Lots of life around here, so much so, it’s just about killing me! 😂
Exhausting but exhilarating.
Our bottle baby lamb, Scrappy, is still doing very well. The only lamb I’ve ever seen running towards man, instead of away. Shadow, our recent addition, has completely settled in, even the bees haven’t bugged him in a couple weeks, so that’s a relief.
The bees love the poppies at dawn, the cilantro flowers at mid-morning, and the clover after that, as digestif I figure.
The kittens have gotten so comfortable they are now happily playing on the dog bed and lining up with their mama and the dogs at feeding time. A friend recently commented it’s like we’ve got a petting zoo. Yes, indeed, it seems we do!
The garden is looking great, the best year so far for flowers, which makes me so very happy.
Our hard pear cider, sourdough dinner rolls, chimichurra, daikon radish, and
Already making delicious ferments from the garden produce and the onions are already getting close to harvest. Stay tuned for that excitement.
Shadow’s favorite thing to do in the morning, sit on my lap as I try to drink coffee and read the news. Not enough hands!
Thanks for stopping by!
(FYI, it took me 2 hours to post this, WP seems to have LOTS of issues, deleting paragraphs, deleting photos, not accepting edits. Super annoying. I looked for somewhere else to park this blog, and found no other platform of greater value. I do believe we are witnessing the Walmarting of the blogosphere.)
Mostly happy snaps today, plus one wee tale of woe. Life is flourishing around here, but for two middle-aged folk, it’s getting harder to keep up!
We’ve got kittens and lambs and chicks and some rain and decent temps for a change, that’s keeping the critters and crops and me very happy.
I think the old cliche about when life is giving you lemons should be updated for the modern era. Lemons are already a luxury, after all.
I think it should reflect the shitshow the modern era has become and read: When life gives you shit, make more compost.
And we have LOADS of it at the moment, the good kind that makes fantastic strawberries, not the useless kind, that populates DC.
Strawberries making me proud!
Do you care to know how much shit it takes to make carrots and strawberries so good? 😆
Guess what else loves loads of shit?!
And while some homesteading results are obvious— like more shit equals better produce— others remain a mystery.
After three perfect sets of twins, we have a reject. It’s one of those very odd occurrences we have yet to experience and it’s confusing because it’s halfway between cute and sad.
One bad mama has rejected one of its offspring. He’s a sweet, spunky little survivor we’ve come to call ‘Scrappy’ because he’s fighting so hard and it’s wonderful to witness. And also sad, like I said.
Scrappy at the fence as soon as he sees us, not a good sign.
Hubby found Scrappy at the fenceline in the morning not long after birth, already abandoned. But, the sibling lamb and mama were fine and healthy and not too far away.
It’s a mystery because one, he was not just alive, but cleaned off, and very vigorous. And two, because had she cleaned him off, she’d surely recognize him as her other offspring. So, who cleaned him off?
Because she pushes him off immediately at any attempt to nurse. Even still, after 4 days and every attempt we’ve tried. We’ve resorted to holding her down 3 times a day, he at the front end, me at the back end, while poor Scrappy voraciously sucks down whatever he can manage before she out-maneuvers the 3 of us!
Then Hubby goes back to bottle-feed him 3 more times a day.
Of course, he’s not the first critter here to obediently follow Hubby everywhere!
Shadow happily in tow
Scrappy’s getting fed with a combination of powdered milk specially formulated and goat’s milk, thanks to Summer, who I’m still milking from her last freshening, last spring.
Summer, on right, with her offspring, Bluebonnet next to her. Phoebe below, left, so huge already we wonder if she’ll have triplets!
Skittles (below left), looking tough as always, but her kittens are already getting accustomed to an easier life, from the barn to under the porch.
Careful kitties, domestication has its costs, which is probably why Skittles keeps hissing at the hands who feed her. 😆
I just wanted to share some resources I’m frequenting, more often due to mood, rather than necessity. There is so much of the ‘how to’ out there in cyberland, and that’s great, but even better are the sites out there that inspire, motivate, explore, or feel like an afternoon paseo—like taking a walk around your neighborhood.
Sometimes, I look to YouTube, of course.
