Planting and Writing

Upper garden

Planting like mad! We finished our upper garden area with a little help from some hired hands, although not as much as I'd have hoped. It turned out the tiller they brought wouldn't run much for anyone but me...so I tilled the garden. The great thing is, it got done!

We planted two long rows of tomatoes, a bunch of peppers, more broccoli and potatoes, and in the past couple of days we turned my son's old crib (was recalled due to drop down sides) into trellis's for our loufas! We got some rows of corn in, and Richard planted melons. We also we planted some herbs in pots around the patio. Not too bad, but we still need to get the squashes and pumpkins going and the dried beans.

Corn rows

Crib side trellis for loufas

table on new patio

We got some more fence in here and there, but not enough to let the guineas free again. In the chicken tractor they remain.

Napoleon

My little Napolean is my new best friend, hopping through the 2 x 4 bottom of the field fence to run up and say hi every time I'm in the upper garden. Same story...I pet him, I hold him and then he runs back to his girls. He's a little cutie these days, and a surprise from the mean little rooster he used to be. He did peck at my son, so he can't be trusted really, but I'm enjoying the nice side of his personality.

We have been working on little booklets, that like our classes, give a hands on workshop type approach to sustainability topics. I have finished one entitled Gardening Techniques: Building a Raised Planter and Utilizing Sheet Mulch to Prepare the Bed. It is 11 pages and has detailed instructions along with color photos to guide you through the entire process.  

I am currently working on our version of a chicken how-to-guide called The Chicken Manual. Richard and I both contributed our knowledge and experience in this little book, which covers the entire subject of chickens from chicks to adult layers. Also color photos. Both are for sale...we've been peddling them at the Farmer's markets, and if anyone would like more information, feel free to contact me. They are cheap, and cover our printing costs...maybe. Anything extra goes to the farm of course.

It sure feels good to be doing something creative, and maybe one day soon I will give in to that urge to paint!

Also offering garden design consultation services in our area. Trying to work easier and smarter and less physical. So many new ideas and still so much to do here on our little farm. The critters are all doing well and the humans are getting by the best we can.

Lining up cereal

My daughter has been especially focused (between tantrums) on lining things up these days. This morning her cereal...little balls of GFCF cereal, and this afternoon, her dollhouse furniture...across the room and back. It takes her an hour to eat a bowl of cereal.

Lining up toys

This withdrawal thing has got to end soon, right? We did get an appointment with the biomedical doctor up in the Springs...for August. It's a start. Maybe they can run some blood tests and see if the kids are really allergic to gluten and dairy, or if it's something else altogether.

It turns out kids with Pervasive Development Disorders may have more sensitivities to toxins in the environment...like our house. Newer houses, loaded full of carpet and particle board cabinets and vinyl floors are extremely dangerous for people with allergy sensitivities, and in the case of these kids, the off gassing of these hazardous materials causes even more brain dysfunction.

What do I do with that? A can of no VOC paint costs about $35. We need new flooring, new cabinets, new paint, new doors, new trim...how is that going to happen? It's time to start manifesting a few miracles.

Raised beds and a trellis ...it's time to grow

Time passes and Spring fades into summer...it's getting hot now.

cabbage and broccoli

Got the potatoes, cabbages, sweet peas, green beans, cucumbers, broccoli and carrots, spinach, raspberries and strawberries in. It is a mixed mess of sunken beds, raised beds and planter boxes, although we did manage to build two very nice trellis's.




 

tomatoes

green bean/cuke trellis

 Richard's back is getting better, in spite of a bad MRI result, which showed three injuries. Now no one will see him except the Naturopathic doctor and the neurosurgeon in the Springs, which is still a month out. Thanks to Dr. Susan and a great little book by Louise Hay called You Can Heal Your Life, Richard is making great progress and has many good days and far fewer bad days.

I think we are learning our limitations, both physically, and mentally, maybe. I know this has been one hard lesson for me and I still have yet to handle any of it with much dignity and grace, although I'm getting better as I realize it is a test of spirit and yet one more battle against EGO.

Richard is realizing that he lives in a state of resistance to so many things and is trying to overcome it, so that he might progress onward on his spiritual path. Also read Countdown to Coherence by Hazel Courteney, which is a great read and opened my mind, just when I thought I'd heard almost every theory related to metaphysics.

So we come away from this lesson in life as wiser human beings...another day in Earth school for the spiritual beings we are.

On the farm, I still battle with trying to get it all done. A couple of Co-op members came out to help for a day and we got loads of things finished. It was wonderful and we learned that they are on a similar path to the one Richard and I travel. Wonderful to meet like-minded folks...always! Thanks John and Natalia!

