The Wife's Log: April 14, 2016

The day started like any other day. The Pied Piper was sent outside to milk the goat, he returned in the house fifteen minutes later whining that the goat was not cooperating.
The Farmer's Daughter had to leave for work, but went down to milk the goat for the brother instead.
Meanwhile, the Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter (who just had a birthday) madly was doing her own chores so she could go and enjoy her new kayak on the pond.
The Wife drove the Farmer's Daughter to work and sent the Farm-boy Trio out to help Dear Farmer finish preparations for the incoming 1000 chicks this morning.
The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter finished her work and pleaded to go kayaking on the pond. She took with her the Pied Piper.  The Keeper of the Flame and WhizBang! were anxiously anticipating the soon-to-be chick delivery. It is always amazing how the Wife can find jobs for waiting people to do...they began a job and disappeared "under the radar"(which means the Wife doesn't see them again)...
Left alone in the house with the smallest Farmer's Daughters, the Wife tried desperately to get dressed and clean the kitchen from the onslaught of breakfast.  With three "helpers"...it was going slowly.
In walked the Farmer's Shadow, who had a cold for the past few days and couldn't manage to get up and collect eggs.  He had been feeling well enough to make a dime, and brought in three dozen eggs that he found. He began sorting through the hay in the egg basket for the eggs in the middle of the kitchen floor. Hay all over one's kitchen floor, does not make a cleaning process go faster or smoother.
While changing a diaper and giving orders to the egg sorter a faint "Mother? Mother?" is heard above the roar of life.  The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter was back with the Pied Piper--both wet.  Apparently all of kayaking is fun, except for the part when the electronic device slides out of the back pocket and lands in the murky bottom of the farm-pond. Tears were shed over the device that she was sure kept her world revolving...but lesson learned:  Don't go kayaking with anything in your pockets.
During the tears, and before the laughter, the chicks came in. Out went the Keeper of the Flame and the WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter to settle them down in brooding houses with Dear Farmer.
Into the house whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with a friend for a lesson on the attachment of fake eyelashes.  Upstairs echoed giggling and laughter. Downstairs we were preparing for a (hopefully) early lunch. With four helpers making lunch, snitching ingredients, and generally causing chaos lunch did happen.  All were called with a whistle.
Downstairs whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with friend to the next appointment.
In came Dear Farmer...the 1000 chicks were short...by 800???  On the phone went Dear Farmer to find out where 800 chicks are peeping currently.  In came the children to snarf down food, all are excited about being next to try out the kayak.  The Youngest Farmer's Daughter Trio is just too small to kayak.  Great tragedy's of life are often solved by popcorn and a movie about a dancing British mouse.  Which works once again today!
Clean up in the kitchen goes much faster without help.
The Pepper Goat was arguing with the Garlic Goat, and the Garlic Goat snapped the Pepper Goat's neck. Tears shed over the loss of a pack-goat, but quickly recovered with another ride on a kayak.
The Nordic Ninja is over to replace headlights and tail-lights with Dear Farmer. The Farmer's Daughter whooshes back home to change into work clothes and whooshes out again to evening work.
No one can find the 800 missing chicks currently, they are somewhere in the USPS(where I am sure someone is going mad listening to unrelenting peeping). Dear Farmer is working to build and wire infastructure, while at the same time keeping the phone nearby in case he hears word of the chicks.
And now, onto those dinner preparations...at 6pm the whole family will be at the table, there will be laughter of the fun, remembering the losses, and encouragement that we can all do this again tomorrow.
This is an amazing world we live in!

To Be Industrious

Farming and the character trait of Industriousness go hand in hand.  Did you know that?
The Wife had first discovered this during childhood while talking with her Grandma the Amazing Farm Wife. When Grandma, while hanging laundry on the line, said,"A gardener doesn't go hungry.  It's hard work, but it feeds the family when others might go without." She had said this to The Wife when she lived in town.  Her garden consumed the entire side of the corner lot the house sat on, and it also shared the space with the walkway from the ally and the clothesline.  Looking back, it was a Norman Rockwell moment, but at the time, it was just barely appreciated.  One simple sentence and it planted the seed of Industriousness in The Wife for the rest of her life.

Living on the farm now we have no choice but to be industrious at times...the cows got out and there was no gate to block the road, we had to figure out how to make three people seem like a very large deterrence at the road side...things like this happen often enough to make you prepared at a moment's notice.
Then there's times that we choose to be industrious...to heat with wood, to milk a goat, to make soap, or to boil down bones for broth.
We see our children taking industriousness to the next level...knitting hats, gloves, dishcloths, crocheting blankets, stuffed animals, and slippers, making gifts with wood and nails, and training goats to pack-goat so they don't have to carry the heavy loads.

Recently we spent time with our Uncle Intelligentsia and his wife, Aunt Intelligentsia.  It was fantastic to hear Aunt Intelligentsia tell us of her process to insure the city where they live in be educated and funded for the community garden project.  She has had to be Industrious to see healthy lives restored even in the city.

Dear Farmer looks at Industriousness as a part of sustainable agriculture.  If there is no character of Industriousness in a farmer, there won't be a sustainable farm.  The two go hand in hand.
It's not easy, not always fun, sometimes barely appreciated...but it will change lives for generations.

Pepper and the Pied Piper: Pack-Goat Training Day Four

"He won't obey!"
"Pepper isn't being a nice boy."
"Can I have a new goat?"

Pepper and the Pied Piper are well suited for eachother.  Both have a tendency to go their own way, both are thinking they are the only "right" ones, and both have an unending supply of stubbornness and energy.
Add to all that that both not liking eachother right now, and we have the perfect couple.

So, the Pied Piper has taken Pepper out on a walk every day.  Pepper, being a goat, now feels he is "owed" this walk-regardless of how he has behaved at any other time in the day.
The morning bucking and ramming, the nipping and nudging all aside, at two-o'clock, it's time for a walk!
The Pied Piper is just not understanding why Pepper gets his walk when he's not a being a good boy, doesn't that mean he should be disciplined?  The Wife is in the process of making the Pied Piper understand that it means they should go for more walks, so Pepper understands, he's being worked, not pampered.  The food doesn't come free around here, let alone cheap.
The Pied Piper has to go for a walk every day at two-o'clock.  It doesn't matter how whiny and fussy he is in the morning, or how precocious he's been in the afternoon.  And depending on the level of noise he's creating in the house, he's sent out on even more walks throughout the day.  The Wife is in the process of making the Pied Piper understand that certain behavior is not acceptable and energy should be expelled productively and outside.

Both boy and goat are working on character building, but neither of them know it.  Both boy and goat are building a relationship, and neither are appreciating it.  Both boy and goat are exhausted at night, and the Wife is loving it!

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???