Where's Sparky?

This morning I went about doing the usual barn chores: release the chickens, open the corral gate, check the water tank, and finally pitch hay into the feed bins for the cows.

Two cows (Matilda and her adult calf Amy) stay in the barn, so that leaves four cows (Polly, Pixie, Victoria, and Sparky) under the awning. But this morning, only three cows showed up for breakfast. Where was Sparky?

Somehow I knew. I grabbed my camera and headed down to the woods. Sure enough, there was Sparky, standing protectively over the first calf of the season. The baby was already dry and on its feet, meaning it was born overnight.

We know all six of our cows are due in about the next month or so, so we've been watching udders. Usually a swollen udder is a telltale sign that birth is imminent. But I ask you, does this udder look swollen to you? Yeah, didn't think so. Can't even see it among all the fur.

At any rate, considering it's January, this little girl -- yes, it's a heifer -- couldn't have been born at a better time. Yesterday was cold, rainy, and nasty. The rain moved out overnight, the temperature hovered just at freezing but not below, and today we actually had weak sunshine and it rose to 40F.

While Don had his morning coffee, I cleaned Matilda/Amy's pen and made it ready with fresh food and water. Then we went out to fetch the calf up out of the woods. Naturally Sparky had moved from the original spot I saw her, but after beating the property for fifteen minutes we finally found her conveniently closer to the barn. I scooped up the baby while Don herded Sparky and opened gates. Within a remarkably short time, Sparky and baby were safely in the barn.

Ah, nothing like a little meconium to start the day.

It's a beautiful, healthy calf, and Sparky is a good mother.

We spent the day addressing the logistics of mid-winter calves. I'm grateful our winter is mild (unlike last winter) and we have no snow on the ground at the moment. But we can't have calves in the feedlot, which drains poorly and gets knee-deep in mud during wet weather. Our plan is to fence off the awning and open the gate to the driveway area, which is rocked and firm. This would give the animals access to the barn awning for food and shelter, while giving them room to roam around the driveway to stretch their legs and let the calves gambol.

For the moment, Sparky will need to stay in the barn until we have the driveway cow-proof. Don put the tractor to use and cleaned out under the awning...

...while I cleaned out another pen in the barn and made it ready for Sparky and baby to spend the night.

The pen is small, but now it has fresh bedding, water, and hay. We'll be playing musical cows for a few days, but as long as everyone has shelter, that's fine.

We're expecting three to six inches of snow over the next few days, so I'm grateful Sparky had her baby when she did. In fact, the first snow squall moved in just as we settled the animals for the night.

(What's not really visible in this photo is the wind blowing sheets of snow sideways.)

Looks like we'll be doubling our herd in the next month or so. Okay ladies, who's next?

Meanwhile, I thought about naming the new baby Hickory. She is smoky-black at the moment, but I suspect she'll turn dark brown as she gets older.

The first of six calves. In the middle of winter. Oy vey.

Q&A: Cooking and bulls

Questions from a reader:

What's your favorite meal to make and why? Favorite dessert to make? Favorite thing to can? What item couldn't you live without? How hard is it keeping a bull for breeding? Have you ever tried AI with your cows?

Favorite meal: Hmmm, I have several, but one of my favorites is chicken piccata.

Favorite dessert to make: Trifle.

Favorite thing to can: I don't know if I have a "favorite," since I'll can whatever needs it. Perhaps a better answer is what do I find most satisfying to can? That's easy: Whatever we grow entirely ourselves, whether it's corn, peas, garlic, tomato sauce, blueberries, pears, apple pie filling, strawberry preserves, plum butter, etc.

What item could I not live without? My husband (wink).

How hard is it keeping a bull for breeding? Not hard, if you have a tightly fenced bull pen. Over the years we've had our bull loose with the cows, and the result is indiscriminate breeding whenever a cow is in heat. (Not to mention the occasional indiscriminate breeding with a neighbor's cow.) We like our ladies to calve during warmer months, i.e. between May and August, so it helps to keep the bull in his pen at other times.

The pen, obviously, has to be stoutly made. Even then, escapes happen.

I should point out we only keep Dexter bulls, which are fairly good tempered (for a bull). And at the moment, we are bull-less.

