Year of Death

Sunny, 83/59, Fair to Change. Well most of the farm events are described in the post below. We are getting ready to plant corn though. Plowing is finished (well.... almost) and disking will start. We are planting some Reids open pollenated corn this spring. Some of grown by us for seed and some of it bought because we didn't get enough from last years drought.

Speaking of drought. Since Jan 1 we have had 6.41 inches of rain, thats over 10 inches BELOW what it should be this time of year. Things don't look too positive for the year to come. I'm holding off planting a couple of weeks hoping for the rain, but this is a dangerous game because the Japanese beetles around here love corn silks.

Well, I try to find humor in everything, but unfortunately, there won’t be much in this post. I’m looking back at this past year and trying to decide what I can do differently this year to change it.

It started last spring when a dog decided he wanted our broilers more than I did. I keep them in a moveable pen and he jumped on top of the pen and fell through. While he was in there he took out half the flock, little did I know, that was only the start.

In October, one of my mothers kidded twins. She was a great mom to them and took care of them well. One day in December, I noticed she was only taking care of one. After a search all I found was the carcass of one leg.

Around December, I lost a mamma goat to being stupid and some loose corn. She saw some corn near the rear tire when I was backing up. I never saw her. Around the same time I noticed one of the goats had some scours. I thought it was worms, wormed her and that didn’t help, wormed her again, but she just got thinner. Started giving her some sugar water to keep her up, but nothing helped, just before I put her down, I noticed another with scours. For the second I tried antibiotics, but that didn’t help and she slowly went the way of the first. Then a third got it. I doctored and doctored, but once again, a .22 caliber bullet was the only shot that worked. The bonfires were getting pretty regular around here. Finally after the third, the herd was starting to look healthy again.

Monday my wife came back from the goat pasture. She said we had a problem. She was right. Seems a Weimaraner got loose in the herd and decided to have some fun. When all was said and done, four nannies, one billy (no, not that Billy), and 3 kids were down and out. It was time for another bonfire; I sure am getting good at building them.

Last night, I decided to take a break from the farm. I was feeling down a little and told my wife, I was just going to sit in the rocking chair for a while. She brought me one of the victims of the dog attack. A two day old nanny kid who has to be bottle fed. She told to watch it and feed it, while she and the boys went to church.

After the first feeding, the little thing kept trying to fly, or it seemed like it, off our woodstove hearth. It would jump in the air and twist, and then go do it again. I started smiling. After it got tired of that, it just following me around the house, I couldn’t shake it. One time I had a race it to the bathroom to get some privacy. The blasted goatling almost won!! Then after another feeding it curled up next to my feet and went to sleep. I looked up at the ceiling and gave a “Thank you God” and went to bed.

This morning, I seem to be back in the mode. My list got a little longer from taking yesterday off, so it’s off today to grease the planter and mount the cultivator. The fence didn’t get fixed over night like the elves said it would, and that one renegade bull still needs a rubber band so he’ll be less of a rebel.

I’ll tell ya’ll, that’s the thing I like most about taking care of this little piece of land here in Alabama. It may not always be happy-happy-joy-joy, but it’s never boring.

In Touch With My Feminine Side

Now don’t even think of it you raggely old billy goat!!!

Today was not going well, I’ve been trying to get a fifty seven year old tractor out of the field where it decided to breakdown while pulling what was left of my brush hog that I have re-welded several times just to have it fall apart again. On top of that I got kicked by a bull calf who liked the idea of castration a lot less than I did…. AND I was beginning to feel the painful burning and itching again that we all laughed about as kids whenever the “Preparation H” commercials came on…..And now this…..

It was the end of the farm day, so I went over to the goat pasture to feed them some corn. As things green up here, corn feeding gets less and less. Finally, it will just be once a week so I can call them up if I need to.

I hate corn feeding. It is chaos at its best. The goats are all over me while I’m carrying the bucket, so I have to carry it shoulder high. On top of that, they use the feeder as the loo during its down time, so I have to try with one hand to keep them out of it while turning over the feeder, and keeping the feed bucket out of their reach. On top of that ‘ol Billy is a pig, so I have to herd him away so the others can eat, then when I think they’ve got their share, I let Billy go at it.

