Wanted: Perfection

There is a website entitled "Where Should I Live?" which narrows down one's ideal city (it's always a city) based on various criteria such as nature, climate, demographics, transportation, politics, food, size, and cost of living. For those looking to relocate, it helps narrow down what part of the country would be most amenable to one's particular preferences.

But always remember, perfection isn't possible. When we bought our property in late 2020, it was the height of the pandemic lockdowns and rural properties were being snatched up fast. We knew our new place wasn't perfect, but it hit many of the marks we had on our bucket list. We decided to bloom where we were planted, and have been very happy here since.

These factors came to mind recently when Don spotted a post on a "Homesteaders for Beginners" page in which a woman was looking for ... perfection.

The image is a little hard to see, so I transcribed the wish list. Her requirements include:

• Affordable housing
• Lots of jobs to offer

Bonus for:

• Pagan-friendly/accepting
• More small-town feel
• Generally kind respectful people
• Homeschool friendly
• Homestead friendly

She absolutely did NOT want to consider the following states:

• Washington
• Oregon
• California
• Florida
• Arizona
• New York

Later, she added more information as follows (edited slightly for grammar, spelling, punctuation):

"I grew up Mormon and don't mind church folk, but as an adult I'm more of a closet pagan and rather keep to myself anyway, so again not a requirement. Would just be a nice bonus. To get on my feet, I need to be able to find a job and find affordable housing. But the end game is buying land to start a homestead. I just don't want a place that's miserable dying heat like six months out of the year. I have a mixed stepdaughter, so want her welcomed in whatever place we make home. I already barely socialize due to social anxiety, but it would be great to find an accepting community to be a part of, but again more than happy to stay on our land and ignore our neighbors if needed. I've grown up in Washington and lived in Idaho [and] Oregon, and just plain sick of the PNW [Pacific Northwest]. I have always wanted the small-town farm life and I just want to find a place to make that happen."

Ironically, it sounds like her ideal community would be somewhere in Western Oregon or Western Washington (west of the Cascades). However given the states she absolutely does not want to consider, I'm a bit stymied where she might settle that would fill all her other criteria.

I sincerely hope what this nascent homesteader realizes is perfection doesn't exist. Some places might get close, yes; but most of us do better by blooming where we're planted.

Dopamine overload

Yesterday, while cleaning the barn, I took a short break to catch my breath after shoveling a bunch of stuff into the wheelbarrow (cow manure is heavy!).

So there I was, momentarily paused, just inside the barn door, leaning on the shovel handle. I looked up and saw a bald eagle wheeling in slow circles over the valley, visible above the tops of the pine trees. I could see its bright white head and tail contrasting with its black body as it circled around. (I didn't have my camera at the time, but the spot it was circling is depicted below.)

And I thought, "What a privilege to live here."

Some people might not reach that precise conclusion while ankle deep in cow manure, but honestly that's exactly what I thought, followed by a swift prayer of thanksgiving for our little farm.

After a few moments' rest, I picked up the shovel and continued with my task.

Anyway, this brief interlude during a normal workday came back to me this morning when I read an article entitled "How To Feel Joy In A Dopamine-Saturated World."

"Your brain treats what it sees in Instagram reels the same way it treats cocaine," the article begins. "Both experiences flood a thumbnail-sized region of the brain with dopamine – a chemical that makes you want more, right now. The problem is that after a certain amount of dopamine hits, your brain adapts by turning down the pleasure volume. As a result, things that once made you feel good are no longer enough. If you’re finding it harder to feel simple joy and genuine connections, you’re experiencing what addiction psychiatrists now recognize as dopamine overload, a state where constant stimulation – especially from cellphones, social media, and ultra-processed foods – quietly erodes your ability to feel your happiest emotions and leaves relationships feeling painfully empty. ... [M]odern life delivers dopamine in doses and speeds the human brain is not equipped to handle."

