New Life Old Farmers

There is a saying, that if you want to make God laugh, make plans.  Growing up, we had a dog and a cat, but even these must have been added to the household prior to any memory of mine.  Newborn animals were only experienced on Wild Kingdom or National Geographic.  There are no cows on Daleridge Road, La Canada, California and if you don’t believe me, you can Google Earth it.  As a child, I did learn to milk a cow at My Uncle’s farm, which it turns out is a very good thing.

Agnes is an amazing cow.  Cows are ‘wired’ to have ONE calf and this tends to pose a problem/situation/complication.  Once the calves are born, it seems we are not able to just stand back in the field and watch everything work out just as it should.  Fred was not nursing.  Getting Fred to latch on was very important as he needed the colostrum only Agnes could provide.  Agnes is a Black Angus beef cow, not a Jersey (I’ll stand quietly and be milked) cow.  Agnes, Fred and George were not the only ones tired from the day and just to keep it real, let me tell you My Loving Spouse and I were not happy with each other and each other’s ideas in how to move the cattle, get a calf to latch on to Mama and give them their shots….and we were loosing daylight.  We needed to get the herd into our coral, deciding to move the calves, believing that Agnes would follow.  Getting two newborn calves where you want them to go, is not as easy as it sounds and yes, everyone went everywhere and both Agnes and My Loving Spouse were saying a Bad British Word, while I was muttering ‘stuff’ under my breath.

Agnes’ bag was too tight.  Fred could not latch on.  Men you are on your own here to figure this out.  Any woman who has ever nursed a baby and that baby sleeps through the night for the first time, should have an idea what we are talking about.  I needed to milk Agnes.  I actually did get some milk into a bottle.  Agnes was trying to kick me.  My Loving Spouse was telling me that I was going to get kicked.  I was being tenacious/stubborn, but did not get kicked as I knew I needed to get this calf to drink.  I believe My Uncle would have been laughing, but proud.  Our Friend the Farmer came to lend a hand and managed to relieve the pressure on Agnes’ bag, as well as fill a bucket of colostrum (which is like melted ice cream), which I bottle fed to Fred.

Day Two of the twins life, My Loving Spouse and I promised each other to not argue.  I get up early and get Fred nursing from his Mama.  I am a happy Cattle Woman or is that Cow Woman?  My Loving Spouse then threw the calves, while I gave them all their shots.  I then sat on them and put in their ear tag, which is sort of like piercing someone’s ear, except hairier.  

The next few days, I keep a good eye on Fred.  I get him up and push him toward his Mama.  It takes a few days for him to realize he is part of this herd and Agnes a few days to remember that there are two of them.  I think the twins are camera-shy, but they have commenced running around the field, which always makes us stop and watch!  Nothing is more fun than calves romping.

In the mean time Arizona the chick has grown!  At five weeks old, she is something of a teenager, but still usually found with her Mama Lucy.If it gets chilly out, she reverts to complete baby chick.  “Mama, I am cold!”…and yes, I am blessed.

Somedays nothing happens here…

Other days it happens all at once.

We were having Mr. T and Z for a week.  

We were still waiting on Agnes to calve.  My Sorority Sister and her Husband were coming to the farm for an overnight.  It was hot and there were plenty of flies.  I warned her about the flies…

“Oh, what’s a few flies among friends!”  She said, and with that great attitude we managed to cram almost all the aspects of our life into 21 hours.

They were here for about a nano-second and the tractor driving lessons commenced.  My Sorority Sister had already passed Tractor Driving 101 on Jubal, when she was here with the Sisters.  She quickly showed great tractor driving skills on Blue during Tractor Driving 201 and was offered the best of all crash courses…ripping stuff out!

‘You’re doing great!  Do you want to rip something out?’

“YAY!“

We quickly said ‘goodbye’ to a bit more of the old orchard and for a minute, thought we would be saying ‘goodbye’ to some of the fence.  All fences remained intact, she understood my great love of tractor driving and we commenced drinking wine, eating ribs from Manny, Moe or Jack and playing croquet before it got dark.My Sorority Sister and Her Husband didn’t win at croquet, but they did score the straw hat point as well as the bringing cookies point, as they brought wine, plenty of it and it was the ‘good’ stuff!  I especially loved how they loved on our special kids, Mr. T and Z.