So after the barnyard ballet, I had Billy separated and was looking back at the others when I heard a pawing at the ground and a “Hmmmph”. Billy was about to charge. Now caught off guard on another day, I might have been chased around the barnyard while screaming like a little girl in a pink dress, but my arm hurt from the kick, and my wallet hurt from the tractor parts, and I wasn’t about to let one old billy goat push me around. So I yelled and moved towards him. Well he decided not to charge (probably good for him and me), but he still kept lowering his head and pawing the ground and “hmmmph”ing.

Just about then, something strange began to happen to me. Something I couldn’t stop. It happened with my right hand first. It twisted around so the heel was facing forward then went right for the hip. The same thing happened to my left hand. Now I’m standing there, in the barnyard with both hands on my hips and this strange voice said one of the most annoying phrases known to mankind “Don’t even think about it Mister!!”

Let me first say that I’m fine with guys “getting in touch” with their feminine side. I mean, It’s the twenty first century right?? Unfortunately (for both Billy and I), my feminine side is an impression of something my wife has done to me for the last twenty five years….. but it kind of felt good…. And I couldn’t stop!!

Well, I started by telling old billy about all the things I’ve done for him over the last four years. How I’ve fed him and nursed him while he’s sick. How underappreciated I was and how thankful he ought to be that I owned him and not some butcher shop. While I was telling him this, I started thinking about bubble baths and body oils. I shook my head to get out of that vision and could see Billy looking all glassy eyed and probably wishing he had a TV remote in his hoof about now.

Well, that only made me madder, so I reversed my hands so the palms were facing backwards and put them back on my hips. Then I used the “history technique”. You know where everything that was wrong over the years has been stored in the brain to be reused for any argument. My wife’s memory goes all the way back to our first date when I locked the keys in the car while at the movies and we had to call her roommate from the only place that was open; a drug paraphernalia shoppe. Well, ‘ol Billy heard about all his escape attempts and him being as dumb as an…. Well… as an old goat . Before I could finish, Billy turned around and started to walk off.

As I heard myself say “Don’t walk away while I’m talking to you mister!!”. My mind flashed to a picture of me sitting in a garden swing in a white housecoat with flower petals floating down all around me. Then I snapped back into reality. Billy was gone, and the picture in my mind of me wearing a white housecoat made me feel…. Well…. uncomfortable…….

Seeing the goats busy eating and Billy walking away, I quickly switched back into man mode with a couple of well placed scratches and a precision attack loogie that landed at the base of a tree. I thought about telling my wife about the experience, but she wouldn’t believe me. Besides, why ruin the feeling that for one moment in my life, I could think of myself on that garden swing and feel…. uhhhhhh… pretty.

Fencing

Sunny, 70/38, Fair to Fair. Pretty laid back here today. Cows behaving, goats behaving, machinery just as broke or fixed as it was last week. Time to quit foolin around with these animals and start sharpening and greasing up the things that feed these animals. I did pick up a culvert for a driveway the county's putting in for me. It'll make it easier for the ol truck to get out of the pasture. Especially with the rainy season coming up. Since nothing much is happening here I thought I'd tell you about something that happened in January

Another day, another goat leak……. I’ve about got these things slowed down to a trickle and I pretty much know where they are going to be now. It’s become a lot easier since I’ve tried the kinder and gentler approach of trying to make these guys and gals my friends. All except Billy of course, I don’t think he’ll ever trust me, and if he did, I’d start to think he was on the road to an alternative lifestyle or something and probably have to sell him. Besides, I do need the wrasslin’ practice in case another one comes along that’s as ornery and stubborn as he is.

Anyway, the goat leaks always seem to take place in a narrow creek bank on the south edge of our property. When it storms here, the creek gets pretty full, and tree branches and other debris seem to knock the fence loose to let the goats out. Now, I use the word fence lightly, because what I did was throw our rolled extra fence down into the creek and wired it to the bottom of the fence. Looks tacky, but works fine unless it storms. Well a couple of weeks ago, it stormed pretty good.

So here I go with my fencing pliers and some wire to the creek edge. I get there and look around. Its about a 4 foot drop into the creek. In my younger days, I’d have taken a flying leap off the bank and onto a small island in the middle of the creek. Now I look around to make sure no one’s looking, sit on the side of the creek bank, and slide down the mud until I get to the creek bottom. This is really embarrassing when I go home now, because where my wife used to patch the knees and the thighs of my ol jeans or overalls, shes now always sewing up the seat of my britches. I know she thinks I just come out to the land, sit under a tree and sip apple cider or something.

