You just might be a homesteader/hobby farmer if:

*Strangers are constantly pointing out that you have either feathers, hay or straw in your hair (sometimes all three.) 

*You've had several cell phone cases partially consumed by goats ('defender series,' my ass!) 

*Your favorite apparel ensemble contains two or more items purchased at a 'farm store' (I.e. Tractor Supply Co., Big R, ect) or an Army-Navy Surplus website or store 

*People notice your forearms and ask if you play tennis; actually, those guns are from hand-milking and digging rocks out of your tomato patch. 

*You chuckle and feel superior when walking past the fridge full of eggs at the grocery store

*You wear muck boots more than you wear actual shoes

*Your poultry's pecking order is of genuine concern to you

*Your mood for the day has a direct correlation to whether the pump in the barn is frozen or not

*New visitors to your property during the spring and fall receive a 'you will probably  see and/or hear animal sex while here' disclaimer upon arriving

*You have to remind yourself to stop asking 'could I can that?' and start asking 'SHOULD I can that...'

* You choose winter coats based on how difficult it would be to remove placenta from the sleeves

*Your mail carrier knows to honk and wait for you when he/she delivers a package, because exiting their vehicle comes with the high probability of being mobbed by turkeys

*Friends no longer ask if you've 'seen that movie yet.' Because you haven't. 

*There are at least two scars on your body that were inflicted by fencing, and you can name the date, time, location and dosage of your last tetanus booster

*The perfect winter afternoon involves a hot beverage and knitting or crocheting lamb/kid sweaters or poring over the seed catalogs

*Your neighbors have a nickname for you (I.e the heirloom tomato people, the escaping sheep people, the loud cow people) and you take it as a compliment

*There's pretty much always some sort of poop on your shoes

*70% of the inventory at the local big-box 

grocery store is made up of things you have either made yourself, currently make or plan to make in the near future, or can't imagine actually paying money for

*The people in your life are sorted into two categories: those you would protect & feed in a post-apocalyptic wasteland scenario and those who would be eaten (or tripped in the path of the oncoming undead horde) first

*You can never have too many bungee cords and good scissors are worth their weight in gold

*Being almost out of bread and milk during a blizzard is not a big deal; being almost out of hay is a catastrophe

Resolution for Revolution: Help Change The Future of Food in 2014

           I've never been any good at New Year's resolutions. I'm great at making them, not so great at actually following through with them. My resolve usually peters out by about the third week of January and I'm right back to scarfing down chocolate, ignoring my abs or neglecting my kitchen floor again. I still haven't knitted a pair of socks or cleaned a fish myself, I still succumb to the occasional deep dish pizza binge and I haven't gotten past the Tom Bombadil chapter of "The Fellowship of the Ring." The list goes on. And on, and on, and on... yeah.

           Resolutions seem to be rooted in the human need to repair, maintain and improve ourselves. Our waistlines, our bank accounts, our level of education, and so on. The Walmart sale flyer stops advertising toys and god-awful Santa sweaters and goes straight to treadmills, hand weights and Suzie Orman books immediately following Dec. 25th. Some people do go so far as to resolve to improve the world around them through outreach, volunteerism, random acts of kindness towards strangers and so forth. All good things that should be acknowledged and encouraged, don't get me wrong, but there are other resolutions that could encompass both the personal growth and benefit of mankind spectrums.

            http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists

     This article does an amazing job of illustrating the reality of factory farming in America. Years of undercover work and insider accounts have given consumers a look inside where our food really originates, and its far from the bucolic circle of life and death that Fern confronted in 'Charlotte's Web.' The green pastures dotted with quaint wooden barns have been replaced with feed lots crammed with desperately ill cattle.

                "I was on my way to visit a farmer in California's Central Valley. It was one of those gorgeous autumn days when the hills of California are gold. Out of nowhere, a really nasty smell assaulted my nostrils—the stench of a gas station restroom sorely in need of attention. But I could see nothing that might explain the smell—all around me were the same blue skies and golden hills.

              And then, very suddenly, the golden hills turned jet-black on both sides of the highway: black with tens of thousands of cattle crowded onto a carpet of manure that stretched as far as the eye could see. I was driving through a feedlot, with tens of thousands of animals bellying up to a concrete trough that ran along the side of the highway for what seemed like miles. Behind them rose two vast pyramids, one yellow, the other black: a pile of corn and a pile of manure. The cattle, I realized, were spending their days transforming the stuff of one pile into the stuff of the other. This is where our meat comes from? I had no idea."                          

                                                                  -Michael Pollan, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'

                      Sick chickens crammed into battery cages so small they can't move and resort to pecking each others' combs and feathers off in a desperate attempt to get the calories they need to churn out the eggs they exist to produce. Broilers who cant even stand due to a mixture of their terrible living conditions and the fact that they've been genetically modified to reach butchering weight at such a rapid pace that they often await slaughter lying in a soup of their own waste and the decaying bodies of their dead comrades. If they should happen to have open sores and obvious signs of disease, they're probably still fit for you to eat though. Pus? check. Salmonella? check. Campylobactor? check. http://truthaboutchicken.org/?utm_source=ASPCAsite&utm_medium=SalmonellaBlogPost&utm_campaign=TruthAboutChicken There's a darn good chance at least one of those is in there. No amount of Frank's Red Hot is going to make that any more appetizing.
                 
                    Pigs don't have it any better.
 http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2012/05/wyoming_pig_investigation_050812.html
                    Neither do turkeys. http://www.mfablog.org/2013/11/thanksgiving-alert-investigation-uncovers-animal-abuse-at-turkey-factory-farm.html  We've raised turkeys for two years now, and I can attest to just how much personality these animals really have. Despite their tendency to become difficult to deal with as they reach maturity (and are instinctively focused on breeding during every waking moment, not unlike teenage boys) they're intelligent, endearing and just as deserving of humane treatment as any animal. We kept two hens as pets last year because we just couldn't bear to process them, and they died a natural death days apart after spending their lives presiding over our barnyard like matronly old ladies on a stroll in the park.

