Running with the llamas

Today I had a nice visit with two of my Aunts and two of my cousins, who came to see the farm and my little ones. It was great fun. I was telling them the story of our morning farm activities...


I was cleaning the house, preparing for the family visit, when my eyes were drawn to the window as Richard went running by. What on Earth?, I wondered and ambled back to my bedroom to get a look out the back windows. And there he was, and it looked like he was messing with two large animals, cows? I thought, was he trying to shoo them away? It wouldn't be the first time there were cows wandering in the yard. But no, those weren't cows...they were my llamas! How did they get out?, I asked myself over and over, as I leaped over a million toys and dodged two small children who were very loudly and adamantly telling me that the cat had just thrown up on the living room floor. Oh boy!

"No time, no time," I yelled. "The llamas are out!" My brain was working hard and fast now. How would we catch two llamas, who were now free on the range, when we couldn't catch them in their pen? Think! Food? Llama candy? They loved the guinea food and would eat it out of my hand, and even come running if I had the guinea bucket out. Giving them llama candy I actually got to touch and pet them. Okay, guinea food and some halters. And the car. And the two little kids. "Kids, get your shoes on!" I yelled.

I got the little ones in the car and ran to get the halters and leads, all the time watching my two prized llama babies running across the field and Richard running after them, like a bad movie. Now he had a bucket, which he held out in front of him as he ran, offering it to what, llama butts? He who runs with llamas.

What did I think I was going to do? How could I possible make this situation better? I quickly dismissed the fear of my llamas running off into the woods, farther and further away. Would we actually be able to get them back? We needed help, I thought. Who could I call? No one. All of my neighbors were on the verge of elderly. Would any of them be able to chase down two teenage llama boys? Nah. It was Richard and me, and so far, he was doing a bang up job.

As an after thought, I let my two chihuahuas out of the house and told them to get in the car. Then I grabbed their harnesses and leashes, wondering where any of this would lead? I sped down the road as the llamas crossed to the other side and headed for some trees, doing everything they could to avoid Richard who was huffing and puffing by now.

I pulled into a driveway, thankful this house was for sale, and jumped out of the car, my heart pounding wildly. I grabbed my little cup of llama candy (guinea food) the leads and halters, and headed slowly towards the rebellious camelids, speaking softly and shaking the seed. I threw the halters to Richard. They looked at us with suspicion and ran back across the road. Now what, I wondered, and then remembered the two little dogs in the car who were barking furiously. Maybe they would scare the big animals back home or at least towards our farm, which was up the hill some distance.

I let out my little female chihuahua, the barker, Kierra, and let her run. Richard followed with the llama halters and leads. "Get the llamas," I told the tiny dog who charged the nearest llama, Vador, the black one. Now Vador is always interested in tiny creatures, like small children and guineas, and he turned and looked with amusement at the little dog who was sniffing at his feet. He stretched his long neck down to get a good sniff at her too, and then he began to dance, and I thought, oh dear God, now he's going to stomp on my little dog.

"Kierra," I yelled, hoping she would back off. I ran over and offered the llama candy to Vador, who fell for it and stuck his nose deep into the cup to reach the seed. I threw my arm around his neck and Richard put his halter on and snapped on the lead. "Tie him up." I yelled and turned to the other llama. "Turbo, come here boy," I said and shook the cup at him.

Richard had tied Vador to... the neighbors' gas meter? Really? "I don't know if that's a good idea," I said, but Richard was gone. He had grabbed Kierra, who had been running off into the neighbors' yard, and was now taking her back to the car. Turbo, meanwhile, was headed up the road with no interest in me, the llama candy or his buddy Vador. He, in fact, was so proud of himself and his new found freedom he would occasionally kick his feet into the air like some happy little bucking bronco llama.

I quickly untied Vador and decided to follow Turbo up the road. At least he was headed in the right direction. Richard followed in the car with the kids and dogs. So we walked, my llamas and me, all the way home, and when we reached our driveway, Turbo looked at it and began to walk on by. I called to him and led Vador into the yard, hoping, and praying that Turbo would worry and follow. (Normally, Turbo is the protector, and when Vador goes anywhere, Turbo follows, or tries to.) Sure enough, he was following us. Around the truck and up the path...and then he wasn't.

