Summer Vacation 2016

Something big happened today.

For the first time since I started homeschooling (8 years ago!) I declared this week that we are going to take Summer Vacation.

In the past, I've avoided it. I hate the thought of them forgetting the last 6 months' work for the sake of 3 months off school. Instead, we've taken one or two week long vacations throughout the year, when we just felt like we needed it. It's always worked well and we've always been happy with that arrangement.

But things change. Kids get older and busier, life situations take new turns, and needs change. And right now, we NEED a break. A really, really long one. One that involves sleepovers on the trampoline, staying up late, sleeping in, and not keeping any kind of schedule. And for those of you who know me and how much I really, honestly adore schedules, you'll realize that's a pretty serious thing to say.

Once upon a time, I started this blog and named it "The Little Things" because I wanted to focus on all the wonderful, mundane things that made our lives special in my eyes. I keep losing those things. Life is a game of Tetris, trying to fit in school, farm work, house work, extra curricular activities, and whatever else needs to be done into the finite number of hours each day offers. And I'm tired. They're tired. We aren't enjoying these days like we should be.

Having "big kids" is a whole different ball game than the Two Little Girls I used to write about each day. Those Two Little Girls are now Two Little Ladies, and they have lives of their own that I'm struggling to keep up with while I'm still trying to live mine, and somehow keep them all intertwined the way I feel like they need to be.

I've spent time over the past year prioritizing and re-prioritizing, and something clicked for me this spring. Math, English, History, Science... those things are officially off the top ten list. Cora is reading now, above grade level and has (mostly) mastered her math facts. In homeschooling, that is a HUGE hump to get over. It's time for a break. We've earned it.

I have goals for this summer, though. It's not all going to be days of freedom, traipsing around the property in the sunshine. (Thought plenty of that is certainly on the to-do list.) We will focus on real life. The girls will be cooking, cleaning, practicing animal husbandry and gardening. We will spend time each day reading our Bibles and doing what we call "Character Study" - which I am convinced is even more important that finding common denominators in fractions. We will put everything we have into their 4-H projects, from art and knitting and sewing to raising poultry, training dogs, and riding horses. They will spend this summer learning how to learn, learning to follow through with difficult tasks, learning to put others before themselves, and learning how to be responsible for themselves and their actions. Those things are things schools forget about sometimes, but they are what makes life good and worthwhile.

It's also going to be a summer spent forming habits. I have a list of habits I want them to form, and a list I want to form myself. I want them to read every day, no matter what it is. I want them to help someone else each day, so that some day it becomes natural to them. I want them to start looking for what needs to be done and do it without being asked. I want the house to stay clean and the food to be cooked from scratch and the dishes to be washed. Above all else, I am raising Two Little Ladies to become excellent wives and mothers. They need skills that aren't going to be found in any curriculum, and they need attitudes that allow them to accomplish tasks with joy.

As for me, I want to teach myself to approach every task in my life with love, joy, and gratitude. I want to model those things for my girls. I want to take time each day for myself and my own hobbies, something I have been ignoring since we moved here. I want to show myself and my children the value in helping and giving to others. And I want blogging and taking daily photos to become habit again. I want to document these sweet, precious moments in their lives - in our lives. They may not be toddlers anymore, saying adorable things and just starting to experience the world. But each day of their lives should be treasured because honestly, they are flying by much faster than I am comfortable with.

So here we go - welcome to Summer Vacation 2016!

Mae's birth story

New mothers post a birth story after they have a baby... do I get to post the birth story of my calf? I think it's only fair!

We knew Mae cow was due sometime between the middle of July and the middle of August. We knew this because she was pastured with a bull nine months ago for about a month. But we never saw "the deed" occur, so it was a guessing game that involved a lot of staring at her backside for the past few weeks and trying to guess how close she was to birthing.

The are signs you can look for. You can watch the "pin bones" which are the pelvic bones. They begin to protrude more when the cow is nearing calving time as the ligaments soften. You can watch the vulva, which becomes looser and sometimes has mucous hanging from it. You can watch her udder, which will begin to develop and fill with colostrum (the first milk the calf will drink.) These are things you look at while trying to make some kind of educated guess as to when the calf will be born. And the fact of the matter is, no matter how many signs you watch for or see, it's going to be a mystery. Some of those things will happen, some won't, and some you won't see until after the calf is on the ground. There were a few times we thought she was really close and got up every few hours in the night to check on her. The result was no calf and a distinct lack of sleep.

Yesterday morning, as I do every morning, I checked on the cows in the pasture by looking through binoculars while I had my morning coffee. I noticed Mae was walking around with her tail held out, much like she had to go poo, but without the poo. That was all the sign I needed to know something was up. I chugged the coffee and went out to find long strings of mucous hanging from her back end. I milked Clara Belle as quickly as I could, then locked Mae into the stall on a bed of fresh straw. Then I called a neighbor as my on-call help and watched for a bit.

