happy holidays to you all!

The year is over, the work is done;
we dream of tasks not yet begun.
In cold and quiet we tell tales
of a year's worth of travails

We imagine days ahead
before this season's put to bed;
all the things we hope to see
life and growth, prosperity.

We settle into these dark days
and learn to live in honest ways.
To live wholly by our labors,
honor the kindness of our neighbors

We are not resigned to fate,
but what our hands can cultivate
on the land that keeps us whole,
feeds our bodies and our soul

Tonight we must enjoy the peace
when all activity has ceased,
for tomorrow we shall turn the soil
on a new year of noble toil.

the importance of goals, and an apology

If anyone is still here reading this, I'd like to apologize for being gone for so long. Late summer and early fall are always busy times around here, and I've also spent much time considering the purpose of this blog. I regret to say that for now, the proposed new website is off the table. After a great deal of soul searching, I had to admit that I'm actually a farmer by nature, and that what I need is less screen time, not more. This blog will continue on as it has. I'll keep sharing stories of our crazy, dirty, difficult and utterly satisfying life if you, dear readers, wish to keep reading them.

Now, since you're not here for my blathering, let's get to the meat and potatoes...

Early December here means the final stages of winter wrap-up. This is the time when we put the farm to bed and actually put our feet up for a short while (a very short while - we start the spring garden in early February). The goats are bred and we're done milking until they kid in the spring. The freezer is full of broiler chickens, milk and cheese. The larder is full of preserves, soups, spaghetti sauce, fruit, veggies, and dried herbs. We're stocked up on hay and firewood and there's nothing left to do in the garden. We are now in bare-bones maintenance mode. Until the first seed catalog arrives, we'll kick back, visit with friends, enjoy the holidays, and work on projects we can't seem to find time for during the rest of the year.

Each New Year's Day, we set goals for ourselves - we decide what we want to accomplish in the coming year, where we want to see ourselves. It is around this time that I like to revisit them to see how we've done. I'm bursting with pride to say that out of fifteen goals - some small, but many rather ambitious - we can check off eleven of them! This is tremendous, yet doesn't take into account all the everyday work we do, plus some things we undertook that weren't even on the list. I couldn't be more proud of our efforts. We've all heard that if you want to get somewhere, you must first know where you're going, and that couldn't be more true. Now we'd best enjoy our bit of respite, because it's almost time to make a new list.

past, present and future

Living on a farm has a profound effect on the way you experience time. Respecting its importance is critical. After awhile, you fall in sync with its rhythms - you wake up one day and find that you know just what's supposed to happen and when.

I must at once look to the past, act in the present and plan for the future. Case in point, I have already planned my fall garden - in May. I know just what will go in, and where, and roughly how much. I've ordered seeds where necessary. This is important here, because seeds for fall transplanting must be started as early as June in some cases (hello, peppers!). Put it off, or get caught off guard, and you've missed the boat. How do I know this? I've done it before. I determine what to plant and when to plant it by looking back - recalling what has worked well in the past, what was a bust, and what may have been a missed opportunity. Time moves quickly around here, and stands still.

There will be some additional expansion of the garden this fall, and that's probably where it will stay for awhile. We've finally gotten a grip on things around here, and aren't anxious to over-extend ourselves right away. There is a temporary moratorium on new projects. As we head rapidly into the dog days of summer, the spring garden is going strong, also marching through its time-honored phases. The onions are done and curing. The Greens Age has passed. We've bid farewell to the lettuce and radishes - we barely remember salad. The legions of squash and beans are upon us now, and tomatoes and peppers are visible on the horizon. I sincerely hope that just behind them, just beyond my sight, are eggplant and melons. They would be most welcome.

We're still contending with a pretty serious snake problem, which means no spring ducklings this year, but for the one - the lonely survivor from the last hatch. He's holding his own. We're fairly certain he's a he. This gives us mixed emotions - if the one surviving duckling were a girl, we'd be thrilled as it would give us another future mother, increasing our odds of boosting the duck population. If a boy, well, then we get to eat it, which was the whole point of the exercise. It's hard to say which option we prefer at this point. Not that it matters - we get what we're given.

Little Bridget is now weaned, and still with us. We're also transitioning the girls to a once-daily milking, so that we may have some semblance of a social life again. Two milkings a day was never part of the plan, but sometimes plans don't go along with you, do they? We frankly can't cope with the volume of milk that two milkings a day provides. A gallon a day for two people? Honestly, even WE can't eat that much cheese. Between the copious amounts of milk and all the overtime the hens are clocking these days, we have the world's luckiest dogs. They know better than to complain about much of anything - they know how good they have it.

