Farm Life

[Spiritwind]

I'm sitting here on our little love seat with our new addition laying next to me, Raven, a five week old little Nigerian Dwarf buckling I got from a friend who has suddenly decided to just keep her Oberhasli's and get out of raising Nigerians. It's getting to where everyone is related in my little herd, and I had been planning to trade one of my bucks to my friend this year for a buckling, but since she went into total liquidation mode because of a major personal life change, I got him for just the cost of registering him.

He came home with us on Wednesday evening when I had taken two doelings over to get their ears tattooed for registration purposes. He was still nursing on his momma and had not taken a bottle before, so was not happy about this major change in his life. He actually sounded like someone was out there torturing him, making pitiful crying noises. What a baby. I couldn't put him with the rest of the herd because he is still just too little and could easily get injured or worse, so I had to put him in a large dog crate by himself. And getting a young kid to take a bottle after they are well used to having the real thing has been quite an experience. Especially since I have never actually had to bottle feed before.

The goats milk my friend had given me for him had to be thawed, and when it is frozen like that tends to separate the fat somewhat so that it's kind of clumpy. After several not so successful attempts to get some milk in him, using both a bowl and a bottle, I decided to strain it before putting it in the bottle and giving it to him this morning, and he finally seemed to catch on. Whew! What a relief. Especially since I woke up far earlier than I wanted to worrying about him not getting enough to eat and perhaps being too cold out there by himself. I found him curled up in the corner and when I picked him up he was nice and warm. All that worry for nothing.

And he has now christened our sofa with urine, and pooped on the floor this morning, so I know all bodily functions are working properly. My concern is not totally unfounded, for when they are this young, when things go wrong it can be a downward spiral fast. Especially if they haven't been eating enough and get chilled, because pneumonia can be swift and deadly.

On another note, not really farm related, but in a round about way it may be, I had some company yesterday afternoon. The young couple that I met through my local meetup group came over to do exactly what I started the group for, and that is to talk about future projects and areas of mutual interest. We covered so much ground in three hours I am still sorting out all the information rolling around stimulated in my brain. Their plan with the website they have developed is quite detailed and I realized how much my life has changed from where I used to be. I have a plan for the future, but it's moved into a whole different direction than I had just a few short years ago. But we could all see a potential mutually beneficial weaving together of sorts shaping up in the future. The best I can sum it up is that they are trying to create an educational format in which anyone who is on a search for the deeper meanings of life can engage in an online experience that can offer many different and original ways to learn and explore the various philosophical systems that are available.

So I'm going to work on supplying a bit of content for their website (http://www.modernmasters.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), as will many others over time, and they are going to come out here to the farm and help with some various projects we have lined up for this year. Sounds like a win win situation to me. I felt bad when they left though, because although they made it up the muddy dirt access road to get here, they made the mistake of pulling directly into our dirt driveway. They found out just how muddy it really is out here when they tried to back out. After great persistence, and some bark behind the tires, repeatedly, they gradually bit by bit managed to back out.

It's been a very busy couple days with the future having probably far more to do than I can keep up with, but I guess it beats sitting around with nothing to do. I can now see the big piles of horse poop that accumulated through the winter. I am seriously hoping our tractor can be fixed without costing us an arm and a leg. Otherwise I may start to feel like I'm working on the chain gang. And I am not shoveling the massive poop hay piles the goats have accumulated through the winter until it dries out a bit. Which, from the looks of things may be a while. It's gotten so high around the feeders the goats have figured out, one of them anyway, that they can jump up on top of them. It actually makes me smile to think about the daily problems I have to solve.

In fact, after talking to my daughter the other day, we both agreed that humans need a bit of drama in their lives, and if we don't have enough, we'll find ways to create it. I'm laughing to myself, because my daughter always wanted a gecko and now has two, one given to her, and the one she bought. I guess keeping geckos is a bit tricky, and hers both don't seem to be going #2 as often as they should, and so she has called the vets, talked to so called experts, and even gives them a bath, trying to keep them regular. She worries herself silly over it, and fully gets that she did this to herself. A truly simple life where there weren't any challenges would actually be quite boring, at least I think so.

[Spiritwind]

So now after months of snow, snow, snow, and then rain, rain, rain, I'm going to go from looking out the window wishing I could be working outside, to wishing I had time to go back to looking out the window. It turns out we've had more rainfall this spring than we've had in many years.