                    Cows in large-scale dairy operations don't fare any better.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/video-shows-alleged-criminal-abuse-of-bettencourt-dairy-cows-in-idaho/ Even when not subjected to outright abuse, most cows live in a way that's far from ideal for them (as living beings) and us (the beings who subsequently consume their meat and milk.) They're pumped full of hormones to increase their milk production, hormones that have been proven to increase the rates of breast, prostate, colon and other cancers.http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/what-research-shows/ Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) has been banned in Canada, Japan and Australia as well as the European Union, and somehow remains legal in the USA (kinda like the GMO corn these cows eat, hmm...) They're injected with antibiotics in order to counter the assault on their health from abhorrent living conditions. This is standard practice with the poultry and pork we eat as well. Yummy... who ordered a side of drug-resistant staphylococcus aureus with their burger? Anyone...?

        It's easy to demand change. Talk is cheap, until the McRib comes back on sale and the ethics of pork production stop mattering as much as getting that 2 for $4 BBQ pork-like product fix. We can point fingers at 'Big Ag' but in the end, we're the ones buying their products. Their practices continue because a market exists for what they provide, and things could get worse before they get better if Ag-Gag laws keep popping up on the ballots.  Every time we fill our shopping cart with their products, swipe our cards or hand over our cash, we're giving factory farms the means to continue committing atrocity. We're inviting them to keep making us sick. We're allowing ourselves to stay helpless and relinquishing control of our food to politicians who are more interested in the kickbacks from Big Ag than they are in the safety and sustainability of its products. Every time we eat their food we're putting our stamp of approval on their methods and assuring that their practices continue, at least for the time being. 

          There are alternatives. The market for responsibly-raised meat and dairy products is growing, and small-scale farming is gaining momentum again. Finding protein for your dinner table that you can actually feel good about eating is getting easier, even if you can't raise it yourself. Websites like http://www.localharvest.org and www.eatwellguide.org help pair up food-conscious folks with farmers.  Even good old Craigslist (as always, use with caution) can be a place to locate local farms that are willing to allow potential buyers to observe their practices and purchase directly. Word of mouth is invaluable; even if you're surrounded by urban sprawl, chances are there's a place to buy better meat nearby. 

        It's probably going to cost more, yes. The solution? Simply eat less meat. Incorporate more meatless into your meal plan, and you'll save even more money than you would've spent on factory farmed foam-tray nastiness. You just might lose some pounds as well; Americans eat far too much meat as it is. Do your aorta a favor, as well as your waistline and your wallet. Then when you do eat meat, why not have it be meat you can feel good about? 

          We hunt. We fish. We also barter with friends and relatives for our family's meat. What meat we do buy is purchased from the local family-owned butcher shops, and although we can't confirm it's all from responsibly-raised sources at least it's not Tyson. We occasionally submit to the siren song of the McD's dollar menu (and at least 2 members of our 8-person family always end up fighting over our lone bathroom for hours afterwards) and I can tell you exactly how many party boxes of tacos we require to feed us all. BUT, we're a lot better than we used to be. It's progress. It's something. The three homestead-raised chickens we roasted with garlic and parsley a few nights ago were three chickens that were not abused, mistreated or malnourished and had lived a life full of sunshine, green grass, adequate feed and clean water. They weren't fed chicken feed containing arsenic. They were healthy at the time of butcher and they weren't washed in bleach water. They tasted damn awesome, too. 

          This year, I resolve to put a lot more effort into sourcing our family's meat responsibly. I know we'll still end up eating Big (G)Ag's meat here and there as well, but it will be much less frequently. I resolve to vote with my grocery cart and with my debit card in all things I buy, and to continue shopping at family-owned small businesses as much as possible too. I resolve to stop being complacent, to stop being oblivious and to stop hiding behind apathy. I resolve to provide the best possible life for the animals in my care, our pets as well as our livestock. I resolve to make more deliberate food choices fueled by actual thought instead of convenience. Most importantly, I resolve to pass this knowledge on to my children, in hopes that they will live their lives as contributors instead of consumers. With the start of the new year, please take a second look at what goes onto your plate and consider what took place to get it there. You might find yourself in the same place at our collective table as I'm finding myself.  

                   
















                   

Homestead Burnout

     I'm tired. Tired as hell. There just aren't enough hours in the day right now.

     Our youngest three kids are 4 1/2 years, 2 1/2 years and 6 months old. They're all boys. Our preschooler and toddler sons seem to operate on only two speeds: endless font of bubbling energy and fast asleep (while snoring loudly.) The frequency of the former by far outweighs that of the latter. They climb everything like miniature Sherpas, empty bins of toys at lightning speed and throw down like tiny MMA fighters. Their baby brother is a sweet, happy baby but as all babies do, he's teething. He's also growing like the proverbial weed and requires near-constant breast milk refills and corresponding diaper changes around the clock. Our three older daughters rightfully need attention too (and often need their limbs and possessions saved from their brothers.) The laundry, the cooking, the errands... I'm tired. 

         

           Luckily the garden is finished for the year. The turkeys have been checked into Hotel Sub-Zero and are no longer crapping on our porch and menacing the barn cats. The goats are still their goat-ly selves, requiring their own care and taking advantage of every chance to cause mayhem. Breeding season brought its usual shenanigans; the does taunting the bucks, daring them to rip down the fence for the fifth time, escapes here and there that had to be carefully documented 'just incase.' Half the chickens are thrilled with the lovely little coop Justin built them, but the other half stubbornly retreat to the barn every night instead. The rebels are staging a protest and ignoring the nest boxes, laying their eggs in top-secret hidden nests and forcing us to search the barn for them every day. Tired... So tired.  

     

          We were warned that the aptly named 'homestead burnout' was inevitable. They weren't kidding. Even with as long as we waited and as much as we want to be here, I can totally understand why the last hundred years have been spent propelling people into cities in the name of progress. Taking a more active role in providing for your own needs, as worthwhile as it is, has a great way of devouring your free time and your energy right along with it. Those cartons of pale CAFO eggs and gallons of hormone-laden cow's milk start looking like a vacation in plastic casing when the dirty laundry is towering so high the kids start asking if they can sled down the pile. 

