Farm Animals

Conversations with Henri

Liz James · July 18, 2017 ·

Henri continues to keep her babies hidden, although we can hear them now. I’m pretty confident that we’ll soon see how many she has. She leaves them for longer periods of time, and is spending time relaxing on the porch with us, the cats, and the dogs. The interaction between species really is an amazing thing to witness.

She loves rosehips, but in this pic she looks like she’s giving me ‘the treatment’.

She doesn’t like it when I wear tank tops because when she jumps, there’s nothing to hold on to. I don’t care for that either! Squirrels have sharp claws!

Here’s a few pics from one of our afternoons together. She is a wild squirrel now, and much like a temperamental cat, she chooses when and where she wants interaction. There are days that she is incredibly affectionate and wants petting, and there are other days where she just wants food and a brief hello. Aren’t we all like that, really?

We don’t push her, we just appreciate her presence. I’m still toying with getting her spayed, and really need to start investigating my options (ie: look for an exotic animal vet that will do it). Otherwise, we’ll be rehoming youngsters for the rest of our lives!

War, Volunteers, Gnomes, & Mama (Whew!)

Liz James · June 21, 2017 ·

I’ve been so busy this last month that I’ve barely had time to come up for air. I feel like I’ve left so many discussions hanging. And now, I’m so far behind, that in order to be sequential, I’d have to write about six posts just to get you caught up on current affairs on the farm. Sheesh. May and June are just flying by! That said, this post is going to be a mish mash of current affairs…. cliff notes country style!

Garden Warfare You may recall my frustration with cucumber beetles. I’m happy to report that my non toxic mixture of beetle repellent worked remarkably well. It at least allowed us to get past the tender seedling age unscathed. As you can see, my garden is a hot mess of success. We were out of town for about 8 days (that will definitely be a different post!), and Lord have mercy on these weed pulling hands. We’ve got a lotta pickin’ and pullin’ to do! I’m harvesting peppers, beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, CUCUMBERS and zucchini with many varieties of squash nearing pick-ability. My melons are looking good but no where near picking yet. They got such a late start. Our blackberries started coming in last week, so we’ve got at least a month of intensive picking before that season ends.

Volunteers: There came a time during the dark days of beetle domination that I feared my garden would fail this year. I was literally feeling victorious when ANYTHING survived beetle mastication. I guess that’s why I let every little volunteer tomato plant grow where it was naturally sown last fall. I literally did not plant a single one of these plants. In fact, I thinned them tremendously prior to our eight days of absence… but you could never tell it. Anyone need any tomatoes? We are about to be tomato heaven around here.

Teen Mom: Henri has still not given us any clue as to exactly where she’s stashed her babies. She comes down daily and asks for food, and I can tell she’s tired, as all mothers of multiples must be. She’s even taken to hiding her nuts closer to home…. tucking them here and there on the porch. One afternoon, she came down and asked for nuts. I gave her a few…. she ran over to a spot of sun on the porch rail and lay down for about five minutes with the nut in her mouth, almost like she was too tired to eat. She seemed to relish the sunshine, silence, and stillness.

I had a talk with her and told her that this is what happens when you get frisky with male squirrels. Hopefully, (doubtfully) she will take my advice to heart. I am still looking for a vet who is willing to spay a semi wild squirrel….

I’m already speaking of June in the past tense… even tho it’s the 21st, it seems like July is already here knocking on our door. The garden tugs at our time persistently like an impatient child and the summer heat has settled in today, the longest day of the year. I love the long daylight hours, I’m a farmgirl who easily could throw her clock out the window and simply live according to when the sun rises and sets, if only the rest of the world could too! More later ya’ll…. I’m headed out to pull weeds.

Garden Warfare

Liz James · May 7, 2017 ·

I’m not gonna lie. Gardening can be an exercise in exasperation. I think that’s probably why God put certain strains of bacteria in the soil that actually boost our serotonin levels and decrease our anxiety (ie: mycobacterium vaccae)….. otherwise, we’d probably have thrown in the trowel and starved to death long ago!