Have you ever tried AI (artificial insemination) with your cows? Yes, back when we lived in Oregon and didn't have room to keep a bull. Our success was mixed: Of the three times we tried it, two failed and one worked. AI is wonderful if you're set up for it, but in this deeply rural area, having an AI expert handy exactly when a cow is at the right spot in her heat cycle is not easy. For us, it's far, far easier to keep a bull, especially now that we have a place to put him.

Yikes! Forgot to list it!

I've been completely remiss. The latest Back-to-Basics bundle has been available for the past week, and I totally spaced it (we've been busy!).

These bundles are astoundingly comprehensive. Subjects including cooking from scratch, do-it-yourself, food storage, natural remedies, preparedness, homesteading, frugal living, gardening, natural living, and natural parenting.

This year's Bundle contains 53 authors; 59 ebooks, courses, or videos; and a number of bonus offers (a canning bundle, an essential oil bundle, and discounts or freebies for such things as custom tea blends, health foods, and some cool paracord Celtic knot necklaces -- I'm a sucker for Celtic knot anything).

However due to my laxness, the last day for purchasing the Bundle is (cough cough) tomorrow. Sorry about that. The cost for the Bundle is $39.97 for online access, $64.97 for a USB flash drive, and $69.97 for a flash drive plus online access.

Sorry I didn't list this earlier, but please go take a look at what they have to offer. I think you'll be impressed.

Q&A: Jersey Giant chickens

Question from a reader:

I've been wanting to buy some Jersey Giant chickens for a while now. When I saw you got them I was thrilled. Could you tell me how they are doing? How do they deal with Idaho winters, their temper, how many eggs. Are they overall a healthy chicken? Would love some feedback on that. Thanks!

We've Jersey Giants for almost three years now. So far we've been very satisfied with them as a breed.

The females aren't especially large -- the same size as our one Black Australorp hen -- but the roosters are very big. At the moment we have way too many roosters -- five -- two of whom are our "herd sires" and the other three of whom we're waiting to reach their full size to butcher. We haven't butchered any of our own birds yet, but these boys look like they'll dress out at about ten pounds or a bit under. Jersey Giants take about nine months to reach their full growth, but unlike the fast-growing Cornish Crosses, they stay healthy instead of having their bodies fall apart.

We have not found the roosters to be at all aggressive to people; which, considering their size, is a durn good thing. The roosters tend to fight with each other, so one of our future projects is a rooster house where we can raise young roosters away from the older boys (and the hens) until they're of butchering weight.

The hens lay brown eggs, sometimes faintly speckled, of regular size (not especially big). They're just as good layers as any other breed of hen we've ever had.

One advantage of the ladies is they go broody at the drop of a hat, which is why I've taken to calling Jersey Giants the triple-purpose breed: meat, eggs, broodiness. Having hens so willing to hatch and rear their own chicks is a great contributor toward a sustainable chicken venture, IMHO.

While this winter has been fairly mild so far, last winter was quite bad: Lots of snow, lots of cold. The chicken coop is not heated, and the birds all did fine.

They're a healthy breed and we haven't noticed any problems with how they grow or mature. Overall I've been quite pleased with Jersey Giants, and I'm sure we'll be even more so when we get into full meat production (hopefully this year).

Q&A session?

A reader just posted the following:

Patrice, this is off subject but would you ever consider a post that just answers questions? We are about to head up to Idaho for our fourth time in as many months and planning a move. But as you wrote that you were driving a 2k car, we are completely ignorant as to what vehicle we need in Northern Idaho. I was assuming a heavy 4 wheel drive but it doesn't sound like that is what you drive. Many other people probably have questions also. Thanks.

Hmmm. This might be an interesting idea. Does anyone have questions they'd like me to answer, to the best of my ability? (I reserve the right not the answer anything I don't want to, LOL. You can't have our bank account number, for example.)

To answer this gentleman's question: We live 1.5 miles off-road, meaning we can easily get snowed in during wintry weather (until some hardworking neighbors team up to plow everyone out). We've always used smallish vehicles that are high-clearance, four-wheel drive, and hatchback (the better for loading chicken feed or wood). Until it died, we had a Hundai Tucson that was the toughest little beast you ever saw. Armed with studded tires and chains, it handled all kinds of hairy road conditions. That said, we also know when to stay home.

