Nouveau Rural

Copyright Mila Milliorn 2006, 2007

Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
The Dangers of OCFAD..................................................................................................................5
My Chickens Aren’t Chicken........................................................................................................10
Horses Canter, Pigs Galumph........................................................................................................14
Chicken-In-A-Box.........................................................................................................................15
Egg Phrase Reform........................................................................................................................21
LGW: Many Followers, No Tax Deductions................................................................................23
Hairy Tales.....................................................................................................................................28
Fresh Bread Nouveau Rural Style..................................................................................................33
This Little Piggy Went To Market….............................................................................................37
‘Til Death Do Us Part....................................................................................................................45
You Are What You Eat..................................................................................................................52
In the Garden of Good and Evil.....................................................................................................58
Fine Print on Rural Recreation......................................................................................................66
Don’t Call Me Frugal.....................................................................................................................74
What Did You Do This Weekend?................................................................................................79
Neighbors.......................................................................................................................................92
Wheelbarrows I Have Known......................................................................................................101
You Are What Your Chicken Eats...............................................................................................109
Subaru To The Rescue!................................................................................................................114
What Doesn’t Kill You Probably Makes You Limp For Life.....................................................122
A Qualified Success.....................................................................................................................125
Liar! Liar!.....................................................................................................................................132
Poopology....................................................................................................................................139
Intermission..................................................................................................................................147
Santa’s Sleigh is a Ford 250.........................................................................................................153
Does Rule.....................................................................................................................................154
Luck and Two Sticks...................................................................................................................160
Change.........................................................................................................................................173
 Introduction

This collection is a sampling of what happens when two city

kids mortgage their lives for some acreage on the edge of

civilization.

Almost as soon as we signed the loan papers to start work on

building my quirky idea of domicile out on some land so that we

could escape greater subdivision living, I was precipitously

laid off of my job. The IT (information technology) field can

be a bit fickle, so it wasn’t my first layoff, but it was my

most wrenching experience by far. I hadn’t realized how

emotionally intertwined I was with the job.

I didn’t find another job right off and I found myself

having a hard time defining myself outside of my employment. Of

course had I actually been employed, I don’t know how I would

have kept a job and stayed on top of the construction issues.

If my unemployment wasn’t shocking enough, my two horses

suddenly needed new accommodations as well. I had always

boarded my horses and had not really thought of ever keeping

them at home even though we had owned the acreage for over a

year. Only the sudden cash flow issues of unemployment had me

figuring up the cost of the minimal shelter requirements on the

land and comparing them to the costs of boarding two horses. It

WAS cheaper to house them at home. And I couldn’t find two

vacancies at any horse-boarding establishment before I had to

move the horses.

We were quite intimidated by the prospect of fencing,

erecting a run in shed and securing a horse water supply 300

feet from the well within the month, but necessity made for an

innovative if harsh task master. Not to mention I needed to get

a farrier to visit out at the land and obtain a source of good

hay.

It wasn’t easy, but we did manage to provide our two horses

with living arrangements for much less than the cost of a

boarding stable. And if I didn’t have the fancy footing of a

riding arena, we did find that we excelled at horse care in

every area over what was offered in a boarding stable. The hay

I bought was much better than what the local stables meagerly

provided. We never found their water buckets empty. The horses

were never stalled up, frantic to stretch their legs and roll.

I was able to return to my favorite farrier, as I was not

required to use the stable’s preferred farrier. I had never

seen my horses so relaxed and happy!

Through the necessity of moving our horses, we become

unexpectedly confident in our abilities to care for animals in a

rural setting. By the time we had moved onto the land, I was

working again, but cautious about defining myself solely in

terms of my job title. I was eager to push my boundaries and

the possibilities of the land were compelling. Once the cash

flow issues were eased by the resumption of the double income, I

guess the rest was inevitable.

 The Dangers of OCFAD

My husband and I have 20 acres outside of Leander, TX. We

have always lived in the city. No prior experience outside of

the suburbs. We have recently moved to mostly rural area, but

I've quickly realized we aren't country.

I may open a farm gate to drive my truck to work and listen

to George Strait on the way, but I know I'm not country.

If you are country you know how to build a fence, grow a

tomato, field dress a deer or kill a snake. You can stack hay

more than 3 bales high and move cattle between pastures.

Whatever you don't know, you know someone who does know. You

take all of the above for granted. You learned by osmosis. You

certainly never read a book on the subject. You have supreme

confidence even if you are the most ignorant of country

denizens.

I don't know any of the above. I'd like to know all of the

above and more. I actually am acquainted with nearly no one who

knows much of anything in this category. I wind up relying

heavily on How-To books that are woefully brief on the

necessities. I constantly worry about what I don't know I don't

know. Luckily being totally ignorant has yet to stop me.

Therefore I've decided that instead of country, I'm Nouveau

Rural. If that term reminds you of the ignorant knave, full of

gaffes, energetically and unconsciously pursuing more of the

same that has just come into new money, you are probably getting

the picture, only in rural terms.

Now no one plans on becoming Nouveau Rural. It starts with

wanting a little breathing room and to appreciate a beautiful

part of Texas on a daily basis from your bedroom window. Maybe

a tomato plant or two. It can escalate into a big mortgage, a

commute from hell and a stock trailer that has multi-species

history.

Making the transition from suburbia to Nouveau Rural can

actually affect your personality. In my case I think it has

induced Obsessive-Compulsive Farm Animal Disorder (OCFAD). In

the Nouveau Rural, having none of the immunities that those

living in the country develop through enforced exposure to the

grittier aspects of country living, the uninitiated who relocate

beyond suburbia are at risk to contract the disorder. No

effective treatment has been established. Symptoms of the

disorder may include new subscriptions to homesteader magazines,

haphazardly built fences occupied by various farm animals that

seem to have the upper hand, bookshelves full of titles that

start "Successfully Raising [AnimalBreed]". Sufferers are

frequently heard to complain, "but the book never mentioned

anything about...". The afflicted may be chronically festooned

with hay stems and drive vehicles with mud splashes higher than

the side mirrors.

 Ok. Maybe Obsessive-Compulsive Farm Animal Disorder (OCFAD)

isn't a recognized condition. But I'm sure its real. And I

think I have it.

How else can I explain an impulse buy of two milk goats last

fall? A year ago I would have told you I didn't like goats.

After all I knew I wasn't partial to sheep. Sheep and goats are

basically the same, right? I thought so, based on zero

exposure. Now I have a small herd of 5 goats. Have you ever

asked yourself what people did before TV? Well, I know now.

They had goats. Goats are like having George Carlin and the 3

Stooges on tap. They are the Rockettes complete with singing

and high kicks. You probably don't believe me and that's a good

thing. I am really not trying to convince you. I'm afraid the

condition of OCFAD is contagious and I won't be responsible for

inflicting it on you.

Whether OCFAD is contagious or not, at least in my case, it

is insidiously progressive. We started with 2 pet goats,

acquired an additional 2 milk goats in an unexpected windfall

and proceeded to round out the herd with a buck. Come spring we

could nearly double the tally with a possible delivery of 4

kids. Take my word for it, the potential population explosion

is exponential.

This all started with 2 uselessly lovable horses, and 2 city

dogs who barked at us and nothing else. We decided we needed

"farm dogs" and acquired two pups to bring just our dog total to

4. We don't call the white one "Baby White Elephant" just for

her coat color. They eat like we adopted 2 more horses.

When the grasshoppers ate my fledgling garden attempt down

to nubs. I got mad. When I got tired of my every move

precipitating 1000 grasshoppers taking flight usually right

smack into me with force enough to bruise, I thought fowl. Well

foul as well, but I bought chickens and guineas. The chickens

we hoped would have the side effect of eggs and the guineas were

supposed to be hardy survivors and bug-eating machines. (Well I

hope they eat lots of bugs this summer.) Even as chicks we

threw them a captured grasshopper to make sure they knew how to

fulfill their intended role.

And let's not forget the two feeder pigs. One guy asked me

if feeder pig meant that we fed the pigs or that they fed us. I

replied both.

Very few people supported us raising our own pork. They

said we couldn't do it. They said we shouldn't do it. They

said it was too hard. Pigs smelled. Pigs are mean. We were

too soft to pull it off and that should we slaughter a pig we'd

choke up before we could eat it. We'd be giving away pork chops

in no time just to get rid of it. One person tried to name them

to force them into the pet category. I can only reply to this

naysayer that Robert RedPig was delicious! Thanks for making

such a strong case for our failure because I had my doubts, and

being told I couldn't do it so often and so loud really helped

steel my resolve.

On the crest of pork triumph, I must admit that only sheer

and total exhaustion from the care and house construction for 2

horses, 4 dogs, 5 goats, 2 pigs, and 27 assorted fowl while we

held down full time jobs and milked the goats twice a day kept

me from acquiring the sheep and donkey my OCFAD so urgently

desires.

Well exhaustion and the sobering response of friends and

family. I went around with my digital camera snapping up shots

of the various denizens of our acreage and emailing them out

with my latest pursuits from cheese making from our hand milked

goats to the latest chicken coop construction. I awaited their

cheerful replies.

They were pretty well horrified. I received their shocked

replies. We used to be so normal! They thought maybe we'd gone

off the deep end with no real hope of making it back to shore.

We may be the first couple to be the subject of an OCFAD

intervention. But until then I'm happily, if aching all over,

in denial. My love and amazement go to my husband for

continually enabling me in my Obsessive-Compulsive Farm Animal

Disorder.
 My Chickens Aren’t Chicken

Why do they say chickens are scared of everything?

Are my chickens the only exceptions? I think my chickens

are more into Extreme Sports than any concept of safety first.

They may be a mite wary of me, but still we daily pick them

up with ease. Then again, we are always seen in the company of

the feed can. And our chickens are so spoiled that they raised

a haughty beak to a failed bread machine experiment. Overdone

bread pales besides sunflower seeds, goat milk possets and

scavenging in the pig poop pile.

Now should I jump into the emissions belching, header

howling truck they are positively fearless. This morning I had

to play crossing guard for the chickens while Brian timidly

backed out the Subaru. They seem to regard moving vehicles with

only inattention.

Later I was about to step into the truck to make my own way

into work when two chickens popped out from under the cab to

inquire if a purse was the office version of the feed can.

I've watched as they delightedly found the most succulent

grass growing out from the dog paddock fence. Little feathery

bobbing heads millimeters from the dog fence near the dog door.

Dogs hold no fear for these chickens. We have 2 confirmed

chicken killers, one wannabe and one unknown quantity. I daily

pray for chicken enlightenment into the true nature of dogs.

 Did they learn nothing this weekend? For the 3rd time, I

found a chicken in the dog paddock. Only the first time did I

manage to rescue the idiot chicken. It looked like the most

recent chicken victim went quick and didn't suffer long. My dog

was found companionably resting next to an intact chicken

corpse. Not like the last time when feathers filled the paddock

and Brian and I had to humanely dispatch the poor wretch.

The neighbor's cat is more chicken than my chickens. I

haven't seen the neighbor cat before chicken bedtime since the

chickens took out after it. If that isn't a sign of a

generation X'ers thinking themselves immortal, I can't imagine a

better barnyard equivalent. Why I don't wear my camera around

my neck just so I can catch shots like this, I don't know. It

was a classic. A black cat heading due west with a line of

chickens in hot pursuit, closing in from the east. I thought I

had an acquired an extra chicken until I caught sight of the

tail in the lead “chicken”. If it hadn't been for the haste of

the progression, I'd have thought they were being lined up and

marched out for recess. The Guineas participated but had

stationed themselves to the rear. The most tentative combat

position for the fowls that were advertised as barnyard

protectors and watch fowl.

Now Guineas are chicken. Only rarely do the Guineas brave

the barn. On one occasion I found their company in the barn

tedious as they stationed themselves at the 14' eaves and

squawked endlessly. So I stood at the center of the barn and

flapped my arms.

I know I have prodigiously long arms, but I still was at

least 6' under them and 15' away from them. One Guinea got so

rattled it flew with speed into the wall with a big clunk and

sat adorning my tool rack with a puzzled expression for some

time. I desisted my flapping with ill grace. The next day I

found its feathers covered about an acre. Probably that same

cat they should have helped the chickens dispatch.

The Guineas are terrified of the rooster. And the rooster

is rather wary of the hens. The hens of course give wide berth

to the Guineas. It's like rock-paper-scissors come to life.

The hens give a wide berth to the goats. Why they have any

second thoughts about passing a goat waiting to be milked I do

not understand. They picked the only thing on the place

completely harmless to chickens and dedicated to vegetarianism.

Horses don't qualify in the benign vegetarian category. I

guess I'd categorize a horse as a malicious vegetarian. My

horse, Dancer, thinks anything slipping under the round pen is a

stomping target. He hasn't been successful yet, but he has been

known to apply great speed to the pursuit of the unwary fowl or

feline. Once it was the vet's head, but that's another story.
Just remember Dancer does high kicks if you are ever lazily

leaning on the round pen.

We are quite concerned with the reckless nature of our

chickens. It's not just arthritis that daily sidelines our

chief chicken killer dog, were I honest. I'm sure that we will

raise the dog paddock fence only to belatedly discover that the

chickens are using the gap under the gate to pursue their dark

destinies.

For the last couple of months, as we have feasted on free-

range eggs, I have been wondering why EVERYONE doesn't get at

least one chicken. I think I'm beginning to figure it out.

Therapy is expensive when your most beloved dog dispatches

your hand-raised chicken who lays the golden, delicious eggs.

 Horses Canter, Pigs Galumph

I have found pig raising very instructional.

Pigs teach you patience. Pigs don't have any when you stand

with feed bucket before them, so you better have lots.

Pigs teach you to be proactive. By the time the pig is out

of the paddock is no time to be reinforcing the fence.

Pigs teach you to be punctual. If you feed at 7AM, you feed

at 7AM. When you stroll out on Saturday morning at 9AM for no

particular reason than you are lazier than any 3rd cousin has a

right to be, be prepared to see the gate torn off its hinges and

200+ pounds of pig galumphing from the paddock straight at you.

Pigs teach you presence of mind. If you have a pig of

massive proportions and accumulated momentum bearing down on you

as you peer out the barn door. Shut it!

Pigs teach you to be practical. Send your husband out to

confront the aggravated pig with an edible offering and see if

he can get the pig back in the paddock. The gate isn't anything

that baling wire can't fix anyway.

 Chicken-In-A-Box

What does chicken-in-a-box mean to you? How about the

immediate gratification of the drive thru window at Captain

Cluck? There you emerge with the delectable aroma of hot grease

steaming up from a cardboard box in your lap. It contains deep

fried chicken pieces soaking your one napkin into uselessness

and a golden biscuit. Yum!

This morning Calamity Jane gave chicken-in-a-box a new

slant. Calamity Jane is one of our two Production Red hens. We

bought an assorted mixture of pullet chicks (future hens) in the

last batch to see for ourselves what breeds work for us. We are

reserving judgment at this time (i.e. we are clueless).

Calamity Jane started out as Production Red #1 when she came

to our attention trying to escape two very bad overgrown pups by

sticking just her head out of a woven wire fence. Not too

effective, but that's chicken mentality for you. She flew into

the dog yard. Why can't she fly out?

Traumatized and shocky she was rescued with a minor limp and

a few missing tail feathers. We kept a watch on her. The limp

soon progressed to our dismay to a one legged hop.

Chickens and high school cheerleaders have much in common.

If you are walking funny and having a bad hair/feather day,

expect to be pushed to the bottom of the pecking order.

 But don't count out our chicken soon to be named Calamity

Jane. If she had lost status in the chicken community, she true

to a chicken's irrational nature, decided to take on the more

fearsome Guinea population. She hopped/limped on over to the

smallest Guinea who had barely tolerated status. And with much

deliberation, with wobbly balance on one leg, she drew back her

beak and pecked him right on the wing, twice.

Her point was made. She stood there somewhat overwrought,

actually balancing a bit on the chastened Guinea until we took

pity on her and scooped her up and took her back to the chicken

hut.

I was worried about her. My husband checked her and

reported no swelling or other problems with the leg she insisted

to keep tucked up. On the third day when she was just miserably

leaning up against a stalwart tuft of grass, and my husband set

forth to continue our walking-leg human companion service of

trips back to the chicken hut for our disabled hen, I

intervened.

As somehow it comes to me, I wondered if that chicken wasn't

just recovering from our attack pups. It might be something

else. I yelled out that I wanted to check her bad leg for

stickers.

My husband brought her to me all the while assuring me that

he had checked her out and that wasn't it. Right as he tells me
this, I pull 3/4ths of an inch of cactus spine right out of the

underneath pad of her foot. In fact, her leg was covered with

the nearly invisible, hair thin, little red spines that lie in

wait on a cactus besides the big ugly looking spines.

If you haven't encountered the little ones, you are lucky

and I hope you stay that way. They are red because it feels

like fire where they stick you. And if you are right at 40,

like me, you can't see them until you break them off right under

the skin.

I gave my husband that look I save just for him. He has a

long history of missing his nose plain as day on his face. He

has many talents, I love him, but some times... He took the

chicken back.

That was the day that we discovered this chicken had not

only been suffering with multiple spines, she had managed to hop

up into the nest box and lay her first egg. I didn't so take it

upon myself to name her. I just starting using the name she'd

earned for herself. She's every bit as gutsy and accident prone

as her namesake.

Due to the effects of several days of spines, we'd been keep

old Calamity Jane safe in the broody hut during the days and

returning her to her flock at night. We'd let the chickens out

for the day and they had made their usual barn invasion, but I

could not find her to put her up.

 While I went about my chores, I occasionally heard a

gruesome scratching and flailing noise somewhere in the barn,

but no idea where. It was random and startling. Quite unnerved

the milk goats I assure you.

Finally as I walked down the barn aisle the ruckus went off

again just next to my feet. I gracefully unclenched the barn

wall about a yard up where I'd taken refuge and discovered

Calamity Jane had crawled in a box turned on its side. Feather

fluffing on the cardboard created the unearthly noise. A new

take on chicken-in-a-box.

You know how kids seem to play with the boxes more than the

toys? Well neither my husband nor me must have gotten past kid

stage. We bought a smoker we've used twice, but the box it came

in has been much in use. Currently it's making a handy barn-

style end table holding a useless collection of bits I cannot

bear to throw out.

It's collection of bits and pieces just got more valuable as

Calamity Jane is now its occupant. I was hoping she was going

to hide my breakfast there. She box-sat all morning. I kept

peaking in but no eggs by the time I went to work. Her intent

remains a mystery to me. But it got me thinking about chicken-

in-a-box and how things have changed.

Someone commented recently that I had returned to a simpler

time. That's how they termed milking goats, raising a pig or

two and keeping chickens. Nothing about my current lifestyle

strikes me as "a return to a simpler time". For one, I'm

strictly a city kid gone Nouveau Rural. You can't go back to

where you've never been. And simpler? You must be crazy.

There is a constant cacophony of bleating, barking, clucking,

squealing complaints and comments on how we are doing feeding

and housing our 3 ring circus. Juggling all the feeding,

housing and fencing requirements for all ages and sexes in any

type of Texas weather makes traffic controller seem simple.

Chicken-in-a-box Captain Cluck-style is simple. Drive up,

exchange valuta for edibles, drive out eating a chicken thigh

with two fingers to avoid the grease while you weave your way

through traffic. What could be simpler?

To reproduce the finger-licking chicken eating event in so-

called "simpler" terms, I'd have to already have at least one

meat type rooster and hen. (Add 6+ months if you plan to really

start from scratch.) You can eat your laying chickens, but they

are not quite as plump. The rooster and hen would collaborate

to produce a clutch of eggs. Eventually there'd be chicks that

would feast on high protein fare for at least 60 days after

hatching. Then all you need to do is slaughter, pick the

feathers, clean and cut the bird up. Now you can get out your

deep fat fryer (ours just stays out) and your secret batter
recipe and go do up some old fashioned fried chicken straight

from when times were simple.

We haven't ventured to raising our meat birds yet, and as

long as we keep naming our food things like Calamity Jane, all

our chicken-in-a-box will be Kentucky Fried.

 Egg Phrase Reform

"You laid an egg."

You hear that and you know you've blown it. It’s a quick

phrase to indicate that a less than successful outcome has

occurred on your watch.

I don't understand this expression. This morning I spent 5

of the 10 minutes I was late for work looking for eggs in the

barn. Not because I was hungry for breakfast or had an

immediate need for an egg. Just because it is fun to find the

eggs.

If you were the kid that got scolded for wanting to hunt

Easter eggs past the unwritten age limit (me!), chickens are for

you.

Chickens do not feel bound to use the nest box you

painstakingly made just because your feelings might be hurt if

it remains vacant and in pristine condition. They are not bound

to any such social restrictions. Therefore you have an everyday

opportunity to play hide and seek and hunt eggs hid by the

masters of egg intrigue. It's like a rule you must eat dessert

after every meal.

Chickens are adventuresome in their nesting preferences. We

found a considerable egg cache one day when we noticed a chicken

disappearing under a tarp to find a niche between two hay bales.

We got used to tramping up and over to retrieve the days booty.

 Egg production has been low lately and I wonder if since I

used those two hay bales that were their previous preference,

there could be another yet to be discovered hidey-hole.

All in all, I'd have to say that the occasion for "laying an

egg" to be somewhat exciting and anything but embarrassing. Why

the egg layer usually starts cackling to brag about it. No

shame in the chicken kingdom for the egg-laying event.

So how the phrase "laid an egg" got to be a bad thing I

don't know. But it ought to be a sparingly used compliment to

denote the successful conclusion of a job well done.

It ought to be, but I'm already considered a bit on the

marginal side, so I'll leave egg phrase reform for someone else.
 LGW: Many Followers, No Tax Deductions

Around here the rage in suburban grass is St. Augustine.

The closest you can get to Astroturf and still be a living

organism. Looks, feels, tastes and pleases the aesthetics just

the same.

