Meet Tilly

We have a new farm dog, Tilly. Like all of our dogs and cats, she is a rescue. She is under a year old, female and seems to be a mix of chow, some sort of shepherd (sheltie, Aussie, Shetland sheepdog?) and perhaps golden retriever or maybe beagle (or maybe both). She is what we used to call a Heinz 57.

She arrived on the farm on Sunday afternoon after a phone call from our buddy Rockhead asking if he could bring this dog to our farm. He said he was at Marge and Gary Glaser's house (Marge has been a staunch and very long time supporter of us Boldarians and is in the process of building one of the most incredible houses I have ever seen. Gerhy and Gaudy, I think, would like the place), scouting rocks and clay for the house project and this dog wanders into their lives. Mark (Rockhead) could not take her as he lives in a house full of animals (dogs, foxes, owls, opossums and other wildlife-his SO is a wildlife rehabilitator, among other things and has made it clear that no one brings more dogs into the house as they have several). Marge didn't want her so the two of them thought that we might take her.

Seeing as how we have needed a dog since Betty bought the farm back in August of 2010 we said yes. And thus this medium sized yippy dog arrived at our farm. Yes yippy as this is what she does when she is nervous or excited or wants someone to toss a frisbee. She and Nate got a long very well from the start. The cats were not at all happy with this change in our lives but once they found out she was not going to kill them they were kind of okay with the idea, though they both lived up stairs for a day until Tuttle could no longer stand being away from us and came downstairs and braved the new dog.

Tilly was into chasing Tuttle until Tuttle became a ball of fur claws and hissing teeth and let her know in no uncertain terms he does not want her to touch him much less get up in his face. Now she keeps a respectful distance and has learned we do not want her to chase him through the house (though I have noticed he is beginning to encourage that behavior and seeing as how they are about the same age I suspect within a few days they will be fast friends and playmates).

Tilly loves playing frisbee and is one of those dogs that will leap high into the air to catch the disk. She bonded quickly with the Nylabone® Frisbee® we have had for over 5 years and that none of our dogs have had much interest in playing with in the past. Arlo when he was younger like playing Frisbee® but as he got older he lost interest (and his sight. There might be a connection there, hmmm) and Nate, Dani and Betty had zero interest in the thing. So it is all for Tilly.

A short Video of Tilly (at this point she had no name) meeting her new best friend, the Nylabone® Frisbee®

As I mentioned, Tilly has some sort of shepherd in her and she has already exhibited a strong desire to herd. I have never owned a herder but I know they are valuable on the farm especially if one has livestock. Perhaps we will get her some sheep in the future but for now she will have to be content with herding cats.


We have been impressed with how quickly she picks up on things. She learned her name in about 2 minutes. She has already learned not to jump on us (most the time-it took Nate's hip dysplasia to get him to quit jumping and Betty had not learned this at the time of her death, despite months of lessons and telling her/showing her "down" hundreds of times a day).

I have a feeling Tilly will make an excellent farm dog

Tuttle vs Snowmageddon 2011

Holiday Farm Share

I see it has been a while since I last posted. Let's blame the holidays for that. And since I am still not quite in a writing mood I am posting the Holiday Farm Share email for all to enjoy

Greetings farm Share Members,

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas (she says, making the assumption we are all of christian backgrounds here). Eugene and I did next to nothing Christmas day. we took a walk around the farm with the dogs, ate pistachio's and had pastured lamb from the Filbruns for dinner (along with butternut squash, salad and fingerling potatoes, all of which we grew). we don't generally exchange gifts but my sister and I do give enough money between us to Heifer International to buy a water buffalo for some family somewhere in the tropics.

