Head Count

It was chaos in the sheep area when I went out to close it up for the night. Of the eight lambs we've had born so far, six are almost entirely black and a seventh is mostly black. Only one is mostly white. All the black lambs are about the same age and size. The challenge is trying to get an accurate head count while all these little guys are swarming and weaving in and out among the various adults.

Over and over I counted, and I kept coming up with seven. I could've sworn we'd had eight lambs born so far, but it's becoming a blur. Maybe it was only seven. Or was it eight? As I secured the barn, I began composing an update to the previous blog post in my head. It was going to start out, "Okay. So, I can't add."

But what if I was wrong about being wrong? What if it really was eight? Why was I only coming up with seven? I stopped, stepped away from the chaos, and calmly reviewed what I knew to be true. Conundrum, Bianca and Maybelle each had a single. Three. Licorice had triplets. Six. And we had twins born today. Eight. Eight. But I can only find seven lambs!

I jogged into the house and retrieved my big pistol grip spotlight. (As noted last summer, this is a truly essential tool when living in the country.) I ran back to the fenced-in area outside the sheep area, and swept the spotlight across the whole thing.

And, within seconds, I spotted him. Number Eight. He was pure black, and had curled up in an old rubber feed bowl for the night. I never would've seen him with just the light coming from the barn. As I lit him up, he lifted his head and looked at me, but didn't make a sound. It took just a few more seconds to run to him, lift him into my arms, and carry him back around to barn's main entrance (I'd of course already secured the sheep door from the inside).

And that was that. The parable of the Lost Sheep, come to life. Lots to think about and contemplate; even if I might sometimes lose count and get confused from time to time, the Good Shepherd never will. And that Good Shepherd is infinitely more concerned about my welfare and security, and is prepared to go much farther to bring me back to safety, than I ever could for a member of my own little flock.

What Are You Prepared to DO?

That's one of my favorite lines, delivered by the Sean Connery character in a pivotal scene from The Untouchables. It's a question that every aspiring farmer ought to ask him or herself, especially before taking the responsibility for livestock --- and one that I didn't really ask myself until much later, only when I had to.

To paraphrase: "You said you wanted to get goats. Do you really want to get them? You see what I'm saying? What are you prepared to do? [...] You must be prepared to go all the way."

This morning, I had to make a gut-wrenching decision that no person with a heart wants to make: whether a struggling goat kid can really be brought to a position where he can thrive...or only, at best, be consigned to a lifetime of miserable survival at the margins. And if the judgment is the latter...well, what are you prepared to DO then?

As you may have gathered from the text and photo in yesterday's post, one of the twin goat kids Queen Anne's Lace gave birth to was very iffy. He was certainly in better shape than some kids we've had born, and we did get him put on a teat to suckle (some kids won't even do that), but he still had one very big problem: he could barely stand, and couldn't take two steps without his front legs buckling and falling to his knees. When we put him on a teat to nurse, he sprawled his rear legs behind him. One of us had to hold Mother Goat, while the other one held the goat kid on his feet.

We made sure he got a good meal last night. We owed him that, if he was to have any shot at gaining strength. But this morning, it became more clear that it wasn't an issue of strength. There was something seriously wrong with his front legs, and milk wasn't going to cure that. He hadn't gotten up all night, even though we left the lights on and the other five kids in the pen were romping around with each other; at 7am, he was still exactly where we'd left him at 10pm.

Homeschooled Farm Girl helped me put him back on a teat, but he still couldn't keep himself erect. We stood him up, and he kept toppling forward. Critically, even his mother seemed to know there was something seriously wrong with him: she would stand still for his twin brother to nurse, but grew increasingly agitated and tried to run away every time we reconnected the lame one to a teat. She's a big powerful goat, and holding her still long enough for him to nurse (and, remember, someone still had to hold the kid because he couldn't stand) was becoming nearly impossible.

We even rearranged our schedule this morning, coming home after church instead of straight to my father-in-law's house, to give the kid another shot at nursing. Same story, same rejection, and same big problem with his legs.

Now we had a decision to make. Spend the next several months picking him up and bottle feeding him in the hopes that his legs eventually change, or put him down now. If he'd been healthy, and simply a bummer kid (rejected by the mother), the decision would be easy. We wouldn't have been happy, but we would've bottle fed him.

But we've tried to bottle feed bummers with serious health issues before, and they've never ended up healthy. One of them was never able to drink water from a bucket. We literally had to bottle feed him water several times a day until he was old enough to butcher at 7 or 8 months. Another was so scrawny and sickly, even as an adult, he was constantly beaten up by the others and didn't even have enough meat to justify butchering him. (I eventually simply put him down and we threw the body away.)

The children and Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I had a quick conference. Our consensus was that we should give thanks for the five healthy goat kids born this last week, and not prolong the misery of a kid with legs so bad he can't even stand.

But actually pulling the trigger on a cute, innocent, defenseless newborn is quite different from coming to a decision in theory. Especially when the goat kid begins crying as he's taken out of the kidding pen and into the snowy yard. This is where you have to ask yourself, as a farmer or aspiring farmer, "What are you prepared to DO?"

I love my farm. And I love my animals. And this morning that meant putting a .380 hollow point round into a goat kid's head. I wasn't prepared to do that kind of thing when we first got livestock, and I managed to avoid thinking about it until I had no choice. And it's something that on occasion in the past I may have allowed myself to dodge or delay because the little critter was just so sweet and cute, even though I knew in my head that the most humane thing would be to put the animal down immediately.

It doesn't get any easier the more times you do it. It just gets a little less hard. But if I wasn't prepared to DO it, I think I'd have to get out of the livestock business altogether.

He went very quickly. And we are truly grateful for the five healthy kids and all the milk their mothers will be providing for our family this year.

Greener Cereal

What do you do for breakfast? Me, I've always enjoyed raisin bran cereal. I have it nearly every day. When I was a kid, I often even had a bowl as a bedtime snack. (Heck, I still do that on occasion.)

Cereal is not such an easy matter for the Yeoman Farm Children, however. With their Celiac disease, most grains are off limits. Rice is pretty much the only grain they can eat, and we practically buy it by the truckload from our food co-op. Plus, given all the additives and other ingredients that go into commercial cereal (even rice-based cereal), the YFCs' other food allergies mean they've never been able to just sit down and pour themselves bowls of anything off-the-shelf for breakfast.

