amysflock

Aftermath

2012-01-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

That storm of ours really was a doozy. We ended up finally getting our power back on Monday morning at 3:30...a full 90 hours after we first lost it. Some folks didn't get theirs back until yesterday, and for others, a rogue windstorm mid-week knocked it out again. We're grateful we have no damage to report to insurance, unlike some. Thurston County, along with the cities of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater (to the north of us) were all declared disaster areas in the event federal funds will be needed for cleanup help. Some of our capital city's oldest trees were badly damaged, which is a shame. I've passed entire stands of alder trees where the tops broke out of each and every one, leaving what looks like hillsides of toothpicks. The folks we lease our pasture from reported they've lost about 1000 evergreens from their managed land, and it took them three days to clear a path for the power company to reach their lines.

The air quality hasn't been great, and all the burn piles everywhere aren't helping. I feel badly for those who have asthma or other breathing difficulties. It's not a good place to be right now. We ourselves will be burning, probably next weekend, once Paul collects all the broken and downed branches from our property and makes a proper burn pile. Some of the damage came to trees we intend to remove eventually anyway, so there's no love lost there. Other things, like Cousin It, the Japanese maple next to our driveway, suffered no damage at all, and I'm grateful for that.

The cattle, of course, fared fine through the entire ordeal, probably thinking we were crazy for panicking so much about their water supply. (Funny aside: wouldn't you know that the power finally returned less than 12 hours after we drove home with a 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank full of water from Paul's brother's house, 20 miles away? If I'd thought about Murphy's Law before we filled the tank, I probably could have predicted when the power would return!)

For now, with all the branches left where they fell, the cattle are enjoying themselves pushing things around and beating them up with their horns. There are several branches hanging in the big fir that will need to come out somehow...but there were branches higher up that were hanging when we bought the property in 2008 and are STILL there, even after all the ice and wind! Figures.

I'm not alone in hoping that was the worst winter weather we'll see this season. Today is cloudy and cold, perfect for doing a few clean up chores outside (like taking down our Christmas lights...don't judge!), with our normal rain predicted to return tonight. Sounds appealing to me!

The big fir, looking like someone took a big bite out of its side. Ignore the apple tree in the foreground (yes, that's an apple!)...we let the cattle beat it up and plan to rip it out. It's an annoyance during lawn mowing, anyway.

Clyde messing with the downed limbs. Typical boy!

Weather mania

2012-01-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard it on the news: Western Washington is in the midst of some pretty horrible weather. Those of us in the south sound received 12-20 inches of snow Tuesday into Thursday (14" at our house), followed by freezing rain and temperatures that wouldn't rise sufficiently. Tree limbs - or entire trees - broke into power lines across the region. At this point, we've been without power for 50+ hours and it may be a few more days before it's restored. Paul ingeniously collected melting snow (once the temperatures started to rise) from the downspout to keep the cattle trough filled. Our giant fir in the pasture, the one you've seen in so many photos here, lost so many limbs it's essentially bald on one side. We'll be cleaning debris for awhile. But, our generator is keeping us warm and fed (by microwave), the cattle are fine, and we have family 20 minutes away who DO have power so we can shower (and use the Internet!). We know now that our home's wiring needs attention - we can't figure out why the wired-in generator won't run the well pump, an annoying development - so we'll have to modify our to-do list for summer. Life could be worse, though. We plan to work on a more thorough emergency plan and kit, something the experts always recommend and something we've rolled our eyes at a bit (given we're so resourceful...note the sarcasm). Really, we're faring fine, but it could be worse, and we don't want to find ourselves there. If the cities to our south didn't have power - and therefore, working gas stations, at least until the Thurston County residents take it all - this would be a very different situation.

Hopefully power will return by Monday so I can return to work (our agency was closed county-wide Wednesday and Thursday, and I took Friday off). I look forward to our lives returning to normal. A hot shower in my own house will have never felt so good!

Powerless

2012-01-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

This will be super quick because I'm getting my Internet fix at Paul's brother and sister-in-law's house two towns south...we've been without power at our house since 9:30 a.m. Thursday with no estimated time of restoration. We had a colossal snow storm, for Western Washington, at least, receiving 14 inches in about a day. That was sucky and inconvenient...but then it froze. And then it turned to freezing rain, coating everything, every tiny twig, every power line, every bit of road, in ice. Branches broke everywhere, knocking out power throughout our part of the state. All the major cities down here were powerless. Generators are humming along all over the place, including at ours. We have a good-sized generator wired into our oddly-wired house, but it's not running our well pump, so no running water. We do have lights, one pellet stove that works (and is keeping our entire house warm, remarkably), and we were able to run extension cords to the next door neighbors' home so his oxygen would work. But let me tell you, this really, really sucks. I was over the "adventure" early yesterday. I'm exceedingly grateful this all happened AFTER our scheduled IUI (I'm 3dpiui today, by the way, and let me tell you, using progesterone suppositories while I can't shower in my own home is, um, a bit nasty). It's also occurred to me that having twin newborns at home right now, while it's certainly my true heart's desire, would be even more difficult.

So, we're weathering the storm. With our snow nearly gone from the roof, collecting water run off from the downspout won't work for keeping the cattle trough filled or a bucket nearby for flushing the toilets, so Paul's filling up some water jugs with City of Centralia water now. We might be back later with our 150 gallon cattle trough, too, if the situation doesn't improve soon. One good thing about it: it's making it very clear what we need to do to be more prepared for emergencies.

They weren't kidding

2012-01-18T05:47:00.000-08:00

I awoke at 4:00 this morning to run to the bathroom, and against my better judgement, I put on my glasses, pulled back the edge of the bedroom curtain and peeked outside. Not sure what I was seeing, I padded down the hall to the kitchen, where the light outside the garage illuminates the view. Holy crap. Everything is covered in a LOT of snow!

Unable to turn my mind off back in bed, I put on my robe and slippers, started a pot of coffee, and took the tape measure outside. Eight and a half inches at 4:45, and still snowing.

I'm waiting for my agency to update the emergency hotline so I can find out whether THEY think I'll be driving the 20 miles to the office this morning, but I'm pretty certain I won't be going, regardless. Paul's not even up yet to tell me I won't be going. His work was shut down yesterday due to too much snow, and that was before THIS storm happened! He said last night he'll probably be shut down all week, given his job is up in the hills. They're calling for the up to 10" total here, south of Olympia, but it's supposed to taper off later today and then turn to rain/snow mix tomorrow.

I'm anxious to see where the cattle are. Often they prefer to lay in the snow, but this is excessive, and now a breeze has picked up (bad combination). Thankfully, we fed a fresh bale of haylage last night, so they should have plenty to eat. We'll just have to keep their water trough full.

If there's snow where you are today, please stay warm and safe!

Our (large!) picnic table, covered!

Snow day

2012-01-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

This winter is so weird! It's been very mild, almost too mild, with below-average snowfall in the mountains and warmer than normal temperatures with below-average rainfall in the lowlands. The weather folks had been warning about a snowstorm brewing all last week, but reports conflicted about how much, where, and for how long. I took it all to mean that we'd see little to any white stuff falling in our area.

Wrong! We drove to Portland yesterday for a little shopping and dinner, and stopped just south of Chehalis on our way down to meet my uncle so that Paul could borrow some sausage-making equipment (they're cutting up another elk today). During the five minutes we were stopped, it snowed at least 1/4 inch, blowing big fluffy flakes sideways. I looked out my windshield and thought, "Whiteout." Paul swept snow off the headlights with his hands. Once underway again, we emerged under cloudy skies with a tiny bit of drizzle just a couple of miles south! Portland itself was snow-free.

On our way home, we hit snow again around Woodland, just north of Vancouver, and Castle Rock. We stopped in Centralia and they had even more...not a lot, but definitely enough that the drive home from there was a slow, careful one. And this morning? We awoke to about 2 inches total, with additional flakes falling periodically in the last couple of hours. Paul drove to Centralia this morning to process that elk and called to report the roads are as slick as a skating rink.

My daily Accuweather e-mail forecast today gave me pause. This isn't quite what they'd been
predicting in last few e-mails!

Looks to me like we might get even more snow, followed by a healthy dose of that rain we've been missing. Yikes.

The cattle do just fine in these conditions, unless it's below freezing and the winds are blowing. They have good feed and plenty of water. (They actually eat more when it's really cold out to help their rumens produce enough energy to keep them warm...and more feed means more water consumed, too.) The snow does make caring for our two jailed bovines - Eiger the bull and his girlfriend for the weekend, our young Xoe - since we have to bundle up to feed them their hay, but this is nothing like the winter conditions of January 2009, when my outdoor chore-wear included insulated Carhart bibs over long underwear, leaving me so bundled up I couldn't freely bend my arms, and I also had chickens to care for then, too, and their frequently frozen eggs to deal with.

I will be curious to see whether the rest of the Acuweather forecast comes true. I hope not. I start a new job on Tuesday and will have to drive the back roads - two lane, curvy with deep ditches on both sides - from Tenino to Lacey. My vehicle has all-wheel drive with some fancy computerized mechanism that changes which tires spin how fast if one hits a slick spot, something that really freaks Paul out (he has almost too much experience driving - and correcting for - hazardous winter road conditions...and misses the ability to have full control!). I'll be taking it easy and giving myself more time for the commute for sure.

If you're curious about our strange Western Washington weather, check out the link to Cliff Mass's weather blog in my sidebar. Sometimes he's a little too techy for me, but he really knows his stuff.

I know I have readers from all over the world now, and some of you probably don't often - or ever - encounter snow. But for those of you who do, especially folks in the Midwestern U.S., I hope you're staying warm and safe where ever you are!

Clyde, 22-month old steer.

Eiger the bull, locked in the paddock with Xoe (who's sleeping in the barn, out of the snow!), and staring down Clyde, who's NOT locked in the paddock!

Cow time

2012-01-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

The past month has really flown by! The holidays were difficult for us this year and took a lot of emotional energy, leaving me with nothing left for blogging. Sorry about that...I've made another pact with myself to blog at least once per week this year. After all, there are things going on here at the farm!
Eiger the bull had a good 45 days with Sheila and Roxanne. After Roxy's first heat, we've never seen her cycle again, nor has Eiger shown any interest at all. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she's settled again. She's such a delight...I would love to have a nice 2012 calf out of her!

Sheila is another story. Her behavior has continued to be odd. She still acts bullish, and still spends a little too much time by Eiger's side. We're pretty certain her days with us are numbered. Really, though, that's ok...it's life on the farm, and sometimes hard decisions have to be made.

We left Xoe, Clyde and Cowboy on our leased pasture for an extra 45 days so that we could easily keep little virgin Xoe away from Eiger a bit longer. We brought everyone home on December 31st, New Year's Eve day. The kiddos loaded like buttah', no mishaps or misbehavior or anything! The drama started up when we pulled into our pasture with the truck and trailer full of youngters. Sheila started up with similar behavior as what she displayed when Eiger arrived...bellowing so loudly I could only ask her to shut up (like that works!). Once everyone exited the trailer, though, things settled down for the most part.

Oddly, Clyde had some extra sort of hutzpah we've never seen out of the little guy, and took it upon himself to challenge Eiger repeatedly the entire rest of the day. I was so afraid one of them would get shoved through the fence. They head butted and wrestled from one side of the pasture to the other, around the apple trees, in the burn pile, by the feeder. It was exhausting to watch...and even while being T-boned on the shoulder and pushed sideways, Clyde STILL wouldn't give it up! He ended up panting so hard, with his little pink tongue sticking out, it scared me a bit. Once he caught his breath and had a drink of water, off they went again. Obnoxious! In the end, he had blood in his dossan at the base of his left horn, and a bloody left nostril (it had dried and clotted), but seemed content. Today he's just fine and all "proving himself" has stopped.

The funny thing is, Cowboy, who was always the boss of Clyde and Xoe, has neared the bottom of the heirarchy. We're wondering if perhaps he lost some self confidence after we took his mother, Sheila, off the leased pasture. He seemed pretty needy througout the summer, always sticking close to Sheila and refusing to cross the creek for the longest time to where the rest of the herd was enjoying the hay field. Clyde looks more filled out than Cowboy, leading us to surmise Cowboy lost a bit of weight in the last 45 days. He looks healthy, but certainly acts much less confident. He avoided Eiger like the plague those first few days, and then finally got the courage to head butt him a couple of times...and you wouldn't believe how quickly Sheila got into the fray, as if to protect Cowboy and stop the insanity. It is so weird. But, given how both Cowboy and his older half-brother, T-Bone lacked the shining personality of our other calves, that helps us with our decision to butcher Sheila. She's done a fair job, not great, but it's time to replace her with someone who fits here better. We'll be in the market for another female probably Spring 2013.

Until then, we'll enjoy watching this bunch interact together until Eiger goes home and the rest of the fold returns to the leased pasture in late April or early May (depending on how much rainfall we get).

Fracas in the pasture from Skookumchuck Farm on Vimeo.

Deja vu all over again

2011-12-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's winter here at the farm, and we're once again grumbling as we get back into the swing of raising cattle in the winter. Things we promised ourselves in early 2011 we'd get done by winter - like running water to the paddock and pasture and installing frost-free yard hydrants - didn't get done due to our Summer/Fall of Mourning. And now we're paying the price.

The weather has been dry but cold here the last couple of weeks, with several overnight temperatures dropping well below freezing (say, 21 degrees). Given our method of watering the cattle involves the outside hose bib and a 150' garden hose, let's just say it's been tough to keep the water trough filled for Sheila, Roxanne and Eiger. Last night the hose was frozen through the middle section, so Paul hauled 50 gallons of water by the 5-gallon bucket-full to get the trough reasonably full. See, cattle tend to drink more when it's cold, and we've been feeding the first haylage bale of the season, which also tends to make them want more water.

Thankfully, the hose was a little less frozen today. I had a tough time getting the water to flow, but finally realized that I could take the copper fitting off the end and whoosh, out came about a quart of cylindrical ice pieces! I filled the trough in no time and added the trough deicer for good measure. Those overnight temps are supposed to warm up a little bit through the next week (still in the high-20s to low 30s), but I suspect the deicer will be out for the long haul...and so will those darned buckets.

I told Paul that next year, I don't care *what* we have going on, we have GOT to get water lines installed! We are making this so hard on ourselves...and I shudder to think what it's going to be like next month when we bring Xoe home and have to manage two troughs as we separate her and Eiger from the rest of the herd. Oy.

Sometimes frost can look really mean. Look at those pointy teeth!

Hose ice. Hoser ice? Would you like some ice with that, hoser?

Roxy and friends during a thaw. We can always count on Roxy to pose...she's a natural-born model.

See what I mean?

New day

2011-11-20T07:18:00.000-08:00

I awoke with a start at 6:48 a.m. today (yes, gratefully, sleeping in!). My first thought was, "I really hope Eiger is still on our property." I walked to the living room, and just before I flung open the heavy curtains, which were pulled tight against the below freezing temperatures last night, I took a breath and whispered, "Please, let there be three out there!"

I giggled when my eyes adjusted to the dim. This is what I saw*:

Eiger and Sheila under the apple trees, side by side (on the left).

Roxanne, off by herself in the back corner of the pasture (on the right).

It looks like two somebodies struck a truce!

*Sorry for the slightly blurred photo. My camera doesn't take very good zoomed pictures in dim conditions.

Drama queen

2011-11-19T20:21:00.000-08:00

We had a little more drama on the farm today than we expected. See, a few weeks back we had the vet out finally to pregnancy check Sheila and Roxanne, and were very stunned and disappointed to find they were both open, or not pregnant. Sheila wasn't a big surprise. It was the second time in a row she'd missed. Roxanne, though, should have been pregnant. The best we can figure is she slipped her calf. We did move her a lot, straight from being with the bulls up north to our place for a week or two, and then over to the leased pasture, where she got acquainted with Sheila, Cowboy and Clyde, who were already there.

Now, since Roxy isn't bred, Sheila's had a stay of execution. There's no sense trying to breed one back without giving Sheila one last shot, too, right?

So, today, we moved the big girls home from the summer pasture, leaving Xoe, Clyde and Cowboy behind for another 45 days or so. Then, we headed south and picked up Eiger, a bull from Rustler's Roost Ranch, who happened to be finishing up a "job" in Kelso. Eiger's a smallish, curly-headed brindle guy who just turned two this month, and he was a perfect gentleman, loading into the trailer like it was an everyday thing. Paul chuckled to see Eiger's horn poking out through the side of the trailer all the way down the freeway.

The drama started when we pulled into the pasture: Sheila started bellowing, almost like a bull. She was throwing a royal fit! Eiger came out and stopped, standing sideways to her, trying to look big, head slightly down, one front foot slightly forward to make his shoulders look bigger. She did a lot of headshaking and (practically) screaming at him before she started pawing the ground and throwing dirt everywhere. At one point she even threw herself down on her front knees and rubbed her neck in the dirt. She was really, really obnoxious. All the while, Eiger stood silently, always sideways to her.

It seemed like all was well despite Sheila's fit-throwing (Roxanne, by the way, was perfectly mellow), but as Paul drove the truck and trailer out to the front gate, a great ruckus ensued, and I turned to find Sheila throwing her best kung fu moves at Eiger. They went round and round until, oops, suddenly Eiger was next to the fence...and he turned and jumped through it, and ended up in our next door neighbor's unfenced pasture!

I yelled for Paul to stop. Sheila continued to bellow but Eiger just stood there, quiet and bleeding a bit from the nose, on the other side of the fence. Paul climbed through with a little grain and got a halter on him while I knocked on the neighbor's next door and asked permission to walk a little bull down his driveway! I'm sure we were a sight, although I don't think anyone saw us...me leading the way, with Paul leading Eiger behind him. What a fortunate thing...we didn't even know whether Eiger was halter trained, let alone leadable. Normally, this isn't something you need to worry about when a bull is visiting; just bring 'em in and let them do their work. Eiger led like a dream, gentle and calm, his light hooves clopping down the neighbor's gravel drive, down the paved road a bit, and back up our gravel drive, and then all the way through the north pasture before Paul let him loose. (Meanwhile, I locked Sheila and Roxanne in the paddock. As soon as she saw Eiger again, Sheila shouted her displeasure.)

We left the girls locked in the paddock while we repaired the fence and cleared the fenceline of weeds and twigs. I plugged in the hotwire fence and Paul let the girls out with Eiger, carrying a nice bale of hay into the middle of the main pasture as a diversion. It helped that the steers who live kitty-corner from us came to their corner for a little bovine meet-and-greet.

We're not sure why Sheila threw such a fit. Never in the 3+ years we've owned her have we ever seen behavior like that and it was, frankly, unbecoming a lady...especially one meeting a new suitor! I did notice a nice long mucus string from her lady-parts, so I think she's either coming into or out of heat. Perhaps she was annoyed with the timing. Who knows. So long as she plays nice and lets Eiger at least breed Roxanne, we're good. Hopefully she'll breed back, too, but we're certainly not going to hold our breath.

The little ones, Xoe, Clyde and Cowboy (a.k.a. Mama's Boy, who, we heard it reported, bellowed after his momma Sheila for a while after she left today) will stay behind on the leased pasture until at least 45 days from tomorrow, giving Eiger enough time to be in with Roxanne and Sheila for two heats. Then, once we bring the little ones home, we'll put Eiger in with Xoe to breed her for the first time. She'll be just shy of two years old.

Meanwhile, I hope that's all the drama we'll have around here for a while. Today was a bit much, and Paul and I are both worn out now!

On our way home with Sheila and Roxanne, about to leave a little grain for the kiddos on our way out.

Downpour

2011-11-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

After seeing on the news both last night and this morning that we were going to be in for it, weather-wise, I smirked at the high clouds, the frosty fields, and thought, "Hmmm, it must be planning to miss us." I spent the day inside waiting for the Fed Ex driver (Honey the Foxhound's new best friend - he travels with dog cookies in his pocket!), anxious to drive the 10 minutes to our leased pastures to visit the cattle. I haven't seen them since weekend before last, and I needed some cow love.

The breeze picked up in the valley while I sat in my car talking to Jane, half of the property-owning duo, and noticed a few sprinkles, but the sky was still bright.

Driving down their long driveway, I stopped and decided to get out and go find the cattle. I thought I could see Xoe way in the back, so I knew the others would be there, too. They weren't interested in coming to say 'hi', so I walked all the way across the pasture, stopping to watch the 11 turkeys I startled fly away, and to crouch and examine two wooley bugger caterpillars in the middle of the pasture grass (why there?!). Clyde and Xoe stood to watch me approach. Rather than walk at them straight-on, which is threatening, I walked at an angle first one way, then the other, finally coming to within 50 feet and stopping to lean against a tree trunk.

"Oh, it's you!" they seemed to say, as Xoe, Clyde and Roxy all headed in my direction. I called, "Sheila, where are you?" and soon she lumbered out from beneath the trees. Soon, Roxy on one side and Sheila on the other, I was tandem-scratching the two big girls. Silly Roxy started counter-swinging her head and her butt in different directions. Apparently my thin fingers are a poor substitute for self-scratching on a branch, but she was trying to get my fingers to do what she wanted.

After a bit Sheila got pissy and stalked off, Cowboy at her heels. Roxy followed. (Sheila is a quiet leader.) On their way back into the trees, Xoe and Clyde both stopped for another sniff, giving me a chance to accept a lick from Xoe's funny black tongue and give her a scratch on the neck.

I felt only a few raindrops on my careful walk back through the pocked pasture toward my car. The rains started in earnest about halfway home. By the time I pulled into the driveway, holy cow, it was raining cats and dogs!

Looking outside at this moment, the sky is an angry gray, the tree branches are whipping and the rain is pouring from the sky. This will be one of those giant-puddle-in-the-driveway-making downpours, I can feel it...the perfect day to putter indoors!

Our driveway, less than 1 hour later. Did I call that or what?!

Holy tomatoes, part 2

2011-09-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

We've had some rain and decidedly cooler temperatures here (it was 38 degrees when I left for work yesterday), so rather than lose all our tomatoes to rot or frost, I thought I'd pick 'em and see what happens.
It took me about an hour. Note to self(ves, since this also applies to Paul!): next time, properly truss the plants!! What were giant monsters are now flattened, sprawling monsters. Some of the main stems on a few of the plants are so thick and heavy that they creaked when I lifted them to look for fruits underneath.

My strategy was to pick everything with the slightest red tint (except those gone soft, which I pitched to the side), then the largest green fruits on each plant. I ended up with way more than I expected...and to think there are hundreds of decent green tomatoes still on the vines! I need to consult with Paul as to whether we'll pull in the smaller ones. We don't have the horizontal surfaces to let them all ripen in the house, and I really don't want to wrap each tomato in newspaper - as was recommended - and then unwrap and rewrap each time I need to check for spoilage and readiness. (One year I did pull entire plants and hang them upside down from the garage ceiling...but see, forgotten tomatoes ripen and then hit the floor like red bombs. Between that and all the dirt, it was a mess!)

