April 24, 2011

Louie turned 25 years old the other week...a few pics of him over the years since he came to live with us...

...just hangin' at the barn

"struttin' with my fly sheet...yeah I be cool..."

running is better than sleddin' anytime....

"grass grass grass, give me grass"

"I know I look funny, but it wasnt my idea..."

Happy Birthday Lou!

April 17, 2011

Tuesday I picked up six baby chickens. Every year we add new girls to the flock so that we always have some strong layers. As chickens get older they lay less often, so mixing young and old keep the flock productive.

That same Tuesday night, a cold front pushed through the area, led with a line of severe thunderstorms that knocked out electrical power. We were asleep at the time and didn’t know, but our daughter, who was at work only a few miles away, called to tell us it was out. She was worried that the baby chicks might get cold – without electricity their heat lamp would be off.

I got up and went downstairs and found my way to the garage. With a flashlight, I looked into the brooder to check on the chicks – just two days old. They were huddled together, shivering. They didn’t have enough body heat to share to keep them warm.

I gathered them into a small box and took them into our house, which was a bit cold too, since the heat was out with the electric. Kath and I could only think of one place that would be warm. We lay in bed and nestled the box of chicks beneath the covers between us…

In about fifteen minutes the chicks began chirping and scratching around – a sign they were warming up and moving out of their huddle. Over the next hour or so, the storms moved past and then later the electricity was restored. Towards morning we were able to put the chicks back into their brooder, warmed by the bright heat lamp. And Kath and I went back to sleep…

It’s all part of living on a backyard farm…

April 10, 2011

I know that I haven’t written anything for a few weeks now….although there is a lot going on, there is really not enough of one thing to make a “topic”. This spring is just bits and pieces. But I will try to weave them all together here.

Last Wednesday and Thursday kicked off the first volunteer day for the CSA. Mark came by on Wed to help me re erect my fencing. I made the field larger this spring so I had to start all over with fencing it off. Stacey also dropped by Wed , and helped weed the lettuces. She’ll be helping as she can, and will also be interning at another CSA in the next county over.

On Thursday Paulie came down from NYC and Esther came over and we spent a lot of time catching up on things while we weeded the garlic beds. Later we mulched the beds over with salt hay. Karen couldn’t make it – she was away in Italy, probably drinking wine at a Tuscany b&b at the time….

I am off to a good start though. In the house and under a grow light I have a good crop of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant started. In the hoop house I’ve started leeks, cabbage, chard, bok choi, scallions, cilantro, and thyme. I am also trying to root fig cuttings in hopes of a tree or two down the road. In the field I have onions and garlic, and recently seeded kale and beets. I have a bed of lettuce and another of arugula. The strawberries are just beginning to push new green leaves, and new raspberry canes are patiently inching up from the ground.

The first purple martin showed yesterday – a sure sign of spring and summer to come. The bluebirds have begun nesting in the boxes, stealing straw and any shedded horse hair they can scavenge from the stable. They will also swoop into the chicken coop for fallen feathers. At the end of each year I always pull the old nests from the boxes and wonder at all the stuff they find to make nests.

We also have some deer every day in the yard – three does and one buck. The buck always comes out by himself. He is just beginning to grow new antlers. Right now he has two emerging bumps on his head. The does don’t mind me too much…when I go out to the stable they alert, but if I “click”’ at them, they relax and keep on eating the backyard grass. The buck though, immediately jumps back into the woods.

I put Snoops on a diet so to loose her extra winter fat. She had a little too much winter fat goin’ on and was looking like a bloated 747. She’s lost some - I have been cutting her grain down and increasing her time on grass now that we have grass again. I told her that she needs to get her “bikini body” back for summer…

And the rooster and I have come to an agreement that if he goes after me I go after him….good thing we don’t have neighbors to watch me chasing a rooster around the field in retaliation – they’d have me committed to the looney bin. He’s only tried to spur me three times, and each time I block him with my foot, then chase him! I don’t try to catch him, but just let him know that he is my prey. Of course, he has never gone after Kath, of which I am constantly reminded. It must be me. But I am sure that one of these days he’ll try to see what she’s made of too. It’s just a matter of time before I look out the window and see her chasing the rooster about the field!

