Grrrrr.

I am trying to hold onto my happy thought (upcoming time off!) and enjoy the last of my (good weather) fairy dust, but I am having a very hard time flying high this week. We are so short staffed that I feel worn down and strung out. We were supposed to have more help starting this week. That would have been heaven, but I guess it was not meant to be...

The first new intern arrived on Tuesday. She lasted SEVEN HOURS. Then she fled. Seeing this place through her eyes almost made me want to flee with her. The kitchen was a mess, the house is covered in cats and Bible verses, and the mud is knee deep. There were pets everywhere, making as much noise and poo as possible. The farm itself has trailers and cars parked all willy-nilly-everyplace, giving the farm more of a white trash look than pastoral charm or quaint appeal. Add the cackling parrots screeching "Oh my GAAAAAAWWD," and Daya the killer dog acting rabid, and no wonder the poor girl was overwhelmed. Even though she was a fussy city girl, I think she would have lasted if Marcia hadn't greeted her with the news that she had forgotten all about this intern's arrival. How is that for a welcome! Plus the messy, gross kitchen made the potential new resident fear e.coli or worse. Yikes.

Luckily, we have another new intern arriving tomorrow. His name is Steve. Hopefully, he is made of sterner stuff. But just in case he is not, I am cleaning the whole house tomorrow, making a big hot lunch, and greeting him with fun facts like "Everything here is amazing and perfect and it rains candy on the weekends and unicorns help us with the chores!" Maybe by the time he realizes its all lies- that in fact we are a disorganized, dirty, slobby, tired farmers and disillusioned, crabby interns- he will have already unpacked, and will be too lazy to leave again.

I don't know why I am letting the schedule get to me. Lord knows, I have had jobs with longer hours and higher demands. I think it is because there are many cool things I expected to learn on a farm, and instead I am performing the same task over and over and over. Its disheartening. The garden was really fun to work in, and I am excited to get back to that once there are more people to help with milking. We are building a hoop house for the tomatoes, and I think that I get to design it and construct it- which will be a breeze, as its the same style shelter we built for Burning Man a few years ago. Granted, that one collapsed, but... I am sure this one will be more successful! Also, on the bright side, Marcia actually paid three people to come clean the barn! Yay!!! The goats will be more comfortable and healthier, and the interns will be less exhausted and more productive! Yay for the hardworking barn muckers!

But its getting late, and I am sleepy and cranky. We still don't have a schedule up so I don't know if I have a double milking shift tomorrow. That makes me crazy. And the roosters haven't' shut up all day and my trailer is cold, and I'm in a humbug-y mood. I guess for now I am just having a hard time focusing on the silver lining, and I am counting on Steve, whoever he may be, to make everything better. Is that too much pressure to put on one guy? Maybe.

Good Stuff

I am back on the farm after a quick weekend trip to Bellingham. I had such a great visit that it was a little hard to come back to the farm. I really just wanted to stay in Bellingham awhile, where I was enjoying the great city, spending time with my friends, walking through Boulevard Park, sipping on real coffee, seeing my folks, drinking too much whiskey...

But if I had to come back, at least it was on the nicest day ever! Oh my goodness, I love all this sunshine so much. In fact, I am so delighted by the sunny days that I am not even bummed that this early spring weather extends hay fever season into a good six month block, instead of the usual two or three.

We spent some time this afternoon digging in the garden. It was nice and cool, good weather for hard work, but sunny and bright and happy outside. Perfection. I would be a farmer every day of every year if it were always like this in the winter! We started measuring and digging to create a garden of raised beds. We only got a couple of beds and their paths dug, but it loks great so far. The beds will be 4' x 30' -ish, and there will be five or six of them in the south garden, and about four or so in the north garden. So thats about, um... 1,200 sq ft of growing space? That sounds about right. Should be almost enough. Of course,the tough part is deciding how much of everything to plant. I think we've got one entire gardens worth of tomato seeds alone. I am not sure how we will narrow it down!

The tomatoes are all heirloom varieties that we got off of a really great website. Of course, I was sure we could find a vendor closer to us, and resisted online ordering at first. But the photos and the descriptions sounded so good, I caved pretty quickly. We are getting giant white tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, tie-dye color tomatoes, melon flavored tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, chocolate tomatoes, green tomatoes, yellow tomatoes... the list goes on. We ordered eighteen kinds, I think. Hopefully they find someonewho loves making sauces and salsas to work here in August, because they are going to be swimming in tomatoes by then!

