Gypsy Farmgirl

the turkeys are hatching!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:01:00 +0000

After a winter that continues to cling tightly with below freezing nights, snow and ice storms, signs of spring are finally starting to emerge.

All the spring birds have returned including our pair of Eastern Bluebirds and Mourning Doves, not to mention a host of other birds like Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins and Sandhill Cranes. The morning air is awash with birdsong and it fills the heart with joy.

The grapevine shoots we snipped off in Feb. and stuck in water until we could plant them outside are growing leaves. We can't wait to have more of this wonderful, 50-year old grapevine popping out clusters of juicy purple Concord-tasting grapes.

The maple sap has nearly finished running and the trees are budding out. So far we've boiled about 10 gallons of sap down to 2.5 pints of syrup. And somehow it tastes even sweeter knowing it came from our own trees.

The apple seeds we planted are sprouting (yes yes, we know specific apple varieties don't grow from seeds, they grow from grafts... but we're willing to take a chance - all the best applesauce and cider apples used to be planted from seeds - aka Johnny Appleseed-style).

And to top it all off, my first batch of turkey eggs are hatching!!

And yes, I can already see the resemblance to my breeding pairs of Blue Slate Turkeys, although we can expect a mixture of colors to come out of our slate-to-slate pairs including black, slate and self blue.

Of course I will love them all no matter what color they are.

My heritage turkeys can breed naturally, unlike 99.9% of the turkeys in this country, the Broad-Breasted Whites that grace most dinner tables during the holidays.

I feel honored to be witness to this miraculous event, the looping 'round of the circle of life, right beneath my eyes.

Cheers -

overcoming your fear of the dark or aliens in the cornfield

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 02:02:00 +0000

I grew up in the country and have returned back to living in the country where it is, to borrow a phrase, "darker than the inside of a cow" at night.

This isn't a problem unless you're afraid of the dark. As far back as I can remember, I was terrified of the dark.

Family gatherings at our house with other kids inevitably led to rounds of hide-and-go-seek in the dark edges of the woods around our large yard, with me camped out as close to the porch light as possible, nearly in tears that something would eat me before anyone found me.

In high school I was often let off of the activities bus after dark, facing a 1/4 mile hike down the pitch black road to my parents' house. These hikes terrified me. I would sing as loud as possible and run as fast as I dared (no, I did not own a flashlight at the time).

I always figured if there really was something scary on the road, a wolf or a bear, I would probably run smack into it, scream my head off then die of a heart attack, nary a scratch on me, my untimely death forever an unsolved mystery.

If you have an intense fear of the dark or aliens in the cornfield or clowns with fangs hiding out below the sewer grates you know exactly what I'm talking about here.

{Luckily, there are very few sewer grates in the country where I live now, as I would not step foot on one for about, oh, 30 years after reading Stephen King's IT.}

So a few years ago {maybe about 20} I decided I was tired of being afraid of the dark. I didn't like feeling like a spooked cat every time I went outside, or forcing family members to accompany me, or dragging my little indoor dogs with me to venture out into the dark every time I had to retrieve a bag of groceries from the car.

It was a slow process. And I'm not completely over my fears. But I am so much farther down that path that I wanted to share a few insights I've learned along the way.

I'm not a fan of "tossing-a-kid-in-the-pool-to-teach-them-to-swim" method. In other words, I didn't lock myself outside every night until I "got over it." I'm more of the "to-eat-an-elephant-take-one-small-bite-at-a-time-and-chew-slowly" kind of a person.

Being afraid of the dark was a big, bad elephant in my psyche. Here are some of the small bites I took to get rid of it.

{Note: Only perform the exercises below if you live in a safe place. I'm not advocating going outside alone in the dark if there is a good chance you will be mugged or worse.}

baby bites

Stand outside near your house or other safe place and breathe slowly, smell the fresh air, let your eyes adjust to the dimmer light, and appreciate the beauty of the night.

You can do this right outside your house (if you don't live right under a street light). It would be best not to be standing by any bright porch lights either, as that will increase the relative darkness outside of the light's beam. Same goes for using a flashlight. I have a Maglite as long as my forearm that could crush an alien, but it will only illuminate what is directly in the beam. When I turn it off and let my eyes adjust, I can see much, much farther. Not with as much detail of course, but much farther away.

Once I click off the light or step away from any streetlights, my eyes start to adjust to the dimness. I notice the wind blowing through the trees, the moon rising above the pasture, Boo with his snowy white fleece lying near the chicken coop.

Repeat the above exercise as often as you can handle. Try to stand a little farther away from the house each time. Don't force yourself if you're scared. Set a goal of 3 minutes, then when you can stand that, try 5.

give yourself a pep talk

Self-talk isn't just for learning how to be more confident or gathering courage to talk to a cute guy. If you're afraid of the dark or cornfield aliens, you probably already have a long-standing running commentary going on in your head that feeds your fears. "Oh it's so dark outside... I'm so scared of the dark... I can't see anything past the porch light... I bet there's lions and tigers and aliens out there just waiting to eat me..."

If you catch yourself doing this, stop the soundtrack. Replace it with a new, more positive one. "It's dark outside but wow, look at those stars! I'm being so brave coming out here. I bet I will be even more brave tomorrow. I can walk to the barn without turning on my flashlight. Then I'll turn it on to go check on the critters. I can do this!"

{Nobody can hear you, so go ahead and talk corny to yourself. Sometimes you need to cater to your inner-4-year-old.}

Once you can stand near your house, then a bit farther away, and spend several minutes outside alone without having a panic attack, it's time to move on to something more challenging.

stretch yourself to try scarier things

For me, that meant going on longer walks. In the woods. Alone. I allowed myself to carry a flashlight, and to use it for part of the way, but I would also make myself stop and stand still and turn the flashlight off for several minutes before turning it back on. Occasionally this exercise was preceded by a glass of wine. Or rewarded by a glass when I returned home without being eaten. Or both.

stretch to even bigger, scarier things

I decided I would try renting a small hermitage cabin at Camp Amnicon as a real test of my fear-fortitude. Three days, two nights, all... by... my... self. I had no problems during the day, going for long walks, enjoying the fall colors, reading, writing, taking photos.

And then the daylight faded. And then I realized there was no lock on the door of the cabin. That night, after shoving all the furniture up against the door, I stuck my earplugs in, gave myself a pep talk, pulled the covers over my head and after tossing and turning, eventually fell fitfully asleep.

The second night I figured I better put on my "big girl panties" and take a walk down to the lake after dark. I had to work up the nerve for this exercise all day. I stretched out my dinner for-ev-er. I had an extra glass of wine. I sorted all the items in my suitcase. Finally, I had no more excuses or procrastination tactics left.

I walked all the way down to the lake (about 1/2 mile) with my flashlight on, but on the return trip, turned it off and walked most of the way back by moonlight. I was amazed at how much I could see when my eyes adjusted. Small noises still startled me, but did not terrify me. I did not run into any long-legged beasties.

the scariest test of all

For my 30th birthday I ~~tested~~ treated myself to a solo, 3-day canoe trip to the BWCAW. I had been on canoe trips before, but always, always, with some form of a big macho guy or pack of tough ladies. This time, I was the big macho guy.

Just like with the retreat cabin, the days were idyllic - perfect weather, paddling at my own pace along my own chosen route, stopping to eat and snap photos whenever I chose. I picked spots to camp that I had stayed at before, to give me some sense of comfort and familiarity. I chose a route that required no portaging.

