Books good

I keep thinking I’ll get around to doing a proper book review on this. But it feels too much like homework. In college, I could spit out ten pages about a book. It’s whittled down to “Book good. Read it.” What is it about college and studying what you care about there that just takes all the fun and spontaneity out of it? I suppose those who don’t feel that way stay in the system, but it’s why I couldn’t. I lost enthusiasm for papers and reading and studying. So, moral of the story is, expect more “Book good. Read it.”

Farm Update - Sanity Pending

Busy, busy week. It smells like rain this morning. Yesterday was the first 70 degree day we’ve had and it was great to work outside, horseback ride, and get dirt under my fingernails again. Spring has been a long time coming. It’s not fully coming, however, since it’s supposed to snow and rain again this week. The potatoes, peas, spinach, and radishes I planted the past two days are going to be very, very sad. But, they don’t grow in the package so we’ll see. The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants we started in the house are coming along well. A big bag of potting soil and I’ll have plants all over the house. Dad says I’m gonna be just like Gram with little gardens all over. I groan, grimly accepting my brutal fate. ;-) At least we’ll have food coming out of my little gardens. Been thinking about putting in some beds around the house to make mowing easier, hosta, mint, and lavender maybe. It’s tight getting the mower there and would help streamline the process. And minimize weeding. We’ll see how much I take after Gram. Of course, my aunt Julia had gardens too.

I haven’t read romance novels for years. Kind of went off that whole love-and-marriage thing. And if I write about love, it’s usually painful and brutal, on both sides, and some of my heroines are tough enough to go blow for blow with their love interest. That just works for me. But I always liked Linda Lael Miller growing up so when her Creed series came out (I mean bad boy rodeo cowboys? Must read). So I did and while its romance and sentimental, the story lines are strong, the prose is pretty crisp and new, and the male characters are major hotties. So recommended summer reading; Logan, Dylan, and Tyler. I breezed through them in a day or so apiece so good beach reads. Bring some water for Tyler.

We had our last set of lambies Friday night. Strong, healthy twins. The big titted ewe is still being a problem, not nursing her lambs and such, but everyone one else seems happy and strong, racing around in the sunshine yesterday. Of course I say last set of lambs and the white ewe lamb will make a liar out of me. Dad and I think she’s springing some. We’ll see. Dad’s back is a lot better. It still catches him but he can move around now and lift things. Which is good. Construction is starting to pick back up (as much as it can right now in Michigan) so he can’t be injured. And with us Barclays, it’s kind of mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it don’t matter. Lol.

P.S. This is my two hundredth post. Thanks for hanging in there people. See? I can talk about farming and writing until everyone's sick of it. :-)

Lambies and lamb chops

Happy Easter everyone! (Or rather day after Easter, but who’s counting?) We had a set of Easter lambs which was pretty special. It was even more special when the lambs began nursing on their own. I spent several hours yesterday either milking the ewe (got two pints out of her before the lambs could even get their mouths on to nurse) or trying to get the lambs nursing. The buck lamb got it pretty quick, but the ewe lamb took a lot longer. Both lambs are black with white splotches and are, of course, incredibly cute.

We grilled out for Easter. Beautiful day even if it was chilly still. Joe made it down to eat with us and was a great help with the grilling (it must be a guy thing) and helping me get the lambs nursing. The first lamb chops on the grill with salad, potato salad, and homemade garlic French bread was delicious.

Dad’s officially injured. He fell off the porch and may have cracked some ribs so he’s pretty sore. He hurt himself washing the coffee pot this morning, so yeah it’s that bad. He and Maxine are going to be quite a pair this week. I dropped her off to get spayed today. Two surgeries in a month she’s starting not to like the vet as much.

Got a busy week this week. Driving to Toledo today, phone calls (all farm related), Maxine and Dad to keep an eye on, cows and writing. It must be spring. We’re finally busy again.

Gotta Love Easter, it's all baby lambs and bunnies

Tubed the lamb at 10:30 last night and Dad is watching close this morning to try and determine if mother and daughter have gotten their shit together yet. The joys of farming. Actually, they are joys if you keep a positive attitude. Things can always get worse. I’m grateful when they aren’t worse at that particular moment. Even if seeing a newly freshened ewe lamb leap over Dad’s shoulder without touching him makes Dad cranky.

I’m endorsing natural cures today. I don’t get along well with cold meds, so over the past year or so natural cures have trickled into the family medicine box. This morning it’s scalded milk with ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ginger with 1 tablespoon of honey, drank hot. It’s a little thick if you don’t keep stirring it, but it’s a good stimulant and quieted this dry cough I developed yesterday. Besides, it tastes better than Dayquil.

I finished True North last night and it was a doozy. I’m the type of reader who’s always surprised. I don’t try to figure out the ending because I want to be surprised and I figure the author worked so hard to craft a careful plot that I owe it to them not to be greedy and try to figure out the end. As a result, especially with fiction, I tend to forget the beginning of the book as I get engrossed in the story. True North was a work that cycled around on itself, ending where it began. Boy, what a trip! I’ve loved Jim Harrison's work since I discovered it in college. The spare prose, the Michigan-ness of it. Sort of Nick Adam’s stories the risqué version. My only tip, pay attention to the first few chapters. They come in very important later.

Well, I’m up to get off my sorry ass and try to accomplish something today. If Dad can work after falling off whatever it was (he won’t tell me other than he hurt his ribs by landing on something after falling off something), I can suck it up. Happy holiday of bunnies and chicks.