Hopefully, the gardens will be really successful this year. If they get some good compost stirred in there in time, and they continue to give the veggies enough attention throughout the season, there should be a pretty good harvest. The plan is to feed the farm crew, and have enough left over for a farmers' market stand. I think they will have better luck if they don't count on having much to sell this first year besides just the dairy's raw milk. After all, its unlikely that a first year garden with a rotating garden staff will really yield its full potential. But with just a little encouragement, there should be a good amount for the twelve person crew that will be living here this summer. That is pretty cool. I don't know that I'll be here to see the literal fruits of my labors, but its fun to imagine someone eating the veggies we are preparing and planting shortly. (Well, someone who is less weird than me about the content of the compost here, anyway.)

We bought 100 trays for seedlings and starters, so the garden should be completely planned and half planted by the end of the week! I am a little nervous that our enthusiasm- and this beautiful sunshine- will lead us to start our seeds too early. A late snow or even an end of March cold snap could be disastrous. If our plants were outside already, they would die in the frost. But if we leave them inside, they may get too big for the seedling trays before we get them outside. Oh well, one worry at a time! For now, there is still a TON of digging to do before I even worry about transplanting. (I'm sure you can relate, Mr. Bird!)

Besides tomatoes, we will be planting the usual suspects: carrots, onions, lettuce and salad green mixes, zucchini, squash, peas and beans. We are also planting corn, basil, radishes, kale, chard, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, several types of cooking herbs and several medicinals, melons, artichokes, and sunflowers. I am not sure what else. I suspect that, when the time comes, we'll have a few more exotic and impractical choices as well. I do not have faith that we are going to get enough sunshine for melons, but Marcia has boundless enthusiasm and optimism, and maybe even God on her side, so we'll plant whatever crazy thing she wants and it will probably work out just fine!

Here are some photos of a few the cool tomato varieties we are planting. Absolutely beautiful. Pictured are the Black Krim, assorted Berkley Tie-Dyes, the Chocolate Cherry, and the Yellow Pear (I think).

One Month In, Feels Like Ten

Today marks then end of my first complete month on the farm. It is also the first time in a month I have brushed my hair. I'd like to pretend my inattention to the details of personal grooming is somehow a result of living the rural life, but I am afraid they are largely unrelated. My city hair was no tidier. At least on a farm, no one suspects I am homeless when I wear the clothes I like and have unkempt hair...

It has been an interesting month, to say the least. I've felt frustrated, stimulated, amped up, worn out, lonely, inspired, grossed out, and free. All these conflicting emotions are nearly as exhausting as mucking the barn! Its been a month of early mornings and early bedtimes. I've worked hard physically, though not as hard as I'd expected. There are days when I am surprised how much I've learned- and more days where I feel my education has been stymied by the lack of communication and organization. In spite of the chaos, however, I have picked up some pretty cool information- especially about caring for livestock. For example...

Foundering.

Founder is a disease of hoof animals, (theoretically) resulting from too rich of a diet. I don't know how it works with horses and cows, who also frequently suffer from founder, but in goats the progression is pretty sad. The leg begins to sink down onto the coffin bone, misshaping and deforming the hoof. This causes pain and further deformation. First, the back of the foot (coffin) sinks, then the hooves begin to spread apart and the nails to grow in maladaptive ways, and finally, the bone follows, deforming the foot. As it progresses, the goat may begin to kneel rather than walk on the now painful foot. Though there is no cure for founder, it can be managed throughout the animal's life. We are managing it by completely restricting the diet of the foundering goats. We provide them only with hay, no grain, and whatever they can forage. We dosed them with Epsom salts when we first noticed the problem, then followed it up with daily doses of nutrients like boron, combined with some pain killing herbs. Its sad to see them in pain, but it seems they are showing slight improvement.