We have another friend here to help today, trying to get the garden tilled so I can plant the tomatoes and peppers.

Honey 12-13 weeks old

Honey is growing like a weed and the children are still "withdrawing" from gluten and casein. My little girl wrote her numbers for the first time last week (normally she just scribbles). Mostly the kids are still hyper and tantrumming every time something sets them off (wrong color cereal bowl, Daddy had to go to work, I want ice cream).

patio in upper garden

I managed to get a patio built out of the old flagstones  I've been dragging around from house to house. And I got the parking area finished...well it needs another layer of gravel, but it is good enough for now.



We have chased and recaptured the guineas ( they were harassing some neighbors who weren't too keen on their morning wake up calls) and put them in a chicken tractor, which was supposed to be Andy's (the white silkie roo) new home. Napoleon fled the coop and headed off to join the girls up in the llama barn, leaving poor little timid Andy all alone.

Napoleon finds his girls

Sometimes Napoleon follows me around, yelling and wanting to fight, so today I just squatted down and waited for him to approach, and ever so gently I reached out my hand to pet him. He didn't attack me at all, and in fact let me pet him and pick him up and cuddle him and fuss over him for quite a while. I guess the angry little roo just wanted some love. Don't we all?

Pelicans, magpies and hummingbirds...for the birds, man!

I saw the Pelicans two more times. Both times with binoculars, and even Richard was there to witness the last sighting, on another lake just outside of Florence. That time there was only one majestic bird, looking a lot like a swan, except for the beak. Self-sacrifice, but also recognizing EGO and holding it at bay long enough to let the higher self shine through.

Also checked out my Crowley tarot deck (Yeah Susan, I have one too...although it has been a long time...synchronicity) and sure enough as my friend Susan, from Taos, reminded me the Pelican sits there with the Empress, the ultimate Mama and woman of power and strength (I will make it through this).

And one day I saw a single magpie, which I have not seen in these parts...odd, considering the geography, but right on, considering the meaning: anger, which boiled and bubbled inside of me one day last week until it exploded. I do regret that, although it is better to release it than to hold on to it.

We sold the goats. All of them. Richard could no longer milk them. although he tried and twisted his back the few days he did it--the result was another day on the floor or in bed or in the recliner, immobile. I tried too, but maybe not hard enough. It took me too long and they inevitably lost patience with me and started to squirm, lifting legs and sticking feet in the milk bucket...throw the whole batch away and try again tomorrow. I lost patience with trying. And I could not leave my little children alone so long. I chose the mom role rather than the milk maid.

Goats going to their new home

Another deciding factor: the kids, who have lost all control of themselves during Richard's down time. Is it the excitement of seeing Dad (on the floor in the living room), or something else? A little nagging voice in my head reminded me of how I used to call them my ADD babies when they were in my womb (how they twisted and tumbled), but the tantrums and the bouncing off the walls, the shrieking and running for the roads when outside, the general craziness begged to be examined. So I did a little research on ADHD, which they might be and found something even more disturbing...so  many of their behaviors matched mild cases of Autistic children. Either way, they appear to be on the PDD spectrum or the autistic spectrum. What can I do, I thought? Remove all dairy and gluten from their diet. Should see results in as little as three days or as long as six months. GFCF here we go! Don't need the goats anymore anyway.

The people who bought the whole herd were the same people we bought the three mamas from two years ago. Crazy. They love them already and will take very good care of them.

Richard went back to our Naturopath, who is a remarkable healer, and he walked out of there upright and better than I have seen him since this all began. He did have an MRI, which we don't know the results of, but we are trying to avoid a surgery, and instead are focusing upon spiritual matters. Messages from the Universe come in all forms.While he tries to figure out his issues, I'm trying to work through mine too.

I also sold my 23 baby chicks off to various people. Without the CSA (we sent all the money back to our shareholders), we don't need so many chickens. Eggs are backing up in my fridge.

I've been angry and frustrated. I can't get the gardens ready fast enough. I can't be the mom, the maid, the house cleaner, the cook, the masseuse, the gardener and the stable boy. My head is spinning and my body is so sore. My back is starting to hurt. Hey, maybe I should just sell the llamas too and head to NM and begin again. I search the internet for cheap properties...and Richard gets worse, his legs hurting and cramping (fear of moving) every time I talk of moving to NM.

Stuck back in my cage. I still have my llamas and 20 old hens and three entertaining roosters, two wandering guineas (more neighbors report them in their yards), and no money to hire help. Life is so good right now I can feel it transferring into my body...if something doesn't give I will be on the floor next to Richard. A comedy of errors indeed!

Maybe farming is not for us.

Ah, summer is coming and in rolls the chaos that usually arrives with the heat.

