I Thought I'd Ruined Mother's Day

I thought I'd ruined Mother's Day
the house was all a mess
the dished piled in the sink
I couldn't find my dress

I sat and ate my breakfast slow

determined to enjoy

the children gathered all around

my lap, their favorite toy

The time, I knew, was flying by

so much that needed done

we had to get to church on time

always this race to run

The baby's face was dirty

the toddler's diaper messed

the preschooler had a missing shoe

and his sister wasn't dressed

My daughters, who are twelve and nine

had helped their Dad make me

a breakfast so sweet and special

but there was no time for tea

The goat was waiting to be milked

the pigs, they needed fed

the chickens' eggs to be collected

and the teens were sleeping in

I sighed a sigh that was too loud

my son, he overheard

"take it easy Mom," was all he said

I uttered not a word

Just once I wanted it to be

the kind of day that I did well

without the missing shoes

the dirty faces, or the smells

Without the tangles in girls' hair

waiting to be brushed out

without the tantrums, chores, and sighs

rising tension in the air

At last we loaded up the van

abandoned shoes were found

the sweater I'd stood ironing

was finally coming 'round

And then I climbed into the van

and found awaiting there

messy faces all in smiles

and bows in tangled hair

My darlings, my loves, my reasons for being

how could I be so silly

to look upon the messes of life

as if they matter, really

I thought I'd ruined Mother's Day

with harsh words and impatient sighs

but my children must know the love I carry

so deep and full inside

Thank you Lord for children

for every dirty little mess

for tea that gets neglected

in search of each lost dress

Thank you for the love they share

for life, for fun, for me

I know these days will quickly pass-

please let me hang on and make them last-

for as long as time shall be

Elizabeth Sliwa

Mother's Day 2017

Elizabeth

Another Spring

I awoke to sunshine this morning. Well really I awoke to a sleepy-eyed 2 yr old who climbed into bed and fought his brother for a spot next to mom. This is the season I'm in. This is the season I've been in for many years. This is the only season my poor, neglected married life has ever known seeing as we had our first (surprise!) child ten months after we said our vows. The season of being woken each day by snuggly toddlers and sweet smelling babies about a half hour before I'm really ready to be awake. Fumbling, almost tripping down the stairs in my pre-coffee state with a baby on my hip and at least 2 children trailing me close and crying for breakfast (at this point the preschooler and possibly the front- toothless first grader has joined the party). One is screaming for cereal, another for bagels, the other wants eggs. I comply with each of their demands simply because it's the easiest and I'm a little too compliant with the demands of my children. I've gotten really good at making three different breakfasts in record time. I realize I may be asking for trouble down the road with this practice, but at this moment I don't care. This season. I look at my husband and think it's amazing how two people committed to each other can rally through so many years of lack of time, lack of money, lack of sleep, lack of just us. Sometimes I've felt it's all made us so much stronger. Other times not. But I think what keeps us going is the knowing that we are creating a legacy, as is every marriage that chooses to welcome children into it. Messy, loud, interrupting, needy, sweet sleepy-eyed heaven-sent children. It's about so much more than him or I. It's generational, lasting, worthy work.
And like I said, I woke to sunshine and birds singing, so bring on the season and all it holds.

Spring is here. The farm's been in full swing since March. The arrival of baby chicks (purchased), piglets (bartered for), and goat kids (birthed on this farm) is a sign of new beginnings. A sign that I'm not ready to give up on this old place just yet. There's promise with each new start and each new spring.

The chicks were started in the house, then moved to the barn and by three weeks were out on pasture, moved daily. Another couple weeks and they'll be ready to process. They never stop eating, so they grow fast. The pigs came as a deal -  I was selling a couple goats, the man who was wanted them was short on cash. He offered me two pigs in exchange. I convinced him three would be more even and they arrived the next day. Joe was ok with this. But they eat a lot too and he'll be ready to see them go at the end of this month. I'll miss their... piggy-ness. They really are fun.

I got some soap orders yesterday. I've been wavering on the soap lately, wondering if it's something I really want to continue. Wondering if it's worthy enough. But a good order or two is usually enough to sway me, and back on track it is.

Brenna wanted to help me milk the goat this morning. We're only milking one so far and only once a day which is a nice way to transition back into the busy-ness of milking. The last couple years I relied heavily on my children to do the milking and realized that: 1. I missed it, and 2. It just wasn't done as properly as it ought to be done when the kids were relied upon. This caused me stress, so I've been milking again and enjoying my brief solitary barn trip every morning. But this morning Brenna decided that she was really missing out on life by not helping with the milking, so she came with me.
Her 9 year old fingers are long and slender and feminine. It takes strong hands to milk. I notice my own practiced hands and forearms are sore for a few days at the beginning of each milking season. 'Cause seriously, it really is a workout. She patiently squeezes and squeezes. Amelia the goat is understanding. It takes me an extra ten minutes this morning out in the barn to teach her how to properly get those teats to spray milk, and into the bucket. She's tried in previous years and has given up in frustration. She was too little. This year it's different. When it's over, she's pleased and I'm pleased and the goat's pleased. Win win, win. And Lucas, I forgot sweet Lu. He joined us and was quite proud to be given the job of feeding the bottle baby. What's not to love about this season?

