internal combustion heat ovens also have demanded a constant attention to the various feeders and hay racks.

I started at 7 this morning and realized just now, as I untied the sleeves of my coveralls from around my waist to go out and sled-dog more warm water and hay out to the tribe, that I am still wearing pajamas from last night under my suit.

Some days as a farmer, there are no real breaks. The lives of almost 50 animals depend upon my assessments, responses, consistency, and qualifications, in order to survive.

Lots of times I honestly want to hide under a blanket and wish someone else with better qualifications would take over, just tell me what to do, I will do it, but take the responsibility for other lives off of me for just one day. Inside, I know that that is not really what it is all about, however.

There are tough days, but 99.9% of the time, it is such a joy. I anticipate the greetings, calls, and excitement of morning feeding time. Sometimes I am tired and grumpy and sick and just plain human and bitchy. But then I see them all at the gate, or at the barn door. 

It is a Superbowl Party for them to get new hay, a dish of grain with some treats on top. It is a party for them. A party. How many times do you get to host a party, even one you dropped in the mud and fell over the top of, and STILL be greeted with a ton of enthusiasm?

So I may not get to sleep in, or a vacation, or to stay out past 8 PM so I can do chores and get to bed by 10. I may smell like hay and cold air and show up late in overalls with my hair under a wool cap. But I have a party in the barn at least twice a day. My arrival is greeted with joy and excitement, and I know that even if I fail, I am offering my best in efforts of care and knowledge, to make life right for them.

So as I peel off my PJs from last night and hope tomorrow is warmer, and as I check the weather report for tomorrows temps, wind direction and speed, air pressure, and precipitation, it is not with worry, or concern, or even with a sigh. 

It is with a plan for treats, accommodation of the realities of our here and now world, a very grounded existence that works around and within the weather, a sometimes primitive reality in which to work.

It is the essence of a grounding, centering, focus-demanding life."

Hope you enjoyed it.  That captures how I feel as well.  :)

In other news, worthy of updates...  Jeff was interviewing for that job at Calvin College.  They decided to hire someone who already has teaching experience, but encouraged him to watch future job listings.   It is a relief, and it does seem as if Jeff is happy not to be kept waiting for an answer.  

Vader the English Shepherd pup has a new home, with the daughter of one of our readers (and a good friend of the family!)  :)  He leaves to join Shannon in his new life this Friday.  So happy for him and for his future!!!

Three of our American Guinea Hogs will/should leave in early January for a breeding program in Indiana.  Our mature boar Lawnmower (also fondly known as Officer Friendly), Cameo one of our sows, and one of Bea's gilts (females) from the June litter.  It's a nicely balanced breeding trio for the farmer who was looking for just such a combination of genetics to start his program with.

And one more bit of Dykstra Farm news:  I have received a deposit from someone who wants to buy Bessie.  I will be weaning her calf after the holidays, and she should be on her way to Manhattan, IL by the end of January, barring any accidents/milking problems/or other such thing.  I am a little worried about weaning the calf at just 2 months old (we left every other calf on Bessie for a year!!!), but we are already starting the process, bit by bit.  He is a spunky thing.  Maybe he'll be sold as well, as soon as I know that weaning is successful...  He is not taking to halter training very easily.  But that could change.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  Thanks to God for all of His many blessings in our lives, and for the lives that He has placed in our care!

Laura

Frozen wasteland

Photos:  The snow before the big storm roared through...

Ice in every bucket, every water trough, every water dish.  Frozen buckets and bowls inside the barn, sheds, coop, pens... The rubber feed pans which double as winter water dishes are so full that no more warm water can be given.  Today, the coldest day so far, I will haul those water pans into the semi-heated garage and let them thaw a bit, so that a violent kick on the overturned bowl will pop out the offending ice chunks and let me water the critters again.  (There is a certain savage joy in that kicking process...)  ;)

We knew a big storm was coming on Sunday, so I spent the afternoon with our slowly trickling Pocket Hoses (5 of them, end to end, slowly moving water from the one unfrozen outdoor spigot to the cow trough and water barrels in the barn).  Everything was filled.  Cow had plenty of water.  Until the floating de-icer sank in Bessie's 200 gallon tank sank.  The whole tank was a frozen block of ice in 24 hours... 

