Weekly Photo Roundup | Feb. 12 – 18
Category Archives: country life
Bess’s First Day on the Job
What an adventurous day it was. Bess accompanied me, Brad, and Pearl up to headquarters yesterday and got to experience all the excitement of a quick morning weighing heifers. She was enthralled, watching her mom, uncle, and grandma all show off their professional cowdog skills.
Her sister, Cooper, has permanently gone up north to join the crew up at headquarters and was following Dave around. Even just in the 24 hours Cooper was up at the north end, she adjusted really well to her new home! I’m impressed with how well these pups have all figured out their territory, sticking close to the house and barn.
Bess and Cooper took a break in an old lick tub in the scale shed after awhile (when carrying them was no longer convenient), and watched the heifers get weighed. When that got boring they napped, hard. It’s hard work, being a cowpuppy.
These pups are out of two great dogs, so we are excited to see how our two (and all the rest, that are close enough for us to keep tabs on!) turn out. Their intelligence is a little unnerving at times, but they have such a desire to please. Bess and Josie are getting familiar with basic commands, and have been very responsive. We’re working on “sit” and “down” right now, and hot dog chunks are a fantastic motivator. However, I think they might be smart enough to realize that the longer they take to learn something, the more hot dog they can eat.
It is fun to see how much can be accomplished with the help of a good dog or three. Although they’re loved like pets, they really are an integral part of the crew and a vital element to the work that gets done around here.
It was a great first day on the job for Bess!
Home
Even after a few short days, a homebody is already pining for home. It has been delightful to settle back in after a rather quick six-day trip to Illinois, realizing just how much I had to miss in the short time I was gone. So many relatively unnoticed things become vitally beautiful and important when they are suddenly absent.
Like waking up next to my best friend. Like the daily morning rhythm of coffee, breakfast, and chores. Like reading my Bible in my chair by the window. Like trudging down to the barn to release the chaos of the puppies, and trudging down again at night to put them to bed.
I missed the wonderful pandemonium of pups yipping and cats purring and chickens squawking and horses nickering. I missed the sight of the pups clamoring around Brad’s legs as he walked to the barn, or wading through them myself on my way to the chicken coop, or up to the house, or anywhere the puppies happened to be. I missed my chores throughout the day, the various times of checking in with my critters. Coffee with the in-laws after a quick hour or morning of working cows. Our walks in the evening. Cooking supper in my own home.
I missed the mud and the smell of horses, the spicy breath of the puppies, the sharp little teeth and dark, sparkling eyes. Polly on my shoulder and Betsy on my head. Gathering eggs and doing nightly chicken chores. I missed feeding my sourdough starter. Isn’t that silly? And sweeping my kitchen. Doing our dishes and hanging our laundry up to dry. Homemade bread and jam, and homegrown beef. My wonderful family.
Evening cuddles on the couch watching a movie and devouring a bowl of popcorn. Having my pillows stolen and the endless teasing.
Home is a place of belonging. Of safety. Of shelter and protection. Of growth and growing, of work and working. Of life and love and laughter, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold.
Home. What a wonderful place to be.
Chicken Tales
One thing I sure didn’t anticipate when I got chickens was just how downright comical they can be.
…Correction…how comical they are. They just are. Whether it is their quirky personalities, their poor decision making, their difficulty in tasks as simple as finding the coop door, their strange and irrational fears, or the fact that they manage to survive at all, there is never a shortage of laughter-inducing antics.
I love watching them around their feed pans when I put scraps out. There is always one hen who finds something extra good (whatever), and rather than quickly eating it before it can be stolen from her, which it probably wouldn’t be anyway, she takes off running with it, drawing undue attention to herself whereupon the entire flock sees what she has and gives chase. Or there’s Little Betsy, my cross-beak hen. I try to wear a hat every time I go down to the coop because I’m not always fast enough or observant enough to see her little cross-beaked face staring up at me from her telltale crouch before she launches herself into the air, landing on my head with her dirty little chicken feet. One of my favorite things is chicken doctoring. The patient is wrapped snugly in a towel with her head sticking out through a hole cut in the towel, and is pretty effectively immobilized. But unless I kick everyone out of the coop to do my doctoring, I end up surrounded by an audience of concerned and fascinated feathered citizens as I’m sitting on a sack of feed with the immobilized chicken in my lap and who then proceed to accost me. They peck my fingers, try to steal my earrings, peck at my hat, or even climb into my lap on top of the immobilized chicken.
Shortly after getting them over into their new coop this summer, I was putting out feed for them in their run. I give two different types of feed, a high protein pellet (which I ferment and which the chickens absolutely love) and a 16% protein layer crumble, and I store that in a metal bin with a lid. As I was dumping a pail of crumbles into their feed hopper outside I heard a crash from inside the coop. I didn’t think anything of it. Chickens are clumsy and curious, a comical combination. Anyway, I opened the door to go back in the coop, expecting to find my clumsy and curious hen, but to my surprise found no chickens. Huh, funny. Then I heard a faint and faraway chattering, rather hollow-sounding. I lifted the lid of the metal feed bin and there was my little red hen looking up at me with a rather puzzled look on her funny face. Oh, did I laugh! I had left the lid only partially on when I went outside and she had jumped up on it, flipping it over on herself, dumping her inside. Needless to say, I don’t leave feed bin lids partially on anymore.
