July 19, 2018
I am incredibly thankful this morning for the simple
things. As daylight broke, the Carolina
Wrens who nest outside my back door began to sing in the damp, cool of first
morning light. I made a cup of tea,
(having inadvertently abandoned coffee while I was ill and having not taken it
back up again) and settled in to write.
Although I had a break through with whatever illness had befallen me
last week, I have continued to suffer some symptoms until and the fact I had a
good day yesterday and a good night last night has left me feeling especially
thankful this morning. A person who is
highly tolerant of physical pain and a has been able to manage even after
surgeries without pain killers, I found myself in horrible pain on Monday
evening as I felt the blood pounding through the back of my head. I hate to sound so dramatic but the intense,
throbbing pain left me wondering if there wasn’t something horribly wrong with
me and in my pain induced stupor, all I could think of was that I wanted to
make sure that Mike knew how much I love him.
I didn’t speak it out loud, but I wondered if I wasn’t having a stroke,
the pain so intense, my uncontrollable stuper, inability to formulate complete
thoughts and sentences, and sensitivity to light. I guess my stumbling around in pain and
focused intensity about the fact I didn’t want him to ever forget how much I
love him really scared him and he tried to get me to go to the hospital, but I
refused (although I told him later if it ever happened again, just pick me up
and carry me to the nearest hospital).
Never has he given me such attentive care as he did then, holding me in
his arms, stroking my face, and whispering for me to be calm as the tears
rolled down my face and he willed me to feel better. I think he watched me well
into the night, making sure I was all right. With the help of Tylenol, the
throbbing in the base of my skull and along my neck finally eased and I drifted
off to sleep. That was the worst, and
the subsequent headaches that have hit me daily have decreased in intensity
until yesterday when I made it through the day without a one. Yesterday was a great day. I felt good, had my normal energy, and had no
headaches or fever. I am just
incredibly thankful to hear the birds singing this morning.
Monday, in spite of not being on top of my game, we decided
to run errands in Galax an hour and a half round trip for us. We had a couple of small items to place in
our booth at Briar Patch antiques and we wanted to check on things there. So far, we are very happy with that particular
venue. We filled the rental car with
feed (our Ford Edge is still under recall without parts to repair it and Ford
is paying for us to drive a rental until it can be repaired). We bought a few groceries and we stopped at
Lowes to get more stain for the fence, but they said they had discontinued
carrying that brand and we would have to go to Home Depot in Christiansburg to
get it. Mike stopped in to check on
propane prices to see about getting our propane tank filled. It won’t be long and we will be into fall and
then the winter months. Time sure does
go by quickly. Hard to believe we are
starting to prepare for our second winter here, and this time with the
animals.
Mike asked me Tuesday morning if I felt like riding to the
Foot Hills produce auction in Boons Mill.
I told him that I did. It is lovely
drive that takes about an hour and a half via the parkway. There just really isn’t any traffic on the
parkway and the scenery and wildlife are just lovely. We always see deer and
turkey but this time we saw a bear looking out at us from the edge of the
road. I remember when Mike and I first started
dating 13 years ago that the parkway always seemed a busy place. I suppose at times it still is, but it really
seems to me that many people don’t choose to utilize the parkway and take
advantage of the views and camping it provides perhaps because there are not a
lot of modern amenities and thrill-seeking adventures. Internet service is poor
to nonexistent along the route, gas stations few and far between and no fast
food restaurants. Just not the place the
majority seek out to visit anymore. It’s
sad on many levels that the appeal is not there for the majority, but for me
personally, it is nice to be able to have the parkway almost out my back door
(just a few miles drive from our house) and be able to enjoy it so immensely. (Never
do I drive it, however, without thinking about the people whose homes and lands
were taken as they were forced out by our government so that this National Park
could be created.)
The Foot Hills produce auction, very small compared to the
Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction, is well-orchestrated, and fun to
attend. We stopped at Lowes in
Roanoke on the way home and Mike found that they had not yet removed the stain
we needed and was able to get another five-gallon bucket there. Both on the way into the Boons Mill area and
back from Roanoke as we travelled the byways and the parkway, we crossed a
section that one comes upon suddenly where the Mountain Valley Gas Pipeline is
being installed. I cannot begin to
explain the horror I felt as we approached and looked to the right and
left. For as far as we could see the
trees had been clear cut and the pipeline stretched out menacingly like the
ugly monster that it is. We moved
quickly by, but I couldn’t help but see the look on the face of one of the
engineers. A young man, he looked hard
and determined, almost defiant. The
whole scene just broke my heart and as I intentionally looked up information on
the Virginia pipelines later that day, I read of the problems the neighbors are
having with run off from the pipeline construction and the affect it was having
on the environment. I could not shake
the scene of that pipeline from my head.