One of the estimates I got on finishing some of the projects (I have been trying, but just can't get it all done) was from our old friend with the Earthship...such a great man, and so spiritually aware. We decided to enlist his help for as much as we can afford...I think we need his wonderful energy as much as his construction expertise. Maybe the llama earthbag barn will get finished before it falls down. Yippee!

We walk blindly through our lives, creating a reality we don't understand or know how to relate to, unaware that we hold the power deep within to change it all.

The hummingbirds are back, buzzing me as I do my outside chores...there's meaning in that too, I know.

Pelicans

I really did see them. At least, I think I did. Twice.

How often does one see a flock of Pelicans in southern Colorado? Crazy.....but there they were. On my drive back from picking up hay from our farmer friend and organic chicken food from the feed store a couple of days ago, I saw a whole mess of birds circling in the air above the prison farm. White birds. Seagulls, I thought. Well, that's unusual, but not unheard of. I'd seen seagulls often enough in Colorado, and in some odd places too. But, as I got closer to the birds in flight, I noticed they seemed strange, not like seagulls at all, and that big yellow bill was way too long. Do seagulls have yellow bills?

Now, I'm super curious, being a fan of the bird world and all, and I roll down the window (or push the button) and stick my head out, trying to get a better look while not running into the occasional oncoming car or farm truck. I should have pulled over, but life on our little farm called me back, and I decided I was either very lucky indeed to have seen such exciting birds, or just plain crazy, suffering some warp in reality that allowed me to hallucinate about thirty pelicans in the high desert of Colorado. Yeah, there were two groups of them and they were over a lake near the river, so there was water.

So I get home and forget about it in the midst of  my new job as farm manager and farm laborer and my old job as mother, housekeeper and cook. And as has been my way as of late, my Ego begins to grumble about the unfairness of life's circumstances and my mood gets sore with my aching muscles from digging post holes and potato trenches, from unloading hay and heavy wood posts for the fence I'm trying to get up to keep the guineas in. I don't want to be a farmer. I want it to be all done so I can wander through the gardens and admire my birds and flowers and growing things. Without Richard, I realize, I'm it, and it's way too much. I want to flee into the desert of NM and study the sagebrush.

Now that I'm on the new farm weight loss plan of constant work, I'm feeling pretty trapped and resentful. When was the last time I got to be sick? When you become a mother, you don't get to have down days. Even when you have the flu, you gotta pull it together long enough to feed and dress the kids. Life keeps on going and there is so much to do. Never a break. Work it off. There is no one else.

Yeah, I can't milk the goats like Richard, because I've milked them maybe five times in the year and a half that we've had them. It takes me about a half hour per goat, hands cramping, as I try to keep the agitated mama from putting her foot in the milk pail. When I get done with the morning chores, I'm in a state of agitation myself, and there are still kids to feed and backs to rub and laundry to do and floors to clean and meals to make and eggs to fetch and on and on it goes. I'd like to sit down. I don't want to haul another bale of hay. I broke the post hole diggers trying to get the holes dug for my pallet fence. My guineas are in the neighbors yard yelling and screeching. Do they like birds, I wonder? I had a man come out to give me an estimate on finishing the perimeter fence. Ha! There's a reason why we are doing it all ourselves. But, he did help me chase the guineas back into my yard. Nice of him.

Yeah, I've been in the clutches of an angry and resentful Ego that spits out rude words to anyone who dares speak to me. Not a good time. I fantasize about an old adobe in the desert where I could live...alone.  I walk by my living room windows and see the panorama of the mountains with the mesas in the foreground and think how I'd love to just take my easel outside and paint. Break out the forbidden oils and set the muse free.
That's on my way to something else, and forgotten as soon as I leave the room.

I think of selling the goats, the llamas, the millions of chickens and packing up the remainder of my herd and running to the desert, to my fantasy house that doesn't exist. Not to be. Here I am, back in my life, with screaming kids and a husband parked on the floor.

Pelicans...
When I find my book on animal totems ( Animal-Speak by Ted Andrews) I learn that Pelicans represent "renewed buoyancy and unselfishness."
Now that's something. That can't be right. Is this a message on how I should be behaving rather than what's currently happening? I sure feel like a selfish witch who is being drug down to the murky depths of a hateful out of control Ego.
The Pelican is about self-sacrifice and how to rise above difficult life circumstances. But, how do you do that with grace and dignity while scraping the chicken poop off your boot?

So today I see them again. Pelicans. On the way back from taking Richard to a chiropractor, I see a mass of birds on the lake and pull into the parking lot of the old cement plant (?) or whatever it used to be. The gates are locked and I can't get a good view, so the old me, the wild and crazy adventurous me, hops out of the car. "Do you think I'll get arrested?" I ask Richard as I duck under the gate with phone in hand (the only camera I have with me...still dreaming of that SLR with telephoto lens). The yelling kids and Richard's constant pain and immobility vanish as I head across private property to find my birds. And there they are...they look like swans, they are so big. Was I mistaken?