Each morning, we must grind a few cups of organic long grain brown rice in a grain mill, add it to some water in a pot, bring it to a boil, and simmer it for about 20 minutes (stirring constantly) on the stovetop. It then must sit and "set up" for some time before it can be dished into bowls. Think "very slowly cooked Cream of Wheat," except made from scratch with rice flour.

The YFCs are now old enough to be able to take turns cooking cereal themselves, but when they were younger Mrs Yeoman Farmer had to do it every morning. To this day, we still talk about the time we had some friends visiting overnight; they slid bowls of off-the-shelf cereal in front of their kids, who proceeded to finish eating by the time MYF was still grinding our rice into flour.

Anyway, as much as we tell them how incredibly healthy their diets are, the YFCs have naturally long wondered what it would be like to "eat normally." This Christmas, after having done extensive research, Homeschooled Farm Girl found a way to give her brothers the gift of eating breakfast like typical kids for a day: at the natural food store, she discovered a certain brand of puffed rice cereal that had no problematic ingredients. She bought it, wrapped it up, and put it under the tree for her siblings.

Needless to say, they were very excited. And this morning, thoroughly enjoying having been liberated from cooking their cream-of-rice, they poured themselves their first bowls of the stuff. They added some of our goat milk yogurt, grabbed some spoons, and sat down to try eating breakfast like other kids do.

The verdict? To my surprise, they quickly decided that commercial cereal is terribly overrated. "I don't like the texture," Homeschooled Farm Boy said. HFG, taking no offense that her gift hadn't gone over so well, heartily agreed. Big Little Brother wasn't crazy about it, either. They ate as much as they could, but the three of them left quite a bit for the chickens.

It was a very thoughtful gift on HFG's part, and her brothers did appreciate the effort she put into finding a commercial cereal they could try. I don't think the three of them quite realize it yet, but they actually ended up getting a gift that no amount of money or research could buy: a real-life lesson that the grass really isn't greener on other people's lawns (or breakfast tables, as it were). And that when it comes to food, they're pretty darn lucky they get to eat the way they do.

Turkey Come Home

We have an unusually large number of young turkeys this year. Long story, but it boils down to two things:

1) The hatchery we'd ordered from later told us the turkeys might be greatly delayed. I placed a second order with another --- more reliable, but also more expensive --- hatchery, to make sure we got the minimal number of heritage breed poults we need. My intention was to cancel the order with the original hatchery, once we were certain we had a good survival rate in the brooder. We ended up getting both orders coming thru a few weeks later, before I could cancel the original one, for a total of 35 poults shipping to our property.

2) We had far fewer brooder deaths than usual. I think that's because we got the poults in later May, when the weather was warmer and the birds were less stressed in transit.

Anyway, we now have all the poults out in two portable 4x8 pasture pens. They're thriving, with fresh air and fresh green stuff in their diet each day (along with some supplemental high protein grain ration).

And then, this afternoon, we ran into a problem. I opened the lid of one pen, to give the birds some grain. Two poults got spooked, and flew through the open top to perch on the lid. One small bird was easy to capture and replace. The other, a largish Bourbon Red (an older bird, from the McMurray order), flew away. He went over the fence to the garden, requiring me to walk all the way around to the gate to reach him. By the time I got there, and had him pinned against the fence, he spooked again. Big time. Somehow clawed his way up and over the fence...and flew off INTO THE HIGH BRUSH separating our property from the road.

The young bird was now in a 20 foot wide patch of 3-4 foot high grass and brambles and branches that runs the length of our property. I came in after him, but he easily evaded me in the weeds. Meanwhile, I'm stirring up clouds of dormant mosquitoes and running into big patches of poison ivy and nettles. Was about to give up on him, when I had an idea: go out to the road, and work my way back in. I had no idea where the bird was, but fortunately stumbled onto him before long. He ran farther into the weeds. I almost got him...and then he squirted away and disappeared, leaving me to contend with another cloud of mosquitoes. Try as I might, I could not find him again.

I'd hoped the chirping calls of the other turkeys --- the ones still in the pen --- would eventually draw him back. But I kept checking all evening, but he never did reemerge. Finally, when the sun was all the way down, I went back out with a flashlight...still no Bourbon Red poult. Hopefully he'll be there in the morning, but I'm not counting on it. He'll probably get eaten by a raccoon or fox.

This is one of those maddening, never-saw-it-coming disappointments of farming. Yes, we still have plenty of other turkeys. But, dang it, we raised this one and he was thriving and this is such a stupid way to lose him.

And then, as I thought more about it, something came to me: how often do we humans act like that turkey? We have a good situation going, we're being taken care of, we're living according to the Plan that a higher power has in mind for us...and then in a moment of passion we [literally, in this case] fly the coop, determine that we know better what the Plan should be, strike off in a radical direction of our own...and then, very quickly, discover that we're lost in the high weeds with no simple way out. Because we blew it, and squandered the situation we had. And are too stubborn or proud or blinded to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd who is calling and begging for us to come out and return to the safety of the fold.

Don't mean to get too overly philosophical, but these are the sorts of thoughts a person can have when living on a farm. You really do develop a greater appreciation for the agricultural parables of the Bible. And quickly come to understand why the Bible has so many of them.

UPDATE:
I went out to do the chores at 6:30 the next morning (Monday), accompanied by Scooter the Border Collie. As I was putting feed in one of the turkey pens, Scooter flushed the runaway turkey poult from the grass next to the pen. It'd apparently heard the other turkeys chirping, and come back from the high weeds/brush to rejoin them at first light. Anyway, Scooter chased the bird down and excitedly held it with his paws until I could come and grab it. It was damp from being out in the morning dew, but otherwise no worse for its night spent outside the pen. I'm just thankful it's back.

Why Do This?

A reader from Southern California (actually not far from where our family lived, pre-farm) who wishes he could be doing what we're doing, Kevin Aldrich, writes with some important thoughts and observations:


It would seem that the reason to have a family farm is not so much to grow your own food or have a viable business as to have a means of raising your kids well. They are more “in touch” with real life and work with their hands, not just with their heads and technology.

