Sad Day on the Farm

     "No, No, NO, NO, NO, NONONONO NOOOOO!" (The words that launched my day.)

     The day before was perfect. Perfect weather...Perfect play day for the babies.  Everyone was hoppin' and happy. The farm had life everywhere as we built new pens, played with camera ideas... worked on everything from shelves to latches to perfecting ways to make life easier when you're walking out the door, hands full of bowls and buckets...In short, it was a typical day on the farm.
     By evening, as folks left one by one, I took two hours around news time to catch up on emails and reconnect with the world. Around 8 I headed back to the barn where I played for a couple more hours, simply because the window for doing such is fleeting when it comes to goat babies, yet it'saddictive. I want to max out every moment I can. Another round of phone pix showed the world a bunch of happy and healthy, all nestling down for the night. I double checked heat lamps, assigned the pups their duties (1 outside the stalls, 2 outside doors, 1 inside with me). I left the night lights and radio on to keep everyone company. (For the record, my goats are Opry goats. They were birthed and weened on WSM.)
     Next morning, the routine starts all over again. Warm meat scraps to mix with chow for the dogs; measure chow for the kids...Suit up in the romper and juggle bowls to the gate; set things on a fence post till you get everyone in place. Open gate: stir, mix, repeat.
     Flinging open the barn doors is our favorite morning ritual...Next to goodnight, it's my favorite part of the day...Cause, behind those doors are a bunch of happy, hungry, noisy babies that the dogs can't wait to play with and I can't wait to see. They always make me laugh. It's life loving life, and for anyone who dreads getting out of bed in the mornings, I recommend farm life highly.
     Now that the babies are a week old, they prefer buddies to mamas every time but feeding time, so they had curled up together in their igloo, turned toward the heat lamp when last I'd left them. (When you lose a baby you go over every detail, time and time again--Should I have done something different? I share this mental exercise for those who write me suggesting they envy my life. There is a lot to love about this goat thing. But there are tears too. Today was a tearful day.)
     With mamas and bucks all waiting at the troughs, I do a double check to make sure all babies are present and counted for. Looking down at the igloo, it was the first thing I saw....Then came the cry that sent the workers in my direction.
     A baby had died in the night. How could this have happened? OMG were there toxic fumes in the igloo? Were the others dead too? Turns out, no. They others were still sleeping, nestled perfectly behind. Inside the igloo, it was warm, but not too warm. The warmth was mostly from their own body heat, as the lamp was a good 8 feet away.  This was some fluke (only I don't like flukes...That baby was fine yesterday. What in the world happened to my baby?)
    Interrupting my flow (which should be to keep focus on the living) I had to stop. (Writer's note: I do not share pictures out of respect young viewers to my FB page, but I do feel the need to write about it. I share that the little girl's body was as perfect in death as it was in life, meaning no trauma, no wounds, no clues...Matter of fact it must've been pre-dawn when it happened, for she was not that cold, only limp and lifeless. Again, you search for every clue in moments like these. These are the things you hash and rehash after your first encounter with death on a farm.)
     She was the gray one. Black boots. Spot on the head. Which told me...absolutely nothing. I have 5 others matching the same description. What's more, her mother is not yet aware. She is at the food troughs. As noted in earlier blogs, goats are very independent. Loyal, yes. They take care of their own. But come food time, it's survival first, so as to feed the others next...(They are the original example of putting your oxygen mask over your face before assisting small children. Airlines should use them in their ads.)
    With all the rest on standby, waiting for their food, I grab a towel and wrap my precious baby, leaving her face exposed so as to show her to TJ who has stayed back to see why his mama has hollered...(My first thought was, "Maybe they played too rough...They do love their babies. Maybe you can run one to death...At this point, the jury's still out.)
