A Castle in Ruins

You know summer is over when the crenelations of the hay castle in the loft start to lean and the tunnels are exposed with every day of feeding. I remember the hours of fun we used to have as kids in our friend's hay loft. It smelled sweet and warm like summer grass and was a child's wonderland for games of 'hide and seek' and 'king of the castle'.

So, it was not at all strange that families staying on the farm with us this summer would have naturally gravitated to our full hay loft, also smelling sweet and warm like the summer grass we had just cut from the fields. I, honestly, had lost my appreciation for haylofts. I viewed ours as a lot of hard work to load and a place of apprehension throughout the winter as I watched the bale count dwindle each year.

Load it up; feed it out; repeat. Year in - year out. A fairly unimaginative way to look at a hay loft. Add some kids to the mix, however, and also some rainy days in the middle of the summer, and a hay loft can morph into a medieval castle. We had two families work on the piles of hay this year, in their own way. The first had little kids so dad did most of the castle building. Nothing too elaborate, nothing too creative. He was an adult after all.

The castle took on a life of its own under the diligence and hard work of two 12-year-old girls who spent hours building the fort that remains in ruins today. There were tunnels and doors and hidden rooms. There were crenelations made by standing some of the bales of hay on end. There was even a shooting platform for the basketball hoop set high up on one of the bale drops in the center of the barn. Build a castle; shoot a few hoops; build a secret passage way; shoot a few hoops.

I appreciated the extent of the building activities, until this fall. Sure the girls wanted me to see what they had done and I dutifully climbed up the bales to take a peak, but I must have missed a lot of the infrastructure. Only now as I feed four bales of hay a day and slowly dismantle the girls' works have I seen the imagination of the world they created and understand the delightful skipping of our summer artisans.

And then the adult mind appears to niggle at my own delight. There really isn't as much hay here as I had thought from a quick purview. Behind the crenelations are walkways and deeper rooms. Even some tunnels. Will we have enough hay to see us through the winter after all? Darn that hay castle for making the barn look full up.

No, I have to remind myself. That's not the way to see it. The hay castles built this summer will provide memories for these kids as adults. Maybe as they walk down a city street in July, maybe as they sit at a desk looking out the window on a rainy day. "Remember that summer we built a fine medieval castle in the hay loft at Leaping Lamb Farm, where the hay smelled sweet and warm and the rain pounded down on the metal roof? What a great time we had!"



Photos: hay loft with remaining passages and crenelations

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Check These Projects off the List!

This was the summer of our "greening". We built a large, 3-bay composter to better utilize all the animal manure produced on our farm, and we installed solar panels on the barn to power our farm operations, because, yes, even in Oregon there is enough sun to do this!

The composter was a bit of a challenge because this was actually a project scheduled for last summer. It seems it is wise to include people who build structures when discussing the best location for one of these. I decided, with the approval of the woman helping me with the grant, that the most attractive and seemingly easiest place to build the structure was directly down the hill from the horse's loafing shed. The roof lines would look clean and I could wheelbarrow the manure right over the wall. The tractor could approach from down below to turn the piles. Easy.

Then the engineer got involved! Despite our barn sitting on the top of a hill for the past 80 years, any cutting into the side of the hill was seen as catastrophic to the building's integrity. I figured the barn had sat on logs and stones for this long, why not longer? No one cared to listen to my theory. Throw enough rebar and cement an engineer's way and he will be happy. Except the structure took on the cost of a small house, so we scrapped it until I could come up with another location.

Last winter, I tried to think creatively. This time I involved my builder Alan. Did he think we could squeeze a composter on the end of the loafing shed? I would be able to drive the tractor straight into it from two different sides. There would be a squeaky 6 feet to spare between the barn and the building. I would have to hone my non-existent tractor skills. Everyone signed off on the plan. It was out of my hands. The guys did what they needed to do, with a few adaptations along the way.

Our solar panel project started construction the day we heard we had received a partial grant from a federal program. We have the perfect south facing roof off the barn to maximize sun power. Perfect roof and incline; not so sure about the construction. Did I know how deep the large posts holding up the roof went into the ground? Did I think they were set in cement? Well, that depended on a number of things.

