Barnyard Tales: So, I'm basically a cow version of La Llorona.

Sometimes I struggle with anxiety. I don’t know if you have ever seen the web comics of the heart and the brain arguing or the two Kermit the frogs, but that is almost always how mine manifests.

PSSST! There is an emergency.

No, there isn’t.

The beacons are lit. Gondor calls for aid.

WTF, I need to sleep. Nothing is wrong. Shut up.

Yes it. Is. There is something terribly wrong. The house is on fire.

No it isn’t. Go to sleep.

Okay, maybe this house isn’t on fire. I bet someone’s house is on fire. It might be the barn that’s on fire. I meant barn. The barn is on fire.

I call bullshit. Someone would see that and call me. Nothing is on fire, and even if it is what can I do about it? NOTHING. Go the F to sleep.

Hmm, good point. In that case the chickens are open. I bet raccoons are even now slaughtering them. They’re peeping their last peeps. Crying out for a savior that will never come!

… Ugh. Fine. I’ll go check.

YASSS.

The chickens were shut, b****. Can we go to sleep now?

So the other night when I tossed and turned and restlessly threw off the covers at 11 o’clock because I was *certain* that the cows were drowning because we had gotten a lot of rain and they were in the bottom paddock, and 29 was giving birth in a torrent of water and everyone was going to die if I didn’t go look at them; I was pretty sure my anxiety was just screwing with me. Eric, being the awesome husband he is, looked over at me with what I will politely dub "sleepy exasperation" and asked if I would be able to sleep if I didn’t go look. Knowing myself, I figured I would sleep faster if I just drove down to check them. Usually he just lets me go, but this time he sighed and got up to go with me.

So, here we are, driving to the pasture in our PJ’s. I was rocking flip flops and no bra. We have one flashlight between us because this is just my anxiety. We will be asleep in like 15 minutes and laughing about how dumb my brain is over tea in a few hours. HAH.

So, we drive down and glance at the river. It is going down. Perfect. I knew I was just crazy.

Then we look up and there is Harriet, in all her bald faced glory, standing in the middle of the f-ing blacktop. About the time my sleep addled brain registered her, here came 33 trotting out of the black. So Eric goes down to open the gate and get them back in. I pause my herding to fix a downed fence wire, because the water had risen enough to short it out. Joy. As I’m carefully guiding the wire back into the plastic jaws of the insulator I feel the wire tremble.

You know that scene in Jurassic Park where the ground starts to shake and the main character realizes that they’re royally screwed? The camera pans over their face and you see the dawning realization that they aren’t in control? Well, as the wire vibrated its’ way out of my numb fingers that was my face. Suddenly there was a swarm of cows running through the fence to the black top. What I sensed to be the entire herd, because it was dark and starting to rain and I wasn’t the one with the flashlight,  let themselves out of the fence to join Harriet and 33 and started heading down the roadway.

“Incoming! Incoming. You’ve got incoming!” I don’t think Eric could hear me over the wind at the hooves clacking down the road because the next thing I heard was a big ol’ “WTF?!” Miraculously he got them directed into the paddock across the road and safely contained without fuss.

But you know who we didn’t see? That’s right. Freaking 29, the cow who I was convinced was having a God damn water birth. So we started out across this incredibly muddy river bottom. My flip flops made it about five feet before becoming so encrusted with wet clay that every step was like walking on KY Jelly and I had to toss them. So we are wandering around a 25 acre field with one shitty flashlight, in the rain, and I’m barefoot. Every few feet I slip and sprawl like a 19 year old in a mud wrestling contest, and when I wasn’t slipping I was jamming sticks and particularly pokey bits of grass into my bare soles. Lovely.

We make it halfway around and see no evidence of 29. Maybe we just missed her? Then, as we are about to go to the next section we see two sets of eyes. Two calves bedded down away from the herd. Great. Lovely. Perfect! Naturally they run. Eric keeps the flashlight and continues looking for 29; while I try to track two calves in the dark, with only the light from his cellphone (which illuminates just enough of the ground around me to *hopefully* keep me from stepping on a snake). 

It is now almost one am. Screech owls are talking to each other and I am convinced they have killed and eaten the calves, also that they are not screech owls but probably some sort of Sasquatch creature. My world is mud. Nothing has been before, not shall be after. Just rain, and mud, and trying desperately to not impale myself of any wheat stubble. I am herding these calves by the sound of them splashing through puddles, which is getting more and more difficult as they get farther away and as it starts to rain harder. Eric eventually catches back up to me, as I have lost the calves and am now just wandering the pasture next to the river like some sort of parody of La Llorona, wearing incredibly muddy yoga pants instead of a white dress and cursed to search forever for these lost and presumably drowned calves instead of my children.

I slip and slide my way back up to the gate and we see the babies, but do they go in with the herd like good calves? Of F-ing course not. Because they are cows, and it is after one am and raining. So we chase them up and down the blacktop before they disappear into the black of the slightly larger paddock next door and we decide to say F it. We put the slinky gate up a little higher than usual and pray that they figure it out their own damn selves.

We are back over first thing in the morning, you know, when we can see and I have actual shoes; and what do we find? Twelve hundred pounds of beautiful black cow grazing alongside the blacktop. Somehow 29 eluded us on our jaunt around the pasture. We get her put in and a neighbor drives by, and then backs up to yell that we have a calf up the road. Yup. She hid her baby next to the blacktop about a quarter mile away. Did she give birth on it? Who knows. So we load the calf up in the good ole’ farm Fusion and get it reunited with mom, only to be incredibly relived and discover that our two babies from the night before have also made it back to their people.

Whew.

About that time another neighbor drives by and makes a comment about us getting our cow in. WTF dude, you saw we had a cow out and didn’t call? Thanks, bro.

Perfect fodder for my next bout of anxiety.

Your cows are out.

