Updates, Thanksgiving, skunk encounters, busy week ahead

I have not written in a good while and though I am confident that very few, if anyone noticed, let me provide a few updates on our activities in that absence. During the past weeks I got the duck enclosure expanded making it more accessible to me and Mama and doubling the room the ducks have to create their mess. However, moving the gate and allowing the pen door to be held fully open through the day, makes it less problematic for me and Mama to let the ducks out into their yard daily. I still need to gravel the path from the gate to the entry to the pig building (where we have the weaned kids isolated for the moment) because the ducks keep the pathway – and a far larger area – a constantly slimy with the wetness they love to track through. Mama navigates it well enough, but it would be hazardous for Grandpa when we need his help with the feeding. Plus, it would just look so much better.

Over the past few days, we have had a fire burning continuously in the fireplace. Grandma has taken to lying on the couch through the day so she could enjoy the fire. Fortunately, we have plenty of firewood, but just to make sure, I laid over a tree in the buck goat paddock and cut and split it up over several days. That firewood is seasoning behind the shop as we work our way through the stack amassed from the pieces that have been rotting in various places around the farm. I have four additional trees to fell, cut up and split, so we will have firewood for quite some time once that chore is done. The challenge is finding a place to store all that split wood out of the weather until we need to stoke the fire in our fireplace.

On Friday, a friend from church came over and we filled his truck with branches, split wood and pieces from a tree that has been lying in the buck paddock for many years. He was happy to cut up the deadfall and harvest the pile of branches and small pieces trimmed from the tree I felled. The family recently moved into a house that has a working fireplace and his wife was looking forward to putting that fireplace to use. Some of the wood he took will take a few weeks to dry out sufficiently to give them a good fire, but it will be usable for them in either the fireplace or the burn pit they also have on the property they are renting.

Mama, Grandma, Grandpa, and I had a very quiet and pleasant Thanksgiving. We were on our own because of changes in plans for the family that had originally wanted to spend the day with us, but that was probably for the best. Grandpa still struggles in conversations, so he limits his interactions and having several adults and four children in the house for the day would have been overwhelming for him. Since the holiday weather was wet and chilly, we would have had to keep the kids inside for the day, so it was better to be on our own. Mike Shafer, Rebeka’s husband had checked in with me and Mama to see if he could swing by the farm after he visited a friend in Arlington, but he did not make it this trip. Maybe next time

I smoked a twenty-pound turkey on the pellet grill. It slow roasted on the grill for over ten hours. It was juicy and delicious. Even Grandma pronounced her benediction on it. Grandma made dressing and a pumpkin pie. Mama made sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, and yeast rolls. I grilled asparagus and made some sugar free cranberry sauce as well as a sugar free pumpkin pie. We had plenty to eat and loads of leftovers. I reserved half the bird for later consumption.

Friday night, when Mama and I went out to close up the coop doors and pen up the ducks, there was an overwhelming skunk smell in the back yard. Mama’s biggest fear was that Kobe had engaged the skunk and been sprayed by it, but that seemed a little farfetched since she had not been out of the yard. Kobe did smell a bit of skunk but not so much as to have been directly sprayed by a skunk. However, we had to close her and Kira up in Victoria’s room overnight with plenty of odor eliminating candles burning.

It was not until Saturday morning that Mama discovered a dead skunk in the back yard. Sure enough, Kobe had indeed killed the young skunk. It is fortunate that she had not been directly sprayed by the skunk. It is impossible to understand her delight in finding and killing skunks, but that seems to be her focus. Unfortunately, it causes us a lot of work to overcome the outcomes of those encounters.

Sunday, we started a conference at our church with Chuck Harding. He is a missionary to Capital Hill. His ministry is to engage with lawmakers in both the House and the Senate. He coordinates groups of pastors visiting the halls of Congress, praying with and for those elected officials willing to be prayed for. As you would assume, not all are willing. Bro. Harding is a well-versed historian in our US history and weaves current political events, cultural currents, and history (US history and Biblical events and characters) into his sermons.  He is a delight to talk to. His perspective is insightful and detailed concerning what is going on in our Congress. We will have services tonight and tomorrow night with him.

Those services along with our regular Wednesday night service, a practice session for our drive-through live Nativity Thursday night followed by the actual event Friday night will make for a VERY busy week.

Nothing extra will get done at the farm, but that is common for this time of year.  