That morning, I trudged out to water the pigs and Bessie moo-ed at me as I walked by.  Her trough was completely solid.  I had broken the ice on top twice the day before, but the de-icer just wasn't working.  I should have paid more attention to that little detail as the real cold was setting in.

Four gallons meant for the squealing pigs was poured into a bucket for Bessie, and she took about 4 long swigs and it was empty.  Back in the house, I filled up my water jars again...4 more gallons, gulped gratefully by a very thirsty cow, and the bucket was again empty.  

Needing to water all the other creatures, I continued back and forth, kitchen sink to barn, to kitchen sink, to goat and chicken sheds, to kitchen sink, to pigs in their pens...

Out of sheer necessity, a trip to Farm and Fleet was added to that day.  A new deicer was on hold, with a second deicer purchased just in case we needed it...  It took all day, and a few trips with warm water to help the deicer make progress at first, but Bessie's tank was finally full of drinkable thawed water by that night.  She stood there and took long, grateful drinks, while her calf danced around in his energetic way.

The weather this week seems extreme for December.  

And now, Day Four's temperatures are worse than the rest of the week has been.  My trails of bootprints through the snow are obiterated by the drifts formed yesterday.  The wind is whipping across our tiny farm.  The dogs go out, only to come limping back as their feet start to freeze from the extreme temperatures. 

 

I have ideas forming in my mind as I trudge through snow that is so cold that it is crunching.  

First, downsize, and keep less animals.  

Second, how do we get the water running inside the barn, or how do we go about having a point-well driven (I think that's the right word.  Potable water, suitable for animals, available as an emergency source...because if the power goes out, everything that I'm hauling water to will suffer, as well as -or more than- the people needing water!)  

Third...an image is forming in my mind...a barn to build if we ever move to a different property.  Not as big as ours, but with a first floor of stalls that open out into larger outside pens...and storage on the second floor...  A barn where all creatures have shelter inside of one structure, rather than these little sheds with chickens in one, goats in another, no more pallet houses on the hill for pigs...  A barn with a central aisle, for feeding and watering, with doors to the outside for each stall.  My friend with horses has one like this.  Everything has central shelter, everything can be cared for inside of the barn, everything has indoor/outdoor access.  A barn that is versatile.

But I should get moving.  There will be three trips, probably four this morning.  Four gallons of warm/hot water each time.  Animals watered, then fed, to encourage maximum water intake.  Grateful slurping noises from each and every critter out there.

Warming up time for me with coffee, between each foray into the frozen wasteland.  

Cell phone in back pocket, in case there should be any type of emergency.   Frostbite is a real possibility if I stay out too long, but if I were to slip or be injured...yeah, the cell phone is part of the necessary equipment this week!

Dehydration for all of these creatures in our care is possibly a bigger threat in very low temperatures than it is in the humidity of summer...  

I'm finding that the larger numbers of animals out there this winter is causing me more stress, as I sit inside and wonder how they're doing, because their well-being rests in my hands.  More ideas are forming in my mind as I trudge through the chores, thinking of which animals will go to waiting customers, to those people who I know will care for some of these goats/sheep/hogs the way I care for them...   There are a few good customers who have asked if I would sell adult breeding stock for them to start their own flocks and herds with, and I think this spring, my answer will need to be "yes".

Winter is winning this morning, but only until Critter Care is accomplished!

 

Laura

A potential change

So, I'm just going to put this out there...  It's all I can think about this morning.  We haven't spread the news, because it isn't even "news" yet...  

But typing something as a story sometimes helps me to "process" through it, so here goes...  

