What makes a good day?

I suppose each of us has our own little bag of goodies that contribute to a good day.  Yesterday was a good day for me.

• The dry cows, heifers and Sam the bull got moved to the east pastures, which means they will get their own grassy hay and the five cows that are still milking will get the good (and more expensive) stuff.   We may be able to stretch out our remaining hay to last until the pastures green up again.
• Cameron put up an electrical cord to the calf pen (had to be on posts so the cows could walk under it on way into the barn) so that we could hook up the heater for the calf water tank.  Now none of us has to break the ice out of the water tank for the calves and then haul buckets of hot water to their tank.
• The chickens all survived another day and they laid four eggs.
• Androo came over to plant onion seeds.  We plant by the biodynamic calendar, and yesterday was a root day.  Today, his regular day on the job, is a flower day (that means broccoli seeds will get planted today) so he made the extra trip over to take care of the onions.  We used a new type of tray for the onion seeds.  I've never had much luck germinating them, but this year, with the new trays and the new method, we should be growing our own.  We put the three seeding trays in a big metal watering tray, put four greenhouse plant heaters under the tray, then covered it with plastic wrap.  The big tray is in my atrium where I can keep an eye on it.  Every time I think of those little seeds in the potting soil, doing their thing, I smile.  They are the first seeds in this season, and it is a VERY GOOD THING INDEED!
• I slept nearly eight hours last night, which doesn't happen often for me.  It's probably because every time I roused a bit, I thought about the onion seeds, smiled, and went back to sleep.
• My wood fires were still hot this morning, in spite of that eight hours of sleep that did not include stumbling down to the family room to add a log or two.  I didn't even rouse long enough to add a small log to the soapstone stove in my bedroom.  That usually means two cold stoves, or at least not enough hot coals left to get the fires going again without kindling and running back and forth between the two until the flames are fanned and bright.  (That's my version of the Stairmaster.)
• Tashi didn't bother the chickens.

If these things do not comprise a good day, I don't know what does.

I hope you have a good day today.  I'm looking forward to making it two in a row, but if not a good day, then I'll take an ordinary day.  Those work for me.

Another merry-go-round

Well, at least it wasn't the chickens this time.

This morning Ayn Chee and Tashi didn't want to come in from their morning run.  It was obvious that they had some sort of critter cornered.  Ayn Chee, being the wussiest of the two dogs, finally came in.  Tashi, on the other hand, barked and barked and barked AND BARKED!  I finally got her in through a door into my family room on the lower level.  I didn't see anything, but she had been barking towards the enclosed pen they use to do their business when I am not home.  It has an electronic door that opens only for the four pets who wear small magnets on their collars to activate it.  Thank goodness it isn't just a flap door!  I stuck my head out into the pen and there was a huge raccoon cowering in the corner.  He (or she as the case may be) hissed at me.  I slammed the door shut and went upstairs to find a number for animal control.  There is no way out of that pen except through the dog door and the human door, into my store room and then on into the soap workshop and family room.

I went outside to check on the raccoon and saw that it had disappeared.  I assumed that once there were no longer two dogs on the other side of the fence, it felt safe enough to be on its way.

A few hours later, my cat was growling, a low and continuous growl, and her back was arched, hackles up - the perfect stereotype of the Hallowe'en cat, except that she is white, not black.  When I looked out the sliding glass door onto my screen porch off the living room, there was the raccoon.  He must have continued climbing up as he got out of the dog pen - up and onto the second story porch, which is directly over the pen.  I was sure this was simply a matter of guiding the animal over to the hole he used to get in.  Nope, didn't work.  He kept running into the other two screened corners, climbing up the facing around the screens.  I was using the broom to swat him back down and send him on the proper escape route, but time and again, he ran on the diagonal, totally avoiding the corner with the broken screening.  This screen was at floor level and would have provided easy egress.  But no, back and forth he went, with me and the broom chasing him.

I know I shouldn't have, but I finally got heavy gloves and folded a sheet and a blanket into four thicknesses.  Now I tried to capture him with the blanket.  Again, I was on the merry-go-round, clockwise around the table, blanket in hand, then back around the table counter-clockwise, with an occasional side trip into one of the two corners that DIDN'T have a hole in the screening.  I could see he was wearing down, not running as fast, and when he got to the corners he was climbing slower.  Finally, I got the blanket over him AND his head.  I wrapped him tight, but not tight enough to keep his head from popping out.  He bit at the blanket, but I was well protected.  I took him to the spot with the broken screen and sent him on his way.  He half climbed, half fell down the side of the house, and then loped off towards the creek and the woods.