This grass is a mainstay in a mysterious practice of what I

call Worshipping the Lawn God. While I don't believe in the

Lawn God or propose to worship it, it seems suburbia is heavily

invested in the practice. You may have observed the practice

of worshipping the Lawn God and not even realized it. When you

use a variety of chemicals to bombard your front lawn, pursue

the replacement of every natural occurring plant in your domain

with water-thirsty non-natives and especially are found on your

knees, butt up attending to the process you are worshipping the

Lawn God.

St. Augustine while not the only road to Lawn God heaven is

really popular. It is so particularly suited for Lawn God

Worship (LGW), that I think it is how the grass got "sainted".

St. Augustine is further affirmed in its purpose by being a

heavy water hog for our semi-arid climate. And the more water

you give it the more mowing you do on it.

It is noted for choking out weeds, as any naturally

occurring plant form seems to be a violation of the very tenets

of LGW. No bluebonnets left in a lush St. Augustine lawn.

 One of the most puzzling commercials for a weed and feed

product touts the destruction of dollar weed. I peered in close

to the TV to get a good look at what was so heinous as to

warrant an all-out war and ad campaign. I saw some overgrown

Astroturf with one holdout plant making a stand in the center of

the screen with oval shaped leaves. Quite attractive. I am

stymied as to the point of eliminating dollar weed. No harmful

side effects were mentioned. Maybe it is too awful for general

broadcasting.

Dollar weed seemed to be just as adequate as performing the

service of ground cover as the St. Augustine just without all

the labor, chemicals and water. Dandelions get similar

treatment and they are edible and have yellow flowers. Now I do

understand that they have an unattractive segment to their life

cycle, but if my husband can give me a wolfish grin first thing

in the morning, I think we can overlook an occasionally seedy

look in a plant.

The subject of interesting plants on the roadsides of Texas

Highways has inspired a whole magazine. Lady Bird Johnson is

famous for her support and seeding of the highways. But this

spring I've noticed that frequent mowing has left mostly just

grass and few wildflowers alongside most of the roads I'm

traveling. And most of the fields are grazed down to the dirt

and cactus, so I've been out of luck there as well.

 I've many times stopped, stooped and stared at an

interesting plant. (Though they don't exist except for areas

outside of the LGW control. Possibilities for discovery are

daily shrinking.) Long I searched for books to name these

special finds. I checked out many books on Texas plants looking

to identify interesting natural flora. Couldn't find a darn

thing.

Finally I checked out a book on obnoxious weeds and how to

kill them. Bingo! At last I could recognize a few friends.

If a plant isn't awash in blooms and is hardy enough to

cultivate itself, it is a noxious weed and not a wildflower.

Though quite a few plants I thought of as wildflowers hit the

noxious weed list as well. And I'm not talking about poison

ivy or hemlock here.

I don't actually think that LGW has stooped to plotting to

apply negative stereotypes upon naturally occurring plants.

Mainly because they are having no trouble packing them in

without such subterfuge. Rather it is just an indicator of how

mainstream and accepted LGW really is.

And LGW is spreading from suburbia to more rural areas. I

have a new neighbor. It wasn't long after he put in his gravel

road up to his doorstep that he got out the chainsaw and

preceded to annihilate according to the gospel of the Lawn God.

He now owns a flat plain dotted with a few lucky oak trees. All
the decimated plant life went into a bonfire upwind from us.

Judging from the smell, half of his trees were once made of

plastic.

I guess we bought that smoker for nothing when we are

getting the smoke for nothing straight from the neighbors. I

infer that another tenet of the LGW decrees the use of

chippers/shredders as profane.

LGW may be one of the first followings of its kind not to

apply for tax-free benefits from the government and to make no

move to tithe or otherwise appeal to its members for cash

support directly. (Maybe fertilizer and hybrid plant companies

have bought up the tithing concessions?) In fact just the

opposite occurs. As homeowner's associations flourish, it is

those that abstain from LGW that are fined and objects of peer

pressure.

In my hometown, years ago, a noted horticulturist was fined

and required to cut down the "weeds" in his front yard which

happened to actually be a stand of blooming wild flowers. They

weren't even protesting the less attractive seedpod stage

required to continue the species. He had to mow into oblivion a

blooming extravaganza.

I'm not suggesting we flee from the oppression of a Lawn God

Worshipping society. I doubt that there are many bolt holes

left. Nope. The time has come to whisper into the ears of the
Lawn God Worshipping public of xeroscaping, habitat preservation

and the little joys of discovering a wildflower on your

doorstep. There just might still be time.

 Hairy Tales

It was a strange convolution of fairy tales. It started

when Two Little Pigs broke out of their paddock on Saturday. We

think that they had issues with the Two Nanny Goats Fluff. They

were thwarted by thre feed bearing chums returning from the feed

store in a pickup truck. Thankfully the Wolf had a prior

engagement...

Well the pigs now had their freedom and wasted no time

trotting over to the fluffy spoiled goat paddock. They huffed

and puffed and snorted and snouted, but could not break into the

goat paddock. Those spoiled goats get priority treatment on the

feeding lineup, personal attention and cushy quarters in the

barn for rainy days. They deserved to be taken down a peg and

these were the pigs ready to do it, but were better at finding a

way out of pen than in.

If the goat paddock was unassailable they boldly went where

no Guinea hen would go — directly into the dark barn and

investigated how the pampered goat-half lives during inclement

weather. The goat vitamins in the barn aisle were inspected

with slimy snouts all around and with a cursory sampling

rejected.

They danced around the milking stand scattering udder wash

and teat dip derisively. A quick chaw of cardboard on the case

of truck motor oil left a piggy trail to where they tried on the

indoor goat pen for size.

They grimed up the goat water, but felt sleepy and climbed

into the goat hay beds for a little Goldilock-esque nap where

they were later rudely awakened by the reappearance of 3

aforementioned chums arriving in a feed-bearing truck.

By the time the overhead door was flung open and the truck

drove in, the pigs had raced out of the barn. They quickly took

shelter in the chicken hut empty while the chickens enjoyed a

little free-range action.

As the pigs raced around the inside inciting chaos and

upturning the 3-gallon chicken waterer, they slammed the screen

door shut on themselves and were too vertically challenged to

free themselves.

My husband and I with a friend put up the feed into the feed

room that the pigs probably cried outside of for a while before

trashing the goat pen. We then went out to introduce the

precious and ever spoiled goats to the culinary delights of

sunflower seeds — a new addition to their diet.

Brian about had an apoplexy when he saw the dark and

unmistakably piggy shapes of the escapees in the chicken hut.

Apoplexy didn't improve his minimal communication abilities and

I was unable to make out his miming efforts.

 Finally I caught on and was miming and pointing with him.

Eventually we all rushed up to the hut, found our voices and

stupidly kept repeating THE PIGS ARE IN THE CHICKEN HOUSE! Not

said, but very obvious was the question, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

Believe me there is nothing in any of my assortment of pig

raising manuals that cover the siege and takeover of a chicken

house by runaway pigs. The closest information I had was a

personal account in a magazine by a homesteader of dragging a

200 lb pig by the back leg through brambles for about half a

mile. This remembrance filled me with dread more than anything

else.

Since these pigs had been getting rather aggressive during

feeding, I was anxious as to how they might be re-established in

the pig pen without any pig induced mayhem or bloodshed;

especially being on the recipient end of any mayhem or

bloodshed.

At this point there was some interest into driving them into

the stock trailer for a quick trip to the processor. Originally

the pigpen was designated the future buck pen and it happens

that we have a buck arriving in a week. We could use the space…

It was a multi-purpose solution and while touted for the economy

of motion was tabled for the present.

With some trepidation as to the fate of the chicken hut we

left the pigs to find out how they escaped, seeing that we only
wanted to catch them once. It seemed prudent not to drive the

pigs back into a pen they had mastered escaping from. The

escape route quickly had us confounded.

Mysteriously no holes under the fence or evidence of heavy

pigs over the fence were found. I'm just bragging of course,

but the geniac of the netwaves and a particle physicist with a

Ph.D. were scratching their heads while I showed them a loose

board the pigs had pushed out and had snapped back leaving no

obvious trace.

Brian offered to get a rope to lead the pigs back in, but

churlishly I had omitted leash training into the pig raising

program, so I had to admit I wasn't prepared to implement this

cunning plan.

Finally I used the pigs’ obvious intelligence and greed to

their disadvantage. The very coffee can daily bringing their

rations was filled with a noisy corn bribe. Brian being the

daily feed can carrier and fastest runner was voted by 2/3rd

majority into leading the miscreants back home. He may have

felt Voted Most Expendable, but we didn't discuss it at the

time.

Bravely I opened the chicken hut door and jumped back out of

the way. And then nothing happened. Having no experience with

pigs, the Ph.D. leapt into the chicken house to chase the pigs

out.
 Looks like he didn't need any prior experience; because the

pigs ran out, saw Brian and kept running towards home. They

never noticed the clang of the door shutting and locking.

A few deck screws and the escape hatch was closed.

We decided to buy some goat panels for a buck pen thereby

relieving the farm animal housing shortage, so just like the

real fairy tales it had a happy ending as far as the story is

told.

The End.
 Fresh Bread Nouveau Rural Style

Sometimes my life summarizes as if I'm standing in church,

singing a hymn slightly off key with verve only I'm singing Hymn

#143 while the rest of the congregation belts out #144. It's

the second stanza and I'm only just catching on and might as

well finish up as I've started.

Maybe its my lunch that's bringing up such out of step

introspections. My husband made it. Which according to wives

of my acquaintance is odd enough on its own. I am sorry for the

lack of lunch affection in their lives because nothing says you

are loved like a lunch packed by your sweetheart.

But on this occasion it’s the sandwich. The proportions are

so odd I measured them. It's 2 slices of 8"x4" bread. This is

big bread. You need two sets of hands to hold it so that it

doesn't list downward where it isn't supported. Kind of like

the goat shed roof.

The bread machine and I seem to be on harmonious but

contrasting wavelengths. Since no one back at the bread machine

plant anticipated my bread recipe requirements, I'm variating

the ingredients at whim and the jumbo sized loaf is the result.

Last night I dashed home, delayed the milking a bit to get

the bread machine setup. It takes 3 hours minimum and I'm

already sleep deprived as it is. I rushed back to the goats

anticipating hot, fresh bread at 10:45. Yummmm.

 The goats did not appreciate the delay, but I can live with

a bit of goat scorn to be able to dump a fresh loaf on the table

to cool.

I think we might have bread riots if the general populace

knew what bread could really taste like. There's a fair

assortment out there on your grocery shelves, but they are all

close cousins and it is nothing like the variation you can

achieve on your own.

I'm a fair cook. From homemade feta, pork chops right on

through to piecrust. I've actually corned my own corned beef.

But before the bread machine, I think you could have used my

bread for skeet practice except they were too heavy for lobbing

off into the ether.

Now I can make raisin bread with two kinds of raisins. My

rye bread is as dark or as light as the whim of the larder

indicates. Add to that a readily available supply of free-range

eggs, fresh whole goat milk, Nouveau Rural farmer's cheese and

whey, and you have a new dimension of bread. When the Advil has

kicked in and the Dr. Pepper is making up for my lack of sleep,

I feel very fortunate.

So last night at 8:15 I return to the house to discover that

the bread dough rising is actually a swamp of becalmed goo. Goo

doesn't rise, it oozes. Hastily I move to prevent repeating

another loaf that even the chickens avoid and restart the bread
machine with a bit more flour. Twice. I increase the loaf size

setting acknowledging my recent additions. I spend the next 20

minutes unhelpfully poking at it while the kneading cycle beats

it against the wall of the bread machine, but eventually I get

on with my evening.

I've much delayed the bread process and fall unconscious on

the couch during the wait accompanied by a changing assortment

of two of the four dogs we are currently owned by. (No one

makes a four dog-sized couch.) When I awaken my husband is a

bit wild-eyed and keeps repeating, "look at your bread", "look

at your bread".

I guess there must be about 8.5 inches from the bottom of

the bread pan to the top of the window of the bread machine

since we got an 8" tall loaf out of it. The window seems in

danger from the encroaching loaf at this point though.

And looks like my sleep-deprived comment was well-earned as

I snoozed right through the part where my husband stood over the

bread machine and watched it smoke for a good while. He was

about to review his fire safety procedures and douse the loaf

when he figured out I'd slopped flour down onto the element

below while trying to turn bread goo into bread dough. The

flour had burned off by the time I woke up.

But at what seemed only moments before dawn, the bread was

done. It totally obscured the handy handles and I now add hot
metal juggling onto my resume since I managed to extract the

loaf pan without them. It was golden brown with a wonderful

crust and succulent innards without the one big air pocket we

expected.

The only problem is that we really liked it and haven't the

faintest what I did exactly to be able to reproduce it, much

less modify the procedure to get something that will fit in a

sandwich-sized Ziploc.

You can buy up bungee cords and extreme sports vacation

packages in the outback, I think our bread machine is about all

the excitement we can stand.

 This Little Piggy Went To Market…

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed home.

We had bought two feeder pigs from a local show pig breeder.

An ugly ear, one feature not quite up to breed standards and the

pig goes into the cull pen. We had zero prior pig experience.

I got the idea of raising a pig from remembering my Uncle Ralph

show a pig he was raising to my dad. The memory pre-dates

puberty and I’m close to the end of any possible childbearing

years. I didn't actually get close enough to see the pig they

were talking about.

Armed with 20 acres, a pig how-to book and a pre-pubescent

remembrance, I stopped to inquire at a roadside sign advertising

show pigs. I couldn't find anyone who sold feeder pigs and I

figured that if you were breeding something, you had to have

culls and maybe they would be selling.

Well, we were in luck in our impromptu call on a show pig

breeder. Judy, the adult daughter of the family operation, was

everything helpful and took us out for our first look at a real

live pig. I found that it was pretty much as I expected. Well

the pigs anyway.

My husband has a fairly benign detached air to my manic

interest to of animals. He may be ankle deep in horse poop or

toting grain out to a goat, but he doesn't actually connect if

you are watching closely.

We adopted two puppies that he rather absentmindedly petted

and it was his idea to get the 2nd dog. He just enables my

obsessive, compulsive farm animal disorder.

So I am standing there looking down at the cull pen when I

am suddenly shoved to the side. Brian has unceremoniously

dumped me out of his way and is totally entranced by his first

sight of pigs. He is petting them, following them around and as

completely engaged with an animal as I have never seen before.

Oh Great! Brian has connected with an animal and I want to

eat it! I was afraid the deal was off, but Brian was all go.

We made arrangements to come back and pick up two pigs.

When we returned, Judy was out, but her dad was available, a

venerable and interesting gentleman. I wish I could spend more

time and hear his war (WWII of course!) experiences. But he

wasn't up to chasing a pig around and Brian was elected to catch

us up a couple of pigs.

Why Oh why don't I carry around the camcorder? I can't show

you, but likely I will never forget the fun of watching those

pigs give Brian the slip. That was worth the price of the pigs.

And probably it is a good thing not to get the fleetest of pigs

to take home. The slow, not-so-bright pig will do just fine for

me.
 However in the course of the entertainment, knowing zip

about pig anatomy, we managed to get one castrated and one

uncastrated pig. And according to the pig book, you may not

want to butcher after testosterone production is up and running.

Seems it can adversely affect the taste.

Butchering at 5 months would be a mite early. We didn't

want to butcher both of pigs before 200+ pounds, so it was

decided that one pig would go to the processor and the other

would wait until obtaining at least 200 pounds.

Now comes the tricky part. We had to get one of the two

pigs out of the pen and into the trailer.

We developed a plan. Its execution went like clockwork.

Knowing that putting one pig of a pair into an unfamiliar

stock trailer might be iffy, we went in prepared.

The night before we backed up the trailer, dropped the ramp

and opened the door to the back of the trailer. We jury-rigged

two stock panels to narrow off from the gate of the pigpen to

the trailer.

It wasn't a chute as we had a good-sized oak tree growing up

to the side and enough room for a kitchen table between the

trailer ramp and the gate, but it did provide a direction.

Baling wire provided temporary panel attachment to the back of

the trailer.
 Anal to the last I insisted on a dry run. My husband who

seems not to have a first language, vigorously resisted until I

explained that "dry run" did not include the pig. (I must look

really stoopid even to my dearest loved ones.)

We several times mimed luring the pig into the trailer and

latching the trailer door.

Satisfied, we retired for a 30-minute catnap before 4:30am

when we got up, dressed and reconvened. (This took 1.5 minutes

for Brian and two epochs for me.)

With pig treats and auxiliary pig treats strategically

positioned we took our places.

What a no-brainer. Brian opened the gate. Skillfully he

separated the pigs. The black pig remained in the pen. The red

pig made his way into the chute area outside of the gate and

moved towards the trailer and momentarily stalled out.

Brian secured the gate, took up the whey container and

successfully loaded the pig into the trailer.

Piece of cake. Home free. I went to the side to begin

deconstructing our chute. We'd both discussed how embarrassing

it might be to appear on IH 35 dragging two stock panels behind

the trailer.

Brian started out the back of the trailer and the pig

somehow morphed to a two-dimensional being and slid paper-thin

between his leg and the doorframe.

 Triumph diverted. The plan executed just like clockwork

right up to the point of the pig's nonchalant escape.

Brian could not believe he had just let the pig escape.

Brian was extremely upset. What an understatement.

We tried leading the pig back into the trailer, but pigs are

better than mood rings for picking up on the ambiance.

Something was definitely wrong and his cheerfulness at trotting

into the trailer was gone.

Brian might have done himself an injury with his upset at

himself, but he decided to take it out on the pig. If you know

pigs, you will be able to imagine the result of deciding to

manhandle a pig into a trailer. Worse than futile and I think

he really hurt the pig's feelings, but definitely not the pig.

Pigs are smart. And they are able to relate and draw

accurate conclusions. The accurate conclusion he was drawing

off of all this hubbub was that in no way did he want to get

into the trailer. Round and round they went. Around the tree.

Perilously into the flimsy stock panels. Until the pig decided

comfort and safety was back into the pigpen through the shut

gate.

I've never seen metal bend like that. The gateposts, both

of them, are loose like prize fighters teeth and listing

southwards. The pig won free to home base.

 Brian started up again with the pig treats. The pig shunned

food, the gate and mostly Brian.

I tried my motivationally funny story about how I got my leg

stuck in a rope loop once, with my ankle over my head, where the

moral is that sometimes we need to sit back, take stock and

laugh at ourselves before we can win free of sticky situation.

This went over like a lead duck. Brian glinted evilly at me

and re-entered the fruitless fray.

I wasn't just standing there enjoying the 40-degree weather

and reiterating previous prayers for assistance to the ignorant

and unskillful, I was taking notes and realized that were Brian

successful of getting the pig out the sagging gate, most likely

the pig would still turn and bash back through the useless gate

at the first hint of the trailer.

Now it is dark-thirty, I'm cold, fearful of the result of

the adventure, wanting to quit and I need a new gate?

I have an extra 12-foot gate, but it was unusable in the

confined space. I needed about a 4-foot piece of material that

would block a pig charge.

We happened to have a likely sized piece of OSB plywood in

the barn. So Brian made me carry half of it and its really

heavy 4'x8' brother over about two acres of mud back to the

busted pig gate. With moaning and groaning he positioned it on

one end, loaming 8' into the air. This was supposed to be
dropped instantaneously back behind the pig, blocking his path

back to the pigpen and forcing him to choose the trailer.

He declared himself ready to shut the gate on the pig should

we ever be able to lure him out ever again.

This is one of those defining moments where you realize that

you must love your husband. He had let the pig escape, pulled

your arms out of the socket hauling useless lumber and has not a

clue, but still you are going to let him live.

Show me! I challenged. He just looked at me like I'm an

idiot. I kept repeating “Show Me!” until he figured out that he

was to demonstrate how a 200lb monstrosity 8' long functioned as

the gate in tight quarters.

He's crazy not stupid. Slipping back into reality for a

moment he acknowledged his lunacy and we shuffled around to use

the smaller piece of wood that could be pivoted into position.

Now this is the part where I seriously considered if we had

anything smelly enough to anoint our shoes to lead the pig into

the trailer. A friend of mine once told me he had lured pigs

with peanut butter on his shoes as a kid. I was actually

cataloging possible shoe lures.

Nothing came to me.

I knew I wasn't as strong as the pig. And at this point it

seemed obvious that the pig was smarter. What did I have?
 I came upon the idea that I could attempt to be more

appealing than the pig! I could put all that TV cop show

watching to good use. I decided to play Good Farmer-Bad Farmer.

Obviously Brian had established himself as the Bad Farmer.

I took up the pig treats and set about to win over a

reluctant pig.

Brian was very helpful. He was so helpful that I had to ask

him to stop helping. Repeatedly I would make progress in luring

the pig to have Brian make some premature move to send the pig

running.

Bit by bit I lured that pig with many do-overs out the gate

and up onto the ramp of the trailer. Ever mindful of my

appealing, non-threatening role, I was desperate enough to try

to make friends with my future food on its way to the processor.

I owe our eventual successful loading to prayer, the fact

that the black pig decided not to go anywhere near the gate and

the apparent surrender of the red pig.

Seems that when Brian closed the trailer door, the ramp

latch got stuck. Twice he had to open the door to extract the

ramp latch while the pig just looked on, not even tempted to

repeat his previous slither out of the ramp. Probably because he

was really intent on avoiding Brian.

I guess Brian's Bad Farmer really saved the day after all!
 ‘Til Death Do Us Part

I turned to my husband and asked him if he realized that

there was no financial gain in my death.

He looked shocked. But I held my stare. I had my reasons.

I had been driving to work on a 2 lane county road, only

exceeding the limit by 10 MPH on a road that was optimistically

rated at 55 MPH. A greasy spot, a few ruts and a cement truck

pushing the divider line. Nothing new here.

I heard a squeal from my right front wheel and the truck

lurched violently to the right.

I reduced speed, naturally. What happened? Did I run over

an invisible cat? I didn't see anything. The tire didn't seem

to be flat. Nothing detectable at 30 MPH.