While a beefy pickup truck has its uses -- and we have one -- it's impractical for day-to-day driving. My auto preference is for a high-clearance vehicle as opposed to, say, a low-slung sedan. We currently have two inexpensive vehicles, both costing $2000 from used-car lots: a Hundai Santa Fe (technically Younger Daughter's vehicle) and a 2000 Dodge Durango.

Hope this helps.

What do you DO with all that money?

An article came out a few days ago on how Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, is now one of the richest persons on the planet with a fortune of $106 billion.

Putting aside his ethics and morals and other human considerations, this article leads to an interesting question: What do you DO with that much money?

I mean really, what? I realize at some level wealth starts to beget wealth, but at what point is it too much? You could purchase the most expensive houses on the planet, the most expensive vehicles, the most expensive electronics -- and then what? There comes a point where additional purchases make no sense.

Wealth acquisition and distribution is an interesting study. According to Quora:

If you were to redistribute all the wealth in the world equally to everyone, it will eventually come back to the current distribution. And believe it or not, that is not a global conspiracy, but a natural distribution. It was discovered by Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto.

The Pareto Distribution and its evolving variations: the 80/20, which becomes 90/10, continuing to 95/5 and eventually 99/1. This is a universal distribution system and thus also applying to wealth distribution.

The gap is actually getting wider because the wealth mentality creates a positive leverage and an increased upward momentum, while the poverty mentality creates a negative leverage and a increased downward momentum.

In other words the two worlds move apart from each other, as more wealth (growth) is created. This trend is clearly apparent in the evolution of the universal distribution model.

That's nice, but again: What do you DO with all that money?

ThinkAdvisor puts the spending of the richest Americans into 14 categories: Home improvement, household staff, education, gambling, collectibles, clothing, jewelry, automobiles, boats, entertainment, vacation or leisure travel, club memberships, charitable contributions, and political contributions. (More ridiculous examples are found here.)

But once all those things are purchased, are they worth it? I'm sure you've heard this story:

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

The businessman was astonished. “Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?”

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. “I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled. “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

The topic of wealth came up a few days ago between Don and I when he told me an acquaintance of ours -- who is not struggling financially -- had won $80,000 at a casino and promptly bought a new car.

"That's funny," I said (at the time, we were driving to church in our $2000 car). "A new car is about the last thing I'd spend money on."

Our discussion then turned to what we would do if we had a sudden $80,000 windfall. We grew very quiet for a few moments as we both struggled to come up with something.

"Pay off the mortgage," we both concluded, followed by making a few cosmetic improvements to the house. Beyond that, sock it away for our retirement.

We have no desire or need for household staff, additional education, gambling, collectibles, clothing, jewelry, cars, boats, fancy entertainment, club memberships, or political contributions. It would be nice to do some leisure traveling and have more money for charitable contributions, but that's about it.

Which is probably why we're not rich, either. We simply don't desire it.

Of course, by every yardstick out there, we're really really rich in everything else that matters.

And I'm willing to bet Jeff Bezos doesn't get sunsets as pretty as ours.

The eagle has landed

Over the years, I've tried to make it a policy never to step foot outside without my camera in my pocket. This is because I never know what kind of interesting or exciting thing might suddenly happen, such as the cows playing tag with a magpie.

Well the other morning I couldn't find my camera, so I shrugged and went about my usual barn chores. Then -- wouldn't you know it -- while I was standing in the corral filling the water tank, a bald eagle flew right over my head and landed on a tall pine next to the barn. And I didn't have my camera. It would have been a perfect shot.

I was kicking myself for missing that photo, and once again promised myself to take my camera every time I step foot outside. Which is how, while driving to town yesterday, I happened to see another bald eagle swoop in and land on a tree overlooking the road. This time I was ready.

My usual procedure when faced with situations like this is not to worry about distance, blurriness, or shooting through the car's windshield (as I was doing). It's just to point and shoot at first, then later try to improve the situation and get better photos. That way, if (in this case) the eagle flew away before I could get closer, at least I had a long-distance blurry photo through the car's windshield.

But the eagle stayed put as I got onto the highway, so I stopped on the shoulder nearer the tree.

I took a few photos, more or less identical, then proceeded into town to do my errands. But on the way back, the eagle was still there.

