New Life Old Farmers

It is spring and everyone is busy, especially the farmers.  Our Friend the Farmer is very, very busy getting his fields ready, which means the final bred cows need a bit of ‘watching’.  I am on it!  I have been upgraded to actually ‘helpful cow watcher’ as opposed to my previous description of just plain ‘humorous cow watcher’.  I got ‘the call’ that he was busy and the creamy colored cow looked to be in labor, could I keep an eye on her?

Could I?  You bet!

Some cows like a bit of ‘space’ when they are calving.  I don’t blame them, if I was pushing out 65 pounds of calf, I’d want more than just some space!  Luckily, I have just the tool for keeping my cow watching eye on her and giving her space… my cow-noculars!  These gems work great, so I was able to see the cute little calf born, give her some space, report in to Our Friend the Farmer that all arrived well and able to bring my friend The Preacher’s wife and daughter over in time to see the little heifer get to her feet.

I had predicted the Shifty-Eyed Hereford would be the last to calf, but I was wrong.  She snuck off during the night to calf without the benefit of cow watchers or their cow-noculars.  However, she did have one of the cutest little calves to date.  I went to ‘check’ on the cows and found the little calf on the wrong side of the fence.  I called the situation into Our Friend the Farmer, who then upgraded me from Cow Watcher to Calf Wrangler.  I’d like to say I did an amazing calf wrangling job, but really what happened is that as I approached the calf, she stood up, looked around for her Mama Cow and went… “Mooo”, which translates into… “Oh…(British Bad Word)”.  She then turned and tried to go through the smallest part of the feeding gate to return to mom, getting her back-end stuck.  It was up to me to give her back-end a lift… story of my life!

We went over the hill for an Easter weekend with the cousins.  The Seattle weather was unusually co-operative with sunny, blue skies and warm weather!  Woo and Hoo!!  We spent a very relaxing afternoon out on Lake Washington in the power boat, boating, visiting, looking at houses and zipping around with no other purpose than to have fun.  It was a great break, especially for My Loving Spouse who loves, loves, loves the water.

We met up with the whole herd (nice farm reference) of cousins for dinner in town near the police station, which was rather humorous  as we had some… ‘trades’ to be made.  Cousin R was loaning Number One Son a family shot-gun and My Loving Spouse was practically giddy to get his hands on  it.  We pulled our cars near one another,

“Did you bring the gun?”

“Yes, did you bring the eggs?”

“Yes, all fresh.”

“Okay, good, let’s make the trade.”

Easter dinner, Easter Egg hunts and cousins…  Especially, nice for The Teen who has brothers and 19 boy cousins, that with second cousins come some girls.  A girl cousin, nail polish, whispering, music listening, homework done together… it was wonderful.

Easily the most precious to me was a full family pew for the Easter service.  Raised by a non-practicing Lutheran and a non-practicing Jew, my parents could usually be found most Sundays at Our Lady of the Fairways, with golf clubs in hand, possibly praying, but mostly over a difficult shot.  As a small child, they went to church on Easter, but when I asked why, my mother explained that it was so the Easter bunny could come, which is fairly poor theology…just saying.  How I came to love the Lord, is a different story, but suffice it to say, I do.  I cherish anytime I get to fill a pew with family.  Topping off the service by joining the choir for the Hallelujah chorus and cajoling my cousin to join me… practically perfect!

Jubal and I got an upgrade, to which we were pretty darn excited.  Our Friend the Farmer needed a little bit of help trimming a small section of a big field.  (A big field as in acres, growing hay for money, farming upgrade… it was the real Mc Coy.)   I had been cleaning up our pasture with Jubal and our ‘brush hog’, which is like a very large, powerful lawn mower attachment.  Seeing Glory Farm’s fierce-some tractor twosome and the smile on my face, had given Our Friend the idea to ask us (Jubal and I) to help him trim this patch.

All the farmers in the valley are getting ready for the growing season by cleaning out their ditches and getting their irrigation pipes in place.  Most of the ditches can be burned clean, however there are a few areas that just cannot be burned as the flames would be uncontrollable and ‘whoops’ is not a farmer’s favorite word.  It was this type of strip along the canal, that needed to be mowed down.

A big open field for our ‘office’ and it was a beautiful day.  We were ready for real farming action.