The solution to this dopamine overload, apparently, is to "detox." The article continues: "Dopamine overload requires something simpler, though not easier: you have to stop the activity that creates it. ... Experts have found that the goal of a dopamine detox is not to eliminate dopamine – which would be impossible and unhealthy – but to reduce overstimulating habits so the brain can rebalance and you can enjoy slower, more meaningful rewards again."

Such as watching a bald eagle while cleaning up barn waste. Seriously, it was a genuine shot of dopamine at that moment.

The faster the world goes, the more closely I cling to the homesteading life. Maybe, at some level, this is why.

Another seating area

There is a YouTube real estate enthusiast named Enes Yilmazer who makes videos (filmed by his son) in which he tours mansions, yachts, and other high-end facilities of the Rich and Famous. Many of the properties he films are on the market, and he works with the realtors representing the properties to showcase the amenities. We're talking homes worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Once in a while I'll watch one of his videos to catch a glimpse of how the upper crust lives. The vast majority of the time, Mr. Yilmazer is showcasing some sleek and modern monstrosity that doesn't appeal to me at all. Still, it's interesting brain candy to view during down time.

A random moment from one such video (I can't remember which one) stuck in my head. In the clip, Mr. Yilmazer walked from one wing of a house to another, and he passed by a large area that held an expensive sectional couch but was otherwise empty. He waved casually toward the couch and said, "And another seating area..." in passing as he made his way toward the other wing.

It was the way he said "And another seating area..." that stuck in my head, because I remember thinking, "Seating area for whom?" The house he was showcasing was so massive, and it already had so many other "seating areas," that I'm certain no one would ever frequent this remote and forgotten sectional couch at all. It just needed some sort of furniture to fill an otherwise vacant space.

And here's the thing: The room/corridor through which Mr. Yilmazer was passing easily surpassed in size the footprint of our own home.

I thought about this recently because our house is currently in chaos, cluttered with the detritus that comes from living, working, and engaging in projects within the confines of 1,000 square feet.

In the living room, there was a pile of towels on the coffee table, burying a pot of heated milk to make cheese culture.

In the library, I was drying flannel sheets on racks (I have to dry everything indoors during the winter, of course).

Next to the clothes-drying racks are crates of ripening spaghetti squash. The ones in the top-most crate will be going to church with us to pass out to interested congregants (hence the sign, which reads "Spaghetti squash – help yourself).

As usual, the kitchen was the most active room of all. Older Daughter was engaged in a large production run of tankards, and in winter many steps involving glue must be done indoors.

On the stove, she was cooking a meal.

In one corner, we had put aside a few gallons of drinking water in preparation for the anticipated power outages from last week's wind storm.

In another corner, washed and cleaned milking buckets, milk containers, and a fresh block of cheddar cheese air drying before I wax it.

Anyway, you get the idea. The house was a mess.

But here's the thing: It's a mess because we use it. We live here. We work here. Once in a while, we even entertain here (at which point, of course, we clean it up). We have no interest in, or space for, a distant unused "seating area."

We've known people with large homes. Some friends who were in the potluck rotation at our last place had a massive and gorgeous home that easily held dozens of people, during which time their seating areas were in constant use.

For those whose focus is entertaining (and not homesteading, like us), there seems to be a breaking point in home size. Up to a point, a large home's square footage is an advantage, with space enough for gracious hosting. Beyond that point, however, you get lost and distant seating areas forever unused, but which must still be furnished, cleaned, and heated.

Our home is small and sometimes chaotic, but at least I can honestly say we use every square inch of it.

A little slice of strange

No photos for the following snippet, sorry, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Last Saturday was a windy, blustery day. Don and I were taking advantage of the break in the rain to get some outside chores done. I was cleaning the barn and dressed like it (picture muddy boots, ratty sweatpants, old jacket, etc.). Don wasn't working in mud, but he was dressed in his usual daily work clothes and occupied with a small project in the back yard and on our deck.

