Agvocacy, Heinlein, and chicken butchering

I’ve waited awhile to publish this, because I know that it reflects a pretty delicate topic. That being said, I think that it is my responsibility as an agvocate and a person to try to explain to others where I’m coming from.

Here goes: growing up on a farm I’ve always been fairly in touch with my food sources. I knew that hamburger came from cows, and that chickens are in fact, made of chicken. So, I guess compared to many I was already more involved with my food than a lot of people nowadays.

That being said, I had never knowingly eaten one of our cows. (Who knows what happened once they were shipped – surely they ALL went on to become someone’s herd bull, right? RIGHT!?!?!) Or any other animal that I had grown. I can remember scoffing at an acquaintance when she suggested that I butcher my own chickens. “I could never do that!” I thought it was horrible. She was horrible. She was heartless. She was cold. But she was right. Somewhere along the line my thinking changed. I guess I’ve got to eat some crow, or more literally chicken.

That’s right. Captain America and I butchered 20 chickens.

Based on the reactions of the two friends I have shared the experience with already I’m guessing that you’re either going to tell me that I am “as extreme as the people who climb Mt. Everest”, or stare at me slack jawed in abject horror. So, before I get started, let me share with you WHY it was important to me to butcher chickens.

A few years ago I went on a cruise with friends and the captain of our little catamaran caught a fish for dinner. I had never seen a fish killed before. Actually, I had never seen anything butchered before. It was a very eye opening experience. I said a prayer for that fish and I swore I would never again take any life for granted – fish, fowl, bug, or beast. Previously I was content to live with a nice protective layer of cellophane shielding me from the reality that there is a smidge of accuracy to the whole “meat is murder” bit, but no longer. I decided that if I was going to continue to eat meat it was my responsibility to make sure it was as ethical as possible.

Basically, if I couldn’t stomach seeing a cow turned into burger, I needed to stop eating them. If I couldn’t actually be a part of my food chain then I didn’t respect the creature that had given up its life for me. I don’t think this is right for everyone, but for me being raised around and loving animals it was a choice I had to make. I felt like I owe it to them.

That’s the number one reason that I had to do this. I love those critters, and I want them to have great lives and then suffer as little as possible. I can eat those roosters and know that they spent their days running around the yard, eating bugs, annoying the dogs, and doing rooster things without ever being locked in a tiny cage or treated cruelly (except by each other because roosters are MEAN). I know that their deaths were as swift and painless as we could make them.

That cellophane wrapper on a frozen package of chicken breasts is the best insulation from reality that I know. Thin clear plastic sanitizes the world. It keeps the messy reality at bay. Those tenders were once living, breathing creatures. Every bite of chicken wasted is a death in vain.

After watching them die and doing my part to turn them from roosters into packages of chicken, I feel like I can better appreciate their lives. My life. The world. How delicate life really is. The careful balance of things.

Yeah. I’m kind of a melodramatic hippy about it.

**Warning: Things might get a little graphic and disturbing from here on in, so if you’re the kind of reader who would respond to butchering chickens with abject horror you should probably not keep reading.**

So, what was it like? This was our process: CA creates a headless chicken and my job is to simply grab the chicken corpse and hang it up so that the fluid drains. That sounds easy enough, right? I got the easy job. The clean job. I didn’t have to murder anything so I thought I choose correctly. Ha. By the end of it I looked like an axe murderer, and CA (the actual axe murderer) wasn’t even stained. Go figure.

I had always pictured “running around like a chicken with your head cut off” to mean running in circles, maybe some zigzags; but the first time I saw a chicken with its head cut off I understood that what I pictured when I heard that colloquialism was dead wrong. Chickens don’t run with their heads cut off, not even a little bit, or at least ours didn’t. They leap four frickin’ feet in the air and flop all over the yard like bloody Koosh balls. Have you ever tried to catch an uncooperative dog? You know where you’ll run up to it and then suddenly it practically teleports 20 feet away? It’s like that, only ickier. Much ickier.

Heinlein was right, the purpose of laughter is to keep from crying. 

Faced with the horrible landscape before me I started cackling like a mad woman.  I’m pretty sure it was either that or start sobbing uncontrollably.

After the fluids drained out, we would cut one down, dunk it in 165 degree water a few times to loosen the feathers and drop it in CA’s homemade chicken plucker (that worked like a fricking champion). If you ever plan on doing this I would highly recommend looking into a Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker. It made the process much more efficient. The spinning tub with rubber fingers removes the feathers very easily. I plucked one by hand in my great-grandma's memory, and that was enough to convince me that some things are DEFINITELY glorified in the sustainable living magazines.

After that, I would remove the feet and pass it on to CA to clean it the rest of the way. He has been field dressing deer and other wild game for years, and I’m guessing that’s a transferable skill because he rocked. We discarded the organs to become dog food. As my grandpa would have said, “waste not, want not.” Also, by home butchering we were able to be sure that every usable bit got used.  That made the hippy part of my head very happy. 

The next step was to place the chickens in a circulating cold water bath until we finished cleaning them. Then we wrapped each one in butcher paper and put it in the chest freezer.

We easily could have added another step and boned the birds, but I prefer to roast them whole so that I can toss the carcasses into a crock pot and make my own broth. Plus, truthfully, I was exhausted. It was only about six hours of work, but it was pretty draining. Though, now I have enough chicken to last for about six months which is pretty cool.

