Sheep Is Life

This morning Joshua, one of my original Jacob sheep, who will be 11 this summer, was obviously ailing. The arthritis is exacerbated by the fact that it is 8 degrees out even though it’s March, and he was disinclined to hold his ground to eat chicken feed out of the snow with his able-bodied barn mates. He laid down, shivering, in the barn. When everyone else was sorted out, I threw a fleece blanket over him and snuck him some chicken feed on the side. Of course we were immediately discovered by the donkey and Esme, the lead female goat, past whom no grain slips. In the course of running her off, I disturbed Joshua, so he got up and limped out into the barn yard, where the sight of him in his green fleece was a shock and awe moment for the flock. I took advantage of this brief disruption in space-time to feed him a crumb of donkey painkiller hidden in a waffle. Shout-out to my daughter for leaving a waffle in the freezer last time she went back to college. 

The cast of characters has changed here since the early days of this blog. The husband is gone, the kids are away at college, the corgis and the fat gray cat are dead. Earlier this week my friend Eliza sent me a post from StoryCorps about a woman who came home from the wars and started a sheep farm to help her manage her PTSD, because the sheep react to her state of mind, so she can use that feedback to stop and look at her own spirit when it needs realignment. Eliza said it reminded her of me. I didn’t get into the question of why, probably because I don’t want to know. But we agreed with the farmer’s quote from the Navajo: dibé bé iiná. Sheep is life. “No matter what’s smoldering…the animals need to be fed.” 

There was a doctor on Fresh Air last night, talking about orchid children and dandelion children—the more biologically reactive to stress, and the less so, who take things more in their stride. My friend in Vermont thought she was an orchid, and I thought maybe I was a dandelion. Or maybe a fighting orchid. This morning I think I am a fighting orchid with sheep. It would be nice to be a domestic orchid in a good home, but given the vagaries of human life, you'd be better advised to use your sensitive wiring to figure out where to throw down your taproot and start pumping life out of the lawn. 

P.S. The meds have kicked in, and the patient is eating hay, still wearing the robes of glory. 

Hoof Proud

Last night after work and a hellacious thunderstorm that just hung over the house for about an hour, throwing down lightning bolts and rain until the barnyard looked like the boiling mud that spews from volcanos—except with ducks in it—the farrier came and trimmed the hooves of my donkey, Neb. His feet are sound and tidy, and James says it is the first time he’s ever done Neb’s hooves without getting cut. I feel a lot better about life today.

Somehow I had this idea that donkeys had to have their hooves done once a year, the way you shear most sheep. But one day this spring I went out to feed the barn folk and noticed that, in fact, my donkey was getting slipper-footed, like one of those “Before” pictures you see on donkey rescue websites. I was mortified, so I immediately called the farrier and set up an appointment. But when that day arrived, I went down to the gate with the halter to suit Nebbie up for his spa treatment, and he heard the halter clanging before I was halfway down the yard, and off he went down the hill, never to return until after I had gone indoors and cancelled the appointment. I called around my equine acquaintance and got the name of a sweet woman just a few miles away who has several smaller donkeys. She provided some advice and emotional support (because I defy you to name another person you know who has been on the cover of Bad Farmer magazine as often as I have), and I came home to get to work. I bought a new halter in a different color—the checkout girl at Tractor Supply advised me to point out to the donkey up front how handsome he was going to look in red, as this knowledge would make it far easier to get him into the device—and I started going out every afternoon on my lunch break and brushing him a bit with a soft scrub brush, because he likes that, and gradually introducing the new halter by sight and by feel. After several weeks of consistent appointments, lubricated by about 20 pounds of chopped carrots, this process resulted in the donkey wearing his new halter; walking on his matching new lead rope; and standing in relative peace for the farrier, magnanimously overlooking their past history together, and the fact that the farrier is male, a category which I have been told Neb is prejudiced against. The reader will also note there was no biting, which is another fast solution the donkey favors when the odds are running against him. All in all, I think anyone would agree that the donkey has made the executive decision to rise above.

Now that this handsome fellow is possessed of adorable cute feet and all these skills—we have pretty much mastered “kiss” this week, in a manner so gentle that no blood at all has been shed from my nose, though I did see stars the first couple of tries—I cannot help but reflect on the fact that when Neb stepped off the trailer here last summer, he arrived with a driving harness in his luggage, as well as a library of books on the subject. When he hastened to the graveside of the second dog to die last month—the funeral having been conducted in the family plot inside the pasture—I told him he was going to have to absorb a lot of unused dog love, and even though the new dog is coming home this weekend, I think Neb and I had just enough of a gap to establish our understanding, and that we can commence sorting out what a donkey might like to do with his time besides stand around the barn with the grazing classes, who, much as I love them, are not as smart as a donkey. There are definitely no Scrabble tournaments going on out there. The ass might like more to ponder.

