The Mobile Home Woman | Our journey from urban homesteading to rural homesteading at Windhaven farm…

An official introduction…. Ebony, our American Guinea Hog…

Posted on May 31, 2013 by MobymomMay 31, 2013

About 6 weeks ago, we got a pig.

Precisely, we got a registered, pedigreed American Guinea Hog Gilt named Ebony. She is going to be one year old in June and we hope that she will be bringing new little piglets into the world in about four months or so, if all goes well!

You might wonder…. what is a American Guinea Hog? Where did we get her? Why haven’t you talked about her? Why is she so darn cute?

Well… here goes.

American Guinea Hogs are a smaller heritage breed of hog that is often called a homestead hog. They are one of the few true bred hogs in America, and were often used in the south by small farmers and plantations as yard pigs. They are part of the foundation stock of Kune Kune pigs and Black Hogs as well. The American Livestock Conservatory lists the American Guinea Hog as endangered as in 2004 there were only 400 or so registered animals. Now, the numbers are improving and I believe not too long ago it was about 2,000 registered animals.

Guinea Hogs are a slow growing hog that tends a little more towards the lard side, as opposed to being super lean. It takes about a year to 18 months to get a hog to market weight. They top out at about 250 pounds for boars and 170-180 for sows. They are considered a more gourmet cut of pork, with a very good taste and good carcass. They eat just about anything and love hay and grass pasture. Super easy keepers. They co-family their litters and have just wonderful temperaments. Ebony took a little while to cozy up to us, but now, she’s just a happy little gilt who acts a teeny bit like a dog or something. She’s still a hog, and still hard to wrangle without a little food treat and a prayer! But she does love her rubbies!

I had read about Guinea hogs many years ago and looked into them when we first got the farm. But most were either way too expensive, or too far away or just not available. One farm in Indiana had some and I remember emailing back and forth but in our final, let’s talk cost, email, the price for a boar and sow breeding pair was $1500! Yikes! Not in our budget for sure.

Well, that being said, I still love the idea of these little hogs. The origin of this “yard hog” was that you pretty much just let them roam around your homestead, foraging and eating snakes and such, scraps from the garden and whatever hay and weeds and such that they could find. They would breed two litters a year and when you needed a little pork, you just went out and grabbed one and poof! Pork! Since it wasn’t like a huge commercial hog, that would be a lot of meat to deal with, you could easily have a few meals, can or salt some and trade some out of a finished hog. They were a reasonable size. And best part? They were of good temperament so that you didn’t mind them being loose and around the farm. The children and chickens were safe around the American Guinea Hog.

When we raised our hogs last year, I have to tell you, they would not care what got in their pen, they would eat it, given a chance. We lost two turkey poults and a young hen to them. I feared for Maggie at times! Haha… however, they loved her… still 1,000 pounds of hog in a small area is a lot of pushing and shoving. There are many tales of farmers slipping and falling in the pig pen and the hogs do them in. Why do you think, in the original Wizard of Oz movie, the farm hands were SO worried that Dorothy might fall in the hog pen? Hmmm……

Not Ebony… she’s quite friendly and tolerant of other critters. In fact, the goatie girls often sneak in and steal her chow and Ebby just grunts and moves over. She’s quite polite for a hog.

Once she farrows a litter, she might be a little more protective of her brood, but even then I’ve heard they are very nice moms and tolerant of human intervention and attention. It’s part of the charm of these hogs.

So… how did we get this lovely little porker? It all happened on Facebook!

I started a local homesteading clan about a year ago on Facebook. I kind of thought we were the only weirdos that loved all this stuff. Turns out I’m quite wrong. Our group now has over 220 families and a very active group! You can visit here if you want… just click the link…

Northwest Ohio Homesteading Clan Facebook Group…

It was there that I met Daniel and Kristina. And they have a delightful little homestead just over the border into Michigan. And they raise sheep and chickens and goats and are into fiber arts and all sorts of similar things. And they raise American Guinea Hogs! And they had a couple for sale!!!

Well, we all got to talking and the next thing you know, I’m trading 7 fleeces, a hand crank grain mill, a juicer and a pasta machine for a pig!!! How cool is that? And with a dance card ticket for one free love fest with their boar coming up this month in June!!!

I love that she rode in the back of their sedan car. My kind of people!!!

Wow, she has grown in the last 6 weeks or so… I hadn’t noticed as much until I saw that picture! Kristina said that they really get this sort of growth spurt at 12 months… they seem little until all the sudden, they are much bigger. And you don’t notice right away!