Here’s a kind of a idea for raising kids—not that I’ve done it for any of mine—but a child’s development could kind of follow the history of the development of humanity. It seems like we are more and more cut off from the life that most people have led through most of human history. Not that we want any of the negatives, like mortality rates before modern medicine, or famines before the Green Revolution, or battles followed by rape and pillage.

Rather, it seems like kids would have a huge advantage if their youths were filled with activities like storytelling, memorization, growing your own food, dealing with animals, running, fighting, using weapons, building fires and doing without electricity, dealing with heat and cold and darkness, writing with pencils instead of keyboards, penmanship, building and fixing things, reading instead of watching, talking instead of texting. Have you seen Disney/Pixar’s Wall-E? People are fat and chair-bound and taken care of by robots. It really is the future.

I guess I think about this because I live on the edge of the center of modern, artificial living...


It really is remarkable how different the Yeoman Farm Children are from other kids their age. They get up each morning, go outside, and are responsible for milking two goats. They take the goats out to pasture. In the evenings, they do it all again (in reverse), and hunt all over the barn gathering eggs, and make sure the various animals have the food they need. They are present when lambs and goat kids are born, alert us to any problems those animals may have, work to ensure the health of all those animals ... and help load mature animals into the truck when it's time to go to the butcher. They know how to cultivate soil, how to plant seeds, how to tell the difference between a weed and a "good" seedling, which tomatoes and peppers are ripe, how to handle fresh produce (and eggs) without damaging or breaking anything. And because their severe food allergies make meal preparation such a big production (in the time it takes most kids to finish off a bowl of Fruit Loops, we're still grinding grain for hot cream-of-rice cereal), they have learned to take the lead in cooking breakfasts and lunches from scratch.

They do not have iPods or cell phones or Facebook pages, do not "text" their friends, have never surfed beyond the EWTN Kids website, and their television viewing is limited and always supervised (and made up of sports, politics, religious, and History Channel type stuff). They read a lot of books, particularly historical fiction. They know how to type, and how to use computers, but do most of their work with pen and paper. They know firearms are not toys, but rather powerful tools which must be respected and handled safely and responsibly.

When we first moved to the country, one of our primary motivations was getting control of our food supply. But the longer we've been doing this, and the more we've observed the way our kids have thrived, our motivation for continuing to farm has increasingly become the whole lifestyle and culture in which our family is immersed here, and the sorts of well-rounded young adults into which the YFCs are growing. It's hard to imagine anything that could've been better for them. Or for us.

Piglet The Goat Kid

I have given up trying to figure out the names that our children come up with for various animals on our farm. As long as it's a certainty that the animal in question will eventually be going off to the butcher, I don't mind too much. (The two most recent goat kids we had butchered were named "Naughty" and "Less Naughty," respectively...and our children now seem to be recycling those names for the latest twin male goat kids.)

Which brings us to Piglet. Who, despite the name, is a goat kid.

Last Wednesday, Queen Anne's Lace delivered a pair of beautiful kids. After just a couple of days, however, the male kid was developing problems. He was struggling to get up and nurse, and had a raspy noise in his lungs. Homeschooled Farm Girl immediately realized something was wrong, and reported the problem to Mrs Yeoman Famer.

This proved to be a very good move. Had she come to me, I would have told her "It's just the male kid. We'll only be butchering him anyway, and his meat isn't worth the veterinary bills. And besides, at just two days old, he doesn't have the reserves to survive whatever he's sick with. Which is probably pneumonia."

MYF also diagnosed pneumonia...but took a different approach. She simply announced that she was taking the kid to the vet clinic in the next town over. Period. I ran through my objections, to which she listened politely...and then insisted that we should do everything in our power to save this kid. Because in her opinion, we'd discovered his pneumonia early enough to do something about it.

I grudgingly agreed, and got back to work. MYF sped off to the vet, and after spending some time in the waiting room (enduring odd/curious looks from all the people who had brought more conventional pets), the vet confirmed our diagnosis of pneumonia. Most likely, the kid aspirated some milk while nursing --- essentially "sucked it down the wrong pipe," getting moisture in his lungs. In the chilly barn, it didn't take long to develop into pneumonia. He gave the kid a shot of antibiotic, and then gave MYF several more syringes of antibiotic to inject over the next days. He suggested we keep the kid in our warm house, and bottle feed him until (1) he was stronger and (2) the barn warmed up a bit.

So, since Friday afternoon, we've had a goat kid living in an old laundry basket in our family room. How our children thought up the name, "Piglet," I'll never know...but it's not something I have any desire to argue about. The wood stove keeps that whole room very comfortable, and Piglet has been thriving. Homeschooled Farm Girl has been a big help in milking Queen Anne's Lace, and in taking the kid out to her in the warmer parts of the day to nurse directly. Fortunately, Queen Anne's Lace has not rejected or forgotten him; she bleats urgently as soon as she sees him, sniffs his backside approvingly as he nurses, and bleats plaintively when we take him back out of the barn.

Needless to say, the laundry basket is pretty tight quarters for a growing goat kid. With MYF's permission, our children let him out a couple of times this weekend (right after he'd relieved himself), and let him romp around the downstairs of our house. Everyone thought this was great fun, though MYF was of course concerned he might try to piddle on the carpet. "Maybe," I joked, "we can train him to a litter box and keep him in the house."

"Yeah!" the children cheered.

"Can't you just see it?" MYF replied. "Him trotting up and down the stairs. Kicking his legs up on the walls, like the other goats do in the barn. Probably smashing windows. And making the whole house smell like goat."

We all had a good laugh...and hope he'll be well enough to move back to the barn in the next couple of days.

And, yes, I have eaten my full serving of crow. I'm glad MYF took him to the vet, and have told her so. It's a tough balance, having livestock. There is a definite "utilitarian" component to farm animals, and it's much more pronounced than it is for pets. We simply cannot justify squandering resources on an animal that isn't "worth it." But there is also a humanitarian component to raising livestock on a small organic farm. In a sense, God has given us temporary custody of these animals...and we have a responsibility to exercise good stewardship with them. That means having a heart, and sometimes making personal sacrifices on behalf of an animal's welfare --- even one which, at the end of the day, might be of borderline monetary value.

