Sigh. Nearly a year without a post. It's been BUSY okay? Life gets in the way until it doesn't. Goats have been born, lived and sold. That's the condensed version. Early on we decided we would take a vacation this year. We would drive to California to spend some time with family. What's it been three or four years since we've been out there? That was our last vacation too. It's about time for another one. It takes some pre-planning to leave for any length of time. The dang animals insist on being fed and watered. It might be possible to leave a huge quantity of alfalfa pellets in the barn for the goats, but goats are, contrary to popular belief, very fussy eaters. After a couple of days the pellets would become stale and the goats won't touch it. You almost have to have someone come over and feed them every other day. Then there's water. I've built 2 automatic water systems for our creatures over the years but they break down often. Cheap plastic materials in the floats or valves cause most of the problems. A break in a line or freezing weather would be doom. The drought of the last 10 years in Central Texas has played havoc with our fencing. What were once strong goat resistant fences have become loose and wobbly. Goats are clever creatures and they are always looking for a means to subvert any system designed to contain them. The older goats have taken to jumping over the top of the field fencing and through the electric lines. Since they are not in contact with the ground, they don't get shocked. Clever rascals! The younger goats have taken advantage of where the pigs had pushed up the fencing and they nose under it. Fortunately the pigs are now enjoying freezer camp and won't be damaging fences in the future. Electric fences work great until a twig comes into contact with the wire and grounds it out. You are always having to walk the fence-line to fix it. Several years we would have large quantities of Walking Stick insects walk along the fence wire until they get to a post. As soon as the bug sets foot on the post the bug would be killed and it's body would short the fence. One bug won't bring the whole fence down, but there are dozens. Last week I came home from work on a Monday to find 11 goats in the middle of the street! They had gotten out and couldn't figure out how to get back in. I tried to herd them with my motorcycle, but that was surprisingly ineffective. So I parked the bike, opened the main gate, got behind the little buggers and walking along in full motorcycle gear (helmet riding suit gloves and boots) flailing my arms and yelling I got the herd back in. A month ago we got an angry note from a neighbor that our goats were getting into their yard and eating all their feed. The neighbor said they were next door but neglected to mention what direction and the name on the note was different than who we knew our neighbors to be. They did include a phone number so I left a message. In the mean time Kristi and I went to find where the goats were getting out. We found a spot that had a trail leading away from the other side of the fence. While the fence looked good this was the only spot we could find that was a possibility. This was in a far back corner of the property and the woods are too dense for any mechanized transport. After an hour of locating tools and supplies to repair the fence, we got to work. By then the neighbors had gotten back and we found we were fixing something that wasn't a problem. It was a different neighbor. He told us the goats were coming in via the creek. That's on the opposite side of the farm. We found another spot where it appears that our dog Brisket, had dug a nice hole under the fence and the goats followed him through, then they'd go down the creek which is mostly dry this time of year and to the neighbors. It doesn't help that they have decided to install a hunting for hire setup and they are putting down corn every day. There is no food that goats like more than corn so one plus one definitely equals trouble here. After fixing that hole we have only seen the goats over there once. The new hole was fixed and maybe we're good. We cannot have the goats getting out to wander the street while we're gone. We have taken a bit of a drastic step to solve these problems. We have sold most of our herd. Most of the power goats went to 2 buyers. One fellow wanted them to clear his 25 acres and eventually he'll bring in cattle. The other buyer trades animals and I guess he gets a good enough deal from us that he can make a profit on them. We are left with 11 young castrated males, "wethers" and between now and when we go, they will be harvested and join the pigs in the freezer. We will get to take a little time to get fences repaired without having to worry about goats dodging cars in the street or neighbors corn being eaten. We are also looking forward to doing some traveling! Taking weekends off from time to time and seeing Texas and neighboring states. Probably shooting WAY to high here. It's nice to dream.

Oh, boy. It's kidding season, once more. We have six new kids - four females and two males. Hopefully, the balance will be such that we can fill out our herd and have females for sale (instead of just male kids for cabrito) in 2012.


We've replace the wire mesh on the stalls with hog panels - a gradient variety of 6x6 squares - they start off at the bottom with 1.5 inch gaps and go up from there. These are great for kidding stalls because the young kids can't get out of the stalls or get away from mom. The regular fencing worked to a point, then we have goats that just like to bash the sides of the stalls for no damned reason at all. So the wire mesh gets banged up pretty badly. The hog panels are pretty sturdy and will withstand a lot more bashing, as well as being able to be pushed back into shape once the goats have done too much damage.

Mike set off two burn piles today. It's been a while since Bastrop County's Burn ban has been lifted and since it's been raining a bunch (not enough, never enough), the ban is off temporarily. So Mike did two burn piles (one with the amount of dead trees, old decking materials and average damaged wood stuff would have set a pile off that was too high).

The neighbor lady came across Shiloh yesterday while Mike was on a bike ride and I spoke with her. She's an ex-RTF person and is semi-retired. She moved down the road from a much larger house to the one she has and in the past, has raised hay (mostly for her horses). She seems all right. Her mother is 93 years of age and living in San Antonio. Mimi (our potbelly pig) tends to visit her when Mimi's in heat and yesterday, the woman had Mimi and her kids in tow when she came to the second gate (the one that separates the front yard from the fields).

Life is a little stupid right now. It's been a very tough year financially as well as emotionally for both Mike and I. It has been an extremely complex year, one that we both tend to want to put behind us. Next year will be better. It better be. It can't get much worse than this year. Drought, disease, issues with government agencies and a general depression that comes with a few of those tended to make us a bit... weary this year.


Later,

K

assessments

It is November, but the weather outside suggests early October, without the drenching heat waves that come occasionally until they just don't, any more.

I was trying to assess what we do here. Naturally, unnaturally, whatever works. I suppose you could say we are a combination of many different philosophies regarding pets, pests and animals.

We give our animals whatever the vet says is optimal for them, looking online for information on what the best worming medicine is or how to treat pink eye, etc.

