My Most Favoritist Day of the Year

I can say that, right?  I'm not saying I love one child more, I'm just saying that this particular DAY has more meaning and significance to me.  That's OK, right??  This might be a long one, so grab your coffee or snack.

Age 9, wearing her brother's flannel

I've been weepy for 24 hours now, and while realizing my oldest child is turning 10 today, I didn't think that was really enough to explain all the emotional breakdowns.  On second thought, though...  This is a pretty huge anniversary for me, personally, in addition to being a milestone for my oldest child.  This day, at 9:43pm, a Saturday in 2003, I became a mother.  The very instant that she was brought to me, swaddled up, I became a different person, starting down a difficult path of self discovery and personal growth, strewn with obstacles.

WeeWee, age 5 months

Her birth marked the end of a long struggle with Infertility.  Tim and I went through four years of medical procedures in order to conceive Willow.  I gave myself  hundreds of shots, he gave me shots, we spent thousands of dollars and suffered more disappointments than either of us thought possible for two Type A, driven and hardworking personalities.  We suffered a miscarriage and were coming to grips with the fact that adoption might be the best way for us to create our family. Then, on our 4th and probably last IVF transfer, Willow grabbed ahold for the duration.

One of these multi cell embryos is our very own Willow.

It wasn't an easy trip, even then.  I had terrible morning sickness for the first half of my pregnancy, and suffered a tear in my uterine lining, causing lots of bleeding and necessitating bed rest and modified work for my first trimester. We both struggled with doubts, for months, that this was really happening.  Then her birth was no less dramatic, arriving 5 days late and only after 2 days of labor and an emergency C-section.  Right after I was presented her swaddled body for a quick kiss, she was whisked off to NICU for breathing difficulties where she stayed, luckily, for only a few hours. That is the back-story to our parenting journey, and one that will claim it's own blog entry as some point I am sure.

Expressing concerns with broccoli, age 1

After all of that I, of course, thought the difficult stuff was behind me and as probably most new parents feel, thought the bliss of parenting would take over and everything would be happily ever after (until the teenage years of course).  What experienced parents are ready to say to an expecting parent, is that your life will change forever, in an instant, which is absolutely correct.  But the specific change is different and personal to each new parent.  The first time you realize that this tiny lumpy creature is in fact dependent on you for EVERYTHING and your inattention and mistakes can actually harm them gravely is overwhelming.  And that is just Day 1.  But what about that moment when you hold that baby's gaze for the first time, looking into those small eyes, which in Willow's case were clear blue and quite large for her tiny body.  You realize at that moment, this child is looking right into you, your core, and can see everything you have inside, even the things you hide from others and try to hide from yourself.  In that moment you realize THIS is the hard work, THIS is when you realize it is much more than protecting and caring for them, it is about being your best person.  Giving them everything isn't just food, clothing, housing and saving for their college education.  It is about looking at your weaknesses and demons and realizing how they might affect your child and your ability to be there for them emotionally and spiritually. This realization, at exactly the moment those small little orbs peer deep into yours, this is when the truly hard work begins.

Preschool picture, age 3

This day signifies so much more to me than the birth of my oldest.  It signifies the start, or restart maybe, of my journey to being my Best Person.  The only other day I can think of that compares in intensity for me is not even a single day, but a string of days and months when I first went away to college and was really free to discover Frauntene.  On or soon after October 11, 2003, the details of that person needed to be carved out and fine tuned, maybe as a sculptor would do while creating a statue.  The correcting of mistakes, cleaving off portions that weren't coming along right, like a slightly misshapen nose which you had kind of become used to but suddenly had the overwhelming need to make perfect regardless of how many more times you must try.  It involves the addition of more clay, newer clay that might be different in consistency or material, working to blend the old and new.  You must acquire more tools, better tools to create just the right angle or crease.  I have changed more as a person in the past 10 years than I thought people changed in a lifetime and not one bit of it has been easy.  But every single moment of it has made me proud, happy and accomplished.  All of this hard work internally has given me confidence to talk to my daughter about everything and has made those tween changes easier for both of us and I hope will make the teen years easier than they could be, and in the end, make us a strong mother-daughter team;  friends.

July 5, 2013

I love this little girl so much.  She is so much like me it is scary, yet she has so many qualities I admire and wish I possessed.  She is so confident and can laugh at herself and let things just roll off her back.  Everyone of her teachers....every single one has remarked to me how much they love having her as a student, she is refreshing and different...challenging, yes, but still described as 'a breath of fresh air'.  This is someone I want to know, someone I want to challenge to be their best, someone I want to watch grow old marveling at their take on life and it's challenges and opportunities.  How did I get so lucky?  Does every parent feel this?  I suspect they do.  I am just ever thankful, that through so much pain and hard work, this unique soul is the one the universe chose to send me.  Having this opportunity to witness her and to challenge myself in the most difficult of ways is life's sweetest reward.

Happy Tenth Birthday my WeeWee.  You may never know how much I love you and how much your birth has challenged me to love myself.  If and when you decide to have a child, you might begin to understand, but only at that moment when those sweet little orbs gaze so deeply into yours for the very first time.

August 20, 1993

Cornell's hilltop campus from Cayuga Lake

That date was twenty years ago, what seems like a lifetime, and nearly half of my life ago.  That day, unbeknownst to me, I would take a step that I was very nervous to take, and it would change the course of my life.  Or maybe, I would continue on the life I was destined to live.  When I look back on that day, and I picture myself wearing my favorite broken in jeans, suede loafers, brown long sleeve shirt, walking with one of my roommates that I hardly knew into a crowded parking lot full of other first year graduate students, I actually see this memory as going from black and white, to one of vivid colors as the night, days, weeks, years and decades pass.