Elizabeth

Post Mortem

It was 80 degrees and humid that morning in August when I stepped into the unflattering and oversized white bee suit and zipped it up to my neck. The netted hood, I wore over a baseball cap so that the cap's brim would keep the netting even further from my face. It attached by zipper to the body of the suit. Full coverage. This hive had a reputation for being aggressive. They say an aggressive hive is the result of an aggressive queen. I could understand the possibility of that. 

                                     Isn't the behavior of the brood                       
                              always in direct correlation to the queen?
                        Another sobering reminder for me how important
                                       the role of motherhood is.

With bees, I read that the only cure for an aggressive hive is to find the queen, destroy it, and introduce a new, hopefully even-tempered queen. Otherwise, the hive will always be aggressive and somewhat dangerous.  I had tried to look for the queen amongst the drones, worker and nurse bees. I had researched how to find her, how to encourage the nurse bees to raise a new queen. But I was an amateur. I couldn't find the queen. Admittedly, I hadn't spent too much time trying. It's hard to spend an extended amount of time studying an aggressive hive.

All this I pondered, as I filled the smoker with some wound up green baling twine retrieved from the barn, threw in a fire starter and, with the help of Joe who would stand a safe distance away, my hive tool, a bucket and strainer for honey, plodded down the field towards the white painted hive bodies resting on pallets...
That day, I would find the hive pleasingly more docile than previously. I collected a good almost gallon of sweet wildflower honey, not counting the 6 or so full frames of honey I left for the bees to overwinter on, and was sweat drenched and achingly exhausted by the time we finished an hour later. Collecting honey is serious work.

Over the next several months I kept a casual eye on the bees. Distracted with the daily preoccupations of raising a bunch of children, (along with a gaggle of goats, and a coopful of chickens), admittedly, I was happy that at least one thing in my care was semi self sufficient and left them mostly alone. I'd glance their way when out in the goat pasture (their hive abutting the north side of the field fencing), and each time noticed them happily buzzing around, the guard bees always at attention at the hive opening. They were good. In the fall we added an extra super for more space for their increasing numbers. Eight extra frames for them to make honey and grow new bees on. All was going well.

It was two days ago that I was on a walk by myself. It had been a hard, long day and I quickly exited the house to walk our property trail and regain some sanity as soon as Joe had arrived home and before the last light of day gave way to night. It was a still, cool evening, but not too cold. I was reveling in the pleasant quietness of the nature around me and I decided to take a detour cutting across the bottom field to check on the bees on my way back up towards home. In the winter, one must be cautious not to stress the bees by checking them too often. They go into a semi conscious, semi hibernative state and flock together to keep warm, only leaving the hive on occasion and on mild days to take "cleansing flights" (aka, to poop). One way to check them without opening the hive box is to knock on the side of the box and if you hear a buzzing response, usually all is well. Or, at least they're alive. The weather was relatively mild, but I didn't have my protective suit on and light was fading, and I knew the children would be looking for dinner, so rather than lifting off the cover, I decided to do the knock test.

I knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
Nothing.
Again, harder.
Nothing.

I knew without even lifting the cover off  the hive. The bees had died. Thousands of them. I had been thinking this was how it would be and I don't even know how I knew. Maybe because it really would be too good to be true for my bees to survive two winters in a row with so little intervention from me. Maybe because it seems that nothing we try on this farm has worked out even nearly as seamlessly as we'd planned. Needless to say, I was left feeling guilty, and a little devastated, and a little the failure.

Upon inspection, The hive was filled with honey. So starvation was not the reason. They appeared to have died all at once. Or at least within mere days of each other. And recently. After performing the best post-mortem I could being so green with this and all,  I deduced that I really know too little about bees to properly assign a cause-of-death, which made me feel even worse.

Mites? Dunno. 
Dysentary? Could be.
Moisture in the hive? Maybe- I did discover some large water droplets in the hive. I do know that moisture is deadlier than cold to them. How did that get there? In a hive properly installed and with ventilation, moisture shouldn't be an issue.

Either way, the bees are no longer.

Yesterday I did the work of taking the hive up from the field and processing the honey. Today, the honey is still draining from the comb into a large pot on my dining room table. It was cold, and so straining is slow. It's light yellow and the stickiness still clings to everything Charlotte and Isaac touched as they were helping me.  It looks enough to fill three half gallon jars. Impressive. Enough to keep us in honey until the days are warm and long again.  Enough wax for dozens of salves. I inspected the hives once more, hoping to find something that would clue me in as to their demise. I didn't.

