Monday Night

Late after school figuring out what to do with this new class I have to take over starting tomorrow.  Second time in five years I've been yanked to do something else.  One has to be thankful for a job at all.  Trying to keep a positive attitude.  I'll get a handle on this job, get comfortable, and they will yank me again.  Had hoped to be in a good groove by this time in my "career."  Oh well.   In from chores at 8:30.   Very windy with no moon or stars tonight.  Had hoped to see the line-up of the five planets - Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.  Maybe tomorrow night.  The barn shook and creaked when I was up in the dark, haunted hay mow.  Got my bales and climbed down as fast as I could.  Got chores done in 90 minutes, but missed the Oscar report I was hoping to see.  I had fallen asleep in the middle of it last night.  Love to see the gowns on the glamorous actors.   Glad I put a chicken in the oven before going out to the sheep.  Such a luxury to drag my butt in from chores and smell dinner ready for me.  That hasn't happened since my mother died 14 years ago.  I'm worried about Vicky, Valentine's mother.  She is not drinking her water and looks glassy eyed to me.  She munched a little on her cracked corn and second cut hay.  I put a new water container in the pen just in case it was the bucket she didn't like.  I offered her some cut-up apples slices.  No good.  Lilly smelled the apple and tried to fit her nose into Vicky's pen to get at it.  I got in the pen and made her drink some watered down Nutri-Drench.   While I had a hold on her I gave her a shot of LA-200 in case there is some pathology going on.  Little Valentine looks good, but with mom not drinking any water she won't have much milk for him.  I'll make her drink more water mixed with molasses in the morning.   I need to do more preparation for tomorrow but I'm so tired I might lie down now and set the alarm to get up very early.   

New Tote

With all the farm goings-on I only got one Bundaflicka tote done.  Here it is, and I think it's pretty cute.  The fabric is Gunlocke Office Furniture fabric.

Flying High

What glorious weather, cold, clear and beautiful blue skies, we are having today.  After storming and blowing all day and into the night we have this lovely gift of bright sunshine.  The kitties and chickens are lying in every sunny barn window they can find.  We hooked up the trailer to pick up hay this morning.  I'm limping through 'til the green grass pokes up through the thatch, and I'm praying we have an early spring this year.  With temps going back up to the '50s tomorrow, that is a possibility.  I'm forking up the hay dropped on the floor of the upper hay mow and throwing it down to the sheep.  Every blade is precious.  We motored south to New Berlin for the Sunday NY Times - all six dollars and fifty cents worth - and a rope tow line.  Poor Matt, while attempting to plow the neighbor's driveway he accidentally drove the little 8N into the culvert.  All efforts to pull him out with the Blazer this morning failed.  The dogs and cats are happy today.  I picked up the six sheep from the Farmer's Place, frozen in neat packages.  The two inches of fat on the hind quarters tells me they ate well over the winter.    I'm tempted to make pate with the gigantic livers.  It is the only way I can stomach liver, with lots of hard boiled eggs and onions mixed in.  We'll see...In the meantime I am enjoying the pictures Eric is sending me of Hannah's flying lessons.  They are having so much fun down there in Texas.  At 13 years old Hannah is quite the adventurer.  She is active in the Civil Air Patrol and will soon be flying her cadet friends around in her Daddy's 1940's era Ercoupe plane.  I'm so proud of her. 