Copper and Selenium doses

Copper is an important nutrient for the goats. It makes their coats shinier, and helps prevent/fight worms, which are common in herds that don't have tons of space or plants to graze on. The selenium also has multiple benefits, including encouraging easy births and passing of afterbirth in mama goats. The copper is in little chips, almost like broken up pencil lead. This allows it lodge in the digestive system walls and slowly release. We give it to the goats by sticking the copper to a spoonful of molasses, prying their mouth open and scraping it all onto their teeth,tongue, and lips- and then holding their mouth closed for a minute so they won't spit it out. Its pretty funny to watch them licking the molasses off their lips afterwards. To dose the goats with selenium, we have to give shots. Thats a little more intimidating. But basically, all you do is suck up the stuff in a syringe, pinch some skin near the front shoulder of the goat, and jam it in there and empty the syringe. Piece of cake. Unless they are skittish, or know whats coming, or pull away during the shot, or your needle breaks in their tough skin, or...

De-Worming, Naturally

Its fun to give them goats their wormer. I like it because it is an all natural mix, not a chemical dewormer, and because it smells really nice. That is important, as I frequently end up wearing a good amount of it by the end of the day! The wormer is a blend of cloves and wormwood.

Lactation Herbs

We give goats who are not making enough milk for their babies a blend of herbs that encourage lactation. It includes Fenugreek and Goat's Rue. It seems to have really worked for one of the mama goats, though I think time also played a part.

Anyway, those are just some of the things I have learned about livestock health and naturopathy. Pretty fun stuff. The herbal medicine cabinet here is pretty awesome, and I'm excited to pick Marcia's brain a lot more about both preventative and medicinal uses of herbs. Her number one tip so far: get plenty of calcium and vitamin D!

Oh, yeah, AND....

I got to deliver two baby goats yesterday. That was awesome. Marcia was gone and only the brand new intern was there to help. We totally did it. Well, ok, the mama goat did most of it, but we sure helped. Luckily, it was an easy delivery over all, and both babies are healthy! Yay!

Busier than bees... because they are dormant in winter.

Its been a really busy couple of weeks here at the farm. Though we are getting close to having enough interns, we aren't quite there. Asa result, we are working doubles and have fewer days off. And I still feel like we are behind! But at least there is always something to do. And it has surprisingly been a lot of fun- proving that menial, manual, doesn't-take-a-brain-to-do-it, backbreaking labor is still my favorite type of work.

We've been mucking out the bucks' stall in the barn. After four hours yesterday, we had gotten about a third of the way through. Ouch! All my digging muscles are protesting. Loudly. And constantly. Its such a big undertaking due to the extremely poor design of the boys' feeders. They pull the hay out and throw it everywhere within minutes of feeding time, then proceed to ruin the rest of their hay by climbing around in their feeders as if they were playground toys. There are 26 bucks and 25 of them are energetic, goofy, skittish but friendly, and are messy eaters. The other is still a baby, so I am sure as soon as the big boys let him at the feeder, he will be a slob as well! So today we are going to try to finish the stall. There will be three of us working on it today, so it will go a little faster. I hope. We also have to muck the center aisle of the barn, cause the spillover from the boys stall will make it too icky otherwise. If only the boys didn't smell so bad, it wouldn't be a big deal!

Dealing with the boys' stall smell isn't the only traumatic thing we've done recently. We had to learn to bisbud the baby goats. That means burn thier little horn nubbins so they wouldn't turn into big horns. Its so sad and hard to do, and you feel mean and awful, and the goats hate it. And it smells simply disgusting. You have to sit on/over/around the baby goat, trapping it with your knees, and press its little face into the ground to hold it completely still. Then Marcia presses the hot iron thingy on its horn for ten seconds, while the little baby struggles and screams. Then we ice it for a minute, then do it for ten more seconds to kill the nerves. Then we dribble on some pain killer and ice it again. When the ice goes on, the babies calm down a lot, but the smell remains. Its the smell of burnt hair and skin and horn, and it just lingers on your clothes when you are done.

We disbudded only three babies, one for each intern to learn on, and it was pretty upsetting. They were getting a little too old, for one thing, so it took longer than usual. The worst was Percival. Tom the intern had to hold down Percy the goat, who is playful and mischevious and getting really big. His horn were pretty big already, so Marcia had to burn them three or four times, and Percy bled more than the others. Poor little guy. It was so hard to watch all of them suffer. Hopefully we'll get to the other babies before they get so big, because the littler ones suffer a lot less. Not a part of goat owning I'd be willing to do, I'm afraid. I would just buy babies that are polled (naturally hornless).

