March 12 - March 31 in Reverse Chronological Order

03/31/2009 Tuesday: Hard rain this morning. I had hoped it would just drizzle but apparently not. It did stop raining later in the day and the sun came out briefly.

It took forever to do chores this morning and this evening and I'm not sure why. I think it was because I slept in till nearly 7am. It took me forever to do chores in the evening, too. I guess I was just moving slowly.

After evening chores I moved two 125lb protein block tubs with the tractor to the cow barn. I put one tub in with the Dexters and put the other near the entrance to the barn so that I can put it into the middle stall when the Dexters have licked the molasses tub empty. Just thought I would get ahead. The price seems to be going up all the time. The Farm Store people say it's because not as much is being made so it's getting harder to obtain.

Worked most of the day on the taxes. Will I never be done? I made over $2100 dollars selling animals and meat. Meat sales were the best money-maker. Too bad I spent way more than that feeding the critters. I'm hoping by breaking out the costs per animal breed that I'll figure out ways of reducing costs.

About 3:30pm I made vegetable soup from the leftover roast we had on Sunday. It was nice and thick and full of vegetables, just like Chas likes it. We ate part of the loaf of home-made bread that Chas made Sunday.

03/30/2009 Monday: Overcast all day and a couple of spits of rain but nothing to speak of.

I went into town after chores to work at the Health Department. I'm now adding time series data to the indicators for our assessment document. It was too weird. About every 30 minutes or so my eyes would drift shut and my head would fall forward. It was not my most productive day.

I stopped at the bank to pick up some spending money and to pick up a couple of 125 lb protein blocks for the Dexters. I'll store one and open one up for the Dexters tomorrow. I also picked up a bale of shavings for the chicks I'm expecting in late April (only 25) but I was thinking I would buy a few other chicks before then and maybe a turkey or six.

Dinner was stir fries served over rice - and it was delicious. I'd been dying for some vegetables and stir fries is the best way to get veggies into your tummy. Hard to beat broccoli, a red and an orange pepper, reconstituted shitakii mushrooms, green onions and turkey thighs sliced thin. I used hot peppers and lots of garlic. Hard to beat garlic. I cooked the chicken first in the garlic and hot dried peppers, added the sliced up broccoli, then when that was done in about 3 minutes, added the mushrooms and peppers. The last thing I added was the sliced green onions.

I'll have to check Dels to see what kind of chickens they have available - once I get their brooder completed. All of the brooding equipment is in the chicken coop, including a cage which I don't think I'll use.

03/29/2009 Sunday: Lovely, lovely sunshine. It was a pleasure to see the sun after what feels like weeks of rain.

This morning after chores I finally unrolled the braided rug I purchased last year at a garage sale. It was in pretty good condition but needed a vacuuming and cleaning pretty badly. I rolled it out where the old rug used to be and prepared Mary's rug shampooer for action. I used only half the water and half the cleaning fluid.

It really only took me about half an hour to clean the rug and haul it outside with Chas's help. It took me longer to clean the cleaner afterwards.

Just about the time I was cleaning up the rug shampooer Mike N and his brother Charles N showed up to pick up my ATV. Mike and Charles are Dale N's sons. Mike fixes ATVs, cars, tractors, etc in his spare time. Gary N told me about him and recommended that I call to see if he'd have time to service and repair my ATV which now won't start.

Mike tried to get it started with a battery pack but although it tried to start twice, it never quite made it.

Mike and his brother brought the ATV back away from Mike's ramp and ran the ATV partway up. I braced the right back wheel long enough for them to do the final push into the pickup. It was pretty exciting. My poor ATV really need some good care to get it back working again. Mike said he might have it by Tuesday but I'm betting it will be at least a few days beyond that.

After fixing a ham and cheese sandwich I sat for awhile and then phoned Mary to ask her if I could come over to return her rug shampooer and bring her some eggs.

I visited for a few minutes and admired all the neat junk that Mike had collected during his scrapping. Mary showed me around the property and pointed out where the vegetable garden was going to go. She showed me four hills of rhubarb that she'd planted in tires that Mike had cut the sidewalls off and bolted together.

After I left Mary's I went over to Gary N's place to admire his cows. They all look way better than mine do. His grass must be better. His calves look small so I don't feel too bad about mine. I think the nasty winter weather set back all the critters. When I can finally get them on grass they'll fatten up.

I didn't get home till late because Gary and I love to talk. I asked Gary to help me decide which of my cows to keep since I don't seem to be able to make the decision myself.

When I did get home I put on a roast and some baked potatoes and put out the cauliflower for Chas to cut up. Then I went out to do chores.

I also used the tractor to carry two bags of chicken layer pellets to the chicken coop. I was so tired I had to unzip the bags and carry in the pellets a bucket full at a time. At the same time I moved a nest box down to the coop but am not expecting the chickens will actually use it until they get used to it. I put it on the bottom shelf. I should probably get rid of all the containers and just put down shavings on the shelves and let the chickens lay where they want to.

I moved an ice-cream bucket of sodium bicarbonate over to the goat pen and put some out for the goats.

This morning I unscrewed the broken Y in the hose by removing it totally. I just screwed the two pieces of hose together and turned on the water. Finally I could fill the chicken waterer so that I don't have to carry a gallon of water every day to fill their water pans. It will give me one less thing to do.