One of the things that we plan for our little piggery is to have them outside and pastured as much as possible. With traditional hogs, that is hard without electric fencing and a good deal of room. But with Guinea Hogs, they are really pretty fun to have about and loose. Granted, Ebony can get into trouble pretty quick, even though she’s small, she’s strong and she has figgered out how to get under chicken coop fences pretty easily! I think I see a nice little hog panel paddock for her and her children in the near future! (part of that lessons learned post of earlier today….) Still, it’s neat to know that we don’t have to run in terror if the pigs get out! In fact, we can enjoy them on a nice spring day!

Our plans at the moment are as follows…

We are taking Ebony back to Kristina and Daniels farm next week where she will stay about 30 to 60 days depending on how well everything goes with the breeding. Pigs cycle about 21 days, and if she’s receptive, then she’ll be home sooner! Once we get a good breeding date, their gestation is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days! Pretty cool, eh? So we might be looking at piglets in the late summer, September or October. She will overwinter in the big barn with her litter which should be around 5 to 8 piggies.

Our plan is to keep a daughter for breeding, to possibly trade a piglet or two for an unrelated young boar and then raise a couple for our own meat needs and sell a few. Okay, so we’re hoping for 8 piggies! We are optimistic you know.

Now, one might wonder… why would you eat an endangered farm animal? Well, they are not really pets. As much as you might think they look a bit like a pot bellied pig, they are not. They are hogs and they act like hogs, especially as they get older. And by selectively marketing some of the animals you improve the over all breeding pairs available. We will invite Kristina and Daniel over once the little ones start to grow and hopefully discuss their merits and overall conformation and such to select the best to be breeders or feeders. If we can’t find another boar to trade, then the sale of a few will help to raise the cash to just outright buy one.

It’s always possible that we can take her back to be bred, but once she gets to be 150 or 180 pounds, it’s just a lot of stress and harder to do so. If we had our own little breeding trio, it would be more like a little family group and a lot less stress for everyone involved.

Naw… she’s not very good at livestock agility…. she tries though.

We’re just delighted to have her here… and feel very blessed to become stewards to help promote and encourage and bring this breed back to small homesteads. She’s a perfect representative of the smaller, less commercial breeds of livestock that our country was founded on. She’s slow food for sure. But she’s going to be awesome in helping to bring more of her kind into the forefront of attention. I kind of like the fact that commercial breeders think they are non-viable for the consumer food market. They get to have a real life, enjoy living and grow up happy and content on little homesteads. They get to be pigs! Miss Ebony really enjoys her wallow and running about the place when she’s given a hall pass! And we enjoy her very much… when you feed her, she’s right at the fence and talks and grunts away. And she wants her head pat and scratch first. Then her feed. And of course, any bad bananas or potato peelings or stale cookies or whatever else you might have. That is the icing on her cake!!!

Here are a few fun links…

The American Guinea Hog Association…

http://guineahogs.org/

The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy

http://albc-usa.org/cpl/guinea.html

And a nice farm page and information on the key points to the Guinea Hogs!

http://www.jessiescorner.com/guineahogs.html

Oh, and why didn’t I talk about this hog acquisition earlier? Like when it happened? Well… it was right when things started popping at the homestead and it was a crazy time of lambs and spring and chores and such. And then the big barn where she calls home is dark. Not exactly the most photogenic… I wanted to have some nice pictures of her! I am so excited about this venture of ours, I just wanted to make her introduction something special… with video and pictures and information and links and well… it’s easy to get sidetracked! But I am so proud to introduce our little hoggie girl… Miss Ebony!

In the future, our litters of pigs will be named after American folks, places and icons! We thought that would be fun… our first litter shall be either presidents and first ladies or capitals. We’re still not sure about that. We’ll let you know in 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days….

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Lessons learned from the last two days…

Posted on May 31, 2013 by MobymomMay 31, 2013

I was laying in bed last night late… mostly due to the fact that I spent most the day with our crazy chaotic farm day and then had a bunch of client work to do all night long. 2:30 am came in sight when I finally laid down, exhausted and just thankful that I could get up and start fresh today.

I hope that folks understand that yesterday’s post was not complaining… far from it… it was explaining. And the reality of what a small farm can be like in the flash of a moment. Like a sudden thunderstorm with hail and high winds, things creep up on the farm and they can be so overwhelming for a while that you think it’s time to reexamine your reasons for doing this all in the first place!