Now I didn't have time to be stopping for nothing with

female automotive paranoia. The rooster had taken me on twice

this morning and I was running late. I was pretty sure I left

the leaky hose in the dog paddock on and the unseasonably cold

weather was not helping get me out the door either.

I sped back up to 50 MPH, but then I knew by the rattling

clank that all was not right. I pulled over, jumped out and

called the husband, Brian.

Now he wants to know in Master Mechanic's Speak what is

wrong with my vehicle. I had no idea. The grass was too tall
to see the tires clearly. I told him in Frantic Female, Get

here now! Save me! I'm by the road stranded!

My ocular processing returns to a functioning state and I

call him back. " Uh? Didn't I have a wheel cover on that front

right tire? Well, it is just a greasy pit now.

"And by the way, there's some smoke pouring out by the

tire."

He wanted to know what was causing the smoke, but I was too

smart to get close enough to have any idea. Well, after I

retrieved my purse and sunglasses.

He starts talking about engine fires and exploding vehicles.

TMI. (too much information) I told him I was going to call AAA

towing and he about had a bruised male ego apoplexy. He must

evaluate before any tow truck arrives. Like he is going to fix

this problem with a screwdriver and a set of jumper cables, but

he is the mechanical genius of the marriage and I let the

experts make the decisions.

Well, its 40 something degrees in early April and I'm

shivering by the roadside in the worthless attire that is

acceptable by places that pay you to show up. I'm stepping

carefully to avoid killing the only comfortable shoes I've found

that a skinny footed person with chronically sore feet can wear

with business casual dress.

 One more dash back to the smoking truck produces my

emergency jean jacket stashed just in case. I noticed that the

smoke is fizzling out, so an engine fire is probably not

imminent.

The morning has improved already. I got out my Dairy Goat

Manual so that I can review kid-birthing procedures. I only

have three weeks to become a goat midwife and I feel totally

inadequate. There I am standing in the wildflowers on a frosty

morning reading a technical treatise on pregnant does. I know

better than to sit in or stand near the truck. People drive

like maniacs on a good day. And this obviously wasn't a good

day. And as I watched a few wide-load trucks go by, shivering

by the road side seemed pretty practical.

Well I read enough horrifying details of kid birthing that

whatever was wrong with the truck didn't seem so bad. The book

said that 95% of all goat births were uneventful. On this

morning, I was definitely feeling I was in the 5% unlucky

category.

I called my husband back to let him know that the truck

wasn't smoking anymore and to hurry because I was freezing! I

blamed Brian for taking my gloves out of the truck. That's

perfectly acceptable as long as we both obviously know he didn't

do it. (I don't think I can explain it, but it works for us.)
 He told me he'd figured out that my bearings exploded. I

nodded like he could see me over the cell phone. Made as much

sense as him telling me my bearings had exploded. Why can't he

just fix it, gas it up and point it toward the gate? My

automotive abilities do not extend further than gassing up the

truck and driving it. And it took me 15 minutes to get the gas

cap off the first time I gassed it up.

About that time two helpful individuals showed up and

offered me assistance. I could tell they were nice and safe and

still had I no other aid on the way would I have said anything

different than, "Thank you, but my husband is just 2 miles down

the road."

I saw a special on a serial killer that targeted broke-down

women on the highway. Most informative. I loved the part where

he said sometimes it wasn't much broke until he got through with

it. And sometimes how he would fix them up get them going and

then run them off the road later. If you don't have a cell

phone - get one!

Well my husband shows up. Watches me drive 50 feet down the

grassy shoulder and tells me to go slow back the 8 miles to the

house.

Slow? Define “slow”.

He tells me to keep it under 30 MPH.

 I turn the truck around and manage to stop traffic in 2

directions. I pulled off to let someone go by, but my husband

told me via cell to stop pulling the bad wheel off the road.

I let him know that my brakes seem pretty soft, but he just

repeats the slow directive.

This is so darn much fun! Nerve wracking in the least. I'm

going a top speed of 25 miles and backing traffic up miles.

As soon as you have car trouble, 50 cars decide to go down

some back county road.

I'm not exactly enjoying myself, but am making my way back

home. Then we got to the hill. Downhill my large truck picks

up speed and the curve is at the bottom.

I cowardly test the soft brakes and they go down to the

floor before the slight stopping power is applied to bring the

truck under control.

What's after nervous? Because I passed nervous before the

downhill slide with no brakes and I'm on to a new plane of

fright.

I have NO brakes! Well, nearly no brakes! And I find them

to be required for driving with any sense of sanity.

I have speed dial on the cell phone and still it was not

easy getting Brian back on the phone. He is still focused on

the nearness of our destination. Just go slow he tells me

again.
 We are almost to the turnoff when that right wheel starts

wobbling like crazy. Later I am told that of course it couldn't

have fallen off, but I don't think I believe that now and then I

was completely certain I was about to cave right fender first

into the pavement.

I make the turnoff, with no thanks to the idiot woman

rubbernecking in a Taurus by the way.

I abandoned the vehicle shaking and crying. Brian comes up

to offer me comfort in the form of a big supportive hug. I

punched him in the shoulder. Hard. I am afraid I used bad

language, verbal and non. The only man I would hug at this

point is one driving a tow truck! Now that would be comforting.

He said he was sorry for not having the truck towed back in

and making me drive it. I asked if he would have said that over

my grave had I not been able to make that turn back there.

I don't think any statements of this type phase husbands.

It's like he didn't hear me.

Well all's well that ends well and Brian limped the truck

home, replaced everything gone awry for $150 including the

bearings on the left side, just in case.

Even when Brian named me Master Automotive Apprentice, had

me dress ugly, and covered me in brake fluid while I held up

some heavy doohickey, things went well enough.

 Brian did not get in trouble again until later when he

launched into a long discourse about how stressed HE was over

the whole incident.

HIS stress? Who was driving when the bearings exploded and

nearly jerked the truck off the road? Who was driving when the

brakes went out down a hill? Who stood by the road and wondered

what sort of person was stopping to offer aid?

HIS stress? Arghhh! Men!

Thank you Lord. I, my husband, our bank balance and our

marriage survived the event.

 You Are What You Eat

I've been working in the "real world" for about 18 years.

Those four and a half years that I spent as a checker in a

grocery store, standing on my screaming flat feet, putting

myself through college, were therefore just a dream--a bad

dream. So I've had about two decades total in the work place

and in all that time, I've never had the big corner office.

Sometimes I did find myself in a small office, but mainly I find

myself nose to cube wall. I am exactly 4'2" from the guy

currently yammering on his side of the cube wall. I have

convinced myself he's slightly deaf and that's why he's

continually speaking in a tone more suited to a large auditorium

than the warren of cubes we actually inhabit.

I might not always like my cube wall mate, but never had any

difficulty with the compact nature of the office landscape. I'm

known to joke at some high saturation points that the only way

they can shoehorn any more people in is to convert to bunk-

desks.

This year I'm showing signs of overcrowding. I've actually

made an urgent trip to the hall, where my eyes were gasping for

the sight of real trees. If I'm not completely absorbed with a

project at hand, the air in here feels a bit stale and lifeless.

I'm frustrated at the sight of the cube wall, wanting to crane

my neck to see above and beyond out to a landscape. I’m

wondering whether anything I do in this padded office chair

makes any sense.

I've got an air purifier going for simulated wind now. I've

got the headphones piping in 80s rock which is known to soothe

my savage nature and pictures of all the reasons back home I

have this job are readily at hand. But the restlessness and

unease prevail.

It finally occurred to me that a phrase I snortingly

discounted might be more true than I feel comfortable with.

Could it really be that "You are what you eat." actually holds

some bizarre truth?

I never understood this phrase before. Whether I eat a

greasy hamburger or a bushel of salad greens, so what? I'm not

a hamburger or a salad. Made no sense.

But that was before I tried my hand at growing some of my

own food. That blue egg in my refrigerator that I can trace

back to the chicken named Goldy that laid it, only tastes as

good as the diet of the hen who laid it.

It tastes amazing. If you don't believe me, ask anyone

lucky enough to try one of her earlier efforts. She freely

ranges and I have seen her chase down a bug with abandon. The

June bug population has really taken a hit. She likes goat milk

and whey. She's partial to free choice chicken supplements and

not really into commercial feeds since I've started mixing my

own with extra flax to boost the Omega 3 fatty acids.

That egg is as remarkable as the pork. We raised two pigs

to a good processing weight with only one prior occasion to meet

a pig before we drove away responsible for two. If the chickens

like goat's milk, the pigs are wild for it. Twice a day, every

day they lapped up their milk or whey. The pork turned out as

tender as can be while still being so lean that the processor

remarked on the minor amount of fat.

Our homegrown pork and eggs tastes so much better than what

I can get at the grocery store, that I began to wonder what

caused such a gulf in quality. After all, it is not like I have

degree in anything useful to home food production. I don't have

a helpful neighbor steering me clear of the pitfalls or

experiences from a childhood spent on a farm to guide me.

There's only so much we can blame on beginner's luck here.

I began to learn about commercial food production. What do

the big food producers do that I don't? The answer was

disconcerting. I was providing a whole raft of basic amenities

that food animals almost never experience. Mine received

sunlight, space, fresh air, high quality feed and waste

management that produced compost while severely curtailing fly

production.
 Commercial animals are likely to be tightly confined and

overcrowded. Space is expensive so the allotment per animal is

minimal. Flies and disease are natural results from the

overcrowding which increase chemical and antibiotic

applications.

Conditions are more easily controlled indoors, so the

operation takes place under artificial lighting. The feed is

the cheapest possible and no efforts are made to avoid by-

products from sources with high doses of chemicals like

pesticides.

Feed can overlap with waste management in the commercial

arena. I've just read a very serious article about how you can

process an animal's waste products to create a feed supplement

to be fed back to the same animal population. I'd previously

learned that the FDA approves feeding pigs a percentage of

rabbit manure as long as it as combined with corn. I hear

rumors of similar practices with chickens.

I'm a systems analyst by profession in the information

industry and I don't know I'd agree about calling this waste

recycling a system like the author of the article suggested. I

don't often find a reason to take a single component and force

the outputs to become inputs back to the originating component.

Normally an optimal system has multiple components of unique

properties and the outputs of one flow to become another's

inputs.

What happened to turning the manure of an animal into

compost to enhance the growing of the grain to replace what the

animal ate in the first place? That's what I'd call a system.

But perhaps it is the very process of the production of

commercial foodstuffs that has caused my sense of restlessness

at work.

Up until the last year, 100% of my food intake was

commercially produced. Hogs, raised cheek to jowl with their

neighbor, were processed into my pork chops. Chickens

continually laid my eggs caged so tight that they had never

taken so much as a stroll between their daily efforts. A large

percentage of my food lived out its life under artificial

lights, never seeing the sun.

Could a complete diet of artificially supplemented

foodstuffs be the reason most of the denizens of my cube

wilderness frequently apply the loud, artificially smelling

perfumes and lotions throughout the workday? They smell like

Muzak sounds to me, but I seem to have the minority opinion.

I'll come clean. I honestly am allergic to most perfumed

items you can buy, but twice in the last month I smelled some

insulting-to-nature, chemically-reproduced fragrance that I said

I was allergic to just to hopefully discourage its pungent re-

application. Anyone who has smelled actual wildflowers should

recoil at what is sold under that description in the form of air

fresheners, body lotions and perfumes.

And perhaps I'm beginning to understand. Are me and my

coworkers like the caged hens with no opportunity to experience

a natural scent as we go about earning our daily bred in offices

where windows have been banished by permanently fixed panes of

glass? Would the confinement of the animals we eat lead to our

complacency at our own confinement?

Did the spring scent of hill country wildflowers on my way

to the chicken hut have educated my olfactory palette until I

rebel against the fake perfume trade? Could it be that eating

the pork from a pig raised in the Texas sunshine is behind my

urge for a little rooting space? Is the dissatisfaction from

the lack of a breeze down the office corridors coming from the

wind in the feathers of the chicken that laid my breakfast egg?

I think I'm turning into a free range human.

 In the Garden of Good and Evil

Media frequently presents the concept of good and evil

arguing over an individual in the form of an angelic white

cartoon on one shoulder with its devilish black counterpart on

the other shoulder. This weekend I was of two minds about our

garden and I had a picture in my minds eye of getting useless

advice from Good and Evil as I went about my gardening.

Only in my case Martha Stewart represented Evil. Now

already you've got the wrong idea. I like Martha Stewart. I

hope her show runs longer than Gunsmoke. We tape it every day.

And we watch every show even if it takes 6 months and a lifetime

supply of VCR tapes. The Thanksgiving that she taught me to de-

bone fowl and wrap it in bacon was the apex of my husband's

culinary delight. All the success she's achieved, she's earned.

For these reasons and more I admire Martha Stewart.

However she just fits as the icon of "the devil made me do

it". She's rounded out from eating her own cooking and reminds

me of all the things I like to eat but probably shouldn't. Why

is it that the most enticing things are usually in the forbidden

category?

She always has to be the best at everything and especially

better than the expert on the current segment. I'm waiting for

her to have a thoracic surgeon on a segment and show a kidney

transplant. I can just hear the doctor telling Martha that she

transplants organs like she's been doing it forever.

Only Martha Stewart can suggest a do-it-yourself craft

project that winds up running into the hundreds without creating

the slightest criticism. If it is pretentiously French, she's

on it. I can't wait until my local grocery store gets crème

fraîche in stock so I can see what it is that sour cream isn't.

Martha Stewart always uses crème fraîche and never sour cream.

La Dee Dah Martha! (Ok, so I’ve ordered crème fraîche starter

for my little cheese-making hobby just because she never stops

talking about it. But that’s another story.)

She also likes to bring her poor staff in front of the

camera and show how they don't cook, clean or iron up to her

standards. It's a wonder that she entrusts them to create her

show when they are guilty of ring around the collar.

So I'm afraid Martha Stewart is my image of the little

devil. No pitchfork, just wielding the often mentioned "bone

folder" of her many craft projects for less than a thousand

dollars.

Now when it comes the angel side, I see a much-wizened

little crone of a woman. A million wrinkles proudly displayed

that were earned through her long life of intelligent frugality.

This venerable figure can stretch a penny until it screams for

mercy. She knows how to make a feast for twenty out of

leftovers and $2.39 cents of groceries and she can do it by 6PM.

The Colonel wants her fried chicken recipe. She can get

anything from grape juice to atomic waste out of clothes from

common household ingredients. Her thumb is so green she can

stick tent stakes into the ground and be picking fruit off of

them in the next season. She remembers what it was like way

back when and can tell a story about it that makes you snap off

the TV. She can crotchet, quilt and make your wedding dress.

My husband once told me that I was more frugal than his Scottish

grandmother and I'm afraid I still beam with pleasure from that

one compliment. There's more than a little Scotch Granny in

this icon of Good.

So Martha Stewart and my Scotch Granny were helping with our

new raised bed garden. Martha was appalled. She said it was an

eyesore and would permanently deflate the resale value of my

home and all those in a one-mile area. I tried to point out the

limited view that real estate appraisers might have of the

garden behind the barn, but she wasn’t listening.

Granny on the other hand, was pleased as punch. With much

approval she noted that other than 10 T-posts, some small pots

for starting plants and the seed packets, all materials were

recycled from other projects.

Starting with the dirt itself. I have two hay recycling

machines. One end takes the hay in. The other side spits out
compost material ready for the aging process. You guessed it—

horses. I have to pour hay down the first end in any event. By

patient aging of the processed hay, I eventually have dirt.

I had never composted before last year. I got advice from

everyone and several books and none of it agreed. Some where

between 6 weeks and 18 months are required to turn horse manure

into rich dirt. The only thing I could be sure of was to avoid

too many wood shavings as wood can leach the nitrogen out. Our

first application of homegrown dirt was the cold frame

experiment last winter. We grew some lettuce and I was

surprised when it didn’t taste just like what it was made out

of. Of course I had my husband, Brian, taste test it first for

safety--mine.

Now this homegrown dirt needed a container and that caused

much consternation. While Martha would have had a team of

engineers from Architectural Digest design a raised bed out of

rare and costly wood, I was more concerned with the cash outlay

than the looks.

My first thought was to put the caliche dirt from where they

dug the septic tank into empty feedbags and create a container

for the soil. My aching back anticipating the chore kept

insisting that we put off the dire task until it was imperative

that I get my root bound plant starts into a garden of some sort

or else.
 Faced with the actual fact of dragging 50lb sized bags of

caliche about, Brian became inspired and located 3 rusty roofing

panels scavenged and stored by the previous owner. Of course he

had to take the loppers to the brushy mess that entangled it,

but the goats were only too happy to take over the recycling of

that by-product.

Using baling wire, the 2.5’x8’ rusty roof panels were

fastened to the t-posts. Even the prior nail holes were put to

use. The end panels came from cutting the third panel into two

pieces.

There was some gappage as the rusty panels proposed to break

rather than bend to create a continuous surface. So the

previously abandoned feedbags were pressed into gap stopping

service. I used the plain bags for a bottom liner and the ones

with a plastic insert for the gaping ends. I doubt I will be

showing this construct to my grandchildren, but I have high

hopes that it will last out the current growing season. And I

empty another bag about every other day so I feel like I can

throw caution and empty feedbags to the wind.

I had used feedbags to cover the somewhat rusty and jagged

top edges of the raised bed but the wind flapping them back and

forth and the imaginary voice of Martha shrieking about eyesores

caused me to remove those bags.

 About five trips and the front loader of the tractor had

transferred the dirt from the compost piles into the garden bed.

It seems we need to do a bit more rock management of the compost

pile. Brian thought he saw a rock in the front loader and asked

me to move it. He was wrong. It was a boulder and it was

barely moveable by the two of us. We had every size of rock

hiding in the dirt. I pitched as many as I could find out onto

what will invariably be the site of the next garden plot. The

chickens were a big help in recycling the bumper crop of grub

worms I kept finding in the dirt.

The greedy looks of both goats and chickens prompted us to

enclose the garden bed. Back Brian went into the bushes

returning with enough used fencing to encircle the project and a

hideously ugly chain link gate. The gate will put some biceps

on me for sure, but I do like the price. Baling wire married

the fencing to the t-posts and even made the gate latch. Baling

wire is a beautiful thing.

I got busy and transplanted all my seed starts. Here the

picky goats pitched in. All that hay that they love to throw on

the ground and never look at again, became my deep mulch

complete with time-release fertilizer also referred to as goat

poop. Goat poop is attractively packaged in sturdy little no-

smell pellets. Mentally an image of that episode that Martha

showed how she imports Salt Grass Hay because of its natural
lack of weed seeds kept popping up while I was mulching. Martha

kept murmuring Salt Grass Hay in my ear the whole time. I’m

pretty sure Martha wasn’t in to the goat poop either.

I’m a bit concerned about the plentiful insect life teeming

in that dirt. Both Granny and Martha were ominously silent on

that point. I may be feeding the bugs more so than Brian, but I

haven’t had enough experience to know any better or feel too bad

when I try something that fails miserably.

I didn’t fail miserably with my seed starts, but I came

close on the tomato front. You may be the ace of tomato starts,

but I think bottle-feeding an orphaned animal is probably easier

than growing tomatoes from seed. After all I actually know

people who’ve bottle fed an animal. I can’t find a soul who has

started a tomato plant from seed. I know they are out there but

everyone I personally know says it is way too much trouble.

I blame my stubborn, frugal nature for my insistence on

starting my own tomato plants. It is no use claiming ignorance

regardless of its relevance. First I think saving seeds is the

admirable course. But it is no use saving seeds unless you can

germinate them, right? Martha Stewart had a wonderful segment

on saving tomato seeds and I watched that episode twice. It

only now occurs to me that no one mentioned starting tomatoes

from seed, just the saving of the seeds.

 Second, if you are going to save seeds, a hybrid is not

going to reproduce true and the plants down at the garden center

are all the same old hybrids everyone plants for salad tomatoes.

At age 7 when forced to eat a tomato slice I gagged, nearly

creating quite the table incident and have never let one pass my

lips raw since. I like tomato sauce, but make sure that you

puree them good. So hybrid salad tomatoes are out. I might

raise some salad tomatoes for Brian, but if I’m doing it, it

must be non-hybrid and be accompanied by a few sauce tomatoes.

Third and probably most telling, I’m just too cheap to call

up the specialty garden shop and order a bunch of heirloom

tomato plants. I bought a packet of seeds for what each plant

would have cost me and I’m still freaking out for paying ten

cents a seed. Sure gives me renewed incentive for saving seed

for next year.

My horses are working on next years compost as we speak and

if those two cryptic sentences describing how to save seed on

the back of the seed packet make any sense to the ultimate

newbie, next year we won’t be buying anything at all. So Granny

won this round. A rusty collection of sagging recycled parts

has been combined to make a functional yet ugly as sin garden.

But to give the devil its due, Martha was quite the inspiration.
 Fine Print on Rural Recreation

Before you sell the townhouse for less than you owe and move

out to the sticks so that you can out-brag me about farm fresh

eggs and eat your own homegrown bacon, there's a little fine

print I should share with you. You have to surrender your free

choice to the farm and willingly live in bondage to the whims of

weather and livestock. If an unseen hand or spouse is not

driving you with irresistible force to do it, don't. Stop.

This is no lifestyle for the normal. Offering free-range eggs

is the role organic grocery stores are meant to play.

To underline my point, I just heard that movie tickets are

no longer $6.75. They've gone up to $7.75! To illustrate the

depths of my disbelief, I looked it up online to verify. I

thought it must be an exaggeration, but no it was true. Though

honestly when I can't remember what movie I last saw in the

theater, I don't know why I didn't anticipate a rate hike.

Though my frugal nature balks at every expenditure more than two

dollars, mainly we haven’t seen a movie because we don’t have

time. On weekdays you are rushing home to do chores. And on

weekends you are running the errands you postponed through the

week. You only have the time between morning and evening

feeding. So even if the price, the crowds, the lack of plot,

the high probability for content not appreciated by hard-shell

Baptists, don’t put you off, a movie is hard to fit in.