Wednesday, we had an appointment with the man from NRCS
(Natural Resources). He had been out a
few months ago and we had talked but with his schedule and ours we had found it
difficult to get together again. We
still have not made a definitive decision about going with the program but we
are leaning more and more in that direction.
The program would contract us in to fencing the cattle out of the
streams and in return, we would get help with setting up a rotational grazing
program with paddocks with watering troughs.
It is a win-win situation for the animals, the farmers and the
environment. It does mean some money out
of our pocket that we would otherwise not have to put out, but I think the
benefits in the long run are worth the extra effort and expense. We are waiting for Tim to get back with us on
a cost analysis and we will go from there.
It would probably be all before we can get approved and get
started.
July 20, 2018
I love preserving summer’s bounty and yesterday I was able
to put up 11 pints of sweet relish and 7 pints of blueberries. I have been vacuum sealing and freezing
blueberries and we have the freezer on our spare fridge full of them. After vacuum sealing and freezing 24 quarts
of squash, I have no room left in the small, stand alone freezer
downstairs. We are going to have to move
one of our freezers from Staunton before I can put up any more frozen
food. I prefer to can and see the jars
line up along the cellar wall, but there are certain foods we (or Mike) likes
better frozen instead of canned and some foods just lend themselves to freezing
rather than canning. Mike won’t touch a
canned green bean. That was something I
really had to change because I grew up on canned green beans.
The thing that struck me when I started me day today was the
silence. As the sun came up, there was
an uncanny silence and my mind just couldn’t quite place what was
happening. It wasn’t until Mike went
outside and noticed that our bird house, sitting on the edge of the porch in
which the melodious Carolina Wrens had nested and were raising their young had
been sabotaged. I was so saddened to
find the house on the ground and nothing left but feathers where some type of
predator had knocked it off and eaten the baby birds. Momma bird had escaped and was flying
frantically around and around trying make sense of the assault. I can’t understand how I didn’t hear the
house hit the deck or know that the attacker was there so close. I suspect a cat, although I have not seen any
cats around here. I had watched the
wrens happily building their nest, witnessed the momma going in each day to lay
her eggs, and then, once she began setting, watched her wearily poke her head
out of the hole on occasion as she kept her eggs incubating. It was almost as if she were saying, “Is it
time yet? I’m so tired of setting.” Once the babies were born she and daddy bird
worked tirelessly to keep them fed, singing the whole time. While I was so sick last week, it was the
sound of those birds that kept me grounded in reality and one step away from
becoming depressed, for how could one give over to despair with the music of
the wrens outside the door. I remarked
to Mike that it sounded as if we lived in aviary. The baby birds must have been so close to
spreading their wings and learning how to fly only to be destroyed by a natural
predator.
July 23, 2018
Friday, we drove into the Roanoke Valley and once again that
ugly pipeline caught my attention. I
looked harder at the detail this time, realizing we were coming up on it and
knowing what it was. Perhaps I could not
see as far as I thought I could see the first time I witnessed the pipeline,
but still, the bare ground torn open and that huge pipe that lay next to it
waiting to be lowered into the ground filled me with a sense of dread, a
feeling that I just can’t shake. I
didn’t see the volume of construction workers along the edge of the road this
time or the huge machines at work that I witnessed the previous time. While not completely still and quiet, the
frenzy I had witnessed previously was absent, perhaps because it was a Friday
afternoon and they were winding down for the weekend. Perhaps they were working
further down the line and away from the road.
I’m not sure. We humans, in
general, seem to want our pipelines, our modern conveniences, our jobs and our
way of life at all cost. I have friends
who are valiantly fighting against the pipeline that is going across the
Shenandoah Valley. I admire them for
that.
While in the Roanoke Valley we unexpectedly ran into some
friends from the Shenandoah Valley. We
had a great time catching up with them over lunch at a little family owned
diner. It was, in a sense, maybe a bit
of closure for me as the four of us who had sold produce in the valley caught
up on the latest news on the other producers and markets of which we were
mutually aware. When we left produce
sales, we did so a little bit unexpectedly with a failing summer crop, our
unwillingness to buy the majority of the produce from other farmers, and so
much going on in our personal lives last summer. We just ended the season one year expecting to
go back and then didn’t return the next year.