I have a bit of garden maintenance to do over this long weekend, but the bulk of my plans involve planning. These are the days when we look back over our year, take lessons from it and decide how to move forward. Each year has its challenges, and yet we come through, always with something to show. The thermometer outside is telling me, "It's time to stop now. Sit down, pour a cold drink and take stock. The cycle will begin again sooner than you think, so make your plans."

That thermometer is wise.

spring

It's here in north Texas.

guess who's feeling motherly?

That's right, everyone's favorite broody is back. Only this time, she's not sitting on a phony. Nope, this time it's the real deal. She's got five full-sized eggs under there. (Interestingly, she can cover five eggs, but five eggs plus a golf ball is just that much too much. The "decoy" had to be removed!) Just look at the spread of those wings. You'd never guess to look at her here, but she's really quite a tiny thing. Now that we have ample nest space and nice secure housing, we've decided that she can raise as many babies as she likes, whenever she likes. No more wooden eggs and golf balls for this girl. Besides, with all the variety we have in the poultry yard, it will be fun to see what sort of mixed breeds we end up with! Given our luck, though, they will ALL be Barred Rocks, and they will ALL be roosters, since that seems to be how we roll around here.

This time of year is a time for babies on the farm. We'll soon be awash in them. The first goat kid was only the beginning of a long spell of new life emerging. Between now and May, it will be an almost constant influx of offspring - a hostile takeover by the next generation. There are twenty-five chicks coming tomorrow, in addition to these five eggs being incubated in-house. Mother duck is building a clutch as we speak - it grows larger by the day and more deeply feathered. We're still awaiting the rest of the kids to make their appearance, and we know we have some buns in the oven, thanks to our new Californian does. Another crate of honeybees will join us in early April, and the gardens, trees and pasture will be offering up new leaves and shoots before we can say boo. The old will stand down. Youth will reign supreme. They are coming.

While I generally don't get emotionally attached to my livestock, I must admit to a certain fondness for the mothers around here. They're so earnest and work so hard. Their whole being is distilled and dedicated to a singular purpose. They really put heart, soul and unwavering determination into their efforts, and for that I adore (and applaud) them.

the great blizzard of 2010

It may sound laughable to call this a blizzard, and to those of you in other parts of the country that have been especially hard hit by snow this year, it is. But please understand that this amount of snow is completely unheard of here where I live. In fact, we set a record for the most snowfall in this area in a 24-hour period. I miss this kind of snow, and it is breathtakingly beautiful.

a night in the garden

I always love my country home, but there are times when it simply takes my breath away, and I'm deeply thankful that I get to be here. This evening is one.

We're enjoying a warm week in January, and the days have lengthened ever so slightly - the perfect combination of warmth and long light that makes me dream of springtime. I've taken advantage of a dinner already made and am spending the waning hour of daylight cleaning out my garden beds, in preparation for upcoming planting. I turn over big fistfuls of dark soil, marveling at the thriving earthworm population. I get a chuckle from the jostling and squawking of the hens putting themselves to bed - endless shuffling and shifting, punctuated by sudden outbursts, like children in their bunks at camp after lights-out.

I turn over soil until it is nearly dark and I can barely see. I can hardly make out the distinction between the black dirt and the smoke sky, the slate grass beneath my feet. The goats in the barn are silent, surrendered to their caprine dreams. A dog in the distance calls out to anyone who'll answer. Everything is quiet and still, and vibrantly alive. The air is cool and moist, faint lightning casts an orange glow on clouds too far away to matter, and everything smells of earth.

hell froze over

Actually, it's just our pond.



All the same, a frozen pond in Texas is pretty high on the list of things I never thought I'd see. On this particular morning, the thermometer outside read two degrees. TWO. We're plowing through firewood faster than we ever thought possible. We thought (not unreasonably) that we'd probably get through the winter on one cord of wood, maybe a bit more. Now we must acknowledge that it might take three. We had pipes freeze, then burst. Our German Shepherd, who will hang out in the yard in even the worst weather, has decided that being close to the wood stove is probably a pretty good idea. I found an egg in the yard yesterday that was frozen to the ground (I had to just leave it there). These are crazy, crazy times.

will wonders never cease?

It's snowing again today, for the second time in a week, and the second time already this winter. I can't begin to express how unusual this is for us. It's not that we don't ever get snow - we do. We get it once or twice a year, and almost always in January or February. This area had its first white Christmas in something like thirty years. For a girl raised in the north, I can tell you it was quite a thrill!