So, yeah. That was my weekend. How was yours?

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.

Barnyard Tales Chapter 9: Bull Ramping

It isn’t every day that your family invents a new sport. In my family it was only once: on a fateful Mother’s day in the 90’s.

I remember it well. We were waiting to go to my grandma’s house. Mom was pissed that dad had taken the four wheeler to go bring down a few bull calves that had broken out and into general pop. I was overly eager. Grandma Dot’s place was my FAVORITE place in the whole wide world, and for some reason my seven or eight year old mind had decided that not only were we going to grandma’s house, since we had time to kill we were gonna go in style.

Screw the fact that I didn’t know how to ride yet. I worked for over an hour lugging a saddle out of the barn only to lose interest in cleaning and oiling it after, oh, about ten seconds. I remember leaving it hanging haphazardly across an old feeder and trotting up to my dad when I saw him slowly walking back to the house. I should have realized something was wrong at that point, but no. I had a one track mind. Grandma’s? Can we go now? How about now? Why aren’t you running to the car? We need to leave, NOW! I left the saddle. It got rained on. Mom was, uhm, displeased.

Dad meanwhile had stumbled up to the porch and kicked the kitchen door until mom came to let him in the house.

I remember coming in a while later and seeing him with bright silver duct tape wrapped around his shirt in a makeshift splint. He couldn’t talk, but mom thought he’d broke a few ribs. To hear her tell the tale of finding the fourwheeler is a thing of beauty.

She wandered high and low around the pastures. With dad’s injuries she searched gullies, and ditches; assuming like most would have that he had flipped the ATV in a ditch rather than by inventing the most extreme animal sport in the good ole U.S. of A.. Much to her surprise she found the four wheeler sitting on all four wheels on a gently sloping curve of a hill. The only oddity was the occasional tuft of black angus hair sticking to grass and wafting on the breeze.

It took two days for my dad to regain the ability to speak. When he did, a legend was born. Dad had been riding after the calf, chasing him high and low. The young bull had zigged and zagged, bolted through brush and ditch without a care; and still my dad and the four wheeler had been on him like a cocklebur. But there on that gentle swell of a hill, when my father was in high gear because there were no ditches in sight, the calf turned the tables. Well, not so much the tables as he turned himself and lowered his head. Dad couldn’t brake or downshift fast enough. The four wheeler flew right up that cow’s neck and dad flew right off of it. He tried to kick away from the four wheeler, but did not succeed. When he came to he was alone, in pain, and only vaguely aware of the four wheeler idling quietly in the distance. He stood up, hurt enough to sit back down, and decided then and there that sitting back down was a bad idea. I’m pretty sure he crawled most of the way back to the house.

Mom discovered later that he had a perfect 2”x2” square on his side. When he kicked off the four wheeler he went the wrong direction. The four wheeler had a square steel tube for a seeder bolted to the back and the full force of the flying machine centered on that tube as it landed upside down on his ribs and bounced off just as pretty as you do please. 

Clearly he should have got 10 points from the Russian judge for the excellent dismount.

Fun fact: three weeks later he reached for a towel and discovered that his shoulder had been dislocated the entire time. Do NOT try this one at home kiddies. Not only was dad beat up, that poor bull calf went crazy every time he heard an engine. Sheesh. Talk about PTSD.

Have you ever been eye stalked by a cow?

 

You know those people at the gym that stare at you while you exercise? That make you feel judged, and badly about yourself? The ones that make that internal voice go, “Oh crap. I’m not working hard enough. Fast enough. I must look horrible in this spandex shirt!” Yep.

Meet the mother of those people. A cow.

You're not even able to work fast enough to keep me fed. Amateur.

Let me set the stage for you. A few weeks back I posted about my abusive relationship with the cows and I mentioned that I had spent several hours cleaning the barn. This is a set of before and after photos of the lovely project.

Something doesn't look quite right.
And no, it isn't the fact that the stalls are full of 30 years worth of junk!

Step one complete! Note the height change!
Also note that this is about when I realized that my radio was on AM.
And that was why I couldn't listen to anything other than radio Disney...
I was dedicated dammit. I also know the words to "Let it go."

Let it go, let it go. I'm not cleaning this anymore!
Let it go, let it goooo! Almost ready to close up the doors.
I don't care. What the cows say.
Let them moo onnnn!...The hay never bothered me anyway!

You see that wonderfully compressed timber? And the one with the hole in it? Yeah. That was what prompted my cow-stalking gym time. The dang barn was falling down. It is always something! 

And yes, I have an entire barnyard version of the song. Go ahead. Judge all ya'll want. When Disney comes knocking on my door you'll see! ;)

Attempted Murder, Barnyard Style.

Ah, spring. It is so welcome here in southern Illinois, especially after the never ending winter we had this past year. The freshness in the warm air stirs up all sorts of desires.

The people are gardening, birds are chirping, the grass is greening, and the bulls are trying to kill each other...  in the lake.

Yes. That’s right. It is spring. Time for Bull Match 2014!