The little guy is now 6 weeks old, and we settled on the name Raven for him. His mom and dad have some pretty good genetics, so he should be a good herd sire. I have never been into breeding before, and had no idea what just keeping a goat or two for milk would entail. Now the herd runs around 12-15 year around, with more or less as I sell a few and more are born. I want to get down to just 10, but it's been harder than I thought.

I could have just got any old buck to keep my girls in milk on a rotational basis, but then the offspring might inherit any physical defects from the parents. By choosing a well bred buck for breeding it greatly increases the chance that the offspring will have straight legs and back, and that the does born will have nice udders with a good attachment to the body and so on. It makes it easier to sell them to people who are more likely to take good care of them. And I have seen a big difference in the herds kept between careful breeders and those who give it no thought. It's not fun trying to milk a goat with teats the size around of pencils and even my fingers are almost too big. So I try to breed up and ease of milking is important.

Raven took a while to really go for the plastic bottle routine, but he has finally figured it out and is doing very well. In fact, at this very moment as I type he has his head on my arm bobbing up and down as my fingers make letters appear on the screen. I open the door now and he just comes in and jumps on the couch, or runs outside to get a bite of hay. As my neighbor says, he's a goat puppy. That is about to come to an end very soon though. It's starting to get a definite farm yard odor indoors.

Speaking of my neighbor, I have one who I have known for almost 40 years. Wow! And he just came over the last two days and pitch forked out all the hay around two of the feeders that had accumulated during the long winter. It is a massive stinky pile! And now the one that kept jumping up on top of the feeders can't get up there any more. But, seriously, I can't even believe he does these things for me. He knows I would be seriously stoved up for days with neck and shoulder discomfort, but still, it does amaze me sometimes what a good friend he has been over the years. Even if he did mess up our tractor, LOL!

This is just a short update for the day, as it is a sunny day after days of rain. Not sure what I'm going to do out there today, but I'm sure it will be something. The list of possible activities is quite long, actually. I have a small garden of mostly perennial herbs and raspberries up the road where we moved from, along with a couple small apple trees and walnut tree to move before it warms up too much, which in these parts is kind of a narrow window between too hot and too cold. And we can start on the fence for the dogs now, yay! And start gathering up the plentiful deadfall for firewood this next winter. And so on.

I'm not looking forward to tick season though. I'm going to try the lemon and eucalyptus oil spray to see if that repels them from the dogs this year. Creepy little things ticks are.

[Spiritwind]

I forgot to mention in my update three things. One, since it has warmed up the bears are out and hungry. Paw prints of more than one size were seen just up the road a short ways. So glad for our furry alarm system.

Two, I almost hit an otter a few days ago. I've lived around this area for most of my adult life and have never seen one in the wild. We had one living nearby at the central California Marina we had our boat at for awhile years ago, but I have never seen one up here in Eastern Washington state. It darted out near the small overflowing river into the four lane highway I was traveling at 60mph on. I slowed and veered as best I could, and didn't see anything in my rear view mirror after I went by so it must have retreated quickly enough. They are one of my favorite animals, so I was very glad I didn't hit it.

And third, the little buckling Raven does the funniest thing when I give him a bottle. His cute little tongue hangs out the side of his mouth and flaps up and down as he is sucking. I don't know why we all find it so amusing and endearing, but we do. What a baby!

[Naga_Fireball]

That is the most beautiful synchronicity Spiritwind. That you named him Raven.

My last visit to the park, I prayed to Jesus (begrudgingly) for a couple urgent things. As soon as the words at the end were out of my mouth, there was a hilarious squawk from a pine tree across the road (everything's eating something those are producing, lol) and my first ever close up raven (!) did a slow, low flyover, maybe 10 feet or so over my head.

I waited for a car to pass then turned to look at the bird, which had landed quite close, about 25 or 35 ft distant where its mate awaited. They sat for a moment in the farmer's field, which is spectacularly beautiful with new growth right now, then they lazily took off toward the hill approaching the lake, haha

Incidentally I had a license plate (Kentucky only reqd rear!) airbrushed at the mall with Bran Mak Morn leading his army, Raven, when I worked in the military. People made fun of it and found it uniquely disturbing, heads on a pike surrounding the brazen hero. Lol... but they did not know who he was.

I wanted to tell you, thank you for this thread. Even the name, Farm Life. Two words with so much of the same meaning. Freedom is life.

Thank you for sharing your life with us, in spite of how frightening it can be, to do so. I love your goats and they seemed extraordinarily content. We had a few slightly larger ones on the family farm and they were not a good fit, haha! Far ranging fence breakers with a knack for eating the neighbors' trees when we had 300 or so acres they could have eaten instead.

