How did we get here???

Life has been so busy (and I have been so incompetent) that I haven't posted much here.

Here's a short rundown of events:

Spitfire was adopted by one of Molly's friend's roommates.  I was happy to give him a good home but his mother is still depressed about his absence.  It makes me feel very guilty.  (But not as guilty as I would feel about having him get smucked in the road or freezing to death in the barn or getting an infection in  some cat-fight wound that I can't afford to treat - so it's all good.)

2nd grade is gong as well as can be hoped.  Issues with working memory are making themselves known and ADHD is looking like a potential problem.  Maxx's teachers and special needs coordinators are Awesome, though.  I could not ask for a better team.

 Molly had her pins and plate removed just after Thanksgiving.  Her ankle is doing MUCH better, much less swelling, greater range of motion, no more hobbling, no more sobbing.  Just in time for the musical.  She will be playing Ruth in Pirates of Penzance.  She was hoping for Mabel but her teachers felt that she was the best possible Ruth because she can do comedy and her strong voice has a great range so she can carry Ruth's music off beautifully.  She hopes to be able to sing with the Pirates in the "With Cat-like Tread " number.


Ruby Thursday is HUGE.

Just about as big as her mom - who is ready to be bred again but I keep procrastinating about that.  (Stop reminding me of my failings!)

Ruby is not a dairy cow.  We're not sure what she is.  She's big, red and fuzzy.  She has horns but they are still tiny at 3.5 months and we may have them poled.  She's pretty calm and friendly, loves to have her neck scratched and is almost as greedy as Svenya about grain.  She may end up being the first cow in Jonathan's future beef herd.

Time to run.  Molly has her post-op follow up appointment today to make sure those bones are filling in nicely.

All photos are of Ruby in her first experience with snow.  Taken over Thanksgiving break when we actually had snow for a minute or two.

The outdoor cats (I suspect one of Elaine's older kittens) left me a gift this morning.







Molly says it is no gift.






It is ransom for This.
















......

Got in touch with the shelter.

No room - not for months.  Someone dropped off about a gazillion cats there earlier this week in a huge dog carrier and now they have no room in the shelter and no crates to loan out.

I will not have another feral cat about the place.  It is one thing when they wander through but when a feral calls this place home it just increases my stress about things like rabies and my other cats getting in fights with them.  (Not to mention the 3:00 am barking that accompanies a feral fistfight outside on the porch.  No thank you.)

So.  This little fuzz ball is in a bin in our small bathroom with his mother.  He is so soft.

We will tame him and potty train him.  Someone will adopt him and give him a home.

Right???

P.S.  We need a large doggie crate for he and mama to live in until he finds a home or is tame enough to live in the woodshed without being contained.  If you have one, please let me know!

So - remember Elaine?  Turns out that she did have two kittens this spring.  They are growing up nice and wild in my barnyard.  There is one little girl kitty that will now eat while I sit a few feet away from her food but the other one won't come near.

Elaine had another kitten a little while ago.  I had been watching her for signs of pregnancy (she will let me pet her and feel her belly) and she seemed not be reproducing again any time soon - except that a few days ago, Maxx came in and said   "Mom!  I just saw a little black kitten!"

He carried on about it for a while but I didn't think much of it because he is BIG into pretending lately.  But then Bry came in and said  that a little black kitten had run across the yard and hid in some stuff near the barn.  I went to look and sure enough - there was Elaine, nursing this one little kitten.

This morning, I stepped out to feed the feral family and the kitten happened to be on the entry way.  When I stepped out, he/she/it was effectively trapped in a little corner.  After much hissing, spitting, clawing and biting, I managed to catch the little bugger sweetie and put it into a cat carrier.  He/she is terrified and trembling and I'm sooo tempted to just set it free to live its little feral life but . . . .

 I do not want more cats around the barnyard that I can't touch and take in for rabies shots, spay/neutering or other care.  And we really can't justify taking Elaine in to be fixed and keeping her on as part of the crew.  She is mean to Emmeth and Midnight - in fact, she won't allow either of them into the barn where they can stay warm so - she has got to go before winter.