Yesterday we did a simpler, less damaging to the psyche kind of project. We made tinctures. I had picked up a bottle of 151 last time I was off the farm to make herbal medicines with, so we finally cracked it open and made two kinds. First we threw cayenne, garlic, and echinacea in with a pint of the vodka. That makes a good general medicine to help fight infection and colds, as well as help with brian function and circulation. The other was a St. John Wort tincture to use as a pain killer. I like learning about stuff like that. Pretty neat to make your own medicine cabinet.

Those have been the major, if not thrilling, projects for the last few days. In addition to milking all the time, torturing babies, and cleaning the barn, we've also been planning the garden and fixing some fencing. Its amazing how time consuming all these projects are. Plus, whenever hay is delivered or the lunch bell rings, we all drop everything we are accomplishing to race to that end of the property. Once it stays light later, we'll have more time for projects. I hope that happens soon!

I am out of fun pictures, so I'll have to get out my camera again before the next post.

If only the days were longer. Like summer days, for example...

Today I spent some quality time playing in the mud. It was fun, invigorating, gross, stinky- and a bit scary to think I might slip and fall and get sucked into the depths, never to be heard from again.

Its been such a dry winter, there shouldn't even be that much mud. But due to some really terrible drainage planning paired with some unfortunate but unavoidable natural features, this farm in Everett has a mini-slough of its own. That would be fine- everyone would love a wee crick running through the pasture- except that the sheer amount of goat poo sliding into it creates such a heavy, thick muck that you could lose a boot in there. Or a whole intern!

Today we actually built a bridge through the sludge

out of wood pallets. I am afraid the goats will break their ankles if they step on them wrong, and it will only get worse as the pallets rot. But if we didn't build it, they wouldn't come out to the south pasture at all. They are rather more fastidious and more particular about the weather than one would expect, and will only brave deep

mud if there is something super tasty in sight on the other side. It was a ridiculous way to solve the problem, but it was all we could think to do. Pallet bridges? Hrmph!

After the mud was semi-conquered, we finished putting up some fencing- or rather, some gates. That was heavy, hilarious work, hampered by the completely unnecessary presence of too many dogs and too much twine. It was further interrupted by the escape of a buck and the merry chase that followed. After an afternoon tea break, I

dug up some of last years flower bulbs to move to a new garden. I fear that in my digging I may have damaged them enough to make transplanting futile. But transplant I will, nevertheless. They were not buried very deep, so it should have been simple. But I swear there must have been a million bulbs. Either that, or my digging muscles are in truly awful shape!

By then it was time to make yet another to-do list, have a warm drink, and off to bed to check email and watch a movie- which I have discovered I can do while typing this blog. Yay, multitasking! Today I am watching 'Cold Comfort Farm' as it reminds me in certain respects of my current situation...

Oh, and here is a cute picture of a cat sitting in the fruit basket on the table.

Progress?

Yesterday was such a great day to be a farmer! The weather, which has been phenomenal since November, was even more perfect then normal. The sun would come out and warm everything up, then it would sprinkle just a little, then get sunny enough again to create rainbows here and there. The cool air was good for diggin' and haulin' and muckin' and milkin', and all the other doin' type activities involved in farmin'.

We did some plannin' for the garden yesterday, as well, and actually made some progress. I took down the fences around the existing gardens in the morning, so we can extend them using the tractor and plow. Sure beats digging them by hand, even though it compacts the earth. If we stir in enough compost, then mulch as well, it should be alright by the time we get the seedlings into the ground.

