Monday, December 14, 2009

Vermin Control

We have for several months now been fighting a battle with two of our friendly neighborhood raccoons. They sneak into the garage at night and help themselves to the cat food and water. Cute, yes. But a little irritating. It became really irritating when they, apparantly wanting more than what I was feeding the cats, tipped over the tupperware container holding the cat food and helped themselves to 5 lbs of cat food, buffet style. Three times.
And, to no one's surprise, I have had a difficult time with the mechanics of the trap door on the live trap. Sometimes simple workings elude me. In fact, I have set up and caught, then released said raccoons approximately three times. I never seem to get the trap door right. Until yesterday. Oh yes, read on....

Scene: Our bedroom, 3am this morning.

Todd is preparing to leave for work and heads out to his truck parked outside our bedroom window. Tromp, tromp, tromp, then tap, tap, tap on the window.

Todd (through the glass): "Did you move the trap? It's way down by the blackberries."

Me: "No. Check it. It probably has a cat in it."

Tromp, tromp, tromp.

Todd: "Nope. We got a 'coon! I'll get it after work."

Me: "You can't leave it there all day."

Todd: "They live outside. He'll be fine."

Me: "It's inhumane to leave him there all day. Can't you take him to work and let him go?"

Todd: "Fine."

Tromp, tromp, tromp. Back to the trap. "Ouch! Dammitt! #$%$%^ man."

Tromp, tromp, tromp. Back to the window.

Todd: "He's crazy. He went after me when I tried to pick the trap up."

Me (half asleep): "Maybe some gloves....?"

I hear a gun cock, then tromp, tromp, tromp. *pause*

BLAM. Silence.

Truck tailgate goes down. Trap in bed of truck. Tailgate goes up. Truck drives off. Hmm.

So, then I start thinking "I wonder if the neighbors called the cops?" Because that kind of behavior is normal: yelling through the windows in the middle of the night, yelling back from inside the house, tromping around, gunfire, vehicle traffic after shots are fired. Our neighbors love us. Perhaps I should call and tell them I'm OK....

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

What Do You Do When The Pigs Are Bigger Than You?

Weighing in at about 90 pounds each I don't think they're such cute little piglets anymore. And, they have this irritating habit of getting behind me whenever I go in their pen and rooting at my calves and trying to chew on my boots - a trick that was cute when they were little - not cool now that they're bigger. Plus, but the time I turn one around to shoosh one of them away another one comes around the other side headed for my other leg. I'm sure I look like an idiot tripping through the mud trying to scare the pigs away from me.


I thought I had the perfect fix to the problem: I moved their feed and water troughs close to the fence so I wouldn't even have to go in their pen anymore. I can simply dump the slop over the fence and can reach the water faucet from outside their pen. Tada!

Now, don't get me wrong: the pigs have done an amazing job of rooting up the little enclosure. It was full of burdocks and weeds and who knows what else they've dug up (rocks, sticks, stumps, bricks, nails, etc.) and they have done an amazing job making it look like a perfectly rototilled garden. That was until it started raining three weeks ago. Then it turned into, well, a pig sty! The foot of beautiful tilled dirt turned into two feet of boot-sucking, slippery-as-snot mud which is what forced me into moving the troughs against the fence. I was lucky to leave that pen alive some mornings.

Well, the two feet of hilled-up, mounded-up, stinky-ass, slicker-than-snot mud has now turned into the Himalays of frozen tundra. I kid you not: there are frozen peaks of mud and pig poo at least 3 feet tall out there. So, night before last in the freezing weather I ran out to throw some more straw in the pig house. Did you know pigs get goose bumps? Poor things....

Anyway, it was dark and I was carrying probably 20 pounds of straw through the pig pen trying to see using light from the neighbor's barn to reflect where the peaks and valleys of frozen pig poo were. A head lamp would have been smart, but I digress...