But then there are things like bugs inside the house - we use a combination powder/de pesticide that circles the house and we do not use this on the inside. This keeps the bugs out and hopefully because there are no bugs getting in, the bugs that are already here and feed on incoming bugs will either leave or die of hunger. Cross fingers, here.

Then there's the fly problem in the barn. We've tried everything and we started naturally, first, using a spearmint/eucalyptus spray on the backs of the goats and anywhere we don't want the little buggers. We have two kinds of flies (probably more) - the barn flies that rest on the goats' backs and the regular houseflies.

The goats would need to each be sprayed down multiple times a week - time we don't have, so mike bought a pyrethrin-based spray concentrate that works for days and weeks, I hope. But we still use the spearmint/eucalyptus spray for other parts that aren't as critical.

We also blast the barn with DE (diatomaceous earth) once in a while and since Mike is cleaning out the barn today (and yesterday), we will be putting that down after the barn lime makes the barn 'sweet' again.

We use DE and throw it in with the chick feed and the hen mixture. It is generally known that DE could kill the pests INSIDE the chickens, but we are still skeptical.
It didn't work on the goats.

We use non-chemical stuff inside, as well. I make my own toothpaste, laundry soap, dishwasher detergent and basic hard soap. Some of this gets put into spray bottles to clean up areas, but generally, we still use 409 or Windex.

I use the soap I make for my hair (and so does Mike) and use a cream rinse. I will be attempting to make the cream rinse soon, as well. I make toothpaste, but that's still in the beginning stage of experimentation. I made Mike some licorice-flavored toothpaste (because he jokingly said he wanted it one day) and that wasn't great. Then I made raspberry. Still receiving mixed reviews. The recipe is not as 'pasty' as I'd like it, so I'm going to play around with it a little more to see if I can't come up with a real winner that we both don't mind using. And it won't have ANY sort of MINT in it.

It's Turkey day. Have a great one.

Taking stock of chickens

The chicks arrived yesterday. The post office called to say that there were some chicks for me and would i want them delivered? Oh yes I said! (stifling my excitement that I wouldn't have to go to the post office to pick them up). They asked me to be sure the gate was unlocked. I gleefully said it would be open! Kristi happened to be at home that Thursday so she could prepare to receive them. This is the most birds we have ever gotten at one time. We are replenishing our laying flock. We have roughly 40 laying hens and they are supposed to lay about 281 eggs a year each. Out of 40 hens we get 10 eggs on a rare good day. lately it's been more like 3 to 6 eggs. Not good enough to be worth feeding them. So. In the cruel farm world that we live in, the existing hens will be kept around to supply us with a few eggs now and then and after 5 months the new chickens will come online and we'll be in production again. It's a hard cruel fact that in order to keep chickens they need to pay for themselves. If they don't pay for themselves they get bottled in quart jars. If we can get 5 dozen eggs a day at $2.00 per dozen that equals about $70.00 per week in gross revenue. Out of that will come about 70 lbs of laying feed per week at 13.50 per 50# bag. So roughly $18.40 per week in feed. We also give them some chicken scratch for a treat. They get about a cup a day of that so one 50# bag will last about 3 months. That's 4.50 per month. There's also water which isn't much, but isn't free. When the weather is hot we run a fan for them. When it's cold there are heat lamps. Both cost money. We give them calcium in the form of crushed oyster shell this helps them produce egg shells. So more or less we make a gross profit of say $45.00 per week. We also get egg cartons from Kristi's work. Her egg buyers save them for her and she recycles them. Works for everybody. So the chickens make a tiny profit. That's nice. Of course we still have to pay to feed them for the 5 months that they are growing up and unproductive. We lose money on the goats. Unless you take into account the savings on property taxes. That's the reason we got the goats in the first place. We took a rare weekend off and drove to South Padre Island near Corpus Christi Tx. We went to the National seashore and walked on the sand. Watched the waves and the waves of pelicans. I could do that all day every day if someone would pay me. The hotel offered up a bottle of Champagne. A perk due to living in fire ravaged Bastrop. A month ago nobody had heard of our town. Now everyone knows it because so much of it has burned down. On the drive back we went to the Aransas National Wildlife Preserve near Refugio. Wonderful place. Lots of wildlife. We didn't get to go in because the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see the park. On the way out we had to thread our way through 4 dead wild hogs scattered about the road. We scattered the dozens of fat Vultures picking at the carcasses. Upon our arrival home we had another rare treat. Everything was perfectly normal with no unexpected deaths nor injuries and only one animal had escaped it's forced territory. A now 4 day old chick was out in the surround around it's pen.

Time to break out the winter clothes

This week, the high is supposed to be below 100 degrees for more than one day in a row. It's time to break out the winter clothes. Yeah, this is still Texas. We lost 10 chickens this past week to the heat. That's a lot of chickens. But these are old chickens, stockpot chickens, if you will, and perhaps it's time to replace the flock. Out of 40+ birds, we're getting _two_ eggs a day. In 106 degree heat, even with a fan that I put into the coop, we're still losing them.

We put Recoil back in his buck pen. Since I just had a seizure (out of the blue, no way to tell what happened, really, just did) and had to be taken to the hospital, we both felt it was best to keep the man penned. He's a danger to us in the best of times during his rut, so it's just safer this way. During the truly hot heat of this brutal summer, he's not been so 'hot to trot', but since the temps have come back down (just barely) below 100, he is showing more interest in his girls. And they in him, luckily.

The turkeys are coming of age and escaping their pen as often as they can, now. I think they do it just because. You know, just because they can. They are quite cute, though. At least at this age. And we are planning on keeping a few for breeding for more chicks. At $11.50 each for hatchlings, I think it's best to try to raise our own. And perhaps sell the extras.

The pigs continue to be a pain, but Mike loves them, so I suspect we will be keeping them around for as long as possible.

Mike bought an IPAD two weeks ago, and I mentioned that I would love to have his when he's finished with it or upgrades. So, of course, he went and bought me one just.. you know, because he wanted to.