No they aren’t. The neighbor would call.

But would they though???

… Honey, grab the flashlight!!!

Ah, farm life!

Not pictured is Eric's face as he was tersely telling me to stop taking pictures and drive...

Rootbound

“Build a life you don’t need a vacation from.” That phrase haunts me from its whimsical background as I scroll through FaceBook. Sometimes it is plastered over a beach chair, sometimes it is in fake cursive over a mountain top. The meme sparkles in its simplicity, and I hate it.

I am a business person. I am a farmer. I am a woman with a Great Pyrenees that acts as a reverse Swiffer sweeper and deposits piles of dust throughout my house. Many times I am exhausted. I am brain dead; mentally checked out from a life of constant worry over water levels and pasture rotation, and do we have groceries for tonight, or laundry done for tomorrow? Did I get all the invoicing caught up this afternoon, what should I write in a blog for work’s website?

I think it is the story of the modern farmer to live and breathe a never ending checklist of important tasks in rotation. Most of us have to work a 8-5 job in addition to the farm to make ends meet. I would say that is doubly so as a woman farmer, but that could just be my perspective because Captain America could care less about the dirt on the floor and whether or not the counters are clean at nine o’clock when we roll in from feeding everyone after working our 8-5 jobs and start our dinner. I still care and will numbly fold laundry while the oven preheats or I’ll wash a couple dishes while the Keurig whirs. Given all this, you might think then that I crave vacations as a break from the constant stress, but I don’t.

I crave them for novelty.

I become root bound in my little pot of processes that I do day in and day out. I curl in on myself in a constant stream of chores that I try to perform more and more efficiently every day, until exhaustion and compassion fatigue obscure why I chose this life in the first place. I need to be uprooted. I need to be taken out of my tight little space and have myself gently stretched out into the wide world so that when I get planted again I have room to grow, room to appreciate everything again.

Image by Keith Williamson. Click here to learn more.

I went to the beach with girl friends for a few days, and while I was SUPER stressed about leaving everything I am SO glad that I did. I came back and I am rejuvenated.

Fence down? Eh, no problem. Have you seen how gorgeous the sky is today? Wow, just talk about blue.

Can’t find a new calf? Aren’t they great hiders? Man, it is so nice to wander around the woods looking in all these little hidey holes. This is such a cool tree! Hey, are those blackberries?

New calf was actually out in the yard? Aw! Isn’t he adorable? Breaking through fences already and he isn’t even 24 hours old! You’re a precocious little buddy, aren’t ya?

Folks, even hammering in fence posts becomes an enjoyable act when I have been away from it for a while. CA and I spent Sunday afternoon starting in on the fences for the rotational grazing program that we are implementing and I was humming, laughing, and turning it into a rousing game of “how many thumps of the t-post driver does it take” that I didn’t mind consistently losing. I loved every exhausting minute of it. 

God, it is good to be home!

Oh, and we did manage to get the new baby back in the fence with minimal bruising. (On CA's part, not the calf's.)

The Great Wheatlage Debacle of 2017

CA and I argued over the best way to utilize the wheat that we planted just to keep the hillside from eroding over the winter because the beans didn't come out until almost October and everyone said that that was too late to plant grass seed then. Well, except for my dad who didn't chime in on the subject until after it was too late to plant the grass seed and use the wheat to protect it. Which was brilliant, and would have worked SWIMMINGLY, but we didn't know. 

Dad also suggested using a slit seeder to plant the grass over the wheat, but no one that I could find had one big enough to plant 40 acres with; but that was okay because Mark (the professional farmer who rents my parent's row crop ground) said that what we really needed to do was frost seed it anyway. Which was great, except that you do that in January, and it was February already; oh and BTW, didn't you know? You really need to plant grass seed in August, not the spring. And definitely not just disk up the wheat and plant it in grass like I had discussed with him in the fall.

So, CA and I are staring at the lovely wheat field with tiny baby grass and clover being choked out by the foot high wheat and we get the idea to hay it since using it as pasture would hurt the new grass. (Which I have to baby the shit out of because it was planted too late.) So we think about, and agree that haying it is the way to go. Even though neither of us has ever seen anyone bale wheat before as anything other than straw. The farmer's hereabouts usually either let it go and harvest it or spray it with a desiccant and plant over it.

It is April and too wet to technically hay it, so we will have to rent or borrow someone's equipment to "haylage" it. Which is where you take wet grass and bale it, and then wrap it in plastic wrap to let it ferment and become silage. It requires heavier duty balers as well as a special bale wrapper. So I call up Mark and ask him if he knows anyone who might be able to rent our their equipment or possibly just pay to bale and wrap it.

And wouldn't you know? According to Mark wheatlage is great for cows and the dairy he used to work at always made wheatlage. But he hadn't shared that information with me previously, I guess presuming that I knew with some innate farmer wisdom in my blood that wheatlage would be cow crack. I didn't spend weeks thinking I must be crazy, because I had never seen this done before. No, not at all. That didn't happen.

You know, everyone talks about the barriers to entry of farming and they always talk about how damned expensive it is or how hard land is to get, and that is 100% true; but sweet mother of God what about this awesome pool of knowledge that isn't being shared? 

I read articles where authors are chastising my generation of farmers for treating permaculture and other farming practices as things that they just discovered and I get it. We are a bunch of egotistical millennials. Perhaps we do have a lofty idea of ourselves, but do you want to know why we feel like we just discovered the best farming practice ever? That we must be the originator? Because no one is telling us about them. In many cases we are having to constantly reinvent the wheel, and we shouldn't be.

I have grown up on a farm. I have great mentors and resources at my disposal and I still feel like I am having to pass some sort of weird initiation where all these older farmers are testing my farming instincts in order to give access to their knowledge. I can't even imagine how hard it is for my peers who haven't been blessed with that background. It seriously wouldn't surprise me if I happen to slop my way up a mountain sized pile of cow manure to talk to some old timer about my sea kelp research only to have him tell me that it is great and he has been using it since 1975. Well h-e-double hockey sticks, why didn't I know that already?