I can't get close enough to really tell for sure, but it looks like one is standing with his huge bill swinging down to his chest. Yes! I try to snap a picture with our new phone camera (later I learned I shot a photo of the shoreline and no birds) and contemplate getting closer. But there is a mess of broken concrete rubble and it looks like some kind of old drainage into the lake... is this a toxic zone? And, I should not be here... trespassing. So I head back and even run the last 30 feet. I feel elevated, elated and there is a surge of energy running through my veins. I want to run. I want to fly. I want to get in the car and drive to Santa Fe.

But reality is a family and a farm and animals to take care of and kids to feed. Richard has to go to work in the afternoon. My moment of bliss has flown away with the four birds who seem to follow the car as we head out. "Did you see them?" I ask Richard. "Were they real?"

"I don't know. I can't really turn my head."

Back into the mundane I fall, plummeting into a different dimension, one where wild goose chases (or Pelican) are not only uncommon but waste precious time needed to dig holes for trees.

Guardian dog

We got a new puppy last Friday!!

Honey

My guardian dog, in training, is a female 9 week old Great Pyrenees pup with badger markings. We call her Honey because she is so sweet, and after her first bath, she smelled sweet too.

I found her through the Thrifty Nickle ads, which is okay, but I can't really be assured of the quality of this pups genes. Is she full blooded? She seems kind of miniature right now, but maybe that's all we need for our micro farm! She does have the two dew claws, which I read the Great Pyrs usually have, and she has the face, and it really doesn't much matter  because I love her anyway.

It seems I have a special fondness for white fluffy animals.

My little fuzzball girl does the rounds with me every day as I collect eggs, water the gardens and eventually close up the animals for the night. She helps me herd the chickens into the coop. She doesn't chase them, but her presence sends them into a tizzy and they all run inside, just like that. Handy.

It is my job to teach her the farm and she has become my shadow...so much so I lose her sometimes, and turn around fast and there she is, right behind me, turning with me. She's great fun, and except for the puppy training (housebreaking and chewing), which always gets old, she is a constant delight.

Jealous Quinton

My chihuahuas, the male in particular, is extremely jealous and shows his disapproval by attacking Honey when I'm not looking. He's getting better now that we are almost a week along, but for a few days there I was carrying my Great Pyrenees around to protect her from my chihuahua. The irony. Maybe the tiny chihuahua will always be the "big dog" in the house.

We also visited Paul and Tammy at Wren's Nest Farm in Pueblo last Friday when we went to meet the dog seller at Big R. We delivered our "Lucky" horse trailer to them so they could go pick up their new Jersey milk cow in Walsenburg. How exciting is that? I wish we had the space to have a cow here...there was another for sale, reasonably priced, where they found theirs. I love visiting their farm. They inspire me to just do it...get out there and farm!

And now our little farm, the Green Desert Eco Farm has a farm dog to protect the livestock and chase off the deer...in a few months. We've also sold some more CSA shares which leaves us with only TWO left. The goats are in milk and Richard has a cheese-making class for the Canon Food Co-op this Sunday down at the Rockvale Community Center. We are planting...lettuces, radishes, spinach and transplanting raspberries. There are many shelves of plant starts in Richard's office and the gardens are being prepared. There are plans for another greenhouse in the upper garden and we have ordered our first flock of meat chickens. Things are moving along. Spring is definitely here.

Sunshine, birthdays and time at the farm

Spring time is so much fun, and one of my favorite seasons. I just have to learn to ignore the fifty mile an hour wind gusts and get on with the day. I've decided that the nice days tend to have the most wind, but if we stayed inside, nothing would ever get done. Learn to live with it, brace yourself and remember it'll probably get worse as global warming continues.

Today we built a trellis in the lower garden and planted some sweet peas.
 

pea trellis, lower garden

Our pallet fence has been improved with electric tape that rises to about eight feet...high enough to keep the deer out. Bambi and his relatives have been nibbling at my lilies and irises directly in front of the house, so Richard has put up make shift fences here and there to keep them out. I'm thinking of getting a big dog to scare them off--one that won't be carried off by a hawk like my chihuahuas. Been researching the giant guardian breeds like the Great Pyrenees. Might as well have a dog that will protect the livestock instead of hunt it.

Richard planted some spinach in the greenhouse and in his new cold frames. The planting has begun. There has been a lot of interest in tomato and pepper starts this year. It looks like more people are gardening this season. That's great! Good for them. We all have to be backyard farmers if we want clean, healthy and reasonably priced produce.