But I did find that queen.
And she was extraordinary.
If she'd been aggressive, I couldn't tell.

I don't know if there will be more bees here in the near future. Right now, I'm feeling inadequate in my bee-keeping skills, enough to dissuade me from pursuing it further until I can really devote some time to the craft. I should join a beekeepers club, find a mentor, learn more, do this properly. I'm not sure what I'll do. Time is so scarce right now. It's amazing to have fresh, raw honey, but that can be found and purchased easily enough from another local beekeeper.

If this is my last experience keeping bees, I'm thankful for the memories made and the stories I still have to tell. There are some good ones.

Perhaps another time.

Or perhaps you'll be hearing about new hives come some spring.

Elizabeth

Auction Day

The thermometer read 5 degrees on the outside and 41 degrees this morning on the inside of the farmhouse. The coal stove had gone out sometime in the night. We were all most pleasingly warm under our thick quilts and comforters and unaware. "Drafty old houses are like swiss cheese with a door, at least in this weather", the man of the house muttered as he re-lit the stove, "Swiss cheese with a door." Outside the wind was so fierce that the red barn was barely visible from my kitchen window. We both shuddered at the task ahead, and not just from the cold. It was auction day. Before Joe left for work and after the baby was fed and settled, we headed out with Connor's help into the frigid cold to load the spring bucklings. I gave them a quick ration of green hay which still smelled reminiscently of summer. They munched aware unaware that it was their last meal on this farm. Their birthplace. It was surprisingly easier than we thought it would be to load them onto the truck, the cold and a full belly making them compliant and manageable. Not that they aren't usually. Goats are great like that. Friendly, personable. But they're also stubborn. We took them 3 at a time and made 2 trips. We're fortunate to live just 4 miles from the auction barn. The barn was clean and organized and the employees friendly and helpful. I lingered a minute as I said good-bye. They gazed at me uncaring as they chomped on more hay.

Bye boys.  

As we pulled back up the driveway, Joe said, "You're going to miss them a little aren't you? Watching them out there in the field, hearing them call for you each time they see you?" "Yeah" I said, "a little." And I knew we were talking about more than just me.

Tonight, I'll attend the auction with a friend. I'm not sure I wanted to go, but feel I should anyway. Especially if this is something we'll be doing more of in the future. Tonight is the Holiday Auction. The one attended by much of the ethnic community seeking out a lamb or goat for their holiday feasts. It supposedly brings the best prices for goat of all the auctions throughout the year. This and the Easter goat sale. We'll see. As for the money, Connor says he should get some for all the farm chores he does, I say I'd like to keep most for the expansion of the farm, Joe says we need it for bills. And that's that. I suspect we'll all get a cut.

Back at home it's now 12 degrees. Still -6 with the wind chill. We cover the chicken coop with a tarp and cinder blocks and wrestle the blasted wind for 10 minutes to keep it from blowing off. The coop's too drafty for days like this. I give them an extra scoop of feed, check on the goats in the barn and head indoors. I can't feel my fingers. My thighs are numb.
Joe leaves for work.

Inside, the temp's up to 56. The babies are in triple layers. There's a pot roast in the crockpot. The kitchen is still a mess from breakfast and a hurried evening last night. After feeding and changing the baby, I hand him to Ava and set the kitchen to rights. I decide the only way to warm up the kitchen properly is to bake. Ava and I decide a nice rustic brown bread to accompany the roast and maybe some gingerbread cookies would be a good choice. As the baby plays with some spatulas in his seat and with Lucas' help, we grind and measure wheat flour, and cornmeal for the bread. In the blender go raisins, water, olive oil, molasses. In the mixing bowl, water, honey and yeast are  proofing. They all get mixed together and kneaded. Brenna laughs as she powders the baby's nose with flour. The bowl of dough gets set on the back of the coal stove to rise. I'm looking forward to this bread. On days like these, a hearty homemade bread is especially savory.

More, or Less

The anxiety gets to me sometimes. Yesterday it rattled my senses as I tried to focus on what needed to be done for the afternoon. Laundry, dinner, clean out the girls closet, Christmas shop, check Connor's essay. My hands actually shook as I hastily made chocolate chip cookies in an attempt to see progress completed on something. Baking's good for that. For seeing a project through and enjoying its end. I let Luc help. I had Gunnar in one arm and so I made them with a baby in one hand and a two year old's help. I made a mental note to check Craigslist for backpacks. He's about big enough now to be carried on my back. I'd get so much more done. Don't rush this phase. Don't rush this phase... He's asleep now, and already I miss the feel of him in my arms.