All humor aside though fellas, I know you're not doing this on purpose; but please realize that "you don't know what you don't know" and the next generation of farmers needs you to teach us. Desperately. Yes, some of us (myself included) have weird a$$ ideas about grassfed, and organics; but those things don't change the basic knowledge that you can share. We need you to have a conversation with us. When we tell you in September that we want to plant grass seed, instead of just saying that it is to late, tell us about cover crops that could work. Or try something like, "Hey, you know cows, but you don't know much about row cropping. You just said you are worried about erosion, have you thought about this annual crop (corn/soy/sudan grass/freaking rutabagas) that we could plant after the winter wheat; but have out before August so that you can plant the grass for your future hayfield in the best time frame? I know you want forage for the cows. How about wheatlage? Cows freaking LOVE wheatlage."

And you guys and gals, the next generation, my generation? Don't discount others just because they're using Round-Up and spreading nitrogen. Don't turn off your ears the minute you hear row-crop. They have been doing this a long time and just because they don't farm the way you and I do/want to doesn't mean that they don't know what they are doing, or that all of their knowledge is somehow flawed. It is time that we all stepped up to the table and swapped stories. The agriculture community as a whole will be much better off because of it if we do.

Me? I think I'm going to start hanging out at the local Farm Bureau's pinochle night, or maybe Hardee's at breakfast, and hope that I might overhear something new. If nothing else at least the great wheatlage debacle of 2017 did do one thing. It showed me how much I don't know.

Horse Heaven

When I was 13 we had a mare with a dummy foal. I can remember loading Cash in the trailer and mom and I putting the pretty little chestnut filly in the bed of the truck to rush her to the closest equine specialist we knew - two hours away. I laid next to that baby, soothing her as much as I could with touch and voice until I could barely keep my head up. If I sit and think about it I can still feel the texture of her baby fuzz against my forehead.

There, I dreamed.

She and I were in a large meadow so lush and beautiful that there aren't words capable of describing its verdance. We stood, or rather knelt, on one side of a crystal clear stream; it wasn't very wide, but it burbled and sang better than any sound machine I've ever heard. Across from us, dotting the greenery like exotic flowers, were horses of every shape, size, and color. They grazed and frolicked with joy that still brings tears to my eyes.

As the filly, Hope, tried to stand one horse peeled off and trotted up to us. He whickered encouragingly at her, with his silken black mane streaming. At the time I didn't recognize the kind of loving sounds a mare makes to her baby when it is first born, but I do now. I sat there in a stupor as she rose on her wobbly little legs and stretched towards that shining ebony stallion, but then I gathered my wits and called her back. I told her about her mama, and what we were trying to do to help her and she came back to me.

Then I woke up. I don't know why. I talked to my mom for a few minutes, and again laid my head down on her neck. 

I was instantly right back by the stream. Hope had wandered closer to it in my absence, but I called her back again. The stallion stood patiently, nickering and whinnying at her in a language that, like many "horse people," I've always wished I could know. 

But there I knew. He was calling her to his side of that brook just like I kept calling her to mine. He had the deepest brown eyes, so full of love and compassion. It is weird to remember them so clearly after so long.

I repeated the process of waking and dreaming three more times before I fell back asleep on her rapidly stilling body. She had crossed the stream then, while I was away and didn't call her back; she was running and playing with all the ease that she should have had in life. Many of the horses greeted and groomed her just like they would an old herd mate - nuzzling and nibbling on her beautifully arched little neck. I wanted to call her back again, to beg her to come back to me, but I couldn't bring myself to take her away from such happiness.

I watched that herd for what felt like forever, their sleek coats reflected the bright sunlight, all of them were in prime condition, and perfectly happy munching grasses amongst the wildflowers and shade trees. I came to think of it as my brush with heaven, and after that dying (which had terrified me before) wasn't so scary anymore.

I came home at lunch and found Gymmy, one of the horses, down. He had a freak accident earlier today that broke his ankle and had to be euthanized.

Gymnasium Joe, I'm going to miss your cantankerous soul and so will your herd mates, but I can only pray that you crossed that stream happily and are gamboling your giant heart out in a body that won't fail you now.

RIP big boy. Say hi to everyone for me.

Morning Ruminations...

When I was in high school I absolutely HATED getting up an extra hour early so that I could feed and water horses before I went to class. There were even mornings that I would feed everyone and then take a nap in the tack room while they were eating. I am pretty sure that there is still a cup and spoon in there from where I ate my cereal on the fly and washed it out, but could spare there extra two minutes to walk it back to the house because that would mean getting up two minutes earlier.

While I’m still bad about not changing shoes after I feed, much to the chagrin of my housekeeper – me, I have found myself greeting the mornings with a lot more ardor lately. Why may that be?

Well, the majority of the cows now live in Illinois! Can I get a whoo hoo?

That was an ordeal in and of itself. The highlights? Watching a calf magically turn boneless and wriggle under the catch pen like a gigantic furry eel. Roping the same calf with the skill of a kindergarten mutton buster and trying desperately to hold onto him long enough for CA to move the trailer into place so he could ship with his mama. It was like a bad version of Gulliver’s Travels – the lariat wound around my legs and threatened to topple me over while I was hauling back on an enraged calf that was lunging away from me like a hound of hell. I’m pretty sure he turned into the Hulk. Like 90% sure. He should not have been that strong… And then there is 32, also known affectionately as “Hateful B!tch.” HB got that nickname from the guy at the sale barn, and boy, has it proven to be true. Not only did she run through panels a few times to escape the move. She ran through me, kicked me as she went by, and then sailed over three fences with skills that I have seen 17 hand thoroughbred hunter jumpers envy. I wasn’t sure if I should be pissed, or just impressed honestly. I’m still not. Thank God she jumped in with the neighbor’s herd. It took them a couple days to catch her and even then she tried to go through people, 6” gaps between trailers, trailer windows… you know, anything. She charges the side of the trailer if I walk by. She has an appointment with the processor because I’m not sure that any fence we have will hold her, and I don’t really want to have calves that are that crazy. Plus, you know what they say: hate is the best sauce… that B is going to be delicious.