 I was just saying how I couldn't believe my husband wanted

to spend nearly $7 just to see the latest Matrix movie when I

was brought up to date on movie prices of today. And I still

can't fathom the appeal of Matrix. I know it has special

effects on a scale that I have to change gender to appreciate,

but it is way too true to be funny. It scares me actually.

When technology catches up to fiction, we are going to be in

trouble. There are masses of people who would willingly hook

themselves up to live out their lives in a sitcom if they had

the starring role.

There is a small center of our brain that handles enjoyment

and all of us to one extent or another are oriented to making

that sucker fire off. Raising farm animals just happens to trip

my switch.

My husband can appreciate the homesteading venture but still

is normal enough to long for more conventional recreation. (I

love him anyway.) He has some puzzling need to venture outside

of the perimeter fence with a non-productive, passive objective.

In other words, hang out and have fun. I struggle to embrace

this concept.

My husband after several years convinced me that I might be

a little Type-A. Growing up in my family I had the mistaken

impression that I was rather mellow and laid back. Well, both

statements are true. Compared to my family, I'm on the mellow

side. Compared to the rest of the world, I might be a little

driven. Given that my family is a tiny percentage of the world,

it might be fair of me to admit that my husband had the more

accurate statement.

He contends that I can't do "nothing" or just passively

exist. I argued hotly, but he remains un-budged. I almost got

him with TV watching, but he countered that if I am also eating

dinner, washing clothes, teaching the pups to sit and reading a

book while the TV is going, it didn't count.

I offered that napping during the day was passive, but he

was probably right when he said resting was productive and that

I should be tired with the schedule I run.

I thought I had him with visiting with friends and

relatives. But he pointed out that I invariably get antsy with

the leisurely pace and I either start doing stand up comedy,

pump someone for information I might someday find useful, or

worse yet start educating someone about a subject that they

already assumed they were experts in. I don't mean to do it.

They just start in with an erroneous observation and by the time

that I've calmly explained to them about the actual facts, it is

too late to extricate myself. My invite to the last family

birthday party did go astray but they swore it was an oversight

when I heard about it and showed up anyway.

 When Brian refused to accept that sitting around reading a

novel was "doing nothing" I threw in the towel. Okay, if you

even exclude reading, then I don't know how to "do nothing".

Not knowing how to "do nothing" has put a crimp in most of

Brian's recreational plans. I have a plaintive question of

"what would we do?" after most of his suggestions. The

perennial answer from him is always "we aren't supposed to do

anything, just have fun".

I can't see how he didn't think that pulling most of the

muscles in his body to build the first chicken house wasn't fun.

That was a great accomplishment. I enjoy it every day. That’s

fun to me.

He tried to explain to me that he didn't want to accomplish

anything while having fun, but I didn't really understand. I

always feel a bit depressed if I get to the end of something and

feel I haven't accomplished anything. He was disgusted when I

brightened after our pointless conversation about "fun" and

"doing nothing" because I learned from this exchange how much

our value systems affected our ability to communicate.

Unfortunately it seems that I couldn't even "do nothing" while I

argue with my husband. But I can attest that neither did I have

"fun".

If a movie is a bit of a scheduling issue with farm animals,

I can guarantee that a vacation is beyond reach. Besides my

fear of financial drain from hotels and restaurant meals, there

is no one to leave the animals with. Assume that the goats are

all pregnant and none are being milked. I’ve rarely found a

friend that can feed and water my dogs, much less my dogs,

horses, chickens, goats and pigs. The people that can do this

have a similar collection of beasties and no time to drive over

and see to mine. This could be why Brian is suddenly open to

the idea of kids. He doesn’t realize they are more stubborn

than any pig and probably thinks that eventually he might get

some chores out of them. I’m thinking that the kid might resent

being left behind while we dash off on a “fun” vacation. I’d

just be leaving all my best stuff at the mercy of a slighted and

frustrated individual. And isn’t leaving your kid home alone

some kind of child abuse? We are probably better off without

kids.

Once I almost convinced Brian that our normal life was a

vacation. I asked him to define “vacation” since he was harping

on about one. He basically defined it as an opportunity to get

out of the normal grind, do something different and have some

excitement. Frankly, nothing we do is normal. We are learning

and doing different things on a weekly basis and we never know

what will happen next. I could do with less excitement.

 He therefore stipulated that “vacation” implied “travel”.

Well, what does he thinks those road trips to the feed store in

Lampasas are if not “travel”?

And if the lack of conventional recreation is not reason

enough to avoid the Nouveau Rural life, consider the location of

your future abode. Most subdivision frown on chickens, much

less pigs. Many places will welcome a horse or two, but close

ranks on pigs and chickens. So prepare to commute. You will

commute to work, commute to groceries and most importantly

commute to Chinese food. There seems to be a law about the

minimum distance between the most lightweight farming concern

and the nearest edible Chinese food without the word “Buffet” in

the name.

I never considered myself as a candidate for road rage

before, but there is something about factoring the length of the

drive in with the amount of aggravation your fellow drivers

cause that exponentially increases your susceptibility to road

rage. The major route of my commute is an interstate that

previously I didn’t even wish to be a passenger on. I have been

known to plead with my husband to take a longer alternate route

or bury myself in the ever-present reading material to try to

ignore the road conditions. Some pretty scary drivers out

there. Now I spend the majority of my commute on that same

road. And I’ve changed. Those drivers don’t scare me anymore,

they just make me mad. I’m no longer just a candidate for road

rage, I’m a carrier.

And no matter how long you commute, if you whine about it

out loud, you will instantly find three people who commute twice

what you do. There’s just no comfort in a good whine anymore.

When you aren’t locked in the life and death struggle of the

commute to home or doing chores, you are working. A lucky few

manage to create a homestead without one or both spouses working

outside, but it is the exception. Mainly because you have to

have a really good job to be able to live like a peasant.

One of the big costs is infrastructure. Every

classification of animal needs a fenced area and some sort of

housing even in the warmest of climates. The cost of feed pans

alone can stagger you.

I read all the time where this couple in Rural USA found an

abandoned lighthouse, truck topper or roadside fruit stand and

converted it for nothing into livestock housing. They proudly

share that other than sweat equity and $3.47 of hinges and nails

that they used 100% of freely obtained recycled materials. Now

how do they do that? I am so busy feeding, commuting or working

that I don’t have time to scout around for good junk free for

the hauling. I am as jealous as hell. I am so jealous that

Brian has promised to take me to the dump at our earliest

opportunity. I can’t wait.

 Now supposing that you made it through the morning chores,

work and the round trip commute back home, now all you have to

do is feed everybody including the people, water the garden,

find all the eggs, milk if it is in season and make sure you

have enough clean, dry clothes to get both of you back out to

start all over again the next day. You are holding your breath

that all the gates, hoses, pumps, electricity are in order, no

one has bitten or kicked anyone else and reasonably good health

is shared by all.

The minute you take one step toward the feed, just cover

your ears. The dogs are now barking furiously. All the goats

start bleating piteously like they are very weak yet loudly

enough to reverberate through the barn walls to your inner ear.

The horses are neighing because you looked at the goats first.

The chickens see the bringer of eats and rush to surround you,

thereby impeding forward momentum, in the hopes that you will

whip out the magic feed can. The pigs are banging against their

gate. This is the same gate you patched with baling wire after

they broke it down a while back.

This will only abate during the time that they are actually

chewing and sometimes not even then.

And there is only one reason for living like this—you

wouldn’t have it any other way.

 Don’t Call Me Frugal

I'm stepping down from the Frugal throne. I now realize

that I'm in denial and that any accolades of frugality are only

partially deserved.

I've recently researched the famous frugal and their

lifestyles and have found a host of inherently frugal concepts

that I have not embraced. Honesty therefore prevents me from

furthering the misconception that I am frugal.

I must admit that my soap stays in its wrapper until the

moment it makes its debut in the shower. I have only recently

managed to get my husband not to abandon the remains of the

previous bar to a desiccated and lonely abandonment on the rim

of the tub. He now will join up the old and the new so that

every bit of soap is utilized. He demands that the soap bar be

as wide has his hand if he is going to use it, so the fusion of

the old and new bars is actually worthwhile.

But regardless of our soap saving measures, using a fresh

bar of soap is a frugal no-no. Every frugal one who is anyone

routinely lets their soap air dry into a latherless rock for at

least 30 days before letting it touch water.

I have also nearly reached my fortieth year without washing

out a reclosable plastic storage bag for reuse. Even though I

have been told that the jar of kitchen utensils is just born to
hold the bag turned inside out while it dries, my counter top

goes unadorned.

We have a mortgage. Okay, we have two mortgages. All the

most revered frugal homesteaders are living debt free on their

five acres where they grow all their own food organically.

We could probably have afforded five acres in a county where

land was a bargain. So I fell in love with 20 acres where land

was selling at a premium. The land is worth loads unless you

want a loan. Then according to the bank's appraisers you are

the only ones who didn't purchase your acreage for a hog and

truckload of cabbages. Or at least that is the going rate three

counties over where your property "comparables" were found.

No one with an extreme mortgage for their twenty acres can

be considered frugal. And I can't exactly say that I have

twenty acres in organic vegetables and hay. No. I do have a

rather stunning collection of ancient Texas oaks, but unless I

start eating acorns, this is not a land tract you'd buy to be

self-sufficient. Other than oaks, it's rocks and cactus and

more rocks and more cactus. Overall it is gorgeous hill

country, but not a frugal choice.

And we are just so butt-lazy that we haven't put the old

suburban house on the market. It has a bunch of junk in it that

we don't want to throw out and we don't want to bring with us.

So there my second mortgage sits without any real purpose and

only by millimeters is the poor thing getting packed up. We

just hated that house and can barely stand to go back. No real

crime. Neighbors only moderately aggravating. But the intense

lower-middle class suburban scene was too much for us.

We also make too much money to be frugal. I don't know how.

My husband Brian is wearing jeans to work that purchase before

Clinton was a presidential pervert, we recreate only rarely and

I've taken my lunch the last 3 million times. All this belt-

tightening has produced no monetary surplus I can find. I was

laid off half of last year and we still made too much money to

be frugal. We paid more in taxes for the year than my husband’s

total salary before taxes eight years ago. I've done my

research and frugal folks are proud of how far they make limited

funds stretch. They'd just call us tightwads or maybe more

accurately over-mortgaged.

In fact, careful cost analysis shows that some of the

homesteading activities I've undertaken are actually more

expensive than their frugal counterparts.

I am raising chickens for their eggs. We let them free-

range to improve quality and taste. And what eggs! It doesn't

get any fresher. The yolks are nearly orange. They taste

divine. And with the addition of flax to the chicken's diet, we

increase the Omega III fatty acids.

 But I paid $2.50 for about 20 chickens of which I have about

fourteen who made it the six months before they start to lay.

That's $50 invested without talking about food, housing and

equipment. For $50 I can buy a dozen eggs a week for a year.

It's just the two of us; so a dozen eggs a week should be

plenty. So I don't think my egg operation is frugal.

Let's talk milk. You may not know this, but the truly

frugal use powdered milk extensively. They certainly don't

acquire milk goats. Becoming your own dairy is not only labor

intensive, it requires a significant investment. (If you are

interested in home dairying, skip this part because it is better

you don't know the following until you commit yourself.) While

the books all swear that pasteurization is the one true way,

everyone you will meet who knows anything about goats will laugh

themselves silly if you tell them you pasteurize. I thought

carefully about this question, and while the book has omitted

many things, never has it taken shortcuts that shrink the safety

margin for people and animals alike as so many well-meaning

advisors have done. I decided that while most well-meaning

advisors have spent their childhood on a farm building up

immunities to the various organisms, I was hyper-hygienically

maintained in the city and I pasteurize. I pasteurize,

therefore I'm a consumer of expensive stainless steel containers

and sterilizing equipment. We will just skip the vet, housing,

food and breeding costs required to be in the home dairying

business the following year. Not frugal when you count up the

minimal cost of powdered milk.

Frugal people buy all their clothes except underwear from

garage sales. I'm not a huge clothing consumer, but I have

normally struck out at resale shops. More honestly is to admit

while you wouldn't necessarily notice it upon first glance; I'm

odd-sized to the point that I'm really tickled if I go to the

mall and can find something that fits. The idea of trying to

find some secondhand venue that sells apparel items to fit me is

entirely remote. My husband is no better off. Barring the

nudist option, we don’t meet minimum frugal guidelines on

clothing purchases.

After years of contentedly claiming the title of frugality,

I must now relinquish it. Frugal people are of average sizes so

that resale clothing fits appropriately. They certainly don’t

fall in love with a land tract so that they reckless endanger

their financial future with extreme mortgage bondage. And worst

of all, they are definitely not ruled by their taste buds.

Powdered milk? Blech!

 What Did You Do This Weekend?

Someone just asked me what I did over the weekend and they

managed to escape before I finished my recital. Maybe it was

something they ate, or it was an urgent call of nature, but they

rather hurriedly excused themselves before I managed to finish.

My husband, Brian, had the first noteworthy weekend incident

on Friday. Nouveau Rural pursuits are just a sideline to him.

His real passion is applied computer technology with keen focus

on the network server end of things. He gets paid for this, so

things work out. Lately the company he works for has been

working on increasing their client list. One potential client

has really been compulsive on the network security of Brian's

company. Beyond the planned meetings to discuss security, he

wanted to tour the facilities where the actual machines are co-

located by a third party. But first he ran his own personal

security test against their site. The potential client called

up raving to Brian's boss' boss, to tell him that never had a

company scored so high at 95%. He cancelled the meetings and

site tour as unnecessary.

Brian is more compulsive about network security than this

guy could even imagine and probably had to be physically

restrained to keep from questioning him about the parameters of

the test and especially the "alleged" 5% Brian's network

security missed in the test. Brian's boss' boss is one of three

people now living that doesn't appreciate Brian and probably had

several stiff drinks before having to relate the happy news to

Brian.

Brian and I met back at the figurative ranch that afternoon

to welcome the equine dentist. This is the only equine dentist

we had found in the Austin area in years of inquiries and he

came highly recommended by our horse vet we really like. Our

little horse Pico PoQuito had been found to really need some

serious dental attention in his biannual checkup, so the expert

had been called out.

My boss had remarked once that when he died he wanted to

come back as one on my animals, after hearing about all their

escapades, but I think that was before I asked off to meet the

equine dentist.

I am a terrible patient and probably a worse mother of

patient and it was all I could do to see Pico PoQuito through

his ordeal. This vet estimated him at twenty-five years of age,

not the twenty we guessed. So anesthetizing an elderly animal

is always tense. Quito comes from Mexico where they worked him

hard as a ranch horse and based on his initial behavior treated

him badly. This horse is extremely shy around both people and

horses in the beginning. And he is defiantly distrustful of

anything medicinal. I can fly spray him until he's toxic, but a

little antiseptic spray on a scratch is taboo to Quito. He's

the smartest thing on the place and he knows the difference

between comfort and medicine. Medicine is out.

We had to drug him to get him into the stocks where the vet

works on his teeth. He wasn't a good patient, but it got done.

I found it really nerve wracking. The grinding noise, the poor

horse has its jaw wired open and the horse is just as

uncomfortable as anyone in the dentist’s chair.

The vet found missing teeth and teeth so sharp that he was

stabbing himself with every bite. You have to periodically

grind the points off of horse's teeth or they have great

difficulty eating. Quito was very much overdue. It was normal

for Quito to be very groggy, but it still concerned me as I led

him finally out of the stocks back to his stall in the run-in

shed.

With no concern at all, I collected up Dancer for a check

up. He loaded into the stocks with no issue. He's a sweet guy

that way. Even though vets had seen him periodically, the

equine dentist still showed me the many sharp edges on his teeth

and he proceeded to start to work.

I had warned the vet that Dancer is really sensitive to

medication, maybe an annoying three or four times, so he started

with a minimum dose to take the edge off. Dancer was snoring

away with his mouth open, but still managing to fight the doctor

tooth and nail. The vet upped his dose to the standard and
Dancer collapsed in the stocks. Fortunately these stocks allow

the sides to swing away or there would have been little hope to

extricate a 1500 pound horse tangled in rigid stocks and out

cold.

With the sides swung out, Dancer was out on his side. He

was breathing, but it seemed intermittently. The doctor was

alternating between using his stethoscope, pounding on what I

assume was Dancer's heart with a closed fist and calling for

another shot of reversal drugs.

I was praying loudly, yelling at Dancer to wake up in the

hopes he could hear me and postponing my meltdown. I could just

feel Dancer slipping away.

With gratitude for prayer and reversal drugs, Dancer

regained consciousness. He was an unsteady character for a

while, but woke up to eat a late dinner.

We had to swap him to the easier to chew senior as between

the pain of the procedure that was only half completed, he was

like the road with signs proclaiming Uneven Lanes. Hay chewing

was all but impossible and I am glad they put a bunch of fiber

in senior horse food. You can literally survive by gumming it.

I happened to have some dehydrated shreds of alfalfa that I

started giving him as well.

Watching Dancer lay flat out while the vet worked

frantically to pull him back from the anesthesia was extremely

stressful. The vet was quick to untie him, but not before I

flashed back to my first horse that colic’d and fell in a

trailer just as we were about to transport him for surgery.

That vet had left him with his head tied up and struggled to

free him. Dancer was quickly released because this vet was

prepared for emergencies. But it will be a long time before I

shake the image of Dancer's head resting on the ground not

knowing if he would live or die. He's been with me eight years

and is dearer than kin, my partner in many an adventure and an

all around sweet guy.

The next day I resolved to take it easy. After morning

chores, I kept it light. I made sun tea, homemade bread ala

bread machine and did a little long overdue laundry. I made

drastic in roads on a paperback from a favorite author. Nora

Roberts is a wonderful author, but not always my cup of tea.

But when she dons her alter ego of J.D. Robb, I am enthralled.

I cannot resist her series of romantic murder mysteries in a

futuristic setting with a kickass cop heroine.

Brian went out to buy some spark plugs and returned with a

glossy catalog of all the latest Subaru models, complete with

complimentary business card from a hell of a swell guy, I'm

sure.

How did a parts run for chump change turn into car shopping

in the big bucks range? When he left he had outlined the total
$500 budget for the overhaul of our old Subaru. One loan of

this car and the loanee had totaled the front in with an

accident with a tall curb two miles out of our driveway. It has

limped valiantly on ever since but the limping is progressing

until we aren't sure of its reliability. We just allocated some

money for its refit. So how come we are talking replacement?

And how can Brian just spring "new car" to me like that?

Has he no respect for our penny-pinching ways? Has my daily

chanting of Debt Is BAD affected him not at all? Has he seen

our bank balance? Reviewed the sluggish economy? Brian is

quite capable of justifying a huge expenditure by recollecting

that he took his lunch a few days last week. He does bear

watching.

Ok. Maybe looking at the option of a new car with the

current low finance rates isn't bad in itself, but it’s a shock

to my skinflint system nonetheless.

We moved up the chores that night as we had a $100 gift

certificate to the most touted steak place in town. Brian had

moved heaven and earth to get the network servers moved to the

new office site, including deft handling a flood in the server

room, and it did my heart good to see that his boss appreciated

it.

Of course, if you really knew us, you'd never make us drive

downtown, about an hour away, to eat at a restaurant that opens

at 5:30. You can't do chores before it opens and you wind up

getting back fairly late for farmers. Then there is what no one

knows. We think the restaurants in these parts are pretty fair

to middling. I can cook and mostly I'm surprised at what

professional chefs routinely serve up for immodest prices.

But we were tickled that Brian was recognized for hard work.

Brian, off to the chores, opened up the door from the bedroom

into the barn and then jumped back in, slammed the door and

yelled, “SNAKE! I nearly stepped on a snake!”

I asked him, “What kind?” I'm thinking poisonous or non.

He yells back, “Multi-colored”, which leaves me as clueless

as I was before I even knew we had a snake out there.

Now I know that Texas is chock full of snakes. And I know

that moving to acreage is a sure way to encounter them. What I

don't know is how to stop freaking out at the mere mention of

snakes. Neither one of us has any suave snake handling

techniques. So far it is yelling, running, and looking stupid

at each other.

Brian ran out the other door and yelled to me not to open

the door. I pulled on baggy shorts that are hard to keep up and

some flip-flops and run out the door after him.

While Brian is pointing out he told me that NOT to open the

door, the snake has slid under the welder. I am reasonably sure

that this is a non-poisonous snake based on my quick flip

through the Poisonous Snakes of Texas' color plates in the

library three months back.

While Brian stands guard with the hoe picked for its long

handle and legendary snake killing properties, I retreat to put

on actual pants and shoes. I return and go to the tool rack to

arm myself. I bypass the scythe with its sharp edge, as its

handle is quite short. Brian has the optimal dull hoe, so I

pick the rusty shovel. (Alas, it seems that all Martha Stewart

has done to educate me about proper tool storage and

maintenance, which oddly included alcohol wipes, has fallen on

deaf ears.)

Now we are pretty softhearted even in the arena of snakes.

Had this snake been sidling along in the woods, we would have

agreed to run in opposite directions and parted company. But it

is on our doorstep, in the barn, where I like to hang and all

the best hens like to lay eggs.

Speaking of hens, while we are fruitlessly trying to come up

with a win-win for us and the snake, here comes every hen we own

to participate in this odd looking activity. One hen passes two

inches from the snake and there is no reaction or recognition on

the part of either hen or snake.

I realized that if you hadn't seen the snake go under the

welding unit, you wouldn't know it was there. I eerily began to

wonder how often I had passed unaware just two inches from a
snake in the barn. Uncharacteristically I began to get a yen to

clean the haphazardly organized barn.

When a tentative poke with the shovel had the snake landing

a strike on it, I about jumped out of my skin. The decision was

made. I had no interest in cohabitating under the same roof as

an enraged reptile.

