New Life Old Farmers

Why, oh why do I grow pumpkins?  After all, someone My Loving Spouse might say,

“They take up a lot of room.”

Team Offspring likes the pumpkins, but after about 5 times of being drug out to look at them, they seem to be able to pass on future pumpkin gazing.

This year’s harvest came in at an impressive 40 pumpkins…and considering the fact that I ruthlessly kept them cut back, this is noteworthy pumpkin growing.

Pumpkins do fun and amazing things.  This year as they swarmed around Garden Gladys Night, one vine grew up and over her andiron legs.…and so a pumpkin grew right between them, up an off the ground!  Not a bit of mud on this one…yes, it looked like Gladys had given birth to a pumpkin.

THE Grandson needed a pumpkin…or 5, so I delivered his when I visited him last week.

Lots of people (always adults) say,

“What are you going to do with all those pumpkins?”

Why share them of course!  Because that is the magic of pumpkins…They are super fun to share…So…why grow pumpkins?   Well, you can make pumpkin butter, pumpkin cake or muffins (my favorite) or pumpkin pie…notice I said ‘you’ because ‘you’ can, I have never done so…so I have no idea where to even start.   So…why grow pumpkins?  Well, because they are fun, very, very fun!

I saw a red rocking chair in town, ‘pre-owned’ and I really liked it.  I was imagining it for the front porch.  It would not only give the porch a pop of color, but we need a rocking chair for the porch!  The only problem, it was $90, and I wasn’t going to pay that much, but now I did have a red rocker on my mind.

While ‘A’ and The English Sister were here, we did a bit of hunting…garage sale style.  It was at an early morning sale that we found ‘it’, a $5 wooden rocker.

I asked ‘A’, “Will you paint it red for me?”

‘A’ being a polite English gentleman said, “Of course, I’d be happy to…..”

He didn’t waste a minute, but got right to the task as soon as we got home, tightening up the chair and re-gluing it.Followed by a gray coat of primer….

…which he wasn’t too happy with, so he added white primer as well…

and then it needed to dry….

and ‘A’ managed to avoid my adding any other items to the A List, so he made good use of his time…daily.because Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was the transformation of my rocking chair….

Thank you, ‘A’!!!

This weekend our farm was filled with laughter, singing, a lot of wine and excitement.

The weather was perfectly perfect with blue skies, NO WIND, warm and wonderful, in fact I think the valley was sort of showing off for our guests…

20 of my sorority sisters from UCLA were coming for a reunion…

They came from all over, flying and driving and making their way here to see each other, some of whom they hadn’t seen in 30+ years…

and I being me, was a tad worried, because these were mostly city gals, a few…extreme city gals and as you know we have dust, dirt, poop in all varieties, projects half done, projects not even started and flies.  I cleaned the barn, washed the fence and picked up a lot of poop, arranged for diners and help.  Team Offspring was ready with freshly painted and picked up rooms and My Loving Spouse just kept saying, “Sweetie, it will be fun.”

…but it was more than that…it was a gift from our heart to them, and yet I was the one that was blessed beyond measure.

35 years ago, I was a somewhat awkward 20-year-old, insecure and often unsure…

These gals…my sorority sisters saw beyond that.  We ate together, played together, sang, laughed and sometimes even studied together…and they loved me beyond my flaws…

and this weekend they reminded me of who they are…

how they see with their heart

as they came spilling out of their rental cars squealing with delight to see one another, running from one delightful aspect of our farm to another to take pictures with each other, reveling at being together and being here….

They haven’t changed a bit…they see with their hearts…and I was blessed.

They found our chicken’s eggs, worried about Elsie Gump’s bad leg, laughed at our pigs, talked to our dogs and the kids and the cats.  With a few renditions of the Green Acre’s theme song, I taught them how to drive Jubal and no one ran into anything or got stuck anywhere, so it was all good, it was better than good it was perfect.