Elaine is a beautiful cat (when she lets me take the burrs out of her tail) and I think she would be very happy as an indoor/outdoor cat in a home with no other cats or where she could be the alpha. She likes attention and she's actually pretty affectionate.  I'm sure that this pretty baby will grow up to be a gorgeous cat - looks like a medium length coat and a very pretty face coming on there.





 . . . . .

So yesterday when I thought Svenya had made another escape, I called Bry at work and left a message about my frustration and to plead for some advice.  My language may have been just a tad bit too rich for a District Relief Society President.

And then I had to call and leave another message to apologize for my grouchy one once I found Svenya and her calf all safe and sound hidden in the sumac.

He called me back after he got out of his meetings.  When I told him how utterly unprepared I was to encounter such a perfectly endearing creature, he laughed at me!

It wasn't a nasty laugh or a teasing laugh.  It was the kind of laugh you have when a friend discovers something wonderful and unexpected that you have known all along and it's good to share that thing with them.


I always thought puppies were the best thing in the universe.  It might just be newborn cows.  ( I don't know - maybe it's a tie.  You can pick up a newborn calf and cuddle it under your chin.)

Photos don't capture it - there's something about the way she curls up, all small and quiet and is hardly even there.  And the way her eyes are SO Big when she opens them up and how she's so wobbly and unexpectedly soft.  And that sweet, soft  little mooing song her mama sings to her doesn't hurt either.














. . . .

This is the event I've been stressed and obsessed about for weeks - practically the whole month of August.

 Poor Svenya has been so big and uncomfortable with a bag bigger than I'd ever imagined it could get and lots of cow labor signs that literally went on for weeeeeeks instead of the days or mere hours that they were supposed to last before the calf was born.

 Svenya has also made a couple of escapes this summer so when I went out this afternoon to check on her and couldn't find her, I immediately assumed that she had made another break for it. I went into the house to change my shoes and call some neighbors and then decided to go take one last, thorough look around the pasture before tromping up and down the road with a grain bucket and lead rope.

 Well, I discovered a part of the pasture that I didn't know existed. There's a little stand of sumac between the old stone wall and the far corner of the fence. I thought I could see a Svenya shape back there so I bushwacked my way in there and found her finishing up the placenta and crooning to her baby.

 I had NO IDEA how adorable and soft and endearing a newborn calf is.

 Call me smitten.

 No idea what we'll call the baby yet. There's been talk of naming it Yo-Yo because Svenya has been so indecisive about labor all month long but we'll need to discuss that in further detail. Here are some photos. Hopefully, I'll get better ones this evening when we can move them out of the sumac and into the pasture.

 - Gets your heart rate up first thing in the morning

 - Burns off a few hundred calories before breakfast

 - Helps justify eating that last half of the Maple frosted doughnut your mother brought over last night

 - Prevents one from lazily sleeping the morning away

 - Encourages family unity because you have to wake up the whole neighborhood to help track her down

 - Gives you a chance to meet more of the neighbors because you must warn early morning commuters of the danger of sudden cow appearances

 - Gives you a brand new, fuller appreciation of the phrase "Stupid Cow"

 - Banishes vanity  because who really cares about parading around in your jammies when you've got a thousand dollar investment and a potential lawsuit scampering loose in the road

 - Provides concrete evidence that the gate IS too hard for the woman of the farm to open by herself in a pinch

 - Guarantees a guilt free afternoon nap

You think you want to embark upon a complete overhaul of your kitchen space?    This post is for you.   These are photos of my current kitchen.  This is what I have been living with for a year now. 

It ain't pretty. 

Because it isn't functional. 

I've been constantly frustrated, irritated and hindered by my not-ergonomic kitchen.  I have had 6 strangely shaped drawers, two cupboards, one old ragged set of shelves and a mish-mash of tables and various "surfaces" to work on.  The place stays cluttered because there simply isn't space to put things away in.  If I spend the time to tidy it up and stack dishes, bowls, boxes of food, etc...  It just gets messy again within 24 hours.  Very frustrating.

Not to mention the fact that my studio sink has been doing triple duty as the kitchen and livestock sink. 

Ya.  Gross.  I've been using a lot of Comet since the piggies arrived.

No wonder I haven't gotten any dyeing done this summer.

But this is all about to change.

