Minus Ten

Last week I cleaned out the chicken coops preparatory to finally getting chickens. I have prepared rigorously for this latest acquisition to our livestock. I read “Raising Chickens for Dummies” and watched “The Egg and I” on classic movies. I was so ready.

That night I bragged to Yael that 3 weeks had passed since my trip back to the States and I hadn’t gotten sick. A first!  My herbal immune supplements must be working. I was even able to clean the coops without my allergies acting up.  Less than an hour later, I was in agony.

In rapid fire order my sinuses swelled to the bursting point, my throat was a fiery pathway to hell, my chest was carrying a twelve pound weight, and my eyeballs were popping out. I more or less stayed that way for a week. During the week, I did nothing except go to the eye doctor and then back home.

None of this is noteworthy except that on the trip back up to the farm, I did NOT see the sheep. Correction, I did not see 14 of the sheep. There were 3 in paddock 2. That was Tuesday. Wednesday saw me stagger out to check the stock. The steers were fine. There were 7 sheep in paddock 2. There were no sheep in paddock 3. At least none I could see from the road. That left me with minus 10 sheep.

I wasn’t worried. Paddock 3 is the one with the deep swale and you can lose a cow in there. Actually, I once managed to lose all 5 of ours. So I set off again that afternoon and looped paddock 3 including the swale. No sheep. Now this is not an easy search. The grass is chest high, the footing is very uneven, and it is steeply hilly. And I was feeling rotten. Perhaps not the perfect time to play Sherlock the sheep searcher.

I reassured Dan and Yael that the missing wool bearers were doubtless down in the swale playing hide and seek. Since my eye surgeries I have to wear these deep dark glasses and I probably missed them hidden in the grass.

I skipped the sheep hunt on Thursday since it rained all day. But today, Friday, saw me resume the hunt. I am embarrassed to admit it but I even started looking for sheep scat to see if they had spent any significant time in some gulley. No scat; no surprise since it had poured all yesterday. Also, no sheep.

Back to my room for lunch. I gave an update to Dan and Yael who were noticeably more concerned now that it had been 4 days since a sheep sighting. So I turned off the stove and went back out. Boy, I wish I could make a dramatic story out of this. I could gain great street cred with my kids but the truth is, all 10 were peacefully grazing in the upper portion of paddock 2. There they all were: 17 sheep all presenting me with equally innocent faces along the lines of “Who, me?” But I knew better. All I had to do was look over at RAMbo. His face was turned away from me but his shoulders were shaking. Another deep sheep belly laugh from he who always wins.

NOTE to readers. I was just kidding about not telling Dan that I had broken the gate.(See previous posting)  I use that gate at least twice a day. I need it to work. I am not a duplicitous mother scheming against her hard-working son. I was just kidding! Honest! You can stop with the emails now. Please!

The Day of the Trees

You know how you refer to unusual events as “the day Johnny broke his collarbone”, or “the day my car died on the interstate 15 miles from anywhere”? Well, Wednesday was that kind of day. I call it the day of the trees.

I had decided to update you with all our permaculture efforts and wanted to start with how our orchard was doing in front of the red, red barn. I got out my trusty camera and hoofed it down the road to take a picture of the peach tree we planted last year which is doing marvellously well this year. Good visual on the way we are trying to turn this farm into a haven for trees.

The gate into the orchard has always been difficult. Of all our wooden gates, this one is perhaps the worst. I can’t get it open without hauling it upward to slip the hook out of the socket. Since it is a very heavy wooden gate (made more so when it is wet, which is always), I use my foot as a lever. This, along with my shoulder action usually gets the gate up enough to slip off the hook. And it did so this time. Unfortunately, it also broke the gate which dropped, very heavily, down on my foot.

With the gate drooping disconsolately in the road, I decided to haul it back into position and pretend I was never there. Wood doesn’t take fingerprints very well, does it?

I had barely gotten the broken timbers in place when Dan came barrelling down the road in the quad (which, by the way, I have never yet been allowed to drive, but I’m not bitter!). Swinging himself off the quad, he matter-of-factly said, “So the old gate has finally had it, eh?”

Now you know why I never turned to a life of crime. I’m terrible at it. Here I thought I was hiding the results of my incompetence and Dan was watching the whole thing from the top of the hill.

Dan then informed me that it was time to move the steers from paddock #1 behind the red, red barn up to the paddock in front of the new barn. Great! I always love it when the stock are in that paddock, I can see them from my window and don’t have to get wet hiking a mile to check them.

So we open the gate – very gingerly but it holds together, sort of. And lead out the steers. These steers are more than ready and bolt eagerly for the new grass on the verge of the roadway. All except one; that one being #104. 104 has been cross-grained since we got him. If the herd goes north, he goes south. If I want him in the next paddock, he flicks his tail and refuses to move, no matter what.

So true to his nature, 104 heads straight for one of the newly planted eucalyptus trees and bites off its head. A screech of pure pain comes out of my son’s mouth and he heads up toward the mangled tree swearing oaths of vengeance on #104 and at the same time, vainly trying to save the mangled splinter that was so recently a tree.

The rest of the trip is spent in a sullen silence by 104 (ha, ha, you thought it’d be Dan, didn’t you). Dan is quite peeved but fairly accepting since it’s all part of being a farmer. As we hike up behind the cows, he tells me that he thinks he’s found the entrance route of the rats that converge in my ceiling every evening.