Sometimes I need the high energy, no-nonsense, look at me, you can do it too attitude of James Pergioni. Little he does applies to our garden—he’s urban and in a completely different climate, but, no matter, because he does what he does so well, and that gets me goin’!
Other times it’s the Zen, graceful, deeply practical, and peaceful even in the city type of gardener, with a simply lovely channel I’d be prone to emulate if I ever made a gardening channel of my own. She lets the plants do the most of the talking and I can sense how she loves them.
Sometimes I need that super practical advice on something specific, so it’s MI Gardener, mostly because he wastes minimal time on chit-chat, my biggest pet-peeve in how-to sites.
As for the paseo I like to hang out right here on WP, 3 gardeners in particular I follow regularly, and I’d probably frequent more, if I knew of more. I don’t like the big box sites, too much noise. I think of these ladies as cyber-neighbors, while I do sometimes get gardening tips from them, I visit mostly just to see what they’re up to lately.
There’s Empty Nest Homesteading, who offers her keen sense of esthetics to the homesteading scene. Here’s her latest adventure in decorating.
And there’s the Re-farmer, who’s got to be the most ambitious homesteader, especially climate-wise, I’ve ever seen. She offers up daily posts with regular garden reports, which that alone is more than I’ll ever do! She’s got mad gumption!
And there’s Eden Unlocked, a young suburban mother who offers Biblical contemplation with some of her posts, quite a foreign foray for me, which I’ve come to appreciate, mostly because I find her to be a quite a unique lady. She and I share a powerful budding interest in learning herbalism, which brings me to my latest offering.
I have posted the first of my Herbal Explorations, Calendula, which you can find by going to the Main Page of Kensho Homestead, in the menu. Each time I’ve posted on another plant, I’ll link it here in the blog, but it will remain on the main page for easier locating. For those who don’t know already, there’s also pages there on Geoengineering Resources and Garden-to-Table Resources.
A bunch of happy snaps, a bit of gardening news, a wild-like encounter and some homestead TV for today.
Everything’s blooming and we’re scheduled for frost/freeze at the end of the week! I was afraid that might happen, so have not put out the frost-sensitive plants, though they are definitely ready to be moved.
Not the most elegant set-up, but it works! Thriving under the lights and ready to transplant: tomatoes, marigold, calendula, Moringa, geranium, thyme, Mexican mint marigold, kumquat, anis hyssop
We’ve also kept the row cover handy in the garden for a quick save. A light frost won’t bother much in there now, but a freeze or prolonged low temps would do a lot of damage.
Lettuces, radishes, carrots, a few rows of garlic, then onions all the way back to the cucumber trellis, soon to be planted. First time trying potatoes in containers and they’re looking good!The wild cherries are my favorite wild fruit tree out here, they are super tiny, but the cherry flavor is super intense. Unfortunately, they bloom very early, so we rarely get a crop of them because of late frosts.I’m particularly proud of this pretty plant, Coral Honeysuckle, because like with the cherry, I’m growing them from wild cuttings.
The goats do an excellent job of keeping the fence line cleared, so helpful! We have a boarder joining our wee herd for a while, Broderick, a sweet, young Billy whose owner was sick of listening to his constant mewing. He’s not made more than a peep since coming here, so he must be happy, despite his rivalry with our herd queen, Summer. They’ve butted heads many times, and poor Broderick doesn’t have horns. He’s had a bloody head, been chased around, and he keeps going back for more! So cute but so tough!
That’s Summer, the white one on the left. On the right, that’s Broderick facing the camera in front, and behind him also facing the camera is our whether, Hercules.
Of course, there’s always the dumbbell of the group, and that would be Bluebonnet, Summer’s offspring.
Bluebonnet, the only one to get her head stuck in this fence at all, and to show off, apparently, she does it 4 times! Each time having to be rescued by Hubby, thankfully working nearby.
There’s a steady supply of captivating entertainment around here. Just yesterday, around cocktail hour, I went out on the back porch to snip some cilantro from the herb boxes for our guacamole snack, and I stepped out onto this surprising tableaux.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, the gorgeous ribbon snake was positioned there as still as a statue. For long enough I went back inside to get my tablet for photos. And then, our barn cat, Skittles, sauntered over, neither the cat nor the dog remotely aware of the snake’s presence!
