Saturday, November 24, 2012

Saturday, November 24, 2012

   Two eggs; one and a half gallons of milk. 

The weather turned drizzly and later turned cold and sleety and windy.   We had a nice visit from Kelly and her family; they were up visiting her mother Nancy.  She showed us pictures of her beautiful new Irish Jerseys, they are tiny and very charming.  She has a bred heifer and a six  month old bull calf.  She is hoping the bull will grow fast so as to breed her cow Annabelle who hasn’t settled with AI.   Her older daughter Sarah told us about the rabbits she is raising, some for pets and some for meat.  The ones called “Lops” are apparently enormous.  Kelly had very high praise for both the personality and meat qualities of her Bourbon Red turkeys.

   The animals were all up at the barn by 4:30 since they didn’t like the weather.  They all came in and ate hay hungrily.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

   Three eggs plus two frozen in a new nest in the sheep manger.  Fern gave a gallon and a half.   She was in heat yesterday, Nov. 26, and didn’t get much eating done.  They seem to be drinking from the indoor system just fine now and we have to refill several times a day.  We’ve had to keep the gate to the North Field and the Pasture Field shut because Sally found the electric fence had been breached in a couple of places and didn’t have time to fix it today.

   We went to town and bought all the ingredients for fruitcake which we like to make every year.  This year I plan to make two kinds, light and dark.  When in Rumford we visited an antique/used bookstore which was a lot of fun.   Sally bought several fine books including a nice copy of Anne Frank’s book with a picture on the cover of that dear lost child.

   My son John and grandson Harper narrowly missed each other in Dubai on Sunday.    They were both travelling to scientific meetings and hadn’t compared schedules.

   We’re still helping poor Willie to fight fleas.  We bought more flea shampoo and an herbal flea collar.   Sally gave him another bath this evening. 

   It was sixteen degrees this morning but warmed up to freezing by the end of the day.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

    Ten degrees this morning but warmed up fairly fast.  About 1 ¾ gallons of milk and three eggs, plus ten from a new nest that Sally found high up at the far end of the haymow.

   Right after milking as I was watching the cows I thought it  odd the way Milton was sniffing around Fern’s udder.  Then I saw her kick him.  Then I saw him trying to suck and I’m pretty sure I did see him suck.  Sally went out and stood next to them inspecting and confirmed our worst fears.  If there’s no milk tomorrow he’ll have to live by himself in the sheep paddock or perhaps we can use the cow bra.  Or he might have to go to freezer camp.

   Sally and Willie went down to the river again and worked on stabilizing the bank with old fencing wire.  I made a fruitcake plus a little fruitcake cupcake so we were able to sample it for quality control. 

I was able to work on my revisions for a good while.

November 30, 2012,

Five eggs, a gallon and a half of milk.  We did not discover any evidence of Milton stealing milk, fortunately for all of us, Milton included.

   Just after coming in from milking Dr. Cooper, my vet,  called and said he would be by about lunchtime, so we had lunch together.  He dropped off worm medicine for Willie.

   Sally modified the hay ring with an inner circle of heavy wire fencing to try to discourage the sheep from getting inside it.  However, they climbed right in.  Later she worked on cleaning out the sheep room. She tries to remove a few more cart loads each day. DD Marcia called fromCalifornia and told us about the torrential rain and about her rabbits.  She and her family are learning to dress off chickens and rabbits.  DS John also called from Australia; he was back from a successful trip to Dubai and Singapore.  While he was gone his wife Lou painfully crushed one of her pinky fingers while working in her rock garden. Sally sympathizes. She too has a rock garden and knows how irresistible it is to rearrange rocks and how unforgiving they can be. 

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Saturday, November 10, 2012

   Three eggs, nearly two gallons of milk. 

Recently I switched to using the Surge milking machine as DD Sally does the washing-up and it is much easier to do. All th parts except the bucket and the pulsator go in the dishwasher..  I’ve been trying to find something to rest the bucket on to raise it into position without my having to hang it on the surcingle.. That lift to set it on the wire it very hard for me. Fern is wonderfully cooperative with my experiments.