I'm trying to help these things out, ya know? And there they came: all three of them, swarming me like I was a cart of fresh produce. I got so freaked that they were going to knock me over I tripped on a peak of shit and nearly went face first into the dirt. I just kept remembering what my dad said about his friend who's own pig bit his leg and he had to have it operated on. Dear God. What have we done? I stumbled around and managed to get the straw in the house and make a speedy exit. I keep wondering though...if I'd fallen down who would have found me? Todd would have come home and found the baby watching Shrek, the dog laying there hungry and no sign of me. Because, really, we've all seen Hannibal Lecter. We know pigs eat people. And people eat pigs...it just depends on who comes out of the pen alive, right? I'm working on some kind of straw-launcher so I really never have to go in there. I'm not gonna die in there.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

And then there was none...

D-day was Monday. We all knew it was coming. We all knew they were livestock. This is a small farm with farm animals not pets. Cows are stupid and dirty. They make a mess out of your field. The pasture is destroyed in places and need to be reseeded. There is cow poop everywhere. We had to worry at times if the fence was on or if the bull got out with the neighbor girls. We got up at least twice in the middle of the night to see if the fence was on and went into the woods to see if they were all still on our property. We had to worry if they were getting enough food and water. When we went out of town we had to hassle the neighbors or the folks to watch them. Livestock are a hassle all around. #84 got sick his last two weeks and cost us $ 160 to try to make his last days more comfortable. Is that good husbandry? I don't know. But it was the right thing to do. So Monday we were all a little happy for them to go right? They will be providing cheap meat for are friends and family. We might be able to save a little money on meat now. They were just cows. If that was the case then why would we look out the kitchen window wanting to see them in the pasture? Hopefully the next group of cows will be just like these, just cows.

A little history...

Last year we bought our first home together.  We think we scored a great deal.  Three bedroom, one bath home on just shy of 5 acres.  It came with a shop with a covered area on the back for our sailboat and a detached garage.  The house and property needed alot of work.  We worked on our house all summer long.  Now it is a four bedroom, two bath home.  We bought this property to have animals and a garden, maybe even make it a small farm.

This blog will record how we progress into becoming a Small Farm

Sunday, November 1, 2009

I have seen alot of gross things...

...but watching the vet "syphon drain" a cow's stomach rates up there pretty high. Thank God my dad came up to help with the vet call this week. (Notice how he gets all the fun cow-related call outs? The castration, the loose bull, the stomach pumping...)


So, #84 had a huge air bubble in his rumen and needed the pressure relieved apparently. This involved some pretty exciting equipment and maneuvering on the part of both the vet and my dad. The really great thing is that since I had the baby strapped to the front of me I became just an observer instead of a participant.

First, he inserted a 1 1/2 inch piece of PVC pipe about a foot and a half long into his mouth and clipped it with one of those bull nose-clippy things right to his nose. The pipe was just so he didn't bite down on the 6 feet of garden hose he threaded through it down into his stomach. He used what looked like a bicycle pump to pump ~3 gallons of water into his stomach via the tubing. He was supposed to syphon-barf his stomach contents, but it didn't work. Hmm. Add another 3 gallons or so? Yep!! He pumped some more and when he disconnected the hose all hell broke loose!!! You have got to be joking me.

#84 barfed probably 5 gallons of green, half-digested, stank, rank, absolutely stinky cow vomit all over the stall. And it wasn't like he stood still either - he was all poltergeist about it. His head was thrashing all over and the vet and my dad jumped back while he barfed, and barfed, and barfed some more. I had ring-side seats for the whole thing and barfed a little in my mouth. Gross.

They pumped him full of electrolytes and sent him on his way.

$165 later and an entire day spent scrubbing the stall down, we're good to go.