Free Birds

 

The fence in the upper garden is finished too, which means, the guineas are finally free. And what did they do but head straight for the llama pen, which they couldn't get into, so they opted for the goat pen. I chased them out and Richard stapled up some netting over the gate they walked through. Good thinking, because the goat kids would've walked through that gate too.

With the warm air today, I let the baby goats out to frolic in the yard, but Amelia's little ones decided to stay in the shade of the barn instead.

 

Ginger

 

All the goats are doing well. The babies are all healthy and active and looking pretty darn cute.They jump and play and butt heads. I could watch them for hours.

The llamas were gelded this past Friday. They don't seem to be mad anymore and are just trying to figure out who or what their new neighbors are. They stood and stared over the fence as long as the goat babies were out playing today. They are such inquisitive creatures.

Our son had a birthday this weekend too, so we took the kids to the Pueblo Zoo, which was great fun. We bought a season pass so we can drop by any time we are in town. Handy, and cheaper in the long run than even two trips to the zoo with two adults and two kids. 

We tried the cloth gift wrapping idea. and it worked really well, but I would advise everyone to have plenty of ribbons on hand to tie up the gifts. I was not prepared and had to rummage through my sewing boxes to find something suitable.

Festive cloth wrapping

The material to wrap the gifts cost less than wrapping paper would have, was a lot more fun and we can use it again for wrapping, or use it to make something else, like a birthday quilt at the end of so many years. Great idea put into practice. So, save a tree and dig out that old material you've been holding onto.Wrap some gifts. If I were the recipient of such interesting and thoughtful gift wrap, I would be thrilled. Think of the things you could make if all of your gifts came wrapped in material! A crafter's dream come true.

I also found an antique treadle Singer locally

Sewing, off the grid!

for less than I anticipated.

I am so excited. I'm still trying to find extra accessories for it, and I have yet to learn how to use it, but I can't wait to make those birthhday quilts without electricity. Can you imagine? What a wonderful thing.

Makes me wonder if the modern conveniences are really such a great thing? This machine is about 100 years old and still going strong because it was made to last.

Also this past Sunday, one of the guys from our local feed store came out to help Richard work on the Earthbag barn. Progress is being made. We picked up the cutest miniature scaffold in Pueblo, and it seems to work just perfect for hoisting those buckets of dirt up to the top of the Earthbag wall. Before you know it it will be time to put the roof on. Can't wait. Unfortunately, the tamper broke, so it's going back to the store we purchased it from less than two months ago. Apparently it was not built to last.

Babies

Here are the photos of Amelia and her big moment...delivering twins.

Amelia's first baby

Amelia's second baby

Two little ones: a boy and a girl

All the new kids together

When we let the mom's out into the yard for hay and water every couple of hours, the babies get to hang out together. They all have dog sweaters on to keep their core temp up in the chilly barn at night. Richard named Amelia's kids Vincent (lying down, in green) and Pixie (in black and red). Cinnamon's girl is Ginger (in green, orange, blue stripes) and Tres's boy is Surprise (on the right edge of this picture). Two boys and two girls. They are adorable, as baby goats always are, and in a couple of weeks, after the moms are not making the colostrum any more, we will be back into goats milk here on the farm. Lots of milk for ice-cream, yogurt and cheese.

Goat birth update

Wouldn't you know it...when I went up to check on the goats after posting my last blog, Amelia was ready to have her baby. Richard made it just in time to help. She had twins--a boy and a girl, without any fanfare at all, except she seems to want to walk around while giving birth, which makes it interesting to catch the baby. They are beautiful brown and black babies and I will put up photos tomorrow. Now...I'm going to bed for my first full nights sleep in a long time.

Oh, and post note, we "bounced" Amelia after the first kid and felt the second, so we knew she wasn't done. That's where you stand behind the goat and put your hands in front of her bag and lift up on her abdomen. If there are babies in there, you can feel the hardness instead of gushy guts. We bounced her after the second and she was just gushy. Wish we'd done that with Cinnamon. Of course Amelia's kids came out quick, within like ten or fifteen minutes of each other. Text book delivery.

We now have four babies here at the farm. Two boys and two girls. Mamas are all doing well.

Baby Goats!

We've got babies!

It has been a tiring couple of days with little sleep overnight while we wait for baby goats to show up. It started on Wednesday with Cinnamon going into labor.

"It's time!"

I called Abigail, from Cloud 9 Farms, over to help, and wouldn't you know it...nothing happened. (Except that I spilled my emotional garbage at that poor girls feet and wouldn't be surprised if she never came back.) That was around four pm. I continued to check on Cinnamon throughout the evening, expecting something.