Puppy Dreams

What does a puppy dream about on a snowy, blustery morning when her person is home, puttering around and preventing her from getting a good day's sleep?  I would like to attach probes to her skull and find out.  I imagine it has something to do with juicy cat food cans, and kitty ears to bite, along with muddy sheep bones and old goat horns dug up in the field.  Sadie loves to sleep under the covers in my bed at night, but that crowds Izzy's territory.  They have worked out a peaceful co-existence, with Sadie up at my shoulder and Izzy by my feet, or reversed.  I woke up to calm and gray at 6, wondering where the wind and weather is.  I built a fire in the stove, thinking I don't have to worry about back drafting, but then the gust and horizontal snow arrived.  Very little back puffing, fortunately.  Before Matt installed the fan the apartment would fill up with black smoke when the wind came up.  Very annoying, much better now.  We need another section on the chimney outside, but with the high gambrel roof on the barn that would require renting a lift.  It's on the list.  I made a batch of Shepherd's Friend this morning, hoping I could get to the PO to mail it to the lady in Florida who ordered it.  The roads are just too slippery and visibility very poor.   She puts my creme on her black Lab's elbow pads.  I was tickled when she told me that - a new application for my lavender creme.  Good stuff!  I made a point of inhaling the lavender aroma, to sooth my tattered nerves over my new position in school.  My middle-school counterpart joined the Army and lucky me was chosen to take his place in this out-of-control classroom which is right next to the principal's office. No more cool downstairs corner classroom with a full kitchen and kiln room where I could have a spinning wheel behind my desk and play Swedish movies with subtitles and no sound after the kids went home.   The new room is like a fishbowl and everybody will be peaking in to see if the new lion tamer is keeping her sanity.  These students are not GED bound.  They are still on a diploma track and results are expected.  Good luck.  On deck for today...all kinds of fun including barn chores, inside chores, sewing, spinning, etc.  Poor Matt is taking apart the water pump in an effort to fix it and avoid a huge expense to replace it.  I filled up the bath tub and all the animals' water in the barn.  Fingers crossed.  Not a fun way to spend the day but he is willing to try and epoxy the hole again.  I've had to go into the milk room and turn the water on and off all week as needed.  Life in an old barn...I still think I have the coolest "house" around.

OUCH!

 I've been up since 5 thinking about all this and waiting for the heavy weather forecast.  Nothing going on at 5, then a pretty little snow starting at 6.  Sadie wants me to take her high up on the hill into the darkness where the dogs have run.  No way.  We walked around sniffing old sheep bones and other things a puppy would be interested in, then I brought her back in here.  I'll get out to chores, which always makes me feel better.  Mundane, familiar tasks are always comforting.  I stand there with the hose, filling the containers and listening to the sheep crunch on hay.  Oh, yes, the hay.  Have to call and arrange a pick up, with weather considerations for tomorrow.  Challenges...Home after a day I don't care to recall.  My middle school counterpart is leaving to join the Army, and has decided to depart a month earlier than planned.  I have been assigned his class.  I am not happy about this but have no choice.  Let's leave it at that before I say something I'll regret.  I had some errands to run after school, like Price Chopper where I am trying to buy everything I need to get the gas discount.   Gas is $4 a gallon in New Berlin now.  Commuting in the Blazer will be ridiculously expensive.  I fell asleep on the couch after Chinese dinner then roused myself to get out to do chores.  Everyone was screaming as I was an hour late...even the quacking ducks.  With the storm coming in the changing barometric pressure made my headache worse as I climbed up the hay mow ladder.  While staggering around in the dark groping for bales an explosion rang through the barn.  I thought a gas tank blew up, or lighting struck the barn.  It happened again.  Turned out to be the guys two farms up playing with fireworks.  Very powerful fireworks.  What the heck???  My critters and I were all shook up.  As I was throwing bales down I saw something odd in the back barn hay rack.  My beautiful older black doe was lying dead, her hoof caught in the wire as she attempted to jump into the rack to get at the hay.  This morning I put hay in the forward rack, but did not go all the way to the back of the barn, which I do at night.  I adore my black angora goats, and I have precious few of them now after letting so many go last winter.  Her hoof was so badly twisted in the 4x4 wire it had to be cut out.  How she must have struggled before giving up and dying.  Could this day get any worse....Better go to bed before something else happens. 