Feeling satisfied I at last got my eagle photo, I went on my way. I got barely a hundred yards down the road when yet another eagle swooped in and landed on a tree across the road.

Y'know, I really love living in Idaho.

And it sure helps having a camera.

It's so quiet around here

I imagine many of you have been wondering if I fell off the face of the earth. My apologies for being so quiet on the blog!

As you can imagine, it was busy here in the Lewis household over Christmas and New Year's -- but now it's quiet. Maybe too quiet? Both our daughters are now back in their respective jobs: Older Daughter in New Jersey, Younger Daughter in Illinois.

Having the girls home was wonderful. We didn't do anything special, but they were just so gloriously there, if you know what I mean. They were both able to recharge their batteries and head back to their respective jobs refreshed and ready to tackle the new year.

Mr. Darcy, of course, thought it was absolutely bliss having new playmates at home. He learned all kinds of new tricks we'll have to train him out of.

We took Older Daughter back to the airport on January 1. We took Younger Daughter back yesterday. No matter how festive they make the airport, it's hard to watch one's children fly away.

Don and I are used to a quiet household. After all, when Younger Daughter departed for boot camp last fall, we were by ourselves for three months. We adapted to being empty nesters quickly, in part because we're so busy.

But when the girls left this time, little things jolted me. Older Daughter sat in this chair with her laptop on the table. When she left, the chair was still pushed back. Jolt!

Younger Daughter left a pair of favorite ratty shoes in the living room. Jolt!

The tea strainers both girls use when they're home were left in the dish rack. Jolt!

Younger Daughter and I left the house at 4:30 am yesterday morning to get her to the airport in time for her flight. Then yesterday evening we had 20+ neighbors here for our weekly potluck. It's not like we have no friends around. But still, we miss our girls. I'm just glad they're doing so well in their respective careers.

Mr. Darcy's confusion

Yesterday Older Daughter took Mr. Darcy for a walk in the snow. On the way, she passed a neighbor's gate warning about the numerous dogs therein. Older Daughter reports Mr. Darcy actually had his hackles up.

Later in the evening we all settled in to watch one of our favorite Christmas movies: "A Christmas Carol" with the incomparable George C. Scott.

Since we don't have a television, Don set up his large computer monitor on the microwave stand, and hooked it up to Younger Daughter's computer (which has a CD slot).

Well let me tell you, Darcy was fascinated. Absolutely enthralled at the sight of the movie. He'd never seen anything like it. We laughed ourselves silly at his rapt attention.

What was even funnier was when the scary parts happened. No kidding, Darcy jumped to his feet and cowered against our legs, or hid behind Don's chair.

Such is the learning curve for a puppy, I suppose -- even if the puppy is nearly 60 lbs and six months old.

(September 10)

(December 27)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my dear readers!

I'm happy to report both our girls are home safe and sound, thanks to the largely unthanked airport and airline personnel who work so hard during this time of year. Their flights came in at very different times on December 23, necessitating two separate trips to the airport (we got home with Younger Daughter at 1 am on December 24). But no matter, they're both home! (Though both were hoping for a white Christmas and were a bit disappointed to have "meh" amounts of snow on the ground.)

Christmas Eve is our big day of celebrating, starting with our whimsical and absurd junk food feast (in which we indulge in all the forbidden foods we seldom have, and which started as an attempt by my dear husband to keep me from slaving in the kitchen) and ending with the departure of our dear friends D and S, who have joined us for every Christmas Eve since we moved to Idaho. These fine people have faced some hairy health issues in the past year, so we're doubly glad to have them with us.

Here's Don's father's Bible, opened and ready for him to read Luke 2.

Our nativity scene (a beloved Christmas gift from my parents years ago) backlit by an oil lamp.

A very blurry picture of D and S (I was holding the camera in my lap and trying not to be obnoxious about photographing people).

Here the girls share an electronic moment.

Don always reads Luke 2 out loud, reminding us of our blessings.

Mr. Darcy was graced with a Christmas ribbon collar.

We woke up to a white Christmas after all, with snow coming down fairly heavily.

A reader sent this hilarious video, meant to bring a smile to everyone's faces (I like the mistletoe reaction):




Above all, never forget:

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

A blessed Christmas to everyone.