Below our property is a road leading further into our isolated little valley. There are other homes further on, snaking into the hills.

While we know most of the people in the homes further down the road, we don't know everyone – especially since a couple of properties have only recently sold. (It's worth noting that one of the recently sold properties is a higher-end home with acreage.)

Anyway, it was while he was working on the deck that Don heard voices. He looked down at the road and saw two people, a man and a woman. They looked to be in their 50s and wore high-end casual country clothing. He said the woman had a short and stylish Karen-esque haircut, and the man had distinguished gray temples.

Having strangers in the neighborhood is odd enough. But it goes further. Apparently they were riding identical lemon-yellow e-bikes up the steepish slope, pedaling gently. He overheard a snippet of conversation about the bicycle gears in which the man said, "I'm on two, sometimes three." The woman replied, "I'm on one. It's very hard to keep us even."

Following behind the e-bikes were two matching (as in, bookends matching) pure-white Corgi-esque lap dogs, very furry, just running along behind and presumably having the time of their lives.

Don watched this extraordinary sight until the people turned a corner and disappeared from view. Meanwhile, since I was out working behind the barn, I missed the whole thing.

In describing the scene to me after I got back to the house, he compared it to the exact opposite of what the locals must have thought when the Clampetts rolled into Beverly Hills. What on earth were these sophisticated people doing here? Were they staying in a local B&B? Were they new neighbors, possible living in the luxury home that recently sold?

"They looked like an advertisement for a high-end retirement village," Don said. "Both looked fit and attractive and very put-together. The e-bikes were matching. Those weren't rentals; they owned them."

We concluded that if these people were new neighbors, we wouldn't look down upon them just because they were fit, attractive, and clearly wealthy. We all have our crosses to bear. Theirs just had an electric assist.

But we also agreed it was just a little slice of strange.

Some days, it's just not worth getting out of bed

Let me tell you about my morning in the barn. Keep in mind you can't really visualize the layout of everything I mention, but that's okay. Just soak up the chaos.

With sunrise getting later, I've been going out to the barn to milk Maggie around 5:45 am. This morning, when I tried to open the gate into the livestock side of the barn, I couldn't get it open because Romeo was lying down in front of it.

(This is what the gate looks like. This photo was taken before the milking stall and calf pen were built in the space to the left.)

My hands were full with the milking buckets in one hand and a scoop of grain in the other. I poked and prodded at Romeo through the space at the bottom of the gate, but he wouldn't move.

So I put down the buckets and the grain, and got more serious about poking and prodding him ("Come on, Romeo, move!"), but nothing doing. He was quite comfortable, thank you, and didn't see a reason to get up.

So I had to go outside the barn and go through two side gates to get into the corral, which got the other cows all excited. ("Are we going out that gate today? Yippee!") But Romeo hadn't moved. He was still comfortably bedded down in front of the gate.

So I shooed him up, slipped through the gate to grab the grain and milk buckets I'd left on the other side, only to turn around and be confronted by Maggie who wanted her grain right now. I managed to dart into the outer milking pen and slam the gate in Maggie's face before she could get in. I put down the grain and milking buckets and managed to get Stormy, the calf, back into the inner pan (Stormy has access to both pens overnight).

(This is the current setup, with the milking stall to the left, the inner calf pen in center-back, and the outer pen in center-front. The gate Romeo was blocking is to the right.)

Then I put the grain in Maggie's grain bucket on the other side of the head gate, opened the milking stall door, and let her in. She settled into her grain, I got the milking stool and leg tie from the shelf where I keep them, tied up Maggie's back let, and started milking.

Everything was going fine. Maggie was eating her grain. The rest of the animals were patiently waiting for breakfast (we've been feeding hay mornings and evenings since the pastures are pretty much eaten down). Stormy was quiet and patient, waiting for me to finish milking before she got her own breakfast.

Maggie finished her grain and, as she always does, took a step back in the milking stall. This is the point where I readjust her leg-tie and keep milking.

