Preparations

I believe the Buddhists are right about living in the present and being mindful. I tried to learn meditation (is that an oxymoron?) after reading my share of Thich Nhat Hanh books at college, but I was a poor student of Buddhism (especially the "no intoxicants" precept) and could never quiet my mind. At my core I'm a planner, and a list maker, and that means I live perpetually in the future, making preparations.

I'm preparing for relatives visiting tomorrow. There aren't many of us in my family, a dozen or so, and we're spread out all over - we seem pre-programmed to continue the diaspora our ancestors began, though thankfully not driven by potato famines or civil unrest anymore. Now it's curiosity and better job offers. My family stops in England on their way to different European destinations, and I lumber them with my daily chores, which they gamely accept and even enjoy. I have some sheep moving lined up for my uncle this week, and some poultry grading for my aunt in a fortnight's time. She was a renowned poultry judge in the US, and I plan to exploit her expertise on my crop of roosters: which to keep and which to eat.

Mike is preparing for his nearly-grown partridge to arrive tomorrow. We have stocked a pond in a wild area on the estate with some duck too, for our rough shooting clients, and continue to keep the ducks there with a daily feed. Partridge and duck season started 1st September, but we don't host our first guests until 13th October, which is very late for us. Weather and the economy have both had a hand in our late start.

I am preparing for the change is seasons, and celebrated the last of the dry weather and the first day of autumn by camping out overnight. Some dogs came with me to celebrate, at least the ones that could fit in the back of the Land Rover -

I'm also preparing for lambing which starts - officially - on 20th October. However, looking at Gregor, one of my ewes with triplets, I can't see her making it a whole month without either giving birth or exploding -

She's so fat that she sits up like a dog. Like a dog that's eaten another really fat dog -

Needless to say, she's not getting supplementary barley or oats at this juncture.

It appears that it's not just baby lambs I need to prepare for -

The lavender pekin was the original sitter, but the big buff hen decided to join in. They may end up sharing the brood. It's not common but we had two old brown hens who shared a brood of chicks very successfully. I'm never prepared for the diversity of behaviours displayed by individuals in a flock or pack, but I welcome them and the chance to observe such variety. In fact, if there's ever a time when I feel do "in the moment", it's watching the animals being themselves.

Mike and I finished our preparations with enough time to enjoy a ride to the local pub on our horses. There's a small field where we can "park" them while we have a glass of cider. 

The ride back is a very relaxed occasion, and I'm grateful that our horses are slow and steady, and know their way home.

Intellectually I know that one can never be prepared for all eventualities, and my compulsive list making - although deeply satisfying - will never change the course of the universe. But, no one can fault a little bit of forward planning. My house will be sort of cleaned in time for guests, I have a stock of colostrum and prolapse harnesses for lambing ewes (just in case), and a spare broody house for chicks and hen(s). The only thing that died this week was the washing machine, and the only thing that would really improve my quality of life is socks that wouldn't slip down into my welly boots when I walk up hills.

Other that that, I think we're doing OK.

Ewe news

After last week's hay and goat-no goat debacle, I was feeling less than positive about my tasks for today: worm counts for horses, deliver bantam chicks to their new home, and get ewes scanned to see if they're in lamb. If the universe was still against me, today could be disheartening.

There are two ways to cope with worms in horses. You can administer an all-purpose, just-in-case wormer. Simply squeeze the anthelmintic paste into your horse's mouth, catch what falls out, try and push it back into the corners while your free hand maintains a death grip on the halter, give up when you're physically lifted off the ground and half of the paste has soaked into your sleeve. Experienced horse owners compensate by giving an extra third on top of the recommended dosage. Alternatively you can get a faecal sample to the vets that they will look at under a microscope to identify which, if any, worms are present.

More poop.

And it must be fresh poop. And, if you have more than one horse, you must be sure which horse produced the sample. A watched horse never poops. I spent 1 hour and 41 minutes waiting for Kitty and Alan to produce the goods while I sat in the Land Rover knitting, and Dakota laid under the Land Rover waiting for something more exciting to happen.

I dropped off the samples on the way to deliver our five bantam chicks to Nurse Chris, Mike's home help nurse. It was her twice-daily visits that allowed Mike to leave the hospital and recuperate at home. When she wants chickens, she gets first pick. I could only find an empty mineral lick bucket with lid to contain the flighty chicks for transport, so Nurse Chris got Chickens in a Bucket.

Her lone hen instantly gathered up the chicks and mothered them. When Chris's kitten got too close, the hen defended her new brood from the hairy interloper. Hormones are a funny thing.

By now I was running late. I still had to collect my trailer, hope I could gather up the sheep and separate just the pregnant ewes, and load those ewes into the trailer and drive to the mobile scanner guy, who was visiting a farm up the road. The trailer didn't have a flat, the sheep were semi-cooperative (even my grumpy ewe), the ewes fit into trailer and the breeze kept them cool, and I turned up just in time for my turn.

