The Obamas are planting a vegetable garden at the White House! Way to be!
Also, I just adopted a lamb that will need to be bottle fed six times a day for the next two months. I'm going to have to love it knowing that I can't keep it and the farm probably won't either. Isn't that what life is, though, loving even though you know it's going to hurt later?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Firsts: Part 2
Sunday morning I was, once again, determined to take my day off - I needed to cook a dish for a potluck with my choir before our small concert in the evening. That coupled with the time change meant I was feeling pressed for time. But when E came in from morning chores, he commented that the sheep Josie looked like she was going into labor. Soon after, Laura started going into labor. I got a running commentary from A & E as I worked in the kitchen trying to throw something together for the potluck - Laura had first one lamb, then another, and finally A came in and said point-blank "If you want to see a lamb born, come out now because it looks like Laura's got a third coming."
I'd been not-so-secretly hoping I'd get to be there for the birth of at least one of the lambs, but with our growing herd of darlings it was looking less and less likely. So I left a pot to simmer and went outside into the warm, teasingly spring-like day. I joined A & E in the sheep house, where we quietly watched Laura in her pen, licking her two big lambs and turning in circles. Under her wide, woolly tail two water balloons were dangling - one amniotic sack for her second lamb, and the other meant a third was coming. A & E whispered this information to me; we leaned against the mangers and waited and watched.
Laura's second ewe lamb was damp and just-born; we watched her struggle to her feet, skinny legs quivering at this brand-new job. She nosed around her mother's belly the best she could, and finally found the udder. Laura nuzzled her butt and then started licking the air, mother instincts clearly kicked in but still in some distress. Finally, after about a half hour of waiting, she sat her back legs down, and E pointed out the tiny black nose and feet coming out. Then, with no fuss at all, she pushed out a third lamb, born inside a sack of its own. I had never seen anything be born before, and this small, new life was miraculous. Just as soon as I realized I had actually witnessed my first birth, E climbed into the jug and pulled the birth sack off the lamb. It was neither breathing nor moving. He cleaned out its mouth and nose, tried giving it mouth-to-mouth. The jug was cramped with ewe and lambs; E lifted it out where he could have more space.
This lamb's body was permanently prepared for birth: wet, stream-lined, boneless, front legs together and still pointed for its dive into the world. Soon after birth, a lamb ought to breath, open its eyes, struggle to its feet, and morph from a limp, wet rag into a tiny sheep, with the muscles and bones of knees and ankles and neck all working to hold their bodies in sheep shape. But not this one. It was perfectly formed, but it never breathed and never woke up. Laura never looked at it.
I did. I don't know why it died, although we had another still-born lamb later that day, again from a set of triplets. Three lambs is a lot for sheep. But after Laura and Josie carried these lambs for five months, nourishing them in their bellies and then bringing them into the world, to then lose them was such a waste.
A & E have been through this before, and E took the utilitarian outlook - at least we wouldn't have the chore of feeding a bottle lamb, because a ewe often can't feed a third lamb; we'd take them down to the woods and leave them for the coyotes because the ground is still too frozen to dig. And keeping genetics in the flock that predispose ewes to have a third still-born lamb isn't ultimately good for the flock. But A&E know the stakes. We've talked about how farming is fundamentally stewardship of plant and animal life, and part of that is having an understanding that death is a part of life and so being able and willing to grant a clean and quick death when appropriate. More on this later.
So that lamb's was the first birth I'd ever witnessed, and also the first death. This may be connected to the fact that I then got my first speeding ticket later that day. Ca c'est la vie.
I'd been not-so-secretly hoping I'd get to be there for the birth of at least one of the lambs, but with our growing herd of darlings it was looking less and less likely. So I left a pot to simmer and went outside into the warm, teasingly spring-like day. I joined A & E in the sheep house, where we quietly watched Laura in her pen, licking her two big lambs and turning in circles. Under her wide, woolly tail two water balloons were dangling - one amniotic sack for her second lamb, and the other meant a third was coming. A & E whispered this information to me; we leaned against the mangers and waited and watched.