With some rather inept poking and prodding interrupted by

having to shoo hens in the opposite direction, we finally got

the snake to leave the welding unit and Brian started gumming it

to death with the dull hoe. He was apologizing all the while he

was mashing it with the dullest hoe in existence. We weren't

sure it was dead or not, so I hit it with the side of the shovel

and nearly severed it in two. That was dead enough for us.

Still twitching Brian threw it into the woods.

With our appetites permanently stunted by the image of snake

gore, we turned to getting ready for a fancy dinner downtown. I

don't understand why anyone would pay $100 for two dinners. It

was loud and crowded. I told the server that only telepathy

allowed me to determine from her yelling virtually in my ear

what the special was and she assumed I was kidding. The smoke

from the bar was invading into a fair part of the restaurant,

but I seemed the only one who didn't want to smoke Lucky Strikes

second hand.
 To be fair, the cut of meat was excellent. The service was

very good. The preparation was adequate to poor. Some items

had obviously sat too long under the heat lamps. Our meat had

been over rushed. That is the only explanation why a medium

cooked filet mignon should arrive charred on the outside and

rare in the middle. They did manage not to let a wine sauce

over power the mushrooms. The baked potato was perfection if

small. And doing the math I can tell you that they charge $1.50

each for large shrimp in their cocktail appetizer. Fortunately

at that rate they didn't bring us but six.

But pay no mind to my observations; I must be delusional

because there were people with reservations lined up and

fighting to get in. They were anticipating delights going in

and smiling going out.

We arrived home about midnight and Brian's work is calling

to say that the company website is down and that the problem is

with the Internet service provider. Well, thank you for

sharing! Like Brian can affect what the ISP does especially

after midnight. He's good, but long distance mind control over

the drone that administers the service level agreement on

corporate Internet service is not within him. And please feel

free to call us anytime, like you already do, from 10PM until

6AM. We live to serve. I admit to some irritation at the

frequency of their calls always with such interesting timing.

This morning Brian wondered aloud why they hadn’t called and his

cell phone went off. If they didn’t call so much, that might

even be noteworthy.

On Sunday we were even lazier than Saturday. I gave up on

laundry totally. Brian may or may not have had to buy underwear

before going in to work. I’m not sure. I did manage to put

together an organic pest spray to combat fire ants and roly-poly

bugs that have taken over my raised bed. The bugs have this

newbie on the ropes so I’m desperately turning to organic home

remedies. Everyone raves about diatomaceous earth, but I see no

difference regardless of the amount I apply. I’m wondering if

everyone who has recommended it is confused with Sevin dust. I

could squash these pests in a moment with poisons, but I can buy

poison-enriched produce much cheaper in the grocery store, so

why go there?

Based on my Internet research I have soaked ivory soap in

tap water to get an environmentally friendly soap base. I added

vegetable oil and hot sauce. I shook vigorously and liberally

sprayed the raised bed denizens. And not a moment too soon.

Ants are everywhere and some of my beans look pretty wilted

where the ants are congregating.

The wonderful slash and burn techniques of Mexican farming

seem to have gotten out of control again this year. There is so

much smoke from the burning it has blown up our way. Why it is
the worst air pollution quaintly described as “haze” in five

whole years according to the news. We are trying to stay

indoors as the fine print in the news reports suggest. I just

wonder what the effects on my two pregnant goats will be. The

news is pretty cool about telling people to stick indoors, but

what do they think all the animals we depend on for food and

recreation are doing? I decided that as close as those does are

to me, they are not joining us on the couch. I made them up

some snacks and gave them free run of the place and let them

choose to hang out behind Brian’s Miata.

Monday morning I discovered that my organic pest spray is a

fond favorite of fire ants. Any place I sprayed it was attended

by fire ants including places they had previously neglected. In

fact, the spray bottle itself was covered in fire ants. They

LOVE the stuff. I’m working on a sour grapes attitude as a

fallback position after all the intensively grueling work I’ve

put into a garden for the sole benefit of fire ants. Further

research suggests that some ants like soap and oil. I just gave

a fire ant party in my garden. I am really getting the organic

hang of things now, I guess.

We covered a lot of territory this weekend, but then

weekends are usually fun-filled around our place. Today someone

was about to ask me my plans for next weekend, when the guy who

asked me about last weekend grabbed them by the arm and hustled
them off rather abruptly. He looked a little wild-eyed and

fearful when I took a deep breath before my reply. If I didn’t

know any better I’d think he was warning them off, but surely I

am mistaken.
 Neighbors

We've been out in our place long enough to get a sense of

our neighbors. My favorite I've only seen a few times. He

doesn't look very happy to see us arriving in the neighborhood.

He's only ever been seen glancing nonchalantly over his shoulder

at us and then sauntering away without another thought of the

people behind him.

It's a reddish brown fox and until I moved here, I hadn't

really seen one, especially that close. He isn't the least

intimidated by us, but does seem to prefer his privacy. He

lives in the trees and bushes surrounding the horse paddock.

Rarely does he venture out, but when he does we know we are just

riff-raff to him.

Once he ventured down the hill into the open. He took a

long measuring gaze at the chicken coop and returned back to his

woods. I decided that my previous idea of putting another

chicken coop up on the hill was probably a bad idea. So far as

I can tell, he hasn't attempted to breach the chicken coop.

Though maybe he is why the Guineas who scorn roosting in the

coop and prefer trees instead, now select trees in the dog

paddock. Several have fallen to dogs as they forget the pups

presence and make a fatal touch down in the trees. But it is

true that in the dog paddock, it is very unlikely that any

critter will climb a tree and pester them.

 Yesterday I found a serious scattering of Guinea tail

feathers. Before we dragged out of bed and let the chickens

out, something was chasing a Guinea right outside the dog

paddock. It wasn't our dogs outside of their fence, but it

could have been that neighborhood fox.

I met a new neighbor last night feeding our Nubian Buck. I

think my eyes registered this new guy as a quick blur of fur

last week, but this time, this tiny brown bunny was almost

companionable in his motionless stance. About five inches from

nose to tail; he spent his time warily watching my every move.

He was hard to pick out ten feet away. He blended seamlessly

into brown leaves and grass dried out from our rainless state.

His nose twitched as he watched me feed Walt, the buck. I

imagine that Walt's sloppy grain-eating habits will not be

unappreciated by the tiny bunny later that night. I looked for

him again this morning but micro-bunny was nowhere to be found.

About six months ago we saw our first snake right outside

the barn. Since the barn ramps and floor is about one million

tons of caliche and gravel, snakes are bound to feel right at

home. I saw a snake snooping around the leftover gravel pile

and when we used a scoopful with the tractor for a little

emergency water diversion project, we found some rubbery snake

eggs. Right at home indeed.

 I did some research on Texas snakes and found out our first

snake sighting was a rat snake. I was glad to know it wasn't in

the poisonous category, but snakes of any sort terrify me, so it

was a minor relief.

In our first meeting with the snake, we managed to convince

it to move along with copious amounts of water down its newly

chosen abode of a rock crevice in the ramp into the barn. It

was disgusted with our hospitality and moved on.

This weekend when Brian nearly stepped on a snake walking

out of the bedroom into the barn, we finally had to dispatch the

poor snake. Our nerves just couldn't handle snakes twining

their way around our barn shoes on a daily basis. Two days

later we wound up killing two more snakes in the barn. Two

snakes meant two more near heart attacks apiece. Snakes in the

woods I'll live with. Snakes posing as barn-squatters are

getting more than just a cold shoulder. It's a one-way trip

into the barn if Brian can hear me scream SNAKE!

I haven't seen any snakes in the last days and it bugs me to

think that maybe they've just increased their stealth in hiding.

And that the minute I relax, they will slither out and hand me

another panic attack.

The miniature horses that are on the adjacent property are

fantastic neighbors. There is a herd with two stud horses. Not

only are they ornamental, you can learn all about the facts of
life from conception to birth just hanging out in our goat

paddock.

There is a red hawk that everyone on our access road shares

in common. He stands as a sentinel along the road, solemnly

keeping watch. Occasionally he swoops down over the miniature

horses, revealing the red on his tail. He's been a good

neighbor so far in leaving my chickens alone.

Speaking of the access road, your drive in towards our

property on a trail that a goat would find rough will be

lightened by the escort of honor guards. Pairs of swallowtails

will welcome you and pace your progress down the access road of

torture. They will flit along beside you and impatiently note

your slow progress from the power lines beside the road. I

usually unbuckle my seatbelt, forget about the traffic I fought

to get to this point and enjoy the show.

The access road is a bone of contention. One nice old widow

woman owns it. They originally had 100 acres, but split it into

several tracts thereby necessitating the access road, which

twenty years ago must have been an engineering marvel. Now it

is an Outward Bound challenge and a kidney shocker.

The nice widow woman is most likely unable to afford a refit

of the road. The small businesswoman working out of her house

on our right side obviously considers the access road as her

mission. The tortuous road does not enhance her business, and
she is always trying to get us to kick in for its repair. She

hasn't had much luck as I bet that the widow woman has more

discretionary income than we do.

I haven't figured out what is reasonable as our obligation

to the access road even if we had funds to spare. Legally we

have a right to use the road, but not wording to entitle the

nice widow woman (much less the small businesswoman) to expect

us to participate in financing repairs.

Obviously I look completely stupid, as the businesswoman has

tried several little conniving tricks. First she asked if I

needed a list of the neighborhood rules. I said no because

there were no such deed restrictions. We made sure of deed

restrictions before we made an offer on the property. I imagine

if I had said yes, she would have enjoyed inventing them just

prior to dropping them off. The laser printer ink would still

have been warm.

Next she called me at work and tried to pressure me into

committing $300 a month for several years into her hands as

executor of the plan to pave the access road. It turned out

later that the widow woman had never heard of this plan. In her

rosy world, the widow woman was sure I was mistaken, but it is

hard to be confused about someone with all the charm of a high-

pressure car salesman meets lone shark collection agent trying

to force a minimum of $7200 out of you. When I changed jobs, I

forgot to update our businesswoman neighbor with my new contact

information.

There was the time before we moved that she came uninvited

on to our property and stopped our contractor from working to

lecture him about how she wanted that access road fixed. When

we first moved out, she welcomed me the first chance she had by

pulling up behind me in the drive as I opened the gate. She was

angrily demanding to know what purpose our metal building was

going to serve. I had a silent pause as anger and manners

warred within so I didn't have to answer that question, as she

immediately fired another round and demanded to know if I was

building a riding arena. I finally said one word. No. And

climbed back into the car.

As I drove off through my opened gate I heard her muttering

that she had a right to know what I was building, because I

could be building anything!

I don't happen to agree with her. It tickles me to imagine

how much her "need to know" is thwarted by the trees. She can

see a building, some fences and a few goats, but it is darned

hard to get much of a gist of our purpose from the access road.

If I want to smelt ore next to her, as long as the county

doesn't care, she has to mutter uselessly from her side of the

fence.
 The businesswoman has lately determined how much of our

trashcan we use on average per week and decided she should

prevent the rest from going to waste. Last week we dared to

accumulate an un-average amount of trash. Our neighbor had hit

our can first, so we came up a bit short. Since we knew the

culprit, Brian called the widow woman to ask if someone new in

the area had made a mistake with our trashcan. The widow woman

is completely blind to the manipulations of our common neighbor

and is thick as thieves with her. Maybe she likes authoritarian

friends? We figured the word would get to the businesswoman

without our having to deal with anyone but the pleasant widow.

Months later we received an outraged letter. It seems when

Brian had to take one of her trash bags out of our can to get

one of ours to fit. Since it is ok to have a few overflow bags

beside the can, Brian thought nothing of it. Obviously

something had torn into her trash bag later before pick up

because when we came home the road was covered with trash not

ours. When I called to inquire about the letter she wanted to

know why we had thrown her trash around just because she had

used our trash can.

Now of course we had good reason from prior exposure to

assume she was using our trash can, but we never expected to

have confirmation out of her own lips. I was shocked that she

would do it without asking and shocked that she would admit it.
 I assured her we did not maliciously strew her trash around

and I think she believed me. And when I explained that since

Brian likes to put trash out right before the pickup time that

it didn’t work for us to “share” trashcan space with her, I do

think she has kept her trash to herself, for which we are much

obliged.

We have some new neighbors behind us that have a golf cart

they ride around in. I know that they must be goat enthusiasts

since I have seen them staring a hole through me as I walk the

does back to their paddock and feed them. I know I shouldn’t

gripe about providing a little entertainment to the commonplace

lives of my neighbors, but I’m not too comfortable with

unmitigated staring. Fortunately several acres come between our

properties so that unless he is using binoculars he probably

can't read the slogan on my t-shirt or know that I don't wear

much makeup to feed goats. I was amazed when he popped down

from the golf cart for a second. I honestly thought that anyone

riding around in a golf cart ten yards from the house must be

disabled.

I think that the neighbors may be getting together to have a

word about me soon. Since I came home from that Renaissance

festival I've been playing with that bamboo flute I bought for

Brian. Well, at least the four notes I can reach without

compromising the future flexibility of a finger joint. No, I

don't have any previous flute experience and I'm not considered

musically inclined. But the goats seem to like it.

I'm pretty sure if I diligently pursue learning to play the

flute while I enjoy the great outdoors that the neighbors will

forget the access road and take up a collection to pay for my

music lessons.
 Wheelbarrows I Have Known

The wheelbarrow is a staple for the exterior household as

much as flour has its place inside in the kitchen. Landscaping,

gardening, animal keeping and cactus killing are all chores

enhanced by the participation of the wheelbarrow.

I've learned that wheelbarrows were invented about the 1st

Century B.C. in China. They didn't show up in Europe for at

least 1200 more years. I have a reference resource telling me

that the English word 'wheelbarrow' dates back to the 14th

Century A.D.

Being of European extraction, I can picture having this

really useful mechanical convenience around for about 300 years

before getting around to naming it. It must be genetic because

when we are working my husband, Brian, and I seem to lose all

linguistic skill and in the past month we've probably asked for

the "you-know" and the "thingy" much more often than actually

articulating the name "wheelbarrow" when expressing an urgent

need for one.

It was the wheelbarrow to the rescue last night. My doe

Libby had just kidded and I'm certain that I was unable to

competently express three syllable words, much less an awkward

mouthful like "wheelbarrow". Her bucklings had just discovered

the joys of Libby's built-in buffet, which is one of the

triggers to the doe to expel the afterbirth.

 While Brian is making the most disgusting gagging noises, I

was making quick with the fork and wheelbarrow to remove the

afterbirth. Should I be so unreserved to procreate with my

husband, natural childbirth assisted by the doting daddy is out!

I can just see myself straining away in this most awesome

process of the birth of his child while he has a gag fest. I

don't think so.

My mother had her last and best child, me, in the 1960s at

the advanced age of 38. Advanced for those days, anyway. She

was pretty mystified by the new ideas of natural childbirth and

having the daddy underfoot during delivery. In her opinion,

based on my dad, it was too stressful for men’s tender psyche to

participate in the birthing process. Her advice was to have the

good drugs and get your lipstick back on straight before they

let the husband in to see you and the new darling baby. Since I

most likely married one worse than dear old dad, and I'm not

known for my high pain tolerance, Mama probably knew best.

If I hadn't have been so quick with the wheelbarrow, Brian

probably would have hurled and then fainted as new goat mamas

instinctively eat the afterbirth so that predators are not lured

closer by its somewhat bloody presence. It won't hurt the goat

to eat it, but it doesn't help the goat either, so I buried it

under some old hay in the compost pile.

 Now imagine what my choices for lugging about odd substances

from rocks, dirt or manure to the occasional afterbirth would be

sans wheelbarrow. In the case of afterbirth or fresh manure I

guess I would have been dragging a use-once and toss handmade

basket in the best case. I haven't made a basket, but it sounds

labor-invested for malodorous substance removal. So I'm

appreciating the more durable, reusable and dumpable aspects of

the wheelbarrow.

My first wheelbarrow had been green long before I was born.

Only the faintest evidence remained by the time I got around to

noticing the wheelbarrow. Mostly it was rusty. We trundled

everything but household goods around our one-acre suburban

oasis when I was a kid. You name it. Mainly it handled

gardening objects. My dad didn't just garden, he could

terraform according to his whim. His brothers and sisters, all

nine of them, were even better. They reportedly could stick the

handles of posthole diggers in dry soil and be picking fruit off

of them by the next summer. My mother was a known pot plant

killer. I came out somewhere on the mediocre side of gardening

and I guess it could have been worse.

Talented or not, my dad didn't buy any quick fixes or

gimmicks. He probably considered that one rusty wheelbarrow a

plushy convenience. He gardened the old-fashioned, broken-down

in the back, hoe and spading fork way.

 Well we did buy one other wheelbarrow. But I can't remember

it being used that much. First the color was all-wrong. It was

the oddest color of tan I can ever remember anything purposely

painted. And second it didn't have any handles. So maybe it

didn't even count. After enumerable years, my dad made the

extreme purchase for his one-acre yard of a riding lawn mower.

Previously we just PUSHED along the mower. I do mean pushed.

Self-propelled described the mower operator and not the mower

itself.

I remember going along to make a final selection on the

riding lawn mower. Daddy had already picked one out, but when

we got to the store, Mama vetoed it because she said that the

arrangement of the headlights and the front grill made a face

that she didn't like. She just had a feeling about it and of

course Daddy wouldn't buy it after that.

Now the weird thing is that we didn't even imagine that

anything might be odd about this line of logic. That’s pretty

much or normal approach to business in those days.

So we wound up with a completely different riding lawn mower

with an acceptable face. Daddy in an uncharacteristic splurge

added on what seemed to me a wheelbarrow that you could tow.

About the only thing I can remember using it for was having

joy rides. My dad would tow the grandkids around and as I was

still a pre-teen at this time, I wasn't too cool to take a turn

either. Obviously this is way before the all terrain vehicle

craze went mainstream.

I do regret that I didn't get that wheelbarrow after my dad

died. Probably it wasn't available for the taking. My dad's

second wife of seven years was bequeathed the contents of the

house and she left some mighty slim pickings after she removed

anything remotely considered valuable for parts unknown. I

don't remember seeing it in the general disarray. Likely it

didn't survive. The ugly tan wheelbarrow with the tow-hitch was

there, but I passed. I did pick up a broken down wheelbarrow

once used for concrete and abandoned by the contractors after

they built the house.

I still have this wheelbarrow. It claims once to have been

blue. At the time of acquisition I lived in a garden home and

had no activities nor required skills to make this wheelbarrow

remotely useful. I therefore took it home and moved it four

times over 12 years before my husband replaced the wheel and

sanded the handles to less than lethal friction caused by years

upon years of exposure. The baling wire applied by some distant

and now unknown contractor that functioned in place of one

missing bolts was still in excellent condition, so Brian left it

alone. That was the instrument in use last night at the goat

birthing.
 That's not the only wheelbarrow we own. We have one from

when Brian's dad did some kind of minor construction at Brian’s

house. It's my favorite. It is lightweight. It's just big

enough for two horses' worth of manure and has minor claims to

once having been painted red. We keep that one up on the hill

with the horses.

My second favorite wheelbarrow is actually still green.

It's the smallest muck cart I have ever seen. It was abandoned

when I moved into a rent house in Memphis where they once had

horses. The preppy doctor didn't want it and the lopsided wheel

didn't roll that badly, so it became mine. Brian rewired the

wheel with yet another application of baling wire and I use it

for small jobs like a quick pick of the goat pen in the barn.

(If you are thinking that my world revolves around excrement

of some sort or another you aren't too far wrong.)

My favorite remembrance of the wheelbarrow was one hot,

tired day my mom, dad and I were all out taking a recreational

walk. Why we didn't do normal things like go to movies or hang

out at the mall, I don't know. I blame my parents for the

strange way I turned out. So instead of doing something

popular, we are out walking and talking until my mom just gave

out. She looked just ready to sink to the ground and declared

that she couldn't go another step.

 My dad loved my mother like no man ever loved a woman during

his lifetime. And when my dad saw my mom in such a sorry state

he knew just what to do. He told her to wait right there and

he'd be back in just a minute. He was going to dash home and

come back for her.

My mom brightened up considerable when she heard that. She

figured that the air conditioning in the car would have gotten

the front seat quite comfortable by his return.

Then he went on and told her that he'd get home quick and

trundle that wheelbarrow back for her and tote her home in no

time. Just to sit tight.

Why that wonderful old wheelbarrow was an inspiration!

Since my dad was as serious as a heart attack, my mom suddenly

found new reserves of strength more than adequate to make the

trip home. I imagine that she found the idea of herself being

jounced silly in that worn-out, old wheelbarrow an uncomfortable

way to die of embarrassment.

Lately with some of the new projects we've taken on I've

been thinking of getting a new wheelbarrow, maybe one with two

big tires to roll over our rocky terrain. But I hate to break

tradition and actually buy one at the store. It just seems kind

of wrong. So if you have some kind of eyesore, mostly rusty,

broken-down wheelbarrow generally fitting that description and

you need it to go to a good home where it can become fondly

appreciated for the next twenty years or so, you know who to

call.
 You Are What Your Chicken Eats

When I was a kid my brother declared, "There is no blue

food!" and proceeded to insist on making the mashed potatoes

blue with blue food coloring, so he could eat "blue food".

I think he avoided the blueberry issue by insisting that

they were purple and not blue.

Nowadays blue potatoes and blue corn are hot organic items

and I haven't checked with him as to whether he really considers

them "purple food". I'm going to have to do research on Bleu

Cheese as well.

I had a similar epiphany in the feed room not long ago. I

opened some recommended horse feed and found it to be gray

pellets. It reminded me of the conventionally sanctioned chick

starter crumbles that also come in gray.

There may be blue food. The debate continues, but I don't

think there is gray food, naturally occurring and fresh from

nature.

I am just really curious how you take feeds of tan, yellow

and green and arrange to have gray foodstuffs extrude on the

other end of the process. But maybe I'm making a wild

assumption that oats, corn and alfalfa and their ilk make their

way into the feed.

