"2011 Top 10!"

I was listening to NPR the other morning on my way to work, and they were discussing the modern tradition of the end of year "Top 10" list. This is where everyone in television, magazine and blog lists their "Top 10  _____!"  Fill in with "movies", "new television series" "albums" "celebrity divorces" etc.
So, I'm listening and thinking "I have a blog. Perhaps I should create my own "Top 10!".
But then, the only good movie I can remember watching this year was "Finding Nemo".
I'm about as hopeless with television shows. Albums? Yikes. Does Chet Baker have anything new on the scene?
Maybe I'm not cut out for "Top 10!".
Then again, my blog isn't about movies or television, celebrity divorces or music albums.

So, I thought, perhaps "Top 10 Cowfeathers Sunsets!" .

Which left me skeptical that anyone would bother looking past number 8.
"Top 10 favorite things that happened in 2011!"
This was a  mistake, because then your choices get fraught with meaning, or terribly bland..." being with my family".

 If I choose #1 as something to do with a child, that would be playing favorites. If I choose it to be something like, well, "adopting Julia" ( the black dog)

 then, I am choosing my animals over my kids. And, really if I'm going to do that, then I should probably choose the big black horse who carried me through my first few horse trials in 25 years, and not the dog that still occasionally poops on the hearth, and dumps over the trash cans.

So, I rejected that idea for my "Top 10!".
And, maybe, I'm not well suited to a list of anything from 2011, because I am not so good at looking back. I get nostalgic and then all macabre. I'm an optimist (okay, the Cowfeathers Farm blog faithful will also know that I'm a horriblilizer), mostly an optimist, so looking forward is much more healthy.
If this blog thing was easier, and readers could more readily respond in the comments section, I could ask for help in choosing my resolution, making a "Top 10 Choices of Resolution for 2012!" But, I can't  even figure out how to comment on my own blog, and I hear it isn't just me that seems to be deficient in this ability. So, I guess I'll decide the choice of Resolution on my own. Which leaves me decidedly without a "Top 10!" in my blog. So much for being NPR caliber.

And, then, I hit on the idea of letting the intrepid readers of this blog choose the "Top 10!. So, (as they say), without further adieu, I present the .....

"Top 10 most popular blogposts on Cowfeathers Farm!"

Posts

Every girl's dream; a Velociraptor of my own. Jan 20, 2011 1,283 Pageviews

Amateurs in The Big Leagues. Jul 30, 2011, 2 comments 145 Pageviews

Love in the Darkroom. Feb 14, 2011 97 Pageviews

The Circle of Life? Yikes. Apr 18, 2011, 1 comment 96 Pageviews

Having a Ball. Apr 6, 2011 78 Pageviews

Shhhh...another horse. Welcome Mikey! May 2, 2011, 1 comment 72 Pageviews

Middlest is thirteen! Jun 14, 2011, 1 comment 68 Pageviews

PuMPkin Show Oct 24, 2010, 1 comment 62 Pageviews

First Day of School! Aug 15, 2011, 2 comments 59 Pageviews

State Fair Accomplished. Aug 2, 2011, 2 comments 59 Pageviews

RamRam vs. Post

 The other day, Cesar, the ram decided that a certain post in the front field where he was spending the day was not to be borne. Let me preface that by writing that the choice is not unusual. Cesar has not prevailed in Ram vs. Post yet, but has won many a battle in Ram vs. Fence Board. Also, victories in  Ram vs. Gate Chain and several minor skirmishes against buckets, salt blocks and feed bins. So, I think his previous failures in bringing down a post had left him with courage right on the sticking spot. Although surely more ragged for it, the post won again. But, this time, Cesar came away with a skinned rambone.

This is the top of his head. He doesn't hold still, ever. So, this is the best shot I got of the skinned place on his rambone. That is my technical term for the ridge of bone between his eyes that he uses for great destruction.

Now, the question is...will it ever heal? This particular part of Cesar gets quite a regular workout. For several days, I have squirted it with healing spray, only to watch him then bash his head into the nearest wall, or, a favorite, the hog panel that separates him from the ewes. I think this is beloved not just because he would like to be close to me- he doesn't bash the panel unless I'm in the ewes pen, but because he can make it move at great velocity, which sometimes make contact with my poor body.

Here he is giving his Himalayan Salt Block a toss. I hung it right at ram height, which sometimes distracts him enough that he can choose to whack at that instead of  drive the hog panel towards my behind as I work with the ewes. The blue ball is his soccer ball. He paws it and then rams at it, It is made of indestructible voodoo materials and has lasted for months now.

The big, woolly blob in the bottom left corner is Dancer. Her head is in the sodium bicarbonate(dish of white stuff). She really is a block of wool with a head and 4 legs. Cesar is getting ready to make a steal of the bicarb.