We needed to reinforce the roof anyway since it was never built with the thought of laying solar panels 7 wide and deep. The contractor started with the supporting posts and, surprise, surprise, they were only set into the ground 8" at most! Not to worry- a three foot hole around each, married, pressure-treated 8x8s, pack all this with concrete- and everyone's happy. For my part, I will always wonder about the posts holding up the corners of the shed that were were left untouched. Note to self - don't back the tractor into either of these while working the composter!

Installation of the panels went fairly quickly once the structure was re-supported, and the intermittent fall rain stopped for a few days. Our old barn, designed before the advent of baled hay, had a door that opened straight out to the loafing shed roof where the panels were installed and also a permanent ladder with a platform used, I think, to originally service the hay hooks and the track meant for pulling loose hay from below.

I love to cross projects off our summer to-do list! Our new-looking composter will soon weather and match the barn. I'm sure a few dings from me will come with use, but much like a new car, the first one hurts the most, the rest just add character. The fancy solar meter inside the barn hums along when the sun is out, compiling figures of wattage being pushed back into the power grid. It is high tech for such an old space. For this summer we are the face of farming in the 21st century.



Photos: (top) brand new composter minus the poop; (bottom) solar panels mounted above the sheep's loafing shed

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A Lesson in Milling

Our summers fill farmer Greg's head with projects because this is the only time he is "off" from his non-farm job. I think he originally imagined the summers as a time where he could write his book or take a break from three hard semesters in a row. He didn't count on trees falling over in the winter, blackberries growing like the prickly rose vines in Sleeping Beauty, or the list of honey-do's that stack up over time as things fall apart in the rain.

Farmer Greg's list was long this summer, but one of the more interesting and educational projects was the milling of a number of large trees that blew down last winter, taking with them other large trees. Of course it helped that neighbor Dave connected us with an old logger on the other side of the mountain who just happened to have a mobile mill. What are neighbors for in the woods if they can't help you find your local retired woodsman? The mill was set up in the new clearing down by the spring holding tank, the site of the largest windfalls and the heaviest trees to try to drag too far from where they fell.

Greg and Randy had been cutting up and moving logs into place as soon as the ground was no longer muddy. A place was cleared for the trailer to be backed in. A peeve and wire chokers were borrowed from Dave so the logs could be maneuvered more easily into position. The surprising part - the mill man, took it upon himself to teach everyone involved how to use his machine - how to check the computer screen, how to move the controls, how to cut the size intended. I ended up being the only one not to run it for no other reason than my absence doing other projects.


For four full days, the guys (and Annie for a partial day when she wasn't taking photos of the operation) loaded large, heavy logs onto the hooks of the mill and unloaded cut boards onto the trailer. There was a list of specific sizes we needed for the manure composter we were about to build next to the barn. Then there was all the rest, cut to sizes we hoped would be useful in the future: 2x6s, 2x8s, 2x10s.

The horses and sheep came down for a look, but not for long. Too much commotion, not enough grass. The days were warm but the shade in the woods saved a few souls from heat stroke, while sawdust swirled in the air and covered both men and plants alike.


How many boards do a few windfall trees make? Lots it seems. Certainly enough to build stuff and still have a garage full. Obviously we will need to build more stuff soon or the trailer will sit out in the weather from now to kingdom come and no roof to cover it as the wood cures, and cures some more.

There was one hard lesson we learned from this project. When milling wood for a specific length, say 8 feet, the logs actually need to be cut at about 8'8" because you lose length in the milling process. This meant when we needed 12 foot lengths to tie in as beams for our new composter, 11'8" just didn't make the span. The guys tried to work our wood the best they could but there are certain rules of the game. We will know for the next time.

Meantime, I have plenty of fresh cedar and fir sawdust to blanket our blueberries for the winter and even enough to scatter in the stalls from time to time. We will have to do the math and determine whether all the labor and time were worth the effort financially, especially with the falling price of lumber. But, from an aesthetic, conservation, and educational point of view I already know it was. Sometimes the value of the product is not in how much money you saved but in the knowledge that you learned and accomplished something of value.



Photos: Milling process x 4

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Lost!

I knew I lost one little lamb about a month ago because she kept trying to die on me and finally disappeared into the brush so I would give up my feeble attempts to save her. I think I realized she would eventually do this. She had not become better with any of our ministering in the barn and, if a lamb can be depressed (hard to imagine when they are so darned cute), she was the poster child for it.

