Really, I'm Not a Pig

Farming has been good for me.  It has taken me out of my comfort zone numerous times, and I’ve learned over the years that a shake up every now and then is a good thing.  Think about a tremor or a tree-toppling, power-outaging storm: once the dust settles, don’t you look around and ask, “Everything o.k.?”  When you discover it is, great, and when you see there’s work to do, then that’s what comes next, no questions asked.

It's easy to be zen-like when the animals are plastic, 1/64 your size, safely behind solid wooden barricades, and polite enough to let you finish your cup of tea

Every once in awhile I’m left in charge of the farm, and let’s just say, I pretty much count the days until I’m not ranchero-numero-uno anymore.  The work is good, don’t get me wrong, but the responsibility can be daunting.  Once, while sitting comfortably reading a book and enjoying a nice hot cup of tea, my oldest, then 8, ran in yelling, “The pigs got out!”  Not taking my eyes from the book, I replied, “Honey, daddy’s out of town...”  His eyes widened as he replied, “That’s why I’m telling you.”

Slowly, I felt the gears grinding to a halt, and it registered.

Is it so wrong for a mother to cry out, “CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”?  I know the foot stomping probably set a bad example, but it’s not like he hadn’t already behaved that way himself many years before.

Just like in the storm analogy, I started looking around, wondering what to do.  I could call the neighbor, but then that would mean I can’t even handle my own farm, and why should a woman have to call a man for help?  That’s what that would be, right?  I could send my boy out to catch them, but he actually came to me for help, so scratch that.  Plus, back to reason number one...well, you get it.

There was no choice but to deal with it, and in the true inconvenience we call farming, the need was immediate.



Not a pig, and I am oh, so grateful



I recall the day my younger son was born.  My reaction when my older one ran into the room wasn’t, “Hey sweetie, come meet your little brother,” but rather, “Good God, you’re enormous!”  Well, I felt the same way about the pigs looking at them roaming outside their gateless pen.  I won’t bore you with the details of the capture which included my fearless dog, but will take you to the punch line…theirs, not mine.

In fact, I’d be lying if I attempted to give you the lowdown, because truth be told, I can’t remember the details.  Sort of like getting teeth pulled, falling from a tree house, or spinning off the road across oncoming traffic, the numbing haze of post traumatic stress has erased the sequence of events from my brain.  Only the highlights of my anxiety remain.

Which is why you find me screaming, holding a pig semi-aloft as the writhing muscular porcine vessel of testosterone attempts to devour my ear, knowing I have to do this one more time so BOTH of them will be back where they belong.  I vaguely remember screaming at my son for advice, which I’m sure I didn’t hear or listen to due to either the squealing pig, the crashing white noise in my head, or the cacophony of the two.  As I hurtled the beast back into his enclosure I caught the stunned expression on my son’s face.  A thought bubble would most likely have revealed, “So that graceless being is the one I refer to as ‘mother.’  Is it possible to make an exchange?”



A nice diet of sweet potato vines to whittle away their waistlines



As I caught my breath, he offered a bit of advice.  “You shouldn’t throw animals.”  Thank god my penchant for biting sarcasm didn’t emerge to attack a person half my size.  I was able to lower beast number two closer to the ground for his final descent, which was more palatable for all of us, despite the fact that the squealing screech-fest could have rivaled the war cries of opposing cheering sections led by Robert Plant and Ozzy Osbourne at a tension-filled girls’ volleyball game. 

Breathing hard, hair disheveled, and wearing an expression that was, let’s just say, nowhere near runway ready, I thought of the Talking Heads as I wondered, “Well, how did I get here?”  Now with things a bit calmer as my two dogs maintained order, circling the pen while I sutured it up, I could sense my son’s strange wonder about the woman he just saw man-handling the pigs.  Could I possibly be the same person who baked bread that morning, nursed his ailing teddy bear back to health, and cheered his every effort to make a “real” video about prehistoric beasts?  Let’s face it: a kid wants to know his mommy has her shit together.  When pigs gone AWOL pull her off center, it can be alarming, to say the least.

So farming has done that for me.  I can go where I’d never have imagined, and quickly run back to sanity once escaping it.  I still have an ear, and my son has been formally introduced to my limits, and at an impressionable age at that.  To think it took me until the stately age of 11 to discover my mother wasn’t perfect.  What can I say?  My boy is advanced.

On the Road Again

One major lesson I’ve learned from farming and gardening will stick with me forever, no matter what I do or where I go.  The book I’ve just read, The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball speaks to it like this: nothing turns out the way you’d expect – never as perfect as you’d hoped or as awful as you feared. 

But for me, there’s a bit more, and that’s tied to what was never expected in the first place, the surprise that surfaces where you least imagined it.  For positive things, this elicits feelings of good fortune, and for negative occurrences, a state of shock that cuts wallowing off at the pass and steers you in the direction of figuring out what to do about it instead.

It’s like traveling.  I may hope to get from point A to point B in record time, but who knows what will happen along the way?  And as I’ve gotten older, record time is rarely, if ever, a goal.  I just want to get there, and if I end up on a detour that shows me places I never knew about, then all the better.  Quite possibly, I'll learn something.



