Pack Goat Training: Day One

Always in a quest to make animals more useful, we are endeavoring to make our goats "pack-goats".
How is this useful? I am so glad you asked...here's the story....

So, throughout the year (the winter especially) the Wife is looking for ways to keep the Farmboy Trio busy in positive and character-building pursuits.  A lazy boy is eventually a naughty boy.  That's the Wife's theory. In the quest to make animals constantly useful, and mixed with the need to engage three little Farmboys, the Wife found an article on "Pack Goats".  Does anyone else remember the picture of the goat with the straw hat and sweet little backpack on his back from Richard Scarry books?  Goats pulling carts of children and fencing supplies, children taking goats on adventures with packs full of supplies, Dear Farmer getting his lunch delivered to him via "pack-goat". That was exactly what the Wife thought of!  Add to that the picturesque thought of a brother leading his goat which is pulling a cart with his sister in it(both children clean and smiling faces) and you have a Wife on a mission!!!
"Dear Farmer, we must train our goats!", declared the Wife, and off she went in search of training material.  Dear Farmer, I think, mumbled something that was probably an "okay" and rolled over to go back to sleep...because it was probably very late at night and as soon as the sun goes down, so does Dear Farmer. Anyways, the Wife has been reading blogs and watching youtube videos like mad to learn how to teach the Farmboy Trio to train the goats.

Well, today was the first day of training.  It started to rain at about 9am, and it hasn't stopped since.  But neither rain nor lack of time was to dissuade the Wife from setting out with four children (Farmboy Trio and also WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter) for goat-training day number one.
The Keeper of the Flame has decided to work with "Garlic", a brown Billy Goat.
The Pied Piper is working with "Pepper", a black and white Billy Goat.
The WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter is working with "Paprika", a dark-brown doeling.
The Little Farmhand(Dear Farmer's Shadow) was working with "Cumin", a light brown doeling.

Step one: Entice the goat to always be your friend by feeding them a peanut.
This was very easy.  Everyone got this one, no problem.

Step two:Put collar and leash on goat.
The Billy Goats got a little concerned during this process, the doelings didn't notice what we were doing, they were looking for where we had pulled the peanuts out from.

Step three: Take the goats on a long walk.  This will build up endurance.  Make sure you tell them where to go, not them telling you where to go.
And here's where the rubber met the road.  In the rain there were children walking, running, laughing and grunting.  Goats were pulling and tugging, nibbling and nudging, jumping and bucking.  It must have been quite a sight for the cars driving by.  Rain and cold with children and goats all over the place in the mud and fields.  It was the Little Farmhand that couldn't get "Cumin" to cooperate.  Plead with her as he did, she was more interested in getting out of the rain than playing with the little boy.  He was crushed.  We told him that we would do it again on a day when it's not raining, maybe she will be better.  But in the end, the only thing that made life any better was sitting by the woodstove and reading a book with the Wife.

Well, day one went well. We'll consider it a success, if for no other reason, because the humans got out there and did something productive. The goats didn't lay around the hay barn all day just getting fat, they were expected to get out there an do something as well.  Everybody ready for day two???