Lambing Season

Got a dumb ewe lamb tonight. The black ewe lamb had a black ewe lamb and one can’t figure out how to nurse while the other won’t stand still. So I’m back out later tonight to get the lamb on tit or tube it. What else is a Friday night good for? (This is lamb number three for those of you playing the home game.)

Exhausted and aching again today. Beer and chocolate chips cookies helped. I mean if a beer and sugar rush (and profuse amounts of aspirin) don’t help a person really is sick. Got some writing done, some farm research also, but it’s not just physical exhaustion, it mental too. So everything feels like it takes ten times the effort. I can go deal with a lamb no problem, but anything short of life and death is a pain in the ass. I know, I know, suck it up.

Dad and I are making our Easter plans, a bit late, but seeing as I forgot it was Easter this weekend (despite taking my grandmother down to Ohio for Easter, that’s how slow the mental synapses are firing) anything is better than nothing. So far we may have people out or we may not. We may have lamb or we may not. And we may do a dinner or we may not. See? We’ve got it narrowed down.

Hopefully the lamb has nursed when I go down in a couple hours. I could write an entire book on livestock birthing stress. It’s less a case of nerves and more a slow thrumb of concern. Like bicycle shorts chaffing your unmentionables. It’s both annoying, unpleasant, and you just have to do something about it.

Chicken coops and asparagus roots

Dad completed the chicken coop today, or will put on the finishing touches this weekend if it’s not done. We order chicks soon and will have many little peepers hopping about the place.

It’s been an almost insanely busy week, or at least it’s felt like it. Tuesday we ferried vehicles back and forth for oil changes and I made it to the library for new books. Writing has been a bit touch and go this week so it’s just as well Wednesday went to a trip to Toledo and back, dropping Gram off for an Easter visit with the family, before coming home to help shear sheep at the neighbors’. Today Dad and I cleaned both horses and horse stalls. I swear Sonny lost five pounds of hair. Why do white horses seem to shed more? Tomorrow won’t be quite as busy, but it’ll be full enough with phone calls and a trip to the grocery store for me.

I’m still exhausted this week. Have been for more than two weeks it seems like. I don’t like not bursting with energy like usual. Makes a strong case for drinking rather than sobriety. I seem to remember being more energetic when more beer was involved than has been the case lately.

I’ve been reading Jim Harrison this week. “True North.” It reminds me of a course I took in college that argued that certain books act as a kind of catharsis for the frustration of an event. There’s a certain something that comes with living in northern Michigan. There’s a certain something about world wars and colonialism. A bitterness? A lingering? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it results in a certain malaise. When I lived up north I was as quick to point out that I was “an import” as people were to point out that I was born “down south.” I couldn’t take part in the certain disquiet that’s part of northern Michigan culture, but I could observe it. It’s different farther south. There isn’t that sense of place.

Anyway, ruminating on writing has made me maudlin. Tomorrow I’ll be back to practical holistic farm plans and the best time and place to plant asparagus roots.

P.S. It's National Poetry Month so...yeah. Write poetry. Read poetry. Understanding it asks a bit too much. Appreciate it if nothing else. Hug your poet (but only if they ok it first. No Stephen King novels here.)

Snow Day

A Happy Belated Birthday to my aunt (who I’m not sure reads this, but happy birthday anyway) and welcome to the most recent snowstorm. We got hit by about six inches of snow last night and Dad can’t figure out why none of the ewes lambed. Usually, with low pressure systems, anything in immediate danger of calving/lambing/(I assume)foaling goes. But either the ewes didn’t feel like it or they’re crossing their little wooly legs. I’m just glad we don’t have twenty pregnant cows. Spring calving for our operation, in our facilities, and in our neck of the woods is absurdly overrated.

Anyway, I was really rundown and half sick last week so that’s my the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse for not getting a whole helluva lot accomplished. I did spend a day doing research and farm planning, so at least that was business related. Did you know that grassfed meats, lamb, beef, chicken, etc is higher in Omega 3 fatty acids (the healthy fats), higher in vitamin E and beta carotene, and has a fat and cholesterol content comparable to wild game? And ounce per ounce grassfed beef is lower in calories and cholesterol than grain-fed commercially raised chicken? For more fun facts like that, go to www.eatwild.com. Grazing can also extend the lifespan of dairy cattle from 4 productive years in the industrial dairy setting to 10 or 12 years when grass-fed and milked according to a cow’s natural cycles. We’ve gotten away from slow food as a culture and, granted, it’s not feasible in a lot of situations, but equally unfeasible is for a small farmer to invest in 200 head of any species, or 500, or a 1,000, and make a sustainable profit. It’s a complex and weird situation, but I’ve been feeling my way through it, and seriously looking at how a traditional farm model can work in the modern world.

On Saturday, I attended A Rally of Writers at LCC West Campus, which was both informative, idea-sparking, and fun. The West Campus is a beautiful location and the people who put the writer’s conference together did a great job. The speakers were great and, as a first-time attendee, it was a great place to get in touch with the local writing scene. Their website is www.arallyofwriters.com.

So, I’m getting back my ability to string two thoughts together this week (weird side-effect of their funky illness) and tentatively working on a new story. It’s been difficult finding my way in, but its coming. Usually I write beginning to end, but with this one I know the end better than the beginning, so I’ve started there. New experience for me so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll try to be a better blogger this week, but no promises since we’re double-booked for travel and sheep-shearing on Wednesday and farrier on Thursday. At least being busy keeps us out of trouble. :-)