This went on for quite some time!
Finally I yelled to Hubby inside, “You’ve got to see this!”
He comes out, and of course, boys will be boys. He was not as satisfied with the simple moving tableau and banal observation of the odd occurrence, oh no, he had to throw some action into it.
So he chucks a little plastic planter into the middle of the scene, which startles the snake and snaps Skittles instantly into predator mode.
She spots the snake and takes a pose.
“Oh, no!” I gasp. Hubby says, “Huh?”
“Don’t let her get him!” I exclaim.
“Wait, who don’t you want to get who?” He replies.
“Save the snake!” I gasp.
So, in a snap he picks up the water bowl and throws its full contents onto the cat.
Happy ending, it worked, the pretty little wild thing slid swiftly beneath the deck. 🤗
Moving on to chick and piglet news, my how they’ve grown!
On the left are Hubby’s incubator-hatched chicks, and on the right are hen-hatched. Just 6 each, which is not a good success rate. Hubby’s got another batch going, pilot error on the previous one, he says, so fingers crossed!
If at first you don’t succeed . . .
The piglets are doing great. A very large litter, 12, all still alive and kicking. I was hoping to get a short clip of them wrestling, it’s so funny, but it’s not easy to capture, since they are mostly eating all the time.
Some happy snaps and an announcement on this beautiful Sunday!
I’m sure there are a lot of gifted gardeners out there cringing when I say that, but it’s true!
I don’t always love weeds (like the pernicious summer grasses, poison ivy, and Texas goat weed, for starters) but a great many of them are delicious, nutritious, ubiquitous and deserve their place in the garden.
I don’t know every weed, yet, but I’m learning more every year.
Can you name 3 of the 6 edible weeds pictured above? (Hint below the video.)
And that leads me to my announcement, which is probably more of an intention still, but I figure if I post it, I’m one step closer to doing it.
Reaching new heights on the wee homestead!
Soon, very soon, I’ll be adding a new section to our wee blog:“Herbal Explorations”. I’m very excited about it, but it’s quite a bit of work as well, which isn’t easy to squeeze in to an already full palate (bad pun intended!)!
Of course, I’m not an herbalist myself, but I plan to research the ‘Starring Weeds’ as best I can online and in books, provide lots of references, and get further info tidbits from trained herbalists.
Including, of course, the ‘science fraud’ angle I’m so fond of that casts so many of our precious herbs in a bad light!
Behold the divine diversity by the compost pile! Pictured just in this small space: wild carrot, henbit, chickweed, Carolina geranium, hairy vetch, and . . .?
And . . . Who might you be there, Thin & Lovely, hiding in the henbit?
My hope is that it will become an on-going reference section that will be a welcome resource for all us new-bees in herbalism, foraging, and down-to-earth living.
If you think this is a good idea, please do nudge me along, to make sure I git-er-done!
And do enjoy 2 minutes of Homestead TV, if you please!
Hint from above: Start small and easy, with the middle photo, the first plant our “Sow”(there’s your hint) eats in the vid, what is it?
More like, New Normal Yo-Yo Season doesn’t totally fool Mother Nature. Yay! I’m taking that as good news.
So let’s focus on more good news with plenty of happy snaps, and just a few ugly reality snaps, from the wee homestead.
We’ve been busy, Handy Hubby most especially, in long-overdue deconstruction. The only other structure on the property when we bought it about 15 years ago, besides the seasonal-cottage-turned-permanent home where we now live, was this already run-down, trash-filled tractor barn.
Hauling trash out of the cottage before move-in (circa 20o9). Then scrubbing, painting, re-doing the floors, kitchen, siding, roof, insulation, building a deck, etc., etc. Thank heavens for Handy Hubby!
Then the tornado tore off a chunk of it. And Hubby discovered the posts had rotted in the ground and it was in even worse shape than expected. Little left to be salvaged.