Laura's second ewe lamb was damp and just-born; we watched her struggle to her feet, skinny legs quivering at this brand-new job. She nosed around her mother's belly the best she could, and finally found the udder. Laura nuzzled her butt and then started licking the air, mother instincts clearly kicked in but still in some distress. Finally, after about a half hour of waiting, she sat her back legs down, and E pointed out the tiny black nose and feet coming out. Then, with no fuss at all, she pushed out a third lamb, born inside a sack of its own. I had never seen anything be born before, and this small, new life was miraculous. Just as soon as I realized I had actually witnessed my first birth, E climbed into the jug and pulled the birth sack off the lamb. It was neither breathing nor moving. He cleaned out its mouth and nose, tried giving it mouth-to-mouth. The jug was cramped with ewe and lambs; E lifted it out where he could have more space.
This lamb's body was permanently prepared for birth: wet, stream-lined, boneless, front legs together and still pointed for its dive into the world. Soon after birth, a lamb ought to breath, open its eyes, struggle to its feet, and morph from a limp, wet rag into a tiny sheep, with the muscles and bones of knees and ankles and neck all working to hold their bodies in sheep shape. But not this one. It was perfectly formed, but it never breathed and never woke up. Laura never looked at it.
I did. I don't know why it died, although we had another still-born lamb later that day, again from a set of triplets. Three lambs is a lot for sheep. But after Laura and Josie carried these lambs for five months, nourishing them in their bellies and then bringing them into the world, to then lose them was such a waste.
A & E have been through this before, and E took the utilitarian outlook - at least we wouldn't have the chore of feeding a bottle lamb, because a ewe often can't feed a third lamb; we'd take them down to the woods and leave them for the coyotes because the ground is still too frozen to dig. And keeping genetics in the flock that predispose ewes to have a third still-born lamb isn't ultimately good for the flock. But A&E know the stakes. We've talked about how farming is fundamentally stewardship of plant and animal life, and part of that is having an understanding that death is a part of life and so being able and willing to grant a clean and quick death when appropriate. More on this later.
So that lamb's was the first birth I'd ever witnessed, and also the first death. This may be connected to the fact that I then got my first speeding ticket later that day. Ca c'est la vie.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Firsts: Part 1 of 2
Part 1: Lambs! A backstory
About a month ago, our ewes started giving birth to their lambs. I had been prepping for this by reading books on sheep care and watching the sheep to learn both to tell them apart and to get a sense for what Normal sheep behavior is. Finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting, one Sunday morning I was in my room, determined to take my day off and waste my time as I chose, when the murmur of "lambs!" floated up from downstairs. E had gone outside for chores and discovered two new faces in the flock. I threw on some clothes and ran outside and, sure enough, Tiffany had given birth to a little fawn ram and a little white ewe - tiny, white wool still yellow and damp with amniotic fluid, incredible. I was in awe. E carefully lifted up the lambs and led their mama into a jug (small pen). All ewes and new lambs hang out in a jug for a few days to bond, nurse, avoid getting trampled, and generally stay where we can keep an eye on them to make sure everyone is healthy.
Fast forward a few weeks, to last Monday. Our lamb count had slowly climbed to eight, and the youngsters had grown big enough to run back and forth as a group in the sheep pen, playing tag, jumping onto their mothers. They've lost that gangly, newborn look and have started to grow up and out; they're big enough that they have to go down on their front knees to be low enough to reach their mama's udder, and they're strong enough that the upward head jabs they make when nursing have got to hurt. But the mamas still dominated the flock, though, and each lamb was unique enough that telling them apart was a straightforward no-brainer. But since last Sunday, a ewe has been popping out lambs about every twelve hours, and we've been busy.
