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.

Moving to a small town?

This headline caught my eye today: "Small Town Culture Shocks In America Go Viral, Answers Are Very Accurate." It's based on a Reddit thread entitled "People who moved from cities to small towns, what was the biggest culture shock?"

As the headlines imply, it's a different lifestyle when people move from urban areas to small towns. Here is what people wrote:

• Of course it matters where you’ve moved but when you enter a restaurant or bar everyone turns to see who’s come in. At first it was off putting then you realize they’re just looking to see if it’s someone they know. :)
• After 5pm it’s effectively a ghost town. Nothing open but one 24 hour gas station.
• The dating pool is ankle deep. Someone has to break up, and we all move over one.
• Having to drive 30 miles for groceries.
• When we moved to our tiny town in northern PA, the biggest shock was that absolutely nothing was open past 7pm, or on the weekends. The library's only open until 4pm during the week, and not at all on the weekend.
• Grocery store employees asked me how my dog, Hailey, was doing.
• The only store within walkable distance only sells liquor, snacks, and lottery tickets
• I lived in Vermont for a time and small town life required a lot more planning. The grocery store was a 45 minute drive, so if you went once a week and forgot something you did without it. Four wheel drive was a must. The people were more friendly and tolerant than I expected. Like the big city, no one really gave a sh*t what other people did. People in the suburbs seem a lot more conformist than people in the city or in rural areas.
• Everyone, and I mean everyone, knowing all of your business.
• Not judging, but the high percentage of very young parents (e.g. first kid at 18, 19, 20).
• I moved to a small town and now I know my neighbor’s cat better than my own family. Life is quieter but the gossip is way more entertaining
• Loss of anonymity. Couldn’t go anywhere without running into people I knew.
• More meth than the Hallmark Channel would have you believe.
• Everybody knowing each other, easier to hear about everyone’s gossip/drama, driving 20+ minutes just to get groceries, and some people do not take kindly to outsiders lol.
• Nobody locks their doors or windows.
• Simple things. Places to eat. Running to a hardware store takes an hour and a half. Where i live we have 2 gas stations. A McDonald's and a Subway.
• Everyone knows everyone else’s business. I am a deeply private person, and I hate this.
• In a small town everyone knows everyone and in a big city no one give a sh*t who anyone else is.
• Grew up outside of Dallas, spent my first 4 years out of college as a field engineer. Holy f*ck. The towns I was sent to barely qualify as villages. Less than 1000 people, dying infrastructure, no signs of investment. Maybe a gas station and corner store if they are lucky, a coffee shop that’s only open until 3pm wouldn’t be shocking. You meet people who have never left the state they were born in, a lot of times they don’t know what exists more then a 4 hour drive away It makes you wonder where our education system failed and why society doesn’t care.
• Your reputation actually matters. If you piss off the wrong person, you can find yourself frozen out of a lot of social events and financial opportunities.
• Parking everywhere is free
• Honestly, how many stupid people there are. They don't stand out as much when it's a big city, but when they're the majority in a small town it's really obvious.
• I moved from a town of 100k to a town of 650 as a kid. The biggest shock was that not only did everyone in town already know we were coming, but they knew all of our names, what grades we were in, etc. It was f*cking creepy in retrospect.
• In the cities nobody cares about what anyone else does. In the small towns everyone is in everyone else’s business. (Generalizing of course)

So let's hear from you if you've moved from big city to small town. What kind of culture shock did you experience?

Things missing

We've had an unusual late summer and early autumn. The weather is perfectly normal; but what's notable are the things missing.

The biggest missing thing is wild plums.

This part of Idaho has wild plums up the whazoo. In years past, they've been so thick, they've weighed down branches and carpeted the ground.

But this year? Nothing. Literally nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Of the hundreds of thousands of wild plum trees in the region, apparently not a single one yielded fruit. Lots of people were commenting on it.

Another thing missing this year, believe it or not, is blackberries. With wild blackberry bushes everywhere, normally there is tons of fruit.

This year? Absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing. The bushes all look healthy, but they bore not a single berry.

Another thing missing: Rose hips. Wild roses are a thorny staple around here, and they've always produced abundant rose hips.

Unlike the plums or the blackberries, there are some rose hips on some of the rose bushes, but they're small, scarce, and anemic, even though the rose bushes themselves seem healthy.

Another thing missing: Honey locust seed pods. We have a honey locust tree in our yard (when I photographed this, the leaves had almost all dropped).

Normally this trees drops hundreds of big honkin' seed pods. This year? Hardly any, maybe one percent of the amount we normally get.

Another thing missing: Mushrooms. Last year we had loads and loads of mushrooms popping up everywhere.

This year? Nothing. I've seen precisely zero mushrooms around us. Last year we had tons, especially after a hike in the mountains. (To be fair, there might be mushrooms along the hiking path; we haven't been there this year.)

The one thing that hasn't been impacted this year is apples, both wild and domestic. We have thousands of wild apple trees, and they've been producing heavily (no doubt to the relief of the wildlife, considering the dearth of other fruit). Our own trees produced a bumper crop.

As for everything else, I have no idea why we're having such a shortage of routine things. To the best of my knowledge, this year hasn't been wetter or drier or hotter or colder than normal.

Go figure.