As we gathered for the meal My Loving Spouse and our garden provided, we sang the grace we’d sung each night before sitting down to dinner together 35 years ago…

‘Our Father We Thank Thee’

…and the words have been rolling through my head ever since….

…what a gift this weekend was to us all….

to be together…

to laugh

to cry

and

to sing..

Thank you!

Experience is an impressive teacher.  One of the things we’ve learned living here is that it can get a teeny tiny bit cold in the winter.  My Southern California born off spring and I have all learned the value of our wood burning stove, how to use it effectively, keeping the house warm and the smoke alarm from going off!  Experience has also taught us not to put off this chore, because you do not want to be looking for a big old pile of wood when it is already cold, which was why we were so very happy to have made contact with Loggin’ Larrin and procured a whole load of neighbor envy inducing logs.The set up he has is compact and complicated all at the same time, and I found myself disappointed to not have a small boy here to watch this truck offload the wood, as small boys do seem to love this sort of stuff….larger boys just want to run the hydraulics.Off came our load of logs, making us happy to have the wood, but knowing we had a bit of work ahead of us, before any of it would be the size to fit into our stove.  My Loving Spouse put his chain saw into action and we heard comments like, “The new bar on my chain saw cuts those logs like a knife through warm butter.”  This step was going well…We then had a few small rounds of wood that I could pick up and Number Two Son could split.  However, we mostly had big rounds I cannot lift.  They are also too ‘wet’ to split making the maul just bounce off of them.  We will have a lot of these big rounds, so we needed more power, or as one of our neighbors says, “Let’s do this hydraulically!”

So entered two items that easily turn logs into firewood…a log splitter than runs off the hydraulics on Blue on loan to us from Our Friend the Farmer and….

Number Four Son that runs off a huge heart.Number Four blesses us with the happiness to help us out and the strength to lift the large rounds of wood.  We made a good team and in one hour got lots done…I like hydraulics.  We determined that the most practical use of Number Four’s time and strength would be to split all the big rounds in to quarters, which are small enough for me to handle.Number Four had set aside an hour to help, and was determined to work for a complete hour, and let me tell you, when he is determined it is best to stand aside and let him go, because he is going to do what he sets out to do.  We were a great team and split quite an impressive number of wheel barrows full of firewood.Although we still have a lot of logs to cut, split, stack…we are very happy campers, and if you want to come and play lumber jack, we are more than happy to share.

We have two neighbors.  Good neighbors are the best no matter where you live.  Our two neighbors are better than the best, they make us laugh, help us out, play with us, work with us and educate us, often all at the same time.

We had a long ‘to-do’ list this weekend and at one point My Loving Spouse sat down and said, “I think I am too old for this…”  To which I lovingly and emphatically said, “Oh, no you’re not!”, which didn’t seem to make much difference to him.  He was dragging, until Our Friend the Farmer called.  The Farmer had gotten his tractor stuck, could My Loving Spouse come help him?  This brought a smile to my face and a spring back into My Loving Spouse’s step!  There is nothing he likes better than a good tractor rescue, when it is a buddy that needs help, not his wife!  I just smiled because he was happy and smiled because I am not the only one to get tractors stuck!

…..

It turns out that three of the four hens we got back from the surrogate hen egg exchange are not hens at all…they are roosters!  A farm-yard can only have one rooster, so the other three are a problem for us, as I do not really want to eat them.  These chickens taste different.  Tonight we will catch and crate up the three surplus fowl and deliver them to our neighbor The Fire Captain, who will take him to his mom.  She is happy to have them at the ranch until the freeze comes…and then well, can you say Sunday night super?

It does seem that I might be getting the opportunity to try a new food soon, as the neighbor men are going hunting for grouse.  I do not even know what a grouse is, although I have been informed that it is a bird.  I did ask if they get more than one grouse is that then greese? or is it grice?  I was told it is a group of grouse.  I don’t know about this, but what I do know is that My Loving Spouse is very excited to have buddies…that call him up…to rescue tractors or go hunting with…we are blessed.