But then, life can be that way no matter what or how you make your living. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be fixing dinner one minute and ten minutes later your house is gone from a tornado! Or to sit out a hurricane… what about sudden accidents or illness… poor personal decisions… my gosh, a hundred and one things can mess up your day!

I like to take days like yesterday as learning lessons, hands-on classrooms that humble you when you might be feeling a little smug and content when things are going swell. Livestock sure does that for you. They might not be brain surgeons… but they are very good at being what they are… sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, you name the critter and they are pretty much programed to be the best at it they can be. If you think you can always control any living creature, you are either delusional or inexperienced… they will always get the upperhand if given a ounce of opportunity. But then, if you just want something easy, raise earthworms or maybe just have a garden.

Well, here are a few of the lessons that I have gleaned from the past week. Not necessarily in order of importance, just in order of how I went through them all in my brain.

Fences are only as good as you make them.

Fencing is such a huge thing when you start your homestead. My gosh… if I could give just ONE teeny bit of advise… NEVER EVER do any fencing half-assed or too cheap. (sorry for the French… but this is huge.) Ever single issue we have had has been from our inexperience about fencing and livestock. Just stringing up some wire fence and hoping for the best never is good. Being inexperienced and not super flush, we have seen the effects of free, cheap and poorly installed fencing. It really would have been better for us to start with way way smaller areas and make sure they were properly done for whatever livestock they were going to keep in. You want to provide the nicest, largest areas for your beloved critters, but in the end, a huge pasture that they get out of and hit by a car or come up missing does them no better than a safe, smaller pasture.

And different animals, need different fencing needs. That is huge. A hard lesson.

Field fencing, is great for bigger animals, but little critters like baby lambs and goats can squeeze through the squares. Chain link is awesome for goats because they are very hard on other wire fencing. Sheep can panic and hit a fence with such force that they just sort of pop out the bottom like a ovine zit in a space so small you can not imagine it! Goats and pigs like to take out entire electric fences in one paniced run. (I watched a goat figure out how to do the limbo under an electric fence by bristling up his hair on his back so that the wire didn’t touch him ten minutes after being introduced to the idea for the first time in his life. He got ONE nose shock and that was it, he knew exactly what the wire was and how to circumvent it.)

Wooden fences rot. Trees fall on wire fences and bust them. Pallet fences can be squeezed through by small critters in weak spots. Goats walk up on fences and destroy them with their hard little hooves. Horses can’t see wire well and can bust through and get impaled on unmarked posts. Of course, ponies are the most perfect of all creatures and never test or bust out of a fence unless it’s damaged. (ah, right…. hahaha….)

I am finally understanding that really, one of the very best and best suited fencing for multiple types of livestock is the hog or cattle panel. They are heavy duty welded wire panels that don’t sag or bend and can be buried and wired together quite firmly. They are 16 feet in length and though not cheap, they are very secure. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would replace quite a bit of our interior fencing with hog panels. (They have small hole openings on the bottom half so little ones can’t get out…) But, at about $20 a panel, it’s not something you can do easily if you’re on a budget. Or have a lot of ground to cover. Still… I’m beginning to think that I need to budget in 5 panels a month for a few years and start to replace some of the fences we did at first when we were clueless.

And posts! Don’t get me started on posts! When we started, we were directed to these flimsy cheap garden netting posts by an unexperienced TSC employee. I was telling the young man that I needed posts for livestock fencing and he showed me to these wobbly, thin posts for holding up bunny fence for your garden, or maybe staking a tomato plants. What kills me is that the appropriate heavy duty T-posts were but a mere 50 or 75 cents more. I bought 50 posts that day. And I believe that we have now replaced darn near every single one of them.

The best metal posts we have gotten were from Uncle Rod… and they are retired highway sign posts. These things are white, super heavy, 8 feet long and we got a bunch for like $2 a post. I still dream about getting more of those… oh my gosh. I looked online to find a place that makes them and found that they sell new for about $20 a post! They are so sturdy!!!

Second best are the traditional heavy duty t-posts from most rural or tractor stores. But always get a little longer than you think and drive those babies deep. And don’t skimp on how many. We started placing posts about 15 feet or so apart… now? If I can, 8 foot or less! When you place a post too far apart from it’s neighbor, it’s very hard to get the fence tight that naughty sheep won’t push under the middle.

And corner posts have their own science… the best we have are sawed off old telephone poles. They are huge and heavy, but once you sink those suckers 4 feet down, they are not going anywhere, even when a pony uses it as a butt scratching post. Even if they give a bit, it would take a talented animal to get it up and out of the hole. Now, mind you, we do not have 1500 pound steers or muskox… so I’m not sure about big things… but nothing on the farm that we have now would be able to get one of these well set corner posts outta the ground without some sure panic and determination!

