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There Be Calves Here

I love the line from Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, when Scotty beams two humpbacks into the Enterprise's cargo bay and is overcome with joy: "Captain, there be whales here!"

As an experienced writer, I will steal this line and make it my own. "Captain, there be calves here!"

First, some early spring images:

The living footstools under our kitchen counter:




The tray our neighbors gave Melissa:





The neighbor's pasture burn, to the south of our driveway, done to stimulate the native grasses growing there. Amazing how they set two lines of fire which then burned toward each other. Magic.




The Farmer's handknit socks, both of them. (I'd knit one, but that apparently wasn't enough---she wanted another one.)





And then it was time to prepare for the arrive of two calves. First Melissa used our Farmall 706 to scrap up the manure and composted hay around the barn:






Then she borrowed the neighbor's little Farmall 300 and manure spreader (that's the thing groaning under a load of composted manure):





I don't have a photo of the manure being flung all about the pasture from the back of the manure spreader. I'm thinking everyone can live without that image.

I forgot to take a 'before' picture, but here's the scrapped up yard. We'll seed it and hope the chickens don't eat all the seeds:







Then our friend Emily, visiting from Madison, mucked out the inside of the barn (Poor Emily---bad timing to visit the weekend the barn needed mucking!) Another visiting friend--Mary---and I put down down lime and fresh straw and made two pens.

Then Mary and Melissa drove off in the pickup, and came back two hours later with these guys:











Got finger?





Ahh, life is good. A full tummy and warm sunshine. It doesn't get much better than this.

Story of a Book

This is a writing tale. A few years ago (yikes---four years ago!) I realized that while I chose to move into the country and start a farm (even though I had no idea what lie ahead), what about a kid whose parents pore over the Murray McMurray Poultry catalog and dream of raising sheep? What if she's not an animal person, and suddenly finds herself ripped from the urban life and plopped down onto a farm?

Once again, our small farm inspired my writing. The two are now so interconnected that if we ever stop farming, I'm in big trouble as a writer!

After a few months of thinking about it, in 2006 I wrote a few chapters and called it Barn Boot Blues, imagining it would be for middle-graders, basically 8-12 year olds. I submitted the 20 pages to the annual Loft/McKnight Fellowship for Children's Writers contest that fall. It's an amazing program that chooses one writer to receive, over 12 months, $25,000. The award is designed to make a different in a writer's life, and boy, does it ever.

Very early in 2007, I got the call. After years of submitting, I'd finally won. The judge was an editor from a well-respected children's publisher. Wow! Money! A publishing connection!

My goal was to write the book immediately and submit it to this editor. However, 2007 was full of me promoting Hit By a Farm and writing The Compassionate Carnivore, so no time to work on "Boots."

2008 was full of me promoting Carnivore and writing A Pirate's Heart, so no time to work on "Boots."

In 2008 I met the judge/editor when she appeared at the Loft's Children's Literature Festival, where I also gave a presentation. We hit it off immediately. "You don't have to write the whole novel," said the generous woman. "Just send me an outline and a few chapters."

Finally in 2009 I carved out time to develop an outline and those sample chapters. My agent submitted them, and the editor and I went back and forth for a month or two hammering out changes, and then late summer...the contract came.

A contract is always good because it means an editor, a real person, is waiting for the manuscript. The downside is something called... a deadline. Mine was April 1, 2010. (This sounds reasonable until you know that I'm writing another book at the same time---that's another story!)

Today is March 30. I sent the manuscript in yesterday, two days early.

What a relief. I met the deadline! But now comes the next step. Once the editor reads it, then I'll get pages and pages of notes about what's not working, and a few lines about what is. I'll revise the novel all summer until the editor proclaims it ready to go.

It's scheduled to be published spring of 2011. So a story idea that germinated in 2006 will have taken five years to become a book. It feels like forever, but the delays were all mine, and fell into the category called 'life.'

Speaking of taking forever, I have two novel ideas that have been stewing in my head for three years and I want them out of my head and onto paper. I have three terrible novels that need major overhauls, and want them to be done yesterday.

It takes four years to really get a vineyard going. It takes four or five years to really get a handle on raising sheep (more, actually, if your sheep throw something new at you every year.) It can take a year for a busy fiber mill to process your fleece. It can take years to learn how to spin and knit.

If writing and farming and fiber are trying to teach me anything, it's patience.

