Wandering mind

There are days like today when working off the farm is extremely difficult.  Even after a morning low temperature of twenty below zero, the sun came out and temperatures reached well into the teens this afternoon.  While many may consider teens intolerable, after double digits below zero with double digit wind speeds to match over the weekend, high teens is WARM.

For the second year in a row a good snow pack and below normal temperatures have inhibited progress on outdoor projects.  Looking out from my office window as I shuffled papers from in progress to completed and billed, I thought about the greenhouse and how today's sunshine and warm temperatures would allow for some melting around the base if only I were there to remove the top layers of snow.  This warmer weather also might entice our pampered birds out from inside their coop if I could get out and clear some snow from on top of and inside their run.

I turned back to my billing for the items which we moved from their origin to their destination, then proceeded on to monthly statistics.  When I broke for lunch and warmed up last night's supper of shepherd's pie - made with local potatoes and squash from last year's garden - my mind wandered to fences.  Some to keep the chickens out of the garden and some to keep this spring's feeder pigs separate from the boar we bought last year.  The plan is to raise one to trade for half a cow and keep the second for a breeding sow.  While the walking would be a little difficult, the sun would be shining on the pig's pasture right about now and it is pretty well protected from the wind.  Any leftovers from the fence material could go to the minor repairs needed on the smaller of the pig shelters.

Stepping outside for a few minutes of fresh air was probably the nail in the coffin of productivity today.  It was all I could do not to keep walking towards my car - after all my keys and wallet were already in my pocket.  Reluctantly I headed back inside and answered the phone and updated my databases and did a little more billing, all the while the mind was 23 miles northeast of my current physical location mentally working through all the projects which have only seen slow progress; all done in fifteen minute segments before my fingers froze or the skin on my face started turning white from the early stages of frost bite.

As I traveled those miles home with the sun dipping below the hills to my west, I thought about the future of our farm and whether or not my dream of being home when Little man gets off the school bus each day is financially possible.  Being met at the door by a toddler with the story of four-wheeling down by the landing where my cousin is logging on the family's land recharges the desire and fuels the enthusiasm which started this humble homestead in the first place.

Sitting next to the tub while stories of swimming in the lake this summer spill forth from Little man's imagination, I am planning the framing for the revised greenhouse and perhaps scheduling a day off from off-farm employment to work on farm projects.

Planning & Lists

Two things my husband despises!  I have said many times before that I am a list person, always have been, always will be.  

Each year I talk about projects I plan to complete, ones I hope to complete and those that get on the list because they are a dream, something that someday might get accomplished on this farm.   

Growing Magazine had one sentence that justified my lists this month: 

Setting goals before each season is the only way to know at the end of the year whether you succeeded.

As the first month of the new year comes to a close, I have managed to cross several things off my whole-farm-planning list for January.  There is the outside chance I will accomplish most of the bigger items off the to-do list.

Every night when I get home from my off-farm job, I work on something, even if for only fifteen minutes.  I pruned the fruit trees next to the house in three sessions, mostly due to the severe wind, I could not keep my hands warm in single degree temperatures with winds exceeding 15 mph.  The two others that need to get pruned are planned for Sunday morning wind chill permitting.  There are others that would be great if I get to them, but the goal of the three I usually prune plus two will be complete.

The roof did not survive the winds last year.
A major overhaul is on the list for 2015.

Last night, I spent almost exactly fifteen minutes putting away the last of the saved, dried seeds from last summer.  Placed neatly into their labeled envelopes, they wait for the greenhouse to get repaired or the weather to warm up; whichever comes first.

Monday I listed some planters and decorative watering cans on eBay which I had purchased in my wealthier years, items which are impractical for this farm.  When they sell, it will be a little more cash towards the bills and two more boxes out of the back room.

I took the time that Little man was in the tub this week to go through and draft out an order for seeds.  It will need some pairing down, but the basic list is done.

The taxes will not be done, but they are started.
The de-cluttering will continue, but I don't think that will ever be able to be removed from the list entirely.
My attic, back room, workshop and garage are looking better each day.
The list of things for sale on eBay grows.
The garbage man is earning his money this month.

Every little bit counts. 

I miss Girl Scout cookies

I was a Girl Scout for more than 20 years.  I started as a brownie and worked my way up through senior scouts and then went on to be an adult leader.  My poor mother even volunteered, year after year, to be cookie mother.  I remember the 53' tractor trailer driver trying to back down our narrow driveway to deliver cases and cases of cookies to our garage. Each year the driver would arrive, look at the driveway and cringe! 

It has been over 15 years since my involvement in scouts ceased and close to five years since I have had the luxury of consuming a Girl Scout cookie.

