Hasta la vista, cattle

 Mama Cow Bridget and baby Ciara last summer

I finally did it. I really did eliminate a species from Antiquity Oaks. I know you didn't think I'd ever do it. I've been talking about selling the cattle or the sheep for the last two years, but I haven't really put any effort into it. And I still didn't put much effort into it, but it happened.

More than a month ago, I got an email from someone asking if I knew where they could buy a couple of feeder Irish Dexters -- feeders are cattle raised just for meat. I said that I didn't know anyone who sold feeder Dexters, but I was selling my two cows and the heifer. A few more emails and a month later, and we found ourselves loading up the cattle.

Molly with her little bull, which we called Sir Loin
last summer

We still had the little dun bull and the yearling bull that we had bought for breeding, and we wanted to take them to the locker for processing because we love our grassfed beef. I coordinated schedules so that we could take the bulls to the locker the same morning that the cows were leaving so that the boys would not have to deal with the stress of losing the girls before heading off to meet their destiny.

No one could remember how we had loaded up the bulls the year before, so we all came to the conclusion that it must have been easy and unremarkable. But no one really believed it could have been that easy. We knew we would have to move them all into a small pen and then get the bulls separated from the cows and loaded onto a tiny two-horse trailer.

My job was to keep the girls occupied with alfalfa while Mike and Jonathan lured the bulls into the trailer with alfalfa. And to our complete shock, it actually worked. And it worked quickly! Both bulls were loaded and ready to leave in less than ten minutes.

When the buyer came to get the girls a couple hours later, things did not go quite as smoothly. Bridget, being the most outgoing of the cows, was quick to follow whomever was offering her alfalfa, and she'd even follow him into the trailer ... but only her front half. As soon as her rear legs touched the trailer floor, she'd back out. This little dance went on for about half an hour, but finally she decided the lure of the alfalfa was stronger than her fear of lifting up those rear legs and putting her whole body into the trailer.

There is a part of me that really misses the cows, but there is a bigger part of me that is relieved. I will definitely miss the grassfed beef, but the bulls dressed out at 384 and 346 pounds, and we're keeping the 384 pounder, so we'll continue to enjoy the beef for another year or two. I am relieved, however, that we will never again discover that we have to retrieve cows from someone else's yard a mile away. And luckily, Mike and our children were always home when that happened. My big fear was that I would be home alone someday and get one of those phone calls. I really don't know how I would have ever brought the cows home if they had escaped when I was home alone.

I suppose it was hard for me to sell the cattle because it felt like admitting defeat. I had so wanted to milk them and make cheese and other dairy products from their milk as we do with the goats. But we never got set up to milk cows. We didn't have a head gate or stanchion for milking them, and we couldn't even keep the cows separated from their calves successfully overnight. Moving Bridget the horned black cow from pasture to barn and back again was scary, even though I'm sure she would never intentionally try to hurt us. It is unnerving to see two big swords moving towards your chest propelled by 800 pounds of muscle.

My youngest daughter who is home for a couple of days asked, "So, does this mean you'll never have cows again?"

"I never say never," I said with a smile.

End of an era

Star in fall 2009

There was never an Antiquity Oaks without Moonshine Acres Starlett Moment *D, my first milk goat, until Saturday. Mike came inside to tell me that he found her in the corner of the goat shelter, looking as if she were peacefully sleeping. It was not a huge shock because we've noticed for the past six weeks that she has been moving more slowly, spending more time lying down in the pasture alone, rather than grazing with the herd.

Star with her triplet doelings in 2008

Even though I pronounced Star retired in 2008, it is hard to imagine our homestead without her. She's been here since the beginning. I had put a deposit on her and an unrelated doeling when we still lived in the suburbs, shortly after we had found this place we now call home. While we were waiting to close on this property, Star needed to raise her kids until they were old enough to wean.

It's ironic that I originally was not interested in her because I thought she was ugly. While many people love spotted goats, I preferred the solid colors. But when her owner told me that she would probably have a good milk supply because she was nursing triplets, I was sold. I could overlook all of those ugly spots if this goat could supply us with fresh goat milk, which I intended to use to make "goat cheese." At that time, I had no idea that goat milk could be used to make anything other than the cheese that I was soon to learn was more correctly called chévre.