Jeff came across an ad for a teaching job, at Calvin College, in his hometown of Grand Rapids MI.  It seems like it would be a perfect fit for what he's been wanting to do for almost 30 years.

The deadline was almost past when he found the job description, but they allowed a little extra time and encouraged him to apply.

There are so many "if"s.  IF this, and IF that, but the one sure thing is that, IF this job has his name on it, the income would be significantly less than his salary is now.  

So, looking at online real estate listings.  A farm would most likely be out of the question.  And even if we could afford a little bit of land, packing up all of what we have here would be very unlikely.

Last night, I lay awake in bed, thinking about the rabbits.  I've been considering selling them and not raising American Chinchilla rabbits anymore.  And last night at 4 in the morning it was clear as...um....day, "sell the rabbits"  

So this morning I contacted my friend Vikki who is thrilled to be getting the buck (male) that I was going to send her way in the spring, plus a nice doe that I was going to keep for our own breeding program.  I contacted the customer who has been waiting all year, through our losses of so many rabbit kits which should have been healthy.  I let her know that when she comes this month for one from the youngest litter, and a nice doe that I've saved for her since the summer litters, she can buy others if she is still interested.  When she chooses (if she chooses any), the ones that are left will be offered to the other customer who also waited patiently until the fall litters were old enough for him.  He wanted a few more adults, if I ever decided to sell...

In pig news, I knew a few months ago that I needed to move/sell a few more pigs.  The adult boar is being replaced with the two younger ones that I bought this year.  My sow Cameo has an almost identical pedigree to Big Bea, and since I'm keeping Bea, and keeping one of Cameo's daughters, Cameo was for sale.  One of Bea's daughters was still here but shaping up to be a nice breeding quality gilt.

Someone from Indiana was looking for a boar, jumped at the chance to buy Cameo, and is also buying Bea's daughter (the one we nicknamed "Sassy" because of her habit of letting herself out of the hog pen and trotting everywhere around the barnyard and barn.)

Cameo's litter of 7 starts leaving next week, when they are 9 weeks old.  

The butcher pigs that we raised for a year have been gone for a few months now.  And the lambs which were raised to sell have long since been and gone and are in the customers' freezers.

Bessie is for sale, along with her calf, but her age will stop most people from thinking twice.  A friend will take the calf and raise him on pasture in the spring/summer.  Bessie may go along for a few months, but probably will be gone from here before Carrie's wedding in July...

It feels like things are winding down, and we don't even have an answer to the job/move yet.  

Monday is the phone interview.  When that goes well, there will be an in-person interview for Jeff in February at Calvin...

I find myself looking at the remaining pigs, at the pregnant sheep and goats, at the breeding trios of ducks/geese/turkeys, and at the feeder pigs that we're raising for other people.  Everything could be wrapped up quite nicely by the middle of summer 2017 if it had to be.   

But!!!  I am not giving myself permission to cry about the thought process just yet.  

(This set of breeding quality pigs could go to this customer...  This trio of sheep could be sold with their lambs in the spring...  These fainting goats could be a nice starter flock for someone else....  This customer wanted more geese and ducks if I ever wanted to sell my breeding adults...)  It's all just a lot of "if's" so far, right?

Hauilng water this morning, I let myself think for just one second that it would be really nice not to trudge over frozen mud with hot water for the next three months, as (IF!) the animals slowly left this little farm.  

And the reality is....  I'm giving in too soon, since we don't even know what will happen yet.  But with a big unknown looming over me until at least Monday, and possibly longer, my brain is trying to grasp onto something, rather than just "maintaining", until I know for sure.

So maybe it's time for a new adventure, but a big part of me wants to really hang on tight to THIS particular adventure, the one that would keep us here with 16 degree weather, sandhill cranes flying high above and chortling, prairie wind whipping fiercely around the corner of the barn.  

It is in God's hands....but there sure is a lump in my throat and an ache in my chest as I think about it.  

