Farm girl is struggling with a wicked bout of PMS, so this might be a bit negative. She will be fine (back to her normal bi-polar self) in three days.
Summer in Texas sucks. It is unbearably hot, it never rains, and on the occasion that it does rain, it comes with severe weather challenges. Since we had a mild winter this year, you can add a ridiculous insect and arachnid population to the hell. Farmgirl is going through gallons of bug spray, and STILL gets eaten alive by chiggars every day, twice a day, when she feeds the animals and collects the eggs. She has gone her entire life without seeing a really poisonous spider, but since May, she has found three black widows and two brown recluses... one of which was in the laundry hamper. The "good" news is that they are all in the freezer (in the expensive Tuperware, no less) waiting to be pinned to a styrofoam board for the AP Biology arthropod project due in September. Farmgirl's son is sure that God has arranged these things just for him, so that he will have the most awesome collection in the class. I guess my Tuperware sacrifice and bravery in helping to collect specimens can put a few points in the "good mom" column.
The oldest child spends all day playing video games, which makes Farmgirl feel like a rotten mother (five points in that column). But she doesn't feel quite bad enough to make him quit, because then he'll annoy her about being bored, and it's too hot to make him go outside. Occasionally she does make him go collect the eggs and feed the animals so the bugs can eat him instead. The youngest, who is too active to handle video games and TV, annoys Farmgirl every minute she's home with whines of boredom. She is enrolled in as many sports camps and activities as financially possible to defray her boredom, and Farmgirl tries to schedule LOTS of playdates. But when she is not involved in one of these activities, she is completely unable to occupy herself for more than 30 minutes. Again, Farmgirl must be the worst mommy ever to create such children... 10 points... rotten mommy column is WAY ahead at this point.
Last night was the annual stress-fest that is known as the 4th of July. Dogs, goats, and chickens alike all HATE fireworks. Based on the chaos coming from the neighboring pasture, so do horses. But living in the country, there are no city ordinances to prevent the hooligans from shooting them off until 3:00 am. Starting at dusk, Farmgirl starts passing out sedatives and Xanax to dogs. She gets tempted to take them herself and hide until morning...but she has enough guilt to deal with for not going to see city fireworks with the family...more points in the rotten mommy column. Goats in milk can't have drugs, so she has to go check on them every hour to make sure they haven't committed suicide. The chickens are on their own, but between the heat and the stress, there will be feathers everywhere instead of eggs for the rest of the week. Someone close must have been setting off grenades, not fireworks. What can possibly make that kind of noise other than a cannon?
This morning, all goats are accounted for and fed, the dogs are still in a coma for a few more hours, and Farmgirl is having a quiet moment on the computer before the kids wake up. All is well, and she realizes that no one is keeping score about good mom vs bad mom except her. She takes a few deep breaths, and recognizes the hormone-induced paranoia for what it is and what it means - absolutely nothing. September is only 7 weeks away, and she'll miss the bored kids and curse the busy-ness of the school year. And when goats start having babies in a freak snowstorm in March, she'll gladly take the insects that come with a mild winter instead.
New title - Farmgirl gets a grip.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Goat Arias
There's a new diva in town... and she's working like crazy to give Streisand a run for her money. Up til now, Belle has been our only resident singer. When she wants grain, hay, or attention, she sings... very, VERY loudly... until she gets it. When she sees farm girl walk past the gate to go get the mail, she sings even louder. Belle feels strongly that farm girl really shouldn't be doing anything other than serving Belle and her many demands, and since Belle doesn't get many letters, that does NOT include walks to the mailbox. Sadly, Belle's neighbors don't like goats, and they especially don't like goat opera. They feel that she should be more respectful of their quiet farm lifestyle. So needless to say, the addition of some back-up harmony is not being well-received.
The harmony is provided compliments of Bailey, daughter of never-makes-a-peep-quietest-Nubian-ever, Socks. Farm girl thinks Socks might be missing vocal chords - or whatever it is that goats have in lieu of those. Even in the full throws of labor and delivery, Socks didn't make a sound. But Bailey - not so much. Bailey thinks that Farm Girl is her mom, despite the fact that she was never a bottle baby. She feels that Farm Girl should live in the barn and hold her all the time, and so she cries in an attempt to induce guilt. On nice Spring days, it often worked. But it's getting hot now, so the humans prefer to stay in the AC or in the pool. So Bailey sings and sings, and then Belle starts because she's demanding that Bailey shut up. Pretty soon, we have a full scale Andrew Lloyd Weber duet going on in the pasture. I've ordered some half-face masks for them both so I can charge the neighbor admission.