The picture of Star on Patty Putnam's website when she was for sale

We brought Star home on Mother's Day in 2002, and I put her on a milkstand that Mike had made using a picture I found on the internet. The head gate was far too high and too big for a Nigerian, so he had to make some last minute adjustments to keep her head in place. But milking her was another adventure. She had been nursing babies since she freshened, so she was not happy when I put my hands on her teats with the intention of taking her milk. She kicked over the bucket and glared at me. For years, I joked, "How many city slickers does it take to milk a goat?" The answer was four -- two to sweet talk her and try to convince her to eat her grain, one to hold her hind legs and keep her from kicking over the bucket, and one to actually extract the milk.

Within a week her milkstand etiquette had improved considerably, and I could milk her by myself, although it took me a long time, and I knew I wasn't getting all of the milk. Each day that first week, I got less and less milk, but luckily my technique improved quickly enough for her supply to rebound, and for several months, she supplied us with a quart of milk a day, the standard quantity for Nigerians usually quoted in books and articles. In spite of all my novice mistakes -- some too embarrassing to share -- she survived, and for the first few years, she was our best milk goat.

Star's great granddaughter Agnes
with Star's spots and long teats

Star was a great homestead goat, but not one that was outstanding in the show ring or the milk pail or even as a brood doe. She had nice, long teats that forever spoiled me and became the benchmark against which I would forever judge all other milkers. She'd peak at about half a gallon a day and then sustain a long lactation, milking for twelve months when she was six years old. I always hoped she would give us a daughter that was as awesome as she was, and even though my definition of awesome was far less demanding a decade ago than it is today, her daughters were always terribly disappointing. In the greatest of ironies, however, her sons did throw remarkably good daughters. Like many novices who don't have a clue about breeding, I kept a couple of bucks early on, and somehow I got incredibly lucky. One of Star's sons, John Adams, sired ARMCH Antiquity Oaks Carmen *D VG. Another son, Mercury, sired Antiquity Oaks Anne Bronte 4*D VG, an excellent milker (with her grandma's long teats) who gave birth to AOF Agnes Grey 5*D, one of my favorite milk goats today, no doubt because she has her great-grandmother's long teats.

Star has always been a big part of everything that is Antiquity Oaks. She is the goat in the farm logo. My daughter reminded me today that when I first started making and selling goat milk soap, my labels read, "Milk by Star and Dancy; Soap by Deborah." Back then, it never occurred to me that Star wouldn't be with me forever.

When Coco died this spring after giving birth to quintuplets, I was heart-broken, not only because she was gone but because of the way she died. I always pictured my goats retiring out here and then living a few more years relaxing in our green pastures and enjoying life with their daughters and granddaughters. And I am grateful that is what happened with Star. I don't suppose I could ask for anything more.

Three months gone

by Sarah
former Antiquity Oaks apprentice

I cannot believe I left Antiquity Oaks almost three months ago already. But I guess that is what happens when you come home and almost immediately begin working a 43-hour work week as a farm hand on two farms. It has been very intense, and I already have a decent farmers tan, but it has been so enjoyable.

I can honestly say I will never forget my time on Antiquity Oaks. I learned more than I could have imagined in those nine weeks.

The first time I milked a goat I never thought I would be doing it on my own, but I did, every evening after a while. It was awesome being so thoroughly trusted and knowing I was doing a good job. Mike said it too and I wholeheartedly agree, one of the best parts about milking is getting to spend a little one on one time with each of the milk goats. I got to learn their personalities; who wanted a quick milk, who would complain if you squeezed a little too hard, whose hooves grew fastest. The cold nights were the best because many of them would let you snuggle right up against their side while you were milking them.

I can honestly say I never knew that the wool that clothes are made out of was not the same thing as what came right off of the sheep. Once I felt the difference however, there is no mistaking it. Washing makes all the difference, and I can no longer remember how many fleeces I washed into wool those last couple weeks. It is amazing how a little bit of dish detergent and hot water can change a matted mess of fleece into beautiful piece of wool to be sent off to be made into rugs.