     TJ sniffs the baby, then looks at me quizzically. I think he gets it. But I'm not sure. I do the same with Hix, then with Rosey. There'll be one less baby to watch and as I have referenced already, dogs can count.
     I place the lifeless body in the back of my Jeep, and proceed to finish the morning's ritual... I think of Jesus's admonition: Let the dead, bury the dead. After all, there is life that still needs me. While all I want to do is rock a dead baby, I don't have that luxury. Life must go on.
     We finish the breakfast ritual; I head back to the house. With babies all seen to, now playing once again, all I want now, to tend to my baby, and my heart. I log on to get the number for KORD diagnostic lab--a division of the Elmington Ag Center's operation that is a godsend in times like these. For the sake of farmers everywhere, they provide free diagnostics and autopsies on farm animals, after all, if it's a bug, a parasite, if it HAD have been toxic fumes from a heat lamp near an igloo, I and everyone in the world need to know this. So there is a reason this is state funded and made free to us, as not every farmer has the time or resources to go to the trouble to find out why a baby goat died unexpectedly. I cannot say enough good about KORD.
     I gave 'em a head's up I was coming...had the baby in the Jeep (at this point, having no clue as to whose baby she was...While trying to spot it, there was really no way to know for sure, and I had to keep moving.)
     The procedure is this (for those of you curious)...You walk in; give them your name; let them know you have a body to deliver. (I have a whole new respect for undertakers at this stage.) They hand you paperwork. (Sadly, I am already in their system, but each new entry is a new case file.) I'm told someone will greet me at the door...Let's hand the baby off first so the doctors can do a cursory overview, while I finish the paperwork. (Ok. Again, another moment I would never photograph, but I misunderstood the direction, and when closed doors at the loading dock were suddenly now open, I assumed they meant for me to come inside, which was a mistake. I wish I had not done that. Won't dwell on it. Let's just say goats are not the only thing they autopsy.)
     I scurry to take my bundled, beautiful goat baby back to my Jeep where I rocked her and say a prayer until they came for me. (Pretty sure cattle farmers don't do this; then again, we each gotta do what we gotta do.)
     After filling out the paperwork, offering up everything from vet contacts to last clues on ...whatever...whenever...(I have no clue) ...They say someone will be with me shortly.
     Within minutes, a lab-coated, licensed person comes to take a few more details, and may I just say, I would not want her job, but God bless her for doing it. Her job is to find out what happened...And to let me know if I did something wrong. She is a scientist, but she also has a heart. I couldn't have asked for a kinder ambassador.
     On the drive home (which is now mid Friday rush, so I'm crawling along I-40) I receive a call from the lab. (They give you a short overview first; ask a few more questions; the full report comes later, both to you and your vet, so your vet can explain it to you.) Bottom line: still no clue. There was no blunt trauma. (Hix and TJ are off the hook.) The baby didn't freeze. (Mama feels only slightly better, but not much.) In short, the best they can offer is that the baby is anemic and that it hasn't eaten in hours (i.e no food in the digestive track). Did the mother abandon it? Did it play and forget to eat? What could I have done different? (This is pretty much the only thing I'm asking as I drive through teary eyes...Let the record reflect, there is a lot of guilt that goes with this job.)
     For now, we just don't know. Heck, I didn't even know whose baby it was, though sadly, sickly perhaps, I prayed it was one of the twins, simply so the mother would still have something to love.
     By evening, the farm seemed back to normal. No one seemed the wiser. We'd brought Rosebud home mid morning, so she was adapting after her stay at a B&B to get her through her heat cycle. My little neighbor Addison had a sleepover, so thanks to her family and friends, the babies were once again, cuddled and played with well into the night (i.e. we all stayed in the barn till almost midnight).