…and the grouse?  I’ve been told…tastes like chicken!

Sometimes I leave little loving messages for my kids….Because that is what life is about, this living together…communication, mess and love.

My kids have all aged out of the teen years and we made it!  Oh, they still think I am a tad crazy, sort of forgetful and a bit over zealous about pumpkins, cows, football and them…but they have come to handle it well.  Some days the knowledge of how much I am blessed just hits me over the head like a hammer and I need to stop and say…I am grateful…for who all of my children are…they are all kind, thoughtful, considerate, funny and a tad too opinionated, but hey, no one is perfect.

I still often am not sure why I write this blog… the challenge…the reward you all bring to me…the money (hahahaha….since it only costs me)…seriously, for the history…so to those kiddos I brought into the world…you bless me richly…thank you.

This was just one of those weeks where they were lovingly awesome.

Number One Son wanted to know how much I had spent on his college…and did I want him to pay me back?

“Ah…no, pay it forward…”

…and I received this text from him…School started this week, which is where I work.  My Girl working the night shift showed up with my favorite food group…chocolate chip cookies, 3 super yummy and delightful….to start my day off right.…and Number Two Son…had a plan.  He did not know it, but no one had ever bought me a new lunch box for school.  Being the 5th kid in my family, I do remember starting 1st grade with a lunch box slightly banged up by an older sibling, which my mother spray painted blue for me…it was serviceable, but not special.  I did manage to survive and thrive anyway…

This year I started the school year with a new lunch box, bought by Number Two and a lunch packed with all sorts of treats also bought by Number Two….and yes, I am very, very blessed and this post is for those 3 that bless me beyond measure and call me… Mom….Thank you.

A nano -second could be defined as the time in between our pig sty being finished and My Loving Spouse calling the pig breeder to arrange for the pick up of our piglets.

The pig place was something else with large pigs happy in their wallow.The pig breeder is a stay at home mom, who raises pigs to ‘stay at home’.  Her delightful little girls soon joined in on our pig viewing, complete with requests to try out our cameras to which we of course complied.  They did manage to click one or two good ones of us without their finger covering the viewer.Then it was time to load up our two little squealing Duroc 8 week old wiener piglets.  They are red piglets the girl being much bigger than the boy, so much so that there were remarks about what a good breeder she would make…ya, I don’t think so.Margaret Thatcher is on the right and a bit redder than Winston Churchill on the left…or as we are calling them Maggie and Winnie.  They check out their new sty.The funniest bit of all were our cattle!  They couldn’t believe their eyes!  What were these little snorty things!  They literally stood at the fence and stared at them.My Loving Spouse is very happy now that the little pigs are here and just for the record, when/if they get out…they are his pigs.

A special set of friends came to spend the weekend with us.  We’d planned to take them to the Rodeo and hopped that they would get the total Glory Farm experience, barring our usual catastrophes.  It was a windy day, so that started things off very normally, then we added a bit of tractor driving.My Loving Spouse shared his hat collection so all the men were turned out for the Rodeo with appropriate head ware.  We then filled them up with quality Fair food for diner and it was into the Rodeo, to watch people get bucked off horses and bulls, etc.  while, my Sweet Friend kept saying things like, “Do you really think this (bull riding etc) is a good idea?”.  Yes, God love her, it was her first trip to the Rodeo.

Morning brought their first farm fresh breakfast, showing them what eggs really do taste like.  We also laid out ‘the plan’ for the day.  I did explain the ‘the plan’ can change, sometimes without warning, but that is usually because some animal has gotten out, but we’d remain hopeful that it would not happen.