In that in a sense it was as if we just walked away “without saying
goodbye”. On one hand, I had somewhat
dreaded eventually running into other sellers from our produce days, assuming
they would label us as quitters. It’s a hard
life and until one has participated in that market, in our case, growing as
well as buying and selling, then taking it all mobile. One does not realize the amount of work and
stress it takes to present the buyers with a quality, perishable product. A
number of folks very actively involved as we were, have shut down. In my opinion, the market has also changed a
lot. So many years ago when Mike just
sold right off the farm to friends and neighbors, there was not the cut throat
competition that there is today. Folks
knew what we sold was grown right there on the farm and they didn’t mind
driving a little to some place off the beaten path to get homegrown
produce. Now with produce auctions and
larger production of “homegrown” vegetables, everything has changed, in my
opinion. There’s a lot of good to the
buy fresh/buy local movement. Folks who
otherwise would not think twice about where their food comes from really care
and seek out good produce grown locally.
A lot of the local produce is bought and shipped to Charlottesville,
Northern Virginia and the Washington DC area.
Since these areas are within a 200 mile range, they considered
“local”. This drives the prices up and
also makes obtaining the produce from local farmers difficult. This creates an atmosphere of competition
among those who have set up produce stands and markets and while competition
can be a good thing, it can also cause people to act inappropriately and
hateful towards one another. I saw a lot
of ugliness when we were selling produce on a larger scale after we had left
the farm and went mobile. I saw a lot of
deception from those marketing the local produce. Aside from wearing me down physically and
putting tremendous strain on my body, the cut throat attitude of the competition
took all the fun out of it for Mike and I, but especially for me. Seeing
our friends, who are still involved in the market, and talking to them brought
me a sense of relief that we are not longer part of that scene in the
Shenandoah Valley. On the other hand, it
was refreshing to see how our friends were genuinely happy for us with our
“new’ life and we, on the other hand, were genuinely happy to hear of their
successes and how well they were doing in this market that takes so much
dedication and good management skills. I
think, no, I know that Mike will always miss it. It was perhaps his first love in farming and
I can still see how much he wants to be involved at some level. For now, our little honor system cart sits in
front of the house and neighbors and passers by stop and buy a tomato here and
a squash there and perhaps a dozen eggs.
When we chance to enter the driveway as someone is “shopping” they often
remark how they love our little set up and the fact that we trust others enough
to set up an honor system for our small-scale produce sales. It’s like getting
back to the basic and just sharing something good with one’s neighbor. It makes people feel good and Mike enjoys
“peddling” a little bit of produce right from the comfort of our home. I always smile at the joy Mike gets from it
all. Sometimes we talk about “going back
into it a bit” and maybe someday, if we live long enough, we will. Mike has done so much for me and made so many
sacrifices for my happiness. If he
decides he really wants to grow or sell again, then maybe we can find a happy
medium where it won’t be so overwhelming.
For now, the little peddlers cart on our front lawn is spreading
happiness to those who stop as well as to my husband. I love that and I feel we are back to the
basics of making people happy by sharing with them a simple pleasure that
reminds them of home, their childhood, their grandparents, or because it just
tastes good. While it would be nice to
make a few dollars, it’s not about making a living by selling produce and
that’s a relief.
Saturday we were not sure of our plans. We debated on what to do. I hated to leave Princess. She continues to look every day as if she will
calve and yet she holds on and doesn’t present us with a calf. She has always been this way, teasing us and
never giving a clear indication as to when she will give birth. As a first calf heifer, I had the vet out
about six weeks before she calved because she was acting “off”. She is so dramatic. A seasoned old vet that many of the local
dairy farmers complain about came out.
He examined her and we talked. I
told him her name. Finally, he told me
that she was fine, that she was just spoiled, but he said it in such a way that
I could tell he like the fact she was spoiled.
In fact, he went on to tell me that he liked the fact my cows had names
and he was happy to come out anytime I needed him. My experience with Dr. Hunter was positive
and we developed a respectful, working relationship that left me feeling as if
my animals were well cared for when he would respond to a call. From that first calf forward, Princess
pregnancies have always been an adventure.
This time is no exception. I
assumed she was bred for an April calf, but it became evident that wasn’t the
case. Then, I thought perhaps she was
not bred at all but as the months went by, it became evident that she was. Now we wait on the Princess, as we always
do. I finally decided that we would just
go ahead and leave Saturday for our trip to Staunton for Analia’s birthday
party. We would try to return in as
close to 24 hours as we could and hopefully Princess would be ok.
When we arrived in the Valley, I had about an hour and a
half before the booth closed at the Factory Antique Mall. I took Analia with me and we worked on taking
some things out and marking down some prices on some items. Mike and I have decided to keep our half
booth at Verona Antiques, another venue in town, and our new booth in
Galax. Our sales at The Factory have
declined so much and with our being out of town so much, we just decided to let
that booth go at the end of August. We
have also had a lot of issues with the management and with theft at The
Factory, probably mostly because the place is so large that it can’t be easily
monitored. We will be dividing up some
of the items at the Factory between our remaining booths and running sales on
some of the smaller items.