     The saddest part happens the next day...And today is that day.  With light comes the realization that "She isn't coming back" and only now do I know whose baby it was; only now has it dawned on Donner that she's missing a twin.
     So goes life on the farm. Death is as real as the sunrise. You cannot be angry with it, or you'll rob the living. You must simply process it, allow for it...live with it.
     RIP little baby goat. We asked for meaning to our days...Today you delivered in spades.

Learning How to Count (It's Harder Than You Think)

   

     Admittedly numbers never were my thing. Give me colors. Give me open-ended, spacious any day...Something about linear, logical, mathematical things like counting are a "got to" not a "get to" equation in my book (i.e. something I have to force myself to tend to rather than something I look forward to)...
     Except when it comes to goats.
     Granted, life has gotten pretty busy around here and the cuteness factor is off the charts, but at the end of the day, it is serious business when it comes time to count the babies, 'cause those babies can hide in the sneakiest of places and with 1 white, 3 solid black and the rest some combination of gray, not only are my helpers trained to count, but my dogs count and I count about 20 times a day. (Yes, dogs know how to count. Just try taking 3 bowls or 7 biscuits out when there are 4 dogs to do the math. Rosey is flipping Pythagoras when it comes to biscuits. Meanwhile, Hix and TJ have been homeschooled on goats.)

The Whiskey Update

     There's been some debate as to if Whiskey is blind, as the little guy is getting around quite well, and thank God (and I say that literally) he has taken to nursing. But to see him, you might not be so sure, for he's very happy, like any young kid, he's learning to play and he otherwise, fits right in.
     But to the one watching his every move, there is definitely a difference, the primary one being the reaction of his mother to him (vs. the reaction of the other mamas to their babies).
     For those new to this scene here are a few things to know about goats:
     1) Goat babies come out rather quickly. (They birth in 60 - 90 minutes once the process begins.) Once out, the mother starts cleaning; once dry, they are good to go. They'll usually wobble during the licking process, inching their way instinctively towards the milk supply. By the time they're dry, they're walking and by day two, they're hopping. It truly is amazing. Unlike with puppies or kittens, you don't have to wait 10 days for their eyes to open. They come out bright-eyed and bushy tailed and pretty much wind up toys from the get-go, which is just one more reason to love goats.
     2) Things like nursing come naturally. They have to punch their mama's udder to get the flow going (as a calf would do). In other words, they don't need me to point things out (another reason Whiskey caught my attention; he kept punching at the wrong end of his mom; fortunately, he's since figured it out).
     3) Mama goats know their own (which is a good thing since a half dozen of these babies are identical in markings.) While I'm starting to recognize them by personality, to the naked eye most you can't tell apart. The sweetest trait, which I've spoken to before, is how they pair up at night, each little family sleeping in its own cluster. Whenever I need to know for certain which baby goes with which mama, I just wait till bedtime when they make it easy for me.
     To that same end, when I need to identify someone in a one on one situation (as was the case last week when selling a couple of mamas with their babies, (definitely don't want to send the wrong duo out together as normally a goat will only nurse her own, though I have had one exception*) --all you have to do is put two babies in with one mama and (assuming one of them is hers) she'll let you know by nudging the other away. (A little quick test, which we do several times before letting anyone leave the premises for a new farm.)
    Meanwhile, it is the nature of the mama to get her baby here, lick 'em clean and teach them the routine, then get back to her normal way of life. Sure she's around for when they need milk, but she doesn't coddle; when there's chow or hay or any of the other things that make for a nanny's favorite part of the day, babies can wait. While herd animals, goats are independent thinkers and they are VERY smart. Come chow time, the mamas all rush to troughs and food bowls with little concern for their babies well being until they get theirs, after all, they've been with them all night and if they don't eat, the babies don't eat. They'll get back to them once they've eaten. But nobody puts baby over food come breakfast time, except for Callie.
     Day 4 and Callie still stays behind when I hit the door with that all too familiar food bucket. (And trust me; Callie loves to eat, she just loves her baby more.) So now we have a new routine. All the others do their usual dance of racing to troughs, jumping on spools, checking out their bowls and butting around to spot check each others' bowls. Meanwhile, Callie stands at the barn door and cries. Then slowly she'll walk towards the troughs, but not without making sure her baby is following, meanwhile "whinnying" the whole way, (i.e. making a sound like a horse). To watch little Whiskey following you'd suspect no problem. (And nothing would thrill me more than to think he could see.) But the break in the pattern (both for the mother and for the baby) suggests to me that for Whiskey, we're just going to have to take a little more time and for Callie, we're just going to have to give her her own feeding ritual, after all, blind baby or no, she gets the prize for being the world's greatest mama ~ (And I've seen some really good mamas.)