This year is our first year to raise chicks from our own

stock. Last year we bought the parents days old and dutifully
raised them to maturity on mysteriously gray crumbles. When the

hens reached maturity I lock stepped with everyone else up to

the feed store and bought layer ration.

Now you might think that anything mass-produced on enormous

scale like layer ration would be priced like, well, chicken

feed. You would be wrong. The price was considerable enough

for me to drag out my very good chicken book by Gail Damerow and

carefully read her section on making your own chicken ration. I

used my goat book from J.D. Belanger to figure out how to arrive

at protein content of home-concocted feeds. And I figured that

the protein percentage on the commercial feed was a good target.

Now that I had the proportions of feed, I found it wasn’t

necessarily straightforward to find anything but processed feed

at the local feed store. The local feed store figured anyone

buying horse chow was an up and coming dot.com yuppie and

charged accordingly.

We finally found good prices and good people to match in a

Lampasas feed store who regularly accommodates hardworking

farmers without techie jobs as well as us hobby farmers. This

feed store not only carried the big brand feeds but also carried

the soybean meal and barley and most of the other whole feeds I

needed. It was only later we realized how obviously “Nouveau

Rural” we appeared driving up for feed in our Subaru wagon and

reading off of our feed list from a yellow legal pad. It seemed
so normal to me at the time. Eventually the legal pad was

replaced with a torn piece of feedbag with Brian’s eligible

scribble on the plain brown side comprising our feed order.

They still talk about that legal pad though. It made quite the

impression.

I couldn't follow exactly the feed recipes in the book due

to availability issues for some feed suggestions. But it did

show me how feeds fell into nutrition groups. And I bought some

security in the form of a good overall chicken vitamin/mineral

supplement.

I tentatively proffered the home brew chicken feed to my

charges. My original intent was to cut costs by feeding half

high-priced feed and half home-mixed feed. Well, the chickens

threw out that plan. They would no longer eat the old layer

ration.

I couldn't believe it. The scientifically researched

formula with the checkerboard squares must be better than

anything one lone city-girl with a chicken book could concoct!

I checked the ingredients on the label and was unable to

recognize the contents from that description. It was all by-

products and the vegetarian version of mystery meat. I figured

that chickens must know chicken food better than the sellers of

by-products and abandoned commercial layer rations.

 I eventually came up with a formula containing the coolest

chicken food ingredients such as sunflower seeds, ground flax,

the more mundane counterparts and high powered vitamins with

recognizable grains for less money than the conventional

pelleted layer ration.

Now if I can save money on such a small scale with high

quality ingredients, I wonder what is the markup on that

processed garbage they are selling to nearly every chicken owner

in the United States?

When I take up fine stichery and make my first sampler for

the drawing room wall, its motto will read, "You are what your

chicken eats."

Feeling this strongly about chicken nutrition I was

concerned about our upcoming chick hatch. I did not want to

feed our chicks the antibiotics that come in every bag of chick

starter. I'd rather lose a few chicks than feed medicine to

healthy chicks. We are warned against building up resistance to

medicine for people. It seems logical to avoid this in chickens

too.

But deep in my illogical heart lurks the feeling that big,

corporate feed conglomerates know much better than I what to

feed little vulnerable chicks. They have experience, money,

research and are validated by sales everyday. And all the feed

companies sell basically the same thing. All I have to refute

common practice is some intuition and a much thumbed chicken

book. If you're not impressed with my credentials, I admit

neither am I.

My husband agreed not to hold me in contempt if I killed or

maimed any of our chicks. So with much trepidation and frequent

reference to the book, whomped up a batch of chick starter,

complete with appropriate sized chick grit.

At the two week mark, every chick that made it through hatch

is wildly healthy and growing while you watch. Seeing the

chicks careen around the brooder coop, we wonder if it is the

food or hybrid vigor that is making them so much more vibrant

and active than their store-bought parents.

Besides saving tons of money compared to buying medicated

starter, the chick poop smell is radically diminished. When we

realized how much more amenable the brooder coop smelled this

year than last, it dawned on us the real cost of antibiotics in

chick feed.

Last time I had antibiotics I remembered a draggy quality

for those 10 days, and the yogurt eaten in digestive self-

defence. Makes me regret that last year I fed chick starter the

full 5 months as directed on the package.

Well, at least I know now, what the chickens always knew:

There is no gray food!

 Subaru To The Rescue!

The worst part of trying something new in animal husbandry

is that the animal in question always gets the short end of the

deal regardless of how much you yourself suffer.

As I can't think of another way to go from completely

ignorant to competently knowledgeable than by wading in with the

best support to be found, and I seem to have acquired OCFAD

(obsessive, compulsive farm animal disorder), I have had

occasion to regret the price my animals paid for my ignorance.

My first horse died valiantly fighting colic. If you want

to empathize, you can imagine that heartburn and stomach upset

was potentially fatal to humans. I was not guilty of neglect,

but if I owned that horse today, it would have had an even shot

at survival. First I would have identified that this horse had

a prior history of colic and known the onset symptoms and

arranged for the best preventive care. I would have picked a

different vet. And I would have had ready access to a horse

trailer for a quick trip to the surgery facilities.

The best I can do now is apply what I learned to the benefit

of the horses I own now. I learn as much as I can. I am always

trying to figure out how to ask the question I don't know I need

to ask.
 So today I have a horse trailer and a good vet. And a good

backup vet. Colic prevention measures like water and a daily

wormer program are in force.

When I decided to breed my goats, I got the best support I

could find. My goat book explained the rarity of problem birth

presentations.

I talked to my dog vet and he agreed to be my emergency goat

vet. At the time he laughed at the prospect of having to assist

as goats have very low incidence of problem births. Both of my

does had prior easy deliveries. I reminded him that if it was a

rare or odd, I'd be the one to experience it. I've always said,

that I don't have to exaggerate; the facts of my life are wild

all on their own.

There was another vet that had seen my goats, but as he was

semi-retired, I considered him "Plan B".

Well, of course my favorite doe had a breech delivery that

was not detected until late Friday night. There's about a 1%

chance of this occurrence. My emergency plans failed when none

of my vets were available.

I had three goat books that described what to do if you are

alone and your goat is in trouble. But all they said for breech

births was, "Call the vet." Great advice, but I already knew

that.
 It is a terrible feeling to be kneeling in the bloody hay

with your doe in trouble and be unable to help her. I have

great faith in prayer. I believe that is what turned the tide

for us, but until the prayer has been answered, the troubled

feeling does not leave you.

Some of that prayer was answered as "Plan B" vet had the odd

practice of leaving an unassociated vet's contact numbers on his

answering machine when he was vacationing. This vet who had not

agreed to back up old Dr. Plan B, actually called me back when I

tried his number. He was heading out toward another call and

couldn't help me, but he did tell me enough to figure out that

my goat, Meg, was in a breech delivery and that a bloody

discharge was not ok. He referred me to yet another vet, who

was out of action due to a bad car wreck, but whose partner

called me. On these thinnest of threads our salvation was

delivered.

I will always be grateful for his call. He tried to talk me

through a breech delivery but try as I might I could not do it.

Every time I cleaned up, greased up and ventured an arm inside

to turn the kid, Meg would contract against my effort. I could

feel that kid was in a breech presentation, but not exactly what

body part I was encountering.

 It was not until later that we would learn that the force of

the delivery had folded the kids back end and the confusing

bumps I felt were actually the ribs.

Fortunately the vet told us to transport the doe to the

clinic, 30 miles to the west. But now we were not sure how to

transport an ailing 175-pound goat.

Having learned from the trials of my first horse how

important transportation could be, I did have a custom stock

trailer big enough for my rather oversized horse, but I feared

that Meg would be quite stressed being transported in such a

large space. The back of the truck was out of the question

since it was just as roomy, but without protective sides.

Then I spotted our brand new Outback Limited Subaru. Our

previous Subaru had finally given the up the ghost. Through no

fault of its own, the '95 Impreza had faced early retirement

(just 8 years old) after a rather ill conceived loan to an

uninsured house guest three years before. A high curb taken at

high speeds knocked it out of true even after both wheels on

that side where replaced and the front end repaired. It

coughed, smoked, choked but admirably continued in a weakened

condition for so long that it earned my respect. As I am a

staunch supporter of driving large pickup trucks, this is high

praise from me.

 Our honeymoon was spent in Hidden Valley in Arkansas. It is

a wonderfully remote place. No phones. No cell phones. Just

beautiful valley views. They told me all about it when I booked

the room, except for the austerely rocky and nearly impassible

road. No problem. The Subaru with ABS plainly kicking in, was

equal to the task. Subaru to the rescue.

Over the years since the honeymoon, we had moved out to a

rural area where the access road was perilous on dry days.

Having no control over its repair, the Subaru was a comfort as

it can and will get through. Subaru to the rescue.

When we got the first rain at our new place in the country,

we found that our gate is swamped with the run off of all of our

neighbors rain and topsoil. When we got 7 inches in 3 hours on

July 3rd after a week of rain and our small pet goat kid, Noah,

had a life threatening case of bloat, it was the Subaru to the

rescue as we headed out, goat in a cardboard box in my arms,

just in time to make the vet before he closed. Subaru to the

rescue.

So when the occasion came to replace our "family" car, we

wanted another Subaru. My one complaint about the old '95

Impreza was the hard ride on the seats and how the shifter kept

hitting the passenger's (MY!) knee.

When the dealer had me sink into the roomy, suck-your-thumb,

leather seats, I was sold. Thinking of the miserable road

conditions we picked the heftiest Outback with a limited slip

differential. Brian, less swayed by comfortable seats, was

adamant on the dual skylights and we rolled out of the dealer’s

with the swankiest Subaru Outback on the lot.

So now I am staring at our bloody goat and all I can think

of is how nice the hatch part of the Outback would be for our

175-pound ailing goat to ride in compared to the hard, not cozy,

bouncy ride of the stock trailer. My husband is familiar with

that look in my eye and didn't say much when I donated his

purple, bachelor-days bedspread to the cause of transporting

poor Meg. My only dread was getting this heavy goat up into the

back of the Outback.

With super-human and super-caprine effort, Meg, Brian and I

heaved and pushed beyond our previous abilities to get her

safely stowed. I shut the hatch and yelled for my husband to

DRIVE before I was hardly in my seat.

I had no idea what to expect as Meg stood bravely in the

back of the hatch area of the Outback. For all I knew she would

soon be in the back seat making her way to the front. I watched

with trepidation as we jounced our way over the ruts in the

so-called access road out to the relative luxury of a county

road. After a few miles Meg nestled down and made no complaint.

At this point, I told my husband to just relax and get us

safely through the night filled with drunken teenagers on

graduation night. I knew that everything was going to be all

right. I was resigned that Meg's kids were beyond saving, but I

had peace that this vet could save Meg.

And this vet was wonderful. Besides being a wonderful

person, he was a great vet. He scrubbed up, lubricated the

biggest hands ever seen and started probing within Meg to

identify the problem. When the vet gave a puzzled, "Huh?" at

one point, I no longer felt so inadequate for not being able to

handle a breech birth at my first goat delivery. If the expert

has a slight pause on a case, the complete ignorant can be

excused for total inadequacy.

Meg gave a terrible scream, and then her stillborn kids were

delivered. It took no time and before you knew it, the vet

easily lifted Meg and returned her back through the hatch to the

waiting Outback. (Yes, the goat herself had to help when it was

just Brian and me.)

I left my credit card number and my heartfelt gratitude with

the vet. Meg rode in comfort after her ordeal back home. We

drove up into the barn and in her comfy state Meg declined

several invitations to depart the Outback. I was afraid she'd

be convalescing there for some time before I was able to lure

her out with grain. She IS a greedy goat after all.

Meg is fully recovered. I am much better prepared to deal

with a difficult delivery should it ever happen again. And the

Outback survived the incident in pristine condition with just a

little wipe up. You'd never know my bloody goat rode back there

if I would stop mentioning it.

Subaru to the Rescue!

 What Doesn’t Kill You Probably Makes You Limp For Life

It concerns me lately that I've taken some trendy actions

and may actually be on the forefront of trendy in some areas.

This scares me as I usually find trendy senseless and avoid it.

I fear that trendy has not gotten more sensible. I've probably

gotten less. I blame my husband, which needs no explanation.

Just lately we bought a station wagon. They don't call them

a station wagon anymore, that's not a trendy designation, but

that's what they are. I've seen the station wagon twice in my

life come and go out of fashion and I'm betting that we are

right on the leading edge of its return. This disturbs me

because what is HOT quickly becomes NOT in the trendy world.

I'd really rather stay totally off the trendy radar. Especially

in vehicles. We tend to adopt them and keep them in the family

until they retire like people at 65.

Most of my friends have an ailment, syndrome, condition or

even old-fashioned disease they are "managing". This has gotten

so prevalent with the folks I know that I figure it counts as

trendy. And in keeping with my new trendy tendencies I now have

one too.

I'm newly diagnosed as insulin resistant. I'm also insulin

ignorant because that didn't make any sense whatever and I could

spell all the words before I heard them put together just that

way. It seems that I'm not receptive to insulin and therefore

carbohydrates are hard for me to process. Uselessly at the

presence of carbs my body therefore produces yet more insulin I

can't handle.

Now all of you who noticed my ever thickening middle, the

chronic cold I kept and my never-ending complaints of fatigue

that thought I was just a master whiner were only half right.

Actually all of the above are effects of insulin resistance.

And in the spirit of blame shifting, the whole issue is

genetics. I can blame my parents for my system's inability to

deal with my carb-loading diet.

And just when I thought living the Nouveau Rural life was

going to kill me, I find out it may have been key to keeping

chugging along this last year.

After all no matter what ails you, a milk goat with a full

udder will only sympathetically listen to you whine about being

tired if you are doing it while you are filling a milk pail and

then fetching hay and water afterwards. Otherwise you get to

listen to her rather insistent list of complaints. No one out-

complains a goat. A fellow whiner has to respect masters of the

trade.

Exercise is one of the two best things to combat insulin

resistance. My doctor insists you can't get enough. But she's

never experienced Libby, the psycho-goat from hell. After

chasing her around in the morning because she randomly decides

you are the devil and not even grain reduces your stink of evil

to acceptable goat levels, you can get enough exercise getting

her into her paddock.

And when you work that hard to produce milk, cheese, eggs

and pork, you tend to eat milk, cheese, eggs and pork. We've

noticed that the grocery list has shrunk to items that

complement milk, cheese, eggs and pork. Like Dr. Pepper and

bottled water. Well a low carb diet is the first, best thing

you can do for insulin resistance. After the doctor lowered the

boom on my carbs I raced home and held my breath as I verified

that milk, cheese, eggs and pork are all low carb. Phew!

So the last month as my husband and I have rushed home from

work and dashed around in an exhausted haze trying to get hay,

water, grain, fencing and housing minimally applied to all of

our animal dependents, I haven't actually been killing myself.

I actually have been keeping my system from curling up and

turning brown with all the exercise and low carb fresh food

choices.

That sounds really positive, but just between you and me.

I'm tired. I think I have a cold. And I want to bawl at the

world like an offended goat.

Ok. They may be able to "manage" the insulin resistance,

but a propensity for whining still has no cure.

 A Qualified Success

At the risk of stating the incredibly obvious, I have to say

I have more experience with corporate America than agricultural

America. Therefore when undertaking a transition to become

Nouveau Rural, I approached it like a project manager by

selecting objectives, calculating required resources and

scheduling dependent milestones.

I have an overall, long-term objective to become as

independent from the grocery store as I can manage. Being

raised by depression era parents who remembered the rationing of

World War II (or just The War in our house) made me realize that

even in the plentiful United States food supplies shouldn't be

taken for granted. Reading Gone With the Wind didn't help. I

really got into the story line where an affluent society's food

supply was suddenly and unpredictably reduced to meager levels.

I don't really see widespread hunger as an immediate threat

today, but probably Scarlett O'Hara would have said the same

thing in her time.

Food quality is an important issue to me as well. The more

I discover about commercial agricultural practices, the more I

drive myself to learn to do what I can. I'm getting less

popular at parties as a consequence. Immersed as I am in animal

husbandry, I am having difficulty with small talk.

Conversational gambits with strangers and slight acquaintances

that encompass the commercial habits of incorporating rabbit

manure into hog feed have met horrified stares over their paper

plates of baby back ribs.

Even when I manage to gently introduce the subject far

removed from the dinner table, I find that people don't want to

think about the sanitary conditions or the diet of the animals

they eat. Few want to recognize the fact they eat animals,

actually. I am observing disbelief that any USDA approved

practice could be reducing the value of our food supply and a

resignation based on the belief that they have no options.

I'm not into doom and gloom or conspiracy theories, but

common sense tells me that lobbyists are affecting the laws and

that lobbyists are completely comfortable with balancing the

scales in favor of profit over safety. Raising the bar on our

national food supply isn't on my agenda. I'm just trying to

improve what I eat.

Perhaps my most urgent motivator is my curiosity to find the

limits of my Nouveau Rural abilities. I was the kind of

teenager that had to beat up a meringue with just a fork because

I wondered if I could do it without a mixer.

We started out towards our goals with chickens for eggs and

added goat milk to the equation. We were able to raise our own

pork. Clearly it shows a good start on the animal side of the

self-sufficiency side of the equation, but a non-existent

showing on the plant side. I don't count the pot of Rosemary

that couldn't be killed with a gallon of bleach and an axe. I

can hardly praise myself for remembering to water a little

herbage. You can't eat a plate of seasonings.

So calling on my corporate experience, I consulted with my

chief manual labor resource and the committee for executive

approval, aka my husband, about my idea of a pilot project to

explore raised bed gardening. My husband said what he nearly

always does, "sure, go ahead". I say nearly because lately if

I propose any activity that even possibly could introduce

another animal into the fold, he gets a frightened look in the

eye and turns white around the mouth and will only mutter

guarded to dire observations about our eventual fates.

With a 100% unanimous approval on the initial proposal, I

swung into action. Resources were assigned. I spent every

penny on non-hybrid seed packets. Paying up to ten cents a seed

irked my penny-pinching nature, but I wanted the potential to

save seeds from obscure varieties and the promise of quality.

Cheap as I am, I noted that a seed costs less than a started

plant and if I am able to save the seed, I had the potential to

drastically reduce the budget for next year as well as establish

my own plant dynasties.

On this project I undertook to do the analysis and plan the

design. My husband and I split the implementation. He

constructed the raised bed and I was responsible for populating

it. When it came to harvesting, if it required sticking an arm

past scratchy leaves with various bug inhabitants, I assigned

that task to my husband.

The pilot project has gotten to that stage where it has a

mind of its own and other than running to keep up the watering

chores, I can do little to change its course. We are modestly

harvesting. Time for a little review and results analysis.

The pilot did meet its objective to validate a raised bed of

recycled horse poop as a viable format for organic gardening for

our skill sets. It was not an unqualified success. There is

enormous room for amendment and improvement.

For instance, I thought that I was above tomato cages. Too

cheap to purchase them. Too lazy to make them. Instead I

strung some twine around and between the t-posts supporting the

garden. That was effective for about two weeks. I suppose that

the twine still exists down there under the morass of tomato

vines, but no one can really say for sure. Tomato vines have

exploded in growth in every direction. They've spilled over on

one side until they are growing out the goat/chicken/rabbit

proof fence. They are growing up as tall as the sunflowers.

Next year, I am definitely coming up with some kind of tomato

cages if I have to steal them. At least it would be an effort

toward some kind of vine containment.

 I found that composted horse poop is a good gardening

medium. But I could improve it. It needed a little organic

nitrogen boost and I'm here to tell you that fish emulsion

really smells. I'd like to add more composted poop, sand and

greensand for next year.

I cant' see the garden for the plants in the wild tangle

I've created. I'm going to reduce planting density. I had

trouble getting the roly-poly bugs to lay off long enough to get

the beans and cucumbers established. I replanted twice. On the

third try I went overboard and planted willy-nilly. Of course

three's a charm and most of it sprouted and began duking it out

with the burgeoning and manic tomato vines. I've got yard long

beans snaking around tomato vines that are climbing sunflowers

while underneath peppers and carrots are vying for a little

strangled sunlight. I can be a bit more organized about this in

the future.

I should have started my tomatoes earlier. I should have

had my raised bed done earlier. Tardiness can really limit

garden potential.

Less is not more in the garden arena. I didn't plant enough

of anything. Marital harmony is in jeopardy when you come back

to the house with one miniature white cucumber, two okra and six

black-eyed pea pods. It is just enough to whet voracious

appetites and have you wrestling over the last little bit of
fried okra. We didn't know that despised vegetables could be so

very delicious. I had limited space and enormous curiosity

about different plants, which led to a variety of plants unable

to bear enough at any one time to make up a decent sized

serving. Enough of being tantalized with a taste of the

possibilities, next year I am planting for satiety.

Performing a candid review of our raised bed pilot project

further underlined the contrast between corporate realms and

Nouveau Rural pursuits. In the realm of the Nouveau Rural, I

can make mistakes. I can learn from mistakes and openly discuss

where changes should be made to improve productivity. The

project is successful if it creates a useful effect in

proportion to the resources used regardless of the initial

objective.

Don't try that in the corporate world. Publish an objective

and regardless of the serendipitous discoveries along the way

it's a failure if you miss the original goal. In the corporate

realm, mistakes are not allowed. I'm not sure what follows the

admission of error, as I can't remember any status report or

executive committee report that had a mistake admitted within.

When an error occurs, the corporate world employs "spin" to

sanitize the facts until anyone listening is misdirected as to

the actual events. If that doesn't work, the blame is shifted

as far as possible so that no one connected with a mistake bears

any public responsibility.

I'm not sure how mistakes became taboo. It's not like any

of us have a choice in whether or not we will eventually make

them. How can a group learn from a mistake when it doesn't

admit to its occurrence? Even mistakes become productive when

we learn from them.

I have only started down the path toward my goals, but I owe

much of my progress towards being able to examine my mistakes,

abandon the unworkable and focus on the positives.

