Lamb worries, garden worries, Aubrey worries

Yesterday afternoon the temperature was at freezing and the wind was swirling the sleet about. So, when I got home, Mama told me she was going to “let” me do the evening feeding. She is gracious that way. As I went out to feed, I got to see the triplet lambs. They are tiny. The temperature was right at freezing and the sheep are not like the goats – at least not yet. The goats crowd me and Mama so much when we come to feed that it is difficult to walk forward to pour feed in the troughs. The sheep run off a distance. Granted, the distance they put between us and them is slowly getting smaller, but they still run from us. That being said, when I got to the barn, where we have the feed troughs because of the rain, the mommy of the triplets headed out of the barn, leaving the little ones behind. That gave me a good look at them, but it also exposed them to the cold. I assume they had been snuggled up to mommy and now were feeling the cold air. They began bleating loudly. They were obviously cold. Their mommy responded by coming to them and letting them crowd under her legs. They are so small right now that they can stand fully upright while hiding under the ewe.

The mommy was eating when I left with the little lambs huddled underneath her. If 32° is cold for them, what are they going to do when the temperature is 16°? That is in the forecast for Tuesday night. Sunday night 25°. Monday night 23°. Tuesday night 16°. This morning the temperature was 25°. Mama may have a legitimate worry about protecting the tiny lambs. She will see the lambs early today and determine if I need to do something to try and keep them warmer, but my guess is that it is better to err on the side of providing as much warmth and shelter from the wind as possible. How to accomplish that is a different challenge. And since we were not able to get anything in place for last night, it will serve as a test of what we may need to do for later this week and early next week.

It is almost certain that we will have to replant some of the vegetables I have in the raised bed. The cabbage, beets and spinach are sprouting now, but the freezes will kill off those seedlings. I suppose that is the risk we take planting this early. About every other year, we get beaten by the weather. It is a simple and cheap rework if we do replant – especially since we are just getting started. The only question is, do we wait until later in March or get the new seeds in the ground as soon as this freeze is over? We will see how bad the damage is after we get some warmer weather and make that assessment as we go. For now, we will do our best to cover everything and wait out the weather. Even if we do plant a second time this month, we will be far earlier in starting our garden than we have ever been in the past.

I met Mama for lunch yesterday. She and Nathan and Aubrey went to see Gracie show Bella at the fair. Gracie and Bella placed second in Obedience, sixth in the overall show. Not bad for her first time out in a dog show. At church last night, Erin (Gracie’s mom) said she could have kissed Bella for being so good through the entire routine. Mama and the kids toured the animals – pigs, chickens, dogs and cattle. All the while they walked in the slightly muddy areas of the animals Aubrey pinched her nose to keep the smell minimized. Between the smell and the muddy shoes, Aubrey was not a fan of the fair. When I met them at Wendy’s, where I ate the lunch I had packed for the day and they ate fries and frostys, Mama worked on getting the mud (among other things) off Aubrey’s shoes the entire time. Otherwise, Aubrey was not going to wear them. Aubrey is a very neat child. She eats carefully. She drinks carefully. She wipes up every little drip that happens to fall to the table. She frets about every item that falls to the floor. For that reason, she is not good around animals. But she endured and even possible had fun – once everything was cleaned up.

Mama enjoyed the outing, especially watching Aubrey try to avoid anything that looked like it might soil her shoes.

Lambs, livestock, freezing, children

Mama called me yesterday morning to let me know that the ewe we were waiting on had delivered her lambs overnight. She did not only have twins, the had triplets. Now the count is three ewes and five lambs. Mama is being especially vigilant to ensure the ewe can nurse all the little ones. From what she has seen so far, they are all nursing, but we will keep a close eye as they grow and be ready to supplement as required. Mama loves bottle feeding babies of all species. Our only disappointment is that all the lambs are males. Not one female offspring. I have already consigned at least two of them for the table. The other three will be sold or traded for an ewe. Mama is talking with the vet today about getting all of the little males neutered. It does us no good to have a flock of males – other than to eat. An outcome to which Mama and Victoria are not happily predisposed. Mama’s main concern is keeping the little ones as protected from the cold as possible. For now, the best I can offer is the goat barn; which is now enclosed on the west side by the barn doors I recently installed. It is not draft free, but the shelter limits the direct wind and it is dry, well bedded with hay. In fact, I need to clean out the accumulated hay and manure and re-straw the floor with clean bedding. Out little flock will be able to find a corner somewhere inside to make it through the very cold nights that are coming.  