A farm style breakfast was planned…our eggs, our bacon and lots of our jam.

Agnes finally got in the act.

I woke up Z to come and watch Agnes, who was finally in labor.  Her Husband joined in….and it was exciting!  The full farm experience.Before we knew it, F-16 Ferdinand was born.It took him awhile to stand up, so I was a tad concerned, but he did eventually make it to his wobbly feet.  I was planning on keeping a very careful eye on Agnes that morning, as last year we might have been able to save the second triplet, if we had known it was coming.  We did figure, that we could at least go in and eat the breakfast My Loving Spouse had made.

We were not inside more than 15 minutes.  Her Husband had been packing their car for the off, when he said…”I think F-22 has landed.”  (Which is not actually the right farm numbering system, but you get the idea.)  We all raced outside to see, if in fact Agnes had calved again, which is not the norm, city people, cows usually have one calf.  Agnes had indeed calved again and the little one was up on its feet!With the white markings on the face, the parentage was clear…this calf’s father was one of the Hereford Bulls, while we believe the first calf’s father to be a Black Angus bull.  We’re not quite sure about the whole ovulation system of the cow, so we’ll leave it at that!

Number Two Son had been at work, so I had kept him apprised of the morning’s events via text.  Number Two (the original Harry Potter fan) had made me promise that, if Agnes had twins that we would name them Fred & George, as that would be the letters of the alphabet we were on, and of course it aligned perfectly with the beloved Weasley twins from Harry Potter.With friends, family, calves, croquet and even flies…

we are blessed.

Croquet rules at Glory Farm as the sport of choice.

Played by all ages.Beverages are encouraged.

The official Glory Farm Croquet Season starts around Memorial Day and can run as late as Thanksgiving depending on the snow levels.Exact and intricate record keeping for ‘the season’, is handled by yours truly.Points are awarded in each game:

1 point for winning (I am sad to say, that so far the Walton’s have yet to earn a ‘W’ this season).

1 point for becoming poison

1 point for wearing a straw hat

1 point for bringing cookies.  (A new category this season, but it is proving to be very popular with the players!)

We are a bit ‘loose’ on what actually constitutes a ‘straw’ hat.
One must play at least 3 games to be entered into the Season contest.

Friends are good.  Friends who play croquet are…as they say in Ellensburg…’even better’!
…and we are blessed.

It is a little known fact, that I love to rip stuff out.  (Not stitches, I do not like to unsew.)  Fences long forgotten, and no longer used are nice to pull out.  I especially love to rip out, raze, cut to the ground bushes and plants whose value is long past.  For years, my family has called these bursts of garden therapy a ‘hack attack’.

From day one, I never liked the large overgrown lilac bushes between the pasture and the front lawn.  (Look beyond cute Number One Son trying to take his croquet shot with THE Grandson’s help, to see My Loving Spouse on the bench.)  There is a mistaken notion, that just because something has grown large means it should stay.  I had received some early pressure to keep the lilacs when we first moved in, so I did.

Here is what I have learned…

Lilac’s in Ellensburg are practically weeds.  They grow easily and often.

Here is what I forgot…

I have a good eye.  I have in the past grown a charming garden.  I need to trust my vision and go for it.

The great thing about my hack attacks now is I have better tools.I thought about trying to pull the lilac’s out, but then realised that running them over and using the bucket to add some lift to the process worked even better.  You have no idea how much fun this was!Goodbye horrible bushes, hello green pasture.  I smile every time I look at it. There is now a larger gardening area to create and my mind is spinning with thoughts of flowers and a small but ‘secret’ meandering pathway for Grandkids to enjoy.

This was so rewarding, I turned the tractor around headed for the orchard where little grows and started running over old fruit trees as well.  I had a very, very good day…

and I am blessed.

Agnes is bred.  Every time My Loving Spouse says to her, “Hey, you fat old cow.”  I hush him, because even if it is true, it just isn’t nice.  Although, she is not really very old and she is not fat, she is bred/pregnant/great with calf.  We (me/My Loving Spouse/Our Friend the Farmer) thought she’d calve last week…or the week before…  We were wrong.  We are anxious.  We spend a lot of time looking at her teats to see if they are indeed filling up with milk.  We also stop whatever we are doing, if we happen to see her tail up, so consequently I believe we’ve watched every pee and poop that cow has made in the last few weeks.