Before I arrived on the farm I was incredibly excited about being the bottle-fed babies nanny. I fell in love with bottle feeding, and the babies. I got to spend time holding each one, learning their color differences, learning their voices, and learning their eyes. In the end I had 8 I was in charge of. At that point, on the very cold days, it became more of a chore, but I loved being able to tell everyone who asked about each ones personality, their colors, their habits, and their eyes. Losing one of my babies was one of the hardest times I have ever gone through. Not only did I learn how to feed babies, wash bottles to prevent mildew, and all about the digestive system changes that happen within the first few days of birth, I learned more about love from those 8 little babies than just about any one person has taught me. A TV show I was watching a few days ago said, “The bond between bottle baby and Mom is stronger than almost any other bond on Earth.” Boy do I believe that. I never thought I could say I was proud of an animal, but boy am I proud of how those babies grew, and hope to keep tabs on them throughout their lives and treasure their accomplishments whether it be milk production or show titles.

I started a phrase a while through my internship; “I dislike intact males.” There are a few animals who made me say this. 1, the one old rooster who has large spurs, and HATES people. As soon as you turn your back on him he would be attacking you. 2, Dolce the intact male lama. He had free roam of much of the property, like all of the guardian llamas, and so I was never quite sure where he was, and he could sneak up on you without making a sound. He was the only llama who stared you in the face, and it was kind of creepy. He made me nervous sometimes. 3, Pegasus, the oldest buck (male goat). He was a bottle baby, so thought people were like him, and he LOVED to rub the top of his head on anything he could reach. The only thing he could reach was the lower part of my legs. Not bad if he did it on the calf, felt like a massage, but it hurt SO BAD on my shins. He also loved to jump on the door and make it almost impossible  to open the stall door. 4, Molly’s bull calf. One day Molly decided to bust down the gate and go in with the goats, and in the process of getting her back in, her bull calf went in with the goats and then got VERY upset he was away from his Mom. No injuries, nothing even close, but just unnerving. In reality, this was just a funny expression I started saying. What these 4 especially taught me is that nature needs to be respected, and that getting lazy and not being careful every time you are working with animals could get you hurt.

I learned a lot about minerals, their importance, what forms and how much each animal needs, in order to keep them as healthy as possible. I have learned the signs of certain mineral deficiencies. I have learned how pasture grass plays into their mineral needs.

I learned all about fencing, how especially how no fencing is appropriate for all livestock. It amazed me how some animals could just blow through or over fencing when they were really determined to get onto the other side.

There are so many more things I learned, that will have to be made into another post.

I miss the farm almost every day. I miss how much the animals needed me, and how excited they were to see you every day. I miss milking, the intimacy of it, the skill required, and the quite time to think. I miss how much I was learning. Almost every single day there was something new to be learned and experienced. It will be an experience I will never forget, and something I will cherish the rest of my life.

Our new canoe

We are now the proud owners of a canoe. Originally my husband's mom gave it to one of her other sons who wanted it for paddling along a river near their home in New York. But they decided it was too unstable and gave it to us. After all, we actually need some type of small watercraft and have killed three inflatable boats over the years. We gave up on the inflatable boats and have simply waded out into our pond when necessary. This means braving leaches and snapping turtles in the best of times. Sometimes this is even more unpleasant, however ... like when you need to fix the aerator in late fall when the water it close to freezing. Luckily my husband has survived such ordeals in the past, but it is not the kind of thing he ever wanted to repeat, so having a real canoe is quite exciting for us. Within the first day, we decided to take it out on the pond for a little spin.

Julia the American Guinea Hog was quite curious about the canoe and followed Mike all the way to the water's edge. She was probably wondering if she could eat it. Food is pretty much the only thing Julia seems to think about. I totally understand why people equate overeating with being a pig.

The goats were also quite curious about us being on the water.

And it was fun for me to see things from a different perspective, such as the back of our house

and the chicken house.

And we can pick mulberries that were previously inaccessible to us!