 The anxiety was in relation to the thoughts that plague me about this old farm. Every once in a while, and more lately, I wonder and hope and plan all that I want for this place. Yet the dreams I have for it might be too lofty. I think:

I don't want a hobby farm.  I want a working farm. That takes time, and money and both are short right now, and maybe they always will be. Even now, money so tight, always saying no to the kids for this or that, I feel guilt for not working a "real" job. I'm a registered nurse. I'm a registered nurse with 15 years of experience. I could get a good job. I could get a good job tomorrow, if I wanted. But I want to be here, raising my kids and working alongside my family farming this land. Is that selfish of me? I don't want to miss a thing, yet I don't want it to ruin us, this choice for me to be home, to try and take an old farm and breathe life into it. Joe works hard. He's started a handyman business he's building from the ground up. A business he's good at. With eight children, someone has to be home, behind the scenes, keeping things running and I'm glad it's me. We live in a poor farming community. "There's no money in farming" is evident all around.
The spring bucklings are going to auction in 2 and a half weeks. We'll see if it was worth it to raise them these 8 months. It wasn't hard if you don't count all the fence repair. Maybe the payoff will be encouraging. One can raise a lot of goats on 20 acres. Could we handle more goats and do it well? Or maybe it wont be profitable and we'll be back to square one. Sheep? Seems to be more of a demand for lamb. Maybe sheep and goats. We'd need better fencing, a herd dog... why can't I just be satisfied with a few silly animals? Do I really want a working farm?
And my soap business. I want it to be profitable. Time and labor, marketing, packaging, labeling, and supply purchases weighed it down before. How can it be done differently and competitively and still be worth all the time and effort financially? Others seem to do this successfully. Am I not committed enough?

I guess this is the plight of the entrepreneur- doubting and second guessing and guilt until one day, for a small minority, a breakthrough is made.

I just need to figure it out. And who needs money anyway? Is is really that important? Why can't I just relax and enjoy this life without the constant push?

Thos e

Those were the thoughts that were blazing a red hot trail through my mind tangling themselves together and making me my hands shake.

Why can't I kick this? Hang it up. How long is too long to try and make a go of it? Honestly, a real effort hasn't even been made. I've had 2 babies in the three years we've lived here. Maybe next year will be the year we figure out what we want from this place. Maybe we don't want more than what we have now. Maybe what we really want is less. I need to figure this out.

I'm not sure I like this post. I'm not sure I can make you understand. The words aren't coming out quite right. Perhaps I won't publish it. But I want to be transparent. We may leave all this behind someday and I want to have this memory of why. Or we may be here forever, and I want to have this memory of how it was in the beginning, a first generation farmer.


Cookies done, Lucas gleefully covered in chocolate, I needed air. I took the kids out, cleaned the barn, and trimmed the goats' hooves with Christmas music a little too loud in the background. It felt good. I was reminded once again how much I like this work.  I checked under the goats' eyelids for signs of worminess. I was pleased that all seemed good. Nice and pink. Everyone appeared large and healthy and hearty. No worming needed this fall. Nice.

I cleaned out the barn. The pitchfork handle's loose again.

And why can't they make pitchforks that last? We can't afford a tractor, although we'll need one if  this farm gets any bigger. It's not cheap to buy pitchforks each year either. Little costs, all add up. So many of these little costs in farming...and life I guess.

I'm grateful we've reached a point where the goats cost us almost nothing to maintain. They have plenty of pasture and hay that we receive in exchange for renting another portion of our pasture out to a local farmer who cuts it. He takes some and we get some and it works well for both of us. They've been healthy (with the exception of one older doe we lost this Spring ) So the money we get for those bucklings will be all profit. Just in time for Christmas. That's something.

Work complete, I feel a renewed sense of energy. The anxiety is gone. My children are laughing at some silly play they're involved in. Lucas is talking to the goats. It does them good to be out here too.
I remember I'm a mother first, always first, and I dance with them in the barn to Emmanuel before we flip off the lights and head for the warmth of the house. It's just getting dark. Meatloaf's in the oven. The baby will need fed when I get inside.


I'm a fool for this life.

Or maybe just a fool.

Elizabeth
.

The Garlic's in

The perfect way to pass a sunny 65 degree day in mid November is to plant garlic.

Except to be honest, I didn't really want to plant the garlic this morning. I was pretty comfortable on the inside of my house, and the baby had just fallen asleep. But the garlic was here on my kitchen counter beckoning for days, and I seem to have a compulsion for such things, so...