In this case, I think we struck a good balance. Piglet's vet bill was $55, and it will eventually cost $40 to butcher him. That will make his meat more than twice as expensive as the meat from a kid with no medical issues. But given the quality of what we'll be getting, I think it's still a bargain compared to buying meat at the supermarket.

The Not So Good Shepherd

Managing sheep, particularly when out watching them graze, is wonderful fodder for prayer about the "Good Shepherd." Just a couple of weeks ago, after bringing the sheep in to the fold from the pasture, we seemed a few lambs short. I took Homeschooled Farm Girl and Scooter the Amazing Wonderdog back out in the high weeds for a second look --- and located the lambs which had become disoriented and left behind.

But every shepherding story doesn't have such a happy ending. Regular blog readers know we had a bumper crop of lambs born this year; the eight ewes had 16 live births. Tabasco, our occasionally hyperactive Red Healer, killed one of those lambs when it was a week old, but we hadn't had any other deaths.

Alas, that record was not to stand. With this many lambs, we were due for some kind of disappointment. A few days ago, I noticed that the youngest and smallest lamb was beginning to act a bit lethargic and to hang back from the rest of the flock. I immediately administered an apple cider vinegar drench, which is a nice overall tonic. He would still get up and walk just fine, but I quickly discovered the root of his lethargy problem: he was getting crowded out at the hay feeders. And he was a little too small to reach the drinking water in the stock tank once the level had gone down --- and ditto for the mineral in the mineral bucket.

Over the next couple of days, I kept close tabs on him and tried to make sure he got better nutrition...but the damage had apparently been done. Once a lamb gets beyond a certain point, it's sometimes difficult to get their health built back up again to where they can hold their own with the flock. Saturday afternoon, he was still making an effort to eat --- but by Saturday night it was clear he wasn't going to make it. He'd crawled into a corner, put his head down, and begun breathing heavily.

As the rest of the flock enjoyed a late evening snack of hay, I took the little lamb in my arms and sat down to comfort him. I'd seen this more times than I care to count, and knew he was now in the death spiral. I talked soothingly to him, rubbed his back and stomach, and tried to find a position that would let him breathe a little easier. Most of all, I told him I was sorry I couldn't have done more for him.

But I couldn't bear to put a bullet in his head. I save that action for the most severely injured livestock. For a sick lamb, I hold out hope to the very end that he might get a good night's sleep, or that his immune system will kick in, or that he'll find a hidden reserve. So I made him comfortable in his corner of the barn, locked everything up, and called it a night.

Not surprisingly, Sunday morning, he was exactly where I'd left him. As the rest of the flock got busy eating, I found an old paper feed bag and managed to slide his stiffened body into it for disposal. (With the heat this week, I didn't want to just throw the body into the trash can without something around it to help contain the smell. And I certainly didn't want to leave his body in the hedgerow, where it might attract predators like the fox I'd just spooked off.)

In a thoroughly melancholy frame of mind, I went about the rest of my morning chores. It always bothers me when I can't save one of our animals, especially one as innocent as a little lamb. I suppose I ought to be used to it by now, but it still gets to me. And that gave me an awful lot to think about for the whole rest of the day.

Ashes Again

I love heating our house with wood. Particularly up here in Michigan (at least compared to the Illinois prairie where we just moved from), firewood is cheap and abundant. Several people up and down our road, including our next door neighbor (no, not the one with the killer dog), seem to spend their entire summers cutting and splitting mountains of trees. The result is a fairly inexpensive, plentiful, renewable source of American-made fuel.

The house we bought has an oil burning furnace, which is our first experience with home heating oil. Is this stuff expensive or what? Fortunately, the system of baseboards that the furnace pumps hot water up to is pretty intelligently set up. There are three zones: one for the whole downstairs, one for the two childrens' bedrooms upstairs, and one for the master bedroom upstairs. In other words, during the day, we can use oil to heat just the two rooms where the kids do their schoolwork. The woodburner the previous owners left is one of those sealed fireplace units with a blower fan, and it easily puts out enough heat to keep the whole downstairs comfortable. No, it's not as nice as the Amish-made wood cookstove we had in Illinois, and the blower won't do us much good in a power outage, but for daily use it is wonderful. (And we may well replace it with a cookstove next winter.)

Anyway, the biggest problem with this woodburner is the ashes. Our cookstove had slats at the bottom of the firebox, so the ashes would fall through and collect in a long metal drawer underneath. When it got full, it was very simple to pull that drawer out, carefully take it outside, and dump the ashes in a metal can for later use in the garden. In our new woodburning unit, the ashes simply accumulate and pile up in the bottom of the fireplace. Each day, the fire must be built slightly higher than the previous day's fire. Each day, there is slightly less room for firewood. This is a subtle and almost indiscernable process; you don't realize how much fire space you've lost until you discover yourself struggling to cram pieces of wood into the box.

This weekend, I realized just how much ash had accumulated. We let the fire go all the way out, and then I started shoveling. And shoveling. And shoveling. Had to be careful not to spill ashes on the carpet as I knelt and gingerly emptied each shovelfull into a container. Finally, ten minutes later, the great bulk of the ashes had been removed and we could build another fire.

I've been thinking about that process since yesterday, when we had a somewhat different commemoration of ashes. We went to Mass in the morning, and the priest made a large cross of ashes on our foreheads, admonishing us to "Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return." Ashes are a symbol of death; indeed, they are all that's left over when all the wood's fuel has been burned. So we put the ashes on to remind us of our own mortality, and that, as St. Paul says, tempus breve est (time is short).

But perhaps the ashes can mean even more than that. Don't "ashes" also symbolize all the death that we've allowed to accumulate in our lives? All the bad habits and self-indulgences? All the creature comforts we allow ourselves? All the duties we procrastinate about fulfilling? All the little ways we waste time at work? Over the course of a year, all these things accumulate and fill the firebox so slowly, we don't realize how much smaller our fire has gotten as a result. We need to shovel all those things out, and build the fire anew. And that's what I love so much about Lent.
And you know what really surprised me? When I shoveled the ashes out this weekend, I'd thought the fire had completely cooled. But it hadn't. Once I started digging deep, I discovered lots of coals that were still burning bright red. Somehow, under all those ashes, with no air or fuel, they had remained unextinguished. As I worked, I moved these coals to the side. When the ashes had been removed, I piled all the coals back up in the middle of the firebox. I then "framed" them on either side with large pieces of wood, and began piling fuel on top of the coals. Paper, twigs, cardboard, and then branches and larger pieces of wood. Soon, the fire was burning again --- and bigger than ever.