Maybe it's OK to cry just a little at the thought of possibly leaving this little farm venture, and then...well, looks like it's just about time to haul more water to the pigs and goats and rabbits.  

  

 

Laura

A necessary repair and unexpected discoveries

Repairs....complete with added expenses.  These seem to really add up when I think about what we've had worked on (or done ourselves), on this old farmhouse in the last 5 years.

We had a leak above our bedroom, from what we thought was the toilet wax seal leaking in the 2nd floor bathroom.  One night, Jeremy used the sink and that's when we realized that the leak was only when water was draining from the sink.  By that time, the drywall/ceiling had crumbled away in a small hole, and the water could drip unimpeded right down, through insulation and drywall, to the carpet below.  If it splashed at all, the splatters hit the edge of my pillow.  

Time for some action.

A handyman had been out last week with his brother to take out the French doors in the kitchen and replace them with beautiful but sensible sliding glass doors.  We called him again.  Insurance grudgingly sent someone out and then sent us a check, so we had a little money to work with (after the deductible, of course).

Jim took off a bit of drywall in the beginning stages of this newest project, and found that the leak was coming from the cast iron pipe where the sink drain met the larger pipe and where both were in contact with the floorboards of the bathroom, all of which was encased in and above the ceiling of our room...

Here is where the plumbers entered the scene. 

Because the repairs now had to do with an ancient cast iron pipe that ran the length of our ceiling (under the tub, toilet, and sink upstairs) and also up from bathroom to the vent in the room, we had to hire plumbers.  They would remove the pipe (which had been badly patched in other spots) but it was so heavy that they needed to cut it into manageable sections.  PVC pipe would replace it before the ceiling and walls could be patched back up.  And the cabinet under the sink upstairs needed to be opened on one side so that the pipe could be accessed as well.  

This was not going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

What they found, rather than a pinprick of a corroded hole in the pipe that went all the way up to the room, was a 12 inch long crack. Inside that pipe, there was sludge that filled most of the diameter and explained why the sink had never drained very well...

For fun, I asked "That couldn't have been patched, could it?"  

They just looked at me in amazement.  Or maybe amusement.

So, 8 hours later, the cast iron pipe had been cut and removed (with metal dust all over the bathroom and the sheets covering things in our bedroom).  And a shiny new PVC pipe was in it's place, no leaks, no sludge hidden inside of the gleaming white newness.

Enter Handyman Jeff (yes, our own Jeff).  Lights had to be replaced in the area under the new PVC pipe, and he took care of that before the drywall would be replaced.

Re-enter Contractor Jim.  His job now was to rebuild the cabinet under the sink and the right-angle cover that housed the upright pipe in the bathroom, and put up new drywall.  Over the course of this week, he plastered, sanded, plastered again, primed, vacuumed, until he was satisfied that everything was in the best shape it could be in.  

Our job now is to paint that section and possibly put bookshelves there, under the lights that now work (for 4 years, the lights which were installed there had been unsafe to operate, so we had done without!)

The job isn't done yet, but at least there is no longer danger of the whole soggy section coming down on us while we rest peacefully after a hard days' work!

And a couple of unexpected bonuses:

Besides lights that work, we discovered what the mystery switch on the bedroom wall was for:  the light outside, on the northeast corner of the house.

Jeff rewired the entire switch, so that we can safely use the new lights, but so that that is a separate switch for the outside light.

We no longer need to plug that switch into the outlet housed inside the closet.  (That always seemed to be a strange solution).

We discovered what the walls were decorated with, at least 20 years ago (a date written on a 2x4 stud was October 1993).  

-The bathroom upstairs was sponge-painted:  White background with silver, gray, and a tan sponged over the top.

-The bedroom also was sponge-painted at some point:  Rose colored paint with mauve sponged over it.  

-Even earlier than that, when the cast iron pipe was first put in, there was a thin 1/4" layer of plaster on the walls.  Most of the wood strip and plaster walls throughout the house have been replaced with drywall, but behind the bathroom corner and out into the upstairs hallway, there was still the old style wall left intact behind the newer drywall.  

