Garden, Day Two

On Day Two of garden clean up, I woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, more reminiscent of May than March. I decided to get an early start as I wear out in the afternoon. I began by feeding Stinky and the Maremmas, letting the sheep out, feeding chickens and then Cider and I set out to work.

The big winds that knocked down so many trees also sent small limbs and twigs all over the ranch. A LOT of them are in MY  yard. We also get blessed with all the tumbleweeds and mustard on the ranch for some reason. Any loose trash on this side of the Steens manages to wend its way to my gate or the rock wall on the side. I normally don’t begin this chore until April, but it is such a beautiful day, I decided to tackle it early. I grabbed a pitchfork and started pulling tumbleweeds out from all the plants along the 200 some odd feet of rockwall. This wall is about 100 years old and makes a great backdrop for my climbing roses, vines, sunflowers and hollyhocks that come up in the summer, along with various other flowers. I stacked the tumbleweeds in a big pile and stomped ‘em all down like Randy told me to, so he could light them on fire when he comes home for lunch. I discovered this is probably best done in boots as opposed to backless tennis shoes as there are stickers. I then proceeded to transplant a couple more iris and another lilac from the 100 yr old bush out front.

I grabbed a leaf rake and started raking tons and tons of leaves out to the middle of the lawn so I could run over them with the riding mower and mulch them all up. All the limbs and branches, I had to pick up and stack in a pile, as the parts for our shredder/mulcher should be here next week and they will make great mulch for the garden this year. It will supplement the “poopystraw-from-stalls-to-chicken-coop-to-garden” mulch. This has turned out to be a great system. I bed EmmaLouMoo’s shelter heavily with straw. When I clean it out, it goes in the chicken coop where they remove all the seeds, and break up and help compost the straw that is left. It is then perfect to throw over the strawberries, or any other plants as a mulch to keep down weeds and retain moisture.

Wet leaves will go into a round bottomless trough with goat poop and chicken poop from clean-up and whatever tablescraps I don’t give the chickens, for compost.

I am finding some of the plants already beginning to bud. The apricot tree, the lilacs, raspberries, leaves are coming up from the purple cone flowers and others. I hope we don’t have a hard frost in the future. 

I try to visualize what WILL be and make plans for the garden’s future. I decide where I want to see the most growth, how I can best nurture that growth with the water and fertilizer it needs to thrive, as well as have a plan to keep down the weeds and deter pests. I plot out where I will place companion plantings and flowers that will make the whole thing pleasing to the eye. I will put in a re-claimed small wooden fence around the main part of the vegetable plot and dress it up with another arch and flowers on the outside. I need eye candy for the soul to supplement the nutritional qualities of the vegetables. Roses, flowers and vines will have to surround that part of the garden as well.

All this is yet another illustration to me, of God’s work in my life. I can identify with Him as He plans for my life the same way I do the garden; planning for growth, adding companions that will bring out the best in me, discouraging weeds that choke off my ability to absorb what is good for me and promoting a fruitful and bountiful harvest. At least I hope for such results on both counts.

I’ve battled weeds for years. From goat-head stickers to thistles, as well as broadleaf weeds that try to take over and choke out any desirable thing that grows.

Reflected in my life, from time to time have sprouted weeds of discontent, contention, jealousy, anger, unforgiveness, anxiety, pride...all dangerous weeds of the heart and mind that prevent anything that is good in life from entering in. Any one of these noxious weeds can ruin a day, a relationship, a life. Combined, they make a formidable barrier. As in my garden, I went after them one by one, hand pulling, spraying, stomping, or whatever would help deter them. This year I recalled there are more effective methods, for both my garden and my heart...planting a cover crop.

A cover crop is one that is planted in the field, or garden, which precedes the sowing of the intended crop. It  covers the ground quickly and thoroughly, giving weeds no place for a foothold. It is then easily tilled into the soil where it adds nutrients that strengthen and enhance the crop that is desired there. This year I am using spring wheat in the garden, and the best cover crop I have found for my life, is a Bible.

 This is something just about everybody has, but not many people actually READ it. It’s a sad state of affairs, because there is so much good stuff in there to harvest. It puts life into perspective and provides hope, strength and guidance to survive the worst droughts, floods and storms. 

In many countries of the world it is ILLEGAL even to own one. People run the risk of persecution, imprisonment, torture, even death. These good folks are quite literally DYING to read their Bibles and they have found the benefits to be worth the consequences. 

There is something we have definitely missed here.

In America, we tend leave them sitting on the shelves collecting dust, while our hearts lay fallow and allow the weeds of life and a self aggrandizing, destructive culture to smother what could have been healthy and productive.

As for me, I’m expecting a great harvest this year.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

A little reminiscing about last years garden, and working toward this year's.

Gardening here starts late and the season is short so I have to start quite a few things indoors. The only place in the house that gets enough light to grow anything is the big window in the bathroom, above the clawleg tub. Unfortunately, once things emerge, its not quite enough light or heat, as they sometimes stretch and become weak and leggy.