Under all those ashes we've let accumulate since last Easter, I bet each of us still has plenty of nice red coals. Let's get those ashes out and see what we can do to get our spiritual fires blazing again.

Little Things

When we first got sheep, our worries all centered on the big problems than can befall livestock. We made sure the pasture was securely fenced. We got a Great Pyrenees guardian dog. Any time we heard coyotes howling, I had the 12-gauge loaded and was out the door.

But after nearly five years, we've never lost a sheep to the road. Or to a thief. Or to a coyote. Or to any other predator.

All of our losses have come from little things:
An unattended ram that got into a bag of corn and died of bloat.
A lamb that pushed through a poorly-secured gate, ate too much clover, and bloated.
A lamb that found a rusty piece of metal and got tetanus.

And then there are the parasites. When we first got sheep, we didn't know a thing about worms. But it's worms that have caused more problems than everything else combined. We've tried to keep ahead of the parasites' life cycle, but somehow or another events keep conspiring to delay our worming treatments.

Somehow, the big magnificent rams are the ones that get hit hardest. Pinch, an absolutely stunning animal, had worms creep up on him so fast we never knew there was a problem until he wouldn't keep up with the flock. An hour later, he couldn't get to his feet. The worms had literally bled him white. Meanwhile, the rest of the flock was running around just fine with the same worm load.

And now the same ugly story is replaying itself for Pinch's one surviving offspring --- an equally stunning ram we named Dilemma. I just wormed him about a week or two ago. Then, this morning, I noticed he wasn't grazing much with the rest of the flock. I caught him (another bad sign; he should've had enough energy to stay away from me), checked his eyes, and sure enough...he was getting bled white. I wormed him again, and drenched him with an apple cider vinegar tonic, but I fear it was too late. Even after drenching him again this evening, he's barely getting to his feet and certainly not grazing. And even if I kill all the worms, how can he regain his strength if he doesn't eat?

Tonight, as the rest of the flock eagerly grazed on some prime green stuff, Pinch refused to get to his feet. I sat with him for a long time, holding his head in my lap, rubbing his neck and telling him how sorry I was. And I couldn't help thinking about a passage from St. Josemaria Escriva's book, Christ is Passing By (section 77):

We must convince ourselves that the worst enemy of a rock is not a pickaxe or any other such implement, no matter how sharp it is. No, its worst enemy is the constant flow of water which drop by drop enters the crevices until it ruins the rock's structure. The greatest danger for a Christian is to underestimate the importance of fighting skirmishes. The refusal to fight the little battles can, little by little, leave him soft, weak and indifferent, insensitive to the accents of God's voice.

And as I asked myself why I'd not been vigilant enough about rotating their pastures, and making sure the flock was wormed on a hard and regular schedule:

It has been a hard experience: don't forget the lesson. Your big cowardices of the moment correspond — clearly — to your little cowardices of each day.You 'have not been able' to conquer in big things, because you 'did not want' to conquer in little ones. (The Way, #828)

As I came out to my office to prepare this blog post, Dilemma was still laying on the grass just outside that building. The rest of the flock had long been put away in the main pasture, and I'd decided to just leave Dilemma here to die overnight. But as I approached him, he surprised me by climbing to his feet and stiffly trying to trot off to join the main flock. I caught him and drenched him again, all the while saying as many encouraging words as I could.

Then I opened the pasture gate, let him through, and he bellowed to the flock as he approached. It wasn't his usual bellow, and I still wouldn't put money on his being alive in the morning, but it was a beautiful sound all the same.

Just Plain Busted

Sometimes, unlike the situation with the busted pipe I recently blogged about, it's just plain impossible to turn a lemon into lemonade.

We have several grape vines growing right behind the house, along a fence that subdivides the property. As these vines are so close to the house, I've been able to give them lots of attention the last few years. They've gotten plenty of water, and I've been able to protect them from Japanese Beetles. They're far and away the healthiest vines on the property, because they've been close enough to get so much care.

Until this morning, when I went out to do the chores and discovered one of them had been utterly destroyed. It was only six feet from the back door, and our dog Scooter always sleeps at the foot of it. At first glance, it looked okay...just a little wilted.

But something was wasn't quite right, so I took a closer look. The roots had been totally dug up, and the two stalks of the vine were snapped. Even quite a bit of the bark had been stripped off --- almost like a deer or goat had attacked it. But a deer or goat would've devoured the leaves first; and besides, all the goats were secure. And deer never come this close to the house. And since when has a deer or goat dug up a vine from the roots?

I couldn't prove it was Scooter, but I was highly suspicious. It also could've been Tabasco, who's always digging up everything on the trail of mouse and rat nests. Between Tabasco's digging and Scooter's chewing, it could've been a team destruction effort.

This particular vine didn't have a lot of fruit clusters on it, but it was the principle of the thing: I'd planted this vine, watered it, weeded it, pruned it, and cultivated it for years. It was beautiful, and it was thriving.

Sitting with the sheep later this morning, I had the chance to reflect on the vine and what the incident might be trying to say. On a farm, this kind of thing happens all the time: you spend months or years caring for some living thing (be it an animal, a bush, or a crop), but it's a living thing. You go to bed and everything's fine...and come out the next morning and it's dead. We've had more than one beautiful ram drop dead from bloat or parasites. Sometimes there is a dead hen in the chicken house in the morning; no sign of struggle or predation...it just died in the night. In the blink of an eye, we've lost two different dogs to collisions with cars. I came home one afternoon and surprised a hawk devouring one of our ducks in the driveway. Our first mother goose sat on a nest for weeks, and her eggs were nearly ready to hatch, when I came out one morning to discover coyotes had torn her to pieces like a feather pillow.