Along with the warming temperatures comes a “warming of the blood” as it were. Usually the two ‘ole guys butt heads and kick each other. It is all in good fun until they are having a stand off in front of your tractor while you’re trying to move hay and you have somewhere to be. Their bellering across the hills blends with the sounds of the birds, cats, and stallions; a distinct song of love and lust and, well, SPRING. It is always a welcome sight, and frankly is one of those things like the return of the robins that lets me know that winter is finally gone.

But not this year. This year it got scary.

So many things fell into place Friday. I was taking the afternoon off to go hang out with Captain America, so I was home to help dad load up calves to go to a farmer friend of ours who will be feeding them out at his house. It was single handedly the WORST calf round-up of which I have ever been a part.

What usually takes us 15 minutes turned into renegade calves escaping to haunt the woods along the driveway, and two hours of trying to sort the remaining bull calves and heifers. We try to ship only the boys to feed out.

 I know that they will have a good home while they are with him, and that it was significantly less traumatic than being run through a sale barn, but it always breaks my heart a little bit when a rough black nose pops out of the trailer window to nuzzle me. Or to try and find a weak point to escape the trailer, but I’m going with nuzzle…

Anyway, we finally got the trailer loaded and I happened to hear splashing in the lake, which was odd because usually the cows don’t start swimming until it gets to be much warmer. I turned and peered down at the muddy brown water trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t really process what I was seeing. There were two black shapes in the water. One was barely above, and the other was… throwing itself on top of the barely swimming one? What the hell? I walked a few steps closer and realized that they were the two bulls. Brisket was shoving Dale into deeper water.

“Dad! I think your bulls are trying to kill each other.” I called over to him, amused at the time, not yet understanding that I was watching an actual death match and not just horsing around.

“Get me a gun.” He yelled as he sprinted towards the lake. I took off for the house heedless of my muck covered boots. I almost spun out on the pale hardwood floor as I slid in front of the gun closet and opened the door to find… not a single gun there. I stared at the vacuum cleaner and cursed. I didn’t even live here anymore, where had he moved his cow stopping guns? I slammed the door shut and sprinted into my parent’s bedroom, breathlessly. Surely there were still some weapons hidden in the drawer. I found a gun case and turned to run downstairs, out the door, and towards the lake as fast as my legs could carry me.

I saw dad nearing the dam now, yelling and throwing rocks at the bulls. Dale’s nose was just barely above the water as Brisket tried to repeatedly throw his bulk on top of him to hold him under the cold brown water. Brisket really was trying to kill his rival, and he was smart enough to do it. Knowing that they were well matched on land he had somehow got Dale into the water and had quickly taken advantage of the situation. I sprinted towards dad, heedless of the pain in my side, and got to him just as he managed to get Brisket out of the lake. Dale laid along the shore. His huge chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. I tossed the gun to dad who immediately removed it from its case and pointed it at Brisket; as the huge bull made a move like he was going back for seconds.

“What the hell, Lauren? You brought me an unloaded gun? What am I supposed to do? Throw it at him?” Dad glared at me over his shoulder as he reached down for a rock to throw at Brisket’s big black head.

“You’re lucky I could even find one!” I yelled back, exasperated. “I don’t even live here anymore. I don’t know where you guys keep your guns!” Yes. I managed to find the ONE unloaded gun in the whole damn house.

Brisket let out a few short bellows followed by a long one. From the body language I could tell he was taunting Dale. After dad stung him with the rock he sauntered up the hills towards the herd of cows. Three of the girls made moves towards Dale, but as Brisket strode past and talked at them they eventually turned to follow him. At that, Dale finally had the energy to heave himself up onto dry land again and dad and I started the journey back around the lake; herding him with words and well placed mud clods as he bellered and pawed out his anger.

Many times as we walked I wondered if I was going to survive. There are few places quite as dangerous as walking ten feet behind an already pissed off 1,600 lb animal and throwing things at him. There is something very scary when that said animal turns towards you pawing and rubbing his head in the dirt, snorting; and all you have is a handful of dried dirt to protect yourself with. Sometimes I question my sanity.

Eventually we got him locked up in protective custody with our remaining heifers. His calls of discontent are echoing off the barn walls now. They are not the happy sounds of spring that they once were. I can only imagine what would have went down if dad and I hadn’t been home. I don’t know what we would have assumed had happened to him (I'll take Brisket in the library with the candlestick!), but I can guarantee that we would have never thought murder. It was almost the perfect crime.

So begins the hunt for a new bull. Can’t have Brisket throwing his psychopathic intelligence to the next crop of calves.

Seriously. He’s like the bovine version of Gacy.

"Cowmunes" and the difference between a small farm and an industrialized one

Perspective is everything. Growing up it didn’t seem weird to me that we left our cows alone and only medicated them if they were sick or injured. I didn’t realize that on other farms people would feed them things other than hay, grass, and trace minerals. Okay, and sweet feed to the bull that one time when I was eight and my mom had a heart attack because I was petting him and hand feeding him his “treat”  and I never did it again because she yelled so much. Of course, that was also the year that I learned I shouldn’t share my bologna sandwich and sugar cookies with my horse, despite her love of them. But that is a whole other story. Growing up our cattle operation went something like: check them, count them, and leave them be until round up day.

Apparently that is progressive. I’ve been reading a lot about the benefits of grass fed beef. Not only is it more nutritionally sound than what you would buy at the store, but it also is better for the cows. Go figure. That’s the way we have been doing it my entire life.