Anywho, now that the cows live over here it means I have an hour of watering to do over at my grandpa’s place before I go to work in the morning. I am consistently surprised that I love it. I don’t know what happened to 14 year old me and my avoiding getting up early for any reason, because here I am sitting on a rock pile SnapChatting cow pictures to my friends as I wait for the troughs to fill.

When your friend posts a picture because they look good (Panda),
 and don't really care about how dumb you look (Bertha Mae).

Now if only I could make myself use chore boots. I still freaking hate vacuuming. Perhaps I’m not so different than I was at 14 after all.

I pretty much spent my summer becoming an alternative cow vet.

Well, you may have noticed that I have been pretty much MIA for most of the summer. That is partially because I’ve got like 10 hours of mowing a week to do (when I haven’t broken the mower repeatedly – but more on that later), and partially because this summer has put me through an emotional wringer and I haven’t been able to share it until now. As you might assume being on a farm brings me into frequent contact with death so perhaps one would think that I would be immune to the pains of it, but I am most definitely not.

Early this summer Sweetie Pie calved again. What you probably don’t know, because I didn’t tell you, was that her calf from last year (Honey Bunch) died and I couldn’t figure out why. Despite being treated by a veterinarian I felt like I had failed her, that if I had just done something differently or noticed something sooner I could have fixed it.

So, when SP calved and the sweet little heifer was just another red calf I was disappointed. I know. The fact that she looked like everyone else shouldn’t have mattered, but I still wanted a redo, and the fact that she looked nothing like my darling Bunches hurt more than I care to admit.

Long story short, Captain America milked SP for a few days but with the distance between us and his work and haying schedule that wasn’t a good long term plan so we started searching for another bottle calf to put on her (since she makes too much milk for one calf to eat and it can lead to health problems to leave her with that much pressure in her bag). He found a beautiful little Charolais heifer off of a Facebook group, and I instantly fell in love even though the guy who had her mentioned to CA that she was “tenderfooted.”

Tenderfooted, my right buttcheek. When CA brought her home she was a textbook case for joint ill; in all four joints, and her navel. I insisted that we name her Sugar, and SP’s calf Cinnamon. My world revolved around her.

What followed was roughly two months of being told that vets “don’t treat joint ill in calves,” “just euthanize her,” and “I could do something if she was a horse.” Bovine discrimination is STRONG, ya’ll.

So I Googled, and read Plum’s and Merck’s, and when they didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear I read books on alternative treatments and got her an acupuncturist (whose treatment protocol included Chinese herbal medication that actually did A LOT to help her). I borrowed my mom’s therapeutic laser and gave her photon therapy every other day alongside the acupuncture, Chinese herbs, probiotics, astragalus & Echinacea, conventional antibiotics, and milk thistle (to prevent liver damage from the conventional antibiotics). I soaked her in Epsom salt baths. I gave her Reiki. I sang to her while she ate (even when she was eating at 3:30 in the morning, because by God that baby needed me so I was up and cheerful about it). I chased her around with a fan during the hot days and carried sauce pans of water to wherever she was laying. I took a thousand pictures of her beautiful little nose. I drove her hours to try (and fail) to get her treatment, and finally cajoled our regular vet into opening up on of her joints. He was amazed at how bright she was and how good her joints looked despite everything.

I started making plans for how to do bovine physical therapy to help her stand and walk more easily and looking into long term options for arthritis care.

Then at 6:30 one morning she started making a very distressed sound, which was odd because she had never even mooed at me. She started to bloat even before I could get her loaded in my car. I rushed her to the vet, but she was dead before he got there. She either threw a blood clot in her lung or had an abscess burst and died in my lap in the backseat while we sat in the parking lot.

I was, and still am incredibly torn up about it.

About a month later CA called me in a panic because Sweetie Pie was down and he thought she was dying. We hauled water to pour over her to cool her down while the emergency vet was on her way. She had no clue what was wrong with her, but treated her for low blood calcium (milk fever). She couldn’t stand on her own; so mom and dad (bless them!) drove a sling made for lifting horses and cows over at 9 pm on a Friday night (they didn’t get home from that trip until like 2 am). We lifted her up and hung her off the front end loader periodically for about two weeks before she started standing on her own again. We gave her tubes of CMPK, probiotics, antibiotics, and I force fed her baking soda thinking that maybe it was acidosis.

Then about three weeks ago she started having bloody diarrhea. I begged CA to bring her over to my house and I got her some sulfa, more probiotics, keto gel, more CMPK, power punch, different types of wormer, and everything else you could think of to give a dairy cow who was showing signs of either an infection of her digestive tract or ketosis. She got better after two days and I poured the grain and alfalfa hay to her. She ate great for a week and then started feeling sickly again. As of last week I was buying spinach, arugula, and baby kale for her because she acted like everything else was making her nauseated. She passed peacefully on Friday afternoon - laying on a pile of straw in the sunshine.

Her blood work came back Thursday. She had Bovine Leukosis, a disease that upwards of 40% (depending on which study you look at) of dairy cows in the Midwest are infected with. Some are asymptomatic, but when a cow does exhibit symptoms it is fatal. It is also probably what killed Honey Bunch. There is no treatment or prevention available. The only good news is that it is only spread through blood and, in limited instances, milk or perhaps by biting flies(the sources I have read weren’t 100% positive on that). We will be testing to make sure that no one else has it. Fortunately we don’t reuse needles or dehorn, which can spread the disease pretty quickly. (For more information look here.)