Think week, quick freeze, slow learners, holidays

Last week was an interesting week for my work team. We spent the entire week together just bouncing ideas off each other to create a plan to make what we do a sustainable job role for many years to come. After exploring some more obvious ideas over the first two days of the week, we transitioned late Wednesday and early Thursday to a more emotional evaluation. That is, we began to question if what we are doing for our current employer still fits the mission of the company as we can perceive it from our vantage point. Upper management seems, we decided overall, to be drifting away from the original focus of the organization. As a company we seem to be morphing into something different than we were only a year ago, and it is a bit disconcerting to our group. Does what we do still matter in the way it used to matter (producing quality content to the training industry) or are we just producing content to maintain bragging rights? Is our question.

It was a sobering discussion. Although the training we create and maintain is the core revenue generator for the company, are we really focused on making that content the best it can be for our audience or are we just putting out courses to meet the minimum requirements for the industry? If the latter is true, our department will not be a long-term need for the company. They can sub out the work we do. Therefore, the young employees are a bit concerned about the longevity of their employ with this company. It was not a pleasant discussion, but it was a needed one. If we are to solve a problem, the fist step is to identify the problem. The next step is to offer workable solutions to solve the problem. When we present our summary of ideas to management today, we will get to see if we are able to offer up anything helpful in their estimation. I believe we will. I ma not sure how to address the growing uncertainty.

Friday night the weather changed drastically. We moved from days in the low eighties to days in the fifties. Overnight temperatures moved in a twenty-four-hour period from the low sixties to the low thirties. So, Friday night I had to prepare for a freeze. Those measures will stay in place through this week with the nights forecast to be in the mid to upper twenties. That makes watering the birds and goats a challenge, but we do this every winter, so we have secondary methods of getting that water to our animals. It takes more time and physical labor, but it is doable without the water hoses we normally have in place. This is when the farm becomes a labor of love in tangible ways.

For Thanksgiving, an extended family from church is going to spend the day and have dinner with us. With the impressive menu that is being discussed among the women of the families, it will be a meal fit for a king – especially in the dessert category. I will cook a turkey on the smoker grill. A ham will be prepared by another family. I believe there is even a brisket on the menu. Various side dished sound like traditional Thanksgiving fare, but cranberry sauce will be offered in regular and sugar-free concoctions. No desserts will be low carb, so I will not eat any of them, but I can at least eat some cranberry sauce. It may prove a boring Thanksgiving meal for me, but the sacrifice is worth it.

Last night at church, we had a get together after the evening service to celebrate the pastor’s wife’s birthday. There was nothing there that I could eat other than some slices of summer sausage. It was more difficult to resist the cakes the longer I sat there as Mama and Grandma got seconds on several desserts, but I had gotten sufficient encouragement Sunday morning as I stepped on the scales and saw a weight of 186 pounds. A full twenty pounds down from my starting weight a little over three months ago.

Mama and I are slowly learning about our raucous, happy ducks. It was clear from the beginning that they were going to create a mess, but we are learning how to corral that mess. We are going to have to rework the outside area our ducks spend the day in. Right now, we have staged the pool and waterers near the building, close to their overnight area, and are constantly tracking through the muddy area they create. So, I will move our access points into their yard and move the pool to a more remote corner of the yard so our path through the area will possibly be less slimy. It will take some work, but we will have a controllable area for them to foul. On the bright side, they have enjoyed having the wet area and the dry area separated and well designated. They have not a care how difficult it is for us to provide them with those different environments, but they certainly respond to them in noticeable ways.

With the holiday season upon us, Mama is getting nostalgic. She is really missing her children and grandchildren - especially right now. The fact that we will not have any grandchildren with us for Christmas is somewhat depressing for her. We have no way to remedy that shortcoming, as some are too far away to make the trip to the farm for the holiday and those who are closer are not interested in doing so. That is the most disturbing part for Mama.

We will muddle through, but there will be a sad bite to the festivities for Mama.

Breeding, slow starts, cooping

Yesterday evening, the Fox’s brought the two little does they had bought from us about eight months ago to be bred by one of our bucks. Originally, Mama thought that buck would be Julian, but upon further research, we discovered that the buck needed to be Midas, since the two does were Julian’s progeny. Anyway, we got the does into the little enclosure next to the bucks easily. The reaction from the bucks was instantaneous. It was pretty obvious that at least one of the does was in heat by the shoving and grunting that the bucks engaged in. I do not know if Midas got any sleep at all last night as he and Julian fought for mastery of the attention of the dies. In fact, Midas refused to eat this morning because he did not want to interrupt his guardianship of the does just on the other side of the fence.

When Mama and I took the time to move Midas to the paddock with the does, the fight was on. Midas is our most difficult buck to handle. Firstly, because he does not like to be handled so he is hard to catch. Secondly, when he is finally haltered to be moved, he is incredibly strong. He is almost more than I can manage when he refuses to move in the direction I need him to go. Such a struggle is not good for my back, but I endure each time we repeat the process of encouraging a frightened buck to go where we need him to go.