*Note: the exception I reference regarding the nanny that allowed another goat's baby to nurse came year one when little Rachel lost a baby to a mis-matched breeding that happened before I bought her. (Size of mamas to papas matters. PLEASE folks, never fence pygmies with larger breeds.) The ending was horrific, but we were able to save the mother (Rachel) who was so distraught she wandered for days crying for the baby that did not survive.  Two days later, her sister (Donner) had twins and once done drying them, nudged one over to Rachel to nurse...Again, not a normal thing to have happen with goats...Then again, nothing about this experience has been normal. (We gave that up years ago.)

50 Shades of Gray

Some days, you need no words . . . 

Love is Blind: The Story of Little Whiskey

   

      So I only had a couple of things to tend to, and then...back to business. From Thursday's emergency C-section, to Friday's sleepless night and round-the-clock bottle feedings, we were running on fumes. I needed sleep and I needed to check in with the rest of my life.
     Around 3 o'clock Saturday, I took a break from bookkeeping to go check on the kids. In the corner was Callie, my calico girl, (twin sister to Coco; daughter of Donner, who Thursday night threw her third set of twins in 3 years, bringing the kid count to 12). Thanks to Callie the count would now be 13, (save for a few we sold over the weekend).
     It was a first for Callie and she certainly didn't need my help. By the time I found her she was licking the little guy clean and looking up in her "Look what I made!" proud mama way~
     To her left was Hix, there to protect. Funniest instinct, this Pyr to pygmy bond...it starts at birth if you'll let it. Now that they've convinced me they'll go gentle on the newbies, I leave them be. Because we have so many babies, the dogs take turns picking favorites but once picked, they don't tend to share. (Though I will say, we got some serious 50 shades of gray going on over here, so it's hard to tell about 8 of them apart, though their mama's know instantly.)
     Sunday morning I headed out to the barn where opening the door normally nets me a stream of hungry, bleating energized goats ready for their chow, which we feed across the lot to free up the barn for cleaning. Like ducks in a row, they pile out...First Heffner, then Cupid, then Elsie, then . . . on and on in their little goat parade. And now we have the little ones, hopping and darting and dancing between their mamas and each other...dodging the dogs and hopping like bunnies. The entire feeding routine requires a great deal of dexterity as running from bowl to bowl is a big part of it. While I juggle and stumble about ( the trick is to try to get the food in the bowls before their heads pop up, as goats are persnickety eaters and grain on the ground is grain wasted) we manage to get everyone fed...Everyone, except Callie.
     Back at the barn I hear someone crying. She is standing at the doorway, (most unusual at feeding time) torn between eating and staying with her baby.  I head back across the lot thinking "How odd... Something must be wrong." The baby's only a day old, but that's never been a deterrent. They start hopping as soon as they're dry.  The others have learned to follow their mamas out to the troughs and this one will too. Only this one wasn't. This one (named Whiskey, for a little shot of caramel on his back right flank) was back in his corner, sound asleep despite his mother's loud bleating.
     I coax Callie out with food thinking she's the best mama ever. She doesn't want to leave her baby, so I pick the little guy up and bring him outside to play with the others while she eats. Only he's not game for playing.
     Like everyone on this farm, each baby arrives with personality. Most are curious. Some are skittish; maybe he's just shy. But with Callie's head now in a bowl of chow, I spot check her backside only to find her udders totally engorged from lack of milking. The baby appears healthy enough, but something isn't right. I let her finish, then lead her back into the barn with hay, as I attempt to get little Whisk to latch on, but to no avail. Callie lifts a hind leg welcoming the help. (I've never seen a goat do this. It's a very trusting gesture, after all, I'm not running a dairy operation here and I have never milked Callie, though she took to it quite naturally, as did I...not sure which surprised me more.) I gently pry open the little guy's mouth and physically squirt milk from his mother, but he could care less. He appears to be grasping the concept, just not the teat. Meanwhile he punches blindly near her front legs as if looking for a needle in a haystack. Then it hits me...Maybe he IS blind.
     Oddly enough it's relief, not worry that I see in Callie's eyes. Now that we know she seems perfectly fine. "We'll just have to adjust" she appears to be thinking, and about that time TJ comes to our corner, as if thinking the same. (Note: it was Hix who was first to bond at birth, but on this one, seems they've decided to share, as if to say "One of us will always be watching him Mom, don't worry."
     I head into the house for a mason jar and a baby bottle and return to a most cooperative Callie who whose relief is palpable. (The first few rounds of mother's milk are crucial, as the colostrum helps establish their little immune systems.) We get her milk into the little dude as she continues to munch on hay, fellow goats and 2 big Pyrs ever by her side.
     As with farming, especially so with goats...It really does take a village. If little a blind goat had to be born to someone, he sure picked a good mama, and a village full of open, loving, willing hearts to see him through.