May 15, 2013

I decided to go to grad school halfway through my senior year at Mizzou.  I was lucky enough to have a great job in an Entomology lab, working as a lab assistant to a grad student.  I loved the research and the work and realized how much there was to know about plants.  I wanted to learn more, I craved it.  Flash forward 9 months and I am living in a house with three other grad students in Ithaca, NY, getting ready to start a Master's research assistantship.  Cornell University organized a bunch of activities the weeks before school to get first year grad students out and mingled with friends and cohorts before the rigors of school started.  The joke was that once it started, you would never see another soul, buried in the library, lab, greenhouse or office working diligently on research and coursework.  The first of these activities was a mixer where students from all departments gathered and were offered different types of nights on the town with more senior grad students as your guides, someone with grad school experience to tell you the real deal, warn you of pitfalls and introduce you to all the greatness Ithaca had to offer.  There were fancy options, dancing options, drinking options, partying options, I ended up choosing one of the laid-back options, hand tossed pizza at The Nines followed by beer at the Chapter House, one of the favorite grad student watering holes.

The Blond in a different green shirt

Earlier, when I had walked up to the parking lot where the meeting was taking place, I remember looking around at everyone there.  I was already pretty self conscience about being at an Ivy League school.  I was never a super strong student,  B or B+, but I was a hard worker, inquisitive and just dumb enough to not realize what I was getting myself into.  Going from the Midwest to upstate NY was  quite a change, the people were pretty different and I was scoping the crowd for what seemed like a familiar, or at least comforting face.  I found one, actually I found a few.  One was this blond guy with glasses, wearing Quicksilver jeans, Dr. Martens and a long sleeved dark green shirt.  He was cute, but I wasn't there to meet boys.  The next two faces I found that were cheerful and inviting were two women of color, group leaders and obvious best friends laughing away and really enjoying the moment.  I went and joined their group for pizza and beer.  And then, so did the blond.

baby Willow and her accomplice Curly, planning their escape

I could go on about that night, about his California surfing stories, the fact that my mantra for the last 6 months (These are Days by 10,000 Maniacs) was playing in his car that night when he drove me home.  I could tell you more about our courting, stories from grad school, our first apartment together and our  first kid, Curly-Fries Godzuki Dean aka Best Dog Ever.  How he spent hours reading his government tomes by the supplemental light of my greenhouse experiments while I collected thousands of data points.   How he proposed to me while canoeing on Cayuga Lake.  Twenty years together makes for a lot of stories, many good, a few sad, some forgotten, some worth retelling over and over.  But what 20 years together does without you knowing, is it gives you such a deep and intimate knowledge of who you are and who this other person is that you have travelled this distance beside. You find levels of love and admiration you didn't know existed.  You see this person as human, faults and all, and you love them deeper for it.  This person sees you at your best and also your worst, in places you never thought you would fall to and definitely wouldn't want another soul to witness.  You live your lives together, with not only common goals, but with personal goals of how to help that person become the best they can be.  You feel love and joy that you didn't realize were possible, you achieve heights and dreams that you never had the courage, on your own, to create.  Doing this creates a special bond, a special love that is really impossible to describe, unless, of course you, too, are lucky enough to have been there.

The early days.....ages 9m and 2

I often think of what advice I would give our kids when they are looking for a life partner and honestly, other than "choose wisely" I'm not sure what I would say.  Sometimes I thank my lucky stars that I did choose wisely and other days, I don't think I really made the choice at all.  Some days, I feel we were thrown together that night on purpose and all steps to that meeting were predestined as was every step after.  When it's right, it's right and I think part of you knows.  At least that is how it was for me.  I am just so glad I listened to that part of me, the part that knew Timothy and I could create a beautiful life together, with just enough hardship to keep us grounded and real, and more than enough love to share with the two beautiful souls we have been blessed to guide through childhood.  With enough respect, admiration and support to start a very successful business that has afforded us an easy lifestyle, vacations and given me the opportunity to pay witness to our children as they grow and change day in and day out.  With enough risk, chaos and crazy to move to the country to become farmers, raise goats and fuel my passion for fiber arts, supporting a dream that I was almost too scared to even let enter my mind.  Together, we have done a lot, a lifetime of things, and the best part is, we have only just started.  God-willing we will have many more decades side by side, loving, supporting, respecting and admiring each other.  And frankly, my mind wants to explode at the possibilities of where we might be in 2033.  So, for all those interested, stay tuned......

Building stuff with the boy, circa 2010

Timothy Patrick McLarney, there are no words I could say or ways I could even show you how much you mean to me and how happy I am to be walking this crazy path with you.  Thank you for loving me, supporting me, listening to me and holding my hand.  Here's to the next 20!

Dr. Farm Hand shearing Hercules

A day in the life

Tater, always the last out of bed

Today started out like any other day.  I woke up with a 65lb boxer stretched out across my body, head buried in my neck.  That was a sweet moment, until some boney boxer part started pressing on my bladder and it was then that I realized there was an 8 year old boy also on the left of me and on the right? Two pugs stretched out from my pillow to my toes and to the right of that I could see the lump of covers that was Dr. Farm Hand over on 'his' 2/3 of the bed.

After some effort in extracting myself, I made coffee, started making lunches (only 3 lunches left to make in this school year!!!!) and gathering breakfast options.  Getting kids up, dressed, fed, out to carpool, dogs fed, husband out and THEN it's time for some farm work.

Completely disassembled feeder

This is perhaps the only area of my day where i have somewhat of a routine.  I always start with feeding the goats, they are the loudest and pushiest and also, the softest to pet.  This morning, as many mornings, I found that they had completely disassembled their feeder.  It is a borrowed feeder, and new ones are expensive, so I just keep putting it back together a few times a week, hoping eventually they will get bored of this game.  After that, I got the goats their pellets and grain, and as usual, one of the boys (either Petey or Chuppie, not the babies) jumps up and tries to get me to drop the bucket that I hold at head or shoulder level to keep them out of it.  I usually end up spilling some, the only difference today was that I spilled the grain down my shirt which lodged a few pieces in various undergarments.   Next I washed their water troughs and refilled them, sprayed the tortoises with the hose for their shower. Then comes the raking of poop,  I do this every morning to keep the sleeping areas clean.  Lately, I have one chicken who has been laying her egg inside the turtle house, forcing me to get on all fours and crawl into a dark nasty plywood box to retrieve the egg.  Usually, I put this egg in my brassiere for safe keeping while I finish my chores.  If I leave it out it will either get broken by a goat or stolen my a crow.  Today, since I had already had goat grain down my shirt I just put the egg in my pocket.  On Mondays I also rake those piles up into the wheelbarrow and take them out to the compost area.  This is where the next trouble happened.  I forgot about the egg until I felt a strange substance in my pocket right after I struggled to dump the wheelbarrow.  Yep, one egg down already.