Sally and Willie walked around the fields and then worked on a damaged part of the fence that Nancyfound two days ago.   She had caught sheep getting into the garden.   Martin was here.  He and Milo went out hunting birds, they got one woodcock, and then he worked on plowing the paddock field.

We had a visit today from Heidi Wilcox. She is the Chief of Police in Farmington. She came with her little boy, Cooper. This wonderful woman says I inspired her to get a cow following a conversation a while back at a meeting we both attended. I had forgotten. She came to buy my book. She said that my explaining that cows could be flexible and one could do OAD milking was what she needed to hear. She now has a Dexter due in a month or so.

   Amy and the kids arrived about 5.  Martin asked me to cook the woodcock  so he could prepare appetizers.  One just uses the breast meat. I sautéed them in ghee with toasted sesame seeds and oriental seasonings.  Then he sliced it thinly and put it on olive shortbread with slivers of racklette cheese.   We also cooked some delicious Luick chicken livers which we cooked following the woodcock.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

   Slightly under two gallons of milk, 1 egg.  There was a hen with a chick sitting on a popular nest though, so I’ll check that in the morning.

   Sally made a raspberry pie this morning as Martin and Amy and the kids were coming over for lunch.  It had a quark cheesecake layer, a layer of thickened raspberry sauce, and lots of whipped cream.  I made a vegetable soup with well-seasoned browned meatloaf mixture stirred into it.

   Martin and his family cut up some firewood and brought it into the carriage house.  He also tried again to start the pickup but no luck.  Then they went for a nice walk in the fields.

            DS Martin and DD Sally got together and dressed off the duck I was recently given by neighbor Germaine. She said his name was Rupert. She had to get rid of him because he was wearing out her two ducks with his amorous attentions.  I called him Rupert Murduck.

   I made butter and we got to work on our saved up last cabbages, making them into sauerkraut.  A whole five gallon bucketful of cabbages, shredded and pounded down made a gallon of sauerkraut.   That was exciting.  For dinner we had sautéed bunching onions from the garden with one of Mitra’s pork chops and one of our little squashes baked.

            Hannah (6) sang the songs she had learned in school for Veteran’s Day.  She sang The Star Spangled Banner, It’s a Grand Old Flag and My Country ‘tis of Thee, all the words, solo.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Today it rained hard.         It seemed like a good day to go shopping since one could not work outdoors. Sally and I went to Farmington, but first to New Sharon for grain. Then we met Mitra at the Better Living Center  for the health food store shopping. They have nearly everything one needs. We then convened at the Thai restaurant for a jolly lunch.

Then onward to the bookstore and the thrift shop and home about 4 o’clock.

            All the critters were fine except the young poultry, which were all ravenous..

            I am pretty tired. We ate warmed over soup and cocoa and watched the wonderful Woodie Guthrie special on PBS.

Wednesday November 14, 2012

   Got one egg and a bit under two gallons of milk.  It was a fine clear day, not a cloud.  The cows’ water tank had a good half inch of ice on it.

   About noon the actors from the church working on their Christmas pageant came by.  They wanted to film their shepherd leading the sheep.  We showed them how to do the gates and left them to it.  When Sally went out she saw the shepherd striding with his staff through the barnyard with Willie swirling around him happily and the sheep watching from a judicious distance.

    Sally worked on the fence for awhile and then made an apple pie with gleaned apples.   It also included some reduced apple cider that I made last year.  We heard that Sally’s daughter Rebecca and her two little boys Torleif and Halfdan will be here after Christmas.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Milk down to 1 11/2 gallons today. Sally suspects this is because she was  not able to keep up with the freezing over of the stock tank. We  need to set up the indoor water system now. It was down to 19F this morning. The day was bright and sunny.

Sally and I took a walk by the river. There are many new young trees in the riparian zone where the animals are fenced out.  I was interested to see a vast new area where equisetum is spreading out. It has a powerful root system and will help with protection of the bank.