Dena and Danette had called today so I returned their calls. Dena was just checking in; Danette called me to tell me that one of her purebred Boer goats had had its babies today, both bucks. She wondered if I wanted to come by to see if I would like to keep one for breeding this fall. I think I will.

03/28/2009 Saturday: A truly miserable day. It started off raining but turned to snow. It wasn't cold enough for the snow to stick, it was just wet and cold and miserable.

Enrique and Juan showed up around 7:15 am to help out. With the ATV out of commission and the weather being so bad I had them finish brushing out the area on Marilyn's side of the fenceline from where they left off last week to the end. If they did the job right I should be able to get back there and work on the fences with no problem. (Later. We still have some brush to remove).

By 12:30 pm they got the perimeter fence along the south and west side completed. I will ask them to brush out the fence along the highway but I don't think that will take too much time. I think there might be brush that needs hacking back and maybe a tree or two that could use pruning up but beyond that that part of the property is good to go. However, I want to remove the field fencing that runs along the front of our property and along the driveway so that area will need to be brushed out.

While Enrique and Juan were working in the driving snow and rain, Gabe and I got down and dirty rearranging the milk room in the green barn. We started by taking down the nest box from the stack of nest boxes nailed together and to the wall. We removed handfuls of dirt and bolts and nuts and other metal things from them and put the nuts and bolts and washers into plastic baggies until Chas could decide what he wants to do with them.

I'd remembered to bring down plastic baggies for storing the metal things we found. Once we were all done separating out the dreck we put the recyclable metal in the metal scrap pile out by the driveway. The rest we put in a blue bucket and set outside the tack room door.

We got the top shelf (made into two long nest boxes) down because it wasn't nailed to the wall and cleaned out and put it near the door so that when we have a nice day I can move it to the chicken coop. I'll need to bring straw/waste hay to the chicken coop to fill the nest boxes.

We sorted through several of the other nest boxes but I need to get several gallon sized baggies to store the pounds of nails that are waiting to be sorted. I might just dump them into several large buckets and sort out the dirt some nice day when all I want to do is sit.

Gabe and I moved the feed on the pallet I've been using for feed and put the contents in the appropriate garbage pail. That freed up some pallet space in the main part of the green barn. I'll use the freed-up area for storing hay.

After that I had Gabe take out two futon backs and a small gate that I'd been storing in the barn in the mik room and put them on the other side of the two hog panels outside the south side of the green barn.

Gabe took out two full bags of garbage from the green barn and put them in the burn pile close to the green barn. That freed up some more space.

I removed everything from the top of the chest of drawers so that we could tip the drawers over to get rid of the mouse droppings. Yuck. Then we moved two plastic tubs over to the left and moved the chest of drawers up to them (left from its existing position). Once we had a space cleared I had Gabe go over to the equipment shed to get a black plastic pallet.

When we put the black plastic pallet down on the ground, it was clear it was too large. It was taking up way too much path space in my small milk room.

I wandered over to look at the pallets that I'd previously used for storing bags of grain to see what was under the pieces of plywood. Oh joy! one of the pallets was quite small but large enough to store about 8-10 bags of grain. We took the black plastic pallet and moved it to replace the smaller wood pallet which we put in the milk room.

I was going to use the black plastic pallets to make a shelter for the sheep but that will have to wait.

Once the pallet was leveled and ready for feed, we dashed through the snowflakes to get the tractor which we've been keeping in the cow barn since we move hay every 5 days. We loaded three bags of feed that I'd not been to bring over on the ATV which is broken, and put them on the pallet. Worked like a champ. I like the new arrangement quite a bit.

On the way back to the cow barn we put a green tub partially full of calf manna which I'm going to feed to the cows a little at a time, the bag of diatomaceous earth and the bucket into which we put all the bolts and miscellaneous pieces of metal we took from the chicken nest boxes into the tractor bucket (the same way we moved the feed) to the cow barn.

Gabe moved the bucket of nuts and bolts to the entrance to the Tack Room for Chas to decide what he wanted done with them.

I have a green tub of rabbit pellets in the green barn which I think I will feed to the cows eventually. The goats don't seem interested in those pellets.

Along the way Gabe took a t-post over the the stack of posts by the main gate to the road pasture just to get it out of the green barn. I think I had some idea of using it for a stock panel support and then changed my mind.

The green barn looks ever so much better. I have more path room plus I have more space to put hay and the bagged feed is now closer to the garbage pails so I don't have far to carry them to empty them into the feed storage pails.

Once we had the green barn organized more efficiently, we went to the cow barn. In that barn we swept part of the wall on the south side clear of spider webs and dust and pounded some nails so that I could hang shovels and halters up out of the way. We reorganized the fencing materials that were on top of the sideboard storage cupboard. Some materials got put into the cupboard, some just got put in drawers or in one of the many buckets I use for carrying around fencing equipment. I also used bailing twine to hang rounds of hi-tensile wire that Enrique and Juan had taken down for me from the fence that fenced out nothing between the green barn and the creek.

Then the fencing buckets that were sitting on the ground in the way I put on the top of the cupboard so that the walkway between the cupboard and the pallets full of grain is clear. Now I have easy access to the cupboard (when it stops sticking from the moisture in the air I'll even be able to open the sliding doors to get access to the contents).