So… our biggest mistake of yesterday was having three exterior pastures that were weak in a few places. And that we knew or suspected were not good. And then putting animals in there, expecting them to behave because they would be eating. Yeah, that works for the first hour, maybe two, but as soon as they get the faintest little inkling in their tiny brains that the other side of that fence looks better than what they are standing in, they WILL test that fence and they WILL find the weakest link.

And you WILL be chasing livestock in flip flops. In a panic. Unless you live in some huge open space where it’s okay if your beloved varmints wander about for a while until you decide to round them up. We, unfortunately, do not have that luxury. We do have multiple rings of fencing now, but usually, if they get loose, they are in a less desirable area pretty quick… like my garden! And wrecking havoc with tender cabbage plants!!!

Or lilac bushes.

Sheep Herding is Never Done Well When You Are Upset…

One of the most frustrating things of yesterday was herding or moving our flock without proper gear and in a very upset manner. And expecting too much of them in a short amount of time.

If there is one thing I have learned about sheep that NO ONE talks about in the books, is that they have a weird group mind and they are not docile, boring followers. Sure, they look easy to move around with talented herdsmen and trained dogs and bucolic lanes and fences areas that help to facilitate whatever objective the farmer wishes. But for every video you see of this easy thing, there are 15 non-filmed chaotic moves that leave you thinking you are a fool for trying to work with sheep.

Yelling, shouting, moving fast, running and just crying like a baby are all inappropriate ways to get sheep to do anything in a group. You must be slow, calm, happy, soft spoken and not ask too much of their little brains at one time. They are uni-taskers… they like ONE objective at a time. Commands such as follow the feed bucket or stay in the paddock are how best to deal with them. And don’t separate a flock you are trying to move. Our biggest issue was when four got loose in another pasture. Suddenly, everyone is upset and trying to get back to the others. Mommas are bawling for their bawling offspring. Everything gets very crazy fast. It’s better to just reunite them, wait a bit and start over. Once you start jumping paddock fences and trying to single out lambs and catch them to get them to their moms, it’s just a mess.

One of the best tools that we have are herding sticks. We have a couple nice long sticks… mine is polished hickory with a little rawhide wrist strap, but the others are just nice stripped bark sticks. Heck, we’ve even used a pool noodle in a pinch. Or your arms, outstretched. For some reason, sheep seem to think that anything in your hands is part of you. So when you stretch out with a 6 foot stick in one hand, you because VERY wide and they will avoid you. So a couple people with sticks in a line behind a flock is super efficient in moving them slowly and steadily towards a new pasture or paddock.

Ours were in the screen porch. Yeah, not that handy there.

And thankfully, our flock is pretty well trained to the feed bucket. Usually, they see ANY 5 gallon bucket and they react. You can even put a few rocks in an empty one and they will follow it for quite a while just on the off chance it has sweet feed in it. Problem is, if you misuse it, or try to use it too many times in a short period of time or when they are panicked, all bets are off. We should have just used it the first time to get them into the very safe paddock and then assessed what we would do next. Instead we tried to move them here and there and split the flock and started yelling and just pretty much lost our cool. Frustration is like that. Unfortunately, it’s the worse thing you can start to do with livestock. They just feed off your rising emotions and triple their own panic response. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.

Livestock Don’t Call the Shots…

One of the things I adore is when all our critters are co-existing in this bucolic Dr. Doolittle scenario…. the pony has a rooster on his back and the sheep are settled under trees chewing their cud while the goatie babies dance about in their cute frolicky nature. There’s a sweet breeze blowing and everyone is in this contented imaginary Disney movie and it’s so sweet.

In reality, the pony is crabby and has just kicked a goat over when the sheep start to head butt the pig and chickens are grabbing your toes and just pooping everywhere. The other goats are stripping your trees by balancing on a bench and you just about been tripped by the pig as she roots up a huge hole in the main pathway. It can be a huge hassle to try and do chores with this farm parade following behind and causing havoc. Cody is a pro at pushing open doors, even with latches and getting into barn to shove stuff around in his crack addict search techniques for grain or treats. 14 sheep can easily mob you and take you down if you have a bucket of grain and are not holding it high. Heck, I’ve had a turkey hit me in the face when it flew off a rafter in the barn and I saw stars for a few minutes. Livestock running amok is not a good thing. They need to be managed, not be the managers. They are not the chiefs, they are the Indians.