I could continue this this list, but you get the picture: to have a farm is to have a constant education in the virtue of detachment. As you toil and "husband" your livestock and produce, you must never succumb to the temptation of admiring that handiwork and thinking it was all your own invincible doing. Because it can all be taken away overnight. This is something I was largely insulated from when I lived in the city, as I think is the case for most city-dwellers. But the things of this earth, even the ones that you've worked so hard to care for (and perhaps especially those things) really are passing away. And that's a good thing to reflect on. We sure get plenty of chances to do so on the farm.

And now I've got to take these grape branches and feed them to the goats.

Busted Pipe Lemonade

You know that expression, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade"? It happens all the time when you live on a farm. The lemons, anyway. Making lemonade is where you need to get creative.

One example: in July, we get inundated with Japanese Beetles. They wreak a horrible toll on grape vines, to the point where I wonder why I bother trying to grow grapes organically around here at all. I'll post more about it in July, but we've developed a partial solution: put out lots of pheromone traps, drown the beetles we catch, and feed them to the chickens. Free protein!

More recently, we had a piece of drainage tile break. It's one of those plastic pipes, buried about 2-3 feet down, that helps drain the property. I noticed a big puddle developing in a certain spot, and from time to time bubbles would appear. When that spot never got dry, I knew the water had to be coming from below. I got out a shovel, and spent some time excavating the area. Eventually, I found the tile---and, sure enough, could feel a small hole in the top of it. As soon as I'd bail all the water out of the hole, more would bubble out of the pipe. Grrrrr.

Eventually, I'm going to have to dig a much larger hole and expose the whole pipe so it can be fixed. But for now, I've been trying to make lemonade. With this constant puddle of water, I don't have to take water to the chickens and ducks! At all!

Or so I've told myself for the last couple of weeks. Now, my wife has reminded me of two things: (1) kids have a remarkable way of falling into puddles of water, and two feet is plenty big enough for drowning; and (2) standing water is a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. She wants my lemonade puddle gone. Yesterday.

Looks like the Yeoman Farmer will be getting his shovel out again this weekend...

Pruning

When I first planted a vineyard, I imagined that pruning the vines would be a once-a-year project. I figured I'd get a pair of clippers, walk up and down the aisles, and trim where necessary. And that would be that.

Was I ever wrong.

Particularly in their first few years, when they're getting established, grape vines have a tendency to put out all kinds of unwanted growth. My vines seem especially prone to develop shoots from the lower trunk, far below the trellis line. In theory, those shoots could be left to grow---but they will not be productive, and will simply drain energy that the vine could be putting to a better use. Each morning, as I walk up and down the aisles of the vineyard looking for duck eggs, I also keep an eye on the trunks of the vines. Any little shoots like these that I see, and I immediately pluck them off. Better for the vine as a whole to nip this growth in the bud before letting it take extra nutrients for itself.

And, in that early morning quiet, it occurs to me that this is really a metaphor for ourselves and our own lives: a big part of growing up into mature, responsible adulthood is to scrape off these new little growths that---while not evil or diseased in themselves---aren't compatible with our overall maturity and spiritual health.

It's easy to spot the large dead branches; these are big things that were important to us when we were younger, but that we must "put aside" to concentrate on being a better spouse or parent. For many of us, that might have been a hobby or an athletic pursuit that we really shouldn't dedicate so much time to anymore. You name it. We all had things like that before we got married, and they were probably pretty obvious to most of us---even if some of those big dead branches took longer to actually prune than we'd like to admit.

But these smaller growths are harder to spot, and easier to ignore. They're the selfish tendencies and comfort-seeking that crop up, almost without our noticing, and distract us from doing what we should for those entrusted to us. Maybe they're not a significant drag on us at first, but would surely become so if left to develop. And we need to be alert, to get them at the beginning.

Anyway, that's what I think about in my vineyard.

99 Balloons

There's a very moving video out about the life of a baby with Trisomy-18.

What's particularly remarkable is how the parents manage to shower a lifetime of love on their son in such a short period of time. It's hard to watch this without thinking about all the things that we could and should be doing to better appreciate and love our own kids.

Hat Tip: Amy Welborn.

Kidding Again

Just a few days ago, I posted a picture of a very-pregnant-goat trying to get comfortable on a hot day.

Yesterday, she delivered her kid! I was working in my office, shortly before noon, when one of our children excitedly began pounding on my door with the big news. I put down what I was doing and made a detour to the goat stall on my way in for lunch. Sure enough, she had delivered a beautiful little buck kid. Though he was still damp with amniotic fluid, he was drying off fast in the 80 degree weather (couldn't have asked for a better day for him to arrive), and was already up and wobbling around testing out his legs.

His mother, Double Play, has a chronic case of mastitis, which we have tried everything imaginable to remedy but to no avail. This wouldn't be a problem if we were simply pasteurizing and then drinking the milk. However, to make the cultured milk drinks our children require, raw (unpasteurized) milk is necessary. And raw mastitic milk doesn't set up well at all in these cultures; we've tried several times, and ended up feeding it all to chickens.

Fortunately, our other goat (Queen Anne's Lace) has been giving milk that's been excellent for raw cultures. We've decided to keep her, and sell Double Play to a friend who wants to pasteurize her milk for drinking. As soon as they finish building a stall for her, she and her newborn kid will be moving. All part of life on the farm, and a lesson for our children: as much as you might like a particular animal (and the children really do like Double Play a lot), you can't get attached to them or turn them into pets.

Surprised by Beauty

Thinking more about yesterday's post, on the Washington Post experiment in which Joshua Bell's music was ignored by well over one thousand morning commuters.

My wife insists that if our family had been in the subway station that morning, we all would have stopped and listened to the violin concert. I told her I wasn't so sure, and that --- having once been a DC Metro commuter myself --- I could understand that people are often on tight deadlines, especially in the morning. There simply isn't always time to stop and listen, no matter how beautiful the music is. After all, I pointed out, what if our family was in that subway station --- but we were on our way to Mass, which was about to begin? Would we have really blown off Mass to listen to a violinist?