Sally worked several hours on replacing old fencing around the sheep paddock.  She went to Dixfield for more posts. It not only now looks a lot better but is unlikely to be breeched for a long time.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Yesterday we got only one egg, today three. Milk was back up to 1 ¾ gallons. Because of freezing we have set up the indoor water system and cows hate change. Fern does not want to drink out of it. I put a little molasses in the water as an inducement.

Sally and helper Nancy spent all day working on burning builders’ scrap over at her house across the river.   The weather was perfect and they had a good time but Sally came home all tired out. I fed her a lamb chop and freshly picked Brussels sprouts with mashed  potatoes.

   Our local paper ran an editorial this morning suggesting that the recent election of Angus King showed that people supported windpower.  Sally wrote a letter to the editor arguing that in fact there was no such mandate, that in fact people voted for King because they had little choice.  

Son John is off to Dubai to assist scientists there with upgrades to his oceanographic program, which they use. In the photo he is at home in Adelaide preparing a series of laptops as teaching aids.

He also sent pictures of the landscaping he and Lou have been working hard on.

October 27, 2012 Saturday

October 27, 2012 Saturday
DD Sally called last night after I was asleep. Abby talked to her. While driving from Haines to Tok a wheel came off the truck.I don’t know many details but they were not hurt.Because of the impending storm, Sally has moved her flight forward. I now expect her on Monday.
This farm will run OK without electricity apart from the freezers and the milking machine. In a pinch I can milk by hand. The freezers, well I just don’t know.
DD Abby and I drove to the Bread Shack in Auburn and met DIL Amy and the kids. After coffee and croissants, they drove Abby to the airport for her flight to CA. Later Abby called and said all was well, her flight was about to be called. I drove home uneventfully but cruised on past Towles, forgetting to stop for chicken feed, so will have to go down tomorrow. All the livestock was in good shape and happy.
October 28, 2012 Sunday
The weather today was warm and quiet.
I ran in to Dixfield to pick up the feed that I should have stopped for yesterday. I can’t think of anything extra that it might be helpful to stock up on except if we really do lose power for a long enough time to melt stuff in the freezer, Sally and I could can things. So I bought some more jar lids. I already have a lot of jars, since I did very little canning this year. NPR is issuing repeated warnings to take this storm seriously and I am trying to, but for as long as I can remember the weather service has a perfect record of hyping storms that turn out to fizzle while not being able to predict the really messy ones. I presume others are reacting similarly.
The cows were doing a lot of running today. Maybe that means something.
Later…. Sally went to the airport in Fairbanks to check in and her flight was cancelled. Now it is to be Thursday. I will have to wait a few more days but am glad the airline is taking all precautions. I talked to Bret. She was going to have to miss Bret’s dinner party so the nice thing is, now she can be there. Not only that, she will have a couple of days to spend in Fairbanks, something she always looks forward to.
The headquarters of Martin’s company is in New Jersey and they are all closed down for the storm so he is thinking of coming up here with Milo tomorrow for a day of hunting before the storm. Bret has been studying the NOAA map and says it looks like the main thing I will get is a great deal of rain.
October 29, 2012 Monday
Like the rest of the citizens of the northeast, I spent a lot of time today nervously listening to the radio for updates on Hurricane Sandy. Most of the day was perfectly ordinary with merely light winds, low cloud and occasional light rain although now at 9PM, the weather is worsening. DS Martin drove up from Biddeford with his dog Milo to try for birds and see what I needed done. The woods and fields were full of deer hunters and the birds were in hiding so he did not stay out long. I fed him a delicious dinner of lamb shanks simmered with rice and veg. He installed a heavy bolt on the front door.
I talked to DD Sally. She told me all about their accident last Thursday while driving from Haines to Tok. While crossing Canada the left rear wheel came off their truck at 50mph with a semi not far behind. The car did a 360 followed by a 190 and ended up on the same side of the road. Tom should have been an Indie driver. The semi managed to stop and no one was hurt. There is very little traffic on the AlCan. All those who passed stopped to offer aid but no aid arrived. Sally finally got a ride with a woman from Border Patrol who actually knew how to contact a towing service. Sally went to a motel and Tom waited 7 hours with the truck. Turned out the tow truck driver had been in White Horse. Tom got pretty discouraged as he had no communication but fortunately had his cold weather gear as he will be going north soon. Back at the garage, it proved possible to put the wheel back on and they proceeded to Tok for a big dinner on Saturday. Then on Sunday they all went to Fairbanks and had another wonderful dinner as planned.
Sally now has a ticket for Thursday.
October 31, 2012 Wednesday, Halloween
Yesterday the people in five states were assessing their hurricane Sandy damage. Maine was lucky. I lost power here very briefly. There was heavy rain but minor flooding. The rain continues today but much lighter. Last night the sheep came in wet and were still wet this morning.. The barn smells like wet wool. They did not want to go out today. I had to push them out the door. They just stood there bunched up.
Today is Halloween. I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies which I over baked. Sigh. That is what the kids will get. I can’t make a new batch.
I also made the same cake again that made a hit last week with Abby. This time I flavored it with orange extract and candied ginger.
Twice in a week Fern’s production has dropped below 2 gallons.
November 01, 2012 Thursday
Fern was down to 1 ½ gallons this morning.
Mitra has gone to pick up Sally in Portland.
Later: We had a nice lunch of soup and cake. We said goodbye to Mitra who had to get home to her animals. Before leaving she popped the worm pills down the cats for me. She really should have been a vet. Sally went directly out with Willie-dog to check the north fence. Nancy, my helper, had already reported that the farthest posts next to the river were under water. The river is over its banks.
The cows need hay now that they are shut out of the north field pending fence repair. I gave them half a bale.