After I got my kids to bed, I went and sat with mama goat, and eventually the labor began. Richard and I sat in the barn until 2:30 am waiting for the babies. We got one little girl at 12:30...and that was it. Cinnamon labored and labored and no more babies came, so we though she was done and was waiting to expel the afterbirth.
 

It's a girl!

She looks a little like her Mama.

We decided to go in the house and take the baby with us, letting Cinnamon finish up on her own.We were exhausted and cold. The barn is not that comfortable after 6 hours. Richard named the little girl Ginger...my own spice girls.

Ginger in a basket

Up again at 5:30 am and out to check on Cinnamon by 6:30. She was up and walking around. She nursed the baby and went out with the other girls for morning hay. Maybe she ate the afterbirth? Not unheard of.

It wasn't until later that afternoon, after Richard went to work (of course) that I noticed something was amiss. Cinnamon was back on the floor, laboring and straining. That wasn't right. I figured she was done a long time ago. I couldn't have been more wrong, and knew this was more than I could deal with, so Richard and I decided to call the vet, who told us to bring her in right away. 

That was interesting. Richard was still working, and I had to load two human kids, an ailing mama goat who didn't want to get  up, let alone walk into a trailer, and a wee newborn doe. And fast. Richard called off from work and made it out to help as I was pulling a goat down the hill, carrying her baby in my free arm.

Richard stayed with the kids (all three) in the car and I stayed with my favorite goat.

It was a nightmare. The vet took one look at her and told me she had another one in there, and after an exam with the stethoscope told me it was already dead. No, no, no. She also told me it was not going to be pretty and the baby might come out in pieces. Cinnamon is bleating away now and the vet and assistant give her an epidermal, which numbs her back legs. I'm holding her head and talking softly to her as the vet goes in to retrieve the stuck baby. It's sideways, she says, it's spine is coming first. She had to turn it and pull it out. No easy feat. It seemed to take forever.

I'm crying and my goat is yelling and my legs are cramping from the constant squat. There was a chain involved and it was absolutely horrible, but finally it's out. And the vet says she's going back in to make sure it's all clean. "There's another one," she says. "This one is breach too," she confirms. Now there are things she ties to its feet and pulls it out too.

I'm absolutely bawling now...me and my goat. One girl and one boy. Two dead babies. I should have known. I should have called the vet at 2 in the morning.Without really meaning to, I'm sure, everything the vet said made me feel worse. "See how big she was when she came in? And now she looks hollow. Now she's done."

My poor Cinnamon. I feel like I have single handedly murdered her children in my ignorance. Could I get past this?

"And sometimes, you can be an expert and know how to do everything and still lose them," the doctor told me. She lost her own foal a couple weeks ago. That doesn't make me feel better.

I cried and replayed the night in my head, wondering what I could have done? Could I have called that vet at 2 in the morning, having never met her before and not even knowing if she doctored goats? We had made an appointment earlier that week to bring in the llamas to get gelded, but that was still a week or so away. Could I have delivered those babies myself? Probably not, as twisted up as they were inside mama. I screwed up. I knew it. I felt responsible for all of it. 

It's too much, I decided. I can't do this myself. I can't give the goats the undivided attention they need while in labor and still run a household and take care of my human kids too. When Richard goes to work, it's just me, trying to keep everything running smoothly, and sometimes I come up short.

When we got Cinnamon home, she laid down in the barn and refused to look at me, but even worse, she refused to have anything to do with her living baby girl. Great. So now I've got to bottle feed the baby. The vet suggested sleeping in the barn to keep an eye on both goats. Really? Maybe she didn't notice my toddler children...I guess not, they were in the car the whole time. So, we finally get the baby to eat something, I put her to bed in an old playpen I've been holding onto, and I set my alarm for two hours later. I will get up and feed the baby and Richard will check on Cinnamon every couple of hours. The previous nights four hours of sleep was a luxury.

Cinnamon is depressed, and rightly so. I'm afraid she isn't going to make it through the night. Richard thought to dose all three mama goats with a vitamin supplement at bedtime, and I think that may have made a difference.

In the morning, Cinnamon is a new goat. I suggest that Richard milk her because I'm in short supply of milk for the newborn. We decide to take Ginger up, to see what Cinnamon will do. It's worth a shot, right? And, miracle of miracles, she starts licking the baby and lets her nurse! And, she lets me pet her head too. Maybe we could get past this.

Good news. 

Today will be busy too. I eye the other pregnant goats with suspicion, not ready to deal with any of it anymore. I have to head into town to pick up the syringes the vet forgot to give me for Cinnamon's medicines. I also need more goat birthing supplies. Joe, from Westcliffe, was coming to help Richard with the Earthbag barn. Another big day on our little farm.

