December 7, 2017
I woke up a little after 4 am yesterday morning and decided to go ahead
and get up. I couldn’t sleep because I
was missing Mike and eager to get back to Laurel Fork to be with him. He had stayed at our place in South West
Virginia to try to facilitate the furnace and propane installation and to get
the whole house generator set up completed.
Every day when we would talk, there would be another delay. I think the biggest delay was the
unavailability of parts. There are so
many times as we embark on this new journey that I draw parallels between our
life in Laurel Fork and the life that I once lived in Alaska. It’s of course not anywhere near as remote or
isolated as the places I lived in Alaska and the weather won’t be as extreme,
but I find myself being reminded often of life there. I Staunton, everything we want is available
rather quickly should we really need it.
Just like when I lived in Delta Junction, Alaska, we can get all the
basics we need here in Laurel Fork if we are willing to pay a little more. Or we can drive a little further and have
more choices. (In Alaska that drive a
little further was 200 miles round trip and in Laurel Fork it’s about 30 miles
round trip to Hillsville but to get to a town with a Lowes or Walmart then the
drive takes about 45 minutes one way going either into Mt. Airy North Carolina
or into Galax, Virginia or to Wytheville, Virginia. If we are willing to drive 45 minutes we have
choices as to which town we want to shop.
We tend to gravitate to Galax.)
At any rate, I guess getting the various parts needed to make major
installations or repairs means the parts are not in stock anywhere locally or
semi locally and that holds things up, especially if something has been
overlooked in the original plan. So, day
after day, the report from Laurel Fork was that the men had run into some sort
of hold up that was keeping things from progressing and Mike was trying to keep
the house warm with just some gas logs and electric heaters. It wasn’t too bad until the beginning of this
week when the temps started dropping and at one point, he couldn’t get the
house warmer than 50 degrees.
I left Staunton around 6:30 am after packing the car and checking on
the remaining beef heifer that is to calve to make sure she was all right. Of course, as I walked through the pasture
using the headlights on my car to see, I first stepped in a pile of cow manure
with the left foot and then before jumping the fence, with the right foot as
well. Mike always says if there is one
bit of manure available, I will find a way to step in it. He says he has never seen anyone get as dirty
as I do. Each trip we make south, we
load up whatever vehicle we are taking with personal items from our home in
Staunton as we continue to try to move our things. Usually, whatever we are doing that weeks
dictates what I bring. This trip was a
typical eclectic mix of items: an old
window out of a destroyed building off the family farm that will fit in our
“new” old barn, a cooler full of our grass finished beef and homegrown veggies,
a box of canned produce from this past summer, groceries that I could buy
cheaper at Sharp Shoppers in Waynesboro, a fold up child’s size table and four
chairs for the grandkids, and my Kitchen Aid mixer all gave clues as to what
the end of the week held in store for us.
The beginning of the week had been pretty stressful for me in
Staunton. About 45 minutes out as I was
arriving in Staunton (without Mike) on Sunday, Alissa had called to say one of
our beef heifers had calved and the calf was dead. It was a large calf and we are not sure what
happened, unless she was just in labor for too long. We suspect it because Monday brought more of
the same. I woke up early to get a few
things done before keeping the girls for nine hours. The first thing I did was to check on the two
remaining heifers that were to calve. It
was a full moon the night before and often, the full moon seems to encourage
births in animals that are close to term.
Immediately when I saw the cow, I
knew things were not right. There were
some little hooves immerging as they should but the birth sack was already
broken and the nose was peeking out and I could tell that the calf was
dead. It was obvious this was another
big calf and would need to be pulled. I
tried to get to the cow and although she is a calm cow, she is not a pet and
would not allow me to assist her. I
called Mike to let him know what was going on, and he called his nephew to come
whenever he could to assist me. Matt had
two of his kids at home with him, a two year old and a five year old. I had Analia who is four and Rory who is 8
months old. It was a few hours before
Matt was able to get there and when he did, we headed out to see what we could
do with the heifer who had not progressed any further with delivering the
calf. Had the calf been living, we would
have worked a lot faster to get her in and get the calf pulled so that we could
have saved it. With it being obvious the
calf was dead, we simply needed to get him pulled so we could save the
mother. Alissa has a Tula carrier and I
strapped the baby on my back, gave the two older children toy trucks and
tractors and put them in a rock pile to play close to where we would be
working, and the two year old we had to leave in the car seat of the
truck. Matt and I quickly came up with a
plan to get the heifer from the field and into the milking parlor where we
hoped to get her in the stanchion. This
is a cow who has never been in the milking parlor before and had never been in
a headgate. This is also a cow who is in
a lot of pain and is tired from trying to give birth for many hours. There are cows that would have been very
aggressive under these circumstances, but these Hereford and Hereford cross
cows are not aggressive. Their calm
temperaments are one of the reasons why we love the breed so much. She didn’t know what we wanted but after a
few tries, we were able to get her into the head gate. We lured her in with a little grain, Matt got
behind her to push her forward and I latched the head gate. She stood calmly eating and we got the things
together we needed to pull the calf.