Notes on Mary Pipher’s essay on the anatomy of denial entitled: Our world is dying and we’re all in denial
http://www.alternet.org/visions/wake-our-world-dying-and-were-all-denial?akid=9567.127002.O3dChs&rd=1&src=newsletter730596&t=3http://www.alternet.org/visions/wake-our-world-dying-and-were-all-denial?akid=9567.127002.O3dChs&rd=1&src=newsletter730596&t=3
Thank you, Mary. This may be the best thing yet written on the anatomy of denial. I especially appreciate that you avoided specifics as to which personal actions are the greenest.
I just came in from milking my cow. I brought in two gallons of life supporting nourishment produced by my cow Fern. Fern translates the sun and rain that falls on my small acreage into milk. With superb efficiency she borrows the energy in cellulose (think grass, upon which humans starve) and reinvests it into a food more perfect than anything in the supermarket. No mangrove swamps or rain forests were destroyed in the manufacture of this product. No water to float a battleship was diverted for her purposes. No grain that might otherwise have been cracked into ethanol or bargained to the starving was apportioned to her use. Her daily eight gallon drink of water was given back as milk, exhaled into the atmosphere to fall as rain or peed onto the pasture to encourage the grass. Fern accomplished this feat without burning any gas miles. She did this through the magic of wild fermentation in her rumen, the same process employed by cabbage worms and everything else that lives by splitting cellulose. Right now is the moment to abandon the fiction that cows are high on the food chain. The only things that live lower on the food chain than cows and caterpillars are bacteria. It’s sun-grass-rumen fermentation-complete protein-milk, your one stop food factory; the cow did all the work and tomorrow she will do it all over again.
Fern’s predecessor, old Helen Hefferlump, finally got so arthritic that we knew making it through another Maine winter would be a painful hardship and we needed to end her suffering. Should we wait until she broke her hip on the ice? The options were burying her (impossible in frozen ground) or putting her into the freezer where she would feed many people for a year. Why would Helen prefer to be wasted? Our local butcher said he and his family were raised on aged dairy cows and the meat would amaze us. He was right. And it needs to be made crystal clear that avoiding meat in the belief that one is taking strain off the planet is an urban myth. Something eats everything. Life and death merge. Taking animals out of the equation just leaves a vacuum to be filled by insects. Our prevailing livestock production system is grotesque but at its worst does not remotely approach the waste attributed to it; those mega water requirements and fossil fuel demands attributed to livestock are scary memes, their numbers too vast for mental arithmetic. Efforts to discover any research basis for these beliefs will founder because none exist. Food policy based on fictional numbers is doomed. Pursuit of an anti-meat agenda will delay effective investment of our energies much as creativity has been squandered on the falsities of corn-based ethanol. Because the choice is not between “getting over the meat habit and freeing up grain for hungry multitudes.” and never will be. A plant-based diet depends on stoop labor or fossil fuel. Apart from animal traction, there is no other way to achieve it. Equitable distribution of either sweat or petroleum based crops depends entirely on who owns them. Is there a government somewhere – anywhere - you trust to distribute food without fear or favor, now or ever?
The real waste in our existing food production system comes from pulling food out of the loop between soil and eaters, commodifying it, bashing it around to its nutritional detriment, and selling it back to consumers who have already paid for it once with subsidies and then will fork over at the cash register and will pay again at the doctor’s office. The assumption that glues together the corporate food system is that you and I will not and should not be bothered with home or strictly local food production. I have spent most of my eight decades living the real food truth that yes, you can produce your own food without any help from agribiz and with minimal dependence on fossil fuel, or none.Not only can you do this but it is a source of satisfaction, even joy. You always know you are doing something worthwhile. But why should you believe One Cow Granny in Maine? If you doubt my facts read the essays at www.real-food.com. The small local farm including animals is the only reliable land-based food production unit. It is a microcosm of the natural world. It creates no environmental debt. It is safe. And you will own it.
November 02, 2012 Friday
Yesterday was Day 21 from Fern’s breeding. Her production was way down yesterday but up a quart today to 1 ¾ gallons. I got 10 eggs. All the hens and chicks are doing well.
DD Sally was off doing fence repair by 9:30 am. Later we went to town and picked up more fencing. She has temporarily closed off Pocket Field and brought all the critters in to clean up the Paddock Garden. She found more squashes that I had missed. We still don’t have as many as a last year but more than I thought.
DIL Amy is up at camp with two of her lovely friends for Girls’Weekend. They stopped in to visit for a bit. I gave them milk and eggs.
Today is Grandson Tommy’s 22nd birthday.
©Copyright 2012 Joann S. Rogers