Sunday, I spent a little bit of time replacing some tags and
putting in a few items at Verona Antiques before everyone gathered for Analia’s
birthday party. Analia turns five at the
end of this month. One thing I
appreciate about Alissa is she has stayed true to the way I raised her and
remains low key with the girls, not going over the top for things like
birthdays. She asked that folks who
wanted to gift Analia simply contribute to her dance lesson funds. We anticipated a warm July day for the party
and outdoor, water-based activities, but the day ended up feeling almost like a
fall day with cool temperatures and rain.
Everything was kept in doors and the kids were happy just playing
together. At times, the adults couldn’t
hear each other talk due to the volume of noise from the kids, but they were
good and had fun. All four of our
grandkids were there, a cousin, and four friends. The house was full of adults as well. It was a fiesta party with chicken tacos,
Mexican soda, a piñata, and colorful decorations. Alissa gave Analia the American Girl Doll,
Josephina, that I had bought her when she was a little girl. In those days, paying $100 for a doll was a
big sacrifice and I had taught Alissa to be very careful with her American Girl
dolls. As a result, the doll she
presented to Analia was in pristine condition.
With Analia’s Mexican heritage, the doll was perfect. Analia had told me the day before, drawing an
imaginary line down the center of her body, that she was half Mexican. She then went on to explain to me, pointing
to the right side of her body, that the section indicated was Mexican and the
other side was Caucasian. I had to
smile. I am glad that she is proud of
who she is and acknowledges all the aspects of her genetic lineage. Her daddy explained to her that while he was
born in America, his parents had been born in Mexico. He told her that he was American of Mexican
decent. I can see the wheels turning in
her head as she tries to make sense of it all.
She’s a smart girl and I want her to always be proud of who she is and
the blood that mingled over the years whether it is the Irish and Cherokee
Appalachian blood, the Scandinavian, Dutch and German blood hailing from the
Missouri Ozarks, her Hispanic heritage and whatever else might be mixed in
through the various blood lines.
July 29, 2018
I awoke to the sound of the Wrens singing this morning. This, after days of silence. I don’t know where they have been since the
un-named predator destroyed their home and killed their babies. I have not heard them singing and it is no
wonder. They are birds, simple creatures
and perhaps not on top of the hierarchy of God’s creations, but I know they
feel terror and sorrow to some degree. I
watched the parents who were frantic after the attack as if they just could not
accept the fact the tiny clutch of babies that had been put into their care
were actually gone. I heard their
silence as loud as any song they ever sang in melodious rapture. Their silence has weighed on me this week and
I know, in a sense, what they must feel.
Perhaps they are not so complex a creature that they can sort out
emotions and feelings. Perhaps they
merely react to instinct. Or perhaps
they are in touch with feelings. We
don’t know. What I do know is that if a
tiny, insignificant wren reacts to such a loss in this manner and as we suppose
it is merely instinct and not some deeper revelation that causes them to
grieve, then it is no wonder that we as high functioning humans with instincts
as well as skills of reasoning and the pull of intense emotions grieve over our
own losses. But the birds are singing
again. They have returned with song and
they will go on living. This is the hope
we have that life can be lived after tragedy and that the senseless losses that
affect our lives are not ours alone, but rather individually and collectively
we share with all of nature in the understanding of what it means to have to
let go of the very things that are most important to us. Grief isolates by its very nature, but we are
not alone in grief. We are only alone in
“our” grief. We are not singled out by
God so that He can dump sorrow upon us to see how much we will grow or to test
our faith. I do not believe this,
although it was the message that came through time and time again in the
messages and lessons I was taught in Church and the Christian School I
attended. It is the underlying message
one hears when friends unwittingly remark that “God doesn’t give us more than
we can bear” or “God is working in your life to make you a stronger or better
person”. One lives in fear of a God who
continues to dump sorrow upon “his children” in order to “grow them up right”. My own losses have brought me to the point
where I believe in a God of grace, a God of love, and a good God. Nature just is. Life just is.
Good and bad happen every day to all kinds of people. Predators prey in the natural world around us
and baby birds get killed. Predators
roam in the human world and because men and women become jealous, vengeful,
selfish, and controlling, we hurt one another.