The fact that these plants performed so well despite a summer very much like last year's, I will definitely be planting these same varieties next year. Now, if only I can find the tags we stuck in the ground. (For the record, I think we only got one ripe 'Cherokee Purple', and I'm not certain the 'Oregon Spring' performed this year, but that one did well before so I'd give it another chance.)

These are in various stages of ripening.

Nearly ripe...

Ready to eat!! (These caused Paul to say, "You know, tomatoes are one of my favorite fruits.")

Sungolds. These are always good...but man, what a beast of a determinate plant!

Greener pastures

2011-09-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I got an email from Tom, owner of the pasture we're leasing, saying he thought we should probably let the herd cross the creek onto the hay pasture, which is luscious and green while the stuff they're on is waning.

We headed over this afternoon so Paul could help Tom unhook the temporary fencing that's kept them out of the precious hay field. (He noted that Xoe had her head through the fence just yesterday, trying to eat what she could reach.)

Paul picked a bucket of little green apples from the tree that hangs partway into our yard and used those as bribes to coax the cattle to cross the creek. It took a while and a lot of bucket shaking, but Xoe knew what was up and came over for more than her fair share. After trying for several minutes to encourage everyone else to come over, we had to give up and go hang new signs. Hunting season is starting in the valley, and we don't want anyone to take the super-faded old "No Hunting" signs as an invitation to take pot shots at our cattle. Paul climbed in the bucket of Tom's tractor and nailed fresh, bold signs way up out of reach from anyone on the ground. (Tom's lived at this property since the '80s and has seen it all, even people stealing the signs to say there weren't any signs up when they shot - or trespassed.)

By the time we finished, Clyde was in the hay field, muching fresh green grass, while Xoe and Roxy continued to search for the little green apples Paul tossed everywhere for them. Sheila and Cowboy would not join them (and we learned today they STILL haven't crossed!).

This grass will tide them over for a bit, at least until Paul and Tom get the other hay field securely fenced. We're very pleased with each animal's condition after 4 months of grass only. If weather permits, we'll leave the cattle there through mid-November and maybe into December, meaning we won't have to dip into our stored hay - or buy haylage - until mid-winter. Yay!

Paul hanging a sign close to the road.

Cowboy, 17-month old steer (2012 beef),
looking really good on grass only!

Roxanne (L), Xoe (black) and Clyde heading for Paul's apple bucket. (Clyde is our other 17-month old steer, and though lighter-framed than Cowboy, is also looking good for beef.)

Holy tomatoes!

2011-09-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today's weather was glorious: gray, a little breezy (but not bad), and, this morning, drizzly. It's fall! (I know, some of my fellow Western Washingtonians probably would like to kick me right now, but I can't help it, I'm excited the heat has left us!)
I decided to celebrate by cooking a meatloaf for dinner (using our own grass-fed Highland beef, of course!). We threw a couple of potatoes in the oven alongside, and then Paul decided to check the garden for tomato progress. I didn't think much of it since I was out there a few days ago and saw nothing but big green guys.

But look what Paul found:

We can't remember what all we planted, unfortunately. I wrote it down somewhere but have misplaced the note, and the crazy tomato plants have grown far beyond where we tucked in their tags. The giant one on the left is a 'Brandywine' and the dark one on the right is 'Black Prince', but the ones in the middle are mysteries to us at this point. We planted 'Stupice' and 'Siletz', both new to me (I think these might be 'Siletz' based on their small size). We also planted 'Oregon Spring' - which did fabulously in our 2009 garden and tasted fantastic, and a few others I can't remember.

We'll probably attempt to corral the rowdy plants under a hoop house to keep the rain off and the heat in a little bit in hopes that we get more tomatoes to ripen. This really is an unexpected and exciting development in our ho-hum garden!

Sizzle

2011-09-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

I spoke too soon! I whined and complained yesterday as if I would die from the heat. Today's been even worse. Even our house, normally cool enough if I keep all windows shut and every curtain pulled tight, is uncomfortable. Outside, though, the temperature continues to climb until it feels like every bit of moisture in my body will be sucked out through my pores, leaving me like a little raisin. We visited the folks we lease the pasture from and standing in their driveway, normally cool, I could feel the front of my right shin sizzling. (And to think he was out there cutting wood. Egads!)

My eyes just about popped out of my head when I glanced at my blog sidebar and saw where we're headed (high temps normally hit here around 5:00, so we're not quite there yet...but getting close). Thank heavens they're calling for much cooler temps in the coming days, even getting down to (gasp!) a high of 66 degrees by the 19th. This Washingtonian could jump up and down in anticipation...but it's too hot right now to do that. (I do have to admit, though, the heat is good for the tomatoes, and we ate our first ripe 'Stupice' this afternoon...YUM!)

I'm melting!

2011-09-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I said the name of this post out loud, in my best Wicked Witch of the West voice...you know, nasaly, high pitched with a hint of evil. I can't help it.
It's mighty hot here, folks. We're having a partial deja vu moment, harkening back to Summer 2010 (we had a summer that year? are you sure?). Yeah. I could have predicted how this would play out back in May, as we waited ever patient for some hint of spring to arrive, feeling to darned relieved to get a pasture lease so we wouldn't be faced with a second let's-see-how-fast-we-can-blow-through-our-hay-stash summer in a row. (That part has been really, really nice, by the way. The bovines are happily munching away on regrowth from their brush-hogged pasture (partially brush-hogged, I mean...that reminds me, there's more to be done), drinking from the permanent water source, that lovely cold source also responsible for keeping the grass nice and lush when the rest of our area looks like Mars, if Mars harbored dead, brown grass.)

Spring sort of arrived in June. The weather wasn't particularly friendly. July wasn't so great, either, if I recall. It's a blur due to this. And then of course this happened, leaving us reeling for all of August (and beyond) and yet noting how pretty the blue sky was and how many barn swallows we had flitting and flying overhead.

Big surprise...just as all the kiddos in Western Washington headed back to school, boom, here comes summer! It's not unusual to have an "Indian summer" in Western Washington. Heck, that's the reason we felt safe marrying in mid-September (best of both worlds, a wedding in the beginning of fall, my favorite season, with the tail-end of my favorite flowers, dahlias). This, however, seems to just be summer, late. Today's forecast in Tenino is 90 degrees with an east wind (the east wind brings hot Eastern Washington air over the Cascade mountains and into our side of the state). The fire danger today has risen to "red flag warning" per the local media, a rare event for sure. Given Paul's job (which has already been on "1:00 shutdown" or "hoot owl" for several days due to heat that wasn't anything like this), I suspect he'll be finding himself with a little free time this week as the Department of Natural Resources will not want to take any chances with logging operations causing a fire. Currently there are fires outside of Port Townsend (lovely community on the Olympic Peninsula west of Seattle) and in the Olympic Mountains, and there was one along a busy freeway, too. Hopefully this won't last too long.

Which brings me to our gardens. Life is funny. We'd opted to go "simple" this year because my pregnancy had Paul taking care of me AND everything else, and weeding a bunch of veggies just wasn't going to work out (plus, me slaving over a tiny stove with a giant pregnant belly in a too-hot kitchen attempting to can beets and beans? no way) . Of course, we have a little more free time on our hands now, but we couldn't have known that would happen. Our tomatoes are planted in the "big" garden this year with stakes around, but they were never tied up. Holy tomato jungle, Batman. I think we need to do a bit of pruning on the two 'Sungold' plants, which are closest to the gate, lest their arms finish creeping out and head toward the house. (Seriously, one is so big we can't easily get to the fruits growing close to the center. Well, I probably could with my long, skinny arms, but tomato plants make me itch, and I don't relish going outside in 90 degree weather in long sleeves to pick tomatoes.) We tried a 'Brandywine' this year for the first time, and Paul proudly showed me a giant green tomato squatting near the bottom center of the plant. We also did an 'Oregon Spring', which was our hero in our outrageously awesome 2009 garden. The beans, broccoli and cauliflower bring to mind our totally unfabulous 2010 garden, and we didn't even bother with corn this year. We planted one zucchini, two yellow crookneck and one 'Delicata' winter squash in the little garden and didn't bother to even weed the rest. It is a rip-roaring disaster zone, but somehow, those squash plants forged ahead. We've eated both zucchini and crookneck squash with dinner (not a lot, mind you, and oddly, the zucchini isn't very prolific this year). The 'Delicata' is trying. The vine is small-leaved and somewhat puny, and while its first several fruits turned black and shriveled up, it now has about half a dozen nice pale fruits in various sizes. I hope they'll make it to storage, or at least harvest and eating.

With all the bizarre weather the rest of the country has been experiencing, how are everyone else's gardens doing? Have you managed to harvest anything?

The small garden beds. You can barely see the zucchini and crooknecks just to the right of center. One hot mess, I'll tell you.

Ack. They lost me past 75 degrees.

Bovines: always good for a smile

2011-08-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

Even during this darkest time, Paul and I both are finding moments of humor, instances where we can laugh or giggle. We visited our Highland fold the day after we returned from the hospital, my mom in tow (who hadn't seen our cattle in quite a while and hadn't yet met our two newest ladies), and then, even then, loving on my four-legged hairy "kids" brought me joy.

This morning, it was a news story...I can only imagine the frustration these folks are experiencing, since we know all too well how darned smart cattle are, especially when you need them not to be! I hope this brings a smile to your face today, too...

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44144391/ns/today-today_pets_and_animals/#.TklPymP1rGg

Broken

2011-08-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

When your parent dies, you have lost your past.

When your child dies, you have lost your future.

~Dr. Elliot Luby

Paul and I are heartbroken to announce the births of our children on Friday, August 5th, 2011, our daughter at 6:14 a.m. and our son at 6:18 a.m. I was 14 weeks 2 days pregnant and our daughter, Baby A, closest to my cervix, the one we worried most about, had another moderate placental abruption followed by ruptured membranes on Thursday. They were both beautiful, tiny, perfectly formed. We're working on names now...our son is named but our daughter's name is more difficult to come by.

I plan to start another blog to document our experience, our grief, our memories...but right now I'm just so tired. Wrung out. Devastated.

Thank you for your love and support and please send blessings upward for our beautiful children...

Double happiness

2011-07-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

I've been a pretty absent blogger for the last few months...but I have a really good excuse...

Paul and I are expecting twins!

They're fraternal, conceived after many years of heartbreak, frustration and medical interventions we wish we could know nothing about, and although some might think we're in for it (and heck, maybe we are!), we're thrilled and blessed beyond measure!

I'm just out of the first trimester now, three months filled with lots of morning sickness, trepidation, some bedrest, and lots of joy and excitement. I've been laying low - pretty literally - with Paul taking on all farm chores so I don't overdo it (something I have a great tendency to do, and which causes me much more grief now). The protective daddy-to-be doesn't feel comfortable with me being in with our horned cattle (gee, I wonder why?!), so I've been very hands-off on the farm. He's taking great care of me and pretty much kicking butt in the domestic department as well. I'm starting to feel better and am hopeful I can pick some of my normal chores back up.

One thing I wouldn't have been able to keep up with was the chicken coop maintenance, and in fact I found myself with a very strange and unexpected aversion to eggs, most especially fresh-from-the-hens-in-my-barnyard eggs. With all the other chores Paul's had to pick up, and with him also working long summer days to build us a little nest egg in anticipation of our growing family, we opted to sell the flock to my friend Diane over at Township 18 Farm (hi Diane, and thank you!). So, as of this past weekend, Skookumchuck Farm LLC is Scottish Highland cattle only. We'll probably start a new flock of layers when our kiddos are a little older, but we'll have to wait and see. We'd also hoped to show Xoe, our new yearling black Highland heifer, at a couple of fairs this year, but given how much hard work it is to be at a show, and given how precious our working and vacation leave hours are now, we've decided not to. We hope to pick that back up in the future as well.

It's too early to know the sexes of our future children yet (we'll have to wait another 6 weeks or so), but we do know they are healthy, growing and developing right on track, and blowing our minds daily. Our families are overjoyed and anxious to meet this next generation, and so are we!

I probably won't post too much about the remainder of the pregnancy here except as it pertains to farming and our decision-making/planning around that, but rest assured I'll let you know when they're here...hopefully not before mid-January!

Our 9 week ultrasound photo, the clearest we have. (Baby A is upside down with feet up, facing left, and the round thing is the yolk sac. Baby B is head up, also facing to the left, with feet and bottom clearly visible.) At this point, 12 weeks 6 days, both babies are now almost 3 inches long and look much more human. :)

Meet and greet

2011-06-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

It's high time I introduce our newest Highland fold members, don't you think? Without further ado, please welcome Roxanne of Hem-Loch and Xoe of Hem-Loch, who came home to the farm over Memorial Day weekend!

Roxanne is a lovely yellow cow who enjoys being scratched along her spine and will follow you incessantly the second you stop giving her attention. I know from personal experience (being squirted by her former owner, John) that she's gentle enough to milk by hand. She's got a wonderful personality and is a very welcome addition to our farm. We're a little shocked to admit she also seems to be the leader, although a gentle one at that. Neither we nor the property owners ever witnessed any battles between she and Sheila (their meeting was almost anticlimactic since they're nearly the same size, age and have almost identical horns), but Roxy is usually in front when the herd comes to us. She's pasture exposed for an early spring 2012 calf.

Paul showing Roxy a little love. It's hard to resist...and she's a little pushy about it. :)

And then there's little Xoe (pronounced same as Zoe), a sassy, gentle little black yearling heifer with loads of personality. She was a little shy at first but is now pretty much in Paul's back pocket, coming over for scratches on her brisket when ever she can. We worried a little whether the rest of the fold would pick on her since she's black and they're all reddish, but she's holding her own and seems to get along well with everyone. She's our show animal and may be shown this year at the Grays Harbor County Fair in Elma in August if all ducks become properly aligned. She's too young to be bred yet but will be bred next year for a spring 2013 calf. I loved Xoe's daring demeaner when we met her and also admired her large dun mother, who has a look we've come to know as "type-y," meaning kind of boxy...and very Highland.

Paul and Xoe sharing a moment.

Both girls spent a week at our place so we could get to know them before joining Sheila, Clyde and Cowboy over at our leased summer pasture. We visit them all frequently (they usually come running because Paul can hardly stand to show up without apples!) and are pleased to see them making the most of their 10 acres. We're very excited to see what our future in Highland cattle farming brings to us...so far it's bliss!

"You're leaving already?" Left to right: Roxanne (of course!), Xoe, Clyde, Cowboy, and Sheila in the rear.

Mow, baby, mow!

2011-06-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

As much as I drug my feet around Paul's huge desire to buy a tractor, I have to admit it's really been a blessing. We no longer have to push and shove 1000+ lb bales of haylage out of the back of the truck during the nastiest part of winter, things that used to be a pain - like bringing in tons of wood pellets for our winter heat - are now easy with the pallet forks attached, and...we can mow the fields!

We are so impressed with how much our pasture grass has improved over the last year. I cringed every time we fed flakes of hay on the ground, knowing the cattle would eat some and waste most of the rest. Setting out haylage bales around the pasture during winter brought me worries of our herd's feet pugging the soft soil and causing damage. Imagine my delight when the grasses started to grow last month! I truly can't believe my eyes...even without harrowing to break up the manure piles and spread the old hay and haylage like we should have, the grass seeds, clover and other legumes bundled in the feed we bought have seeded our pasture. Granted, we don't have much, and some areas still need a lot of work, but now that we've seen what ground feeding around the pasture can do, you can bet we'll do it again this winter!

Right now, Paul is outside on the tractor, brush hogging (i.e. cutting with a rotary mower) our 2.5 acres of pasture. I wish we'd gotten to this chore a little sooner when the spring rains were more reliable, but we'll make do. I see some rain forecast for the week and am hoping the freshly mown grass - cut to about 6" in height - will get a chance to grow and stay ahead of the weeds. As pretty as the purple seed heads of the orchard grass were to look at, they and their fellow grass species have been wreaking havoc on my ever-present allergies. We may be slow learners, but we do learn, and boy, is it ever fun!

The first pass of the morning.

The height of the grass almost makes my knees weak!

We have a long way to go before our fields look like our leased pasture, but that's ok! After all, we're just going for a little winter stockpile at our place.

Learning curve

2011-05-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

It turns out we'll need to find another use for the free PVC pipes Paul picked up for me, as we no longer need a hoop house. Nope, he convinced me to go with a greenhouse kit instead. We got a good deal on this one, the last one left (and the floor model) at The Farm Store in Chehalis, and put it up last weekend. Paul built a u-shaped bench inside for me so I'll have lots of room to tinker. Much smaller than the 10' x 12' hoop house we had planned, this 6' x 8' model does have nice sturdy plastic on the outside, four roll-up window flaps with mesh behind for ventilation when you need it (and velcro all around to hold them shut when you don't), and an easy-to-assemble metal frame. Oh, and two fully zippered doors, one on each end.

Choosing a site wasn't easy, and we're not sold on the location (the same place we'd planned to put the hoop house). It seems to sit in a bit of a hole, so Sunday morning's indoor temperature, even with all the windows closed and the doors tightly zippered, was actually lower than the 30 degrees our patio thermometer read. We checked again just before we hauled the boys to their summer pasture, and boy howdy, it was up to 98 degrees (over 30 degrees warmer than outside)! A few hours later and it was a whopping 110 degrees.

I have a steep learning curve while I learn how and when to ventilate, and what to put inside during the summer. I'm afraid to invest in precious vegetable seedlings just yet, as I don't want to kill them off inside this wildly fluctuating environment. It doesn't sound like we're expecting frost for the next week, so my petunia and fuscia baskets are safer outside, too. I wish it was bigger because I did have dreams of puttering around and trying winter greens during our nasty weather, but maybe I can grow lettuce or spinach under the benches in some sort of box. (The floor is still grass for now, but once we choose a permanent location we can put down some gravel and I can cut in a raised bed or two, maybe.)

Whatever we do in there over the summer, you can bet I'll be checking the temperature a couple of times each day to see how my ventilation experiments are working.

Do you use a greenhouse in your garden?

The greenhouse in the evening.

Paul's garden benches, using his great uncle Art's sawhorses, some blocks of wood and fir rounds, old cupboard doors and plywood. Perfect!

Greener pastures

2011-05-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day for Cowboy and Clyde: they went to the new summer pasture! A few weeks ago, while talking with our mentors about our desire to expand our herd over time, they wisely said, "You need about 10 acres of pasture to lease." We thought that sounded nice, but unlikely. The next morning, Paul was cruising around on Craigslist in his pjs and yelled from the office, "Babe, there's a 10 acre pasture lease in Tenino!"

We immediately sent an email, and a couple of hours later were on our way to check it out. Great fortune was on our side that day...the place is 10 minutes from home, further into the hills than we live, and is drop dead gorgeous. Not only that, but the owners, Tom and Jane, not only agreed to lease to us, we young'uns with the tiny Highland herd that can't possibly keep up with 10 acres of lush grass, but they would like to see it become a long-term arrangement, AND they seem interested in allowing us to grow by using their land! Former cattle owners themselves (Herefords and then a Hereford-cross commercial herd), they've been leasing to other cattle owners over the years, most recently to a guy with Holstein heifers, and are happy to share their experience (and fencing supplies) as desired.

Meanwhile, we discovered to our dismay (but not total shock) that Sheila is open (i.e. not bred back). We'd been hoping for a calf in June or early July, and hadn't pregnancy checked her last fall like we should have because life was so busy, the winter was so crummy, etc. We seem to like to learn things the hard way, and the lesson here (duly noted, I'll add) is that no matter how busy or inconvenient life may be, certain things in farming should be handled in a timely fashion. The vet commended us for keeping Sheila well fed (since we assumed she was bred), but pointed out she is "fleshy" (slightly overweight) and if we sent her to pasture all season without a calf in her belly, she'd get fatter and may not breed back at all in 2012. After a slightly panicked evening, some a few quick phone calls the next morning landed Sheila a date with our friend Amy's bull, Talisker, in Shelton. Provided she re-breeds this time, she'll calve in the winter while at home with us.

Our dreams of growing the herd seems to be clicking into place, first with the pasture lease, and then with the addition of our two new females, Roxanne and Xoe. (More on them when they come to Tenino in late May.) We realize we can't grow too large because our home winter pasture is size-limiting, but by this time next year we should be back up to five head (two cow-calf pairs, two 24-month old steers and, by then, 2-year old Xoe).

Until then, we can adjust to life without any bovines at home! Paul's currently tilling the big vegetable garden plot, probably gleeful that our two steers aren't following his every move. We have plans to paint the barn a nice red color, reconfigure the interior and exterior stalls of the barn for better winter feeding/housing, do some pasture maintenance and fix the drainage problems in the sacrifice paddock. It's going to be a busy summer!

Cowboy (L) and Clyde, getting down to business in their new digs. They'll stay in a small handling area for a few days to get acclimated before we let 'em loose in the "big pasture."

Looking back toward the road from the house-end of the driveway. The boys are immediately to the left, the "big pasture" starts further up on the left, and the hay fields are on the right.

Practicing patience

2011-04-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Patience is a virtue, but it's not one of mine. I've had so many lessons lately where patience was the required (and missing) element, and I think I'm finally getting the message.

This is a little thing, but a perfect case in point: I'm itching, aching, to plant flowers - annuals - in all of my pots. I'm equally longing to put the gorgeous, huge petunia baskets Paul bought me for my birthday back on their hangers on the front porch. However, doing either would be disastrous to the plants involved. The average last frost date for Tenino is a long way off yet. The weather forecasts for Saturday and Sunday promise at least partly sunny skies and highs in the 50s, but lows of 30 and 31 degrees, typical for April (and even May!) in my little town. So why am I so impatient?

Those lovely flowers in the medians or around businesses in Olympia are perky and bright on the same mornings where even tough daffodils at my house are hanging their heads in frozen resign. Paul dutifully, as if nurturing a child or someone housebound, carries my petunia baskets out from the garage to sit in the waning evening sun, for just a little TLC and fresh air, before bringing them back in to sit on the floor in the diffused light from the windows.

My plant pots are sitting at the ready, all in a group, waiting for new occupants. The pansies that barely survived the winter in a few other pots are struggling to rejuvenate themselves, and may make it through another season.

But my longing to putter and make things pretty outside will have to be satisfied by weeding, for just as the cold is too hard on my delicate annuals, the weeds laugh heartily and grow like, well, weeds. I'll try out my new garden tools, especially the strong-looking hand rake with its beefy tines, in the choked sandy bottomed paths in the raised vegetable garden, putting a little order to the chaos. I might even clear out a bed and plant (late) peas!

In all, I'll have to hang tight and admire Mother Nature's own hearty plants while I resign myself to practicing patience.

Sheila looking out during a brief sun break.

Fabulous freebies!

2011-04-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and while I adore the two huge purple Wave petunia hanging baskets Paul bought for me, it's the free stuff he scored that really got me excited!

Who knew used 3/4" gray PVC pipe could be so thrilling?