Then comes the chickens.  I filled the bucket with chicken feed to top off their feeders.  I was startled when I opened the coop door by my poor pain-in-the-ass turkey, Red, dead in a corner of the coop.  The entire family has a love/hate relationship with this bird, so part of me was relieved that it was her and not an egg producing chicken.  It's obvious that I've changed in the past year.  I wasn't upset, didn't shed a tear, and my first thought was "Damn, the trash truck just came, if only I had checked the coop first today."  Problem is, you do NOT want a dead turkey in your trash for a week.  Trust me.  Now I need disposal options....  I say a few words to Red as I wrap her up, in a heavy duty black trash bag, double bagged and set to finish feeding the chickens and scooping their roost boards.  Under their roosts, where they sleep at night, I have theses little shelves that are filled with an odor busting/clumping mineral.  This way, every other day I can scoop the shelves like a litter box and the coop stays nice and odor free, the eggs are clean, and I only have to do a deep clean on the coop once a year instead of 3-4 times a year.  It has worked out great.  Plus the mineral is safe for composting, which is where all the scooped chicken poop goes.  It is also a bonus that the coop is due for its yearly cleaning this week since dead poultry always necessitates a coop cleaning.  I know what I will be doing tomorrow.

Partially disassembled feeder being used as a jungle gym.

Next, I have trees to water, and the watering system that is there doesn't work so that means 10 fruit trees that are watered by hand at least twice per week.  Those get done by setting a hose timer and placing a small sprinkler under each tree for 15-20 minute intervals.  Only I have to remember to move the sprinkler and turn off the hose everyday.

There were 4 eggs in the bowl when I went to turn on the hose, pre bra-stuffing days

Monday is also my big laundry day and day to pick up after the weekend.  But?..  no time today.   I have to pick up Jamba Juices for the 4th grade beachy read-in at school this afternoon, 18 of them.  I need to shower to wash off the farm dust and head out.  Then is comes to me....in the back of my mind, all morning, I am trying to come up with a way to ditch the dead turkey that will leave my trashcans maggot free (I almost hate maggots as much as I hate snakes).

By 1pm, I am in my car heading to get the smoothies, BUT, I need gas first (wink, wink).  Stop at the gas station, fill up the tank (which today, only took a mere 4-5 gallons), deposit a tightly wrapped, double bagged, heavy duty lawn bag into the gas station trashcan then hightail it to Jamba.

Pick up large case of smoothies, deliver to hot and happy 4th graders, run to get groceries, pick up kids,  feed store to purchase cleaning and bedding supplies for tomorrows coop cleaning, head home to do the laundry, pick up and afternoon goat feeding, egg checking and tree watering.  Homework, dinner, dishes, tuck in, few moments of TV with Dr. Farm Hand then bed.

Every single one of us is busy, especially parents, especially working parents.  This is just a glimpse, for those who have asked, in how my life differs now than it did 13 months ago.  Dead animal disposal and outsmarting livestock and wildlife were certainly not a part of those days.  Everyday isn't this exciting, but each day does offer something unexpected.  I wrote most of this last week, but end of school year functions got the best of me before I could post it. Today, I am starting out the first week of summer vacation relatively surprise free.  It is only 10am though, give it a few hours, the potential is endless......

P.T.S.D

Around our house, this has taken on another meaning, Post Traumatic Snake Disorder.

I have always hated snakes, always.  I grew up adjacent to a rock quarry where I was lectured regularly about the frequency of snakes.  I remember not being able to leave swim lessons once at the local pool because there were Copperheads right outside the gate they had to move.  I have many vivid memories of childhood that involved near death experiences with poisonous snakes, but to be honest, I have no idea how many of or if any of them actually happened or were just created in my overactive imagination.  I DO remember a specific incident in college where my boyfriend had to carry me out of a state park piggyback because I was hyperventilating and possibly hallucinating after having two separate snake sightings in less than an hour during a hike.

After last Mondays run in with a baby Pacific Rattlesnake, I have not been doing so great.  So many things are haunting me over the event.  Why didn't I realize sooner what that sound was?  It wouldn't have prevented Tater from getting bit, but I do have these recurring daydreams of watching Lucy try her damnedest to get at that snake.  She was mere millimeters from having her own hospital stay, and as the snake was in a defensive position, her bite would have been much worse than Tater's.  I have pangs of serious guilt realizing how much in denial I was that Tater had been bitten, first trying to argue to Timothy that it was probably just a bee sting and then trying to justify to the vet that it was probably just a dry bite.  Part of that was lack of information and experience with how doge react to rattlesnake bites, but part was my fear of accepting my worst nightmare (or very near, a child would have been worse) had come true and that I could very well lose a beloved pet in all this.

Tater is doing great!!  He spent only one night in the hospital and needed only 1 vial of antivenin and no plasma.  He responded very well, we were very lucky.  Our total vet bill ended up being only just over half of what their original estimate was, thankfully. A week later, Mr. Tot is a little slow, the only visible sign left of his attack is a small wound on his chin that is healing.  It will leave a nice scar though for sharing with all the ladies he wants to impress.  Tim and I both think his tongue is hanging out more than it used to.  But other than that, he is good.

"See that, young pup, THAT is where that 10ft Rattlesnake got me after hours of battle."

Me, on the other had....not so good.  I tried everyday last week to finish the outdoor work I had started right before he got bit.  I have a chicken coop that needs the bedding changed and mounds of nanny berries to compost.  The compost needs to be watered and turned, and all of these activities take place within inches to feet of where that blasted snake was.  I see snakes everywhere, fictional ones.  I hear snakes what seems like every 10 minutes.  These, I am distressed to realize, are real and I have probably heard them hundreds of times this past year and not known what i was listening too.
They sound nothing like any of the many recorded rattles I have heard, to me they sound exactly like a locust or a beetle, noises that were a constant presence in the Midwest where I grew up.  Nothing alarming about a fricking beetle.    I have to admit to calling Dr. Farm Hand twice last week in a panic, which honestly, I don't think I have done since our kids were 1 and 2 and I had locked myself in the bathroom in pre-nervous breakdown state.  Once I was doing yard work in the front of the house where it is more open, yet every time a car drove by, the vibrations set off a rattlesnake across the street in our neighbors corral somewhere.  I heard that thing about 8 times before I called it quits and came in to curl in a ball on the couch.