I took Ava and Brenna out with me, told them this could be our science for the day. It'll be fun! I said, as they reluctantly stabbed at the hard earth to loosen the soil, shoveled composted manure into a wheelbarrow, and raked it into the plot. Brenna got upset with Ava for taking her favorite pitchfork. She stomped off to pout and then just as quickly took up a cheery game with Lucas. I let them be. Ava didn't want to bury the bulbs into the soil. She had just painted her fingernails. I let her hand the garlic to me instead. I don't paint my fingernails anymore. I spoke about how deep to plant them, how far apart. That we'd cover the whole bed with straw in the end to protect them over winter. I explained that each little clove would undergo a miraculous transformation and emerge a large bulb full of it's own little cloves. I'm not sure she was truly listening, but she's too polite to tell me of her disinterest. The chickens, upon learning there was fresh turned soil around hastened to our little patch and started digging through, upsetting the bulbs I had just planted. I may have thrown a pitchfork at them. Perhaps they'll go back into the coop today.

When we were all done, Ava looked at the remaining bulbs in her hand and asked if we were just to throw them out. No silly, I replied. We'll eat those. Upon hearing this, she narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously- "If we can just buy garlic to eat, why in the world do we have to plant it?" God bless her. She had a point. And this was the question I'd been wrestling with in my mind all morning as I spent that precious hour and a half baby nap time planting garlic. And I don't really know the answer. Because I'm still unsure of why this 21st century wanna-be farmer, wanna-be blogger goes through these motions that appear so meaningless to the modern world (and even myself sometimes). How easy (and cheap) is it to buy garlic at the store? Quite.

Still, the  feeling I get from doing it myself, and including my children, whether reluctantly or not, is the way I've chosen to live my life and spend my time for now. And it's good. It's not heroic, It's not life-changing, but it's good. Plus, I told her. Just wait until Spring. Those little green shoots are one of the first living things to appear in the garden, and what a thrilling feeling. We'll think back to this gorgeous November day after a cold and bitter winter and be thankful for the time we spent. Hands in the dirt, planting the garlic.

Monday

When he called, from his hotel room, from working out of town, I was in the recliner reading a book to Charlotte and nursing the baby. The book was Let Me Hold you Longer by Karen Kingsbury. One of those books that I usually can't get through without watery eyes at the least, or being reduced to a slobbering, sniffling mess, dependent on my mood and (if we're being honest) the particular time of the month. Tonight, thankfully, it was the latter.

He asked how the day had gone and I told him of moving the new bunny to one of the chicken pasture pens. That the boys had gotten it down from the hayloft for us, and how he seemed so much happier to be on grass and have room to explore and leap and nibble. It just seemed so much more natural than the smallish cage he was in. I meant to tell him that I tried to grab an old apple from the apple tree next to the pen to give him a treat, but that there were two dead bees inside and so I decided not to, and also I wondered if those bees were dead from the neighbor spraying his field because some residual spray inevitably makes its way to our backyard. It's impossible to avoid. I wondered if that was the case how many more bees had been killed. And then naturally I was reminded that it had been too long since I'd been down to check on the bees. They seemed good in August. I need to go soon.

 

I told him that I'd been so patient with Isaac and that Isaac had behaved himself rather well today (a trouble we're having), except that near bedtime he decided to call the baby a buttface and said it over and over and was punished for that and then laughed at me after being punished and so I told him it was time for bed and he said, "no" and so I got really mad then and perhaps was too severe. I told my husband that I was still feeling guilty for possibly overreacting even though we'd made up with cuddles and bedtime stories. But the level of his naughtiness lately combined with the titch of postpartum anxiety I still seem to be experiencing is a breeding ground for all sorts of episodes between the two of us lately. Gosh I love him. He's the neatest kid ever. But we're having a tough time of it. 

I told him that both the baby and Lucas had pooped three times today.

I told him that I'd let the chickens free range today because we were out of chicken food and I didn't get to the store and that buying $14 bags of chicken food each week was getting old for a bunch of chickens that haven't layed eggs since September. They were perfectly content to free range. I told him I'd prefer that anyway. He reminded me of all the poop they leave everyhwere. He prefers them neatly penned. I also told him that I'd changed the timer on the light in their coop to turn on from 2am -6am rather than the 7pm-11pm that it's set to now. I'd read somewhere that was better for egg production. Lord knows I've tried everything.

I told him that I'd finally gotten the three bags that have been sitting in the back of our van for a month to Salvation Army. That I went into town hoping that the apple trees I saw on clearance two days ago would still be there. I went with my credit card because times are a little tough, and $10 apple trees are worth it. They were all gone. Once again, life got in the way of planting apple trees. Spring, perhaps.

I told him that my mom was still sick (bronchitis) and that my Dad couldn't find his keys and would he please check his truck?

I told him that I'd put Whisper (our elderly-est) goat in one of the kidding pens for a couple days because I could tell she was in heat and didn't want her bred. Last year she had an accidental breeding and did not produce enough milk for her baby (due to being so old, I assume). I didn't watch it close enough and that beautiful little strawberry blonde doeling died, and I was so mad at myself for not catching that.  Whisper has given us many beautiful babies and oodles and oodles of milk in the 6 years we've had her. I've noticed lately that she's been hobbling a little. Walking slower. Lying down a little more. Not racing to the hay feeders like she used to. Last evening when I went out she was sitting in the pasture just looking up at the stars. She's 12. It's almost time. I hope she can enjoy one more Spring and Summer.