We joke amongst ourselves that we have a “cowmune.” The momma’s share calves. Any calf can walk up to any cow with milk and nurse at their pleasure. Heifers “babysit” groups of five or seven little ones while the mothers go for a swim in the lake. I have to walk up and poke the cows to get them to move out of my way when I am bringing them their round bales. The old gals live out their lives surrounded by generations of their daughters and sisters. Most of them have never been vaccinated, eaten anything other than a grass derivative, or required medical treatment. They wander at their will through woods and fields munching on whatever tidbit that takes their fancy. They come to the barn and moo their displeasure with the grass hay until dad or I go up in the barn loft to throw them a few bales of alfalfa hay, or let them in the yard so that they can munch on the grass on the other side of the fence.

Seriously, if cows could play drums, there would be a circle going. Someone would have found their spirit guide by now.

Even our two bulls don’t fight much. Instead they bellow back and forth like two little old men discussing the news over their coffee cups. Give them some tie dye, because this is not what a “farm” is supposed to look like.

At least not the industrialized monsters that raise most of the cows that wind up on super market shelves. Line those babies up and run them through a squeeze chute because when you are being finished in a feed lot you’re going to get sick without a bunch of vaccines and antibiotics. Preventative medicine is where it is at when you are cramming everyone on top of each other. I get that. Cows eating candy instead of grass? (If you don’t believe me check out this article on CNN. This practice has been happening for awhile. I have even heard of them being fed leftover tacos!) That I have a harder time with, but I guess even the big time farmers have to have their margins so that they can eat too. Right? Where is the balance between doing what is right for your animals and land, and making a profit? Land prices are outrageous, and the taxes on them aren’t cheap. Even with the subsidies that the new farm bill gives to large scale farmers. It lays out plenty of hoops that are expensive to jump through too.

That’s one of the reasons why grass fed is so much higher in the grocery store. Not only are grass fed animals slower growing, usually, you are paying more to help a small scale farmer survive without selling out to one of the big boys. After reading about everything that happens to cows in industrialized feed lots I started looking into grass fed operations where we could sell our cows. I found that all of the local operations operate on less than 500 acres. Which is pretty freaking cool. Small scale farms are slowly disappearing from the United States, and with them the other “cowmunes” of the world. I love our hippie cows. I’m pretty psyched about doing my part to help them survive. Are you?

The sucky part.

When I got home last night I found Pearl down on a hillside. Her hind legs were straddling the lowest of the boards on our white vinyl fence. Fear gripped my heart, causing my stomach to drop lower than my knees.


It immediately took me back to when my baby boy, Mac the Tennessee walking horse, used to lay down and be unable to stand up again on his own. He had that problem for years and I got to be quite proficient at flipping him over and bracing him so that he could get up again.
 
I did my best to soothe Pearl, and her blind best friend Cabernet, as I slid the boards out and tried to use the skills Mac taught me to roll her over. I struggled against her weight and gravity unsuccessfully. Hoping against hope that she was just laying down and not getting ready to transition to the next stage of life. At her age transitioning was likely, but this was the horse that snuck out to try and graze while I was moving her hay on Saturday. Spry and persnickety are her hallmarks. I called my parents to come home and help me, and then I got to work praying and trying to get her up on her sternum.

Pearl was whickering and flailing her legs. Cabernet was calmer than I have seen her in years. She is normally a basket case any time her "seeing eye horse" is more than three inches away from her nose. Mom and dad arrived within seconds of each other and we rolled Pearl over and tried and tried to help her stand several times. Dad volunteered to go get the sling and the tractor. Mom backed up and surveyed the situation. "Guys, she isn't trying to get up. That isn't what her legs are doing. She's dying." About that time her breath went arrhythmic and her neck arched back in the way that only means one thing. She had passed.

I went up to the large pasture, praying aloud that one of the horses there would step up to the plate and be a friend for Cabernet since Pearl had passed. Luna was the first horse up to me, and I buried my hands in her coat whispering to her how sorry I was that her momma had gone on while I petted her fuzzy yellow hair. Her half sister, Pissante, came up about three feet away from Luna's head and neighed a neigh I have never heard before directly at her. It was odd. I know the sounds for calling distant herd members, or weaning, or for food, or fear, or anger; but never anything like this. This whole thing was made even stranger by the fact that Luna and Pissante are quite frankly the two hardest horses to catch and work with that we have in that pasture. Luna is known to jump 5' tall cattle panels to get away from me rather than be touched, and Pissante, well let's just say she earns her name. But not right now.

I brought another mare, Zippy, down from the large pasture hoping that she would buddy up with Cabernet. She is one of the lowest horses on the totem pole out there, and I hope that means she is timid. All of the other horses I have tried over the last few months have been very mean to Cab: biting, chasing, and kicking. When I introduced them to each other Zip turned her ears back, which means that she wasn't too happy being sniffed all over by a stranger, but she didn't pin them down or try to hurt Cabby with tooth or nail. I'm taking it as a good sign. As Truly and Grin both went into kicking fits.

However, as soon as I turned Zippy loose Cabernet went to stand next to Pearl, who was awaiting my dad's removal expertise. Cab raised her top lip, scenting for her best friend, and then lowered her nose to the body. Slowly and methodically she started licking and nipping at Pearl the way she did with her foals when she was trying to encourage them to stand. I watched her as she groomed her friend methodically, stopping every so often to nuzzle for a few moments before returning to her licking.