Then, just this week we lost 30 sheep, plus or minus, in one fell swoop. Not lost as in "died", but lost as in "where the hell did they disappear to???" This was a dramatic turn of events and right in front of newly arrived guests. It was also enough to make me lose a very good night's sleep.

I hummed the tune of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' as I lay my head down on the pillow.

Scottie had a lot of lambs, lot of lambs, lot of lambs
Scottie had a lot of lambs whose pastures had turned brown

And everywhere that Scottie went, Scottie went, Scottie went
Everywhere that Scottie went the lambs could not be found

They wandered way back in the woods, in the woods, in the woods
They wandered way back in the woods a distance from the farm

The night grew black and she despaired, she despaired, she despaired
The night grew black and she despaired, a cougar's done them harm...

I noticed we were missing half the herd during feeding. This is always an exciting first experience for new guests at our farm stay. We ring the bell, throw down bales of hay from the loft and divide it between mangers so that 60 odd ewes and their babies can have some dinner. There is a free standing manger in the middle of the shed requiring a cool underhand toss to land flakes of hay properly between the wire walls. Frisbee is good training, so is slow-pitch softball.

This evening I knew I was short a good many sheep. We bedded down the horses, the donkey, and the good sheep who had returned on schedule and went looking for the rest. I had several ideas of former hideouts. I am lucky this couple were in good shape as we hiked higher and higher into the hills. Boy, did they get the personalized tour from me! I took them as high as the logging road behind the property, all the while following fresh sheep poop. Or was it deer? Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference.

We reached a "T" in the road. Would the sheep really have turned even farther away from the farm and headed up the hill? I didn't think so. They hadn't gone that way before. We headed down hill and back towards the barn with no sheep in sight either on the road or through the clear cuts. I started to think back to the afternoon when the dog had squeezed under my desk at the sound of rifle shots. Sure it was hunting season, but only bow and arrow at the moment. Had the gun shots spooked the sheep? Had a hunter mistaken one for a deer? Not the outcome I was looking for.

Once I had checked every hiding spot I knew and driven to my neighbor's house because she has such great grass in her back pasture, I started to call the other folks who live up our road, about 8 residences in all. No, no one had seen any wayward sheep that evening. Of course it was now getting to dusk and the sheep would be bedded down. Farmer Jones suggested there was nothing to do until morning, and even then we might find they returned on their own. Hmmmpff, I wasn't so sure. There were, after all, recent cougar sightings on our road, just to make things "interesting"!

It is at this point I always question my intelligence with sheep and livestock in general. If they had escaped before, why hadn't I done more to prevent a wider range? Could it be because none of our property is fenced on the forest side? Could it be because we had created a perfect storm by ripping up both hay fields in one year? Could it be that once sheep get an idea in their mind it takes a mighty deterrent to make them forget it??

The next morning I went out early to the barn, hoping my pasture roaches had come home in the middle of the night, hungry and humbled. Not a sign. About an hour later my closest neighbor knocked on the door dressed for work. She had seen our sheep down the road about two miles, scattered through a recent clear cut. Oh, great, they were probably eating some of the fresh new seedlings!

Annie hopped on the ATV and came home with all thirty sheep trotting in front of her. She talked about almost missing them because they blended so well with the backdrop. Wouldn't they have loved that - to stay free for another day?! At least I didn't qualify for the worst shepherdess in the world that day. The ewes were back and it didn't appear we had lost any.

They, on the other hand, lost their freedom from that day forward. We decided, until we seeded the barn field, we would leave all the livestock locked behind secure fencing. I figured there was grass at the edges of the fields, and we could toss down extra bales of hay to spread around for forage. The horses were caught up in the bargain, but it made things simpler this way.

Now, going through four bales of hay a day, even with the addition of five tons from my local farmer, is not a good thing for conserving winter feed and, with the cooler nights, the animals seem hungrier than ever. We have had a few rains so the grass is getting greener in the unfenced pastures, but I figure it will have to be plentiful (to their knees!) before our sheep decide to stay close to home. We are almost on gun hunting season so there are additional problems if the flock decides to break out and go wandering in the woods again. Of course, if I find out who the ring leader is, I may just have to whack her over the head with a rifle butt myself!