I know I will heal by putting one foot in front of the other.  Seeing my fatty black lounging around and getting back to his old self will help, and so will time.  In the meantime, we have all better educated ourselves and have had a drastic reminder to always be on the look out.  We have also bit into a new, rather large endeavor, months before we otherwise would have.  The bank of ice plant and shrubbery that the Fire Captain pointedly called a 'rattlers paradise'?  Gone.  Hired some local guys to come in and clear the whole thing.  Fixing this is going to be a large landscaping project, only a month after we finished our last one.  But??  There is NOWHERE for those snakes to hide now, at least not around the house.  We'll see if that actually makes me rest easy.

Under siege

Billy and Hercules investigating their recent demolition of the barn door

I started out this blog past a week ago with a nice paragraph about the miracles witnessed during the first full spring on the farm.  This morning, I deleted all that mush about baby birds and baby bunnies and budding fruit trees.  The title is the same, most of the subject matter will be the same, but frankly, this morning I am done with anything mush and nice.  Done.  I am not loving farm life at the moment.  The reality, some days, outstrips the dream.

I could go back and tell you about the first rattlesnake of the season, which is what I had started last week.  However, the second rattlesnake of the season is far more drama filled.  My second sighting occurred Monday, and unfortunately, the pugs found the snake first.  I was alerted to its unwelcome presence while cleaning the chicken coop, I heard an unfamiliar noise that frankly didn't sound at all like the snakes I had heard before.  Upon investigation, I saw my 'smart' pug, Lucy, doing her absolute best to get at something inside an upended pallet I had leaning against the fence.  So, no, that sound was not a power washer next door, but a baby rattler curled up only centimeters from my girl pugs nose.

I quickly got her away, checked for the other two dogs who were nowhere in the vicinity and herded everyone back inside.  I checked Lucy over for bite wounds and found she was fine, despite doing her best to get bitten.  The snake wasn't in a location that was accessible to my snake weapon of choice, the flat nosed shovel, so I momentarily thought of loading up the pellet gun to rid us of this undesirable.  Until I realized it would be safer for everyone if I just called the Fire Dept to haul it away. And they did, the ever knowledgeable Captain Barker and her young, good looking firemen came within minutes and captured the baby snake.  Nice of her to let me know that one that small means there was a nest and likely more of the same size close by.  Thanks, just thanks.

Tater's hospital picture.

It wasn't until about an hour later I realized that my main squeeze, Tater-Tot had found that snake first and been bitten.  I didn't check him over for punctures like I had Lucy because he was nowhere near the snake when I heard it.  My best guess is that he found it first, was bitten, and then Lucy responded to the rattle once it was pissed.  In hindsight, I feel terrible that I didn't check him over right away, he had been in that location, so had I just moments before the snake warned us.  What is even worse?  Even after realizing Tater was in pain and had a little swelling on his chin, I still didn't think it was a snake bite, I thought it was the countless bees that were also in that area that had stung him.  I had to look him over 3 times before I found the telltale puncture wounds.  At that point I was terrified because it had been about 90 minutes since I first heard the snake.

After a really scary and worrisome 24-36 hours, Mr. Tot is doing great!  He got the antivenin, and reversed some blood clotting issues that were already developing.  His face, neck and chest got really swollen, but luckily the bite only reached soft tissue so it didn't cause swelling in his throat or airways, just his flappy, flabby neck region.  Today, Wednesday, he is resting comfortably on his bed, drugged up on pain meds and antibiotics.  The swelling has gone down enough that he doesn't look quite like a freak show, although the degree of bruising on his neck and chest is still pretty scary looking.  All in all, he will be fine, we were all lucky.  I got some great tips from the fire captain about how to help control the snake population by reducing their preferred hiding spots and greatly lowering the rodent population on our property to  decrease the snake food supply.  Many hours of work that just made it to the top of the priority list for the weekend.

Now, as if nearly losing a cherished pet to a snakebite wasn't bad enough, there have been other events and drama that contribute to the loss of a bit of shine on this farming gig.  Let's move on to the bees.  I have discovered what I believe to be a colony of africanized bees about 12 inches from the faucet I use to water my fruit trees.  Monday, I was stung 3 times by said bees.  I didn't know they were there, I went to move the hose to another tree when I got zapped, causing me to spill my coffee and pissing me off.  By the third sting, I had thrown my new favorite coffee cup and was cussing like a sailor.  You forget how much those things hurt.

look closely and you can see the yellow bees, fascinating picture, I know

Yesterday, I had no problem with the bees, I used the faucet, I stayed out of their way and no one was hurt.  Today, I carefully approach the faucet, and I am attacked....aggressively by several bees.  I get stung once or twice, I run about 30 yards to the corral, and find that I have been followed and get stung again...for a total of 4 times.  Today.  Additionally, those Effer's follow me another 30 yards to the house, 2 bees came inside, one stung ChiChi on the tail before I got the flyswatter to kill the other.  No, I am so not joking.  Needless to say, the bee removal guy has been called and I have a total of 7 bee stings in 48 hrs.  Sheesh.

Even more goat mischief, they keep dismantling their feeder

But don't worry, I am not done with the drama!  It wouldn't be a Elfin Life blog post without tales of a naughty goat.  To top it off, this morning I also discovered Petey got a red dye job on his white topknot overnight.  Except the only thing in the corral capable of turning him that color is blood.  Petey and Chuppie are best buddies, and, as best bud goats do, they play headbutting games all the time.  One concern when you disbud baby goats is that you completely kill the horn buds, otherwise, they get these things called scurs which are small, malformed parts of a horn.  Chuppie gets them, his horn buds were not completely removed when he was  disbudded.  Eventually, through all the head butting, the scurs get broken and bleed a little and then they grow back. That is the process as I have seen it. This time, however, there is a LOT of blood. Now that I have calmed down after the bee stings, I have to go back out into the wild to wash and disinfect Chuppies head and apply some wound spray. I also need to go pick up some antibiotics so I can inject him....he bled a lot. And of course I need to clean up Petey too. Anyone that has spent a few minutes with me since November knows that I LOVE my goaties, I love them to bits. But this, coupled with Petey chewing up the wiring for the auto chicken door AGAIN (re-engineer #4 coming up, to be completely encased with hardware cloth) and Bluebell having some kind of dandruff issue I can't cure which is ruining her gorgeous fleece is about to make me pull my hair out. I just don't want to clean up bloody goat heads today. I wanted to dye silky, shiny goat fleece instead.