There is an old computer cabinet that I no longer use, as I have only had a laptop since we came here, and I see no reason whatsoever to go back to a desktop computer.  I decided to repurpose the computer armoire. Potting soil and peat pots reside in one cubby while my Western Garden Book and seed catalogues take up another. A grow light is mounted under the shelf and the seedlings get to live under that. There is room for quite a few, actually. Once they leave there, they will go into a cold frame or a temporary greenhouse outside.

I am hoping for a good spring, as I have a rather extensive list for the garden this year. I really need to get a couple of years canning done, as every year now, I get a bit slower and less constructive.

I have seed for tomatoes, peppers, green beans, peas, squashes, both summer and winter, corn, cabbage, cauliflower and brocolli, lettuce, spinach, pumpkins (mostly for the animals) hot peppers, pepperoncinis, green onions, shallots, garlic, carrots and I have yet to buy some seed potatoes. I also have basil and chives already growing and parsley, cilantro and thyme that come back every year. Then, of course, there are the raspberries, blackberries and strawberries we already have and I have a currant bush on order. A good year would fill our pantry and give me seed for next year as well, as most of the crops are from heirloom seed.

Working with a limited budget ( a great deal is spent on the animals) we make do with what is on hand. Old feed tubs make raised bed planters. Another raised bed for the raspberries is made with rock and dirt from on the ranch. A walkway was started last summer from concrete and an inexpensive form and an archway will be made with t-posts and a cattle panel for growing a vine on. Old horse troughs which no longer hold water have been repurposed as planters for both flowers and herbs. A few vegetables will be scattered in on the North side of the garden with the flowers, to fill in bare spots. This is the main view out of the house windows. The South side of the yard will be primarily vegetables with a few flowers thrown in for companion planting.

Winter hosts a stark and barren garden, but spring will return and the rock wall will come alive with climbing roses, trumpet vines and virginia creeper cascading up and down its face while sunflowers, liatris, coneflowers, 4 O’clocks and shasta daisies partner with annuals to cavort at its feet. The lawn will green up again and the hummingbirds and goldfinches will return. The quail, always present, will keep taking their little walks on the top of the wall, dropping down now and then to stroll through the garden and glean what they may.

Another day without the internet. I am realizing that I use that as my rest periods throughout the day. Without it, I cannot stand to sit still, as my mind goes 100 mph all the time. This morning, I went out and raked up leaves and debris away from the fences, picked up around the back yard some and filled the backpack sprayer with some Round Up. I sprayed all the upcoming weeds where the flower beds will be, as well as the edge of the lawn by the fence, where it can’t be mowed. I cleared off the rock siding of the raspberry bed and sprayed the cracks in the faux rock walkway. I put a pre-emergent in the raspberry bed, and around all the fruit trees, then mulched them so they will do better and I won’t have to fight weeds around their bases this year.

Randyman hooked up the springtooth harrow to my 4 wheeler so I used it to drag  Emma’s corral, the big corral and the small pasture, then I broadcast spring wheat in Emma’s corral for the chickens and pasture mix in the big ones for the larger stock. Then I drove the harrow around again to help cover the seed and got the sprinkler going. It was time to milk Em so I got that done, fed Stinky his bottle, let out the sheep and gave the calves their grain and cleaned up all the equipment from milking. I was feeling a little weak so I made a quick sandwich with homemade wheat bread and fresh eggs. It tasted just outstanding. Hunger really is the best seasoning.

Without the internet to play with so I could have a ‘recess’, I sat down for a few minutes and hand basted the hem in Abby’s new dress I made with the old treadle sewing machine. Nothing else was going on, so that got dull after a bit and I went out to visit the dogs and sheep in the pasture.

I trudged down there with Cider and we all met up just short of the ‘octopus tree’. My feet hurt pretty bad, so I laid down. The pasture is still that tawny gold color, but there is a hint of green all around with the newly emerging grass that is just now coming up. As I sat, I realized that it was utterly quiet. There was such an absence of noise it was as if we were in a living snapshot. Then, ever so slowly, sound began to emerge. First there was Cider’s gnawing on a bone, his total concentration on it, next was the twitter of a bird in the orchard behind us. Those were the only two sounds for several minutes and in the near silence I scanned the area with my eyes. I could see the form of EmmaLou far down towards the bottom of the pasture, nosing around for grass, closer by, the sheep laid all around, cudding contentedly while the lambs leapt in the air twisting and kicking their little heels up.  Bruno and Cletus sat rigidly, focused on something to the south that only they could see. As it came closer, I was able to see as well. A pair of Canadian geese approached and settled just yards away in the marshy spot where the spring is. Cletus stared at them, while Bruno quietly walked the other way towards the fence and circled around behind them, very slowly and carefully, trying to determine if they were a threat or not. The geese watched him approach and finally took back to the air, their great wings making a whooshing sound as they lifted those beautifully marked and graceful bodies to the sky. I considered, again, how wonderful it is to hear only these things. No sirens, no phones, faxes, boom boxes or tv...just the breathing of life around me. Cletus came over and dropped his big head on my chest for a hug. I buried my fingers in his deep thick coat and smelled him. He smells like comfort and the outside. I laid back and dropped my arm across my eyes to shield them from the sun. Cider dropped his bone on my stomach and I threw it for him. Time and again, he brought the bone, and I tossed it for him, never looking. The last time I reached down and found he had substituted an old cow pie for the bone. I dropped it and sat up. He looked at me expectantly. Always the jokester, he is.