Side note: earlier this month, Clara Belle had her calf. She'd been bred too early (the neighbor bull tore down the fence to get to her) and the calf died in the birthing process. It had to be pulled out, something I never would have had the strength to do alone. Luckily, Andrew was here and managed, though it wasn't easy and Clara had a hard time walking for several days. I decided having a neighbor with more strength and experience close at hand would make me feel better after such a rough birth experience. Mae was (intentionally) bred to the same big Angus bull.

As I watched, she pushed. I saw hooves. Calves (and most baby animals) are born in a sort of diving position, their nose right on top of two hooves coming straight out. What I saw were two hooves and an ear, and they were coming sideways out of Mae. Sideways had the potential to be bad. I called the neighbors and asked them to go ahead and come up. I probably could have waited, but I was jittery after Clara's experience and decided I'd rather just not be facing it alone. She pushed a few times, with no progress. Then she stood up again. She paced, arched her back, and pawed the floor during a contraction. Instead of coming further out, the calf went back inside. This is normal, and didn't worry me too much. Then she laid back down, and I saw hooves again... and this time, they were straight and headed out the right direction. Shortly after that, I saw an itty bitty little calf nose. The neighbors arrived about that time. A few more pushes, and a big, healthy heifer calf was born.



Mae's an amazing mama. She jumped right up, started talking to it, and began cleaning it with vigor. A mama cow's rough tongue stimulates the calf to take its first breaths and to try to sit up. It worked. She cleaned the calve's head, it sneezed a few times to clear the amniotic fluid from its nose, and laid there calmly as Mae cleaned it carefully. Within ten minutes it was standing, wobbling around on four of the longest legs I've ever seen on a calf. She would stand, sway back and forth, and fall on her face in the straw, then try again. It wasn't long before she was up and stayed there. She tried nursing from the barn wall, the gate, and Mae's front leg before Mae got her situated where she was supposed to be. And my goodness but did that little calf go to town nursing. She's a strong little gal, and got her belly filled up nicely. The she wandered out of the barn into the corral and stared into the light, walked back inside, and plopped down for a nice little nap. Mae stood sentry over her, the way she does, still contracting while the placenta worked its way out as the calf rested at her feet. I took a break and got a bowl of cereal.

By the time I got back, the calf was nearly dry and nursing again, this time on much stronger legs. When she was finished nursing, she did a little jig, danced and hopped around the barn stall (at two hours old!) and then had another nap.



She's a pretty little red-brown calf, strong as I could hope for. The girls had her named by the time I got back out from breakfast. Her name will be Hazel because of her pretty brownish coloring and because we have a hankering for old fashioned names.

Welcome to the world, little Hazel.


This was the fourteenth birth here on our little farmstead. All but one have gone as smoothly as we could hope for and have required very little or no assistance. And every single one still leaves me in awe at the miracle of birth and the instinct of animals. This is why we do what we do!

Sweet Clara Belle

When we bought Mae, my milk cow, we were told she was due in September. And then September came and went, and it was clear she was nowhere near calving.

And then October passed... and November, and December. By January, I was convinced she would be pregnant for the rest of her life. Or that she wasn't pregnant at all, and all the signs were just some sort of cow phantom pregnancy. But then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed some bigger changes - her udder was fuller, her backside looked... well, like she might be getting closer to calving. (Which would make sense. Obviously she wasn't get further away.)

And then came the happy day, when Littlest One, came running inside saying, "Mom!! Mae's got a big string of mucus hanging out of her backside! It's all the way to her ankles!" (And it briefly registered in my brain that this wasn't a 'normal' thing for a six year old to say.)

Indeed, it turns out she was in the early stages of labor. Six hours later, she was in active labor, and the girls and I were lucky enough to witness it.  Nothing - absolutely nothing - is as amazing as witnessing a birth. It doesn't matter if it is animal or human or if you've been there for a dozen of them. Everything about it is miraculous, and perfect. Especially when nothing goes wrong. And thankfully, nothing did. In fact, it was really a pretty easy birth, only about 20 minutes from start to finish, two pushes and the babe was out. (Of course, it's easy for me to say it was easy. I wasn't the one pushing. This time.)

It was beautiful. As soon as the calf was out, Mae jumped up and started licking. And licking, and licking, and licking. And then when I got close, she licked my jeans for awhile. And oh, how I wish you could all hear her. She sweetest, softest little "moos" - just like a human mama would speak sweetly and gently to her babe, this mama cow talked to her calf. I didn't get all teary-eyed until I heard that sweet sound. It was instant, undeniable, absolutely pure and true love.



Fifteen minutes later, the little calf was up and standing. Err, well, wobbling. There was much wobbling going on. But it wasn't long before babe was nursing, and mama was calm and relaxed.

Having read - repeatedly - the tendency for sweet, gentle cows to turn into demon spawn once they calve, in an attempt to protect their calf from harm, I was a little leery of climbing into the stall with her to check things out. But some things must be done. And in this case, they must be done in relative darkness. First things first  - did we have a heifer or bull calf? Considering it was a black calf lying in the darkest corner of the barn with a protective mama  hovering, figuring that out wasn't all too easy. Or certain. I felt for boy parts, and couldn't feel any... so I went to bed hoping I was right and it was a girl. I checked again three times before I'd let myself believe it - it's a GIRL!!