That's all of what I'd told him. And it was good to have that conversation because he's usually the talker in our relationship while I tend to be the listener who holds things in. And then we talked about his day which had nothing to do with children or animals or poop, but was still a good day. And we said I love you, and we said good bye.

The Apple Tree

Ava, age 9, that first fall

It thrills me to look out my old kitchen window and see ducks feasting on wormy apples under an apple tree planted by someone else, sometime else. I long to know the story of the apple tree. It's trunk and limbs and branches are bent with years of the strong winds so prevalent on this hilltop farm. They reach for the sun which never reaches quite high enough long enough to sustain a growth of erect, correct posture for this tree. We wore dresses under our winter coats and danced around it two winters ago, my girls and I, at night, with the moon shining just enough to illuminate that old tree as if it were mystical. I can hear the crunch of our boots on the icy snow and see our breath and hear our laughter still. Wild. Free. I was a girl again for just a moment. The year we moved here, marked with much fear and doubt and backbreaking work, questioning and wondering, that year, this old apple tree brought up from somewhere deep within herself an abundance of perfect, large red green apples. Baskets full. Like a housewarming gift. It must've wore her out to do it, because we haven't had a harvest near as grand since. But that fall was marked with sauces and pies and crisps and cakes and children always with an apple in hand munching away. It was a gift. It started to feel like home. I don't worship trees. But I worship the God who made the apple trees and the animals and people who get to really experience them, lives wild and strong and productive and those also bent and weak and spent.

In front of the old apple tree, the evening before delivering our eight baby

The old apple tree. And that following spring on a dark and rainy day, I was heavy with child and smack dab and elbow deep in the middle of dinner preparations when I looked out and saw our 3 pigs under that tree eating what winter freeze and spring thaw and 6 children had left of those fall apples. I brushed the hair out of my face and sighed a very pregnant sigh and resigned myself to having to lure those porcinds back into the pen they broke out of, and right in the middle of dinner prep (which is a big deal when you're working to feed a small army). At that moment once again (for there had already been many, and many to follow) I was disgustedly overwhelmed and completely in love with this lifestyle I've chosen. No, what I mean to say is this lifestyle that had chosen me. In how many lives are there memories made of being 8 months pregnant and wrangling 900 lb of bacon back to where it belongs? I did. And while I'd like to say it went smoothly, I have a small rememberance of the slightest hint of terror I might have felt when, after retrieving a bucket of grain as a means to lure the pigs, and after the pigs realized just what said bucket in my hand held, they literally started galloping towards me at a rate alarming for a being of such heft. Realizing that standing there waiting for them to reach me might be a tad suicidal, I turned tail and ran (at not such an alarming speed, considering the heft of my state) towards their pen and when I got close and the pigs were about to overtake me, I flung the grain,  blue bucket flying through the air and all, into their pasture and to my relief they skirted around me (still galloping) and into the paddock and began to attack the grain covered ground with their mighty snouts, grunting feverishly although from the exercise or for the grain I cannot tell you.

This year the apples were mishapen, wormy, small. The ducks don't mind them. And unlike the pigs of that first year (for there haven't been any more), they are free to roam the farm picking up whatever might suit their fancy. I don't know what happened to my apple tree, but I mean to look into it. We'll prune her back good in an effort to conserve and strengthen what goodness might be left. Perhaps she'll grow strong again. Last year, her mate, the only other apple tree- small and weak and unproductive not 10 yards away, fell to a storm. All that remains of it is a stump that's been cut flush to the ground so as not to catch a lawnmower blade.
Anyway, I love to look out my old kitchen window at my apple tree. I love that after 3 short years of watching her blossom brilliant pink and fragrant in the spring, verdant and (inconsistently) fruitful through the summer and fall,  die off brittle and cold and brown to the winter chill, and magically come to life in the spring again, I love that she stirs such emotions in me as I look at her and remember. I'd love a small orchard full. Perhaps someday I will. 
I think Garrett said it best 4 years ago:

Waiting Around

Our goats are 8 weeks overdue.

Ok, that's silly obviously. Most likely not overdue at all. But might as well be.

Here's the short of it: The does we were milking last year dried up (stopped producing milk) gradually, after we bred them this fall. We were hoping to milk them through January, but it was not to be. And a little break from milking was nice and needed anyway. However, the demand for our goat's milk products (and lotion especially) continued. And since I will only use fresh, raw milk in my lotions I was out of luck. Since a goat's gestation is 5 months, our goats weren't due until March. That's a long time to keep faithful lotion customers waiting. So I decided to purchase a couple more does in early January. These does had been running with a buck since August, so we figured -great- babies (and milk) in January, or at the very latest, February.