In years past, my gardening nemesis (aside from too little or too much rain) has nearly always been squash bugs . They are pervasive and will ultimately kill or severely cripple anything that resembles a squash plant. They also stink to high heaven when you squish them (the only way I know to kill them organically). My proboscis so sensitive that I can smell them (dead or alive) before I see them.

I’ve been gardening for about 10 years…. honing my skills every year. Successful gardening is definitely an acquired skill….and you can’t quit learning or something will eat your lunch. Literally! Prior to this year, I didn’t think I could hate a garden pest more than squash bugs, but clearly I’d never met the cucumber beetle. I’m glad I know Jesus, because if I didn’t, I’m fairly certain that my personal h*ll would include these garden pests.

I planted in early April. This last North Texas winter was a mild one, and all the signs indicated that the last frost was behind us. I watched my rows carefully, waiting for the little seedlings to pop up out of the soil. I always get a little extra heart pitter patter when I see them emerge. This year, each morning when I went out to do a quick check and spot weed, my seedlings started completely disappearing nearly as fast as they came out of the ground. What the what??? It took me several days to identify the culprit. While we do have a few of the spotted variety (see above left), the majority of these evil suckers look like the ones on the right. Striped destruction. Right there. They have eaten every single plant in the cucumber, melon & watermelon family, and THEN they started on my squash. Are you kidding me?? Even the squash bugs have their gustatory boundaries.

If you’ve stuck around here for any length of time, you know that we go as organic as possible on the farm. In the garden, we are 100% organic all the way down to our heirloom seeds and homegrown cow manure compost. Unfortunately, all of the resources I found on organically managing cucumber beetles required some serious forethought and planning….. the kind of planning that you do in the fall and winter. Helpful information, but too late in the game.

Organic gardening isn’t so much about destroying the enemy as it is repelling and reducing the numbers of ‘feet on the ground’. In my search, I found a few different general gardening ‘bug be gone’ recipes, but I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand for any single recipe. Time was short. The cucumber beetles had systematically moved on to my young squash plants, and there were beetles everywhere. Complete and utter destruction of all things cucurbit was eminent.

I decided to take the ingredients listed in a few recipes, and combine them for my recipe:

“Bug Be Gone” Brew

1 big deep bucket or ‘under the sink’ style trash can
1 old fashioned flour sifter
about 3 gallons of food grade Diatomaceous Earth (DE)
about 1 cup of premade minced garlic (I will make my own in the future, but urgency required the premade stuff)
about 2-3 mls each of the following oils. I use Young Living Oils because I know they are potent, pure, and full of health benefits! …. and once again, we are striving to be 100% toxin free, especially in the garden.

I added the oils to the garlic and then added that mixture to the bucketful of DE. Make sure you have enough room in the bucket to mix thoroughly without spillage. It is some pretty potent smelling stuff!

I then began sifting the mixture over the plants, making sure to get the ground around the plant well covered too. Honestly, that part went way faster than I anticipated. I did notice that the beetles seemed to scurry when I started applying the dust, but I decided to withhold my assessment for a few days.

I also went back and replanted seeds on the same day that I spread the initial application. I put some of the DE mixture in each little hole I made for the seeds, and then put some on the top of the rows for good measure.

It’s now 6 days later, and I’m happy to report that the cuke beetle population has definitely made a dramatic turn. While I still find an occasional straggler, for the most part, it appears there has been a retreat by the enemy. My new seeds are coming up, and I am being vigilant about dusting them once they pop thru the upper crust of the soil, and re-dusting them after watering. So far so good….. but for now, I’d call this battle a victory.

My garlic is nearly ready to harvest and I will be making more of my Bug Be Gone with my own cloves in the future. The sifter is a key piece of equipment for this endeavor. Mine came from my kitchen, but you can find ones like it in junk stores, or just buy a new one on line for about 10$.

Enjoy your day!…. and I hope you win whatever battle you’re currently fighting.

Sunset

Liz James · April 10, 2017 ·

Good morning. Last week was a rough week…. lots of sunsets in my world. It began by my trip to east Texas to help my mom pack up and prepare to move back to our home state of Wyoming. Lots of emotions in that task alone…….