Tears were streaming down my cheeks by the time I had to turn away. I think that horse is capable of more love and grief than I am. My heart breaks for her.
Whoever says that animals aren't capable of emotions should witness what I did. I have seen cows line up for funeral processions, and mares mourn for their foals, but never have I seen anything so heartbreaking as Cabernet licking and loving, and trying to get her friend to stand up.

This is the part of life on a farm that I hate. Frankly, death, even when it isn't tragic, sucks.

This is why I drink.

We all have those days. The ones where Murphy’s law rears its ugly head and everything that can go wrong, does. But there are some days where things don’t just go wrong. There are some days where incidents stack up like flapjacks and then someone actually hid dynamite in that stack and just as you think you have it under control because you rock at deep breathing exercises everything explodes into a sticky gooey mess. You know what seems to encourage that to happen? Livestock…

 

Don’t get me wrong, the critters are what gets me out of bed in the morning and I love them; but when the wind chills are heading towards -35 I really just want everyone to cooperate. Would that be too much to ask? Would it? Would it!

 

We haven’t had much FRIGID weather in southern Illinois. The last time it was this miserable I wasn’t even born. Winter is always a pain in the butt. It brings challenges like frozen water troughs and blown breakers. Frigid winters bring even more fun like frozen water lines, horses kicking each other away from the bale rings, horses and cows consuming twice as much hay as they would otherwise, being afraid that the chickens will freeze despite their two heat lamps, or my personal favorite: getting so cold that the trough heaters freeze over and you have to chop holes in the lake with an axe like a freaking lumberjack. But I handled all that. I was a hay throwing, trough hacking fiend. I got this. *insert cool chin tilt*

 

Sure. I’m half frozen and bundled in so many layers of pants that I can’t bend my knees. But I got this. I’m a farmer damnit. I will rise to each challenge with grace and dignity and love for all of my charges. I will throw hay to the cows like a queen on parade tossing flowers to her people. I will sit on the frozen lake patiently blowing on the extension cords trying to thaw them enough to be able to unplug one heater and replace it with another with the poise of an ancient priestess breathing life into a flame. I will handle the horses deciding to join the cow herds with calm and compassion…

 

Hahaha. Yeah. Right. I was good ‘til the horses part. When Dandy decided he wanted to go on walkabout away from the HUGE horse pasture (with its own hay mind you) into the small pasture where we winter the cows. I lost my calm and went into a rage. I turned just in time to see him. The lanky palomino gelding wandered through the fence. I leapt from the tractor like a super hero. My ankles ached with the impact of the frozen ground despite the thick cover of snow. I ran after him, screaming like a mad woman. I had to get him back on the horse side of the fence before he enticed his fellows to tag along. The horses chase the cows away from the hay sometimes, and that was dangerous in the cold. He could not be allowed to live with the cows.

 

I don’t know if you know this, but believe it or not; chasing, screaming, and cursing at the top of your lungs is not a good way to catch a horse that has decided to be a cow. He ran. His eyes rolled back in his head with fear and I grabbed a clod of what I am going to pretend was dirt and lobbed it at him. It missed, and didn’t redirect him back towards the horses like I had hoped. He ran further into the cow herd and the other horses flooded into the cow pasture as if I had loosed the gates of hell. I grabbed a tree branch, slipping and sliding on the snow and cow pies. I tried valiantly to dissuade the horses. It didn’t work. They saw the crazy lady with the big stick and scattered like ashes on the wind. I threw the branch at Dreamer. She gave me a go to hell look as it sailed past her and ran straight for the safety of a group of cows.

 

Not only did frustration weep out of my eyes in angry tears that quickly froze to my eye lashes, but it spewed forth from my mouth like a waterfall. Whoever came up with the expression “cursing like a drunken sailor” has clearly never been around a farmer with uncooperative livestock. The words coming out of my mouth were not only anatomically impossible and incredibly descriptive of the mental states of all the horses; they were also creatively drenched in matriarchal slander.

 

I cursed so much, that the horses wouldn’t even come close to me when I went back later with a grain bucket. Pause a second and let that sink in. I had a grain bucket. That normally elicits a response that the Pied Piper would be proud to have. Still, they would not come near me.

 

Maybe I should take up yoga, or vodka. Definitely vodka.

Oh, the chickens...

A few weeks ago I let the chickens out while I was moving hay. I have done this possibly a hundred times before. This time though, oh this time was different. I made my rounds with the tractor and it was nearly dusk when I dismounted and found this:

Yes. That is a massive pile of chicken feathers.

And this (and a lot more of the same, but you get the drift):

 

Seriously. Doesn't that look like a whole chicken?

Needless to say I panicked. I ran into the chicken house crying and begging the chickens to be alive. Seven out of eleven chickens were sitting on the roost.

I ran back outside and started trying to track the chickens down. I found a white hen bleeding and defeathered curled up in a pile of grass. There was a caramel colored hen missing side feathers wedged between two round bales. One hen, another red had wedged her head behind a square bale and her slightly less fluffy butt was still clearly visible from the barn door. There was only one chicken missing. Black Bart the banty rooster.