Photos:(top) sheep in our 'dirt' field with inviting green grass down by the creek but no fence to keep them in, (bottom) horses are grazing the edges of our 'dirt' field as best they can. Will open up pastures as soon as rains start.

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Chasing Sheep in City Clothes

My heels were already sore from wearing nice shoes into town to match my nice outfit for a meeting. Running down the graveled dirt road in them did nothing to improve the feel or my attitude towards the four black sheep I was chasing. I had left my car turned off in the middle of the road because herding sheep as I backed up was not working that well; there was no way to turn around; and I was absent a sheep dog.

Why had we thought it such a good idea to tear up not only the hay field but most of our other grazing pasture as well this summer? Oh, yeah, the lack of good grasses and an over abundance of moss. However, now it didn't seem as if economies of scale were doing us any good. The sheep were disappearing into the woods looking for forage, and this inevitably (for the bad sheep at least) meant some of them were finding their way into the low summer creek bed, where we also lacked a fence for obvious winter flooding reasons, and hence onto Honey Grove road.

Our neighbors had taken to driving down our driveway to let us know the sheep were out. Some of them had even tried to chase the sheep back onto the property, but this was problematic, as I mentioned above, because herding with a car doesn't work that well either in reverse or driving forward. Annie and I (mostly Annie) had taken to jumping on the ATV to round up the surly lot, although I also tried the technique of ringing Pavlov's dinner bell and clapping my hands loudly. This worked best to get the horses back to the barn at a trot.

Today it was hot and dusty. The girls looked at me as if I had lost my mind when I started to back the car. A few dove off the gravel road and down the steep bank through tripping blackberries and loose rock. I got out to follow them and, as I took a step to the edge, realized I might tumble and end up in the barbed wire fence, or at least astride a woolly sheep.

It was a bit of a stand-off until I got a large stick from the side of the road. "Get out of the ditch you silly ewes!" "Move! I said, move !! Pshhh, pshhh, pshhh (I have a sound I make that actually produces movement from the sheep when they feel I mean it)." I whacked the surrounding flora for emphasis. The sheep decided to follow their sisters back up onto the road. Finally! I gave the last one a thwap with the stick anyway, just to make a point. She didn't feel a thing and I felt a hint of justice...and just a twinge of revenge.

The sheep now trotted in the direction of their escape route, down a side road and through the opening to our neighbor's property that had once been secured with a fence. It seems Joe had decided to do some work and the fence was a hindrance to his ingress and egress. Sheep just love that kind of decision-making by humans.

It was hard to follow now. The blackberries and nettles were waist high and a traipse into the overgrown field was just asking for trouble, not to mention an increasingly dark mood on my part. I heaved my stick at the fleeing sheep, hoping they were feeling badly enough to join the rest of the flock. I needed to construct some type of a physical barricade, even if this wasn't our land. I checked for branches and small downed trees to make a temporary pole fence and tried to jam what I could across the rather large opening. Good enough!

Thankfully, no cars had come bombing down the road while I was parked in the middle of it. Dirt makes it hard to control a stop and explaining why I had left my lovely new car to the vagaries of a country road, and residents known to drive a little too fast down it, just didn't add up to good sense on my part. Besides, I didn't really want to explain why our sheep were all over the neighborhood. I had already been warned about the cougar sighting twice. What kind of a shepherdess was I anyway to let my flock wander hither and yon?

Once back at the house, I took off my city clothes and my city shoes and re-dressed in jeans and Crocs. Yeah, that felt good. Tonight I would need to start graining the sheep so that coming to the bell seemed like a good thing to do. At this rate, I would also need to pull in some hay from my neighbor farmer's second cut because I wasn't going to have enough to get us through the winter.

Of course we could always cull some sheep to bring down the numbers and get rid of the laggards. I wondered if any of the escape artists today were on the list we had compiled earlier in the summer, but about which I had done nothing to date. I would have to take a better look tonight when they had their heads buried in the manger. "Come here my pretties," said the wicked witch of the West. (I hope this doesn't seem too callous, but bad sheep are a problem and they always lead others astray with them...Where have we heard that before. Hmmm.)

