New Life Old Farmers

We are nearing the end of calving season.  Okay, not ‘we’ exactly, Our Friend the Farmer is nearing the end of calving season…well, not even him exactly, more like his cows are nearing the end of calving season.  It is the cows that actually do the work.  Our Friend the Farmer is just there to help when necessary, and then of course me to help when he is desperate.  I’ve been lucky enough to catch a few James Herriot moments, where Our Friend the Farmer has had to roll up his shirt sleeves and help Mother Nature along.  (Believe me, if you are going to put your arm into the back-end of a cow you need to roll up your shirt sleeves!)  The Farmer’s Top Man keeps the cow’s tail out-of-the-way and my job is to just stay out-of-the-way, grateful that I get to watch.  The cow goes into a special cow squeeze to try to keep her from kicking the farmer.  Even if the cow wants the farmer’s help getting that calf out, she is sometimes a bit ‘snorty‘ and unpredictable….pregnancy and a tough labor, usually combine to create an unhappy temperament in every species.

The farmer, now Cow Mid-wife, reaches in to check for hoofs/feet and make sure the calf is heading in the right direction and help turn it if needed.  Then he attaches a stainless steel chain around the hoofs with handles on his end to pull with.  He is very strong and I have had to see him pull really, really hard as the cow was not able to assist with pushing the calf out at all.  (I mean down on the ground, boots up on the back of the cow’s hind legs, leaning back with all his might kind of pulling.)  With a fair bit of noise from both ends of the cow, out the calf (usually a big one) comes.  It is pretty amazing to see him do it.  All the bovine are then given room to bond, rest and have some alone time, and Our Friend the Farmer goes to clean up.

Most of the calves are doing great, romping quickly the next day in the field not wandering too far away from their Moms and her portable snack station (warm milk at all times).  All the calves except one, who so far should be named One More Day.  One More Day had a bad birth or something…  Her Mother is worried and sweet and stands nearby always moo-ing and giving it a lick when able to encourage the baby along to catch up with the other calves.  One More Day was not sucking or standing or lifting her head.  She made it through the first night with Our Friend the Farmer putting her mother’s milk into her through a tube.  One of my cleaning rubber gloves was sacrificed to try and make a softer nipple for her suck from…but this did not work either..another day of tubing her came and went.  My Loving Spouse and I got to ‘help’ at the 11:00pm feeding last night after we’d spent an hour combing the shelves of the only store in town open… The Dollar Store…. looking for inspiration for the cow nipple sucking problem…. we came home with tubes and bottles and one embarrassed teenager as most of the tubes and bottles were for enema bags, hot water bottles, a douche kit and bubble bath solutions.  Let me tell you, farm supplies at night are hard to find…even in the country, but we were trying to help.

This morning One More Day did a bit better, taking a bottle with a big nipple from me and even beginning to suck and make headway on the whole eating process.  She will stand for a bit if she is ‘stood’ but cannot get there on her own.  Her Mama seems to know we are all there to help the little one and stands nearby moo-ing.  As Our Friend the Farmer says, “You don’t have to do very much to be a cow, but you do have to be able to move on your feet and eat”.

You have to be an optimist to be a farmer.  I am so grateful for all Our Friend the Farmer is willing to teach me and let me be ‘in on’.  I know it usually makes his work slower and longer and he seldom gets much out of it other than the occasional laugh.  I don’t think One More Day is going to make it… so much is not working…but, I want her to…  If she cannot get up on her own and walk, at some point, the bottle feeding will have to stop, but when she makes a little bit of progress, it is easy to think… well, just give it One More Day.

Today is weird….

It snowed all night and it is white out again and it hasn’t snowed since December I think.  Excuse me Mr. Ground hog????

Our cow Elsie Gump says it is not weird, quit taking pictures and just feed me.

One of the chickens (probably Lucile) laid an egg in the hen yard, not in the nesting boxes of which there are four, but the hens only use two of them.  (Talk about picky nesters…)  Then I figured out why (I think), one of the other hens (probably Lucy) laid an egg with no shell!  I’m told by our farm expert (My Loving Spouse) that this is not uncommon.  Okay, it may not be… but so far it is very uncommon to me and just a tad yucky….talk about ‘over easy’.