This strange weather feels like a harbinger. I have the feeling, deep in my gut, that the coming year will be different. I'm not sure quite how, but I get the sense that it will be a pivotal year, not just for us, but for the world. Perhaps it's because it is the start of a new decade or because our world seems perched on a precipice, as if we're all collectively holding our breath waiting for something to happen. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the world will end, or civilization as we know it will fall apart - nothing as dramatic as all that. I just think that this time next year, when we close the doors on 2010, we'll all have seen things we never thought we'd see. We'll experience a fundamental (if ever so slight) shift in our perspective. We'll all come out the other side just a little bit changed.

* Disclaimer: I don't make predictions or claim to know what the future will hold. This is simply one woman's opinion, based on instinct and nothing more.

seeing my way to the end

The holidays always bring a flurry of activity around here. In addition to the usual cooking, decorating and gifting that everyone does this time of year, we also find ourselves prepping the farm for winter. We're laying in firewood, fortifying the animal shelters, stocking up on hay and straw, putting the garden to bed. We've been at it for a good six or eight weeks now, trying to get things zipped up for the year.

We probably don't need to do this. Our winter "down time" really only lasts for about six or eight weeks. But here's the thing - we like the down time. We need it, really. It would be easy in a place like this to just plug along all year and never take a break. But the holidays wear us out a bit, and we know that come mid-February the real work will start, so we relish the dark days when we can hole up in the house to plot and plan.

I'm not done with Christmas yet. I'm close - I can taste victory - and the tasks I have left are all ones I enjoy. I have a bit of cooking, a bit of crafting, quite a bit of wrapping (I love wrapping) and I'm there. I'm on the home stretch. I can see those dark days of January in my sights. I'll finish up in the next couple of days, and spend the last week before Christmas just being. I'll drink hot chocolate and watch movies. I'll nap with my dogs. I'll browse the pages of seed and poultry catalogs with big dreams. We'll spend Christmas with the family eating pate and sausage balls and cookies. We'll drink too much wine and play charades. We'll build a bonfire and talk to distant relatives on the phone. The week after Christmas will be more of the same. We'll drink champagne on New Year's Eve in our pj's, watch James Bond films and eat brisket for days. And when we rouse ourselves from our party-heads, the dark days - the down time - will be upon us. We'll sit together with notepads and pens on the sofa (still in our pj's) and plot the next step of our takeover - our farm domination. We'll be the overlords of this place. We'll decide who stays, who goes and who gets hired, what gets built and what gets torn down. We'll look across our property with grand designs in our heads and make plans.

At least until mid-February, when the shackles go back on.

for all the climate change naysayers...

We were supposed to get snow today. That is pretty unusual in itself. We seldom get snow at all around here, and when we do, it typically doesn't arrive until January, or even February. I was all psyched for a nice, snowy Friday at home working by the wood stove, only to get up this morning and find that all calls for snow had been rescinded. I was so sad. Why would the powers that be cheat me in this way? All that snow that was supposed to ours surely didn't just vanish. Surely it turned tail and went elsewhere. Someplace more deserving of its charms. Someplace like Nebraska or Colorado or...

Houston?!!?

That's right. It is apparently snowing in Houston. So put that in your climate pipe and smoke it.

thinnings

This is the first food eaten (by me!) from the fall garden. A simple salad of thinnings...baby collards, kale, chard and pak choi, and one tiny turnip. It was lovely, and it means bigger and better things to come.

under the weather

My apologies for the sparseness of posts lately. I'm under the weather, in more ways than one. I've felt pretty down and out for a week or two now - not quite sick, but not really well, either. On top of that, I'm staring down another solid week of rain. That is Not Supposed to Be. October is the one month out of the whole year that we have perfect weather, and I feel like I'm being cheated. We can't get anything done outside, either. We've literally been trying to pour some concrete for about three weeks now, and just can't catch a break.

I'm resigned to laying low tomorrow. I think I'll spend the whole day on the sofa in my pj's, under a blanket. I'm afraid there's not much left to do at this point.

canning season

I've been canning like crazy this past week. Not veggies, I'm afraid - we're in that lull where nothing is coming out of the garden. The spring garden petered out long ago and the fall veggies are still tiny. No, this time of year I can soups, stews and sauces. I've made huge batches of spaghetti sauce, beef stew, chili and all kinds of soups. I also stew and can any chickens that might be lurking in the freezer around this time of year (and chicken stock, too). Since there are just two of us at home, I've learned that a quart jar of *whatever* is exactly the right size for one meal. There's nothing nicer than coming in on a freezing cold, windy winter evening after doing chores and splitting wood than popping open a jar of something hot, comforting and homemade.

