“A day in the country is worth a month in town”Christina Rossetti

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Crime Scene - Be Warned! A Little Gross!

On the floor...
of the mudroom...
under the chair...
with the grass clippers.
UGH!
I stepped outside to do some chores yesterday and just saw this blood and guts. Tell me...what are those parts they don't eat? I couldn't tell if two rodents died or just one. Who was the killer? What were those shears used for? Someone is doing their job.
The sun got those mice out of their little holes after three or four bitter, snowy days. Good eats...I guess?

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Herd Cat

Snickers is quite the personality. She doesn't seem to be phased by much.
She considers a goat butting a request for a snuggle.
Too much butting by the little ones though, and the paws come out punching.
Civility please.
When we went to the vet to get her stitches out a couple weeks ago, she met two perfectly strange dogs in the waiting area, and didn't raise a fuss at all. Blew the dogs' minds, as well as the owners. How could I tell? Well, the dogs just had that look. Their owners spoke.
Getting along with the house cat Pekoe, though, is still a work in progress.

Today was a Winter Wonderland cold day. Sunny, sparkly and white crusted. Jock's kind of roll in the snow and make snow angels day.
Snickers found her way out to the field to share the goats' food and water and follow them around. I think the kids think she is an odd little goat. She's always been with them, especially since those 14 below days in the warming barrel.


Snickers is like the kid sister that wants to do everything the big brother does. Jock is the embarrassed brother who tries to ignore her.

She wants to be part of the herding thing.

Whatever he does...


or wherever he goes...
is cool.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Wood Splitting

Weekends are the time for jobs that require two heads or four hands. So we usually put our wish list, or our needs list, together as the week-end approaches. Today was going to be: Cut more downed wood. We brought down a truck load last week. You can see that it was split and is now drying. We'll need to start using it when we get down to our last quarter cord sometime next month.
Well, the weather became a factor about as soon as the goats went out. That was the last time we saw the sun, as the clouds and snow blew in with the nasty wind that was freezing our ears on the dog's walk. Its been blowing and snowing all day.

So Mr. Labor split a few logs that have been drying since last summer.

In case you need to learn the passed down technique, here it is.

Tap in the wedge. Line up the splitting maul. Swing.

One more time.

If you really need to learn, here is a good page to get you started.

http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/splitting.htm

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Signs of Life

This is Maggie, a neat colored Australian Shepard with her boss, Jen.

Today was a busy day. I got dropped off in Natrona Heights at Blackberry Meadow Farm for a PASA small ruminant farmer potluck lunch and tour. Lunch conversation was on goats, vets, kids dying from the cold weather, the PASA conference activities, cool farming tools, and farmers markets.
Cabbage...
...lettuce, spinach and radishes.

Then we got the tour by Jen who just took over this organic farm last year. They have hens, a couple goats, and hoop houses with varying levels of growth. Its always neat to see how others do things.


Jock came back to pick me up, and got to tour the barn where they distribute the CSA foods. He also got to run around with Maggie and embarrass us with his bad behavior.


Jen, by the door, telling us about what seeds they plan to start in the germination box they are building.
All these ideas!
Its great to meet all these people who are ready to share their stories and experiences. Like getting stuck in the mud up to your crotch for an hour and a half, almost freezing, loosing your boot, getting it back, and still feeding the two bales of hay to the cows you came out for in the first place.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Year of the Goat

Its all starting to make sense.
I was born in the year of the goat.
We moved to the farm in the year of the goat.
I love this letter for goat, and below is some info off a web site about us poor folks born in that year.
It really all makes sense now...
Except for the knack of always getting off on the wrong foot with people, the Goat can be charming company. You are elegant and artistic but the first to complain about things. Put aside your pessimism and worry and try to be less dependent on material comforts. You would be best as an actor, gardener, or beachcomber. Some Goats: Rachel Carson, Michelangelo, Mark Twain, Rudolph Valentino, Barbara Walters, Orville Wright.
Find out your year here. Maybe it tells your story!!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Get Growing

When I read the paper, I look forward to editorials by Verlyn Klinkenborg. He is sometimes dry and sometimes funny, but he talks to me on most days.

This article has a couple chuckles snuck in, just when you aren't looking.

Within the editorial is reference to “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating” which recently appeared on The New York Times’s list of most-viewed stories for 2008.
Check it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15sun4.html?th&emc=th
Sow Those Seeds!
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
"In August 2004, I wrote a Rural Life editorial about the victory garden movement during World War II, noting that a national crisis had turned Americans — for a few years at least— into a nation of gardeners. Now we are in the midst of another crisis. And perhaps this is the moment for another national home gardening movement, a time when the burgeoning taste for local food converges with the desire to cut costs and take new control over our battered economic lives.
There are signs that some people are already thinking this way. A number of friends have said to me, wistfully, that if things get worse, they’ll just go to the country and learn to farm, as if learning to farm were like studying shorthand or learning to weld. "

Read on...

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day!

After a day spent surveying the damage from Thursday's seventy mile per hour winds, cleaning up and making repairs, its time for dinner out and a movie.
A rarity!
Looking forward to it.
Happy Valentine's Day to You!