By mid-March we will get the cows back. Hopefully they will be bred. And in April we will haul the goats to Bowie to get bred. When they come back, I need to have the shelter built in the second paddock. I have done nothing on that front. But I think I have a couple more months until the need becomes urgent. As for the cows coming home, I will need to get some hay for them. There is very little grass yet and even in the best times I have to supplement their feed to keep them healthy. Had Norman stayed on the farm in Bowie, we would have taken the cows to his place and let them graze there through the Spring and Summer. As it stands now, we will be buying hay for them – about four bales per quarter. Fortunately, the price of hay should be coming down as we approach Spring. Right now, the cost is still very high. A normal supply and demand issue.

Today, the high temperature was at 6 am. Through the day the temperatures will fall. That trend will continue through early next week when the overnight low temperatures will dip into the teens. Four nights in a row well below freezing. Two of those nights will be a hard freeze. The kind that will kill our garden and deflower our fruit trees. The garden we can replant; and we probably will. The trees we will cover and hope for the best. It would be sad to not have any fruit two years in a row, but what can you do, but adapt and wait until next year.

Mama will get the Thomason boys back today. We had Nathan last night. Nathan still has a bad cough and Krystal needed the relief from caring for a sick child as she tends to the baby. Through this week she is taking the baby daily for a bilirubin test along with the light treatment that is the best remedy for high bilirubin, and she is seeing the doctor to have the baby weighed after each of those hospital visits. I believe the baby is doing well, but there are some lingering concerns with those two health issues. This too shall pass. Mama, Victoria and I do not mind keeping the boys. There is plenty of room for them to play – both inside and out – and there is plenty for them to do as Mama gets them involved in her daily routines. If it gives Krystal a chance to rest, all the better.

Sometime this morning, Mama and Nathan are going to see Gracie show Bella in a 4H sponsored show at the fair grounds in Decatur. Gracie has been working with Bella for several weeks now; tutored by a dog trainer. That should be fun to watch. Along with that, Mama is getting Aubrey to take her to the library for Story Hour. That is a Tuesday and Thursday affair for the two of them which may include all the Thomason boys this morning. It keeps Mama busy doing something she loves. Aubrey loves getting out of the house. It does not matter what Mama does with her, shopping, playing at the park, Story Hour, etc., as long as she is out. It has become a fun morning for both of them over the past few weeks. When Mama and I were traveling last week, Alex (Aubrey’s daddy) tried to take her to Story Hour and she would not go in, so he took her to a park and let her play; even though it was fairly cold. For Mama the next week, Aubrey ran right into the room without waiting on Mama. Go figure.

Mama has that happy effect on children.