Lately, one of my Australorps has been apparently discontented with the laying box accommodations. Not sure what triggered this, but after all these are animals with brains the size of lima beans. After months of consistently laying in the boxes, I found her nestled in an open bag of pine shavings, and for several days found eggs in that bag of shavings. Last week, I found her multiple times in the bag of layer pellets. I just haven’t the heart to chase her out, she seems so contented in her strange choices of nest. As long as she’s doing her job, I really can’t complain. I rather wonder if she’s the same hen that I watched very carefully steal a golf ball from one nesting box and scoop it into her box so she could lay on it. I wonder what she thinks would have hatched out of that?
Chickens are always good for a laugh.
The Winter, It Will Pass
We’re only a calendar month into winter but already we’re enjoying hints of the coming spring. The first hint is that Runnings has their seed display up! There has been moisture in the air, bluebird skies, and the excitement of springtime approaching! It has been a whirlwind of sourdough baking and chickens, puppies and our first two calves, housework and laundry and getting ready to visit my sister in Illinois.
Calving has officially started for us with the excitement (and puzzlement) of our first two calves of the year, beautiful full-term babies in spite of being born a solid month sooner than expected. That’s called a bull with initiative. The first calf showed up on Sunday, and the second one was found Monday. Both pairs are safely settled into the nursery pen on our end of the ranch. What a beautiful sight! Gorgeous, lanky-legged, satin-sleek calves tripping along daintily behind their protective mamas.
Puppies are (literally) underfoot during most of chores and throughout the day, finding everything absolutely fascinating. They watch attentively while chickens get fed, torment the cats, and come running in a black and white wave when they’re called. It takes about ten times longer just to walk up the hill to the house, with half a dozen puppies chasing my feet and scheming to trip me. All our females are spoken for and we are looking for homes for our two boy pups, Max and Teddy. We’re excited to see how they all turn out. They are so smart, it’s a little scary!
The chickens are already going gangbusters (for a flock the size of mine), with fourteen eggs today and a dozen yesterday. They have come through their first cold snaps beautifully with only a couple mild incidents of frostbite on a couple larger-combed hens, have been healthy overall, and I’m excited to embark on my second year of chicken keeping. I have learned so much this year, dealing with coccidiosis in my chicks, bumblefoot in a few hens, a few unfortunate dog attacks and resulting chicken first aid, and dealing with a crossbeak chicken who, after today’s beak work, is able to eat again!I’m very thankful for the customers I have and am looking forward to being able to provide eggs for more people this year! It was satisfying to know that my family always had eggs, even when the stores didn’t! And they’re better eggs anyway.
I hauled a bunch of loose hay up from the stackyard this week to give the chickens something to scratch in when they’re locked up and to help with mud when we get snow. The run looks better and the chickens love it. I’m excited to work on making chicken farming more sustainable this year and to try growing some fodder crops specifically for feeding my flock.
So we are off to a running start this year, excited for calving, excited to get planning my garden, excited to grow my flock, excited for what this year will hold. Spring really is just around the corner. The winter, it will pass.
Yesterwisdom: Poultry and Freedom
This picture has been circulating the internet. What an amazing and simple glimpse into the mindset of our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations.
“Even the smallest back yard has room for a flock large enough to supply the house with eggs. The cost of maintaining such a flock is small. Table and kitchen waste provide much of the feed for the hens. They require little attention – only a few minutes a day. An interested child, old enough to take a little responsibility, can care for a few fowls as well as a grown person. Every back yard in the United States should contribute its share to a bumper crop of poultry and eggs in 1918. In Time of Peace a Profitable Recreation; In Time of War a Patriotic Duty.”
What a contrast to today. But 80 to 100 years ago, freedom and a free people were really desired, victory over enemies and national flourishing weren’t viewed as ills, and the people in government at least had a better understanding that a free nation is made up of free people who have a level of self sufficiency and aren’t reliant on the government. And just look where we are now.
Food production has become centralized and so many of our foods are imported. Just look at the recent “egg crisis.” When the bulk of the nation’s eggs are produced by a few huge producers, what happens when those producers go under or are struggling with diseased flocks? Or when flock management becomes an issue of governmental concern (i.e. tyranny)? On top of those issues, people have been stripped of their self sufficiency due at least in part to increased urbanized living, and we’ve bred a culture that values cheap plenty (ironically now not so cheap) over quality. But then there is the weird dichotomy where people are willing to pay $5 multiple times per week for a fancy coffee at Starbucks that is consumed in ten minutes, but $5 per dozen for eggs seems like a lot to pay. Or people go to Walmart expecting and willing to pay a given amount for cheap Chinese junk and mass produced food, but go to the farmer’s market and expect to pay less for goods produced by the small grower or local business. Clearly we as a culture need a change in mindset.
So go get your chickens or buy eggs from a small farmer. Grow your garden. Go to the farmer’s market. Make food from scratch. Pick a few things you consume a lot of and figure out how make them yourself. Learn to reuse and repurpose and become less reliant on stores and big businesses. Enjoy the satisfaction of capability. Enjoy the fruit of engaging with your community. Bring industry back to the local sphere.
Song Dog Journal 