22 Years Ago to Today

22 Years ago today...Dear Farmer married the Wife.  A girl who didn't fit the description of anything he was looking for in a woman.  The Wife married Dear Farmer...who wasn't a farmer back then, he was a Welder, which is good, because the Wife wasn't going to marry a Farmer.
21 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was a Welder,  became an Electrician...which is good, because the Wife wasn't going to be married to a Farmer. And the Wife told the Electrician that he would be a Father.
20 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician and a Father traded in the "sports car" for a "sedan" and sold his motorcycle and bought a boat.  Which is good, because the Wife is a beach girl, and boating is a family activity.
19 Years ago...The Wife told Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, he was to be a Father...again.
18 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician and a Father sold the boat and bought a truck.
17 Years ago...The Wife told Dear Farmer, who was an electrician, "It would be so nice to have another baby."
16 Years ago...The Wife was expecting another baby, and Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, started his own electrical construction company.  It was "...& Sons, Inc." because all he had was boys.  But the baby was a girl.  The name of the company did not change.  And this was all good, because the Wife was grateful she hadn't married a Farmer.
15 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, bought a cottage by the lake for the Wife.  Because she was a beach girl and loved to be near the water.
14 Years ago...The family was expecting another addition again...and all the children had chicken pox...and Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, sold the "sedan" and bought a 15 passenger van...because he had an inkling the family was going to get bigger.
13 Years ago...The Wife thought, "This is it!  We have "arrived" and life cannot get any better!"
12 Years ago...The family was expecting another addition, and we hosted Thanksgiving in the cottage with thirty-one family members and friends and celebrated being married together 10 years.  And The Wife was grateful because Dear Farmer wasn't a farmer, he was an electrician.  And Dear Farmer was grateful that the Wife had learned how to cook, and loved to host people!
11 Years ago...The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer started to not like being an Electrician...he was unhappy.  And the Wife was just praying he would do anything...but don't be a Farmer!
10 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician became a Builder.
9 Years ago.....The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer, who was an Builder, began to sell his "...& Sons, Inc" business in pieces.
8 Years ago.....Dear Farmer, who was a Builder, built a barn for a friend.  A beautiful barn!!!  The Amish friends came an "oooo"-ed at his craftsmanship.
7 Years ago....Dear Farmer, who was a Builder, built a fence for the friend who he built the barn for....and during the building of the fence, the friend asked him about farming cattle...what do you do? how do you do it?  And that was the day Dear Farmer thought about being a Farmer...a dream of his since he had been young.
6 Years ago....The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer was a helping a friend learn farming, and he was still a Builder.
5 Years ago.....Dear Farmer closed the business "...& Sons, Inc." and became a Farmer full-time.  And the Wife was not really thrilled, but God had softened her heart and she was learning to love a "farming" way of life. And preparations were made to move out of the cottage and away from the lake.
4 Years ago....Dear Farmer and the Wife moved the family out to the farm and they hosted Thanksgiving where 43 family members and friends were present!  They all celebrated being together, grateful that God has made us the wonderful family we are, grateful that God can change hearts, grateful that God is in control of our lives.
3 Years ago....The family was expecting again.  Dear Farmer and the Wife were learning the ebb and flow of life on a farm.  The family was learning the work, the diligence, and the dedication it would take.
2 Years ago... Dear Farmer thought, "This is it!  We have "arrived" and life cannot get any better!" And Dear Farmer and the Wife celebrated their 20th anniversary.
1 Year ago.....The family was expecting again. And the Wife was so grateful that Dear Farmer was a farmer!  And she was grateful that she had learned to love the things he loved, and love the life he loved.  And Dear Farmer was grateful that he had married the girl he had, and that she was a woman that embraced everything that God sent her way and loved him, his children, and his neighbors. It was all good.
Today....Happy Anniversary, my darling Dear Farmer!  He's on the road today picking up the heads of the cattle that just went into the butcher.  The restaurant will buy it all. I'm so glad you love being a farmer...I can't imagine being married to anything else, but YOU, a farmer!

And so we bid farewell to #241...

There was a beginning to this blog...it was the result of telling a friend of Dear Farmer's encounters with one specific cow...#241.  If you look back, that was the first story we shared.
#241 was a mean and nasty cow.  She was always ready to run down Dear Farmer, with no rhyme or reason.  With a disposition so negative, bad feet and no back teeth Dear Farmer had her on the butcher-line several times.  Each time she was to "go" she'd have a calf, and so she would need to stay for the survival of the calf.  Dear Farmer didn't mind too much because she was an excellent mother and she gave wonderful calves...well, he wouldn't mind initially...and then he'd be running back to his tractor with an angry cow chasing him again!  The two of them did this dance for four years.
This past summer #241 had a name change, we called her "Ugly".  She began to loose weight and turned to a mess of bones and skin hanging.  She was not looking good, really bad advertising for an organic farm. So Dear Farmer moved her to the barn and tried many remedies for her, none seemed to help.  Earlier this week Dear Farmer went down to do chores, and "Ugly" was laying on the ground near the feeders, dead.
There wasn't rejoicing.  Dear Farmer is a little disappointed, he would have really liked to have had the upper-hand and eaten her...but not this foe.  We all gave a sigh of relief and a nod of the head.  Acknowledging the passing of the enemy who gave us so many great stories...farewell to #241.

Dear Farmer's Favorite Holiday-Thanksgiving!