It has also been hot and still.  Still, as in no wind, which makes it feel hotter.  99 degrees here is hot, and tends to keep one from wanting to do things like fix fences or paint the barns.  5 pm and it was still hot, there was a bit of grumbling, some thoughts of floating the canal, a bit more grumbling…  ‘Someone‘ said, ‘Are we going to be those kind of old people who don’t do anything fun?’  I went out to say to My Loving Spouse, “If I do all the work, will you go floating with me?”  There he was filling up the inner tubes for us to float the irrigation canal behind our home.  Our very own lazy river, cool slow water, where the view is of the sky, a bit of barns and lots of birds.  I grabbed two beers for the float, packed two towels and put my suit on.  We were off.  It was a lovely, cool delightful break from the heat and from cow watching, just enjoying the time that he is home.

We were home, showered, clean and grilling our late evening dinner, when we got the emergency painting call from My Sweet Friend.  She had borrowed our paint sprayer.  Her maiden painting voyage was going fabulously and she was completely convinced at the wonders of painting with a spray gun, until it clogged or  something.  Three phone calls later and she apologetically pulled into the driveway the back of her truck loaded with her paint bucket and clogged sprayer.  My Loving Spouse said,

“Oh, you just need to turn this….and turn this off…and I’ve never seen this before…”

I was not close enough to the action to hear, if he said a Bad British word, but if he didn’t, I am sure he was thinking it.Paint sprayer…unclogged.  I quickly administered a Gin & Tonic to My Sweet Friend who was a bit beside herself.  As these things usually happen to me, I could not help but giggle (a few times) and returned to look at Agnes’s back-end.

We are blessed.

In case you, my dear sweet reader have forgotten, I grew up on a paved cul-de-sac street.  We (the neighborhood children) walked on a paved street to our school.  We played on that paved cul-de-sac street after school.  Some of us had animals, a dog or a cat and occasionally a hamster or a goldfish (which doesn’t really count as they always died), city/town/domestic animals…and not a lot of them.

My Loving Spouse on the other hand grew up with a menagerie of animals.  He tells many tales of dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, horses, ponies and the like.  His father was at one time a Steeplechase Jockey, who recited this poem, as sage advice when buying horses.

One White Sock, Buy a Horse

Two White Socks, Try a Horse

Three White Socks, Look Well About Him

Four White Socks, Do Well Without Him

My Loving Spouse thinks it had sometime to do with his belief, that the white socks meant weaker ankles or their fetlock, which is what one calls a horse’s ankle (which I confess I Googled).  My Loving Spouse with a jockey for a father comes from a long line of horse people.  My father sold pajamas.  

My Loving Spouse is supposed to be our animal person.  My Loving Spouse is gone…a lot lately, which means I have been promoted to chief animal person.  My Loving Spouse has been talking about how he’s really, really interested in getting bees.  I have not been talking about it.  My Loving Spouse had a day off recently, except he had to go in for a meeting and a BBQ (Bad British Word).  This left me with the Farrier and two horses who needed to be shod.  My horse Beau had hurt himself over the weekend and I was concerned.  I sent My Loving Spouse this message as Beau started to bleed and the Farrier went into concerned mode.  When the official horse person is concerned, this unofficial person gets overwhelmed.

Our Farrier is a very thorough, knowledgeable horse person.  Beau’s frog was bleeding.  (Non-horse people, yes, it is true horses have frogs, although whoever thought to name the bottom of a horse’s foot a ‘frog’ probably had too many pints at the pub!)  The Farrier carefully cleaned his foot, put medicine on it, cotton pad, a special foam pad to keep it all together and then taped Beau up with Scotch Duct Tape and then Vet tape.  It was quiet the procedure and I would have to do it all again the following day.  My having to do it all again was a tad concerning.

I did a lot of thinking about the situation.  The goal was to change the bandage and have the bandage stay on.  It was Beau’s back hoof.  I would have to hold the hoof up with one hand and bandage with the other, and keep the horse calm so he didn’t kick me with the same hoof.  Simple….