Cupboards and a dishwasher will arrive on the 16th.  We need to finish the mud work on the East half of the room, prime and paint and get ready to prime & paint the cupboards when they arrive.  Once the cupboards, counters & sink are in, we can shift things to prime and paint the other end of the room.  Bry also wants to refinish the floors at some point in this process - they are really thrashed. 

Maybe by the end of July I will have a working kitchen for real! 

I am sooo excited!












.....

So Svenya is doing fine.  Except that she wants to go outside.  And likes to play with her water bucket.

Last night Bry hung her bucket on the low wall between her house and the pig pen.  Somehow she emptied the bucket (not surprising - I held the bucket while she guzzled three gallons down in about 2 minutes yesterday and then asked for more) and then flipped it over the wall.  I brought out more water this morning, fixed the bucket and filled it.  She sniffed at the water but would not drink it and then tried to lick water out of the empty water carrying bucket and when that wasn't satisfactory, she started attempting to lick my face. 

I think she was trying to show me that her nose wasn't as slobbery as it is supposed to be.

I thought - "Well, I wouldn't want to drink out a bucket that had been hanging in the pig pen all night, either."  So I took down the bucket, to bring it into the house and wash it.  While I was removing the bucket, Svenya was frantic for water and poked me in the back with her horn.  I used my AUTHORITATIVE voice and pushed her away to tell her that wasn't acceptable and she got all sad and frightened.  So I stayed in the barn for a while after taking down the bucket talking to her and scratching her back and ears to show her that I wasn't mad or mean and then took the bucket to the house.

I washed it, re-filled it and dragged it back out.  This is not easy for me because I've got something going on with my right shoulder that's causing lots of trouble.  It may be carpal tunnel, it may be bursitis (my Aunt Minnie had terrible bursitis in her old age) or it may be some old injury that I don't remember.  Either way, my whole Right side has been uncomfortable and knotted up for several weeks now and it is hard to carry a bucket with 5 gallons of water in it when your strong side is weak.  (yes - I will be going to the doctor - just as soon as MB is stable after surgery and school is out.)

The Rejected Bucket

So I haul that water into Svenya's barn and offer it to her.

Nothing doing.  "No, thank you." said Svenya "I know where that bucket has been."

Ya.  I left it there anyway.

She tipped it over.

I brought out a different bucket filled with water because I cannot handle the guilt of leaving a pregnant cow in the barn with no water on an 80+ degree day.  I suspect that I will be hauling lots more water in the next few days.  New fencing for the brook and a barnyard hose are at the top of Bry's to-do list.




....

This is Svenya.  

She does not have a pedigree and came to us as a "Black Jersey"  but I'm going to say she's a Canadienne.  She fits the description of the breed and often the term "Black Jersey" is used for Canadiennes or a cross breed between a Jersey and a Canadienne.

She is small, dark and friendly.  (and much more slobbery than a horse)   She is due to freshen in August.  She has tiny teats but hopefully they will get bigger so that I can milk her.

She arrived yesterday in a trailer pulled by a big truck.  (Maxx was impressed!)  One of Bry's fellow teachers in Heuvelton picked her up at a recent auction and knew that we were wanting a cow.

We were afraid that we would not be able to get a cow for a long time - finances have just been too tight and a heifer ready to freshen is an expensive prospect - usually in the $1,200 -1,800 range.  We thought we might buy a little heifer calf this year but then we would have been waiting over a year for milk because they have to grow up and have a calf before they start milking. 

But by some happy coincidence, Svenya still has her horns so she was a bargain!   (I like the horns - we'll just have to be careful of her moods and pay attention to what she is doing with her head.   That's a good idea even with hornless livestock!)   So far, Svenya feels like another one of those Gifts that we have been given as we try to put this big, crazy plan together.  Things will look bleak - impossible even - and then some unexpected opportunity will present itself and voila!  Another bit of the puzzle falls into place.

Maxx photographed the arrival

 Right now she is bunking in the same building as the pigs.  They seem to like each other.  She would like to be OUTSIDE, though.  When we leave her alone in there, she kicks the wall to say  "Hello?!?   Cow does not wish to be incarcerated!   Cow wants grass in meadow, water in brook, please!"