It's hot and I don't think we're going to have a fall garden. I can't imagine trying to keep up with that and everything else, as well.

I am making soap this weekend to fulfill orders from my soap site - http://www.kristisoap.com (if you go, don't pay full price... mention the blog and you'll get a discount. And the shipping is all screwy. I will charge exact shipping). Mike's not feeling well, so I'm guessing he's probably not going to go for a motorcycle ride -- something I think he desperately needs to relax a little after these past few weeks.

It's the weekend. In this case, a particularly long one because of labor day. And we're both exhausted from the past two weeks' events (the seizure and Mike driving me around because I've been ordered not to drive for 3 months). And the funky anti-seizure medicine that makes me feel drunk. Those effects are wearing off, but it's been a very hard couple of weeks for both of us trying to get used to everything.

So we continue to continue. The goats are happy because we are finally getting everything down - keeping them from getting sick and just generally taking care of them better because of what we've learned by doing... Someone at work keeps asking me if they should get a goat. And I always say 'no'. You need at least a farm and at least two... they are herd creatures and need their peeps around just like everyone else.

It's early. Need more coffee.

Texas = Hell in August.

It's hotter than a cockroach in a fry pan. And I mean that. The garden isn't panning out this year because it takes so much water and the fruit doesn't set unless it's 72 degrees or thereabouts overnight. I laid my plants down this year, freeing them from their cages and letting them sprawl. Now I'm getting tomatoes - not a huge amount, but definitely more than the tomatoes that had been caged, even though those are nearly nine feet tall. The cooled ground at night tends to lower the temperature for the blooms. It's about 76 to 79 degrees at its coolest at night, but that's the air temp. The water-cooled ground is closer to the temp where the fruit can set and that's what's been happening. Yay. Salsa.

A few weeks ago, I collected cacti tunas to make prickly pear wine and sugar-syrup for future margaritas. The tunas are abundant right now and I hadn't made wine in a while. I also found a recipe for peach wine that I'm trying out. A smaller batch, but the peaches were so cheap in the store that I couldn't resist. I just wish our own trees had fruited. The plum trees and all the front yard fruit trees didn't produce this year. It's the heat.

I fed the bees sugar syrup and need to do another batch this weekend. I don't think they're getting everything they need, even though the blooms are definitely still on the crepe myrtles and there are a lot of wildflowers that haven't completely died off. Nonetheless, I'm trying to keep them alive in this Texas hell, uh, I mean Texas heat.

The deck project continues. We pulled up a section of the main part (where we walk to and fro) last weekend and I was in charge of painting the boards - but the treated wood from home despot (yes, the 's' is intentional) is still a might wet with chemicals and the paint didn't want to stick to the boards. So we wait for them to cure a bit in the sun. I don't think Mike minds not doing it in the blistering heat that _is_ Texas.

We had more chicks die - one died in our arms (I think it was water deprivation or heat desperation), so we plucked it, gutted it (Mike's job) and ate it last night. I buried the other white chick that died. These are our meat birds for the year. We lost another laying hen to the heat, as well. Plenty of water, but some creatures just don't get it that they need more and don't drink.

I bought four Rio Grande turkeys (wild, but beautiful turkeys) for this and next year's consumption, as well. They happily chirp when I personally bring them grasshoppers from the garden. They are in a brooding box in the shade just outside the door on a table (the cats knocked the brooder box off the last construct we had, so we had to use a sturdier table).

As soon as we begin processing all the meat birds (either next week or the week after), we will put these birds in their place (after moving the chicken "tractor" - more like four walls built from scrap materials - to a different place so that the meat bird poop can replenish the grass).

We are also thinking about getting a whole 'nuther set of egg-laying hens and offing the ones we have. It's time to switch them out and I could use the chicken stock. That would be a good time to completely clean out the chicken coops and hose it down with bleach and water, after, of course, I remove the nitrogen-rich chicken poop and put it in my compost pile. This means I won't have eggs for a while - until the new birds are of age (they begin laying at about 5 months of age).

The piglets. Oh, the piglets. In my garden, eating my produce, getting on the deck (where they're not allowed!), eating the dog food, getting into trouble. Oh, the piglets. Mimi is a bit put out by them, now. She's no longer feeding them and she's getting her figure back - if that's what you want to call it.

Mike came up with a cool watering system for them (except the auto-fill bowl doesn't work... cheap crap, you know... gotta find a good one) and laid some pipe in the backyard out to where we re-located the camper shell and their pig sty - a mud bog that's shored on all sides so that we can water it and they can stay cool in this grueling heat. They don't like their feet to get hot and the ground on the farm right now is just that. So they cool off in their mud bog and it makes them happier. When I throw out corn for the goats in the barnyard, they are always on the other side of the fence wanting theirs. Mimi, too. We are still planning on offing one of the piglets and keeping the other -- but I am thinking now that we should off them both and find another companion for Mimi. Mmmm... more bacon!

Crap, it's late. Off to work!

The heat was hot and the ground was dry and the air was full of smell

Mimi bit me yesterday. I was giving her a corn cob. She loves corn cobs especially with corn and butter left on them. She was chewing half of it when one of her piglets took the other half away. I grabbed it away from the kid and gave it back to Mimi - she's lactating and having to put up with her offspring so she deserves a treat. As I handed the cob back to her she grabbed it and my right index finger, puncturing two holes in the finger. She may have punctured the corn cob too but I didn't wait around to check. Off to the faucet to squeeze out any infectious pig germs under running water.
A day later my finger looks like a porcine vampire got me. No big deal.

The piglets are really cute. They run and play and bash each other. They dig up the back yard, side yard and front yard. They eat the bird seed and run off the birds we are trying to attract. I removed the camper shell off of the Ford truck my dad had given me. I put it carefully on the ground in the front yard. I made sure it wasn't damaged in any way. The very next morning Mimi and the Piglets (good name for a girl band) had moved in. They sleep in there now and they have rooted up the dirt underneath so as to make it more comfortable for them and yet decidedly unattractive to my eyes. Every morning at 4:50am I bring them two dishes of food. One for Mimi and one for the piglets and place them at the front of the camper shell. Our pigs are spoiled.