My dad died in December 2013, and so this was the final hurrah of going thru his remaining belongings, military honors (USNA graduate 1960), momentos, and decades of pictures that he had saved…. finding homes for items that others would value and appreciate more than just stored interminably in my closet at home. I am a minimalist, but even as one, it’s still hard to just discard items that clearly had value to a man who was a minimalist himself, and one whom I loved dearly. Lots of difficult decisions to make, and yet it had to be done with inner resolve I wasn’t always sure I possessed. Getting mom packed was a mixture of sunset and sundown for me.

Upon my return home to the farm, I found that Kelly, our oldest dog, had taken a significant turn for the worse. We don’t know Kelly’s age…. all of our dogs are rescues… and he is certainly no exception. He was at least 15…. quite old for a 60+ lb dog. Kelly had been suffering from what was most likely bone cancer for several months. Although we try to manage things as naturally as possible around here, there is a time and a place in my world when conventional medicine must step in. When his discomfort and organ failure exceeded that which oils and supplements cannot support, we managed his world with Tramadol and steroids for at least 4 months.

Even with ever increasing dosage, it was clear that holding on to him was not the humane thing to do. So, with a heavy heart, I called our vet to come out to our place to peacefully end his life. Our final gift to our animals is to always have the vet come here. I would rather pay for a house call so that our babies are stress free even at the very end. Kelly was a feral dog when he came to us…. completely feral. Untouchable. Ran with the coyotes out here…. THAT kind of feral. He became part of the family about 14 years ago, and was ultimately one of the most gentle souls in canine form that I’ve ever come across. His quiet presence is sorely missed around here, and his sweet self is now resting peacefully in our large animal graveyard, next to his first best friend…an old lab named Radar. Sunset.

My husband and I basically did a high five as we passed each other on the highway as I came home to manage the farm as he headed towards central Texas. He had received a call from his mom Wednesday morning. She was in the hospital, suspected of having had two small strokes. My MIL has since been transferred to a rehab facility, and hopefully will be returning home in the next few weeks…… buying enough time for the family to figure out living arrangements. The time has come that she shouldn’t be living alone anymore…. she is not able manage her medications, eating well, or her health. Losing independence is a rough thing. I watched my dad go thru it and adjust, and I’m hopeful that my MIL will be as graceful with this ‘new normal’ as he was. This part of life is hard emotionally and physically, both for the parent and their kids. Sunset.

My dad had all kinds of ‘sailor-isms’ he used to say. One of them that I know well regarded weather….. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning”.

This was one of the roughest emotionally charged weeks we’ve had in a long while. It has required both of us to put ‘regular life’ on hold…work, gardening, farm, chores/errands….. and just dogpaddle…. keeping one emotional nostril above water.

The sunsets have been tough, I am seek comfort in knowing that every sunset is followed by a sunrise. Life goes on, and the uncomfortable, the ugly, and the just plain sad simply serve to remind me to embrace all that is good in life, and know that without the bad, we might simply take the good for granted. I thank God for that, and for giving me the ability to see the sunsets not as the precursor to darkness, but holding on to a piece of the sail….and remember the sailor’s delight that is to come at dawn.

Who’s Your Mama…and Daddy?

Liz James · February 15, 2017 ·

As you may have seen in my first post on Henri, we have interesting animal relationships out here on the farm. Thumbellina (the white hen) is a banty. She is a broody little thing, and will sit on any nest and anyone’s eggs when she is of mind to do so. In effect, she believes strongly in cross cultural adoption! These are her 3 most recent adopted hatchlings. Actually, they are about 2 months old in this picture. They are guineas, and they are strongly bonded to their adoptive mama. In fact, they really want nothing to do with the other guineas on our property.Interestingly, I’ve got a rooster, who, last year adopted 4 guinea ‘teens’ as his own. It is a bit odd for a rooster to have much interest in raising babies, much less ‘non chicken’ ones. Fabio (the rooster) has fiercely protected them, and they cling to him as their daddy. And now that they are older, I’m a bit concerned that I may eventually end up with a rooster/guinea cross…. which I understand can happen, although I’ve heard that all chicks will be sterile. I’m ok with that, as long as they still produce edible eggs! It will be interesting to see how all this plays out 🙂