Savanna and the boys, shop work, yard work, Sunday

Mama and Victoria kept the Thomason boys until yesterday afternoon. Krystal and baby Savanna were released from the hospital mid-morning Saturday. Trace, Krystal and Savanna came by the farm so the boys could meet their new sister, but they had to wear masks while holding her. The three of them have a cough. Nathan, the youngest, is the worst. He was also the least interested in holding the baby. They only stayed a couple hours. Krystal was still worn out. More from the hospital stay than from the birth. Trace, by extension, was also worn out. They were both looking forward to getting to their home and sleeping in their own bed. Whether or not the baby allowed them to do that is another issue. We did our part by keeping the boys one more night. But Savanna is home. Now the real work begins.
I was working in the shop when Trace and Krystal came over. I have had a roll up door for the back of the shop lying around for months now. I finally took the time to get it installed Saturday. I framed in a glass storm door at the back of the shop in the opening I built for the roller, and I liked the light that door let into the shop, but it is not the safest set up for a shop entry. So, I removed the door, the framing and the metal put in place in that opening and set the roller door in place. It was not what I had on my list to do last weekend. I had planned on lining up the barn doors I had installed on the west end of the goat barn. The doors are in the rails but they need to be adjusted and the rails need to be welded to supports to finalize the project. But the wind was blowing out of the west at 30 mph – gusting to 40. When working with the size doors I had installed, that was not a safe situation, so I moved into the shop to work.  I am pleased with the way the shop door turned out. Now it is properly placed, and I will not have to move it again. It is nice to open spaces taken up by materials bought for projects that are now getting done. Parts for the barn doors, parts for the shop door, parts for the shop walls are slowly getting used as planned and I gain the space on the shop floor and walls as those materials meet their purpose. It’s a fun process. Sadly, it has been a slow process.

While Mama and I were feeding our herds and flocks Saturday evening – with Victoria and the boys helping – Nathan started using a plastic shovel to dig in random areas in the coop yard. I suggested I had a place for him to dig on purpose. He was interested, so we got a real shovel and the wheel barrow and headed to the patio where the canna lilies had taken over the circle we planted them in two or three years ago. We took out a wheel barrow full of bulbs. We replanted a few bulbs. We want something there, just not the mess that was there. The rest of the bulbs we removed are still sitting in the wheel barrow. I am not sure what I will do with them, but they will not be placed anywhere near the house.

Mama stayed home with Nathan Sunday morning. His cough was still bad. The rest of us did what we normally do Sunday morning; church, the restaurant, home for a nap. Just before we stopped to rest, Trace came over to get the boys. We overslept in our napping and I hurried to get the animals tended before I left for Master’s Club and choir practice. Mama and Victoria came later. They were parking as I was heading to our Men’s meeting – about 6 pm. They had gone to Braum’s for dinner. That seems to have become a thing for them. They go out to eat while I am at choir practice. It has something to do with Victoria’s timing of meals, which seems to be helping her lose weight. But it leaves me out of our Sunday night routine…which is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is, however, a great opportunity to tease Mama.

Travel, travails

Mama and I have been on the road the last couple days.. Me for work. Her to visit with Aaron, Maggie and the grandkids. We left early Tuesday morning on a flight to Charlotte, NC. Since Maggie and Aaron live only a few hours from there, they drove over to meet us. The flight over was one of the most uncomfortable I have been on recently. I took the middle seat so Mama could accommodate her non-bending leg. The seats were the narrowest I have ever sat in on any plane. It would not have been so bad but the man to me left was so large that he took a portion of the shoulder of my seat requiring me to sit crookedly the entire trip. He never offered to accommodate my shoulders. Never hinted that he would be willing to share the armrest. He got comfortable and never budged. His shoulder and his arm against me the whole way. So, I had to lean into Mama’s space. It would have been interesting if Mama had not been there to share her space with me. If my row-mate ever realized he was crowding me uncomfortably, he never made mention of it. It was only three hours so, Mama and I made do.

Maggie, Aaron and the kids met up with us right outside of the airport. Their timing was perfect.  We had to play find-me-if-you-can for about thirty minutes, but we got it all worked out and had a leisurely lunch together before heading to Rock Hill where I was to teach a class on Wednesday. Aaron went with me to the site where I met with my host and got a feel for what I would need to do to set up for the class the next morning. That took about an hour as I visited with a couple employees who would be in the class. Then Aaron and I headed for the hotel to catch up to Mama, Maggie and the kids. By that time, it was after 4 pm. The room we got was a suite – sort of. We made do with one bed and a foldout couch. The kids slept on pallets of blankets on the floor. We only got fussed at one time because Kathryn and Walter were too loud and we, the adults, were talking over them. Hotel management came to the door to tell us that someone near us was complaining about the noise. So, we toned it down as much as we could. Overall, we had a great visit. Both the grandkids warmed up to Mama and me very quickly. I think it helps to do the Facetime chats, so we are easily recognizable to the grandkids. Regardless, Walter attached himself to Grammy right away. Now they have something to really remember us by. Both Kathryn and Walter are delightful children. Don’t get me wrong. Maggie and Aaron have their work cut out for them, but they have the beginnings of great personalities.  They just need to be kept busy – very busy.