The perpetual deck renovation project has seen some rare progress. After I knocked down the gazebo over the spa which was aided by some shock and awe and gravity, Things actually went pretty well. I now have fully 2/3 of the deck resurfaced and I'm even contemplating the final third. This last bit is the part we use the most so it will have to be done quickly and well....maybe I should think about this for a while longer. Don't want to rush.

Kristi's garden grows. July is harvest month and the garden is just beginning to pay off. She's coming back in with all her pockets stuffed full of heirloom tomatoes and peppers, the occasional ocra and squash. Real soon now Kristi will be harvesting bushel basket loads and then she'll have to be processing and canning stuff every day. We've been talking all day about making our own cat food. They eat $.50 per day, $15.00 per month in canned food. We have enough trimmings off of meat and carcasses to cover the quantity. Add rice and stock and bone meal and you have a complete diet for the cats. But will the eat it? That's what we have the dogs for.

Tomorrow a treat! I have the smoker cleaned out, wood prepared, a pre-burning pit readied and a pork picnic rubbed and seasoned. I'm going to get up at 6am and smoke 9lbs of pork for about 15 hours for our fourth of July feast. Kristi made fresh flour tortillas (using some of the lard from the same pig that donated the picnic) and I'll make some cole slaw and corn on the cob. I'll have to be sure to avoid any vampire pigs.

What we’ve learned:

• Keeping geese isn’t a good idea.
• Potbelly pigs are really sweet for 3 days out of the month (during periods).
• Goats, if given an opportunity to do things you don’t want them to, will.
• Chickens will poop on everything, but eat a bunch of grasshoppers and cockroaches and produce really good eggs.
• Neighbors in the country aren’t sweet little old ladies – in fact, loud and obnoxious gun-toters are usually the norm.
• If you don’t do everything yourself, you can’t afford to live out here - these are the things we’ve learned or done for ourselves (not hiring ‘professionals’):
  

1. Plumbing

2. Electrical Wiring

3. Deck remodeling

4. Computer repair

5. Gutter installation and gutter cleaning

6. Household maintenance (flooring repairs, cabinet-repairs

7. Water heater (major appliance) installation, removal, set-up

8. Pond maintenance

9. Fence-building and repair

10. Animal maintenance (generally) besides dogs/cats! (vet stuff)

11. Slaughtering (pig, chickens, goats)

12. Make stuff like chicken coops, small cabinets, etc…

13. Chop down and cut our own wood

14. Tractor work

15. Mowing

16. Pesticide treatment

17. Trapping/killing animals

18. (sometimes) Housework!

19. Rainwater collection systems

20. Dishwasher/refrigerator/ installation

21. Equipment maintenance and repair (sometimes)

22. Stonework

23. Tree trimming
24. Produce our own heat in winter

There's a bunch more, but this is at the end, of course, of a very long day.

Not a great weekend. I had been having trouble with my tractor for a few months. I have posted about that before. Last week I changed the hydraulic oil and removed the filter. Friday afternoon on my way home I rode my BMW R1150RT to Paige TX to buy a new hydraulic oil filter. They didn't have one and sent me to Giddings to get one. Well darn, that's further out so I went. Opened the door to the auto parts store to find an empty building. After looking around I saw there was an opening into another half of the building that was in operation. It looks like the auto parts place is cutting itself in half. Sign of the times I suppose. I asked for a hydraulic oil filter for a 1990 Ford 1720 tractor and the sales guy immediately went to work. I had expected a puzzled look and a "you want a part for a TRACTOR?" kind of question. They had one and I bought it. Had a nice ride home, put the filter on the kitchen counter (where all new things end up) and went off to do other things.

Mimi is improving. For the last 3 days we have been opening a small door that would allow Mimi out of the barn and into a large paddock. We've planted corn, sunflowers and other grains, grasses in there for our Buck, but he has been demoted to the outside for the time being. Mimi gets the good stall. She has finally emerged to the outdoors of her own volition. Of course we MIGHT have lured her with corn and apples and other treats. She brought her kids and they are having a great time learning to rototill dirt, push stones and food around and scamper around fighting with each other. Mimi was a bit more conservative and looked around and retired back into the indoor portion of her stall.

I got around to replacing the tractor's hydraulic oil filter and refilling the oil. Of course the tractor needed more than the 5 gallons of oil I had on hand, so a quick trip to Tractor Supply and another 39.00 dollars solved that problem. Put the oil in, started the tractor - it is still very hard to start - the goats were in the dogleg field so I had a chance to scoop some muck! What fun! Open the gate, shoo the mating peacock and peahen out of the way, start the tractor, realize that the tractor's left front tire is flat, run for the air tank, realize the air tank doesn't have enough air in it to fill a tire, turn on the air compressor to fill the tank to fill the tire and wait. Once there's enough air I run back to the running tractor and fill the tire. Yay! Success! I drive into the barnyard, scoop some muck, back out, put the tractor in neutral, put the brake on, remove seat belt, jump off and close the gate because after all this time the goats have returned. Jump back on the tractor, put my seat belt back on, put the tractor in reverse and....nothing. It doesn't move... just a faint whirring sound. All 3 gears and reverse. Nothing. I poke. I prod. Nothing. I took off part of the dashboard to look at the gearshift linkage. Nothing. Oiled it anyway. Nothing.

I was disgusted.

This afternoon while we were enjoying our late afternoon custom of sitting out watching the goats, I was bothered by a decaying animal matter smell coming from Mimi's stall. This tied in with the hundreds of flies that were swarming there yesterday and today. I was thinking there could be an afterbirth under the hay in one corner. Nope. Worse. I found 2 decaying piglets. Got them out of there immediately. Removed any hay that might have been in contact with them and powdered the area with Diatomaceous earth. Tomorrow the flies will be gone and Mimi will be more comfortable. So she had 6 piglets total. That falls nicely into the 5 to 8 for a potbellied pig.