I am still shaking.  I found blood on the sheet, and I'm sorry that I hurt him.  I also know that I took a chance with a wild animal.  I should have called animal control, but I just wanted him OUT OF HERE!  Part of what shook me up was the way he looked at me when he was cornered - his big, soulful eyes drilling directly into mine.  While I chased and panted, I kept saying, "You are so beautiful!"

I hope he does not come back.  I don't think he will, since now he knows a crazy woman lives here.

The greenhouse

I'm in the process of buying seeds for my greenhouse operation.  It is very time consuming.  Even though I have a catalog in place, there are always changes.  Last year I ran out of several red tomatoes.  Even though I am enamored of black tomatoes, and yellow ones with swirls of red, and my beautiful Poll Robeson Angollan, that looks like a perfect mahogany ball with a deep ruby interior, my customers, well, not so much. 

Some strains dropped out because there wasn't much demand, others because I got negative feedback, and some because I didn't like what I got in my own garden.  I grow out a minimum of three of each plant, and some of them just didn't cut it.  All of the replacements for those that are discontinued are RED.  I listen to my customers.

In addition, there were a few for which I couldn't find seeds.  Unless it was a perennial favorite, they got dropped.  However, Santa Clara Canner is a wonderful tomato, and I searched all over for it.  I finally found it in a catalog from somewhere in Canada.  I'm still waiting for the seeds, and getting a little nervous that they haven't yet arrived.

I have plenty of basil seeds.  One package contains somewhere between a gazillion and two gazillion seeds, so I'm good to go for several years.  My son is named in my will for those I don't get to in my lifetime.  Pepper seeds, unlike tomato and basil seeds, are not viable over very many years, and most of them are packaged 25 seeds to a packet.  So I had to order a lot of them.  I love hot peppers - love to grow them, look at them, eat them, cook with them and can them.  I gave each of my son's four children a jar of home canned hot peppers for Christmas.  Kate got the hottest ones, and she is delighted with them.

This year an intern will be working here.  Androo wants to learn more about biodynamic and sustainable farming.  He has joined the Walkerton Dairy Herd Association and will begin milking in a couple of weeks.  He wants to learn, but some thing we will be learning together.  I have not done "proper" compost heaps.  Organic standards are very stringent.  Part of it is that I don't have time and part of it is I lack the physical strength.  Androo is doing much research on compost, but I have insisted he keep a copy of the organic standards in view at all times.  If there are any conflicts, the organic standards win out!

I have one more seed order to post, then need to order my onion plants.  That will be one big task behind me.  Oh, and I ordered my chicks for this year.  I will be getting 55 day old chicks on June 3.  Hopefully I have learned enough this year that my losses will be smaller in the coming season.  Tashi is doing great, walked by chickens flying near her when we came in from chores this morning.  She did not even look at them, just looked at me and then walked to the back door.  I think we are making progress.  Now if I could teach Tashi to protect the chickens from the hawks.  There is always a new project awaiting me.

Chicken surprise

Yesterday was market day, and I am out at the break of dawn taking care of the animals.  I'm always in a hurry because I have to wait for daylight to open the Moop, but the market opens at 7 am and I like to get there as early as possible with the raw milk deliveries. 

When I got home from market late afternoon yesterday, I saw that the lid from the plastic tote holding the chicken feed was flipped onto the ground.  There were chicken tracks in the feed, and a couple of droppings that I had to remove.  Then when I walked over to the feeders, I realized that I had forgotten to add feed to them in my rush to get chores done that morning. 

What I want to know is how a bunch of chickens managed to get that tote lid off.  It was a snap on lid.  All I can figure is that Androo, my new intern, didn't snap it on tightly when he closed it up on Friday morning.  I just cannot believe that a three pound chicken could get that lid up any other way.  And even then, what a feat!  My chickens are truly super chickens - surviving Tashi attacks, kestrel attacks and a forgetful mother!!

And to my delight, I found six - count 'em, SIX - eggs in the nest.  That is six eggs from 10 hens.  It is the first time they have laid at a rate higher than 50%.  Shall I let them self feed from the tote on a daily basis?  Maybe I have something here!!

Entertaining

My cousins and sister from Chicago came out to visit on Monday.  I didn't know what they would think of my lifestyle.  We were all raised on farms, but the two cousins live in beautiful houses, very neat and clean.  There is no way I can make this place look neat and clean, even for a six hour visit!  Just too much going on here.  But my worries about what they would think were ill founded.  I forgot how important eating is to all of us.

The centerpiece of my kitchen is a butcherblock counter with four stools around it.  I was laying out the stuff for lunch bit by bit, and was going to clean the dining room table of seed packets and catalogs and lay out my great grandmother's Limoges china for our lunch.  The potato soup had just started to simmer - potatoes and onions from my garden, milk and cream from the cows, homemade butter.  There were deviled eggs, the hens' contribution, circling pickled hot peppers that I canned in September.  Two bottles of wine were breathing, and the homemade Gouda and Colby cheeses were coming to room temp on the cheese board.  Homemade Boursin cheese was ready to go.  And have you ever added a dollop of sweet, hot jalapeno jelly on creamy herb and garlic filled Boursin, liberally spread on homemade crostini?