And of course, now we have a better way to access the aerator when it needs attention. And if another turkey tries to fly across the pond and fails, we'll be able to rescue her in style! I do agree with my brother-in-law though that it does provide a shaky ride. I don't think I'd be too excited to travel down a river in it, but it's perfect for our little pond!

North to Alaska

In late May, as I was finishing up the edits on my manuscript for Raising Goats Naturally, which will be published this fall, I was racing against a different kind of deadline -- on May 25 we were supposed to board a cruise ship headed for Alaska -- and no one wants to take their work with them on vacation. As it turned out, I had a couple of final emails to handle as our vacation started, but it all worked out.

Mike and I at Mendenhall Glacier

I have wanted to go to Alaska for a very long time. When I was in college, I set a goal to visit all 50 states by the time I was 25. I almost made it. I had visited all of them except for Minnesota, Alaska, and Hawaii. We actually moved to Hawaii in 1990 when my husband was in the Navy, and in 1999 we drove through Minnesota on our way to Yellowstone for a family vacation, but Alaska had always eluded me.

Then last summer my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and given six to twelve months to live, and I realized I needed to get moving on my Alaska goal! My in-laws had visited 44 countries, and I remember my mother-in-law telling me -- when she was about the age that I am now -- that she wanted to travel while she was still young enough and healthy enough to enjoy it. It didn't seem like that long ago, and yet here I am at the same age she was at when my husband and I got married. So, last August, we made reservations on a cruise to Alaska for this May.

Ice in the water as we cruised towards Sawyer Glacier

It was stunning and breath-taking and beautiful and every other adjective that means gorgeous and pristine, and I want to go back again because one day in each city was simply not enough time to see everything. And while I was there, something suddenly became crystal clear to me. So many people talk about vacationing to get away from their day-to-day life, and ever since moving to Antiquity Oaks, I haven't wanted to get away. I love my life here. But there are other places in the world that I want to see, such as Alaska ... and the Canary Islands and Spain and Scandinavia and even Africa and Australia. I used to feel sort of guilty for wanting to visit other places, but I'm over that now. I realize that wanting to see those places does not mean that I love Antiquity Oaks any less.

Our tour guide Aaron at Jewell Gardens

One reason I love to travel is because I want to learn how people do things in other parts of the world. While in Skagway, we visited Jewell Gardens, a CSA garden, restaurant, and glassblowing studio. Folks in Skagway have one grocery store and one natural food store, and both are stocked by the single supply ship that comes up once a week from Seattle, and it takes a few days to get there from Seattle, so you can imagine that the produce available in the grocery store is not what we would call fresh. Jewell Gardens provides a wonderful assortment of locally grown produce to its members. Visiting Jewell Gardens has really inspired me to do more with Antiquity Oaks. I love the way that they've combined the CSA garden with a display garden, restaurant, and glassblowing studio, and I've been thinking of how we can do something similar here ... probably not glassblowing, but maybe something with fiber arts?

I've been feeling mentally stuck for a few years, wondering where to go with our homestead. I knew I wanted to do more, but I wasn't sure what to do that would be doable because all of my ideas seemed big and expensive. However, after seeing Jewell Gardens, I see that we can do something more that would not be overwhelming, and I am really excited to get started.

If you want to see a few more of my Alaska photos, click here.

Sometimes life is hard

by Sarah
Antiquity Oaks apprentice

When Gerti the blind goat was just a week old she was fairly easy to feed, had to take lots of breaks, but she still sucked well enough. After she was brought into the house she got a little harder to feed, almost always having to pry her mouth open in order to get the nipple in, but she still sucked. A few weeks later she got harder to feed, she was barely sucking, chewing on the nipple, and couldn’t get much into her. Then she got better again, and was taking down 9 oz in a feeding easily. Then she began to get worse again, barely sucking, barely getting 6 oz into her if we were lucky. But we thought there was hope for her eventually eating solids because although she was not chewing on or eating the hay, she was often chewing on the straw whenever we put new bedding down.

For a while after we moved her back outside (because she was really stinking up the house) she wasn’t liking the straw and would not lay down. She spent her nights in a dog crate in the heated office so she could rest and not get too cold. After a while she began to lay down in the straw so we left her with the other babies. She seemed to be getting better with interacting because she didn’t run away when the boys would mount her, and she would even go stand in the pile of goats sometimes to help her keep warm.