I'd organized the new feed on a second pallet, or rather I put down the pallet with some feed on it on Wednesday and Dave H (the gent who delivers for me from the Farm Store) organized the pallet when he put the new feed sacks on the pallet Friday.

It's lovely to have things organized. My salt and other minerals are organized and are easily at hand and are together in the same space. The feed is organized for easy use and the four bags of garbage are in the burn pile because Gabe took them over to the burn pile for me. (It's lovely to have young legs moving things around).

Now all I need to do is to figure out how to store a winter's worth of hay in the two barns (and maybe part of the equipment shed as well).

Gabe also moved two extension aluminum step ladders over to the south side of the tack room for me. I was glad to see them moved out of the way. I think I want to hang the ladders vertically instead of horizontally because we have several that need to be out of the way. We don't have the horizontal space but we do have vertical space.

I was worn out by the time 11:30 came around. There was one more thing I wanted to do but I figure I can do that myself. I need to move two of the metal horse troughs by the well house down to back lawn and hose them out well. Once they're dry inside I plan to put young chicks in them till they're fledged. Once fledged I can put them outside in a chicken tractor. The chicks will stay in the loom room until then.

I got to meet Gabe's father, Richard, when he came to pick Gabe up around noon. Gabe's new (used) car doesn't have its new license tabs yet. Otherwise he'd be driving himself

I asked Enrique and Juan to come back to the house around noon. They got back after Gabe and his dad had left, well after noon. I fed them lunch and asked them to scrape up some of the muck in the cow barn. They did some cleaning when all I really wanted was to have them scrape off the liquid part out into the pasture. I'm not complaining. It is definitely less mucky. At some point in time I'll be able to get the tractor and box scraper back there to move the muck to the compost pile. It is so nasty in the barn now. I feel really badly for the girls.

After working outside in the cold most of the morning I was having trouble getting warm again even after two cups of hot tea. I just kept shivering and my body felt cold.

I promised Mary H that I would bring over two pieces of paper that go with her stencil maker that she's selling on craigslist.com. When I got to her house and said that I'd gotten chilled, she found a blanket, threw it in her dryer for a few minutes and bundled me up in it. Between the tea she gave me and the warmed blanket, I got unfrozen. I feel fine now (7:30 pm).

The doelings are really gaining weight. Blanche had loose poopie yesterday so I cut back on the amount of powdered milk replacer I was adding to their supplementary milk. She seems ok today. I want them to start eating more grain anyway so will be limiting the milk replacer.

Dinner was store bought pizza. I was too tired to cook although I did cook the bread that Chas whipped up yesterday afternoon.

Charles is going to want a really good meal tomorrow night. I think I'll cook up stir-fried vegetables served over rice, one of his favorites. That way I can use up some of the vegetables I bought last week.

Chas made me promise not to work tomorrow. I sort of grunted although I may just work on paperwork. Have to keep up else it's a bummer when tax time comes.

03/27/2009 Friday: Today is a heavy gravity day. I've felt pushed down by the atmosphere and the heavy cloud cover. It really didn't rain too much today, more like a driving mist.

Chas and I put two bales of hay in the Hereford's pen and one in the Dexter's pen during evening chores. No one got grain tonight except for Wedgie and Three and the baby goats and Violet. The cows didn't seem to be interested.

Dinner was leftover Hollywood Hash that Charles reheated.

03/26/2009 Thursday: Overcast but not rainy.

Sherry came by to help clean today.

Mary came over to help me clean rugs. I was surprised to see her this morning till she reminded me that I'd agreed to have her come over to show me how her rug shampooer worked. She did. Between the two of us we cleaned the green carpet that lays on the beige carpet (came with the house) and then the beige carpet.

We hauled the green carpet out to the deck and threw it over the bannister to dry for a few hours.

When the living room section where we cleaned is dry we'll put the braided rug where the other rug used to be and move the chairs and other stuff back into place.

I did empty a 5 gallon bucket of figurines that Chas had packed when we moved but which hadn't yet gotten unpacked. They're in my study on the window sill now. That will be one less thing in the living room.

The area where we cleaned is where we (Chas and I) spend most of our time in the evenings. We eat dinner there and read and watch TV.

Chas spends quite a bit of time in this area sitting in his chair and drinking coffee. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up coffee drips around his chair and cat urine from the middle of the carpet and tea drips around my chair.

What I couldn't get over and keep shaking my head about is the sheer volume of dirt the rug cleaner picked up. We washed the carpet, twice where it was really dirty, and rinsed it once. You wouldn't believe how dirty the carpet was.

I really should have taken pictures - a before and an after!

I was so surprised at the amount of dirt we picked up with the rug cleaner since we take our shoes off at the door. My shoes are always so mucky from wading around the barnyard so I really have to take them off even when it's dry outside, who knows what has collected on my soles.

Mary asked me to post some ads for her on craigslist.com. I'll do that this afternoon. I posted the ads and she's already had some phone calls. I asked her to let me know when she sold something so that I could remove the ad.

Dave H dropped off my 19 bags of feed today. Clayton overcharged me. I was supposed to pay $8.99/bag but he charged me over $10.00 each. I'll have to call him tomorrow to get the amount changed.

Gabe called today to ask if I wanted him to come work. I said sure and to come at 9am. We'll work on fixing the fences while Enrique and Juan clear brush from along the fenceline.