You can see it here in its best shape, in the background of this darling vid of our dear, now deceased, oh so lovable dogs, Tori, and Papi who makes a brief appearance too! The structure on the left is the former duck coop, built by Hubby. The structure finally coming down is the 2-story on the right. While the previous owners were building their future cottage, our current home, they built this and lived on the top loft. It was already a mess when we bought the place, and we’ve been procrastinating the clean-up ever since.
I vowed year after year I’d help Hubby in the deconstruction and clean-up when he found time to prioritize it, yet here it’s now nearly done and I haven’t helped a lick!
Such a gentleman! Thank heavens, because it’s a disgusting, nest and poop infested horror of a project, which is why he was procrastinating so long in the first place!
In more elegant news, I am still getting 1 liter of milk a day from our belligerent herd queen, Summer. While it’s not enough for making big and delicious hard cheeses, like this Pepper Jack I just cut, it is enough for a weekly batch of feta, or mozzarella, or my imitation of Boursin, or kefir, buttermilk, yogurt . . .! YUM!
Pepper Jack, aged 3 months. Quite good, hot, but not over-the-top. Still, needs improvement. Noted, still trying.
Despite the best laid plans of weather terrorists, we still have our first blossoms, our first chicks, our first piglets of the season!
And first chicks!
The daffodils and narcissists are out, and just enough blooms that the bees are again pleased!
I do believe, as chance would have it, I just happened to capture the queen in this quick shot. If you look at the center you see a longer abdomen pressed against the observation window, right next to a worker bee, so it stands out just enough to discern. I can’t be 100% sure, but I think so!
And back to discernment, we have the magic phallus of several posts appearing again! It’s in the same general area as the others, pictured previously, but looks a bit different. Now I’m starting to hope we’ve discovered a morel patch?! Or, maybe not.
‘Stinky cheese’ is an official cheese category for those unfamiliar with the great wide world of cheeses. Really! They include the washed-rind cheeses, but some others as well, depending who you talk to.
These would include such well-known varieties as Muenster, Limburger, Raclette, but also some relatively new popular favorites like the Stinking Bishop of Charles Martell & Son – Cheesemakers and Distillers.
The Stinking Bishop—the name inspiration behind my own new cheese—the Stinking Peasant! About the Stinking Bishop: “The rind becomes sticky and pink, with a pungent, almost meaty aroma, while the interior is velvety smooth and almost spoonable. It is bound with a strip of beechwood, which also imparts its own woody notes to a cheese that is farmyardy, but not as strong as its smell, or its name, would suggest.”
The wash-rind process used to be referred to as “putrefaction fermentation”so you can understand why they might want to change the name.
When I set out 7 years ago into the glories of cheesemaking I had no idea I’d also be making my own ‘signature’ cheeses. At the time I was responding to the sorry fact that in order to buy even a remotely decent cheese I had to drive several hours. And even then, nothing was made from raw milk. I bought freeze-dried cultures just like the vast majority of home cheesemakers do. I found a lot of success imitating the favorites—mozzarella, Pepper Jack, Camembert, Parmesan, Swiss, dozens of cheeses. I’ve tried making just about every cheese you’ve ever heard of, and quite a few unknown to even real cheese aficionados.
Of course, considering there are 1400 named cheese varieties in the world, I still have a long way to go!
Several of my ‘signature’ goat cheeses now ripe and ready to eat. Still in the aging fridge are Pepper Jack, Dill Havarti and Caraway Gouda
But, the more I learned, the more I wanted to get back to basics. The more I got back to basics, the more I began to understand what a beneficial and even necessary learning experience it has been. Sure I can spend much time and effort recreating other people’s cheeses. But even better is to invent my own!
That means developing our ‘terroir’. No more purchased cheese cultures. Milking our own goats and making raw milk cheeses with our own wild yeasts, yogurt and buttermilk, all which change flavors and colors with the season.
Like a true Roquefort can only come from Roquefort, France and real Champagne only from Champagne. These have PDO status, that is Protected Designation of Origin.
The process is only part of the story, because the finished product is a signature of its terroir. Affinage, that is, the art of maturing the cheeses, is the next crucial component.