Why? Because there's no gift giving involved.  Because there's a focus on gratitude to God.  Because there's a meal involved, with turkey!  Because we have one super-amazing family that gathers together and doesn't pretend to have a good time, they actually are having a good time! Because it marks the end of the busy season, and the beginning of rest.
Our tradition is to go to gather with family where-ever the Wife's Grandma (the Amazing Farm-Wife) is.  As the matriarch of the family, where-ever she goes is designated "the Family Thanksgiving" house.  Some years ago she traveled to our cottage for Thanksgiving, and then to our farm...so we hosted.  Nowadays she stays closer to home and the family gathers at Fabulous Aunt and Uncle's home.  That is where we will be this year.  It will be a small crowd...Dear Farmer and the Wife.  Honorable Son #1, The Farmer's Daughter, the Hausfrau, the WhizBang! Farmer's Daughter, the Keeper of the Flame, the Pied Piper, the Farmer's Shadow, the Little Farmer's Daughter Trio, The Millibilly Cousins and their 9 Millibilly Children, the Bike Doctor and the Doctor's Wife and Grandson, Donald Duck-Uncle and his boys, Huey and Duey, Un-Cool Photographer, The Overcomer Uncle, Great Uncle, Great Aunt, Great Cousin, Fabulous Aunt, Fabulous Uncle, Awesome Grammy and The Amazing Farm-Wife-Grandma. Just a small contingent of the broader mob we call FAMILY.
Happy Thanksgiving from Dear Farmer's Family to you! We hope you enjoy your day as well!

The Goats Preferred Warmer Weather

Really, can you blame them?  Just a couple short days ago they were nibbling on pasture grass.  Today they are eating dry hay.  A couple of day ago they were sunning themselves on the deck.  Today they are laying on a bale of hay out of the cold wind and off the cold ground.  We are all pretty sure that when they come out to greet us, they are saying, "Where did the sunshine go?"
When the Wife strapped on the snowshoes to take the goats on a walk they looked at her with eyes that said, "Is this what we have come to?  You expect me to...what?"
When the Farmer's Daughter and the Pied Piper went out to milk the goat she tentatively got on the stand and looked back at them as if to say, "You warmed your hands, right?!"
Everything moves a bit slower in the cold. The goats are nice and insulated between the forage from the woods, the pasture and the chicken feed they gorged on when Dear Farmer forgot to cover the bucket. Their winter coats have grown in nice and thick, thanks to the alpine heritage.  They really are ready for winter.  However, I think they are praying for a quick spring with the rest of us.

6 am, 9 children awake, 7 inches of snow...

The donuts tallies are:

3 Old Fashioned donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles
6 Long Johns with vanilla icing
4 Long Johns with chocolate icing
2 Custard filled Bismarks
1 Old Fashioned Chocolate donut with glaze
3 Peanut Persians
2 Apple Fritters
4 Jelly Filled with vanilla icing
1 Jelly Filled with sugar top

and this was where the bakery ladies were laughing and dancing because they had finished our order
we then purchased:

1gallon of chocolate milk
1gallon of whole white milk
2 gallons of orange juice

(and because this order came to over $25.00, I got a 21.08lb. turkey for 69c per pound!!!!!)

It is now 8:30 am, there are 11 children and 2 parents awake, 9inches of snow, and chores to do after we eat "breakfast".

The Children Await Snow

Snow isn't something new or exciting in an adults world.  It's something that the northern states simply accept as part of the winter season, in large or small quantities.  Here, in Dear Farmer's home, it's a tradition.
With children, anything can become a tradition.  When Dear Farmer and Family moved to the actual location of the farm, we made the first snowfall an extra-special tradition.  Up until that point it was dreaded.  Dear Farmer saw the snow as a long-hassle, the Wife saw snow as a mess, and the children saw snow as a prison sentence.
We had to re-adjust our thinking!
It all started with the first snowfall.  On the event of the first snowfall the Wife would take all the children into town to the grocery store,to stop at the bakery counter.  The grocery store, lovely as it is, isn't geared for a practical thrifty large family, so we really don't go there often at all.  Going to the grocery store is even somewhat of a treat...so to take everyone into the grocery store for the sole purpose of stopping at the bakery counter is unheard of.  There we stopped at the bakery counter, and the Wife told the children, "Pick out your favorite two donuts for breakfast."  The heavens parted and the glory of the Almighty shown down on the bakery counter as the angels sang "Gloria Deo donuts, pax matrem aeternum!" (which hip latin speaking people know means: Glory to God for donuts, and peace to mother forever).
The first snowfall, the loveliness of a breakfast of donuts...there was no more we could ask for.
It helped to put a positive spin on the upcoming length of winter...the joy of pulling out the winter gear, the anticipation of winter sports, the fond memories we make for seven months of the year.  It's almost here.....!!!

I'm gonna DANCE!

We have one favorite activity that encompasses all age groups...DANCING!
Truly, we aren't good.  You won't see any of us on TV anytime soon, but we DANCE like we mean it! We have heart, if not rhythm.