I'd Rather Be Creating

     So no matter how much I love what I do, there are days I MUST focus on things that do not have me singing like Julie Andrews. No whiskers on goats-es, nor Roseys or kittens... (Let me interpret: these things involve numbers.)
     Don't get me wrong. I have a vast respect for numbers. For all my creative ideas...for all the free flowing, stream of consciousness, "Wonder why somebody hasn't come up with one of these?" moments in my day (of which there are many) nothing, and I mean NOTHING comes to fruition without a number.      Be it a book, whose dimensions are first (will it fit in the rack? how many to a case?)  whose page count is a second (did we include enough recipes?)...be it a barn (whose square footage determines the area it winds up in, determines the lumber we need for it) ...be it a  

    (Squirrel!)     As I write, with numbers on deadline, and papers strewn before me, in the background SharkTank plays...In tonight's episode-- two college girls really into sustainable living, want to save the world with a company that makes colored paper plates from recycled paper, and their slogan is: "To save the world, throw a better party!" (Ok. That's one I hadn't thought of. I thought sustainable was about not adding to the trash heap.) Let me get this straight: We're going to party our way to sustainable living with throw away party plates~hmmmm.
     (Then again, they're on Shark Tank and I'm home paying bills...Probably best I not judge it. They might just have a better mousetrap...What do I know?)

God's Little Gift to Me

   
Nothing says silence like snow...
I live for a quiet tomorrow when I'll catch my breath and go over it all again...

Until then, my day, my week, my reflections consist of one thing: in a word... gratitude...

for miracles...
for timing...
for friends....

my room's view this silent, sacred night

A Shift in Goat Birth Patterns: "Caesar the Day"

     I cannot complain for what happened next, after all we've had 8 perfect births in 9 days. Almost forgetting we had 4 more to go, birth 9 set the tone for the morning; birth 10 turned the tide.
     As if my place isn't buzzing enough already, my first meeting of the morning was with a bee keeper to discuss adding hives to the new rows of lavender we're planning for the spring. Mid conversation (with a most colorful character I might add), a worker yells out "Hey, you got another baby!" and I ask the nice man to follow me to the barn.

Shannon w/One of the Twins

    This time it's Stella. Precious little Stella. Born on Mother's Day a year and a half back, Stella (named for my grandmother, Estelle) has been held since birth and is quite frankly, more puppy than pygmy.
     For the past 3 days she's been by my side, stuck like glue watching wide eyed as the other mothers gave birth. (To be honest, she looked downright terrified, looking up after each with her big doe eyes and her poofed out little belly as if to say "I don't think I wanna.... Do I have to?"
     I was a little concerned a) because she's small and b) because she's spoiled. But my concerns were not warranted. Stella did just fine and wound up producing a teeny, tiny little clone of herself that is so cute I can't stand it.
     What was not cute was Pippi in the next stall, writhing in pain. Stella's girl arrived like clockwork --labor less than an hour...Everyone knowing naturally what to do. But Pippi (who I did NOT expect to have a problem) was having problems big time. By the time we got to her, she appeared to have already had her kid. (I'll spare you the detailed "why's" of this, but it was enough to send us searching barn corners for evidence.) Turns out, the kid was still inside her; she was just getting started.
     Unlike the rest, Pippi's labor went on for 2 hours when we grew a bit concerned. By hour 3, her contractions had gone in reverse (i.e. growing longer between not shorter, as is the pattern). Something was definitely wrong; given the amount of time she'd been pushing I felt certain a still birth was transpiring.