We could see a future for her, the path there was still unclear, but there seemed to be so much hope.

The weekend of April 16th and 17th I was gone from the farm. I had something for work in Lake Forest on Saturday and so had spent some time away. Before I left Friday night Gerti barely got 3 oz of her bottle, so I told Mike she would likely be very hungry in the morning. I arrived back on the farm around 1 pm with J (my current boyfriend) who had come to visit me before, and was going to help tattoo the babies. Mike was not home yet from church and so we knew we would have some time before that process began. We went in the house and said hello to Deborah. She then said, “I have some bad news about Gerti.” While I was gone they had barely been able to get anything into Gerti, usually just an ounce or two at a time. Then that morning she had started gurgling. Sometime in the last hour or so she had started crying (screaming). Deborah also said she thought her body temperature had begun to go down so she had her on the heating pad.

I quickly threw my stuff down, put on my shoes and went out to the barn. Half way across the yard I could hear her. She had NEVER been a loud goat. Never woken me up in the middle of the night to feed her. Never cried. The only sounds she made was her warbled “I am so happy you are here” when I would first go in my room or out to the barn and when I would call her to come over when she was living in my room. This was different. This was pain. I had heard animals cry out before, goats in labor, babies who had gotten their head stuck in the hay feeder, babies who wanted their Mom’s, Mom’s who were just unhappy being milked. That sound trumped them all as the worst sound I had ever heard. It was pain, pure and simple. It was sad, horrible, pain. I run the rest of the way to the barn, trying not to slip in any of the mud that is everywhere because of the rain.

There she was. My darling baby girl Gerti, laying on the heating pad, mouth foaming with milk, screaming. I sat down next to her and began to pet her, trying to get her to calm down. I talked to her a lot. Said I was sorry. She tried to stand up but was wobbly on her legs. So I picked her up and held her for a while. But she struggled so I tried to get her to lie down again. She did thank goodness. But she continued to scream. I cried. I wept. I sobbed. J cried. I held her head. I told her I was sorry I couldn’t do anything, I told her to stop fighting, that it wasn’t worth it anymore. J held me throughout the whole thing. Held her too. Tried to comfort both of us. We sat there for a long time with her. She would calm down for a little while, nap for a few minutes, then wake up and scream again. J and I realized that there were tears streaming down her face. Neither of us realized goats could cry. But they were tears alright. I felt terrible knowing there was nothing I could do and I didn’t want to leave her side, but I knew I couldn’t sit there any longer, I couldn’t cry anymore.

J and I went inside for a while, then Mike got back and we began the tattoo process. The tattooing went fairly smoothly, although I did end up with a nice bruise on my stomach. Mike said we weren’t going to do Gerti, she didn’t need that right now. She began struggling so much she was moving herself off the heating pad, and Deborah said if she continued to do that to just go ahead and unplug the heating pad.

After the tatoos were done, J and I went back to be with Gerti. I brought one of my sweaters with me to use as a pillow for her, hoping it would help her calm down. J sat, leaned against the side of the pen, and I laid down and cuddled Gerti to my chest. I told her again it was okay, she didn’t need to fight, that this wasn’t worth it, that she would be in a better place and out of pain. She fell asleep next to me for a while. Just like she had the first two days she was in the house, within my first week of being on the farm. But she woke up again and started screaming. I had to go back inside. I loved her and didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t handle it.

Deborah and I talked about who needed to be moved around so that a doe and a buck could be pen bred in the stall that Kitty and Nina were currently sharing. Two stalls needed cleaning, including the one Gerti was in. Deborah said to put her in the crate in the office, that maybe the familiarity of that space would help her calm down. I hoped it would. I gently picked her up and put her in the crate with my sweater. While J and I were cleaning stalls I could still hear her through the walls. I wished there was something I could do.