Matt really did all the work. I
had Rory on my back and he was concerned that I would fall or get knocked
down. In fact, he didn’t want me in at
all when we were trying to get the cow in the stanchion as he was afraid she
would hurt me and hurt the baby, but I knew the cow’s disposition and I also am
familiar with the body language of an aggressive cow and knew if she showed
signs of aggression, I would just jump the fence and get out of the way. It took a while because the head of the calf
just did not want to pass through.
Again, if the calf had been living, we would have pulled with more
urgency but at this point, we were trying to take as good a care of the mother
as possible. Matt worked with the
contractions trying not to cause tearing or
hemorrhaging in the cow.
Typically, if there are two people working on a cow having difficulty
delivering due to the size of the head, I will work my fingers and hands around
the vulva and gently stretch the skin around the nose and face of the
calf. It seems to ease the birth process
and it’s a trick I picked up from having my own children. I can remember the doctor first stretching
the skin and then making a little snip to give the baby’s head more room to
pass. After a good while, the head
finally passed through and the calf was half way out. Usually, once the head passes through, it’s
easy to deliver the rest of the calf.
However, this calf was far too big and stuck again when we got to it’s
hips. At this point we had to get the
calf out and I could see that Matt alone was making no progress, so I jumped in
behind him and we both pulled as hard as we could until the hips passed through
and the calf was delivered. We couldn’t
believe the size of the calf as it lay there on the ground. It looked like it was half grown
already. Our attention then went to
momma cow who had fallen down on the ground during all of this. We had to stop at one point, get a horse
halter and put it on her and tie her off to the stanchion once we opened the
head gate. When she went down to the
ground, there was a possibility that she might not be able to breath with the
bars pressing against her large neck.
Once the calf was out, we needed to try to get her up. There was a lot of blood and fluids on the
wood floor, so we threw some saw dust down to soak up the liquid and give her
some traction. We tried several times to
get her up but she was shaking from the stress of the whole ordeal and from her
muscles being weak from so much exertion over such a long period of time. I tried to give her water and she didn’t want
it. Matt left with his two kids and I
took Analia and Rory back inside to feed them.
Rory had fallen asleep on my back and I was able to put her on her
pillow in the floor and get Analia some lunch.
Periodically, we would go out and check on the cow but with the little
ones right there with me, I couldn’t put a lot of pressure on the cow to get
up. After she had rested a few hours,
Gabino got home from work and was able to get her up. She has recovered nicely and will be
fine. Matt has been subleasing the
family farm and running his cattle there along with Mike’s. Mike sold a lot of his cows last year and we
now run about 30 head with the cattle Matt has there. Mike sold his two Hereford bulls and Matt
uses his bulls to breed the cattle. The
bull that sired the calves that are being born now is a new bull for the herd
and it looks like his genetics are throwing some oversized calves. While you want a healthy sized calf, you
don’t want a calf that causes birthing issues.
This bull is supposed to be a low birth weight bull but it didn’t work out
that way with our two heifers. As more
calves are born in the herd, we will get a better feel for if the bull is
throwing consistently large calves.
Aside from all the drama from the calving issues, we decided that
Analia may have in fact had a concussion.
She had been ice skating with friends on Sunday when she fell and hit
her head. Later that night, she vomited
while asleep. I thought perhaps it might
be a virus, but she ran no fever and she had no recollection of having been
sick the next morning. No one else in
the family got sick, so that makes me think that it might have been from the
blow to her head. I tried to keep her as
calm and still as possible on Monday although I don’t know how calming it is to
play in the rock pile while watching a calf be pulled. Other than that, we played quietly and
read. No television or electronic
devices. (We limit her time anyway, but
we do let her watch a youtube video or television in moderation.)
