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
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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