And I made sure I went into the tent and went to bed every night before it got really dark. With my earplugs in. And the sleeping bag pulled over my head.

Yes, I woke up and heard things several times every night which scared me.

No, the Blair Witch did not come and eat me.

Yes, it was scary AND liberating all at the same time.

Since that time I've backpacked parts of the Superior Hiking Trail solo several times with similar results. My favorite memory was when I was camped in Judge C.R. Magney State Park in my ultra-lightweight Hennesey Hammock, which hugs you like a cozy cocoon.

I woke up after I had been asleep for awhile, and wasn't sure what had woken me. The night was quiet, but then I heard an owl hooting. I felt like the universe was hugging me and cradling me in safety. It was the best feeling I've ever felt while alone in the wild.

At a recent dinner party a guest asked, "Aren't you afraid of living out here in the country where it's so dark and you're so far away from anybody?" I was surprised by the question, as yes, I've always been afraid of the dark.

And then I realized, my response to her of "No, I'm not afraid of living here in the dark," was finally the honest truth.

From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-leggedy beasties

And things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us!

~Scottish Saying

Cheers -

sit still, listen

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:46:00 +0000

How often do we just sit still and listen?

I can tell you, for me, it's not often, even though my child is grown and gone and my husband works off the farm, leaving me all the stillness I can handle.

You'd think it would be easy then just to sit still for a minute and do nothing but soak up the sights and sounds around me.

It's not.

I'm a driven person - driven by my endless 'To Do' list which revolves in my head like a carousel, a new Task ever revolving into view, the circle of tasks endless no matter how many I accomplish in a given day.

I also have a full-time job. Which most of the time I can do from my home office. A blessing - but again, more stillness, more alone time, more time with my carousel of unending tasks.

In my "free time," I am primary caretaker for over 40 animals on the farm, making sure each one is fed and watered and mineraled, that nobody is acting "off" or in need of an intervention.

Sometimes this means sitting in the barn for 45mn waiting for one of our turkey hens to lay her egg, watching her pace become more and more frantic in her search for the "perfect" spot.

I tell her (out loud even) that "It's OK, you can lay your egg in the corner and I will take care of it. I am here." She continues to pace, her vocalizations rising in urgency.

I am reminded of myself whenever I watch her. Of how worked up I can get over the little things, the things that really don't matter and will be forgotten by tomorrow, and forget the big things that do matter - family, friends, my health, this farm.

So this afternoon after my second round of chores I decided I needed to just "sit still and listen."

Despite the cold wind blowing across the hayfield, despite the fact I had already been outside, dressed in my insulated Carhartts, for nearly an hour.

We have two massive white pine trees flanking the west side of our house. When the wind blows through them it transports me to places in the Boundary Waters that I love to visit.

So I chose a tree and sat.

The wind blew around me and above me, making sweet music through the pine needles.

After awhile I heard a strange noise and looked up just in time to see a flock of about a dozen wild turkeys gliding in over the hayfield, most of them landing on the steep bank that rises up to the highlands of our property.

{The tiny speck in the photo above is a turkey running towards the hillside.}

Our heritage turkeys also saw them and called out to them, but the Wild Ones were on their own mission.

Despite their distance from me, I could still make out their calls to each other - slightly strange yet oh-so-familiar, cousins to my own small flock, their calls not so different from my own birds.

I felt a surge of unexpected Kinship with the Wild Ones.

I decided to climb up the steep hill to the highlands and see if I might spot them wandering around.

The climb involved a lot of snow, slippery slopes and crawling on my hands and knees, but eventually I made it up to the top. The turkeys were long gone, although I did manage to startle the last 4 who took off silently, gliding through ancient oak branches and out across the back pasture.

I circled the highlands and started to make my way back down. My turkeys and guineas were creating a ruckus despite the wild turkeys being gone.

As I made my way down the hillside I realized why - a fat opossum was making it's way up the hayfield toward the poultry paddock. I slid down the hill coming from behind him (her?). He never even noticed me, and paid little attention to the noisy paddock of birds.

From there I followed him through the fence (thankfully he crossed near a gate) and wandered his way up to the old garage, stopping to sniff Papa Bear's antlers on the way by, then stopping under the Butternut tree to much on a pile of something I could not see.

By now I was only about 10' from him. He seemed not to notice, or care.

I wondered momentarily about rabid opossums. Shouldn't he be scared of me and run? What if he came snarling after me? What would I do?

Then Molly showed up meowing and when it appeared he was going to head in her direction, I made a noise and he turned and walked the other way. As I followed him and walked past the Butternut tree, I looked at the spot where he had been munching something and realized... it was a pile of cat poo.

And then I realized,if I had gone back inside after my earlier chores like I normally do, I would have missed it all.

The music of the wind through the pine branches.

The surprise of a flock of wild turkeys gliding past.

The crawl to the top of the hill.

The slide down, watching the progress of the opossum.

The realization of what an opossum eats for dinner when it can't catch my chickens.

All I had to do was sit still and listen, to be present for a few moments.

So basic.

So difficult.

So necessary.

Cheers -

lessons in courage from a pint-sized rooster

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:24:00 +0000

Allspice is our bantam Americauna rooster. He was the first of our 4 bantam roosters to start crowing last fall.

Allspice was also the first of our bantam roosters to start, ahem, "dating."

We have a full-sized rooster named Vigor. He's bold and beautiful and everything you'd want in a full-sized rooster.

He rules our flock of 38 birds (a mixture of full-sized and bantam chickens, Guinea fowl and turkeys).

But... he doesn't rule the barn floor.

Allspice learned pretty early on that he couldn't out-run, out-muscle or out-compete with Vigor. If Vigor caught him sidling up to one of his full-sized ladies, he quickly got yanked off his feet by the scruff of his neck and tossed to the barn floor.

{The lady in question might also get a peck on the neck for her transgression.}

It seemed like it would be a long, lonely life for Allspice, hiding in Vigor's shadow.

But that is not the end of Allspice's story.

I noticed pretty soon after Allspice starting having "dates" with the bantam girls that he was also dating the full-sized hens.

Behind Vigor's back.

He'd wait until Vigor was outside the barn chasing ladies around the pasture, then he'd grab all the remaining hens in the barn and "date" them all.

When Vigor takes his ladies to the roost at night (which he does pretty early in the evening), Allspice stays on the barn floor "dating" every last hen who comes by for a late night snack before bedtime.

Allspice is out-sized and out-classed in every way.

But it doesn't matter to him.

He makes up for in courage what he lacks in size.

And at the end of the day (or night), guess what? Allspice gets more dates than Vigor does, a hundred times over.

What's my point in all of this?

All of our lives we are absorbing messages. First from our parents, then our classmates and teachers, friends, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, significant others.

Sometimes the messages are positive and encouraging: "You sing great! You should try out for choir!"

And sometimes, despite perhaps the best of intentions, those messages are less than supportive: "You really should pick some other type of career - I don't think History Professor / Actor / Singer / Dancer / Artist is going to put food on the table."

Over time, these messages change us.

The child who doodles in her notebook during Math is scolded and told to pay attention in class. Eventually she stops drawing and becomes a librarian instead of an artist.