In came sister Kay, Sharon and Ruth Ellen.  They did not make it past the butcher block.  They sat down and started tucking in.  Soup came later, when it was finally done, and I remembered to cut some thick slices of deer sausage, made from a deer that lived here on this farm, to complete our lunch.

For dessert, we had home canned apple slices and pears topped with Greek yogurt.  Add a sprinkle of cinnamon and some walnuts, and it's the food of the gods.

We did eat on Great Grandma Ploch's china, but it was as we sat on the stools in the kitchen.  The seeds never did get moved from the dining room table, and no one cared.

Not Tashi - at least not all of them

I just scared off a kestrel that was attacking a hen.  The hawk was smaller than the hen, but fierce!  I was almost on top of him before he let her go and flew off.  Buster (the rooster) alerted me that something was wrong or he would have finished her off for sure.  The chicken he was attacking is in the cage in the basement, but she looks pretty bad.  I don't know if she will make it.  So much death.   I will try my best to save her. 

Yes, Tashi got a couple, but not all.  Tashi is doing very well around the chickens.  I am letting her out alone (with the shock collar on) a couple of times a day.  Of course, she is always where I can see her.  I think she will be able to stay here with us on the farm.

My free range chicken experiment will have to cease.  Not much I can do in this weather, but I am going to have to build a permanent pen for them.  I viewed them as fly eradicators when I got them, but I feel so differently about them now.  The thing I like best is how chatty they are, with me and with each other.  I will do what I have to do to make a home for them. 

Update:

I just checked the hen.  She is on her feet and clucking, but there is a lot of blood.  I gave her some vinegar water.  That is all I can do for now.  Buster started squawking again and I went outside in time to see the hawk flying away.  I did a head count and could only find nine.  There should be ten, plus the one in the pen downstairs.  It was hard to believe he could have carried one off, but I couldn't find her.  They wandered back to the Moop and into the trees that surround it, where I know they will be safe.  When I went into the Moop to finish my count, there was #10, inside.  And three eggs in a nest.  She must have been inside doing her thing while all of the excitement was happening in the yard by the garden.

Another update:

The kestrel was back for a third time.  I was out in the barn helping with Lucy when I heard Buster squawking again.  I ran out of the barn in time to see the hawk on top of a chicken.  He flew off.  What am I going to do?

Tashi training

Today Tashi goes to the vet for her shots.  She has been accepted by an animal rescue group who will take her.  She will run with a pack, and they have a lot of freedom.  The dogs sleep unsupervised at night in their little cabins with their pack.  I was worried about Tashi being an Alpha dog, but Kayla told me that they will muzzle dogs who get a little too enthusiastic.  They are a "no kill" operation, and their adoption requirements are very high, so I am assured that she will go to a good home.

However . . .

I have gotten plenty of advice on how to break her, and one woman who trains Australian shepherds says she has broken them of killing chickens.  Here is the hopeless optimist coming to the fore.  I am giving it one more try.  She said to take a spritz bottle of vinegar water out with her, keeping her on a very long leash so that she can get close to the chickens without realizing she is on the leash.  Then if she makes a move towards them, you yell "leave it" and spritz her in the face with the vinegar water.  Alternatively you can throw a beanbag at her head while you yell "leave it."  I asked about using my shock collar.  She was against it, said they know you are pushing the button.  What, she won't know I spritzed vinegar water in her face?  Or what about the beanbag?  Anyone who has watched me toss a ball would know that the odds of the beanbag landing on her head are about one in a thousand.  Again, she wouldn't know I tossed the beanbag?  And if I missed her, she would think it was a game - let's pick up the beanbag and take it back to mom so she can toss it again!  Yay, what fun!!

Are you following me on this?  The shock collar is out of the cupboard and around her neck.  She is on a long leash, and we are going outside with shock collar on.  But it wouldn't matter if that leash was a hundred feet long - when she is on a leash, she is not going ANYWHERE near those chickens!  She has gotten the message!!  So I have not had the opportunity to call out "leave it," the magic words.  Obviously I don't want to say them when she isn't heading towards a chicken!

This afternoon I am taking her out with the collar but no leash, when the chickens are close to the house.  Hopefully I will have the opportunity to use the "leave it" command and reinforce it with a teeny tiny shock if she does not immediately respond.  And if she does, then the treats are in my pocket.

Tashi and I are going to work through this.  Wish us luck.