The farm has been quiet but because of the freeze & thaw action and high winds we have lost some crops. We took a huge hit on the winter squash. The store front building froze up and the squash did too. We were not expecting this as last year we spent $300 a month to heat the building so nothing froze out there last year. This year because we are cheap, we decided not to heat the building. So when it went below zero so did everything that was not in a fridge (those all stayed just at freezing which is fine for all the produce we have in them at the moment) froze. things like onions and garlic can take being frozen with no problems (as long as they are left undisturbed) but winter squash not so much. The small squashes seem to be fine but the Butternut we lost. So we have some squash for the rest of the season but not as much as I was counting on. I am really glad none of us are in the position of depending on the Boulder Belt Eco-Farm to feed us through the winter because this would have been a very serious loss. We also lost the napa cabbage (I am glad as I do not really like the stuff, it is a poor seller and yet Eugene keeps planting it-it will make a nice green manure crop though). high winds ripped the row covers off almost the entire bed and that was that for the Napa. We also lost a 1/4 bed of arugula for the same reason. But where the covers stayed on the crops seem to be in as good of shape as they can be this time of year.

What has happened is after 2 winters here (this is our 3rd) we still have not figured out where to store the winter food. The house is way too warm, the barn can get too cold and freeze things worse than the store and there are rodent issues now that we have lost another mousing cat this fall and only have the ornamental cat who is useless when it comes to hunting. the store can be heated but only at great cost at present.

We need to seriously rethink how we heat this farm-gas and electric are getting too expensive and are also the causes of wars and great pollution, etc.. We have been talking about getting an outdoor wood boiler to at least heat the store and barn and this would also heat any greenhouses we might build. If we can it will also heat the house. These boilers can easily heat something like 40K square feet of space. But such things are expensive and we are still addressing roofing and window issues (which are also expensive) and there is the mortgage that takes a nice chuck of change out of the monthly budget. but we are working our way towards being a much greener farm. We would also love to put up a wind mill/generator and a solar array. Eventually we want to be 100% off the grid.

Okay, on that meandering note here is what you guys are getting this week. Some of you are picking up today and some on Monday. Either way, the shares will be ready for you anytime after 2pm. They will be in the store and just go and grab your share (one bag). Oh, and don't forget to bring back your old farm share bags (and any other clean plastic or paper grocery bags sitting around your home taking up space and needing to be reused)

Lettuce-a 1/2 pound bag of mixed small lettuce heads
Carrots-1 pound of sweet and crisp carrots
Winter squash-You get a variety-expect 3 to 4 squashes in your share
Leeks-two kinds, you get a bunch of the skinny Lincoln leeks you have had all season and 1 or 2 King Sieg leeks which are the big, winter leeks and I think more flavorful
Garlic-a bulb of each kind we grow, German white, Shvilisi and Persian Star
Celeriac-2 celeriac this week
Apples-3 pound bag of Dr Matthew's Apples-these are crisp and sweet
Onions-red onions this week. These have been nice but a bit on the hot side

Next farm share pick-up will be January 10th and the last will be Jan 24th. After that we will start back up April 7th. I do need to know if you are interested (or not) in the main season Farm Share program ASAP so I can get things planned out.

Several members have expressed an interest in having a Farm Share Potluck dinner here at the farm. One suggestions was to do it inauguration evening which I believe is Wed Jan 21st. But we can do this about any evening. I will offer our farm to host the event and now we need a date and time. Dinners are a dynamite way for us to build community around the farm with which we all have an interest, i.e. we can all meet and get to know each other.

And on that note, we are now signing up new members for our Farm Share program. The Shares Start April 7th or 9th (we will have two pick-up days-Tuesdays and Thursdays). Cost and all the other details can be found on our Farm Share Page

Imagine if we can do such a good job on this Farm Share thing in the dead of winter imagine how good we are when the farm is producing at full speed.

Storca (AKA Stewie the Cat)

Stewie the cat is now storca the cat. Storca is a combination of Stewie and Orca. We tried to change his name to Orca but we kept using either Stewie or Storca. So it looks like the kitty will be called Storca. He doesn't seem to respond to either so I guess, to him, it makes no difference.