The harmony is provided compliments of Bailey, daughter of never-makes-a-peep-quietest-Nubian-ever, Socks. Farm girl thinks Socks might be missing vocal chords - or whatever it is that goats have in lieu of those. Even in the full throws of labor and delivery, Socks didn't make a sound. But Bailey - not so much. Bailey thinks that Farm Girl is her mom, despite the fact that she was never a bottle baby. She feels that Farm Girl should live in the barn and hold her all the time, and so she cries in an attempt to induce guilt. On nice Spring days, it often worked. But it's getting hot now, so the humans prefer to stay in the AC or in the pool. So Bailey sings and sings, and then Belle starts because she's demanding that Bailey shut up. Pretty soon, we have a full scale Andrew Lloyd Weber duet going on in the pasture. I've ordered some half-face masks for them both so I can charge the neighbor admission.
Friday, May 11, 2012
When I had my son, I managed to nurse him for 6 weeks. He wouldn't take me, despite much interference from the Nipple Nazis (lactation consultants). So my life consisted of pump, give a bottle, sleep, repeat...every three hours. It was miserable and hormonal and I hated it.
When I had my daughter, we had the opposite problem. She would ONLY take me, and screamed with rage if I even showed her a bottle. I nursed her until she was 18 months old, at which point my husband and my mother were convinced I would end up on Dr. Phil (or Time Magazine, LOL).
When the goat babies came, they followed in my daughter's footsteps...nipple or nothing. Ok, I guess totally teat is a better alliteration. Especially Shadow...she wants nothing to do with me, any bottle, or any treat I bring to bribe her into bonding with me. To this day I have only touched her once, and that was when I pulled her from her mama's womb. Since then, I am Persona Non Grata. I have no idea how I'm going to trim her hooves, and they are rapidly approaching the need for it. Dart gun, maybe? Her cousin, Bailey, adores me...won't take a bottle, but climbs on me and sucks my fingers every chance she gets. I swear, she handed me her hooves and waited patiently for her manicure like she was royalty or something.
Maybe Shadow is angry at me on behalf of her mom, Tiny. Tiny just recently learned that the milk stand is NOT her enemy. When she's up there, she doesn't have to fight for her share of the grain, and that very uncomfortable pressure by her right leg - you know, the pressure that comes when the babies decide that only ONE teat is worth sucking on - gets relieved. But in spite of this, it took her MONTHS to catch on and stop pulling and stomping and generally throwing a hissy fit. But yesterday I made the mistake of wearing my watch while milking... my watch with links that sometimes catch my arm hairs and yank them out. Well, I guess they also catch udder hairs. I guess that probably hurts a little more than pulling arm hairs. And now we are back to square one. When I called her to come up on the milk stand this morning, she looked at me like I was smoking crack, and I swear she said, "Touch my boob again, b___, and I will head butt you from here to Tuesday." Who knew goats could hold such a grudge? (Who knew goats could talk?). Anyway, now Tiny AND Shadow think I'm the devil incarnate.
This week's lesson - milking is a no-jewelry-allowed activity. But one can hardly blame me...with my city girl background, I've never heard of anything that didn't involve jewelry.
The picture is Shadow (black) and Bailey (brown):
When I had my daughter, we had the opposite problem. She would ONLY take me, and screamed with rage if I even showed her a bottle. I nursed her until she was 18 months old, at which point my husband and my mother were convinced I would end up on Dr. Phil (or Time Magazine, LOL).
When the goat babies came, they followed in my daughter's footsteps...nipple or nothing. Ok, I guess totally teat is a better alliteration. Especially Shadow...she wants nothing to do with me, any bottle, or any treat I bring to bribe her into bonding with me. To this day I have only touched her once, and that was when I pulled her from her mama's womb. Since then, I am Persona Non Grata. I have no idea how I'm going to trim her hooves, and they are rapidly approaching the need for it. Dart gun, maybe? Her cousin, Bailey, adores me...won't take a bottle, but climbs on me and sucks my fingers every chance she gets. I swear, she handed me her hooves and waited patiently for her manicure like she was royalty or something.