Beau and I have a pretty sweet bond, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t try to kick me, but I wasn’t as sure that I could do what the Farrier did and get the bandage to stay on.  It was time to dig deep, go to my roots, do it my way.  I gathered my supplies.  People tape, book tape, Gorilla tape, Vet tape and foam pad.I irrigated the wound.I slapped on the dressing and vet taped up the hoof.Then I dug deep, and improvised by adding what I know….clothing.  My Loving Spouse gives up one for the team.I get the sock on and over the bandage, feeling pretty proud of myself.

One White Sock, Buy A Horse….Sorry, Beau is not for sale.  He is my buddy and I am blessed.

We take our naming of animals fairly seriously around here.  If you let kids/children/people under 13 get involved, they might not take it quite as seriously as we do.  However, it does add for some interesting humor in life.

The Old Ren Hen went broody.  She was determined to sit on her clutch of eggs until they hatched.  The only problem was, that the other hens were not very considerate of her situation.  The Old Red Hen picked the nest box all the hens like to lay eggs in to hatch her eggs.  Did the other hens, start laying in the other 4 nest boxes?  No, they just jumped into the ‘best’ box, which is not made for two hens and laid their eggs.  This meant that every day, the Old Red Hen had more eggs to try to hatch.  Chickens are not too smart and she could not keep track of which eggs she was working on and which she wasn’t.  I couldn’t keep track either.  When the time came for the eggs to hatch, most of them had not been adequately incubated.  As I came to check on her, if there were cold eggs in the box, not under the hen, I grabbed them and threw them across the field into the ditch.  Pretty soon we were down to just a few eggs.  We were concerned.  The Old Ren Hen had sat and sat, we hoped for a few chicks.  We even tried to find a few chicks to sneak under her, but it is not chick season.  Luckily, one egg hatched.  The Old Red Hen is happy and so are we.  Z is very excited about this and been following the progress of the Old Hen closely, so we let her name the chick.  Meet Arizona….We are waiting on Agnes to calve.  We are wondering how many calves she will have.  We are wondering, if the calf will have a white head or black.  Agnes went to the Prom with more than one date this year, two of the bulls were Black Angus and two were Hereford bulls.  We are not wondering, though what the calf’s name will be.  I was telling the story of the last calving births to my 3rd grade class.  In doing so, I explained my naming system, and that this year’s calf’s name would start with the letter F.  They said, “Can we name it!”

‘Well, you can try’

They started throwing out names for girls and boys, most of which made me laugh.  They did it though and we are ready with our F names….our little calf will either be Fifi or Ferdinand!

Number One Son and Number One Wife are working on names as well.  They/we are expecting a little delightful, darling GrandDAUGHTER in December!!  THE Grandson has been asked for his contributions to the naming pool.  THE Grandson is a book loving 2-year-old.  He thinks they should name his little sister….Clifford.

…and we are blessed!

The recipe said, “Quick and Easy Apricot Pineapple Jam“.

The dirty liars.

We have a thing for apricot jam.  This year was ‘the year’.  ‘THE’ apricot tree belongs to Mother Mary, but it is My Sweet Friend’s job to pick the fruit for her mom.  Every other year is a bumper crop and My Sweet Friend heaves great sighs, just thinking about it.

‘No problem’, I told her.  ‘I’ll help you!’  I had two days to pick.  No problem.

Day One: I picked, then went to Store A. for sugar and pectin.

Day Two: My Loving Spouse and I picked.  (I also picked up the fruit on the ground and brought it home for the chickens, who now have a steady supply of apricots to dine on.)

Day One’s pick goes into the sink for a rinse.Day Two’s pick waits their turn.Canning jars go into the dishwasher to be sterilized.  My Loving Spouse says, “That is more than enough jars!”  Note to self, do not listen to that guy!  I should have washed every single jar we own!

The jam recipe should have said:

Apricots, Sugar, Pectin, Pineapple and a Full Tank of Gas.

Off to Store B. for more sugar and pectin, except they didn’t have any pectin.  I do pick up three cans of pineapple to make a ‘few’ (9) jars of apricot-pineapple jam.  The first can I grab is perfect, crushed pineapple, so I do not notice that the next two cans are pineapple chunks.  Yes, I used them anyway!  A stop at Store C., who also is completely out of pectin.  Let me tell you, the fruit is ripe in the valley and people are busy ‘putting up’.  Store D. comes through with pectin, so I return to the farm to start cooking.