Our sheep generally don't need help with birth - we may notice that one looks uncomfortable, and when we come back half an hour later we find that ewe licking off her newborn lamb. The trouble came last week when five ewes all decided to lamb at once during an extra cold snap. One of the really dim ewes actually had a lamb in the snow, but three or four other lambs were in serious danger of freezing to death simply by being born wet into a world below 32 F. So for three days in a row A & E (and later me!) picked up the slimy lambs and hugged them in our coats to warm them up and melt the amniotic ice. We dried them off as best we could, made sure they were nursing properly, and after a few hours they were all fine and dandy.
Aside from a few problems encouraging two of the ewes to stand still for nursing, the lambs have been healthy, and they've all left the jugs to rejoin the flock. This means that watching the sheep now involves not only the mental gymnastics of remembering which sheep is which but also whose lamb is whose. And the flock is almost half lambs now - fawn, white, brown-black, black-black, black with white star on forehead, grey-fawn-white, red. They're beautiful. And that's where we were this morning.
To be continued...
About a month ago, our ewes started giving birth to their lambs. I had been prepping for this by reading books on sheep care and watching the sheep to learn both to tell them apart and to get a sense for what Normal sheep behavior is. Finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting, one Sunday morning I was in my room, determined to take my day off and waste my time as I chose, when the murmur of "lambs!" floated up from downstairs. E had gone outside for chores and discovered two new faces in the flock. I threw on some clothes and ran outside and, sure enough, Tiffany had given birth to a little fawn ram and a little white ewe - tiny, white wool still yellow and damp with amniotic fluid, incredible. I was in awe. E carefully lifted up the lambs and led their mama into a jug (small pen). All ewes and new lambs hang out in a jug for a few days to bond, nurse, avoid getting trampled, and generally stay where we can keep an eye on them to make sure everyone is healthy.
Fast forward a few weeks, to last Monday. Our lamb count had slowly climbed to eight, and the youngsters had grown big enough to run back and forth as a group in the sheep pen, playing tag, jumping onto their mothers. They've lost that gangly, newborn look and have started to grow up and out; they're big enough that they have to go down on their front knees to be low enough to reach their mama's udder, and they're strong enough that the upward head jabs they make when nursing have got to hurt. But the mamas still dominated the flock, though, and each lamb was unique enough that telling them apart was a straightforward no-brainer. But since last Sunday, a ewe has been popping out lambs about every twelve hours, and we've been busy.
Our sheep generally don't need help with birth - we may notice that one looks uncomfortable, and when we come back half an hour later we find that ewe licking off her newborn lamb. The trouble came last week when five ewes all decided to lamb at once during an extra cold snap. One of the really dim ewes actually had a lamb in the snow, but three or four other lambs were in serious danger of freezing to death simply by being born wet into a world below 32 F. So for three days in a row A & E (and later me!) picked up the slimy lambs and hugged them in our coats to warm them up and melt the amniotic ice. We dried them off as best we could, made sure they were nursing properly, and after a few hours they were all fine and dandy.
Aside from a few problems encouraging two of the ewes to stand still for nursing, the lambs have been healthy, and they've all left the jugs to rejoin the flock. This means that watching the sheep now involves not only the mental gymnastics of remembering which sheep is which but also whose lamb is whose. And the flock is almost half lambs now - fawn, white, brown-black, black-black, black with white star on forehead, grey-fawn-white, red. They're beautiful. And that's where we were this morning.
To be continued...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Day in the life of...
I haven't kept track of how many people have asked me "So, what do you do on a farm during the winter?" There's not a whole lot to do, but it's beginning to pick up now that March is here. Chores, however, have been the daily constant, as follows:
Wake up at dawn. Lie in bed and admire the sunshine coming in through my east-facing window, if it's not cloudy or snowing. Think about how lucky I am to a) have an east facing window b) not have to wake up to an alarm c) have such a sweet job. C occurs to me more often when I've got legit sunshine. My morning ritual commences: this, then the elaborate chore of getting dressed in layers - I average probably about five shirts n' sweaters every day.