Chas suggested we remove the dividing fence in the two western most pastures. I'm going to have to think about this. I could take out the fence and put in temporary polywire fencing, maybe make a central path just like I did with the main hay field. We still have to straighten the perimeter fence by the highway where it was damaged by the 2007 flood. I didn't use those pastures last year so it wasn't necessary to make them secure.

Chas cooked the leftover soup for dinner.

I want to strip the carpet off the creek-side deck and paint it with a light color to reflect the light. I expect I will use a deck paint but will no doubt need to do some sanding on the deck and priming before painting. The deck ceiling that we primed and painted really looks good. I'm so glad we did that.

We still need to finish painting the deck and the potting shed. The well house needs a second coat, too. I'm hoping Dena will have the time to help me out with the painting.

03/25/2009 Wednesday: Yucky rain all day.

Not much new. I worked at the Health Department. John A met with me to discuss the formatting of the data in the spreadsheets. He asked if I would create a separate spreadsheet/file for each broad area; e.g., demographics, socioeconomic factors, chronic disease, etc and then create a separate page for each indicator so that we could include time series and a graph. He also wanted me to put the Healthy People column first, followed by Lewis County and Washington State.

John is going to be meeting with the Director and Medical Director and others to narrow down the specific indicators that they'll for sure want to include. I need to go back and revisit the work done by Chris Hale. She used Excel quite nicely to convey the data she wanted included.

Using Word and Excel together means you can link the two programs so that when you change the data in the spreadsheet it will also make the changes on the linked document. Very convenient.

I got the large data sections divided and saved as individual files. I moved the Healthy People column to be the first data column and have started making separate worksheets for each indicator. I also began moving the data over but didn't get that far before I ran out of time.

After work I went to Yardbirds to do some shopping but before I started shopping I stopped at the hairdresser's to see if she was free. She was so I had her trim my hair. It really needed it.

After shopping I hit Sunbirds to see if I could find a pocket knife. I seem to have lost my chrome knife (dang) and needed a replacement. The replacement is ok but not as nice as the one I lost.

Chas made dinner: Hollywood hash. He did a great job. It was very tasty.

03/24/2009 Tuesday: Still more rain.

Three (MSBO3) is singularly stupid. Rather than eating perfectly good hay or nibbling on the grass he waits till he hears the back door open and then begins bellowing. Then when I divide up the grain between the two steers, he nibbles a little and then stops. This is lovely grain intended for improving the weight on beef animals. So, Wedgie gets most of that grain. Then Three wonders why he's hungry. Soooooo dumb.

I moved all the feed in the back of my car into the cow barn. I had to lay down a second pallet for the other 19 bags of cattle feed that are coming in sometime this week from the Farm Store. I need to get rid of all the garbage in the barn. I hope that Chas burns one of the stacks of branches soon.

I have to remember not to feed the beef cattle feed to the goats and sheep. It has copper in it which is not good for them. I will continue to feed them all-purpose feed.

I want to start fixing broken fences this weekend if it isn't raining too hard.

I'm thinking of moving the feed into the milk room. If I move the chest of drawers over closer to the divider and rotate it 90 degrees so that it's along the divider and I move the panels out of the way, I should be able to get a small pallet into the milk room for storing several bags of grain on. I don't need a lot of space. That would leave me lots more room for hay storage, about 2-3 pallets worth of space. Course, I could also use the loft to store hay but would need to cut a hole in it to drop down the bales when I needed hay.

Got a call today from Madson's. My chain saw is ready to come home. Apparently the muffler was coming off and that was causing starting problems and leakage. The gent who called recommended that we go with a better grade of gas from non-Arco/Union 76 stations. It will cost me $55 plus tax to reclaim it.

03/23/2009 Monday: Rain most of the day.

Up early this morning to head into Chehalis for work at the Health Department.

Before I got to the Health Department I went into the Farm Store and bought up the rest of the beef grain they had available. I took 6 bags home and am having 19 more bags delivered. I also picked up 2 bags of alfalfa pellets and one bag of alfalfa cubes. All of this is for the cattle.

As I was finishing up feeding the goats, sheep and Muscovies I heard what sounded like a gate creaking open. Yikes! I thought one of the cows was trying to push her way out the big main gate into the driveway. There wasn't a cow in sight. They were waiting for me in the barn for their breakfast. No cows but the sound kept on. I peeked around the corner and what did I see but a small woodpecker with a very red head banging on one of the metal gates. It sure sounded like a creaky gate! I just laughed and went over to the cow barn shaking my head. It's so much fun to farm when something like that happens.

The Herefords were happy to see me. I fed the two steers I have in the center pen (Diller and Wedgie) their grain. Diller gets some alfalfa cubes/pieces when I feed the Dexters their treats.

The little Dexter steer pulls on my pant leg to get his share of the alfalfa cubes. He's not keen on taking them from my hand but will eat them with relish if I put them on the ground. My Dexters line up in a nice row from left to right: Emma, Huck, Noel, Cheddar and Pixie, and the steer. Brie doesn't seem to understand that there are treats at hand so she never shows up to be given her share.

Cally is in heat again. The little red bull keeps trying to breed her with the resulting brouhaha.

We had encheladas for dinner tonight.