As we walked back to the house after goat watching, I said I'm going to try the tractor again. Kristi watches as I start it and futilely try to move the tractor. She looks at it and says "What's this" pointing at the range selector lever. I told her what it was, shifted it into a different range at the same time noticing that it seemed to be in neutral. Put the tractor into gear and it worked fine.

S^#T!!

what a day...

So everything's just fine... Mimi had her piglets. Great. But something's wrong. She's not eating much, she's fatter than she needs to be for just having had kids and she seems like she's got very little energy.

Thanks to a friend in Orange Grove (who runs M & T feeds), I found that Mimi may have more kids inside her. Is she pooping? Yes. That means the bulge in her stomach isn't gas or uh, other.

I told Mike and he called the vet to get something called Oxytocin, which should help her expel anything in there that's not supposed to be. After a little more investigation, we decide to take her to the vet - and did so at 4:00ish yesterday afternoon. My friend had inadvertently saved Mimi's life.

We arrived and the woman took her temperature (a bit high) and gave her the oxytocin, then we waited for about 20 minutes. She expelled blood, but no kids.

"What kind of pig was she mated to?" An American Yorkshire, we say... too big for that little potbelly to handle, apparently.

After the Oxytocin didn't work, they had to go in to see what they could find. And find something they did, but the vet's hands were too big. They called in a smaller-handed girl, but she couldn't get what seemed to be a snout of another kid out.

Yes, there were kids.

So now what? They were going to have to sedate her and see if they could get the kids out (they used a rope!) and that worked. There were two kids. Both dead. I had to leave at this point. It had already been a pretty upsetting day for me. But I didn't stay away for long.

I came back and they were finished. The kids that they pulled out were huge - probably just about as big as the living kids are... THREE days later!

We brought Mimi home, clipped her nails, cleaned her ears and her eyes (because it's a lot easier when she's sedated) and put her back in the stall. We kept the kids in a basket and put them next to her stall so she wouldn't try to get them out and then inadvertently sit on them and kill them.

Mike was making dinner and I went out to the barn to check on her and put her kids with her. She was grunting a lot, but as soon as the kids were by her side, she laid down and began feeding them and was quiet.

Because there can be lesions for kids that stay in (although the vet doesn't think she felt any in there), there could be issues in the next day or two with infections that could be fatal, but Mimi was happy to eat this morning (after an initial refusal), and she seems a little better.

Gilt by association

Ha ha! What riotus fun farm humor is. A gilt is a female pig prior to having piglets. If my humor is off a bit today there's a reason for it. Mimi, our pot belly pig has had piglets!! She started building a nest out of fresh hay (ha ha! another farm joke) at 6pm Saturday night, started pushing in earnest at 1am this morning and sometime between 4:49 and 6:39 she had 2 piglets! Why don't I know the exact time? Because it seems I slept through my 6:00 alarm. Both are healthy active little squealers. She has passed an afterbirth which could mean the end or not depending on if she's finished or not. Pigs have 2 sides to their uterus and each side has to be done and have an afterbirth.

I am finishing this up at 8:25pm. She has not had any more piglets, so 2 is what we get. Normal would be 5 to 8. It is her first time. This is fine because really, 3 pigs is more than enough to handle. The daddy was an American Yorkshire pig (hog) and he probably weighed around 250 when he went off to freezer camp where he is enjoying an extended stay (lets all sing kumbayah!!) If we were to total up all the packages in the freezer he would probably weigh a lot less now, because we have eaten some. Does this gross you out?

The Spring Post

That doesn't sound optimistic. Possibly realistic.

We have had 18 kids so far this year. Goat 19 is still pregnant due sometime this month.
Mimi the potbelly pig is pregnant. Due tomorrow. She is the queen of our farm. She gets what she wants over all other animals (including us) She is cranky and cantankerous and fun and sometimes loving. Rarely loving, but it happens. She was mated to an American Yorkshire pig. They had a swell time together. We have moved her from her shed to a barn stall (the indignity!) So she can have her piglets. She was being bothered by flies all around her eyes and Kristi solved that problem tonight with mint oils. We applied mint mixed with water on a paper-towel and rubbed it around her eyes (I tested it on my eyes first to make sure it wouldn't sting. So it was human tested before being applied to a pig....sigh) This had an immediate effect and the troublesome flies are gone! Yay! Mimi's attitude has changed for the better! She even let us pet her and brush her! We also sprayed it on the goats. They are pestered by flies this time of year and we suspect they bite. One brief application of the mint spray and the flies are gone the goats are less stressed and to top it off, they smell better! The goats smell better, not the flies.

Kristi planted loofahs tonight and some birdhouse gourds for me. We're a bit late to the party with planting, but my tractor hasn't been running and we really need it. I had arranged with a fellow to come pick it up and haul it to the tractor repair shop last Saturday. I filled the flat tire, and hooked up a battery charger. Got a tow chain out and brought over the pickup. Once the battery was charged and the chain hooked up. I towed the tractor (with Kristi steering) to the end of the driveway where the tow truck would be able to winch it up. Kristi said to try starting it. Now I had tried starting it dozens of times over the last few months and I knew it to be a futile effort. I tried it anyway just to appease her and of course it started! F&*(!! I hate it when that happens. I called off the tow guy, and immediately began mucking out the barn. This isn't as much fun as it sounds. It hadn't been done for about 9 MONTHS and it REALLY NEEDED it. Goats have little common decency and they will do absolutely disgusting things right there IN the barn in front of anyone. After that I disced the two garden plots, turning under the grasses and weeds and making the dirt nice and fluffy for planting.
That's when I started pushing the limits. I tried to haul the barn muck to the compost area. There is about 9 cubic yards of "muck" that will over a couple of months become 6 cubic yards of beautiful rich compost. All it requires is that I turn the whole mess over a few times with the tractor, add water while I'm turning it and oh yes, our secret ingredient for central Texas - elemental Sulfur. We moved that goats into the driveway so they could eat the grass and weeds on either side. That would keep them occupied for a few hours while I moved the muck. I got about half of it moved when the tractor began acting up. When I would raise the bucket to dump the muck on top of the pile, the disc set on the back would drop to the ground and drag. It would drag enough that I couldn't pull forward to drop my load. Arrg! The tractor with have an appointment with the tractor doctor. I don't know how to fix hydraulics, but I'm gaining experience breaking them.