           Its so easy to want to jump in with both feet and want to take on every project immediately . A year ago I had been completely gung-ho to take on even more as soon as financially possible; Bees, a small herd of fiber sheep, a 1+ acre pumpkin patch on our back pasture. I looked into raising a few pigs and was all set to order 200 Red Ranger broiler chickens. Even after we discovered that the goats weren't the only mammals expecting new babies in 2013 I was still ready to take on the world. Luckily, the resident voice of reason (aka Justin) was willing to use his executive veto power to save me from myself, and we agreed to give it a year and then reevaluate. I agreed to humor him; I never thought I'd get burned out, not for a second. But for the last 4 months it's been Burnt Toastville, population me. 

     I'm using this time to reevaluate a lot of things; the usual time, energy, and finances as well as taking a long second look at just what we want to accomplish with our land in the long term. Now that the giddy enthusiasm has been more curb-stomped than simply curbed I can hopefully focus on reality a little better. There's nothing like grating soap for detergent and shearing off half the flesh on the tip of one's finger or having to care for livestock in the midst of a polar vortex to put things right into perspective.

         Rejuvenate. I'm making time to be lazy here and there. I'm taking naps, even though they're few and far between and it takes more choreography than the Rockettes' Macy's parade routine. I'm turning my brain off sometimes. It's nice, I'd love to do more of it.  

          Rewind. I'm re-reading old favorite books. We're re-watching some of the documentaries that originally piqued our interest in homesteading years ago. Since our hens are in winter rest-mode and laying less frequently I bought store eggs for several breakfast casseroles, and one look at those sickly pale yolks made every pile of chicken crap we've cleaned worth it. Reminding myself just how far we've come and why we're here in the first place has done a world of good. 

           Re-inspire. The spring seed and hatchery catalogs couldn't have arrived at a better time. Nothing gets my green thumb itching like Baker Creek Heirloom's annual publication, and if there was ever a time to look forward to spring it was our recent -30• temps in SW Michigan. We're researching fruit trees and planning a strawberry patch, and waiting on more baby goats any day. Getting excited about the future has been the best way of all to throw off the burnout blahs. 

         Wherever you are in your homesteading/ self-reliance/ preparedness journey, a little burnout here and there is inevitable. BUT, it gets better. Learning to be more self-sufficient is never time that's wasted. That knowledge and those abilities are investments in yourself, your family, and this rapidly-changing world. It's exhausting but far from futile, it's expensive but worth every penny. In the end it's the chances we didn't take that generate the most regret, and I'm still SO glad we made the leap from suburbs to homestead... In spite of my trashed fingernails and goat-chewed hair. 

         

 

        

         

         

            

        

         

  

         

        

    

Unexpected

       At the very end of August, we lost our senior Nigerian Dwarf buck, Nibbler, to pneumonia.

    

         It was gut-wrenching; one day he was perfectly fine, chasing our does along the fence line and ruling the buck pasture with an iron hoof, and within 48 hours he was gone. 

        

         Antibiotics did nothing, and we came home to find him lying in the sunshine with Charlie standing vigil over his body. Our first major death left me feeling horribly guilty; I should've called the vet, the penicillin must not have been strong enough. Snapshots ran through my mind; of the shy, scared little buckling that I slowly befriended with animal crackers over the course of his first week here, his love of human attention, his stubborn streak. How incredibly stinky he got during rut and how he absolutely relished sharing that stink with everyone and everything he could rub himself on. The births of his kids this last spring; four gorgeous boys, two who still live on our farm as wethers (Leo and Ash),  one who went to a hobby farm in Grand Rapids and one who is now a breeding buck at another hobby farm nearby.

      

         I called the vet and pored over every goat book we own. The consensus was the same from each: hot, humid days coupled with cold nights can be catastrophic to livestock. Goats are prone to pneumonia as is, and our doe Sunny probably brought back more than a few funny stories from her trip to the county youth fair this summer. A regular recipe for disaster, with all ingredients accounted for. 

       

          We washed everything. We raked out the pens and added clean straw. I hoped, prayed, obsessed; a month later everyone seemed healthy and I was confident we had weathered the worst. Shortly after, a familiar sight blew all those hopes to dust: our dear sweet Nigerian Dwarf baby buck, Brutus, standing outside the barn door and gasping for breath. 

        

           We didn't waste a second. We called the vet, scooped him up and loaded him into our van. I sat with him during the drive, holding his towel-swathed body while he laid his head on my leg. The vet administered a bag of IV fluid to rehydrate him, a shot of banamine to help his fever and an injection of the strongest antibiotic they had. We took him home, and the hoping and praying began anew. 

        

          He died the next day, Oct. 2nd. Our daughter Sadie found him, curled up in his quarantine pen. We cried and cried. Our sweet little baby buck, whom we'd bottle-fed and played in the spring grass with, admiring his unusual coloring and big blue eyes, was gone. It felt so strange not to hear his voice out in the pastures, calling to the does in a pubescent warble that cracked to a higher octave halfway through. His eagerness for cookies and his love of crunching the biggest alfalfa hay stems between his front teeth. His silly little beard. The way he stood at attention when the big boys walked by, hoping for approval.

         

           I started our remaining mini-Alpine bucks, Charlie and his son Lochlan, on a course of antibiotic injections. I changed the mineral supplements that are available in each pen and added a third kind for variety. I wormed the entire herd even though it was a little early. But I still feel so guilty, like an absolute failure. Some days I can barely look into our buck pen without wanting to cry. I feel like I let my goats down by not intervening earlier; I should've figured it out faster, treated them more aggressively. But as Justin likes to say, hindsight is always 20-20. It hurts to write about, because it hurts to think about. But I'm determined to learn as much as I possibly can from what happened, so some good can come from it. Hopefully somewhere along the line I can forgive myself too.

         This new failure came on the heels of another, a sort of oops-in-process that came to our attention a few weeks earlier. It was on Monday afternoon, September 23rd. I was busily cleaning up our barn, and paused to empty out and refill the large water trough in our doe goat pen. While standing with the hose and appreciating the warmth of the sun, admiring the female element of our herd as they munched away in the pasture, a certain goat caught my eye. 