The last time I wrote about Storca he was angry at us for removing him from his home and than removing his testicles. He hid for about 10 days than started appearing to us but never letting us get close. Than about 2 or 3 weeks ago he decided he had had enough isolation and let me touch him and pretty much melted when I started petting him. It turns out he is a real lover of a cat and enjoys having his body rubbed. He's one of those rare cats who loves his belly rubbed. My dad would have like this cat as he always like cats who like to have their bellies rubbed.

He's also a good hunter. He has gotten a couple of mice and this morning he had a young snake that was about 18" long. I took the snake from him, I hope before he killed it. The snake was not stiff and seemed to move a bit in my hand and it's eyes were not clouded with death. I put it under a tarp on one of the compost piles to warm up, heal and hopefully not be molested by the cat again. We love our snakes here at Boulder Belt Eco-Farm.

We have reintroduced him to the house and he has not sprayed anywhere even after being kept in all night. Trina, the other cat, is not sure what she thinks about him. She makes a big display of hissing at him and even lashing out with her clawless hands but than I see them laying together and they will also eat together so I think it's all smoke and no fire on her part. Storca is still not sure about the dogs but I think a few more days of being indoors with them and they will all be cool with one another.

He is even beginning to follow us out to the garden. Soon enough he will in all likelihood come out to distract us from our work. Shiva, a past cat, used to feel it was his job to make sure we did not work too hard out in the market garden and would get us to take numerous cat petting breaks. Shiva also was skilled at catching mice, voles and moles. This is Storca's main reason for being here is rodent control and I think, soon enough, he will be on the job out there

Rainy Afternoon 69

It's raining today which has messed up my plans to harvest most things today and pack them tomorrow for the Saturday farmers market in Oxford (which has a brand new website Oxford farmers Market dot com) . Sigh, it looks like tomorrow will be a long day. Picking lettuce, spring mix, kale, radishes, arugula, etc., early in the morning. Washing up what we have harvested mid morning than bagging in the afternoon. And opening the store at 11am and waiting on customers who stop by throughout the day. I am trying to avoid pulling 18 hour days on Friday so I have more energy to devote to Saturday.

Washing will take a while as everything will be super dirty and likely full of slugs. I always put a 1/2 cup of table salt in the water as this does two things:
1) Salt water keeps greens very crisp and re-hydrates wilted greens
2) Salt is a slug's mortal enemy and when they hit the salt water they release from whatever they were on, sink to the bottom of the wash tub and die. This is one of our slug controls.
And it means the greens are usually free of slugs when sold (but if you buy our greens, Please wash before use because you never know...)

I have the store open right now but, as usual, rainy days tend to kill farm stand business. Ah, c'est la vie. I would like to take a nice nap but the store is open so I cannot. Instead I sit typing and listening to the rain pour down on the roof occasionally picking ticks off my body and burning them with a lighter (we are still going chem free with the dogs so we get a lot of ticks. I am beginning to question this decision, as the poor dogs are getting scabby where ticks have been removed and seem to be avoiding Eugene and me now that quality petting time means tick picking and killing time).

I have seen Stewie the cat. He is living under the store and for the past week has allowed us to see him and even talk to him before he slinks away. I guess he is realizing he cannot stay angry at us forever and we feed him tasty food (some organic cat food we picked up at the cut rate grocery store B&D Grocery, in Richmond, IN for $6 a 6 pound bag). Yesterday he visited the store but quickly left when I came in carrying a crate of produce. I am happy he did not decide to spray the store.

So I wait till 5 o'clock rolls around to close the store. it is an easy task to close up now that we have a fridge on the sales floor. In the past I would put out things that really needed to stay cold on the unrefrigerated shelves and hope things sold quickly. By the end of the day everything that did not sell would have to be gathered up and put back into the fridge in the back of the building or taken into the house to be eaten ASAP or tossed in the compost. This took up to 20 minutes depending on how much stuff we had (melon season is the worst). Now I just have to shut off some lights, count the cash drawer and remove the money, bring in the "Open" signboard and turn the other open sign around so it says closed. This takes about 3 to 5 minutes.