As I discussed my upgrade to the big field with My Loving Spouse, I said, “Okay, if I’m going out to the big field, maybe it is time to learn a few more gears.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, all I know how to drive is first and reverse.”

(Hey, stop laughing, you can do a lot of work with just those two gears!  I only know two crochet stitches too, but I’ve managed to crochet a lot of blankets with just 2 stitches).  However, it was time to expand, so I doubled my knowledge and learned not one, but two more gears, road gear and second.  You should see me now!

I mowed the edge of the canal and Jubal and I were doing great, quite pleased with ourselves.  The only real issue was it didn’t take very long, no matter we did our best mowing away happily.  Was it a success?  I imagine it was, as I passed with flying colors the final request by both My Loving Spouse and Our Friend the Farmer…

“Please whatever you do, just don’t drive into the canal!”

There are really no ‘weekends’ on a farm, but some weekends are bigger than others, especially when one needs extra help.  Then planning the job around a weekend and including a lunch makes it a country occasion    Our Friend the Farmer was working his cattle this weekend.  It is a big deal and a large host of helpers were needed to get all the jobs done.  We were invited to come, but as I am a bit lower on the learning curve, my job was chiefly to watch, stay out the way, don’t get hurt and to eat lunch, mostly things I am pretty good at, especially the eating lunch part.  The invitation came with wardrobe advice “Don’t wear your carpet slippers” and a reality warning, “it is not for the faint of heart”.  Every member of the herd was getting vaccinated, the calves were getting branded and the little bulls were getting… well, turned into little non-bulls.  Don’t worry, there are no pictures of any of the ‘non-bulling’ the bulls, besides, the best pictures would have been the look on my face!

There were a lot of jobs, but the two most important the ‘non-bulling, de-balling, castrating’ and the branding were done by the most experienced.  Our Friend the Farmer was the ‘surgeon’ turning his little bulls into little steer.  I believe his oldest son was in charge of the electric branding iron, which was obviously very hot and got a test run on the nearby wood post.  He was very careful that with all the people apart of the organized chaos, to keep the hot iron only where it was supposed to go, which I am sure all the people who were in close proximity to him appreciated.

Six men went into the calve’s pen to grab the back leg and head of three calves, who were then brought out, put to the ground and sat on to keep them still and down.   Then the ‘medication shooters’ came, giving each calf their vaccinations.  The branding was done quickly and then, as necessary the whole ‘non-bulling’, which Our Friend the Farmer did with a special tool, a scalpel and what was clearly a practiced hand.  He showed ‘them’ to me and they were….interesting?  As far as the whole Rocky Mountain Oysters go.. I did not see anybody do that, as I don’t think they really do.  However, I was told that rolled in flour and butter and then baked that they are very good.  I don’t know, and I don’t really intend to find out.

On the other side of the pens were about 80 mother cows who were not at all happy about being separated from their calves, so there was a whole lot of anxious loud mooing going on.  Also nearby were the remaining bred cows, which I have become very familiar with.  I thought one looked like she was going into labor and later that night she had twins and I missed it, but so far she is doing fine feeding them both so I don’t have to break out my cow bottle any time soon.

When I went by to get a view of the little ones and to check on the remaining calving progress, I was amazed at how close they let me come to them… I guess they’ve just gotten use to me.  My family has been with me so many times to watch the cows, that they now have their favorites as well.

The Teen’s likes this creamy colored one…

My Loving Spouse has a soft spot for the Hereford which he pronounces (and we too) “Hair-a-ford”, the American country way to say it is “Herf-ferd”, which is different from heifer.  His Grandfather had these in England, so he is just keen on her, I think that she has shifty eyes and will probably be the last cow to calf.

When the calving is over…. what will I do?  Hmmm, maybe it will be time to plant pumpkins.

We have lived here for 11 months and for 10 months we’ve been trying to get rid of the moles.  Our efforts have only enticed them to invite their friends to move in and live here as well.  We mow their mounds and cover their holes.   We’ve set boxes and boxes of smoke bombs down their holes, ‘some offspring’ have even set the occasional fire cracker right into their holes.  We’ve tried digging them up and setting garden hoses directly into their runs, while sitting nearby with shot guns… nothing so far has worked.  You’d think, that if nothing else, we’d have at least irritated a few of them enough to leave.  We truly hate the little (British bad word)!!!