Not that I have any interest in throwing my cheeses into any rings with the big guys. Not a chance, even if my cheeses were that good (I think they are!). I have no interest in turning my pleasurable hobby into a stressful profession.
“In its simplest form cheesemaking is the aggregation and preservation of protein; in its highest form cheesemaking is alchemy. . . Many traditional European cheeses are on the decline or have disappeared. It is ironic that the United States is leading the resurgence of artisan cheese and is the fastest growing market for specialty cheese on the planet. Can we Americans be the saviors of French terroir? Or will our efforts to reveal our own terroir be stillborn because of insurmountable regulatory hurdles?” ~Mateo Kehler Jasper Hill Farm, Greensboro VT
Anatole and the Robot (1960) — The story of a professional cheese taster whose job has gone to a robot. I think Anatole has the right idea: “I sniff, I taste, I think, and then I use the magic of my imagination!”
Source: The Oxford Companion to Cheese edited by Catherine Donnelly, foreword by Mateo Kehler
I grew up on fast food, TV dinners, mac & cheese, like most middle class Americans. And I liked it, like most middle class Americans. Because, I didn’t know any better. Like most middle class Americans.
We had a constant supply of chips, cookies, candy, coke, and all things convenience. Our cupboards and fridge were never empty. I never worried I would go hungry.
And yet, I know now, decades later, I was malnourished. I know this in retrospect, like I know now I was also vaccine injured. It is not until you know what real nourishment feels like, what real health feels like, that you can recognize its opposite.
I feel like I was one of the lucky ones. I saw it in time. I traveled, so I saw how different my normal actually was, in the wider context. No other culture ate like we did. Every other culture was healthier than we were. It has since changed in the last decades, as more cultures adapt to Western, particularly the modern American, faux-food diet.
But this realization is far from new or unique. As James Corbett so well documents, and I’m elaborating on now with personal anecdote, food as a weapon is not new or unique.
When was food weaponized? Well, let’s just say, it’s been a minute.
My food upbringing was normalized and enhanced— baby formula replacing breast feeding, a dozen vaccines added per decade, cooking from scratch becoming obsolete, supplements becoming de rigeur, pharmaceuticals coming to rule the world of health where food once reigned.
And the conquering continues.
Corbett: “The answer is simple. We are witnessing a controlled demolition of the food supply chain, one that is intended to result in the destruction of the current industrial farming system as we know it. But this changeover is not intended to return us to truly sustainable farming practices, with local, organic farmers producing crops in accordance with age-old agricultural wisdom. Far from it. As it turns out, the “solution” to this food crisis being proffered by the billionaires of the corporate-pharmaceutical-medical-industrial-philanthrocapital-military complex is being engineered in laboratories and sold to the public via a bought-and-paid-for mainstream media. One thing is for certain: the future of food will look very different from anything that we have seen in human history.
Scientists are bioengineering spores that can be inserted into crops and livestock, allowing companies to identify and track food products all the way through the food system, from farm to factory to fork. DARPA is doling out multi-million-dollar contracts for researchers to find ways “to turn military plastic waste into protein powder” for human consumption. A company called Amai Proteins is using genetically engineered microbes to create peptides that taste like sugar but are digested like proteins. And the best (read: worst) part is that, “[a]lthough these microbes are technically genetically engineered, the desired products can be purified and legally sold as non-GMO”!”
Just as my home cupboards were full, todays grocery stores are full. As we suffer mass malnutrition.
Yes, some claim shortages because they can no longer find cheap cat food. Whatever.
A food supply abundant with non-nourishing food is worse than empty store shelves. Exponentially worse. We are a population lulled into the illusion of abundance for the last six decades plus.
If you think that’s not a deliberate and highly effective conquering strategy, you are a fool.
This post is not for most vegetarians or vegans, or anyone easily shaken by reality. Graphic images and musings on the cycle of life will be presented with impunity.
This post is for those who: ~Love bacon; ~May ponder the ethics of eating meat, perhaps even to the point of reading such books as The Omnivore’s Dilemma; ~Think we’re crazy for doing such monumental tasks ourselves, instead of going to the grocer or butcher like normal folk.
Before getting into the boring stuff, let me start with a virtual standing ovation and huge ego-stroke to MY MAN!