Scanner Guy only needed ten seconds per ewe. The farmer called out the ear tag number, Scanner Guy shouted out the number of lambs inside, the scribe wrote it down, and a helper marked the sheep appropriately: orange dot for singles, green dot for twins, purple dot for triplets, none if a ewe isn't in lamb.

We have: two purples, one green, and four oranges. One ewe is empty. That's potentially twelve lambs for eight ewes put to ram; a return of 150%. That's a great result. A good shepherd would be happy with that. I'm thrilled that we're expecting babies. You may remember N1125 (Gregor) who was on her back, too fat to roll out of a tractor rut? She's got a purple dot. No wonder she's so big, making room for three babies.

On my way home from the scan, the horse vets called to say that both horses were free from worms. So, a crop of new babies, a pair of worm-free horses, and a high pressure system over our part of England giving us dry and sun and ripe tomatoes at least for the next few days.

This week is definitely better than last week.

A Decision and a Nomination

I finally gave up trying to sleep at 4 a.m. this morning, worrying about hay and goats and weather.  Of course I woke my husband to get his opinion and, to be fair to him, he was a good sport about it. He got up and made us tea while I worked through the business plan again, sans our own hay.

I couldn't make it work.

My creative solution? I called Kevin and Lynn, who own the goatling, and together we decided that the goats would stay with them for another year.

I haven't given up on goats, but I've had to concede defeat this year in the face of our hay crisis. Lyn has more than generously offered her herd for me to come and practice on, so I can get my goat fix and gain experience at the same time. When it comes to livestock, goat people are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

It feels like a setback in some ways, but it's a mature business decision too. I really want a goat to pet and milk (that's not the mature part of the decision), but I really don't want to fall out with my bank manager over an overdraft either. (That is.)

The local farmers gave us advice on our grass, and we found someone willing to bale it and take it away. He's spending time and money of a crop of poor fodder with limited feed value, but hay will be short this year and he can feed it to calves. We get the long wet grass off our field so the new shoots can regrow, and we can overwinter our expanding flock of sheep there. It's not a perfect solution, but it is good enough.

We're still left with having to purchase hay to feed our sheep and horses this year, but, with the money I've had returned from the goat purchase, plus another gardening job, and if I shoot some extra deer which are plentiful, then I can keep the bank manager from the door.

Among all this worry, a bouquet of roses was delivered to the door. Mike nominated me for an award given to gamekeepers' wives and apparently I was the runner up - hence a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I am honoured to even be considered for the award, and therefore feel kind of guilty wondering what feed value a bouquet of roses might have for a milk goat.

Sorting out the sheep from the goats

Meet "Goat" -

She is my new, as yet unnamed, goatling. She's one of two goatlings I bought yesterday; the other bought sight unseen. Both are Anglo-Nubians. They're going straight off to stud, and will be in kid by the end of September, I hope.

I chose Anglo-Nubians because their milk has the highest butterfat content, perfect for cheese, yogurt, and adding those elusive fat calories to one's diet. However, Anglo-Nubians aren't the easiest breed for a beginner. I've heard the terms "willful", "vocal", and "serious challenge to fencing" applied to them. The seller showed me her middle finger which was missing its top knuckle, the result of a goat she was leading around the ring, panicking at a country show. It took out two bystanders as well. Oh, and that destructive goat? It was our new goatling's mother.

I hope to god that rampaging behaviour isn't hereditary, or at least skips a generation until I can learn more about goat training. 

So I was awake in the middle of the night wondering if I've made a sensible decision to add goats to our mixed enterprise. The self-doubting voice in my head, which is quite loud, was yelling at me that I'm an idiot and, frankly, one hamster away from being on an episode of Confessions: Animal Hoarding. The farmer-in-training voice, which is much quieter, reminded me that I have been researching this for more than a year, that I can commit the time to this endeavour, that I've outlined a business plan and contacted restaurants interested in local produce already. I know it has potential to add to our income. And, if it doesn't work out, I can sell the goats. No one is going to die, no deadly virus released if I fail. Basically no Armageddon will befall the world if I've made a mistake with the goats. 

OK maybe I'll lose the top of my finger, but I'm willing to run that risk.

I have resolved to be positive about the goat endeavour, and my ability to make it succeed. Even though we found out this afternoon that our entire hay crop is likely ruined because of rain, and because the farmer who we contracted to bale it, bailed on us. Our winter hay supply is now whatever we have left from last year. This would be fine if we didn't do anything rash, like buy two milking animals that require daily hay, even when grass is plentiful. I'm still going to be positive; it's the only way I can muster enough creativity to cobble together a solution to the winter fodder problem. 

