I came home to an empty chicken feeder at the front door and a note from my roommate that said, “I found this in the back yard, see email for details/picture”.  Its kind of horrible, but I’m laughing my ass off…

Blanca with her head caught in the chicken feeder

It is halfway through January and already I can hear the songs of springtime at the farm.  Croaking tree frogs, hungry lambs, finches and robins calling to each other… Our winter was a little disappointing this year and I hope it doesn’t mean we’ll have swarms of bugs this summer.  I just hate bugs. 

My goats are NOT singing yet since they are too fat and lazy to even get up to eat at night.  They are very pregnant.  This month they can lounge and order “stall service”, next month will be a different story.  If I were a betting person I would wager 7 baby goats are on the way.  WAY more than I’d like, but less that are possible.  Poor Blanca is the biggest.  I’m not really sure what is inside that belly of hers.  Last year she had twins, but both died – one still born and Little Joe who was premature, but stuck it out for about a week.  She wasn’t ready to be a mama last year anyway.  But she was an excellent milker all season!  I’m hopeful she will have better luck with her kiddos this year, but they are only a means to an end.  I WANT THAT YUMMY SAANAN MILK!!!

It is the first year kidding for Coco and Crema.  Crema is probably *technically* too young, but I’ve been giving her loads of food to make sure she gains enough weight.  Coco is looking large.  She has always been my most healty doe – and the most beautiful.  Such a beauty.  I can’t wait to see what her kids look like.  The sire is a bit of a scrappy little grunt.  Hopefully her line is stonger.

And Carmen.  What can I say about my sweet Carmen that I haven’t said a hundred times before.  She is such a good girl.  Last season she had some problems with her delivery and raising her kids.  Blanca ended up nursing them for most of the season.  I didn’t intend to breed her this year, but nothing can stop horny goats from getting together… so here we are   I’ll talk to the vet this week about her symptoms and see if there isn’t something we can do to help her out.

Once we have all the funny babies delivered I’ll get some new chicks to play with as well.  I always think I have enough chickens, but I always want more in the spring.  This year I hope to find some interesting banty varieties.  They are little and make little eggs – like a quail egg (for the foodies out there) but a chicken.  The other chicken experiment this year will be to see if I can hatch any eggs myself.  Well not MYself, obviously… I’ve never had a rooster before so this year I should be able to let one of the girls go broody and see what that brings.  We’ll see what the girls think.

With new babies and spring planting come visits to the farm – my favorite   Let me know if you’d like to come meet any of the new additions.  Weekends only, please. 

Sadie

Hi everyone,

My blog has been broken for a little while now and just got around to fixing it this afternoon.  I kind of went backwards when I re-posted them so they are all a little out of order.  But I put some of my favorites at the beginning

Farmer Sadie

I bought goats for my farm because I thought they would be a great little group of employees. They could eat all the stuff that grew too big while I’m at work and in the process give me some good fertilizer for the nitrogen-baron fields. Except that the goats don’t really do that (turns out sheep would have been a better choice) and mine were almost completely un-tamed when I bought them. So Lola, Rico or Dulci have been on my farm in a fenced 2 acre field for almost four months and I haven’t been able to get within three feet of them the entire time.

Things are getting better though. They are talking to me when they are hungry and for the most part will let me be in the stall with them at breakfast. The smart kid at the Yamhill County Fair told me what I needed to do to get them back into shape – physically and attitudinally. It involves restricting their freedom and food availability. The trick is making sure they know you are the “boss of them”.. according to a 9-yr-old’s 4H exhibit. Okay, not exactly my style, but the blackberries are growing quickly and I’m feeling like a reject ’cause my goats are the only ones in the entire universe that aren’t friendly.

The other day my goaties were giving me some sass so I threw a few apples into their area. They started gnawing on the golf-ball sized drops but couldn’t bite into them. I cut some up and threw them in, too. For being as flighty as they are, Lola didn’t even flinch when I accidentally clocked her in the head with one the pieces. I gave them some alfafa cubes and blackberry vines that night to see what they liked. Those little piggies ate everything I threw in there! I am quietly hopeful that after it cools down a bit more I can get them locked up in the stall for a couple of weeks and finish the job. The journey of a thousand days…

originally posted 08/23/05

So.. about coyotes. When I moved out here I assumed there would be many wild and dangerous creatures around. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t seen anything but a rather large White Owl and a few Red-Tailed Hawks. My neighbors Ahti and Lena told me there were a pack of coyotes (pronounced KY-otes) in their back yard all the time. That isn’t especially surprising since they live on 300 acres of un-fenced flat land just at the base of some of some large, treed hills. Since I hadn’t truthfully heard an alive coyote in my life I asked if the dog noises I somtimes hear might be coyotes. They laughed and said, “Dont worry, you’ll know them when you hear them.”