It feels like money in the bank.

that thing they call "autumn"

I'm no longer convinced that Autumn really exists. Oh sure, as a child I recall red and orange leaves, apple cider, crisp mornings, chilly evenings, pumpkins, frost. I've begun to suspect, however, that these were pleasant lies manufactured by my parents to make me more willing to go back to school...to change out of the carefree skin of summer and fall in line. (Maybe that's why it's called "Fall"?) Here in the land of Summer, Autumn seems akin to Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Or even like winning the lottery or being asked out by the best looking boy in school. It is something that Other People get to enjoy.

But lately I cannot deny that I'm seeing the signs. My faith is returning. Every day Summer takes another step closer to the door. In another couple of weeks, she'll leave. Then of course, she'll have forgotten her keys or some such thing and come storming back in briefly before finally splitting for good. She may even forget her purse too, and have to come back a couple of times - you know how that can happen. This morning at ten after six, I noticed that it was unusually dark for ten after six. When I stepped outside, it was, dare I say, brisk. It was a mere 62 degrees - downright chilly for us here. I think there may be hope for us yet.

Now if you don't mind, I need to get out and work on the garden for as long as I can before it's 90 degrees. I probably have until, oh, mid-morning.

well, that was unexpected

Yesterday, like virtually every other day of a Texas summer, was sunny and hot. We spent the morning working outside until just before we passed out (which was about 11:00 a.m.). Drenched with sweat and heat-addled, we came inside for the day. On a day like that, we keep things closed up. All the shades down, the insulating, room-darkening curtains drawn. No sunlight should peek through anywhere. After all these years I really can't say whether that tactic really works to keep the house cooler, but it certainly does create a nice illusion. We sat in our cool, dark cave of a house all afternoon, enjoying the quiet, when out of nowhere came the sound of rattling. It was as though a dump truck full of gravel was suddenly dumped onto our house from above. We both jumped up in surprise and looked out the window. Rain! And a lot of it! No slow and steady buildup. No gradual darkening of the skies. It was just...there. And then it wasn't. Just like that. In the time it took to walk out and roll up the truck windows, it was done.

negligence

We had a surprise last night, while we slept - about three inches of rain. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good thing, and we needed it desperately. It was completely unexpected though (at least by me) and we now have hell to pay for not being prepared for it.

For starters, we left all sorts of things out that shouldn't have been out. Feed, bags of charcoal, tools, etc. Now, this isn't that uncommon here in summer because rain is a rarity, but that's no excuse. We should know better. It's nothing too tragic, just a nuisance, and some minor waste.

What was more tragic were the three dead chicks in the rooster pen this morning. They've been outside since about three weeks of age (they're six weeks now), which is not normally an issue because it's so hot here, even at night, but the unexpected rain and cooler temperatures did a few of them in. Or so I thought, anyway. One was dead for certain, but after a closer look, I discovered that two were still breathing. I brought them inside, cleaned the mud off them and wrapped them in a towel. I still have the chick brooder set up upstairs, so right now they are resting in there, under the heat lamp. I have no idea whether that will help, or if there's any hope for them. We'll just have to wait and see. In any case, I'm annoyed with myself for not paying attention to the weather. It's easy to get complacent when the weather doesn't change for weeks and weeks at a time, but I need to pretend like that's not the case.

****UPDATE****

This is how they look now, after 45 minutes under the heat lamp. When I put them in there, they were lying on their sides, unable to move, eyes closed, barely breathing, and soaking wet. They're some resilient little buggers! We're not out of the woods yet, but they might be okay after all.



****ANOTHER UPDATE****

These boys are looking much better and are back outside with their brothers. The Barred Rock went right to work on the food and is happily scratching and pecking away as if nothing ever happened. The Buff is still more subdued, and is hanging out quietly inside their little house. I'll be checking on them throughout the day.

summer is winter

Here in the Lone Star State, we don't play well with others. We run on our own schedule. Even the weather. I thought it might be helpful to provide a seasonal guide to Texas weather, for those not in the know.

SPRING: Begins in late February or early March, and lasts until the end of April. Temperatures range from somewhere in the sixties to somewhere in the eighties, and humidity is a constant 200% (or you'd swear it was, anyway). No longer cold enough for supplemental heat, but technically not hot enough for air conditioning. You run the A/C anyway to keep from feeling like you live in an actual swamp. Bread molds, produce spoils and metals rust in a matter of hours - you can almost watch it occur. Rain is continuous, non-stop and without end. Barns and chicken coops do not get cleaned out during this time and nothing gets built or mended. Your garden had best be planted by now.