You couldn't pay me enough to do that.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Sick Cows...Everyones favorite

We're such naturals at this whole farming thing. Sometimes I wonder what we've gotten ourselves into. It will be nothing short of a miracle if these things live to see the slaughter house! Who knew you could actually overfeed a cow? Can't they eat any amount of anything? Apparently not because when we fed them, oh, ten 5 gallon buckets of some left over granola they weren't right for a few days. Apparently if cows are licking the wood in their shed it means they are missing some minerals...


After an early morning call to the vet's office they assessed they had a serious case of indigestion and recommended giving them a pound of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda - an antacid) and each of them would need to be giving 4 magnesium oxide tablets (a laxative). Because a person can just walk right up to a cow, ask them to open their mouth and put the pills in, right? Or, maybe if they were laying down we could just slip them in? No doubt this involved putting the halter on them and we haven't been practicing that...

I found 4 pound packages of baking soda at Cash and Carry and, surprisingly, when it was sprinkled on the salt block they licked it right up. Sadly enough I wasn't part of the pill-popping brigade. That was left to Todd and my dad - the official cow whisperers.

The scene played out something similar to the time we had #84 castrated. If you remember it was pretty much a shit show. I was inside with the baby and caught most of the show from the kitchen.

#86 went well. Well, its hard to struggle much with the rope so tight around one's neck....and #81 (the bull) even went well. I think they were even able to get the halter on him. #84 got his dose too, but the best part was watching Todd try to run down the sketchy #85. He's a little wiley and pretty quick and obviously was feeling much better than the others because he ran Todd back and forth across the field a good 5 times before Todd gave up. I'm thinking if the cow is running the 40 yard dash he's probably feeling alright and doesn't need the medicine anyway.

So, what we've learned here is that cows can develop a fairly common condition called acute acidosis that is similar to a person getting an upset stomach. That condition requires a person to dose them orally which sucks. You're better off cutting back the grain and sticking with upping the roughage!! Who knew?

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

In with One and Out with Another

Animals...animals...animals....

Just when you think we should start charging admission to the "Smeltzerville Petting Zoo" we have added to our brood! We recently acquired (short term anyway) another horse!! I know what you're thinking: I have 5 more weeks until I can even think about getting on the one I already have, so why another? Well, Shadow is the retired 4-H project of a friend of mine who needed a place to crash for a little while. Jazzy had a difficult time accepting the gift of instant friend, but after a couple of days seems to be doing just fine with it.

And, as one comes in one goes out! Tux, the black and white cat (get it? Tux?) that we acquired a couple of years ago has gone back to his real home with his dad Burch. Before Todd and I bought our house we were living at the beach at Semiahmoo. Our friend Burch went sailing for nearly a year and we took over watching Tux. Well, after a voyage full of wild tails that spanned from here to Mexico, Hawaii and back he has landed safely in Blaine and was excited to see his old friend Tux. He moved out yesterday and was headed to a much quieter house with Burch and his 12 year old Chihuahua, Pancha. I'm sure he's glad to be out of our mad house!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Three Little Piggies

The perfect time to add three 8-week old piglets to an ever-growing collection of farm animals is 2 days before the birth of our first baby, right?

They are so cute though! They're all from one litter and are about the size of a medium terrier now - but they grow fast! I was out last night playing with them and they're still a little timid, but two of them let me scratch their snouts and then relaxed enough for me to scratch their heads and behind their ears. They really are adorable.
And, for those of you who are wondering if we've named them: NO, we haven't! If we're having this much trouble coming up with a name for our baby do you really think we've got it together enough to name the pigs? Come on...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Canning-Therapy for Pregnant People

I don't know what it is about canning that just seems so theraputic at this point. It started out pretty innocently with 8 jars of pickles and 6 jars of pickled green beans and went out of control from there. Applesauce last weekend (12 or so jars of the regular and 12 or so with blueberries mixed in) and more pickles night before last. There's something about having a kid that put me into overdrive with the canning thing. Because normal people don't drag their husbands out of bed at 7am on a Sunday morning to pick pillowcases full of apples to convert to sauce, right?