-And in the bedroom, behind the cast iron pipe, chewed by mice and somewhat moldy, was what remained of a creamy white wallpaper with rose medallions printed on it in raised ink, and a 2" pastel border which would have been at the top of the wall.  That probably dates back to when our bedroom was the "parlor", where the front door opened into what is now the closet, and when there was a wood burning stove in the northeast corner (a built-in closet is there now).  The pipe would have been installed in front of it when the 2nd floor bathrooms were being installed in what used to be attic/sleeping space in these old houses.  The plumbers estimated that the pipe had been there since the 1950's.  

Interesting bits of this house's history, and every bit a part of this adventure as the inevitable repairs that will keep cropping up.

Laura

A handsome pup returns to us

Cute puppy "Smokey" is now back with us as lanky adolescent "Vader".

After a few months in a Chicago apartment, his owners decided that they would give him a chance at bonding with a family that lives on a farm, or has a large fenced yard...   A third floor apartment just wasn't the same for a puppy as the original plan of a house with a fenced yard.  

He is as sweet as ever.  Purebred, registered English Shepherd.  Perfect farm and family type breed.

He is doing well here after announcing his returned presence with boundless joy.  

"Vader is looking for a "forever" home, as they say.  He could be a stud dog, according to Taffy's breeders, with a really nice pedigree to pass on to the next generations of English Shepherds....but would also just love to bond with a family that can enjoy him.  He loves Jeremy, who is 14.  He is very gentle with Lily, our granddaughter.  He warms up quickly to new people who come by to meet him.

Today he will see the vet and get caught up on shots, etc.  

Please pass the word.  We are in danger of falling in love with him ourselves....  And that would be OK....  Sort of...  

But I would really like him to go to a family who needs him!

 

Laura

Moon Boy

A few tidbits of what is happening here...

The calf has discovered the delightful joys of dashing full speed at the flock of grazing sheep and making them scatter.  They have become wary of him, and he must think that POWER is quite something.  

Bessie was milked a few days ago.  It's been too long that we've been drinking store-bought milk!  Mmmmm....  I'm going to milk her on a slightly different schedule than before, so that I don't take too much (which encourages mastitis if I DON'T take that much each time), but so that the calf can easily slurp down the excess if I don't milk one day.  We don't go through even a gallon of milk a day, so I think this will work for the time being.

Bessie is listed for sale.  I don't really expect anyone to buy a 12 year old cow, but it's worth a try.  If the calf doesn't sell along with mama, then we will raise him until this time next year, then our friend will raise him on her 20 acres for another year for beef that we'll share between both families.  

Jeff has been shoveling the cow poo...making a space for me to open and close the stall door to eventually confine the little calf each night.  He's been making friends with the cutie, calling him "Moon Boy".  It will be a sad day when there is no Dutch Belted left on the farm...

But for now, images like this evoke restful, peaceful feelings.  

And watching Moon Boy dash around our small pasture with his tail kinked high in the air is reason for a sudden peal of laughter and delight at his antics.  

 

Laura

"Super Moon" Calf

Under the promise of the "super moon", during the few hours we were gone for Bible study, Bessie gave birth to this beauty.  

Born less than an hour before we found mama and baby....Bessie doing the "concerned foghorn" sound of a mama cow, baby curled on the pine needles in a rather breezy but somewhat private spot by the back fence.

He (or she) was already standing on wobbly legs when Jeff went out to peek.  

Finally!  Bessie was 9 days past her due date.  Every night for the past 2 weeks I checked on her by the light of a small flashlight, every day Taffy and I checked multiple times, only to see her calmly chewing her cud.  Tomorrow, 10 days past her due date,  I would have called the vet.  

Time to traipse out one more time with flashlight in hand, but everything seems to be just as it should be.  The Super Moon will shine brightly on the experienced mama and her brand new calf tonight.

 

Laura