The boy who animatedly engages the class with his comedic gestures is told to be quiet and sit down. Eventually he becomes an accountant instead of an actor and playwright.

The teenager who dyes his hair pink, gets a nose ring and tattoo and plays loud music in the garage is told to get serious, he'll never be a rock star. He takes the first paying job that can take him out of Smallville and is now is stuck in middle management, paying the second mortgage and the second vehicle loan and wondering what happened to his dreams.

That unbridled passionate joy that we expressed in so many unique ways as children gets smothered by a thousand expectations of how we should be/act/work/live/love.

As the spark inside of us grows dimmer, we turn to distractions like work, TV, social media, our kids' schedules, food and addictions to numb the pain.

Where did our uniqueness go? What happened to that child so full of life and hope and tenacity, with the world at her fingertips?

She or he is still there. Bruised perhaps, dormant most likely, but still there.

Like Allspice tossed to the barn floor. Bruised & dusty & humiliated.

But resilient.

Allspice doesn't have an education. He doesn't have a flock. He doesn't have big spurs to fight with or a big car to impress the ladies, or any other external advantage.

The only thing he has is a big belief in his own worth as a rooster, the cajones to take risks and chances where he knows he could fail (and often does), and the ability to, when tossed to the ground, pick himself up off the barn floor, shake the dust off of his feathers, sing his little heart out, and keep chasing after the ladies.

We could all learn something from a pint-sized rooster. What are your dreams, and what's stopping you from chasing them?

Cheers -

P.S. - Most of the pics in this post were shot with an iPhone and shared in Instagram. Have an IG account? Let me know so I can follow you!

a watched turkey never lays an egg

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:32:00 +0000

Jenny from the box

How I spent this eve:

Put on 20# of insulated Carhartts and trek to barn through fresh snow to shut the poultry door.

Notice turkey acting strangely. Intuit she is going to lay an egg.

Wait 45mn for her to lay egg so it won't freeze over night.

Watch turkey climb into a chicken-sized nest box. Wait for turkey to lay egg.

Watch turkey get stuck in chicken nest box.

Take down entire next box unit (10-box unit) and remove turkey.

Go inside to find something turkey can use as nest box.

Remove 20# Carhartts.

Find cardboard box.

Reapply 20# Carhartts.

Take cardboard box to haymow and fill with hay. Bring box to barn.

Find turkey egg in the middle of barn floor (still warm).

Leave cardboard nest box in barn. Return to house.

Remove 20# Carhartts. Place egg safely on table with other eggs.

The End.

haymows and mowhays and hay hays

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 03:16:00 +0000

hey hay hay Molly!

I was tagging an Instagram photo the other day (find me there as @gypsy_farmgirl) when it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how to spell haymow... and then it occurred to me I also wasn't exactly sure how to pronounce the word, or even exactly what could be called a haymow (does it have to be a loft area of a barn? Can it be the overhang on the back side of our machine shed full of hay?).

So I did what 99% of the world does today when in need of vital information such as the spelling and pronunciation and definitions of old Germanic and Norse words - I Googled it.

The result was this fascinating and entertaining explanation from The Word Detective.

And no wonder I was confused. Not only are there two different versions of mow - one pronounced like "moe" and one like "cow," there are different ways to describe places to hold hay and other forages.

Here's the quick and dirty run-down as per The Word Detective. Feel free to visit the link above if none of this makes sense:

Mow - rhymes with moe - “to cut down grass or grain with a scythe or machine.”

Mow - rhymes with cow - “a heap or stack of hay, grain, corn, etc.” or “a place, especially a part of a barn, where hay or corn is heaped up and stored.”

So technically, haymow means any haystack. A haystack even still in the field is technically a "haymow."

A stack of round and square bales under the overhang of our machine shed is a "haymow."

{Whew! I've been calling it that for months!}

Can you see Molly?

A hayloft, however, comes from an old Norse word meaning "air or sky" or "upper room." By this definition, a hayloft may also be a haymow but not every haymow is a hayloft.

Clearly confused yet?

Which reminds me of my current favorite joke:

"A man walks into a bar completely wrapped in Saran wrap. He asks the bartender, "Bartender, do you think I'm crazy?" The bartender looks at his clothing and replies, "Sir, I can clearly see you're nuts."

But I digress. Back to haymows.

I read on a bit further and discovered a word that's even more confusing - a "mowhay."

In this case, mow still means stack of hay, grain, etc. but "hay" means fence or hedge. A stack of hay enclosed by a fence or hedge.

Substituting "mow" (heap of hay, grain, etc.) with "hay" in mowhay and we end up with a...

hay hay.

Or like I like to greet my friends and family, "Hey, hay hay!"

Now at least I finally know what I'm talking about when I say this.

Cheers -

Our real Velveteen Rabbit

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:27:00 +0000

There's a new girl in Papa Bear's life.

She's young and sweet and oh-so-cute.

He likes to stroke her back and nose.

And I don't mind one bit.

She eats hay and pellets and if startled, may leave a pellet or two in her wake.

She is an as-yet-unnamed, 17-week old female Velveteen Lop.

She was supposed to arrive as a surprise in mid-November but work schedules got changed and suddenly we had to wait another 6 weeks and spend 12 hours in the car to get her.

We both think it was worth it.

She seems pretty happy too, hippity-hopping all over our kitchen.

The cats are not amused, but they never do like sharing the house with other critters.

I'm sure they'll get over it.

Eventually.

Her color is "blue torte," but to us she's peach covered in grey covered in adorable.

If you didn't already have 45 reasons to visit our farm, now you have 46.

Hippity-hop on over here and stay for a spell.

We'd love to see you, and so would Velvet. Or Bunny or Hunny or whatever her new name is going to be.

Cheers -

A visit to Santa's workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 22:55:00 +0000

Most folks might think Santa's workshop is at the North Pole and is run by a fat man in a white beard, but for my siblings and I, we knew that Santa's workshop was on the North Shore, the barn shaped structure just a few paces past the garage, and Santa looked an awful lot like our dad.

From within the cozy walls of Santa's workshop, if one was lucky enough to sneak a peak, you would find hand crafted items in a variety of stages of completion, each one being meticulously tended by Santa himself.

I had a chance to wander through Santa's workshop just this morning. It was quiet in the shop, no elves scurried about, surprising given it was Christmas Eve.

Several black walnut bowls were in various stages of completion - one on the lathe, one cut out but not yet glued, several finished, the walnut grain beneath their varnished surfaces gleaming as if lit from within.

It amazes me how a 10" square piece of walnut can be transformed into a bowl via a method of cutting concentric circles at an angle, then stacking them upside-down into a conical shaped bowl.

Gluing, sanding and varnishing follow and the finished product is a very lightweight and beautiful bowl that anyone would be proud to display at the center of their table or anywhere else in the house.

After the wood bowl tour, our attention turned to the workshop ceiling, where various model airplanes hung, their wings carefully removed and hung along the rafters, one with a wingspan of 12'!

(You didn't know Santa was an RC modeler now, did you?)

Props and engines and other parts are all carefully arranged, an art form of itself.

Flights aren't always successful, and evidence of a few bad landings can also be found. We are just grateful Santa's reindeer never seem to have problems with their landing gear.

Looking at all the airplanes makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop, even though I have no idea how to fly one.