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Saturday, October 20, 2012

It rained all night. Perhaps this discouraged predators. Anyway, we did not catch anything. The rain let up around 9am and remained mostly cloudy but very warm.

Martin spent the day hunting with another friend and brought in some more birds. He stopped by here for a late snack before driving back to Biddeford. Abby made another beautiful salad, I made an omelet and baked blue potatoes that Martin brought from Presque Isle.

DS John called from Adelaide. One of their exchange students has left, the term being over. They were not too disappointed, as she had become a vegetarian with all the accompanying inconvenience and high mindedness.Every meal now included tofu, “a little white quivering blob almost spiritual in its perfection”, as John described it.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

The day began warm and moist and then turned rainy and cold.  There had been so much rain and warmish weather that the grass is pretty good. The animals all look pleased as they spread out to graze. I have not had much trouble calling them in.

Abby and I went to the dump and then to Weld to check the sump pump in Marcia’s camp. While Martin was around this weekend he heard the sump beeper going but could not get in. We did find water in the cellar but I was able to start the pump thanks to Martin’s hints on how to do it. 

DD Marcia sent me a marvelous picture of my great granddaughter Violet Anastasia Moranda Boles, age two and a half. I call her my Russian princess. Such eyebrows.

Monday, October 22, 2012

The cows and sheep came in perfectly. Fern’s production has dropped off a quart, often a sign the cow has settled. Sally hopes she is not preggers. She wanted me to wait and breed her so that the calf would be born when she is here but I forgot.