Between Mama and I we got him into the area with the does but we had to interfere with the continued fight between him and Julian as we singled Midas out for passage through the gate out of their paddock. Keeping Julian from following through at the same time was a challenge. I had to coerce Midas to go forward through the gate while Mama had to discourage Julian from trying to follow through the opened gate. The fact that the bucks had all perfumed themselves with beards full of their smelly urine hindered Mama’s willingness to handle any of the bucks. She danced around the faces of the bucks crowding both of us in what was a hilarious sequence of evasive moves. I had to change pants after the move was completed since I had to keep Midas very close to by body to meet his struggling jumps and jerks as he fought against me.

When Midas got into the small enclosure, he immediately singled out one of the does and did his best to breed her. It was kind of sad because the does was in standing heat, so she welcomed the advance but when Midas mounted her, she was not ready to support his bulk and collapsed under his weight. The next time he tried she was ready and did better so she might be bred already. Sarah Fox will be thrilled. We will keep Midas with the does until late December just to be sure, but he is definitely interested in doing his part in the breeding program. Hopefully, the young does will be able to handle his attention to them.

With both the ducks and quail, we are off to a slow start as far as egg production is concerned. With the ducks, we are at a loss as to how to beneficially promote egg production. We have investigated various feeds, various hours of light exposure, keeping certain areas dry for laying eggs, etc. So far, to no avail. We are getting about six eggs per week from our ten hens. We should be quite a bit more than that. Potentially six eggs per day. We have several customers waiting on us for duck eggs and it would be nice to fill those orders. That, and duck eggs are delicious, so we are looking for a more trustworthy supply as well.

With the quail, we were advised to add a container with dirt/dust so the quail could take a dust bath. It seems, we are told, that they like having dirt under their feet. Mama added that dirt to their habitat in the Banty house so we will see if that makes a difference. I would like to have a shot at raining quail, but we will have a hard with doing so if we cannot get any eggs to hatch. Fortunately, they do not eat much as we wait on them to produce those eggs for us. They are otherwise easy to keep. They have a pleasant cooing chirp but are otherwise very quiet.

There is growing consensus among several of us at church that raise chickens that we need to buy a chicken plucker to share among us. So far, the interest has been circulating among three families but a fourth family added their voices to the mix, so we may be able to split the expense four ways if we decide to coop a purchase. That would be good. I will reserve my enthusiasm until we all eventually get together to discuss the details, but I am encouraged by the team effort under consideration.

Every little bit helps.

Lights, bees, bulls, collaboration

 After many months of delay, I finally got electricity run to the little goat barn on the East side of our property. As I was considering it a few days ago, once again talking myself out of the work, I was given an inspiration to just run the wiring overhead versus underground. So, I bought a length of cable and the connectors required to string and tighten that cable and ran the required length from the back corner of the shop to the front corner of the shelter. I had the cable secured by dark Friday night. I had a couple pieces of conduit to run the wire through so early Saturday morning, I attached the conduit to the cable. Once I was back from helping Mama get set up at her even in Decatur, I fed the wire through the conduit and made the necessary connections at each end to install a light switch/outlet combination at the entry of that shelter.

All in all, it looks pretty good and is high enough to keep it from being a hinderance to getting the tractor into the lot on those rare occasions when that is necessary. The lights Mama and I bought are small LED fixtures so I will not have to replace lightbulbs – which tend to do poorly in the cold times we have over the winter. Those little fixtures are very bright, especially considering we have never before had lights in that dark shelter. The goats were not impressed with the results. They rather enjoy the dark interior.

With an outlet now available, I was able to place a night light at that spot to give Mama some light to easily find the switch when she attends to the bucks on a dark morning or evening. I was pleased with the outcomes. Enough so, that I will now focus on getting lights to the large goat barn, which also tends to be a little gloomy in certain corners. That will take more time and materials because it is a longer run for the wiring and conduit which will have to be run underground, but it is doable, and it will be a great comfort to Mama when we have to be in the barn during the dark hours of the day. We could have used that light a couple months ago when the nanny goats were kidding this year versus one of us holding a flashlight to give the needed illumination.

While I was getting Mama set up at an event at an Elementary School Saturday morning, I ran into one of the go-to guys from our bee club. We talked in general for a few minutes just catching up and then I asked him for advice or guidance on what I had decided to do for our bees to winter them over. All the precautions I had taken were agreeable to James although he and his wife do bees, honey, and bees wax products as a fulltime business. In his case, he would have taken all the produced honey from the hive and fed the bees to supplement. I had left about thirty pounds of honey per hive as well as put candy boards on each of the two hives. That, to him, was not necessary. It was not wrong, just unnecessary. On the bright side, in the Spring, I will be able to harvest most all of the honey left in the hive over the winter, so it is not a loss. Simply a delay.