J had to leave, and I had to milk. I tried to not think about her over in the office, all alone. In pain. I suddenly realized I had never told my Mom I had gotten to the farm safe HOURS ago. I came inside after milking and Mike told me “I brought your sweater in. Gerti won’t be needing it anymore.” I ran upstairs to call my Mom, apologize, and tell her what happened. I began to weep again. Even though I wanted her to let go all day, I didn’t really want her to leave me.

I cried a lot that night. I have cried a lot of times since. I cry when I think about her screaming, her crying, her being unable to stand at the end. I cry because I wasn’t there when she died. I feel guilty sometimes. Like there was something I should have been able to do, anything, to have made the end not come, or the end better. She taught me so much about how different animals are from another. She liked being held tight, most babies do not. She couldn’t be fed if her back legs could touch the ground (or anything else that could be pushed off of). She needed a slow introduction to being with other goats, and being on straw, unlike other goats who are fine right away. Sometimes animals just need time and to not be forced, and they will eat and lay as they should. Most of all though she taught me just how much I can love an animal. I didn’t truly realize until the end how much she meant to me. I knew she was the one I was most attached to, but didn’t realize she was the one I looked forward to feeding the most. I KNEW the other goats needed me, especially for food, but I felt like she needed me more than anyone. I felt like she needed me for a lot more than just food. I loved her. Still love her. I just hope I made her short time here as wonderful as it could have been, and that she was not too scared at the end of it all.

If you missed Sarah's first post about Gerti the blind goat, you can find it here.

One happy ending

Yearling mama and the chosen one

With all of the dreadful happenings lately, I'm happy to say that we have had at least one happy ending. But first, I have to tell you the story leading up to the happy ending. (I know, suspense is not my forte.)

After ten years with sheep, we had our first Shetland ewe to ever reject a lamb. It was a yearling, and I'm thinking that maybe there is a reason why most yearlings only have a single lamb. Maybe they can only count to one, or maybe the idea of mothering two lambs is simply too overwhelming. Whatever the reason, last Wednesday a yearling lamb had twins, and she would only let one nurse. She was tap dancing around the pasture refusing to let the other one nurse. After watching this sad story for about half an hour -- and watching the lamb trying to nurse on every other critter in the pasture, including the llama, we finally decided to call it quits. The saddest thing was when the little ram tried to nurse off Kewanee, an adult wether, and Kewanee butted him, flipping him onto his back so hard that he completely rolled over like a dog.  And mind you, this little lamb was at least a couple of hours old. He was mostly dry, although filthy, so mama had done nothing to clean him up after he was born. When picking up him and his brother, it was painfully obvious that his tummy was empty while his brother's tummy was quite full.

I was not terribly happy about having a bottlefed ram for multiple reasons. First off, rams should not be bottlefed, and if they must be, then they need to be castrated because intact rams that have been bottlefed tend to be extremely dangerous. They think that you're one of them, and they treat you the same way they'd treat another sheep -- ramming you whenever the urge arises. What's wrong with a bottlefed wether? Well, I can't see myself butchering a bottlefed animal of any species. I just get too attached to them. And I don't need more sheep. I'm trying to cut back. Remember?

Sarah and the rejected lamb

Challenge #2: I'm leaving for New York City on Monday, and Sarah our apprentice was going to be leaving on Saturday, meaning that Mike and Jonathan would be stuck with caring for a newborn bottle baby that needs four bottles a day. I tried my best to convince everyone that there was an upcoming "take your lamb to work day" next week, but they weren't buying it.

Saturday afternoon, a lovely family with two young children came to pick up a couple of goat wethers that would be family pets, and while they were here, I showed them the lambs in the barn. Without even thinking about it until the words were already out of my mouth, I said, "I've got a bottle lamb that you could have." The mom's only question was whether it would need a bottle in the middle of the night, and as soon as I said no, they were sold on the idea. The children were ecstatic about having their very own little cuddly lamb. We talked about lamb care, and they said they'd bring him back in a couple of months for castration.

Part of me was very sad to see the little guy leave, but it's a little easier when I know he's going to such a great home where he is going to get lots of love and attention. And seriously, I have to admit that I'm already over-extended, especially with our apprentice leaving. Speaking of Sarah, even though she left yesterday, I'm hoping to provide you with a couple more posts from her!