Day Is Done

The barn is 44 F. inside and it doesn't seem too much colder outside.  Freezing rain and snow is forecast for later tonight and tomorrow.  Other than the overcast sky you would not know it.  Just came in from the barn.  Was worried about Valentine's mom, I call her Vicky, as she was staring around with a glaze over her eyes and was not interested in her daily cracked corn snack.  I was about to give her a shot of penicillin, just in case, when I saw her crunching on her hay.  Don't like to doctor an animal unless it's necessary.  I leaned over and grabbed little Valentine by his sweater to look him over.  He's definitely gaining weight and his belly is full and firm.  I noticed he's been nursing from both sides of mom's udder.  One was dead, or so I thought, as a result of past mastitis.  I see the little one nursing from both sides regularly.  I wonder if he got it started up again?  The miracle of motherhood and nature at work.  I want to let Vicky and Valentine out of their little pen to join the others in the maternity area, but the other four lambs are so big and boisterous, with the hungry moms shoving each other, and the children, away from the feed, that I'm afraid little V. will be trampled.  Maybe in a few days.  I know that would perk up mom a bit.  I have to order tags for the gang of five lambs and more vaccinations.   I have more sheep to shear, and many fleeces to sort...the ongoing saga that never ends.   Tonight I think I will spin a bit and watch this terrific PBS show called 400 Years of the Telescope.  I love astronomy and anything to do with the sky. 

Pretty Snow

I woke up to a lovely little snow on the ground, with large flakes falling from the sky.   It won't last for long with these unseasonably warm temps. Fine with me.  I've given up on snow days this year.   I'm rather spoiled and will not be happy when a realistic NY State winter kicks in next year.  I'm hoping for some early green grass for my hungry sheep.  I made some luscious hand creme last night.  Not a big batch, but enough to cover a handful of orders I needed to get out.  Oh, do I love that lavender.  I think inhaling it gave me a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I'll down this coffee and get out in the barn for chores before zooming off to work.  We have several weeks to go before spring break.  At least driving this year has not been as awful as it has in years past, when I would stare out the window, incredulous that I had to go out in that stuff. 

Day Dreaming

It's tough getting back into the grind.  Teaching special needs kids take a lot out of me.  To deal with the stress I sometimes let my mind wander to more pleasant things....right now I'm daydreaming about these delightful and wonderful socks by Sock Lady Spins in Tatla Lake, British Columbia.  Lynne lives in a remote area where she has to look both ways for grizzly bears before going out to her car.  In her spare time she knits the most AMAZING socks.  I have several of her gorgeous one-of-a-kind masterpieces.   The instill my feet with magical powers, and look very artsy with my clogs.  This is the pair I am currently lusting after.

Fashion Statement

My twins, AJ and Mia, were so cute as little kids that cars would slow down to admire them as we played in the front yard.  Here we are playing in the snow and skiing down the little slope on our lawn.  They are dressed like models for a ski magazine.  One day at Easter time my mother had AJ and Mia, all dressed up in sailor outfits,  at  the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey.  They were looking in a Ralph Lauren store window when the manager came out and asked if the twins would sit in the Easter window display.   My mother was willing to hand them over, but my twins would have nothing to do with it.   They blew their big chance at fame and fortune!  Not to worry, they are still a very classy duo.

Happy Birthday

There is no birthday like my twin's birthday.  I've always been rather proud of myself - giving birth to a boy and a girl at the same time, just 8 months after the wedding.  They were the cutest babies ever born, each with a very distinct and different personality.  I loved my babies so much.  Together with big brother Eric we had a beautiful little family.    There was nothing as important in my life as my children, and still isn't.  I'm so proud of the responsible adults you have become.   Happy birthday A.J. and Mia.  We are miles apart but I always carry you in my heart.

Sunset Walk With Sadie

We dropped everything and took the doggies up to the top of the farm at sunset last night.  It was just the right thing to do and took the edge off the "farm concerns."  The dogs are so much fun.  Sadie pulls straight up, nose to the ground, following the other dogs.  I'm going to make a habit of hiking up the hill every day after school.  With this mild winter we are having it is entirely possible to do that.  In years past high drifts blocked the way.