       "Holy crap, she's round," I thought. Toby-Mae, one of our Nigerian Dwarf girls, has always had a bit of a pot belly. Goats are ruminants and digest through a fermentation process of sorts (leading to lots of burping and impressive belly gurgles after dinner time wraps up) but this was bordering on ridiculous. Toby looked like she's swallowed a kayak, and her udder- oh, CRAP. 

       

         Pregnant, very pregnant. But how?! I wracked my brain; we keep our bucks and does 100% separate except during planned breedings, and Toby's exposure to the bucks had been limited. That's when I remembered that Toby had been Brutus's favorite wet-nurse before he moved to the buck pen in early June. June... She would've had to have been bred in May. Well, we might as well change Toby's name to Mrs. Robinson. 

         

          "Brutus, you little turd!" I scolded him through the fence. He chewed his cud complacently with a proud little gleam in his eye, still watching. I turned my attention back to Toby, feeling her round belly, and was instantly rewarded with a firm kick from a tiny hoof. His baby indeed. 

            After Brutus died, Toby's pregnancy became a redemption of sorts. A silver lining, if you will; a chance for Brutus to live on through his progeny. But Toby's last delivery had not gone well at all. She labored for 23 hours and was too weak to even stand at the end. Positive that her kids were already dead and she would soon join them, I hastily grew a pair of balls and decided to give it one last shot. Hyperventilating and working around my pregnant belly, I reached in and managed to reposition a kid that was trying to come elbows-first and head folded back. She pushed while I pulled, and she delivered a huge single buckling. Luckily Toby made a full recovery, but that delivery wore heavy on my mind. At least we were better prepared with 4 kiddings under the proverbial belt now, right? Right? Wrong.

         Two weeks after noticing Toby's 'delicate condition', the total softening (and resulting absence) of the two ligaments that run alongside the doe's tail signaled the start of labor. She stretched, sat on her tail like a dog and seemed to stare into space. As the day wore on she cried for me whenever I left to return to the house and started pacing the kidding pen like a caged lion, agitated yet determined. I tried to time my visits to check on her around expected phone calls; after months of wearing out the inlaws' fax machine and hunting down obscure documents from the far reaches of Colorado, we were finally about to close the mortgage on the property. The long-awaited phone call heralding the clear to close being given by the VA arrived at 4:15pm. Literally as I hung up the phone (and fought the urge to spike it onto the kitchen floor and bust out in a touchdown dance) Sadie ran into the house and announced that Toby was pushing. 

     

       I threw on my overalls and barn boots and ran out to the barn. Sure enough, it was time to get the towels out of the kidding kit. The two most common presentations are the 'diver' (front hooves followed by the head) or breech, so we watched for the points of tiny hooves to appear. We waited, waited, waited... and instead of hooves, Toby's next contraction brought a nose. 

        I didn't panic; Rosie's second baby, Ash, had come face-first and had required only a bit of pulling as his shoulders delivered. But just as the kid's head emerged, Toby's contractions seemed to stop completely. 

      Toby decided (and rightfully so) to go ahead and start panicking. I attempted the only solution I'd read of for head-first births, pushing the baby back in and repositioning it in the 'diver' pose. It was immediately apparent that this baby was not going back in. I couldn't fathom how Toby had gotten even that much of this fuzzy behemoth out. The tiny mouth bubbled and the nostrils flared, it seemed to be trying to breathe. It dawned on me that the abnormal position might've already broken the umbilical cord. Any pressure applied to bring the baby out seemed way too likely to break its neck or worse; this kid was completely stuck and I had absolutely no idea what to do.

        Then it was my turn to lose it. Months of daily frustration and effort trying to move us from the 'rent' to the 'own' status, so many roadblocks and the stress of going through inspections, appraisals and the like (with 6 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats in residence) already had me on the edge of meltdown by sunset every day. Daily ache and disquieting numbness from my c-section incision coupled with a few chronic health issues that I've chosen to ignore for the last 6 years have been taking their own toll. Our baby son's colic coincided perfectly with our toddler son's molars coming in, and I was desperately short on sleep. Add in the recent losses of Nibbler and Brutus and the guilt I felt (and still feel) with being only 3 months postpartum, and I was pretty much a ticking time bomb before poor Toby ever even went into labor. Once the tears started I didn't think they'd ever stop. 
  
      With a crushing sense of dread I sent the kids inside. I really didnt know what was going to happen, and the last few weeks had been hard enough. I tried again and again to coax the baby's body out, but it was stuck fast. The little face seemed to be strangling, the tongue hanging out and eyes bulging as it twitched and blew more bubbles. Still there were no contractions, and I had to use one hand to hold Toby still while trying to free the baby with the other. I sobbed, howled, pleaded with the fates to let this poor little baby goat live; this wasn't just a baby goat, this was Brutus's baby. He had to be okay. As a friend so aptly put it, we needed some happiness in our barn again. I couldn't take even more guilt and our poor kids couldn't lose the babies they'd pinned all their hopes on. 

      Using the tips of my index and middle fingers I pulled the baby's fur and inched it forward from inside. Pausing to push outward and allow the little chest to expand for a shallow breath every few seconds, I kept pulling. With the other hand I massaged Toby's belly, hoping to kick-start her contractions. I could feel a second baby moving inside. Over ten minutes since the baby's head had first emerged, a small rounded shoulder appeared. I hauled Toby to her feet, hooked the shoulder with my index finger and pulled while pushing up on her uterus. The baby tumbled out into the straw, and by some absolute miracle it was alive. Spluttering and shaking, but absolutely alive.

       He was a boy, and just as big as Toby's baby born earlier this year. He already had horn buds through the skin and bright white teeth. I wiped his mouth out and gave him to Toby to clean, and while she fussed over him he bawled like a newborn calf. It seemed like every scream he would've loosed earlier all needed to come out at once now. I kept right on crying too, from months of pent-up stress and exhaustion as well as from relief. Justin and the kids came running at the sound of the baby, and we all laughed at the his gender; he made our 7th buckling, with the doe count still at 0. He was almost entirely black except for a white belly and a few white spots on his back leg, and bore a striking resemblance to Toby's other baby, Pippin. He had brown eyes, Toby's airplane ears and wattles ('goat jewelry') on his neck. 