Now, it may sound awful or evil or cruel, but we are gleefully excited and sort of proud, the barn cats have figured them out!  Spring is here and the feline are on the prowl.  Just in case you are new to this site, let me clear up any misconceptions one might have, I am not a ‘cat person’.  In fact prior to this weekend, I would have probably said that the barn cats’ best features are that, they clean up their own poop.  If there is an order of affection for our 6 cats, I’d have to say Roo would be near the bottom… 5 or 6 for most of us.  She is small and fierce, not funny or cuddly, but her ranking to ‘valuable’ and ‘down right like-able’ was elevated Friday night, as she caught the first mole!  Roo mostly seemed to play with it to death, but honestly one less mole is one less mole!  We quickly alerted the media, that we had a cat that was worth something, okay well, maybe we didn’t do that but there was a flurry of texts to the ‘cat loving off-spring’ that Roo had done it!  Pooh followed up Saturday by pouncing on a mouse and as we left for church Sunday morning all 5 barn cats were staking out different mole hills around the pond.  When we came home, there on the pathway waiting for us was another deceased mole.  This one was sort of gross, so I did have to divert my eyes, as I don’t really like dead things or rodents and so this qualifies as a ‘twofer’, but still I was happy about it.  I just couldn’t look at it.  Go Cats, Go!

Hard to believe that anything this small could make such a mess of things or be so destructive and yes, it is dead and on its way to the trash can.

Out in our small orchard the mole hills out number the trees, so all I can say is “Here kitty, kitty”.

I have a boy friend.  His name is Bob.  He is 95 years old and yes, My Loving Spouse knows about him.  Bob and I sang in the choir together in our church in California.  Bob is very special.  If you don’t really pay attention to Bob, you’d think he was perhaps a crusty old guy, but you’d be wrong, because you would have missed the twinkle in his eye.

I don’t really know how it happened, a God thing I guess.  Years ago, just before choir practice for some reason, I went up to the bass section to give someone a hug for something and then gave a hug to Bob too.  (You see at this point, I didn’t really know how special he was, so gratefully he got steered into my path).  Bob thanked me for the hug and said, “You know, I wasn’t raised with hugging.  I didn’t start hugging people until I was about 82….  I think I’ve really missed something.”

For me, hugging friends my parents age was as close as I could come to hugging them again.  So I started hugging Bob twice a week.  One hug at choir practice and one on Sunday morning.  In the beginning, Bob was a little bit shy about the hugs, as if he expected them to stop, but the shyness went away.  As he got older, most of his hugs were delivered sitting down.  It was I that received the blessing, as we slowly began to love one another.  I don’t have the words to express the filling of my soul, when he would see me coming, he’d smile and throw his arms out wide for me.  Oh, I do miss that so….

The hardest person to tell we were moving was Bob.  I was nervous.  I told him I had something hard to tell him.  I explained why we were moving and I hugged him.  He said, “Oh, I will miss you so, but it sounds like you are going for the right reasons… ”  I felt as if he’d blessed our move.

I didn’t want to leave him ‘hug-less’ so asked my niece and a friend to start giving Bob hugs…I am sure that they do their best…  but still…. it is not me…  I write Bob letters from the farm, every few weeks or so, because he likes it and because the older I get the more I want to just treat people how I want to be treated (see Mom it finally stuck)… honestly,the letters are mostly the stories that you read here… but Bob is not of the computer age, so he is ‘impressed’ that the letters include pictures, which we know is not all that impressive and sometimes the color ink is not really working, but still, it is the thought that counts….and I imagine his pleasure at going to the mailbox to find a letter…  He says he saves them and reads them over and over.  He sent a few letters here, which I also treasure.  He had to get a new ribbon for his type-writer to send them, so I doubly appreciated the effort.  He is having trouble and his hands are not working well now, so I do not expect any more letters from him.

Bob has a girlfriend (besides me).  Myrtle lives in another state and they do the crossword puzzle together every night over the phone.  She came to help him celebrate his 95th birthday…. I think he looks pretty dapper.

I know one day, one of you will tell me that Bob has been ‘called home’.  I will be sad…  But for now… those of you who know Bob, let’s give him a TON of hugs and tell him, that they are from me!

And if and when, I go down south for a visit, you can bet, my getting a hug from Bob will be at the top of my list.