How might this post have anything to do with farming you might ask?  Well on my window sill sits a mint plant.  It was one of the few surviving plants in the greenhouse after the windstorm.  I brought it inside, fully expecting it to perish; amazingly it continues to grow.  I decided that I would make some mint extract in hopes of satisfying my cravings for Girl Scout cookies.





I found a recipe for alcohol free mint extract in cyberspace and perhaps this weekend or early next week I will have homemade 'Thin Mints.' 

 

Who needs coffee when you have critters?

Early mornings at our house are Mom’s time.  The house is dark and quiet; the only critters that are barely stirring are the two cats that got tossed off the bed when Mom got up to silence her alarm.  She heads to the kitchen, starts the coffee and takes that few minutes to check e-mails and bank balances before getting on with the day. 

This morning, the computer was barely waking up and the only light in the kitchen was the glow from the red light on the front of the coffee pot.  Thursday’s include checking the order for the Fairfield Farmer’s Market.  It is an online farmers market where the vendors list their items that will be available that week and orders are taken until midnight on Wednesday.  All the produce, jams, jellies, dairy, meat, etc. are dropped off at one central location and can be picked up by the customer at four different locations throughout the county.  There is a little less meet and greet, but it is very convenient in today’s online age.

Slam, Clank, Crash!  Those darned cats had knocked something over in the back room, again!  Most of them are in their mid-teens, one would think that by now, they would be done climbing the walls. 

The house returned to its slumber and the whirring of the CPU joined the drip of the coffee maker. 

SQUEEEEEE, AAAAHHHH, EEEEEEEE, AAAAAHHHH

That can’t be good!  I jumped out of my chair, turned on the lights – all the cats were accounted for.  Little man rarely wakes up this early - my heart dropped to my toes - I ran to the living room and flashed on the light.   Little man lay snoozing on his father’s chest where I left them around three o’clock this morning.  Instant relief!  

Crash!  SQUEEEEEE, AAAAHHHH, EEEEEEEE, AAAAAHHHH, Crash!

The sounds were coming from the basement.  I grabbed a flash light, pulled open the door and carefully descended the narrow stairs – my heart was still racing, I was barefoot and hadn’t had my first cup of coffee.  Nothing should be in the basement except the water pump, the boiler and the water heater; if those mechanicals were making these kinds of noises then we were in for a rough ride.  The squealing continued as I reached the bottom of the stairs.  In the far corner under the shelves of empty preserving jars and behind the old water heater there was a ruckus. 

Photo courtesy of:
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/weasel

Eyes still clouded with sleep and just calming down from sheer terror, I couldn't figure out what I was looking at in the circle of yellow cast from the flash light.  After what seemed like an eternity, it let go of the mouse that it had in its grasp and turned toward me.  A WEASEL was inside my house!  I thought about throwing the pipe wrench at it, but I wasn’t sure if it would only get mad and come after me – they have some sharp teeth.  Deciding I wasn’t much of a threat, it returned to terrorizing his breakfast.  I found an empty wicker basket and attempted to capture it.  Remember, I haven’t had any coffee yet; wicker can’t keep a weasel in for more than 15 or 20 seconds before it would chew through the sides.  He wisely decided that I wasn’t going to allow him to finish his meal so he skulked off, climbing the stacked stone foundation and headed out along the plumbing towards the old ice house. 

There is a trap set in the basement and when I get home we will set one outside as well.  The last thing that will be taking up residence with a long winter coming is a weasel – our chickens could be in for trouble with a family of these buggers hanging around.  I was awake now, running behind schedule, but awake!  I still took 24 oz of that hot, energizing deliciousness to work with me.

If only cats were good at taping

One of the projects that was on the to-do list for this summer was to tear out and re-insulate the south wall in our kitchen.  Last year the frost built up on and around the windows and when the breezes came from the south we couldn't leave a candle burning near or on the window sill as it would not stay lit.

One weekend was allotted to complete the majority of this project, demolition, insulation and sheet rock.  In early August the plaster and lath was torn out from the wall and we discovered that the windows were installed without headers or sills - this does not make for very strong construction.  I build sturdy, but never seem to achieve square or plumb.  The headers and sills would have to wait until I had some help. 

Late in September, my father came to visit and he took one of his valuable vacation days to re-frame around the front door and the two south facing windows.   A friend and contractor was enlisted to install the sliding glass door.  Then the door was delayed.  Three to four days turned into weeks and bow-hunting season was looming, scheduled to start at the beginning of October.  The door arrived two days before he was headed into the woods.

Then it started to rain.  One thing that you generally try to avoid is having a huge hole in the side of your house when the rain is pouring in from the east.  It dried up slightly and between rain drops, even though it was hunting season, he came to the house and installed our new door.  Two days later the rain stopped long enough for him to return and repair the sheathing, install the flashing and trim out the door.  Sheet rock and insulation went in the day before my birthday and the first coat of taping was completed last week.  