I was up early Wednesday morning, managing to get dressed without disturbing anyone. Getting out of the room was another problem. The light in the hallway and the noisy latch on the door prohibited a quiet exit from the room and I was quickly joined in the lobby by Aaron and Kathryn. Mama followed a little later. I left them a little later and headed to work.  My class went well other than a huge issue with the electronics at the facility. We ended up bypassing all the built-in electronics and adapted with some secondary substitutes. It was a good class. For a municipality, it was a relatively young class. It struck me that the information we were sharing was timely for this client. I was done at my normal time – about 3:45 pm. Everyone was waiting at the hotel for me when I finished. They were ready to get back out.

We went out to Chick-fil-a for dinner because they had a play place and the kids needed a place to play. We were there for about an hour before we ordered, which allowed the kids time to get some of their energy out. We wandered around Hobby Lobby for another hour before we went back to the hotel. Still, when we started to get the kids laid down for the night, they had way too much energy left to burn. Getting them quieted and stilled took a while, but eventually they slept. And they slept well. Parting the following morning was no fun, but we got through it. Maggie and Aaron got home well before Mama and I did. It was a really good visit. I am glad all of us made the extra effort to make it happen.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Victoria was dealing with her own issues. Late in the evening on Wednesday Kobe tracked down a skunk that has been raiding the dog dishes on the front porch. It did not go well for Kobe. She took a direct hit in the face. Victoria told Mama Kobe was scraping her face on the grass to try to get the sting out of her eyes. We suggested Victoria use buttermilk to wash Kobe down. Even though we did not have any buttermilk in the house, we had milk and vinegar to substitute. That seemed to do the trick. By the time we got home, Kobe had already been cleared to get back into the house. All this happened while she was watching Trace and Krystal’s boy. Krystal is in the hospital waiting to deliver Savanna.

It’s good to be home.

Mama’s clothes, sick ewe, travel

One of the young ladies from our church and her mom came to the farm yesterday afternoon – after Mama had taken Mocha for grooming and taken Aubrey to the library and met me for lunch at the Chinese restaurant – to help Mama go through her closet and find more outfit combinations than Mama has been able to see. They met Mama at the house a little before 1 pm. If I understood Mama correctly, they had just left when I got home at 4:15 pm. It was a big encouragement to Mama – and I think all the women had a good time. At the very least, it inspired Mama to go through the contents of her closet and find new possibilities for the large number of clothing items she has packed that closet. I am not certain if this will facilitate the extended decision process Mama goes through every time she dresses to go out, or if it will complicate it. Time will tell. I cannot imagine what we would do if we had to move Mama’s extensive wardrobe to a smaller closet. For now, she makes do with the nine-foot-long rack for her hanging clothes. I have thought about putting a closet organizer in our large walk-in closet but have not come across one that I liked for the price that was being asked. Maybe someday soon. Giving Mama more room to store clothes is not a priority for me currently. The more room I offer the more she is determined to fill all the empty spaces until everything is stuffed.


When the closet party was over, the three took a trip around the farm looking at the animals – especially the young ones. Mama and her two guests spent a good deal of time looking at the Penny, our newest lamb, and Champ, our baby goat. They had been in the enclosure with the sheep for a few minutes when Mama realized one of the ewes was missing. They finally found her in a corner of the enclosure lying in an area where the vegetation was very close to the coloring of her wool. Mama got the ewe up and moving, but by that evening she was not looking good. This morning, Mama called to tell me she was down again and would not last through the day. She is the only one Mama and I had questions about when we were looking at the sheep before we bought them. We should have followed our first impressions and left her behind. As it is, I will have to dispose of the carcass this evening. Sad day. Two down of our five ewes purchased. Not our wisest acquisition.