The one bad thing is only one of the two fridges I bought on eBay works (and I am not too sure how long it will last) and it is already pretty full and we have just started the season. Though soon we will be getting more stuff that does not need to be in a refrigerator like tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash (though the zukes and other summer squashes prefer it cold), etc.. I gotta say the fridge has been a huge improvement on many levels. Maybe I will spend my gummint stimulus check on another used fridge as the Commercial fridge repair guy said we should be able to pick one up for around $800. A newer fridge (the eBay fridges are circa 1977) would use a lot less electric and be cheaper to repair.

Stewie Update

Okay Stewie as I mentioned sprayed the house (but i got all the smell out of everything) so he was banished to the barn. Last Monday we had a vet appointment to get his nuts neutralized. he had to be at the vet's by 9am. So at 8 am we go out to look for him in the barn. cannot find him. 8:30am comes, still cannot find the damn cat. 8:45 comes, still no Stewie. I go in the house, call the vet and cancel the appointment. they say when we catch him bring him in and they will put him in a cage and de-nut him the following day. Cool.

I, having called the vet, give up on the Stewie search and start dealing with tomato seedlings. Eugene has not given up on the Stewie search and at 8:55am catches him and crams the cat into the pet carrier. Stewie is pissed off majorly by this state of affairs.

We take cat to the vet drop him off, run some errands in Richmond, IN and go home. Call the vet and are told the cat is staying over night and we can get him the following day. This is good because we have lots of farm work to do and having to spend 45 minutes going to the vet and back home would have put a wrench into the works.

the next day we get over to the vets early afternoon, pick up the cat. Pay them money. The vets say "boy he'll be happy to get home" I say "but as far as he is concerned he is not going home". Stewie is glaring at us through the bars on the door of the pet carrier. He is not happy about anything

We take him home, put him in the barn open the door to the cage and after sitting there for a minute, gets up and slinks away. We have not seen him since. but we know he is there because he is still liberally spraying the barn. The only good I can see here is the stink will keep mice, rats and other rodents out of the barn.

I wonder if Stewie will ever warm up to us or if he is so perpetually mad at us and his situation that he will be the phantom barn cat.


The lesson is never ever get an unfixed sexually mature male cat via FreeCycyle.

Happy Earth Day

It's earth day once again. A time to reflect on what we have done to simplify our lives and have a lesser impact on the planet.

Today I planted a bunch of broccoli, did some laundry and hung it outside to dry, ate breakfast of locally raised eggs and a smoothie made from raw milk/yogurt and melon and berries we grew last year and put in the freezer for later use. Soon will go get Stewie the cat back from the vet where he was neutered yesterday. After that Eugene and I will enjoy a fun filled afternoon of planting celery and onions.

Stink

Yesterday morning I awoke to cat piss smell, courtesy of a very angry and freaked out new cat. Eugene came down a couple of hours after I got up (I am an early riser, he is not) and got a whiff of the cat stink and kind of freaked out. I don't blame him, it's nasty stuff. Than Eugene let in the dogs and Nate had gotten into it with a skunk (who I suspect was raiding what Nate thinks of as "His" compost piles). The skunk odor easily trumped cat piss stink.

Nate was put back outside and in the afternoon when it got warm I made a concoction of water, dog shampoo, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide and gave Nate a bath (he also had rolled in cow shit a few days ago so had that going for him too). Removed a lot of dirt and all the skunk and cow pie stench and things were better with him-he was a dirty, dirty dog.

Came in the house and realized a lot of the cat piss odor was on a cloth hanging in a door way so removed that and most of the stink magically disappeared.

If you are keeping track it is skunks 2 Nate 0 so far this year.

Animals, they add so much to our lives

Stewie

and Stewie and me at 5am this morning

After 26 hours of hiding out under the bed in the computer room/guest room Stewie decided he had had enough isolation last night and came out from under the bed and decided Eugene and me were okay sat on us all evening while we watched a show about breaking the Maya code on PBS. I think Stewie will become a great cat, he's already quite nice.

the next step now that he's come out of hiding is to make an appointment at the vet and get his balls snipped. He's already sprayed parts of the house once (nothing like a pissed off cat, I'll tell ya). Fortunately it looks like everything he sprayed can easily be removed from the house (a cloth we had over a doorway to keep heat in during the winter, a cat bed) I am hoping I am not wrong about this.