Turbo had detoured off into the upper garden, toward the guinea house, so I pulled Vador back around that way too, and used his lead and his big old llama body to trap Turbo, until Richard came to the rescue with the other halter and lead. After that, it was easy. We lead them back into their pen and I gave them each a little llama candy and thanked them profusely for coming home.

Then I headed inside to scrub cat puke out of the living room carpet.

And here I was wondering what I was going to write about. Later I thanked Richard for giving me some good blogging material.

Always make sure the gates are closed. And make sure again, just to be safe.

Kierra: llama herding, working dog

Felting alpaca fleece, organic eggs and a name to call home

Felted Alpaca slippers

So much going on in the past few days!


 

Tuesday I went to my felting class at the Aardwolf Alpacas http://www.aardwolfalpacas.com/index.html ranch and made some adorable slippers out of felted alpaca fleece. Warm and cute. A few months back we traded several gallons of goats milk for the class. Phyllis and Mike were feeding two crias (baby alpacas) due to the death of one mom and another disowning her baby. They needed organic, raw milk and we had so much goats milk in our freezer, and bags of llama fleece in the closet, that it was the perfect trade. I needed to learn how to felt and process my llama wool and they needed milk. I have big plans for felting and the wonderful things I can make.

Aardwolf Alpacas...some of the girls

It is absolutely astonishing to me to watch this whispy fuzz of fluff turn into a pretty hearty material that can be made into slippers, hats, vests and more. I love it. My day was long, somewhat tedious and definitely labor intensive, but well worth the knowledge and the finished warm slippers that will keep my normally cold feet warm all winter long. I had a great time at the ranch and enjoyed a complimentary lunch of ham and cheese and apple cinnamon crepes, not to mention plenty of conversation about camelids and living more sustainably. I would recommend the class to anyone interested in learning to felt, which is invaluable to llama and alpaca owners. Thank you Phyllis and Mike. (They raise and sell alpacas, teach felting and have a B&B at their ranch near the Royal Gorge in Canon City.)

Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if more people got involved in a bartering economy. Think of how much information and local goods could change hands. I really believe that systems of reciprocity that involve direct exchange of goods, including knowledge and labor, will be a big part of our future economy here in the good old USA. Bartering builds community and allows us to invent our own system of "money" while the US dollar continues to lose value. Besides, for those of us who have limited funds, and that is quite a few of us these days, trading gives us the opportunities that might otherwise be lost to us. I could never justify the expense, right now, of taking a felting class, but I can justify a good trade, and all parties involved ended up happy with the arrangement.

We have to raise the price of our eggs. We started buying organic chicken layer food, which is expensive, and the only way I can see how to make it work is to charge more for the eggs. But now, the eggs truly are organic, although the feed we bought before was supposed to be "natural." Until recently organic chicken food was very difficult to find, and it is still expensive, but I'm happy we can now find it locally. The eggs will be even better, and if getting an organic, cage free, hormone free egg is worth it to people they will pay the price. There is no profit here. A bag of feed is about $20. That lasts about one week for my twenty chickens. That's $80 per month to feed my hens, which means I have to sell 16 dozen eggs at $5 per dozen to break even. I hate that it becomes so costly. The alternative is to grow our own grains, but then with all of the old, little, local mills gone, where would we get our grains processed? The alternative for the consumer is to raise their own chickens (in Colorado Springs you can have ten hens) or buy the questionable eggs for cheap at the grocery store, which we have to stop doing if we want our food to change and become healthy. If we stop participating in agribusiness, they have to change their unhealthy practices to get consumers to come back, right? Take back our food!!!

I hope our customers will continue to support us and continue to buy our farm fresh eggs. I'm raising my price to $4 per dozen for a while to lesson the shock. Any donations above and beyond are welcome, since we are buffering the loss out of our own pocket, which is not doable for long. I don't want to go back to the Genetically Modified corn that is most likely a part of the feed, natural or not. Big farms can only grow GM corn, bullied into no choices by big companies like Monsanto, and perhaps the other grains are tainted as well. No, organic is the way to go, and if someone wants to open a local mill, I'd grow the grains, including my own flour grains and bring it to someone local to get processed. You bet I would. Local all the way.

And on a side note, I'm looking for local Bio diesel fuel if anyone is producing or knows someone who is. We bought our diesel farm truck in the hopes of converting it to bio, but all of the bio fuel stations have gone out of business. Let's try again people! There is a need and interest in Bio diesel fuel.