I ran all over with a flashlight, crying, and searching to no avail. I beat myself up the entire night about how scared he must be. He had to be cold and alone and hurting! There were enough feathers out there to stuff a pillow! He was probably dead, but I couldn't give up hope. After all, each hen had lost a lot of feathers and they were traumatized, but alive.

The next morning Cogburn the rooster crowed, and echoing from across the paddocks was Bart's reply. He was alive! Dad and I raced towards him from different ends of the paddock, but General the beagle decided to give chase faster than either of us could keep up. He chased Bart back into the woods. Moments stretched into minutes as we searched high and low for that little black rooster. Suddenly dad shouted. He had found him! All that was visible from between the gnarled roots of a fallen tree was a tiny bit of red comb. Bart had one heck of a hiding spot! I dug him out and returned him home.

I am happy to report that the chickens are all recovering; albeit funnier looking now (Just look at poor Bart! He looks like half a chicken!), and they no longer beg to be let outside their run.

Batwings and Lake Monsters, oh my!

What a weekend! We were surprise attacked with a load of hay Friday night, which is why it was a really good thing that I had decided to have a stall cleaning party while the horses ate.

Ice down the water trough. It's a barn party!

I don't know why none of my Facebook friends took me up on the invite. Seriously. What else could they be doing at nine pm on a Friday? Sheesh. I know where the party is at. We could have thrown down... some hay. Because it was stacked so high on the trailer that the guys bringing it by took out one of the overhead lights. Can't wait to fix that one. Or watch dad fix that one. Tell you what, I either need to get a lot handier, win the lottery and buy a farm hand's service, or get on the whole boyfriend thing. My poor dad has way too much to do.

Which is how he talked me into facing one of my biggest challenges. Spatial reasoning. I royally suck at anything having to do with trailers, spreaders, mowers, you name it. If I can jackknife it, I will. Can I misjudge the width and wipe out fences? Yup. I am all over that. I give a new meaning to the phrase, "Cleaning the fence row."

Duh,duh,duh, na, na batwing!

Despite my poor driving skills and complete lack of spatial reasoning. I successfully learned how to use the batwing mower, and I only hit a gate a little bit! Given the fact that I single handedly ripped all the downspouts off the barn with a manure spreader I am going to count it as a win! I didn't even jack knife it and bust the turney shaft thing (PTO). I am such a good farmer's daughter that I scare myself sometimes. And probably the neighbors too because I wear a bikini to brush hog. Hey, a girl has to get her tan on some how. Don't judge.

It isn't as if I can lay out all day on the lake. Well, I could, but we seem to have a lake monster.

I was innocently taking photos of the horses to show Captain America when I noticed it in the background.



Duh na. Duh na. It looks like we have our own Nessie. Can you hear the jaws music?



Duh na. Duh na. Duh na. Duhna. Duhna. Duhna!

Seriously, who knew cows could swim that fast?

Pool time, cow style

Partying until the cows come home?

The record heat in southern Illinois over the past couple of days has lead to a strange occurance for May. My cows are being beach bums. Normally they at least wait until Memorial day like everyone else!

I guess it is time to add opening the pool to the to-do list, and start praying no one gets stuck in the lake again!

DIY Electric Shock Therapy!

Last spring my horse started having problems with coughing. He is a stallion, so we can’t run him out in the pasture with everyone else, and he has some special fencing requirements so I started out building him a pen from steel t-posts and electrified rope fence. I am not a very good fence builder.

After numerous afternoons of struggling to shove the post upright with the post hole driver on it, slam the post into the ground, and drop the driver on top of my head while pulling it off of the post (Okay, until I started driving the truck or four wheeler around to give myself the extra height I needed. Thank God no one saw it and put it on YouTube.) I finished it. Then the heat and drought made the grass die so I took a break.

Another month or two passed and I hung the wire. Then it was winter and well, Moon stayed in his private bungalow through the winter months. It was better than than kill the potential grass this spring. Then about a month ago everything finally fell into place! I was so proud of my gates. I wired the new fence into the existing system and felt so bad ass and accomplished that it was ridiculous. It might be crooked, but it was all mine! So, I tested the fence Saturday and guess what!

Yeah. It didn’t work. So frustrating. I spent my Sunday evening getting it hot, and in the process took down and replaced all of the old electric that had been lining the ladies’ front pasture fence. It was almost dark when I finished so I just threw the old wire in between my two new fences and I went back to get it all Monday.


Hot wire to left of me. Hot wire to the right! Here I am stuck in the midle with you!

Great plan right? Yeah. I tired to pick it all up without turning off the fencer. Because I’m dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

At least the fence is hot? Maybe?



All of the pain for this.
Maybe I can put a lightbulb in it and sell it as a piece of modern art?



The most beautiful calf in all the land!

 I set out yesterday on a valiant quest. A quest so noble, so crucial that none could deter me.

Susan looking cute? No, I will not fall into your viscious belly rub trap of doom, Susan! No matter how many times you try! I tore past her pleading eyes with an act of will so strong it should hold a record.

A herd of deer grazing across the pasture? Their mesmerizing motions carefully choreographed to drag my eyes away and tempt me ever closer to them? Ever farther from my goal? Their distracting presence calling me to pursue them even as they turned to lead me away in a game of tag I could never hope to win? No! I turned my heart to stone against their beauty.