PRE-SUMMER: A roughly two- week period around late April or early May when it clears up, dries up and the weather is gorgeous. What most normal people think of as spring, only a bit warmer. You cram as much outdoor activity as you can possibly manage into this time. Hurry and clean the barn NOW. Put up fencing NOW. Make building repairs and start your spring chicks NOW. Your garden got swamped out but is now enjoying the sunshine and growing like gangbusters. Don't get used to it, though, because you're about to head into...

SUMMER: Lasts for five solid months, from May through September. If you can picture a line graph of summer temperatures, you'd probably imagine it as a gentle hill, with the top of the hill somewhere around mid to late July. Our temperature graph would resemble a mesa. Temperatures rise to the vicinity of 100 degrees and park. Wind takes a holiday and it becomes deathly still. After about mid-June, any outdoor labor becomes impossible. Around mid-July, being outdoors at all becomes nearly impossible except after dark. Since we enjoy roughly fourteen hours of daylight this time of year, it is difficult to be outside for any reason before, say, 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. Even darkness doesn't offer much relief, since it manages to remain in the eighties or nineties even after the sun goes down. The garden has tanked. Despite nearly constant watering, everything is shriveled and brown. The animals barely move and sit around in the shade with their mouths open. You do pretty much the same. Summer, then, effectively becomes winter. It is the time to do all the things you've neglected indoors. Organize closets, work on that sewing project, catch up on reading. Movies are extremely popular in summer since theaters are routinely chilled down to about 40 degrees. You find yourself showering multiple times a day. A regular supply of ice is essential.

PRE-FALL: The time of year every Texan anxiously awaits. The first few weeks of October bring the very best weather of the year. Temperatures become civilized. Sunshine and mild days will reign. Nights will be cool and crisp. It is positively glorious. Again, you attempt to spend as much time outside as possible, although unlike in Pre-Summer, this time is usually spent on leisure. In an average year, Pre-Fall will last about three weeks or so. In a really good year, it will last through Thanksgiving. Enjoy this time. Do not even think of doing chores.

FALL: Much like spring for the rest of the country. Mostly cool temperatures, but there will be some days in the upper eighties, and some in the forties. There will not be snow to speak of. There might be ice, but only on Thanksgiving day, since nature knows that you probably have to drive somewhere that day. Fall lasts from the end of October all the way through December. Christmas day is sunny and sixty degrees, without exception, even if it was thirty degrees with snow flurries the night before.

WINTER: Our productive time. Winter consists of the month of January, and the first part of February. There might be light snow, and there will be cold, wet, windy days, but most days will be clear and mild, with temperatures in the 50's and often 60's. It is ideal for working outdoors. Or rather it would be, if the wind didn't blow at a constant 30 miles per hour. This is something to which you simply become accustomed. It is NEVER advisable to change animal bedding on a windy day (ask me how I know). Now is the time to be planning and planting your garden, but carefully - the seeds may blow right out of your hand. You'll need to hurry, too. Pretty soon it will be raining again.

it's raining, it's pouring

For something like two or three weeks we've had 100+ temperatures. For many weeks longer than that, it has been very hot, dry and still. The garden has gone up in flames, the dogs and goats are crabby and the chickens sit very still in the shade with their mouths hanging open. Finally this morning I woke up early to hear "tap tap tap tap" outside my window.

I asked hubby, "Is it...raining?!!?" My mind actually had to search for the word rain, as it seemed to have faded completely from my vocabulary. I asked the question as if I were from some remote and isolated culture and seeing my first can of Coke...something I'd only heard about but never actually seen. Something that only other people experience.

Just mere months ago, I pretty nearly tried to run Rain out of town on a rail. Now it's back for a daytrip, and everything looks clean, the plants get a much needed drink and I can finally open the curtains and let the dogs watch chicken TV (they are perpetually closed against Sun, who is many times more evil than Rain).

This is okay.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hubby and I are enjoying the weekend by spending it mostly in pj's, drinking irresponsible amounts of beer and setting off fireworks. I'm sure fireworks have to be bad for the planet and all, but I really can't help myself. They're one of my very favorite things, and I cackle like a (very juvenile) mad woman every time we set one off. It doesn't matter if they're small, large, sparkly, crackly or just one loud bang. I love them all. My favorite thing about them is not knowing exactly what they're going to do - each one is a surprise in a colorful little package.

Much like life.

(a mere portion of this year's haul)