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.