Oh, how I wanted a girl. Yes, a boy would fill the freezer. But a girl means we can keep her. And breed her! And have more baby cows to love! Yes, for these past many months, I've been hoping beyond hope that Mae would have a girl, and she did. And - truth - I still feel every time I go out there, making sure the boy parts weren't just hiding for the past 24 hours.

Turns out Mae really isn't demon spawn. In fact, she doesn't seem to mind my being in the stall with her and Clara Belle. (Do you have any idea how long I've wanted a cow named Clara Belle?) I still won't put myself between mama and baby, and I won't put myself in a corner where she could kill me if she really felt like it, but she is pretty content with me being around. And little Clara Belle is so sweet and friendly and interested in me. And then she looks at me, with those big eyes and those loooong eyelashes, and my heart melts all over again.... yeah.

So I was up all night, between checking to make sure little Clara was still doing alright, and laying in bed feeling giddy because I officially have a milk cow - that is really in milk. Of course, that doesn't mean I can actually milk her yet, seeing as she's never been milked before. But that's a story for a different post.

For now, I'll just get another cup of coffee and head back out to the barn to watch our sweet little calf hop all around. And for now, I'll be the happiest farm-girl in the world.



I'm sharing this post over at Mama Kautz's Front Porch Friday Blog Hop!

Where does your meat come from?

Remember this little guy?


Good golly, was he ever cute. Long floppy ears and the most playful personality I ever saw in a baby goat... granted, he was also the first baby goat I ever saw.

I won't ever forget that night. 7:45 on a frosty cold evening in late January, we knew Justice was getting ready to kid. By the time we went back out, there were two tiny baby goats on the ground. And this li'l guy, being the oldest, walked right up to us. I actually shed some tears that night - the awe of a perfect birth, the beauty of a mama goat instantly loving her babies, the smell of a newborn kid... it hit that emotional soft spot in me and made my eyes well up.

But reality does have to set in here up on our little farmstead. And reality dictates that we don't get to keep every cute little furry animal born in our barn.

Here's the thing with milk goats - if you want to milk them, they have to give birth. Every. Year. And they don't often just have one baby. We've got three milking does in the barn right now that are all due in about six weeks, and each one will very likely have two kids... which means six new baby goats to love... and feed.

When you're trying to live the way we are, sometimes not-so-fun decisions have to be made. Decisions that involve animals that are really cute and fun to have around, but don't serve any other real purpose. It was time for Phillip to serve his purpose as a wethered goat.

Come to find out, though, The Daddy and I are a little more sensitive than we might readily admit. And slaughtering the goat that we and our kids have loved for the past year just wasn't something we were looking forward to. So for fifty bucks, we let the local butcher take care of that job. As I type, Phillip is awaiting his fate in a pen behind the local gas station. (Because apparently in small towns, gas stations keep pens in the back for animals waiting to be slaughtered, and no one finds this odd.)

When we get him back, it will be in the form of hunks of meat, which I will then grind and make sausage. My hope is that once the soft, floppy ears and fuzzy winter coat are left behind, I'll be able to see it only as meat, and not as an animal that we once watched romp on the mountain (or jump into a freezing water trough.)

Will I still feel sad? I'm sure I will. But here's the thing: there's something so ultimately valuable about watching an animal grow up, feeding and caring for it every day of its life, and then eating it. There's nothing that can make you appreciate your food more than that. So yes, while I'm sad, and feeling pretty darn guilty, I'll be glad to know that he had a wonderful life full of fresh air and sunshine and ear scratches and animal crackers. I'd rather have that sustain me than meat from the grocery store that never had a face. I think every meat eater should have to experience these feelings a time or two in their life. If that were the case, we'd have a lot more folks who really appreciated the fact that an animal died for their sustenance. (Or, we'd have a lot more vegetarians.)

So today we'll keep ourselves busy, probably stay out of the barn for the most part, and try not to think about what had to happen. And we'll look forward to the birth of new animals this spring - a calf and many kid goats, along with a few batches of poultry. And we'll look forward to having sausage with our eggs for breakfast in the morning, and homemade pepperoni on our Friday night pizzas.

Nope, not the best day we've had our our little farmstead, but one that dutifully reminds us that this crazy life we're living isn't always going to be emotionally easy... and also one that puts life into very real perspective. I'll take the value of that lesson over 'easy' any day.

Farm Life's Hardest Lesson

If you read any "What I Wish I Would Have Known" articles written by modern homesteader types, one of the first items on their list is always going to be this:

You don't have to do it all at once.

Take it slow, they say. Give yourself grace, they say. Just a little bit at a time and don't overwhelm yourself.

I've read dozens of those articles. And I've always nodded in agreement, as though I've always known perfectly well that that one little bit of advice is absolutely correct.