I went back to the house to skim the milk. There were 5 gallons in the fridge that I needed to take the cream off of. I put some aside to make sour cream, used a gallon of milk to clabber and put 3 gallons in a pot to make mozzarella. There was already a gallon and a half of heavy cream in the refrigerator, so I put a little buttermilk in that and set it out to culture before making butter with it.

All the animals had come up to the corral. I fed the dogs in two bowls inside the sheep pen. The sheep ran over to try and steal from them, and Bruno snarled, warning them off. He is well within his rights to do so, and even though he sounds very scary, and will jump at the sheep, he won’t hurt them or bite them. It’s all a bluff, but very effective. Cletus, on the other hand, is the soft hearted one. The sheep came back to try a second time and Cletus jumped between them and Bruno to prevent the confrontation. I laughed, looking at big old Cletus, the peacemaker. He’s such a sweetheart. All done until tomorrow.

Waiting on Spring

We’ve had storms, followed by sunny days, followed by more storms. The barometer has been bouncing and it has definitely had an effect on me. I’ve been satisfied to spend more time inside the house doing less physical work than I usually am.

Since we just got back from our quarterly shopping trip, I chose today to cut up and vacuum seal 7 heads of lettuce in half gallon jars. This will keep it fresh and ready to serve for 4-6 weeks. I have a 4 pound wheel of Colby cheese almost ready to wax and go into the cheese cave to cure with the Parmesan, Cheddar and Jack cheeses I already made. The replacement jar I ordered online came and Randyman was able to adapt it to fit the old churn motor I had purchased on ebay. It was so nice to churn a gallon and a half of heavy cream at one time instead of just 2 quarts. The clean up is a LOT easier as well, as it doesn’t get slung all over the kitchen if I look away, as it does with the stand mixer. I made 4 1/2 lb of butter yesterday. I had a huge amount of cultured buttermilk from the process, so I soaked some chicken breasts and made chicken strips for dinner last nite that were wonderfully crunchy on the outside and moist and tender inside. Buttermilk is great for that.

Our grain mill arrived this week also. I have been grinding wheat and making Honeywheat bread and Sourdough WW bread, WW waffles and other stuff the past several days. We have found that it not only tastes a whole lot better, but is very filling. We can only eat about half as much as we normally do. It’s nice to know it’s also a lot healthier.

 I took loaf of sourdough we didn’t use and tossed it in the food processor to make some bread crumbs as I used up all we had last nite on the chicken. I tossed the crumbs on a large sheet pan and sprinkled with Italian seasonings. I put it in a slow oven and Randyman came in the house, sniffing and salivating, wanting to know what was cooking. His disappointment was clear as I told him it’s only breadcrumbs. He can have the cookies I made yesterday. Unfortunately, I had to use commercial flour for those as I have no soft white wheat to grind for baking items more delicate than breads. I could probably have still used the whole wheat, but I need to use up the old stuff anyway. It would be nice to know if we would only eat half as many cookies as well, but I am betting that’s not gonna happen.

I’ve been without internet for several days now, as I turned off Hughes.net due to my disenchantment with their service. The new company failed to make 3 different appointments, so I cancelled them as well, as clearly customer service is not high on their priority list. I have ordered one of the cellular plug ins which I hope against hope will work here. It should be here next week. It’s only been a week and I already miss it. I was never under the impression that I wouldn’t, as I use it a lot and have gleaned more information online than I ever did attending school. There is just so much information out there to be had.

I am still waiting on parts for the treadle, so sewing is still future. Maybe I will start something to crochet for the grandkids if I have time. 1000 miles apart, my daughter in law and I both found the same pattern of something to make for Kinley. Now that’s a funny coincidence!

The Maremmas had their second birthday yesterday. Randyman and I randomly broke into the birthday song at odd times during the day and serenaded them. It’s a very big job for these dogs to fill in for our kids as we suffer through empty nest. They will never quite fill the void, but we appreciate the love they offer to us, nonetheless. It’s nice to have someone still want to come and sit on my lap, even if he is a 120 lb. polarbear-looking feller. I look forward to the kids’ next visit, even if the grandkids are active and not anxious to just be held. These dogs are so funny, they are like book-ends. Different personalities, and yet, so much the same!

