Sunday, February 26, 2012

Goats, moats, greenhouses, gardens, opossums and chickens

***From the foot bridge, Kevin reporting with the goats...

Mildred, the unfortunate looking goat with an equally unfortunate name, fell off the foot bridge this morning...and into the creek! Ha ha. The ungracefully erect position of her ears and wideness of eyes at the moment of stumble suggested at first a surprise, but nanoseconds later, her face seemed to morph into the look of a goat going through a complete existential crises of her spacial existence. Old Newton strikes again...sure footed goat, yeah "my foot," as your author's late Grandma-O would put it. Words would not do the hilarious event justice, so we won't even attempt to describe her teetering grasp for balance and a brief grunt of impact that would have required some combination of circular breathing, rumination and a burp...all in imperfect harmony! Certainly, it could not be duplicated on command. We only wish our eyes could have been your lens.

We have had great success containing the goats by simply tying Dolly...or ah hem, Amanda when she is acting as a stubborn female dog...to a rock with about 25' of rope and moving the rock when we feel we should.
Dolly is the head goat, so as long as she stays in one place then Mildred and the Kids seem to do the same within 50'...mostly.

A neighbor up the hill from us, Jim Church, suggested the idea when we explained our series of unfortunate fencing affairs. Now, we move the rope once a day and sometimes twice...somebody is always around to keep an eye out for hang ups around trees. Nevertheless, a well placed rock, attached to a rope seems to be doing the job our fence and patience could not. Stay tuned. We're going to have to trim their hooves soon, but don't know how.

As far as the goats preference of palate, we have observed that Honeysuckle is first, followed by anything we don't want them to eat; of course, then grass, blackberry brambles, American beauty berries, cedar, moss and whatever they want. As near as we can tell, they will eat more grass than anything else. They simply love it. Since our goats are supremely spoiled, we must wait to let them out until the sun melts the lightly frosted morning grass
. We would never dare to put them in a place the sun has not hit yet, because they won't let us. We know, we've tried it and then somehow, one way or another, they'd end up in our neighbor's chicken coop, chock-full of grain and corn.

Many a frosty morning has been spent chasing goats out of unwanted areas and looking like a complete fool.
Gee wiz, you give a mouse a cookie...and then he will want a glass of milk too. These are allegedly wild, inbred BRUSH GOATS. We literally had to catch them and transport them. Upon arrival, Mildred took off and we had to catch her again...

Tell me, have you ever tried to catch a wild goat before? We won't elaborate, but if you haven't you're better off. There is no hazard pay. And now they are broken; only, we can't take em back. Although, we will probably end up putting a couple in our freezer. What has happened is that they tricked us. As it turns out, we are the goats who are trained and domesticated. You should see the flaming hoops we jump through. Thus, the capitulation and now, we wait until the morning conditions are right...entailing that they are scratched until satisfied, baby goats are cuddled, harassed and sometimes massaged just so that they will stay where we put them. And they do...mostly.

***From the garden...

Speaking of people looking like complete fools and chasing animals out of areas that they should not be, Kevin was high-tailing it through the garden after the chickens who were eating a smorgasboard of earthworms we've been trying so hard to keep in the garden. Remarkably, he has only done this once before about 9 months ago. The display must have put a 9 month impression on them as they have not entered since. Then, as now, he raced after them like a flying spaghetti monster, flailing his arms about `in a disturbing manner and screeching as a pterodactyl. When asked what his secret was, he replied: "Well, when I told Diane about how the chickens were gittin' in ther garden, she told me to giv em a good 'talkin to.' So, I sure done did...didn't I? They haven't been back. For the sake of his pride, we hope it will be another 18 months before anyone has to do it again.

Most of the garden is cleaned up and ready to be planted in, although, there is still much to do. And some of the garden has already been planted in. Karley and Marie planted shallots, onions and carrot seeds with several beautiful warm sunny days before us.

***From the greenhouse, Karley and Marie with babies... the ones green with chlorophyll...

Marie has been transplanting cabbage, kale, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, broccoli. Most of them have their first true leaves budding out. We've notice a few of the cotyledons are a bit misshapen, but we are keeping them moist and planting a few extra. Karley and Marie have been busy as bees in greenhouse and we now have 36 trays full.

The greenhouse is getting pretty full too. But we still haven't used the bottom shelf either. There is also ample room for additional shelving...but only so much time. The days are getting longer...we've noticed.