Humans suffer because we destroy ourselves and one other, not because
God is exacting some well-planned, hurtful event in order to cause us to become
better people. God is good and God is love and when we
emulate His nature, that is when the world becomes a better place. Never will the world be perfect and we will
continue to suffer loss but grace offers us a song in the midst of the pain,
just like those little wrens who can’t help but sing their songs even after
such a devastating loss.
July 30, 2018
I haven’t found a lot of time to write these past few weeks,
but I am committed to continue even when I am not able to get things down on a
daily basis. This week marks one year
since I started posting my journals online to the blog. It has been such a good year for me as I have
more and more fallen into my own natural writing style. The decision to just write from the heart and
give myself the space to form the words and sentences that express my soul have
given me so much freedom. I write to
give myself the freedom to create in the manner that brings me the most
satisfaction. In return, I have had the
kindest comments from people, both strangers and those I know, telling me that
they can relate to something I have expressed, telling me something I said
brought them joy or peace, telling me that I have entertained them, inspired
them, or encouraged them with my words.
I am thankful for a year of writing in earnest. I am thankful for being able to share my
stories, my thoughts, and my feelings with those who read my words. I am thankful for those who look over the
grammatical errors and bear with me when something doesn’t make sense. I write from the heart, I write quickly, I
have to feel what I write and rarely do I have the time to go back and edit,
thus leaving an original that is first draft quality. I am thankful for people who are patient with
my writing and who offer me the grace to grow and who encourage me along the
way.
I’ve got to wrap things up, having not posted to the blog in
over two weeks now. Yet, here I am having missed posting last week
and still struggling to share some of the events that have happened this
week. We did a lot of “running around”
this past week and I did a lot of canning this last week. Those two activities don’t go together very
well. It’s hard to get the canning done
in a timely manner even when just sticking around the house but its even harder
when trying to find time to do it between running here and there. We went to two church events this past week,
the one service at our church on Tuesday evening and the other service at a
Presbyterian church in Hillsville on Thursday evening. We also made two trips into the Roanoke
Valley which is about an hour and twenty minutes one way. In addition, we made several trips into Galax
which is about 45 minutes one way. When
Mike said he was going back to Staunton today, I told him I would just stay in
Laurel Fork and try to pull myself together.
It has been a good day for that.
The day has gone well and I have accomplished much while not pushing
myself too terribly hard. I told Mike
that I was caught up on the canning and had the house cleaned up, so now I can
start all over again! He is bringing
back tomatoes and some other produce from the garden he put out at his Mom’s
place. I am happy to get the veggies and
thankful for all that we are able to put in the freezer and on the shelves.
August 2, 2018
This is a day to write.
We have had over three inches of rain in 48 hours and a little after 3
am I heard the sound of the whole house generator as it roared into life. We checked online to see when the power was
supposed to be restored and Appalachian Power indicated restoration time to be
around 10 am. We decided to turn the
generator off and conserve propane. As
soon as we got a bit of daylight, I went up to the barn to make sure the momma
cows were all right. Everything was good
there. With that finished, there wasn’t
a whole lot I could do without electricity.
Until we turn the generator on or power is restored, I will have some
down time to write a bit this morning.
So much has happened in the past few weeks that I have not
had the opportunity to put in my journal.
Princess finally had her calf. After months of not knowing when she was
going to finally calve and her teasing us by being overly dramatic about her
discomfort and days of watching her closely, she had her baby without
assistance. I was canning and checking
on her frequently. I knew she was
laboring but she didn’t appear to be in distress, so I opted to go back to the
house and finish up my canning. When I
returned to the barn, I heard the gentle lowing that I refer to as “momma
moos”. A mother cow has a distinct tone
and voice when she is calling to her baby for the first time. Some mommas will begin calling to her baby
while she is in labor and others begin after the calf is born. I am always touched by the sound of a mother
cow with her newborn calf but this particular time, knowing I am not going to
breed Princess again and this will be her last calf, my heart literally did
summersaults when I heard the gentle sound of her calling to her calf. There is a spot in the barn where I can look
down onto the floor of the loafing shed on the back of the barn where I had
left Princess in labor. As I peered
through the window, I saw Princess standing, licking the calf, and calling to
it as it tried to stand to nurse. I was
so excited and didn’t want to interfere with their bonding since things were
going so well, so I immediately ran outside, waving my arms to get the
attention of Mike who was working on another big restoration project and using
the loader to move trash and debris. I
gave him the “thumbs up” along with a huge smile. He mouthed to me “she calved?” and I shook my
head yes and ran back inside. Mike shut
down the equipment and came inside and we checked to see the sex of the
calf. I was ecstatic to find out that it
was a heifer, a calf that I can keep as a replacement for Princess, since I
will no longer be breeding her. We did
help the calf get some colostrum. In fact, we had to help her nurse for the
first couple of days. Princess with her
short legs and low hanging udder along with the engorged teats created a
difficult scenario for a new baby calf.