PS Oh, yeah, and just to be clear about the title of this blog - the sheep were not the ones wearing city clothes!

Photo: This woolly hair sheep at the front is a "cull". Her hair doesn't shed out the way it is supposed to and she produces midget lambs that she then deserts. Too bad since she has a cute face. Seems like the rest of the sheep are wondering if they are on the list too.

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White Devil Turkeys...that's what the reporter called them

Our turkeys are getting a lot of coverage this summer. First it was their dinosaur-like qualities, increasing as they grow larger. Next it was the saving of Rose, the only turkey hatchling to make it past one day old. Now our turkeys have landed themselves in a reporter's blog...because they bit him on the butt when he was out here writing a story about our farm stay experience. I believe he calls the perpetrators our "white devil turkeys". Hmmm, not a great marketing tool, but I do see what he means.

The guy was actually pretty cool about the attack. He had mentioned that he needed to get all the farm yard terms correct or he would be considered the city reporter who doesn't know how to cover a rural story. I believe I introduced him to the word "manger" in describing the hay feeder for the sheep and horses. I wonder if it rung a bell about the baby Jesus? The reporter didn't need a term for getting bit on the butt by the turkeys, but here again, there was that rural pressure to take it all in stride, so he never yelled out when it happened. Seems the reporter may have suffered a nip on the leg as well.

The turkeys are making it hard for little kids to enter the chicken yard without several distraction tactics to keep them safe. We have the "gentle foot maneuver", not a swift kick, to push the birds away. All you do is stand on one leg and use the other to move the closest bird aside. We have the "toss the mulberries and watch the turkeys gobble them up" move which works for everyone and kids find to be great fun. "One for me and one for them" also works but I usually warn parents about the staining ability of mulberries...permanent purple.

We have the: "Don't point your finger at the birds or you will get it nipped like a worm" admonition; "Try to pet a turkey and it will actually run away with a squeak" technique; "Don't worry about the turkeys on the lawn. They will fly back at their leisure" suggestion. Of course, the best solution for the kids who never figure how to dominate this crowd is to hide behind mom or dad, or just plain run away. I do hope we aren't sending any kids home with a turkey phobia!

I have included a link here to the reporter's blog which I hope stays live because it is pretty funny. http://kyleodegard.mvourtown.com/2009/07/16/white-devil-turkeys-gt-top-10-online/ . It was nice that he came out to do the story and I don't want him thinking we didn't appreciate his fortitude and bravery to take on not only the turkeys, but the donkey with the new bad habit of putting his nose between your legs and bringing it up with a jerk when he feels you are not paying enough attention to him. Beware the donkey!

At least our visiting family had nothing but nice things to say about their stay here and the shot the photographer ran with for the lead story had the most idyllic Madonna mother leaning over the manger with her son feeding the sheep. So what is with all the biblical references? I have no idea. Our guest just looked like a Raphael painting.

And the White Devil Turkeys? They are still running the show. They love little girls in pink pants and sweaters the best as they show off their feathers and strut around the chicken yard. Three-year-old's work best based on their size and eye level contact and we are specializing in those this summer (kids, not birds). As much as they can be slightly alarming in a group, there is no maliciousness, only curiosity. I suspect that Thanksgiving will once again be bitter sweet when we have to send them off. If they just didn't taste so darn good!



Photo: (top) Curious "devil" turkey wants to bite the camera lens, (bottom) Turkeys at the mulberry tree.

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Death-Eaters...as in Wasps

Who knew wasps are carnivorous in August? Even hungry enough to locate a mole carcass, left outside the front door by the cat, and from thence scooped up by farmer Greg and dropped into the rolling trash bin? A mole carcass that entered the bin on Thursday afternoon, with expected pick-up the next morning?

Thursday had been a good day as Annie and I finished our evening chores of corralling and feeding animals. Our guests had not yet arrived, but I expected them soon. I stuffed a pile of old feed bags into the trash can, after saving them for months, because it was obvious I wasn't going to have time to use them for weed control so late in the summer. Time to give up on the idea. I reached for the handle of the trash container without looking, grabbed hold and immediately withdrew from a sting. It only took a nanosecond to connect the sting with the swirl of wasps rising up in the air. Dammit and dammit again. I felt a second sting on my neck before I even started running.