We’re getting better at this paradigm shift of master and critter. It’s hard, because unless you have grown up on a farm all your life, your best experience of farm animals are from Disney movies or other non-reality based extreme examples. You never expect a pony to be evil, or for a pig to try and eat you. You think that all species will get along with other farm critters. Let me tell you, my sheep are nasty to other animals. They feel they are the rulers of the universe and will chase and otherwise terrorize any unsuspecting creature that gives them an inch. Cody has delivered a few hard kicks to stubborn ewes before they respected him and gave him wide berth. You should have seen them all circle and crowd Ebony, our little hog, the first time she was out. And they will be rude to their own kind! Sweet ewes with their own little darlings at their rump will kick or butt a baby that is not theirs. They are not docile and sweet in their nature when they feel they are in charge.

Yesterday, once things started to go badly, everyone should have bee sent to their stalls regardless of how nice it was out. A little time out might have saved the day. They are hardly going to die if they loose out on a few hours of grazing. They are all fat and sassy. Perhaps they might have had a few hours to think about their naughty ways. Or at least we would have had a chance to cool down and regain our composure. And deal with the non-critter things that were priority.

Appropriate footwear is essential on the farm. Even a little one.

Not once, but twice did I try and do things outback with darn flip flop sandals on. What the heck was I thinking? My farm shoes were just inside the kitchen and would have taken about 5 minutes to dash in and change to. But no, I have to be a total idiot and am roaming about in lumpy ground, tall grass, climbing fences and chasing sheep in stupid sandals. It’s a wonder I only stubbed my toe a time or two and didn’t end up twisting an ankle or breaking my leg. As it was, a slipped and smashed into a pokey bit on the fence that could have easily punctured my HEAD! shesh… I’m hoping that my sore toe and the super tender lump on my hard skull is a reminder to wear decent footwear out back. I’m not some teenager anymore. Maybe they can handle it better, but I’m just not that coordinated! Haha….

Wood Rots when Exposed To The Elements…

One of the things that I am seeing with some of our project builds is that it pays to do it right. And that unfinished wood just doesn’t last as long as you might want with animal poop and pee, rain and harsh weather. Our chicken tractor SEEMED fine, but then part of the floor just rotted out and we had meat chickens all over the garden. Maggie seems to think that she can retrofit a new floor and such, but part of me thinks the whole design is flawed and we need to rethink and learn from this experience, rather than sink anymore cash into it. Granted, we didn’t spend much in the first place, but there in lies the main issue. If we had perhaps done a little more forward thinking, we might have engineered it a wee bit differently. But, hey, we’re still newbies at this whole life we have chosen. Rome wasn’t built in a day and a little homestead surely isn’t perfect with just a year or two under your belt. The nuggets are fine, they actually seem to like the big barn a little better. Especially with the rain, they are enjoying the nice dry stall. We will think about the garden coop for a few days and come to a decision.

Well, hope this helps others out there… all the reading, dreaming and scheming for your own little homestead will not replace actual time in the trenches. Authors should be lined up and shot for writing things like “sheep never test fences” or my favorite… “lift your pig’s feet daily to check for any cracked hooves or sore spots…” Haha… yeah right. These simple vague statements of animal care are just not a good way to help prepare a new homesteader for the reality of things. And you are going to have these days. I don’t care if you’re Daniel Boone… or Pa Ingalls… those dudes both had their share of “bad days” and they learned and moved on. Keep improving, keep adapting, keep working on making things run smoothly and most of all, LEARN from the LESSONS that your farm throws at you daily!!! You’ll be a lot happier if you do!

And yes, everyone is behaving like little darlings today. Not a single mishap or shouting match. And it’s already 3:30 in the afternoon!!! Yah Team Windhaven!!!! Hopefully, we’ve banished the crazies for a few days or more…

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Chaotic, at Best…

Posted on May 30, 2013 by MobymomMay 30, 2013

The story you are about to hear is real.
Only the names have been changed to protect the innocents.

Ever have one of those days that just doesn’t seem to flow right?

That just starts out rough and never improves?

We’ve just had two of them in a row. I’m hoping they are over now and that Karma can move on and take her chaotic brat with her. It went as follows…

We woke up on a normal morning, a little early and ready to get into the day. We had just come from a day of errands before and were ready to get started in a few projects and some business and client work inside.