Since Monday is a holiday, I will have to pack today before leaving the office. Mama and I are traveling to Rock Hill, SC for a class I am teaching at a location in that area. Flying into Charlotte, NC, driving a short distance across the state line to the South Carolina site. Mama is going because it is a good opportunity for us to meet up with Maggie, Aaron and the kids. If Maggie can get better from strep throat, they will travel the five hours to meet us in Rock Hill and share a couple days with Mama and a couple evenings with me. It has been over two years since Mama and I have seen Maggie’s crew. Walter was just born the last time we were with Maggie. Fortunately, Facetime keeps us in touch in a way that the grandkids get to see our faces and hear our voices. We will see how quickly they adopt us once we are there in person. I am looking forward to the time in the “mountains” as much as the time spent with the grandkids. It has been too long since Mama and I have seen the hills we grew to love so much.


While we are gone, Mama and I will leave the farm to Victoria’s care. The weather is supposed to turn a bit colder through the two night of our absence so watering the animals will be a challenge for Victoria – and she is not much appreciative of the character-building opportunities those challenges offer, but she will manage somehow. For Mama’s part, she will be anxious the entire time we will be gone. No one cares for the animals the way Mama does; me included. But we hated to pass up the opportunity to have Mama make this trip with me – just in case it is a long time before we have to opportunity to visit with Aaron, Maggie and the grandkids again.


Both Mama and I are looking forward to the trip and the visit. We hope to make the most of our time together; short though it will be.

Pallets, presentations, progress

Tuesday evening, I got right to work changing attachments on the tractor so I could make the trips needed to bring home the pallets Mama and I had agreed to move from the business down the road. I did not get a full count of the pallets, but we got over one hundred in all. Most of those are in very good condition. About half of them are made of oak. To get them to the farm, I had to pick up a stack and put a strap around the pallets, binding them tightly together. That way I did not lose any of them on the road or as I drove onto the farm property. In the four round trips it took to get all the stacks moved, I only got passed by three or four vehicles. So at least, I did not have to hold up any traffic on the half mile of county road I traveled.


The last load was the most difficult. The pallet on the bottom had obviously been sitting on the ground a long time. The three boards across the bottom of the pallet had rotted out., so when I ran the strap around the stack, I did not have anything below the forks of the attachment on the front of the tractor and a couple times it tipped pretty drastically. I made it all the way across our property to the shop without losing the stack but when I hit a rut near the back of the shop the whole stack flopped sideways; held to the tractor only by the strap. I carefully set the stack down enough to right it some and pushed it into place. By the time I had it parked, it had righted, and I was able to remove the strap. No one will ever know. That took me about two hours total. Some of that two hours was spent getting the pallets off the trailer that Mama and I had loaded a couple days earlier.


I have been in class the past two days. Tuesday, I audited, and team taught a class that I do not normally participate in. The instructor was brand new so there were some hiccups as the class began. However, everything turned out well. The instructor did a good job in the class – which is a difficult class to teach. After some very minor coaching, the pace slowed to the point that everyone was able to keep up. The class includes a lot of exercises within our operating system. To those unfamiliar with that system it can be overwhelming. It was a larger class than normal, so that added to the challenge presented to our new instructor. But in the end, he prevailed.


On Wednesday I taught the class I most often present. It was a large class. Adding to the challenges normally evident in a large class, we had a film crew in the class through the morning shooting footage for a promotional video. Then, at lunchtime, we had our mobile training unit – a uniquely outfitted trailer – on display for the participants to look through. The one VR scenario offered yesterday was fire extinguisher training. Many in the class were interested in going through that training exercise. That took a while, so I had to condense the class to accommodate the loss of time. A couple times I struggled briefly at getting the class restarted. In the end, it all worked out. The participants were happy with the class and my company management was happy with the video shoot and the trailer debut.