It's amazing how much information you can get from people on various Yahoo mailing lists. Learned more about chickens, ducks and Dexter cattle. Always a learning process.

03/22/2009 Sunday: Rain off and on and sunshine a few times.

Chas and I put hay in the Dexter pen in the morning and 2 bales in the Hereford's pen in the afternoon. It's always a struggle to put hay in the Hereford's pen because I have to pitchfork the hay around the outside of the legs so that they won't hang up on the hay-manure mat when we push the feeder out to its extended position.

Chas and I tried to work on the pasture but it was way too wet. This was a bit of a let down as I wanted to get rid of some of the muck the cows are standing in. I definitely need to put gravel down in front of the lean-to.

I met a woman, Janet M, who raises Dexters in ?? at the cheese making class. I emailed her this evening to make contact.

Dinner was pot roast with carrots and potatoes. Chas made sugar-free butterscotch pudding for dessert. Dinner was pretty tasty. There's enough meat and veggies left over to make soup with the addition of some additional vegetables.

03/21/2009 Saturday: Nice out today. No rain.

I'm weaning Three. Just a little hot water this morning and none this afternoon. He didn't complain too much this evening.

Danette and I went to the Blue Rose cheesemaking class. I drove. I was thrilled to see how to make chevre (which the instructor sells for $20/lb in the farmer markets in the area) and mozzarella cheese. The instructor provided us with instructions on how to make these two cheeses.

I'll have to buy a second gallon of milk and make some chevre for Chas. If he likes it maybe after he gets done eating the Neufchatel white slime he'll consider replacing it with chevre. Her honey and lemon juice chevre was to die for. I also really liked the garlic and dill mixture. She says you can pretty much make your own herb chevre. It's pretty simple, too.

Dinner was leftover spaghetti which Chas reheated.

03/20/2009 Friday:

I basically slept till noon after doing my morning chores. This cold is dragging me down.

Chas and I prepared egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Chas cooked the eggs and peeled them. I made the sandwiches. Nice to be able to use the eggs we grow.

After lunch I started working again on the tax stuff. I'm nearly finished. Just need to go through the check register and through the credit card bills.

Dinner was bangers and mash. Chas made a box dessert. Bad for us but good tasting.

Goat cheese class tomorrow.

03/19/2009 Thursday: Rain. Gloom. Sigh.

Well, after loading all that hay into the barn, the area in front of the barn is really muddy. I'll be happy when the rains stop and we can clean the place up. Mud is one of the major problems when you live on clay soil.

Charles is chomping at the bit to use the new pasture harrow he made from a screen, chains and railroad tie but he can't until the land dries out a little. We're trying to avoid compressing the pasture too much.

After we get the pasture harrowed I'll put up another cross fence because by that time we'll be letting the Herefords into the paddocks to graze. Course I still need to get out there to fix the broken wires on the fences.

Wedgie was out grazing again this morning. Three was complaining that he hadn't got his milk/water yet, thank you very much. I slept in till 7am this morning so doing the chores was about a half-hour late. Everyone was complaining, loudly.

The little doelings were upset with me after I got them fed with Violet's help and also a half bottle of milk replacer. They were upset because it took me a few minutes to put some grain in front of them. They wanted their grain and by George, they wanted it NOW! Talk about whining. Doeling voices are particularly penetrating.

The doelings haven't escaped from the chicken tractor so far. I put in the calf bucket holder and filled one of the buckets with water so the doelings would have something to drink in between bottles of milk replacer. They get fed their grain high up so that it's harder for them to put their feet into.

Sherry came to clean today.

I'm battling a head cold. I'm hoping that if I take vitamin C often enough I can make the symptoms less severe. Nearly everyone at the Health Department has had it.

Denise, my new Internet friend, showed up around 2pm. She was running a little late. I showed her around the property and fed her lunch. We each had so much to share we kept talking across each other. The visit was fun. She promised to post the pictures she has of her hay feeder and squeeze when she has time. I need to build a squeeze for the Dexters and one for the Herefords.


03/18/2009 Wednesday: The sun shone on us part of the day. Was very nice to see even though I was indoors most of the day.

Another day at the Health Department. I think I will skip going in Friday. I need a day off.

Wally came by with another 20 large round bales. I ordered it a couple of days ago. We were waiting till the weather wasn't quite so wet. He agreed to bring me 10 bales of alfalfa-grass mix. Each bale will cost me $6.50 but this includes the delivery charge. I know the cows will like the hay and I'd like to give some occasionally to the goats and sheep.

It took Chas and I about an hour and a half to get the hay into the barn. I finally took over driving the tractor and put in the last three bales. I was getting tired of standing around giving hand signals. I'm not as good as Chas is about packing in the round bales but I'm faster since I tend not to go around but just drive straight into the barn and drop the bale.

Before Wally came Chas and I loaded two more bales of hay into the Hereford's feeder.

Good news. As I looked out my kitchen window this afternoon who did I see but Wedgie out grazing. He ate most of his grain and some of the hay I put out.

Although I won't be home I'm going to have Enrique and Juan clear along Marilyn's side of the fence out about four feet from our fenceline. We'll just toss the cut branches away from the fence so that we don't have to burn them.