I spent the morning out on the North 4 leveling dirt from high spots and filling up an old trench.  All Jubal and I did was drag dirt from one spot and fill it in at another spot, readying the pasture for grass seed for the horses.  I’d been working for about an hour, the pasture was looking so much better and the trench was filled, so it was of course then that I noticed that my iPhone was not in my pocket.  I knew what had happened, it had slipped out of my back pocket and went into the dirt.  The same dirt I was studiously moving about the pasture.  It had to be somewhere buried in the North 4.  Blast!  I was sort of in that stunned, how could I do this state.

I went into the house in shock hoping I’d find it sitting innocently next to the coffee maker, but no such luck.  In the bathroom?  The laundry room?  Under the Damn Cat?  No, it was certainly buried and buried really, really well in deep, rich, dark brown dirt and old cow poop.

How was I going to alert the Masses that I was now unable to receive their many texts and phone calls?  We don’t have a land line and of course I’ve forgotten everyone’s phone numbers anyway, so even if I had an old-fashioned phone it would be little more than useless.  My big plan was to email Number Two son in Brooklyn, NY to have him text My Loving Spouse back here in Ellensburg, WA about this dire situation and for him to not worry, that the reason I was not returning his messages, did not indeed mean I’d fallen off my tractor or anything deadly, just regular, plain stupidity.

Shoot!  I had done such a good job tractoring too!  (And yes, spell-checker, tractoring is a word!!)

I was nudged to go out one more time on foot and look for the phone.  I said to myself, “But it doesn’t work this way…”

I walked around the lovely flat dirt feeling ever so stupid….

It was nowhere, of course… it was buried and the next owner would find it in about 20 years, when they are tractoring the North 4 and wondering what kind of fool buried an iPhone.  Then out of the corner of my eye in a small hole with horse poop was a flash of pink…unbelievable…my phone.

…and I was ever so thankful for the second chance (okay, third chance.. I did almost run it over with the tractor once) and I have learned my lesson!!  No phones in back pockets when tractoring… perhaps I will leave it in the house…near the coffee maker… or even under the Damn Cat.

We are deep into the research and development phase of our next adventure/scheme/great idea/experiment..whatever.  The research was going to eventually take us on a quick road trip to a nearby city to check out some of their local ‘color’ and to procure a secret ingredient and no, I’m not going to tell you what it is, as then it would not be a secret.

220 miles each way did not have us scared at all.  We are car people and we enjoy a good drive.  We dressed for our day in the city, with me deciding to wear non-farm clothes, white jeans (very un-farm) and my favorite pink top, I looked bright and cheery, which ended up making me stick out like a sore thumb (in a clean middle-aged way), as grunge would be the dress code for this city, or at least the parts of it we went too.  The Teen dressed appropriately in hip, but grungy attire complete with dangle-guitar earrings, which even got her complements from the other ‘hip’ grungy city people.

We car people seem to do just fine traveling long distances, however, it is when we actually get to where we were going that things start to fall apart.  Our sweet GPS system quickly turns into “that dumb ass thing” and seems intent on changing its mind at the last-minute sending our Unhappy City Driver (My Loving Spouse) into all the wrong lanes at the wrong time to get to where we think we want to be, until we actually get there and then we quickly decide we don’t really like it at all and whose idea was it to come here?

We did manage to find the special store and procure two bottles of the secret ingredient (and yes, it is legal).

We then hopped back into the car for more cursing at the GPS as we went to the heart of downtown.  I don’t really know if it was the ‘heart’ but as there was a very nice hotel, a Starbucks, street food vendors, adult-only exotic dancing, mission soup type kitchen, a renown doughnut store and a lot more grungy people.  If it wasn’t the heart of downtown, it was the ‘heart’ of something.  My Loving Spouse was ready to head for the nearest tool store to regain his composure.  We couldn’t leave without The Teen getting a famous doughnut, even if it meant standing in a line for an hour.  The Teen and I people watched…mostly drunk, strange people accosting one another, pierced, tattooed folk dressed in black singing on the corner and keeping My Loving Spouse who went back to the car updated by text on our progress in line.