My list for today still contains making a large batch of laundry detergent and some hand soap to sell to the tourists that visit the ranch this summer. There is already another good sized pile of laundry to do, as well as checking on the tomatoes, peppers, flowers and blackberry shoots I have started in the bathroom window.

It’s nice, that even in the bad weather, there are things here to do. No such thing as boredom in this life.

Shoppin Day

This is the month we do our quarterly shopping. Replenishing should not be as expensive as it usually is, however. We won’t be buying ANY dairy, now that I make all of our butter, sour cream, cream cheese and the like. 

Most of our money will be going to livestock feed. We will be needing salt and grain for EmmaLouMoo’s last 3 months of lactation and the calves plus I need enough Chicken food for the eggers and to enough to raise the 30 meatie chickens who arrive in April. I am hoping to spend a minimum on dogfood as I hope to switch the dogs to a raw diet. I am wary of all the recalls on commercial foods, in which so many ingredients come from China. It is a country which seems to care little about the safety of its own people, they certainly care nothing for my animals. I am not willing that my dogs be the next victims. I’m just not sure how I will buy and store enough meat to feed over 300 lb of dogs for 3 months at a time. The change will have to come slowly, until I figure it all out.

We will be buying onions and potatoes, as well as carrots. I have plenty of celery and mushrooms dehydrated so we won’t need any of those, this trip. Brown rice, soda crackers and of course, corn tortillas, because I am too lazy to make them all the time, Kosher salt, sugar, nuts, lettuce and Randyman’s treats and we are pretty much good to go. Tortillas are one of the things on my bucket list to master and freeze.

My 'new' antique treadle is in town at my cousin’s, so we will get to see her when we pick it up and I am very excited about both as I have not seen her in 30 years. I also scored a great deal on some reusable canning lids and am picking those up. In addition, we pick up a young goat buckling, because Peebody isn’t up to the job. We are buying it from a members on the KeepingAFamilyCow forum, so it will be nice to meet them!

My grain mill should be here soon, as well as the wheatberries I ordered. I am hoping to find some soft white wheat in town to grind for pastry flour. This month will be a learning curve for baking with whole grain flours. I am really looking forward to it and once again, it cuts way down on the grocery bills. According to my research, the wheatberries, properly stored, keep almost indefinitely, whereby flour, does not. Plus all the healthy stuff has been taken out of commercial flour, so we should benefit that much more from grinding our own because it will still contain the bran and the kernal and all.

I had gotten a great deal on a butterchurn on ebay. I was really looking forward to it getting here as I can churn 7 quarts of heavy cream at a time, instead of only 2 quarts. It was a beautiful antique electric churn with an old embossed glass jar. The seller didn’t package it quite well enough and neglected to mark the large heavy box as ‘Fragile’ or 'Breakable' and it arrived with the jar in pieces. I was devastated. I have found a different kind of jar I am hoping Randyman can adapt to work with the motor. I won’t have the beautiful antique I had paid for, but at least I might have a working churn. I am still waiting on ewe #3 to lamb. She is being quite obstinate about it. I spend night after night watching sheep TV, but she has been so uninterested in doing her part I haven’t even bothered to stay up. I just watch her until its time to go to bed. I hope she gets it done before we leave for town, because she is a high risk ewe, and I hate to leave her with my friend "D" to have to take care of. She has already offered to milk EmmaLouMoo and feed all the other critters. No small feat.

The windstorms have EmmaLou upset enough that if there is any wind or snow, she will not use her tent shelter now, so she has taken over the lambing shed. She’s a bit of a princess, as she now has a ‘guest’ quarters. This meant we needed another place to jug up the ewes for lambing. Randyman to the rescue. In driving snow, he climbed up on the rock wall to put sheeting in the open gable of the milkroom to keep snow from falling inside. After spending several hours of remodeling, and moving feed, tack and straw bales we had a spot.

The pups have done an excellent job lately of guarding the sheep. I had previously always let them choose where they wanted to go and they have been effective as we have had no losses, but last January, with the arrival of all the bird hunters, they become so worried about what was going on in front of the house, they weren’t paying enough attention to what was going on out back. I decided I want them to follow the sheep by day, and then they can patrol where they choose to, by night. It took a few days of my hanging out with them in the pasture, but they are so amazingly intelligent, they figured it out. Now, each morning, Randyman lets them in the house to visit with me while I have my cup of coffee, then they follow me out when I go to milk. They go to the pasture with the sheep and I take care of the cow, calves, goats and chickens. Bruno tends to stay up closer to the corral where the chickens are while Cletus follows the sheep around. That has been a surprise, as Cletus has always been the chicken lover. I have a feeling that when the meatie chicks come, they will switch roles again. Cletus is the 'mother-hen' of the pair, while Bruno is more businesslike. For Cletus it’s a passion while for Bruno it's a job. Both are excellent at what they do though, they just have very different personalities. 