Before we’d finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes, the guys were outside and happily working at fulfilling My Loving Spouse’s dream of a pig sty.  My Loving Spouse has been wanting us to raise pigs for quite a while now, and call me crazy, but I have put my foot/boot down and insisted that we do it a bit differently for a change and build the pen before we buy the animal.With the pig sty building well underway, My Sweet Friend and I went back to the fair for a more complete look around, at all the stuff for sale, every single animal, the displays and to take one more look at someone’s blue ribbon winning pumpkin.We had a wonderful time together and returned home to start diner and admire the pig sty that had been built…except…when passing Our Friend the Farmer’s alfalfa field, we noticed two calves happily out munching in the field.  This is a big problem, because fresh green alfalfa will cause animals to bloat. As Our Friend the Farmer is Cattleman of the Year, he was off for the day riding in the parade and sitting in the President’s box for the Saturday Rodeo.  Funnily enough this left the Cattleman of the Year’s city gal neighbor to do a bit of calf wrangling on his behalf.I got on the bike and rode to the rescue, anxious to chase the calves back over the fence and return them to their mothers.  Their mothers and all of their girlfriends quickly came to fence as they saw me approach their little ones.The first calf zipped right through the fence to return to its Mama 203, which made me laugh as this nut did not fall far from the tree, as 203 was herself a problem cow last year.  However, 214 was a scaredy calf, running up and down the fence line with me behind him trying to get him to go through each hole large enough for a small calf, while the herd looked on as if to say, “Hey, You!  Human!  Leave that calf alone!”  I could have really used a cattle dog, but luckily the next best thing showed up call Our Sweet Friend the Pig Sty Builder Calf Whisperer…he found a big hole in the fence and started “mooing” (seriously).  214 really like this and slowly moved toward the sound encouraged on by me and before you knew it, we had that darn calf back on the right side of the pasture.  The Mama Cows were admonished to keep a better eye on the youngsters and we were headed home to create a very late diner…as usual.

A glorious rainbow appeared to finish off our day….

Even with a late night diner, followed up with an ice cream/blizzard run to Dairy Queen, we still made it to church on time.  Worshiping together in our sweet church was a gift…. as is their friendship and….we are blessed.

Agnes, our cow, is a beauty.  She is a Black Angus beef cow, so city friends this means we do not milk her.  Well, technically we could, because she has all the equipment, but it would not be fun.  Agnes is here to produce calves.  Since we could not count on an immaculate conception for our cow, we needed a plan.

We discussed the options at length after more than one late night dinner with Our Friend the Farmer.  We could ‘do it’ the old-fashioned way (with a bull) or the new-fashioned way by AI (artificial insemination).  He was thinking of using AI for the first time on his heifers this year, as his heifer bull had not gotten the job done quickly enough last year.  Yes, we do have some of the most interesting conversations!  Discussing the ‘Sperms r’ Us Catalog’ (or whatever it is called), and the surprising fact that it wasn’t too costly, which surprised me, but then again I’d never had to pay for sperm before, which did make Our Friend the Farmer blush a bit.  He did eventually decide to AI his heifers, which seemed to go well.  He does have a bull in with them as sort of a ‘Clean Up Batter’, because the AI is not 100%.  I’ve named his bull Justin, as in ‘just in case’ the AI did not work.

It takes 3 trips for the AI expert to ‘do’ a cow….a shot & an implant, pulling out the implant and the big day.  Believe it or not, a large beef cow does not just stand around letting someone mess with their back-end, so she must be run into a head catch for each event.  Agnes, My Loving Spouse and I all got better and better at this with each opportunity.The big day!  The expert and the stuff!

There was a short lesson on a cow’s reproduction equipment, which was quite interesting.  Did you know that there are 4 ‘doors’ he must gently get through before he injects the semen?  Nope, me either… or that after injection if he massages the cervix a few minutes it could increase the conception rate about 5%?  See how much you could learn if you lived on a farm?Now we just wait and see…. hoping it worked and that there will soon be the sound of more little hoofs on the farm.

…..because we are really, really not set up here to borrow Justin.