We could trace the origins of this activity in our family back to the Wife's Great-Grandparents. As country-folk it was a community activity in the winter to gather at one appointed house for an evening of dancing. The Wife's Grandma(the Amazing Farm-Wife) remembers the drive and anticipation of the evenings.  They would walk into the house and the floors would have been cornstarched for a little slip.  The adults would enjoy the evening dancing away and children would eventually pass out on couches then be loaded into cars for a late-night drive home. Grandma continued her love of dancing during WWII and all the dances afterward.  The Wife's Mother learned and loved square dancing and polka. When the Wife and Dear Farmer married, it became almost a requirement that Dear Farmer dance.  He even square danced with the Wife's Grandma and the two won family awards.
It seemed only natural that when the children were old enough we taught them the barn dance "Virginia Reel".  The children also learned ballroom dancing...the old-school-Fred-and-Ginger ballroom dancing, not this new dancing that looks like an aerobic-workout.  This is our dancing.  We are hard-core, old-school, break-out-the-fiddle dancing.
If we get really crazy, Honorable Son #2 begins his Irish High-Step Dancing, the rest of us attempt to follow him, but it's so not pretty.  That's about as crazy as we get.

O the fun we have!!!  Many family nights we have spent moving the dining room tables out and spending the night twirling and laughing. The fiddles sing from our MP3 music and bluetooth speakers, the dog and cats, goats and chickens all peer in our dining room window to see the family warmed by love and woodstove having a evening laughing and talking, spinning and skipping, eventually the adults are the ones sitting and fanning themselves while the youngest pester "spin again, spin again!"

This is a reason to love the long winters, I'm gonna DANCE!

Dear Farmer Electrofies the Chickens

The Wife is noticing that this time of year is less than glamorous.  The leaves are off the trees and laying on the ground brown and withered.  There's mud everywhere, mixed with dead grass and hay.  And Dear Farmer's jobs are practically mundane...but because of the exciting spring and summer-time, they were pushed off to "before winter" on the list.
So for the past week, Dear Farmer has been retro-fitting a small shanty (used to be a curbside bus-stop for another farm) to fit over his motors and chutes for the chicken feed.  Someday there will be a nice facility built around these chutes and motors and someday that facility will connect to the brooder houses that will someday will be built.  But that's someday, not today. So for now, retro-fitting this little shanty that's 6'x4' is what he has to do to make pumping feed less like aiming a stream of feed towards a bucket while the wind blows it in your face.
The shanty is in place, the motors and chutes are cozy inside, and now the motors are being hardwired into the panel.  Up until now the motors have been given electricity by extension cords(heavy duty all weather cords).  It has been okay, but if an extension cord was needed for any other project it was stolen...not good when anyone else went to pump feed and found they couldn't. And since this is all towards the someday-plan, Dear Farmer is running the electricity to power the someday facility as well.  Think of it, lightbulbs for brooder houses powered by hardwired electricity.  Lights outside so we can see in the dark for evening chores and morning chores...o the possibilities!
It's a happy day for the chickens!  They'll never have another wind-blown-wind-covered Dear Farmer feeding them again.  There won't be an extension cord missing so we can't feed them.  Dear Farmer will be able to see what he's doing for chores, instead of working by braile.  O the simple things in life-electricity-how great is that!

Landscaping Plan for 2016

The Wife was planning out what to do for landscaping...she thought, "Ooooo, a garden of planters!"  She planted herbs in the pots and planters, she fastened a small fence around the area, dreaming of a trellis for the opening (someday).  Then the chickens came....and the chickens loved the pots to sit on and nibble herb dinners and the planters to poop in. The children saw the fence and they used it as hurdles in games of tag and the "jail" in kick-the-can.
New plan...those tiger-lilies look nice around all the trees, perhaps they aren't so haphazard as she thought they were.  We could expand the tiger-lilies, get some other colors (besides orange) and feel very "old lady"-like.  Then the goats came...and the goats thought the tiger-lilies were candy, and they ate and ate and ate them to the ground.  Well, scratch that one.
New plan...the Wife thought,"The children jump and run through fences, the goats eat plants, the chickens poop on everything and nibble the herbs...what can I plant that will be safe and look nice?"  And then she found the joys of a yard-full of slides and swings, a climbing wall and ladders, bikes, scooters and roller blades.  Yep, one full acre of playground.  That's how we're landscaping in 2016.
There will be a day when the yard will be landscaped and look like no one lives here, but that will be when our family doesn't live here at all.  For while we are here, when you drive past, please enjoy our landscaping.