Back to work though, and after some fence wrangling and some wire cutting and twisting, the fence is as good as it was, and ever will be as long as I’m there, so its time to crawl out.

Now, I’ve been battling this fence leak for three years now. There are certain landmarks that are indistinguishable around this spot. The first is my mud slide down area. The next is the root of an at least 60 year old oak tree I use as a step. The last mark is the 10 year old sweet gum tree I use as a hand hold. Each has a specific job to do and over the last three years they have served me faithfully.

Today though, I don’t know if was too much Christmas pie or what, but the sweet gum decided it had had enough at the worst possible time. With the grace of a well trained gymnast, I managed to avoid landing on my feet and fell on my side about half way down the creek bank. I knew to successfully get off the bank I was going to need to perform a half twisting dismount which I did. I stuck the landing like only a 44 year old crippled man could…. Landing on both knees……. And both hands……. In the middle of a six inch section of water…. And the pain was tremendous…..Oh you should have heard the applause from my caprine audience as they asked me to do it again.

Instead, I slogged down the creek to a spot where I wouldn’t have to crawl out. Stepped out, took my broken butt to the barn and looked myself over. Then the most amazing thing happened. All the goats came around. They looked at me with a wondering eye; almost a look of concern. I was finally figuring out why people like these durn things so much. I mean they really do care…. Here they were, all of them (even Billy) staring at me through the gate and baaaing softly, probably hoping I was going to be alright. I got up slowly and walked towards them, reaching out to let them know I was OK, but there eyes never left where I was sitting, and there baaing got louder and more desperate. My mood quickly changed when I realized they didn’t care about me at all. All they cared about was what I was sitting on; the corn bin.

Its probably a good thing though in the end. These stories would get pretty boring if the goats and I actually did like each other.

Houdini

Sunny, 65/29, Fair to Change. Good news!! No cows hitchhiking yesterday. They all seemed to be on the "Right" side of the fence. Not wanting to set on my laurels of actually keeping them in one day in a row, I strung some electric wire down the road side of the fence line. Everthing went all right except those darn critters are curious. I had to keep one eye on them and one eye on what I was doing. I don't know how an 8' piece of electric wire does to a steer, but if I wouldn't of saw the youngun try to take it graze on it we just mighta found out!!

Sometimes life on this ol' farm gets a little more complicated than usual. Usually it’s because of some predator or some fence malfunction. The last couple of weeks though, my evenings have been spent chasing around a little bundle of trouble the wife and I have given the name “Houdini”.

Houdini came to us about 2 weeks ago. His mother kidded a single and when we showed up at the farm that morning, she was busy licking off the cutest little chocolate brown bundle of fur you ever saw. Well, we’ve been having coyote problems the past month or two, so it was off to the kidding pen for a couple of days until the little critter could get her feet under her. When we let her out, the trouble began.

Houdini has this fascination with playing hide-and-seek, She’s pretty good at it. On any given day she has me, my wife, her mother, and maybe the our two boys (for a modest monetary sum), looking for her. The first time was the morning after we let her out. I showed up at our 10 acre pasture Saturday morning to check on her. I saw her mom looking all over for her.

So with Sam the goat dog along side, I started searching. After two hours I gave up. I assumed the coyotes got an evening meal and told myself I was going to have to buy some beef liver and do some bait hunting.

That evening I came back and was doing some maintenance on the tractor, when I heard a weak bleating coming from under the workbench in the barn. Seems ol’ Houdini had crawled under the workbench and couldn’t figure out how to get back out. Well, I helped her get unstuck and soon, she and her momma were back together.

The next day was more of the same. Houdini was gone and my Sunday was spent looking all over. Found her face down a gopher hole in the woods near the barn. She couldn’t get back out. This was the day my wife named the little one “ Houdini”, because she kept disappearing. She thought about naming it Brad, because it was always getting itself into trouble and was too stupid to get out, but then she thought that every time she called for it when it was lost, I’d be coming over to where she was and we’d never get any searching done.

Well, now Houdini’s a couple of weeks old and things had calmed down until yesterday. Seems the little girl got herself caught on a little island in our creek and was too afraid of the rushing water to jump over. Momma is on the other side of the creek bleating for her to come, but she’s bleating back that she’s not gonna do it. The other goats see me walking toward the creek bank, and hoping to see some entertainment like they did last week come along to watch.

No entertainment today though, just some dirty drawers…. No, I didn’t scare myself, I just sat down on the most cushioned part of my body and slid down the bank. Snatched up Houdini and returned her to her mother.