Cletus, is a big doofus and weighs about 120 lb. (Randyman thinks he weighs more than that) Bruno, is a bit smaller and much quicker. He is also the instigator. Cider, our red-headed stepchild, loves to terrorize Cletus, just because he can. He runs around him, growling and making all kinds of macho noises. Cletus won’t hurt him intentionally, but tries to engage him in play. He will lift his giant feet up to swat at Cider, but before he has a chance, Bruno sweeps in and jerks Cletus’ back legs out from under him. Cider has no idea that Bruno is actually protecting him. I don’t think Cletus knows it either. We have observed this pattern night after night. It blows my mind how intelligent Bruno really is. 


*****


We made it back home from our shopping trip. We left at 6 a.m. and got home at 1 a.m. the following morning. Glad we only do this 4x a year! Our next scheduled trip will be in June. It was GREAT to see my cousin, whom I haven't seen for 25 years. She's newly married to a really nice guy, who has carried a picture of them in his wallet of a Junior Prom (we will just say a LONG time, as its not nice to give away ages!) all this time. How awesome is that??? Definitely the stuff movies are made of.


We blabbered on happily through lunch, while our guys looked on with raised eyebrows and often blank looks while eating their hamburgers. We loaded the treadle in the horse trailer, agreed that maybe next trip we will come the afternoon before and stay overnight and headed to our next destination. WE had already picked up a ton of livestock feeds, some spring wheat to plant in the chicken corral, fencing for EmmaLou's small pasture and a few odds and ends. We drove another hour to the NW and picked up the goat buckling. He's a cutie. We had a great time meeting my internet friend from the cow boards, meeting all her cows, pigs and goats. We put the little guy in a dog crate in the big stock trailer and spent the next several hours finishing up by buying our 3 months worth of people groceries, doing errands at the Lowe's home store (as we refuse to patronize HomeDepot) and stopped at a fast food joint to get a large cup of boiling water to heat little feller's bottle in. As we were standing the dark parking lot, a big SUV pulled up and a lady asked if her little girl could see the 'sheep' that were in the trailer. She was surprised to find out that not only was it NOT a sheep, but there was only ONE of him. He had been pretty vocal about his discontent. I let the little girl feed him his bottle and we went down the road for dinner. After our last stops we headed out of town and stopped at the last gas station for another cup of hot water as it had been 3 hours since little feller's last bottle. I brought him in the cab of the truck where it was warm, as the trailer gets too cold and windy on the road, and he was already pretty stressed out from being de-horned, pulled from his mama and siblings, and switched from goat to cow's milk, all in his first few days of life. He gratefully cuddled up on my lap and slept the 4 hours to the ranch, only waking once or twice to bleat a little "are we home yet?" at us. The pups met us in front of the house, Cider introduced them to the little feller, who Randyman thought should spend the night in the house, inside in the dog crate and we headed for bed. Not bad for a day's work!

Confidence

Two days had gone by since the big wind storm. I awake at midnight to a roaring in my ears. I heard the wind howling through the trees and whooshing through the window in the bathroom. Nothing in this little rock house is air tight and when the wind blows hard like that, it whistles loudly through the cracks. I thought about EmmaLou. She only just got the courage to use her shelter again. I climbed out of bed and grabbed a flashlight. As I open the back door, I am surprised to see both the Maremmas crowding to get inside nearly knocking me over in their haste.  The wind is worse than the other night, the gusts much more forceful. I can feel the dirt sandblasting my face through the open door, even though the wind is blowing from the West, in the opposite direction. It seems to whirlpool through places in the yard. I grab a flashlight and a jacket off the hook and step into some tennis shoes and go to check on EmmaLou in the howling wind and dark.

I find her cowering in the far corner of the corral again. I shine the light on myself, as I startled her and she cannot see that it’s me. With the roaring of the wind she couldn’t hear me approach. 

I take her by the halter and lead her towards the shelter to the second gate, which opens into our yard. She doesn’t want to go. I pull harder and she bolts fearfully through the gate, terrified of the shelter and the huge, heavy gate panel that stands next to it, which has already moved further than it had through the entire storm the other night, even though we had replaced it and propped another panel up against it as a brace. 

I turn the corner with her and open the door to the lambing shed. It’s small and it’s not windproof, as the door is made of heavy wire and the wind roars through it, but she will be safe from flying debris in there and there are no heavy panels to fall on her. She comes in with me, but she is fearful. As the roof has not been replaced on the shed, I have put up a small tent shelter inside to keep the sheep dry, should it rain or snow while lambing. The tarp on top of it rattles and the little shelter vibrates with the turbulent air. Emma snorts and jumps back. I pet her and try to reassure her. The wind is blowing against my back as I lean against the door to keep it shut. It requires a chain from the outside, there is no way to latch it from within. I find it difficult to keep my feet as the wind is blowing so strongly now. I move what I can out of Emma’s way, next to the goat stanchion. She continues her explorations. I step out and latch the gate. I look around the corner to see if the sheep are faring ok, and I’m horrified to see the heavy door panel laying down across Emma’s shelter, which I had just replaced. I wonder what the windspeed is, but I know its blowing harder than the other night. Much harder. 