But that, my friends, is the life of a farmer.....the good, the bad and the ugly.

Things I didn't expect

Well!!!  It is official, it was official, actually, last weekend.  We have lived on the farm for ONE YEAR!!  I can't believe it's been that long in some ways.  I am still learning so much every day about the property and the animals.  But yet I have also been able to develop a nice routine with the added benefit of learning from past experience to fine tune.

There are several things that have surprised me this past year, things that I wasn't expecting as a farmer or rural resident or whatever you want to call it.  Today,  few things that surprised me, another day maybe I'll share lessons learned or something a bit more contemplative.

Petey and Hercules helping me muck 

1.) Poop happens.  We all know that, especially if we have dogs, cats or kids.  And anyone with a touch of logic knows that the more animals you have, the more poop there is going to be, it ain't rocket science.  Now, what you might not know is the following; while all poop smells less than fresh, chicken poop...is terrible.  It takes extra management just to minimize the odor because you really don't want to be faced with that daily.  Also, our dogs and cats are domesticated HOUSE pets and billions of dollars have gone into producing and researching all kinds of designer foods that keep them healthy with minimal 'waste' produced.  Not so for livestock.  They eat grass...and need to eat a lot of it to get what they need and in turn...a lot comes out the other end.  I never would have imagined how much time I spend raking, scooping, hauling and composting poop.  I never would have thought that manure management would be a legitimate issue that required research, a special storage facility and tools.  But yet, that is where I am.  Poop is such a big part of my day, everyday, that I have found myself walking into Anthropologie with poop ON MY JEANS!  I always wear grubbies to the corral and always (almost, obviously) clean up and change before I go out in public...except apparently, one can actually get used to wearing poop and forget to change.  I haven't been back to Anthropologie since the day I made that discovery so I'm not sure if i made it onto some secret black list or not.

2.) There is no such thing as 'fix it right the first time'.  Not if you have goats. Goats main existence, I have decided, is to keep your skills sharp and teach you new lessons in fence repair, basic construction principles and electric wiring.  Petey, is the master at this, that little devil.  Everything I put out of his reach he makes a point of finding a way to rip down and chew up.  I have replaced and restrung way too many extension cords and hoses.  Against all my years of horticultural training, my hose is on the ground, in the dirt (and poop) because i have not managed to find a hose hook/reel that I can keep him from destroying.  He has ripped out or chewed up the wiring to my automatic chicken coop door countless times, each time requiring more ingenuity to create a barrier system that will protect it from skinny, finger-like goat lips.  I have re-engineered my chicken feeders countless times.  The chickens have had to adapt, too, since they can't have a ladder up to their roosts and feeders due to fat-assed Petey climbing a ladder meant for a 3lb chicken.  Everyday there is something to fix.

Young Petey on top of the chicken roost, eating out of their feeder

3.) Living in the country, you are much more aware of your vulnerability to mother nature, in our area, namely Wildfires.  We were used to having fire escape plans, alarms, extinguishers....all the usual emergency preparedness.  What we did not really think about were the animals.  In the 2007 fires that did massive amounts of damage just to the east and south of our new community, there were thousands of livestock displaced.  They were the lucky ones.  So, our new fire plan had to include a plan for 7 goats, 3 tortoises and 21 chickens.  Since the goats keep growing (only 2 of the 7 are fully grown our plans have changed a bit.  It used to be that we had enough dog cages to fit the goats in, with the dogs in the back of the truck with the kids.  Now that everyone is getting bigger, and our cages no longer fit everyone, our plan is to shove all 7 goats, 2 tortoises and 21 chickens in our tow trailer.  The chickens can live in the bathroom so they wont get trampled, and if we end up having to live in the trailer for a while (god forbid) I have to make sure there are extra cleaning supplies and a broom to sweep up all the nanny berries the goats leave behind.  Nanny berries, for you city slickers, is a cute word for goat poop.

4.)  Goats are big animals.  There is no carting them to the vet in the backseat or on your lap, for that matter, when they need their vaccines or routine health issues.  House calls are expensive, so many farmers do a lot of their own basic vet work.  Luckily for me, I guess, all those years of giving myself shots paid off as I already knew how to draw up medication and administer both sub-q and intramuscular injections.  Not only am I vaccinating my own goats, I am shearing them, trimming their feet (their hooves grow like toenails), giving them vitamins, supplements, dewormer, delouser etc.  I have a medicine chest full of farm meds after being here just a year.  It's kind of empowering in a way, to know that you are the first, second and third line of defense when there is a problem.  But it is also incredibly nerve wracking and a lot of pressure, especially when you realize a house call from a vet will cost several hundred dollars just to get them on the property.

5.)  That leads me to the next surprise, which came just this past week.  I didn't expect to decide one day, in all seriousness, to ask Dr. Farm Hand to educate me on the whereabouts of his shotgun, key to the trigger lock and shells.  He does have a gun for sport clay shooting that resides in the house.  In my younger years, I was pretty positive there would never be a firearm in my residence.  Things and times change I guess.  Not that I was thrilled with it at the time he purchased it last year, I wrestled with it for quite some time.  But i have come to the realization (after being told by many) that if I am to have animals, I have to be willing to euthanize them.  I have read so many horror stories of births gone wrong or predator attacks.  And it seems that everyone I have met that has had livestock for a number of years has had to go through this.  A decision where they either end the suffering of an animal they cherish, or sit by helplessly for a long period of time waiting for someone else to come and do it for them.  None of it is pleasant, and I can not promise I could ever actually pull the trigger, but I don't want lack of preparation on my part to cause undue pain and suffering.  Now, some of you reading this might know the story of how I had to call a neighbor I had only briefly met once, in the middle of the night, to come and euthanize a very ill chicken.  I had sat on the front lawn, with said chicken, a hatchet and a drink trying to gather my liquid courage.  I sat there long enough that the margarita that was supposed to calm my nerves needed refilling and made me wonder if maybe my judgement wasn't impaired enough I might lose a finger in the process.  I was smart and begged a near perfect stranger to come kill my pet. Luckily for me, this person did not think I was 'too' crazy and a great friendship has blossomed.  I'm confident that I could, now, off my own chicken to end it's needless suffering, despite the fact that both Dr. Farm Hand and my fellow farmer friend laughed and snorted when I told them both of this fact.  At any rate, I feel better knowing where and how to operate the shotgun, I just pray that I never have to use it.