Except that I didn't.

My best friend and I used to joke that whichever one of us ended up moving to a farm first was going to end up sitting in the middle of her pasture, crying the ugly cry, absolutely overwhelmed by what she had taken on and that the other friend was going to have to listen and comfort and try not to say "I told you so."

Turns out, I was the first one to move to a farm. And that prediction wasn't as far off as I'd like for you think it is. Except that it's snowy outside, so I was sobbing in my bedroom, while staring at my pasture. Which really isn't any better.

I haven't blogged regularly in almost a year. There's a reason for it though.

The past year has been seriously rough. My husband has been working out of town - sometimes out of state - for the past year. He's gone two weeks and then home for a week. That means that two thirds of the time, every responsibility of this property falls on my shoulders. In the past year I have raised a rather large garden, milked two goats and kept another 50 or so animals alive, homeschooled a first and fifth grader, kept a 4600 square foot house clean, raised 700 bales of hay on a 25 acre pasture using nothing but a shovel and some tarps. I've raised and butchered enough chickens to last a year, canned a year's worth of fruits and vegetables and dried or frozen what wasn't canned, cooked dinner every night,  run my kids around to their extra curricular activities, driven an hour each direction every time I needed groceries, hauled horses to 9 gymkhanas and rodeos, and hauled chickens to the county fair. And almost all of this with very little help from The Man of My Dreams, except for the weeks he was able to spend at home.

What I learned is that I really can do it all. I'm working from 5:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night, every single hour of the day, but I can get it all done. Until something goes wrong. As soon as the slightest little thing happens to upset my very rigid schedule, I lose it. I get so overwhelmed that I can't function and all I want to do is give up. Or cry.

The bad part of that, though, is that in this life, something happens to change your plans Every. Single. Day. Nothing ever goes the way you expect it to, or plan for it to. An animal gets sick. A kid misbehaves. A neighbor needs help. A fence needs fixed or a goat gets out or a deer dies in your front yard or your dog gets skunked or the well runs dry (again) and you have to spend an hour hauling water. The list of Things That Can Go Wrong is infinite. And each one of those things is guaranteed to happen when you least expect it. That is reality.

And with a schedule as packed as mine has been this year, and a brain so overwhelmed by constant mental to-do lists, there just isn't time to stop and enjoy all those little things that are supposed to bring me joy. I don't have time to watch my kids play with animals or build a fort or raise a puppy. I don't have time to relax with my husband and just sit and watch the sun go down. I've spent every waking moment just keeping up, keeping my head above water, that I've lost touch with every reason we moved up here in the first place. And that makes my heart hurt.

It's a lesson no one can just tell you and expect you to understand: You don't have to do it all at once.

You have to learn it, first hand. And it's painful. And it involves a lot of frustration and even more tears. But eventually, you take a step back, and you realize what you're doing to yourself, and you decide things have to change. Priorities have to be considered. You have to give yourself room to bend, and time to relax. You have to remember that there are so many years ahead of you to figure this all out and get it all done. And there will never be one single year when you actually accomplish everything you feel like you should. Living this life isn't something to mark off the to-do list. It's a process - a life long process - and it will never actually be finished.

And so, at a time when so many of my friends are moving out to the country and starting their homesteading lives, here is my advice:

You don't have to do it all at once.

Take it slow.

 Give yourself grace.

Just a little bit at a time.

Don't overwhelm yourself.

And when you are sobbing in the middle of your pasture, don't hesitate to give me a call. 

Volunteer Work: Farm style

Sometimes, being homeschoolers offers us some amazing opportunities.

 

This weekend, we took a volunteer job at a local living history museum, demonstrating some of the heritage arts that we do at home. We dressed in costume and sat on the porch of a 100 year old bunk house, where we showed knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and finger knitting.

It was an incredible opportunity for Two Little Girls. For as much time as they spend doing these things as a regular part of life, it was fantastic for them to hear the “oohs” and the “ahhs” of ‘city folk’ as they watched such young girls doing them. For me to be knitting wasn’t anything special. But for folks – kids and adults alike – to see my six and ten year old daughters proficiently creating beautiful, useful works of art was inspirational to some.

 

The girls sat with other kids as they came by and taught them the basics of their skills – Littlest One taught many a young girl to knit a chain by weaving yarn on her fingers, and sent each one away with a small ball of yarn to practice with. The satisfaction she got from sharing her skill equaled the satisfaction of the children learning it.

We taught a group of girl scouts how to knit and crochet, patiently demonstrating and holding their hands as they fumbled through the stitches. A couple were so eager to learn that they sat with us for nearly half an hour, carefully making stitch after stitch across rows. It’s neat to think they may go home with a desire to learn a lifelong skill that was nearly lost to antiquity for a few generations.

When they tired of sitting and doing their needlework, Two Little Girls took turns churning butter from fresh local cream and cleaning apples to be pressed into cider for the many visitors. No matter what they were doing, watching them brought smiles to many faces. To see some of the elderly women that passed through smile so big at my sweet girls having so much fun doing what most would consider work warmed my heart. 