I've been reading about other gardeners' adventures with hoop houses for some time. The Matron of Husbandry broods chicks in one, and then plants her tomatoes and peppers in the freely fertilized soil once the chickies move out. Paul's Great Uncle Charlie grew fabulous tomatoes in a much smaller version. Of the three years we've gardened in this house, one was so so and one (last year) was a flop, especially where tomatoes and peppers are concerned, and I wondered whether a hoop house might be the ticket. And the idea of having someplace warm to idle in January while it's cold and nasty outside...mmmm. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Armed with a few ideas, lots of scrap lumber and those free pieces of 10' PVC, Paul and I plan to build our own hoop house, using some of the ideas I found here.

We'll site it between Honey's kennel and the existing concrete-lined raised garden, running north-to-south, where it'll help block the view of the two-story home being built behind us (behind and to the right of the red barn, which is likely a tear down).

I've wanted a greenhouse for quite awhile, but every time I look at prices I cringe. I feel fortunate that we now have the materials (minus the plastic, which shouldn't cost too much) to build our own at a time when our financial focus is on our other project. While I'm practically giddy at the thought of summer coming and whisking away all our wet, dreary weather, I can nod appreciatively toward next winter, when I envision myself cuddled around seed catalogs with a cup of tea and a pencil, placing my orders for the seeds I'll turn into our own home-raised vegetables!

Happy Spring!

2011-03-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

Now, if only it would warm up!

In the spring,
at the end of the day,
you should smell like dirt.
-Margaret Atwood

An unusual love story

2011-01-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

Paul and I totally believe Highlands are lovable...and apparently we're not the only ones! Happy 10th Anniversary, Hamish the Highland Bull and Ms. Goose!

Harvest time

2011-01-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we harvested beef, and I found myself approaching harvest day feeling both humbled and sure. Humbled because Paul and I again got to be a part of supplying our customers with high quality beef that we know is safe and tasty to eat and was humanely raised and produced. Sure, because we know that the choice we made to cull those two animals from our herd was the right one.

We made the decision to cull both of these girls fairly easily (although what is really "easy" about this decision?). One was a "rescue" we had high hopes for, but we really should've known better; rarely can you get a diamond for next to nothing. In her case, the disappointing reality was that she had fertility problems (side - good thing we don't cull humans, or I'd be in trouble!), but she was also wild and unmanageable. The second cow, even though she was one of our first in the herd, also had attitude problems along with some physical conformation issues that really made her someone we didn't feel comfortable selling off to someone else.

There are many reasons to pull a cow from a herd. Open cows, those who fail to breed back, cost a farm or ranch money because they are not producing the next year's calf crop on schedule. In a large cow/calf operation, open cows are often shipped cows, making their way to a table near you. Cows who are too old to breed, or whose udders have fallen from slipped ligaments, the result of either poor conformation or too many years of breeding, have a hard time rearing calves and are sold or slaughtered. Cows with weird leg conformation, especially in the hind legs, don't move as well to feed or otherwise get around, so they're culled. Cows that cannot keep their body condition up throughout the year despite good management are also culled. As much as we love our cows, we do study them with eyes-in-training, looking for clues that they no longer meet our needs.

Incidentally, we received our copy of The Bagpipe, the quarterly journal of the American Highland Cattle Association, in the mail last week and discovered the Highland Performance Data Report. Among other things, the report summarized docility scores of Highlands on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being nearly zen calm, and 5 being crazy wild and potentially dangerous). After reading the descriptions provided, Paul and I were able to place each of our animals appropriately, and this further validated our decision to harvest the two animals, both on the "wrong" end of the scale. Certainly, having better handling facilities, like chutes and gates, would help us manage unmanageable animals, but what we really want on our farm is animals who don't require such measures just to work with them. (In case you're wondering, my girl Sheila is in the 2 range, most of the time. When she's not she does quickly remember who is boss (me!), thanks to my pal Bonnie's tactic of holding my arms out like giant horns! Not that she likes it, but she does back down right quick.)

Now that the harvest of our wild cows is past, we hope we don't soon forget how difficult it was to separate them (especially the wilder of the two) from the herd and get them where we needed them to be. No, with our herd, we want to aim for zen...or darned close to it!

The teases!

2011-01-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

The end of 2010 (really, most of 4th quarter 2010) was largely eggless at Skookumchuck Farm. You'll all recall the trouble I had with my broody hens over the summer, resulting in a few frustrating "breaking" attempts involving both cold troughs of water and isolation crates (and finally in the hatching of four chicks in late July). Then The Moult 2010 began, striking first Teeny (who was in desperate need of a new frock) then undulating through the rest of the girls. So what, right? Well, broodiness and moult both result in a suspension of egg production. Yeah, it's embarrassing to admit, but we had to actually *buy* eggs to eat for a while.

Imagine my thrill to discover two gorgeous eggs in the coop the other evening! One brown, one green, both were perfect and lovely, with not a smidge of dirt on them. Yay!

Apparently my excitement was short lived, as I haven't seen another egg in the past two days. However, the days are slowly but surely getting longer, and the coop is less crowded now that three of the four chicks-turned-massive-horny-annoying-rooster-boys have been rehomed via the poultry auction in Chehalis. (My little boy, who really needs his own post, remains with the flock, all cute and sweet and so far not annoying at all.)

I do long for the days when not only are Paul and I eating our fill of those yummy eggs with the dark orange yolks and firm whites, but my egg clients are, too!

How do YOU like your eggs? Hard boiled? Soft boiled? Over medium? Scrambled with a bit of smoked salmon, cream cheese and green onion?

Prepping a couple days' eggs for hard boiling, April 2010 (with one oddball tiny egg for comparison).

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

From all of us at Skookumchuck Farm (four- and two-legged alike!), we wish you and yours a safe, prosperous and joy-filled New Year!

A frosty start to the last day of 2010!

The little Teeny that could

2010-11-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

This morning when I opened the chicken coop door to let the birds out to free range in the rain, Teeny, my little crooked-toed runt hen, paced back and forth as usual, chattering away. I've been watching her moult over the last week or so, first showing spikey feather quills in the bare spots on her shoulders and thighs, now opening and making her look like she has a perm as they unfurl this way and that.

Teeny is such a little fighter. She was the last to hatch out of the 19 chicks whose parents were massacred by the coyotes in May 2009. She had pipped about the time I came to visit my new charges in my friend's big fancy incubator. Her siblings were all several hours older, fluffy and dry, tottering about. My friend suggested if it were him, he would let that pipped chick die; chances at that point that it would come out alive were low. However, as he spoke he picked up the egg and gently helped the chick out. I don't know why...even as he did it he said he'd had bad luck helping chicks in this situation in the past and he usually had to euthanize them in the end.

Concerned, I gathered up the other 18 and took them home to warm and grow in the brood box, leaving the newbie to dry and hopefully live. It - I wouldn't know she was a she for several more weeks - did indeed survive, albeit with crooked little toes and a teeny tiny body...thus her eventual name: Teeny.

Now, 18 months later, this funny girl with the bent over toes on one foot (caused by low humidity in the incubator, the same reason she was failing to hatch) moves quickly through the paddock, sticking close to the rooster and often claiming his wormy offerings before the other, much bigger hens. She seems to be more succeptible to mites and other chicken parasites so has spent much of the year with big bald spots, now, thankfully, being covered back up by the annual reclothing that moulting brings. Despite being half Black Australorp, she remains teeny tiny, a bit bigger than a banty (miniature) hen. But boy, you should see this girl's eggs! I have no idea how that little body pumps out large-sized eggs, but it does, and with regularity. Good girl!

I smiled as I walked out of the barn and secured the door in it's semi-open-for-chicken-passing position, Teeny clucking and squacking and making all kinds of racket. That's what she does...she's a survivor, a talker, a go-getter. The Little Teeny That Could certainly has!!

Teeny in the middle, 3 months old.

Cracking open

2010-11-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

People often ask me how we manage to work outside the home, keep up with the farm, and hold commitments to outside organizations (for me, I'm an officer in two, Paul's a member in both), and I quip something clever - or not - about how we just do it. In the back of my mind, I wonder sometimes how we will just do it in the future, when life becomes busier and more complicated.

The thing is, there's a whole other "project" of utmost importance going on in our lives, something I only recently thought about sharing here. Why share? Because over the past several months - the length of time this project has really been brewing - it's been all-consuming to the point that I can barely think of anything "farmy" to share about on the blog. We feed cattle. We comb them sometimes. I tend the chickens. Those things are all important...but they're just tasks right now, very secondary to the big one.

What's going on? Some of you have already figured it out...we're battling infertility. I see the irony of this given the relative fertility of our farm - we've had four calves born here, and hatched 21 chicks over two seasons. We see baby wildlife every spring, and our vegetable gardens bear fruit (er, vegetables). Meanwhile, Paul and I have struggled for years to create our own fruitful family.

We finally sought the help of specialists in July, and it's been a whirlwind journey ever since. We now have hope where we previously had only frustration. We've been through some treatments. We've done a lot of waiting with crossed fingers and prayers. We've been through some disappointment and heartache, and asked a lot of "WHY???" Over all we believe we are taking the right steps forward, and that it will pay off or it won't. We know even if in the end we can't have our own children, we have other options to share our deep love for one another with kids. We will be parents. Someday.

Infertility is such a taboo topic, which is so sad to me. So many people, some who aren't trying conceive or don't want to be parents at all, find their bodies doing what they're built to do with ease. The rest of us, a fairly large (and quietly mourning) percentage of our population, try and try and try, month after month after agonizing month. Thank God for online support groups, where we can lament the latest well-meaning but ill-researched and sometimes hurtful comment of people who.do.not.understand. "Don't worry, relax. It will happen. You're just trying too hard." "You should try this herb/that vitamin/this vegetable." "Have you seen this doctor/that doctor/my reflexologist?" Like so many things, there are no easy answers. At least we have a diagnosis of sorts; some folks are labeled "unexplained infertility." The infertility journey is stressful, expensive, exhausting...and yet hopeful. Sometimes I wish we lived in a state that mandated infertility coverage; Washington does not. In fact, for most of us, there is no insurance coverage at all. How sad that finances - the inability to afford up to tens of thousands of dollars to conceive a baby - often stop wonderful people from becoming responsible, self-supporting parents.

So. Why share all this now, and why here? We are lucky to have family and close friends in our corner who know what's going on, sometimes a little too much (it'll sure take the surprise away when it does happen for us, but the delight will be the same!). I guess I hope getting this off my chest will open the doors again to my ability to share farm stories, which are there but have frankly paled in comparison to this bigger thing. I do thank all my readers for sticking with me, checking in, and being a part of all of this.

On Skookumchuck Pond...

2010-10-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

I really like the idea of a farm pond, the type our (future) children could fish or swim in, the kind the family could enjoy the view of, a place where I, the harried working woman, could catch some peace. Alas, we really don't have the property for it...neither the room nor the bucolic setting I envision.

So, thanks for trying to appease me, Mother Nature, but the sight that greeted me when I returned home from work today is definitely not what I had in mind!! (It's in the middle of our sacrifice paddock, a mud bath on it's drizzly days. The torrential downpours of the last 24 hours have really created a mess! Do I need to describe it? It's slightly more than ankle deep (I know from personal experience last year), mucky bottomed with some manure and urine mixed in, courtesy of the cows. Ooo, it's nice (said with sarcasm). The cows aren't necessarily digging this new paddock feature, pretty much steering clear of it all together. I am curious whether the chickens would be interested in it, but they didn't get an opportunity to free range this evening.

The weather forecast for the next 10 days shows only two "clear" days with no precipitation. I wouldn't mind at all if things turned around and dried us out. Then again, it's only November, the beginning of another La Nina weather cycle (the cause of the January 2009 floods), and here in Western WA, we can expect rain from now through early March...or worse. It's gonna be a wet one, folks. I'm very thankful for my rubber boots!

No, Cowboy, that's not a swimmin' pool. Don't get too excited!

The elusive Mr. Stinky

2010-10-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

We appear to have a new, unwelcome visitor to Skookumchuck Farm.

I happened to go into the barn one evening, well after dark, to lock the chickens in after their day of free ranging. It was later than I would have liked, but everyone was home on the roost, settling down for sleep. I heard a ruckus in the corner of the barn, just outside the door to the coop, behind a garbage can. I baited under the barn for mice just last week, so thought perhaps a mouse was back there in its death throes.

I stepped out of the coop and cautiously peered behind the door, toward the corner. The rustling stopped. I held my breath. A nose appeared, and then a portion of a dark face. My brain couldn't compute...what the Hell is that? And then, I saw white. Black and white. SKUNK!! I whispered something akin to "holy crap," quickly shut and locked the chicken door, shut the barn door behind me, and ran for the house. Sticking my head through the back door, I yelled, "Paul, there's a skunk in the barn!!!"

Against better judgement, we grabbed a second flashlight and beat feet back to the barn. Paul went first, slowly opening the barn door and peering through like we were actors on CSI or something. We could smell the faint eau d'skunk, but we'd been smelling that for days. (Paul had believed it was the hay we store there. I knew that was weird!) We checked everywhere, hearts pounding, ready to run for the door, even made it all the way to the corner where I saw it (I had to see for myself when he said it was gone). Sure enough...it was nowhere to be seen! Given the barn door was propped open for the chickens, I think we can figure out how it gone in, ut how did it get out with the barn door closed?

We haven't seen it since. The next morning I could smell the faint odor of skunk out by Honey's dog kennel, but no signs of the animal. I thought perhaps it got run over on a nearby road. Twice Honey has barked strangely at bedtime from inside the house. The first time we ignored her, but when she did it again last night, we bolted for the door in our PJs with the flashlight to check it out. The second Paul opened the door, we could smell skunk. We looked and looked, but no sign of the little bugger! As best as we can figure, it was just passing by!

Chances are it's living under the barn. I've read that they enjoy not only chickens and eggs (my big fear), but also mice, and heaven knows there was a steady supply living under the barn until I started baiting them. I can still smell the faint odor of skunk inside the barn, probably wafting up from beneath the old, holey plywood floor. Grreeaaatttt.

I have no idea what to do about this critter. I hope it just moves on, like our Department of Fish and Wildlife information on skunks suggests. I feel a little less comfortable reading we have two species, the Striped Skunk and the Spotted Skunk (also known as the civet cat, if you've ever heard of that). The size and head markings of the face I saw matches the Spotted, which, unlike it's larger partner in odiferous weaponry, actually CAN climb well and doesn't move about as freely.

What are your experiences with skunks?

From the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife site.

Must see!

2010-09-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've seen this movie trailer on two blogs I read regularly, Fairhope Farm and T. Cupp Miniatures & Family Cows, and it's really struck a nerve. I think it will help feed that part of me that longs to farm full time.

The corn must be ready...

2010-09-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

Not exactly what you want to come home to.

Summer's end

2010-09-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

It looks like Sunday marked the end of any summer-like weather in Western Washington. Looking ahead at the 10 day forecast shows mostly rain and highs only in the mid-60s at the most. Yep, summer's over!

Typical of Labor Day weekend here, Mother Nature dished out rain, some decent winds, dark gray clouds, and some tiny peeks of blue sky and sunshine for the holiday. Paul and I decided to take our boat out in the South Sound off Olympia and "boat camp" as some call it (we just call it hanging out and sleeping on the boat) off Hope Island Marine State Park.

Little did we know, Olympia hosts the Vintage Tug Boat Races over this weekend...this year was the 37th annual. (Where have we been?!) After mooring Saturday night in a guest slip at Swantown Marina so we could tend to some local business on Sunday morning, we shoved off and ended up right in the middle of the race course. Oops! We dodged out of the way and idled off to the side to watch three old tugs go blasting by, pushing amazing amounts of water out of their way. The grand 'Galene,' a 1942 (I think) tug we'd toured Saturday afternoon blew our socks off with an amazing race. She's huge and looks like she'd go zero to sixty in 11 minutes (as the bumper sticker on a VW Bus we saw said), but nope, after a seemingly slow start she absolutely creamed the competition. (Did they let her win out of respect? We'll never know.)

That over with, we motored across the bay and over to my mom and stepdad's cabin, where we anchored and rowed ashore for some appetizers. Then, it was off to find moorage for the night. Good timing, too, because the winds started howling. We ended up in a pretty good anchorage on the SE side of Hope Island with two sailboats and two other power boats, in it for a windy, bumpy night. We awoke to more gray and wet decks, so we knew it'd rained a little. Rather than brave the whitecaps and row ashore to walk the trails, we headed for home. It was a nice, albeit brief, boating excursion, likely our last for the year (unless Paul makes another fishing trip).

I'm home an extra day, on state mandated furlough, which is fine by me...more time to let the chickens out to range! I let Mama and the four chicks out, and to my surprise, she boogied right across the yard and hopped through the paddock fence to join the rest of the flock. She's hardly turned back. The four kiddos seem nonplussed, ranging around the relative protection of the yard, eating bugs and grass and seeds. I'm hoping they'll either find a way through the fence and join the others, or head back to their pen where I can move them to a cat carrier and transport them to their new home with the flock tonight at dark. The rest of the flock has seen them, I'm sure, but doesn't seem interested in the least! I hope it stays that way...or even better, I hope a couple of hens turn into chick protectors!

At any rate, this seems a nice way to button up the summer.

'Galene' showing the #2 boat how it's done!

Vintage charm during a sunbreak.

End of summer reality: Paul harvesting the last of the broccoli while the herd anticipates the removal of the garden fence...and weed eating galore!

Garden recession

2010-08-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

Our expected 2010 vegetable gardens this year appear to have performed about as well as the sluggish U.S. economy. After last summer's spectacular harvest and overwhelming plant growth, we hoped for a repeat or better! Alas, Mother Nature had something else entirely in mind, bringing us underwhelming summer weather. In fact, here it is August 29th, and it's felt like mid- to late-September for at least the last three weeks. Sure, we had about a week of 90+ degree days, but those were preceeded by highs in the 70s to 80s, and followed by even cooler temperatures. Waking up yesterday morning to 38 degrees was the final nail in our pantry's coffin. They're calling for rain in several of the coming days, with temps in the mid- to upper-60s, topping out in the 70s. My dreams of rows of canned tomatoes, packets of frozen beets and green beans, and shelves of ripened squash have been, er, squashed.

Here's the veggie recap:

Tomatoes: after having to replace several plants due to early blight damage on some of the first-comers, we have a harvest of zero. Zilch. Nada. Three of my plants have teeny, tiny green tomatoes on them as of last Tuesday. I don't know why they bothered. They will never ripen.

Zucchini: We've harvested 6. There are a few more attempting to ripen. They might make it. Even the always overabundant zucchini couldn't beat this weird summer weather.

Bell pepper: I harvested 1 overripe pepper after leaving it on the vine, hoping it would actually grow in size and change from green to red (which would indicate ripeness). I gave up after observing no changes in a month, picked the thing, tasted (yuk!!), and threw it to the chickens.

Beets: The beet harvest remains to be seen. The plants got off to a slow start, which is a huge disappointment after last year's spectacular show. Granted, I planted a different variety this year than last. The greens are still small, but perhaps we'll get some decent sized beets in the end. I think we harvested those last year in mid-September.

Radishes: planted as a companion to the zucchini, these did pretty well, although they were hotter than the hubs! Easter Egg II variety, they were quite pretty, but have too much heat for my palate. I'll try a milder version next year.

Squash: oy. The butternuts were very slow to start, didn't bother to climb the ladder I offered, and haven't even flowered yet. I think we can safely call them a dud. The spaghetti squash were slow to start, too, but finally flowered and set some fruit. Only 1 is of any size. I may have to follow the lead of Throwback at Trapper Creek and remove the fruits that won't ripen in time. It would be nice to get at least one good-sized spaghetti. The pattypans, which I planted to replace the twice-uprooted pickling cucumbers, didn't ever take off. I removed one malformed, split squash and fed it to the cows. There's another even more oddly shaped one still growing.

Cucumbers: the original plants were savagely uprooted by a chicken who found a hole in the garden fence. She didn't probably mean to hurt the plant...it was more about the mound of dirt it was growing in. Chickens can't resist mounds of dirt and debris, scratching them flat in no time. The poor cucumber plants were left baking in the sun, roots and all, for at least a day before we noticed. I replaced one plant with a lemon cucumber, but that one didn't take off. It's got many flowers now, but since the weather has changed to very fall-like, I don't think it'll set fruit.

Beans: talk about slow to start! Only three plants out of the entire 2 25' rows even bothered to start climbing their poles. For a while I wondered if I'd mistakenly purchased bush bean seed instead of pole! The plants haven't flowered. I'm considering them a bust. Our neighbor did swap us two fat quart-bags of fresh green beans for a couple of pieces of fresh salmon filets, so we did get to eat some. Yummy!

Corn: the 'Bodacious' was slow to start, but has rallied. Most of the 6 25' rows of plants are 8' tall. All have tassles, and all have two little ears showing silk. Given our weather has cooled substantially right when the corn needs hot sun the most, though, we may not get much of a harvest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. ('Bodacious' is an early corn, but we planted it a little late. Still, it should be ready to harvest on September 3rd. Fat chance!)

Onions: I took a chance and planted my copra storage onion seeds in the big garden, amongst all the rocks. I harvested a fat bunch of green onions this morning to add to our smoked salmon and cream cheese breakfast scramble. There are many more plugging along, but I expect the rocks to inhibit bulb growth.

Broccoli: this has been the start of our summer garden, producing fat heads on all 8 plants (two varieties). Side shoot production has been ok, but not spectacular. We weren't able to find the star variety of last year, 'Umpquah,' but the 'Premium Crop' and 'Packman' have done pretty well. ('Packman' seems to like to bolt early, though.)

Cauliflower: the plants look pretty good and don't show signs of club root fungus like last year. I did have one plant flag in the first week of planting, showing that telltale sign of perking up overnight, then wilting during the day. Suspecting the fungus, I ripped it out and threw it in the garbage. We don't have harvestable heads yet, but the green cauliflower looks promising. I do recall the purple was later last year, so hopefully we'll still have time to ripen those, as were really happy with last year's harvest.

We plan to remove both of our current veggie gardens and move/rebuild for 2011. Plans are still a little fuzzy, but will involve building a new chicken coop (to sit either where the current raised garden is, or maybe where the "big garden" lives now. We will also more likely do raised beds for the whole of the veggie garden, not only for slightly warmer soil and fewer rocks (we're very rocky here), but also because we could more easily install hardware cloth at the bottom to keep the pocket gophers out. (One cut my parsley plant off at the roots this week!) So many projects, so little time!

How did your vegetable gardens fare this year?

All the promise of little seedlings. *sigh*

Mama and the gang

2010-08-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

My, how time flies! It seems like only last week that Mama and her Blue Laced Red Wyandotte buddy hatched four chicks, and those little fluffballs are already five weeks old!

They hatched several days apart...one the first day, two the next day...and the little straggler three days after that. All four put their feathered jackets on quickly, as chickies do, and now only the little baby has any down left. They're entering their gawky tween stage...funny growing feathers sticking out oddly on the backs of their little heads, sizing one another up to determine hierarchy.