Oh the peahen may also be fertile. I have seen the peacock mate with her a few times. We would love to have some more peafowl. They eat lots of bugs, we don't have to feed them, they take care of themselves and Kristi sells the feathers of the peacock every year so they are profitable for us!! Only the peafowl and chickens make money. Everything else costs.

First post in oh, a while.

Ah, farm life. Fresh air! (uh, no, not really).

It's kidding season again. So far, we've got 9 boys and 4 girls. One that 'hatched' was eaten by Pig. Oh, I didn't tell you about our pig. We have a pig. No, wait... we have TWO pigs. One regular eating pig and one potbelly pig named 'Mimi'.

Mimi came to us from a woman near San Antone who was moving and had to get rid of Mimi. We needed a companion pig for Pig (big, pink pig) and she was it.

 She's about the crankiest potbelly pig there is. Seriously. Mimi-the-crank. You can't even pet her without her grumbling about it. She, unlike Pig, is a bit of a picky eater. Loves carrots, loves peas and corn, of course, but won't eat much else in the way of veggies. We set her up in the shed (after we cleaned it out) because the shed already has a doggy door on it so she can come and go as she pleases. On really cold days, we don't see her in the yard at all. We also have a heater JUST for the shed, JUST for Mimi. She has destroyed an old futon I got back in the early 80s - during college days. Mike was all upset because Mimi had ripped open the covering for it so she could get to the warmth underneath. We've been hauling that damned futon with us everywhere we move and I'm actually glad to be 'shed' of it. Particularly for a, um, _sweet_ creature like Mimi.

The OTHER pig -- he's more troublesome. The night we got him -- we, uh, were kind of forced to get him, the people who wanted to trade a goat for it called us at 7pm at night and said they were on their way. Well, we didn't have a stall set up for a pig and didn't quite know what we'd do. But we finally decided to put it in the buck pen and would deal with it in the morning.

It had other ideas.

It escaped immediately and was bitten on the leg and butt by Brisket before it ran around the edges of the farm trying to escape. Mike tried to get it from one end and me from another. I almost got it, but it gave us chase for a while. Mike put the dogs into a field that could be closed off so they would stop barking and trying to get it while we chased it around. The poor pig was pretty traumatized and we managed to herd it very near the opening where it got out under the fence that surrounds the buck pen. Mike made sure the dirt was dug out further so when the pig (who knew it was safe inside the pen) got close, he'd be able to go under the fence to get IN. It worked. We were able to herd it in, fill in the hole and voila!

Pig hasn't tried to escape since then.

Mimi came into heat last month and we decided that piglets wouldn't be such a bad idea (we'll see), so we put her in with Pig so he could do his thing. He did. Now Mimi, whose friendliest during her heat, isn't friendly at all, any more. Just a total crank. Reminds me of old men I've known.

For now, we are trying to put together a bunch of supplies we're going to need to be able to process this pig ourselves. Yes, folks, we're planning on killing it, hauling its carcass up and 'harvesting' it. I bought some hide scrapers and Mike and I are putting together a temporary cold smoker so that we can smoke some hams. This is all new to us and although it's exciting, it's also terrifying at the same time. This porker's huge.

Back at it. It's Friday. TGIF.

Dog days of Summer

Really don't know what that means. Probably has something to do with it being hot. Too hot to get up. Too hot to run. To chase things. To lead the goats to a new patch of browse. Being hot, the heat slows things down. Productive things, necessary things. Like worming goats. Goats have worms okay? Get over it. They just do. Doesn't mean they're dirty. Doesn't mean they're spoiled (spoiled as in rotten, not spoiled as in being given their way all the time). They just have certain parasites that show up in their intestinal tracts from time to time. There are ways of managing the worms to be sure. Changing fields every 2 weeks is a good way. The worm's life cycle is about 2 weeks. When the adults have climbed to the tender tops of the waving grasses, with their little grasping limbs waving in the air hoping to ensnare a new bearer, You switch the goats to a new field closing off the wormy one. When the worms realize that you have outsmarted them they get mad, give up and die.
Then the goats frolic in the new field laughing and having cocktails. Eventually they have to poop (please be sure kids avert their eyes when reading that) and the worm cycle begins all over again. It's hard with just 15 acres to have enough fresh browse to eat (for the goats) and be able to rotate fields enough to keep the worms from building up to a dangerous level. Danger from worms? You betcha. In the goats digestive tract they burrow their blood sucking mouthparts into the stomach lining and suck like they've never sucked before. One worm won't harm a goat. But thousands will. The goat becomes anemic, their eyelids will look pink when healthy, white when there are too many worms. If you wait too long a goat may get "bottle jaw" This condition is indicative of an extreme infestation and immediate action is needed to save the goat. Delores has been fighting off bottle jaw for weeks now. We have wormed her with Cydectin a powerful worming treatment. It is having a positive effect but she is not over it yet. We are also drenching her with Red Cell an equine treatment for low red cell count (anemia). We also give her Magic from time to time to boost her energy level. Magic is a mixture of corn oil, molasses and corn syrup. Goats love it. Some who aren't sick come over and demand it.

In other news, the peahen has been sitting on her clutch of 3 eggs for nearly 2 weeks now. In another 2 weeks we are hoping for a blessed event. More peachicks!
The chickens are doing fine. We're getting dozens of eggs a day now and need creative ways to get rid of them. I give them to employees and Kristi sells them at work. The chickens nearly pay for themselves as far as feed costs. The peacock pays the peafowl's way too with feather sales. Oh he hates it when we come after him with the pliers.

Ah, the first snakes of Spring...