And upon the end of our day, when The Oldest took my hand and swung my arm as she skipped along in her pinafore and bonnet, and she said, “This was such a special day!” That made it all worth the effort we put into it. I love when my girls are able to take pride in this (somewhat crazy) life we live. Not every kid gets to do the things they do here, and while it doesn’t always seem special to them, times like this help them realize they get to experience a lot of things most kids never get to.

The museum will close up soon for the winter, but we hope to continue volunteering our time there next year, sharing the skills we use every day with kids who don’t get to see them often. 

The Inventory of the Cellar

As the harvest/preserving season wraps up for the 2013 season, I organized the cellar and freezer and took stock of how much food we’ve produced and put by for the year. I was a little more detailed in my record keeping this year than I have been in the past, as I work to figure out how much food we actually need, how much it costs and how much I save, etc. 

These records are purely for my own information, but I’m posting them in case anyone is interested (and also, because if they are on the blog, I won’t lose them.)

In the cellar:

246 jars of food (fruit, vegetables, jams, sauces/salsas/condiments, syrups, soups.)

16 delicata squash (each will provide one meal)

6 large pie pumpkins (will equal approx 20 cans of pumpkin)

22 lbs fresh-stored carrots (with more to harvest)

12 lbs fresh-stored beets (I canned half the beet harvest as pickled beets)

17 lbs potatoes (with more to harvest)

? dried beans (haven’t shelled them yet. Maybe 5 lbs? Not much.)

62 heads of garlic (enough for planting this fall, too.)

75 onions

several bunches of dried herbs (dill, parsley, basil, thyme, oregano, lavender)

8 quarts of dried fruit and tomatoes

24 sheets of fruit leather (equals about 96 “fruit roll-ups”)

 

In the freezer:

5 lbs carrots

2 lbs broccoli

5 gallons of soups

4 quarts of chopped green onions

2 lbs chopped bell peppers

7 cups of spaghetti sauce

14 cups of pesto

I chose to can most of our food this year when it was possible, since freezer space is limited.

These totals don’t include the fresh veggies we’ve eaten through the summer, beginning in May and lasting about 5 months. Most meals were planned around what was coming out of the garden.

Meat:

16 chickens

3 turkeys (yet to be butchered)

1 goat (yet to be butchered.)

(hoping this will total about 40 meals’ worth of food, plus broth for soups.)

(There is also hope still for one -or two- elk this year, which would provide a full year's worth of meat, and enough to share.)

Dairy (year totals)

About 50 gallons of milk (I don’t keep daily records. This is a close estimate.)

About 45 dozen eggs (again, this is an estimate. They slow down in the winter, but produce 3-4 dozen per week during the summer.)

I wish I had the numbers to put a value to all of the food in this house right now, but I’m not that organized yet.

But the total cost of all of it?

$175 in locally, farm-purchased fruits and vegetables that I didn’t/couldn’t raise myself.

$60 in garden seeds

$60 in meat birds

Approx $120 in meat chicken feed

Another $120 in egg hen feed (not including the feed cost of the show birds.)

$240 in grain for goats

Not sure of the cost of jar lids, bought about $24 of canning jars this year, plus spices, sugar, etc. that I didn’t keep records of. Estimating about $75 in those supplies.

So total cost for the above listed foods? $824

Also, figure at least 250 hours of work. At least. Honestly, it’s probably a whole lot more, but sometimes it’s hard to decipher work from play around here.

The amount seems enormous, but when it's spread over 6 months or so, it's not terrible... and if I make the effort, I could cut our monthly grocery bill down to about $100 for 5 or 6 months.  That puts us at roughly $233 per month, eating healthy, organically grown vegetables, pastured meat, raw milk and fresh eggs. I realize some folks live on plenty less than this each month, but seriously y'all, we eat really good food!

 

So is it worth it? Absolutely.

 Raising meat chickens is utterly uneconomical, between the cost of the birds and feed, the amount of work required in the raising and butchering of them… if we could find a way to hatch our own meat chicks and raise our own feed, it would make more sense. (I’ve heard you can raise chickens almost entirely on clabbered cow’s milk. I’m not opposed to trying this when our cow is in milk) Turkeys are a much bigger bang for your buck, even when raised from poults. Goats can be expensive, since grain is a requirement, but the milk they provide for drinking, cooking, plus yogurt, cheese, etc. is so worth it… and goats provide a lot of fun, too. (Most people pay more for a monthly cable bill than we do for our goats, and goats are far more entertaining!) We also raise all the hay our animals will use, and they graze pasture during the spring, summer, and fall. This cuts down significantly on the cost of meat and milk production. It’s hard for me to estimate the value of the egg chickens vs. the cost of their feed, since most of our chickens are show-breed bantams that The Oldest raises for fun (and are therefore worthless when it comes to laying.)