Heh, as if goats could actually damage anything too badly!! Our neighbor married a douchbag who ended up cutting the trees on our fenceline for the money he got from the wood! Omg he was very lucky to survive that, assuming.

Sometimes less is more on a modern farm. For instance Dick next door... if his property was smaller his ego might shrink. I'm glad you have those dogs!!!!!!!!

[Spiritwind]

So, I bought this little pot belly stove off of Craigslist about 3 years ago for $75. It's only about 30" high and my husband thought it was cute but didn't think much about its potential for providing heat. Well, after going through the winter finding out just how untenable it is to run an RV with a fan forced propane heater run off a generator all winter in the inland NW, we took another look at it. He did some research on the Internet and found out that they put these little stoves in locomotives back in the day. It was made in 1889 and it turns out that it's an antique worth a couple grand and it was actually quite a little power house for its size. It can even burn coal. So, maybe a year late and way more than a dollar short, we will not be doing a repeat.

[Christine]

Spiritwind ~ Having been on your little farm covered in snow I can almost smell the air and hear your goats. Finally finding a few free moments in the early morning to catch up with many of the posts on the forum. (Probably won't catch them all as I've been away for months now.)

The pot belly stove! What a brilliant recovery and it will save you tons in petrol bills.

We don't live on enough land, mostly cement and pave stones around us, but we did find a marvelous new area to express our love of gardening and soil! On the roof top were over fifty poorly attended potted plants and long planter empty of soil, so one week of around the clock work we have rehabilitated all the pots, planted the planter with Mexican blue corn and purple beans, repaired a falling apart trellis wall between ours and the neighbors patio (he is closely aligned energetically with Dick, though fortunately is only here for short visits). I will upload pictures soon.

While sitting there at sunset last night we were rewarded with the beauty of the flowers happily talking to each other as the breeze set them to a dance that was so harmonious it almost brought tears to our eyes. They were speaking their appreciation of human care, so happy with the new compost soil and frequent watering ... a potted plant is really a captured life form so it does require our love.

Ah, now if we could sneak in some hens!

Thank you so much for sharing the wonder of the mix of your farm life.

[Spiritwind]

I'm sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window, watching the snow come down. We have already an inch on the ground. This, after yesterday of semi cloudy skies warm enough to comfortably work outside all day, which we did. It's a good thing, too.

Last week provided some rather intense moments a few times. There was a big wind storm that blew the roof off of the make shift hay barn we put together last year. Quite the deal trying to put it back together, especially the tarps, with the wind blowing fiercely at times. Then we had to go get some hay a day or two later and ran into another storm with wind and rain. I had looked at the weather the night before and it showed possible rain in the afternoon. Unfortunately it started a bit early. The cheaply made tarp I had brought with me didn't quite cut it. By the time I drove three miles up the road to a gas station mini mart the tarp was flapping in the wind, somewhat shredded, as the rain was picking up its pace. I pulled in there and bought a new bigger tarp, but it wasn't any better made, and one of the rivets tore off just trying to tie it down. So, I took the spool of yellow rope I had and tied it all the way around the whole load to hold the tarp on and headed for home. Under the circumstances we did alright. Only a couple bales up near the cab got a little wet but otherwise my wrap job held up pretty good. Upon arriving at the home front I took a heavier better tarp and covered the load since I knew we wouldn't be unloading it until the next day at least.

And then yesterday was very productive. We have a visitor this week, and with her help we finally buried our cat Simba on the property. We couldn't do it earlier because the ground was frozen, but it was long past when I had wanted to get this done. We had to gather up two wagons full of heavy rocks to make sure that he wouldn't get dug up later. The ground up here is very old almost crumbling but still harder than heck granite about a foot or two down, so digging a deep hole is next to impossible. But I feel a great sense of relief getting that job done.

We also went, dug up, and moved a whole bunch of perennials from the garden where we were living up the road. It's exciting to see everything starting to grow again. I had a whole bunch of little starts from some of them, including the walnut tree. It's already about 4 years old, and I think they can start putting on nuts at about ten. So I might actually get to eat nuts off of it in my lifetime. Both the Peony plants made it though the winter, which makes me very happy, and some of the seeds from the valerian are growing new plants, as well as the original plant from a couple years ago. Nothing better than being able to make your own teas and tinctures from the plants in your garden. The thing I like about herbs is many of them can survive poor soil and harsh conditions. Sometimes even thrive, like many of the indigenous herbs, such as yarrow, St. John's Wort, mullein, and Oregon Grape.

