Re: Farm Life
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 5:01 pm
I haven’t written anything for a long time, not because I can’t think of anything to write about, but because it’s just too much and it’s all jumbled up. Also, because we have a small farm, I’ve been getting up early and getting out to take care of animals before it gets unbearably hot to even be outside. Then there are all the fires in our area currently rendering many people’s lives completely devastated. The smoke in our air has been downright hazardous at times this last week. I could write a whole essay on just that alone.
I could easily write about the animals, too, because they do provide an endless source of entertainment and education. They are more fun to contemplate, because I just love seeing how nature adjusts itself. We built a new coop and run and got eight new chickens this spring. And, nature decided that wasn’t enough, so one of our still feral (sort of - they are still roosting in the tree and can’t be caught) hens went broody and hatched out six chicks. We did catch them (actually the couple that live on the property did it) and put them in a little kennel to friendly them up. It’s been kind of fun catching them and slowly getting them to not freak out. They do all have an individual personality of sorts, so some of them got used to being handled much quicker than others. Since the future looks so uncertain I kind of like having a few hens that tend to keep reproducing themselves. The new hens we got are Lohman Browns, and they were bred up to be mega layers, but do not tend to go broody. They are pretty friendly by nature though and all greet me at the gate every day.
Then there are the goats. I took a couple does over to some friends for the summer and they will hopefully be keeping them as I was trying to downsize. And again, life had other plans. Almost four weeks ago I went to the city to spend some time with my daughter on her birthday and saw two goats who looked like they were running for their lives, going the opposite direction, shortly after I had pulled out on the main road. I thought it was really odd but kept going, thinking wouldn’t that be funny if they ended up at our place, but also considered it unlikely as they would have to have turned left and run up the half mile access road (it has happened before last fall!). Then when I got home, there they were hanging out next to the goats in one of the pens we have looking quite hungry. It was a full size female with her what looked to be about four month old buckling, and she was still in milk! I decided to feed them a bit and give them some water, and wait to see if they were still there the next day. They were, so I made some adjustments and put the little buckling who was ready to be weaned with the buck we’re keeping until we breed this fall, and put the doe in the pen she was hanging out by. You would think they had always been here. She jumps right up on the milk stand and didn’t even have a problem with the milk machine.
I could go on and on about the animals. The couple staying on the property got a kitten which brings us up to seven cats here, but at least they do a great job keeping the mice down. This new guy thinks he’s the big hunter kitty and has tried to go after the one chick that managed to escape, but I think he’s figuring out how it works here. And fortunately the chick, who’s getting bigger by the day, has figured him out too. Kind of fun watching him shake things up and learn to be a part of our little ecosystem. It didn’t take long for our dogs to figure out he belongs here, though they did try to chase him at first. So everything does just adjust itself. To be honest, nature is my solace, and helps me stay sane in an increasingly insane world.
We did have a little scare with our well for a couple of days, but fortunately my husband managed to get it working again. Everything is so dry this time of year, and even just two days made everything we have planted and growing take a hit. I had visions of it all dying. A couple more days would have pretty much done it. It did get us into gear and we did go get the 200 gallon tank from our neighbor up the road. We’ll keep it ready to use should we encounter another situation. I would like to get some kind of hand pump as well. Some folks in our extended community have started meetups again to discuss how we can help each other out in various ways and become more prepared for worse case scenarios, since the possibilities seem greater than ever that we could encounter a variety of challenging circumstances. Communications seem to be a fairly big topic. I’m fortunate to live where there are many independent thinkers who seem to be far more creative and solution oriented than the majority of folks out there. Power, water, and food are high on the list too. Fuel could get hard to come by in our fairly near future. So, there’s a lot to think about there.
Since it’s been so long since I wrote anything, I think I will leave this here and come back to a number of other topics going on in our world hopefully soon. It’s good to share the parts of my life that I still have some modicum of control over, before jumping on to the outer world where things appear increasingly volatile and even out of control, in some areas. It’s good to have people in your life to help keep the constantly inflicted trauma responses at a minimum, for in a way we are at war, but not in the traditional sense. I’m fortunate that I know many people who do sense the direction we are being steered and want to be practical in the solution department. Keeping our wits about us, and staying calm and in observer mode seems to be a wise course of action. Having people you trust and can be honest with helps tremendously. Wishing all who find themselves reading this post all the best. It’s an opportunity to rise to new heights of understanding and action, or not….