Bees are good. I lost the hive that was struggling going into winter. I had expected to – it had weakened out for some reason and although I tried to build it up, there just were not enough bees to make enough honey to feed itself through the winter. It died out in February. My other hive made it – its now three years old. And my son’s hive made it too. I am hearing lately that the average local hive losses this winter was anywhere from 30 -50%. Its not a good number. Overall, bees are in trouble.

Kath and I have been riding the hippos every week. Zippy is fully recovered from his foot problems, and we think that the herbal pain relief medicine we gave him has made him feel better – he is a lot less “touchy” and much calmer and even affectionate. Pat’s teeth are good as new. He has no more problems chewing, and Zip will tell you that he can bite pretty well. Zip has Patrick bite marks all over his butt from the two playing. And Lou is Lou, clopping along on his big feet and munching on grass. A while ago, Rose, who originally boardered Zip here, said that Lou’s mouth was “one big suction cup”. She described him well! He’s always suckin up something!

And that’s about all I’ve got to tell about for now. Those are all the bits and pieces of what’s been going on.

March 22, 2011

And then came the breaking news…anymore it seems that all news is breaking news…we are sending tomahawks into the guts of Libya. And there is a raging golden fist with a crushed toy USA airplane as a response. War. Why is that breaking news anymore? Seems it’s all we do anymore. We send missiles and kids wherever there is oil…

I spent most of yesterday in the garden, or what I call my field. Over the years my planting space has increased from a few hundred square feet for feeding two, to an acre feeding 20 or more people now. I’ve gone from growing a row of beans and a few tomatoes to…well, to a lot more – now I am growing plants that I had not heard of, and had never thought of as food that I’d like.…but its all good, all very good.

Mostly I added gypsum, or calcium, to the soil, and then began spreading the compost I had made last year. From last weeks rain, the soil is still a bit soft for the tractor, so it makes it slow going to bring in the compost. My ground is low – it makes it a bit too soft in the shoulder seasons, but perfect in the summer for growing. The tractor gets bogged down here and there. I got about half way done with the compost. The plan is to till it in as soon as I am done getting it spread. That will all happen with the weather.

Nine days ago there was an earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Rescuers are pulling survivors alive from the rubble. Nothing but miracles.

Our buff rock chicken is getting broody again. Broody means that she wants to stay on the nest and hatch the eggs. Every year she does this. She’s the only chicken we ever had that gets broody. Now that we have a rooster I think maybe she will be able to hatch some chicks. I am thinking of putting eggs from other chickens under her too, so that the chances of her sitting on fertilized eggs will be good.  It’d be pretty cool to have our own little ones, rather than buying them.

I am reading a book about the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Riot/ Massacre/ Affair. When police began to break up a peaceful outdoor, public union meeting, someone (still unknown) threw a bomb into the crowd. The police began shooting and many, many gatherers were shot and wounded. Eight police died, pretty much from their own friendly fire. In the aftermath, six unionist/ socialist/ anarchists went to trial for murder – eventually four were hung, one committed suicide before he was to be hung, and the others sentence was commuted to life by the governor. It was never proven who threw the bomb – a union member, a policeman, a Pinkerton?  Yet only because these men were organizers, they were tried by default. Then hung. They were asking for an eight hour work day….

Ten years earlier, in 1876, an eight hour workday had been voted into law in Illinois. They were only asking for what was already the law.

 “And I've been on the pinball,l and I no longer know it all…Got a call from a good friend, come on down for the weekend, didn't know if I could spare the time”

                                                                                                            - Brian Protheroe

I found a pair of scissors today under a mat of dead grass in the garden. I guess either I or someone else had laid them down and never picked them back up. As I lifted them out of the grass I could hear all the voices of last summer and taste the air…

March 6, 2011

This week I became angry at God.

I’ve never been that before. It was a new emotion for me. I wasn’t too comfortable with my anger, but it was honest.