 6.)  This??  Is a Big Fat Lie.  I have opened maybe 75 of these types of bags this year and not a one has been easy to open.  Each bag is different, some have a small strip to pull, some don't, some you start in the front, some the back, some the right corner, some the left.  The only thing that IS consistent is that they are NOT easy to open and experience only yields a small amount of improvement in ones feed bag opening efficiency.

So, perhaps a boring update and glimpse into my thoughts as of late, but I haven't published anything here in too long and it is getting to be a bit intimidating...that is, the length of time since I last posted something.  It isn't that I am not writing....I have at least 6 blog topics started but they get very lengthy and off topic and then I get distracted and move on.  Some days I think it's adult ADD, some days I think it's hormonal, other days I think that Dr. Farm Hand is more correct than I want to admit in calling me Mrs. 85%.  Completing things these days is a challenge.  Maybe because my mind is going in a thousand different directions, maybe because I am avoiding anything that is less than uberexciting, maybe because I spend too much time petting goats or maybe because.....well, maybe because that is just how I am.  Ta Ta For Now.

Faucet breaking in the middle of a crucial wool washing step. 

It's all how you look at it

Things have been keeping me up at night lately.  It's spring, which means that life is sprouting up everywhere.  Here, on my 3 acres, the Stinging Nettle is sprouting up, taking over and disrupting my sleep.

Last year we were in the process of moving in and getting settled when the weed season started, and being new to the property and farming, certain things were left undone or done too late.  What irks me about this is that I should have known better, in fact, I DID know better and yet I was too concerned about babying the cute little chickens that came with the property and picking oranges and blah blah blah....reaping the benefits without doing the work.  I should have known better because I am a Trained Horticulturist with many years of experience and KNOW what happens when you ignore weeds and let them go to seed.  When we did get around to the weeding and I was hand pulling while Dr. Farm Hand was manning the industrial strength Weed Wacker, I saw the carpet of seeds that the mustard and nettle were leaving behind.  I saw it, I cringed, and I thought, all of those seeds can't sprout....there are MILLIONS!  We don't get enough rain to support all of those seeds!  The birds will eat most of them!  Then, in walks Fall/Winter 2012/13 and it's never ending rain storms.  And seemingly overnight I walk out to this.

only half the real picture....

This year, mother nature conveniently scheduled weed season to start right at the same time as Dr. Farm Hands annual surf trip.  She also must have had the universe send an electrical or magnetic pulse or whatever to cause all of my power lawn equipment to break the very same weekend.  I'm left powerless, no batteries, no gas, no brawn against these attack weeds as they try to take over. It's just me, my gloves, and my bum shoulder against Millions.

This past week I have shed tears over this stupid weed more than once.  I'm sure the tears were in part induced by recognizing my lapse in horticultural judgement and being unforgiving towards that part of me, and in part fueled by the fact that my Right Hand was conveniently on a 5 acre island in the South Pacific, indulging in his favorite pastime, drinking Fiji Bitters and eating fresh caught sushi.  But none the less, when faced with the understanding that I had to do what i could to get the nettle out before it set seed again, I was less than enthusiastic.  I did, however, farmer up and filled one lawn bag a day with the stuff, lining the curb with brown bags on trash day felt like an accomplishment, but in looking at the square footage that I had cleared I was left heartbroken.  I have had nightmares about nettle, which morphed into that recurring anxiety dream that most of us have had at one point or more in our lives. For some it is forgetting to study for a test, or your football helmet not fitting right before a big game (you, Dr. FH) for me it has been various things, usually school related.  My farm anxiety dream, however, is a new one to me.  It consists of goats that have babies daily...sometimes they're goat kids, sometimes lambs, sometimes piglets all while I watch helplessly while fighting through the 12 foot tall nettle plants that are keeping me from the corral, unable to feed the starving mothers who are birthing themselves to death.  Hows that for an anxiety dream?  Bet you never heard THAT one before!!

As part of my goat endeavor I joined the Pygora Goat Breeders Association, since, with the birth of Jheri, I AM one (squee!) and it is a good educational resource.  Welp, the $20 annual fee paid off in full when I got my first newsletter yesterday.  There it is, in black and white, nettle is one of THE BEST things you can feed your goat.  Highly nutritious, lots of calcium, good for digestive issues and circulation.   I did try, in fact, to get Petey to weed it for me....but I didn't know the secret trick of letting it wilt or dry before hand to incapacitate the spikies.  Here, the author is stating that she wishes she could plant and bale an ENTIRE FIELD of nettle for her goats. And this is where the outlook shifts, where it is, in fact, all in how you look at it.

Suddenly, I am excited and eager to get out there and weed.  Pulling nettle has just jumped up to the top of the To Do list, and instead of being a dreaded chore, is now a way to provide for my dependents.  It's funny, isn't it?  One day, this task is overwhelming me and causing tears and anxiety dreams and the next, I am feeling like this nettle is my Green Gold.  It is true that the worth of the job changed, from meaningless  property maintenance to harvesting a farm product.  But that shouldn't account for the very dramatic shift in attitude.  I'm accounting most of it to one of my defining characteristics as a person, I am a nurturer.  I liken this newly found love of hand pulling stinging nettle to the absolute joy and fulfillment I received my making all of my kids baby food from scratch.  It's pretty much the same in my book.  I'm sort of second guessing leaving that last sentence in for the viewing public to read.  Ah  well.

laid out nicely for wilting

So, days after actually starting this post, I am still pulling and feeding the never ending patches of nettle to my little goaties.  The LOVE it, I am swarmed by 7 running furry little bodies when they see me coming to the gate with it.  Yesterday, I thought myself a tough farmer chic, hardened with experience and tried to pull the weed while wearing short sleeves.  I was being lazy, yes, and I paid for it.  The rash really isn't that bad, it goes away after a couple of hours in case you are wondering.  Oh, and the opening picture?  If anyone is interested in combining a morning workout with nettle pulling, beware of squats and lunges while sweating in jeans.  And if your old farm jeans DO rip, don't continue to pull nettle in them, I should have only had to learn that lesson once.  