The horses make way for Svenya.  They seem to like her, too.

This weekend.  We don't want her wandering all through the woods and the meadow just yet as she is new.  We'll make a secure area for her close to the big barn in the next couple of afternoons and then she can go outside during the daytime.  We all know that sun and green grass makes good milk.

I think this makes us real farmers now - or at least real hobby farmers.  Molly has a horse, there are 2 pigs and a cow in a barn and there are 2 feral kittens in the big barn.

There's a lot of work to do.  There is a LOT of junk - dangerous junk - lying around from former owners that we need to clean out of the pig pen, big barn and general environs.  We need to build a milking pen for Svenya - there is an old row of broken stantions in the big barn but I'm sure those will be inappropriate - too open and lose - and we need to prepare a good place for her & her calf to winter in.  The pig barn is too open and drafty - great for pigs in summer but not so good for animals in 20 below weather!

And there's still a lot to do in the house this summer.  Maybe it's good that we are too broke to take a big month-long cross country adventure? 

Sigh.

Or - What do Molly Bryn and her Uncle Al have in common?









It was such a beautiful evening.  Warm, sunny, slight breeze, no recent poop soup applications on surrounding fields.





Ziggy met the pigs for the first time and was Thrilled that such creatures exist and reside in his barn.  (Does he know instinctively how yummy they will be this fall?)

I said "Let's go for a walk!"

Molly said "Let me ride Spinner in the meadow.  We can put him on a lead rope.  He will be fine even though we don't have any tack for him yet."






And he was.

So happy to be spending time with The Girl and the Woman and The Man in the meadow.  The Boy stayed further away and he was O.K. with that.

All the horses were happy and calm.  We walked to the back of the meadow where they usually don't go and they discovered that the grass and clover back there were very good.

There was a lot of happy snorting and snuffling as they ate - "Check out this great grass!"   "Yes this is very good."  " Let's come back tomorrow!"





And then we turned around.

Stupid, stupid me.

Ziggy was being a pain on his leash and the horses were being so good that Bry and I traded.  He took the dog.  I took the horse.

Why it is good to have former Boy Scouts/ a WFR & a Fireman in the neighborhood

 Right about that time, the horses got very excited     
"Let's go back to the barn!"  
"There might be carrots!"
"Let's RUN!"
"YAY!!!"



I have to say that it was a pretty good dismount at 15 or 20 mph.  And she didn't land on her head or smash into any rocks or get trampled or anything.  Just broke her ankle.  Really well.   It needs a pin.

Tune in Later for a story about why Molly will never be a Drug Addict.

One of the first questions the ER nurse asked was "Have you ever had surgery?"

...

 This is Elaine.  It is a good name for her - she is named after Lancelot's accidental, unwanted wife. 

 Emmeth brought her home this winter while he was feeling all sexy and she has stayed.  And apparently, had kittens. 

Not that we can find any of them. 

And she eats ALL the cat food while poor, stupid Emmeth watches longingly, wishing he could sneak his face in the dish - just for a second - without getting clobbered.  He runs through the door every time it is opened and cowers next to me, begging for food. If not promptly ejected, he goes off to sleep in my bed with his dirty little kitty feet. 

I think Elaine will be finding a new home as soon as I can either find & catch the kittens we think she had or verify that there are no kittens to worry about.

Maxx communicates with the new arrivals
















Who's in the bag?















A little Pink Pig!












And her brother.



They are still pretty nervous.









But Emmeth doesn't want to tangle with them.



Bringing piggies excuse me - bacon and ham - home has highlighted how messy this place is.   One of the previous owners left garbage and barnyard trash all over the place.  Everywhere we turn, there is some heap of twisted, rusty metal or broken glass or just general dumping ground to clean up.  We've got to try to get out to the pig pen this weekend and make it safe for little animals so we can let them get out and wallow in the sun and mud the way that piggies like to do.  Plus that exposure to sun and grass and grubs and bugs makes them very, very tasty and better for you. 

Molly also took lots of photos of Max and Truman.  They were having a great day - until Maxx discovered the truth about leeches!   Enjoy!


Catching Crawdads.  This is a BIG one! 















A good splashing place:  


















Two handsome boys










How I love this grin!















. . . .  . .