FreeCycling

Freecycle for those who do not know is a web/email based system for people to use to get rid of things they do not need or find things they do need all the while keeping useful objects out of the landfill. You will find offers for about anything on Freecycle and requests to match.

I have been subscribed to 3 local lists (Preble County, Oxford, Richmond, IN) for several years but rarely make use of Freecycle. but this week I did. On Monday I gave away a sewing machine to a woman who lives near the old farm who will be making lab robes for military veterans along with clothes for her new Grandbaby who was threatening to enter the world while she picked up the sewing machine. So an object that was simply gathering dust in the store is now been given a good home.

Tuesday Stewie, a black and white domestic short hair cat, from Hamilton came to live with us. Since Navin died I have slowly realizing I need another cat. Trina is a great cat and getting better all the time but she does not like to be held and is pretty useless for hunting since she was declawed by her former people. So when a plea came over the Freecycle list that Stewie needed a home I replied after thinking about it for a week.

I would like to say Stewie is a great cat (he is very handsome) but ever since he got here he has freaked out and has been in hiding. He did eat all the cat food put out for both of them over night so we know his appetite is good. Trina is pretty freaked herself over the new cat. The dogs do not seem to realize there is another animal in the house. That, or they just don't care.

So That is my FreeCycle adventure for this week. If you want to live a greener life (and this is Earthweek after all, a great time to start one's journey down a green road) click on the link in the title of this post and that will take you to the main FreeCycle site where you can find a group or 5 in your area and start reducing, reusing and recycling.

Navin, You Were a Good Friend

We took Navin in to the Vet yesterday to be euthanized. He was struggling for every breath he took and had lost interest in food on Sunday so it was time.

It was a hard thing to make an appointment to kill him. When I hung up the phone I picked him up and burst into tears and held him for a half hour while he gasped and purred on my lap. Than I went looking for Eugene to tell him we had a 1:45 pm appointment at Alta View in Richmond.

We moped around the farm all morning trying to get hings done but had no heart for it. Eugene did some tilling and I cleaned German white garlic and hoed some beans waiting for the time to take the cat to the vet one last time.

The time came and I wrapped him in a blue towel and we go in he van and drove westward. Navin showed some interests in the ride over and when we drove into the Vet parking lot he seemed o realized something was up. I was relieved to see we were the only ones there as by this time we were both crying. The women that worked there gave us sympathetic looks and ushered us quickly into an exam room and left us alone with Navin and a box of tissues. We said our good byes and Dr Koester came in and gave him 2 shots, one to tranquilize him and he other to stop his heart. It took about 3 seconds for Navin to die peacefully so I would say his body was ready to rest, even if his spirit still wanted a little more time.

We wrapped him in the towel and I carried his corpse to the van and we drove home very subdued. Got home and showed him to the dogs. Danny thought I was giving him a yummy toy. Nate smelled his body all over. Arlo took one look and walked away, he wanted nothing to do with the death of his cat buddy I guess. I put Navin's body on a chair while we did hings like weed eat he grounds, harvest onions and clean garlic. Finally, at sunset we dug a hole between the two old apple trees and laid him to rest with a bit of catnip with all the other animals in attendance and a beautiful sunset gracing the skies.

Navin you will be missed.

Death is Near

Got Navin back from the vet and it was not good news. Seems he has a huge tumor pressing down on his trachea and it is growing. Since I did not order a biopsy Dr Koester cannot say for sure it is cancer but off he record he says it is more than likely cancer. I saw the x-ray and what ever it is it is big-takes up about a third of his body and it seems to be growing aggressively.