I remember as a small child when Santa's workshop was in our basement. I liked to go downstairs and watch Santa work his magic, whether it was putting together cabinets for a family in town or building a press to make cross-country skis for our family, each ski tip carefully stenciled with our first name in red block letters.

I still have my pair. The bottom layer of wood has been worn nearly off with use so they have retired from active service, being used now as decorations, a place to hold my childhood memories of wax and cork and snowy outings with my family.

Despite the hours I used to sit and watch Santa work, sadly I never did acquire any wood working skills. Nor did I ever take shop in high school. My tools with a hammer and saw are limited to cutting firewood and hanging photos.

If I had the time and talent, there are so many things I'd like to create with my own two hands:

These wool combs
This top bar bee hive
A rabbit condo for our new Velveteen Lop bunny
A chicken coop carved like a Norwegian stabbur

But alas, all I can do for now is put all of this down on my Christmas wish list and hope that I've been good enough that Santa will bring them to me next year. Or the year after that. I'm pretty patient when it comes to waiting for Santa's handmade goodies.

In the meantime, the lure of Santa's workshop calls me to visit every time I am home. Once inside the magical room I stand quietly, taking in the smells of sawdust and glue, in awe of what can be accomplished with a handful of tools, a skilled hand and a head full of creative ideas.

Cheers -

Molly's haymow

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:12:00 +0000

This is Molly.

She is not our cat, but she lives on our farm. Last June when we moved here, we saw her from a distance around the fringes of the property. She seemed pretty skittish and in general she stayed far away from us.

Our cats don't like her around, so that was part of the reason she stayed so far away. Any chance they get, they chase her as far as she will run.

Late in the fall, before it had started to get cold, she suddenly started coming around our house in the evening, after the cats were inside for the night.

She was tentative at first, coming within a few feet of Papa Bear or I, sniffing our hand, rubbing against a boot, then taking off.

And then one evening she decided we must be OK. She stayed on the back step all night, meowing.

She didn't want to come in.

Turns out, she wanted food.

Every night thereafter, she came to the back door after dark, meowing for her dinner.

Of course, PB and I being totally ~~pushovers~~ trainable, complied with her ~~request~~ demands.

Sometimes she would hang around long after the kibbles were gone. She seemed just to want some company, a scratch on the cheek, some.... love.

Fall was mild and warm. Then the pre-Christmas blizzard hit us. Snow was coming down hard and winds were fierce. Over 12" of snow fell that day, some of it drifting 3' or higher in the winds. There was no sign of Molly as dusk fell, nor any sign of her long after dark.

I was, I will admit, worried about her.

We thought she was pregnant - her sides had been bulging out and of course that insatiable request for dinner every night.

A pregnant cat alone in a blizzard. I had odd thoughts about Mary and the baby Jesus on a long, cold winter's night in a crude cave-like stable roughed out of the rocky hillside. The baby nestled on a bed of sweet smelling hay, his young, exhausted mother worried but gazing lovingly at him along with the cattle and sheep.

Hay.

After my last round of chores, buttoning up the chicken coop and making sure everyone had unfrozen water and lots of hay, I took one last trip past our haymow, thinking if I were a cat, this is where I would be living this winter.

I had been getting hay from this haymow every day since our first snowfall, and had not caught sight of her in there yet.

But tonight, as I walked up to the stack of round bales, she came darting out of the tunnel made between two large round bales.

She was here! Alive and well. And startled as heck that I had found her. She obviously was not expecting me.

So of course I went and got her food (she followed me out into the snow and wind to the back door) then I lured her back to the hay mow where she could eat sheltered from the howling winds and swirling snow.

From that day forward, being completely trainable as mentioned before, we bring her food and water to the haymow.

We've been looking for signs of kittens, but nothing so far. The tunnels between the hay bales go back pretty deep. If there are kittens, it may be weeks before we catch any sight of them.

Every evening I put down her food, giving her pets and scritches and she purrs like crazy rubbing all over my hand and knee then dives into the kibble.

I know I shouldn't be encouraging stray felines to live here.

But I have a soft spot for calicoes.

Or maybe just a soft spot for kitties.

Or maybe just a fondness for the philosophy that "no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."

Thanks, Aesop. I'm bound to have a haymow full of kittens for the rest of my life now.

Cheers -

A look back at 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:03:00 +0000

For those of you who have been following our progress this year, most of this will be a repeat and you have my permission to skip this post.

But since we still receive a fair number of questions from friends and family such as, "Why did you decide to move to Michigan?" (we're in Wisconsin actually...) we thought a little 2012 recap would be nice for those who'd like to catch up on the missing pieces from the past year.

Our 2012 story actually begins in Dec. of 2011, when we stuffed everything we owned into three storage units, tucked our chickens, 'pacas and cats into various homes and farms across three states, and moved to a Hawaiian coffee farm for the winter.

If you're extremely bored over Christmas vacation you can read all of our Hawaiian adventures here.

We returned to the mainland in mid-Feb. and spent two weeks madly catching up on farm bookkeeping and taxes. On March 4th we loaded up our 3 cats into our old Suburban and put Old Yeller on our 16' flatbed trailer.

One flat trailer tire, one pet-friendly hotel, two days of driving, four states and 916 miles later we arrived a bit disheveled but intact in Southwestern WI, lodging at our friend's farm, staying in the very same bunkhouse where I spent most of last summer interning and shopping for a farm.

On June 1st we signed the papers on our very own farm near Kendall, WI, population 476.

A 100-year old crooked farmhouse and 40 acres of paradise that I still can't believe we actually own.

By this time in addition to our flock of chickens, three cats and four alpacas we had also accrued a flock of 13 market lambs.

{I just did the math... that's 11 chickens + 4 alpacas + 3 cats + 13 market lambs = 31 animals... before we even had a farm!}

The rest of the summer was spent in a craze of farm-related activities such as:

shearing alpacas
trimming hooves and treating foot rot in the lambs
{insert the above statement between every statement below}
hauling water by hand from a faucet on the house in 5-gallon buckets
{insert the above statement between every statement below}
ordering electric net fences and solar fence chargers for moving the lambs around the property
mowing fence lines for new paddocks and moving the lambs to a new paddock every other day
{insert the above statement between every other statement below}
building another mobile chicken coop
opening Serendipity Bakery
selling cheesecakes, alpaca products and other farm goodies at the Cameron Park Farmer's Market in La Crosse every sweltering Friday afternoon all summer long...
building a mobile chicken tractor for pastured broilers
shearing lambs
making hay
running up to the ridge after a rain to catch a huge rainbow covering the sky over the farm, or running up there in the early morning to catch the fog still down in the valleys
moving the chicken coops every day and moving electric netting for the day-ranging chickens every week
being startled by the intensity of the stars in a place with almost no light pollution
raising a batch of 64 newly hatched Jumbo Cornish Cross broiler chickens (moving their pen 2-3 times/day)
raising a batch of 18 newly hatched laying chickens
raising a batch of five Guinea fowl
raising a batch of four turkeys
enjoying the unending chorus of summer frogs and cicadas
losing my job (layoff)
panicking about losing our new farm
getting a new job with Pathway Health (electronic health record consultant and software trainer)
listening to the mournful howl of coyotes at night, and trying to remember if I tested all the electric fences that day
sweetie going back to work for Accenture in Minneapolis after an 8 month LOA
sitting on the back porch watching the light fade and contemplating my perfect life
learning how to butcher and skin 64 broiler chickens and the security of having a year's supply of locally-raised, grass-fed meat in our freezers
canning a year's supply of spaghetti sauce
selling cheesecakes, alpaca products and lamb meat at the winter Cameron Park Farmer's Market in La Crosse through mid-December
watching orange winter sunrises and pink winter sunsets
collapsing into a heap and sleeping through January

What has surprised me the most after this crazy, busy year is not the convoluted way in which we both arrived at the realization that we belong on this farm.