We finally landed on a name for our little farm here in the Southwest that Richard and I can both agree on and be happy with. It is what we hope to achieve--a green oasis in this high desert arid land, and a message about what we are trying to do--farm in ecologically responsible ways that will provide for us and heal the Earth. The new name of the farm is Green Desert Eco-Farm and a web site will be coming soon. I will continue to blog here and detail my story of trying to be sustainable and change the world, and Richard may start his own farm blog, which I'm sure will be interesting in its own right.

I'm also selling marigold seeds at $2 for 1/2 ounce. These are the seeds from the plants I have grown from seeds collected every year for oh, about twenty years now, I guess. I've been carrying my marigolds around with me from place to place, state to state, leaving a little bit behind, that will hopefully reseed. Every year I go out and collect the dried flower heads because that is where the seeds live, then I lay them out to make sure they are good and dry before I store them in Mason jars for next years garden.  I'd like to try this with more flowers. This year I've also collected Bachelor's Buttons and yucca seeds.

Besides being nice to look at, marigolds help deter insects, and the flowers can be used in herbal ointments and lotions to sooth sunburn, rashes, minor cuts and scrapes, or fresh flower petals can be crushed and rubbed directly onto insect bites to relieve the sting. Marigolds also have positive protective energy when planted around the house. The flower petals can be used in cooking, as garnishes, in teas as a detoxifier (anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-viral) and to make dyes. Marigolds...a flower of many uses. But isn't that true of so many of our flowers and "weeds," which if we took the time to educate ourselves, we would discover an amazing array of helpful plants that we may normally overlook.

Every garden should contain herbs, and here at our farm, it is one of my goals to plant an extensive herb garden for medicinal and culinary use. I hope to also have herb starts of some variety each Spring, but for now, you can start your garden  by ordering a few marigold seeds from Green Desert Eco-Farm. (Doesn't that sound nice?) You can save the seeds until Spring, or scatter them around now wherever you'd like to add a few colorful orange blossoms to your yard or garden. They are pretty when they take over a space, like a fire orange small hedge, that makes you suck in your breath when you turn a corner and happen upon the vibrant display by surprise.

Beautify the Earth and plant a few flowers. Plant something that will help take some of the poison out of our air. Every little bit helps. Every little step in the right direction paves the road for a better planet for us and our children and their children. Be the change--always.

Collecting seeds, organic feed, and time for Halloween

Bucket o' seeds

While Richard worked on moving the guinea/chicken house planter into a sunny location, I watered some plants and collected marigold seeds. I have enough seeds now to plant a field of marigolds.  It was a remarkably nice day. Very warm. The kids ran amok in the grass, playing on their little fort, screaming and yelling and being wild children. Nothing beats a warm Fall day.


We went into town for a minute to get chicken food from one of our local feed stores that now stocks organic feed. Hurray for organic feed!!! We ordered grains for the goats and llamas, food for the cats, for the dogs, and for the chickens. Unfortunately it is expensive, but I think if we can, we should buy it, sending the message to organic producers that we are interested and to all the rest that we aren't going to buy their poison laden feed for our animals any more.

The Cottonwood trees down by the river are turning gold. Against the backdrop of the mountains and the dark water flowing in the Arkansas river, it is a beautiful sight. The farmhouses all have pumpkins on their porches, kids are running through corn mazes, and the smell of woodsmoke fills the chilly evening air. The leaves are starting to collect on the ground and soon it will be time for us to cruise the neighborhoods, collecting bags of unwanted leaves from suburban yards to make into compost for our gardens.

Something about Fall makes me feel all warm and cozy, like finally coming home. I'm not sure how a season could make me feel so at peace or like I completely belong, but the Autumn does that to me, no matter where I am. All of a sudden, I want to make cookies and watch movies and snuggle with my kids. I get urges to run through leaves and take walks along the river, and sip hot cocoa in the company of a good friend while we share our dreams for the next year.

Tomorrow is Halloween. We are planning on taking the kids to a party one of the Canon City Co-op members is having, and then into town for merchant trick-or-treating. It'll be our first celebrated Halloween in this small farming community and I can't wait to see how it goes. We found costumes for the little ones at the Goodwill--a cow and an elephant--just their sizes, and quite a bargain for the quality. I love thrift stores.