I work my way back to the house, unseen things blowing past me and I can hear them as they batter themselves up on the rock wall, the fence and other objects of solidity. It’s a fearful night and there is little else I can do. I can only pray the animals will be safe, that the big trees in front will not fall upon our house and I content myself with the second half of a verse “...having done all, to stand.” It’s really about putting on the whole armor of God, and standing in spiritual battles, but I can feel it apply to me tonight, in my faith. 

The storm is not the real danger, the battle is in me. It is whether I will choose trust, or fear. Even as EmmaLou stands in the shed, with the wind blowing about her, she is safe there. Any missiles launched and aimed at her by this wind, will bounce off the walls of the shed that enclose her without doing her harm. If she can control her fear, she will be all right, as I have done what is necessary to her protection without halting the storm. The same is true in my life. If I control my fear and place my faith well, I too, will weather the storms. Whatever my circumstances, winning the inner battle is what will keep me safe. 

Groping through the darkness and against the gale, I finally arrive at the house, where the pups are happy to see me. Randyman is up, making sure I got back in safely. Amazingly, the electric is still on once again. I make a cup of hot chocolate and sit down at the laptop to record my thoughts. I sit warm, and cozy as the wind screams its threats outside. I know tomorrow it will be calm again, and for now, my heart is calm too. Any anxiety has blown away on the storm and the battle is won.

Once more dawn broke quietly. The violence of the night almost forgotten until we stepped outside. The large gate panel was all the way down on the ground, the enormous 24’  and 8’ high double gate panel also had been blown to the wall. Large trees had snapped at the base and horse trailers had been slammed into one another. The mirrors or our truck had been blown back and Randyman made the observation “How fast does the wind have to go to do that? I can drive 100 mph and not have that happen”.

you can see where this fence line USED to be...posts were taken right out of the ground

you can see where this used to sit

A 2-story building that was being carefully dismantled is now just debris

surveying the damage

Who knows? There were definitely hurricane force winds last nite, much more powerful than the previous storm a couple of nights ago.

No one was injured, animal nor human. Even the large trees that fell on the house closest to ours do not look as though they penetrated the roof. The couple who has been staying there is gone this week, so they didn’t even have to experience the terror of hearing the wind and tremendous noise of trees snapping and coming down on a metal roof .

My confidence was well placed, as I knew it was. 
However, I have had enough life experience to know, that even in the face of devastating loss and perhaps death, He is still good. But this time, He lets us celebrate.

The Scoop on Grit

Herein lies an exercise in writing. A challenge from thegypsymama.com's 5 minute Friday. About Grit.
Give it a try!

Grit. It has so many definitions. To grit one’s teeth and face a challenge. To have grit, or courage to face the day. Nitty gritty, right down to the basic dirt. Grit on your counter. Dirt. Bag of grit, something chickens use to help digest their food, thus gaining the nutritional value of what they have taken in.

A life without grit would be weak and lukewarm. Without the exercise of difficulty that builds muscles and breaks down the elements of conflict to its basic form, we wouldn’t grow strong. Like the butterfly who must struggle its way out of the cocoon to push the blood to its wings so it can fly, so we must press on. 

Here’s to a life with its share of grit. Grit can bring hominy to your life.  :)

Through the Storm

The sky is painted in shades of silver, grey and cream, and the shadows of the clouds throw a purple cast upon the mountains which lay on the far side of the valley. The top of the large fault block to the west shimmers white with new snow and deep blue crevasses, the peak pushing up out of the clouds at 10,000 ft while the rest of the mountain is cloaked beneath the haze.

A drizzle falls slowly on the ranch as EmmaLou lays sleepily cudding in the straw under her little shelter. The sheep are out in the back 20 acres nibbling at the young grasses that dare to push their way up out of the soil under the straw colored forage of last season. I pick my way through the downed thistle, following Cletus along the small cattle trail leading down to the grove of trees where the sheep were grazing.

The weather has been taking its toll on me, as well as a wicked chest cold that I can’t seem to get over, so as soon as we reach a spot out of the heavier wind I lay down in the grass to soak up what little sun peeks through the clouds as they scud across the landscape. Cletus comes to make sure I am all right, sticking his great cold nose in my face. I laugh as his lips hang in floppy wrinkles and his big white head hangs down, eyes disappearing and resembling a giant, white Sharpei. His huge fangs are brilliant white, probably from working on the bones and antlers he and Bruno lug home from their nightly patrols, his lips falling away in a grin. He gives me an affectionate nose touch and then goes to check each individual sheep. The lambs follow him around as if he is their hero, which, indeed, he is. 