Nor the crazy, convoluted way we're learning how to run things on this farm.

It is rather, after four decades of restlessness, two decades of moving on average every two years to a new home, always feeling like I was still looking for "something," I have finally found what I was searching for.

A place to sink my hands deep into the soil and my roots deep into the land.

A place to finally and, hopefully forever, call Home.

Cheers -

A watched turkey never struts...

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:00:00 +0000

It's been weeks since I've been able to capture my toms strutting in full display.

The mornings I hauled my camera down to the chicken yard, no strutting.

The mornings I forgot, lots of strutting.

But this weekend I happened to have my camera with me when they started their dominance dance.

I love watching them dance.

The first sign of the dance is the lifting of all of the tom's feathers along his back and fanning out his tail.

This maneuver appears to magically double his size.

The fanned out tail is tipped towards the object of his attention (sometimes the other tom, sometimes the girls, sometimes me).

In addition to the feather lift, he drops his wings until the tips drag along the ground.

Tipping his chin down, his head, usually pale white and light blue, flushes to a deeper blue. His pink wattle and caruncles flush to a darker red and his snood elongates, nearly covering his upper bill.

{Don't you love turkey lingo?}

He circles his object of attention (usually the other tom) and as they circle, he keeps his tail feathers tilted.

The dance may last a few seconds or several minutes.

No blood, no violence, just a fashion show and dance off.

We could all learn something about resolving our differences peacefully if we would take our cues from the turkey.

Here's a very short video of one of my tom's strutting.

Happy Thanksgiving ~

Why I think Dr. Seuss and God must've been friends

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:25:00 +0000

That is the only explanation I can come up with for the ridiculous character that is the Guineafowl.

Here's how I think it happened. This was waaaayyy before Dr. Seuss was born, so obviously his spirit was hanging out with God as God was creating the creatures of the earth.

Dr. Seuss: "Hey God, what's shakin'? You've been awfully busy this week, I see you created an entire planet!"

God: "Yo, Theodore, nice to see you! I'm glad you're here - Yeah, I've been burning the candle at both ends with this new project, and I'm getting exhausted coming up with all these new creatures to inhabit the Earth. I need to take a tea break. You wanna take over for a minute?"

Dr. Seuss: "Sure. Let me handle this one. What are we creating?"

God: "Some kind of ground-nesting, seed and insect-eating bird for Africa."

Dr. Seuss: "No problem, I'm on it. Go enjoy your tea."

*** 15 minutes pass... but who knows what a "minute" was before there were man-made clocks? ***

God: "Hey there Theodore... how's the creation coming along?"

Dr. Seuss: "Fine, just fine. Came up with a dandy this time I think!"

God: "Polka dots. Nice touch."

Dr. Seuss: "Thanks! Took me awhile to figure out how to apply that layer, so that's why they're necks are a different pattern."

God: "Um... what are those things on its face?"

Dr. Seuss: "Wattles. Duh. I thought you knew everything?"

God: "Oh, right, of course. And... why is it bald? With a crest?"

Dr. Seuss: "That's its helmet. So that it looks tough. This is Africa, right? Gotta be a tough bird to live there."

God: "WHAT IS THAT GOD-AWFUL NOISE?"

Dr. Seuss: "Oh, well, that's the sound they make whenever they're startled, happy, sad, bored or roosting."

God: "Yeah... well, I better get back at it. Thanks for your, um, help today."

Dr. Seuss: "No worries, Mate. Call me anytime. I have a great idea for a Zinniga-Zanniga tree!"

Cheers -

Boy Meets Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:05:00 +0000

Boy meets girl.

Boy flirts with girl.

Girl flirts with boy.

Boy shows off to impress girl.

Girl 5 months pregnant decides flirting is all boy will get.

Boy disappointed.

Electric net fences remain intact and in place.

Cheers -

Barnyard Zen

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:18:00 +0000

There is something incredibly meditative about sitting with farm critters.

Whether it's helping my girls into a new paddock (they were fascinated here watching Kali), bringing the boys alfalfa pellet treats, sitting down for a rest after scooping poo and having a cat crawl into my lap, or sitting in the chicken yard with a Tom turkey sleeping on my knee, it is one of the few places I can get "out" of my head/thoughts and into the present moment.

Time slows and often, stops.

I don't worry about work, the house, the farm.

I just sit.

I recently found out it is as good for your health as you've no doubt already intuited it is.

But I don't need a book or website to tell me that this is something I need to do on a very regular basis in order to feel happy and sane.

I already know it.

And I hope you know it, too.

Oh, and Zoey says she practices Zen by reading Leo Babauta's book, The Power of Less.

Good choice in reading, Zoey. That explains a lot.

I'm a day late, but participating in this week's You Capture photo blog hop. Please join me there.

Cheers -

Hello Moo-tiful!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:08:00 +0000

I decided to go for a walk in that slim evening hour before everything gets way too dark, way too early.

I hadn't been in the back pasture for awhile. I wanted to see if there was anything new to see.

Spoiler alert - the next photo is not pretty.

When I rounded the corner where the 10-acre hay field ends and the ridge drops down to rolling wild grassland I stopped in my tracks at this new sight.

It's not that I've never run across a deer kill before.

I just haven't run across one so close to my grazing alpacas before.

And although the kill was fresh enough that the head still had intact eyeballs, the rest was picked clean as a whistle. Even most of the hair was gone.

It kind of creeped me out. And then I wondered if anybody I knew wanted the antlers.

{I left them there, in case you're wondering.}

With that pleasant vision behind me I headed into the lower part of the back pastures, down where the small spring-fed creek runs across the lowest corner.

I noticed the neighbors cows grazing as usual on the other side of the perimeter fence. I had seen them over there all summer. I even accidentally waved to one once. From a distance it looked like a man in black with a white cap. Turns out it was a cow's rump.

Oops.

I stopped and watched the biggest cow at the fence - a Holstein from the looks of it.

She Moo'ed to me. I shouted back, "Hello Cow!"

I'm not sure what the proper cow-greeting-etiquette actually is.

I kept on my walk but the cow stayed at the fence watching me.

She Moo'd again.

This was odd.

They had always ignored me before.

"What the hay," I thought, maybe I should saunter over and say "hello" in person.

So I did, expecting the cow to turn and run away at any moment.

She didn't.

All the other cows that had been grazing nearby also came jogging over to the fence line.

The big one, a Holstein I guessed, was scratching its head on the fence post. She took front and center, the other smaller steers hanging to her sides and rear.

I put out one hand, tentatively.

I think she could have completely grabbed my wrist with her tongue if I had let her.

Then she proceeded to slime me with snot and saliva all up one arm and down the other. I had to hold onto my stocking cap to keep her from taking that, too.

Afterwards I felt like I had just had one bath and needed another.

Trying to keep my hand away from her snot and saliva I scratched her cheeks and under her jaw and around her ears.