Paul went tuna fishing recently and set up his fish cleaning/packaging station right near the brooding coop, so Mama and the chicklets got many, many snacks of raw tuna. I'm pretty sure they like Paul better than me...protein-based bribes tend to do that!

I may be moving the whole bunch back into the main coop with the rest of the flock over the weekend. I'm nervous about it, because re-introducing chickens who have been separated usually causes the flock to reset boundaries and pecking order, and I've never introduced chicks to an adult flock before. I've been assured that Mama will put the fear of Chicken God into any who dare torment her babies. I hope that's true. I also hope the Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hen who helped hatch them remembers and becomes another champion for them. At any rate, it has to be done...the chicks are getting big enough now that the brooder isn't going to big enough for the whole family for long, and I'd really, really like Mama to go back to the business of laying eggs. Fall is coming, which means the annual moult isn't far behind, so my egg production will decrease for that anyway.

They got a short taste of freedom yesterday. I wish they weren't so hard to photograph.

At two weeks old.

That's no bull

2010-08-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

Actually, that IS a bull! Skookumchuck Farm is playing host family for the month of August - and part of September - to CC Hercules, a silver dun 5-year old Scottish Highland bull, who's main goal is to sire a calf with Sheila. He's on lease from our friends at Hemlock Highlands in Sedro-Woolley, way up north.

Hercules is a very, very big boy. I'm 5'9 and 3/4" (a smidge under 5'10"), and this guy's back hits me mid-chest. He truly makes Sheila look like a dainty cow, and that's some doing, because, well, she's not! Sheila herself is a large-framed cow, probably in the realm of 1200-1400 lbs. Hercules is every bit of 2000 lbs, if not more. He's got a thick, curly neck, big, wide, sweeping Highland bull horns that come to a point front, a giant schnozz, and a thick, muscular body. We hope between the two of them, this pair can produce a gorgeous 2011 calf.

Hercules' personality seems pretty mellow. When he bellows, he's almost silent, kind of squeaky, although I'm sure the cows find it most attractive. He's taken to destroying each rogue apple tree in our north pasture, one at a time, which is making us nervous since he will shortly run out of targets, and he's only been here 6 days so far. I suggested we find him a big ball to kick around and keep him occupied...perhaps that won't work.

Sheila isn't quite in heat yet, although we can tell by the amount of time they're now spending together (as opposed to her "get the Hell away from me" body language the first few days) she's getting closer. Bridgit and Natalie are sequestered in the sacrifice paddock behind their own hotwires to keep them away from Hercules. We do not want to breed them since we plan to butcher them both (yes, both) this winter.

Big man Hercules, with his new girlfriend in the distance, playing hard to get.

Testing, testing...nope, not ready.

Firmly rooted

2010-07-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

In my quest of continuous learning and networking, I have signed myself up for a variety of online mailing lists, forums and listservs. One listserv, connected to the Small Farms Program at Washington State University, has been a very active contributor of interesting invitations to a wide array of educational opportunities, including one a couple of months ago to sign up for a new online workshop through Rural Roots.

The course, Planning for Profit: Using Farm Financial Planning and Direct Marketing to Improve Your Bottom Line, sounded intriguing, promising topics such as farm financial management, goal setting, and planning. I sent away my $15 and signed up, receiving by mail a short time later a fat packet of information. The workbook, "At Home with Holistic Managemet: Creating a Life of Meaning," by Ann Adams, pulled me in immediately, although didn't seem directly related to the workshop, at least as I envisioned it.

No matter...the reading is easy and interesting, focusing on creating not just a farm but an entire life built around one's holisticgoal (yes, one word), which is a carefully crafted roadmap for a family, a business, a farm, to reflect on and use to make wise decisions to move the family/business/farm forward in a way that reflects the entity's values. The workbook is published by Holistic Management International. Being the designated learner in this household, I'm stalled right at the creation of the holisticgoal, trying to set aside time for a thoughtful discussion with my husband and farming partner so that we can talk this through. Once we have it in writing, I can take that holisticgoal and finish the rest of the coursework. Oy, but time is a precious, rare thing in the summer (work, farming, animal husbandry, feeding ourselves, and, of course, fishing!). I'm peaceful with the fact that I may not finish the course on time. I'm pretty sure they won't send me hate mail.

The first four chapters, which wrapped lessons on our ecosystems and communities around personal and farm goal setting (such as living a green life, capturing solar and wind energy and water), really got me thinking about permaculture.

My brain is really full, but suffice it to say I researched and bought one of my new faviorite books, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (Second Edition), by Toby Hemenway. I'm hooked, flipping randomly through pages and learning about new shapes for garden beds and herb spirals, how to site an orchard, an herb garden, salad greens, even poultry, in zones around the house to minimize the farmer/gardener/eater's time and energy expenditure while best using the land available.This is quite timely, as Paul and I plan to remove our existing veggie gardens (yes, all that broken concrete!) and build a new chicken coop and run in place of one, while giving the other back to the sacrifice paddock. Now I'm considering vegetable garden shapes...should we forgo row crops (which gives up a lot of space to weedy paths between rows) and go with boxy raised beds, or should we go really nuts and build keyhole designs, nearly circular shapes with the path in the middle, and veggies all around? Should we put it over here, or over there? What about a greenhouse, where could that go? Maybe the orchard should live in the front pasture, not over by the garage. My brain cells can hardly take all the thinking and scheming, but then I look at the wonderful photos on the cover of this book, take a nice breath, and get back to flipping through pages, taking it all in.

I'm not sure where this will lead, or how long it might take, but I'm open to the possiblities. What I know is Paul and I want to better use our land, plant shade trees where they'll help cool the house but not block the veggies' precious sunlight, berries close enough we'll actually remember to pick them, but not too close, and a chicken house we can delight in from inside. I'd like a small pond or swale or something, and would like to harvest some of the rainwater that falls on the barn roof. I think permaculture may have all the answers, but it's a big topic. And I've just stuck in my big toe.

Photoless Thursday

2010-07-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

My camera has been possessed, and is holding my great photos hostage! I have yet to determine the cause of the problem, but for now I am unable to retrieve images from either my old or new memory card. I have some great photos, too. I'm quite sad about it.

Meanwhile, as I've been fighting the camera, several things have happened:

1) Mama and her buddy, the Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hen, have successfully hatched two chicks as of this morning. One was from a brown egg, one from the sole Easter Egger egg. Paul and I rebuilt "rooster jail" and reduced it to 36 square feet, moved it to a nice spot behind the garage wall, added food for babies and mamas and fresh water, and I carefully moved the whole nest box - with Mama, yesterday's chick and the eggs - inside under the top of a plastic Dogloo dog house. Not pretty, but quite functional. After considering that Mama's little body really is too small to incubate the remaining eggs and two babies, I moved the BLRW into the nursery. As of this morning, both Mama and she were sitting on one chick and three eggs apiece. (I wonder how they divvied them up equally? So weird.) I am excited to see how many more babies I'll get in the next couple of days. (I don't expect a 100% hatch rate.)

2) We scheduled our 2011 Highland baby-daddy. CC Hercules, a 5-year old (i.e. big!) silver dun (i.e. pretty!) bull will be coming for his "job" in the next couple of weeks. He will be breeding Sheila and Natalie only; Bridgit will be "retired" this winter due to several disappointments we have with her, including her inability to keep her weight up appropriately, her attitude, and the conformation of her rear legs. It's the right decision.

3) The vet will visit us on Monday to, among other things, castrate Cowboy and Clyde. This, too, is the right thing to do, as neither is really impressive enough to consider keeping as an intact bull. This means they'll be freezer-ready by Fall 2012, so will stay on our property until then, growing big.

4) Our gardens have been quite sad. June was a cool, wet month, resulting in tomatoes that didn't grow (let alone fruit!), squashes, corn and beans that were slow to start, and yet gorgeous cauliflower and broccoli plants! I purchased and planted several more tomato seedlings July 5th, and those haven't done much, either. I finally broke down and watered using a dilute Miracle Grow solution, something I didn't want to do. Wouldn't you know the tiny little original tomato plants are now trying to flower?! Too funny...and still pathetic. The rest of the garden is finally picking up, so I do anticipate a nice (albeit likely late) bean, corn, beet, squash harvest. The brassicas are still gorgeous and right on schedule!

I'll try to be better about posting, and will work on a solution to this lack-of-photos problem. You deserve to see the cute little chicky fluffballs!

Mama, or "Amysflock 2.5"

2010-07-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

This has been the summer of broody hens! First, two of my three Blue Laced Red Wyandottes decided to go broody on me (meaning stop the presses, no more eggs, we want to be mothers!). Back in May I tried to let one set on a brood, but someone (the hen?) started breaking and eating the eggs, so that experiment came to a quick halt. I "broke" both she and the other Wyandotte of the broody urge with two days of solitary confinement in a wire cage, as recommended by the chicken experts.

A few weeks later, though, Mama, the Easter Egger hen I bought last year who had just reared a nice brood of chicks, decided to jump on the bandwagon, and there's no stopping her. Two days in a wire cage and she immediately marched straight back to the nest upon release. Hmm.

So, against possibly my better judgement, I gave her eight eggs to set on. I know she's a successful mother, as I saw the proof last year. I also have grown a little weary of having to explain to new egg customers that a dozen eggs will include some HUGE eggs and some LITTLE eggs. If you average it all out you'd probably get a normal sized dozen, but looking at each egg, well, that dozen is very inconsistent.

So. She's currently, now, sitting on ten eggs. I aimed to give her medium-to-large sized eggs, no jumbos, but none of the dainty little pink ones, either. I did throw in one Easter Egger egg for good measure. I tried to candle about an hour ago in the dim barn (in 94 degree heat!), but my results were inconclusive. Today would be Day 7, with hatching occuring between 19 and 21 days incubation. I will go out later tonight when it's darker and try again. And being the good Mama (thus the name!) that she is, I'm quite sure she will again pitch a royal fit! That's ok...it's important that I remove any eggs that appear infertile, as once they begin to decay they run the risk of exploding, and that could ruin all the others.

My plans for any that hatch is not clear yet. Part of me would like to build a mini chicken tractor and try running the babes through the pasture, although I'm not sure how effective that would really be. Any males, if I can swing it by the time it's "time," could be butchered for eating. I think I'd eventually like to weed the pink egg layers out of my flock, as lovely as their eggs are, and replace them with layers of larger eggs. (I'm also down one hen; one of the other Easter Eggers became our big rooster's favorite and he accidentally dislocated her hip during a vigorous mating, so we had to put her down.) For now, I think I'll refrain from counting my chickens before they hatch!

UPDATE: As of the evening this post was written, Mama has a co-setter...one of those darn Blue Laced Red Wyandottes! I plan to move Mama and her nest of eggs to a secure outdoor pen near the house, and Missy Blue Laced Red will go back into solitary confinement for the weekend.

Mama, dust bathing with her peeps.

A berry good time

2010-06-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

With all the rain and gloom we've had recently in Western Washington, today's sunshine brought the perfect opportunity to spend a little quality time playing outside. After a brief bracken fern picking session in the front paddock in preparation for later brush hogging, Paul and I headed over to Boistfort Valley Farm's Strawberry Festival. The farm is a family-run farm specializing in organically grown vegetables and cut flowers sold directly to consumers through their 500-member CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and and three local farmers markets. (If you aren't familiar with CSAs, you should check them out...it's a wonderful way to ensure your family gets to eat high quality, nutritious produce while supporting a local farm!)

For a mere $3 per ticket (for the shortcake!), we were treated to a great tour by farmer Mike Peroni, where we learned about the farm's organic practices, machinery and greenhouses, after which we joined the line for some wonderful local treats, including fresh goat cheeses from nearby Twin Oaks Creamery (Paul's hooked!), fresh pesto, salad greens, carrots and radishes fresh from the fields, and, of course, lots and lots of gorgeous red strawberries! We ate our snack under the shade of the farm house's old apple trees while we listened to local band Rosie and the Posers (I would call their music Celtic fusion, but they probably wouldn't...check out their very interesting site). (I think it's amazingly thoughtful of the Peroni's, too, to make a bottle of sunscreen available for those of us - yes, me - who didn't think the June sun could be so bold. My skin thanks them profusely!)

And then the big moment...turning in our tickets for a H-U-G-E piece of shortcake topped with the farm's fresh berries and covered in whipped cream by (I think) the farmer's parents or parents-in-law (who were delightful!). I could hardly contain myself, but was redirected by Paul to the chocolate fountain for still more fresh berries covered in melted chocolate goodness. Oh yeah.

We went back to our shaded sitting area and devoured our treat. It was, oh, my gosh, so divine! We left with full, happy bellies and a half-flat of purchased strawberries to enjoy at home.

I thought it was a wonderful way to spend a couple of free hours on a Saturday (and actually, my day was built around this, truth be told - who wants to pick bracken fern in a hot, sunny pasture, anyway?!). I think Paul asked me at least three times how many times a year Boistfort Valley Farm hosts events like this...I'm pretty sure he wants to go back! I know I'll be back again!

(I would love to show you photos of our gorgeous berries, but my memory card is acting up and holding my recent photos hostage. Believe me when I say those berries absolutely shine with red freshness!)

Another shade of green

2010-06-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

Skookumchuck Farm has a new family member...his name is John Deere. Yes, it's true, Tractor-Saga-2009/2010 has finally come to a wonderful end! After pining away for and researching tractors for a lot of last year and all of 2010, Paul found his dream tractor at a fantastic price, and brought it - plus several implements - home from Seaside, OR yesterday.

He's only used it, so far, to move the tiller and back blade out of the back of the pickup, but tomorrow it'll go to work moving haylage bales for us. And I'm sure he'll be grinning from ear to ear as he drives it around! His boss said, "Nothing matters as long as mama (meaning ME, LOL!) is happy." Mama is happy. Life is good. :)

All tucked in (and tuckered out)

2010-06-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

We finally finished planting our veggie gardens today after a long week of ferocious rain and cold, followed by a single nice day meeting some of my husband's childhood friends at his 20-year high school reunion. We got home late, slept long, and made our way out to the garden this morning.

In the beds, finally, are the beet seeds, zucchini in two hills, the six 'Butternut' squash planted around the base of a crappy green-painted wooden ladder to climb, two rows of 'Blue Lake' green beans instead of the one row we planned (so we have more "goods" for berry trading, perhaps), two hills (2 seedlings each) of 'Heart of Gold' squash, the broccoli and cauliflower with a row of onion seeds between, and then, for companion plantings, radish and nasturtium seeds (with the squash) and three varieties of marigolds (with the tomatoes). A couple more hours outside in the sunny, warm breeze attacking the weeds in the front perennial beds (and sneezing my fool head off due to the neighbor's blooming scotch broom), and I'm totally beat. So beat I accidentally turned ON the coffee pot after setting it up for my husband's morning joe. Oops.

I think the cattle have the right idea. They've been like this all day, calmly grazing and napping in our backyard as we toiled. :)

Slow boat to veggie land

2010-06-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'd be embarrassed to admit this - except I'm not - but today's the 8th of June and we have only about a third of our vegetable garden planted! I'll blame the weather (it's been a very cold and wet spring, so it feels like early May still) and a very busy schedule (out of town weekends in the last month)...but also a slight lack of motivation.

As of tonight, we have six rows of Bodacious sweet corn, 14 tomato seedlings and 1 'Northstar' bell pepper seedling planted. We still have two varieties each of broccoli and cauliflower seedlings, green beans (pole) seeds, radish and beet seeds, zucchini and three varieties of winter squash (spaghetti, an acorn and butternut) to get in the ground. Before we can do that, though, we have to finish weeding! (Now that's embarrassing!)

The thing is, we're not worried. Last year's garden was amazing, and that was due to our application of mushroom compost. This year the soil looks even more wonderful, and if the number of big, fat, juicy earthworms is any indication, it truly is as good as it looks. We can't control the weather and have no idea how the summer growing season will shape up, but are pretty certain that planting earlier than we are would have only resulted in stunted and/or rotten seeds and seedlings.

This year is a bit of vegetable experimentation for me, too. I've never grown spaghetti or butternut squashes and plan to trellis one of the two varieties up a rickety, unsafe-for-human-use wooden ladder in a raised bed, just for fun. I'm also trying out several different varieties of tomatoes I've never even tasted, including 'Black', 'Willamette' (an early ripening, determinate variety developed in Oregon) and 'Red Plum'. (I'm also planting 4 'Oregon Spring' seedlings, another early determinate variety developed in Oregon that blew my socks off last year with its huge, tasty fruits.) Oh, and I can't forget the 'Graffiti' cauliflower, a huge hit from last year, to go with new-to-us 'Green' cauliflower!

I am confident we'll have everything tucked in by the weekend. After that, it's weed and wait, hopeful we'll have a nice bounty!

Paul "rotovating" the big garden a second time last week.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2010-05-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

So many things can change in a week's time, can't they?

Our pasture lease deal fell through, much to our disappointment. Our neighbor thought to check with his homeowner's insurance agent - always a good idea - and discovered he would not be covered if anything happened. He technically can't have more than two head of cattle on his land, and they'd have to be his own. Otherwise, he would have to purchase agricultural insurance, which his current company doesn't offer and he doesn't want. We plan to ask our ever wise Highland breeder friends about their insurance and leasing experience, and perhaps we can find a policy that would adequately cover us and our neighbor. He brush hogged, or mowed, his pasture yesterday to keep it from getting too tall and seeding everywhere, which actually weakens the existing plants. This was the right thing to do, and honestly, even if we could have built a fence this weekend and moved the cattle over, the grass was probably already overripe and something they wouldn't have enjoyed eating. Perhaps we can get insurance in place for fall grazing, or wait until next spring. Or maybe it's just not to be...it certainly wasn't a perfect arrangement, but something we had hoped to try. Now we're back to Plan A, which is experimenting with management intensive grazing on our own land. Our grass isn't growing well (so far), and we've probably left the cattle in each area a little too long with each rotation (so far). Currently they're in the paddock with the barn, eating haylage. Poor Bridgit has such a hard time keeping her weight up when nursing we decided to provide this extra nutrition, plus give all of our grass a break. And who knows, with everyone confined in a smaller area, maybe we can even work with Natalie and the calves some!

In other news, my broody chicken experiement went haywire, big time. On day 3 I checked and discovered all but five of the 12 eggs were missing or broken. Someone (her? the new rooster?) was eating eggs. I cleaned out the nest box and put the cleanest three original eggs, plus five new ones, back under her. By the next day, they were all broken or missing. Grr. Now, I and my arrangement are partly to blame, since technically I should have moved her somewhere else with her nest. She was nesting in the "favorite" nest box, a cardboard Costco box with a cut-out. Still, egg eating is B-A-D, and I really didn't want chicks right now anyway, so I decided to put an end to the broodiness. Into a wire chicken crate she went, with food and water, for two days. Like magic, she came out on Day 3 with no desire to set. Yay. She was shaky and acting weird, though, and was also pale in the comb and wattles (those hangy-down fleshy things chickens have). It's been several days and she's back to normal now. Egg production is down, and the disappearing egg trick continued for a few days, but seems to be coming to and end. Perhaps I'll let her go broody some day in the future...but not now.

Meanwhile, the perennials and weeds in the front garden are going nuts, the vegetable garden is tilled and looking marvelously fluffy-soiled, the cows have "mowed" our back yard twice for us (thanks, girls), the calves are growing like little weeds...so much goes on it's hard to document it all!

Natalie mid-mow.

Cowboy, 1 month and 5 days old.

Someone's been in the freshly tilled garden! Clyde, 1 month old today.

New kid in town

2010-05-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

How nice does it feel, when you've finally had enough, to take action?

That was me last weekend after being terrorized by my yearling rooster, Buddy, every time I let the chickens free range. This wasn't a one-time occurrence...it'd been going on for about a month. I blame Paul for the first incident, as he'd let the chickens out one evening when I was to be home late, and forgot to prop the door open so they could go back in to roost. I came home to find chickens roosting everywhere...a pile of wood on the ground, in the slats between our two open stalls, directly on the ground. It was dark, and it was a fiasco. I and my trusty flashlight located and carried the hens to the roost one by one, but Buddy, being Mr. Tough Guy, walked himself in...and in the dark, took a left turn too early and ended up behind a hay bale instead of inside the coop. I had to rescue him and carry him in, too, which really ticked him off (roosters don't like to be held, unless they're used to it).

That first incident resulted in him attacking (or threatening to attack) my rubber boots about once per week. The worst time left me with a knot on my shin. My recourse was to boot him (literally) several feet away to get him away from me, and then chase him into submission all around the paddock. Lather, rince, repeat.

Last weekend, while I was out there on the phone with my mom, he came at me again, this time flying up chest-high, intent to scratch my eyes out or something. (He'd never before attacked my person...only my boots.) I'm sure my mom's ears were bleeding after hearing the stream of yelled expletives leaving my mouth. That event was the final straw. I decided he'd be going to the Chehalis auction the following weekend (I'd have to get up too darn early the next day to catch him while he slept, and I wasn't willing). I'm still too much of a wimp to dispatch him myself, or believe me, I would have. He was a big boy and would probably stew nicely.

However, Craigslist to the rescue! I found an ad from a woman willing to trade a mean rooster for one of her nice ones. A few emails back and forth and we settled it. I drove Buddy to Yelm on Tuesday evening after work, and after checking her available roos over (there were many, including a beautiful but mean Rhode Island Red - no thank you), I settled on a Buff Orpington/Rhode Island Red cross boy. He's young, maybe 7 months old or so, and doesn't have spurs yet. But boy is he pretty. Into the dog crate he went. He spent an hour in his crate in the back of my Subaru while I performed my secretary duties at the Grange meeting, but didn't seem to mind too much.

So far he's settled in well. The girls were a bit upset the first evening, especially Mama, one of the Easter Eggers, who raised her hackles and tried to peck him into submission. (They were on opposing roosts and he wanted up. He won in the end.) His crow is "under development," and while I know he'll eventually be as loud as Buddy was, hopefully we can live harmoniously together so I never resent his crow like I did Buddy's.

I think he needs a name. Rusty? Copper? Red? I'll work on that...but I guarantee it won't be anything like "Buddy" or "Pal." That type of name just asks to be proven wrong, doesn't it?

Hello, gorgeous!

A chicken experiment

2010-05-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

One of our lovely Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hens has gone broody and wants to stay that way. For those who don't know, "going broody" means a hen wants to sit on a nest of eggs, whether they're hers or not...and whether there are actually eggs in the nest or not. It's a biological clock gone annoying. See, when hens set, they stop laying eggs, and if the farmer doesn't really want or need chicks, then it means getting hen pecked (!) on the hand every time you reach underneath the hen to gather the day's eggs.

This hen has been broody for about a week now. I've done some reading up on the best ways to stop the broodiness, both of which require lowering the hen's body temperature, which apparently rises in order to keep eggs warm. (Given they pluck their own breast feathers out to "feather the nest" and have their bare skin in contact with the eggs, elevated body temperature makes some sense.) The first method involves isolating her in a wire-bottomed cage with no nest material inside for a few days, preferrably one raised off the ground so air will circulate all around, thereby reducing her body temperature gradually. The second one, distasteful to me, requires dunking her in ice cold water for several minutes at a time to snap her out of it.