Great Aunt Matilda Prepares to Ride Again

You will be pleased to know that Great Aunt Matilda, she of the Severed Limbs post last fall, is still whinnying with us, unlike Dylan Thomas's poor old aunt. This is not exactly a heartwarming made-for-TV story of recovery and renewal, but GAM's two remaining branches, each of which sport a tiny little brand new leaf, have demonstrated yet again that given the very slightest opportunity, life will find a way. And I figure if I help her recover for the same amount of time I spent inadvertently letting her perish, why, she should be in sporting condition.  A tip of the large, ornately decorated bonnet to NanaBeast for inquiring after the old one's health.

Christmas Miracle

My jade plant is blooming. A rose in December may be possible in England, but it stands the same chances in northern Pennsylvania as a snowball in hell. And here, even less likely--the indoor blooming jade plant. This thing is almost 5 feet tall and probably outweighs me, which explains why it has not left its south-facing window in years. It was started by a cat, now deceased, who, during her kitten rampages around the house, took a cutting from the plant of my friend, now deceased. Happy New Year, friends and pets on both sides of the great divide.

Using A Fat-Old-Cat-O-Meter to Optimize Burn Rate & Fuel Usage in Your Woodstove

The beginning woodstove owner may question whether they are operating the stove properly, and getting the optimal amount of heat per stick of firewood. The Fat-Old-Cat-O-Meter is a simple tool that takes the guesswork out of deciding when to add another log to the fire, and when to open or close the damper (air intake). The large indicator on the Fat-Old-Cat-O-Meter is easy to read even with your glasses off, and because its working parts work as little as possible, it will provide reliable feedback for many years.

Fat-Old-Cat-O-Meter Guide to Fuel Usage & Damper Position in Common Situations

• ·      Indicator lying directly on hearthrug: Fuel quantity ideal, burn rate well calibrated.
• ·      Indicator off at a distance but still in the same room: Damp it down a little, you’re burning too hard. (See illustration.)
• ·      Indicator hugging chimneystack in upstairs hallway: Fire has died down overnight. Add fuel and open damper.
• ·      Indicator smoking: Close the stove door, extinguish the indicator without waking it. Fuel and damper probably OK. Do not operate woodstove with door open.
• ·      Indicator in the dog bed all the way at the other end of the house: Did you get that firewood for free? Are you hoping to move your truck into the garage after the wood is gone? Damp it way down and don’t add any more logs until it’s nothing but coals. Wasteful jackass.

Good luck with your new woodstove. We wish you many years of comfort and energy independence!

I Go Out Walkin' After Midnight

This is our tipi. If you look carefully at its interior you will see an old brown Adirondack chair. And then you will know where the center of the tipi was until we were visited by this weekend's high winds, under whose influence the tipi started heading south, literally. Fortunately, when it got light out Sunday morning, John noticed the effect that the cover was having on the frame, and struck the mainsail before the whole thing sank.

In the background to the left you can see a side view of the partially fallen tree we talked about last time.

Archaeology by Nonhumans

This fringe of roots is still attached to a tree that blew over in a hurricane about two years ago. The tree is still alive and growing aslant, with its limbs resting comfortably in the limbs of another tree some distance away. When the root mat flipped up, I naturally could not wait to look under it. There I found a rectangular stone box with fitted lid that I think may have been a water feature back in the Sheep Days (the earth is full of springs around here). I thought this was a sufficiently thrilling discovery to do for one downed tree, but this summer, as you can see on the left of the photo above, some helpful groundhog (Marmota utilis digibus) in the course of her labors, started tossing up terra cotta pipe fragments from the burrow she sited under the root mat overhang. You must admit, this is a very convenient spot to live, as it includes this huge covered porch. So I think the pipe shards are definitely associated with drainage, but I don't know if the groundhog hit a refuse dump full of broken piping (middens are another thing we have a lot of here), or if she is burrowing right through the old drain system itself, long since crushed by the weight of the world. In any event, water and marmots and the passage of time, and the passage of water and marmots through time, seem to be the theme of the day.

Severed Limbs

Just in time for Halloween, Great Aunt Matilda has been reduced to a pile of severed limbs. She was the enormous and fabulously old Christmas cactus I inherited when my friend Rodrica moved away, and she did alright for a while, until the summer that my daughter was in the hospital and I spent a lot of time driving back and forth. Whenever I got home, I watered the plants, on the theory that I didn’t want my plants to die and who knew when I might be back again? Consequently Great Aunt Matilda began a downward spiral that I just this morning realized was caused by root rot. However, unlike GAM, I am not ready to lie down and die. I saw where Lestat the vampire is back again, and if he can do it, so can we. 