I surprised myself, and managed to finish my second quilt.  This one will go to a particular church senior upon his graduation.  I picked this boy, because he reminds me of my sons, even though he does not know who I am.  I hope he is a LOT like my sons and is high on appreciation and low on tidiness, as this quilt has its fair share of crooked seams and one or two other ‘mistakes’ in it.  I’d like to think it will be one that he wraps up in often and not just left neatly on his bed.  A fair amount of cutting, sewing, unsewing (ripping out), and a teeny tiny bit of swearing went into this quilt.  My bobbin thread only broke about 50 times and  convinced me, that if I am going to quilt, well then I, the non-sewer, needs a new machine.

I was just about finished with it 2 months ago.  I spread it out on the floor at quilting for the feedback of the more experienced quilters (which is everybody).  They looked at it, commented and praised my hard work and then said…it might not be big enough, so at that point I gritted my teeth and went back to cutting, sewing and swearing at my machine (which is not really even my machine, it is My Loving Spouse’s machine).  A new sewing machine for me is on ‘the list’, unfortunately for me it is somewhere under taxes, insurance and fixing the sinking pantry floor.

We are also excited about another quilt in our future here at Glory Farm, a barn quilt.  We’ve decided to be apart of the grass-roots art movement with the Barn Quilt Trail here in the Kitittas Valley.  Our ‘quilt’ will be 8×8 and made of wood.  The design will be a copy of a square of my grandmother’s first quilt….  The cost for this probably comes on ‘the list’ before the whole ‘I need a new sewing machine’ issue, which is fine.  I am quite excited for us to join in the first Barn Quilt Trail in Washington… so stay tuned.

Monday morning and the sunrise was beautiful, even if I only viewed it from my bedroom window.  It is spring break around here, so I know I’ll not get called in for substitute ‘teaching’/crowd control/listening ear to recess laments/assisting those kids that didn’t quite get ‘it’ the first time/gently ‘arguing’ with 5th graders about how the math is supposed to be done.  It is a job that is a bit like pushing jello, but I seem to like it.

It will be a lovely week on our farm, however I’m not sure what will get done as ‘we’ are nursing a few farm related injuries.

Jubal is still out of commission, awaiting his replacement part, which I need to have in order for him to run effectively.  Not having him running is certainly cramping my style.  The wind is not blowing, so perhaps I’ll burn up the slash pile, that is always a rewarding exercise.

Number One Son, The Bride and I managed to rip out the rest of the overgrown shrub trees.  However, when we were pulling the trees out of the truck bed for the burn/slash pile, they tended to tangle together.  Number One and I were pulling on them at the same time, when one came loose slamming the trunk into my nose, knocking me down.  (Yes, it hurt).  The Bride ran into the house for ice, a clean rag (as opposed to the work glove we were using to stop the blood) and my diet coke (yes, she knows me well).  As soon as, my son the EMT was sure I was fine, he started taking pictures of my bloody face to send to his step-father.  (Boys!)  (And no, there will not be a picture of that here).

Our next project was running a final string of barbed wire through a fence.  (A little humorous  that I was the ‘expert’ of the group!)  We did get the final string up and we were very proud of our work.  When I was down in the grass running the wire around the final post, I managed to stand up right into a barb in the top wire!  It hurt like a bad English word and if you’ve been wondering if I have a hole in my head, well now the official answer is…yes!

I did my best yesterday and things did not turn out well.

I managed to eliminate our current sprinkler system with one pass on Jubal, and I was being careful!  I was ripping out some large shrubs and the shrubs won.  I broke a bar on Jubal (although it didn’t actually work correctly, so if you look at it properly, I just gave us the opportunity to replace the non-functioning part).

I fed our calf, Chance.  Got lots of cow formula on me, tried to stand her up and teach her to walk.  We both fell over and she landed in my lap and went to sleep.  I stayed in the field holding my sleeping calf.

I did my best and things did not turn out ‘right’.  My ‘right’ was not working.

We’ll have a new sprinkler system in a better spot.

Jubal will actually work better.

But Chance did not make it and I went to bed in tears.

Loving is not always flowers and fancy gifts (although they are nice, especially if the flowers come in flats).  Loving can be doing the hard part, so on my birthday morning My Loving Spouse got up early to remove our little calf Chance that did not make it to cow.