Water Worries

It's the yin and the yang that gives life it's meaning.  Would this sunny, glorious day with not a cloud in the sky be so beautiful were it not for the grey, icy dampness of the last couple of days?  Would I appreciate the water coming out of my faucet if it was not turned off all night in the hopes that the epoxy on the tank rupture would hold?  Well, it did not hold and we had to turn the water back on to fill the sheep containers - and chickens, and rabbits, and dogs and cats and ducks.  Water on a farm is of paramount importance.  We can get by on a couple of gallons for coffee and teethbrushing, but livestock lives on water.  If I could let them all go and wander they would find water in a couple of ponds and the many underground streams here on the farm.  I am reminded of the first year I lived here, in the little 14 foot RV, when the water pipes froze and I was sneaking sink baths in the bathrooms at school.  The principal found out (why do they always find me out?) and offered me the shower in cosmetology.  Now I have my classy, giant, claw foot tub and I do a ceremonial water-worshipping soak in remembrance of those times.  Matt is working on the tank, not the way he wanted to spend his long weekend.  He bought more epoxy and thinks he can stop the leak.  Chris Kupris told us he put that pressure tank in back in the 1960's, so it's lasted 50 years.  If I had $2,000 burning a hole in my pocket I would buy a new one, but I am hay poor and that can't happen right now.  Speaking of hay poor, I sent six souls to heaven today.  I am out of hay and paying a ludicrous $4.00 a bale for decent hay and am lucky to have found it.  I took six sheep to the Farmer's Place today - four fat wethers, bullies who push the smaller ones away from the hay and don't have a lot of wool, and two crippled old ewes.  I hated to do it but see no way out of it.  The lady who helped me - I don't know her name - is so friendly and nice and made a very unpleasant trip and little less stressful.  Matt was pushing for me to call a truck to pick them up but there ain't no way.   I won't doom my sheep to a terrifying ride to a horrible fate, in a dog food factory, or a crate going overseas to be sacrificed in a violent Islamic ritual (yes, exposed in a NY Times article a year or so ago) - not after I have cared for them so lovingly all these years.  Nor will I give them away any more.  I worry about them constantly and have no way of knowing how they are being cared for.   Loren came and we loaded them into the back of my mini-van for the four mile down the road where they will only be alive a few minutes.  I'll get the meat back along with tongues, livers and hearts for the dogs.  I have to pay for this service, but it is so worth it to me, and I have good quality dog food for weeks.  I'll send six more when I pick up this load.  I just can't do it any other way.  I'll get the flock down to a manageable number and take even better care of them.  My heart aches but that's just the way things are.

Kitties on the Porch

The porch makes a great vantage point for the kitties to watch who is coming and going.   After a lovely snow last night the sun came out and gave us a picture perfect winter wonderland.  The day was going so nicely until the circa 1960's water pressure tank decided to spring a leak - again.  There is always something that needs attention on an old farm, with some situations more dire than others.  We are attempting to, once again, stop the leak with some JB weld.  Fingers crossed...

Romantic Tote

Today's tote is more romantic and lighter (in weight)  than yesterday's earthy, rugged Bundaflicka bag.  I like the matching goat horn toggle closure.  I'm taking a break from sewing to do chores early.     I have a conference call with the committee of the Bouckville fiber art show at 7, then Downton Abbey comes on at nine.  I want to have dinner done somewhere in-between.  This short "vacation" is flying by.  There is no vacation on a farm, but the fact that I don't have to rush around in the morning and hit the road is such a pleasure.  I'm trying to get product made and spend some time with my animals.  Temps are more seasonal and yesterday's snow is still on the ground. 