Two cows diverged on a rainy road...



And on the farm, minor detours (and some major ones) occur pretty regularly.  A few weeks back I had gotten my morning work in, showered, and was ready to sit and relax with a cup of tea and a book on the back porch.  Before I managed even a sip I heard a sound that my brain attempted to classify as “not a problem,” but the gardener in me stood her ground and proclaimed “No chicken is free to roam my garden!”

I shouted into the house, “Chicken’s out, I got it!” and not even changing out of my dress into more appropriate farm clothes, I put on my boots and headed out with the dogs to catch her and put her back in the tractor to join the others, lickity split.  When the dogs headed in two different directions, the optimist in me paid no mind.  I looked in the tractor, which is when the pessimist revealed herself, hissing, “Oh, shit!”

So they were all out.  OK, so maybe I don’t got it after all.  I went inside and told the others, who were also enjoying other plans, to stop relaxing and help me catch the chickens.   I changed clothes, ready for some real work.

Have you ever gone on a chicken catching expedition?  One with fences, and brambles, and plants you don’t want trampled?  Oh, and with chickens? I had the added quality of “I CAN’T GET STUNG!” as part of this mix, so crawling over a yellow jacket hive was high on my list of things I didn’t want to do that day.

This is more his style, but he's willing to put in overtime herding chickens.

Squawking, fur flying, and confirming evidence that humans cannot (and should not) dive through fences ensued.  The dogs managed to push a few out from the grapevine tunnel allowing my son and me to each catch one as they sprinted past.  More were scurrying around in the pasture, so the Border collie rounded them up, nipping at their tails while we caught up and pounced. 

After those were caught, we realized we had a couple more to go.  The brain starts in with the dialogue of what may be.  No sign of them, which could mean they might have been taken by fox, weasel, or raccoons.  At this point I had no idea how long they’d been out, and anything was possible.  They could be in a tree somewhere or on the neighbor’s farm, either scratching at the back door or simmering in the stew pot.  I decided the best way to figure it out was to stay put in the garden, and just listen.  The book would have to wait, I’d have time later for another cup of tea, and what’s two showers in one morning?  It has rained cats and dogs this year and I'm on a well.

I worked in silence for a good thirty minutes.  I mentioned earlier my need to avoid stinging insects for the time being, so late morning gardening proved a bit nerve racking as everywhere I turned I heard buzzing or saw my nemeses zip by.  Believe me, I love them all, but until I know which one morphs me into a human strawberry, I have to be careful. 

The rest of the family altered their plans as well since they were already out, forced into farm work about seven hours before they had planned.  If there’s a mantra on this farm it’s this:  Adjust.



OK, now I get it.

So as I was discovering the reason why we thin carrots, I noticed my lab inching towards the blackberry bushes, ears cocked, nose doing the hula.  I crept behind her and heard a low baaaaaaaawk.  “Get it!” I cried.  She looked up at me slowly, her eyes clearly expressing, “But that will hurt.”

I called the Border collie, and the rest of the family came running, hearing the urgency in my voice.  When the collie approached, his eyes said the usual, “I live to serve.  What do you require of me, your humble servant?”  Without hesitation he burrowed into the brambles and sent two chickens exploding out.  My son caught one, and I just missed the other as I watched it slip through the fence.  I was over it in flash and trapped the chicken as she tried to get back through. The dogs were there in a heartbeat to help.



Home, home again....

So my morning hadn’t turned out as planned, and despite the potential problems, all was well.  The chickens were safe and sound again, the humans experienced challenging agility exercises, and the dogs got to practice what they do best.  It wasn’t my ideal late Sunday morning, but the outcome was ideal.  I guess it doesn’t matter how you get there as long as you enjoy the journey.

El-a-strate Me! (oh... you can't!)

I’m reading the book The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love, by Kristen Kimball. This woman has gotten into farming way beyond what I have, but periodically she stops to explain something I’m already well-versed in.  I admit that feels pretty good.  I want to feel like I’m growing and changing as a person in this farming experience, despite the fact that I naively got into it thinking it was mostly for the kids.

When the author mentioned the elastrator in her book, I knew I was in good company.  I even sort of felt, you know, like official and all that.  Every so often I get reminders that yes, I’m a farmer.  Sometimes it’s when I have some nugget of knowledge about garlic bulbils or goat cheese processing that makes city folk gasp in amazement.  At other times, it’s when I say something that makes people wonder how far I’ve gone off the deep end.  My elastrator knowledge put me in the latter category.

A fellow grad student was lamenting the upcoming neutering and subsequent vet bill for her golden retriever.  As we sat at our desks, side by side, plugging away at our computers, I suggested she just let me do it.  It would only cost her the price of a rubber band, and I’d throw that in for free.

Still focused on my computer, I told her how easy castration is with the elastrator.  Just slip the band over the four collapsed metal prongs, widen it out with the hand lever, slip it over the testicles as you lace them through, release, and viola!

