Spring Fever

Blogging, like all creative activities, is easier if you have a good attitude. I am refinishing another floor and it has me wallowing in self pity. Going off to work, has this effect on me now. It is hard to blog about the farm since it is dark when I leave and getting dark when I return. Kris is doing all the chores and taking care of the animals.
We are so impatient for spring that we saddled up the horses and just sat on them the other day. It is still icy and motion would be taking a chance. Well actually we rode around the outside of the paddock in sloooww motion. Still, it was good to be on the horses. We have had them long enough they are old friends. Each movement is recognized and appreciated. Their mannerisms and peculiarities are a familiar and comfortable for both horse and rider. When we first got the horses Kris kept asking if she was giving the right cues for this or that. My response was always that it made no difference. I'm not sure I do the correct cues for things. I have however ridden one horse long enough, that if I thought something, the mare did it. I wasn't really giving cues, she was just reading me. It is hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it, but you are riding and the two of you become one. If you spend enough time on your horse, it just happens. Training is good, but time spent riding your horse is the only way to achieve this. What cue I, is not something I think about when I am riding. I just ride. The horse goes. The more you ride, the better the results.

This one-ness is kind of a zen experience and it heals the soul. In less mystic terms, it makes you feel good. As a result, when you don't ride everyday, you miss it. We are ready for spring and ready to ride. Bring on the mud!

Five thirty AM, I gotta run. Work calls-- kind of a plaintive wail from a world I thought I had left behind. I can't believe people do this everyday. Some people actually enjoy going to work. I am guessing they don't own horses.

New Wood Splitter!

I ache, therefore, I am. Most days, I start out a little sore from yesterday's activities around the farm. Today, I'm really bound up tight. I can move, as long as I get plenty of notice and go real slow. Lifting my arms is particularly tough. Bending over is inconceivable this morning and steps are painful because my legs are stiff. All in all, I'm about as sore as I've been lately.

I didn't start out to test rigor mortis on myself, in fact, it started on a pleasant ride over to the caucuses in Sedgewick last Saturday. Kris begged off to go shopping with Nancy and left me without a vehicle. Walter had mentioned he was going to the caucuses and I thought it might be fun to ride over together. This brings up the whole issue of women's suffrage since shopping is a higher priority than what direction the country is heading in-- but I digress.

Anyway, I called Walter and asked if I could catch a ride over to the caucuses. "Sure, I'll be along about 8:30." It was around seven when I called and 8:30 would be cutting it close. We had chores to do and I had to try to find clothes, take a state of Maine, and shave. But, when Walter arrived, I was ready and hurried out to the truck. The dooryard is all ice and I didn't want Walter to makes us late by breaking a leg or something.

I got in the truck and Walter asked what Kris was up to.
"Shopping Walter. Evidently, you and I will have to save the Republic without her."
Walter smiled and off we went.

We talked about a lot of different things and by and by the subject of my wood pile came up. (Younger men talk about women, but as you become more seasoned wood piles become a more interesting and way safer topic.) "I have some birch I'm gonna need to split so I don't lose it. I think I'll listen for Gary's wood splitter and run it over when he's out splittin' his wood. There isn't half a cord so it isn't worth rentin' a splitter."

"Just split it with a maul. You don't need a splitter for a little dribble of wood like that. I'd just split it with a maul."

"I have no idea where any of the ten or so splittin' mauls I've bought over the years have ended up." In truth, every time I set one down, I hope to never pick it back up again and don't pay as much attention to just where I put them as I should. The subject changed to something less interesting than wood piles and pretty soon we were at the school where the caucuses were being held. Like most busy retiree's we had arrived less than an hour and a half early so despite the fact it would be cutting it even closer, we decided to go get a coffee.

Well, the caucuses came and went and I thought about what Walter had said about splitting the wood with a maul. Walter has an awful habit of being right. He is a decade older than I am and if he would split "that little dribble" by hand, then I reasoned, I could too and I resolved to take his advice. So that afternoon, when Kris, who probably came as close to saving the republic by going shopping as I did by going to the caucuses, arrived home, I informed her of my decision to get a splitting maul. She laughed.
"What are you laughing at? I can split wood." She laughed again, harder.
"Well, I harrumphed I am going into town to get a maul. You goin'?" "Sure, I don't want to miss this." Boy, she's irritating sometimes.