After talking to Paul about my broody little darling, we decided I should put some eggs back under her and see if she hatches any. True, I really don't want any chicks and certainly don't need any more hens, given I have a real lack of egg customers right now, but when I realized I could raise youngsters in a chicken tractor out on the pasture, where they could scratch the cow poo and fertilize the land a la Salatin's methods, I decided to give it a try.

I selected a dozen of my flock's room temperature eggs, mostly brown, a few blue green, and made a point to grab the larger brown eggs since Paul pointed out any female hatching would have large-brown-egg-laying genes. (As an aside, I had gotten about a week behind on cleaning and refrigerating...the same "problem" I had a year ago that resulted in me being able to have my friend incubate fertilized eggs from my recently murdered flock...sometimes it's good to have unrefrigerated fertile eggs around!) I placed the eggs in a bowl and transported them out to the coop. After nicely arranging them in her favorite nest box, I removed the hen from the dog crate I'd temporarily put her in and set her down. She made a bee line for the nest box, climbed in, and immediately began fluffing and clucking and shifting those eggs into the perfect pile, her bare breast and feathered wings starting to warm them up.

These eggs may not hatch, and even if they do, she could turn out to be a really terrible mother, but it's worth a try. We still have our friend's wooden brood box and light in the garage, and if we get any chicks, I'll stow them in there. Hopefully the hen will get over it and get back to laying and being a normal chicken. I figure we have about 21 days from today before we know. For now, I'll let her be and start researching chicken tractors!

Amysflock III?

Graziering - an art and a science

2010-05-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as we were setting up the a new temporary cross fence so we could move the cattle, I wisecracked to my husband that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. I was referring to the lovely, lush, 12-14 inch high grass growing just beyond our south fenceline over at the neighbors'! It's not really green, but it looks so graze-able compared to ours. I had some jealousy going on, no question, and given Paul's and my recent brainstorming about how we could increase our herd and our grazing land NOW (instead of 8-10 years down the road when we move to a bigger farm), imagine our delight when those same neighbors came walking over to look at the calves and mentioned they wish we could use their pasture!

It turns out this lovely land, which they applied chicken manure to a few seasons ago and hay once every year, will no longer be hayed and has turned into a nice patch of grass that now requires brush-hogging. Well, I'm sure our cows would be most happy to assist. :) The neighbors left to think about it; Paul will talk to them later in the week about a possible lease deal. With some fencing input on our end, plus a gate through our south fence onto their land, this piece would double our current grazing area. Plus, truthfully, while we are going to try management intensive grazing (MiG) this summer, our poor grass is barely growing and could probably use more rest than we would otherwise be able to give it.

(If you'll recall from a previous post, MiG is the practice of rotating cattle swiftly (i.e. every day or every few days, no more) through a paddock sized such that the cattle can graze all the grass and other plants inside at the right height (no shorter than 4 inches) without grazing those same plants again before they've had a chance to grow to optimal height. It's an art, and I am a little intimidated, but everything I read says not to fear making mistakes, so we're going to give this a shot.)

With calving occurring in spring this year instead of the frozen-ground cool of late fall (like in 2008), we faced the dilemma of either keeping the cows locked in our sacrifice paddock to save the grass, or fencing off a strip of dry pasture where they could calve out of the mud and muck, thereby giving their babies a healthier start. Naturally, we chose the latter, and are happy with our choice. The cows stayed in this second sacrifice area a few weeks and likely stunted back the grass as a result, but we've had no illness. It was, however, time for them to move.

Yesterday we bought another role of 1/4 inch polyrope hotwire, grabbed the rest of our temporary step in posts, and added a new temporary cross fence. After opening what was the previous front fence (and is now the back fence), we herded the cattle through. Natalie led the way (of course), followed by a nervous Bridgit and the calves. Sheila was trying to determine what was in it for her, thinking we had a treat, so was lagging behind checking us out. Once she realized the others had found green gold, however, she kicked up her heels and tore into the new paddock. All mouths immediately made contact with the taller grass under the apple trees, and they blissfully grazed into darkness. We were pleased. and judging from their grazing behavior today, so are they. For now, until the rest of our grass really gets its growth on, we'll keep them here and feed them hay to keep them happy and nourished. The remainder of our pasture can be split in half when we've got a little more growth. We should be able to rotate them through the main sacrifice paddock once with hay for feed if needed, as by then the mud should be dry. If this lease deal works, then we'll be able to move them through the neighboring pasture - which we'll cross fence for rotational grazing - in mid- to late-May.

Paul's mind goes two directions at once - "we need more cows!" and "ooo, now I HAVE to buy a tractor." Oy. His argument on the second point has gained strength, I agree. We probably won't add more cattle just for this lease, but perhaps if we can make a long-term deal of it, and have room for overwintering, we could stock another cow. We'll see. For me, it makes the idea of pastured poultry that much more appealing!

We love our cattle and the experience of raising them, but my mind returns to a point made by a grazier at our regional Highland association's annual Spring Meeting last year: "If you want to raise beef cattle, then you must focus on being a good grass farmer." It's hard to remember that when your mind fixates on the animals' daily needs, but the truth of the matter is if you grow great grass and ensure your pastures are healthy, you'll be a more successful cattleman/woman.

So, we thereby continue our education in graziering...with an anticipatory smiles on our faces!

The new grazing paddock, which contains the lushest grass we have currently. It also contains the majority of the apple and crab apple trees - favorite cow scratching tools (if the broken branches are any proof).

Growing and shrinking

2010-04-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a very interesting time for Paul and me on the farm this month, full of emotional highs and lows, ups and downs, and lots of growth. And some shrinking, too...followed then by more thoughts of future growth. It's a strange roller coaster we're on, and I'll share more about it in a future post.

Our calves Cowboy and Clyde are definitely GROWING! It's astounding how quickly they grow and change. The day after Clyde was born, looking every bit the younger twin to Cowboy, Paul and I nervously laughed that we'd be unable to tell them apart if they stayed as similar as they were at newborn and 5 days old.

Whew, not to worry. Today they're officially 15 and 10 days old, respectively, and could not be more different! So far our initial observations of their coat colors is true. Clyde is much lighter than Cowboy and shows no indication of a future brindle pattern. His tail tip is red, so he'll likely end up red, although whether light or dark, only time will tell. Cowboy's brindling signs, the gray on his eyelids and nose, have become even more evident over the past couple of weeks, and now we can see clearly the dark tips to his eyelashes, the faint darker ring of hair around his muzzle, and hints of gray in his dossan, or bangs. His overall coat is much darker than Clyde's, plus he's quite a stocky, blocky boy. He's got even got a bull-like little face; while Clyde's got a little baby face still. Both little bulls are boundless bundles of energy, racing around the slice of pasture we've set aside for everyone, doing brodies around the hay ring and mamas' legs, jumping over branches and sticks on the edges of the burn pile, racing up and then screeching to a halt at the waterer, randomly karate kicking a hind leg at the air. They are such joys to watch. It is definitely nice to have these two boys in the spring, when we can enjoy them before and after work.

Meanwhile, I found a teeny, tiny green speckled egg in the hen's nest box, nestled among several normal-sized eggs. I just had to take pictures, and then cracked it open just to see, and found it contained only white, no yolk. What a funny thing! I've been told you never know what to expect with farming...too true!

Cowboy and Clyde. So different (now), and so adorable!

The yolk-less egg among the ready-to-hard-boil eggs. I couldn't resist! (No, I didn't hard boil it!)

Little Boy Clyde

2010-04-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Bridgit's bull calf finally has a name - Clyde. We tried several on for size and nothing really fit. Who knows, we may change our minds again, but this was the first choice (of sorts), and came up again so stuck. For now.

He is one spunky little boy! He's quite energetic, running and leaping, already tasting the haylage that Bridgit and Sheila are eating (Cowboy is, too, but he started much later), running laps around the little grassy paddock they're all living in for now. Getting away from mama, and boy, does she have a lot to say about that! For as hard as he plays, he crashes into nap land just as hard. So cute.

We both got some better photos of him today. He appears to lack the gray pigment on his nose that is a common indicator of the brindle pattern, which his half-brother Cowboy does possess. Clyde is lighter and looks like he could end up yellow. These boys sure are fun to watch, and so curious, too. We're hoping to get in and work with them a little bit over the passing days so they'll be used to us.

Skookumchuck's Clyde, almost 2 days old. Look at his thick dossan (bangs)!

Whee! Clyde kicking up his heels.

Cowboy, at 7 days old, has taken to head-butting his mom Sheila's brisket, practicing to be a bull!

Two things

2010-04-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

Two big events happened at Skookumchuck Farm in less than 24 hours: a new calf was born, and Annabel left for a new home. I feel both elated and sad at the same time.

As I mentioned last night, Bridgit calved at 7:40. Paul and I went out this morning to clean up the calving paddock a little bit and get a better look and photos. What I felt - not testicles, but definitely something - turns out to have been a scrotum with no testicles descended in it! Yes, we have another bull calf, and strangely, this little guy is the twin of Cowboy! I swear he's the same color as Cowboy was his first days (Cowboy's a darker red now), has the same white "under carriage" (boy parts!), the same white hooves and the same blue eyes! I'm starting to second guess myself...I could have sworn both T-Bone and Annabel had brown eyes when they calved, but maybe they really were blue and just changed? I'll have to watch and see what happens with these two little guys. Cowboy would come by it honestly, since Sheila's grandsire was a blue-eyed white bull. Bridgit's dam is white, but I don't know whether her eyes are blue. And besides, what would the chances be that both dams carried a gene for blue eyes?

I mentioned Bridgit's weird behavior in my last post. Now that I've been able to catch more details about both Sheila and Bridgit in the hours prior to calving, maybe I'll become a better predictor of the event. Bridgit's behavior was strange, though. It's as if she thought Cowboy was her calf! Sheila could eat or nap or wander around not worrying about him, because Bridgit was stuck to him like glue. She laid by him, stood over him, licked and cleaned him, even let him fiddle with her udder, and stranger yet, she called to him whenever he went somewhere or did something she didn't like...just like Sheila does. I think it was her hormones kicking in, preparing her body for labor. Once she calved she was done with Cowboy, in fact didn't want him near her new baby. (Like protesting works. That little guys is fast!!) She's showing good maternal instincts now, although not aggressive toward us, and Sheila seems to have relaxed a bit now that Cowboy is older. We were able to do some paddock clean up within feet of them (even when the new baby kept coming over to watch Paul scoop, which Bridgit didn't like much), and no one freaked out on us. Yay! The calf doesn't have a name yet; we are going with a "C" name still, and are bouncing around Clyde and Chief. Our sister-in-law likes Chet. I think I'll have to pull the baby name book back out!

And Annie...she has had a secret admirer for awhile, and the secret came out last weekend, just a couple of hours after T-Bone left for his new home. Kristina and her husband came to visit today to see Annabel, bought her and took her home to Buckley, where she'll live on 65 acres with two cows, two calves (a heifer and a steer) and a mare. She'll have a great home, I have no doubt, but I have to admit it hurts a little to know she isn't here to brush and hang out with. I'll miss her a lot. She'll have lots of new adventures in Buckley I'm sure. But...this is a business, and letting them go is part of farming. She sure has given us a lot of happy, funny memories, that's for sure!

Bridgit's new baby, 16 hours old. I'm having deja vu from last Sunday!

Express delivery from the stork!

2010-04-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

Bridgit had her 64 lb calf at 7:40 p.m. tonight! We're not sure of the sex yet; this time I did check, but am not sure what I felt. I did see 4 little teats, though, so am wondering if it's a heifer. This time the whole event was over with, baby weighed and navel dipped, and all our supplies put away before dusk. I actually suspected she was in early labor this morning when she was acting weird, and sure enough, she got weirder this evening before the big event. I'll share more on that tomorrow.

Baby was up on its feet within 20 minutes and has been snaking around Bridgit's hind end looking for teats. He/she has also walked around Sheila, too, who has been right there since the baby hit the ground, helping clear membranes, get it up, and keep a very excited, inquisitive Cowboy away! (She also helped Bridgit "destroy the evidence" when she delivered the after birth.)

Photos and more information will come in the morning!

He has a name!

2010-04-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Sheila's bull calf has a name - Skookumchuck's Cowboy!

He seems to be doing well on Day 2. His coat has dried and he looks like he might be red, although not the same rich cherry red as T-Bone's coat. I haven't been really close to him yet (Sheila doesn't approve), but in photos I think I almost see a little gray pigment on his eyelids and under his eyes, which would indicate the brindle pattern. Their coats can change a lot as they grow, so who knows what he'll look like in the end.

Regardless, he is 100% cute. And those baby blue eyes...WOW!

Sheila's new baby - what timing!

2010-04-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

T-Bone's departure may have spurred Sheila's labor into action...she delivered another 80 pound bull calf last night, 4/11, at about 8:45, about 30 hours after T-Bone left for his new home! We came home from dinner at our in-laws to find Sheila pacing madly through the fenced off grassy area we'd made the other day to give the girls a break from the mud, just in time to see her shoo Bridgit and Annabel out of the area. She paced the fence and walked in circles, kicking at her belly for an hour, with us watching through the binoculars. Just after dusk she layed down and I saw her water break. She got up and down a few more times, and I could swear I saw a white foot, but it disappeared. A short time later it appeared again and stayed, and it was a leg! Paul took the glasses to confirm (he thought it was an eye) and witnessed the actual birth.

We were outside within 5 minutes with a bucket of grain (distracting tool), towels, the scale, a piece of plywood and the iodine navel dip. It took a bit before Paul could rope Sheila's horns and tie her to the fence with her bucket of grain (she's very protective), and once she was secure we ducked through the fence and quickly weighed, rubbed down and navel dipped the calf. He was meconium stained, indicating some sort of stress during birth, although we were both amazed at how fast the whole thing went...maybe a little more than an hour between we saw what we thought was the initial stage to transition of labor, then to birth.

We checked on him a few more times and realized he'd crawled through the three-strand hotwire into a protected corner of our property where Sheila couldn't get him. We went out again, Paul made some fence repairs and got him out of there, and we tried to get the baby to nurse. All this while Sheila ate her placenta...yum. (Ha!)

It's raining lightly this morning but mama and baby appear to be doing well. We've seen him nurse twice and explore a little bit this morning. Annabel doesn't know what to make of him; she actually ran away when he approached the paddock fence the first time! We plan to put Annie in with Natalie and Lana this morning, and let Bridgit in with Sheila and the baby since Bridgit is due to calve next.

Enjoy these first pics!

Go forth and procreate!

2010-04-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

T-Bone left the farm today, destined for a life of loving the ladies up in Whatcom County! I feel like we've fledged a baby bird. It's amazing to look back through pictures of his life with us, seeing him go from our first adorable newborn calf to a big strapping young bull with a nose ring and a lot of libido.

Having T-Bone here so long - which wasn't part of our original plan, pre-calves - taught us that our current property is really too small to house a growing bull, and that even the short visits from full grown breeding bulls is a stretch for us. They like to "rearrange the furniture" (be it a heavy metal-cored street sweeper brush turned into a scratching post, or the support post of a lean-to) and test their surroundings (fences and in Boney's case, the side wall of our already crumbling pump house). It's a lot of work to have a bull on this itty bitty farm. They can also be noisy and demanding...and sweet and strong and steady just the same.

I'm grateful for the experience of raising him here, and equally (or even more) pleased he's moved on to make babies on another farm. Enjoy your new life and surroundings, Little Man!

Remembering T-Bone's first day. What a little cutie he was!

Waterlogged

2010-04-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a wet spring so far in Western Washington, and our land has really taken a beating, especially the sacrifice areas - the main paddock where Bridgit, Sheila and Annabel have been living, and the north pasture where T-Bone, Lana and Natalie stay. Those bovine feet can really do some damage when the ground is soft; pugging, or the piercing of moist ground by the feet of heavy four-legged critters, is one of the big reasons we're supposed to keep the cattle off pasture during the winter months.

I've been upset by all our mud for a couple of months now, but Paul has chided me, saying "We don't have real farm mud. Just a little mud." Tonight, though, as he contemplated taking the wheelbarrow through the mud bath that is our paddock in order to get some hay for T-Bone and his ladies, all he could say was, "Wow. What a mess. What are we going to do about this?" Yes, exactly...great question. We don't know the answer - yet. We'll ask around at our annual NWHCA Spring Meeting in May and see what works (or doesn't) for our fellow breeders.

Our more pressing concern has been the fact that Sheila and Bridgit are due to calve, and slippery, bacteria-laden mud can be very dangerous for fuzzy, wet, newborn Highland calves. Not knowing what else to do, we opened the gates and let them out to the pasture, figuring it's better to risk stunting the grass than risk the live of a newborn calf. We bought 40 fiberglass step-in posts to use for our management intensive grazing (MIG) experiment once grazing season is open, and in the meantime we plan to use some of them to temporarily fence off a back strip of pasture, adjacent to the paddock gate, so at least the mamas can have access to dry ground and the opportunity to calve there.

The basic rule of thumb, we were told, is that we can graze our cattle from April 15 to October 15, with a break in July and August, based on how the grass grows. We know after two years of watching that this window has to be very, very flexible. There's no way our grass will be ready by April 15, but that's ok. We have extra hay in the barn and hope that with careful management, we can let the cattle graze at the right time - to keep the grass from going to seed but without letting the cows eat it down below 4 inches in height - and feed them hay the rest of the time. Between that and our resolve to spread chicken manure on the pastures this fall come Hell or high water (even if I have to pull the spreader behind my Subaru...Paul said my transmission won't be able to cope!), we're hopeful next year our grass will start looking like it did our first late spring/early summer two years ago...lush, green, thick, and long-bladed!

And to think I complained that summer about the grass being up to my armpits and difficult to walk through.

Those were the days!

We love you, Gravy

2010-04-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

Our dear Gravy dog, Gravy Boat, Boater, Giant Schnozz, Gravos Rancheros, had a stroke yesterday while we were at work. We had to put him down this morning.

We love you, Gravy. You were a good boy.

April 1, 1996 - April 3, 2010

Never underestimate the runt

2010-03-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

You might recall that one of last year's hatchlings, Teeny, is a runt who required assistance getting out of the shell. I was told not to expect too much of little Teeny, and was amazed as he/she continued to live even as several other chicks lost their lives due to picking. Why they didn't pick on the runt I have no idea.

While Teeny's half-sisters, also Black Sex Link x Black Australorp crosses, grew to the size of their mothers, Teeny only grew a little and then stopped, ending up the size of my three petite Easter Egger hens. Teeny has battled chicken lice and has a couple of featherless spots where the other hens are unaffected. Teeny's just a little different than everyone else.

I had no idea what Teeny's sex was until a couple of weeks ago when I saw the rooster breeding her. :) "All well and good," I thought, "but she probably won't lay any eggs, and if she does, it'll be a peewee." Teeny found her voice, though, and began clucking and singing (or whatever you'd call it) like her half-sisters, and one day, hearing a loud "I'm-laying-an-egg!" call and seeing her and one other hen missing from the free ranging group in the paddock, I wondered if it could be Teeny.

Sure enough, I was delighted to find Teeny sitting in the top nest box this morning when I opened the coop door. I usually only find two eggs in that nest box, one brown and one green. Teeny, having hatched from a brown egg, couldn't lay a green egg. Was it possible she was responsible for that brown egg? I went back inside and had a cup of coffee, then put my muddy boots back on to check. In the nest was a VERY LARGE pinkish-brown egg! Wow!

I know five of my six brown egg layers are laying because I have collected five slightly different looking brown eggs in a day, so I whisked Teeny's egg inside, pulled the cartons of previous days' eggs out of the fridge, and did a quick comparison. Teeny doesn't egg isn't the largest, but comes in a fairly close second! I can't believe such a large egg comes out of such a little body, but Teeny has earned my new-found respect!

Teeny's egg, third from the left.

Now she really did it...

2010-03-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

Stinkerbell strikes again, but this time, she did it to herself!

Paul came home a bit ago with two fresh bales of haylage. After we got T-Bone, Natalie and Lana's bale in place, I opened the three-strand hotwire fence bewteen the main pasture and the north to let Paul through in the truck, and as I put the gates back up, I heard Annabel make her excited/demanding moo...a short, loud bleat.

I turned and walked along the truck as Paul drove toward the paddock gate. Just then there was a tremendous ruckus, and in the headlights we watched in horror as Sheila, then Bridgit, raced away from Annabel, who was running with the 12 foot round bale feeder around her waist, stuck fast! It seems the stinker must have been in the feeder when we entered the pasture, tried to hop out to join the mamas at the gate, and panicked when she realized she was stuck. The thing was cockeyed in the air, raking along the hogwire fence, until she finally got stuck trying to make a corner between the fence and an apple tree (seems a 12 foot diameter metal feeder doesn't turn on a dime, HA!). Meanwhile, we were RUNNING to the gate, ripping it open, trying to come to her aid. She finally made the corner and stopped in the middle of the paddock. She was truly stuck tight, right at about the last rib, flesh pooching out on the other side. She was not going to come out forward. By some huge miracle (thank you, God), we convinced her to back up and pull her legs back through, then Paul lifted the feeder and let her out. She didn't want much to be touched, but I did prod around and she seems uninjured (but not untraumatized).

I'm willing to bet she doesn't climb in there again. I just hope she's not spooked enough to avoid eating the haylage now inside.

And is this coincidental or what: Just before this happened, Paul and I were discussing the best way to get in there with the haylage, whether letting the girls out on pasture, hoping they'd come back in, or trying to get in and around with them milling about in the way like they do, making it difficult for Paul to navigate through the mud and muck. I had just reminded him we needed to move the ring feeder so we could put the haylage in that same spot.

Annie and the ring feeder, before the incident.

Neck and neck

2010-03-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Calving season fast-approaches at Skookumchuck Farm, and our contenders, Sheila and Bridgit, appear to be in a close race to the finish!

As of today, we are 12 days from the first possible calving date based on Umberto of Hem-Loch's "service call" last summer. Cows' due dates are a fluid thing, really. Gestation calendars can predict the due date based on an average gestation of 283 days...but then there's the caveat "plus or minus 10". This means while the dates of Umberto's visit result in a calving window between April 8th and May 17th, we could see a calf as early as next week, or as late as May 27th-ish.

When our vet visited a month ago and palpitated the girls (vet-speak for feeling around via the rectum for signs of pregnancy and size of calf), he felt Sheila was a little further along, in the 7- to 7.5-month gestation range, than Bridigt. If his was an accurate measure - and palpitating is not an exact science - Sheila could calve in 2 to 4 weeks, and Bridgit in 4-5 weeks.