She kept trying to eat my hand.

I got a few sniffs and licks from the smaller cows, but she was commanding all the attention.

There was one shy mostly white one in particular that I just wanted to take home with me and cuddle up in the sheep shed.

{I left him there, in case you're wondering.}

Did you know cows at this time of year are fuzzy?

After watching them for awhile and trying my best to capture the shy one on "film" (saying "on digital" just doesn't have the same ring, does it?) I decided I needed to continue my walk. It gets dark pretty darn fast these days.

I backed away from the fenceline snapping more photos as I went and then I realized...

Mama cow was a HE.

Oops.

Cheers -

I'm trying a Blog Hop today, linking up with Tayet at Farmlife At Its Best. I hope you'll click over to see the other farm-y folks who've participated this week.

The lambs are gone, the girls have arrived

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:58:00 +0000

The last of our lambs went to market last weekend, which marks the end of our 6-month experiment with raising meat lambs.

But not the end of raising sheep. I absolutely loved raising sheep. Despite months and months of foot-rot problems. Despite weed-wacking a new paddock fence line every other day. Despite temps hovering in the 90's for weeks on end while we hand-carried hundreds of pounds of water by buckets every day.

It's not really a question of "if" we'll have more sheep. It's basically a question of "when."

I visited a vegetable farmer last week with a handful of bred Katadin ewes for sale. I was tempted to toss them all in the back of my 'burb, except for the fact that we don't have any interior paddocks set up at The Little Farm that are sheep-proof, and these Katadins were a bit wild.

Wild as in, when the farmer when to snag one of the ewes to take a look at her foot, she jumped past me over my shoulder!

And he mentioned they have a way of jumping over his electric net fences if they get spooked.

Great.

Because that's all we have for interior fencing right now, electric net fences.

So I think I'll have to wait on adding any Katadins to my permanent flock.

But that won't stop me from investigating all the other cool breeds I'm interested in. Like Icelandic. And Shetland. And Soay. And Karakul. And Old Norwegian Sheep. Although they've not yet been imported into the US.

Yet.

But back to my girls.

After dropping the lambs off at the processor, we swung by The Big Farm and picked up our girls.

Yeehaw!

This is the first time since I've owned Brigid (almost 5 years now) that she has lived on my property with me.

And her beautiful daughter Grace is here, too. Both of them are bred to a handsome true-black herdsire named Midnight Man from our friends at The Big Farm.

The boys got loose on Saturday and managed to find their way over to the girls' paddock. But we were onto them and caught them at the fence line, before they could attempt any Hanky-Panky.

(And besides that, Boo was just gelded on Friday, so his Panky days are numbered).

It's good to have all my critters home.

Finally.

I should rest a bit before adding any more to our menagerie, shouldn't I?

Right.

Cheers -

It's 5:00.... My Time

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:26:00 +0000

Horses and buggies at the Little Farm auction in May, 2012

As I pulled into the gravel driveway next to the large, well-kept white farmhouse, I spied four boys I guessed were between the ages of 4 and 7 lingering near the open door of a big red barn.

I got out of the Suburban and headed towards the group, all eyes watching me closely. All four boys were dressed alike in dark pants and bright blue/green shirts nearly obscured by dark coats.

I was already enjoying myself, and we hadn't even exchanged a word yet.

"I'm here about some rabbits," I began tentatively, not sure how much of the farm's business I would be able to discuss with the youngsters if their father wasn't home.

We had pretty much negotiated the entire purchase of our flock of lambs last spring from a different farmer's young son, so it was entirely possible these youngsters would be able to assist me today despite their age.

At the very least, they probably knew as much or more about raising rabbits as their father - it was, I guessed, one of their regular chores.

"Yup, they're back there," the oldest one answered me, indicating the barn behind him.

"Is David here?" I inquired. I knew when I pulled in it was about 5:15pm. David had told me a few days earlier that he would be home from his "outside" job around 5:00pm.

"Nope, not yet, he'll be home around 5:00," offered the same boy. I guessed he was perhaps the oldest of the brothers, and seemed quite comfortable talking to me, while his siblings all hung back wordlessly, brown eyes staring wide at me.

"Well, it was just after five when I pulled in," I offered, wondering if the boy wasn't aware of the time. Perhaps in his tender youth he was yet blissfully unaware of watching the clock.

"Yeah, 5:00 YOUR time!" he retorted with a sparkle in his eyes and a big grin.

"Ha - you've got me there!" I responded, laughing and following the group of boys through the big barn and across a barnyard to another building.

He was of course referring to 5:00 "English" time, that is, time driven by man-made clocks and imposed by our rigid 8-5, time-clock-punching culture.

5:00 Amish time was a whole different barnyard.

In the second building we entered I spotted two long rows of rabbit cages, their inhabitants planting soft noses against the mesh, no doubt inquiring as to the whereabouts of their dinners.

White rabbits with black ears and noses, white rabbits, even a cinnamon colored buck and a dark black doe, all New Zealand whites, the boy informed me.

I wasn't sure how many questions I should ask the boys, but as I walked along the cages the eldest followed close behind me, pointing out items of interest such as the baby bunnies in nesting boxes lined with their doe's fur, bodies so tiny entire litters would have fit in the palms of my two hands.

I asked if they were born with their eyes shut and he told me they were, adding the most fun time was when they came out of their boxes at about 4 weeks old and started hopping around.

The boy didn't know how many his father wanted sell and I didn't ask for a price.

Stalling for time, I asked if I could meet their Holstein calves who were licking up the last traces of their dinner from a trough across the barn.

They agreed and we all made our way over there. One of the silent younger siblings decided to do some showing off and jumped into the feed trough walking back and forth in front of me as I offered my hand to the calves.

The calves were curious and delightful, trying to suck my fingers. If I had been ready for a milk cow I might have asked the boys "how much?" for the nearly all-white one.

But I'm not ready for a cow.

Yet.

"Mama's coming," I was informed, and through the big barn I saw a short, slender figure leading a horse with one hand and holding an infant in the other. Behind her trailed two more children, both girls, none of which could have been more than three years old. She tied her horse to a stall and continued in our direction, asking if I'd been here long.

"Not too long," I reassured her.

We stepped back outside the barn to chat. After scolding her boys for still being in their school clothes, she sent them off for chores and started talking about the rabbit business. She was very curious about how many rabbits I would buy and where I would sell them.

As I listened to her talk and answered her questions, I couldn't help but admire the view.

Their farm was perched along a ridge top with a view of rolling hills for miles.

The sun was about to set and had dropped below the cloud line, illuminating a pair of Belgium draft horses with an almost magical light. Her oldest son had already explained to me the pair of horses was getting old and would soon need to be replaced. But in the slanting evening sun he looked perfectly strong and beautiful.

Just then a one-horse cart came wheeling into the driveway. We all stepped off the road as David maneuvered his cart and horse to a stop.

"Sorry I'm late!" he yelled cheerfully, dismounting from the cart, grinning like his oldest son, but sporting a surprisingly bright red beard and looking ten years younger than me.

"Did you like what you saw?" he inquired. I told him I was just in the "looking" stage right now, hadn't even measured the space the cages would need to go. How many was he looking to sell?

He reiterated his wife's sentiments about wanting to keep them but not having buyers for them at present. "No use butchering them if someone else could use them," he said to me.