The garden is amazing, though. The sheer number of pounds of food produced with just $60 worth of seeds in incredible. Fresh vegetables all through the summer months and well into the fall and winter. The fertilizer is provided by the menagerie in the barns, the water comes from our irrigation, and the man-power is provided by Two Little Girls and myself. (Bonus: gardening and other farm chores also provide a great daily workout, omitting what some folks pay in gym memberships.)What doesn’t get eaten provides extra feed for the animals. 

Are we anywhere close to self-sufficient? Not at all. Until I can grown my own wheat and oats, we'll still be making monthly trips to the grocery store. Though I have started looking into the details of raising sugar beets, just as an experiment...

When I sent Littlest One down-cellar the other day for a jar of pears, she came up with them and said, “Do you know what I thought when I went into the cellar? I thought, ‘I’m so proud of my mom for putting all this food in here for us to eat.’”

So is it worth it? Yep, you betcha. And it's even kinda fun, too. :-)

Introducing: Peaches

 It finally happened. He found himself a horse.

Meet 'Peaches'. Her registered name is Treasure Chiquita, and for a couple of days The Oldest tried calling her 'Chiquita', but it just didn't fit. And so, Peaches she is.

She's a registered Morgan mare, about 13 years old. She is, when compared to our other horses, a lot of horse. She's full of energy, she's fast and likes to show it. But she's also brilliant, well trained, (mostly) well behaved, and has a fantastic personality. She learns incredibly fast, and you can tell by the look in her eye that she wants to please you. She's a little nervous, though that's wearing off as she becomes used to her new surroundings. And she's positively splendid to watch as she's grazing on the mountain, her chestnut coat glistening in the sunset. No doubt, she's the prettiest animal on our little farmstead.

In the first 24 hours that he was off work last week, The Daddy had already had her out twice, working with her on loading in the trailer (which she mastered in no time at all,) and taking the girls on a long ride around the neighborhood. It makes me so happy that he has a horse to do that with now, to be out there enjoying all this space along with our girls (on their geriatric horses that Peaches could run circles around.)

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By the age of seven, The Oldest was Horse Crazy and I had read every Marguerite Henry book out loud to her. One of our favorites was Justin Morgan Had a Horse. It's the true story of the first Morgan horse. To be able to trace Peaches' bloodlines all the way back to Justin Morgan was quite a treat, both for The Oldest and for myself.

The Daddy's sentimentality for Morgan horses stems from the fact that his grandfather raised them. The idea of having a Morgan pleases him tremendously. What's even better, he inherited his grandfather's old saddle, and has been using it to ride. He's not the sentimental type, but I can tell it means a lot to him. 

===

She's proving to be a good hobby for The Daddy, who has already practiced with her at the rodeo grounds, lunged her in a round pen, and taken her to a trail course to get her used to different obstacles. (I've never seen a horse that is more content to go over a bridge backward than forward, until this one! But she'll get there.)

 He's got that patience-mixed-with-confidence that is necessary to really get a horse to listen, and they seem to work well together. It pleases me so much to see him have a hobby besides hunting, one that doesn't only happen during certain months of the year. I can tell he's excited to have her and really enjoys the time he spends with her. He's always dreamed of owning a farm, and that part of the dream came true... but having a horse of his own to love and enjoy was a part of the dream, too, and I'm so glad it's finally happened for him.

 Welcome to the farm, Peaches. We're so glad to have you!

The Little Things - The Important Things

Ah, what a nice break it's been from blogging! With so much to do, and so little time, writing our little stories has been pushed to the back burner.

If there's one lesson I'm learning from this crazy new life we're living, it's how to prioritize. Children must be taught and fed. Animals must be fed and tended to. The hay pasture must be irrigated and the garden must be planted and tended. Sadly, things like blogging, or knitting, or any of the other little creative bits I used to have time for seem to have been replaced with other activities, at least for now.

Not that I'm complaining. So much satisfaction can be found in the work that makes up every moment of every day. I enjoy it all immensely, and so does our family. What is actually work often feels more like play. I've learned to find incredible enjoyment in my animals, in walking through the sloshy pasture twice a day, and in making cheese and yogurt. Peaceful moments come in the form of enjoying a cold beer on the deck at sunset, listening to the birds singing their goodnights; listening to Two Little Girls making clothespin fairy dolls talk as they adventure through the garden fairy village; watching goats and horses graze contentedly along the edges of the yard.

Not that it's all picture perfect. The never-endingness of it all is constantly overwhelming, and I'm still learning to accept that I'm simply not ever going to have it all done. It goes back to those priorities. Some days school takes priority, and we do a week's worth of math and English to make up for the days we've missed. Other days I realize I haven't shoveled manure in a week, or that the weeds are climbing the pea trellis faster than the peas are. Whatever seems most pressing gets accomplished, everything else is left for another day. I'm learning to remember that it will still be there tomorrow. And some days, play and relaxing and laughing take priority. If they didn't, I'd be a crazy person. And we all know if I'm crazy, my family is too.

So along we trudge, delighting in all The Little Things we do, appreciating the sweet details that tend to fog over the messier big picture. And for now, that's just about perfect.