“We’re almost in, what kind of doughnut do you want?”.

“I don’t care…. I just want to get out of here”.

“We’re just not city people anymore”.

“Yes, well one of the city people just barfed next to our car”.

Luckily, our next stop was to a tool store where we could all regain our equilibrium, and go to the bathroom to say nothing of the welcome opportunity to wash our hands!  We felt better about everything after leaving the tool store.  We’d procured a few nice cheap tools, we had clean hands and we were enjoying a sugar high from our infusion of sweet doughnuts and we were happily heading home!

This is a big shout out to My Loving Spouse.  Our anniversary is today and how blessed I am!  What an adventure the last 3 years has been and how grateful I am that our God is one who believes in second chances.  We have been planning all month for our dinner date tonight and I am looking forward to it!

Today is otherwise an odd day.

It is raining and I cleaned out the refrigerator (news worthy).  I’m off to disperse any of the leftovers I could still identify and give them to the chickens.

Contrary to what people think about Washington, it doesn’t rain very often on this side of the mountains, so it has messed up my plans.  I am off of work today and I had the day all laid out for Jubal and I.  We were going to clean up the wood in the pasture and burn up all the dry pieces.  (I know!!!  Such excitement)  

Yesterday, my beloved tractor and I took on the tail end of an old cattle-port, knocking  down, pulling off and ripping out.  It was quite wonderfully rewarding and I almost felt guilty for having so much fun alone, although I did keep My Loving Spouse abreast of our progress with the following text,  “FYI Jubal and I rock!”

So, I am just wondering what mischief I can get into today and call it work?

It seemed that we went from 3 animals to 19 in a blink of an eye.  At first, I was overwhelmed and sure that I was going to forget to feed somebody or something.  Now, I find it really is one of my favorite parts of the day and there is such a simple contentment being out in the barn tending to all of our critters.

I do have my own system and have to report unfortunately that the most annoying do seem to come first.  Yes, that means I start with the cats…  Billie Elliot or the Damn Cat who seems to have multiple personalities is fed first, up on her shelf where the dogs cannot get her food.

With my boots on I am met at the kitchen porch by the rest of the feline population.  All of them intent to remind me that they are indeed next and need to be fed NOW, if not sooner, because barn cats do not live on mice alone.

Off we go to the barn, as they are ‘barn cats’ this is where they are fed…

The occasional roll over by Rabbit to make sure he is being followed…

The barn cats are mostly fed in an old wheel barrow, so that no skunks can come into the barn and eat their food.  The reality is that the cats seldom leave any, so the fact that one cat eats out a bowl on the floor doesn’t seem to matter much.  In the wheel barrow..Tigger, Rabbit, Pooh, Roo and on the floor Kanga or Harvey (who has a couple of names)

With the felines all taken care of, I know there are two beauties at the back of the barn waiting for the door to open and be greeted with hay for the day!  Dolly & Dixie

The next hay eater is our cow, who has been waiting at the other door to the barn and is fed in an old bath tub…Elsie Gump.  She cannot do a roll over quite like Rabbit, but she is not about to be forgotten.

Our mighty flock gets fed next…

Left-Over-Lionel, Lucile (s) and Lucy (s)

A quick check for any eggs that have been laid, then I give out water where needed, shut up the barn and say hello to the dear old dogs… Daisy and Snickers.

All done… until the evening…

It could be I over ’tilled’.  (I don’t think My Loving Spouse would agree, as the truth is, I hardly ’tilled’ at all.)  Still, I am really sore, move my arms any which way and why do they hurt sore.  Rototilling… it seems like it ought to be easy, but so far, I haven’t developed my rototilling rhythm.   The rototiller either wants to get away from you racing off to dig up dirt you don’t want dug up or burrowing down deeper and deeper, digging a very deep hole to…China, I think.  The only thing that keeps a rototiller on course is upper body strength and it would seem that this strength is a completely different upper body strength than the kind I developed from whacking/splitting wood.