Love a Duck

My chickens are hardly earning their keep.  I get maybe 3-4 eggs a day in the chicken room, and a couple in the hay racks.  My ducks, however, are giving me 4 - 6 jumbo eggs every day.   They are marvelous eggs with giant golden yolks and a thick, gooey egg white.  I bring them in to make scrambled eggs for my colleagues and students.  The kids were suspicious of the duck eggs at first, as kids often are when offered  something new but  they got over it pretty quick.  I thoroughly enjoy the duckies, some Pekins and some Swedish Blues.  I'm not sure what to do when spring comes.  I like having them captured in the barn so I can be sure and get the eggs.  I do love, however, looking out the window and seeing a white line of quackers marching up the hillside.  I give them cracked corn and 18% egg layer feed twice a day.  The sheep are very envious.  I had one energetic yearling ewe jumping into the duck pen to steal their feed.  I put her in with the lambs and moms to keep her away from the ducks.  I can't, however, keep the marauding roosters and chickens away from the duck feed.  I won't deny the free range hens, even though they are hiding their eggs somewhere in an undisclosed location around the farm.   Whenever I can manage it, and it is not easy,  I grab a rooster and throw him in the chicken room to wait for execution.  Darryl Parkinson comes to visit once in a while and kills some for me.   As much fun as the duckies are, they are the messiest animals I have ever owned.  I keep their water up high in a hanging container but they still manage to change it to mud every day.  I change the hay in their pans as the girls love to feather their nests and cover the eggs with a layer of grass.  I'm going to have to change the pen location to a cleaner space pretty soon.  I made Swedish pancakes with duck eggs this morning, with lots of nutmeg and cinnamon. Hmmmmm good, especially with the local NY State maple syrup.  Life is good.

Sadie

Sadie is growing so fast.  She weighs 11  pounds now and is very happy and healthy.  The puppy teeth are not quite as sharp but the urge to chew is just as strong.  Sadie loves to play with her mom, Reba. They run circles around the apartment, knocking over my spinning wheel and tearing out electric outlets.  I have to keep Sadie on a leash outside as she will follow the other dogs up the hill out of sight.  I took her up there yesterday before the snow came and she pulled me all the way.  Sadie is a true hound dog, nose down, on the trail of whatever she picks up.   Reba is content to relax with her favorite person in the world - Matt Redmond.  I think her owner was a man.  Reba lives for Matt to come on weekends and goes crazy when she sees him.  I wonder if we'll ever know where Reba came from.  The vet's office says pregnant dogs are often abandoned around here.  How sad, what a pity - all that love thrown away....and how tragic that someone might feel that desperate that he has to abandon a loyal companion.

Plowing

We had a pretty little snowfall yesterday, the kind that keeps you looking out the window at the pristine beauty of it.  I have one big, beautiful "Rockefeller Center" pine tree out my living room window.   It had boughs all the way to the ground when I first moved in here, but the sheep, goats and llamas all trimmed it up a bit.  I wish I had a few scattered around the pasture for shade, but this is it.  There are several mashed up against the little farmhouse next door, dwarfing it and threatening to flatten it at any moment.  I marvel at people's shortsightedness when they do that, but here we are.  I'm so glad I have mine.  Matt got out his little Ford 8N and plowed the driveways.  His new toy started right up and is working well for light plowing.  We are hoping to get a mower for it so I can knick all those annoying  thistles before they come up in the spring, and keep the fields tidy.  Sheep and goats wander around eating what they like best and leaving weeds and sticks standing.  An occasional mowing picks up where they leave off, or, I should say, knocks down where they leave up.