And here we are on the eve of March 2. No babies. Now, I know and trust the farmer we purchased them from, and I do know for a fact that they're bred- I can feel the babies kicking on their right side (the left side is rumen activity which can be mistaken for babies kicking). So what we have here is not an abnormally long gestation or even a case of a sterile buck. Perhaps just a buck that wasn't persistent enough. Lol.

Because we don't know the date, we've been doing barn checks every two hours since early January. Yes, every. two. hours. since. early. January. -because sometimes babies can come quickly and with little warning. I must admit though, that I don't do middle of the night checks. I mean I have, but I stopped. I have a baby that nurses much of the night. So between him, and barn checks, Mama wasn't gettin' any sleep.  However if I saw imminent signs (like those discussed below), obviously I'd do what I had to do. But really, I'm hoping and praying for daytime babies. They're just so much more convenient.
It's funny, just like I was in my ninth month pregnant with all my babies, I'm starting to think the day will   N E V E R  C O M E . 
But that's silly too. It always does.

So what signs of labor are we checking for? (And this is the part where I may lose some of you. I understand. It's not everybody's thing.)  

Here is what we check for at Dandelion's Acre Farm: 

1. A filling udder. This usually means labor is now-36 hours away. Although some udders don't fill until after birth.

2. Loose ligaments (when their tail-head becomes so soft that you can touch fingers when you grasp around it.

3. This book:  http://www.amazon.com/Goat-Husbandry-David-MacKenzie/dp/0571165958
 (which I really enjoy and recommend, by the way) explains that an old way to tell if labor is coming is to feel the right side of the goat (like I explained earlier) and if you feel no babies squirming or kicking then that means that they've moved up into the birth canal and birth should be 8-12 hours away. I'm not so sure about this one, but I'm trying it out to see anyway. 

4. White discharge which could mean labor is just beginning or will begin in the next 12-24 hrs, or a string of mucous which means that you better holler for someone to bring the boiling water, 'cause it be soon.

Just kidding. No boiling water needed. Holler for molasses water instead. Mama goats like their molasses water. :)

5. Quirky behavior -when in labor, pawing, pacing, circling, or simply standing pitifully and staring morosely into your eyes as if pleading, "please do something, man, this is no fun", are all examples of the behavior of a goat in labor. Seriously though, goats are quirky creatures anyway, so who knows.

All these signs may vary from goat to goat, so really there is no foolproof way to tell (other than that lovely mucous string I mentioned previously).

I'm also convinced that a true knowing that "this is the day!" comes with time and experience. And even then, experienced farmers have sometimes been duped, which is why most goat owners watch the heat cycles of their does so they know when a buck is needed and can witness the breeding. That way they can pin an actual due date on their doe.

So we wait. And continue barn checks. And in the meantime, the  ladies I bred in the fall will start kidding this month as well. It will be a busy one. And the temperature is said to get above freezing this week, so hooray for that, at least.

And I'm just salivating thinking of all that fresh milk.

Elizabeth

Sick

The babies are asleep at the same time, so I after making a mad dash for some coffee, I sat down to this computer. I had permaculture on my mind. Land development, sustainability, crops, fruit trees, and livestock were on the tip of my tingling (gosh, I love nap time) fingers waiting to be punched into a search engine. I'm a geek for such things.
But a headline caught my eye. A MESSAGE SIGNED WITH BLOOD TO THE NATION OF THE CROSS, showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians who had been kidnapped in Libya. I didn't watch the video. I had no desire to. I am sick over the headline alone.
 
Sick, and helpless.
 
What can I do? How can I speak of planting orchards while people are being brutally murdered for their love of Jesus? What can I do, a mother of young children still at home? What can I do.
 
I can teach my sons to be bold and strong, truth- speaking leaders in their home and in their community and for their country. I can teach my daughters to do right, and stand up for what they believe and be courageous in this world.

I can teach them that there is a difference between right and wrong and that it doesn't stop at our doorstep. It must be carried with them, no matter how trivial, no matter the cost, and wherever they are.

I can teach my children to grow a love for Jesus so big that they too would be willing to die for him.

And if I ever became a mother that had to witness her son or daughter die for Jesus, I pray I would choose death for Jesus over life for the world.

This is not a political blog. Although I have a great love for people, I have little interest in politics, nor do I have the knowledge required to compose a political blog that would be worth any read at all. So I'll stop there at the risk of sounding silly.
But the world is evil, my friends. And that is nothing new.

I'm going to stop writing and pray. Because that's something I can do.

Please join me.