He has successfully pawed the bicarb into his pen, and is now mashing at it with his head. This will in effect cover his broken skin with bicarb. Very basic.

And this is Dolores, not participating in any of the silliness. As you can see, she is getting the Griffin look from the crutching. I've got her back legs done, and now need to flip her over and get her belly freed of wool. Personally, I would like to think she looks very hopeful that I will do it directly in this photo. Practically, it is more likely she is hoping I will forget that the grain has been given and put more in her bin.

Industry at Cowfeathers. The press has begun!

Well youngest is in industrial mode. He has loaded the dishwasher (his chore this week) and then begun the cookie baking- which is a huge undertaking. There are 11 kinds of cookies, 4 kinds of truffles and bear claws to be created. He's gotten the sugar cookie dough in the fridge and the korova cookie dough as well (korova's are a rich dark chocolate and fleur de sel flaky- cookie...heaven. Dorie Greenspan recipe from Paris Sweets). I sidetracked him to dinner, and while I created a oyster mushroom and shrimp with creamy spinach polenta provencale, he is mixing up a fresh fruit salad of grapefruit, oranges, pineapple and pink lady apples. I like having a cooking partner! Now, if I could just keep him home from school, think of what we could accomplish!

The Marching Band fruit sale delivered their orders this weekend. We are well set for orange and grapefruit everything...juice, salad, peel and eat!

Perhaps my favorite thing about this photo is the strands of time. For instance, the spatula. It is my favorite. Acquired at a yard sale in 1988 or so for my first "household". Everything I had was hand me down, or tag sale. And some were keepers! The Caphalon pan was a wedding gift from Huz friends, Kathleen R. and Dr. Gary. The Revereware pan in the background was a Christmas gift from my grandparents at the end of the eighties, part of a whole set. It is now subbing in for my beloved tea kettle that malfunctioned this week, and forgot to whistle. I, naturally forgot the kettle was on (thus why it had been beloved for its whistle) and it got a bit melty. Threads that tie together all the bits of our lives are all around me. And the dinner was tasty. 

Nesting tree.

My Nesting Tree.

It stands in the corner of my sun-drenched, happy, white room. On it are dozens of nests I've gathered from around the farm, and eggs found on springtime trudges from barn to pastures.  The nests are special in ways other than their provenance. Many of them feature parts of my beloved critters!

One of my most "favoritest" nests. The outside of the nest is from our sheep's wool. the nest structure is of tail hairs from the horse Samantha. The egg inside is an anomaly of smallness laid by one of our chickens.

Moving Day

Am I moving? Yes. It is my main job. I am a professional mover. When Huz calls on the phone and asks what I am up to, my thought is always "I'm moving." Sometimes this even slips out, and he says "What?" and I must explain, lest he thinks me and all my "stuff" will be gone before he gets home. (Which, I think secretly might strike glee into his heart, hopefully not if I was gone, but if some of my "stuff" disappeared..) But, I don't mean "moving" as in trucks and cardboard boxes. I mean moving as in it is what actually occurs all day long.
I move dishes from the dishwasher to the shelves, dirty dishes back to the sink, then move to dishwasher. I move laundry from one room, to the washer, to the dryer and back. I move dirty dog footprints from the kitchen floor, to the sink, the dirt in the sink down the drain. I move backpacks, and reusable shopping bags, bags of horse feed have to move from car to barn, then to feed bins, to be made into manure, which...yep....then gets moved to the manure pile where it composts then gets moved to the gardens. What grows in the gardens must be moved to the kitchen, where it gets made into food, creating dirty dishes that need moving, leftovers that get moved into the refrigerator, and then, if uneaten, move to the chicken house for a treat.
I move books from the library to the house and back again, food from the grocery to the refrigerator, or the pantry. I move newspaper from the kitchen table, the dining room table, the living room, the sunroom and the floor to the recycle bin. Then, I move the recycling from the mudroom to the car and from the car to the Abitibi recycler at the school. I move the shop vac from the mudroom to each room in the house (yes, a 5 HP, 12 gallon shopvac is my vacuum cleaner of choice- did I mention farms are dirty?)  Moving the dog hair, the dried mud, the assorted bits that fit through the hose- the rule if it fits through the hose, and you left it lying around...byebye- it's moved.
I move horses from the paddock to the pasture and back. I move mud from their coats to the floor and then from the floor back out the door- to be applied back on the horses with their next roll. I move hay from the wagon to the loft, from the loft to the ground floor of the barn, from the bale to the stall. I move straw the same way, and then out to that growing pile of nitrogen rich compost. I move electric wire back into place after the sheep make their way through. I move the dog kennel to get to the shelf that holds the extention cords so I can plug in the lights that I moved from the basement (hey, not really. This year my kids did the moving from the basement to the upstairs!) to hang on the Christmas trees that the family moved from Saum's Tree Farm to our house. I move water from the sink to the trees and my neglected indoor plants, including the 4 Christmas cactuses that bloom most of the year, thriving on neglect. And now, I move presents from the pile in the corner of the bedroom to the living room to be wrapped and placed under the tree. Today is Moving Day. Just like any other.