Yesterday we arrived back home after driving to Navasota, TX to pick up our package of bees. We made an error over the winter and didn't feed them and the whole hive died. We are feeling a little bad about that partly because of the loss of a lot of bugs (and who wouldn't feel bad about that) but also because dead bees stink something terrible and the whole mess had to be cleaned up. We ordered a new Package of bees. A package is a small wood and screen box about 18 inches by 8 by 5. That is a large enough space for approximately 11000 bees. I didn't count them as they squirm around quite a lot and it's difficult to keep track. It sure looked like a lot of bees. The package price has gone up to $100.00 this year, an increase of 10%. It's worth it as I couldn't imagine having to go collect all of them and funnel them into this little box. (Oh, you want bees? just go over to the bulk bin ((clerk points))They're next to the yellow jackets- there's a scoop and some bags. Help yourself!) Your first test of nerve is after the warehouse guy takes a circular saw and cuts one package from another (they are fastened together with wood strips) and hands you a box with some now AGITATED bees. Uh Thanks I say trying to sound like I mean it and very carefully walk out of the warehouse and down the steps to the truck thinking about what would happen if I dropped it. I placed the package into a cardboard box that Kristi thoughtfully brought to keep the bees calm. We talked about painting the inside of the box with a floral scene next time. When we got back home there was a snake at the top of the driveway to meet us. The first snake of the season. Not 2 hours later we saw another one dead in the street with a helpful vulture working hard to clean it up.
There are a series of steps you have to go through to calm the bees and get them ready for their new home. We put the box in the garage and sprayed them with some cold water. Instantly the buzzing died down. Next they were liberally sprayed with sugar water. After an hour we prepared for the main event. Transferring the bees from package to hive. We carried all the stuff necessary to the hive. What items you ask? A hive feeder. This is an accessory top for the hive body that is made of styrofoam. It has two chambers, one chamber is very small that give the bees access to a feeding trough that will fill with sugar water. The much larger area is a storage area for the sugar water. We brought a pan full of about a gallon and a half of sugar syrup. My bee smoker. This is a small can with an attached bellows that you build a small fire inside. The resulting smoke has a calming effect on the bees and makes it a little less likely that they will come after you en mass. I brought my bee keepers head gear. You don't want them in your face.
The next step is to firmly grasp the package of 11,000 bees, whack the package firmly on the ground, and then open it. This part can be a little nerve wracking. Really it's no big deal. I think the bees are so astonished that anyone would do that that they forget all about attacking. After the whacking you pour and shake as many of the bees out of the package into the hive body as you have the gumption for, lay the package on top of the hive and back away for a little while. At this point there are bees pretty much everywhere. Package, hive, air and ground. They were really pretty calm considering. After a few minutes I carefully moved the package box which still contained about a quarter of the bees to the ground in front of the hive near the opening. I placed the feeder top on top of the hive being careful to squish as few bees as possible. Then we packed up and left. Nobody got stung. Nobody even really got threatened though there were a few stern glances exchanged. Now we leave them alone for a few weeks to set up shop.

Busy weekend

We're up to 19 new kids now, it would have been 20 except for the one that died. This past weekend was productive. Approximately 6 cubic yards of compost was turned, The adult goats were all wormed, the doelings had ear tags installed and the bucklings were, were, well - castrated. It's one of those jobs on the farm that isn't something we enjoy doing but it MUST be done. If we left the little boy goats INTACT, the meat would become gamey tasting in a few months. It's easier on the little ones to do it when they are young. It's easier on us not to do it at all. Sigh. We use an elastrator. This is like a pair of pliers that expands a small, strong rubber band. The band is placed over the scrotum (such words are unavoidable given the subject matter) then you must make sure both "fellas" are in the scrotum. Especially during cold weather the "fellas" may retract back up into the body cavity to keep warm (or hide). If you fail to get both in the scrotum then the goat will still be capable of impregnating females which would be bad. Also male goats have HABITS which are unpleasant at various times of the year and you don't want to have those habits happen (cough).
That's a whole nother unpleasant farm oriented topic which we may or may not discuss at the proper time (August/September).
Anyway once the "fellas" are obviously in the scrotum you release the rubber band from the pliers and it pinches the scrotum above the "fellas". In a couple of weeks the scrotum atrophies due to lack of blood flow and it just drops off somewhere in the barnyard. That isn't the most pleasant thing to find before breakfast.
I made some french cleats for the garage workshop project and I have begun painting them.
We have committed to (bought parts for) a 6 foot by 30 foot hoophouse for starting vegetable plants. This week we will be assembling it and maybe next weekend we'll get the ground prepped for planting.
Our barred rock chicks are about a month and a half old now and they're growing nicely. I'm going to have to build some new roosts in the chicken barn so they can join the general population.
The cornish cross chickens (meat birds) are huge and getting bigger. They need 3 scoops of high protein feed 3 times a day now. They should be fully grown and ready for processing in the first week of March. We may let them go a little longer because we like them between 6 and 7 lbs.

Fourteen and counting

It's been a busy 13 days -- fourteen goats later and here we are. Only one has died -- simply because it fell on its head at birth (we'd have 15, otherwise) and the spread is 7 girls and 7 boys so far. Oh, sorry... 7 doelings and 7 bucklings. Cute as all get out, as they say.

Switching the goats off grain and onto alfalfa pellets -- better for them and will make them look prettier according to Mike. Not that pretty goats are a problem, but the new feed will also make them feel better in the long run. A little more expensive, but it may just be worth it.

Long weeks of cold, nasty weather (the whole country is experiencing the same) and not much relief in the near future.

Kidding season... and they're off!

32 keeps licking her backside and the kid keeps flollipping around in her belly. She and 6 seem to NOT be eating their feed this morning (un'herd' of) and six's udder has increased in size substantially from yesterday. All sure signs kidding is imminent with those two. But then again, 201 is quite ready, too. She'll have twins. Six may have twins, but 32 is likely to have a single.She's a very small goat and I think part Nigerian Dwarf. 

We put these three goats in their own horse stall yesterday and we were right to do so. They each seem very close to cutting loose.