"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come." Matthew 24:14

Elizabeth

Valentine's Day

19 (NINETEEN), years ago he asked me to be his Valentine. Whoa. Nineteen short years ago, I went to bed under my parent's roof a girl of seventeen dreaming of a blonde headed green eyed boy who had just asked me to be his Valentine. I said yes. And then I said Yes to being his bride, the maker of his home, the mother of his children, his partner for life.

And pshaw, I had no idea what that meant. I was but a starry eyed girl.

But tomorrow will be our nineteenth Valentine's Day together. Our 16th as husband and wife. For better or worse. And really, it's been mostly for better. Because he's held my hand as I've delivered his seven children, just as he's held my hand while he prays over our family at the dinner table. And how do you do better than that?

And even though it took him most of those years and many lovely bouquets of roses to figure out that I really prefer wildflowers, and even though I'm just now learning to open up and communicate when I'm mad rather than withdraw into myself and frustrate him further, and even though we still quarrel over too many of the stupid intricacies that come from raising a family and doing life together, I see a beautiful partnership in us that was not there in the beginning. The beginning when we could stare into each other's eyes for a lifetime and talk on the phone for hours. Those early, silly, fluttery, desperate-to-be-together days. We were just breaking ground then. And there've since been years of foundation laying that doesn't come easily or go together well without hard labor. Hard labor and hard laughter and yes, even victory over hard times is a great combination for a strong foundation. And although mistakes have been made and words spoken in anger that shouldn't have been, it was all just part of the navigating.

And now we're just into the getting older and familiar. We know what the other is thinking, we're comfortable and safe and feel wiser with each other (not a boring comfortable and safe, a close-ness). We forgive and move on quicker, we know how to approach sensitivities and vulnerabilities with a little more tact. We're not there yet. The there where we've got it all together. Sometimes I feel maybe we're almost there and then the pure. stinking. human-ness. of one or the other takes us back a step.

And so, because we're human, we may never get there this side of heaven.

But tomorrow will be out 19th Valentine's together. And I think that's pretty good. And I think more marriages should work harder past the foundation-building to see the beauty of the design coming together.

But I'm not here to get preachy, 'cause I don't have the answers. And everyone's marriage has variables unique to them. And I'm no expert, because in the scope of an entire life together, 19 years is a blip. So I guess what I'm saying is, Happy Valentine's Day. Love is wondrous. Hold on to it. Work for it. Fight for it. Pray for it. For better or worse.

Elizabeth

Messy Chickens

Our project this weekend was to contain the chickens. Up until December, they'd been boarding in the moveable coop Joe built two Springs ago. But this coop isn't good for winter weather and temps in the teens and below. So we moved them into the barn with the goats. This solution was perfect. Until they realized they didn't actually have to stay in with the goats and could squeeze through or fly over the fencing anytime they chose and make an absolute mess of the rest of the barn. And let me tell you, we only have fifteen fourteen laying hens, one Cornish rock meat hen that managed to escape two years ago and has taken up quite well with her egg-laying sisters, and one big 'ol rooster who disappeared all Fall and reappeared when our other rooster kicked the bucket. But 16 chickens is plenty enough chickens for disaster.
Chickens are funny. Chickens are messy. And in no time my barn was littered with chicken poop. Poop on the milking stands (no way, Hosea)  poop on the floor, poop on the feeders, poop on the goats, poop everywhere. Hay was scattered from their constant scratching in it, even the shelf where I keep supplies didn't escape their trolloping ways. They tore apart feed bags, tipped over garbages, (did I mention all the poop?!). Every day, a new mess to clean up. It was like letting toddlers run amuck in Grandmother's parlor. Very naughty toddlers.

It had to stop.

We hmmed and hawed about just where to put these chickens for the remainder of the winter and decided on a side compartment of the barn. Three sides sheltered, one open. Not ideal, they may get cold, but we'll use deep bedding to keep them snug and happy, and out of trouble. My handyman went to work right away. Luckily we had these cattle panels just laying around, and in no time flat he had an efficient little temporary pen built where the chickens will spend the rest of their winter vacation. Not sure what I'd do without his mad skills. I pretty much just stood and directed. And played in the hay with the chickens. Oh, and we also clipped their wings (for those concerned, it doesn't hurt them a bit), so there will be no flying the coop.

 The gaps in the panels were still too large, so this man painstakingly tied wire in between each one, and in like 10 minutes. Notice the blurred hands. He's quick. I'd still be out there cursing that wire if it'd been me.

 

 

 

 Check out that old stone wall behind the chickens. It's just so cool to think of the hardworking hands that layed that barn foundation so many, many years ago. Mad skills indeed.

 

 

Sleeping baby Lucas. Usually he's cozy and covered with the afghan his Grandma crocheted for him. But I wanted a picture of these feet first. Perfection.

Looking out my kitchen window. Pretty snow.

Charlotte and her Mom

Elizabeth