I'm trying to think of how to get help. I research the WWoofer program online. Maybe we could get a farm intern. Good idea. No time to write up the farm info and submit it.

I run errands and wash up the towels from the birthing the night before, and check on Cinnamon and baby often. Tres and Amelia are lounging in the sun in the goat yard. Everything is fine...until, I hear Richard yelling..."We've got a baby!"

What? Amelia? "Who?" I yell back, grabbing fresh towels and locking the kids in the living room with a movie.

It's Tres, and she's just given birth to a big healthy boy in the middle of the yard. No trouble, no noise, and no warning at all. She didn't look like she was going to pop...not at all. We weren't even sure she was pregnant. I guess she was.

Baby goat born in the dirt

So we grab the baby and the mama and take them into the barn. Thank the gods for the extra hands on this day. Richard and Joe tie off the umbilical cord and dry the baby.

Joe and Richard take care of the new boy

Wow! Crazy days! What are we going to call this little guy? "Surprise," suggests Joe, and so his name is given.

Surprise

Later that evening, after all the mamas are settled with their babies, we get an e-mail from the lady who bought Penny and Yvette. Penny has just given birth to triplets of her own. Can you imagine? And when I go up to check on my goats, Amelia is showing the first signs of going into labor. Great...here we go again?

Richard and I take our camp chairs, a space heater, a book, the phone and prepare for a long night. but once again, nothing after several hours, and we decide to go to bed in the house. Same old story. I set the alarm for every couple of hours and check on Amelia. Nothing. Nothing today either. I'm so tired I can hardly function. Richard went back to work. The kids just went to bed and I'm trying to get everything ready for the class tomorrow. 

Now, I'm on my way back up to the goat barn to see what's up with my girls tonight. I think I may have burnt the pumpkin bread I was making for tomorrow. Another long night in store. 

Still looking for a farm intern...

Learning more simple ways

Daffodils on the northside

I'm going to go ahead and decide that spring is here, with all of my plants waking up throughout the gardens.

chives

We've got chives, green onions and catnip coming back along the path to the goat barn, and a lot of the trees and bushes we planted last year are budding. Won't this spring be a glorious one!

catnip

The classes this past weekend were a big success, even if we only had three folks show for the chicken class. It was still great fun, and a little more personal as we all got to know one another a little better. There was a nice couple from Pueblo and another fellow from the Greenhorn Valley who also came to the Season Extension class on Sunday with his wife. Interesting people, all of the participants. I really enjoy hearing everyone's story and why they are interested in our sustainability classes. Turns out we all have a lot in common when we think about the future of America.

On Sunday, Richard and his class got the hoop house up over the newly planted potatoes in the lower garden and possible future home of a USDA funded high tunnel.

They bent the conduit pipes for the frame on the small hoop bender Richard built.

pipe bender (hey, there's another one of those pesky pallets)

 And, with all those hands to hold that plastic, the breeze was hardly noticeable.

long hoop house

Here's a really easy and functional cold frame Richard built out of two by sixes and an old storm window from our Victorian house in the Springs.

Three pregnant goats, Cinnamon in the middle

Things don't have to be expensive or complicated to get the job done.

Cinnamon still has not given birth...so we wait...and we wait.

Gates across the driveway

One of the best parts of the weekend was getting the gates across the driveway. Finally. I've been waiting a long time for those gates that will keep people from just driving in (selling meat from a freezer?) and will keep my kids and animals from running out into the road that people drive down like a race track.

We also had dinner with some new friends this past weekend, and enjoyed ourselves immensely, talking and talking well past the kids' bedtime as they ran from one end of the house to the other. Luckily, our guests were not frightened away.

I had a moment, while trying to get the kids to nap during Richard's class, to watch a documentary on the Amish, which was fascinating. They are a people not much different from myself, minus the religion. They want to live sustainably and avoid the trappings of the mainstream society that would drag them into the chaos and lesson their quality of life. And, they'd like to protect their children from a culture that is ego based and competitive to the point of self-destruction. I'd like that too. The Amish believe in work and the enjoyment of choosing a life dedicated to family and community, living simply and giving themselves an opportunity to be close to nature and God.

With the upcoming energy crisis, I have to wonder if the Amish ways are not better ways. I find myself looking into more of the pieces of their culture and realize the rewards of abandoning the use of electricity for manual labor. I'm very interested in finding a functioning Singer Treadle sewing machine to replace my worn out electric machine. Wouldn't that put some joy into making clothes and quilts for the kids? I would find joy in learning to use and maintain an antique machine that proved itself capable of withstanding the changes of modern man, to the point where it becomes useful again. The items that we need to stock our homes with to survive the future are the things the Amish have been using all along. We could learn a thing or two.