       Toby still couldn't stand, but was clearly having contractions again. 30 minutes after the first baby was (fully) born she delivered again. The second baby was breech but was born effortlessly; another little buck, only this guy was half his big brother's size. His bottom half was mostly white, but his face was instantly familiar- aside from his eyes being Toby's brown, the interesting white markings and the set of his eyes are exactly like Brutus. He has wattles as well, but inherited the polled gene from his mother- he's naturally hornless. 

      Just after the second baby's birth, the family friend we'd invited for dinner that night arrived. Luckily I'd prepared most of dinner ahead of time since we'd known from the morning that it was Toby's big day, but what a mess of bloody sobbing woman and hyped-up kids the poor guy walked into. We got Toby her celebratory bucket of warm molasses water as well as a vitamin drench and helped the boys latch on to nurse. We cleaned up and left them in a cozy nest under the heat lamp, with at least one person checking in on them every half hour or so. 

Its just shy of 2 weeks since their birth and they're absolutely thriving, twin devils in goat suits that drive their mother crazy. Toby has made a full recovery and takes excellent care of her boys; we're going to give her one last shot at motherhood (in 2015 at the earliest!) under a VERY strict grain ration in hopes of keeping her babies small. If she has a rough time again, we're prepared to retire her to much-loved pet status. 

         Toby's offspring are named for J.R.R Tolkien characters (since she's Ol' Toby's Leaf) and the new additions have been dubbed Frodo Buckins and Meriadoc Brandybuck. We're currently searching for the absolute best home for Mr. Frodo, the booger that got himself stuck in an impossible situation and had to be rescued by someone completely clueless. Since he resembles his daddy so much, Merry is going to be staying here to become acquainted with Rosie next spring. The kids are in love, as always. Baby goats are, in my humble opinion, just as adorable and mischievous as puppies and we absolutely love having them around. These two are extra special though. 

      Our mortgage closed. I'm no longer a slave to my email. My mom-in-law's fax machine must be wondering if I'm dead or something. Things have quieted down around here, at least as much as they ever really can, and the fall is settling in nicely. I'm trying to relax, leave some things messy, and decompress. I'm sure something else will come along in no time, but for right now I'm content to just kick back and enjoy the view- and I'm so, so thankful this little face is here to be part of that scenery. 

       

Two steps forward, one step back: Our first year of homesteading

We're alive. 

We haven't managed to burn the place to the ground, or been accosted by marauding hillbillies a la "The Hills Have Eyes." Despite the barn cats' best efforts to trip me, my spine remains unbroken. No salmonella-tainted chicken eggs or diseased turkey meat have crashed the party; the raw goat milk the FDA craps themselves over regularly has yet to unleash its dark and sinister forces. So far so good, but we still have so very very much to learn. 

         When we started chasing this half-crazy little whimsy of ours into tangibility we knew we'd have to learn new skills. I read book after book and prided myself on my foresight, I practiced what I could and filed away the rest for later use. All of that has proved absolutely invaluable; but, at the same time, wasn't worth crap until we really got our hands dirty. 

      I've learned that metal pole barns turn into giant freezers in cold weather, and that even a pump with a heating element will freeze when it's -5•F. At that temperature sweat likes to ice up on your face while hauling 5 gallon buckets of hot water, which is especially fun if you require glasses.

       Pregnant goats are on their own clock, and the more one tries to decipher their mysteries the later they will carry their kids just to spite you. 

        Territorial roosters and little boys do NOT mix. 

        Neither do poultry and any horizontal barn surface that you'd like to stay clean. 

        Buck goats in rut are HILARIOUS, as long as you're not within pee range (which is surprisingly broad.) 

        To lessen the chances of divorce no major plans should be made for the second week of January, when the spring seed and poultry catalogs start arriving. Nobody should expect hot meals either, and re-wearing underwear is a good idea as well. 

       Attempting to pull weeds while 9 months pregnant is a great way to fall on your face in the dirt, looking like a bipedal beluga whale with vertigo. 

       "Mom, you've gotta see what I found outside" means you should bring a box of baby wipes, salt and a weapon along when you investigate. 

       In Elbert County, Colorado you try desperately to get your tomato plants to grow. In Berrien County, Michigan you try desperately to keep your tomato plants from growing up the side of your house and caving the roof in. 

        Training 5 mama goats to stand nicely for milking is going to be interesting if you, their goatherd, are in the third trimester of pregnancy and have a belly roughly the size of a Prius. 

        A blown lightbulb in the barn can lead to getting a face full of (goat) amniotic fluid. Ask me how I know this. 

       Bees love straw bales. So do ridiculously huge spiders and slithery little snakes. Chickens love snakes, and chase other chickens who have caught a snake. Raccoons, dogs and hawks love chickens. Raccoons also love our trash. Flies love absolutely everything. 

       Kentucky Wonder pole beans laugh heartily at a simple bamboo pole-and-mesh-fencing trellis, drag it down to the dirt and climb all over the neighboring cucumber vines instead. 

       Feminine fingernails are a fool's errand if you regularly dig in dirt, and are extremely counterproductive while milking goats. 

       The stinkiest buck has the fastest-growing hooves. Always. 

        All the animal crackers in the hemisphere aren't enough to coax our Nigerian Dwarf goats out of the barn during the winter. Apparently not even treats are worth putting one's udder in the snow. 

           Bragging about the health of your herb garden is a great way to karma yourself into a c-section a week later, forcing you to watch as the weeds strangle out your chocolate mint and tarragon before you can even cough without crying. Guilty.

          Toddlers and huge sacks of diatomaceous earth do not play well together. 

           Turkeys LOVE children's wading pools, especially when the children are still in them. 

         

           Pallets can build damn near anything, and should be rescued from dumpsters at all cost. 

         

           Baby goats are, next to baby humans, the most unbelievably adorable organisms on the planet and will turn even grown men into a squishy puddle of goo. 

        Large canning projects stop feeling like a fun folksy way to pass an afternoon and start feeling like a Dickensian workhouse at about 11pm (or the 30th quart of peaches.) 

        To mosquitoes, lavender aromatherapy lotion must smell like bacon served with a side of pure bliss.