But wait, Maggie didn't stop. She kept backing out of the milking stall. Whaaaat? How is this even happening? What are you doing? Keep in mind Maggie's back leg was still tied. I yanked the end of the slip knot so she wouldn't trip and panic, and she continued backing all the way out of the stall.

It took me a moment to realize, in the chaotic moments before I started milking, I didn't lock Maggie's neck into the head gate of the milking stall.

(You can see the head gate in the closed position at the end of the milking stall below. Her grain bucket is on the other side.)

Well, there was nothing else to do but release Stormy (who got an exceptionally rich breakfast as a result) and fetch the tie off Maggie's leg. I fed the animals and came back into the house, sporting a nearly empty milk bucket.

The annoying thing is, I still had to clean and sanitize everything as if I'd gotten a full day's milking, rather than the pathetic one pint I managed to get.

Some days, it's just not worth getting out of bed.

Checking sheep

A friend was describing her activities with their flock of sheep, including milking them. For some reason, her email sparked a memory which, for years, I ranked among my most embarrassing moments.

Let's go back to 1983. I spent an extraordinary summer working at Wolf Park outside of West Lafayette, Indiana. In addition to wolf research and breeding, the facility was something of a farm as well, with bison, sheep, horses, etc.

I was an ignorant little suburban-bred college student trying my best to learn rural ways, and the whole summer at Wolf Park was absolutely stinkin' wonderful.

One day one of the senior volunteer administrators asked me to go check on a flock of (hornless) sheep that were close to lambing. I asked what I had to do. She said to lift the tails of a few of the ewes and note if the vulva was swollen or not. If it was, lambing was close.

So I took myself off to the sheep pen, looked for the animals with udders, lifted their tails, and didn't see anything unusual. I reported back to the administrator that nope, it didn't look like they were anywhere close to lambing.

The next day lambs were popping out everywhere. Somewhat exasperated, the administrator asked me what happened. "I don't know," I protested. "I looked for all the animals with udders and lifted their tails, and didn't see anything unusual."

Enlightenment dawned on the administrator's face. She asked me to describe the udders I was looking at. When I did, she burst out laughing. And I mean she howled with laughter, clutching her side with mirth.

Finally she gasped out, "Those weren't ewes. You were lifting the tails of the rams."

After a few baffled moments, it dawned on innocent 20-year-old me just what part of the sheep's anatomy I had assumed was an udder. Cue the embarrassment.

The administrator's eyes twinkled. "Why do you think rams have such big egos?" she asked.

It took me the rest of the summer to live that one down.

When I'm that age...

We have an older couple who lives down the road from us. They're in their late 80s or early 90s and are as active as anyone I've ever met. Bill, the husband, used to be a heavy-equipment operator and still is the go-to guy when anyone in the neighborhoods needs a load of gravel, a building pad bulldozed, a trench dug, or any other heavy-duty project.

Bill and his wife own the five-acre pasture directly across the road from us. They have one horse and two head of Angus cattle (cow and bull).

A couple months ago, the cow gave birth to the prettiest calf imaginable – pure white, with dark eyes and nose and hooves. Just darling.

Well, a few days ago the calf got out onto the road. We called Bill to let him know.

Mama and the bull were trotting along the fenceline in agitation, trying to figure out how to get reunited with Baby.

A few minutes later, Bill and his wife make it up to start rounding the calf back where she needs to go. Don and I grabbed a couple of push poles and began gently herding the calf down the road, to where Bill had opened a gate into the pasture. We're old hands at this and it was nothing unusual.

The calf finally saw the gate and dashed through it, reunited with her herd. And then – this was the funny part – Bill literally sprinted across the road to close the gate before the older animals escaped as well.

It was the way he sprinted to close that gate that impressed me. I'm not precisely sure how old Bill is, but I think I remember him mentioning a couple years ago that he was somewhere in the vicinity of 90 years old, which would put him at about 92 now. And he's still sprinting to get a job done.