Maybe Shadow is angry at me on behalf of her mom, Tiny. Tiny just recently learned that the milk stand is NOT her enemy. When she's up there, she doesn't have to fight for her share of the grain, and that very uncomfortable pressure by her right leg - you know, the pressure that comes when the babies decide that only ONE teat is worth sucking on - gets relieved. But in spite of this, it took her MONTHS to catch on and stop pulling and stomping and generally throwing a hissy fit. But yesterday I made the mistake of wearing my watch while milking... my watch with links that sometimes catch my arm hairs and yank them out. Well, I guess they also catch udder hairs. I guess that probably hurts a little more than pulling arm hairs. And now we are back to square one. When I called her to come up on the milk stand this morning, she looked at me like I was smoking crack, and I swear she said, "Touch my boob again, b___, and I will head butt you from here to Tuesday." Who knew goats could hold such a grudge? (Who knew goats could talk?). Anyway, now Tiny AND Shadow think I'm the devil incarnate.
This week's lesson - milking is a no-jewelry-allowed activity. But one can hardly blame me...with my city girl background, I've never heard of anything that didn't involve jewelry.
The picture is Shadow (black) and Bailey (brown):
Thursday, April 12, 2012
And God said, "Wrong Way, Dumb-Ass...Turn Around!"
Yeah...I don't know about this blogging thing. I'm not sure I really have time to chronicle this journey, because I'm awfully busy just trying to survive it. But enough people hassle me on Facebook, that I'm going to do a test drive. We'll see if I have what it takes. We'll start with the back story...
* * * * *
I did not grow up on a farm, and neither did my parents. You have to go back three generations to get to the farm - one family branch in western Kentucky, and one in southeast Arkansas - but hillbilly redneck in both directions. I grew up in a wealthy suburb of a mid-sized city, born to upper-middle class parents. I went to a private middle school, a "rich" high school, and attended the "rich" Episcopal church downtown. I went to a large university in the South and joined a sorority. I met my husband there, got married, and we eventually moved to the Mecca of Texas High Society, Dallas.
There we were, in our big house with a pool, pretending to be the perfect family with two perfect kids, and me a perfect stay-at-home wife who cooked gourmet meals every night. But the redneck blood was still in there... just waiting to boil to the surface. Three generations just wasn't enough to dilute it. First of all, I am a CRAPPY stay-at-home wife. I can't cook, and I can't clean, and I sure wasn't happy pretending that I could. I'm pretty sure I had the neighborhood ladies and my PTA friends fooled, but my husband and kids knew the truth. That was the first domino to fall.
Then we left the "rich" church to go to a "real" church. That's where I started to see the lie for what it was. That's where I started to realize this wasn't the way I wanted to raise my kids. You can only play "keep up with the Jones" for so long without loosing your sanity and your SELF, not to mention your sense of proper priorities. My marriage was in trouble, my kids were in trouble, and I was dangerously depressed. Changing churches and improving my relationship with Jesus was a start, but He wanted more. The rest of the dominoes fell that horrible year.
So we sold the mansion and moved to the country. Not so far out that my husband couldn't commute to work in town, but far enough to buy 3 acres with no homeowner's association to tell us what to do with it. We built a smaller house, and started on this new, calmer way of life. This time, I'm not building with dominoes. Those suckers just aren't stable enough.
After taking a year to get settled and adjusted, and to fence the pastures, we started getting animals. The first grade class at the school was studying the life cycle of an egg, and gave me the live chicks at the end of the unit. That's when I learned how much I hate roosters. As soon as they were old enough, six chickens became three hens. Mark built a coop, and two months later we were having to eat eggs twice a week just to make room in the fridge. That's when I learned that out here, conversations with neighbors don't involve trying to one-up each other. They give advice, and I pay in eggs.