Goats eating nettle, Petey, the 'special' goat is having trouble reaching it

Another week another.....

Little Jheri, only an hour or two old with momma Fatty

Yep.  You got it.  Exactly 10 days after the first kids were born, I was graced with another baby buckling.  This experience was quite different, and much more enjoyable.  I'm pretty darn proud of how I handled it all in all,  no hysterics, just joy!

Look at those glossy black waves!!!!!

The cool thing is that I pretty much knew it was going to happen.  I noticed in the morning that Fatty Patty's udders had grown pretty much overnight, and after sending several graphic goat booty pictures to a goat friend of mine, she confirmed that the arrival was eminent!  This farmer is learning, slowly, but learning all the same!  The bummer part was I missed the birth...again.  I had been checking on her pretty regularly, but ended up dealing with various clerical and family issues on the phone for 2 hours....and the next time I checked, there was that little black lump. I am pretty proud of momma Fatty, too.  She has been a great mom, on the overprotective side, but what first time mom isn't!!  I'm just grateful that the delivery went on without a problem and that she only had one babe.

Jheri hiding while his momma calls frantically for him

This boy will challenge me a bit more with my farmer/animal husbandry prowess.  Being a pygora goat, I have the option of having him disbudded so that he doesn't grow horns.  Most goats will naturally have horns, but the practice of disbudding young kids is commonplace for many goat keepers.  It is safer for goat and person, there is no chance of getting gored, or having other goats injured when goats are just being goats.  Since these are not domesticated animals they don't need horns for protection, and being kept in a fenced area provides lots of opportunity for horns to get stuck in fencing.   Goats used in 4H or the show ring can't have horns for safely reasons.  The previous kids, being full angora goats, need to keep their horns as a cooling mechanism.  They grow thick fleece rather quickly and the horns provide an area for blood to circulate and cool their furry body.  The disbudding process is nasty, though, and I am very much NOT looking forward to holding this sweet week old 5 pounder while his little horn buds are cauterized.  I'm also not looking forward to removing him from his overprotective and slightly neurotic mother for an hour.  She just might have a coronary.

Hercules on my lap, he is so much bigger and fuzzier now!

So, in a matter of 3 months I went from 4 goats to 7.  I have the added pressure of deciding who I am going to keep and who I am going to try and sell.  I had anticipated this problem, but thought I had many months yet to get a plan together.  Now the time crunch is forced due to the fact that all 3 babies are boys.  To keep peace in the herd, I only want one buck and Chupacabra (Chupie) is the man.  By about 8-10 weeks I will either need to have the babies castrated or have a  buyer/plan in place to sell them intact as a breeding buck in which there is less demand.  Argh!!  The choices of farmers!!!  To remove the horns or not, to remove the testes or not!!  My brain is quite challenged at the moment with such things, very foreign thought processes for me.

Chupie as a young buck, cutie-pie!

Creating wethers (castrated males) is very common with livestock, in fact, I would bet most male horses, cattle, sheep and goats you see are castrated.  From my research I have found that the added bonus of a wether is that his fiber stays finer, longer, so many of those who have what we call in the biz  "spinners herds" have wethers.  But once castrated, their sales value drops about 10 fold.  Another brain bending fact to consider.

That's it for now, I have been a little energizer bunny lately, so soon I will be actually be able to show you some shearing, fiber dying and ohmygosh maybe even knitting???  Isn't this in part what this path is all about???

Til then, enjoy the pictures!!  I have no idea why I like this picture.  This is little Billy trying clover for the first time, one of his first solid meals at 2 weeks old!

Bluebell, Billy and Chupie eating fresh clover

Now, I have officially done it....

Welp, where do I begin.  The past week+ had been wild around here.  We have suffered through the fluey/cold that is going around.  I think I went 14 days straight with sick kids at home only to then come down with it myself the very day they were both back in school.  I love my kids, but holy crap, I don't deal that well with having no peace and quiet for days on end.  I couldn't even shovel poop without someone whining at me from the house, wrapped in blankets wanting more tea and honey or  just to whine or dribble on about Mineraft.  Who would have thought that the sheer desire to shovel 4 kinds of crap uninterrupted would be the stuff of daydreams.

As a celebratory move, once we were all healthy, I decided to treat myself to some new hens.  The 7 chicks are Ameracaunas and Cream Legbars, which once they start laying (in June!), will help create my rainbow egg basket by adding shades of blue and green eggs.  Here's a cute pic of the buggers.

Cream legbar girls

I was thinking this would be a good warm up for some baby love.  All this examining of goat rear ends I previously mentioned,  lead me to believe that my goats are most likely pregnant and in a couple of months, I'll have some cute kids to dote on.  And so, Monday last, my earnest research on goat pregnancy, supplies, immunizations, gestation times etc began.

Well, that research was started weeks too late.  Tuesday, on my mid-morning rounds I noticed a rather large wet spot in the goat area.  I believe I was muttering "oh no, oh no" under my breath as I approached, knowing it meant something was going wrong with someone and worried at what I might find.   I was so intent on trying to figure out what might cause a large wet spot like that, I failed to notice, right to the left of the large wet spot was Bluebell, my angora doe, and on either side of her were two white, wet moving lumps. Then they mewed the sweetest little high pitched sound you have EVER heard!  Upon the registration that my goat just had TWINS without me knowing or supervising or knowing for sure she was even pregnant, my response was as you might imagine.  I started jumping up and down screaming "Oh my God, Oh my God, What do I do, Holy Sh+t".  Repeatedly.  For minutes.  Many minutes. To no one, except the goats and chickens. Until my brain started to function again and I decided the next best course of action was to interrupt my good friend in the middle of her hair appointment only to start yelling the same obsenities into her ear. She told me what to do (um, breathe?) and assured me that this happens everyday and everyone was fine and to see if I just had girls or boys!!!  Luckily, I was meeting this friend for lunch a few hours later and she promised to help me with supplies, come check out the little blobs and to ply me with margaritas.  I did say she was a good friend.