You know, I was commenting lately to the wife how Billy and I have been getting along better lately, and the farm was getting more toward what I call normal. I’m just wondering if the Houdini girlie might have been sent here to keep things a little interesting……

Holy Cow!!!

Sunny, 61/24 Fair to Fair. Busy around here as I've decided to get into cattle. Picked 'em up a couple of weeks ago and finished the cross fencing with electric wire to keep in certain areas. Well, I stood back and looked at my work Saturday, and it looked real pretty. Then I decided to turn out the calves.
Well, theycame out of the corral slowly, then started kicking up their heels at their new found freedom. Took em 2 minutes to lay my electric fence to waste and disappear over the hill. Thank goodness my perimeter fence is barbed wire. If that didn’t stop them the next thing was the tennessee river… 15 miles away!!

Yesterday, I come up on the field and one of my heifers is trying to hitchhike her way out of the county. Took about 15 minutes to get her back in the pasture and another couple of hours to find the leak in the fence and fix it. I'll be glad when daylight savings time gets here. Fixing fence by tractor light is no fun. Especially with my habit of laying tools down anywhere!!

Interesting doings around the Bachelor place of late. We’ve started a cow herd. Well…. not really a herd…. more like a passel. Oh, they’re just as much fun as the goats, and took no time at all messing with the owner of the place. In fact, I think they are having a downright good time.

My biggest problem is watering. See, my pond is three hundred and three feet from my pond. How do I know this? I bought three hundred feet of hose to hook up to the pump to fill up the watering trough, but I seemed to have misjudged the distance by the slimmest of margins. So rather than waste an hour going to the store and back, I decided to fill it while holding my thumb over the end.

Now, my wife has taken care of many of my farm injuries before, but never a sprained thumb after 100 gallons of water flowed over it. When I showed it to her she told me to “Cowboy up” which is quickly becoming her new annoying term of the month. So rather than face another one of her irritating jokes, I’m keeping my mouth shut about the probable plastic surgery I’ll need to repair what seems to be chronic “water wrinkle” of my thumb.

Anyway, back to the cows and how they mess with me. Because they’re weaning, I’m keeping them in a corral for a couple of weeks. So I pump the water out of the pond with a gas water pump and 350 feet of hose (yes I added 50 feet) to the water trough. Well at my advancing age its kinda hard to see what’s happening 100 yards away, so after a half hour I walk up there, and they have knocked the hose out of the trough and are taking turns dipping their noses in and out of it. Its become a game of sorts.

Well, I’m mad that I’ve wasted a half hour, so I put the thing back in and stand there and watch them. Its all going pretty well, when I hear the pump sputter and run out of gas. I went back and filled up the pump and started it up and stood down by the pond for a while. I looked up towards the corral and all I could see were the cows facing backwards shaking their booties like KC and the Sunshine band were doing a reunion tour.

I hurried back towards the corral and sure enough, they had knocked the hose out of the trough again, and the water was shooting towards the corral, so they were taking turns putting their backsides towards the water stream and giving themselves some sort of perverted water wedgie.

I am so thankful this was on the back side (no pun intended) of my property. I had just bought this twenty acres and didn’t want anybody looking out their windows and saying stuff like “What’s he doing to those things now??

Well, since that first day, I’ve learned the value of baling twine and how to tie the hose to the fence so it doesn’t come out. I have to say though, I was using goats as training materials for cattle. I don’t think they’ve trained me near enough!!

Other interesting things to note:

1. When banding cows, Don’t bring a goat toy to do a mans job

2. I think I’ve discovered the organic equivalent to Velcro. Its called cow flops!! The stuff sticks to EVERYTHING

3. On that note. Cattle dirty things a little higher than goats….. about hand high…

4. On that note. Why are cattle’s favorite targets gate handles?

5. So Far in the electric corral fence “who gets shocked the most” contest Brad 5…. Cows 1

6. In the “who gets shocked the most when nature calls” contest Cows 1 Brad 0 (although I almost sent this one into overtime….)

7. When goats move in the livestock trailer, you look back to see how they’re doing. When cows move in the trailer… You’re changing lanes…

8. Cows and goats are both pigs when it comes to corn.

9. Young cows can get in a hay-ring like young goats get in the bunk feeder.

10. When a goat gets you, your hand gets blue… When a cow gets you, your hand gets the blue cross card….