Hope But No Promises

Farm life is a lifestyle full of hope and no promises.  No promises anywhere, anytime.  There is no promise that tomorrow will be like today because livestock and the weather, by their very nature, are going to change things up for you.  

Today you have 10 chickens but later today a coyote might come through and now you have six.  You look again 25 days later and you have 7 and number seven has 7 little chicks in tow.  The sow you were sure you had bred turns out she was just fat, but 20 days later you find you were just off on your breeding date and now she has little piglets suckling on her.  There was hope, but no promise.  

You can’t make any promises either.  You can have plans but you had better get used to being fluid on those plans.  Yes, you planned to meet your friend for lunch but as you were pulling out of your drive you look over and see your precious Petunia Pig on the wrong side of the fence tearing through your neighbor’s garden.  By the time you have lured her back to her pen, fixed the fence, and cleaned up you’re well beyond late and looking at an early dinner if your friend still has time.  

You did promise you wouldn’t bring home any more farm animals but, “It was a good price” “It was abandoned” “We don’t have one like this! Think of the breeding possibilities!”   Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Hope.  Hope springs eternal and hope is sometimes all we have to cling to in this precarious lifestyle.  There is hope that the pigs will all stay penned.  The hope that when we finish this grow out we will have a freezer full of food that we trust where it came from.  The hope that with the work of raising, growing, and caring for one thing we will be able to trade for the items we still need.  The hope that our friends, that live differently, will understand when we are an hour late because farm life happens.  The hope that even when one of our herd/flock dies and our heart is broken that there will more life to follow.  The hope that that tiny seed we pushed into the dirt will spring up as food later this summer if we water it.  It seems unlikely but 30 days later, there are the leaves, pushing up and encouraging our hope.  When the hail comes down and batters those leaves, we persist and plant some more because we hope.

I write this the day after finding a cria that died over night.  Yes, he showed signs that something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t find anything definitively wrong (not without $$$ of tests) so this was unexpected.  I am sad.  His birth was the hope of bringing in new blood, new color, and new temperament to my herd.  In his death, following the necropsy, I have found a weak point in the genetics of my herd and learned that I need to move a different direction.  The loss hurts but we cannot mourn for long because just around the corner is the hope that last summers’ breeding will bring new life this coming summer.   

Farming is not a lifestyle for those who need promises.  There are no promises that even when things seem ok that tomorrow a different truth might emerge.  The learning curve on this point can be quite steep.   You can hope and as you learn to go with the flow of things your hope will become grounded and your optimism will grow.  You will find that hope is worth waking up to. 

 I promise.

Time To Get Ready

It's February.

     Time to start seeds.  Time to get fiber processed before the spring shearing rush. Time to think about getting new chicks.  Time to get equipment ready for shearing.
   
I've sent about 50 lbs. out to Heart and Soul in Penn Valley to be cleaned and turned into roving.  That will make getting it spun up into yarn happen a lot faster than if I clean it myself as well as make it more enjoyable for me.  This also means nice clean fiber available for other spinners will be available for sale.   This year I have a bit of motivation for getting more product available.  You see, come September the World Gold Panning Championship will be held in El Dorado County.  I am planning on having the ranch open for any visitors exploring this area of the divide as well as products to show off what our beautiful alpacas provide for us.

     Next on my list of to-do's will be to get some dying done.  As usual it will all be natural dyes. I am spinning whites as fast as I can so that I can offer a variety of color this summer at the farmers market. 

     February has started out with snow on the ground and high 20's temperatures.  We had great rainfall totals for January and I am hoping it continues for the next three months.  It makes work sloppy and muddy but it sure beats drought and higher than usual fire danger.

     While the ground is soft I will be pulling some ground cover plants to be replanted later after I re-landscape an area that has been left fallow for some years and hope to revive the garden area in front of the studio/guest house.  It will involve fixing the drip irrigation which has also been left to sit for last few years as we have coped with low well levels and too many holes in the main line.  My goal will be to not only get the water set up and on a timer but get flowers back in and screened from the veracious chickens.  I could pen up the chickens but that means they can't do their job of keeping the bug population in balance.  So I would rather protect the plants.  It's odd but it works.