My commute is the best ever - I either tiptoe or amble downstairs, depending on whether I've heard the baby's voice yet. I scarf leftovers - crusty bread, last night's dinner, apples - and then lead the charge to go out. (Proper breakfast usually comes after chores.)
The trick with livestock, you see, is that they're dependent on humans for survival, and need basic tending every day. This means carrying hay bales (25-40 lb range - I only rarely try to take two at a time); filling water buckets; and Poop Management.
The trick with freezing weather is that everything's frozen. I don't think I'd understood what writers meant when characters walked over the "barren, frozen ground," but the quality of the earth changes when all its moisture freezes solid. It really feels frozen under your feet. I think all its happy inhabitants burrow down below the freeze line, have some vital channel for air flow, and hibernate. Frost heaves, too - we didn't have them growing up, but here they push all the fence posts over and bring more rocks up from the subsoil to lie in wait for spring plowing.
So for water, the stock tank has a crust of ice on it every morning, up to 3" thick, so we whack at it with a chunk of wood and scoop the ice out - mostly with a kitchen strainer, but with bare fingers too for big & awkward chunks. Once that's filling, it's time for Poop Management. When the cattle are all distracted with breakfast, we scoop out the fresh manure from the shed where they sleep. When it's really cold, it's all frozen to the ground, and we pry up the dozen or so poopsicles and cart them off to the manure pile. When it's just above freezing, everything's wet and mucky and the smells are much stronger. I just hope I don't lose a boot in it one day. I periodically sugar-coat the task in my head: call it Farm Nutrient Management and remember that it's all going on to the fields later to make the soil fertile, the fruits and vegetables big and healthy.
That all happens twice a day, and soon hand milking will get added to the list. Our first calf is due today, and we'll have fresh milk again soon. I'm off to see if it's been born yet. More on births later.
Wake up at dawn. Lie in bed and admire the sunshine coming in through my east-facing window, if it's not cloudy or snowing. Think about how lucky I am to a) have an east facing window b) not have to wake up to an alarm c) have such a sweet job. C occurs to me more often when I've got legit sunshine. My morning ritual commences: this, then the elaborate chore of getting dressed in layers - I average probably about five shirts n' sweaters every day.
My commute is the best ever - I either tiptoe or amble downstairs, depending on whether I've heard the baby's voice yet. I scarf leftovers - crusty bread, last night's dinner, apples - and then lead the charge to go out. (Proper breakfast usually comes after chores.)
The trick with livestock, you see, is that they're dependent on humans for survival, and need basic tending every day. This means carrying hay bales (25-40 lb range - I only rarely try to take two at a time); filling water buckets; and Poop Management.
The trick with freezing weather is that everything's frozen. I don't think I'd understood what writers meant when characters walked over the "barren, frozen ground," but the quality of the earth changes when all its moisture freezes solid. It really feels frozen under your feet. I think all its happy inhabitants burrow down below the freeze line, have some vital channel for air flow, and hibernate. Frost heaves, too - we didn't have them growing up, but here they push all the fence posts over and bring more rocks up from the subsoil to lie in wait for spring plowing.
So for water, the stock tank has a crust of ice on it every morning, up to 3" thick, so we whack at it with a chunk of wood and scoop the ice out - mostly with a kitchen strainer, but with bare fingers too for big & awkward chunks. Once that's filling, it's time for Poop Management. When the cattle are all distracted with breakfast, we scoop out the fresh manure from the shed where they sleep. When it's really cold, it's all frozen to the ground, and we pry up the dozen or so poopsicles and cart them off to the manure pile. When it's just above freezing, everything's wet and mucky and the smells are much stronger. I just hope I don't lose a boot in it one day. I periodically sugar-coat the task in my head: call it Farm Nutrient Management and remember that it's all going on to the fields later to make the soil fertile, the fruits and vegetables big and healthy.
That all happens twice a day, and soon hand milking will get added to the list. Our first calf is due today, and we'll have fresh milk again soon. I'm off to see if it's been born yet. More on births later.
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