I would divorce myself from the big, bad corporate world

except the reality of it is that my day job pays the mortgage so

the chickens can range free. But beyond the confines of my

twenty acres, I'm beginning to wonder if we continue as a

corporate whole to isolate perception from facts whether we will

always have the resources that allow the United States to be a

global leader.

Changing national corporate culture seems a little daunting,

so I think I'll stick to worrying about whether the sunflowers

are attracting grasshoppers who will later eat my beans or if

the sunflowers are diverting grasshoppers from their original

intent of eating my beans.

 Liar! Liar!

Milking goats twice a day can kind of tie you down. So a

BBQ dinner we were invited to as an after thought about a month

ago is still the high point of our social season.

At one point during this landmark party, Brian was asked if

chickens were easy to raise. Being stuck at home with only

chickens for entertainment, we really don't have any small talk

other than small stock stories.

He didn't hesitate to tell the woman, "Sure! It's really

simple."

I did hesitate. Not because I wouldn't contradict my

husband in public, because I would argue with him at any event

as necessary.

I let my husband pick out my wedding dress with me. I knew

that if I didn't, when I got down to the altar he'd probably

give me a look that clearly said, "I don't like that fishnet

stuff." meaning tulle. Or "What's with the poofy thing?"

referring to any number of things. And then we'd have to have

an argument right there at the front of the church before we

could get married. I'd have to rebut his remarks, even if he

was just thinking them.

So while I might avoid an argument when feasible, if I

disagreed with him about the hallowed subject of chicken care, I

would not demur.

 But giddy on the effects of a purloined cheesecake brownie I

had assured myself was well within my daily allotment of carbs

to imbibe, I could only rosily picture our little flock of

chickens. A little grain. A little water. Sure, that's easy.

It was only later than I realized I should have pushed Brian

aside and loudly proclaimed, "Liar! Liar!"

It sounds easy and sitting here thinking of all the

otherwise ignorant people who have successfully raised chickens

that I almost pause before continuing. But the truth must come

out. If you are savvy enough to consider the level of

difficulty before entering into the practice of chicken keeping,

it won't be easy.

I can't even say it isn't rocket science since my most

recent use of mathematical formulae has been in pursuit of

figuring out how to raise the protein percentage on the chick

starter. Which should tell you what I know about rocket

science.

It all starts at the feed store. They take an empty water

trough and line it with shavings and bait it with some of the

most adorable little chicks you've ever seen. Conveniently

located are pricey feeders and waterers. Later you will find out

that they are engineered to waste feed and the reservoir to the

waterer takes a precise execution of eye-hand coordination to

get the base screwed on without being cockeyed.

 Once you peer into the tub full of fluff, it must trigger an

alarm because the sales person instantly appears by your side.

She exudes years of countrified chicken raising experience and

is so friendly that you've added her to your Christmas card list

before you get out of the store. Any newbie qualms dissipate in

the presence of her venerable experience so generously shared.

Out of thin air she can produce an empty box just perfect

for getting your little brood home. Before I could blink I had

six Wyandotte pullets and six Guineas in a box. I had no idea

how to catch a chick, but she was quite helpful. And while we

filled up the box she told stories about her birds including old

wives tales about how to detect the pullets in my selection of

straight run (who knows what sex) Guineas.

Without seeming to move more than my fluffy little chicks I

found myself at the checkout with a feeder, waterer, ten pounds

of chicken starter and my new not-yet-feathered friends. It

took 2 trips to get us all in the truck.

I was all set. I had an empty tub just like the one they

were using to house the chicks. My last question was how long I

could keep them in the tub. She assured me it would be a long

while before I needed other arrangements.

"Liar! Liar!" is what I should have shouted out the truck

window as I drove away. Those birds were over the side of that

tub by the weekend.

 I guess that's what I deserve for a first time purchase of

live creatures on impulse.

We went without window screens to keep the little buggers in

the tub while my husband, Brian, went into a flurry of chicken

house construction activities.

We have three chicken houses to date. It will be like a

little western chick town out there before long I guess. And as

we build them they seem to diminish in frills as you go along.

The first house is wired for electricity and has both a screen

door and a real exterior door besides a chicken door. The

latest house has a closet door so narrow that I have to suck it

in to pass through and only has a chicken door because we put a

run up to allow this year's first hatch access to the outside

without having to confront the rooster. Of course, Brian hasn't

put a gate to the run in, so I tend to delegate hopping over the

four-foot piece of plywood he calls the front side fence to him.

He unexpectedly got a lot of practice hopping over it. On

the maiden voyage of the chicks out into their own rooster-proof

run, Brian had ample opportunity to improve his standing jump.

On his second trip over he installed a grab bar. (I'd have

preferred even the most primitive gate, but I guess men are

different.)

We were under the impression that chickens instinctively

sought a roosting spot at dusk. Our latest batch of chicks

seemed to prefer huddling in the corner of the run rather than a

large roomy house with roosts they had been sitting on prior to

access to the run.

They were pretty adamant about this practice so Brian made

the trip over the fence to pitch reluctant chicks into the

house. My job was to prevent any returnees.

This went fairly well until Brian counted up the chicks.

15. The funny boy actually asked me if I was sure there were

originally 17. Like I wouldn't remember how many chicks hatched

on our very first attempt at incubation.

Back Brian went over the fence. No chicks there. We looked

around the outside of the fence. I guess he must have jumped

the fence about 3 more times before we acknowledged that the

missing chicks weren't in the run.

Not in the run. Not outside the run. Not in the house.

We went back and counted the chicks a few more times. I

never got the same number. They moved and I either missed them

or counted them twice, but Brian always got 15.

Finally we cornered the chicks and passed them one by one to

the far corner until even I got 15 chicks.

The temptation to write off what was probably two extra

roosters was enormous until I realized what rooster wannabe was

missing. The sweetest hen of our flock, Calamity Jane, had

produced an inquisitive, friendly, big and beautiful rooster

chick. With his daddy becoming meaner by the minute we have

plans to replace him with a kinder, gentler version. One of the

two escapees.

With this news we renewed our efforts to reclaim the missing

chicks. Brian popped yet again over the fence to see if the

chicks had managed to get under the house. A long shot, but

worth a try. He started poking around with a long stick in the

very narrow space.

By this time the operation is lit by lantern as dusk has

made way for dark. We spent some time poking away. While Brian

was telling me how useless this all was, one chick interrupted

him by popping out.

Running after a chick with a lantern does not earn its

trust. We were scaring it silly and it's a miracle we ever

caught it.

Unfortunately it was not Calamity's chick. Back to the

house and more stick poking. Finally I was convinced that the

stick was making contact with something at the very middle of

the house. So Brian drug out the jack.

It was a brilliant idea but the jack wouldn't fit under the

minute clearance of the house. So Brian drug out the pickaxe

and began an arduous task of scraping out a shallow pit for the

jack through rock briefly interrupted by a few smears of dirt.

 With about a centimeter of purchase the jack managed to

elevate the house enough to visually verify the missing chick's

whereabouts. While Brian's arm was disappeared up to the pit

and I was eyeing the precarious position of the jack, I recalled

Brian's assurance to that woman of the ease of chicken raising.

I wondered if in the near future she would have cause to

remember us and yell, "Liar! Liar!”

After we pulled the chick feet first from under the hut I

went into the house and pulled out my chicken manual that

plainly says on the back, "Everything you need to know to raise

one chicken or one hundred."

Liar! Liar!
 Poopology

When it comes to movies, I'm pretty critical for all that my

expectations are so modest. I only have one request and that is

that if I pay for the privilege of watching that the movie be

entertaining. That's it. I don't want to be shocked morally or

viscerally, left wondering at the end or have it attempt

intellectual enlightenment. I just want to be entertained.

Education is just too important a subject for Hollywood to

achieve. If Hollywood directors can't even tell a bible story

without a re-write, they need to stick to entertainment and

entertainment alone. I will never forget watching King David

and staring in disbelief as Hollywood had him rescue an abused

wife as an excuse for his adultery. If they want to embroider

on the bible, I figure all facts are malleable putty in their

hands. Skip documentaries and keep to entertainment is my

request to Hollywood.

However, I will admit that Hollywood brought me my first

introduction of the very important subject of poopology while

watching The Last Emperor. Poopology is the analysis of poop

for the purpose of demystifying the source.

Ignorant at the time, I did not appreciate the efforts of

the attending eunuchs as they collected the Emperor's latest

fecal product into a small wooden bowl for close inspection. I

did not suspect that I would become a student of poopology in

the years to come. Actually I was a bit revolted and as you may

expect the movie did not make my standards of entertainment.

While I wouldn't be interested in human poopology or go as

far to collect any poop specimen in a wooden bowl for the sniff

test, I am today a fervent Nouveau Rural poopologist. I think

of it like forensic science where generally considered

insignificant remains can be leveraged to reveal hidden

mysteries. Or in some ways it is like studying body language

when you've accepted that you have limited understanding of

their verbal language. My goats and horses are "talking" all

the time but I am limited in my understanding much less in my

ability to frame a query. That leaves poopology to ask if they

feel ok or are getting enough to eat.

Poopology is the cornerstone of my goat nutrition plan. A

normal goat excretes individual, round, black pellets. A goat

served on the lean side has elliptical pellets. A goat eating

very flush has pellets stuck together like a series of geodesic

domes. And one eating way too rich is excreting tootsie rolls.

It took me a while to find a book that would give me some hint

of how much and what a goat should eat. Until I had some

written directives, I let the goat decide and utilized poopology

to achieve a reasonable goat diet plan. Even now the

requirements of goats change for many reasons and the poop has

the last word on diet approval.

 Poop can be a signature or a calling card. After my husband

harried an armadillo around the dog paddock and eventually

effected its removal. We had several "calling cards" left

appropriately near my husband's barn shoes. The dumb old dillo

was not smart enough to appreciate my husband saving him from

the ravages of a dog pack. But the dillo was smart enough to

figure out the use of the dog door much quicker than most of our

dogs did. Without my independent study of its poop, I would

never have identified the visitor.

I can't ask "how was your day, dear?" and expect much of an

answer, but by examining the horse manure in the paddock I can

figure out what they've been up to as I've been otherwise

occupied; which is normally not much. But I can see trends of

where they spending their time and how much time. Since horses

have a "dump and run" instinct of evacuation before flight, I

can tell if they were spooked or if one horse was enjoying

chasing the other if I see a series of poops in a line rather

than in the customary pile.

Poopology may tell me when to call the vet. We called the

equine dentist out not long ago after careful consideration of

poop evidence it was revealed that Pico PoQuito was not chewing

his food very thoroughly. Horses teeth continue to grow and if

they aren't maintained can prevent grain from being chewed up

enough to be absorbed in the colon. Seeing some barely

masticated grains persist in the poop was all we needed to see.

Poopology helped configure the fencing. When we put in the

first goat paddock for our first kids, Noah and Ben, I asked my

husband to put in a "scare" wire on the top and bottom of the

fence. It's an electrical fence wire that is hoped that curious

predators will "nose" into and be "scared" away. I based the

scare wire's inclusion on the frequency and proximity of the

coyote scat notable with its chewed but undigested fur scraps

twisted around desiccated turds.

Poopology has increased our effectiveness in fly control.

After returning some compost to the horse paddock in the futile

hopes to maintain a little grass I noticed a strange beetle that

would fly erratically at me whenever I picked poop. It was

awhile before I stopped dropping the manure fork and shrieking

off in what I hoped was the opposite direction. Eventually when

I came to pick the paddock, the manure piles with the most

beetles were reduced to just fluff. It looked pre-composted.

I did a little Internet surfing and found that the re-

introduction of composted manure had encouraged hister beetles

into the paddock. Hister beetles are being studied in chicken

farming as a means to control flies from laying eggs in manure.

We did have very few flies while the hister beetles were in

force; unfortunately not a year round occurrence.

 Poopology and paddock maintenance are related. One of my

most eagerly awaited goals is to have rotating paddocks to keep

the horses from being on bare dirt. If you've kept horses you

know how much they love grass paddocks and how rough they are on

them. Voracious appetites and sharp hooves are not a paddock's

best friend.

Then add in these goats I seem to keep acquiring. We've

gone from two to seven in nearly no time and when you have to

keep the does from the buck from the wethers, it can sure add up

to a few paddocks.

Since I didn't want goats in a dirt paddock any more than I

did the horses, I was concerned about how many paddocks I would

need. Then I noticed a curious thing about the goat paddocks.

I put the buck in the pigpen. The pigs had rooted and

snooted everything up. Totally destroyed in terms of native

flora. I apologized to the buck and kept him in hay. But it

wasn't long before he had some greenery making a come back in

the pigpen. That's when I realized the benefit of the little

time-release fertilizer pellets deposited by the thoughtful buck

throughout the pigpen. The next set of feeder pigs will have

the buck to thank for whatever they find growing.

Of course one week I had no intention of buying a milk goat

and the next week I had two. Reluctantly I put my does in what

I still insist will be half of the second horse paddock that we

hastily finished off for the goats. Reluctantly because it had

some decent grass and I was loath to have my horses miss it and

the goats gobble it all.

Well after nearly a year, the grass in the goat paddock is

the greenest and the best. The does have been every bit as good

as the buck about distributing their own time-release fertilizer

pellets. And it seems that Nubians eat very little grass and

many weeds that a horse would consider a waste of valuable

pasture. Many people see green in a pasture and think it holds

nothing but culinary rapture for horses, when in fact, horses

are pretty particular about what they eat and green is no

guarantee of a horse's opinion of its palatability.

Now by the careful study of poopology and goat grazing

habits I know I can pasture goats in the resting horse paddock

and actually speed the paddock recovery.

I consider compost just an offshoot of poopology. I read

what I can about compost but mainly it just confuses me. There

are more methods than moods of a doe in heat. No one agrees on

the length of composting time or the best animal to produce the

manure. So I had difficulty in setting expectations about my

composting activities.

The only composting activity that has really been productive

is to collect horse poop into a pile and randomly turn with the

front loader until it "looks right" which takes about six to

twelve months depending on how much hay, rain and turning were

applied.

It took me all of thirty seconds to forever more give up on

any idea of composting goat poop. The only tool seemingly

suited to collect little individual pellets is a sugar spoon and

I am not that dedicated even if you came up with a super long

handle. I decided that goat poop was supposed to fertilize the

goat paddock. Only when the goat obliges by pooping on hay can

you remove the hay and get some portion of the pellets. Forget

that.

So Brian took aged horse poop and just dumped it without

amendments into a raised bed. I found that with only a little

fish emulsion that aged horse poop is the wonder mix for

gardens.

I have approximately 2400 pounds of horses that eat a

generous daily helping of hay, which is the main component of

horse poop. You would think that this would produce enough

compost for me, my neighbors and their third cousins. But in

fact, I am trying hard to find a way to break it to my husband

that we need twice as many horses to approach satisfying just

our own demand. (I have firmly replied in the negative to

inquiries on if I wanted anyone to cart off my horse manure.)

One raised bed required about six months of aged poop. I figure

we need about 10 beds to really put the grocery store into a

hurting bind. Obviously you can do the math and see we are

woefully understaffed in the hay-recycling department.

I've just barely scratched into the depths of many

interesting uses for poopology. So if you chance to see me

staring at the back end of an animal or riveted by the sight of

a few dungles at my feet, you are just observing the natural

behavior of a dedicated poopologist. If nothing else, no hobby

your spouse has compares unfavorably to poopology. Be thankful.

 Intermission

I turned 40. If you aren’t shocked, let me tell you I was.

Inside I was a precocious, under-weight, twenty-ager fresh out

of college, but the world, other than my husband, seemed to only

see the middle-aged overweight woman who was mildly speaking not

mainstream in thinking. I was completely in denial about my

increasing weight. And out of the box thinking is best shared

in small doses, preferably not in a government environment.

I felt lousy too. Even though the animals were built in

daily exercise, my stamina was limited. Add to that the walk in

from the parking lot was a trial. By now my chronic heel pain

left me with a pronounced limp and every step was an agony.

My next check up was to really drive home that I had gotten

to “that age”. They wanted me to do some blood work. I don’t

mind them working it up so much, but the extraction I find quite

terrifying. The relief I felt after the blood draw was

temporary. The results weren’t encouraging. The lab work

showed I was insulin resistant and pre-diabetic. I was referred

to an endocrinologist who told me that if I didn’t make drastic

changes the statistical end result was death in my 50s by either

cancer or heart disease. My next coherent thought was of my

mom. She died at 59 of breast cancer. It was a galvanizing

moment for me.

 On the employment front, I was working, but hardly self-

actualized contracting for the state. I was working with some

wonderful people, but it is slower paced than I’m naturally

geared to go and no one got excited about my ideas to save money

when the program is two-thirds funded by the feds.

Adding to the stress, I was pretty sure that my contract

wasn’t going to be extended later that year. Of course no one

believed me. State contracts run for years until you die of old

age. It would be unheard of for the state not to renew if my

boss wanted me back, which he did.

It’s never good when I’m right and I wonder if one day

anyone besides me is ever going to trust these odd feelings I

sometimes get. The state program under new political leadership

dismissed a huge number of contracting jobs later that year to

open a large number of really low paying jobs. Everyone but me

was shocked. I might have taken a job at two-thirds my salary

that was roughly equivalent to my old title just because there

were so many folks I liked, but they instead promoted a long

term state employee based on years served. They offered me a

full-time job at half my previous salary with a flunky title but

told me I could work for the guy they promoted and basically

prop him up, doing the work in his job description. They

wouldn’t mind my taking up his slack. I wasn’t quite hungry

enough to take it.

 So here I was fat, lame, and imminently unemployed but not

sure what I should do about any of it. The job market was

really out of my hands, so I concentrated on milking my goats

and working out what a diagnosis of insulin resistant meant for

my future. The basic tenets of the treatment were to acclimate

to a gut-wrenching medication and not eat anything I like, i.e.

carbohydrates; the good stuff like dessert, bread, chips… The

foods I had been living off of.

The gut-wrenching medication seemed simple in contrast.

Food is love. Food is communication. Food is the mechanism of

social interaction. I already didn’t drink or smoke or like pro

sports; now I basically couldn’t eat. Would my new diet finish

socially ostracizing me? My husband and I spent a lot of our

time together cooking and eating. Would a diet change my

marriage?

They gave me a daily quota of carbs. I further found that

sugar substitutes just didn’t agree with me. My life long Dr.

Pepper habit had to go. There was no way to fit even one can of

sugared soda into the carb budget and still eat any real food.

I actually had people tell me that they didn’t recognize me

without a can of soda in my hand. The diet was so miserable,

that I can honestly say I never noticed kicking my lifelong

caffeine habit.
 I started this diet with idea of maybe out living my mother

and was surprised to find in my follow up visit the next month

that I’d lost 7 pounds. I hadn’t lost any weight in the last

ten years of dieting. No one told me that there might be any

benefit other than skipping early mortal retirement with this

program. It was also the last quick weight loss I experienced,

but it gave me a glimmer that things might not be all bad.

By the fall, I was noticeably thinner, hungry through carb

avoidance and unemployed. I was making the usual offerings to

the online headhunters in hopes of a next job. I figured I’d

get something, but wasn’t expecting an email from my old job.

The layoff had been such a wrench I wasn’t sure I wanted to

interview for a contract position. I had never expected to go

back, but my innate need for financial security pushed all these

missish reluctant thoughts to the side. Will work for horse

food was my motto.

It turned out I was perfect for the job as it was pretty

much the same projects I had worked on two years earlier. It

felt odd to be a contract outsider in the same company I used to

be an employee in with many of the same folks. Though I came to

realize that being laid off might not be the worst option. Many

of the people who survived the layoff seemed 10 years older and

10 pounds heavier. The layoff survivors had not had it easy.

In contrast, by that time I’d lost 20 pounds and felt 20 years

younger and miraculously no longer limped. The old projects

were new again to me and I felt enthusiastic about working.

I was glad to be rehired a few months later, though I didn’t

get the “Senior” part of my old title. I felt like I was being

petty, but it bugged me.

I threw myself back into the work. I found I didn’t have

the same energy left over after work that I had working for the

state, and dried off the goats to avoid the twice daily milking.

I skipped the garden the next year and eventually we didn’t

renew the feeder pigs. We came down to just a few goats,

chickens, dogs and horses. Hobby farm lite.

I spent the last two years obsessing on work projects most

successfully. I got my title back and a nice raise. I had a

good sense of accomplishment, but I realized I needed a bit more

balance in my life.

First I apologized to my husband for deserting him. I’m

lucky and he isn’t holding a grudge – much.

I found a local stable and signed up for beginner riding

lessons. By now I’d lost 40 pounds and the few times I sat on a

horse, it was like I was wearing someone else’s body. I’d have

to start over.

And now the goats are bred and I don’t know how I will do

it, but I’m hoping to squeeze in milking with work and riding.
I miss goat milk and making cheese. I’m optimistic if not

certain.

The intermission is over and I’m looking for new challenges

if I can keep it all in balance.

 Santa’s Sleigh is a Ford 250

I was driving to work this early December morning when I saw

in my rearview a jolly looking gentleman with white hair and

beard.

He was smoking a pipe. He had a red shirt and red cap. I

could see suspenders.

I’m sure I’ve seen pictures of the working Santa in just

such a get up. But I didn’t think to find him on Highway 360,

joining in on the workday commute.

He was driving a quite a nice white Ford 250 (almost as nice

as mine) tricked out festively with a metallic bronze grill

guard.

Or in his case is it a reindeer catcher?

 Does Rule

The business world may be a man’s world, but not on the

farm. On the farm it is the doe (pronounced with the long Oh

sound), the female goat, that has the spotlight. Most of the

males born are merely extra if not immediately designated for

meat. As we have an aversion to eating goats we know, that

leaves two options. Bucklings born on the place are either

destined to be castrated and turned into pets or they are sold

off at auction most likely to be somebody else’s meat. There is

a small chance that they might wind up as someone else’s stud,

but rarely your own as they are related to some if not most of

your herd. There’s a strict limit on the number of goat pets

you can tolerate.