        What do Beetlejuice and squash bugs have in common? Say their name three times and BOOM, they're all up in your shiz causing problems. 

              And most importantly:

        There is warmth in the coldest day, rest in the hardest labor and blessed quiet amidst the unrelenting chaos. There is beauty in every stone, leaf and twig; a rooster is the best alarm clock and the world becomes even more alive at night. 

         We are so small and our lives are so short; as the saying goes, nothing is guaranteed but death and taxes. We only have one today and no one knows about tomorrow. Chase your dreams as far as it takes to catch them. Regret nothing. 

         Find time to read books under a blanket, walk outside barefoot and feel the sun on your face. Catch frogs and identify trees. Hold a newborn baby in a garden; touch life in its shining best. 

        Vow to like yourself exactly as you are. Eat a meal entirely from scratch. Do it again, and again and again.  Fix things instead of replacing them, and laugh your butt off when it turns out whack. 

        Dirt under your nails, hay in your hair and stinky hobbit feet means it was a good day. 

         

         

*Submitted to the Heritage Homesteaders blog hop, February 2014! 

www.heritagehomesteaders.com

       

          

          

 

        

          

         

       

A Green Affair: Repost

     (( This entry was originally posted to our family's blog right before our move in November 2011.))



I have a love-hate relationship with seed catalogs. And gardening catalogs.

    And books on organic gardening, and all the other things sprout-related that so thoroughly fascinate and frustrate me.

    When we were still living in our apartment (2006-ish) I requested my first free seed catalog from Burpee's. I'd been interested in gardening for a long time, and figured it would make interesting (albeit futile) reading. I ended up spending 3 hours slowly paging through it, circling all the things I would grow if I only had the space to do it. I held onto it for a long time afterwards, enjoying the occasional leaf-through and chance to rearrange my fantasy mind-garden. In preparation for the move to our first house in early summer 2007, I excitedly packed it... finally, my daydream garden could become a reality!

     After moving in and teaming up with like-minded neighbors, I threw myself headlong into the role of budding homesteader. In spring 2008 we brought home our first feed-store foundlings, six one-week-old pullet chicks (5 black australorp and 1 auracana) and a pair of khaki-campbell ducklings. While the babies rapidly outgrew the plastic recycling bins that served as their makeshift coop we drafted plans for a more permanent space, and started laying out a massive garden on what amounted to over a third of Justin and I's property.

     Too excited to wait, I started seeds in January. By March my kitchen resembled a greenhouse, and before long the sun from our south-facing sliding glass patio door was almost blotted out by an especially ambitious Roma tomato plant that would lean menacingly over anyone sitting at its end of the kitchen table. Swarms of fruit flies started appearing, and my husband spoke wistfully of moving into the garage until he remembered that it too had been taken over by Little Wife on the Prairie's poultry. Ever-supportive as he is (and anxious to reclaim his spot at the table from the tomato tough-guy that had started throwing vines over the curtain rod) he borrowed a gas-powered rototiller and went to work on the massive plot. After an afternoon of labor, the seedlings were ready for their new home.

       We planted. And planted, and planted. And planted. Then we watered, and watched and waited. One little problem became apparent pretty quickly after that... Colorado high-plains soil is about as fertile as the dark side of the moon. My pampered, much-loved plants began to die off in droves. Those that survived started resembling prairie weeds, tall and wiry and defoliated. We rejoiced over the small, tough, sour tomatoes a few of the plants produced and cheered for a single tiny eggplant like it was competing at the Nightshade Olympics. Justin shook his head, bit his tongue and helped out where he could. My small-town Michigan boy knew what they outcome of my little endeavor would be before I'd even started, but it was a lesson I was going to have to learn on my own.

      After losing that poor little eggplant to deer and the rest of the plants to the hard, inhospitable soil I called it a day and put the rest of the plants out of their misery. I spent that winter working on projects with much better outcomes- countless crocheted things, several quilts, our fourth child (and first son) Rikur Scott. The chickens continued to thrive, helping me save face a little bit. I pored over my books, looking for a cut-and-dry answer to what I did wrong.

      In the spring of 2009, I decided to take a different approach. Borrowing the tiller again, we dug up two 4-by-8ft plots and framed them by old landscaping timbers. With my girls playing in the weeds and my baby son in his bug screen equipped carseat I dug out as much of the clay-filled soil as I could, replacing it with bag after bag (after bag) of enriched topsoil. Then we planted, one plot for tomatoes and one for squash. The squash was my first gardening victory, overflowing the plot and spilling zucchini and crooknecks out into the waving prairie grass. The tomatoes didn't fare as well, but I didn't really mind. I was so high on the green-and-yellow mountain of success coming in daily from my squash vines.

     Spring of 2010 rolled around. Our cat had a litter of kittens, who became instant members of the family (even after they found new homes, which we all shed some tears over.)  After reading about container gardening all winter, I decided to add another grow-surface to our property and covered half our porch in pots. Various 'container' tomatoes, herbs, bell peppers and a dwarf jalapeno took up residence as well as two German Queen heirlooms in 'topsy turvy' planters hanging off the railing. I turned the decorative terrace in front of the house into a giant herb garden. The garden plots in the yard once again became home to squash and tomatoes, except I switched them... thinking this application of 'crop rotation' would foil the squash bugs that had started creeping in at the end of the previous season. I sat back and waited to be up to my neck in home-grown nutritious produce. In the end of June, my plants started bearing fruit. And just as I started to pride myself of my success, the fates decided my ego needed to come down a notch or two.

     On July 4th, it hailed. For hours. After those first few telltale pings sounded from above, I raced out with blankets to try to 'tent' my porch garden (sustaining 10+ hailstone hits to my face and back that actually left welts.) When the hail continued, I could only watch as the blankets became weighted down with rain and fell down to the yard below, exposing my precious plants to nature's mutilation. I sat by the door and cried, nauseated at the sight but unable to leave my babies to suffer a horrific death alone. Justin worried aloud about our roof and our vehicles, while I cared only for my plants. Sadie and Ivy drew me pictures of robust, healthy tomato plants in an attempt to cheer me up. When the storm ended I went outside to survey the damage, and found my squash vines literally pitted to death with any zucchini on the vine cored out like canoes. My tomato plants were razed to pathetic green stumps standing 1-2 inches off the ground. I cried some more, decided I was done for the year and turned my attention to our upcoming trip to Michigan.