Tuesday I had a list a mile long of things I needed to do and only got
about half of them accomplished but I took about an hour and visited with
Kristin and the twins who had come to see Alissa and the girls. The grands all enjoyed being together after
about a month apart and I was so happy to have them all at the house. We ordered pizza for lunch and then I had to
leave them to finish my errands before getting back by four to watch the girls
for the evening. Alissa was about an hour
late getting home Tuesday night and her cell phone had gone dead. I am usually pretty calm but for some reason
I got really scared when I didn’t hear from her, as she always keeps in touch
when she is going to be late. I was
really relieved when she walked in the door.
So, when I couldn’t sleep and woke up early on Wednesday morning, I was
ready to get back to Laurel Fork and get a hug from my Sweetheart. It had been a long two days and three
nights. I arrived back at our South West
Virginia home around 9:30 am, got a big hug and kiss from Mike, and hit the
ground running. The men arrived shortly
after I did to work on the furnace. The
house was cold and I ran a little electric heater while I put away the things I
had brought back from Staunton, made a double batch of fresh apple cake, and
wrapped Christmas gifts. It was pretty
chaotic with the men finally getting the furnace running and then needing to
“bleed the lines” at each register in this old farmhouse. We have a hot water baseboard heating system
with the old fashioned registers in each room.
When the men had removed the old furnace, they had spilled oil on the
floor in the basement. They walked
through the house bleeding the lines, water squirting over their containers and
onto the floor and black oil marks from their feet everywhere. Fortunately, realizing they would make a
mess, I had held off cleaning the house even though we are going to have a
house full of guests this weekend.
Our rental car that we got after we hit the deer had to be
returned. I had searched to see if there
was someplace closer we could return it but our choice was either Roanoke or
Winston Salem, neither of them convenient.
I had gone right by Roanoke on the way down but when the men coming to
work on the furnace, Mike was not able to leave in order to meet me and drive
me back. I had called and begged for a
grace period on return time as it was supposed to be returned by noon. They said since I didn’t pick it up until
3:40, I could keep it until then and they would give me 30 minutes grace period
beyond that which meant I had to get it turned in by 4:30 pm. We didn’t know until the last minute whether
I would need to extend the rental agreement due to not being able to get it
back on Wednesday. It depended on
whether we could get the furnace men out of the house in time. Around 2:30 Mike told me just to go ahead and
take the car and wait for him at the airport until he could get there to pick
me up. I drove as fast as I could on the
curvy back roads and then hit Interstate 81 which was slammed with tractor
trailers and a mess. It was getting
later and later and I was afraid I was not going to make it in time. I also had to stop and top off the tank. I ended up parking the car and checking in
right at the end of my grace period. We
have had the car for 11 days but our insurance won’t pay for any additional
days. Later in the month, we have to
make a trip to my grandma’s and will have to rent a car again because the body
shop says that it will be definitely after Christmas and possibly after New
Year’s before they have our car repaired from the run in we had with the deer
on the interstate. The estimate right
now is over $4000 worth of damage but they say there could be more when they
get into it.
Mike brought the one-ton farm truck to the airport to pick me up and we
went to get a bite to eat while we were in Roanoke. We were relieved when we got home and found
the house warm for the first time in over a week. After so much stress for so many days, I had
a hard time settling down and the normal feelings of relaxation when I am in
our Southwest Virginia home eluded me.
I’m sure the stress of the beginning of the week, all the driving (which
fortunately I rarely have to deal with as Mike does all of the driving when we
are together because I hate interstate driving), and all I want to accomplish
in the next 48 hours made it difficult for me to really relax.
We are super excited because Kristin and the twins are making their
first visit to Southwest Virginia. We
have a Christmas get together planned with all the grandkids, our two daughters
(their husbands are working), Mike’s mom, Mike’s sister and her son and his
wife and three kids who live in Blacksburg, about 50 minutes from us. However, with all the workers here my house
is filthy, I have none of the food prepared yet, and I don’t have the Christmas
trees yet. I also need to do more
grocery shopping. Today is Thursday and
I need to get pretty much everything done before tomorrow afternoon when our
guests start arriving. I’m trying to
breathe and remember that no matter what I do or don’t get done, just being
together is the most important thing.