I partsed out Great Aunt Matilda, threw out her truly disgusting crown and nasty soil, and am presently aging off her cuttings in the nice warm kitchen, whence they will be re-planted into a scrupulously moist-but-never-wet, highly porous soil and given literally THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE. Which in our case means against the back wall of the south-facing, upstairs media room, a place suffused with bright indirect light. If she likes violent video games, moody French cinema and TV crime dramas of questionable intelligence, all the better. She will be borne forth in her clay litter to summer in the tubercular ward, if she lives that long. She will be treated to kelp cocktails. She will be fawned over tirelessly. This is an explicit bribe. 

I only hope it works.

Welcome Home Delegation Arrives at Woodbourne by Balloon

Fact: no cup of perfectly balanced, tropical terroir coffee, steam-brewed by a free-range barista imported from Seattle and shaman-certified to have a wholesome aura can beat a cup of $7 a pound grocery store coffee that you drink while walking your own goldenrod fields with your own dogs.

Garlic Scape Apocalypse

A couple weeks ago I pulled all the garlic and laid it on the front porch to cure for awhile before I hang it in the cellar. After a few days, the garlic scapes lifted up into the air, I guess so as to continue blooming unimpeded. It's a little creepy.

I said to my son, "I don't like that these garlic plants are strategizing. It's like they're conscious. I don't eat things that used to be conscious."

He said, "Their consciousness is just a chemical cascade."

I said, "So is mine."

"Well, you're screwed then. You have to stop eating."

I am eating anyway. I am just making sure to say thank you first.

Volunteers

John removed a bunch of brambles from one end of the shrub border a summer or two ago by scraping them off the face of the earth with the bucket of the tractor. Now a great clump of foxgloves has volunteered on the spot! There are a lot of foxgloves sprinkled around the hill, but I didn't realize they would lie dormant in the soil, awaiting their chance at conquest. This makes me want to go around experimentally scraping places here and there to see what happens. Sure, you might get yellow dock and pig-ear plantain, or you might get extravagant columns of pink and white bells!

Return of the Native

Almost ten years ago, the viburnum leaf beetle arrived in our orchard and ran through the highbush cranberry (Viburnum opulum var. americanum) like forest fire. For years we saw scarcely a leaf of it anywhere. But last year or the one before, little short bushes began to appear in our brush islands, and now look! The cranberries are flowering again! Planting for wildlife is one of my guiding principals in developing our place, so I am overjoyed.

In other red news, we learned this week that the chicken and duck flock on the next hill to the north was wiped out in its entirety by a bobcat, who was caught red-mustached on the neighbor’s gamecam. I suspect this is the individual who killed Enterprise.

And the latest tooth-and-claw update—the ducks went way too far from the house and were attacked in broad daylight by a very large raccoon, who was then killed on the road that night, no doubt leaving behind a litter of orphans. Brutish, nasty and short—an excellent summation. The ducks are confined to quarters, where they are nursing neck wounds and testing the new fencing for weaknesses.

Murder Most Fowl

Enterprise was dragged from her bed and murdered during the night. I don't know who the perpetrator was, but it must have been someone large and strong and gutsy, to walk right into a barn full of sheep and hissing geese and haul away a 20 pound turkey. I'm glad she jumped down out of the Hen Room on Easter Sunday and spent her last couple of weeks getting some sun and hanging around with other animals.

The sliding door to the Sheep Room no longer closes, and I am uneasy for the 3-Headed Goose that is sitting on the next nest over from where Enterprise was snatched. The geese are a lot louder and more violent than the gentle, docile turkey, but they are still essentially helpless against carnivores.

As you have probably guessed, John is going to Colorado tonight.

The Easter Turkey

Turkey eggs rock! They are big and speckled! They make great Easter eggs! And they will make enormous deviled eggs next week!

Enterprise, the turkey, has a hard time walking now, because she is an overbred White. Fortunately she has decided to turn things to her advantage by sitting on her eggs (but not until I got enough for the holiday). There is no male turkey, so there will be no poults, but it gives her something to do.

The Beans Are Done

Those Salem Witch Trials hearth-baked beans? If you wanted them for supper tonight, you should have started them when you got home from the courthouse in 1692. Possibly if you grew them yourself it would take less time to cook them. In fact, growing them yourself and then cooking them in the fire might take less time than cooking store-bought beans there. Because OH my god. How old are these things anyway? My next experiment will involve pressure cooking these store-bought beans for about an hour at temperatures typically only available on the planet Mercury and THEN letting them spend 9 hours in the fire, getting all savory.

The other problem being that an unscrupulous person, and I use the term loosely, sold us unseasoned firewood in the middle of winter. So not unlike the cook fires of Salem in the late 17th century, this wood is bewitched and will not burn. Either that or it's that new fireproof safety wood from Monsanto.  In any event, the whole Sugaring On The Coronet plan is off until next year, when my woodshed will be in better order and my temper will have receded to its normal placid levels.

I am full of gratitude that my life and my family’s lives do not depend on this firewood and these beans. As my off the grid friends say, “Praise the fossil fuels.” Only I, you know, actually mean it.