Currently we do have an opening. Noah was evicted off the

farm after a long history of non-compliance, outstanding even

for a goat. He was the type of goat that would blame us for

rain, which he detested and once stood out in until he was sick

requiring a trip to the vet right after a flood. Noah quickly

was renamed “no, No, NO! Noah” as he had quite the knack for

causing trouble. And there’s no rallying cry to encourage a

goat like an irritated voice yelling “no!”.

Noah and Ben were twins, which is common in does after their

first delivery. We named Noah based on the ark we seemed to be

putting together. We had two dogs and two horses and now we had
two goats. Ben got his name based on the Benjamin Franklin we

gave the seller for our two new goats.

It was because of the two horses, that we were in the market

for pet goats. My horse was a city horse used to the bustle of

twenty other stabled horses. He did not take to country life

with only his buddy horse for company. I was hoping to use the

goats as herd-extenders first and pets second. I was hoping

that the nearby presence of Ben and Noah would count as herd.

I picked Noah because of his pretty coloring. I knew

better, but as usual I did not do better. Never buy a horse or

any other animal including a spouse based on the hide.

Brian picked his brother Ben for his congenial nature

despite his plain coloring. Noah on the other hand complained,

whined, and was handy with his short horns that had resisted

dehorning. His personality was not as appealing as his hide.

After numerous illegal use-of-horn infractions, he caught Brian

in the eye with a horn. Brian healed thankfully, but Noah was

sold off. We’ve had several goats with horns since, but none

intent on inflicting injury with them.

So with Noah absent, one of next year’s bucklings could be

moving into the favored pet slot. We’ve always let the kids

nurse from their mother’s until we wean them at two months, but

we’ve never bottle fed them. Our last batch of kids is a bit

aloof, I must admit, so I’m eager to try it.

 I have no idea what to do with the last set of bucklings.

They are not pets. They haven’t been castrated. And yet they

are basically nice fellows and we are reluctant to sell them

off. However having two extra grown bucks does cause its

problems.

They don’t use their horns on Brian like Noah, but they have

broken down their fragile pen fence numerous times. I keep the

does about 500 feet down the hill, but that might as well be 5

feet for the expert senses of a buck. Once they get a visual on

the does, nothing short of brute strength will tear them away.

Brian just recently wracked up another goat inflicted

wounding, a goating accident as it were, at the horns and hooves

of the bucks. But I’m not sure I blame the goats.

Brian has his own time proven wrong fencing techniques and

nothing said on the subject seems to influence him. He persists

in providing fencing with all the stamina of wet tissue paper.

Of course, I’ve yet to meet many folks who like to do fencing

and Brian’s trying to do it as a second job, so I do agree

lugging the 150 pound roll of fencing around that will actually

deter a goat is less attractive than using something that will

ultimately succumb to the ever itchy horns of a buck, but weighs

less than two hernias.

On my first day of Christmas vacation, which I had planned

to do much loafing, I was instead using sleight of hand to

separate an escaped buck from my four does grazing in front of

the barn. I used food to get the does in their pen and Ben

being an old friend of the buck, I lured him in to spend the day

with Ben, so I had all the goats penned. However that left the

other buck that did not escape franticly alone up the hill.

Until the fence was fixed I couldn’t put the other buck back, so

I let the lonely buck out and with a little food he joined the

escapee buck with Ben. They spent a happy afternoon irritating

one another.

Now of course, the weather was turning nasty later that

night and the current pen didn’t provide enough shelter for all

three goats so Brian was coming home early to fix the fence.

I told Brian that after he got the fence fixed, I’d move the

does off out of temptation’s way and we could transfer the bucks

back up the hill to their bachelor’s pen. I went off to the

stable to ride.

I was almost back home when I got a frantic call from Brian

saying that he was worn clean out and needed my help getting the

last buck up the hill. He sounded too exhausted to talk and

hung up.

When I was walking out to the paddock I was shocked to see

Brian laying flat on the now very cold ground. When I got

closer I could see he was lying on a very frightened goat. The

dogs were barking like crazy and the does were still out casting
lascivious glances at the poor buck flattened on the ground.

I’ve seen Brian look better after he ran a marathon. I was not

interested in even imagining what had riled the dogs, terrified

the goat and exhausted Brian, but I heard anyway that Brian had

brute-force dragged a goat up a steep rocky hill. I later

learned that he was quite bruised from the horns while he pulled

the goat up after him.

No goat willingly leaves their herd much less a group of

flirting does. Goats are very strong, so I can only imagine

that Brian was quite tenacious and stronger than the goat to

have performed this feat. I just didn’t know why he had done

it.

Brian started yelling for me to get the truck as soon as he

saw me. It seems his plan was for me to drive up the truck and

he was going to throw this rather heavy goat in the back and lay

on it while I drove bouncing and jouncing up the goat track of a

rocky road up the hill to the bachelor’s quarters for goats. I

rather value my crazy husband, if not the ornery goat. I wasn’t

about to have him further pummeled under the hooves and horns of

a terrified goat if not thrashed out of the back of the bed.

Now we have a savvy neighbor that can hog tie a goat and

drive away with him lying quiet, but neither of us is savvy and

goat whisperers we aren’t. I’m sure that Brian had this in

mind, but I’ve seen us in action before and we don’t compare to

our savvy neighbor except geographically.

Using four letter words that goats and husbands seem to

inspire, I communicated that my sympathies were with the

smashed-flat goat. I wanted Brian to let him up and that in no

way was I going to get the truck. Brian protesting all the

while at the waste of effort he had put into smashing the goat

to the ground and waiting who knows how long for me to get home

from work. Instead we let the terrified buck up. Then we put

our pet goat Ben, who gladly follows us anywhere, into the pen

next to the does. The previously mashed-flat buck followed Ben

and all goats were secure if not in their desired places. I

then took all the does into the barn and shut all the doors.

Temptation was now removed.

I returned to the boys in the pen, Ben and friend. I put a

lead rope around Ben’s sweet little tame neck and daintily

walked him up the hill in the now dark. The ornery buck trotted

after us. I imagine his newfound compliance was based on that

he might not want to be left alone or maybe even alone with

Brian. Brian brought up the rear in our moonlit procession.

It was all rather anti-climatic. Brian forgave me for

getting the buck into the pen so easily. I couldn’t help it. I

have a natural advantage on the farm. Does rule.

 Luck and Two Sticks

I do solemnly swear that I will live in one of Brian’s

chicken houses before we allow another contractor to build us a

substandard domicile. And you haven’t experienced Brian’s

construction techniques to fully appreciate the desperation of

this statement. This isn’t to say they aren’t truly functional.

We haven’t lost one chicken to predators once they reached the

safety of the house. They meet every functional requirement.

They allow ventilation through predator-repelling hardware

cloth. They are roomy for their intended chicken occupants.

They are in every practical way quite successful. However they

are factually hideous and have caused skilled carpenters to

guffaw on sight. They are slowly disintegrating and becoming a

patchwork of desperate initiatives to keep them operational.

But still they are operational.

So if I had the people-sized version I would without doubt

prefer it to the less than tender mercies of a contractor built

habitation. Our contractor can’t take full credit for our

current dwelling. He just did a thorough job of rough

finishing. Brian’s had to redo plumbing, wiring and various

design flaws. And there’s a long list of things that haven’t

become emergencies just yet.

Take our feed room for instance, which was intended to be

built into the side of the barn as interior room with its own
load-bearing roof. We had to convince them with strong words

and angry glares that a foot or more of a gap on one side

between the wall and the ceiling wasn’t acceptable. This is for

a feed room, which presumably safeguards attractive foodstuffs.

I’m serious in that they were leaving a two-foot gap open to the

air regardless that it was under the general barn roof. Were we

supposed to just post a sign to keep mice, squirrels, raccoons

and weather at bay? Why have walls at all if they don’t meet

the ceiling? I could never understand their rationale for the

gap. Maybe rational is a poor choice in this context. The

subcontractors did decidedly crazy things and the contractor

felt it was his job to see if he could get us to swallow it

whole rather than take the loss himself. Even without gaps, the

construction was dismal. The feed room was unfinished on the

inside, so I had full knowledge of how infrequently the nail gun

actually connected with a framing stud. We spent some time

making sure we wouldn’t get impaled on all the nails sticking

out miles away from where they should have been shot home into a

stud. Then they painted the outside walls with such a watery

substitute for paint I do believe it was the wash water from the

previous job.

We moved the horse feed into the feed room after the

contractor finally agreed that four solid walls from floor to

the ceiling and not just within two feet of the ceiling were a
part of the contract. We were left with whitewashed wood and

planking secured by just a few nails. This is about as good as

we were going to get. Any further delays just ate our money.

We had no sooner filled the feed room with all the things

that would not fit into the tiny house that we immediately knew

we had mice. Holes were in all the feed bags. There were

gnawings in several box corners. Tiny little poop and pee

stains started appearing where it would cause the most

aggravation. This was serious as we had no other place to store

the general junk compiled in the feed room. We were grimly

determined to find out how the mice were gaining entry.

It didn’t take long to identify that the adjacent dog room

had a dog door and obviously the dogs didn’t mind allowing

rodents free access past them to the feed room. I hadn’t

expected that. I was feeding a complete pack of dogs who

lounged daily in the path of these mice. It looked like the

mice were just boldly running through the dog door and over the

snoring noses of the dogs to get into the feed room.

We didn’t win the battle with the contractor to close the

open space between the feed room and dog room, which shared a

wall, so Brian spent considerable effort to close off the feed

room from the dog room.

We still had mice. The little prints in the dusty feed room

looked like they had nightly salsa dancing. Mousey hilarity was
fueled by horse supplements and goat vitamins making the

miscreants giddy on premium nutrition.

It wasn’t as obvious this time how they were getting in. We

finally turned the lights in the barn on. We have quite the

well-lighted barn when all the bulbs work; you can read fine

print in there on dark winters night. Then we turned all the

feed room lights off and stumbled around in the near but not

quite dark. Ah ha! You could only see it from certain angles

accessible by contortionists and rodents, but there were still

fist-sized holes giving access straight into the barn. Too big

for caulk, Brian resorted to foam and in some cases short pieces

of two by fours to fill the gaps.

We foamed and caulked until we were afraid we’d suffocate in

the airless room. Then we sat back and congratulated ourselves

on our cleverness. Nothing like winning out over micro-brained

varmints! We had to run the fan in the feed room or it became

as airless as an ancient Egyptian tomb somehow missed by

looters. Not even dust was getting in. The dark dust stirred

up by the dogs cleared out and only the fine white feed dust was

present.

We went merrily on our nouveau rural way. Then I saw a few

mouse poops. Since housekeeping or barn keeping as it were is

not my specialty and if cleaning actually is next to godliness

I’m in for a very fiery finish, I didn’t actually clue to the

fact that these were recent poops. It took a long while for me

to admit that what we feared had come upon us. The rodents were

still with us. It took so long because slowly though mired in

our denial we saw just a few droppings on occasion. But finally

we had to admit that there was a mouse. Based on the rarity of

evidence we calculated there was just one and that he was now

unable to exit the extreme caulk job we had completed. Rather

than sealing out all the rodents we had sealed one in with all

our good stuff for him to play on.

I was quite ignorant to the joys of cohabitating with a

mouse before this experience. I knew he might chew a feed bag

or two but had no idea what hijinks one lone mouse would really

stir up. He liked to sample new feed bags fresh from the feed

store and would put one quarter sized hole in the bottom

quadrant of the bag; just one hole per bag. No lone mouse

needed to be especially greedy with the wealth of overflow from

a poorly swept feed room.

When I was growing up my mother liked to encourage me to

brush my hair by telling me it looked like a rat’s nest. Now I

know she was all wrong. A rat’s nest is a colorfully chaotic

sampling of the favored treats gathered all over the rat’s scope

of travel, curled into a favorite resting spot for easy access.

My hair was never colorful or containing bits of hoarded

treasure. What my mom should have said was that my hair looked
like a horse’s tail that had been rubbed on the fence and not

properly tended since the previous spring. That would have been

factually descriptive; well, more so, when I was a kid than

recently, naturally.

This mouse was really ruling the roost. We found Brian’s

kite with the beautiful streamers had been bobbed with each

streamer neatly cut at the same length. The streamers found

their way into the mouse’s personal stash. Bright bits of

plastic and small items brightened the swirl of his horde.

Sturdy plastic packing crates that were able to be stacked to

the ceiling and stepped on by elephants were found with the

trademark quarter-sized circle neatly incised. Any thickness of

wood smaller than two inches could be overcome. Steel wool was

pried out of gaps and thrown to the floor with random abandon.

The A/C unit was gnawed until it now leaked into the room and

not on the outside into the drip pan.

I took the traditional approach that setting traps and

hunting were a man’s venue and let Brian take the lead in mouse

extermination. Brian sprang into action with some conventional

mouse traps. They were wooden and you put the piece of cheese

or peanut butter on it for bait, standard mouse trapping gear.

The unwary mouse would get snapped and your finger too at least

once during installation. Well, it turns out that a mouse

sampling the various feed bags and the occasional spillage of

chicken, goat, pig and horse vitamins isn’t much attracted to

cheese or peanut butter especially if presented on tacky wooden

traps.

Fancier traps were purchased. And fancier traps were

ignored. Traps looking like big plastic clothespins sat idle.

Plastic mouse motels went without bookings.

Finally Brian came home with metal box of impressive mouse

killing potential. Eagerly it was installed in the most

advantageously frequented mousing spot. It remained untenanted

and in distressingly pristine condition.

It was at this point that Brian determined that our “mouse”

had outgrown mousetraps. I don’t know whether it was one of the

rare mouse sightings or some bio-analysis of mouse poop from

which he drew this startling conclusion but I readily believed

it. The poop on retrospect had grown since the early days of

his feed room incarceration. This mouse had feasted on our

leavings until he was pushing rat size.

So now we switched gears and the mousetraps were soon pushed

aside in favor of rattraps. Size didn’t seem to matter in this

case. Our mouse easily avoided all of them.

Cartoons love to portray the unsophisticated country mouse

who bumbles his way precariously during a visit to the city

where his savvier city relations undertake to educate him. But

our experience readily showed otherwise. Brian had frequently

dispatched mice in our old suburban house with any of the cheap

and uncomplicated mousetraps purchased during his first attempts

to catch this country cousin. We knew country mice to be really

ingenious. They seemed to be far more analytical in trap

avoidance than any city mouse previously encountered.

Then I read an article about how you need to position traps

along the habitual runs of the rodent to trap them during a

headlong rush. This time large, rat-sized glue traps were added

to the rat catching paraphernalia. Mouse poop and evidence of

mouse disturbances were correlated with all known mouse

sightings to be analyzed for the most advantageous placements.

One of the mongo, rat-sized glue traps was precarious positioned

in the framework near the ceiling where it was determined the

little mouse fiend liked to run.

We hit pay dirt! The mouse hit the glue trap and was stuck.

Forensic evidence showed that he drug it some number of feet on

the supports near the ceiling before crashing about 8 feet to

the floor still stuck to the trap where he drug the trap to a

chair leg where he had traction and left a good two square

inches of fur embedded in the glue trap before making good his

escape. (Incidentally if ever there’s a need for superior mouse

pelts I am an expert in mouse nutrition if the fur left behind

is any example.)
 Naturally he never came near a glue trap ever again. They

remained in pristine condition until dust totally obscured the

glue.

Brian’s anti-mouse efforts continued but the mouse knew all

our tricks and was beyond trapping. We thought about getting a

cat, but I’m really allergic to cats. We considered rat terrier

dogs, but I thought the mouse would scurry up a beam and easily

avoid any dog. I had seen him display a most Spiderman-like

aptitude for climbing I’m sure no dog possesses. Even a snake

was considered as they seem to be able to shinny up even smooth

surfaces judging by past sightings, but as I get heart

palpitations just on seeing a snake, I was reluctant to randomly

encounter one in the feed room and I’m not sure that Brian

wasn’t relieved that I nixed that idea.

At this point I think I was nearly resigned to eternal

cohabitation with this mouse. I think we half-heartedly joked

about looking up the natural life expectancy of a mouse and

adjusting upwards for the fine nutrition, exercise and predator

free lifestyle he was experiencing and just waiting it out until

his natural demise. Optimistically we hoped he’d go first.

Then I went looking for my tack box buried in the stuff

stored in the feed room. Defiled! That hell-spawn mouse had

destroyed my lunge line and chewed to perdition every non-

metallic object within it and then put a trademark hole in the

tack tray itself! I was livid but I decided I needed new stuff

anyway. Then I picked up my Wintec saddle to relocate it. I

was a leather snob for years. Then my horse’s back physiology

changed and his leather saddle didn’t fit. Lack of funds and an

impatience to ride prompted me to try a cheaper, more readily

available plastic, Wintec saddle. I could afford it. My horse

loved it. And it was far lighter to carry. I’ve been sold ever

since.

I was putting up my saddle in a new saddle rack when I

realized that underneath on the two points where the saddle has

the most contact with the horses back, were two quarter-sized

holes. There’s no way to fix such an injury to a saddle and I

held in my hand more than $500 worth of trash formerly known as

a saddle.

I became filled with incandescent fury. I vowed on my honor

that the mouse must go down. All previous failures dimmed from

my memory as mere static in the wake of my new focus. Nobody,

no one, no thing messes with my saddle!

I determined that all the superfluous junk stored in the

feed room might as well go sit out into the barn at large. If

it was going to be chewed by a mouse it was immaterial to me

whether it was the one trapped inside the feed room or the

multitude dancing merrily in the hay without. Therefore

maneuver room of some sort might be created to find the lair of

this mouse.

With new elbowroom at our disposal, the remaining feed was

religiously kept in metal cans that were indeed mouse proof.

And a great mouse hunt was enacted. From box to box each

article was examined with great anticipation. Of course, he was

not found. The conclusion was that when we removed the boxes

from the feed room the mouse had been removed along with them

and a great sigh of relief was heard.

It was on our to-do list to return all the boxes to the feed

room but it never quite popped to the top. A good thing because

just as we had relaxed and started to enjoy a mouse-free

existence, the crafty bugger was once again sighted. An the

mouse hunt was taken up with new vigor.

We couldn’t trap this guy. We were no Samurai warriors to

grab him up in our chopsticks. A gun would cause too much

collateral damage. Just how were we going to dispatch the

elusive creature assuming we did find him? Brian turned up with

a sturdy stick for bashing. Sturdy sticks abounding on our

haphazard farmstead. On occasion I would hear some hollering

and crashing about in the feed romm and know that Brian was

after that mouse. Unfortunately the mouse continued to get

away. If we had been keeping score, by now it would have been

about a million and six losses to our side in favor of the

mouse, I’m sure.

I began to have more mouse sightings myself. Unfortunately,

all this invoked in me was for me to stand paralyzed while the

mouse did whatever came most naturally to him while I naturally

for me began to scream repeatedly at the top of my lungs. I was

truly disgusted at myself. Screaming was not helping. It

didn’t seem to impair the mouse one bit. I told myself not to

be such a ninny, but time after time I’d see the mouse and just

freak out uselessly.

After a bit, I asked Brian if I couldn’t have a stick for

mouse beating like his propped by the feed room door too. I

don’t know why. Holding a stick while screaming wasn’t going to

help anymore than standing there empty handed. But Brian

obliged me with my own stick and they were propped handily by

the door, his and her mouse-beating sticks at the ready.

The worst thing about mouse sightings is that you are never

prepared for them. It always occurs at your most unguarded

moments. One morning I was in the process of dumping out the

A/C water runoff that collected under the A/C courtesy of how

the mouse had chewed the unit when I moved a bucket and was

staring wide-eyed to his beady eyes, up close and personal. For

a moment we were both transfixed before he ran and I drew a

breath to start my habitually screaming. I screamed all the way

over to get my stick. I started chasing after that mouse and my

high-pitched, girlish screams of helplessness changed to furious

avowals of hate and death. I promised to kill that mouse as I

followed him around the room whacking furiously but oh, so

belatedly in his wake.

Brian couldn’t miss my screaming and joined me in the chase

punctuated by infuriated whacks of the stick fruitlessly in the

mouse’s wake. Even when he ran completely out of my reach in

the supports at the ceiling, I followed like a madwoman in his

wake. We were circling the room frantically and while both of

us were desperately trying to catch the mouse we were frequently

on opposite sides of the room as the mouse was so much fleeter

of foot. Brian would be on one end. I’d be on the other and

still the mouse was at either end. We’d catch a glimpse of him

and the chase would be on again. And I’m still yelling promises

of death and destruction at full volume.

We’d still be circling the room like bipedal idiots if I

hadn’t happened on the mouse’s six just as he went running

towards the insulated piping for the water faucet on the other

side of the wall. Right on his tail, literally, with a great

yell, I stuck my stick into the gap between the pipe and the

wall and the mouse discovered he found a dead end with and angry

woman with no saddle and a stick on the other. I trapped him

with my stick until he yelped and called for backup.

 Brian rejoined me in an instant and added his stick to the

fray. We wound up poking this poor mouse to death. It was one

of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. There was no way to

retrieve the mouse and humanely dispatch it.

With the capture of the mouse I turned back into squeamish

girl in a blink. Poor Brian had to retrieve the carcass out of

the space with pliers and take it out and throw it in the woods.

This mouse had been such a forceful foe that Brian truly

wished he could take a trophy from it. If the pelt had been any

larger I’m sure he would have skinned it for the hide. As it

was, he settled on measuring it before pitching the carcass into

the woods. I could not bear to even look, but Brian said it had

the most beautiful pelt and not counting the tail was fully

seven inches long, a tremendous size for a field mouse.

After every trap and application of conventional wisdom

failed us, the only thing we had going for us was luck and two

sticks.

We’ve been mouse free for some time now. I think…

Change

I just recently realized that people change. I knew

circumstances were quite dynamic, but I never believed that

people could change.