For the last couple of days when I let the sheep out there is a lot of butting and mounting taking place.

Abby was over here from her house earlier than usual. She immediately announced that she is moving out of Sally’s DLH (Dear Little House) and in with me. Night after night she has been troubled by a vehicle hovering in front of her house. There was no reason to think it had anything to do with her but nonetheless seemed sinister.  Last night around midnight she was awakened by somebody violently rattling the light weight back door to the old porch and partially removed shed. The intruder would have had to climb 4ft. up the siding to get to it. Of course she was terrified. She crept off her bed to find her cell phone, turning on the light to do so, and yelled “Who are you and what do you wan t?”  The rattling ceased. She got back onto her bed because she knew the intruder would not be able to see her from there. Unfortunately cell phone coverage from her place is nearly non existent, especially in that part of the room but she prayed for bars to show on her phone and on her third attempt she got one bar and was able to call 911. The dispatcher was very sluggish in her response. Abby kept telling her “The man is here, he is still outside the house”. Then the dispatcher figured out that Abby was in Franklin County notOxford County and transferred her over. Abby was so terrified she could barely speak to give her story all over again and then tell the sheriff, “No, it is not the wind shaking my door.” Twenty minutes later a sheriff arrived, an old guy.. He seemed doubtful of her story. Maybe he didn’t like having to go out on a call. Pretty soon another younger sheriff arrived who was much more disposed to find out what had happened. Abby reminded them that last year there was a prowler and a shot was fired next to the house and she did not report it until morning and was admonished to call immediately next time something happened. By this time of course the prowler had vanished. One can’t help wondering if the intruder at DD Marcia’s camp was the same one and is in fact a stalker. Just a thought. My vet, Dr. Cooper, stopped by today to drop off some meds. When we told him about it he said we needed a German Police dog.

(Some corrections were added on Tuesday to this account)

I made a nice simple supper if sausage, mashed potatoes and fresh spinach.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

DD Abby got a better night’s sleep. All was quiet here. However when she went over to her place to continue packing she found evidence that someone had again attempted to enter. She is beginning to feel nervous about going over even during daylight hours.

It was a fine day. Hard frost is predicted for tonight followed by a warming trend.

Fern’s production was up slightly today, 2 gallons and a quart.

Abby is in the kitchen making an apple pie – perfect comfort food.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

It was down to 25F this morning, a really hard frost. Later the sun came out and right by the house it got warm enough for bees to visit the margarita flowers. It is cold again tonight.

The animals are all fine.

Abby went out on errands and brought home a heavy brass hook and eye for my kitchen door which she mounted as a safety lock. That door is now impenetrable.

Abby has her suitcase all packed. She had left herself very little to do tomorrow, her last day. Friday she wants to go to Farmington farmer’s market to say goodbye to Mitra as it appears that Shireen will not be able to drive her to the airport as previously planned.

Friday, October 26, 2012

It was bright and warm today. Abby went to her house to run the vac and saw that someone had again tried the door.

            DD Marcia sent a box with a jar of her superb quince sauce. I served it over a sponge cake that I  made from a recipe in Guideposts. It is incredibly easy:

2 sticks of soft bitter

2 cups of sugar

6 eggs

2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

And I added 1 tablespoon of King Arthur powdered lemon juice.

Beat these together in the order given and beat with the stand mixer for 15 minutes.

Note that there is no leavening.

Bake in a prepared Bundt pan, oven 325F, about 45 minutes

Let cool 10 minutes in pan before inverting onto a rack.

Abby raved about this cake.

Marcia also sent one of her SIL Ernie’s hand blown glass pumpkins. It is a lovely thing like a paperweight, solid orange, weighing ¾ lb.

We are off in the morning to meet SIL Amy G and Martin at the Bread Shack in Auburn. They will take her the rest of the way to the airport.

I closed the cows into the barnyard so when I go out extra early I won’t have to call them.