A charming bull calf just coming into his own stood guard. Could I make it past such a sight? His personality was just beginning to bud as he snorted and nodded a challenge my way. How could I overcome such an obstacle of adorableness? I was so close to my goal, but I nearly stopped. For one fleeting moment I wanted nothing more than to lunge forward and cuddle his dirty, fuzzy face. But still I pushed myself forward.

And then I found her. My purpose. My star. My brand new baby girl. I was victorious! I located the princess! I felt like Mario as he gazed upon Peach, only far less romantic. My mission was complete, or at least as complete as it was going to get because her momma was NOT pleased with my attentions. For a moment I considered touching her, and then as mom lowered her head to charge I settled for a snapshot to commenorate my daring journey across hills and lakes to find this black beauty.

After all, I've already taken one cow to the face. I don't want to make it a habit!

Barnyard Tales Chapter 3. Cow Propping 101

“Don’t rock the cow. Don’t rock the cow baby. Don’t rock the cow. You’ll knock the cow over!”

That was the song mom was singing as I tried to roll Bessie into a kneeling position so that I could pull the sling under her again for the fifth time. The bits that I could see of the bright yellow material stood in stark contrast with her black hide. Bessie was uncooperative. She refused to help me by shifting her bulky cow body. The dense bones of her legs were nearly impenetrable barriers to my progress. They were almost as bad as the rest of her. Sprawled out on top of the sling like a sunbather. She simply stared at me, contentedly chewing her cud as I struggled with the most important one sided game of tug of war I have yet played.

My muttered curses melded in unholy harmony with mom’s music. “You could help me, you know? I can’t get this God forsaken thing to move!” Well, then Bess moved, but only to try to butt my leg out from under me with her raspy black nose. Cows have it out for me. First Buttercup, now Bessie. Maybe I should be more specific; ancient semi-paralyzed cows have it out for me.

Secretly, I believe they feel that killing me will extend their considerable life spans. That is the only possible explanation. Well, that and I keep giving the cute names. And they are pretty much left alone except when they are being fed, rounded up, or are on their deathbeds. So they’re wild cows of the plains! And maybe I try to pet them. Maybe I get some sort of thrill after facing a cow and living. It’s exhilarating.

Or at least it is when the cow is responsive. Bessie had not responded to all of the petting, coaxing, begging that mom and I could come up with except to begin licking and rubbing on my mom like a lovesick puppy. And the repeated head butts at me, but at least she wasn’t as hateful as Buttercup. After two weeks of vet checks, meds, and repeated bouts in the sling being carried by tractor from delectable grazing patch to delectable grazing patch she seemed to have decided that she either didn’t care to try to live anywhere except that spot anymore, or that her personal attendants would figure it out and she needn’t bother herself with such pesky details as standing on her own.

To be fair she had done very well in the early weeks of her decline. Dad had found her alone and stuck in the lake three times, having to wade into the recently swollen waters himself to try to pull her close enough to shore to use the tractor. It was a drought that year, and the first good rain brought all of the dust and debris with it into the quagmire of the lake bottom. He sludged forth valiantly fighting the muck with every step. Feeling it slide up his pant legs and through his socks. After several agonizing strides he met the cow face to face. She mooed at him plaintively. Her big brown eyes reflecting her distress. He maneuvered to her side, hoping to rock her free of the sludge clinging to her quickly cooling limbs. Slosh, slosh, slosh, he was nearly in position when the next step had no purchase. He slipped into a unknown hole up to his chest and was faced with a big black cow side of doom. The cow thrashed and the weight of his position sank in. If she fell over he would drown, pinned under a cow in the murky depths. With fear induced, God given strength he pushed the cow free of her muddy prison. The next two times were a repeat of the same, save that he knew the wily cow’s tricks and avoided the pit trap. Finally when we found her down outside of the lake we knew enough was enough.

She was down near the electric fence, which was working well. It was my parent’s anniversary. Time was short. Dad and I worked in haste to get her maneuvered into the sling. We worked too fast, because I nearly electrocuted myself on the fence while I was dragging the chain into position. Despite my near death experience, it wasn’t too bad. She worked with us, presumably trying to attack dad with her face so her body wasn’t actually impeding the movement of the sling most of the time as she repeatedly launched herself at him. We debated setting her free again when we saw she could stand of her own accord, but decided given her past history that we had to bring her up because the end was near and cow hospice had to commence.

That was how I found myself pulling for life and death on a tiny green strap, begging Bessie to help me to help her get the bright yellow sling in position. Mom stopped her song and added her strength to the fight. By our combined effort we got the sling under her. We quickly secured it with baling twine so it could not fall off again and raised her up with the front end loader so blood could flow to her feet. She seemed content; nosing through grass, hay, and cracked corn with reckless abandon. So we left her once more semi suspended with enough weight on her legs so that she could stand, but enough support that she couldn’t fall. It seemed an idyllic solution until the inevitable happened: I needed to use the tractor for something else.

We tried to lower her, but her Majesty was in a mood. She would not be standing of her own accord today, thank you very much. No matter how much we pleaded and massaged as soon as her weight was her own burden she crumpled to the ground like a broken building. What could we do? She seemed happy. She seemed to have quality of life. Should we end it for her? One look into her eyes and we decided no. There had to be another solution.