As I swatted at a trailing wasps, I felt for the sting and I felt for the location of my jugular. The spots seemed pretty close. I remembered the reaction I had had last summer to a wasp attack. My hand had stayed swollen for over a week. How could I have not noticed the wasps flying around the bin. Oh, yeah, I wasn't really thinking of the trash can as a wasp zone or paying that close of attention to anything other than dragging the garbage can out to the road.

With a stinging hand that was already starting to swell, I hurried into the house and popped two Benadryl, then went back out to re-look at the garbage bin. Had I been too careless to notice a nest? There were, maybe, five mad wasps flying about and the hornet spray can was near empty. Someone else could take out the trash, I decided.

On entering the cool house, I noticed my skin was starting to feel prickly. Did I remember where I had put the EpiPen from last year? I hoped it was in with all the other medicines. Funny, but I had just spoken with my health care provider about this pen. Had I had to use it? Did I know they expire? Did I know I should use an expired pen anyway if it was all I had. I looked on the yellow box sitting in the medicine basket. The pen was still good. Except now my vision was going wobbly and things were starting to blur.

Greg suggested I sit down and relax. No need to panic. Just sit back and stay calm. Now I was really starting to feel bad in a bad kind of way. All over. I closed my eyes. We needed to use the pen. Annie broke open the box and started to read the directions. I loosened my pants since the shot goes in the thigh.

Next thing I knew I was lying on the floor with my head on a pillow and Greg was putting a towel full of ice on my forehead. Annie was on the phone to 911. The paramedics were coming through the door. Could I respond? Yeah, I don't feel good but I can talk. My neighbor, part of Alsea's volunteer fire department was at my head speaking. He was being told by radio to start an IV with some more Benadryl.

More people. The dogs kept pushing open the door and getting under foot. The cat was alarmed and attentive. The Corvallis paramedics showed up, adding more people to a very small room. I was still on my back. They checked my signs. They canceled the helicopter. They loaded me into the back of the ambulance and as we drove down the dirt road from our farm passed our guests coming the other way. Annie told me they waved. The rest of the ride was rather surreal since I was facing backwards through the curves to the local hospital. I was informed people often don't do well riding backwards in ambulances. Add a mountain pass and the effect doubles.

I didn't actually start throwing up until an hour into my hospital stay. Everyone kept speaking about a second reaction that often takes place, but I don't think they mean throwing up. That would be the Epinephrine. Thankfully, I exhibited no other signs of anaphylactic shock. The hives that had turned my body red went away; my air passages were clear. I think we got home somewhere around midnight and fell into bed, although I remember Annie saying something about taking the trash can out to the road...uneventfully. The wasps were sleeping, or dead. Had she said something about spraying wasp killer on them?

The next day we greeted our guests with a short explanation. I found out a note had been left for them. Something about a family emergency. I think they had put two and two together with the ambulance and all. I heard a recount of the previous evening. Seems after the shot I had passed out for about five minutes but everything Greg and Annie did had been correct. The EpiPen had saved my life. Next time we were told don't sit around and think about using it, just use it right away. No time to waste.

Next time. Now there's a thought. There really can't be a next time, she says, as the honey bees and bumble bees buzz through the gardens. And how about the yellow jacket nests in the soil? Like the one our guest family found several days later when one of the boys stepped on it and was stung several times?! Worse still, this was a place I had walked by a million times.

We now have a new can of wasp killer spray and have located several hives and taken them out. I have three EpiPens I was sent home with: one for my purse and two in the medicine basket, although the nurse says we should put them in separate places and make sure everyone knows where they are. I may speak with the doctor about doing something to desensitize my body so I don't have such a life-and-death reaction in the event I am again stung. Sounds like a good idea.

Life and death. Now there's a funny thing. I never saw a light. I never flashed back over my life. It could have all just been over and I wouldn't have known. Dammit again. While I don't think it was that close, I never realized I could die and not know it. Too many loose ends. Too many pieces of knowledge that only I have that would make things difficult for those I left behind. Starting with passwords! Too much information to be explained, clarified, written down, detailed. And all this recognition just from being stung by a wasp on a warm summer's day when the trash needed to be taken out.



Photo: Henry and me on my birthday, three days before the wasp "attack". Couldn't resist showing a photo of the baby!

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