Our pickles didn't turn out very good at all - WAY too much spice, so after the "version" fiasco the other day, thinking I totally deserved a watermelon from the fruit stand, we ended up with 20 lbs of pickling cucumbers too! We spent ALL night boiling jars of cucumbers and I'm proud to report we have a new addition of roughly 30 jars of pickles to add to our collection of canned, frozen, or otherwise stored food!

Because babies eat applesauce, plum butter and pickles, right? And as Todd pointed out: we have never once bought a jar of applesauce. Looks like everyone is getting pickles for Christmas!!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

And the Barn has Lights!

Yes, its true: We accomplished our very first wiring project on our own - together. We didn't mean too, and certainly wouldn't have attempted it by ourselves, but my dad was on vacation the weekend we planned the big event and its just getting to be too dark in the morning to really go much longer without lights inside the barn.
Now, for those of you who don't know Todd is a little shaky with the ladders (remember when I was screwing together roof joists and putting on the metal roofing while he handed up tools and screws?...) so I ran the wires down the center beam to all the necessary outlets and installed and wired in the overhead lights while Todd was the brains behind the operation, figuring things out from the ground.
One would think that with only two wires (one black, one white) and a copper ground it wouldn't be that hard to get it right.

Right.

First we had power to the outlets, but not the lights. Then we had power to the lights but not the outlets. Then the outlets had constant power and no lights, but both the black and the white were hot to the lights, but they wouldn't come on. Then, the outlets worked but the light switch wouldn't turn the lights on or off. I was up and down that ladder making adjustments and nothing was working!! This was like some torturous mind game that was about to send me over the edge!

AND every new adjustment to the wiring plan (or lack thereof...) meant a jog to the house (which seemed to get further and further away) to shut off the breaker (not falling for THAT one again...) and then a jog back to turn it on to test the new arrangement.

We had nothing and my legs felt like they were going to seize up after my ten millionth trip up and down that ladder with the drill, wire strippers and power tester. Todd, admittedly being the more logical of the two of us, went to the shop and traced a line there that actually worked: as in it had lights, outlets and a switch that turned them on and off. By this point my brain could not take the stress of the power issues and in the time it took Todd to go to the shop and back I was able to dismantle most of the work we'd completed thus far! My logic said "start over" while his was more like "we're almost there....just a few adjustments and we'll have it." He shoulda moved faster. I was ripping wires apart faster than a power shopper goes through a sale rack.

I mean, how can both legs of the switch be hot at the same time and the switch NOT shut it off at all? This exercise in futility was frying my brain and in the last possible wire formation and one last half-hearted jog to the breaker box and back we had lights!! We had lights AND the switch worked! We had light, the switch worked AND the outlets had power!!

Ten hours later, one near-meltdown and a fried brain and we had it!! We have one entire side with lights and now we need to put them up on the other side. Perhaps next weekend - not like we have a whole lot going on, right?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Dad Goes Down the Well

I know, I know.... not like "What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?"
Let me first preface this post with saying: Dropping someone down the well casing to clean it out is NOT normal behavior. However, my parent's well is only ~18 feet deep and this has been done before.

One of the joys of living in the country is the opportunity to have one's own well water and septic system. Public utilities (like water and sewer) are so convenient, but when you must tend to your own well and septic systems and your water starts turning a little murky and smelling a little musty you start looking around mentally measuring waist sizes of your family and friends in an attempt to assess just who will fit down the well casing.



Now, when I was a little kid I always had the job of retrieving things from tight places and doing weird things where no one else could fit. (Except for the time my younger brother got his hand stuck in the wall trying to find an electrical wire...but that's another story...) For instance, once while adjusting the timing on a car my dad dropped a bolt down into the engine and although you could see it no one had small enough hands to grab it. "Hey, run in the house and grab Rikki." Or, the time just last summer when I got to wire the thermostats in the attic crawl space because, "Honey, I just don't fit up there."