Well, all is well until Jessy comes in and tells me she thinks Buttercup is sick. She has a messy bottom. Hmmm. That’s weird. I get my shoes on to go and take a look at her. I am met in the screenporch by Maggie who is in a panic… the sheep are out in the back pasture! Agh! Okay… I go to help her out but then I notice that Daisy and Buttercup are bawling at me… from the garden. Which is forbooten to all creatures since they discovered baby cabbages growing there. (don’t ask… but I did manage to save most of them) (the cabbages….) Concerned, I rush over to get them out and what to my dismay…. I see all the meat chickens walking around in the garden… loose. I cross paths with Maggie as I am shooing the goat babies out of the garden and ask about the nuggets… she says the bottom of their garden coop rotted out!!!

Okay, now, realize… only about 5 minutes have elapsed and all hell has broken loose on our little farm.

Maggie grabs the feed bucket and we are off to get the bad sheep back into the correct pasture. Goaties are following. I do realize that Buttercup has a messy bottom. But she seems fine and is all excited that we’re running with a feed bucket and nearly trips me by crossing in front of me sixteen times. In flip flops. (I was only expecting to check a goat butt… not a farm roundup…)

Our little runaway ovines are well trained and a shake of the feed bucket and they come running. And of course, push right back through the little spot that they pushed out of, a wee bit before. And let me tell you, it’s about the size of a cereal box. A SMALL cereal box. I am most impressed to see blimpy Bridget squeeze in… she’s due within the next week or so to have LAMBS!

We decide to put them in the front salad bar pasture while we figure out how to wire up the hole. Sounds easy enough. Sure enough, they will follow the feed bucket holder to the other side of the county and back. Maggie locks them up. She will go to the fence and fix it and I grab Buttercup to check her out.

Well, it’s kind of hard to tell if she is really sick or if she got into some nasty poopy mud. There is a big pig wallow next to the pump that Ebony made, so I wonder since it’s not definitive that it was HER poopy mess. I check Daisy out and she has a big smear on her side of this offending stuff.

If you’re wondering… one worries when a hoofie gets a messy backside… it could mean the animal is scouring, which could be very dangerous. Basically, their delicate system is messed up. Ruminants are prone to illness from food changes or from eating something bad… I start to worry about it, but decide that first off, they both need a quick bath so I can watch and assess if it is really from them in the first place! We’re right by the pump and the water trough, so I pick up Buttercup and the scrub brush and give her a dunk.

Silly me. I thought that would be easy. But I learned that goats HATE water just about as much as cats do and a little 20 pound goat thrashing about with sharp little hooves can be a real difficult thing. You can just insert a funny picture in your mind of me and Buttercup as we enjoyed that bath. Of course, Daisy took one look at me trying to drown her friend and ran bawling for Maggie.

I get Buttercup cleaned off. I set her down in the warm sunshine and she promptly gives me a stink eye glare and rushes off to get into the courtyard. I look for Daisy and find her following Maggie who is dashing over to me in a panic… the sheep are out of the front pasture!!! AGh!

We manage to get them BACK in the pasture… it was only three of them… Iris, Fergus and Bridget. But then we find Buttercup and Daisy in the courtyard, where they don’t belong, eating all the leaves off one of my beloved baby lilac bushes!!!! We get the little rascals and Maggie holds Buttercup while I dunk Daisy and scrub the nasty icchor off her cute little coat admist bawling.

Honestly, you would have thought I was tearing an infant child in half. Jessy comes from the house thinking we have totally gone nuts… only to find a soaking wet mom and baby goat. Of course, at this point, Buttercup starts pooping away and it’s fine. Normal goat poop. The little worts had just gotten filthy in some crazy goat way. Still…

So I have the girls put the goaties in the dog yard. It’s the only pasture that they can’t seem to get out of. Daisy can walk through a 4 inch square of field fence. Its quite amazing. 4 inches wide. a whole goat. We have to rescue my garden from the chicken nuggets, all 19 of which are now walking about and considering how to jump up on a straw bale. Maggie and I herd the little dumbies out into the middle yard… all fumbling and awkward like nerdly teenagers. Meat chickens are just not the sharpest tacks in the chicken world, let me tell you. I have to shoo away one of the roosters who seems to think that all these big girls need some rooster loving… of course, they all just stand around, perplexed by the rooster dance of love. We make a quick decision that we will pop the nuggets into the angora goat stall, and the angora goats will bunk with the sheep for the night. They don’t mind. Well, the sheep do, but the goats are pretty cool about it.