She replied with an excellent point: we would have at least paused and listened for a moment, making some acknowledgement of what a masterful performance he was putting on. We wouldn't have simply hustled by, oblivious to the beauty. I agreed, in part because stopping to listen to such a performance is another aspect of homeschooling: an opportunity to take something from the course of life and find the larger lesson in it. Art and music are an important component of our childrens' instruction, and we have been teaching them to appreciate good classical music.

And the older our kids get, the more thankful I am for my wife's insistence that I not listen to popular or rock music around the kids; I've honored that request from when they were very young, and I can see the fruits it is bearing in their attention to (and appreciation of) things that are truly good and beautiful.

Also, in reflecting on the Joshua Bell incident, I've realized how fortunate we are to be living a less hectic lifestyle. Yes, there are still deadlines to meet --- but there is generally more flexibility about meeting them. If we find ourselves "surprised by beauty" or art, there is usually time to pause and enjoy that experience. Just this morning, I was sitting in the pasture watching the sheep graze, and found myself lingering for a few extra minutes just appreciating the colors and grace of these wonderful animals. Other days, it might be a spectacular sunset over the prairie---or an electrical storm, observed with the kids from our glassed-in front porch.

Wherever art or beauty surprises you today, I hope you stop to take it in.

Great Movie

Last night, my wife and I rented "The Pursuit of Happyness." It was one of the best new films we've seen in quite some time. Will Smith plays a single father who's hit hard times, and finds himself out on the streets---while trying to care for his five year old son, and not letting his son know just how bad things are. He has a plan for digging himself out of this hole, but keeps running into obstacle after obstacle. How he manages to hold everything together, all the while growing closer to his son, is truly inspirational.

It was also thought-provoking. Smith's character is a good, hard-working guy who ends up on the skids despite all that effort. Made me think about how transient "success" in this world can be. Despite all our own hard work, sometimes God can have other plans for us. Things can all seem to fall apart, but we need to keep it in perspective and think about what may await us precisely as a result of these present difficulties.

I highly recommend this movie.

Too difficult?

A few weeks back, I blogged about a scientific study which had confirmed the effectiveness of Natural Family Planning.

Now, a piece in Scientific American criticizes that study, saying it is hopelessly unrealistic for couples to abstain for the time during which a woman is fertile each cycle.

Hilda Hutcherson, an ob-gyn and co-director of the New York Center for Women's Sexual Health at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, found that her patients often stop using periodic abstinence methods after only a few months. "It's difficult to abstain from sex for two out of four weeks," she says. "That means half the month you can't have sex. That's very difficult for young couples."

I suspect that some NFP-backers will respond by arguing that the average couple has to abstain for less than two weeks each cycle, or that the average couple using NFP has relations as many times per month as other American married couples do. But while these statistics are accurate, I believe that citing them is counterproductive in making the case for NFP.

First off, there are couples using NFP who, due to irregular cycles and extremely serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy, must abstain for significantly more than two weeks. The more times such couples hear the mantras about how easy NFP is, the more likely it is that they will grow discouraged or wonder why they've been cursed with so few opportunities to be together. Some might even conclude that all the talk about "less than two weeks" and "just as many times per month as other couples" is simply an elaborate bait-and-switch, and abandon NFP. Perhaps that's why some of Dr. Hutcherson's patients stopped using it. (Or, perhaps some of them simply decided it was now time to get pregnant...but that's an issue for another day.)

But more importantly, to respond in such a way is to accept the critics' premise---and their framing of the issue as a question of "functionality." Under this frame, NFP is unacceptable and should not be promoted because the measurable output (avoiding pregnancy during a given cycle) requires far more of an input (abstaining for two weeks) than anyone but the most religiously zealous (who are no doubt putting up with the abstinence only because they fear burning in hell) should be expected to provide.

Instead, I think those in the NFP movement can learn a lesson in argumentation from those who farm with draft animals. Plowing, planting, and harvesting crops with horses is a much slower and labor intensive process than using tractors and combines. The measurable outputs (bushels per acre) per unit of time and effort invested are significantly poorer than what can be achieved with mechanization. And many who use draft horses (particularly the Amish) are motivated by religious concerns. However, there still remain a number of draft horse enthusiasts who are not motivated by religion, and who still use these animals in the fields. One of the leaders in this movement is Mr. Lynn R. Miller, author of several books and editor/publisher of The Small Farmer's Journal, which is dedicated to promoting farming with draft animals.

Miller never argues that this method of farming is easy, or that it isn't much more difficult than conventional methods of production. As he says on his website:

It is an evasive and subtle craft but it can be learned. In order to succeed you must seek out good help during the learning process. For the small diversified farm or ranch, horsepower is not just an option, it is a tremendous plus for self-sufficiency.

And:

Can I make a decent living with a small farm? Yes. And the good news is that it ain't easy. You have to work hard and use your imagination and creativity. That's the fun and rewarding part. The hard part will be making the decision, the commitment, and taking the plunge.

In other words, it sounds a lot like Natural Family Planning! Sure, some may initially approach it because of religious motivations. And it does take an investment of time to learn the method and understand it. But, the longer we use this method, the more rewarding we find it.

And why is that true, even when (and perhaps especially when) the periods of abstinence are long? It's because NFP practitioners approach the marital relationship holistically, much like the teamster approaches his small farm. A farmer who is only in it for the bushels per acre is a sad and one-dimensional farmer; the farmer who works with his horses through the natural cycles of production and rest can find great satisfaction in that process. The same can be said for spouses: it is sad when unity is only measured by the physical dimension. In fact, for a healthy marriage, many dimensions of unity must be cultivated; artificial contraception allows spouses to ignore these and cut to the physical whenever they like. NFP, precisely because it has the admittedly-difficult periods of abstinence, leads spouses to cultivate all the other dimensions of their relationship and fit them together in their proper places.

I think this line of argument is the most effective response to pieces like the one in Scientific American. NFP is much more than a method of avoiding pregnancy, and we must challenge those who seek to reduce it to such. In terms of ease and maximizing opportunities for physical relations, NFP loses to the Pill as readily as draft horses lose to tractors --- regardless of whether the period of abstinence is seven days or fourteen or twenty-one. Rather, we need to step back and re-frame the issue as one of maximizing total marital health and happiness at times when avoiding pregnancy is necessary. In that comparison, NFP wins going away.