My Little Valentine

Valentine is doing nicely, still in his little jug (sheep lingo for the pen where a lamb spends his first few days with his mother).  He does little happy dances and leaps between naps and nursing.    I'll keep them in this pen for a while longer, as mom loves eating her grain treats without competing with the other sheep in the maternity area.  No other sheep get grain in the barn.  This maternal group is a privileged few.  My four Christmas-time lambs are doing great and growing big and fat.   I need to ear tag them, something I hate to do as they can tear off leaving the ear a bloody mess.  If I don't I might not be able to tell who they are a year from now.  I had a few lovely white sheep last year, along with some very nice black sheep.  I've given up on names except for a few.  I can't remember them anyway, and it adds a whole new dimension of sadness when I have to let them go.   There was a time when everyone had names, and I had so many hopes and dreams about my farm, but that seems so long ago and a very big reality bite away.  I truly believe it is better to have farmed and lost than to never have farmed at all.  At least I'm not lying on the sofa, watching a big screen TV and counting out my anti-depressants and the other meds I need to put one foot in front of the other.

New Totes

My lost camera has been found - under the sofa.  Sweeping and mopping not only makes my local pine floor look so pretty - it also brings hidden treasures out from hiding.  I've been sewing lately and new Bundaflicka totes are hanging from the rafters once again.  I took a cue from the talented and creative Kimmie Cornerstone and made some goat horn buttons.  I think they compliment this bag nicely.    It feels good to be sewing again.  It really grounds me, kind of like barn chores.  I cut out several bags yesterday and look forward to putting them together.  Tomorrow I have to, I mean I really have to, start making some soap.  Way behind on it.  A place for it to cure is a problem, as the curing rack is covered with sewing paraphernalia.   Challenges, challenges.  I just can't seem to make enough working space for what I need to do.  Mia said, Mommy, my friends think you have a factory!  Dream on...

Jammies

Home today for the start of the President's Day break.  Don't have to go back until Wednesday.  I love that part of the education field.  Just when you think the thread you are hanging by is going to pop you get a few days off.  People think we are so pampered, but I'd like those critics to try doing what I do for a day or two.  They would be jumping out the windows.  I'm still in my jammies and it's almost nine o'clock - how decadent.  Ofcourse my jammies are not the suburban housewife jammies I used to wear.  The flannels I have on now have to double as outdoor clothes, or something I could wear while herding animals out of a burning barn.  I have a lot on deck for today, too much to fathom really, but I'm going to take it one step at a time.  Kitchen will be first, then Kitty City - the room adjacent to the apartment, then some clothing organization.  I have one closet rack now, no wise-cracks here, but it's not enough to hold the mountains of clothes I rescued from the opportunistic possums in the tractor shed.  We are having a very mild winter but I'm trying to wear all my beautiful sweaters before putting them away for the anticipated early spring.  I may have a 20,000 square foot barn, but there is not much storage space protected from animals.  Everything has to be put in protective tubs or I will have another possum debacle.  I have fiber to pick, sort, wash and dye.  I have several batches of soap on deck.  I have a beautiful Bundaflicka tote on the machine right now that I will finish before I attack any of the above.  Gosh, this bag is gorgeous.  I ordered the fabric cheap online and took a chance.  It may look good on the thumbnail but you never really know how it's going to feel or behave on the machine.  I happened to have the perfect lining fabric, too.  I'd love to attach the picture of this lovely tote but my camera is lost somewhere in the Bermuda triangle that is this apartment.  I hope when I start cleaning that it will surface.  One can only live and hope.  In the meantime I might have another cup of French Roast, and make myself some more toast.  I had a plate of delicious whole wheat with raspberry jam (from the famous Sauquoit berries sold at the Hamilton market) behind me on the sewing machine.  I turned to type something and when I turned back Miss Sneaky Sadie had climbed up on the sofa and made hasty work of my toast.  I call her Crouching Tiger Hidden Sadie now.  I should call her Wormy Sadie as she is full of worms.  I stopped at New Berlin Veterinary on the way home from work yesterday to pick up some Advantage Pour-On for the dogs and asked about worming.  They told me the correct dose for Ivomec in dogs - one tenth CC for every ten pounds sub-C.  I have to figure out a way to weigh Sadie and find a new needle.  No creepy critters living inside my Sadie, thank you very much!