So here we are, a wonderful cloudy gray Sunday, arms hurt, more tilling that needs to be done to ready our vegetable garden and NO football to stay inside and watch….  maybe I’ll go check on Our Friend the Farmer’s cows…

Vocabulary is important, it is how we define and understand the things around us.  It is the backbone to all language.  I must say, I’ve learned a LOT of new farm-country vocabulary during my short time here.  I must admit to getting some of the ‘vocabulary’ in my previous posts ‘wrong’, well not wrong so much as not quite ‘right’.  I’d like to make those clarifications now…

Aggressive – is not used to describe a cow, especially a cow who has just calved.  She is snorty.  I must say, I like this word.  I’ve certainly seen some ‘snorty’ cows, and as much as I did like being a Realtor in California, I’d have to say, that I’ve certainly seen some ‘snorty’ Real Estate agents.

Pregnant – one is not supposed to say pregnant cow, it is a bred cow.  I don’t think it would be wise to refer to any female human you know who is pregnant, as having been bred… just not a good idea, enough said.

Intact – For all the biblical scholars out there, this would be the opposite of a Eunuch.  Or should you hear two men arguing and one were to say to the other, “Don’t you have any balls?”  The answer when ‘intact’ would be a resounding “yes”!  (Note to all: when in the country be careful when around any ‘intact’ large animals as they are unpredictable.)

Pop – is not your Grandfather, ‘pop’ is a soda.

I’m sure I will get more words ‘wrong’ and will have to continue to relearn my vocabulary, just as one does when visiting a foreign country.  So, while on the subject of foreign countries, may I just say to all our British friends and family who may be visiting us here in Ellensburg someday, please excuse them, as they do not know what they are saying.  You see, My Loving Spouse has unintentionally spread a ‘bad’ word around our sweet little community.  The problem is, that it is a really good word to say, when things don’t go right, and in American, it doesn’t sound like a bad word.  It starts off with a nice consonant (B) and ends with a great sounding -‘er’, so it rolls off your lips when you need it.  Because My Loving Spouse is a likable guy, he’s met a lot of people around town and managed to get into a predicament of two where he’s ” used this ‘word’ and so the ‘word’ has spread…. because, ‘they’ don’t know British vocabulary.  So Ellensburg, all I can say is “I am sorry”, please go back to just using ‘darn’.

Dear John,

How are you?  How is your wife, BJ and the dog?  (See, this is an appropriate way to start a letter, especially when you are wanting something from someone).  We hope you are very, very well.  We know you’ve just retired and are busy doing retiring things, like cruises, camping and planning your trip from Arizona to Alaska.  We are just inquiring if Glory Farm is still on your master list of adventures along the way.  (Inquiring?.. more like desperately planning for John to come).

So, even though we only just met at ‘the’ wedding, … we are family now… kind of….depends on who you talk to…well, we think of you as family. (After all your darling niece married Number One Son and truly, anybody who wants to come work at Glory Farm quickly qualifies as family, which you’ve said you’d like to do.)

Come, please….pretty please.  Okay, here’s the thing, we know you are a great wood worker and so…have we got a job for you!

The family room has finally been painted, here is the work in progress.  (Yes, it was hard painting around a hot stove,.  Yes, we realize this would have been a job better left until summer, but that takes more planning than I often use).  Now the family room just needs a new ceiling, a new light fixture and (here’s the part where I am hoping he is still coming) the wood around the windows needs to be repaired and replaced.  The current molding is a circa 1950’s style with a fake wood grain paint/stain job, as you can see in the next picture, not the more period trim repaired and replaced by My Loving Spouse.  Also all the windows have been painted shut (and I mean shut).

Don’t worry the painting is really done and as you can see through the window, we’ll provide a porch swing for rest and relaxation, beautiful Ellensburg weather (it could be windy), fresh eggs, too many cats, and farm-house living (bedroom upstairs and the bathroom downstairs).

We know you have a LOT of adventures under your belt and planned with your trailer, but we do so hope, that we are still on the list.

Hoping to see you in may,

affectionately,

Ellen

(PS:  If the rest of you don’t believe me about the adventures, check out John’s blog and pictures of his Scamp)