Box o' cans

This week, Richard thought of using our tin cans, the ones we get canned food in, as planters for our vegetable starts next Spring. Great idea! Recycle and re-use.Sometimes we have an aha moment, when a brilliant idea seems to float into our heads, and then are astounded that so many people are already doing what we just thought of.

Last year we bought hundreds of plastic disposable cups, which we saved, of course, but many have just broken down from the sun and from age, I guess. The plastic seed starter "pots" are hard to work with,  fall apart over time, and are too expensive for this farmer. Tin cans will last until they rust, but the positive is that we will be recycling the cans, which we normally do anyway, taking them to the recycle bin in town, but when you can really re-use something that would otherwise be trash, it is a wonderful feeling indeed. I also think they will look adorable with little baby tomato and pepper plants in them.

I did look online to try to find out if the tin would be hazardous to the plants, but I can't find anything at all about tin cans (aluminum will leach) and many people use a variety of small and large cans, some with memorable labels, to make interesting container gardens. What a great idea. I am just so excited by this concept. I could paint the cans if I had a moment of creative inspiration, and some people even use the tin can planter idea as a craft project for kids. I wonder if my little ones would like to decorate some cans? Painting the cans will extend their lives against rust, but then you do have to be careful with the paint and/or sealers...what do they leach into the soil?


Happy Halloween everyone! May your Fall days be filled with inspiration and love, hot cocoa, or better yet, organic herbal tea, good company and good ideas for the coming months ahead.

Greenhouse plastic and a chicken coop planter

greenhouse plastic goes on

We've had a pretty strong, constant wind for about four days, which makes our greenhouse project more interesting, but with the colder temps, it has to be done, sooner rather than later. Richard and I began putting the recently ordered and quickly received real greenhouse plastic on our tiny greenhouse yesterday. In spite of our efforts to cover the few plants inside the structure, last night the freezing temperatures proved too much for our drop cloth and blanket freeze protector, and I'm afraid we lost most of the pepper plants that were hanging on. The leeks may be okay.

Inadequate plant protection

Also working on placing the little chicken coop in some spot in the yard where we can create a guinea and eventual chicken run. The idea here is to build a base for the little house that will become a raised planter in a season or so. We cover the floor of the house (which is really bare earth) with wood shavings and the birds cover it with poop. We continue to refill litter as needed, building a deep litter bed that will compost in place and become next year's garden plot. How about that? And then we move the chicken coop and run to another prepared "bed" and do it again, rotating our birds through the garden, one vegetable bed at a time.

Planter bed chicken coop. The boards at bottom of house form vegetable planter, and the foundation of the coop, which keeps the wooden house out of the snow and rain, prolonging the life of the wood that much longer.

We bought our "chicken barn" from an online retailer and had it shipped. It was pretty pricey. I don't see why a guy, or a gal, couldn't build a simpler model to do the same thing. This way the wastes from the birds become fertilizer for the garden in a few less steps, saving the farmer time and money. I love it. Eco-farming at work.

Unfortunately the first place we built a bed turned out to be constantly in shade, which for the winter and live critters, is a downright bad idea. I was hoping to protect the coop and the yard from the horrid wind we get in the fall, which, nestled in among the junipers, it is indeed hidden from the noxious wind, but without solar gain, I'm afraid my little birds will freeze to death. Tomorrow we are going to get some more boards to build another planter for the coop---in the sun.

Injured guinea is doing well. He has a healthy appetite and is still healing. His buddy is still in the room with him, and his constant chirping and singing to his sick friend makes me smile. Also in the bird infirmary is egg bound hen (who is no longer egg bound), who never transitioned back to the flock well, so I brought her back in. She's not eating enough for me to notice, or be confident with, but I did open my office this afternoon to find she'd dislodged her grill covering and hopped out of her "bed" and was standing under my desk, looking like a chicken who belonged there. What a site. The Red Star chicks are unruly and try to fly out of their playpen every time I change the food and water. Also healthy guinea made a break for it yesterday and ran across the room, looking so proud of himself, but when I herded him back to his kennel, he reluctantly entered, as there was no other place to go. Injured guinea, who is still hanging in the air, just watches in silence at the antics of his roommates and caregiver. Silent Bob.