He told me they had been large rabbit producers in Pennsylvania, at one time having more than 1100 rabbits under their care. They wanted to raise rabbits here, too, but the only market they knew of had dried up. He loved raising them he said, and his smile and sparkling eyes confirmed the truth of what he said.

David's wife then asked me, "You've never tried rabbit?"

"No, not yet, but I'd like to," I added, trying not to sound too city-ish. "How do you like to prepare them?"

David interjected that she liked to prepare them in the pressure cooker, then fry them. "They're very good," they both assured me again.

I asked them how they liked their turkeys - I could see several large white ones strutting around their yard near the house, could just make out their familiar trilling voices.

They told me they really enjoyed raising the birds, though they've been "fighting" lately - displaying their plumage at each other. My males did that on occasion also - though I'd hardly call it "fighting."

The sun slipped further towards the horizon, and I told them I'd need to get back in touch with them after I conferred with my husband tonight. It was time to get home and do my own evening chores.

We said our good-byes and I walked back towards my vehicle, watching their oldest boy pull a wagon-load of firewood up the hill towards their house.

It is no surprise to me why people - farmers and non-farmers, English and Amish - are drawn to the idyllic images of the farm.

Red barns, bawling calves, mooing cows, plodding draft horses, scratching chickens, gobbling turkeys on the loose.

It may still be one of the hardest ways to make a living, and often the most heart-breaking, but I would have to say, so far at least, it is also the most enjoyable enterprise I have ever attempted.

Cheers -

Renovating the Cheep Shed

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:56:00 +0000

There is an old building on our property.

I love this building. It is weathered grey like old cedar and has a slanting metal roof. It has five, five-foot tall windows that all face south.

It is large - 11'x30' - surprisingly originally used as a chicken coop. The old chimney holds witness to the fact that they also used to brood baby chicks in here, keeping them warm with wood stove heat, a task I am happy to hand over to a heat lamp and extension cord.

This building has long sat unused, save for swallows and wasps, and was, when we bought the farm this summer, full of a number of long boards, wood posts, broken glass and about 15 years of dust and debris.

Although it was built for chickens, we'll be using it as a barn this winter. Within its walls it will house our alpacas, any sheep we acquire in the near future, any rabbits we acquire in the near future, and all of our poultry {38 birds and counting!}.

I've dubbed it "The Cheep Shed." Chickens + sheep. And, baby chicks go "cheep cheep." AND we're doing this on the "cheap cheap."

Great progress has been made on renovating the space over the last few weeks. Our friend Allison helped us recently and that made the work go even faster.

{Thanks Allison! Please come back again soon!}

The square hole door was used to muck out the building every spring. We'll be using it as the pop hole door, a door big enough to allow full-grown turkeys to pass in and out. {Papa Bear will be building a ramp for this purpose}.

Boards and debris have all been removed, hardware cloth wire has been added to all of the windows to keep out poultry predators, a stall divider, which we found in the barn, has been installed to divide the poultry side from the ruminant side, and nest boxes - also inherited with the property - have been cleaned up and new bottoms installed to replace the rusted out metal ones (made from the boards we removed from the shed).

An old red gate we found buried in the tall grass near the garden will be the human pass-through door into the poultry side. A very very old ladder that we inherited with our 100-year-old duplex in Duluth and moved with us four times will finally find new life as our roosts.

All we have left to do is lay down some barn lime, lay down some wood chips, add some straw bedding, and put in the poultry.

They'll need to stay inside the barn for a few days to acclimate to their new homes, as for most of their lives they have lived in the mobile chicken coops.

Not long after that we'll add ruminants to the other half of the barn.

And then everything will be just as cozy as can be.

And that is what we do for Cheep Thrills around here on the weekends.

Feel free to join us any time!

Cheers -

The Quieting of Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 01:34:00 +0000

The broilers are all processed and the last of the lambs go to market this weekend.

Life is slowing down on the Little Farm.

And after the summer we've had, slow is good.

Fall is my favorite season, and as life slows down, I am remembering why.

Cheers -

Reedsburg Fermentation Festival Farm/Art DTour

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:57:00 +0000

Some day I will post things the same week they occur.

This will happen right after we hire a full-time live-in maid/housekeeper/cook/gardner.

And I don't have a work a 9-5 day job anymore, and can spend all my time tending critters and writing stories.

Alas, since this has not yet happened, this post is already sadly out-dated.

"Recently," we spent one glorious afternoon in the Reedsburg, WI area, under the guise of attending the Fermentation Festival.

No, this festival isn't the celebration of eating too much cabbage and torturing your spouse all night.

It's a two-weekend festival of classes around the ancient and varied arts of fermentation including vegetables (OK, so there might be some cabbage after all), tea (Kombucha), cheese, bread, wine, cider and beer.

I would love to write about all the informative classes we attended, but we didn't register early enough to get into the ones we wanted, so we opted for the Farm/Art DTour instead.

The Farm/Art DTour is a 50-mile self-guided loop that takes you out into the countryside, where artists have teamed up with farmers and built temporary art installations on fields and pastures close to the highway, like this tractor which has been built into a stack of firewood.

And this cabin made entirely of pallets.

There are also artist-built mobile road-side culture stands like this one selling locally grown produce, and pasture performances by area musicians.

Despite our disappointment in not being able to attend any classes, the tour still made for a lovely fall day and we thoroughly enjoyed our scenic drive through the unglaciated hills and valleys of Sauk County.

Sans fermentation. Or cabbage.

We may not have found any cabbage, but we did find these ginormous pumpkins at BP Farms Sunflower Barn for just $2.00/each. Can you see the pumpkins dancing in Papa Bear's eyes?

No? Let's try again then:

It felt wrong to spend an entire day in the vicinity of the 'Ferm Fest' without actually participating, so after the art tour we went home and shook the 5-gallon carboy of fermenting pear cider in our kitchen.

Or what I like to call, "what-to-do-with-20-gallons-of-pears."

Cheers -

The turkeys are looking... turkeyish

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Remember this?

day old turkey

Hard to believe that was three months ago already.

The gangs all here

And this?

Turkeys like Head & Shoulders

They still do this, by the way. Even though they're much, much bigger. Or on my boot.

Sweet female asleep on my boot

The females have a new trick however - roosting on top of their coop.

Every night around dusk I have to go out there and fetch them off the roof and put them inside.

Nowadays, if you're lucky, you can catch my males "struttin' their stuff" showing off for the ladies, and I've even heard one of them gobble a few times.

Struttin' for the ladies

They're still far from full-grown and will live safely in the barn all winter, bypassing all of the usual Thanksgiving activities.

And if they all stay as sweet as they have been until next spring, we might just be having Easter ham instead of turkey.

Cheers -

How many critters does it take to fix the sheep shed?

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:53:00 +0000

All of them, it would appear.

At least, all of the non-ruminants currently living on the farm.

Kali checks out the mint, which she suspects might have some nip hidden in it.

Zoey approves of this project.

Cheers -

Baby Bale Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:20:00 +0000

Despite the worst drought in 60 years, third crop was recently cut on the Little Farm, most of it from the back acres that have not been grazed or cut this season.

We ended up with ten round bales.

And a half.

Baby Bale has grand hopes of becoming a big hay bale some day.

I haven't broken the bad news to him yet.

Which reminds me of one of the oldest jokes I know:

Who's bigger - Mrs. Bigger, or Mrs. Bigger's baby?