I could spend many thousands of dollars, I do not have, to take the cat to Ohio Sate and see if they can operate for at best, an additional month or two more of life for the cat but it would be a bad life of pain and drugs. Since we all have to face death I have decided to let him live out his life here at home. When he gets too uncomfortable Eugene and I will take him back to the vet one last time and have him euthanized (unless he decides to die in the night a home). Than we will take him back home and bury him, plant a tree over him and drink some home brews in his honor.

I am worried about Arlo who is terribly close to Navin and has been since we got the dog. Arlo does seem to realize something is really wrong but I don't hink he realizes Navin is dying and won't until Navin finally kicks the bucket. Than we will have depressed humans and a very depressed dog who not a spring chicken any longer.

It's not helping matters any that we are killing all the meat chickens on the farm (48 or them) which gets all the dogs depressed for a few days because they lose their main job and reason for being

Navin has been a good friend and I will deeply miss him when he goes but for now he is still alive and kicking and I do get to say good bye

Feline Woes

We still have had virtually no rain.

Navin, my oldest cat is sick with something stuck in his trachea. He has been wheezing and retching as if he has a hairball from Hell stuck down there. He has been to the vet once and is going back this morning for X-rays and probably an extraction of whatever is stuck in his throat (a feather? a Bone?). This whole cat affair has been extremely worrisome to me as I have had Navin since he was 4 weeks old and we are tightly bonded. I also has been hard to sleep with the cat sitting next to me on the bed wheezing and hacking all night. At least this is not likely to be fatal (he does have to be anethesized and there is some risk in that with a 15 year old feline, no matter how healthy the cat is) like Feline Leukemia or FIP would be. I am hoping they find the problem quickly and remove it so in a day or two Navin is back to his old, non wheezing ornery self.

Of dog hair and Vacuums

Winter has come and it is cold and somewhat snowy. The pond is frozen and the dogs are staying inside most of the day and overnight. The new dog, Danny, has been spewing hair all over the place. Despite daily brushing and daily vacuuming there are still piles of blond dog hair all over the dark green carpets and floors in the house (lower level only, so far he has not decided to go upstairs-this makes the cats happy as they have a Danny free refuge).

This daily vacuuming is a pisser. First of all I am not in the habit of vacuuming more than twice a week, at most. Secondly (and far more important), this is turning me into my mother who was a vacuuming demon. So much so that she was the butt of many family jokes about her and her Electrolux (which I own but do not use-it's broken and heavy. Though lately I have been threatening to start using it simply to complete the transformation). I remember trying to get her to let me take a picture of her in front of an Electrolux at the Henry Ford Museum, she refused. The scary thing is I am finding quite a bit of satisfaction in this daily vacuuming and even if we get rid of Danny (anyone need a sweet but hairy dog?) I fear the vacuuming habit may not leave.

So my day, since Danny has come to live with us is getting up around 6:30am and letting the dogs out to pee (unless it is warm enough to leave them out all night-preferred method), Than I do the dishes and make coffee and look at email and other web stuff, ignoring the piles of blond dog hair festooning the living room, kitchen and computer room (which has beige carpeting so the hair is not so obvious. But it is still there). Eugene will get up around 7:30 and go out to get the paper and check on the seedlings and he takes the dogs with him. During the 10 minute dog absence I will get out the vacuum and suck up the piles of Danny hair and than start breakfast and drink coffee. Later on in the day Danny will get brushed (he's a burr magnet) and more hair is deposited on the dark green carpet. The dog seems to have an endless supply of hair to shed out in the dead of winter.

I hope that this will stop after a couple of months of being on a decent diet and getting lots of exercise. the poor guy has rarely had food that is free of corn and generally he has been fed cheap, low quality food. So much so that he has lost most of his teeth.

Danny does seem to be happy here considering his lot in life. Saturday he caught his first mouse while Eugene put plastic over the strawberry hoophouse. I believe that mouse was the first critter he has ever caught. Nate stole it from him immediately, probably for the best as I doubt Danny would know what to do with the mouse. Since than he has been VERY interested in finding more mice/voles. I say more power to you Danny.

Danny Boy

It's been quite busy around here for winter time.