My nephew and a young lady visiting the ranch are up by the barn in my round pen, working colts. One jumped out of it the other day, crushing one of my panels. I hear their voices on the wind and a wave of sadness rushes over me. I contemplate how many horses I myself, broke and started in that pen before my condition rendered me unable to do what I had spent my whole life loving and doing. I miss it terribly, some days more than others and watching and listening to other people enjoy a life that is lost to me is hard...especially when they are doing it in my space. I wipe a selfish tear from my eye and look back towards Cletus. He seems to sense my sadness and comes to lay down next to me. Burying my face and hands in his fur, I thank God for the life He has preserved for me. If I did not have the animals to keep me company while Randyman is working, I think it would be unbearable. I chide myself for having a bad attitude. I no longer use the roundpen for riding horses, but I could break it down and make smaller pens out of it for my sheep and goats. I decide to see if the boss wants it and if so, maybe we can work something out. At least if its no longer my own, it won’t hurt so much to see it damaged. There was sentimental attachment to it, as it was a gift from someone very important and very dear to me, but that someone is somebody I won’t get to see again. Some memories are better left behind, or they become toxic and eat a hole in your heart like a cancer.

Cider came over with a ‘hand-picked’ cowpie and sets it down next to me, expecting me to throw it. I roll my eyes at him and find a bone, and substitute it instead. He runs and picks it up, then heads off through the grass exploring. He comes back, offering a stick. I throw it and he returns, his body covered in mud. 

I finally pull myself to my feet and head back up the hill to the corral. The sheep and dogs walk slowly with me and we eventually arrive. I leave them behind as I head through the gate with Cider and go back in the house. Still feeling a little desolate and foggy headed, I tell him to stay outside and dry off.

I stumble to the couch to check my email on the laptop,and find that I scored a butterchurn on ebay. That makes me smile, as I have been wanting and needing one for a couple of years. Making butter 3x a week in the Kitchenaid hasn’t been all that bad, but its a good bit of work cleaning up and I also have to use my hands and wrists a lot to wash the butter. I should be able to do a lot more of that in the churn now, so I am excited for it to get here.

I look up and notice Cider is not outside, but laying on my newly cleaned carpet. I jump up and open the back door and tell him he has to go out. He sneaks around the other side of the kitchen table and heads for the bedroom. I growl at him and he stops, turns around and heads for the service porch, sighing dejectedly as he slumps down on the dog bed. 

I can't help but laugh at him, then I think about my new butter churn again.

Even the most lowly days have their high points.


This is the second day in a row of this strange stormy weather. That said, the weather is always a bit strange in this valley anyway. It can be sunny at our house and snowing at the bottom of the pasture. The dark clouds still cover the sky, but today there is a huge rainbow over the range. Bruno accompanies us as Cider and I go out to visit Cletus and the sheep. Cletus is beside himself to have Bruno there to play with again. I sit on the grass and the pups surround me, clowning around and teasing me unmercifully.

 I move down by the big 'octopus tree'. It's a huge tree with several thick trunks growing like tentacles along the ground. It makes for a handy seat to watch the goings ons and the antics of the 'polar bears'. They play chase and tumble and knock one another over at breakneck speeds, flipping and grabbing throats, legs, or whatever it takes to win the battle. The sheep graze on contentedly, not the least bit worried as the two dogs blaze a trail between them.

They finally wear themselves out and take up stations on opposite sides of the sheep. Bruno is watching from above, close to my observation post and Cletus has gone several hundred yards further down the pasture, beyond the sheep. They both sit quietly, eyes scanning the surrounding area. It has been drizzling for awhile and now it has stopped, so I gather up my things and head back up the hill to the house. 

Rosemary sees me and comes running from way down where the sheep are grazing. She continues to follow on my heels all the way to the corral, across the back yard, up on the porch and into the kitchen. She stands at my side and DEMANDS  a bottle. It's not time for her evening bottle yet, but I can't resist her so I heat up her bottle and allow her to have 1/3 of it early. I hear a vehicle race past the front of the house and as I look out I see both Maremma's racing past. They think I have left. I call their names and they stop, spinning around in surprise to see me behind them. We return to the pasture and resume our places in the grass.

As we lay in the gentle drizzle, I could hear a roaring coming from far away. Living in this valley, under the 10,000 ft. faultblock, our weather can become very turbulent, very quickly. The wind blows often, and blows strongly, but every now and then, it tunnels up the valley, contained by the mountains and charges through like a freight train, and that is exactly what it sounded like.