Clean-up from the flood continues. Mike is out in the pasture working on the fence as I type. One good thing about the rain is that it did cause the grass to go through a big growth spurt!

Flooding woes

That's the top of a fence post in the lower right-hand corner.

Life just keeps getting more complicated. We've known for the past two days that we were going to get a flood today, but there was not a lot that we could do about it. I hate feeling helpless.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 after less than six hours of sleep. I told Mike he needed to get going because there was likely a lot of damage control that needed to be done before he went to work. In my mind, I was thinking about how much I wanted to catch another hour of sleep, but as soon as I looked out our bathroom window I was shocked into reality. There was water everywhere. I immediately knew there was no way I was going to fall back asleep as the adrenaline kicked in.

We put a pot of steel-cut oats on the stove and started coffee, and Mike and Sarah went out to do chores and whatever else needed to be done. I saw the horse in the pasture, blocked by the flood from getting to a shelter, so I went to the barn, grabbed a lead rope, and led him through the front yard to another pasture where he could get out of the rain. Then Jonathan came outside and told me that our turkey poults were at the post office.

I jumped in the car and headed towards town. The road next to the bridge to the west of our house was flooded, so I turned around to take a different route. I passed by Mike fixing a fence in the sheep pasture. I could see where the road had been flooded overnight in four places on my alternate route. Driving past other intersections I saw debris covered roads and a "Road Closed" sign. The intersection at the post office was completely flooded. I parked and went inside. As soon as the postmaster saw me, she knew I was there to pick up my poults, and I asked her if that intersection usually floods. She shook her head and said, "Not like that!" I told her that our road was flooded west of our farm, and she yelled back to our mail carrier who was sorting the day's mail. And then she said, "The worst is yet to come," which I had seen on weather.com, but it still make my throat feel tight to hear it.

Driving home with chirping turkey poults on the seat next to me, I alternated between crying and chuckling like a mad woman. I knew there wasn't anything that we could do other than simply deal with whatever happened to get thrown our way. I remembered my mother saying "if the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise" sometimes, and it suddenly made sense to me. It was not just another cliche.

Mike and I spent most of the day organizing paperwork as I tried to distract myself from the constant rain. I had convinced him to not go to work. If we lost electricity, we'd need everyone at home to deal with the basement flooding because our generator didn't start the last time we tried to use it.

As the rain seemed to slow down and finally stop, I felt a little guilty about keeping him from work because nothing horrible had happened. And then the phone rang. It was our neighbor. Our cows were out. I immediately assumed it was because the electric fence had shorted out in the flood. But when we went to retrieve the cows, we realized that as the flood waters were receding, they were exposing large sections where fencing no longer existed.

Using hay, Sarah lured the cows to the section of pasture farthest away from the damaged fencing as Mike came to the conclusion that it couldn't be fixed before the sun went down. Luckily we have temporary electric fencing that is very easy to put up quickly. Still he had to make some adjustments to get electricity where he needed it, and I was really grateful that he had not gone to work today. Shortly after the last rays of light were gone from the sky, he came inside and said that the cows should stay put now.

Even though I no longer feel guilty about asking him to stay home from work today, I'd have been happier if there hadn't been so much fencing damage and the cows had stayed home.

Lamb challenges

Yesterday afternoon, Sarah came inside to tell me that the ewe lambs that had been born a couple hours earlier still had not nursed and that the mama's teats were huge. We had something similar happen six or seven years ago, and we had to milk the ewe for a couple of days to keep her teats small enough for the lambs to be able to latch on. So, Sarah, her boyfriend, and Mike went out to the pasture and brought Godiva and her two lambs to the barn.

That sounds so simple, but it really is not. Godiva is a little crazy. While most ewes are "sheepish," Godiva is doing her best to be the absolute opposite! If she feels cornered, she'll ram you, which is very un-ewe-like. I was happily surprised when we put her on the milk stand, and she stood there like an angel while I milked her. I'm sure she realized that it felt good to relieve the pressure on her udder, which was as big as one of my milk goats -- and that is highly unusual for a Shetland sheep. Usually we can barely see their udder because it's so small and they have so much wool. Her teats were stretched out so long that I could easily wrap all four fingers around them to milk her. I easily milked out a pint of colostrum and filled up a bottle, which Sarah fed to the babies while I put the bucket back under Godiva and milked out another four ounces!