Denise, a friend I made on one of the Dexter Yahoo lists, will be stopping by tomorrow around 1pm on her way back from a visit with relatives who live in Portland. I 'm looking forward to meeting her for the first time. I'll feed her lunch and we'll talk about Dexters and cattle and farming. She has four Dexters.

Dinner was leftovers: chicken, rice and cauliflower. Boring but tasty. I sure wish I had time to cook fancier dinners but with the volunteering and farming, I don't have much slack time.

There was a write-up of the cheese class I'm taking Saturday with Danette in the Chronicle (local newspaper). I don't often go to the Chronicle but just decided to. The article was one of the lead articles on the chronline.com Web site.

I emailed Danette to ask if she would mind meeting at the Union 76 gas station instead of on Schueber Rd. As I drove home from the Health Department I realized that we'd have to back track since Hwy 603 is right by the Union 76 gas station.

03/17/2009 Tuesday: Rain mixed with sunshine.

We put a round bale in with the Dexters as they were nearly out. I need to figure out a way to make it easier to attach the feeder and gate together and then attach it to the side of the barn. I'll have to think about this problem.

Next we unloaded the car. I'd purchased feed yesterday and it needed to be unloaded before we went to Olympia.

While I finished my morning chores Chas loaded the car with recycle: newspapers and boxes of waste paper. We had one large stack of newspaper. I got rid of them all. We had collected three large boxes of mixed papers. We have way too much paper.

Chas and I went into town. First we visited Franz's and picked up some more Western Hazelnut bread, Chas's favorite bread next to home made bread.

Then on to the recycle place to get rid of our paper and two of the cardboard boxes that I'd put paper in.

Then, and only then, could we leave for Olympia where I had some blood drawn. My arm still aches. We ate at Main Chinese Buffet and then Chas went into Top (grocery store) to pick up some fresh vegetables and some "white slime." He puts the white slime on his morning toast.

Our visit to Costco was not inexpensive. We haven't been to Costco for forever and we were running low on a lot of things. I bought an electronic scale for $25.00. Our old scale is so old it's mustard/gold in color. We pretty much filled our car. Naturally it was raining as we loaded the car at Costco and when we unloaded at our house. Isn't that always the way?

It was still raining when I went down to feed the critters. The little doelings are learning that I bring down extra milk for them. They don't go away hungry.

The black baldie was standing when I went into the pen. I filled the feed bucket and hooked it over the hay feeder. He stood to eat and then when he got tired he lay back down again. While he was eating I spread down waste hay where he likes to lie down. Just in time, too. He got tired and lay down. Now I understand why he isn't thirsty. He's been getting up to get something to drink.

I put down a little hay for him to munch on. He'll soon be grazing from the hay feeder by himself. I hope to get all the calves into the pen eventually.

Dinner was a small pizza with the last piece of pumpkin pie (store bought, both). We'd had a good lunch and really didn't need a big meal this evening.

I've learned to turn on my computer about half an hour before I want to use it so that it can run all the processes it needs to before I actually need to use the applications. It's not that it's slow, it's that it seems to be running an index or checking out something.

I read email and put an ad up on Craigslist for a welder for Mike and Mary. I'd found a welder/generator combination that the person wanted $2500 for. I phoned Mike to ask if he wanted this generator. He said it was a good one, worth about $8000 new.

03/16/2009 Monday: Nasty gobbets of rain all day interspersed with short periods of bright beautiful sun. Sure a mixed message day. Naturally it pours when it's time for me to go out to do chores - both morning and evening.

Worked at Lewis County Health Department today. Wednesday I plan on working on the chronic disease section and adding the criteria that John wanted me to add to the variables I added. Also, John asked me to color code my suggested variables.

Before work I picked up 4 bags of Beef pellets (on sale because they're rock hard), 2 Livestock and two alfalfa pellets. Those will have to be unloaded tomorrow morning when I do my chores. Also, the Dexters need hay. The Herefords will also likely need hay.

After work I headed toward Grocery Outlet to pick up bottled water for Chas and a few canned goods. I also bought some sardines packed in water to see what they tasted like.

I fed the Dexters square bales of hay today because it was raining so hard we would have drowned trying to get the hay in the barn. The animals always seem to enjoy the hay from the square bales. I can't see that it's much different from the round bales.

Chas named the calf that got stuck in the feeder Thursday yesterday. He calls him "Wedgie" like Regie but with a lisp. Wedgie is eating grain really well. He's figured out that it tastes great. He also gets a large wad of hay morning and night. He is trying to stand up. I've seen him get his back legs straight and he can almost stand up but he isn't quite there yet. He does get up long enough to move his body from side to side. I just don't know if he's going to make it. I guess time will tell.

The doelings are gaining weight because they're getting heavy when I carry them back to their pen from the milk stand. Yesterday they started nibbling on the handful of grain I put out and held in my hand so they could nibble my fingers and the grain but haven't quite developed a taste for it. They're still milking out Violet (she gives more milk in the morning and lots less at night) with me supplementing them with powered milk replacer (for lambs). I give half a bottle in the morning split between the two doelings and nearly a full bottle at night, also split between the two of them. Soon I'll have to prepare enough that each one gets 3/4 of a bottle but that won't be for a few days.

How do I reduce my Hereford herd to 4 adults, 2 yearlings and babies? That's going to take some cutting.