However, Bridgit's body has shown more visible, obvious changes toward impending birth than Sheila's. Signs we watch for include a "floppy" vulva and loosening of the pin bone ligaments, physical changes that prepare the cow's back end for the calf's journey through the birth canal. Udder changes can also occur, although when and how depends on the cow (a little rhyme!). Last year Bridgit grew an udder for months before she calved, while Sheila did so only in the week before. They may have swapped udder-growing tactics this year...Sheila's had an udder for a few months now (and it grows slowly a bit more every day), while Bridgit's has only recently started to feel any different. (Yes, I feel up my cows every day. At least once.)

Bridgit's pin bones are so loose she looks weird, and in the last couple of days even Paul commented (after nearly gagging) about how floppy her vulva has gotten (he doesn't pay as much attention to such things as I do, so was unprepared for the Jello-like jiggle of her tissues as she walked away from him!). Could she calve before Sheila this year?

Regardless, we're nearing the finish line, and getting closer to ending our long wait for new fuzzy adorable Highland babies!

Sheila and Bridgit, unimpressed with all this "race" talk. It's all very routine to them.

Colors of Spring

2010-03-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Never mind that it's only March 16th...I'm ready for spring NOW! I know, I know, it's not far away, but I'm remembering last year's very long winter and very late last frost date. Some of the trees and shrubs are showing their spring blooms around here and it has me excited!

The ornamental plum smells divine and has been showering the front perennial bed with petals since the big wind storm we had late last week. Behind it, close to the house, the forythia is ablaze in gold little bells, looking less motley than last year with the help of some careful pruning. There are more daffodils blooming around the place, too. The header photo is of the tiny daffodils near the front walk, which I could swear didn't look so fuzzy-flowered last year. (I swear I didn't hit them with herbicide.) They are happily bobbing their little lion heads next to a tall pair of orange-trumpeted white daffodils, and out by the road, the bulbs I bought but didn't plant until January (oops!) are forming buds, too. There is even a clump of daffodils on a high spot in the pasture, looking healthier and slightly larger than last year's.

Now, if only the grass would grow strong and lush! The cattle are tired of their muddy paddocks, as am I. The chickens don't seem to mind, though, leaving behind chicken footprints in the muck as they head in from their two-hour free range time in the paddock. Their egg yolks are more brightly colored with the addition of fresh grass, weeds and bugs to their diet, a sure harbinger of spring!

Blurry blooms.

Pasture daffodils. They've multiplied!

Wishing for access to greener pastures. Patience, girls...the grass isn't ready!

Flying away

2010-03-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

"I'm leavin' on a jet plane..." Unfortunately, it's true. I am leaving tomorrow bright and early for Arlington, VA to attend a 3-day training class for work. I used to travel a lot for business, but have been on only one trip since I met Paul, and haven't traveled at all since we've been married. To say I'm not looking forward to it is part understatement, part pathetic whine. I will miss the farm, my view, my animals, gathering eggs, our dogs and cats, and most of all my hubby. However, I look forward to seeing a new place, meeting up with a couple of friends who moved back there years ago and who I haven't seen in a long time, and, hopefully, catching up on some much-needed rest. (I hate to sound truly pathetic, but it's been really, really difficult to get back into the work-full-time/farm-weekends-and-evenings groove. Sometimes I pine for my free time back, but the steady pay is nice.) :)

We'll get the cattle their fresh haylage bales this evening, so they'll be all set. Paul will just have to keep the chickens fed and watered, eggs gathered, and cattle troughs full. Oh, and he'll have to feed the dogs and cats. I think he can handle it.

I've got my packing lists, my requisite 2-oz. containers of toiletries and a lot of flight time to spend doing whatever I want. I'll be bringing my library copies of Joel Salatin's "You Can Farm" and "Salad Bar Beef," along with my seed catalogs and a writing tablet. There's a lot of planning to be done and no better time to do it! It sounds like the weather next week in Washington D.C. will be rather Washington State-like, while back home we may get some snow. I guess that's another reason to be glad to have this trip on my docket. I wonder if the cherry trees in Washington, D.C. are blooming yet?

The chickens aren't going to have much time, if any, to free range outside while I'm gone, but I'm making up for it by letting them roam a full 12 hours today (yep, I went out to the barn to let them out into the frosty morning while wearing my pjs and bathrobe!). I know they'll reward Paul with up to six eggs per day as they have a few days this past week, and are happy to have had the chance to dust bathe. I'll look forward to their little chicken clucks when I return!

Bathing beauties in a pile: Patty and Mama (Easter Eggers), Teeny (black runt) and the splash Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hen. Check out Teeny's Farrah Fawcett hairdo!

Buddy the patchwork rooster shining in the sun.

"Salad Bar Beef" and other ideas

2010-02-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

Paul and I started our adventures with Scottish Highland cattle the way we seem to start a lot of things...we jumped in with both feet and then scrambled to fill in the gaps left by lack of planning, such as fencing, handling facilities, etc. We loved the look of the Highlands, enjoyed the beef we sampled, and felt they'd be a good way to utilize our bit of country paradise with animals that earned their keep without emotional needs. (The lack of emotional needs thing was my personal requirement, although I now understand my cattle satisfy my own emotional needs in a way. Go figure! And this as I hear the six - SIX - horses our neighbors across the street just started boarding in their one acre pasture whinnying in the darkness.) We started with no real expectations or plan for the future, other than to enjoy ourselves and perhaps sell a calf or some beef here and there.

Fast forward over a year and a half and our perspective has changed. We finally got real and looked at our expenses going back to purchasing Bridgit and Sheila (that "head in the sand" thing isn't ever good), and realized that we enjoy what we're doing too much to stop, but changes are necessary if we want to be viable. Otherwise, we're essentially feeding our cattle all of our money (which, knowing the breed, they could probably digest just fine, but oh, the germs!).

We don't yet have a farm vision statement or plan, but we're thinking and talking about some ideas. I (the reader/researcher extraordinaire) have reserved about 1.2 million (plus or minus several thousand dozens) books from the library on a variety of farming-related topics, from geese to pigs to grass fed beef and business plans. I won't even start on the amount of Internet research I've done. Apparently I'm not the only one with these topics in mind, as the wait list on some of the books is quite long. (I'm number 14 in line for one of them!) So far I've read three of Joel Salatin's books plus two from other authors. The most notable (so far), Salatin's "Salad Bar Beef" and "You Can Farm," have my mind racing the most.

We are going to give management intensive grazing (MIG) a whirl this year, to see whether and how we can make it work on our postage-stamp-sized acreage. MIG involves using portable hotwire fencing to create many small paddocks out of one's pasture, the size and shape of each determined by the growth patterns of the grasses, and rotating the animals fairly quickly from paddock to paddock so they can keep the grasses at the right height for optimal growth without overgrazing. The beauty is it's supposed to be flexible, meaning we will have to really keep an eye on how it's working and make adjustments as necessary.

Another idea from Salatin's books is running chickens in a chicken tractor, or portable coop, through those same paddocks within a few days of the cattle leaving them so the chickens can spread the manure and eat any bugs they find. The chickens get added grasses and bug protein for their diets, making their farm fresh eggs even more gorgeous and nutritious, and in return help maximize the fertilizing effects of the cattle manure and prevent flies from multiplying. Our property is too small to do this with our current flock using Salatin's methods, but I'm considering trying net fencing and a small portable coop to keep the chickens in the designated paddock (and keep predators out) so they won't return to the barn to roost.

And then there's the thought of raising a couple of pigs in our vegetable garden after we harvest everything, then butchering for pork...or raising a couple of small geese around the fruit trees we would like to plant so they can keep the grasses and weeds down...or trying our hands at pastured broiler chickens...or ... :)

Relief!

2010-02-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

We had a very successful vet visit this morning. Dreading the potential outcome of Sheila and Bridgit's pregnancy checks, we decided to tackle them first. We were thrilled when our vet announced that Sheila is most certainly pregnant, carrying low in the left uterine horn (which explains why I couldn't bump the calf...wrong side, under the rumen), but she's only 7 to 7.5 months along! Bridgit, too, is pregnant, a little less further along. Both are bred by Umberto of Hem-Loch, the second bull we had visit last year. We're not sure why Tabor didn't breed Sheila (Bridgit was under-conditioned, meaning too thin, so that's why he didn't cover her), but it will work better for us to have both ladies calve around the same time. We might be taking at least one cow/calf pair to the fairs this year. That'll be a brand new experience!

Once that ordeal was over, we switched gears and went into the other pasture. Paul fashioned a second v-squeeze out of two stock panels borrowed from a neighbor and three 4x4 wooden posts buried sturdily in the ground. It worked like a dream, almost better than our other setup. (Plus, since the rain decided to hold off until we were done, the lack of shelter didn't matter.) We put little Natalie in first for her vaccinations, and she was a good girl. That's actually the first time we've been able to lay hands on her (ha ha, you can't get away now!). We plan to halter her again and work on just gentling her by combing and giving her little leading lessons without a negative vet visit as the "reward."

Finally, we brought T-Bone in for his nose piercing. Our vet was very careful and slow, first giving him a mild sedative to mellow him out, then injecting something to block the nerves to the nose, and squirting copious amounts of Novocaine or something into the piercing area to deaden the mucus membranes. He feels that making the experience as pleasant as possible would help make him easier to work around (especially around his head) as time goes on. Once he was sure T-Bone couldn't feel it, he made the piercing using a trocar, a two-piece metal device normally used to relieve an animal from a bloating rumen (which can be fatal). After he had the trocar installed, he threaded the now-open, sharp pointed ring through in the opposite direction using the hollow tube part of the trocar as a guide. He inserted the tiny screw that holds the two ends of the ring together and keeps it closed, and T-Bone went on his merry (slightly unsteady, mellow) way. According to the vet, it'll take about 2 weeks for the wound to heal. Afterward, having that ring will allow T-Bone's new owners much greater control any time they need to work with him for any reason. (Bulls follow their noses much better than halter ropes or other means. Plus, if you tie them by the nose, which is a requirements for bulls of a certain age at fairs and shows, they're less likely to get loose.)

It was a good day, one we're very glad to have behind us, and one, happily, with a positive outcome all the way around!

T-Bone sporting his new manly nose ring. He's looking so grown up!

Uncertainty

2010-02-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

We may have been duped. Actually, that's not true. The real story is that Paul and I have been operating under the assumption that Sheila was bred back during Tabor's visit...and we may be wrong.

Most breeds of cattle, Scottish Highland included, have an average gestation of 283 days plus or minus 10. There are many versions of cattle gestation calculators out on the Internet to help breeders determine when a cow might calve. Based on Tabor's 16-week long visit last year, Sheila, if bred, could have calved as early as November 16, 2009 and as late as, with the plus 10 factored in, yesterday. Now, if Tabor didn't breed her for whatever reason, Umberto could have done the job a few months later. Her due date then would be the same window as Bridgit's, April 8-May 16.

The thing is, she's showing no imminent signs of calving. Her udder started to swell a couple of months ago, and with daily checking, I've been able to compare changes one day to the next. She's changed very little the past month or so. Other signs of imminent calving include loosening of the ligaments around the pin bones as the pelvis widens to prepare for birth, and the change in a cow's mid-section shape from "round" to "slab-sided" (when viewed from behind) as the calf inside turns toward the birth canal. Sheila has shown neither of these changes.

Moreover, the "mucus threads," or vaginal mucus "strings" (like we're sewing or something here?!) that one would see haven't been present. The latter was really stressing me out...she had some mucus about a month ago, quite a bit in fact, but has had none again until two days ago...and that mucus was thick and blood-tinged...which makes us wonder if in fact she's actually been in heat and ovulated. That would be a real bummer.

Our fabulous vet is visiting next Wednesday morning to put a ring in T-Bone's nose (he's been sold and is moving to Bellingham to hopefully make some babies!), vaccinate Natalie, and pregnancy check both Sheila and Bridgit (who looks pregnant, but again, we're going off of assumptions, mostly).

The lesson learned here (and watch, Sheila will probably pop out a gorgeous calf this weekend specifically because I've shared my thoughts in this blog post!) is that assuming makes an as*...er...assuming makes it very difficult to know whether you can expect a calf or not. In this case, we're hoping, hoping, hoping that if she wasn't bred by Tabor, she was by Umberto, meaning we'd have a second calf in April/May AND owe our friends, The Bates', another bull rental fee! There could be worse things...like no calf at all.

An outing

2010-02-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have followed my blog awhile will remember that my last flock of laying chickens - 10 hens and a big rooster - were killed by coyotes in May 2009. Today I have a flock of 10, 9 girls and a rooster (I say girls because only a few are laying, meaning the rest are pullets, not hens yet), and as much as I thrilled at watching my first flock free range around our pastures (and the neighbors'!), I didn't think I would ever try it again.

Well, I lied. :) I've propped open the coop door inside the barn a few times and let the flock scratch around in the barn, and once or twice I've opened the barn door to let the chooks outside. However, the only ones who would ever go were the three Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, the little rebels. Today, though, with our February weather mild and only a couple of hours left before I knew the flock would want to roost for the night, I tried again. To my surprise, they all barrelled out of the barn after only about 5 minutes, and spent a solid hour and a half scratching around the paddock! They were clearly enjoying themselves, running here and there, scratching in cow patties (what's this stuff?!), eating grass and weeds, picking at new things, and trying to catch bugs (we've had some sort of hatch...gnats?).

The only downside was Annabel, who as a calf enjoyed following the chickens around. Now, bigger, more hormonal, and maybe a little bored, she took to running after and at them, kicking up her heels, bucking around, and generally freaking my newly-ranging chickens out! At one point she ran the flock into a corner and somehow, POOF, one of my chickens ended up on the other side of the fence! It was really weird...and I had to climb over the fence into the neighbor's property to persuade her back to the flock.

I think I may try this again, this type of supervised, late-afternoons/evenings-only free ranging. I know it's enriching for the birds, it's fun for me (and Annabel, unfortunately), and it makes the eggs that much more divine!

A flurry of free-ranging activity.

Annabel, picture of innocence.
Yeah. Right.

Oh, no! Here she comes! Ruuunnnn!!!

Oh, my. How did I get over here?

Stinkerbell

2010-01-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

Paul and I are terrible, I suppose, about nicknaming our critters. All of our cattle have nicknames, but the more trouble they get into, the more nicknames they get.

Case in point: Annabel, calf of many nicknames. They range from the expected "Annie" and "Anna" and "Annie Bells" to the odd, like "Fanbelt" (Paul's latest favorite).

Today she's been nicknamed "Stinkerbell." She's a sprightly girl on her good days, and other days she's downright mischievous. Today she's decided there's enough room in the hay ring to climb inside and hang out. We'd hoped she'd gotten too big for this, but obviously we were wrong.

Paul decided she needs to come out before she soils what remains of this haylage bale to the point Sheila and Bridgit won't eat it. He went out first with three apples, but that didn't work. She just looked at him while Bridgit and Sheila got the apples.

Then he tried grain, first in a bag, then a bucket. She just looked at him while Sheila and Bridgit did tricks for grain, and then he got suckered into feeding some grain to T-Bone, Lana and Natalie. Stinkerbell just continued to watch from inside her round domain.

She's still in there. And in case you might think, like we have in the past, "Oh, dear, she's probably stuck," she will amaze us in 2 minutes or 30 or 90 by reappearing like a normal cow, standing in a corner far from the ring feeder, chewing her cud. That's Stinkerbell for you.

Dark Days, Dark Nights

2010-01-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

I've been quite lax the last few weeks in posting about my Dark Days meals, so possibly out of guilt, here's a two-fer.

Last night Paul barbequed two different Highland steak cuts from Hemlock Highlands, a rib eye and a chuck steak. When he mentioned he threw the chuck steak on the barbie, I was instantly skeptical, as I've only ever had chuck as a pot roast. OH MY! It was so, so good! He used our favorite steak rub, Tom Douglas' "Rub with Love" (from Seattle, no less), and it needed nothing else. He tried to convince me to take the rib steak as it would be "better," and I do love a good rib steak, but I insisted on splitting both with him, and I'm glad. Both were fantastic. We ate some baked spaghetti squash (from his mom's garden in Randle) and our own beets on the side.

Tonight we had Highland again, this time ground beef from Rustler's Roost Ranch in Yacolt, WA. (If you live in the Portland/Vancouver area and would like Rustler's Roost Ranch's contact information, please contact me.) Form of: soft tacos! (Sorry, "Wonder Twin Power, Activate" reference. I blame my cold.) They were wonderful, and I was especially pleased because my sense of taste and smell came back at the same time so I could really savor the flavors. The only other somewhat local contribution to the meal was cheese from Tillamook Farms in Oregon, but I think calling Tillamook, OR local to Tenino is a slight stretch. :)

In other news, these dark nights find us coming home to still no calf from Sheila. I think she may just toy with her due date, which is technically February 8th by the gestation calendar, but can add another 10 days to that as cows are known to go +/- 10 days from their due dates. She is a major wide load, but otherwise isn't displaying signs of imminent delivery. I remember that last year her teats got firm and started pointing a little crooked, and I failed to recognize that as a sign she could calve within 12 to 24 hours. The other signs can be a little more vague, and in her case, come and go a little bit. Bridgit hasn't been pregnancy checked, but she's also "showing," so it's highly likely she is also bred. She will be due in April/May.

Speaking of breeding, Paul reported T-Bone was showing Natalie quite a bit of affection this evening...and he was clearly attempting to breed Lana last week. We're pleased he knows what to do at his young age!

Profile of a bovine: Natalie

2010-01-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

Meet Natalie of Hem-Loch. She's 7-years old, brindle, short-statured and shy. She enjoys eating, grazing, sparring with T-Bone (who's about the same size), napping, and hanging out with her old friend Lana.

She hopes to become a mother and to somehow be the boss of those yellow cows she can see living by the barn, Sheila and Bridgit. However, she realizes her short stature may be a detriment to that aspiration.

She's ready for Sunday football...although won't comment about her favorite team or who she thinks will make it to the NFL. We'll work on her.

Just passing through

2010-01-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

Skookumchuck Farm grew by two more cows yesterday! Natalie of Hem-Loch and Lana of Schoonover Farm, both nearly 7-years old, were whisked away from their shady paddock in Quilcene and released into our north pasture last night for a stay while we evaluate their condition and conformation. They have been fast friends since they were sold together as youngsters and stick with each other like glue. They couldn't be more different...Natalie is brindle and beefy with stubby little legs (she's probably a little shorter than Bridgit), while Lana is a Highland giant, standing probably a full six inches taller than Natalie, and probably a few inches taller than Sheila, too. Neither cow shows any signs of illness or injury, but both are on the thin side and beelined straight from the trailer to the haylage bale T-Bone and Bridgit were forced to leave behind (the latter two are staying temporarily in our large pasture). They're a little nervous but not wild. It will take some patience and persistance if we are to work with them at all.

Chances are both girls will be headed to our beef program, but it's a little early to know for certain. If T-Bone could have his way, they'd stay forever. He can hardly stand being separated, licking his lips every time the new girls pee. (For those not in the know, smelling and tasting a female's urine is how bulls decide whether they're in or approaching heat.) If they stay for any length of time, we will be housing T-Bone with them while Bridgit moves into our other paddock with Sheila and Annabel. Whatever their futures, they will likely prove to be a good investment.

Natalie of Hem-Loch

Natalie (foreground) with Lana of Schoonover Farm (background). There really is that much difference in height!

The year in review

2009-12-31T18:34:00.001-08:00

My, my, how the time flies. In a mere 4 1/2 hours (Pacific Time) we'll say goodbye to 2009 and hello to a brand new decade. The year has been quite an adventure for Paul and me. Here are some of the highlights:

We said goodbye to our darling Maggie dog and our first flock of chickens

We hatched our first ever chicks and got our first eggs from them

I lost my job 1/1/09 due to layoff, and nearly at year-end, got a new one

We showed our calves at two fairs and won our first ribbons

We had a knockout vegetable garden and experienced canning for the first time

We made a bunch of new friends through our cattle assocation and our Grange membership

Paul and I were independently doing our own things as single people in the first half of the 2000s, but the latter half saw us meet, date, marry, remodel a house and sell it, buy our home in the country and move, obtain our first flock of chickens and our first cattle, and welcome our first two calves into the world. Wow!

Tonight I am filled with awe for what has been (the good and the bad), and with hope for the coming year.

To you and yours, all of us at Skookumchuck Farm (two- and four-legged) wish you a safe, joyous, prosperous and Happy New Year!

Coronation

2009-12-26T17:57:00.000-08:00

There has been a power shift in the North Pasture: T-Bone is king. We're not really sure when it happened, but the signs are unmistakeable.

Case in point: yesterday he was drinking at one end of the water trough, and Bridgit wandered over to take a drink at the other end. However, one quick toss of T-Bone's head in her direction and she demurely backed away, deciding instead that a bite of haylage might be nice. In the past, she could make him move away in any direction with a flick of her horns, and if he didn't oblige, she'd head butt him to make her point. Now the tables are turned, and he's dishing out the orders.

When T-Bone was about seven months old he used to try sparring with Bridgit, but she was merciless, running him backwards right into the corner or otherwise chasing him off. Now, though not only does he start it, but it's not over until he says so. Paul left the gate between our yard and their pasture unlatched the other day and Bridgit took advantage to zip into the yard, and once T-Bone figured it out and followed, a great sparring ensued. Paul got some great photos, too.

Now if we can just find him a new home so he can go practice his testosterone-driven behaviors with someone else's cows!

"Come on, lady. I can take ya."

"I like to call this move the freight train."

T-Bone proving he's still just a youngster at heart.

Dark Days - Fish Friday!

2009-12-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

Paul informed me Wednesday night he'd be making fish on Friday, and happily he followed through, choosing the entire menu for the evening and cooking up a storm. We have our own specialties and neither of us step into the other's domain very often. For me, it's cookbook cooking, or making meals from scratch involving multiple ingredients and steps. I love that. Paul prefers simple cooking, so he's become master of fish, elk (or venison), and all things grilled. Oh, and breakfast...Paul can really rock a breakfast.

Last night he made sauteed cracker-breaded black rockfish (caught himself from our boat this summer on one of his many Westport fishing trips) with steamed fresh beets from our garden and baked spaghetti squash from his mom's garden. Served with grated Parmesan cheese for the squash and my homemade, simple tartar sauce (mayo, grated homegrown onion and my own homemade pickles, grated) on the side, it was a delightful meal! The fish was perfectly cooked and buttery; the squash, tasty on its own, was even better with the nutty flavor of Parmesan cheese; and those beets, sweet and earty at the same time, didn't even need butter or salt. (We will be planting more beets in 2010!)

Some of our 2009 beets, picked and ready to clean and process.

Dark days, comfort food

2009-12-12T16:48:00.000-08:00

In early November I signed up to be a part of the 3rd Annual Dark Days Challenge, an online celebration of local, sustainable, organic food and how we cook (and eat!) it. November raced by in a whirlwind of interviews and starting a new job, and I just couldn't get myself started with the blogging portion of the challenge, even though we eat meals that qualify on a regular basis.

Here's the challenge: to cook one meal per week using ingredients (minus spices, etc.) that meet the SOLE requirement - sustainable, organic, local, ethical.