That’s one giant hog for one middle-aged mere mortal!
And, just a bit of backstory for nostalgia’s sake. Mama Chop and Papa Chop were our first pigs. They are Red Wattles, a heritage breed that we bought from friends as a breeding pair about 7 years ago. We would’ve kept Mama Chop as a breeder indefinitely, except for one major problem—as sweet as she was, she kept squishing her piglets, no matter what we did to try to prevent it. And, try Hubby did, repeatedly, for several years, to no avail.
Something else peculiar about Mama Chop, which I have not noticed with any of our other pigs: She smelled fantastic. I’m talking about her natural aroma, not her cooked flesh full of seasonings, which is also proving to be delicious. I mean her living self—just being in the vicinity near her—she smelled like maple syrup. That may sound crazy, but it’s absolutely true.
Fortuitously, Mother Earth News has a feature story about this breed in their current issue. “Grandma and Grandpa’s Red Wattle Hogs” by Amanda Sorell. “Red Wattle hogs are immense, reddish pigs with fleshy appendages that dangle from each side of their necks. Their up-turned noses and upright ears with drooping tips give them a friendly demeanor that matches reports of the breed’s charm.”
“According to The Livestock Conservancy (TLC), this pig’s gentility lends itself well to small-scale, independent producers, and its foraging skills make it suitable for pasture production. Further, this hardy breed is adaptable to a wide range of climates, and it grows rapidly—usually reaching maturity between 600-800 pounds, but individual hogs can weigh as much as 1,200 pounds.”
We don’t know how much she weighed in at slaughter time, but here’s Hubby’s approximation of her results: 150 – 200 pounds of meat for our consumption, that is approximately: 25 # chops 40 # sausage 36 # ham 20# bacon 15 # hocks 20# stew meat 10# in pressure canned 2 gallons bone broth 3 gallons rendered lard Plus dogs get ~40#s of scraps…..skin, lungs, ears, liver.
Wow, right?!
But, it’s SO MUCH WORK! He is one man in one small kitchen with one unskilled helper. That’s me. I’m the equivalent of his Girl-Friday (aka Galley Slave) — on call, doing what I can in wrapping and cleaning and cooking. The bulk of the work falls on him and he does it like a true stoic.
But what about the bang for the buck? Most folks who raise their own pigs don’t do their own slaughtering, for myriad reasons. It is a highly-skilled process that requires significant strength and time and at least some basic equipment.
It’s now 10 days since she was slaughtered, that makes: 2 days to hang, initial butchering one day, hams and bacon curing for 5 days, a day for making and packaging sausages, a day for smoking, a day for roasting bones, making broth, canning meat and broth.
However, it’s not only costly to go to a professional processor, it’s also a lot more stress on the pigs, as you’ve got to load them into a trailer and drive them quite a distance, sometimes as far as 2 hours away, plus reserve your slot months in advance (whether or not your pigs are ready), all which can affect the final flavor of the meat. We’ve heard many complaints from friends about this process.
Another significant drawback to this expensive convenience is typically, depending on the processor, you will forfeit many valuable parts, including the organ meats, the leaf and regular lard, the bones, including all the trimmings that go to the dogs, not to mention to the vultures, coyotes, and the bugs and soil as the entire animal never leaves our land.
Such is the cycle of life and this makes so much more sense than concentrating carcasses and waste in one place. We, and our neighbors and friends and pets and land are the direct beneficiaries of our labor, and that degree of skill and self-reliance makes me super proud. And when I’m proud, Hubby’s pleased, and so it goes the bitter-sweet circle of life!
You have to get pretty far out in the boonies to get the most tolerant neighbors. I think that’s a good thing. Usually.
Life has gotten even quieter here in the boonies in the last few years. The popular hype would have it that city folk are moving to the countryside in droves. While that may be so, the evidence is still wanting, at least around here.
It would seem the weekenders have less time, or energy, to practice their Sunday “Guns for God” rituals that used to attract them to these parts at regular intervals, in search of target practice.
In this, and other tolerance-mandatory moments, I have not always been as tolerant as the situation has required, I admit.