Next morning, Kris and I were out early with my new maul. I had purchased the $31 dollar one, as opposed to the $29 one, because it looked like it might actually split wood. It was lighter too and I reasoned lighter might be better for senior wood splitters.

I sat the first piece of birch up on the chopping block. It was a clear piece that looked straight grained and not too large. It should have split easily and I am sure it would have if I had actually hit it when I swung. Instead, I nicked it on the way down and it shot off ten or twelve feet to the side. Kris smiled broadly and giggled her way over to pick it up. A swing and a miss-- well maybe it was a foul log. Either way it hurt both body and delicate male ego. After picking up the stick of wood Kris got a grip on her mirth as she realized I still held the maul and she was going to be coming into range to set the stick back up on the chopping block. After moving away she smiled and said "try hitting it in the middle and see if that works better." I gave her my best withering look and asked if she shouldn't be doing something else. "Well," she giggled, "I was going to stack wood for you but I guess I could go do the dishes while you get ONE split."

Ha, ha, ha.

I took very careful aim this time. I needed to make contact or rest of my life would be very difficult. I could hear her in my mind, "Hey remember the time you bought that splitting maul and couldn't hit the log. Ha, Ha, Ha.
I lined up my swing and came down with less force and more accuracy and hit the log dead center, and to my surprise, the wood actually split under my assault. Well, it wasn't so much an assault as a mild wave in the air and then and equally mild swing at the wood. Still, it was doing the job.

The peanut gallery quieted down and I repeated this several more times with out a miss. Kris was amazed. I tried to act like it was no big deal and I might have got away with it, if I had quit reminding her the rest of day that I had split wood with a maul.

I split several wheel barrow loads in a half an hour and then stopped before I over did it. It was going to work! I could still split wood! Ha, ha, ha, Ha,... I could still split wood.

That was yesterday. Today, I think I'll give the splittin' maul a break. In a few days, when I can bend over and lift my arms above my head again, I'll split some more. There's no big hurry. I have until this summer to get it all split. Maybe I'll split for fifteen minutes instead of a full half hour-- try to build myself up. I'll think of it as my morning exercise. Say, maybe Kris could use morning exercise!

Worm Load?

Well, all you future farmers and farmer wannabe's, this will probably help you decide whether your current job is as bad as you thought. Today, we are ordering a microscope, beakers, test tubes, etc. so we can do our own fecal samples. As it turns out controlling worms in your animals is a large part of successful farming- even a very small farm like this one. Wormers, synthetic or natural, are poisons. The idea is to poison the animal enough to kill the worms without killing the animal.

If you can analyze the "Worm Load" of an animal, you can determine if it is time to administer worm medicine and what worm medicine will target your particular worm. Traditionally, you wormed an animal with a broad spectrum wormer every so often, but wormers are expensive and regular worming makes for worms that develop resistance to the wormer.

So, you can see the need for fecal samples, lots of them. We have twelve animals that we can check, not counting Kris and I. (If we have worms, neither one of us wants to know.) If we check the worm load every six weeks or so, multiplying by twelve and rounding to the nearest whole number, that would be a lot. As you can see, fecal samples will soon be our life. Conversations with us will be pretty interesting I am sure....

"Wanna see our new worm collection? It's right over there above the kitchen table on that shelf."

"Wow, you should have seen this liver fluke. It was huge! I took a picture and I posted it on facebook. Pretty cool, eh?

Anyway, doing our own fecals is going to be interesting. We want to compare herbal wormers to chemical wormers. The are cheaper and CLAIM to do a better job. Nothing eliminates worms and every animal has a certain amount of natural resistance to worms. The herbal wormers purport to keep the load low enough and enhance the natural resistance to a point that the worms don't bother the animal. More importantly they are cheaper. Some plants that the goats eat out in the pasture do the same thing. By doing fecals, we can greatly reduce and perhaps eliminate chemical wormers from our operation. Most of the herbs in the herbal wormer can be grown here and we may be able to stop buying wormer altogether.

So, you can see the need to do our own tests. If you are still thinking you might like to try farming, come on over. We could use the help. It is not that hard to collect samples. We'll give you a new sandwich bag and show you which animal to follow. Nothing could be easier. We look forward to seeing you!