And, Amish are about humility and fighting the Ego, something I have personally been trying to overcome in my own life. Ego is the killer. Just think of a life, a simple and sweet, natural life without that troublesome Ego messing everything up. Wonderful. I wonder if the Amish give workshops? Classes? "How to live Ego free in a mad society." "How to restore a hundred year old sewing machine." "How to teach your kids the value of life and educate them without the use of Disney characters." Sign me up!

Classes still open this weekend!

Just letting everyone know that we still have openings for our chicken basics class this Friday, March 18, from 12-3pm here at the farm. Learn how to order or buy chicks and how to care for them, including building cheap housing. It's time to start your own backyard chicken flock for fresh eggs and healthy meat birds.

We also have openings for the season extension class on Sunday, March 20 from 12-3pm. In this class, Richard will be teaching how to build a hoop bender and make low tunnels for early crops and late crops, how to make simple cold frames, and simple greenhouses--low cost.

Both classes cost $10 per person and you can register at Green Desert Eco Farm

Sign up now! Help support the farm and food for the future! Grow your own!

Projects, goats, chicken radio and Big Horn sheep

We've been working hard this week...Richard on various unfinished projects, and me on my continuous hunt for a place to relocate the farm.

We've almost finished the pallet fence in the upper garden. I think it looks nice. The boards that rise above the fence will be for the electric wire...to keep the deer out (I hope).

And from the outside...I like it too. Below is the view from the road.

 

We've also been working on our parking area with all of the dirt and gravel we've loaded into the truck by bucket fulls and dumped in our yard. Free cycle again!

Before long it will be finished and we will have a nice place for visitors to park. A lot of these landscape timbers came off of Free cycle too.

This week we sold, and delivered, Penny and Yvette to a family outside of Colorado Springs who raises Gypsy Horses and was looking for some more milk goats. They have a huge old barn that is in desperate need of renovation, but having only just bought the place, they are working nonstop to catch up on their projects too. The barn makes me nervous, but I think they will give our girls a good home and I hope they will send photos when the girls kid.

Penny and Yvette, on the way to their new home

And Cinnamon, my little girl goat, is about to kid...any day now. We check on her every few hours and I put one of my old baby monitors in the barn to listen for goat screams (the sounds of labor), but so far all I get are the chickens, singing their chicken songs. Richard calls it chicken radio..."I'm on a chicken radio..." Not quite the version by the Wall of Voodoo, but catchy. 

In the early morning hours, after the chickens are let out to run and play, the little song birds hang out by the barn and I can hear them, like the birdsong on the "soothing sounds" of the alarm clocks meant to lull you to sleep. It makes me happy. I wasn't aware of the variation of birdsong on our small property. When we were out working on the parking area, there were the prettiest sounds coming from a bird perched on the top of one of the Junipers. Very unusual. Richard thought it might be a Mocking bird. Do we have those here? It was too far away to see well enough to look up in my bird book.

So, I'm listening to the birds and listening for a goat in labor and looking for land on the internet. We took a drive yesterday up to Westcliffe because there is some cheap land up there, and I wanted to see how it "felt."

It was not right either. Too high, too cold, too windy, and too far away, although the thing that bugs me the most is that all of the roads into this mountain town are horrendous...winding and steep...giving me mini anxiety attacks as I look out over the edge of the mountain. It seems the older I get, the larger my fear of heights gets.

But, I was rewarded with an amazing glimpse of a herd of Big Horn Sheep as we headed towards Wetmore and the flat lands. The sheep were still in the twisty mountain valley, and my camera is still lacking a good zoom, but here's what I got:

Big Horn Sheep herd outside Westcliffe, Colorado

The best zoom my camera gets...not good enough.

They are amazing, breathtaking creatures, and I am fascinated every time I see them, which is not very often. I have yet to see a mountain goat, and I've been looking. Wouldn't it be cool to see one of those?

Anyway, the search for affordable land is on. It seems we might have to have at least 35 acres (the magical number) to be able to get a well that we can use for our home and for our gardens and livestock. Crazy water laws here in Colorado. Can we find 35 acres for less than 30K that is not desert hard pan? The challenge is on.

The Earthship thing...probably not, but I haven't entirely ruled it out, and we met a really cool man who's bringing his lady over for dinner on Friday. It seems we have a lot in common and even more to talk about. And yes, he lived in an old converted school bus while he built his homestead. Livin' the dream!

One day I'll land in the place I am meant to be...or maybe that's right where I am now. Who knows? I only know I have to keep on seeking out adventure because it keeps my heart beating and keeps my spirit singing. Live the life you are given to the best and fullest of your ability. That's all anyone can do.