I could easily write about the animals, too, because they do provide an endless source of entertainment and education. They are more fun to contemplate, because I just love seeing how nature adjusts itself. We built a new coop and run and got eight new chickens this spring. And, nature decided that wasn’t enough, so one of our still feral (sort of - they are still roosting in the tree and can’t be caught) hens went broody and hatched out six chicks. We did catch them (actually the couple that live on the property did it) and put them in a little kennel to friendly them up. It’s been kind of fun catching them and slowly getting them to not freak out. They do all have an individual personality of sorts, so some of them got used to being handled much quicker than others. Since the future looks so uncertain I kind of like having a few hens that tend to keep reproducing themselves. The new hens we got are Lohman Browns, and they were bred up to be mega layers, but do not tend to go broody. They are pretty friendly by nature though and all greet me at the gate every day.
Then there are the goats. I took a couple does over to some friends for the summer and they will hopefully be keeping them as I was trying to downsize. And again, life had other plans. Almost four weeks ago I went to the city to spend some time with my daughter on her birthday and saw two goats who looked like they were running for their lives, going the opposite direction, shortly after I had pulled out on the main road. I thought it was really odd but kept going, thinking wouldn’t that be funny if they ended up at our place, but also considered it unlikely as they would have to have turned left and run up the half mile access road (it has happened before last fall!). Then when I got home, there they were hanging out next to the goats in one of the pens we have looking quite hungry. It was a full size female with her what looked to be about four month old buckling, and she was still in milk! I decided to feed them a bit and give them some water, and wait to see if they were still there the next day. They were, so I made some adjustments and put the little buckling who was ready to be weaned with the buck we’re keeping until we breed this fall, and put the doe in the pen she was hanging out by. You would think they had always been here. She jumps right up on the milk stand and didn’t even have a problem with the milk machine.
I could go on and on about the animals. The couple staying on the property got a kitten which brings us up to seven cats here, but at least they do a great job keeping the mice down. This new guy thinks he’s the big hunter kitty and has tried to go after the one chick that managed to escape, but I think he’s figuring out how it works here. And fortunately the chick, who’s getting bigger by the day, has figured him out too. Kind of fun watching him shake things up and learn to be a part of our little ecosystem. It didn’t take long for our dogs to figure out he belongs here, though they did try to chase him at first. So everything does just adjust itself. To be honest, nature is my solace, and helps me stay sane in an increasingly insane world.
We did have a little scare with our well for a couple of days, but fortunately my husband managed to get it working again. Everything is so dry this time of year, and even just two days made everything we have planted and growing take a hit. I had visions of it all dying. A couple more days would have pretty much done it. It did get us into gear and we did go get the 200 gallon tank from our neighbor up the road. We’ll keep it ready to use should we encounter another situation. I would like to get some kind of hand pump as well. Some folks in our extended community have started meetups again to discuss how we can help each other out in various ways and become more prepared for worse case scenarios, since the possibilities seem greater than ever that we could encounter a variety of challenging circumstances. Communications seem to be a fairly big topic. I’m fortunate to live where there are many independent thinkers who seem to be far more creative and solution oriented than the majority of folks out there. Power, water, and food are high on the list too. Fuel could get hard to come by in our fairly near future. So, there’s a lot to think about there.
Since it’s been so long since I wrote anything, I think I will leave this here and come back to a number of other topics going on in our world hopefully soon. It’s good to share the parts of my life that I still have some modicum of control over, before jumping on to the outer world where things appear increasingly volatile and even out of control, in some areas. It’s good to have people in your life to help keep the constantly inflicted trauma responses at a minimum, for in a way we are at war, but not in the traditional sense. I’m fortunate that I know many people who do sense the direction we are being steered and want to be practical in the solution department. Keeping our wits about us, and staying calm and in observer mode seems to be a wise course of action. Having people you trust and can be honest with helps tremendously. Wishing all who find themselves reading this post all the best. It’s an opportunity to rise to new heights of understanding and action, or not….