Mrs. Bigger's baby is just a little bigger.

That's what Baby Bale needs to be - just a little bigger.

Cheers -

Making Hay at the Little Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 02:39:00 +0000

Prior to last summer I was a hay-making virgin.

That is, "I didn't know nothin' 'bout makin' no hay bales!"

All I knew is somehow they magically went from standing grass to bales, either squares (large or small) or rounds (big or bigger).

All the machinery in between was a mystery to me.

{In an effort at full disclosure, most of these photos were taken during second cutting but I never got around to posting about it.}

Last summer at the Big Farm I finally got a chance to see the process. My first day at the farm I got to move some round bales with G the skid steer.

(Yes, I still hate you G).

I watched my buddy cut and rake the hay, then haul the big green John Deer baler around the hay field plopping out round bales like a fat green toad regurgitating its dinner.

Here on the Little Farm we have between 18-25 acres of hay, depending on how ~~stupid~~ courageous you are with your hay-making equipment.

We have no hay making equipment. So we asked our good friends at the Big Farm f they would help us out, for "halves."

I didn't know what "halves" meant before coming to the Big Farm, either.

For those of you who never grew up on/near a farm, "halves" when some kind soul with the equipment you don't have offers to do all the work and take half of the hay crop. In return, you get your hay cut, raked and baled.

For free.

I think we need to move this concept into the wider culture.

For instance, I'll let you come and mow my entire lawn and you can take half of the grass clippings home with you.

For free!

Or, I'll let you come and do all my dishes and you can take half of the clean dishes home with you.

See how lovely that would be? Eventually I'd be down to just 2 plates and I could do those myself.

Perfect!

Anyway, the first crop of hay came off of this farm the third week in May. Our half of the harvest was 14 large round bales (about 1000# each), or about 7 tons.

The second crop we weren't able to cut as many acres since without much rain this summer, the grass just wasn't growing very much. What was cut came out to just under 300 small square bales. Which would be about 15 large round bales. So basically half the volume of the first cutting.

But that's OK, because we only have 4 alpacas and they're only going to eat about 4 small square bales/month each. Which leaves me 126 more square bales and 14 round.

Plus third crop, which is mostly going to be the stuff in the back pastures that never got grazed.

With this drought I'm being told hay will sell at a premium this winter and next spring, so we're hoping this crop will actually make us some money.

And hay - wouldn't that just be a sweet deal.

Cheers -

How to Go Camping Without Paying A Farm Sitter

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Strauser) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 18:12:00 +0000

The last weekend in September marks a ritual gathering that has been going on for over 40 years - a group of folks from my small home town in MN meet in Bayfield, WI for a pre-Apple Festival weekend.

Not only is this weekend gathering a time-honored tradition, this group has been meeting and camping at the same campground for the entire four+ decades.

Many of the original folks still attend, but now they are accompanied by their grown children and numerous grandchildren. Traditions like the Sat. night potluck and campfire stories are now being passed down to the third generation of campers.

It is a gathering I look forward to almost as much as Christmas.

But this year, we couldn't go. We have critters to take care of, and our trusty farm-sitter was out of town. Being new to the area, we don't know a lot of folks to call on yet.

I was very disappointed.

What could we do instead, besides work on the never-ending list of farm chores?

Go camping! (Or as Mary Jane Butters would call it, Glamping!)

We have 40 acres after all, most of which we have not even begun to explore.

There is one area of particular interest to both of us - a flat knoll on our high land that we would like to build our house on in a few years. So I suggested to Papa Bear that we toss a few things in the back of Old Yeller and head up there for the night.

Papa Bear readily agreed, as he is a pretty 'fart smeller' when it comes to following my awesome suggestions.

Since it was supposed to be in the high 30's F that night with no precipitation, there was no need to worry about bugs or a traditional tent. A single-sized mattress borrowed from the Airstream Land Yacht and settled into the back of the truck and covered in thick sleeping bags would suffice for comfortable lodging.

After finishing up the late-afternoon chores and gathering up some extra clothing, tools and a cooler with dinner and breakfast items, we jumped into Old Yeller for our "long" commute to the top of our land.

A field road runs the edge of the flat hayfield up there, and beyond the homemade barbed-wire-and-wood-post gate, our destination.

I navigated through the tall uncut grass and Queen Anne's Lace now gone to seed ahead of Old Yeller, watching for large rocks that might damage her undercarriage.

Before long Papa Bear had her turned around with her tailgate facing our newly chosen campfire location.

With less than two hours of daylight left we now had work to do - build the rock campfire ring, cut firewood, and grill dinner.

Somehow these chores didn't feel much like real "work," as the late afternoon sunshine sifted through yellow and red leaves and we basked in the joy of creating our small home - albeit a temporary one - where we hoped to build a real home some day.

It didn't take us too long after starting the campfire to realize we had nowhere to sit.

No problem - I knew we had 2 folding chairs in the 'burb down at the house. I could just run down and retrieve them with the ATV.

This is one of tremendous benefits of camping 5 minutes from home. Nothing is too far away to retrieve, if you really need it. Of course half the fun of camping is 'making do' when you forget something. But I felt the chairs would be worth the trip down to the house.

While at the house I could also grab PB's water bottle and a couple of other things we realized we had forgotten in our spontaneous packing haste.

When I returned, the coals were getting hot and the brats were sizzling in the grill basket.

Grilled alpaca brats, a bottle of bluberry mead in honor of our 10th anniversary, some gourmet cheesecake bites, and a full moon rising in a clear sky.

It just don't get no better than this.

(Although I still missed my peeps in Bayfield of course).

After cleaning up our few dinner dishes, it was dark enough to make a run back down to the house to shut the chicken coops. I stayed to watch the fire while PB zipped down the hill.

I sat there in the quiet darkness, the only sounds coming from the crackling fire. The full moon was almost over the treeline.

Then, time stopped.

Life gets pretty darn simple when you take away all of the distractions.

But there was one distraction PB wasn't about to go without this weekend - one technological necessity... watching a Netflix movie. One hour of battery life on his laptop got us halfway through the movie The Help. (An awesome movie by the way).

Every so often we'd pause the movie just to look around and watch the rising full moon and remind ourselves of the amazing theater we were sitting in, taking a moment to express our gratitude at being in such a beautiful place, a place that we were somehow magically connected to.

After the laptop battery quit,the bright full moon eliminated the need for flashlights as I made my way to my cozy bed.

A bright orange stocking cap covered my ears and Smartwool covered my limbs as I snuggled between the warm sleeping bags.

I was dozing before PB had finished burning through the pile of thistles I had cut earlier, flames dancing outside of my eyelids as dreams began to dance inside them.

It was the best sleep I've ever had outside of my own house.

In the morning I walked down to the house (saying good-morning to Boo & Monet who sauntered up to the top of their fence line to see what the heck we were doing up there) to move the sheep and let out the chickens, while PB worked on cooking up pastured pork sausage patties and gluten-free oatmeal pancakes.

It was the best breakfast I've ever had. Of course, I say that every time I eat when I'm camping. Or every time I eat outside. Or every time I eat oatmeal pancakes.

We procrastinated as long as possible after breakfast before packing up our few things and driving back down to the house.

One of the shortest camping trips ever - for sure - but also one of the very best.

Sometimes the simplest things in life are the sweetest.

Cheers -