Left baby has yet to try and stand, probably 30 minutes old or less.

Two days old

Now, looking back, this seems kind of funny, and a natural process that happens everyday, yes, that is true.  But few things in my recent past have traumatized me so much.  Seriously.  I'm still not sure I'm over the drama almost a week later.  I have been in agriculture for 23 years, but there is little guilt and certainly not the same level of concern when you are tending plants.  Even when you have found a one of a kind flower that you are responsible for tending and bringing to market, there is pressure and stress, yes, but not like this. Chosing to bring life into this world and having the responsibility of supporting a small family with which you cannot communicate and know little about is kind of freaking me out.   I haven't fully digested my thoughts on all of this yet, I'm sure that will be the subject of a future blog post.  But in basic terms, this birth is symbolic of the trajectory of a dream.  Every other decsion along this path had secondary reasons that were more important and certainly more justifiable than following my hairbrained, halfcocked dream.  There is nothing BAD about moving your kids to acreage, a better school, and surrounding them with the natural environment.  There is nothing BAD about exposing them to where their food comes from, how to care for different types of animals and teaching them responsibility through animal care and farm work.  A good friend of mine kind of nailed it.  She is also a plant farmer and when she told her boys who are similar in age to my kids, their response was to BEG her for animals that they don't fix so they can have babies around.  There you have it, this is my first animal birthing experience and now I am responsible for deciding the lifes path of these two cute little angora bucklings. Gulp.

Introducing, Hercules and Billy McLarney of Ourstillunnamed Farm.  Date of birth, February 12, 2013.

Billy's on the left with the one black curl

First favorite day of 2013

Can you guess what this might be???  Don't ponder too long, my artwork is, well, my artwork.  I'll reveal in a bit, don't worry.  It has to do with one of my three favorite days of the year, the first of which occurred this past week.

As long as I can remember, I have believed in self improvement and practiced it regularly.  When I was younger it was things like trying to master a new skill in soccer or trying to overcome jealousy when a grade school friend spent time with another friend.  Once I hit college, which was my first real chance to be myself and self discover, the opportunities were endless.  But perhaps the biggest, most meaningful opportunity I have been blessed with in these 41+ years to really examine every thought, action and moment I create began at 9:43pm Saturday night, October 11, 2003.  The minute I gave birth to my first child.

I  had always wanted to have a family, initially for the same reasons most people do, because it's what you do when you are grown up and married and financially stable.  It took us nearly 4 years to get pregnant and carry to term which gave Tim and I plenty of time to think about the real reasons we were doing this.  For me, it came down to life's experience.  I wanted the opportunity to teach, to share, to experience what it was like to create life and nurture and guide that life into adulthood.  I wanted to experience what I had heard was a love like no other.  And lastly, when I leave this world behind, I wanted to leave in my place, a person that is better than me.  Not the first female President, not a Nobel Prize winner, a whole person who is kinder, more well rounded, a person capable of doing more good in the world than I, no matter how small the gesture.  This to me, in many ways, is how I will judge the success of my life. (should note at this point that any serial killer I may have given birth to will be considered Mr. Farm Hands contribution, not mine.)

So, in order to accomplish this, self improvement happens daily, if not hourly at times.  In parenting, you can't predict, EVER, when the next teaching moment will present itself.  This is what I have learned from 9 years of experience.  What I knew at 9:44pm that Saturday night, is that love like no other I mentioned before is the greatest motivator I will probably ever encounter.  That transformation happened immediately.  That very minute was the start of what internally I think of as the New Me.

That change was the best thing that has ever happened to me.  It has allowed me to live a fuller, happier life, to confront issues and flaws that I had happily been living with and ignoring for years.  It pushed me to finally take that final step in becoming the person I wanted to be.  And for that reason, the three days that mean the most to me in the calendar of 365 are my children's birthdays and of course, Mother's Day.

G experimenting with a birthday present

Now, back on track.  My Boy turned 8 last week.  Eight.Years.Old.  He looks like such a big kid and he himself has made so many changes this past year.  I am so proud of him.  He is a sensitive, old soul that feels deeply and in the eighth year of his life has made tremendous strides in learning how to control his emotions and not take life so seriously.  Yesterday we had 10 boys here, at our house, to celebrate.  And while I adore the actual anniversary day of my childrens' birth, I actually detest  throwing birthday parties.  They stress me out like not many events can.  I don't like the type of entertaining where there is a lot of planning or anything formal.  Having a bunch of kids at my house means a bunch of parents too, and I tend to be a bit shy (or antisocial, depending on who and when you ask).  Plus, I have enough problems keeping my own wild, creative kids under control...they don't need help or an audience.  Anyway, I digress.  I acquiesced this year and let G have a party here since we are in a new school, a new house and he really wanted to show off his farm.  Having just completed all 8 of the Harry Potter movies over holiday break, it was to have a HP theme.  You now know what the above is, huh!!  In the past I have referred to myself as the Ghetto Martha Stewart, but more accurately, I am probably the Slacker version. Turns out, we didn't even have to play 'Pin the Scar on Harry Potter' because all that the 10 boys needed were chopstick wands, a list of spells and 3+ acres.  It was fun watching and listening to them.  One boy found two eggs in the chicken coop and was beyond amazed and excited!  Once I told him he could save them and take those very eggs home he freaked out, putting them in the kitchen for safe keeping, but checking on them about every 20 minutes to make sure they were still there.

One of the party favors, note the excellence in cutting and stapling

The party was worth the hassle, I wasn't embarrassed with my art work, and most importantly, G had a blast.  I think I am very lucky that these 3 days I cherish so much are spread throughout the year.  It never allows me to get very far away from what I love or forget to appreciate each moment as it happens.