Even more fun? The DNA of the virus has been found in human breast cancer tissue. They aren’t positive how it got there yet, but I would expect there to be more studies on it in the next few years. The things they don’t tell you before you go buy a milk cow, huh?

Another fun test came back today. Sweetie was Johne’s disease positive too. That one, again, is fatal in ruminants that exhibit symptoms. Many dairy cows carry it, and it is much easier to spread than the Leukosis. I swear. I’m going to have to set up a go fund me page to be able to test everyone for all of these things. 

I love that cow, but I really, really wish that someone somewhere would have told me about all of this before I got a milk cow. We followed regular protocols for including a new cow in the herd – you know, keep them separate for a few weeks and look for signs of disease. When they don’t show any signs of anything you toss them out in the pasture, and in my case inadvertently introduce the cow version of Typhoid Mary to the herd. 

Going forward I implore you to learn from my mistakes. Make sure that any bottle calves you bring home have had colostrum and watch their temperatures very closely. If they start going up don’t mess around with antibiotics. Call your vet and try some Baytril – or  Excenel. There is a pretty good protocol listed here. You’re going to need a broad spectrum solution, and seriously if you have a vet locally who does Chinese medicine too, the herbs helped Sugar considerably. I can’t say they broke her fever, but about a day and a half after she got them she had a normal temperature for the first time in weeks. 

If you are interested in getting a back yard milk cow please talk to your vet about getting a test for Bovine Leukosis and Johnes disease before you bring your baby home. Many cows are asymptomatic for all of their lives, but if they aren’t it is very likely that they will die before age 10, and in some situations they can pass it along to other healthy ruminants. Forewarned is forearmed. 

Oh, and if you have a Grasshopper mower with the rear discharge NEVER BACK UP. You crinkle the metal like tissue paper and blow grass clippings directly towards the engine. And if you do figure out that a crinkled guard is the problem, don’t put a new on on and then back up AGAIN thinking that it had to be a fluke. It. Is. Not. 

It has been that kind of summer.

Sweetie Pie, the day we brought her home.

Sugar, getting her electropuncture.

Tractor Troubles

I am beginning to feel cursed, ya’ll. Like some outside evil force has focused its unholy powers on us and the planting project, determined to prevent us from finishing seeding the hillside. The last two weeks have been a series of misadventures…

It is like my life is an overly dramatized radio show: “This week, Captain America and his gal try to plant a field. Will the duo overcome the Nazi plot to burn the tractor down? Tune in to find out!”

Spoiler alert, we didn’t foil the plot. The Kubota caught fire, and CA had the most mellow delivery ever. Below is a dramatized transcript of this phone call.

“Uh, Lauren?”

“Yeah, hon?”

“Are you almost back?” (I had gone to get more fuel for the tractor.)

“No, why?”

“Oh, well, when you get back can you come straight out to the field? There was a minor tractor fire.” (Please note that he was completely calm.)

“A what?” (Imagine a note of hysteria building.)

“A tractor fire.”

“Are you f***ing serious?” (Full on hysterical uptick at the end there.)

“Yep.”

“What? How? Are you?! Ah! I’ll be right there!”

I love that man’s delivery to bits. Only he could be calm in the face of a tractor fire. Unlike me. I am the woman who called my mother when the house caught fire when I was 14. What do you do when the house is aflame, you call your mommy. Not the fire department. That would make too much sense. She was thrilled by the way. I believe her response was something along the lines of “Why the hell did you call me and not 911?” What can I say, I don’t do so well with panic.

It turned out to be a minor tractor fire, as far as tractor fires go. It was still drivable, but it was losing coolant like crazy through one of the charred hoses. Luckily the fire didn’t make it to a fuel line, and miraculously the tractor was in the field when this happened and not oh, say, in the hay barn surrounded by a ton of flammable material.

See, only a little fire! AH!

Life lesson/ Public Service announcement: When you inherit a tractor – please make sure to examine it carefully and see if there are any dust screens that need to be cleaned regularly. Dried grass can accumulate and spontaneously combust when you treat a Kubota like the good old Ford, that has no dust screens or actually, much protective shielding at all. You can lose a hand with ol’ Blue, but by golly, she isn’t a fire hazard.

She has her own issues, beautiful old gal.

Blue is such a good tractor. 

Like this past weekend when I was trying to finish planting with her (since you know, the Kubota is now in the shop…) and hydraulic fluid started shooting out of the back like I had driven over a green Old Faithful.

Did I mention that I don’t do well with panic?

I did manage to remember to turn the tractor off rather than just stare in abject horror. So, there is that. I then did the ever popular unplug the hydraulic hose and stare at it, plug it back in and look at the leak. Unplug the hose, re-plugin the hose, unplug the hose, re-plugin the hose, unplug the hose, re-plugin the hose, unplug the hose, re-plugin the hose, and repeat until I finally called CA.

“Hey, so, if the tractor had started to geyser hydraulic fluid and I wanted to troubleshoot it without calling my dad, and unplugging it and plugging it back in again didn’t work, what could I do?”  I am admittedly horrible at mechanical things. I take full responsibility for that. I’m trying to be better, but it is not my strong suit yet.

CA, who was shopping for birthday gifts and home remodeling components at the time, was unable to diagnose the problem via the phone and my crappy pictures.

I don't know why he couldn't diagnose it.
I mean, there is even a drip forming and everything!

And yes, given my lack of mechanical aptitude it is weird that I was the one in the field with the tractor and he was out shopping; but we have a weird relationship. I grant you that. Maybe in retrospect it might have been better to conform to gender roles there.