We try to catch them but it’s nye impossible. So we decide they are fine for a few more hours and we will catch them as they start to nod off in the evening. The sheep are in the middle pasture and content to lay around and chew their cud. Maggie says she is going to mow the front yard since it’s almost to hay height from the rain.

I hardly get into the screen porch when I hear the poor mower sounding like it’s on it’s last leg. I go out there to see what the heck is up and Maggie is trying this and that. Nothing. It’s running, but it sounds like one of those jungle PT boats after a major skirmish in the jungles of Vietnam. Well, sorta. It’s misfiring and sputtering. I ask if it’s out of gas and Maggie just glares at me in a way that only a teenager can after bathing goats, chasing chickens and sheep and now doing small engine diagnosis. Of course, it’s not. She had checked. I kind of forget that my girls are getting pretty darn smart. Well…. I suggest it’s either the spark plug or the carburetor. Jr. had said that it really needed a new spark plug, so I say, let’s go up to town and get one at the hardware store. And maybe an icee from the Circle K mart. Sounds like a plan. Bribing teenagers is the only way you can sleep at night with both eyes closed some times… We grab Jessy and head to town.

Only to find that we’re 5 minutes too late because everything in rural America closes at like 4:30 or sooner. Well, the icee is pretty good and we get home pretty quick.

We wait a few hours and manage to get the meat chickens into the stall and everyone into the paddock for the night, all critters accounted for. The goat babies are both pooping perfect little goat pellets and the pig is settled in and we hit the sack.

Thing is…. our farm chaos was not yet over, our bill was not paid and we still had some time on our clock… Wake up, start to do chores and next thing I hear is Maggie screaming at sheep in the courtyard. Hmm…. Jessy and I spring from our desks and out into the yard. Apparently, she had mended the little breach in that pasture and put them out to watch them. And they promptly pushed under another section and were out by the road. Thinking quick, she grabbed a bucket and threw some rocks in it and opened up the courtyard fence to get them in there, at least. But once they got in the courtyard, a forbidden place for all hoof creatures…. they totally ignored her and began to eat my plants and flowers like starving inmates from some concentration camp. Maggie was terrified they would eat all my pretties and was trying desperately to shoo them away from this bush or that plant. We managed to get them out pretty quick… it was hot and naughty sheep hate to be pushed around and made to run.

Maggie is totally upset and angry, and we call an emergency farm meeting. It’s clear that we need to secure ONE of the external pastures to lock up the critters. Each one has a problem. The weed patch is no good because all the lambs and the little goats have figured out how to push through the pallet fence in a few spots and get into the garden. The salad bar up front is no good at the moment because there is a stretch of it that is so rusted out that if a butterfly lands on it, it breaks, say nothing of a big fat sheep that thinks the grass is greener on the other side. And the back pasture has some mysterious hole that we can’t seem to find. (We had fixed the small gap the day before…)

We decide that we will fix the back pasture as it has the best grazing, the biggest area and the goats can’t escape. Good. Jessy will be the warden, she’s most excellent at that. Good. Maggie gets the feed bucket with a wee bit of sweet feed and we go into action. We put everyone out there, figuring they will eat first and then escape after. Which is their normal MO. Jessy was still in the mud room rounding up her supplies. I go in to hang with the little goats and watch everyone while Maggie goes to add water to the trough out there.

I turn my back for 10 seconds and Fergus, Iris and Bridget are OUT OF THE PASTURE and they have a brown lamb with them as well! Gosh darn it… I go running back to the corner that they are near and mind you, they are just eating grass on the other side and not in any danger save me conking them on the head at this point. I am of course, wearing flip flops. Stupid I know. Immediately I see the problem, they had pushed through an area where two fence pieces met and was not wired tight enough. AGH!!! I call to Maggie because now, the REST of the herd has followed me to the corner and is standing there baaaing because they too, now know the secret of the naughty threesome…. Maggie comes, climbs the fence and manages to get caught on the fence and rip her pants. We take two pallets that were laying in the grass after our pallet fence dismantle a few months past, and we manage to rig up a blockade to keep everyone in for a few minutes. We’re shouting for Jessy to hurry up with the big guns…. baling wire and cutters.