Cider and I made it to the house just before the first strong gust hit. I could hear it whistling around the little rock house we live in, through the gaps in the doorways and past the rock wall as dirt, tumbleweeds, tin from a building and other things went whirling past. I saw Emma’s shelter begin to heave as if breathing heavily as she stood at her feeder and watched. The wind continued to build and blow. The sheep ran into the corral with the dogs, but I didn’t see Stewie and his mother Madge. I ran out to find them, dirt blinding me temporarily as it blew and scratched its way into my eyes and my long hair whipped about painfully. I fought my way through the dead orchard but didn’t find them. Returning to the corral, I found she had already taken Stewie to shelter under the big cattle panels. EmmaLouMoo continued standing at her feeder, watching her own shelter blowing chaotically in the wind. Normally she takes cover in there every time it rains or snows, or anything disagreeable is taking place.  I drug out what hay I could find and stuffed it down deep into feeders, hoping it would stay long enough for the animals to get some sustenance from it. When I was finished, Emma’s shelter was gone. She was standing in the ruins of it, with her eyes agog, and her tongue hanging out. She was making awful noises, as though she was gagging or choking, and was breathing heavily. The heavy gate panel doorway to the milking shed was bending towards us, the wind beating against the backside of it unrelentingly. I made my way to Em with a halter, and once getting it on her, I realized she wasn’t choking at all, but was just terrified. The tarp which had once protected her was wrapped around her legs, whipping her madly and she had no sanctuary left to turn to. Bruno accompanied me as I led her through the large corrals and out to the old orchard where she and Dolly used to take cover. She ran to the back corner, seeming to find solace there. There is no longer any fence down the side of the orchard but I didn’t think she would be going anyplace, anytime soon. I cried a little for her, knowing how scared and lonesome she felt without Dolly here. As I returned, Randyman had shown up and together we tried to brace up the heavy panels that threatened to blow down and crush anything in their path. It took two of us to close the door after opening it to see if it would let off some of the pressure. It didn’t. We came back to the house, bringing the dogs in with us, as there was nothing they could do out there and having more animals in danger of being hit with flying debris just didn’t make much sense. Surprisingly, we never lost power. Randyman said it was gusting 70-80 mph.

I prayed for Emma and the animals and we settled down for the night, with popcorn, 4 big dogs in the house, and the wind howling outside.

I woke up at midnite to a sudden stillness. The wind had finally spent its fury. I let the dogs out and donning a sweatshirt and flashlight went to the orchard to find Em. I moved her into the big hay corral where she could safely spend the rest of the night, and let the dogs patrol. All the sheep seemed fine, as did the goats. Grateful for no injuries and minimum damage I headed back to the house.

The sun rose high and the air was crisp with a blue sky. After milking EmmaLou, I put the calves in the hay corral and set about to rebuilding and repairing her little tent shelter. I sandwiched the big tarp between cattle panels which I then wired together so the next time the wind blows, there is nowhere for the tarps to go. Of course, the likely scenerio is that everything will flip over but in a wind as strong as last night's there just isn’t a defense. This will do for normal weather.

I let the goats in with the sheep but Peebody the buck and Ray the Ram got into a terrible tussle and as Peebody has horns, he was not just butting, but hooking. I got ahold of his horns and front legs and with his front legs on either side of me, I towed him back to the goat pen alone. Ray felt the two doe goats were intruders and has been valiantly defending his little flock from them. They are fairly evenly matched weight wise, all weighing about 150 lb each so I let them be. As they butted heads at the top of the pasture, the pups were down with the ewes and lambs by the Octopus tree. I looked up and saw one of the visitor’s dogs in the pasture by the corral. Bruno and Cletus saw it too. They took off running and stopped, about 100 ft apart and 100 ft short of it. There was no way it was going to be able to get past them to the sheep. The dog paid little attention to them, so they advanced again, this time with a warning bark. This time the dog looked at them. Not seeming to be of a disposition to leave, they charged the dog a third time and the dog turned tail and ran, taking the shortest route back into the horse corral. The pups stopped where they were, satisfied that justice had been served and after checking the area where the dog had been thoroughly, they went back to the sheep. I hugged them and told them how proud I was of them, as they not only removed the intruder, but they didn’t  use anymore force than was necessary. They ramped it up each time they had to, but they used good discretion. I laid down in the sun, with my arms around Bruno, and I thought I felt Cletus laying on the other side of me. Now and then he would nuzzle me, but I was too weary to roll over yet. Finally, I turned my head and saw that it wasn’t Cletus at all, but Rosemary. She had snuggled up with us and stretched her neck out in ecstasy as I scratched her under the chin.

I looked up to see Randyman at the fence. He was laughing at the antics of Ray and the goats. Prissy, the evil doe, bit Ray and came up with a mouth full of wool. That’s what she gets for biting a hair sheep, it comes out!!

We headed back to the house with Rosemary at our heels and I made her a bottle while Randyman made lunch.

Afterwards, Rosemary followed us back out to the corral and Randy put all the huge gates back where they had been before the wind. He left and I went to check on Emma, who was laying down, sunning herself. She’s been very itchy lately, so I found a stiff brush, and laying with her, scratched her neck and chin for her. She lolled her head with her eyes closed and then wrapped her neck back around me as if to show her appreciation.

It was really my pleasure.

It always seems so serene after a storm. 

I think the rest of the day, we will all just rest in the quiet warmth of the sun, under the watchful eye of our Protector.