So, naturally, I figured I'd be going down my parent's well to spray it down and pump it out. And, had I not been 8 months pregnant I think I would have gone down there. My mom insisted, "You're not taking my grandson down there." But really, in my current state, inch for inch my dad's waist is smaller than mine. That, and there's nothing like calling Medivac for help extracting the pregnant lady stuck in the tight spot of the well casing. That's a one way ticket to a Darwin Award.

When I arrived things were mostly staged and ready to go. The above ground portion of the casing was removed, the sump pump was in place and the tractor was ready with a chain hanging from the bucket to lower and then raise my dad in and out of the well. Perfect! I brought the camera and a cell phone (because really, what could possibly go wrong?!) and Todd arrived wondering if we'd already signed off our confined space entry permit. Right. We'll get right on that.

And... things went off without a hitch! We lowered him via the chain suspended from a diving-board like thing strapped to the bucket of the tractor, then handed down the hose to spray it down and then we pumped out the mucky stuff at the bottom and hauled him back up. The well is doing great and it'll probably be another 25 years before we have to do it again.

We lowered things up and down via a bucket on a rope and all I could think of was that creepy scene from Silence of the Lambs where he has that girl down the hole and keeps saying, "It puts the lotion on the skin or it gets the hose..."

Looking through the pictures now I likely think we would have been fined by OSHA, the county, the state and whoever else would have witnessed this event. Todd hoisting him up (very gently..) using the bucket of the tractor was priceless and all my dad had to say when he got up was, "I think that's the last time I'm going down the well." Good thing Todd and I were there to witness just how to do this so next time we can be more helpful!

Friday, July 31, 2009

The Bull is Where? Doing What?

If you've been reading the blog thus far you know that we have 4 Angus cows - three steers and one bull. (We had two and two but, after a rather traumatic vet visit, were left with three steers and only one bull.) They have been progressing quite nicely, growing and maturing. Sorry to say they won't be around too much longer - and after Monday's events, if it were up to me, the bull may not be around much past this weekend.

Our field's fence line runs the length of our property and borders our neighbor's field completely on that one side. Our 4 cows are penned off the front of our property (where the horse is located), but they still have access to about 1000' of the neighbor's fence line. And, the neighbors just happen to have two very cute, fuzzy, sweet, pure-bred Scottish Highland heifers that our young boys (particularly the bull) think are very, very pretty! One can see where this is going....

Todd got the call Monday morning. "Your bull is in our field." So, he headed for home where my dad met him to help wrangle the bull back in to our pasture. By the time they arrived, however, the bull was quite upset because due to an obvious miscalculation on his part he had pushed through the fence and landed in a pasture completely devoid of other bovine. He was one pasture down from the girls and one over from his boys. And pissed apparently. He tried pushing back through the fence he came through but gave up after he got tangled (more pissed). I mean, you don't just walk up to a 1200lb bull and slip the halter on him and head back to the farm!

From what I understand my dad had a can of grain trying to seduce him through the gate in the back of our neighbor's property, into the un-fenced woods and through the gate back into our property. The bull got pissy with my dad and charged at him but, eventually gave in and followed the grain back to our field.

Now, when I found out what had happened everything had already been taking care of. My response was to shoot the bull. #1: He's just getting to be too big to "play like I'm going to charge you" and #2: In my opinion: once a fence wrecker - always a fence wrecker. Todd has a certain softness for the bull and convinced me "It's not his time yet." I was under the impression we had just bought a pure bred Scottish Highland cow about to calve a 1/2 Scottish, 1/2 Angus calf. Mmm. Sounds expensive. Had it not been for the obvious, glaring ineptitude of our cow we may have bought one of those. I've always insisted that any animal that can (and does!) put it's own tongue all the way up it's own nose may not be the brightest bulb in the box, ya know? Looks like my intuition may have paid off this time.