One time I recall a pick-up truck of ill-mannered miscreants, rifles in hand, showing up at our gate while Hubby was at work and announcing they would be hunting wild hog at the creek which is our property line, and I should let them come in through our gate for that purpose.
I put on my best ‘down home girl’ accent, which most likely fooled precisely no one, and said, “Ain’t no hogs down there darlin’s, creek’s nearly dry, can’t ya see!”
I so wanted to take that opportune moment to educate my derelict audience in the practice of deliberate drought by weather modification, but in reading the room, I decided against it.
“Best y’all get ya’s further down the Trinity valley,” I offered instead.
I know it wasn’t the fake drawl, and I had no gun on me, so I’m figurin’ it was my no-nonsense demeanor that got to ‘em. Not only did they not get through our gate, but they must’ve moved their shindig to other parts, ‘cause they moseyed on, I expect to more cooperative (aka, tolerant) locales.
Ain’t seen ‘em back since.
And then there’s the dogs, always the dogs. Owners are always losing their hunting dogs, even with them fancy tracking devices on ‘em. One time one frightened cutey found his way here and I trapped him, gave him a nice lavender bath ‘cause the poor dear stunk to high heaven, and waited for the owner to come a callin’, which he did, commenting on the dog’s unwelcome new fragrance.
Some assholes actually drop off the dogs they don’t want on our country roads. Can you believe that?!
And as if that’s not bad enough, sometimes your own neighbors are the problem.
When you lose half your flock of chickens to a sneaky dog your neighbor adores, and you caught him red-handed on candid camera, but the neighbor still insists it’s ‘your problem’, tension tends to develop.
Especially if you are me.
I’m like an angry, barking squirrel when I lose my patience, I get that. I’d try to correct that clear character flaw if it weren’t something I was proud of and have worked at developing so consistently.
But still, I can’t stand by and witness hypocrisy, even, or maybe especially, if it’s my own.
And now, it comes around, as our neighbors, few and quiet as they mostly are, have our livestock guard dogs, who think the entire county is their personal protection zone, annoying them with border barking patrols, all night long.
Let sleeping dogs lie? Hardly! The whole county gets a taste of their actions after midnight!
I want to send them an exasperated message—I’m so sorry—they are not respecting their boundaries! We don’t want to be ‘that’ neighbor, really!
But in our defense, not even the electric fence stops them! We are at our wit’s end trying to solve this issue!
Thank you for your patience!
Thankfully for us, our neighbors are so tolerant they don’t even have the decency to complain.
And as if that wasn’t enough. All my best laid plans of goats and cheeses are dwindling.
Summer, herd queen, always taking the high ground, with Phoebe and Chestnut cowering nearby. A definite love-hate relationship.
The goats have declared mutiny. We already had a misfit crew: Summer the Eldest, herd queen, a belligerent, bossy bitch who terrorizes the rest of the herd with her monster horns, yet who they follow everywhere; Chestnut the Crazy, who is super-skittish and a first-freshener and more moody than a teenage girl; and Phoebe the Squatter, another first-freshener, who is the most stubborn goat on earth, I’m certain.
These horns were meant for knockin’, and that’s just what they’ll do . . .“But, but, but . . . can’t you see how cute and innocent we are?”
I’ve been watching YouTubes and reading up for months now and I can say that not one goat I’ve seen can match Phoebe in out-right belligerence and deceptive tactics. She’ll jump right up on that stand, give you a singular taste of cooperation, only to . . .BAM . . .lay right down on the job as soon as I get my bucket in position.
And go figure, that is not among the prize characteristics showcased at the 4-H or any other of the breeding clubs.
My goat guru offered the most obvious of advice, “You must be more stubborn than the goat!”
Honestly, I thought my stubbornness to be among my most obvious and enviable characteristics, inherited from my mother. I then deliberately married a very stubborn man, who also inherited his stubbornness from his mother. We’re like five generations of stubborn in one.
And yet, we are like the impetuous novices in comparison to truly goat-level stubborness. I must humbly admit, I’ve been defeated. My cheese-making days are on the wane, maybe for many more months, just when I was really getting into the swing of things.
Kensho Homestead 