    I spent hours pulling weeds in my brother-in-law's 1+ acre garden, marveling as he showed me each section and let me and the kids pull up some onions. I braved mosquitoes and heatstroke to wander through their raspberry and blackberry bushes with Rikur strapped to my back in his mei tei, the girls racing through the fields with their cousins and having the time of their lives. Their middle daughter showed me which peach trees had almost-ripe fruit and which apple trees had the most baby apples on them. We watched from the upstairs porch as battles raged, each side plotting to overthrow the group currently in possession of a rope swing hanging from a tree on the hill. My sister-in-law taught me the basics of canning, kick-starting a new obsession. After three weeks, none of us were ready to come home. I missed our house, the dog and cats, my parents and friends. But all the while, leaving was physically painful. Not only because Justin's sister and her husband are definitely kindred spirits, because his family is absolutely awesome and has been great to us from the first time we met them... but because that place just fed something in our souls.

     Every time I've been there, I'm astounded by the total inner tranquility it inspires and endless possibilities. The forests, the mist in the early morning, the beaches on Lake Michigan. The huge rivers, the vines hanging from the trees, lightning bugs at dusk. Seeing my children run barefoot through thick green grass, no fire ants in sight. No more cracked lips and nosebleeds, Sadie's eczema completely gone within three days of our arrival. Cailin's asthma abated. Surrounded with green, with an underlying hum of growth. Of vitality. Of life. Someday, we promised. Someday.

     Cue spring of 2011. Justin went back to school online, working towards his bachelor's degree and opening a whole new possibility of a job in the future that would offer better pay and lower chances of being shot/stabbed/maimed/ect. With Cailin on the verge of teenager-hood and Alarik due to be born in a few short months, we had to confront the reality that our house was growing smaller, it seemed, by the minute.  After much discussion and a lot of sleep lost to thought, we made a decision. We're not getting any younger, our kids are getting more and more rooted here and the time is right financially. If our 'someday' is ever going to come, now is that time.

     Our decision didn't come without cost. We're moving away from my parents, sisters, brother-in-law and niece and nephew. We're leaving a lot of great friends. We're leaving the state the kids and I were born in and have lived our entire lives in. "Bittersweet" just isn't a deep enough word, but neither is "necessary." I worked as a hospice CNA for 2 years, I held so many wrinkled old hands and listened to so many regrets of dreams not pursued and opportunities let pass. As hard as this move is on all of us, I just can't set myself up for what will undoubtedly be the biggest regret of my life if we don't grab this chance and hold on tight. As sad as I am to stretch the distance with so many great people (especially my family) this is just something I have to do. The lifestyle we want for our family, for our children and for our own lives just can't be had here.

       Yesterday, while drinking my requisite two cups of half-caff, I submitted my yearly seed catalog requests with enthusiasm equal to that for my very first Burpee catalog back in 2006... because this year, there's potential. So many daydreams toed up to the very edge of fruition, watching and waiting for their time to shine. 

*Shared to the Heritage Homesteaders blog hop in February 2014!

www.heritagehomesteaders.com

Homesteading: Why, how and the bumpy road we drove here on

          You don't have to be born into a 'farming family' to become a farmer. Really.

           Small towns everywhere seem to have their eminent 'farming families.'  But the number of family farms has plummeted from 6.8 million in 1935 to 2.1 million in 2002, according to a U.S Dept. of Agriculture census. This RealTruth article paints a frightening picture of the rapidly disappearing concept of the family-owned farm, citing urban sprawl, the economy and the prevalence of 'Big Ag' as some of the reasons for its demise. http://realtruth.org/articles/100607-006-family.html The title of 'farmer' has also become synonymous with poverty, odor and lack of intelligence to a lot of people (who also seem to think the food they eat grows in the grocer's freezer in its cardboard packaging) and also carries some of the blame, in my opinion. Who would want to become a farmer and struggle against the Monsanto Machine to make a buck when you could become a high-powered CEO and drive a Maserati? if any sort of small-scale farming is going to continue in this country, this mindset needs to take a sharp left turn off of the wagon and keep on rolling down the proverbial hill. Like, yesterday. If those CEO's looked far enough back in their family tree, they'd see that they come from a 'farming family' too. We all do. Each and every one of us has ancestors who lived a self-sustaining lifestyle, because that was how they stayed alive. There's nothing wrong with wanting to find those roots, regardless of whatever wayward turn those branches have taken in the last century. It's in all of our blood in some degree, and for those of us wanting to return to that lifestyle, our 'lack of roots' shouldn't be a roadblock to getting there.

           When we first became interested in hobby farming, we were newlyweds living in an apartment in a suburb of Denver, CO. My child from a previous relationship had been joined by a baby sister 11 months after our marriage, and we were expecting our third daughter. Aware that the new baby's arrival would put us over the apartment complex's occupancy limit, we started looking into buying a house. We looked at some local areas, but became more and more interested in surrounding rural communities. When Ivy was 5 months old we bought our first home; a 7-year old bi-level ranch home in Elizabeth, CO. We were still in a subdivision, but our property bordered on open space and the noise level was a fraction of what we'd dealt with at our apartment. Our first spring there we bought 6 chicks and 2 little ducklings from one of the local feed stores. They rapidly outgrew the plastic recycling tubs they were living in, requiring a coop be built with haste. The first tiny egg we found in a nest was cause for celebration; the kids often took it out of the fridge to admire and we couldn't bring ourselves to eat it for over 2 weeks. Our first foray into farming (on a very small scale) had borne fruit, and we couldn't have been prouder if we'd laid that little egg ourselves.