The next year, I bought 4 baby Nubian dairy goats - Jasmine, Tiny, Socks, and Belle. I bottle fed them... because I had no idea just how hard it is to bottle feed four babies with only two hands, and I was too tired to have the sense to look at caprine supply catalogs for another way (now I know - one bucket, many nipples). I also learned that my children's old toddler coats work really great on shivering baby goats when it gets below 10 degrees. You just cut the arms off. Speaking of arms...mine looked pretty good that winter from hauling buckets of hot water out to the goat shed. Now I know to build the barn closer to the house when we get ready to up-size to an actual barn.
In the fall, I "rented" a buck for my girls, and that stud managed to get everybody pregnant in just 30 days. Sadly, Jasmine's break away collar didn't break away when she got hung on the fence. I found her that morning and had to deal with 120 lb carcass myself, since Mark was overseas on a business trip. Did you know there is only 6 inches of top soil in some parts of North Texas? Poor Jasmine had to be hauled away in a trash bag.
Fast forward to spring, and the other three had babies. Those wacky delivery stories will have to wait for my next entry. Right now, it's time to milk the goats.
* * * * *
I did not grow up on a farm, and neither did my parents. You have to go back three generations to get to the farm - one family branch in western Kentucky, and one in southeast Arkansas - but hillbilly redneck in both directions. I grew up in a wealthy suburb of a mid-sized city, born to upper-middle class parents. I went to a private middle school, a "rich" high school, and attended the "rich" Episcopal church downtown. I went to a large university in the South and joined a sorority. I met my husband there, got married, and we eventually moved to the Mecca of Texas High Society, Dallas.
There we were, in our big house with a pool, pretending to be the perfect family with two perfect kids, and me a perfect stay-at-home wife who cooked gourmet meals every night. But the redneck blood was still in there... just waiting to boil to the surface. Three generations just wasn't enough to dilute it. First of all, I am a CRAPPY stay-at-home wife. I can't cook, and I can't clean, and I sure wasn't happy pretending that I could. I'm pretty sure I had the neighborhood ladies and my PTA friends fooled, but my husband and kids knew the truth. That was the first domino to fall.
Then we left the "rich" church to go to a "real" church. That's where I started to see the lie for what it was. That's where I started to realize this wasn't the way I wanted to raise my kids. You can only play "keep up with the Jones" for so long without loosing your sanity and your SELF, not to mention your sense of proper priorities. My marriage was in trouble, my kids were in trouble, and I was dangerously depressed. Changing churches and improving my relationship with Jesus was a start, but He wanted more. The rest of the dominoes fell that horrible year.
So we sold the mansion and moved to the country. Not so far out that my husband couldn't commute to work in town, but far enough to buy 3 acres with no homeowner's association to tell us what to do with it. We built a smaller house, and started on this new, calmer way of life. This time, I'm not building with dominoes. Those suckers just aren't stable enough.
After taking a year to get settled and adjusted, and to fence the pastures, we started getting animals. The first grade class at the school was studying the life cycle of an egg, and gave me the live chicks at the end of the unit. That's when I learned how much I hate roosters. As soon as they were old enough, six chickens became three hens. Mark built a coop, and two months later we were having to eat eggs twice a week just to make room in the fridge. That's when I learned that out here, conversations with neighbors don't involve trying to one-up each other. They give advice, and I pay in eggs.
The next year, I bought 4 baby Nubian dairy goats - Jasmine, Tiny, Socks, and Belle. I bottle fed them... because I had no idea just how hard it is to bottle feed four babies with only two hands, and I was too tired to have the sense to look at caprine supply catalogs for another way (now I know - one bucket, many nipples). I also learned that my children's old toddler coats work really great on shivering baby goats when it gets below 10 degrees. You just cut the arms off. Speaking of arms...mine looked pretty good that winter from hauling buckets of hot water out to the goat shed. Now I know to build the barn closer to the house when we get ready to up-size to an actual barn.
In the fall, I "rented" a buck for my girls, and that stud managed to get everybody pregnant in just 30 days. Sadly, Jasmine's break away collar didn't break away when she got hung on the fence. I found her that morning and had to deal with 120 lb carcass myself, since Mark was overseas on a business trip. Did you know there is only 6 inches of top soil in some parts of North Texas? Poor Jasmine had to be hauled away in a trash bag.
Fast forward to spring, and the other three had babies. Those wacky delivery stories will have to wait for my next entry. Right now, it's time to milk the goats.
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