Those of you born with this trait, as Melissa was, feel lucky. I must face the lesson everywhere I turn. I've learned a lot about plants and animals and humor and generosity from Melissa, but the patience just hasn't rubbed off.

I'd be happy to develop more patience, but it just takes too long.

Too Busy


Fill in the blank in your own way: I'm so busy and so tired that _______.

I've got a great one, and it's not even farming related. It's just life.

First, a little background. I found myself having to write two books this winter (long story, will post to other blog eventually,) so I've barely noticed the ice, cold, and snow as I've had my nose pressed to my monitor, my body hunched over the keyboard.

I took two trips in February, both working trips. Melissa has been working like a crazy woman for the US Census (mail your form in or she'll send someone to knock on your door!), working 10-12 hour days.

So for nearly two weeks I've been doing all the chores, the dogs, the cooking, the dishes, everything, while she drives around in the incredible fog we've been having. Seriously, fog day after day. I feel as if I'm living inside my own little dome, and the rest of the world has disappeared.

So yesterday I ran around doing errands, getting the car tires fixed because both rear tires were leaking, then to a meeting, then dropping off the car at Melissa's meeting so she had a way home, then calling a neighbor for a ride home. Karen dropped me off and immediately drove away, thank god, otherwise she would have seen this:

I'm so busy and so tired that...

...last night I walked up to the house and held out my car keys, pressing UNLOCK.

I stood there, unsure why the front door didn't open, so I pressed UNLOCK again.

I might need to get a bit more sleep.

Llama Spit and Other Images


Before I leave for my annual weeklong writing retreat, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share some images from this last week as I did chores. Also, since the Farmer is very busy with an 8-week short-term job with Uncle Sam and won't have time to read this blog, I'm going to 'out' one of her hobbies, then slip away into the night so she can't yell at me. Now and then she'll say, "You aren't going to blog about this, are you?" When she asks that, then I can't. When she doesn't, well.... We bloggers live dangerous lives, with big fat lines running through them. Sometimes it's kind of fun to cross over those lines....

The Farmer is strong and tough. She drives a Farmall 706 row tractor, a big son-of-a-gun. She has a chain saw, a wood splitter, a four-wheeler. She has a weed whacker that can fell small trees. Yet what does she do when she comes inside? She fusses over pretty little flowers.

I'm not at all into fussing over flowers, and barely remember to water them. I just want them to look nice without any work. But thanks to the Farmer, there's lots of blooming going on here:





She knows what sort of orchids these are, but I don't care about that---I just like looking them as I walk by.

Other images from this week...

The puppy pretending she has a broken leg.





Pumpkin looking pensive....





Helen, the last duck remaining. (The other two? The puppy got one, and a predatory bird got the other. Damn.)




Chachi eating his treat in a private dining room, with Tucker the jerk standing there trying to intimidate Chachi into leaving the treat for him. All three llamas are in the same pen this winter, and it's just like a junior high school in there.





This hen gives new meaning to the phrase 'beady-eyed.' What she's really saying with those baby blacks is, "Steal my egg one more time and I'll peck your eyes out and stuff them down your throat." Sadly, I stole all the eggs she was sitting on.





A lovely snow morning...



Nearly every single person who meets our llamas wants to know if they spit. "Yes," I say, "but not at us." We would never stand for it. The llamas, however, do spit at each other now and then, and have been known to spit at lambs that might have been bugging them. Melissa had a close call when she accidentally got between two llamas about to attack each other with wet, green glops. Their ears were back, their glares were fierce, but she yelled and waved her hands. "Break it up!" Their ears went back up, and they wisely swallowed their slimy projectiles.

I saw this the other day. Had to stop and stare. What the heck? Oh, llama spit.






I don't know who did the spitting, but his aim was WAY off. I should go out there with a bucket of soapy water and make all three llamas clean off the barn. How else will they learn?

I Make The List

I just learned that some guy in Gouverneur, NY made a list of 30 outstanding farm blogs for the Gouverneur Times. Hey. That's cool. Here's what he had to say: "She writes, she farms, and writes about farming everything that goes wrong and some things that go right. This blogger is an inkslinger (a gunslinger with a pen instead of a gun). Her articles are vivid and you can absolutely picture everything she is talking about. This is one farm blog that you will want to follow."

Wow. Thanks, Tim.