Marcia wants to use her garden plans from last year, but also to completely redesign the gardens in the French Intensive style, i.e. with raised beds. I fail to see how she'll be able to simultaneously keep things as they are and change them entirely, but the contradictions don't seem to slow her down a bit. After we discussed what had been where last year- in order to avoid digging up dahlias or planting brassicas over brassica graveyards- we figured out a few initial steps to get the beds ready. First, transplant the eight or nine giant two foot by two foot root balls of comfrey from the smaller herb garden area out to the pasture, where they may grow rampant to satisfy goat munchies. Second, move all the herbs and flowers that survived to the herb and ornamentals garden. (I just named it that to make myself feel better. I kind of steamrolled Marcia into agreeing that flowers that require as much space as peonies, dahlias, and other shrubby type flowers should not be taking up the bulk of the veggie garden, despite their insectary properties.) Third, get rid of all the dead stuff that is sitting in the garden making it look all neglected and bedraggled. Fourth, plow out the new areas and mulch the entire bed. John will have to do the plowing- I am not nearly comfortable enough with the tractor to drive it near important stuff, like the house. Then... well... umm... The truth is, after soil preparation, I have no idea what to do. Plant seeds? Indoors or out? Which ones first? Is it too early for the dark greens, or too late for garlic? When is the last frost, and how do I know when the garden temperature is above 40 degrees?

I'm afraid my knowledge of gardens is sketchy at best, and purely theoretical. The only veggie I have ever grown outside was cabbage, and actually Nils took care of them. I just watched with surprise and they began to look like cabbage! Then there were the potted veggies I tried- lettuce and cherry tomatoes- that Nikki resuscitated. I killed the herbs I planted, ignored the overcrowded onions, couldn't even find the beets. Not a great track record. And farm gardening is not even a method I've read much about, because I don't like row planting. I am more excited about having a intensive back yard food forest someday. If I ever have a yard...

However, in this more traditional garden, I might begin to understand how to tell a weed from a veggie, how often to water, why carrots love tomatoes, and how to mulch without suffocating seedlings. If I am ambitious and get all my reading done, I may also learn how to build hoop houses, how to trellis climbing beans and zucchini plants, and how to save seeds for many of the plants.

Gardening here will be typical of all projects on the farm, I think. It will be slow to get started, and there will be no clear cut plan communicated to the troops until something else has been decided on. Progress will happen in starts and stops, and everyone will find it more frustrating than it should be, and no one will ever know what the next step is 'til they invent it or figure it out through trial and error. Despite that, it will be pretty fun to see it go from an ugly plot of dirt and sticks to a (semi)productive, happy little farm garden!

Milk Room

Here are some photos from milking time. Courtney and Melody milked this afternoon, and I snuck in to get some photos of them and the ladies together. Both of the intern couples are leaving this weekend, so I thought it would be nice to get some action shots of them while they are around the goats they love so well. Oddly, Mel and Courtney were dressed to match today, leading to some very harmonious milkroom pictures. I also notice that the mess, the noise, and the smell do not show up in pictures, but I promise, all three are definitely present!

Below is Mel with the inflations in her hand. Inflations are the ends of the suction tubes and they go right on the teats. In the next photo, the ladies are hooked up and are already looking around for more food. They sincerely seem to think every meal is their first-and last!

This is Uma. She is my absolute favorite. She is about three parts Oberhasli, and one part Alpine. Ignore the beard- this one is a total diva.

The Alpines are "bitchier" goats, accordin to Marcia. They do seem to have more of an atttitude than our other milkers, and they sure do not like being pushed around. I think they are great. We have Uma, who is mixed, and are currently milking Tapioca and Pinto, who a

re all Alpine, and act it.

Not all the goats are easy to tell apart. I recognize Uma, the Alpines, all of the sick goats, and most of them pregnant goats. I can pick out the distinctive coloring of a few lighter toned goats, the skinniest goat, and the "prettiest" one. I also know Angie and Bree, who are Oberhaslis but not above pulling the diva routine. I can recognize a few more by face, but mostly I know them all by number, or by some complicated face/number/name/behavior combination algorithm.

They are each supposed to have a red tag with their number on it, and when we finish the current project to get them all re-tagged, life in the milk room will be much easier. Or maybe after another month, I'll be able to tell them all apart easily.

In this last photo, Melody is giving kefir to a goat- I think its Erica. We feed them kefir to promote healthy digestion. Since they are grain fed and thier stomachs are not made to digest such rich food, probiotic foods are super helpful in preventing the myriad health problems the grain diet causes. Poor goats- I wish there were more bramble here for them to munch on!

Brody

I miss Brody. He was so cute and little and sweet. He died Friday and I wish I could make it not have happened.

I am sad and a little sick, and I want to be at home.