As life seems to be evening out again, I'm hoping to get back to writing the little stories that make up our little lives... the stories I want to remember, that I want my children to remember, the stories that I hope make a few folks smile once in awhile.

Aurora and Phillip

A little bit of perfect arrived on our little farm the other night.

 Meet Aurora and Phillip, the two sweet kids that were born Saturday night.

We went out to feed at 6:30 and could tell Justice was starting to go into labor, but she lacked all the signs that would have made us think she was very close to delivering. She had torn up the barn stall, digging up the straw and creating little 'nests', but she still ate like she was starved and wasn't dilated or having noticeable contractions. But when we went out again in an hour to see if she'd progressed, there were two tiny baby goats in the pen with her. The little boy came first, standing on wobbly legs next to his mama. The baby girl had just been born and wasn't even standing yet.

We were sad to have missed the birth, but thrilled that she had no trouble and didn't need us. Both babies eventually stood up, and it wasn't long until they started nursing.

Justice is a wonderful mother, and knew exactly what needed to be done.

We helped dry them off just a little bit, but she did most of the work. She didn't mind having us in there with her, holding them and petting them and working with them a bit, though as soon as a barn cat comes near she threatens to butt it across the stall. 

We stayed out for a couple of hours, making sure they were nursing and showing them the warming barrel where they could sleep (and dry off some more. Wet babies plus a cold night is a little disconcerting.) Within two hours, they were hopping around on their shaky newborn legs, reaching around and then falling down only to get up and try again. We could have stayed and watched longer, but by then it was long past bedtime for little girls, and they were cold and tired.

The girls are both thrilled, as is to be expected. Chloe got all teary as she watched Aurora stand for the first time. Cora was shaking with excitement. As soon as we dipped their cords and determined their genders, Cora announced their names - apparently she had had their names planned for some time and had just been waiting to tell us what they would be. Aurora, you know, is Sleeping Beauty's name, and Phillip is her prince. Okay, so it's not my first pick, but it'll do. Chloe has adopted Phillip as her very own, and he's already taken to following her around the stall and nudging her leg when he wants his head scratched.


Aurora immediately became Cora's, and while she is not so fond of being petted, she seems to love being held close to her girl's chest.


For two goats who came from the same mama and daddy, they sure do look different. Phillip has long, floppy ears like a nubian with a cream colored head and spots. He's stocky, the larger of the two.


Aurora is dainty and nearly pure white, with tiny la mancha ears, like a little pixie.


Phillip is outgoing and playful, sticking his nose between the slats to sniff the dogs or trying to get Liberty to play with him (much to Justice's chagrin.) Aurora is more shy, preferring to stay nearer her mama, occasionally jumping around but only half-heartedly. It's like she's trying to pretend to be grown up, while he's all rough-and-tumble little boy.

While we were waiting to see whether Jussie would have boys or girls, the expectation was that we would keep a girl, but would either eat or sell any boys. Yeah, well. That was before we saw Phillip. There is No Way I am eating him. I've just accepted that we now have two more goats. Besides, Chloe loves him. Clearly, we're going to have to work on this attachment thing. It's not so bad with feathered animals, but these furry ones melt your heart the moment you set eyes on them!

Welcome to the farm, Aurora and Phillip!

A Walk Through the Garden

 I haven't done much blogging or photographing of the garden this year. This is mostly because I'm disappointed in myself for not having as pretty of a garden as I've had in the past. It looks... well, it looks like a first year garden in a new climate. You know, because it is a first year garden in a new climate.


It's about 30 ft by 70 ft. I wanted it bigger, but tilling turned out to be quite a chore, and this was the most The Man of My Dreams could muster the time and energy to do. And now I'm grateful for that, since it's proving plenty big enough for my first year up here.

This picture is of weeds. Yep - that's how bad it is. I pull a wheelbarrow full of weeds each morning and night, but the bindweed and the goat-heads are just awful. Hopefully a few years of diligent weeding will prove successful. Apparently all the tilling The Man of My Dreams did for me ended up spreading the weeds, making them even worse.

Next year, no tilling.


I've also been disappointed because nothing seems to be growing. But what I've come to realize is that everything is definitely growing, it just all ripens about six weeks later that it did when we lived in The Big City. Six weeks is a very long time for a girl who has been waiting all year for fresh green beans and tomatoes. But we're getting there. 

Next year, patience.

 If there's one thing I can say about living here, it's that pollination isn't a problem. Every flower gets pollinated - bees and wasps abound, and they are doing their work diligently. In The Big City, many tomato blossoms would drop before they were pollinated, between the heat and the lack of bees. Not here though - cooler temperatures and an abundance of buzzing insects means plenty of pollination.