Now this is good news. I have mentioned before that it sounds like a rats’ convention at happy hour up there and I get a creeped-out feeling as I hear the scrabbling, clawing, and other weird noises as I’m tryng to sleep. I keep thinking that all that activity will eventually come through the ceiling and onto my bed – with me in it.

So I keep my enthusiasm level high as Dan informs me that he will need my help with the ropes. “What ropes?” I ask. The ropes that will pull the extremely large branch of the pine tree down off the roof. Pull off a tree branch, how hard can it be?

I am about to find out. It is late afternoon when Dan fires up the old chain saw and sets to work. I go off to do something. Just about anything else. I am nervous around chain saws and even more nervous when someone I love dearly is around them.

It is coming on to nightfall when I go out to see if Dan is finished. I want to remind him that 8:00 is past dinner time (once a mother, always a mother). The tree branch has been partially sawn through and is resting on the roof. Dan is up an extremely precarious ladder trying to hand saw off the minor branches. With keen insight, I immediately notice that the ladder’s feet are slipping on the wet,  pine needled soil, down into the water gulley that surrounds the garage. Now this gully is no slouch, it comes up to my knees and is treacherous.

I point this out. I won’t use the word ‘snarled’ but the response is less than cordial. I go back to the kitchen and eat my dinner. At about 8:30 I return and stand silently as Dan makes a number of fruitless attempts to better anchor the ladder. I say “at the risk of having my head bitten off, I want to point out that it is getting dark.” Dan responds with a gloomy “I know but I can’t leave the tree limb up there. It might slide down and knock off the water pipes leading to our water tanks.”

Yes, folks, this tree limb is jeopardizing the entire household water supply. And just when we have finally gotten rid of the poison that laid me low twice after we had the roof power washed. Now I’m as invested in this project as my son.

“What can I do?”

“Hold this rope while I try to saw off the rest of the limb. When it’s free, pull on your rope to keep the branch from sliding down this side.”

We tried. We really tried. But the limb gets caught up on a spike of its severed self and won’t budge. It is now really, really dark and we are working by light of my bathroom window which is covered with tree branch. Finally, at 10, I call game over and we decide to try again in the morning. This means early since Dan was supposed to go back to Auckland that night for an early business meeting.

At 6:30 the next morning I am ready. I am wearing my trusty parka. Lands End, I miss you terribly. What will I do when this parka finally goes to garment heaven? At least it’s daylight and we can see.

Dan is a very methodical person. Me, not so much. So I get edgy after Dan spends an hour (it seemed that way) trying to figure out the best way to get the limb off the roof, save the water system, not break my bathroom window and not get hurt in the process.

I mutter. He finally turns to me and asks, “what would you do, Mom?” And I tell him. I pull my ropes this way, and as the base of the tree limb is freed, he hauls on the other ropes the other way so that the top  swings away from the water pipes. But first, he needs to climb that shaky ladder yet again and chain saw off that spike holding the limb.

We follow the plan and so does the massive tree branch.Then we cut off the ancillary branches and haul the whole thing out of the gulley into which it had fallen.  It is 8:30 and Dan dashes for the shower and Auckland. I throw the severed branches over into the forest for permaculturing at a future time and follow him into the house. The day of the trees is over.

 

I'm Back

 

I have just gotten back to the farm after a month in the US. I had a great time reconnecting with old friends but I was back and it was time to shoulder the burden and tackle the sheep once again.

The past two days I have spent babysitting my totally adorable younger grandchild, Naavah. So I haven’t been able to hike the paddocks for my up close and personal inspection of the stock. I was only able to get furtive glimpses from the roadway (those darn sheep remember me and run over the hill as soon as they hear me coming). So today I was child free and determined to count heads.

While I was gone, another lamb had been born, bringing our total to 16. Focus on that number, it becomes important later on. From the road I was only able to count 15, no matter how often I tried. So up over the hill I went. By scouring my pathetic short term memory bank, I was able to remember that we had 2 black ewes, 1 ram, and 7 white ewes. Add to that the twins, a white lamb and 2 black lambs for a total of 15. The newest addition looks to be about a week old and another white one was born in the past two days (I think) bringing the total to 16. Still at 16 since one of the ewes is missing.

I was afraid she had drowned in the creek, or was caught on wire. But no! After a long search, through water, thickets, wet grass and all the usual sheep and steer poo, I found that she had gone off by herself to give birth to yet another white lamb. The Stone Tree Farm total is now 18. Not bad. We have had a total of 9 live births, 1 death, so 8 of our 9 ewes are fertile. And so is RAMbo. I congratulated him on my way out to the road. He just lifted a weary head and gazed at me. His work was done and he was plumb tuckered out.

Everything else is going well here. The raised veggie beds are thriving with abundant weeds (my next major task). The house is almost completely painted and the equipment to make a true garden, i.e., posts, netting, etc. has arrived. And then there are the seedlings. Dan planted some of them but I have two flats of tomatoes and no clue as to where they can go. Perhaps pots on the patio with netting over them. I’ll run it by command central and see.

Right now I am sitting back revelling in Spring (it’s a chilly Fall back home) and contemplating setting out flats of cherry tomatoes. Oh well, no need to be hasty. Until the garden is finished there is no place for them anyhow. I think I’ll take a leaf out of RAMbo’s book and just keep on doing nothing.