I am so glad that she was born healthy and aggressive. At least we had that in our favor. I did not want to bottle feed the baby as it
is just so much better to let them nurse and start them out in that manner from
the very beginning and while it is not recommended for a newborn calf to nurse
while lying down, that is the only way we could get her on Princess teats to
eat. We tried to position her with her
neck outstretched in the proper manner each time we assisted her and she did
well when we put her on the teat, although she didn’t eat as much as I would
have liked. Mike reminded me that it
doesn’t take a lot for a newborn and I did feel pretty comfortable about the
welfare of mom and calf. That didn’t
keep me from constantly checking on Princess to make sure that she was not
coming down with milk fever, a metabolic condition that often occurs in mature
dairy cows after they calve. Princess
has had issues with milk fever for years.
This year I had boluses from the vet with two types of calcium that
could be quickly absorbed by a cow that had just freshened. We gave Princess one of the boluses right
after she calved and then another one twelve hours later. While it is still too early to say for sure
that the boluses were a success in keeping her from getting milk fever, most
often milk fever occurs during the first three days after freshening, and we
are now seven days past calving. In
addition, I have been able to witness the calf, whom I call “Little P”, nursing
aggressively on her own. The first time
I saw her nursing unassisted I just stopped to observe so as not to disturb
either of them. The calf worked hard to
get Princess teats in her mouth and then when she lost it, she lay down and
nursed just as Mike and I had taught her to do.
It was the cutest thing. Then,
she popped up on her back legs and stayed down on her front knees to nurse for
a while before getting up to a standing position and eventually even switching
over to the other side of the udder. I
knew then that she would be fine and that I didn’t have to monitor her eating
habits anymore.
While Princess has done well to have the calf without
assistance and ward of milk fever, she has not been without drama. I think it must be a combination of being in
a new place along with the fact that she is overly protective of this calf,
almost as if she knows this one is special and this one is her last. She has not been directly aggressive towards
Mike or I. I have handled her too much
to ever expect that but she has been very unhappy. We have kept her penned up in the large
shelter area a lot and then in a fenced in area away from the rest of the herd. The two-fold reasoning behind this decision
was so we could get to her easily to treat her if she does develop milk fever
and to keep the small calf safe from predators until she is strong enough to
stand a chance to survive. Every time
Princess feels like we are a threat to her calf, she paws the ground with her
foot like we so often see the mean, old bulls do. It’s all bluff with her. Were this some other cow, I might be fearful
of aggressive behavior, but while I keep an eye on her, I am confident that she
will back down to me and she does. She
is simply expressing her displeasure in her own dramatic way that is so typical
of Princess. Jerseys are creatures of
habit and messing up their routine is a sure way to have at least a week or
more of drama until they figure out that things are going to be different. Such is the case with milking Princess. We are in a new barn and a new milking parlor
and have a new routine and she has a new baby to go along with her raging
hormones. As a result, she has not
wanted to enter the new milking parlor and we have had to take the calf in each
time to get her to go into the stanchion.
Every night is an ordeal.
Thankfully, the one night that Mike was away from home, the calf was
asleep in the field and she decided she would voluntarily walk in and let me
milk her. I know it will get better with
time, but right now I am thankful that we have mostly had the time to spend
with her to get her into a new routine.
Little P is not without her own drama. When she was on her third day of life she
managed to disappear while we were at church.
I had reservations about letting Little P and Princess out while we were
away but when Mike asked me about it, I agreed that Princess needed the
sunshine and green grass and it was as much my decision as his to let them
out. When we returned from church the
calf was missing. We looked 2.5 hours
for the calf and could not find it.
There were moments when we both thought it might have been dragged off
and eaten by a predator but looking at the surroundings, we could tell that the
calf had not been dragged away. Then the
thought crossed our minds that maybe someone had taken the calf, but who would
have even thought to do such a thing or have known where to find her? I wondered if she had gotten under the fence
and fallen through the high grass and weeds into the stream where the banks are
steep. We were perplexed, hot, tired,
hungry and irritable after looking for so long a time and not being able to
find the calf. We sat down together on
the RTV and started thinking things through.
I mentioned a spot where I had seen fairly fresh calf poop. We inspected that. Mike began looking for calf hairs on the
fence to see if we could tell if she went under it. Both of us peered at the bottom board of the
fence and decided she had not gone through it there. We checked several other places but no signs
that she had gone through. Then Mike
remembered that where the board fence butts up against the chicken house, there
is a tiny gap. We had planned on
building a chicken run there but had never got around to that project. I declared that there was no way that calf
could have squeezed through that small space.