The weather has turned damp and cold this week.  I was able to scrape enough money together to get a delivery of propane and the wall is closed up so that we can turn the heat on.  Our weekend project took the path of many of the projects that are tackled on this farm.  Now just over two months later there remains another coat of taping, priming, paint and re-installation of the trim boards.  But the house is warm for the time being and the rest will get done as time permits.  If only Patches could yield a putty knife as well as she holds the ladder still.

No piglets

Alas, there were to be no piglets on the farm this summer, she wasn’t pregnant after all. 

Pig, as you may be aware, came to us as a rescue with a somewhat notorious history of reproductive difficulties as well as the general obstacles associated with trying to retrain an adult sow.  When we tried to relocate her last fall from her pasture into a warmer, drier shed for the winter, she refused to cross the line where her electric fence was.  No matter what we tried she refused to leave her pasture. 

The money was finally saved and in early April we tried artificial insemination.  Three months, three weeks, and three days later, it was time for piglets (or so I thought) and we watched, and we waited.   Midnight checks after what I thought was her ‘water breaking’ – still no piglets.  Pig’s labor wasn’t progressing; it was time to call the vet.  She came and we tried to check Pig’s private parts – she wasn’t having any of us monkeying around back there.  600 plus pounds of unhappy sow isn’t easy to wrangle.   Little man’s father, the vet, little man and I offered food, treats, water, cake, pancakes and more to Pig so that we could catch her – no such luck!

The following day there was no change.  Pig was panting and not eating or drinking.  We called the vet and she came back with sedation. Three shots with the tranquilizer gun and she still wouldn’t go down.  They say that animals can take on the characteristics of the caretakers – well stubbornness certainly runs in this family!  After returning from my off-farm job I found Pig in the middle of her pasture, still panting, although slightly groggy from the medication.  I chased her around her pasture once with no luck and finally managed to convince her that her house was a much nicer place to hang out.  We put in some barricades and secured her as best we could.  It certainly helped that she was already pretty loopy.

Back inside for yet another call to the veterinarian.  It was after office hours and this would be the third visit out to the farm in two days.  Before he even agreed to come out, he made sure we had her secured so she could actually be examined this time.  He arrived and little man’s father and I held the barricades in place while he went in and checked for piglets.  She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t escape.

This farm's first piglets - 9 weeks old - 2011

“I’m not feeling anything,” he said.

My heart sank, months of waiting, signs of pregnancy, signs of labor and now no babies.  He went back to his truck and got the ultrasound and confirmed that there were no piglets.   She had had some sort of phantom pregnancy.   I guess I wasn’t going to be a father after all.  We talked some more and I asked if we should try again given her age and the cost of artificial insemination and he confirmed that it is very difficult for older sows to become pregnant and when they do, they have harder pregnancies.

Alas, the decision has been made that Pig will leave her pasture this fall and take residence inside the house in much smaller packages.  With the two vet bills, the artificial insemination and the extra grain that we fed her because we thought she was growing piglets, we have a little over $725 invested in this rescued pig.  We can expect around 500 lbs of pork from her in various cuts at a cost of $1.60/lb. after buying the wrapping material.

Lessons learned from the Pig breeding adventure include –

• Invest in or manufacture good equipment to secure your animal so that it can be examined by a veterinary professional.  ‘Cattle panels’ or some other material so that the next sow, Zeb when he gets older, or any other animal that weighs more than we do can be contained in one visit with the vet, not several. 
• Next time we try to breed a gilt or a sow, we will get confirmation from the vet much earlier in process.  We might have tried to breed Pig one more time in May if we knew that she hadn’t become pregnant.

Once the heating season is over, we will be on the hunt for a new gilt or sow.  Ideally we would love to breed early this winter for spring piglets, but that will depend on cash flow.  If anyone has a healthy, heritage breed, gilt or sow for rescue/barter in Northern, Vermont or upstate New York, please reach out to me.

Piglet watch

It has been approximately 116 days since we bred Pig.  Her milk hasn't come in yet and she is now officially late.  This week I have checked on her even before I make my coffee each morning, I check on her as soon as I get home, I check on her right before I go to bed, and Monday night when I truly thought she was in labor, I checked on her at 2:30 a.m.

Last night before I went to bed I saw slightest hint of milk/colostrum from her - but no other signs so I didn't do a midnight check.  This morning, still nothing - but she wanted nothing to do with me checking her undersides.  Little man's father checks on her throughout the day as well although he doesn't get nearly as personal with her as I do.

I am watching for signs of distress and fever and thankfully none of that so far.  The vet says that I should wait two days past her due date, my father-in-law says that she will have them when she is darned good and ready.  In the meantime I wait - relatively impatiently!