 I'm amused at how things that I couldn't grow for the life of me in The Big City are doing so well here. Broccoli never got a chance to develop a head before, because it would get so hot so fast. On nine broccoli plants this year, the heads weighed out at fifteen pounds, and we're still harvesting from the side shoots nearly every other day. I finally pulled out all the spinach - I put by thirty bags of frozen spinach before it bolted. In The Big City, cucumbers would wilt and shrivel in the dry heat if they weren't watered in the middle of the afternoon, and the fruits would be bitter. Here, the vines are clamboring up my pitiful trellis, and baby cukes are everywhere, shaded in the lush plants. The onions are growing nice big bulbs, thanks to less heat up here. They're big enough to be using, and will hopefully store well this fall, as I've got about 120 of them planted.

Next year, more broccoli.


 
The beans are growing, finally starting to flower just in the past couple of days. They quickly outgrew and pulled down the bamboo teepees and stuck out there. The ground is so rocky here that it's hard to get any stakes in deep enough to be sturdy.

Next year, stronger trellises and stakes. 

Littlest One planted corn this year. The only year I tried growing corn at the other house, it was a miserable, earwig-infested failure. I'm not sure this attempt will be any better, but it's fun to see her when she goes out and checks on it. It grows quickly, so she sees the changes often.

 Much of what we planted this year is experimenting - trying out new varieties, and growing vegetables we hadn't tried before. Potatoes and cabbage are both new to us, things we didn't have the space for in the past. The cabbage worms are grateful that we've planted so many varieties of brassicas for them to consume. The cabbage heads are big enough now to harvest, though I'm nervous that there are little wormies living inside there that are going to make us not want to eat it.

Next year, row covers.

 In the foreground of this picture are potatoes. I dug a trench as deep as I could go with all the rocks and boulders underground - about 18". I've since filled that back in and hilled up the potatoes another two feet or so, and they're just going crazy. Not sure if there's anything actually growing in there, but they sure are happy plants.

 Next year, potato crates.

And also growing quite well are the turkeys. I'm still fascinated by what neat birds they are. I'm also fascinated by how much they eat. We keep them penned up and feed them commercial game bird feed, and they go through more than I ever thought possible. I'm afraid to let them free range because I've heard it can be hard to get them to come back.
 
Next year, a moveable turkey pen. 


I have a feeling every year will come with a list of things to do "next year". It's all a learning experience. I'm realizing I need to give up my dreams of perfection in these early years while we figure things out. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, of course - this is farming after all. It will get better though, as experience is gained and routines fall into place. Until then, I will try to embrace the imperfection and learn graciously from the lessons this land has to teach me.

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

It seems like every time I turn around, there is another opportunity to relive a bit out of the Little House books. I would tell you it's for the children's sake, you know, for homeschool, except that I usually enjoy it as much as they do.

We had our hay cut, back about the 4th of July. A neighbor did it. Unfortunately, between the time the hay was cut, and the time it was to be baled, a different neighbor's irrigation water flooded our pasture, so the haying neighbor couldn't bale part of it for a couple of days.... except then he was going out of town for two weeks the next day, at the start of monsoon season. Rain + hay = bad. We could've called around to find someone else to bale the rest, but for the 20 or so bales we would have gotten, we hated to bother anyone.

Which meant that we had a whole lot of hay laying on the ground, all dried out and needing to be put up.

So we called upon our knowledge of Ma and Pa and Laura and Mary, and off we went out to the pasture. Remember when Laura helps Pa bring in the hay in The Long Winter?

 "[The hay] came tumbling loosely over the high edge and Laura trampled it down. Up and down and back and forth she trampled the loose hay with all the might of her legs, while the forkfuls kept coming over and falling... The sunshine was hotter and the smell of the hay rose up sweet and strong. Under her feet it bounced and over the edges of the hayrack it kept coming."

Ma wasn't all too pleased that her daughter was out doing man's work - "She did not like to see women working in the fields. Only foreigners did that. Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men's work."

But Laura was glad to have been able to help Pa, even being the "Half-Pint" that she was. While I'm not sure my girls have the stamina to keep at it for days, they sure did enjoy it for a few hours! (Here's hoping we have no need to twist this hay into logs for the fire this winter...)

Our experience, of course, was a high-tech version of that. We had a pick-up truck, and instead of Daddy driving the horses, I drove the truck along.

Daddy pitched the hay into the back of the pickup...


And then Two Little Girls jumped and stomped and danced and packed it all down tight.

With their help in doing this, we were able to get most of the hay in only four pickup loads.

And of course, they were rewarded with a hay ride over the bumpy pasture back to the barn.

Huck and Izzy supervised (read: napped in the tall hay)

And Bandit tried to figure out how he was going to reach just a little bit further to get to that big ol' pile of hay by his stall.

We managed to get finished just as the rain (rain!) started to fall. It was the first rain we'd had in months, and it came down like it meant it.


This whole farming thing is a lot of work, the hot and sweaty kind of work that leaves you exhausted... but on days like this, when the work is accomplished all together as a family... well, that's why we're here, doing what we're doing.

“It is a good idea sometimes to think of the importance and dignity of our every-day duties. It keeps them from being so tiresome; besides, others are apt take us at our own valuation." 
 --Laura Ingalls Wilder