I read that the Dalai Lama said "Goats are the ultimate source of success in life." I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I know, if I can make goats work for our little farm, I'm going to feel triumphant.

The 2012 Calorie Challenge

Tamar at Starving Off the Land issued a challenge to us fellow home producers: meet 20.12% of your calorific needs in 2012. Curious to see how we would fare, and because Tamar and her husband Kevin can convince me to try anything, I happily joined in. Although a bit slapdash, I've endeavoured to keep a complete list of food we produce or harvest from the wild since the beginning of this year.

The guidelines are simple: Only count what you grow or forage, no bartered or bought goods. You don't have to eat all of it yourself but, if the armageddon happened tomorrow, and you could stomach a daily diet of five eggs and half a pound of lamb, those calories would keep you alive.

A batch of runner bean chutney simmering on the stove gave me a chance to sit down and work out the math. As per Tamar's helpful suggestion, I used the USDA website for calorie counts, and referred to the table in the back of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook when I got stuck. There is only marginal rigour in my science (more mortis, than rigour) but I averaged, rounded down, and made conservative estimates just to be on the safe side.

As of the 240th day of the year, we have produced, harvested, or foraged a grand total of 474,931calories. That works out to 1978 calories a day to share between us. If Mike uses 3000 calories per day and I use 2000, then we're meeting about 32% and 48% of our calories, respectively.

With our hunting and livestock, we have a high protein diet; the lambs, hoggets, and eggs combined account for almost half of our total calories. If we were vegetarians, we would have starved to death by April 15th, (a great opportunity to skip out on paying our taxes but a fairly final solution.)

In fact, if our normal mild summers continue to devolve into long spells of cold and rain, we could lose even more of our non-protein food sources. The vegetable patch is a horticultural disaster zone: onions which we won't be able to store, underdeveloped garlic, non-existent carrots, a pea crop that produced enough for only three suppers. Our apple crop is the worst I've ever seen.

The bean crop is late but they're coming, and the promise of an Indian summer means my pumpkins and tomatoes will keep ripening. There's some hope for the winter kale and broccoli crops if I can keep the caterpillars away. But, whether we like it or not, we will be embracing the Paleo diet for the bulk of our calories.

I can add 2 jars of runner bean chutney to the next half of the 2012 Challenge list. It should be ready to eat in a few months, when fresh beans will be a memory.

750grams runner beans - 172 calories.  Click here for recipe

The Weather

According to the calendar, those of us in the northern hemisphere are in the dog days of summer, technically referring to Sirius the dog star (stellar body, not canine actor of course). These days are associated with hot, sultry weather, which I understand you all in the US are enjoying, or at least coping with, at this moment.

Not here in England.

I'm not sure if climate change is already affecting the gulf stream, which the UK depends on for its relatively balmy climate. Perhaps it's merely an anomaly. All I know is the thermometer is reading 12 degrees C, and the constant rain and wind storms are making it feel worse. I've given in and lit the wood stoves. On August 24th. Summer.

The cup of coffee and book are there to distract me from worrying about this year's hay crop. It's cut and on the ground and was dry, but we couldn't get it baled before this storm came in. We need a least three dry, preferably windy, days in a row to bale it or we'll lose all our winter fodder and have to buy it in. I have some of last year's still in storage but a bad winter will see that gone by Christmas.

Even the livestock look fed up. Chickens began their summer moults, and now have to take shelter under the Land Rover.

The pheasants are holed up in the woods under shelter too, possibly evolving webbed feet.

Checking the sheep takes longer too; they are the same colour as the fog. I'm nearly driving over them by the time I spot them. They get checked twice a day now minimum as their pregnancies develop. A few days ago I found N1125 on her back in a tractor rut, unable to roll over. She was stuck fast, legs in the air, like a wooly bug. (The scene reminded me of Gregor Samsa waking up after his metamorphosis.)

 

I turned N1125 right side up, but it took her some time to recover, and I had to help her onto her feet. Losing a sheep to pneumonia is one thing. Losing a sheep and her unborn lambs to a misplaced roll in the grass in another thing entirely. 

The outside dogs are piled up together in their dry, straw beds. The indoor dogs have found the lit wood stove and laid beside it. I just picked up the mail, including this month's National Geographic with its headline: What's Up with This Weather?

My sentiments exactly.

A Birthday

Yesterday was Mike's 48th birthday. With an estate full of young pheasants he had to work of course, but he came home for a special birthday lunch.

No, not that kind of special lunch.

I popped down to our local cafe to pick up a BLT for him, which is his favourite. The cafe is at the bottom of the manor house drive, a two minute walk from our house. I came back to find this -

Neither stirred when I took this photo

I left his lunch in the kitchen, and left him to carry on. All Mike really wanted for his birthday was a nap. All Pip ever wants is a napping companion. Everyone's happy.

Happy Birthday, you hardworking old 'keeper.