     This month also brings us the bitter sweet moments where we will have to say good bye to the puppies that have given us so much joy these last few months.  Some will go to their new homes this week and others will stay on a little longer to get more learning time in with the older LGD's as well as time to get big enough to handle themselves at their new job sites.  My feed bill will be relieved but my heart will miss their fluffy little faces.  I will breed again.  My oldest and my first LGD's are eight years old now.  It's sad but these are not long lived breeds.  Sasha is showing her age lately and it will be time to bring in younger workers.  I never imagined when I started an alpaca ranch how much these dogs would come to mean to me.  I love having their eyes, ears, and noses on guard duty.  They do what I cannot.  Now I can't imagine ever running a ranch without them.

    For those of you who also keep fruit trees, now is also the time to prune and spray Neem oil.  This is best done on a windless day.  Fruit trees are some of the most rewarding to me.  Once established they need so little from you and give so much back year after year.  As the saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago and the next best time is today."

     Last I would like to ask you to keep in mind that now is the Time that your local 4-H kids are getting ready to purchase, hatch, or otherwise birth the market animals that will be available for auction at the next county fair.  Know your farmer and support these hard working kids.  Your purchase is tax deductible, and you will get some fine meat for your freezer.  Your support continues "making the best, better."


  

Happy New Year! Welcome to the ranch.

Well we went from no water to El Nino and you won't hear me complain.  Well, maybe just a little.  The soft muddy dirt means that the alpaca toenails are now pretty unruly and a mess to trim up. 

Lots of changes to our little homestead and alpaca ranch this last year.  We brought Greyson home.  He is our newest herdsire and I am hoping for some lovely grey.  He is a sweet gentleman who really loves his pellet treats. 








Next, over the summer we lost our sweet Reighnee.  This was not the first time she had gone downhill but we were able to get her back on her feet last time.  This time after Three weeks of hand feeding, trying to get her C1 going again, she gave up.  I miss her terribly and look for her even now when I go out.

We were expecting two cria this this year. The first was another sad day on the ranch.  The poor guy was badly deformed in the face with no eyes, nose or upper pallet.  He was the offspring of two I have bred many times before so we were really unprepared for such a travesty. 






The second was a perfect, textbook birth from an outside breeding with Embervanna.  He is a beautiful boy, almost a carbon copy of his dad, Keanu.  Watching his development carefully as we hope he will be a hirdsire potential in a few years.  Just love his coloring.  That undercoat will develop to a grey!  We dubbed him "Gambit".




In the homestead news my next big thing was bringing home Zoey.  Zoey is a Dexter and Jersey cross heifer and I am just tickled with her!  Never did I think I would be a cow person but I do love her.  She fits right in with us.  She will be bred with a low line Angus and we look forward to fresh milk in the spring of next year.  She is a small breed and it fits right well with keeping heritage breeds on our little farmstead.  She does have horns that I am learning to respect.  Fortunately she is young so they are not full length yet and so we are learning together. 

Last summer we had to shut down our fodder set up.  It was always in a temporary location and the invasion of varmints and ants had me at my wits end.  Couple that with higher temps causing the seeds to sour and we just shut down.  We have a container waiting to be the new fodder location.  Money and time were the challenges and having both at the same time doesn't happen very often.  So we have just worked at it a little at a time.  Cleaning it out was the first battle and then insulating it.  Following that was sealing it up.  For that we used a product called Metacrylic.  It takes many layers but when you are done painting it on you have a very water proof surface.  Then my husband worked in the plumbing and the lights.  This week we got things started again.  We still have work to do.  The heat that was sufficient for the smaller previous fodder space is not enough for the bigger container, the ceiling still needs more insulation and paneling.  Then the last part will be expanding so that there is enough feed for the animals we have added over time.  Everyone will benefit from this especially my pocketbook.

We had a small "oops!" in that Obadiah and Ellie got too close while she was in heat.  I thought the worst but was reassured by many breeders that a 1st gen inbreeding  line breeding would be just fine and possibly give very desirable traits.  Ellie has turned out to be a great first time mom.  All six pups are healthy and normal.  We have truly enjoyed our puppy time and even more pleased to say they all have good, working homes to go to. 




That puts this blog back up to date again. 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a speaker along with my dear friend on our local radio station, KFOK. We were asked to talk about homesteading here on the divide.  A broad subject.  The thing I wanted to share the most, that I want to encourage, is to remember that your homestead is unique to you.  Don't get caught up comparing or keeping up with what another homesteader is doing.  Some of us have been at this longer than others and no matter what our situations are very different.  Also that it's not all milk and honey.  Some days just SUCK!  We lose precious animals. We have feed go bad.  We have pipes break and no one to fix it but ourselves.  Don't give up.  The good times outweigh the bad and the milk and honey days are right around the corner.