With the truly frigid temperatures we experienced last week, Paul and I wanted nothing more than to sit in front of the fire (even if it's from the pellet stove) and eat a homecooked, comforting, hot meal. Leaving for work in the morning when it's 4 degrees is hard on the body...at least these made-in-Washington ones!

Mid-week, I made a meatloaf using the fantastic Scottish Highland beef we bought this fall from Hemlock Highlands in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. While not truly all that local to us, Highland beef is hard to come by, and given our friends at Hemlock had some for us to buy (miracle!), we're counting it as local for the purposes of the challenge. My meatloaf contained two of our own farm-raised eggs, two little onions from my crop (they were late-harvested and I'm not sure I grew them right, but they're tasty and cute!), and we had a spaghetti squash grown by Paul's mom in Randle on the side. I wish I could say the bread was local, but it wasn't. I'll work on that. Still, though, YUM!!

I make meatloaf the way I was taught as a kid (and thankfully I no longer eat raw beef with a piece of onion in the middle like I did then!) It's not fancy, but it's comforting, and my picky-meatloaf-eater husband loves it!

Meatloaf

2 lbs ground Scottish Highland beef (elk and regular ground beef works, too)
2 eggs
2 pieces of bread, torn into small pieces
1 medium onion, chopped (I used two dinky onions)
Approx. 1 Tbs Worchestershire sauce
Approx. 1 Tbs ketchup
Salt and pepper to taste

Using your hands, squish together all ingredients in a large bowl. (I recommend removing your rings. Just sayin'.) Turn into an ungreased 9" x 12" baking dish (actually, as long as it's big enough for your loaf, you're good, regardless of shape). Pat into a loaf shape (I like to make mine rectangular to better fill sandwiches the next day). Squeeze ketchup around on the top if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes, checking for doneness with a knife sliced into the center.

NOTE: If using Highland beef or elk, note that the level of fat contained in the meat is less than what you'll usually find in your average store-bought ground beef. You may need to use less onion and bread, and even another egg, to get the consistency right. Even if it falls apart when you slice it, though, it'll still taste great!

Nose to the grindstone

2009-12-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

So much has changed here at Skookumchuck Farm...but it feels a bit deja vu in a way. Want a hint? It involves ironing boards, commuter mugs and hour-long lunches. Yes, it's true...I got a job! After a long but eventful (and enjoyable) ten and a half months as an unemployed American, this girl got a great, permanent job working for the State of Washington. Today was the middle of my third week on the job, and boy, do I ever feel out of it! My employer is thrilled to have me, which is super, but I feel like I need a reboot on my brain! Needless to say, blogging hasn't been tops on my priority list lately, but I hope to change that. Starting today.

So...in the past month, here are some of the things that went on at the farm:

We recognized the cattle were eating their way through our hay supply at an alarming speed, and switched over to haylage bales.

Sheila's udder started to swell a bit, then stopped for three weeks. It's on the increase again, but her pins aren't flexible yet and there's no discharge. Maybe we'll have a Christmas calf.

One of my own black pullets started laying a cute brown egg and has continued daily (or almost daily). All three of the Easter Egger hens laid at least one egg (and one lays baby blue eggs - pretty!), but all but one stopped. I'm getting a total of an egg or two every day or two. :)

Paul spent several days at elk camp, my uncle got a bull elk, and they butchered it in our garage. Fun times. (Ack.) The meat is a little strong for some reason, but thankfully it was split between five guys, so we only have a little bit.

T-Bone and Brigit are co-existing well in the North pasture. They don't even head-butt all that much anymore. Is she more tolerant? Is she mellow because she's (hopefully!) pregnant? Has he given up on her? Who knows...we'll have to watch this soap opera longer to find out.

Paul brought home a gorgeous stump from work one day, a gift for my aunt and uncle. He used logging equipment (blocks and lines) to lift it from the back of his crummy (a.k.a. work truck), and pulled a little too hard on one of our (ugly, ant-attracting) pine trees. The stump now lives happily in Edmonds.

I spent too many days frantically shopping for "business appropriate" work clothes. I luckily feel very appropriately dressed for business now.

We pulled out the rest of the garden, then let the cattle (in two separate shifts so as not to co-mingle T-Bone and Annabel) much away on what remained. Good times were had by all!

That's all from the farm...for tonight. I'll work on being a little more on top of the news from now on. But for now, it's dinner and then bedtime! Working girls have to get up early!

And so it begins again...

2009-10-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking back to this time last year, when I obsessively checked both Bridgit and Sheila every morning for two months at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. in the dark with the flashlight, studying vulvas, feeling pin bones and judging udders, unsure of when their calves would come and yet certain it would be any day.

That time was entertaining for my readers and frustrating for me. I have no idea how the cows felt about it, but they must not have minded much...they were good sports and didn't hurt me, at least.

This year I'm physically in the same waiting realm, but mentally in a whole different place. I can fully appreciate now how difficult it is to know when a cow will calve. Based on the dates of Tabor's visit, Sheila could calve anytime between November 16th and February 8th. Bridgit, since she didn't take with Tabor and had a visit from the back-up (but mighty fine) boyfriend, Umberto, should calve between April 8th and May 17th.

How do I know this? The handy dandy gestation calendar. Full term for cows is 273 days, plus or minus 10. (Big plus or minus, huh?!) Sheila's calving window is obviously much longer because Tabor "stayed over" a long time.

I'm not obsessing, but I am keeping my eye on both girls. I went so far the other day as to pull photos from the same week in 2008, looking at Sheila's roundness then and now. Prior to that I was certain she wouldn't calve until December this year, but the photos seem to indicate she's about as big and pregnant right now as she was with giant T-Bone. Her crankiness, too, seems indicative. She doesn't appreciate me standing behind her with a camera, trying to take photos of both sides of her at once. I swear the other day I saw her right side moving and swirling as if a calf was tumbling around inside. It could be my imagination, though.

What I do know is we can be prepared with our calf kit and emergency instructions, but predicting delivery dates is a game I already failed memorably at. I'll just watch and wait (patiently), navel dip and bathroom scale at the ready. Regardless, I can't wait to see what our new calves will be like...bulls, heifers, colors, size, personality...it's all so exciting!

Sheila of the Big Belly, 2009

Green eggs and ham

2009-10-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

After a loooonnnnggg wait, I discovered my first egg out of the new flock this morning!!! Can you feel my glee? I mean, AmysFlock the First died on May 16, 2009, and we consumed what remained of their (non-incubated) eggs by the end of the following week. It's been five months since a chicken has laid an egg at Skookumchuck Farm.

The egg is light green with brown speckles. I suspect Mama, one of the Wheaties, is the layer; firstly, she had six 3-month old Wheatie Jr. chicks at her side when I bought her and secondly, I'm pretty certain none of my three black pullets out of AmysFlock the First had an Easter Egger mama. (I do want to research the heritability of feathering and color (and egg color) more, though, because perhaps a pullet could be black and lack the EE "cheek" feathers and still have an EE mother.)

I am just tickled. The nesting boxes were moved to their new location under the West-facing window just last week, but lack the darkening roof and back panels I had planned to work on today. I thought for sure those two things would need to be completed before a little miss decided the nest boxes were ok for laying. Perhaps the fluffy clean shavings, the perfectly-dimensioned vented file box nests, and/or the grit-filled fake egg did the trick. Regardless, the egg is spotlessly clean. It now sits in the fridge in half an egg carton...no need to get too optimistic yet, right?

Now the other kiddos just need to catch up! My three black pullets are now 18 weeks old so laying could commence at any time, although likely won't start until around week 21. The three Red Laced Black Wyandotte pullets I purchased are, I think, a couple of weeks younger. The other two Wheaties wore the same leg bands (denoting hatch #) as Mama, so hopefully two more green eggs will join the first before too long. Perhaps I've purchased my last carton of (flat, pale, flavorless) store-bought eggs for awhile!!

Meet the Wheaties

2009-10-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

My flock is finally complete! Yesterday I visited a mixed flock that was being sold - every last one - by a woman outside of Tenino, and came home with three new ladies! They are a wheaten color, mixes of whites, grays, taupe, brown and red (thus the nickname "The Wheaties"). They're Easter Egger mixes, meaning somewhere in their lineage are mothers who laid blue or green eggs and had cheek feathers that stuck out. These are mixes because for one I have no idea what the parents looked like, having been given away some time ago, and secondly because about 40% of the entire flock had feathered legs, which is not an Easter Egger trait. The legs harken to a Brahma or perhaps Cochin parent somewhere in there. One of my new ladies was a mama, having set and hatched out six beautiful chicks. The other two are the same age; supposedly they were hatched late last year but all three (in fact most of the flock wearing the same leg bands) are fairly small. Maybe a parent in there had some Bantam - the mini breeds.

The new ladies are in quarantine in the former Boy Jail (the boys were taken to the auction in Chehalis on Saturday to spare Paul and me the duty of having to butcher, which we were unprepared to do). I want to be sure they are healthy AND don't have scaly leg mites, which four of the six much-older Rhode Island Red hens at the same farm seemed to have. Each new girl got her legs slathered with Vaseline on her way from cat carrier to Boy Jail and I will treat them every few days with the same (the thought being one could smother mites if they exist). In a week or so I'll smuggle them into the barn coop under the cover of darkness, so they can have a chance to sleep near their new coop-mates before everyone wakes up and freaks out about the new residents.

Provided all three of the Wheaties end up healthy (and none of my still sexless Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chicks are boys), the flock will contain 9 hens to one rooster...a nice egg-producing number!

In other chicken news, my still-nameless rooster has nearly mastered his crow and sounds much more grown up...and is attempting to mate with one of the pullets, much to her dismay. This guy is quite precocious, as roosters aren't supposedly sexually mature until 24-25 weeks of age, and my little flock is only 16-weeks old! He apparently didn't get the memo. However, as he practices his voice multiple times per day he has caught the attention of our previous predator, the coyote, who came waltzing in with a crooked, limpy gait, along the north fenceline this morning at 7:30, listened awhile, and then ran off again. Bad news for the chickens...they will not be free-ranging unattended...or maybe at all. If that is the case, we'll need to increase the size of the outdoor run to give the kiddos plenty of room to scratch around.

Home again!

2009-09-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

We're back from the Puyallup Fair! It was a really great experience, although a much larger and more competitive environment than the Grays Harbor County Fair. We met some other breeders, got a lot of new information, saw a ton of animals (there were 50 Highlands!), and Paul even tried his hand at blow-drying the calves for show (he did a good job!).

Both calves ribboned in our super-point Regional Highland Show (accompanied by a live bagpiper), taking first place and champion in their classes. The calves both behaved very well in the show ring, which was a relief, especially since we were all wiped out from the heat. We also placed third in the Pair of Calves class. The crowds were amazing, but we talked to a lot of nice people, answered many, many questions about Highlands and hope we did a good job as ambassadors for the breed.

We're happy to be home, though. Exhibiting animals at the fair brings long days of walking, talking, and slinging poo. The calves were excited to be home, judging from the galloping rounds they made of their pasture last night. In all, though, I think we're hooked on showing our animals. I'm already looking forward to next year's fair season, and who knows, we might add a third fair into our schedule, too!

Annabel all groomed and ready for the show.

Fair bound!

2009-09-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

If you live around here, you're surely hearing all the ads for the Washington State Fair, a.k.a. the Puyallup Fair, on the radio and TV. The jingle is hard to dislodge from one's head!

We leave early tomorrow morning for the fair with T-Bone and Annabel, and will be there through the morning of Monday, September 21st. Our largest regional show will be held this Friday, September 18th at 1:00 p.m.

So, folks, to paraphrase the jingle: Get yourselves to the Fair at whatever speed is comfortable for you, making sure not to stress your heart muscle, but be sure to check your time piece!

Come find us in the Beef Barn! I'll post updates and photos when we return to the farm early next week!

P.S. Watch out for flying pigs, or something like that. ;)

http://www.thefair.com/puyallup-fair/

A turn in the weather

2009-09-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

Fall is definitely approaching here at Skookumchuck Farm. The mornings for most of the past week have been ushered in by heavy fog, which obscures the hills behind us and sometimes even our own property! Cows? What cows? Oh, there they are!

This morning felt especially chilly. The outdoor thermometer confirmed 47 degrees, although this afternoon is supposed to reach a high of 78 degrees in the Seattle area (which means 80 or slightly above for us). I am starting to wonder if our tomatoes will make it. The little yellow ones provide us a handful or so of fruits ripened on the vine every day, but the reds aren't ripening so well. A few plants have yet to produce a single rosy fruit. I suspect I'll be housing a bunch of hard green tomatoes again at the end of the season, hoping to ripen them in the garage.

The change in the air reminds me of other chores that will need to be accomplished soon: planting spring-flowering bulbs (I didn't get around to it last year), ripping out spent vegetable plants and mulching the beds, layering old hay over some of our tender perennials (although I'm starting to think tender perennials just don't stand much chance at this house!). Indoors, our ventilation system needs desperate cleaning, some drafty spots new caulk, the slip-inducing moss removed from the sidewalks so no one breaks their butts coming to visit. :) Fall is my favorite time of year...sleepy, cozy, breath-seeing, sweater-wearing, cider-drinking. YAY! Gone will be the blistering days when I wish I lived in Alaska (or an air conditioned house). During the height of winter, when I'm sick of breaking through crunchy snow to take buckets of warm water to the cows' troughs, I'm sure I'll long for the sunshine of summer, but for now, cooler weather seasons are right up my alley!

What do you have planned to get your home, garden and/or farm ready for the cooler months?

Proud of our plots

2009-08-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Paul and I are such proud gardeners this year! Everything we've planted has seen a measure of success, and some things have flat-out blown our minds. Case in point: the beets. Last year we planted them in the "big garden," where the Conservation District Agent said we'd have no luck, and, well, he was right. We had too many rocks for the bulbs to really develop. This year, a little mushroom compost, proper thinning and a new location in the raised garden beds, and we had a bumper crop, harvesting 80-90 medium-sized beets. We made 9 pints of pickled beets (our first canning venture!) and froze several two-person-sized portions for later, and divvied the greens among the cattle. Our other successes:

Broccoli: we planted two varieties and one was truly a shining star - 'Umpqua', and early variety, producing huge heads and so far up to three crops of yummy side-shoots. The 'Premier Crop' is ok and didn't bolt this year as badly as last year's crop did, but I don't know that we'll plant it again.

Cauliflower: the 'Cheddar' variety produced some nice, tasty heads but all the plants show signs of club root, which means we can't plant ANY brassicas (broccoli included) in the same location for 3-5 years. Bummer. The 'Graffiti' also did well. We'll harvest our first giant, bright purple head today.

Pole Beans: we planted two rows of 'Blue Lake' pole beans and while they've been slow to start, all the plants are now about 7 feet high and producing loads of flowers. We may be able to harvest our first mess tonight.

Corn: our 'Bodacious' corn is 8 feet tall and most stalks have two or three ears developing on them. We're probably at least a week from harvesting. The 'Golden Jubilee', a later variety, is starting to set ears now after tassling just this week.

Swiss Chard and Spinach: the 'Bright Lights' chard seeds I broadcasted did overly well. We've been feeding the biggest leaves to the cows for a few weeks now. We have yet to eat any ourselves, but it sure is pretty! The spinach, also broadcast but into a bed that doesn't get as much water, finally germinated and is resulting in seven smallish plants. I'll need to pick some and see how it tastes.

Tomatoes: we've harvested one 'Oregon Spring' (YUM, huge, acidic fruit, a definite winner!), two 'Bush Early Girl' (also yum, but smaller) and several unidentified small yellow cherry-types so far (from Barb in Tacoma!). All the 19 plants have fruits on them so I know the bounty is coming. It may be overwhelming, but that's what canners are for, right? I'm hoping to make some salsa and may try some of our tomatillos in a few jars, too.

Onions: for some reason these are the only plants attractive to our crazy deer! They've eaten the tops off of each lazily-planted clump, one clump at a time, from left to right. They've not touched the chard or spinach, nor any of the flowers. It's the weirdest thing. Now that I've lifted some of the vigorous tomatoes off of their stalks, I'm watching for signs of browing so that I can harvest these guys before the deer take the rest!

Zucchini: we've had zucchinis for a few weeks and have been trying not to let them get too big. It appears the green variety is about done, but we're still getting yellows. I think it's time to freeze some more for those long winter nights. Powdery mildew has a been a problem this year so I'm looking forward to finally being able to rip the plants out and throw them away.

Herbs and "beneficial bug mix" flower seeds: these did very well, even the basil which is remarkably coming up in a nice little row, squashed as it is between the dill and the giant Swiss chard crop. I still need to figure out what to do with the basil so it'll last...maybe I can freeze dry it.

Winter Squash and Pumpkins: the 'Carnival' winter squash is going crazy. The plants are three feet tall and wide, and each of the four hills have multiple fruits on them. 'Thelma (some-last-name-I-can't-remember)' is doing ok, so far producing only three lovely off-white fruits. The 'Sugar' pumpkins are doing really well; I think we had 10 fruits at last count, but again, powdery mildew is a problem (they share a bed with the zucchini) so I look forward to the vines dying so I can rip them out.

How are your gardens growing? Hope you're enjoying your own fresh produce!

New kids - a chicken update

2009-08-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

After much capturing and moving of aggressive chicks from my original flock, and the addition of three new (younger) Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chicks to the group in the main coop, there seems to be a truce in the coops.

The extra roosters have been moved to a separate dog-kennel pen in the yard and are doing quite well together, even though I'm not positive all are roosters. The three white ones are there with two black ones, and all told, I'm only sure two of the "roos" are actually boys. The others might be girls, but I witnessed them all being instigators of aggression in the big coop so all must go. They're currently listed on a chicken chat board and Craigslist in hopes someone will want them. At least they are all getting along together, so if they must stay there until they're butchering size, that'll be ok.

Once the above-mentioned five were culled from the main flock, I was left with only five pullets (future hens) and my Easter Egger cross rooster (who will also likely find a new home). Five eggs a day won't make this venture worthwhile at all, so I started looking for additional pullets. I purchased three Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chicks from a breeder last weekend and so far they're doing pretty well, even though they're so much smaller (the smallest is smaller than Teeny, the runt). They stick together as a group, thankfully, as they are sometimes chased around, but I've not seen any severe picking nor any blood on anyone in the big coop, so I consider it a success so far.

These new babies are striking, and apparently somewhat rare. The two larger ones are a slate-blue with red, and the little one is pale gray with red. They are smart, figuring out how to scratch in the dirt and eat bugs and produce faster than the rest of the flock (some of whom were afraid of halved zucchini, no joke). Wyandottes are reported to be a gentle breed, and that's my goal...to gentle my flock over time. These three seem sweet, gentle and peep softly all the time!

I'm still taking applications to fill two or three more laying slots (!) but will take a little more time to decide what breed I'd like to slot in there. I do love the Easter Eggers/Ameracaunas so if I can find some of the right age that would be ideal, but I have other options, too. I anxiously await the day we can stop eating eggs from Costco once again!

Officially

2009-08-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Grand Champion Bull Skookumchuck's T-Bone
with owners Amy & Paul Lagerquist

Fair thee well

2009-08-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

We're back from the fair, and it was a rolicking, exhausting success! The calves did really well; Annabel took Reserve Champion Heifer Calf and T-Bone took both Grand Champion Bull Calf and Grand Champion Bull! We were proud to display their ribbons in our exhibit and are curious to see how the calves will do next month at the big regional show at the Puyallup Fair.

The fair was also a great time for us on a personal level. We really enjoyed getting to know our fellow Scottish Highland breeders better and appreciated how everyone just pitched in to pitch poo (!) and keep our exhibit areas clean. If someone needed a break or had to run an errand, it was no problem for those of us still in the barn to watch their animals until they returned. We heard great stories, had a ton of laughs, and got to know and interact with each others' animals more. Talking with the public was fun, too. We met folks who either grew up in Tenino or live nearby currently, and that was neat. One man even knew which house was ours ("the one with the boat" - the boat that, when it's here and not in Westport, you can see from Highway 507). Some folks seem interested in learning more about Highlands, some want their own someday, and I even met a few who have them currently but aren't in our association.

Physically, the fair was incredibly exhausting. I've since learned that I need to pace myself, although I'm not really sure what that means or how I'd do it. We may put the camper on the truck for Puyallup so we (and our fellow breeders, if needed) can sneak off to the parking lot for a quick nap now and then. Fair exhibitors keep very long hours during the fair (12 to 16 hours seemed pretty standard), and all that slinging of poop and wet shavings and carrying bucket after bucket of fresh water to the animals and maneuvering wheelbarrows full of dirty and then clean shavings really takes a toll. My neck is still screaming at me and we've been home two days now. It's funny, though, how keyed up everyone (including the animals) was on show day - all the cattle outside the barn waiting while stalls were cleaned and waiting in line for a place at the wash rack (I bathed both calves by myself and blow dried their coats, and they did great!)...there was this nervous excitement that wasn't present on the other days. Then, immediately after our show, a sense of relief. The calves settled down and took long naps, heads folded back toward their back feet in the same positions they sleep in at home. The next few days, though, you could sense the boredom and antsyness in the barn as the cattle got tired of staying in their stalls, tied to the wall rail, with people looking at them. A few of us took our animals for short walks down the aisle or outside to exercise them a bit. T-Bone and Annabel got antsy and were trying to head butt eachother and then me everytime I came in with water buckets or the comb, and seemed to relish trying to knock over their water buckets (I have a perfected water bucket death grip now after each successfully spilled). They were very happy to come home to pasture.

All said, though, I loved it, and am thrilled to have the opportunity to experience this during my time off. I can see, too, how I'd probably want to schedule work vacations around fair time so I could do it again in the future. A few refinements to animal handling and exhibit decorations, and we'll be set to head to the Puyallup Fair in 34 days!

Saying Goodbye

2009-08-03T12:00:00.001-07:00

Maggie, 6/19/97-8/3/09

We love you and miss you already.

Deja vu all over again

2009-07-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have followed my blog since the beginning will recall my angst at the meanness of my prior flock of chickens - the blood, the bare backs and butts from feather picking, and my many attempts to stop it.

Well, the original flock's offspring are no better. A few days ago, after a couple peaceful days in the big coop, I checked on the chicks one evening and discovered carnage. It was partly my fault: the evening before I saw some little bare spots on a couple of chicks and figured I'd pull them the next day. I acted too late. By the time I got out there to pull those pecked on chicks, one was dead, one was in shock, and two more were visibly bleeding.

I quickly moved the dead body ("Duckling," the suspected Easter Egger cross chick with the yellow and black face) out of the coop and scooped up my unconscious black Easter Egger pullet, whisking her into the house. They had pulled every last feather out of her tail and surrounds, leaving bloody mess. She was droopy, listless, and had her eyes closed. I put her in a cool sink of water to cool down and clean off (it was warm that day), treated her wounds with hydrogen peroxide, and set her on a towel on my lap while I sent 911 messages out to my chicken boards. I did get her to take a single sip of sugar water a within the hour, and when I poured hydrogen peroxide on her wounds she did stand up, open her eyes and squawk, but that was the most activity I got. She died in the night on her towel in the bathroom. Her two bloodied cohorts, Teeny (the runt) and the sole remaining Easter Egger, had been moved to the brooder box in the garage and received hydrogen peroxide and Blu-Kote for their smaller wounds.