Almost on the porch

This morning, while I was at work, Mama and Grandpa had to wrangle an ornery young bull out of the front yard. Neither of our neighbors owned the bull, but Wayne was kind enough to get the animal moving down the road away from our property. He told Mama he would put the bull in his corral until the proper owner could be identified, but it caused quite a stir at the home front. We have long, heavy metal gates that can be closed at the access to our property, but only one operates easily. The other takes a lot of strength and effort to close across the driveway. Wayne struggled with that one by himself. It is only because of some remedial repairs I have made to the structure holding the gate that it operates at all, but it is still a challenge. I am struggling with long term remedies, but it is not high on my list.

At work this week, we are doing a Think Week. A weeklong collaboration and brainstorming session. At the conclusion of this week, we will present to management some of the recommendations we have come up with to offer as enhancements to our area of expertise in our company. I did not originally think that I would be a big part of the discussions, but I was able to add a couple ideas. Although I am planning on working my way out of this employment, I want to engage as much as possible while I am still here. At least I can add value from the perspective of someone who has seen many things happen in the workplace over the last forty years to perhaps avoid some unattainable ideas.

We are off to a good start. So far, we have not gotten lost in the weeds. I will reserve judgement as to the outcomes because many of the little thoughts captured through Day 1 are bound to evolve through the days following. This is a bright group of young individuals.

I have high hopes for them.

Pumpkin carving, malfunctions, remodel supplies

Monday at work we observed a tradition that we have not been able to follow for a couple years because of all the COVID nonsense. We carved pumpkins. It is a team competition. All teams are selected at random and each team, once identified, has a week to collaborate on what they are going to do for the contest. My team decided to do a Wizard of Oz theme with our pumpkin being the lion. I dressed up as the scarecrow, one of the ladies was Dorothy and the other the Wicked Witch.

My teammates

I did not get any pictures of myself, but Mama and I collaborated on my costume – a worn farm shirt with raffia added to the cuffs and front to look like hay. A straw had was adorned with some wheat stems and flowers to complete the image. No one had any trouble telling what the simple costume represented as many of the participants decked out – some quite elaborately - for their chosen themes.

Our Creation

I am constantly amazed by the creativity within our company, and it is fully expressed in this particular contest. We have only one hour to complete the carving and presentation of our creation. My team was able to get ours done in about forty-five minutes and were selected to win First Place in the Cutest Pumpkin category. It is the first time I have been on a winning team, so I was pleased even if the theme was quite feminine. Both of the ladies on my team were very particular about the outcomes. I was tasked with the carving while they took on the decorating with a passion. It was a fun morning of team building.

Mama's Favorite

Yesterday when I arrived at the HQ house, the gate that limits access to the property would not operate. I tried all the methods I knew for coaxing the operator to move the gate for me to no avail. Since I was at the gate well before daylight, I did not want to remove the operator arm and open the gate way, so I parked to the side of the driveway at the gate and walked up to the house. The house sits about a quarter mile from the gate, but it was a pleasant morning to be out, and it was not raining. I have made the walk in the rain before, so I was counting my blessings.

I alerted my management of the malfunction, and they got right one it. However, when a delivery of supplies arrived in the early afternoon the secretary that takes care of those things had to interrupt me to get my keys so she could move my truck in order for the truck and trailer to make the approach through the gate. No big deal, but the timing of the malfunction and all that that set in motion provided an interesting dynamic to me day.

Once home, Mama and I did our routine feeding and watched the ducks for a few minutes. They are very entertaining. Then we went to Lowe’s to get the first of the supplies we will need to remodel the hall bathroom. Flooring was on sale - a snap together waterproof laminate that Mama really liked – and we did not want to wait too long to get what we needed. I already bought a new fixture for the bathroom and Mama has her eye on a vanity she would like us to retrieve to replace the cabinets in the bathroom right now. Grandpa volunteered to buy a toilet to replace the one I put in service about eight years ago but we have not made that purchase yet. Norman has volunteered his time – sometime in early December – to do the bulk of the work. Grandma and Grandpa requested that the shower, which is a bit unusual, be left as is. That will save us a mayor expense in the remodel, so I was in favor of that decision.

While we were spending the money, I also bought some of the more costly items I will need to run electricity to the goat barns as well as complete several projects I have procrastinated on for several years now. The total cost was a little alarming to me and what we got is only a portion of the supplies we will need to finish up those several projects, but it will be money well spent in the long run.

At least we will be able to see the tangible outcomes of the purchases made.