But then how would I learn? I can tell you that after having to call my dad to help me, I now know how to diagnose a blown O-ring (dang thing had dry rotted)  and will never miss that one again.

Especially not after having to buy all the replacement hydraulic fluid. That stuff ain’t cheap. But O-rings are! And we now have a stockpile of them. Take that Murphey and your stupid law, or Hilter and your evil plot, whatever it is that is making this planting thing WAY too difficult.

Ah well, as mom said, “That’s farming.”

And as I say, “This is why I drink.”

Cheers!

Happy National Agriculture Day!

Apparently this year's National Ag day theme (Yes. It has themes. Who knew, right?) is "Agriculture: Stewards of a Healthy Planet."

Fitting. That pretty much sums up why Captain America and I are raising our cows the way that we are. 

Would it be cheaper to fatten them up on grain? Yes. It takes a lot more grass to add a pound of weight than it does corn, soy, or industrial food byproduct. In fact, grass fed beef cattle frequently take longer to mature for this reason.

Would it be easier to dose with preventative medicine? Yes. Feeding them a few rounds of antibiotics to prevent infection (or just promote weight gain, because that is a common use of subtherapuetic doses of some antibiotics - usually penicillins and tetracyclines) in with their feed ration, also known as medicated grain, would be much easier than monitoring them and then separating and working the sick animals to provide them with individualized veterinary care based on what illness they have. 

No one who hasn't worked cows in a head catch without a squeeze chute can truly appreciate just how much anger a 1,500 lb animal can manifest. Watch your arms folks. They can snap them easily while you're giving injections. Sometimes I think rodeo cowboys have nothing on farmer's reflexes.

Would it be better to do that? For us personally the answer is no. There is a place in the world for that model - I'm not throwing any shade on the family farms that have to do things that way to stay afloat here. But for Captain America and I the choice is simple. Before he and I even met I started asking myself the tough questions.

How do I do my part to help prevent super bugs, or keep bee colonies alive? How do I reduce my carbon footprint? Is row cropping really the only profitable way to farm the land I have? Could there be another way to be able to afford my property taxes? Is all that round up runoff really safe? How would I have to care for an animal to not feel guilty about eating it if I were to be haunted by its ghost? How do I take the best care of the land that I have? 

For me, and for us, the decision to create 200 acres of rolling pastures out of some pretty severely ditched up farm fields in order to support a thriving herd of grassfed cows was the perfect solution. 

By planting a mixture of endophyte free fescue, orchard grass, and red clover all over the hillsides not only will the cows have good forage; but we will stop sending so much topsoil down to Louisiana every time it rains. Plus, we won't have to worry about spraying it with pesticides and herbicides that could wind up in the waterways along with the soil.

Unless we get a creeping buttercup infestation. Then they shall be purified with fire, 2,4-D, the wrath of God, whatever it takes to get rid of those toxic little suckers. Damn buttercups... not even goats can eat creeping buttercups. Ugh.

Anyway, the clover will also feed bees, which will help out the local colonies and maybe even pave the way for a hive or two of our own one day.

Isolating our herd on our acreage and using rotational grazing not only is better for the grass it helps to reduce exposure to some pathogens and will help keep the cows healthier, so even if we do get a bug coming through it should be easier to monitor and treat. 

Basically what all of those decisions boil down to is CA and I doing our part to live this year's Ag Day theme: "Agriculture: Stewards of a Healthy Planet." every day. I encourage you to go out and think about how you could improve your stewardship. 

After all, just a pot full of flowers could help a bee or butterfly, and just buying from a local producer could help a small farmer pay their property taxes and keep working to be a better steward himself or herself. 

Healthy planets are better with healthy grass, which grows some pretty healthy cows!

Make sure to follow farmingfoible on Instagram to see more of our daily adventures.

The seedy underbelly of inheritance.

There is something that I have been thinking about blogging about for a long time now; and I have been hesitant because, well, frankly I’m ashamed and I feel almost that I shouldn’t because it could be considered ungrateful or speaking ill of the dead. However, I was talking to a good friend of mine a few weeks ago about this subject and her comments and commiseration really helped me, and I’m hoping that maybe if anyone else is going through this it will help them too.

My grandfather passed away a few years ago. I have been extraordinarily fortunate in that I have inherited his farm. Purchasing land is very expensive and is the greatest barrier to entry for people my age to get into farming; so my grandpa’s generous legacy has given me, and CA, one hell of a leg up in being able to make our own custom fed cattle farm a reality. I am frequently overwhelmed with gratitude as I’m trying to lay out fences, or while CA and I are seeding out future pastures and hay fields like we did last weekend, but I am also frequently overwhelmed because like many people of his generation I think my grandpa’s thrift bordered on hoarding.

That is gonna be some gorgeous grass! Happy cows!

No, I shouldn’t mince words, keeping what I believe to be every newspaper printed since the 1990’s doesn’t boarder on hoarding – it is hoarding.

So, bonfire you guys?

I am pretty much the only one who can sift through it all and sort the trash from the treasure. Well, I suppose my parents could too; but it isn’t their burden to bear so much as it is mine. So I have been spending a lot of my free time sorting through things and playing a very fun game I like to call: “WTF, Grandpa?!?” The game consists of me finding either a giant quantity of something or something random placed in a location where you would never think to find it; such as finding two large black garbage bags worth of those free return address labels, or the box of quilts stored in a leaky and pretty much open greenhouse so that they have turned to sludge and muttering “WTF, Grandpa?” to myself as I shovel loads of junk and what were potentially precious heirlooms into garbage bags because there is no saving them anymore.