             Our flock grew over the next few years, as did our desire to expand on this newly-found love of sustainability (meek as it was.) But as we got more interested in other ways to feed ourselves sans grocery store, the limitations of our property became more and more apparent. The rock-hard clay soil of eastern Colorado struggled to produce a single tomato per vine, until locusts descended in biblical proportions and ate everything green right down to the inhospitable dirt. Our water source came from a privately-owned community well that frequently lost pressure, leaving us without water for a day or more at a time and costing us over $100 a month for extremely modest usage. Storms often knocked the power out. This fostered a dual interest in prepping and survivalism, as we were frequently left without access to utilities. We debated putting in a woodstove, but that did nothing for the water situation (the county prohibited 'extra' wells in our area) or the crappy soil. On April 6th of 2011, we decided to stop talking about a sustainable lifestyle and start working towards actually doing it.

             On December 6th, 2011 we locked the door of our old house for the last time and started the frozen drive east to southwest Michigan. Justin had accepted a job and our house was ready to go on the market once the paint and carpet guys finished with it. We lived with relatives until June of this year, when we moved into our new home on a 'short term rent-to-own' sort of arrangement. Our house in CO closed in August, after a nightmarish 8 months on the market that included an offer that fell through, carbon monoxide scares, a screaming fire alarm that had the neighbors peeking in windows while preparing to call 911 and an incredibly expensive bunch of work that had to be done to bring the septic up to code. We moved our flock of chickens, small herd of 5 miniature dairy goats and flock of ravenous turkeys into our new place and got to work learning the ropes. We're now in the process of closing on the new place. We don't ever intend to move again.

Every day is another lesson. We're learning as we go, making plenty of mistakes in the process. We thought we could use leftover chicken wire to fence in the goats' pastures until we could afford something better; we ended up with half the landscaping eaten and frequent visits from the herd on the front porch of the house. We gave the turkeys access to the barn and ended up plagued by flies. We installed woven wire fencing and penned the gobblers in their own pasture with a Quonset hut. We still get discouraged at times, but we're fixing things as they come up. We're learning. Neither of us were born into 'farming families' but we're determined to raise our children in one. The future is so uncertain; we want our kids growing up with the knowledge they need to feed, clothe and house themselves should they ever need to.

Anyone with an interest in hobby farming or self- sustainability, don't let your roots (or lack thereof) deter you. If you're willing to invest the money to make the transition and the time to learn the skills, you can make it happen. There's an incredible wealth of resources available to teach and inspire:

  *Books. Some of our favorites are:
-The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery
-The Self-Reliant Homestead by Charles A. Sanders
-The Back-to-Basics Handbook by Abigail R. Gehring
-The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals by Laura Childs
-The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan
-The Self-Sufficient Life and How To Live It by John Seymour.
Some great like-themed books that we found inspiring are:
- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien
-Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners and Smart-Cookin' Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture by Mark Winne.
-Anything by Joel Salatin or Michael Pollan. A current fav of mine is Folks, This Ain't Natural by Joel Salatin; informative, inspirational, downright hilarious.

 *Magazines. (Most of these are available in paperless online or Kindle editions if that's your thing)
-Hobby Farms. Great info on small-scale agriculture including equipment reviews, articles comparing livestock breeds, gardening, Q & A sections and ads in the back that are actually interesting to read!
-Hobby Farms Home. Tons of recipes (including canning and cast-iron cooking) green kitchen remodels, seasonal food resources and homestead crafts.
-Mother Earth News. One of the first and still one of the best! lots of good info about sustainable agriculture, composting, DIY projects and global issues that affect anyone who appreciates food and oxygen
-Backyard Poultry. Geared more towards suburban and urban poultry enthusiasts but still some good info for farm folk as well. Articles about poultry health and happiness, 'coop improvement' projects and lots of diversified breed info.
-Backwoods Home Magazine. Another of the firsts, also still one of the best. Off-grid transition and living info, firearms articles, recipes, Q&A with the awesome Jackie Clay, gardening info, supply stockpiling tips and more.

*Documentaries. Netflix Instant is truly awesome, not only for finding random old movies we liked as kids to turn on for our littles during rainy afternoons when SpongeBob is driving us insane. TONS of great documentaries are available to download online or to stream through any gaming console with internet capability. Some of our favorites are:
-Food, Inc. Nauseating but life-changing!
-Fresh. Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms and Will Allen of Growing Power in one documentary. Enough said.
-Natural World: A Farm for the Future.  A filmmaker transitioning her family's 5-acre hobby farm to run without fossil fuels of any kind
-Mad City Chickens. Stories from backyard chicken keepers, a feed store owner who rescues a foundling bird who narrowly escaped becoming a McNugget and an incredibly interesting segment on Murray McMurray , our favorite hatchery.

*Tha Interwebz. Websites, message boards, blogs (ha) you name it it's out there. I recently heard through the goat-person grapevine about the 'pooch test,' which can supposedly tell you if a goat is bred relatively early. One entry in the Google search engine, and I spent over and hour in the barn  (on my butt in the straw while Fiona the goat tried to eat my hair) comparing the hundred-plus Google image results to my various doe goat's lady parts. I guess its safe to say I appreciate this resource more than my goats do.

*Podcasts. We like Jack Spiriko's The Survival Podcast (TSP) and In The Rabbit Hole, both of which have great homesteading info as well as prepping-related stuff. If anyone knows of any good farming podcasts, please comment and let me know! I need to something new to listen to while driving to the feed store.

*Old-timers, 'farmin' folk' and pretty much anyone over 60. Some of the most invaluable advice we've been given has come from people who have been in agriculture for a long, long LONG time. We've been pleasantly surprised with just how open, insightful and encouraging the old-timers we've had the good fortune of meeting have been. The 70's back-to-the-land movement is shockingly similar to the current interest in 20 and 30-something urbanites deciding to keep their mohawks and go farm instead of covering up their ink and looking for an office job; find the parallels to your situation and search out some like-minded people a generation or two ahead. I've learned a ton from our 'hay guy' Frank about hay composition, different cuttings and their availability at different times of the year, and which hay would optimize (or decrease) our doe goats' milk quality once they start birthin' babies and so on. Approach the conversation in a respectful, non-egotistical way and you'll walk away with some great firsthand knowledge.

*Take the plunge and get your hands dirty. Make those mistakes, figure out solutions and grow your own special brand of smarts. Hopefully you'll catch onto things a little quicker than we did, and won't end up with goats trying to eat your porch or learning how to hijack the feed scoops.