The Feeding Frenzy

Dear Farmer has a feeding frenzy going on down at the barn, the cows are coming up for hay.  There's a hundred head coming at the hay bales and they are HUNGRY!
With the hay feeders set up at the barn and the water-tanks winterized, he's feeling pretty ready to endure another northern winter.
Dear Farmer pokes around while the herd jogs into positions, when he looks: the cows are butting eachother for primier positions at the hay, calves shoved into the feeders by the mob, and hooves sticking up in the air(cows were piling up on one another).  There was no discontent sounds, just happy-munching and snorting.  The winter feeding frenzy is in full swing! And Dear Farmer smiles, it is all good.

Death and Life with perspective from Little Farmboys

Death is a part of life, as the preacher pointed out, everyone and everything will die.  It's not a new concept on the farm.  Death is a hiccup in a day.  This past month our family had a Grandfather die.  And while death is totally accepted, a loved one's death is more than the hiccup, it's a full day of sadness.  We had many conversations leading up to the funeral with the Farmboy Trio (in particular).  For whatever reason, little farmboys are a bit more socially ungraceful...conversations included topics such as:
"grave-farting" : I don't care if little Johnny said your grandfather will haunt you, don't do it!
"booger-slurping-during-prayer": Hold a tissue and blow at an appropriate time.
"funeral-apparel-commenting": I don't care how big you think anyone looks, black is slimming, don't say a word!
You laugh, you snicker, but if you were the Wife taking the Farmboy Trio off the "compound" you'd be having the same conversations!
Funeral day came and went without any large debacles, we found the missing shoes, ties were clipped and knotted, syrup wiped from faces.  The Farmboy Trio made a quiet entrance and exit-and the Wife breathed a sigh of relief.  The general feeling throughout the boys was one of understanding, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21b)
The acceptance came in smaller doses:
"Grandfather is not going to be coming to the beach next summer, he's in Heaven."-Keeper of the Flame
"Grandfather is not in pain anymore, God's prepared a yacht for him to live on."-Dear Farmer's Shadow
But the best comment was from the Pied Piper of the Farmboy Trio the morning after the funeral...he sat down to a bowl of beloved sticky-oatmeal after waking up tired from busy days, slightly on the wrong side of the bed, and said, "Well, Grandfather's dead. He's in Heaven with God.  And he's eating a better breakfast than I am!"
While we miss the departed-Grandfather, we are still here and living.  Sticky-oatmeal is a part of life on earth, there are better breakfasts in Heaven to come!

Winterizing Water

Dear Farmer has been preparing for winter.  It seems it will come without our opinion on when or how much...So, Dear Farmer has placed the mobile coop in it's winter location(it can't move through snow) and placed hay bales around it so the cold wind doesn't blow so much through the floor.  And he's set up feeders for the hay to be dropped in, so it stays off the ground and snow.  Now he's making level ground for the water-tanks to sit on, installing heat-tape on hoses and heaters in tanks, so in the freezing temperatures, all the animals have water. The cows will lay out in the field, nibble on hay and lick snow, but they really enjoy a long drink of water!  The chickens will cuddle in the coop and peck the scratch and water nipples.  The goats keep us entertained with their antics and the children prefer to not have to bring them cups of water when they look thirsty. All the creatures need water all year long.
Have you ever thought to winterize your water?  Many people live in houses where pipes don't freeze in the super-cold northern winters.  But the animals don't have that luxury.  So, Dear Farmer is caring for them, doing what they cannot, and spending a week leveling ground and insulating water systems.  Farmers don't just twidle their thumbs and look at the sky when the weather turns cold.  There's still bunches of work to do.  Like figuring out how to get a drink of water to an animal in the middle of a freezing cold winter.

How about a cat?

There is a road that divides the farm, it makes life...interesting....
The Farmer's Daughter initially started breeding the "elusive" blonde tabby for farms, it was a struggling business.  The hardest part was keeping the cats alive.  She was caring for them well, but barn cats live outside...in barns...which means they walk outside wherever they feel like.  Apparently they really like to sunbath on warm concrete...like the road.
Unfortunately, like cats usually do, they seemed to feel that the cars were in their way-not that they were in the cars way. And so, they did not move when cars came...smoosh.
We're not trying to be hard-hearted, but that is life, the survival of the smartest. We stopped counting how many died...the death toll was astronomical. At the same time, the cats were reproducing at an almost ridiculous rate. At one point in time she had eighteen kittens, and no one was buying them!
She began giving them away...buy one, get one free...and "ding-dong ditching" them on doorsteps(people we knew wanted them).  Cats were urged to follow neighbors home, and tossed in departing cars. Desperation had set in.
Thankfully the herd is now under control-somewhat-but we still have the kittens available at any time, if you want one!  They are excellent "mousers" and do a great job begging to get in the house(which is NOT happening!). Hey, you! You want a cat?!