The very next evening the fire alarm in town went of around 3am (its the kind of town where a siren goes off at the station, the volunteer firefighters drive into town, then go to the fire). Apparently, the coyotes took the sound of the siren as an invitation to sing-along. There were at least 10 of them and it sounded like they were right outside my open bedroom window. They howled, yipped, barked and growled at each other for about 2 minutes. In that short timeframe here’s what I did:

• awoke and bolted up in bed so fast I got a little dizzy
• thought, “where are my cats? did I lock the chicken’s door? do coyotes eat goats?”
• realized the side gate was WIDE open from mowing the lawn that day
• criticised myself for not having bought a shotgun yet
• pondered how well that one yelping sound can freak the crap out of a sleeping person
• committed to improving my animal security (and buying that shotgun)

I sat there half-asleep in bed for 5 minutes or so before I heard the new kittens under my window make a kind of growling noise. It was their first night out after having been locked in the basement for a week (post-spaying) and I still sleepy and had decided they were being eaten by the noisy predators. So I jumped out of bed like it was covered in thorns and ventured outside with the conviction of a woman who just spent $150 on vet bills.

If there were any coyotes out there, I’m sure they were struck dumb by the sight of this crazy woman in her tank top (no undies) wandering around in the middle of the night with a flickering flashlight in one hand and baseball bat in the other muttering, “I hope I don’t get eaten by wild dogs, I hope I don’t get eaten by wild dogs…” The gate closed with much difficulty, and the kittens scurried back to the basement with some encouragement. Needless to say, I didn’t get much more sleep that evening.

I haven’t heard them since, but I find it a little un-nerving knowing they are out there. At the same time, it is humbling knowing there is a creature so closely among us who, when given the chance, could take me down without even breaking a sweat. So the cats begrudgingly sleep inside now and the goats and chickens are penned up nightly. Art Farmer – 1; Pack of Wild Dogs – 0

Originally posted 09/15/05

This has been the weekend of fences. The goats are officially out of control and are being CONTAINED in a new-and-improved goatie run. The other was fine, but didn’t allow for any grazing. Since that seemed like a terrible waste (and cost) I’ve been letting them run amok in my back yard. Fun for me, but very destructive for the back yard.

They aren’t what you’d expect. I mean, I love my big-boy tractor and the power tools, but my absolutely favorite farm tools are:

A 12-foot length of chain with hooks on either end.
This is a marvelous little goodie I found half buried in a burn pile. When attached to either the bucket or the tow hitch is great for pulling things. It has recently pulled several hundred feet of rusty old fencing out of the bushes, a couple dozen metal T-posts out for repositioning, an old truck canopy from the field to the dumpster and a wood table from the other field to the back yard. Very handy!

Tape roller/Cat hair remover
I could never have really anticipated the amount of hair/fur I routinely encounter at the farm. It…is… EVERYWHERE. With 5 cats and three goats all shedding at the same time, a poor simple human just can’t keep up by herself. The lint roller is critical. Chairs, coats, pants (especially pants), sweaters and pillows – all kept tidy with the tape roller.

Rusty Cro-Bar
Is that how you spell cro-bar?? You know what I mean, right? The 18-inch round metal thingy with a socket on one end and a chisel on the other. AKA: tire iron. Found a couple in the barn and I use them anything I can’t lift and deal with at the same time. The tractor attachments, hanging plywood siding, riping off old plywood siding. Whatever needs a little lifting or leverage.