Vacation Blues

Ah, vacation. On the road and heading west. Yes, we're going to California with a knapsack.. in the trunk. We take tamales. We take chocolate, we take other stuff for that ever-important thing called gift-giving. The trip out was wonderful -- although staying in little ratty motels along the way wasn't very exciting, it served its purpose and allowed us to compare the motels on the trip back. The trip back would be almost a total bust - at least for me. In fact, parts of the trip were a bust. I don't usually complain about these things, but...wait. Getting ahead of myself.

On the way up, we visited a small winery that has made port for fifty years or so in California. Ficklin Wineries. Don't go there unless you like the taste of prune juice. We visited with the owners (there were no visitors but us there -- the 'tasting room' was a huge, cold, cavernous warehouse. Yes, quite lovely). We got to hear tales of the water issues, a political snafu that isn't going to be watering our nation's food supply. The water comes from upstate and they're all pissy that the nations major source of fruits (no comment) and nuts (no comment)  is taking up too much of their water. I'm speaking about the snootier parts and more influential folks in the snootier parts of CA. And that's saying something as hey, I'm a Texas gal and when we get all snooty over here, it's because someone's not willing to spit their snuff out the window. REAL snooty.  The only difference between Snooty and Snotty is Tea, and that's fer fanciful folks up there in that Snooty country. They can have it.

I'm probably not allowed to say anything about staying with Mike's friends in Los Altos, but I can tell you that if you have arthritis, don't sleep on an air mattress. Especially one that leaks.

The happiest time was seeing all the kids in Mike's family growing up -- they're all just about to enter the teenage stage or the college stage. Just nice to see kids growing up well. My brother-in-law has Lukemia and is out of work, although he's probably one of the most intelligent folks you'll meet. It just isn't fair.

This trip, the gift that Mike's father gave him was a 1989 Ford F250 with a camper on the back of it. It rebelled (water pump busted) at 9:30pm on the night we left (a Saturday night) in Lost Hills, CA. Weird, but there's actually a mechanic that works on weekends and although we had to stay until Sunday evening, it was done and we were on the road again (although we had to go back a little ways down the road because a hose was loose). They had promised us 1pm, but didn't finish until 5, but at least it was done.

While we waited, we went to the Kern Conservatory -- a long, winding, flat road that took us around  a swamp to look at hawks and other birds. It was actually kind of nice. We ate breakfast in Shafter, CA (yeah, that's what it's called). This is in the heart of Almond country -- those Blue Diamonds or other brands all come from here. The place was called 'Pappy's' and I highly recommend being stuck in this town if you have to be stuck somewhere in California. The folks are friendly and generally not Snooty. They didn't even serve us tea.

We headed through El Paso and finally stopped at a place called Van Horn, Texas at a Ramada Inn (after getting the poo poo on several other places and forcing us to stop at Subway just to eat). In the morning, it had snowed.

So now we have an old truck that's untested on icy roads and a long way to go before we get back to Bastrop. But luckily, there was nothing else that happened and we made it back by 4 in the afternoon.

Our farmsitter did great and the only problem was that the geese had gotten out and fouled our backyard pond and ate the water lily in it. A small price to pay for 11 days' vacation. Everything else was just hunky dory and it was really nice to be home.

Nine Degrees

That's today's low temperature.
Cold. Too cold.

My personal previous low was 19 degrees at Oklahoma's airport. That was cold to a Californian. 9 degrees is physically painful.
I went out in the morning to feed the animals. Usually on weekends Kristi helps but today, for some reason, she was willing to let me take care of them myself. I first went to look at the goldfish pond. Huh. Covered with an inch thick layer of ice. The pump was still running and water was flowing. There was a small area that wasn't iced where the water movement was greatest. A bad day to be a fish.
Next stop was the shed to feed Thud and Eatz, the kitties. It was hard to get their wet cat food out of the cans.
Over to the barnyard and the goats. Stopped to look at their water tank. Frozen. Looks like more than 2 inches thick. Huh. After whacking at the ice for 10 minutes I managed to expose about 20 square inches. Hardly enough for one goat to stick their beak in. Moving into the barn I was congratulating myself for planning ahead and putting a large tub of water in there so the goats would have something liquid to drink. But the tub was crusted over with an inch of ice. That broke up easily and I scooped the ice off to the side of the barn. It was still there today after 5pm.
Fed the goats, gave them a half bale of alfalfa to keep them busy and fill their bellies. A full belly helps to make even a goat forget about the cold for a while.
Next up was the chicken yard. Both waterers were frozen solid. The first little problem. All outside spigots were frozen. I had to take the waterers to the house to refill them. Our 3 day old chicks (50 Plymouth Barred Rocks, 25 Cornish crosses and 5 Barred Rock roosters) were obviously uncomfortable and huddled together under the heat lamps. I fed them and collected the empty waterer to take back to the house. There were no dead chicks and I was happy about that.
After 12 the temps had come up to above freezing and things were beginning to thaw out a little. We went on a walkabout to see if there was any damage to exterior plumbing. In the back yard there is a hose bib. When I touched it it fell off. That would have to be fixed. I get to brush up on my copper soldering skills. Walking around to the front of the house you could hear a loud hissing. The copper pipe for the hose bibs was spraying water. These pipes were covered with thick plastic insulation but still froze. There were 2 spots that had burst. That would be fun. Off to the hardware store and pick up a bunch of copper plumbing parts. We also got some 4" schedule 40 plastic fittings to make a mineral and baking soda feeder for the goats. I spent most of the rest of the day measuring, cutting and soldering copper. My first attempt was a dismal failure spraying water forcefully out of half a dozen spots. I'd made the leak worse than it was. Second attempt fell apart even as I was building it. The third attempt I finally figured out my problem and got it right. We tested it and it works great. Covered the pipe again with insulation and left them dripping. Our low for Sunday morning is forecast to be 25 but at 8:30 Saturday night we are already at 25 and the temps are dropping. We'll see what the morning brings.