Silence.

I looked over to see two faces, hers and the office mate’s beyond, searching me like they were still trying to figure out if I was joking or if they’d just discovered what a sick individual I really am.

“What?” I said with honesty.

That gave them their answer.

They quickly fixed their eyes rigidly on their computers, breathed deeply and calculated what to say.

The dog owner broke the silence.  “That can’t be sanitary.  And besides, how would you even anesthetize him?”

Pshaw!  That’s easy!  No anesthesia necessary.  It’s a slow, painless process.   The animal has no idea.  In fact, the sheep just run off and play after getting banded.  We do the same to their tails. You see, the band cuts off circulation.  The testicles just wither up and fall off in a few weeks.  The kids get a kick out of it when they find them in the fields.

Less inconspicuously, both women grabbed their stomachs, eyes wide with alarm and disgust.

“Whaaaaat?!” I said defending standard farming procedures.

The other friend exclaimed, “HOW can you do that to sweet innocent babies?!”

Easy, I said.

A farm full of adult male animals is a slew of problems waiting to happen.  After having a Jack on the farm, I understand the potency of calling someone “a real jackass.”  Roosters, Billy goats, rams, and jacks will fight, knock down fences, intentionally hurt young animals, and pee on themselves if there’s a female nearby they want to impress. Billy goats spray their own faces.  Nice,huh?  Maybe they’re really out to demonstrate flexibility, who knows?  I recommend when you go for goat meat, choose the skinless variety.

 When my boys learned that the daddy sheep had to be removed from the lambing field so he wouldn’t kill his offspring, they were shocked and hurt.  But, that’s nature.  The mama has the genetic disposition to want the lamb, and care for it at any cost.  The ram hates the competition and is suspicious of the newcomer, wondering where the heck he came from anyway.

The ounce of one elastrator band is worth many pounds of cure. In fact, wethers (neutered goats and rams) pack on a few extra, which means more meat per animal. Plus, they become sweet, gentle, and will lovingly befriend the newborns frolicking in the fields.  I’d say having their manhood squeezed off of them brings a marked improvement in disposition, not to mention civility. 



A mama with two females and a male (for the time being).



So yea, after being on my farm seven full years, I can say that I have an elastrator, and will use it with supreme( ball handling) skill.  My friends aren’t as alarmed at my understanding and know how when it comes to ear tagging, but then again, my friends have pierced ears.

Words to Live By

So people who know me know my motto in word or deed is this:  There’s a creative solution to every problem.  Being a former math specialist, I gotta say, problems are a good thing. 

Dilemmas are meant to be considered and approached from different angles, and if not solved on stroke one, guess what?  You now know what doesn’t work which is important information to hone your perspective and make a new plan of attack.

The dilemma we face sometimes on the farm is food supply for the animals.  Being a hobby farm, I tell people it’s like any other hobby – you shell out money to do it.  However, an even bigger hobby for me is cutting costs.  It’s a game I learned from my dad.  Why pay for something when with a little ingenuity, you can create it yourself?  When it came to reduce, reuse, recycle, my dad focused on reusing.  Many things can serve more than one purpose.

Take, for instance, your typical lawn.  It’s a great place to play, beautiful to look at, and a source of exercise when you have to cut it, unless, of course, you’re sitting down.  In the 18^th century, beautiful lawns were a way to show the world that you could afford being wasteful, that you had extra land that didn’t need to be used for agriculture, and you had the extra hands to perpetuate this extravagance.  And somehow, this notion that this is a good thing has carried on.

That’s why when my gears got turning a few summers ago when we faced having to purchase hay in July due to drought conditions, I felt my own shift move rigidly against tense resistance.  My husband was lamenting the stiff scrabble out in the pastures as he headed out to cut the grass in the yard.  I thought, how ridiculous is this when we’re buying hay?  “Let the sheep do the work,” I said. 

But it’s the yard…

And it’s nutritious.

But they’ll poop everywhere….

And you can’t buy better fertilizer.

But they’ll eat other plants….

Thus adding to their nutritional intake.



Never too young to start learning



Plus, I added, the couple hours he was about to waste could be reclaimed.  That was the clincher.

So we let them in, and watched them go to work like machines.  I could see how much they preferred lush green grass that survived better under shade than what had been gnawed to the ground in the full sun or the subsequent hay bought and thrown out to them.  Yes, they do make a slight mess, but all the better to add to the garden and turn you off chocolate chip cookies for the rest of your life.  Plus, like deer, it’s pebbly and quickly adds itself to soil content, adding incredible nutrients to support more growth.  It’s a cycle people, and it’s a good one, backed 100% by nature.



WWI Occupation



So now, our yard is another pasture dutifully clipped and hedged by a team of power mowers.  I much prefer the sound of their munching to the drone of lawn mowers out there.  Plus, as I work in the garden, I can see them just outside my fence offering more time for me to concentrate on growing my own food as they enjoy theirs.  I toss them a few carrot tops or crop thinnings as a way of saying thanks, you wooly wonders, for working with me.