We get back to the middle and we take the bucket and put rocks in it to go and get those loose behind the weed pasture, back into the weed pasture and then hopefully back into the middle yard. Jessy has the back pasture under control. Well, the came into the pasture, with the bucket trick and undoing part of that fence. But then they refused to leave the weed patch. So I’m coming over to just shoo them out with sticks and arm waving when I walk by the barn and hear a terriable chicken racket… gosh darn it… the pig has BROKEN into the goat stall (chain link panels, mind you) and is rooting about the stall looking for chicken scratch and the poor dumb nuggets are freaking out, since I’m pretty sure they’ve never see a hog before. Of course, Daisy and Buttercup managed to get out of the back pasture when I was leaving in haste and I didn’t think much of it, since they do follow pretty well, but now they are in the goat… er… chicken stall, in the way as I try and herd the squeeling, angry pig out of the barn.

I will admit. I was loosing my cool. Maggie’s yelling for me to come help, because she thinks I’m slacking and doesn’t know about the pig yet. I get Ebony and the goats out, slam the door shut, and then the pig runs over to the lil coop and pushes her way under that fence to start checking that yard out for left overs!!! AGH!!!! With great shouting and dodging and much stupid herding on our part, we get the sheep out of the weed patch and it locked down. We try to get them into the back pasture, but that is impossible because now those in there are trying to get out and join the rebels. Maggie is freaking out about the pig in the lil coop yard and I have managed to bang my forehead hard on a piece of cattle panel that we had cut and was pokey… The sheep are upset, and not following any direction at this point and I am beginning to question our whole existence at this point….

Sencing that we were about to implode… the sheep decide it would be nice to go into the paddock and rest a while. Great. We lock half of the herd in and Jessy has the rest in the back and has claimed the two goatie girls. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack and my head is bleeding and I have stubbed my toe badly. Maggie has gotten the pig out of the coop and into her stall. She is laying on the hammock like a dead person and is not speaking to us at this point.

There is a weird calm that finally comes over you after you make up your mind that you could not give a rat’s ah… behind what happens next. You just give up. Iris and Ivy are bawling like babies because their precious little lambs are in the back pasture. I just let them out of the paddock, and then let the babies back into the middle with their moms and left Cody and the goats in the back. They never escape. Well, Daisy does… but not usually in the back. We used smaller grid fence back there for the most part.

I tell the girls, lets go to town and get an icee. (I need to make ammends with them.) And a spark plug. Oh yah, and dog food, we ran out. Without a word they nod and slug back to the house, still fuming… I get in the house, assess my head wound and decide it’s not life threatening. I’m still in sandles and a crappy pair of shorts (because I was not expecting to do anything but sit at my desk all day and work!) but I ask if the girls don’t mind doing the shopping if I drive so I can just stay in the car. After all, we’re just going to the dollar store a few miles down the road.

Which gets us to the picture at the top of this lengthy story of chaos. We’re about a half mile from the dang store and I hear this thuck thuck thuck sound and I just want to weep right there…. Blue has thrown a shoe. She has a flat tire. I limp her to the side of the road and just sit there in silence as my dear daughters try and determine if I will be upset or start to cry or what… Maggie breaks the void and says, well, at least it’s not raining. Which of course, it thunders off in the distance on cue…. haha….

We get that tire changed in a fast 27 minutes. Pit crew material, we are not. But we are not fading flowers either. We manage. Maggie is the lift man, and Jessy is the lug nut guy. I stand back and take pictures.

Someone has to document things you know.

After all, I would have missed this awesome shot of my daughters working together to get Blue back on the road.

We got to the hardware store with 7 minutes to spare. Got the spark plug. Headed to the Circle K for icees. Check. Stopped at the dollar store for dog food and mysteriously so, a package of Oreos. And cheese slices. When you send young ladies in to shop, you never really know for sure what might happen. It’s all good. It was definitely an Oreo sort of day. Or two.

In true Chekal girl style, we were laughing and chatting about the craziness on the way home. We were thankful that it had blown out today instead of this weekend as we have two big social events in town and it would have been a BIG drag to have to change it in our finery. It was the last of 4 crappy tires we had bought at Walmart a few years ago. At least the $35 junk yard tires were holding out… and I’ll be going there in the morning to get the last one replaced.

Yeah, life on the farm is kinda laid back, ain’t nothing that a country girl, she can’t hack.

I sure hope that tomorrow will be a little calmer. I’m considering getting harnesses and leashes for all the sheep and hooking them to big concrete blocks in the middle of the pasture out back. Each with it’s own circle so they can’t tangle up. Haha… naw, I’m sure they will be fine now. Seems that every few months they have to show us all the weak spots in our fences. And that they really just stick around because they like the sweet feed.

And laughing at us behind their backs as we chase them around in flip flops and ripped pants.

I’m telling ya, small time farming is not for the faint of heart. There are days….. shesh….

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