Bag-O-Rags
There are many things that happen on the farm that you just really don’t want to touch or ever have in your washing machine. Cat pee, goat barf, moldyness, placenta, any/all variety of poo and – of course – the unidentifiable. For real, you don’t want to touch the unidentifiable. And if you use paper towels, you run the risk of touching whatever IT is. Enter… Bag-O-Rags!!!! They are literally, a bag full of cotton (usually red) 12×12 rags. And they are only about 10 cents each, so you can pickup/wipe up whatever IT is and just throw everything in the trash. Ahh…

Originally posted 04/04/07

Christmas was far from relaxing, I’m afraid. Rico got a kidney stone on the 23rd and had to be euthanized. I stayed up with him all night, then wrestled him into the car first thing on the 24th to go to the vet. When they told me how bad it was, I turned into a sobbing machine and spent the rest of the day hysterical — and cooking for the 10 person dinner party I was throwing that night.

The party was pretty good, the wine helped. I had the neighbors and their kids over, Elmer (one of the older neighbors on the street), my mom plus Molly and her daughter. Did the family thang on christmas day.

The past few days have been flood-control here at the farmstead. The basement sprung a leek on Wednesday morning and we’ve been scrabling to get everything up on stilts. I think it is okay now, so the next week will be interesting. I am still in my bathrobe today! Decided to take it a little easy since I’ve been goign non-stop for way too many days. Phew..

Rico is officially “one of the girls”. The vet come over today and whethered him – that’s castrated for all the city-folk ; ) I’ll spare the detals, but here’s the gist:

• First Dr. Wilson and Rebecca had to catch him rodeo-style (actually FIRST, the farmer had to have a shot of Tequila). He really didn’t like the rodeo and started choking, at which time I started having second thoughts coupled with severe anxiety and a strong maternal instinct to fight off Dr. Wilson and Rebecca with my bare hands.
• Second they sedated Rico and we all helped with the, um.. procedure. It was a little disgusting and painful, but neither of us threw up or passed out. Well, I guess he passed out.. sort of.
• After the vets left I had some more tequila and went back to the barn until little Rico Swave woke up. He stopped breathing a couple of times, but thankfully no mouth to snout was required.

Rico is walking a little funny tonight and has a gash on his head from the rodeo. Dr. Wilson says they girls are likely already pregg-o, and the funky goat/BO smell will go away within a month or so (THANK GOD). I’m still a little drunk, but it looks like everything is going to be okay. Cheers to farm animals and all the blog drama they bring with them.

Originally posted 10/19/05

There is a difference between “breaking” an animal and gaining the trust of an animal. I prefer to do the latter whenever possible.

Yes, I have become quite a good little goat whisperer in the past couple of months. Once they started getting apple slices and alfalfa cubes every night, they have been much better little goaties. I talk to them and scritch their cute fuzzy chins while they beg and beg for treats. First sweet Miss Dulci was brave enough, then the little piggy Rico, then the lovely Lola. From eating from my hand to being comfortable in the same stall that is how they go.

There is only one little problem with letting them go at their pace. And it has to do with Rico’s… um… male-style development. It turns out male goats (called bucks) are nastly little creatures, ESPECIALLY when they are left wild. He has started to get his signature goat odor (smells like really bad B.O. funk) but hasn’t started peeing all over himself or nailing the girls, so there is still time to get him “fixed”. Farmers always have a code name for what everything really is, so even though he is being castrated, we call it whethering. Don’t ask me why, I wasn’t in the FFA.

Before the vet can come out and perform the procedure Rico and the rest need to be tamed. Over the weekend, mom and I hooked up a very Goonies-esque trap for their stall. We tied rope, there were eye bolts and power tools… very impressive. The goats watched us while we worked and were incredibly suspicious of the barn all week. They barely came in the stall at all when I was there, and all three were NEVER in there together. But this morning, they let their guard down. While they were all in there eating, I went outside and pulled the rope taught. The gate slammed behind them and we ALL almost had a heart attack.

Lola started jumping up and down, bouncing off the wall. Rico and Dulce were running around in circles. After a minute they just stopped and stood there trembling. I felt like such an evil monster but I knew they would calm down if I just left. When I came home tonight, there they were. Quiet and hungry. Like nothing had happened. We talked and snacked on apples for a while before lights out. It is an interesting thing being guardian for all these different types of creatures. They are so much more emotional and social than I ever would have guessed. Tonight, Lola even pulled her face up to mine and gave me a good sniff. We have a couple of weeks before the vet comes out and armed with instructions from the 4-H guy, I think we’ll make it.

Originally posted 09/25/05