Number Two Son is gone.  My Loving Spouse is gone.  I realize I still do not have enough sugar for the 50+ cups of apricots.  I call My Girl for reinforcements, but she doesn’t answer.  I think about asking my neighbor, to borrow some sugar, but I seriously do not thinking asking to borrow 24 cups of sugar is practical, so I return to Store B. for more sugar.  I might have spent half this week’s food budget on sugar!  (Yes, I know, I should have figured it out ahead of time.  Honestly, jam takes so much sugar, that by the time it is made I can hardly eat it!)

The fruit is pitted and sliced.  Luckily, I have a really big pot!

Now I start cooking.  I move 15 cups of apricots to a separate large pot to add the pineapple to this batch and to make room in the big pot.  It sort of overflows.  It makes a small mess.I cannot stop now.  I jam on.  Filling a few (9) jars with apricot and pineapple (chunks) of jam, thinking that at least Number One Wife will like it, as she loves pineapple.  (Also, she is pregnant, so she can eat a lot of jam!)  At this point I have to abandon the rest of the apricot pineapple pot, as I am becoming concerned over the number of cans I have at the ready.  In between stirring the giant pot of apricots, I start sterilizing more cans on the stove, while also stealing every canning ring we have on every jar in the pantry.

The big pot now overflows making a colossal mess.  I am talking sticky and smoke and it is everywhere.I cannot stop!  I remove as much foam as I can and stir!  All the other large pots are full of sterilizing jars or the abandoned apricot-pineapple jam, so I have nowhere to move the jam.

The kitchen is mostly sticky, but…

the jars get filled.36 in random sizes…mostly large…and I think…. this is why my mother made jam with the gals on her street…people should not jam alone!

I then spend the next 2 hours trying to clean the kitchen.  The dogs come into help out with the floor.  On my next trip to Store A, I will be buying new rings for the stove.

Jam anyone?

With or without pineapple chunks?

I really like My Loving Spouse.  His driving job takes him away from home a tad more than we like, but we are determined to make the best of it.  Summer is here and I am out of school (small happy dance).  I cannot join the bus he is driving, but if they stay in one place long enough, I can join them when they stop.  Driving the Yakima Pippins Baseball team to their away games, put My Loving Spouse in Walla Walla, Washington and I was ready for a mini-break.

I arrived in the afternoon so we had a few hours to explore.  We walked down Main Street with a plethora of wine tasting rooms at our disposal.  Being the mature folks we are, the first shop we entered was…Inland Octopus!It is hard to walk past a great toy store!  We snagged a few things for THE Grandson’s birthday.  We might have even played with a few wind up toys.  If you are in WW, you need to come in here, quality toys and free gift wrapping.With the important things out-of-the-way, we did enter a tasting room.  Henry Earl had the ugliest furniture I have ever seen, but the staff was delightful and the wine…was sort of yummy.  I was the only one tasting wine as My Loving Spouse would be driving shortly, but half of wine tasting is chatting and he excels at chatting.  We got great advice about other things to see and do while in WW.  So when you are traveling it is a good thing to drink wine.Klickers is a one of a kind antique, fruit stand, ice cream, meat and cheese counter family owned business.  Antiques tucked into every corner and cubby, worn floors a front door that slams shut with a welcoming thud.  I was too enthralled to take many pictures.  If you are in WW, you should stop by just for fun and enjoy a store that could never be a chain…We were then off to the ball game!  The Pippins were playing the Walla Walla Sweets!  Talented baseball in a fun atmosphere.  An electronic score board, but an old hand changed scoreboard as well, with the face of the score changer seen through the last empty slot in the board.To say nothing of the WW Sweets mascot…Toward the end of the game, small children were seen with large trash bags.  They were roaming the stands for trash and helping to clean up.  I could not quite figure out what was going on until I saw the same children coming back without their trash bags, but with large Otter Pops.  The power of the Otter Pop!  What a great, simple and effective method of assisting in clean up.

WW’s farmer’s market was an absolute delight.  What I enjoy most about Farmer’s markets is originality and real farmers.  This one offered both!The iron worker complete with anvil was fun to watch…Flowers……and of course Walla Walla Sweet Onions!After that, My Loving Spouse was back to work and I was set to drive back home.  I just had one more stop to make…promising to only buy what I ‘needed’.Amazing how much relaxing can be found in a 24 hour get away…but I believe we did it!…and I am blessed.