December 8, 2017
Today is an exciting day! If all
goes well, Kristin and the twins will be here by this evening! When we first began looking at property in
Southwest Virginia, we entertained the thought of a small get away cabin. Well, I entertained the thought of a small
get away cabin because my dreams weren’t big enough. As Mike and I worked through and communicated
about our desires and as the area became more and more a part of what we wanted
for our future, our dream grew to include a house that was big enough for all
the grandkids to visit at the same time.
I think that might have been the single most important factor in all of
searching. When we found our home, it
just seemed like such a fun place for kids with plenty of property to roam, a
creek, a picnic shelter, plenty of beds, and fun little cubby holes in which to
play that one only finds in old houses.
We have filled our Southwest Virginia home with family on multiple
occasions in the last nine months since we bought it, but our daughter Kristin
and her kids, Hudson and Ella have not been able to make the trip. Their family have made some changes and have
more transitions in their near future as Kristin resigned her job and her
husband Nate is graduating from James Madison University next week. Tomorrow, Alissa and her two girls will join
the group. We are just thrilled to
finally have the opportunity to have all the grandkids here and I want so much
for it to be a fun time for them. I
worked yesterday to try to get the food started for our get together on
Saturday. I would like to get as much
done before everyone gets here, so that I can spend my time with them rather
than in the kitchen. I tried to keep the
menu simple so that I I could concentrate on our guests. We will be having sandwiches, soup, salads
and appetizers. I can get pretty much
all of that ready ahead of time. (Of
course, last minute preparation always takes more time than one anticipates.) Our home is more conducive for warm weather
entertaining with a large, wrap around, covered porch and a picnic shelter so
that folks can spread out. It will be a
little tight with 15 of us here tomorrow but the house will be filled with
stories, teasing, and laughter. I love
these times.
Yesterday was a milestone with the house because everything finally
came together with the home projects.
The furnace man tied up all the loose ends with the furnace and the
Generac representative got the whole house generator fired up and operational. These completed projects along with the
installation of the 500 gallon propane tank and all the propane lines run into
the house earlier in the week means that we should be able to rest easy knowing
the house will be safe, warm and we will have power even when the main source
is down. We have always had a generator
that runs off the PTO on the tractor but it required Mike to go out in the
weather to get everything going and we would only run it long enough to keep
the house from freezing up or to complete small jobs (like milking) and then we
would turn it off. We have actually gone
multiple days using the generator in Staunton when we have had power
outages. It will be wonderful to have
instant power that doesn’t require Mike to go out in adverse conditions and set
up the generator. The whole house
generator is something that I had strong feelings about when we bought this
property, and I am thankful that project is completed. (We do not have a back up system to the barn
and will have to address that in the future.
We may have to run a small, PTO driven generator at the barn to milk the
cows in the event of a power outage.) I
do have to say that with all the difficulties we have had trying to get good
contractors to address the projects we wanted to tackle, the company that
handled the installation of the generator was the most efficient and
professional and the owner was incredibly kind.
We really enjoyed doing business with them. We also ended up with a good relationship
with the company that installed the furnace, even though it took them twice as
long to get it installed as they anticipated and we were left in the cold for
multiple days. Mike really liked the
owner of the company from the beginning and we feel he was very fair to
us. We had reservations about the
gentleman doing the installation because we were not happy with the fact he
took the old furnace out before having everything he needed to make the new
installation, but we ended up developing a relationship with him over the days
he worked here. He was very concerned
about doing the job correctly. Even
though he never mentioned it to me, I knew through Mike that the man’s
girlfriend had passed away a few months ago and several years ago he had lost
his wife. I sent him home with half of a
fresh apple cake, a jar of pickles, and a jar of jam. I remember when I lost my son how just
putting one foot in front of the other was a chore for so long. I also remember how difficult it was to work
through the fog to be able to think clearly on projects that required
planning. The more I thought about it,
the more I could understand how difficult it must be for him to work through
such a big project with the grief hanging dark around his heart. In the end, we had a quality installation and
a good relationship with the company.
We had to stick around the house until mid afternoon when the furnace
man finished up and then I had to make a trip into Hillsville for
groceries. I wanted to find a Christmas
tree and we stopped at the little Christmas tree farm just a couple miles from
us. This area has a lot of Christmas
tree farms, large and small. However, I
could only find three that were selling directly to the public. One of those had a nice web site and looked
like they had a lot going on with their farm, they advertised as being
environmentally friendly, using no pesticides or herbicides on their farm, and
had a farm store. However, when I called
them, their prices were twice as much as everyone else. The other tree farm I had heard advertised on
the radio was only open on Saturday and Sunday.