Precious Pat and Little Caesar

     My (so called) planned meetings turned into a neighborhood meet-n-greet. My insurance guy got to meet Mr. Bee-keeper. My digital friend out to install a goat cam got to meet the fence dude. Meanwhile, Pat and I were caught in a flurry of back and forth phone calls and google searches. (Pat, my farm hand who happens to raise Nubians, is THE authority on goats, as is his wife who was on the other end of the line, cross checking our options and seeing which vet was closest.)
     Now concerned for Pippi's survival on top of it all, I decide our best odds are getting HER to the vet rather than getting a vet to us, as there might be need for things an OR has that a farm vet might not (like a sterile environment for starters). Pat loads her up. I tend to Stella, hug on the others and pace.
     Two hours later in a text that literally made me cry, Pat writes: "Good call. Little buck--ALIVE! Was breech; would've never made it naturally. Working on mom. Call you soon."
     Moments like these stop me in my tracks. It's become my custom to light a candle I keep on the alter that came with the church. In this case, the candle had been lit all morning. Truly a miracle. Whatever was happening (and Lord knows the cost) we had just experienced answered prayers. Still and so, Pippi wasn't out of the woods yet.
     Another 45 minutes and I read "Comin' home with the family." I shake my head in awe and go in search of another candle.
   

Digital Dave and Shannon

   Meanwhile, of all the days for visits to time out, my 21-year-old niece shows up for our long anticipated holiday/ birthday sleepover before heading back to college. (Oops. I forgot. Now she's 22.) Bless her heart, Shannon's dad got Brentwood genes. Her crazy Aunt Karlen got the farm critter genes, and today those genes were on steroids. But her visit was as divinely timed as the births themselves, after all this was family at its finest...Shannon had a bunch of new cousins to meet and I, on the other hand needed all the help I could get with the feedings. (Because Pippi was knocked out the entire ordeal there was no maternal bonding moment for these two; she needed every ounce of strength for herself, having stopped breathing 4 different times while the doctor worked to get the baby free. Suffice it to say little Caesar's every nursing will come from a bottle, though they were able to milk Pippi while on the table to get the necessary nutrients from mama to baby).

God love you Pat! Couldn't have made it today without you~

     Once again I am reminded "It takes a village" Breathing a huge sigh of relief and hugging everyone in the room, I wash up and start to prepare dinner inviting everyone to stay...This has been one for the record books for sure, and while I got precious little sleep thanks to the 3-hour rotations of bottle-feedings, the exhaustion was well worth the prize of a mama, a baby and a village of friends (both two-legged and four) now centering and celebrating a miracle goat named Caesar (our first C-section baby).
   

Farming and Time Management

     The day was chock full before it started.
     By nature I am an early riser, though I prefer to leave myself room in the first hour or two as my days are those I enter from a grounded, silent beginning. (Not to mention, mornings are when the best writing hits.) Of course, some days don't afford me that luxury. Today was one of those days.
     First a farm hand, next an intern, now an assistant, I am strategically adding talent to the mix with skill sets long overdue for a full time farm operation. The reason this has now become necessary? My lack of time management skills.
     For the record, I decided to start gardening for two reasons:  1) I was double dog dared to make a Southern cookbook that didn't involve heart attack food; 2) my father passed away and I didn't feel like doing a lot of things I was once driven to do.
     With these to incentivize, I came home to the town of my birth, decided to try my hand at full time country living and began this journey with some misguided picture of Henry David Thoreau's Walden years as my guide. (Granted HDT didn't have a smart phone, nor had he seen the movie Julie and Julia, but modern technology seemed a minor alteration; turns out they change the formula entirely.)
     What I anticipated were long periods of silence, meditation and reflective writing.
     What I got was another full time job added to the many hats I was already wearing.
     In a nutshell, I came home to grow a garden, take some pictures, learn to can things and get on with the next cookbook. (In case you haven't noticed, that book's not out yet. It's got a pretty cover and we know what's going in it. I've just not blocked the "butt-to-chair" time to write it until now.)
     Meanwhile, adding to the mix of selling the others (which involves warehousing, reprinting, invoicing and other lovely business things I find less fun than creating). Now I add "farming" (which at first I took on laughingly, but immediately got hooked on).
     As a matter of true confession, I will admit: I've taken farming for granted. I think our whole planet has. "The food will always be there" and "How hard could it be?" played in the back of my mind. (I didn't say these things out loud, but clearly I must've been thinking them for I had no idea how time consuming it was to become.) The good news is, I like it. And I want to do more of it. What's more, I sense the whole planet is starting to take note. You don't have to be a doomsday prepper to sense it would behoove us all to know a little more about where our food comes from and what we are putting into our bodies. After all, our survival gene was handed down. Here of late they're calling it "sustainable living".
   