I really need to make sure that they have better feed in front of them. I think I will have to invest in some square bales of alfalfa. Even though the grass is coming in soon - likely within a month - they need to be fattened up now.

Not feeding grain in the dead of winter is a false economy. Cows need grain.

Leftover soup with sage biscuits. Sage biscuits are regular biscuits that you add ground sage to. Delicious.

03/15/2009 Sunday: We woke up to snow and snow falling on the fields and trees. Later it changed to freezing rain and then to rain. At 1:30 pm it was raining lightly, well, lighter than it was around 11:30 am.

Gabe came by and worked in the green barn. He dug out some more of the built up bedding in the goat pen. Yesterday he removed the hump that appears about 2.5 feet away from the feeder. Today he cleared the area directly in front of the feeder and removed the hay from under the feeder and spread it over the bald spots.

Gabe also lowered the level of the pen from the entrance to the exit into the exercise yard. He gave it an upward slope.

I haven't been down to look but he also took out some or most of the hay that had built up around the sheep feeder. The last time I cleaned out the area I started a compost pile. Today Gabe added to it.

My office looks like a cyclone hit it with papers all over the place. I have to get organized! I can't stand the clutter any more.

03/14/2009 Saturday: Unlike yesterday which was really nice out, today is cold and rainy.

Juan and Enrique came by late, around 9am. They carpooled with a couple of other friends. At first I was afraid that all four wanted to help out and I knew I didn't want that. Enrique and Juan know what I want done and I just didn't have the energy to give directions to the others. Fortunately the other two were just dropping Enrique and Juan off and will pick them up later on in the day.

Enrique has a job during the week that he seems to really like. He works 4 am to noon. He's thinking about applying for a second job since he really needs the money and has the afternoon free.

I grabbed a quick cup of tea before Mike and Mary came by to drop off about 10 - 6 foot by 7 foot dog kennel panels, some with gates. I may take out the stock panels that surround the chicken coop and replace them with the dog kennel panels. I like the idea of the dog kennel panels because they don't have the big holes on top that the stock panel does.

I gave M & M some money for their time and effort in picking up and delivering the panels to me and for the dog panels themselves. Mike told me he'd hardly get anything for them for scrap. He's pretty happy that I can use them and even more happy when I slipped Mary a few bucks.

I think I'll use the four freed up stock panels from the chicken coop to enlarge the goat pen out into the newly cleared area, or perhaps to make a pen for the ducks. So many decisions to make.

While Mike was here I asked him to do a couple of small jobs over the next few months. I want him to build me a pipe "roof" for my chicken tractor, one that I could cover with a tarp. I suggested that he take some scrap pipe and cut out a bit of each end and drill a hole in the remaining section so that I could tie it to the sides. I want to be able to take the chicken tractor apart and store it alongside the green barn during the winter time when I'm not using it.

Mike suggested that we take a freestanding garage storage frame (made out of aluminum) and make the roof out of that. We could have some uprights that the roof would fit into and I could tie the uprights to the the sides. He gets lots of those when he collects scrap.

I couldn't find the pieces of aluminum piping that I had saved for just such a project. I think Chas must have given them to Mike and Mary some time ago and they were turned into scrap. Dang. I was saving them. I hate it when Chas tries to second guess me.

The second project is to have a spoon and other utensil holder that I can put up over the stove. The utensils would stick out from the wall about an inch and a half. I always leave the design questions and fabricating to Mike. He's got the best ideas. And seems to have a good idea what I want.

Chas wants Mike to fix my collapsible feeder so that it isn't so much work for me when I go to put round bales in the feeder. Right now we have to dig all the dropped hay from around the outside of the feeder in order to move the feeder back out to accommodate the new bales. (It is a collapsible feeder after all). Chas and Mike decided to run a pipe from the center to each of the two ends against the posts making a triangle. The pipes would be held together with pins and would come apart for cleaning.

They also want a wood platform. I suggested pallets to put the hay on but they didn't like that idea for some reason.

When Gabe came over to help out I asked Juan and Enrique to help me and Gabe drag the calf that got caught in the feeder into the stall nearest the barn so that I could feed him hay and grain.

I got two halters, one we put around his neck and the other we put around his head. The calf was right against the fence that I wanted to open so we had to drag him away from the fence so that I could open the gate. Once we got the gate open we dragged him a bit at a time into the stall. Juan forgot his boots so that he had to stay in the dry section of the barn and pull. I was just in the way so I basically hovered.

Then Juan and Enrique went back to brushing the area between the green barn and Hope Creek. I got Gabe started on cleaning out the goat pen. I'm trying to get that area cleaned out a little because it's really got a good hump in the middle. The area in front of the feeder has also been raised up with waste hay. Gabe is going to spread the dry hay from under the feeder into the hump area that he is clearing out.

I went back into the house to work on my email which is really stacked up.

Around 10:30 am I put on a pot of vegetable soup. For meat I used the boneless BBQ rib sections that we'd eaten part of for dinner two days ago. I cut the sections in half and then into small cubes. I love being able to take small chunks of meat and turn them into a big pot of soup.

I'm not as good as some of the really frugal folks are because I don't save the juice from cooked/canned vegetables or bones. Still, the soup turns out just fine. I may start saving cooking liquids from now on in 32 oz spaghetti jars for later freezing. Course that is one more thing to factor into what is already a pretty busy day.