Mike looked at the corner in question and found calf hair there. I was shocked to think that maybe his theory
was correct and I started around the chicken house and toward the gate that
leads to our yard as he was calling after me partly in gest but mostly with
that confidence that comes from a farmer who has pretty much seen it all and
saying that the calf was probably asleep on our front porch. I rolled my eyes in my head thinking how
crazy he can be but with his suggestion in my mind unable to keep my eyes away
from the front porch of the house.
That’s when I started yelling ecstatically because there standing in
front of the porch was a tiny, little calf gazing out at the big world all
around here and looking a little dazed.
I ran to her and began hugging her, kissing her little black nose and
the top of her head. While I was loving
on her, so relieved after so much worry, Mike looked around to find her tracks
led under the front porch steps where she had been sleeping in the shade while
we were out in the hot sun searching for her.
Mike put another board up along the edge of the fence, next to the
chicken house to keep the little bugger from slipping through again and we have
had no more problems since.
And that leads me to another story that I have not taken the time to
recall in my journal but shared on social media, something that I want to record, share and remember.
Mike and I made a whirlwind trip to Staunton the last weekend in
July so that we could attend Analia's birthday party on Sunday afternoon. We
worked the whole time we were there trying to get as many things done as we
could in as short amount of time as possible. We left the party early and
arrived back in Laurel Fork about 30 hours after we had left. Princess was
still pregnant at that time and I didn't want to be away too long in case she
or the calf needed our assistance. We pulled into our driveway tired with still
much to do before we could go to bed and as we drove up the hill to the garage
I began searching for the Jerseys. Instead, I saw a man standing behind our
garage and guest house, leaning against the fence and looking in at our cows.
This particular area is back off the road and someone has to blatantly trespass
to get there. Mike didn't even see the man and before he could get the car
stopped, I was already hitting the ground running and angry as all get out. I
was totally pissed that someone would invade our privacy, our property, and be
staring at our Jerseys over the fence. What were his intentions? Up to no good,
I was sure. I get pretty feisty when I think someone I love might be threatened
and while my Jerseys are not "someone", they are close enough to
being family in my book. The man yelled down the hill at me, "Do you live
here?" to which I replied with an air "Yes, I do and who are
you?" The man replied with a name I recognized as someone that Mike had
talked to on several occasions and mentioned the man as being a very good
person. I settled a bit realizing who it was and he continued to talk. "My
wife and I were coming home from church and we saw your cows were out. They
were in the yard and almost ready to cross over into the road. We didn't find
anyone home, so we drove them back up the hill and into the fence where they
had broken through." By this time, I am feeling like a heel. Why did I
assume the man meant harm or ill will toward us and our property? As Mike
approached and we continued to talk, the man showed us where he had found a
wire and rigged the boards back together after getting the cattle safe inside.
Then, he had sent his wife back to their house while he stayed to make sure the
cattle were safe, asking her to bring back hammer and nails so that he could
repair the board fence. When he wife returned with hammer and nails, we all
talked a few minutes and I thanked them both profusely for being such good
neighbors. Here's the kicker. The man has had heart surgery within the last
year, receiving a total of six stents. He is old enough to be my dad. He and
his wife laughed and said it was a good thing my cows were so gentle and so
compliant because they were easy to get in. Mike had talked to this man
probably less than a half a dozen times over the last year and he barely knows
us. When he left, I burst into tears because of my own misguided assumptions
regarding the man but also because of the kindness that was directed towards
Mike and I that night.
There really are some great people left in this world.
August 6, 2018
We ended up being off grid for about 14 hours total the
other day. We ran the generator for
about two hours so that I could wash some clothes, take a shower and make us a
meal. (Our dryer doesn’t work. We have
the hardest time with appliances. It
doesn’t seem to matter if it’s in Staunton or Laurel Fork or if we buy new
appliances or pick up an old one some where for cheap. They never seem to last more than a year or
two and often not even that long.) I needed to get the laundry done while we
had a little sunshine and dryer weather so that the clothes would have time to
get dry on the line. I always try to
hang my clothes on the line but with multiple days of rain I would have used
the dryer had it been working. I did
manage to get the clothes dry but only by stringing a temporary line up under
the covered porch as well. I had too
many clothes to go on the permanent line and with it sprinkling on and off, I
had to move the heavier items onto the porch to keep the rain off of them so
they could finish drying. The
contractors working for Appalachian Power, a tree company by the name of
Asplundh, were some great guys. With all
the wet weather and these steep inclines, big trees were falling on the power
lines. After removing a tree on the line
down the road from us and repairing the line, they found another break on our
property. The tree contractors parked
all their trucks across the road from us and walked up our driveway and across
the pasture to get to the power lines.