Later, Paul and I went out to the coop after dark with a flashlight, Blu-Kote and towels and I proceeded to take two more bloodied chicks to the brood box and I sprayed a couple of others with Blu-Kote to hide their bare spots. The injured and the non-injured have been separated now for a few days. The garage babies are faring a little better in the extreme heat we've had here. I watched the eight coop babies for a while and believe the white chicks might be the instigators of the violence. I plan to construct a small dog kennel pen in the shaded part of the yard, capture the white babies under the cover of night, and toss them in there to duke it out, and move my four garage babies back with the rest of their siblings. I suspect I won't see any more violence amongst the larger, but if I do, I'll use a process of elimination to cull the bad ones out.

I have since learned that chicken breeds bred for higher egg production tend to be more aggressive, and Easter Eggers more docile, so it's likely my Easter Eggers get picked on because of the discrepancy between personalities. I will not allow aggressors in this new flock; I had too much trouble last year. Next time I'm ready to have more chicks, I will skip the Sex Links (red or black) in favor of breeds known to be more gentle. And I will definitely continue with Easter Eggers as I love their sharp looks and green/blue eggs. It will be interesting to see what my flock ends up looking like in a couple of months, once this episode has passed...I have a feeling it will be mainly black, and hopefully violence-free.

Keepin' it real

2009-07-23T06:23:00.001-07:00

Skookumchuck Farm has been a massive hub of activity since I last wrote, but that's not why I haven't updated the blog. I realized this morning that perhaps by not putting in writing what is so occupying my every waking thought (and some dreams, too), denial could prevail and maybe I could undo what I've gotten myself into...

I'm taking Annabel and T-Bone to the fair. To show them.

Actually, two fairs: Grays Harbor County Fair (Aug. 5-9, show on the 6th) and the biggie, Puyallup Fair (a.k.a. Western Washington State Fair, Sept. 16-21, show on the 18th). I had no intention whatsoever of showing the calves, and was quite confident I wouldn't have the opportunity anyway since we don't have a trailer to haul them in.

Enter Tom, our Northwest Highland Cattle Association president, who heard through the grapevine that I might someday like to show our animals. Oh, the peer pressure, it was unbearable! Actually, he was very nice and convincing, and even offered to loan Paul and me their small trailer that they won't be using to haul the animals in. And Paul has no problem hauling for me, even though the kiddos have to arrive late and leave late on work nights for Grays Harbor, and even though he'll have to take time off work to haul them to Puyallup for me. Wow.

So, after running around like headless chicken and asking 5 million people 6 billion questions, about everything I have to pull together before August 4th, I have finally kicked it into high gear. The kiddos have their new fancy leather show halters with the chain chin straps, I have a show stick, some instructions to practice bathing the calves before we get there so it's not such a shock to them at the fairgrounds, scrambling to design business cards and a stall display for my area, gathering extra supplies I never knew I'd need, like a show stick for encouraging the calves to set their feet in a nice way, shampoo (in our case I'll do the recommended hint to use dish soap), extra buckets, a small wheelbarrow, a small un-ratty pitchfork and flat shovel (unlike the crappy, well-used ones we have here). I have the calves' registrations pending with our national association, and will be heading out his a.m. with pliers to yank 30-40 hairs out of the base of T-Bone's tail to send in for DNA typing (required for all bulls). Our practice leading/haltering session yesterday was laughable, but I did my best to stay patient, even when Annabel followed right behind T-Bone and me, bumping him in the butt every few steps and being a royal distraction.

Paul pointed out last night the calves are not ready for show (and I agree, _gulp), so I'll be ramping up my practice sessions to twice a day now instead of once, and at his suggestion will pull out the fancy, heavy, clangy black leather halters today so they have more time with them. Meanwhile, I'll be finalizing a logo idea in my head for our business cards, racing to Goodwill to see what manner of decent tablecloths I can find for my stall table, purchasing a locking bin to hold all my supplies at the fairs, etc.

The rewards, though, are many...not only the possibility of winning (and who knows), but ramping up my involvement with Highlands to a brand new, scary level, learning something new (actually, a ton of new things), getting to share my passion for our animals with our association members and the public, being at the fair (I love the livestock exhibits the best anyway, always have), getting our farm's face out there in the world, and maybe, just maybe, finding buyers for Annabel and T-Bone!

Expansive

2009-07-07T15:57:00.001-07:00

My plans for cleaning out the old chicken coop for the new flock was foiled this weekend - the hay was ready! Between Friday night and Saturday night we picked up, transported and restacked 300 bales of nice grass hay in our barn for the year (thanks Alan and Amanda for helping in the dark Friday night!!). It feels great to have that done.

This morning I finally got the old coop cleaned out, the feeder and waterer sterilized and filled (and hung at a chick-appropriate height), the brooder light hooked up via massive lengths of outdoor extension cords, and fresh shavings down on the floor. The chicks were ridiculously easy to catch and drop into a large box, which I lugged out to the barn, and one by one set each into the new coop. I sat on the floor awhile and watched them go from huddled fear to jubilant, gleeful scratching. The new digs are huge at 7'x6' with a 3' window and high ceiling, massive compared to their little 3'x4'x2' lidded brooding box. They're now all settled and happy.

I think I have five roosters, and of those there's one I definitely don't want to keep - one of the white "chocolate chippers", actually the largest chick of the whole bunch, who seems aggressive. I could have sworn the other day it came at me and karate kicked my hand, and today I watched it do the same at another rooster. The other rooster I might like to keep...the white one, not so much.

The babies will be confined to the coop for at least a couple more weeks, during which time I'll rearrange the "funiture" (the nesting boxes and roosts) from the last flock into something that might actually work. I'm also planning to cut a new access door for them to the outside so they can free range (under supervision) without traipsing through the barn and messing up our hay bales like their parents did.

'Tweens

2009-07-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

Lest anyone think it's all cattle, all the time here at Skookumchuck Farm, I thought I'd better provide an update on the chicks. They're 22-days old today (Teeny is 21-days old today)!

All 19 are alive and thriving, even little Teeny, who's still about half the size of everyone else. The babies can and do flap and fly over one another and have totally outgrown their brooding box. Two more weeks and they will no longer need a heat lamp; and in fact, with the weather we've been having, they may not really need it now.

They've got various stages of feathers growing, and all look awkward, like human tweens...longing to be grown up but still with that very awkward look and a baby-sweet innocence about them.

This weekend, with Paul home to protect me from the bull, I'll clean out and sterilize the chicken coop in the barn, put down fresh shavings, block the access door to the outdoor run, and move my charges in. That will give them a ton more room in which to grow and explore. In a couple of weeks I'll start letting them explore their run, and, if I can get a better feel for who the boys and girls are, possibly list some for sale as I only want one rooster and 12 hens going forward.

Curious kiddos.

Teeny in the very center, looking to the left, actual height. (One could truly say the others are head and shoulders above him/her.)

Weenies

2009-07-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a little noisy and hectic on the farm this week. Actually, that's a horrible understatement; it's been chaotic and deafening on the farm this week.

Tuesday morning Baby Daddy #2 (the second visiting bull), Umberto of Hem-Loch, was delivered by two breeders I hadn't met. Umberto has settled in nicely, although, as his owner told me (and I can attest), he's young and focused on doing his job so isn't interested in being combed or handled. I learned from others and from our experience in the spring with Tabor that bulls should be considered dangerous and I don't like to be near them on my own. (Sidenote: one of the breeders seems very interested in buying T-Bone as a bull for his own herd, so we're discussing price and timing. Wow.)

Well, that evening I decided to proceed as planned with separating the calves and locking them by themselves in the front pasture so they couldn't nurse from their mothers. Annabel decided to escape twice over the next couple hours, after which time I discovered the hotwire fence wasn't hot. It had been working a couple of days before, although anything can cause a short, usually a branch or thick grass laying on a wire. I cruised the perimeter of the front pasture and didn't see anything, and against my better judgment walked about 1/3 of the fence of the "big" pasture while keeping one wary, nervous eye on the bull. He was watching me too intently, so I hightailed it back to the safety of the yard and locked the gate behind me. With the fence dead and a valuable show bull on my property, and with no psychological deterrent to prevent escape of him or the calves, I didn't sleep well that night.

The next morning I fiddled for two hours with the fence, including hooking up two more ground rods. No change. I gave myself some time to cool down and mellow out over iced tea, then finally gathered my courage and, finding a moment everyone but Bridgit napping in the paddock, I scurried past, locked both gates to confine everyone, and walked the entire fenceline. I found the culprit: the neighbor's barbed wire had twisted around one of our hotwires. As soon as I untangled it and received a nice shock from our fence, I knew I was back in business.

The rest of the day found me repeatedly fetching Annabel and leading her back into the front pasture where her brother bellowed alone; she escaped nine times (!) by diving between two hotwires. After the last time I took the advice of someone I met on a chat board, led her to the fence and touched her nose on it. She's stayed put ever since.

It's now been 17 full hours of both calves being separated from their mothers, and the noise is impressive. The cows want their babies, and I'm sure their full udders are uncomfortable. The calves want their mothers in the worst way. T-Bone is amazingly loud; Annabel is loud but really sounds more angry. The calves are bellowing, the cows are bellowing...the only quiet one is the bull, who's just wandering around, grazing and napping.

This noise will hopefully only last another day or two, by which time the cows and calves will realize this is a permanent situation, no one is injured, and life will carry on. I hope the neighbors don't hate us too much by the time it's over with!

T-Bone mid-bellow, 6:30 a.m.

Bridgit and Annabel sharing a moment of comfort through the hotwire fence.

A Little Late for St. Patty's Day

2009-06-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a big day at the farm: vet visit day. The primary reason for the visit was to have Bridgit checked to be sure she didn't have a retained corpus luteum (remains of an egg from ovulation) or any ovarian cysts that would interfere with her ability to breed back. Since the vet was coming, though, we decided to take advantage of the situation and get everyone vaccinated, both calves tatooed, and T-Bone's recent limp diagnosed.

Despite my nervousness, or maybe because of it, the day went smoothly. I had formulated a game plan that included haltering and tying Sheila, Bridgit and the newly-halter-broken Annabel an hour prior to the vet's scheduled arrival, and also included calling for backup, just in case I needed it. My friend N. arrived from her farm 20 minutes away, and along with her son, provided moral support and some much needed muscle. Paul had built a V-chute out of two borrowed stock panels, some rope, some wire, some chain and a custom-notched round of wood (as a spacer), and it worked perfectly, providing ample containment to keep us, the vet and the cattle safe as each was worked on.

Bridgit has a clean bill of health, so the bull, Umberto of Hem-Loch, can visit as scheduled starting Sunday afternoon. The calves received their blackleg vaccinations, everyone received a first dose of Triangle-9 (multi-purpose) vaccine (I have the rest of the bottle and will give a booster in 3 to 4 weeks), and Annabel received her important Bangs (bruccellosis) vaccination and requisite tatoo in her right ear.

The vet showed me how to tatoo and tatooed Annabel and T-Bone in the left ear with their unique registration number. Obviously this was the most painful operation of the day as both jumped mightily, and then ran to their mamas when given the chance. Both have green dye on their ear hair...the perfect accessory for St. Patrick's Day, but alas, it's June.

I am also very pleased to report that while Sheila, Bridgit and Annabel all shook their heads at me in defiance of being haltered (which is kind of dangerous with the cows and their horns), all three led like ladies. I'm especially proud of Annabel since that was only her fourth time being led and she gets it!!

T-Bone's leg and hoof has no obvious sign of swelling, sprain, strain or fracture. The vet actually suspected his right front leg was the problem, not the left, so he checked them both. Given all the mounting activity I witnessed last Tuesday when Bridgit was in heat, he probably has a little nerve damage as the main nerve for the front leg runs across the shoulder and on down. If that's the case, it's a functional problem, not anything that causes him pain, and could heal completely in 3 weeks. We've seen some improvement...and wouldn't you know the minute we let him out of the stall, T-Bone took off at a fast run-walk, picking his front hoof up to walk instead of dragging the tops of his toes. Call it a miracle, adrenaline, the desire not to have to be looked at like that again, or actual improvement due to vet massage (!), he continues to walk better on it than he had in 8 days! (The vet also told T-Bone in the course of his examination, "My, you are quite well endowed." This is a good thing when said to a potential breeding bull calf!)

All this for the low sum of $137! I love this vet and am so happy we were able to have him come out finally...and will definitely use him in the future!

Babies - they grow up so fast!

2009-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Our chicks are six days old today (except for Teeny, who's 5 days old), and boy, are they changing fast. No longer tiny, waddling balls of fluff, they now have various stages of flight feathers growing in, and most this morning have the first wisps of their tail feathers growing, too.

Five of the black and yellow babies have feathered in with a yellow primary flight feather (the first one, closest to the bottom of the wing). Several other black ones are growing strictly black feathers. One has red secondary feathers, which is really interesting. The yellow chicks all have yellow feathers, but one of the older ones flapped it's little infant wings a few minutes ago and I saw black spots on some of the feathers (coordinates with the rest of its black-spotted outfit). I know three Easter Egger eggs hatched and I can pick out two of the chicks by their fluffy little cheek feathers (the parent breeds of the Easter Egger hybrids have muffs, or cheek feathers, that curl slightly upward like unruly mid-19th century male beards). I'm still trying to find number 3.

Everyone is eating and drinking (and napping) well. When I open the top of the brooder they scatter - strong fight or flight instincts to be sure. I can feel the strength in the legs and backs of the older ones, and even little Teeny runs now with everyone else. This morning, though, they're also sort of hop-flying. Wow.

I'll post a few new photos later today when the light is better. I have to capture these moments. It's like driving through a tiny town...blink and you missed it!

"Don't stand so, don't stand so, don't stand so close to (her)."

2009-06-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning to catch a glimpse of T-Bone, all Mr. Big Man 6.5-month old, mounting Bridgit (in a biblical sense), and she was standing for him. This is SO not cool. My understandin a female will only stand for a mounter when she's in heat (and the mounter can be male or female, any age). As I watched, then wandered away from the window and back again later, I saw him mount her no fewer than six times, following her around, practically glued to her backside. Grrr.

Little Annabel, sensing something amiss and T-Bone getting attention from Bridgit he normally doesn't, first ran over to Auntie Sheila for comfort, then back to her mother to try and nurse. Bridgit pushed her away. I believe that's normal when a cow is in heat.

We don't *want* Bridgit to be in heat. She was supposed to come into heat when Tabor the bull was visiting for his extended 16-week stay. She was supposed to have been bred back during that time, and should be pregnant now.

Alas, I'll notate in my dayplanner Bridgit - SH for today, and will make note to watch again in another 28-ish days to see if we have a repeat performance, indicating another heat (cows cycle like women...crazy, huh?). If she indeed is in heat, I have no idea what we'll do. We're not set up to keep her still for artificial insemination, and would have to obtain semen straws from an appropriate Scottish Highland bull (at a cost of $35-200 per straw, depdending on how famous the bull is, and whether we can get just a couple from someone instead of having to take the 5 straw minimum), AND make contact with someone local who does AI. And having a bull back out on our property, what with the strain already put on the fences from Tabor's visit and the fact that the dry spell has caused our grass to head out prematurely and necessitated the purchase of another haylage bale last night....oy, I shudder to think.

And you know, we have no intention of leaving T-Bone an intact bull on our property past the age of 12 months. If he was of age (and God save our fences and other structures/equipment!), there would be no problem letting him breed Bridgit as they're not closely related. Bad timing, man.

Nighty night

2009-06-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

The chicks have successfully made it through their second day home (first full day for number 19). It makes me think of that show on TLC, "Bringing Home Baby," where they follow a couple for their first 36 hours home with a newborn baby...although in this case I have 19, and no middle of the night feedings!

Number 19 reminds me of the Little Engine That Could. He or she is nearly a full 24 hours younger than its fellows, so is smaller and still a little tottery, compared to the other 18 who are busily bebopping here, there, and everywhere. This morning I dipped its beak in some lukewarm sugar water for some extra energy, and I've done that a few more times as well, just to be sure its getting some water. I discovered this morning it was showing signs of pasted vent, where their droppings stick to the feathers, harden and make it impossible to poo. They can literally die of inability to poop. How sad is that? I brought the little thing back into the bathroom for another Q-Tip bath to remove the pasted droppings as well as clean off some more dried egg membrane that were limiting its movement. It's still a little hesitant and clearly weaker than the other babies, but I've watched it eat a few crumbles each time I've fed everyone, which is a good sign. After cleaning the waterer and refilling it with fresh water, I redipped its beak into the waterer so it learns not to rely on me and my forced sugar waterings for moisture. Hopefully it'll make it through another night.

I've fed everyone several times today, and replaced their soiled paper towel flooring three times as well. Tomorrow they will graduate to pine shavings on the floor and a normal chick feeder to hold their food, now that they've practiced their pecking reflex and can recognize what is and isn't food. I might move my cardboard partition back, too, and give them a little more room. I discovered this morning that the temperature in the brooder dropped just below 80 degrees overnight last night, which isn't good, so tonight I've shut the cracked open window and put a piece of cardboard over the screened top portion of the brooder to hold in more heat. I'll see how that worked when I check on everyone tomorrow morning.

This is fun...and a delight to see those little black eyes look up at me!

They're here!

2009-06-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

The babies are home! I sterilized the brood box this morning (thank God, it was enough to gag a maggot), got the layers of paper towels down, the light on and the water in, spread some chick starter crumbles (medicated to protect against fatal coccidia), and grabbed a couple of large Ziplock containers (for lack of a cardboard box), and made the approximate 1.5 minute drive from my house to Don and Sally's to pick up the chicks!

There are 19 total, but one little one, probably the same one that was just pipping last night when Paul and I were there, didn't make it out of the shell, and after I heard a cheep from within the egg, Don pulled it gently apart and freed the little one, which was stuck to the membrane inside the shell. It may or may not make it. Don feels it has a 50/50 chance at this point, although it was breathing well and had turned itself from its belly to its butt, legs kicking. I left it there to dry in the incubator, and if all goes well, I'll pick it up tomorrow so it can join its fellows.

Of the 18 at home in the brooder, all but five are black (well, black and yellow, really). There are five large, fluffy yellow chicks, each with one or two black dots on it somewhere. One little guy/girl has a dot right on top of the head, another on the back between its wings. These all have sturdy yellow legs, while most of the black have olive or yellow and olive legs.

I'm so anxious to see how they grow and change when they get their feathers. Of the 19 hatched eggs, only 3 were Easter Egger eggs. I'm pretty sure one black and yellow is an Easter Egger offspring as it has very interesting yellow markings on its face that none of the other black ones have. The yellow chicks are probably all Red Star Sex Link offspring. The leg color doesn't tell me much of anything as Brewster the Rooster (an Australorp) had black legs, the Black Stars had black legs, and all of the Easter Eggers had the characteristic olive (kind of a slate gray) legs.

Regardless, these little darlings are so busy (except when they crash and decide to take a 30 second nap) and noisy! They are, so far, the picture of health, and I hope I can do my part to keep them that way.

Ready for some "Awwwws"?!

All 18, safe in the brooder box.

The five chocolate chippers, all in a row.

Look at that sweet little face!

Baby legs.

Delighted!

2009-06-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

I just got a call from my friend and Grange Master, Don (actually, his wife, Sally): my eggs are hatching! Sally's exact words were, "Congratulations, you're a mommy!" They haven't counted yet, but think there are about 15 hatchlings out so far, and possibly more eggs pipping (i.e. babies starting to break through their shells). I can't necessarily depend on having all of the 27 we candled as "fertile" actually hatch and survive, but given that was only three short days ago, we'd be surprised if I didn't have a much higher hatch rate than just the 15 babies I have so far.

Sally reports (and Don agrees) that the chicks are HUGE, and one is snow white and so fluffy and cute she wanted to keep it for herself! Don says at least two of my Easter Egger eggs have hatched; perhaps the white babe is the offspring of Goldie, my pretty white and gold Easter Egger hen? Don says there are lots of black ones, too, and given I had four laying Black Star Sex Link hens (and a Black Australorp rooster), this doesn't surprise me.

I'm waiting anxiously for Paul to get home from work so we can run over there, peek at the babies (and count them!), and haul home the wooden brooding box, which is too big to fit in my car. Then, tomorrow morning I get to bring them home! I can't wait...even though this is a few days earlier than expected and I feel unprepared! (I wonder if this is how folks who are licensed to be foster parents feel when they get the very first call that a kiddo is on his or her way...)

I'm not sure how I'll be able to contain my excitement...I feel like passing out bubble gum cigars! Stay tuned for photos and a more thorough report tomorrow...

Expectant

2009-06-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

I finally got to candle my incubating chicken eggs last night, and unless we missed something, it appears 27 of the 30 eggs I brought over for incubation are fertile! My friend normally gets about a 50% hatch rate so I brought twice as many eggs as I really want to hatch, thinking I'd end up with about 15, of which I'd keep a dozen. Well, if 27 actually hatch and live, I'll be brooding 27 babies and selling all but a dozen!

To candle, he removed each egg one at a time from the incubator and shined a flashlight through it. Unfortunately my flash obscures the result, but fertile eggs show a slanted air space near the top (the big end) and a darker band, about 1/3 the length of the egg, around the middle. Infertile eggs tend to have a dark cluster near the middle, sometimes with blood vessels showing, like a tiny little explosion. One of the eggs had an airspace smaller than the others, leading us to believe the egg is either infertile, or the chick will experience hatching problems and won't make it.

Today I ran out for supplies, included medicated chick starter crumbles (hatching so many chicks during this warm time of year means they're highly susceptible to coccidosis, which is very contagious and fatal), a long trough-style chick feeder and a thermometer to keep tabs on the temperature in the brooding box. I'll borrow a big wooden brooding box from my friend, along with a custom-made lid that covers part of the top and houses the warming light bulb. I have a plastic gallon waterer that I will sterilize. We'll set the brooder up in the insulated room in the garage. With its shaded windows and door that shuts tightly, it'll be a secure home for their first several weeks. Within six weeks or so we'll need to move them to permanent housing.

That'll be the next project: choosing a style and location for the new chicken coop and run (we want the whole barn for hay storage), and building it. We're not builders, and we need to be very cost effective so will be using recycled and cheaply-obtained materials. This should be interesting!

Since the eggs didn't go into the incubator until a few days after I brought them to my friend, hatching should commence over the weekend instead of this Thursday like I expected. This is good, as it buys me a few more days to mentally and physically prepare for our new arrivals. The garage should be filled with the sound of peeping chicks by Monday!

Inside the incubator, a fancy thing with automatic tilting tables. My eggs are in the top row, with my friend's Sumatra and banty eggs in the two trays below.