We wish you a merry Crutchmas!

This picture is totally sideways. I can't seem to make it go up and down. But, I timed out on trying, since you probably can't tell what it is anyway.

Well, what time is it?
"CHRISTMASTIME!" You say?
True. But in this case it is also Crutching Time. This is the time of year when I spend a few hours sitting on an upturned bucket patiently clipping the wool off the back end and belly of the ewes. This makes them look like mythical creatures, you know, front end of a sheep, hind legs of a chicken (will post a post-crutching shot when I finish). But it is in preparation for the babies! I don't know when the babies will come. The first possible due date is in January, (January 2) but I suspect they won't lamb until after that. I do think they're pregnant. Well, Dolores, at least is looking a bit wider, especially when she lies down.Dancer is always broad, so harder to assess.  And, yes, we are special with the not knowing thing. Most folks who are sheep centric keep a marking harness on the ram. It attaches like a front baby carrier. When he mounts a particular sheep, she'll get a big orange, or blue, or red, whatnot, streak on the top of her rump. Then, you mark in your records the day(s) she was bred. Then, you count 143 days from then, ( the short side of the gestation period) and you can pretty much know when she will have her lambs. We, on the other hand, feel bad for Cesar, and don't want him to be lonely. So, not only do we not use a marker on the sheep - do I really want blue striped ewes? We also leave him in their company for a long time. So... the last lambing dates will be May 28. But, with the first possible date looming...it's crutching time!
Luckily, as the lambies won't be hanging out with their dad, I don't have to try to crutch the ram. The ewes are more patient.
The crutching process has two parts:

• Get all the wool and twisted bits of oil and poop off the back end of the sheep and around the udders. This is so the lambs don't starve themselves nursing on useless poop teats.
• Don't cut the sheep

That last one is tricky. Wool, by it's nature on these Border Leicesters is thick. This is good for spinning, but bad for blind hacking away with scissors. And, in great contrast, their skin is quite thin. Just a step above bunny rabbit. Thus, if you pull at the wool with one hand and slice with the other, you can quite easily take off elliptical chunks of sheep. Now, I'm not arrogant enough to think this won't happen to me. I am careful, and I work with animal skin for a living, so am attuned to it. Still, I have to pay close attention, and I keep suture on hand. I am pretty handy with sutures- another perk of the job.
If I had clippers this would be a few minute job. and much neater, too. But, an investment in shearing clippers when we have such a small flock has not been a priority. So, instead, the beautiful ewes will look like they were attacked by a rogue lawnmower with a penchant for rear-ends.
And I, instead of baking cookies and making merry, will be systematically chopping off poopwool.
G-L-A-M-O-R-ous...Glamorous, the Glamorous, Glamorous- that's me!

The questionable popularity of velociraptors

• So, I checked the statistics on this blog. I have had over 16,000 views (whatever that means...I guess you can't tell if anyone actually read an entry). The most curious thing is an entry I wrote quite a while back (January 20, 2011 ) to be exact, has the most hits by FAR of any entry in the blog. It seems to have its own cult following if you will. People from Russia, and France and Brazil check this particular blog entry. In all, to date it has had 1,023 views. That means that the one entry has had 6% of all the views total. The entry in question is one called "Every girl's dream; a velociraptor of my own".
• I'm not sure what to make of this. Huz mentioned it might be creepy, like a whole bunch of creepers googling "girl's dream" and then checking my blog to see if perhaps they can acquire a velociraptor in order to be the stuff of girl's dreams. Ew, and although acquiring a gander is certainly a possiblity, I don't necessarily recommend it for many, let alone creepers. If you don't know why, check the blog entry. And, I think it won't attract many girls atall, atall.
• So, I googled "velociraptor" and guessed what popped up? Not my blog. At least not on the first page. But if you add the word "my" or "own", that puts my page right at the tip top. So, this begs the question; how many people google "velociraptor of my own"?  Apparently enough that that one entry has had 156 views this week alone.
• That goose is a hot commodity!
• And, no, I don't know why there are bullet points on all my paragraphs. I suspect there is a voodoo computer reason that is rapidly figure-out-able by any of my children. In the meantime, it is bound to confound readers across the globe, and send derision my way over my lack of voodoo knowledge.