I preferred to patronize the little farm closest to us and when we
stopped, there wasn’t anyone there. We
went on to Hillsville to do the grocery shopping but didn’t have time to stop
again because we had to get home. When
it was getting close to dark, we decided to run up the road to check again to
see if anyone was at the tree farm. We
were in luck and saw a truck just pulling in to the lot. The trees were priced starting at 6 feet and
I told the gentleman that I only needed a 4-5 foot tree. He told me to pick what I wanted and he would
cut it for us. We found a nice little
Frasier. I enjoyed talking to the tree
farmer. He was able to fill us in on a
little local history and threw out some family names possible associated with
the property we purchased. I love leads
like that and I hope that some day I can spend some time immersing myself in
the local history. When I mentioned that
we were working on the barn and that I intended to move my Jerseys next summer,
he told me about when he was just a kid and milked two dairy cows and sold the
milk for spending money. He said he
wasn’t very old and it was his personal project. That told me a lot about the man and his work
ethic, that even as a young child he was willing to work to earn spending
money. He said he teaches and coaches at
the school and then has the tree farm as well.
We enjoyed our short visit with him and it made me feel good that we got
our tree from him.
I broke the news to Mike that I had forgotten to bring a tree stand of
which we have multiples in Staunton. We
stopped at the dollar store, not wanting to make a trip back into Hillsville
and not having time to do so anyway. The
dollar store did not have any tree stand.
A galvanized bucket and a few bricks later coupled with a lot of grumbling
by my Sweetheart and the tree was standing.
I had chosen a small tree so that I could set it on a rustic table and
keep it higher off the ground so that the baby can’t pull it over…..or at least
it will make it harder for her to pull over.
I am pretty convinced Rory can do anything she sets her mind to and
getting into things is high on her list of priorities. It was getting late and I still had to fix
supper and finish up a couple dishes for our event on Saturday so I didn’t
decorate the tree. I had been up almost 18 hours and was ready for
bed.
December 11, 2017
A winter storm almost kept our daughters and grandkids from being able
to make it to our place for the weekend, but when we called and encouraged them
to leave Harrisonburg and Staunton immediately and get ahead of the storm, they
did so, and were able to make it just in time.
Kristin and the twins arrived before there was much snow on the roads
and had been at the house about an hour when Alissa called. She was about 45 minutes away and stranded. She had made it to a safe place to wait and
Mike and I took the four wheel drive truck to get her. We put the car seats in the truck and I drove
Alissa and the girls and Mike attempted to bring her car. I made it home with the girls but Mike called
me to come back for him. He was less
than a mile from our house but the car would not make the hill, slid, and was
nose first on a steep bank. I turned around
and went back to Mike. He got a strap on
the car and I was able to pull him out but when he tried a second time to get
the car up the hill, it just wasn’t happening.
We got the car off the road into an unused driveway and went on home. The rest of the weekend was picture
perfect. We had a beautiful snow on the
ground (about six inches or more, I’m guessing) and we were able to get the
three older grandkids outside for a good while.
They had the best time sledding down the hill in our back yard. Then we walked up to the barn and they played
in the snow under the old trees and I thought about how I couldn’t have asked
for anything more. Everything was
exactly as I wanted it to be with all the grandkids there with us in the Blue
Ridge Mountains. It was so peaceful and
beautiful and everyone was happy. We
went inside later to warm up and Kristin and I helped the kids string popcorn,
cranberries, and cereal to make edible garland for the birds. We also took pine cones, covered them in
peanut butter and rolled them in birdseeds.
Before dark, we went back outside and decorated the little pine tree
that Mike had planted for us. The
children were so excited about the project and I was so thankful that I thought
to do it with them. We did a lot of
eating (the rest of our company was unable to make it in before the weather got
bad), a lot of laughing, and the kids did a lot of playing. When we first looked at the house and thought
about buying it, I could imagine our grandkids all over the house playing and
out in the yard running around. Seeing all
of them there together was a dream come true.
They found all the hidden places where children like to play in old farm
houses and the house was filled with their shrieks of laughter. To calm them down from time to time, we spent
a lot of time reading new books and playing games. No one wanted to go home come Sunday
afternoon. The children all cried
because they wanted to stay. The only
thing that could have made us happier was if Mike’s son who lives in Thailand
could have been there as well. And of
course, I missed Josh and thought of him often.
My heart is filled with thankfulness for our blessings.