I think that sorting personal possessions is the seedy underbelly of inheritance. You can truly take nothing for granted. I’ve learned so much of my family history in just a few months since I have started this undertaking. That one pen in the box of non-working pens? That is the last remaining giveaway from your great-grandpa’s company. Don’t throw it away! That tiny piece of rusted wire that looks like junk? That is the Lone Ranger’s lasso and goes to your dad’s childhood toy. Better sift through that pile of wet and molding newspaper because in it is what was once a box of family photos. You can’t save many, but you can cry because, of course, they are the one damned box of photos where someone had actually labelled them. Unlike ALL the other photos you have found… Thank you great aunt Della. Those 14 photos I was able to save are precious.

I have taken loads upon loads out of the greenhouse and house. Looking at it you would never guess that I have touched it.

On a good note, I shall never need to buy planters again.

I haven’t even started in on the sheds yet. Oh, the sheds. Oi.

In his later years my grandpa didn’t devote much time to upkeep on the buildings that my great-grandpa built out of already salvaged materials (that giant stringer with the sweet curves came out of a bridge that was being replaced) in the 1980’s. Many of them are hazardous, and if they aren’t they’re just plain leaky. It sucks, but one of my sheds does have a sun roof now, so, that’s a fun design feature? Just kidding. You can’t really walk on the floor in that one anymore. It is pretty shady. And by pretty shady I mean abandon hope all ye who enter here...

The light streaming from above makes it look so heavenly.
"Ahhhh, ahh, ahhh." <-angelic noise

As you can guess there will be a lot of repair by replacement going on in the next few years. Which, frankly, is overwhelming AF; despite how excited I am about fence lines and my sunroof shed becoming a loafing shed for the cows with a permanent working pen next to it so I won’t be slipping and sliding around when sorting calves or worrying that they will get smart and dive under the panels and wiggle to freedom. It does give CA and I a fantastic opportunity to build something the way we truly need it and in a way that it can last the next 30, 50, or 100 years.

After all I don’t leave my grandkids playing an exciting round of, “WTF, Grandma?”

Just kidding. I should totally start stocking up on return address labels now. ;)

The cows are sorted!

According to my FaceBook newsfeed, yesterday was International Women’s Day.

I never really considered myself a feminist, but I am coming to realize that that is because I grew up in a small bubble where I never had any reason to. I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by strong female figures, especially my mother who never let “That’s a man’s job!” be a thing. There was never  “men’s work” or “women’s work” there was always just work. When we would square bale she was always out stacking the bales as my dad threw them. She was the one who would correct dystocias if a horse or cow had one. Heck, she’s the one who would run the 2,500 lb bull into the head catch to doctor him when he got a wire cut around his nethers that swelled him up as big as a softball so he couldn’t retract it, and the vet said we might as well put him down. Soaking it in Epsom salt and covering it in cut heal twice a day made him so hateful towards her that he tried to kill her every time he saw her, but she did fixed him. She also helped load that big ole boy in the trailer when we had to ship him. Ungrateful sucker. She is the one who runs the family business (as president) and self-taught herself everything from veterinary medicine to accounting whilst keeping the house clean and the grass cut, and clearing a fence row or two with her chainsaw.

In short, I’ve been incredibly lucky to rarely see the discrimination against girls that I read about online. I never watched Disney movies and thought that I need a prince to come rescue me, or thought that all I was meant to be was a Barbie doll. I always knew that I could be an engineer, or a farmer, or a whatever the hell I wanted to be if I wanted to and worked at it. I’m beginning to see how incredibly lucky I was with that.

Case in point, CA and I helped a friend of his work cows the other week, and even though I was probably the one there with the most experience moving cows I got the “girl job” of record keeping. And I resented the hell out of it. Well, I should have known better than to open my big mouth because as we were working cows last night I got the “girl job” again. As in, I was the only one in the pen herding the little buggers. What can I say? My family doesn’t discriminate. Mom, Dad, and CA all stood outside the pen (read as: not A$$ deep in mud) and encouraged the calves towards the trailer while I waded around in the muck and hit them in the butt with a stick. It was glorious. Until one of them went cray-cray and I fell down and almost got trampled to death. Damn heifer. At that point CA jumped over the fence to help corral the crazy one to get her gone. I am super grateful for the help.

I think that’s one reason that farming appeals to me, at the end of the day I think mom and dad were right – there isn’t "my work", "your work", "his work", "her work"; there is just a job to be done, and you work together to get it that way. It is a great equalizer.

So, happy belated Women’s Day, and I hope you don't have as much rain and mud as we do right now!

Hey guys, the cows are sorted!

Don't hate.

My dad called me as I was headed out the door for work to tell me that there were calves in the neighbor's yard and I needed to check the fences. Sadly, this isn't an entirely unusual occurrence. You see, the same fluff that makes calves so freaking adorable also insulates them pretty well against the zapping power of the electric fence. It has to be pretty dang hot to keep those bouncing bundles of joy contained and safe from the dangers of the blacktop. And also keep our neighbors happy, because even though I think calves gamboling around in my flower garden would be the most perfect photo op ever; it isn't everyone's cup of tea. There's no accounting for taste, ya'll.

So anyway, I had a lovely morning playing farmer, fixing fences, and attempting to find all of the cows as they happily munched their way around five acres of two foot tall grass. While it is true that cows will "bunch" around a feeder, when they are grazing they spread out man. Regardless, I think they're all there, but a herd of all black cows moving around where you can barely see them makes it hard to be sure. The IL farm doesn't ear tag anyone so it is hard to know if they've been counted or not when I can't see their faces to know who they are. 

I got the fence hot, and rigged it in a few places because I didn't have the tools with me to fix it permanently. That's going to be tomorrow morning's project. Dad has promised to teach me how to restring a broken high tinsel (really heavy duty steel wire that doesn't work like the light duty wire I am used to) section.

Now here is where things divulge from farm life to my personal beliefs, so if you don't really care about that then I encourage you to take this cow picture and go with my blessing, or file this one under knowing your farmer. Either way.

Have a Crooky!