03/13/2009 Friday: Lovely and sunny all day. I felt bad I had to work.

I just couldn't get out of bed at 6:15am today so I slept in till 7:30am. Even with sleeping in I was able to leave home on time and get into work shortly before 10am.

I spent a few minutes speaking to John who has the office next to mine. John is thinking he will stop haying and will start raising some cattle. I was telling him about my Dexters and about my Herefords. He thinks he might be interested in seeing my cattle. With any luck I'll be able to sell some of my beasties.

The calf is still lying down but he is trying to get up and can move from side to side. He seriously strained his hips when he trapped himself in the feeder yesterday. His momma, Peanut, has been coming up to him so he could nurse so that's a relief. At least he's getting some nourishment.

When I took him grain and hay at evening chores he did try to get up but still can't get his back legs under him. He didn't eat any of the grain but he did eat some of the hay. I will continue to take hay to him and will try to coax him to eat some grain and to exercise his back legs by trying to stand.

The two doelings are doing very well. They get Violet's morning milk with a little milk replacer supplement. At night they nurse all the milk out of Violet and get about a third again as much milk as in the evening. I can tell they're growing as they're getting much heavier.

With Chas's help we had Mongolian beef stir fry made with boneless beef ribs, broccoli, onions, and bamboo shoots served over rice. The Mongolian beef mix was purchased.

03/12/2009 Thursday: Sunny but cold (20 degrees F).

Chas and I put a new bale into the Dexter feeder. They were down to...nothing, just a few wisps of hay.

Gary came over to visit. On the way out I showed him the area between the green barn and the creek. We admired how nice it looked.

On the way back to the cow barn we stopped in to look at the cows. To my horror, one of the black baldy calves was caught in the collapsible feeder. We tried to figure out how to get him out because he was pretty wedged into the section that's wide at the top but narrow in the bottom. After trying to get the feeder apart (at the wrong section) I went back to get Chas.

He and I slipped through the feeder and with our post person and Gary pulling, Chas and I lifted him up and shoved him through. He must have been there for at least two and maybe even three hours. He was somewhat bloated but seemed to feel better once we got him horizontal.

While he was in the feeder I took the opportunity to castrate him with my california bander. He was lying on his side so I had to be careful to get both testicles. Because he was on his side I couldn't grab the testicles and also work the bander. I gathered up the testicle making sure I had both and asked Gary to hold them out so I could band them.

Once again I dropped the band out of the bander (I was shaking so hard from the excitement of getting the calf out of the feeder). The second time I was more successful and got the band around the testes and clicked into place. Only one to go.

When I came back he was still in the feeder. I prodded him a couple of times thinking he might have the energy to get up but his back legs must have been strained as he couldn't stand properly. I looked at the steel rods holding the two sections together and was able to remove the pins and cauter pins holding the pin in the top rod. Once I got the pins out I was able to open the feeder up.

Another prod or two and he got up and walked crookedly out and promptly collapsed into a big pile of muck. At least he was out of the feeder.

I moved the hay Gary had taken out back into the right hand side after I put back the pins. The cows started eating hay again just as if I'd put in a new bale. I had had enough excitement by then and didn't bother with treats for the Herefords.

Before I freed the now steer I fed the goats and sheep and Muscovy ducks. The kids got Violet's afternoon milk plus 2 cups of milk replacer shared pretty equally between the two. Blanche seems to have gotten over the excess milk replacer from Wednesday because I only let them nurse from Violet this morning. They got no milk replacer.

I think I will supplement only in the evening when Violet's milk supply is low. I'll gradually build up to 2 cups each in the evening but maybe none for a few days in the morning till I'm sure the kids are over their loose bowels.

Wally R phoned me. He remembered I had some questions. I asked him about planting oats. He said he thought it might not work very well since oats don't seem to take to an unplowed pasture.

I asked him about what he thought I should plant in my pastures when I added pasture seed to reseed the bald spots. I told him I had used a 7-way mix but he said that I was just wasting money on all but annual rye grass, white dutch clover and perennial rye grass. So, from now on I'll reseed with annual and perennial rye grass with some white clover mixed in.

Earlier I'd asked Gary about when he recommended I put the cows into the paddocks. He reminded me that it all depended on the weather. If it was warm and wet, he thought they could be pastured in late March or by mid-April at the very latest.

April and May are when the most growth occurs so you want to get the cows in to eat the pasture before it gets rank. Otherwise I will have to mow it.

Wally said that when he uses fertilizer that he uses 16-16-16 that contains 5% sulpher. He does not use lime at all. He says that's only necessary if you're trying to grow alfalfa. He has used chicken manure in the past.

Gary told me he'd put 12 loads (20 cubic yards per load) on his pastures to the tune of $3,000.00. A lot of money but since he had virtually no soil left after the floods in 2007 and 2008, he needed the fertilizing effects of the chicken manure.

I dragged in from my chores around 4:50 pm and started dinner. I made colcannon, a mixture of chopped cabbage, a chopped onion, garlic and mashed potatoes. I think I'll try adding peas or carrots the next time. Apparently colcannon can be made with several vegetables in addition to cabbage.

When I wasn't rescuing stuck calves I worked on the taxes.

Chas and I watched "3:15 to Yuma." Lots of violence and blood. Interesting film. We borrowed it from the library.