That's exactly how I want to be when I'm his age. Go Bill.

Saturday surprise

Don and I were working on a project out in the yard today when a low "moo" caught our attention. We looked up into the pasture, into which we had released the cows yesterday. Maggie, our Jersey heifer, was ... staring at something on the ground.

"Did Maggie have her calf?" I exclaimed.

Don and I grabbed boots and went to look. Yup, Maggie had dropped her calf. This wasn't supposed to happen for another two weeks or so.

The birth had happened just moments before.  The baby was still wet and not yet on its feet.

Boy? Girl? No idea yet.

Maggie vigorously licked her newborn. Licking accomplishes three things: It cleans the calf, it stimulates its circulation, and it familiarizes the mother with her newborn's scent.

Meanwhile we were tasked with getting Maggie and her baby into the corral for a couple of reasons. One, we don't like newborns to be out in the field just after birth. Too vulnerable. And two, we have something like three-quarters of an inch of rain moving in tonight and tomorrow, and wanted the baby under cover.

After some discussion, we decided to cut a hole in the fence and fetch the calf in the Gorilla cart. God bless that Gorilla cart, it has a thousand and one uses.

We fetched a lead rope and pressed Older Daughter into service. I clipped the lead rope to Maggie (she was cagey but not aggressive, always nice to see considering bovine post-partum hormones), then handed the lead rope to Older Daughter. Don pulled over the Gorilla cart, and I lifted the wet and slimy (and heavy) baby and laid it in the cart. I also took the opportunity to check the gender: It's a girl!

We carefully transported the calf down to the driveway. My job was to keep the calf – who very much wanted to try out her new legs – from trying to get to her feet. Don pulled the cart. Older Daughter pulled Maggie along behind (and tried to keep her from crowding Don). By hook and by crook, we got the animals down from the pasture into the driveway, then pulled the cart to the feed lot behind the barn. (The calf was trying to rise to her feet just as I snatched this photo.)

Now we could let Maggie relax and learn to be a mother.

The new baby is a darling little thing. She's half Jersey, half Angus.

Naturally the other animals are wildly curious to greet the newcomer. Here's Mignon, making overtures of friendship.

It didn't take the baby long to find the faucet. Good! Suck down that colostrum!

Meanwhile Maggie had a strand of mucus hanging down. It was so long it was dragging on the ground and getting tangled in her back legs.

I took a pair of scissors and snipped it shorter.

Maggie still hadn't dropped the placenta, so the mucus is a normal part of the post-partum process in cows.

I left Maggie and her baby alone for a couple hours, then went to check on them. They were both laying down, doubtless exhausted after their ordeal, and looking sleepy and content.

Maggie had also dropped the placenta, which was good to see. Often cows eat this; if it's still there by tomorrow, I'll throw it away.

It seems all is well in our little bovine world.

So that's our Saturday surprise. Maggie wasn't supposed to have her calf until Memorial Day weekend, but calves are born when calves are born. I'm just grateful we were here when it happened and could get everyone under cover before the rain moves in.

I guess we'll be building the calf pen and milking stall sooner than we realized.

Life on a homestead. Roll with the punches.

What's in the pockets?

Don and I were getting ready to walk Mr. Darcy yesterday morning. Don pulled his coat off the coat rack and remarked, "Hmm. My coat seems awfully heavy. What's in the pockets?"

And then, dear readers, he started emptying his pockets ... and Oh. My. Goodness.

He had:

• A tape measure

• A pair of reading glasses

• A battery pack from a cordless drill

• A box of screws

• A bandana

• A second tape measure

• A wrench

• A screwdriver

• A knife

• A pair of pliers

• A third tape measure 

By the time I thought to take a photo, everything had been redistributed to parts unknown since, of course, these items are always in use ... which is why they were in his pockets to begin with.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the coat of a real working man.