But what? What could give her support and blood flow besides the tractor? Then inspiration stuck like a bolt of lightning across the clear blue sky. We wedged square bales between her legs so that she was straddling them. She reached down to take a bite of hay between from between her legs. The thought of, “This could work.” echoed though our minds.

Little did we know that nature’s duplicity was about to strike. As we unhooked her she seemed to steady for a moment. Was that nervousness in her eyes, or just a trick of the rapidly darkening light? Slowly she began sliding from her hay bale throne in a bizarre parody of a slowly sinking ship. “Mayday! Mayday!” I screamed. “B1 is down! Repeat B1 is down!” What could we do? I ran over and braced myself against her, but there was only so long I could hold her up. A thousand pounds of cow is a lot to wedge yourself against, even when physics is on your side. Mom came running up carrying a four by four post. We propped her up and studied the situation. It looked like it would hold.  We waited long minutes with baited breath. The low rumble of the tractor was a dramatic counterpoint to our thoughts. Finally we deemed it structurally sound.

I raced to the tractor and leapt into the water filled seat. Muttered curses and pissed off moos resounded through my ears. The other cows were not pleased with my tardiness. I moved hay quickly, a combination of the herd’s displeasure and knowing our stop gap solution wasn’t a permanent one motivating me to speed. Did I make it? No, I pulled up just in time to watch majestic queen Bessie sink from her throne and happily begin pulling up grass.  I parked the tractor and walked inside, defeated.

I had just failed Cow Propping 101.

Barnyard Tales Chapter 2. Buttercup the Killer Cow

I should have known as soon as I had to dive away from the skunk butt in the barn that my day had taken a turn for the worse. That I tripped over an old well as I made my dramatic escape from the potential gaseous explosion should have sealed it. But no. In my limping ignorance I thought that a bruised shin and a little bit of blood was as bad as it was going to be.

Ha. Like the fates ever miss a chance to kick someone while they are down. I limped around valiantly finishing my other chores. Buckets of grain were distributed. Hay was going to be moved. My dad waited patiently on the tractor while I dragged the hose from trough to the low bucket being used to water Buttercup, our semi-paralyzed cow.

We had discovered her several days earlier, separated from the herd and wondered why. When we watched her try to escape our attentions it had become apparent. She had limited feeling and mobility in her hind end. Now, before you feel too sorry for her keep in mind that this is a geriatric cow. I’m not sure of the conversion rate of cow to people years, but she is pushing thirty in human years which has to be something like 110 in cow years. We can’t be like normal farmers that ship the gals when they are past their prime. No, we have a cow retirement home. Old age and its delights is something we have grown used to. So, we try to herd this cow towards the gate so she can spend her last days grazing in the safety of the yard. She wants none of it. She falls down and can’t get up, even with a massive injection of steroids. We get the tractor, and the sling. Because we are prepared like that. We maneuver her into the sling and carry her home swinging side to side in a hypnotic blur of black and yellow.

Magically, she regains enough function to stand as soon as she is in the yard and promptly hits me in the leg with her head. It goes numb. The cow hates me. I get it. I would be hateful too. She begins grazing. Mom pets the cow and gets a “love nudge." I feel vindicated.

Two days later the cow is down again. She viscously attacks my arm as I am trying to get her up. It goes numb. She starts licking my mom, even as she is trying to give me a blood clot and kill me. Cow has issues. Mom takes her side. Our animosity grows. Mom says it is because I have named the cow Buttercup.

Day four, the cow is back down. After much prodding I am persuaded to go near the hellion only to narrowly miss a nose thrust to my shin. She has it out for me. The cow hates my life. Maybe I should stop trying to pet her when she is down and semi-paralyzed. She is nuzzling my mother and licking her. Mom glares at me when I say bad things about the cow. Buttercup appears smug.

Day five dawns clear. It will be a good day. Then the skunk bit happens. I am paying too much attention to my shin and not enough to the cow as I drag the hose over to her bucket and begin to wait patiently for it to fill. It is my fault really. I know Buttercup hates me. She senses my weakness. My distraction is blood in the water. Maybe in cow logic if she kills me she can take my life force and live another hundred cow years. I can only guess that her motivation was strong, because she suddenly becomes un paralyzed and lunges, FROM LAYING DOWN MIND YOU, to execute a perfect uppercut with her head to my jaw.

Yes. I took a cow to the face. Be impressed.

I was stunned. There was something wrong. I couldn’t tell what it was. As I stumbled backwards (Yeah, I took a cow to the face and didn’t even fall. Boo yah!) I began doing a mental check of myself. I could move my jaw, but I didn’t want to talk. I could think. Was it clear? I thought so. Did I have a concussion? Had she damaged my neck? My thoughts seemed fuzzy.

Somewhere out of the haze I vaguely noticed dad climbing off of the waiting tractor to come over and kick Buttercup. Somewhere in my shaken brain I got very excited. “He’s standing up for me!” I thought with delight, even as I wondered why I was having a hard time saying the words aloud. Without missing a beat he came over to me and started laughing. “Can you do it again? I want to put it on YouTube.”

Gotta love my dad.

By the way, my jaw was dislocated. That’s why I didn’t want to talk.

Buttercup 4, Lauren 0.