Day 365 : Happy B(log)-day to Me

    Twas a year ago today I started this little exercise...
    And while I can't say I lived up to the discipline of that Julie girl in the Julie/Julia movie, I can say I gave it my best....I can say I learned a lot...about farming, about writing, about me...
     My "diary of a first time farmer" I intend to uphold...(going into year 2, perhaps not daily...that jury's still out)
     But for what I have learned...
     I can say for sure, it was a challenge worth taking.

     (More on all this later. Day 365 was met with challenges all her own, for which days 366, 367 and 368 shall soon attest...After these, we may regroup on the plan...Right now, I mostly need sleep.)

For the three people out there still reading...I encourage you to grow your own garden...If not veggies or petunias, then the garden of your own life.

For this, this blog was written...
This journey shared...

   

On Weather and Farming

   

    Gonna give this topic more than a couple of pages of blog space, after all, seasons to a farmer are everything. In a nutshell, there's not much you can do about it save to dance with Mother Nature and hope for the best, but for the precious little time I've been at this thing I have to say no two years have been the same. The individuality of a year's weather patterns are as different as the personality traits of a first born to a middle child to the baby of the family. In the words of Forrest Gump, it's kinda like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
     This will mark my 4th season to grow a garden. My first year's garden I recall like mother recalls her first born's first everything. I grew broccoli that year, meaning I was so eager to get into the gardening mode that I planted winter crops. Since he wasn't crazy about the stuff himself, Thurman sent me to the co-op to buy my plants (otherwise we do these things together, but he doesn't grow broccoli). Coming back with what I thought would net a decent yield, I was met with "Good Lord child, how much broccoli you gonna eat?" (I had based my calculation on how many impatience plants it takes to cover a flowerbed, meaning I had bought two plats of broccoli. For the record, 2 - 3 plants (not plats) would've kept me more than fed. I wound up giving the bulk of things to neighbors and my UPS man.)
     The good news is, my winter crops fared well that year; my summer stuff got hit by a draught. Personally I thought I was just lousy at farming until Thurman pointed out "Ain't nobody's corn worth a dern this year." The second year made up for that. While I didn't have a winter garden (year before I had plants in the ground in February,  year two it was March owing to the wetness of things.
     Year 3 (last year) was by far my best garden to date. (I dunno. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it; then again, the weather helped; soil testing helped; adding lime and goat poop helped. Adding Pyrenees who bark at deer and rabbits helped. Lots of things helped.) What I do remember is that it was yet another full month out before I got started. Where year one found me turning my soil in November and planting in February, year two found me turning my soil in January and planting in March, year 3 found me turning the soil a few short weeks before I planted which started in April that year. As for this year, I've yet to turn the soil at all for fear of getting the tractor stuck in the mud. The combination of moist and warm are great for gardens provided it's not January when it's happening. (Turning the old soil and letting it decay is kinda key for the sake of your soil. It's driving me nuts that it hasn't happened yet, but that's just more of the patience that Mother Nature lives to teach you.)