The Horse Shuffle

The horse shuffle. It is a game whereby I try to fit 4 horses into a three horse barn without anyone hurting anyone else or breaking anything. It is a game you can only lose.
So, adding another square on the board, Peaches shuffled to Kendra's house (1/2 mile or so down the road) and Samantha moved back in to Cowfeathers after a year + in Dayton.
Then, I get a call from a gal interested in Peaches. So, I rode her back to the farm last greyness (dawn- night is all about the same uniform grey, spitting rain) knowing she would be a bit dirty, and knowing it was going to get dark quickly, with no warning of a sun actually setting. I walked to Kendras, jauntily swinging my stick,  my helmet perched on my head, and rode Peaches home bareback. She is such fun to ride! Smooth and enthusiastic without being spooky. Why am I selling her? I ask for the thousandth time.
 Because 4 is too many. Because my kids have moved on. Because I, despite all sense in the matter, insist on a challenge.
 She groomed up to her pretty self, really Kendra had done a grand job in keeping her clean despite the persistent foot of muck everywhere, and said "goodbye", swiftly this morning.  I'm terrible at goodbyes, and sent her off for a 30 day trial at a new barn where they teach beginner lessons, trail ride and teach special needs, at risk kids the value of friendship with a horse. Peaches' black and white fuzzy bod has decorated this farm for several years now. I will miss her! But, I do hope she will be loved and ridden and enjoyed.

20 Chickens not a-layin!

The girls are slowin' down. The girls, meaning the hens. At the peak of the laying year, we were getting about 15 eggs a day. Well beyond our consumption capacity, those eggs find their way to the homes of friends and coworkers. Usually, if a shell cracks a bit during collection, I keep it aside, and we use it the next morning for breakfast, but when we are getting so many eggs, I do tend to discard the cracked ones. If you get too many peppers in the garden, you can dry them, freeze them, make pepper jelly. If you get a huge crop of grapes, you can make juice, grape syrup, or, if ambitious enough, wine. You can make extra milk into yogurt or keep it even longer by making cheese.  But, what do you do with excess eggs? Egg jelly, frozen eggs, dried eggs.... yuck. The ancient Chinese apparently preserved their eggs for years, even, by doing things like soaking them in salt and clay. Or, ashes, tea and salt. But, again, yuck. A few centuries back, folks would parboil an egg, coat it in oil and put it in the root cellar. It would "keep" for months, with maybe just a bit of mold. Of course, mold is important for cheese, and I like cheese. But moldy eggs seems like a tough idea to swallow. So, eggs, really seem to best eaten fresh. And, it seems like the season of plenty has past for my little hens. Last year, they were on an egg roll...and laid pretty heavily right through winter. But, as the days have shortened and the temperature has dropped we've started getting a LOT fewer eggs. I look for three or four an evening now.

Now, maybe the fewer daylight hours of nature are not the only thing to blame for our lack of eggs. We started this flock of chickens in the early spring of 2004. That means our eldest hens are a rather mature 7 years of age. This is pretty much past the age when they lay eggs. They might live to be 12, even 15 years old if kept safe and healthy until they're ancient, but the egg laying ship has left the harbor. In fact, commercial laying operations keep hens for 2 years, then off they go to the knackers to feed your dog, or make your McNugget. This is because after the age of 2 it costs more to feed the hen than you can make selling her eggs. We did not raise chicks in 2011. This means the last chick crop here at Cowfeathers was 2010. These are the birds that are still making eggs, with an occasional one here and there from our 3 and 4 year olds. The other 20 birds or so, are just here because we love them. Our eldest ladies, Poppy, Junior, Ebony, Sapphire, Imelda, Pumpkin, Lace...look hale and hearty, no longer pull their weight and are still my favorites. Ebony, a Black Autralorp, is my best singer, and gives me a serenade upon request.

The old ladies stick together. All but the Lakenvelder(second from right) are from the original flock. Ebony is the one giving me the tail end view in this shot. All black and vocal. My mother has an elderly Australorp that sings so well, her name is Aretha.

All our eggs are currently brown. This helps me tell who is laying and who is no longer doing so. We have quite a few Ameraucaunas, and since their eggs are green and blue, not laying. Ditto with our white egg layers. My Cuckoo Marans lay deep chocolate colored eggs...none of those, and no speckled ones either. But, I love the variety of eggs usually in my basket and thus in my carton. So, this spring will need to be a chick spring. Clear out the mudroom and prepare for dust, chick poop and the adorable little peeps and chirps of the fuzzy things. In the meantime, our eggs are precious again. To be savored, not preserved.

Cowfeathers chicks.

You can see the thermometer hanging in top left. 95 degrees for their first week of life, then 5 degrees less each week until they are old enough to go out to the barn.

Here they are as 'tweens. On a field trip to the garden to scratch in the warm spring dirt. Evidently they think the grass would be greener...