Part of those lines are across the creek and getting there is pretty
steep and definitely more than a moderate hike due to the underbrush. The men worked hard for a large part of the
day and got the trees cleared and the power back on. I have a new respect for these men and their
job that takes them out in some difficult and uncomfortable conditions in these
mountains. As the men were leaving, a
couple of them stopped to talk to Mike.
We heard three more trees crashing to the ground in the woods around us
during a 15-minute span or less.
Fortunately, they did not come down on any power lines.
Saturday, Mike wanted to go to an auction in Galax. It went on for longer than usual and then we
took a few items over to our new booth at Briar Patch Antiques in Galax. We try to make the most of our trips when we
are out so that we are not wasting fuel, since we have to drive such long
distances (at least compared to what we had to drive in the Shenandoah
Valley). The mall was full of people who
are in this week for the Fiddler’s Convention.
We finished up as quickly as we could so as not to tie up our booth and
then stopped by a little produce market and picked up two boxes of North
Carolina peaches. On the way back to the
house, Mike indicated there was another auction he would like to go to but we
still had to milk the cow and we hadn’t eaten all day. We decided that Mike would milk and I would
throw together a grilled cheese sandwich and we would try to make the auction
that started at 6:30 and was about 20 minutes from our house. By the time we got home Saturday night, I was
tired of running and had my fill of social life and was ready to stay home for
days and introvert. However, Sunday
morning I got up and threw some things together to take to church for the meal
we have the first of every month and we got ready and went. Being around our little church family and
eating lunch with friends was pleasant and I was glad that we were there. I told Mike that it still amazes me that I
attend these meals and enjoy them. I
have always avoided church meals whenever possible because it meant that I had
to converse for long periods of time with people with whom I never felt
completely comfortable. For whatever
reason, I don’t feel that way at this church or with these people. It helps that it is such a small group, but
it is more than that.
When we arrived home from church, I got right to work on the
boxes of peaches that were waiting for me.
They were very ripe and I knew if I waited until Monday, I would lose a
lot of them. I canned 17 quarts of
peaches, keeping a few back to eat fresh as well as to make homemade, peach,
ice cream. Mike unloaded 100 square bales
of hay for my cows which was no small feat.
The weather had been so rainy, that the hay had sat on the enclosed
trailer for almost a week until he could finally get a dry day with no
rain. He also had to wait for the ground
to dry up a little bit because the mud has been so bad. We don’t have a working hay elevator and he
was throwing the bales up to the hayloft (also referred to as the haymow). He could only get so many up there without
having to go up the steps and stack what he had thrown, before returning to the
wagon to throw more bales up above his head.
Mike and I have both slowed down considerably in the last two years and
don’t even attempt to do all of the things we use to do, but Mike can still out
work men half his age. I am always
amazed at what he does. Then, Mike
milked Princess while I finished up the peaches and made supper. He has been helping me so much with the cows
and I am so thankful for his help and all that he has done to set things up for
us and make it easier for me to milk and manage the cattle.
It looks like I might actually get three weeks’ worth of
journaling wrapped up and on the blog this morning. My writing has been so sporadic. I typically write in the mornings. I just can’t seem to focus to write at
night. For so long, years in fact, I
have been routinely waking up sometime between 3 and 5 and in the last year I
have spent that time in writing because it is when I am most focused. Here for the last month, upon returning from
Georgia and being so sick for that week, I find myself exceptionally tired and
I am not waking up until much later. I
realize six or seven is still early for a lot of people, but if I awake that
late then I must hit the ground running to care for the animals and get our day
started. I know that it will soon be
fall and then winter and things will slow down again as the weather changes and
we spend more time indoors. The seasons
seem to fly quickly by, as do the days.
It seems I never accomplish everything I would like to accomplish. I am thankful for the opportunities life has
provided and continues to provide for me.
I am thankful that I can continue to dream and work toward those dreams,
even if those dreams seem simple and insignificant to others. It is the ability to dream dreams, and to
work toward goals that keeps us focused and centered on life. There is a verse somewhere in the Bible that
I remember from my childhood that says “Where there is no vision the people
perish”. I didn’t really understand that
piece of wisdom from the Old Testament until I experienced significant loss in
my life and, for a while, didn’t have the ability to focus on dreams or goals
anymore. I am thankful for the ability
to live in the present and look toward the future with hope. Just like the little wrens, I am thankful for the ability to find a song in an often difficult world.