Unfortunately, now that I've made Tim's list, I may find it hard to stay on it. That's because this winter has been boring.... blissfully boring. Nothing has died. (Ooops. Not true. Our peacock Ben died, but I'll write about that later.) Nothing has gotten out of a pen or into a bin of feed (knock on wood). I haven't fallen on the ice and broken anything (knock on wood.) I only got the car stuck once, and that was in the neighbor's driveway so I had lots of help getting unstuck.

I've been writing like a crazy woman (thanks to two spring deadlines...not the best situation, but a schedule of my own making.) Melissa's been spending lots of time inside because this winter has been cold. She just finished repairing a retractable extension cord that burned out ten years ago and has been hanging in the shed, useless, for all that time. Nothing makes the Farmer happier than to fix something she's been unable to use for ten years. I even helped, holding the dangerous steel spring in place so it wouldn't leap out and slice off one of Melissa's fingers. (When she'd first opened the case, the 30-foot spring had leapt out like a Jack in the Box, startling even our brave Farmer.)

In addition to such fascinating repairs, we've been taking photos. I took some the other day, uploaded them, and found Melissa had taken the exact same shot, only in different light. So here's what winter looks like out our bedroom window:




And again,



And again.



Every winter I worry about our two barn cats. Will they be warm enough? Could we ignore our allergies and let them into the house, hoping they learn to use the litterbox and avoid the three dogs? No, not practical. So every winter I build a few cozy spots up in the haymow, making little cubby holes by stacking bales, then lining them with wool. I still worry, but when I touch them, their fur might be cold, but their skin is warm.

During the day they are even warmer. In fact, this year they have decided that we purchased huge, 700-pound bales of hay just for their use. They are cats, after all, so everything is about them. Here are Maisie and Pumpkin lolling about on their 700-pound beds. Ahh, the life of a barn cat...

Ahh, Winter

We have a nice layer of ice over everything, and more ice is coming this weekend.

A coating of ice on the snow and trees is lovely. It sparkles in the sun. A coating of ice on the ground where one walks is not so lovely. I did chores this afternoon, so over my boots I pulled on the clever footwear that helps you stand upright on ice. (Can't remember the name...YakTrak? BakTrak? YakBak?) They are made of rubber strips covered with coils of metal, and work okay.

Somewhere in this house I have something better, but I'm not sure where they are: a pair of serious spikes. They're awkward to attach beause you have to sit down and strap them on, but those things have 1/2" spikes. When you step onto the ice, you know you aren't going anywhere. (I'd gotten them for a winter photography class on the North Shore of Lake Superior years ago, where we were walking on icy rocks paying more attention to the camera than to the ice. One fall and you were a quick five foot slide into the icy water.)

These yakky things, though, provide less confidence. So I walked from building to building with my arms out for balance, gaze locked on the ground in search of less shiny spots in which to step. shuffling along like a 95-year-old (no disrespect intended to those who are 95---you should walk carefully.)

It took me twice as long to walk the 700 feet to the mailbox, and I lost all sense of time as I entered this Zen Zone of step, look, shuffle, step. I didn't have my cell phone with me, and Melissa was inside recovering from a neck procedure she had this morning. (More on that later when we know how it worked---we're aiming for headache relief.) So if I landed on my keister and broke something, it was either crawl back to the house, or crawl to the road and flag down a passing motorist, of which there are about 3 per day. Luckily the Yak things worked well enough, or perhaps it was walking like I was 95.

The dogs are always surprised by ice. Open the back door and all three go blasting out to do their thing. Two seconds later they've spread their feet wide in alarm, and the look on their faces says, "Whoa!" They, too, begin walking as if they're 95 (which is 13 in dog years, and 2 of them are 13! What synchronicity...) When I let the dogs back outside two hours later, they do the same thing. "Whoa!" And the third time? "Whoa!"

Gotta love dogs---they are the best optimists in the world. "This time the world won't be slippery."

The sheep do fine in the ice because they walk the same path. It gets worn down, and the droppings of round sheep poop add lots of traction. The only animal I'm worried about is Chachi, our aging llama. He doesn't like going up and down the hill to the hay anyway, and when it's icy, he won't do it. When he does venture out, he walks like he's, well, 95.

So he's locked in a pen in the barn with his own water and own hay. That way I don't have to worry about any broken llama legs.

I'm all ready to do chores all weekend, and make sure the animals don't have to negotiate a skating rink to get to their hay. But I think I'm going to brave the front hall closet and search for those spike attachments.

I may need them.