Life on the farm.

We are still trying to come up with a farm name that fits and will stick; a name that isn't being used in some way by someone else. One Little Farm is being used, although not in Colorado. Thinking of other names, so don't be surprised if the title of this blog changes again. We'd like to happily rest upon a great name and start building our business around it, including a web site.

Healing

It was terribly cold last night (low 20's), and yesterday was blustery and chilly, and I swear I even saw a few snowflakes fall around dinner time. Was our fall so short that now we've progressed directly into winter. I won't have it.

Injured guinea is doing remarkably well. I can't help but wonder if there is another lesson in this. We thought for sure he was going to die...with a huge hole in his side showing his entrails, how could he not? But not having the heart to kill him, we did the only thing we could, we bandaged him up and tried to make him as comfortable as possible, making sure his food and water needs are met several times a day. Every now and then we bring in his guinea buddy to keep him company because I read that the best thing for recovery is a friend. The healthy guinea sings or purrs to the injured guinea when I put his kennel next to his sick buddy. The injured guinea seems to perk right up, eating and drinking a little more when his partner is near him. Guineas mate for life. I know these two are males, but their relationship seems to be built around a very strong bond. Maybe they are heterosexual life partners (like Jay and Silent Bob---would those be good names for the guineas?), or bff's, or whatever. The reality is that the company seems to make a positive impact, along with the body's natural ability to heal itself. The injured guinea's wound is visibly shrinking. And that's a miracle in process.

When did we, as a people (and not all people have---many indigenous cultures continue to practice centuries old tribal, and natural, healing practices) give up our power to heal ourselves? When did we start to believe that the best advice for our bodies came from the doctors who didn't even know us and certainly could hardly know our bodies in their ten minute examinations. When did we stop listening to our own bodies?

As I watch the animals on my farm, who live only in the present moment, I learn. The guineas don't expect someone else to heal them, nor do any of the other animals. They either heal themselves, or they don't, giving up the ghost and moving on to greener pastures.

If we humans could forget for a minute how helpless and dependent on others we are, for everything, it seems, maybe we could take some initiative and responsibility for our own little selves. What do we need to do to heal ourselves? And certainly we have moved beyond the primitive thinking of a pea brained guinea, but maybe that's the problem, we over think and allow our decisions to be influenced by so called "experts." How can anyone know me like I know me? I live in this body twenty four seven, so I better listen to what it has to say to me. Right now it's telling me to get healthy, to lose the accumulated weight from pregnancies and inactivity, to eat right and stop poisoning myself with processed and hormone injected foods.

I hear the whispers of a voice telling me that my lifestyle and what I choose to put in my body has a direct correlation with how healthy and maybe even how happy I am. Can we know for sure if the myriad of chemicals we have been injecting and ingesting are not related to mental disorders and malfunctions? What about autism and ADD, which have been on a steady increase along with the increase in poisons in our air and foods. Are they related? I bet they are. I bet almost all of our diseases and ailments can be traced back to something in our environment. Even if it's a genetic mutation, I bet even that is a dysfunction due to some weird chemical imbalance somewhere.

Isn't it time we took back our health along with our food choices? Take back our health. Take back our food. Take back ourselves. Take responsibility for the choices you make. I choose to eat the Twinkie that has a shelf life of forever. Why would I do that? Have I been brainwashed by a commercial laden culture that tells me to eat this and wear that....it is sooooo good. What about the fine print that tells me that this product may cause chronic, irreversible damage to my life system. Where is the disclaimer? Oh, it's not there, except on some so called "medicines" that have so many negative side effects, you have to wonder, who in their right mind would take such "medicines."

It is time to wake up. Our culture doesn't care. As a whole, "they" are not interested in the health and well-being of the people. "They" are interested in the bottom line. It doesn't matter that the people are dying, that the earth is dying, "they" will tell you it isn't so and to keep on spending. Look around.

We need to wake up, stand up, man up and save ourselves and our planet. Every little thing you can do will help. It does matter. Recycle. Re-use. Buy local. Buy organic. Support and be active in your community.

Those little guineas don't care. They live in the NOW, eating, drinking, yelling, and healing. They live local and they certainly eat local, given the choice. It is what they do. They are in balance with nature and with themselves. They can go a long way toward healing themselves. No one ever told them they couldn't.