I was seated in the back of St. Joes, the same church where I was married. I was there for a funeral mass. And as I sat through the ceremonies and prayers and communion, my sadness took change

A young guy, mid thirties, had died of a heart attack – a guy who ran, biked, surfed, coached sports – no couch potato, but a healthy guy. A healthy guy that shouldn’t have died. He had just come back from a bike ride with his kids…

He was survived by his wife, who works where I do, and his two young children. It just didn’t seem like something God would do. Take a young man from his family like that. The wife had spent the last few years beating breast cancer. And now this. And looking at the two kids – in shock, lost, devastated. I grew mad at God. I lowered my head and told God so

And that’s how I explained my feelings to people that day when we talked about the service or the family. Or how the wife was doing…it had made me mad at God

But was it ok to be mad at God? One of my friends said it was ok….all relationships have anger at times, differences, sometimes its good, just as long as it doesn’t go so far that it cant be turned back. Opposing pressure holds thing in place

Other things were going on this week too…a friend was in the hospital, another friend groping in the dark, and a couple I care about going through a very trying experience of loss- I was worried for all of them. There were other things going on too. All of it seemed so unfair and so unreasonable

But the only thing I know, knew to do, was to pray, and pray some more, and pray harder to a God with whom I disagreed. I prayed to God for all of them more each day, and more each night. I never prayed so much before this. And I haven’t stopped. I am still praying and praying. For the family, my friends, the couple….

….it’s as if the anger became a hand pulling me closer

and closer still

I just now realized it

February 26, 2011

For a while now I have been shedding the plastic bag habit, replacing it with a strongly growing preference for reusable bags. It just doesn’t make much sense to use a thin plastic bag to carry something once and then let it sit in a landfill for eternity, tying up forever the natural resources used to make and distribute them. Besides that, they litter roads, landscapes, and forests. Many times these plastic bags hurt and/or kill animals and sea life that get tangled in them. None of this is good.

Although I have to admit that I am not perfect, I am really trying to make an honest, personal effort not to use them.

In keeping with my goal, this year I ordered reusable bags for the CSA. The last two years we used plastic bags, or better said, we re-used plastic bags. Members would give me plastic bags that they had and I would use them and re-use them a number of times to distribute shares. At least these bags where worn out before most hit the landfill, but I realize that it is still wasteful. But other reasons appeared too…

What really changed me was a day not long ago when I was cleaning the stalls and the chickens began cackling in fear, running in confused directions. I hurriedly ran out of the stable expecting to see a hawk or fox with a chicken, but what I saw completely took me by surprise. Somehow one of the chickens got its foot tangled in a plastic bag that had blown off the street. The chicken was panicked, which in turn panicked the whole flock. We caught the chicken, and took the bag from its foot…the thing was exhausted from fear…

Looking around the farm, I see more that bothers me. Along the perimeters, plastic bags are tangled in the branches of the privet and scrub windbreaks …it’s just plastic litter everywhere. Paper litter is bad enough, but at least it decomposes – plastic stays.

With all that said, I’ll let a few pictures conclude this post:

Enough said!

February 19, 2011

Early last week Dr. Beth (Hirsch) came out and took a look at Patrick. She gave him a shot of sleepy juice and ratcheted open his great maw with a speculum, grabbed his tongue with her left hand and pulled it to the side, and then with her head lamp on, she followed its shaft of light with her other hand to the empty slots where his teeth had been. She worked loose the plaster and gauze packing that had served to protect the sockets, and pulled them out. She felt these areas to gauge the healing and searched for signs of infection…

Dr. Beth found everything to be normal – healed! Patrick is ready to go again, and according to all four vets who have worked with him, without the pain of these shifting teeth and the chronic low grade gum infection, he has to be feeling a lot better. We think he is – his eyes are brighter and he holds his head higher now.

One of the more interesting things that I learned about horse behavior from all this is a horses ability to hide pain. Dr. Orsini told us that if a horse, or any other animal for that matter, shows pain or injury, it advertises itself as an easy prey. So an animal will instinctively hide its injuries as a survival tactic…makes sense, as even we as humans do the same in our social situations….

It’s been a long year with horses – starting off with Louie’s cornea scrape last spring, then Zipp’s founder late last summer, and finally Patrick’s teeth. They say bad things come in threes…I am looking forward to it all being over!