We got a new dog-Danny Boy who used to belong to Eugene's mom until she died. Since than he has been living with Doreen, Eugene's sister and her two dogs, Caesar and Arias. things for the past 4 months were not going well at all at Doreen's house so she asked Eugene to take Danny and he agreed. I was not happy about this at all. the stories i was hearing from Doreen were not good. Danny was terrorizing her two dogs and her house was in an uproar. So I assumed that Danny would pull the same things here, plus terrorize the cats.

I could not have been more wrong. Danny has been playing well with Nate and Arlo and the cats have figured out how to terrorize Danny so he stays away from them and has not once thought about chasing them all over the house. As a matter of fact Danny is the happiest I have ever seen him. I think he likes farm life and what's not to like. He can bark all day and night and not be told to shut up. We have many bones in the yard to chew on, we have lots of smells to be checked out and sticky things to roll in. And the day after he showed up we got our first decent snow of the year which got all the dogs happy and excited.

Originally we were planning on finding a home for Danny but if he keeps on acting as he is we will probably end up keeping him and letting him live out his last years here. Of course, this could change if his attitude changes and he become a PITA. Time will tell.

A Cat Story

Took the cats to the vet this past Monday. We have two cats, Navin and Trina. Navin has been with me for going on 14 years and Trina came into our lives last August right around the time Hurricane KaTrina was making headlines.

Anyhoo Monday afternoon we made sure not to let the cats outside before the appointment, got the trusty cat carriers out of the barn and and loaded Trina and Navin into the crates. The cats immediately made it known they were not at all pleased about this turn of events. Hiss and yowling started and continued all through the 20 minute ride to the vet's. About 3 miles outside of Richmond we smelled what could have been someone's septic system needing a good pumping. We hoped that was what it was but no, the odor lingered all the way into Richmond. When we parked in the Vet office parking lot we discovered the source of the stink. Trina had showed her extreme displeasure over being shoved in a crate and than loaded onto a van and driven to God knows where by leaving a rather large turd in her crate.

We took her on in and figured, okay got a stool sample. The vet's assistant removed the pile for us and ultimately it was not needed.

Soon both cats were well prodded and had received the shots they needed. The vet noticed and inflamed front tooth in Trina's mouth and tried to pull it but it did not want to come out (ouch!). She will have to be watched and taken back in if it gets more inflamed.

With the vet visit done we put the cats back in the crates and got back into the van and drove to wal-Mart to return a battery. I do not like giving my money to Wal-Mart and do so to as small a degree as possible but they have by far the cheapest price on the lithium battery I need for my digital camera. Actually, other than Office Max they are the only place around that carries this kind of battery as far as I know.

The cats were a lot quieter on the drive back home, almost to the point where I was wondering if they were still alive (they were). We get home and I open the crate doors up before removing them from the van and both cats jump out. I was wondering just how pissed off Trina would be with us over all the indignities we had just bestowed upon her and found out as soon as I lifted her crate out of the van. It was covered in urine.

I wash out the crate with the hose and let the cats into the house and all is well until dark. Navin, Trooper than he is has already forgiven us for the vet visit. Trina is on her bed washing the pee from her paws but not wanting any human attention. I am not surprised, she did not take the trip well at all. Around 9pm she asks me to let her out and so I did and that was the last we saw of her for about 36 hours. This worried Eugene to no end. He was getting quit convinced by this morning that she was dead. And i was not so sure this wasn't true though I was not going to throw in the towel until she was gone a full 72 hours
I figured she was majorly pissed at us and was hiding in the barn, likely watching us the whole time. That, or trying to catch mice-she did catch her first mouse ever last Monday. Ate the head off of it too.

But about 10 minutes after Eugene said he was sure she was gone Trina comes walking back all coy yet happy to see us. After a 20 minute petting session she retired to the visco elastic tempur-pedic single bed we inherited.

Figures, that's cats for you.