After I finished up with my farming for the morning I made a decision. A decision that I knew would have some repercussions, namely  that it would make feeding later a bit of a difficulty. A decision that I don't regret in the least.

I decided to wear a maxi dress and jacket, and I believe that EVERY person other than Captain America had something to say about it. Please note that I still hadn't done my hair, or worn make up, and this thing was like the yoga pant of the dress world.

What I did not anticipate was the barrage of questions: "Why are you so dressed up?" "Who died?" "That jacket doesn't go with that." "You can't work in that." "You're overdressed for feeding aren't you?" This and comments like them, from at least eleven people.

My inner monologue had a field day. "Because I wanted to mess with your world view." "I'm actually my own evil twin." "I wanted to spend all day defending my clothing choices." "It was hot." "It was easier than trying to find a clean pair of jeans," as most of mine have some sort of marking on them whether it is a stain from the cows or from farm equipment repair. "I just got the dress and I delight in it." "I just wanted to?" "It is coral, so I probably wouldn't wear it to a funeral." "Overdressed? Pioneer women pulled plows in dresses, you know." The list goes on and on, but it raises the question, why do I have to defend my choices?

As long as I am not indecent or breaking any policies on my dress, of course. If I was running around like Lady Godiva on a four wheeler I could see someone stopping me and asking what made me make that particular clothing choice for the day. (Ease of cleaning by the way, that is all I can come up with. Or maybe a severe mental break...)

I just wrote about my realization that I was a farmer, and you know nine times out of ten I dress like one, but I am also a grown woman who likes to wear something that flows around my ankles when I walk every so often. So what if I have to hike it up and tuck in in my bra to make it a mini and keep it from getting puppy prints on it? That's my prerogative.

I guess what I am trying to say is this: when did it become our job to judge one another, and not just delight in each other and the unique qualities that we each bring to the table?

I think that goes far beyond clothing choices too. I am PASSIONATE about what I do, and how I think that livestock should be raised; but I have to appreciate what other farmers do and why they make the choices that they make when it comes to their life and livelihood. Grassfed beef, free range chickens, and organic gardening are clear choices for me, but I don't have to bring anyone else down to bolster that belief.

I'm not sure all other farmers could rock a coral maxi/mini dress and muck boots, but I can; and similarly to my beliefs about the food industry and animal husbandry I respectfully refuse to apologize and make excuses for that, even while acknowledging that it isn't for everyone.

Now, if you don't mind, I am going to go spin circles in my flowy skirt to Taylor Swift's "Shake it off" and see if the cows try to eat it.

I think I'm just a farmer.

I just saw a Facebook post about: "Is the term'Farmer's Wife' outdated in 2015?" And while, no, I don't think it is. That is something that has been bothering me. There has been a big push to recognize women in farming lately; and I get it, but at the same time I don't. I've grown up a farmer's daughter. I have believed that I would be a farmer's wife. But I am both of those things, and neither of them. I'm a farmer in my own right. When push comes to shove it isn't going to be just my future husband and hypothetical sons out there working. I will be too. I already am. And you had better damn well know that any daughter I have will be too. If she is efficient enough to do it in a sundress, who am I to say no? She'll be doing her own dang laundry though.

But that wouldn't make her less of a farmer. And it doesn't make me less of one.

Why haven't I embraced it? Why haven't I stopped being a farmer's daughter and taken my mantle of farmer and worn it with flair? Because , let's face it, bedazzle that B***** because I'm rocking it already. I'm wondering how many of you are in the same boat. Am I the only one?

When the fence is down, who fixes it? Sometimes I do.

When the cows are out, who threatens them with death and curses until they go back where they belong? Sometimes I do.

When there is a cow having birthing problems, who is shoulder deep in her lady parts trying to save the calf? Sometimes I am.

When the fields need brush hogged, who is out there working on their tan? Sometimes I am.

When it comes time to work cows, who face plants in all the cow mud? Me. Right here. This girl. 

Pretty much always. I'm a clutz like that.

When there is anything going on with the farm, who is involved? Sometimes I am.

You know what, just because I have to preface those things with "sometimes" doesn't make me any less of a farmer than my dad (who sometimes, okay, frequently isn't around!). It also doesn't make me less of a farmer than my friends who work day jobs and farm on the evenings and weekends. They are only farming "sometimes" too. And you know who else is "sometimes" farming? Their wives.

Most of the row croppers I know have wives that can drive a tractor, or pull wagons to get the harvest in. They feed bottle calves, chickens, children, and hungry husbands. They handle mowing or watering, or whatever they have to do when their loved ones are occupied elsewhere. A few of them are even stay home wives and get the great jobs of riding around the county looking for the missing cows that broke out of the fence, because "they didn't have to work." Hah. Right. Because in addition to taking care of all the things that you don't have time to, they can whip up a church picnic worthy cake in the blink of an eye. Who says that isn't work? I'm frankly in awe of their level of awesome.

Guess what gals, you aren't just farmers wives or daughters. According to the dictionary, you're farmers. "A person who owns, or manages a farm." "A person who cultivates land or crops, or raises livestock." Bottle feeding calves is raising livestock. It's really freaking cute livestock. And technically I think farm kids could count as livestock if push comes to shove. Goodness knows that you have a hard time separating them from the livestock in many cases! ;)

Now, I'm not trying to go all "girl power" on you, but seriously, let's give ourselves the respect we deserve.

Because we are awesome, and we are farmers.

But I guess we are more than that too, and if THAT is what "farmer's daughter", "farm wife", or "farmer's wife" means to you then I get it; but I should start making "Farm goddess" t-shirts, 'cause what you guys do just isn't humanly possible.

PS: If any of you feel like taking a lowly farmer under your wing and telling me your church cake recipe, or how on earth you manage to look that nice and still walk on actual dirt please feel free! God knows I could use the help! :D