Here versus There

My daughter and I spent the day together in Chicago. This is another nice thing about homeschooling and the flexibility it affords: she knuckled down and got all her work done for the week on Thursday. Ditto for me, being self-employed: I got all my work done last night, and told clients that any additional requests would have to wait for Monday. Everyone was fine with that, so Daddy-Daughter day was a go.

We caught a Metra commuter train, and that hour-long part of the trip was itself part of the thrill for her. We sat on the upper deck and watched the exurban sprawl melt into suburbs, and suburbs melt into urban blight ... and then finally the urban brilliance of Chicago emerged. We went to Mass at St. Peter's in the Loop, and then had nothing in particular on the agenda.

The weather was miserable (it reminded me of a stereotypical gray and drizzly Seattle day), but she didn't seem to mind. She insisted that we go to the top of the Sears Tower, even though it was so socked-in that we couldn't see above the 60th floor from the sidewalk. "That's okay!" she assured me, eyes all a-sparkle. "I want to go in the clouds!"

So, into the clouds we went. I'll say this: at least we had the place to ourselves. Apart from a few foreign tourists (who all snapped pictures of the "103" floor display on the elevator, while jabbering in Asian languages), the elevator and Sky Deck were empty. We went from window to window, trying to find even the tiniest break in the clouds, but we found none. Turns out the people at the ground floor were right when they listed visibility as "zero." We couldn't even see the sidewalk, and we weren't high enough to be above the clouds. The windows all seemed to be painted gray.

But that was okay with her. She was in the clouds. We called Grandma and Grandpa, and she excitedly told them where she was. Her smile was well worth the twenty bucks we'd paid for the elevator ride.

Back down at the sidewalk, the rain had stopped. We walked all over the Loop, holding hands, gradually making our way to Michigan Avenue. We got a couple of books at the Catholic bookstore, and then had lunch at the train station before heading home. After all that walking, it was all both of us could do to stay awake on the train.

Both of us had a wonderful time, but I think we both came home more appreciative of the quiet and smaller scale of our own rural community. I want our kids to experience the things the city has to offer (even if sometimes it's nothing more than a walk in the clouds), but to live their lives in a closer-knit environment that is more in keeping with a "human" scale of life and values.

But you know what was the best part? Both of us had a full day with the other's undivided attention. Neither of us gets enough of that, and I've firmly resolved that this kind of extended one-on-one time with each of the children absolutely must become a regular feature of our family life.

And With Spring...

It's time to shovel out the goat stall. Amazing how much bedding has accumulated since we cleared it out last summer. The goat kids are four weeks old now, and we want to get them and Queen Anne's Lace The Goat out of the little stall and back into the larger area that includes access to the outside. The kids are doing very well, and are bundles of energy. They really need more space, but I just haven't had time to get the larger stall ready; we wanted to get all the old bedding out, and lots of nice clean bedding down, before bringing them into it.

The solution: I've been chipping away at it, day by day, as a nice afternoon break from office work. It's remarkable how wonderful it is to take a pitchfork and drive it into that stuff; there's something about good physical labor that really helps clear one's mind at the end of a long day.

One wheelbarow load at a time, I've been taking it from the barn to my vineyard that's fairly close by. I'm averaging about 2-3 wheelbarow loads per day. I think that's the key lesson I've learned from trying combine a small farm with a small consulting practice: stop waiting for a big chunk of time before you tackle a project, and don't be afraid to do a little at a time. Bit by bit, that horrible old bedding is disappearing --- and, one row at a time, the vineyard is getting mulched. Here is Double Play, hanging out on what's left of the old bedding. Note how deep it is, and how much is still left to do.

The stuff at the bottom of the bedding is basically composted, it's so far deteriorated. Closer to the top, it's still basically rotting hay and straw. While not perfect organic compost that could be used in the garden, it makes a nice mulch for the vineyard. The composted portion provides nutrients for the soil, while the intact portion blocks weeds and absorbs rainwater. And over time, the rainwater will slowly leach additional nutrients out of the mulch and into the vineyard soil.

Still Hanging On. Sort Of.

We've had spectacular weather the last couple of days. The nice thing about homeschooling is that we've been able to juggle our schedule so the kids can take advantage of the 75 degree sunshine. My wife had them knuckle down and do as much work as possible before 11:30 am each day...and then they got to run around and burn off a winter's worth of energy until dinner. Any school work they don't get done, they finish up in the evening after the sun goes down.

This evening, the weather started to turn. We had very strong winds out of the NE, and the temperature dropped. As I was walking in from my office, I noticed something odd: the high winds had blown the ashes off the remains of the fire I'd built to burn Tessa's body --- and there was a whole layer of coals burning bright red in the wind.

It's been three full days since I built that fire, and there's still something left. Amazing. And kind of consoling, in an unexpected way. Not to get too sentimental, but it struck me as a sign that in a small way, Tessa is still here with us. Never thought the sight of glowing embers would give me such comfort, but they did. I don't feel so alone now.

A friend sent a condolence note, and added that he really liked Tessa's "Viking Sendoff." She deserved it, he said. And his "Viking Sendoff" phrase couldn't help but make me smile.

He mentioned how much he still misses some of the dogs he grew up with, and said he still has an image in his head of those dogs running to greet him at the end of this life. I like that image, and can easily imagine Tessa and Cassie coming to meet me at the Pearly Gates.

But will they? My wife and I have worked hard to teach our children the distinction between people and animals --- and the kids are very clear about that. They don't sentimentalize the livestock, and actually look forward to butchering day. "Animals don't get to go to heaven," my wife has told them repeatedly, "because they don't have human souls."

Theologically, she's probably right. But I still like to speculate about something a little different---something a very holy priest once told me, that his mother had told him when he was a boy. When he'd asked her if the family dog would be with them in heaven, she'd given a very sage response: "If it will make you happier."

Part of me likes to picture Tessa and Cassie in heaven with us, making us even happier than we otherwise would have been, even if they with their canine souls never got to appreciate what a wonderful place it is. But, more than that, I like to think that heaven will be so good, and we will be so filled with happiness at seeing God as he is and reuniting with our families...that we won't even notice that the dogs aren't there to join us.