Even though I have not had a lot of time to devote to the various urgent projects around the farm, I have been able to make noticeable progress. The door frames are built for the rolling doors on the goat barn and a feeder had been built and set in place for the pigs. The garden is coming along nicely – despite the continued cold nights. The sheep are settling into a routine with Mama and our little Penny is healthy and growing quickly. The goats are losing weight so we can take them to be bred in April. That should give us September babies. Hopefully that will turn out better this year than last year. Meanwhile, the pigs are gaining weight. They should be ready for the market in October. The chickens are laying about two dozen eggs per day, so Mama is able to offer eggs for sale again.  It has been several months since she was able to make that offer. And the cows are being bred. Hopefully we will have September or October calves.


The fact that our garage door opener got fried by a couple power surges Tuesday is a minor inconvenience.

Cookies, sickness, pallets, the garden

Right after Mama and I got back to the farm from bus calling early Saturday afternoon, Alex and the girls came over to make cookies. Alex is looking for ways to save money at his restaurant as well as add some traditional American items to the buffet. Cookies would fill that need, especially for kids, but Alex does not know how to choose the recipes or bake the cookies. So, he enlisted Mama’s help. The girls come to help but end up playing most of the time. Any excuse to be at Mama Kim’s house is good enough. I was outside working while the baking was going on and was just about to take a break and visit with Alex when I heard the car doors open and close. I was in the shop with the doors closed because of the cold misty day. When I came out to check they had gone. Mama told me Cheyenne got sick, so Alex was taking her to the doctor. She had been feeling poorly off and on for a couple days, complaining of her tummy hurting. The girls did not go to church with us yesterday, so we did not get and update, but there is a lot of sickness going around right now.


I prepared a very ambitious list for this weekend. Unfortunately, I got very little accomplished that was related to that list. I did get a frame build to the doors on the goat barn, but nothing else. I had Mama call the business just done the road from us Saturday morning. They have pallets stacked beside their horse barn and we wanted to see how much the owners might want for those pallets. Mama left a message and we went bus calling. When the owner called back later that morning, he told Mama we could have all the pallets for twenty dollars, but we had to take all of them. We agreed and later that afternoon we took the utility trailer and got our first load. We were only able to get about forty of the over one hundred pallets onto the trailer. So, to handle the remaining four tall stacks of pallets, I will take the tractor and use our pallet/hay fork attachment to transport the remaining stacks to the farm. We did not think of that Saturday until after we had handled the load we put on the trailer. Which now needs to be unloaded. Using the tractor will save us handling them twice just to get them to the farm. I will slowly disassemble most of the pallets, many of which are made of heavy oak wood, and repurpose the wood. Some of the pallets will remain intact because we always find uses for pallets around the farm. Mama was fun to watch as we loaded the trailer. Some of the pallets weighed ten pounds while others weighed seventy pounds. There was a comment for each pallet. But I appreciated the help – especially with the heavy ones.


We had a couple hard overnight freezes last week, so I was surprised to see how many plants had sprouted in the raised bed despite the temperatures. However, when I took Mama to see the progress, I was surprised to find the raised bed empty of any sprouts. Thinking the freeze might has killed them off I let it go. But that afternoon when I let the chickens out, one of our white chickens made a bee line for the raised bed and began hunting the young plants. Mama almost lost a chicken in that moment. Last week, I had put wire over the raised bed to keep the chickens from scratching in the soil. I did not anticipate them acting like crows, pulling up and eating the new plants. Years ago, when we had our hundred-acre farm in a hollow in West Virginia, we planted the meadow in corn. The crop did poorly. Partly because of the soil and partly because a flock of crows came in and pulled the starting plants up and eating the corn seed that had sprouted. Those plants that matured were devastated by raccoons. It was not a good year for corn. This year is not looking like a good year for a garden. I am not sure how much effort to put into protecting our little garden from chickens, rabbits, raccoons and deer. We will see how ambitious Mama and I get at animal-proofing our garden plot. It is not like fresh vegetables are hard to come by.


If we forge ahead with the garden, Mama and I will put out potatoes later this week. We’ll see.