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.