We had a few minor fencing repairs that evening - most notably the fact that we didn't have power down that side of the fence - and we're 3 days with no escapes. We all lived...this time.

I'm going to look into it, but my mom thinks just maybe two registered cows of different varieties might make a calf that's twice as expensive as a stand-alone Angus or Highland. Perhaps?

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Finally Jazzy Comes Home!

Finally after what seems like an eternity my horse Jazzy made her way to the farm! I've known we were buying her for quite some time (nearly 4 months), but there were just so many things that needed to be completed before she came. There was fencing the property (obviously she can't live on a stake line the whole time..), installing the gates, running the wire, building the barn, running the water lines, etc. We had quite the project cut out for us. Well, most everything was complete (minus the barn, which still needed the stalls framed in), so she was ready for her debut!!

She's settling in just fine and it is so nice to have her home and, thanks to wonderful neighbors that have an arena accesible from our yard, I've been able to keep up on the (very light!) riding.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Barn Raising 101

And, yes, boys and girls: the quickest way to get yourself nominated for this year's Darwin Award is, in fact, to put the pregnant lady on the peak of the barn securing the trusses!!

So, we're building this barn (we being my dad, myself, Todd and an occasional brother conned into it whilst stopping for some totally unrelated subject). The barn will be magnificent when we're finished - it just seems like the never ending project. And, to tell you the truth, most days we'll get home from work and my dad's already been working on it most of the day.

The funniest part I think came while sitting atop the rafter peak. My dad and I were running 2x4s across the trusses in order to screw the metal to the roof and had sent Todd to the hardware store for more screws. So, as I was sitting there I was thinking to myself, "ya know when you read the stories about stupid people doing stupid things? And then you think to yourself 'what were they thinking? Like, what were they even doing there?'" Right. Stupid people.....

So, as I was perched with hands and legs spread between trusses, no safety gear to speak of (lanyard, harness, fall protection, etc.), holding myself up and looking directly down at the ground 20 feet in the air, all while wrangling the skill saw and cordless drill I couldn't help but think to myself what the rescue workers would be talking about at break time...

1. "Who put the pregnant lady on the roof?"

2. "What was she doing up there anyway?"

3. "Where was her husband?"

Then, jostling me from my daydream, was Todd looking up at me, "Honey, do you need more screws?"

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Welcome to Farming!

After a long and laborious fence building session that involved a tank-like hole drilling apparatus, the help of my entire family and long, long days...we finished fencing in the back 5 acres of our property. In an attempt to raise our own hormone/antibiotic free beef cattle Todd searched and searched for just the right set of cows to come check out the new digs. I didn't have the heart to tell them they won't be staying too long (they're slated for slaughter this fall), but that's another story....

Todd found an amazing set of 2 steers and 2 bull yearlings. They were delivered early last month. Our first order of business was to turn one bull into a steer. How does one do this you ask? Well, it started with us hitting the "elasterator" aisle of the local farm store. After our repeated questioning of, "Don't they come any bigger? I mean, these are almost full grown cows.. they're junk is, well, a lot bigger than that." we called the vet out. I missed the show, but apparently it went something like this:

Step 1: Place halter on bull in question

Step 2: Lead unsuspecting bull into temporary holding cell

Step 3: Distract long enough for vet to put not one, but TWO, surgical bands around a very sensitive area and then administer a tetanus shot.

Step 4: Release newly formed steer to the field, never to come close to humans again.

Right. I must say that night of practicing putting the halter really paid off, because when the vet arrived Todd already had #84 (we refuse to name them and only call them by their ear tag numbers) haltered and tied up waiting. He walked right in and with a little squirming did alright. He was hard to approach for a while (especially from behind - go figure) but I think has made a full recovery! My dad came to watch the festivities but was seriously let down by the lack of entertainment.

Note to self and others: buy them already made into steers. They cost the same and you don't end up with and elasterator you're too ashamed to return to the store because it "just wasn't big enough."