***From the farm...

It has been raining, unseasonably warm, mostly cloudy, then sunny with temperature readings from highs up to 74 to a low of 8. In the evening, we noticed moths beating themselves ritually against the barn lights. During the day, there is an imperceptible hum and sporadic insect activity hovering about 6' off the ground. All Purple Maize Farm can think of is a swarm of coming summer bugs. Echk.

Last year, Kevin helped ol' Louie Frazier...an 85ish year old farmer who free ranges his cows up and down Henley Hollow Rd....split wood last February. The man has more tricks up his sleeve than a magician and at 85 stacked a rack of wood at least 7' high and 20' long...by himself! Kevin was helping him split up an old maple that was brought low by a wind storm and finished off with Louie's chainsaw. They were 3/4 of the way through when they were rained out. They went inside to take cover and Ol' Louie forewarn us that: "If it thunders in February, then it will frost in May."

May 3rd, Marie and our dear friend Evan were covering last year's tomato plants, for the coming frost.

Here at Purple Maize Farm we know that correlation does not imply causation, but Ol' Louie knew something that we didn't. He had to; the weather is his living. So, we watch, we wait...and wonder. What do these tenacious, stalwart old timers know? What secrets from the past do they possess? What whispers of yesteryear adheres to their Great Grandparents, upbringing, hand hewed, mortised and tenoned, wood pegged Chestnut barns and cabins, can we all learn from? What have we all forgotten and have become so disconnected from? As usual, we don't know. Still, we ask...listen...and try to remember.

The gods were bowling at least three times this February. We do not wish to challenge them or invite their wrath. Will Ol' Louie call it again?

***From the Chicken Tractor...

In other news, we are down one chicken and the builder of the chicken tractor is no smarter than a opossum. Kevin built a movable chicken coop complete with nest boxes accessible from the outside, a jungle gym of roosting poles and lentils; plus, 8'' solid rubber white-walled wheels. It has been in the horse and donkey pasture in an effort to rehabilitate it.

Biologically, historically and naturally, fowls follow livestock. (For instance, the great plains at one time had six feet of top soil, because the buffalo would migrate thousands of miles from the northern plains to the southern plains...fertilizing the entire journey. Then, the turkeys, pheasants and a myriad of other fowls would follow suit, working the fertilizer into the soil and adding some more of their own; thus, completing the nutrient cycle.)

The chicken tractor moves in style and it has worked magnificently until Saturday night when Kevin received a telephone call at 10:30pm from the other end of the pasture from our dear friends
and neighbors, Benjy and Sterling.

"Hello?"

"Yes, Kevin, I wanted to let you know that there are screeching sounds coming from your chicken tractor and you might want to check it out."

"Oh, thank you for informing me. It is a pretty sweet looking chicken tractor. You know I was thinking about installing a stereo that played Marvin Gay during the night. I wouldn't worry, though, they are probably mating...you know, they have to make those eggs somehow..."

"What? I thought you had six laying hens...and no roosters!?"

"Oh dear, you're right...I'm on my way!"

Naturally, all the flashlight batteries were dead. So we hustled out there with fury and a Bic lighter, only to find an opossum glaring at us and right in our way. "EEHHH!" We gave it a boot, then several good stomps in the head and it played opossum until Benji met us in the pasture with a gun and a flashlight. We were happy that the dark figure advancing towards us in the field with a gun was actually Benjy and that he was on our side.

Like capital punishment is to murder, it is always difficult to tell when a opossum is dead. They are very clever in that way and the stomping we gave it surely didn't assist its health in a positive manner, so Benji took aim; his heart racing and palms sweating,
"Man...this really sucks," Benjy remarked. Those words pretty much said it all. And then fired.

The Wyandotte chicken was still inside in the corner of the chicken coop. We lifted the chicken tractor up and over the poor chicken to see the damage. Most of the hind end of the chicken was a red fleshy mess of blood, raw meat and intestines, yet the chicken was still hanging on to a thread of life. We asked Benjy for the rifle, silently thanked the chicken for its
mitochondrial energy, color, chickeness and life it had given us, took aim and shot.

The next day, upon inspection, we noticed several staples loose in our chicken tractor. One, by the front door could be pulled back almost 10''. We untied the tarp roof and pulled it back, and then wire-tied any loose parts closed. Then tied the roof back on. We disposed of the opossum and chicken in our humanure compost pile. Only later, another neighbor suggested leaving the opossum out for the chickens to eat. After all they are carnivores and it would have been poetic justice for the rest of the flock. Hopefully, we won't have to do it again.

Your ever humble, goat wrangling, opossum stomping, garden growing, correspondent,
Kevin



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