While I took a break to make banana bread, it stopped snowing, started to brighten up, and it's quite possible the sun may come out and actually melt all the snow. Maybe I'll get to go plant the walnut tree after all. And little Raven is happily sleeping with his head in my lap. He starting bawling like a baby by the door when it was still snowing. I guess I'm a softy, but he was shivering, and I'm still like his mommy. And the little ones, when separated from mom and not with others their size and age, need cuddling to thrive. The older does are not kind to him at all. That is, until he's big enough to make babies, LOL. Whoops, I spoke too soon, it's hailing outside now...

Spring is fickle.

PS: We are hoping to get about 3-4 hens next year. Love fresh eggs! Rooftop gardening sounds wonderful too. Looking forward to pictures.

[Spiritwind]

It was a pretty exciting day today. After a very long wait to gather all the materials together and decent enough weather to do an outside project like this we completed the first phase of making our orgonite cloud buster using the directions by Don Croft.

http://educate-yourself.org/ct/CBconstr ... eb02.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My husband is the epoxy expert, but it has been several years since working on the boat. And it didn't come with any instructions about the ratio to mix. We used polyester resin and hardener. He did a small batch first just to gage how fast it set up and how hot it would get. Then we started putting the metal, crystals, and mixed up epoxy
into the bucket, just about an inch and a half. Next we put the first template in and the caps with crystals glued into them with small pieces of garden hose, along with the six - one foot copper pipes fitted over the top of the crystals into the end caps. Then more metal shavings and epoxy up to about half of the two gallon bucket. Another template was nudged into place over the copper pipes to hold them in place evenly while it hardens. It did get pretty hot, but thankfully not too hot before it started to cool off. So we are half way there.

Interesting that there were chemtrails all day today, with artificial cloud cover forming as they spread out. We will finish up tomorrow and then I guess it takes another couple days after completion to become fully activated. Making the templates is a bit tricky and you have to know how to use a compass. And you have to have a few tools, but not too bad. My husband used a jigsaw to cut them out.

The copper was quite spendy as it required four ten foot lengths of 1 inch pipe, with three cut in half, and the fourth cut into one foot lengths, with four feet left over. I'll post a picture tomorrow of the finished product, but looking good so far.

[Naga_Fireball]

Dearest Spiritwind,

That sounds super hard! I thought model airplanes were rough. You 2 are troopers & super inspirational.

Re: the increased trails & reflective clouds, IMO this is an unfortunate side effect of escalation between USA and NK/China/Russia.

Those particular clouds IMO enhance a technology used by the military, "OTHR" Over the Horizon Radar, which needs cloud to bounce from. Annoying but also funny.

The Russian woodpecker signal of past decades was a precursor i think to more modern techniques, and it allegedly resulted in rainfall.

[Spiritwind]

The plan was to finish the cloud buster yesterday, but unfortunately it has not totally stopped raining for going on two days now. For the most part it has been coming down in buckets. This whole area used to be a lot wetter, but after many seasons of low rainfall and not much snow pack, the cedar trees have shown a great deal of stress. Hopefully this will stimulate a comeback, as they are one of my favorite trees. This trend started last fall and really hasn't let up with this dramatic shift into more moisture.

I'm definitely going to look for a good rain suit, one that actually isn't way too big. The manufacturers of these things must think only big people need to go out in the rain, LOL. Several places I've looked for them only sell medium on up. Then I tried to buy one online that looked about the right size. When it finally came in the mail I was disappointed to see that it was actually big enough to fit my 9 year old grandson. I guess in a pinch I can always use my old standby and just cut a hole for my head and arms using a large plastic garbage bag. Not much of a fashion statement though.

We did go to court over the dog at large infraction last Thursday, which went considerably better than I thought it would. I was simply wanting my side of the story on the court record and hoped to get the amount of the fine reduced. I said some prayers as I was sitting there waiting for my turn. Rather than try to memorize what I wanted to say, I asked that what I did say would be what I needed to say to bring about the best possible outcome. These situations always make me nervous. So I went up there and opened my mouth and let a bunch of words come out. I can't hardly remember what I said even. But when I got done the judge looked at me and said something to the effect of waiting, and if I didn't get another complaint within the year, the charge would be dismissed! I was actually kind of shocked, in a good way. So we'll see what happens there.

I think the rain just let up for a minute so going to rush out and feed all the animals. Wish me luck!