Heads Up, Gentle Readers, for this blog entry contains the word “scrotum.”

Today the New York Times reported that the word ‘scrotum’ shows up on the first page of an award-winning children’s novel about a scrappy 10-year-old girl who hears another character say a rattlesnake bit his dog on the scrotum.

The word has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools. But since this isn’t a censorship blog, or a blog about how it's important for kids to learn the correct terms for body parts, I’ll move quickly into a farm story, which, as it happens, also contains the word ‘scrotum.’

When an animal is killed to feed us, I think it’s a good idea to use as much of that animal as possible. Big slaughterhouses do this for economic reasons, but I think wasting as little as possible is also the moral way to go.

Check out the above photo of our ram lambs. Notice the hefty packages between their legs. A few years ago, Melissa did too, and the wheels started churning. Farmers are always being urged to add value to their farm products.

“I think we should try making purses out of the ram scrotums,” she said one day.

“Whoa,” I said, “that project has your name written all over it. You go, girl.”

She imagined small purses decorated with beads and feathers, perhaps with a leather or crocheted strap.

She started trying this idea out on friends. Straight women and gay men roared with delight and said, “Yes, I’ll buy one! I’d pay $100 for one of those.” Lesbians frowned in confusion. “Carry a purse...but why? Made from a ram scrotum...but why?” We didn’t even mention it to straight men, as they tend to go all grim when testicles or scrotums come up in the conversation.

So that winter when she took the rams to the processor, Melissa asked for, and received, 18 ram scrotums. Now it was her task to empty them of their contents, then tan them. It’s harder than you think to find information on this process, even with glorious Google. She spent the winter scraping and salting and tugging these ‘bags’ until they were tanned.

One problem. Originally, the ‘purses’ were roomy enough for an orange, a wallet, comb, cell phone, pair of glasses, and a package of gum. But after Melissa’s valiant effort at tanning, some of the ‘purses’ had shrunk. Good luck carrying anything more than two quarters, a nickel, and a thin dime.

Obviously we have some work to do on this product before people start clamoring for Rising Moon Farm Ram Scrotum Purses. But as the rams continue to grow, one can’t help but dream of the wealth dangling between those two back legs. And since scrotums are now deliciously controversial, I might end up writing a children's book about them some day.

The Cost of Cold

It’s been a rough few days out here on Rising Moon Farm. I did chores five days ago, and even though it was only 5 degrees, it wasn’t too bad, and if truth be told, I was feeling smug out there pitching hay and feeding corn and refilling water troughs,. We Minnesotans are tough, living in a land so cold your spit shatters when it hits the ground. How cool is that?

Then the temperature dropped. Suddenly it was -20, with a windchill of -35. This nasty stuff becomes serious, especially when it goes on day after day. Every morning we trudged up to the barn, sharing chores because it was too cold for one person to be outside long enough to do all the chores alone, and we'd find the sheep hanging around on their hay bed, chewing cud and looking unconcerned about the weather. (The morning I took this photo, it was -15.) But I said it would be a miracle if we didn’t lose anyone to the cold.

All the animals had plenty of food and water, and a place to get out of the wind. The birds in the chicken house were cold, however, and one black and white speckled hen got weaker and weaker until Melissa brought her into the house. She’s been living in a cage in the entry way for a few days now, and is doing fine. She’s a polite house guest, only cooing now and then, rustling the newspapers underneath her occasionally.

In our flock of 45 ewes, we still have two of our original flock, #18 and #66, ewes who were born in 1996. They were still producing twins, which is amazing for nearly 11-year-old ewes. They have been living with the ewe lambs and Chachi (the llama), and have had access to our three-sided barn.

Turns out that wasn’t enough. Melissa went up to check on the sheep this afternoon, and found that #18, one of her favorites, had died. Age? Illness? Possibly both, combined with the cold. No way to really know. We were lucky to just lose one animal. Ranches out west have been buried in snow and blindsided by cold several times this winter, and hundreds of animals have died. While death is a natural part of farming, it’s hard when Mother Nature steals one when you’re not looking.

The cold will be breaking soon, and the temperature should rise to 10 above later this week. After five days of -20, 10 above is gonna feel like a heat wave. We’re ready for the break, and so are the animals.