Thankfully her babies took to the bottle like pros. Each one quickly sucked down six ounces each, which is more than the five percent of their body weight that they need to consume within the first six hours. A few hours later, Sarah offered them another bottle; one took three ounces and the other took six. This morning they were crying like they were starving when we went out to the barn, so Sarah milked Godiva and gave the babies another bottle. After getting the ewe milked out, she and Mike held the lambs up to her teats, and both babies nursed well. This afternoon, however, one side was quite huge again. The babies didn't seem terribly interested in the bottle, only taking about an ounce each, and their tummies don't feel empty, so I think they were getting a decent amount of milk from the one side that they had been nursing on. We milked down the full side, so maybe the lambs will be able to keep up with both sides now. Since Godiva's udder isn't so uncomfortably full now, she wasn't as cooperative at this afternoon's milking and laid down on the milk stand.

Of course, there is a tiny, silly little part of my brain that would be totally okay with the idea of them not being able to nurse because I love sheep yogurt, and if we had to milk the ewe every day, I'd probably be able to sneak a little of her milk to make yogurt a few times over the next few months. But it's not like I have hours of spare time every day and need something to do -- like milk a ewe and bottle feed two lambs. So the logical side of my brain says it will be a good thing when these little ewes are able to nurse full time.

Birth and death and ...

I miss blogging so much, but life has become completely overwhelming. Has it been a year (maybe longer) that I've been saying that I have to cut back? Well, I really have to cut back. I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last blog post. What's been happening around here?

My father-in-law died. It was barely two months since the passing of my mother-in-law. They had been married for almost 55 years, so even though he had Altzheimer's, I feel sure that he missed her presence in this world and didn't want to stick around without her.

And then Julia farrowed, which was wonderful, except then the piglets started dying. We're accustomed to the idea that one or two runts will die within the first 24 hours, but we lost five of the eleven piglets. After losing the third healthy piglet in three days, I finally realized that Julia's older daughter was wanting to sleep so close to her mama that she was suffocating the piglets. Since we moved her out of the barn, we haven't lost any more, so that's good. Julia is an outstanding mother.

And then the sheep started lambing. They're all doing great. Of course, they weren't supposed to be lambing. I'm cutting back -- remember? But alas, I was traveling last fall as my second book came out, and I was writing my third book. Somehow it completely slipped my mind that the young rams should have been removed from the pasture with the ewes no later than September -- before breeding season started. I'm not sure what's worse -- admitting that I forgot to remove the ram lambs or letting people think that I was silly enough to breed the sheep when I need to be cutting back. Either way, I lose. So, we have some "illegitimate" lambs. If no one wants to buy non-registerable Shetland sheep, I may just have to get over my aversion to butchering ewes. Plenty of people butcher ewes, but I don't like to. There isn't anything "wrong" with doing it. It's just one of my personal neuroses.

And in the midst of all the lambing, Gerti the blind goat died. We knew she had other "issues" because she was getting more difficult to feed. She would fight like you were hurting her as you were trying to get the nipple into her mouth. And then one day she stopped sucking on the nipple. Of course, there isn't anything you can do when a goat won't suck -- other than tube feed it. Knowing that she had multiple problems, it made no sense to prolong what seemed to be inevitable. I had even talked to a vet at U of I about her, and without doing lots of expensive testing, it would not have been possible to figure out what was wrong with her beyond a fairly simple diagnosis -- and we already knew that she was blind and had sensory issues -- but there wouldn't be a way for them to help her.

I'm in the final edits of the manuscript for my goat book. That should be done by the end of this month, and then I'll just have to do the final proofread once it's typeset. It will be in bookstores in September.

I'll be heading to New York City in another week. I'm speaking at a writer's conference there, and a friend convinced me to come a few days early for a vacation with her. A vacation was -- is -- a great idea. I know I need one. Hopefully I can get back to regular blogging soon.