$%%@#@^&**^ Mice Redux

Peppers seedlings on a light table about 7 days ago before being beheaded by a small critter

Living and working on an organic farm may seem to many to be the ultimate way to live one's life free of stress and full of beauty. These would be the folks who have bought into the romantic ideals of farming. In reality farming is one of the more stressful jobs you can have. You are at the mercy of the elements and wild animals both big and small. And either can destroy a lot of work in a very short amount of time. We have, in the past, had wind take out hoophouses, floods kill crops in the fields, odd/early cold snaps do great damage to cold sensitive plants, birds and dogs take chickens. These are things farmers stress about

We recently have been getting a lot of mouse or chipmunk damage to our pepper seedlings. Some critter gets on the light tables and eats the heads off of the baby plants. This is real nice to find first thing in the morning after you have spent half a day, the day before, making soil blocks and moving germinating seeds to bigger blocks. So we have been doing many superfluous things to stop the critter and few have worked.

One night we put cardboard guards around all the legs and cords thinking this might stop the critters from climbing onto the stands. No dice, they breached our system easily and beheaded more seedlings. We have traps and about once a week one gets a mouse and on Friday put out more traps in the grow room. Took down the plastic sheet that was dividing the room in half making it easier to heat the area where the seeds are germinating. And than we moved all the stands away from the walls (thinking mice can climb rough brick walls easily) on Saturday with the help of an old friend, Scott, who showed up to volunteer his time on our farm (he helped put in 2 peach trees and start the trellis for the grape arbor as well). We also moved a lot of the seedlings out to cold frames since no critters are eating the seedlings in the cold frames. But because a cold front came through last (Sunday) night it is now too cold to keep things like peppers and eggplant in the cold frames so back to the warm grow room they went. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Leave the peppers outside and they will get cold damage. Take them inside and they may get killed (but at least if they do not get beheaded they will produce later in the summer, the cold damage seedlings will not, been there, done that)

Yesterday evening Navin the senior cat had killed a mouse outside the grow room door.

Maybe, just maybe, all these things together will stop the pepper seedling carnage. There was no damage Sunday to what was left of the seedlings so perhaps we have made it too difficult for the mice to get at the seedlings (we also have removed all germinating melon seeds from the barn altogether as these seem to be prized fare for the critters and a huge attractant). I have not checked things out this morning. But I am hoping that I will not go in once again to see all my work destroyed.

Today the plan is to replant the peppers and if these get killed than I will have to either buy pepper seedlings (very expensive), plant again and hope it is not too late in the year to get a crop (it takes about 8 to 10 weeks to get peppers ready for transplanting than it is another 80 to 110 to get ripe peppers and if these things get planted past mid June there is not enough time left in our growing season for this to happen) or just give up altogether and have no peppers at all (not acceptable, we make decent money off of this crop plus I use a lot of peppers in my cooking).

I hope, at this point, the critters have found the room not as hospitable and better things growing outside now and will leave the seedlings alone.

Funny Pics

Navin up close and personal, but you can't google him or find him on Yahoo. He sometimes acts like a yahoo, though

Nate in his fave position. Lying on his back open for business hoping for a belly rub but not amoxil (which I am very allergic to BTW)

Yep it Snowed

The snow is over. We got around 5" of the stuff. All the schools are closed.

Eugene spent a great deal of the late morning/early afternoon pushing snow around using the BCS (that is a walking or two wheeled tractor) with the plow attachment. The high winds last night scoured out most of the snow in the parking area. Except the part right up by the road (For which I think we can thank an O-DOT plow). But he sold a hay rack a couple of days ago and they guy is supposed to come by tomorrow to get it so he got the snow up to and around the hay rack cleared away.

Nate, the puppy thought the snow was GRRREAT!!! He now knows drifts are for running through and biting. He stayed out so long in the snow his pads got pretty frozen. Just like a kid.

The cats are not at all amused by the snow. Navin wanted out last night while it was still snowing. He went to the front door and was faced with a lot of frozen precip. No good. So he went to the kitchen door hoping that door would open up onto some warm dry weather. but that didn't happen, snow at that door too. So he went back to the space heater and laid down and soaked up more heat.

The farm is a very different place today. Lots of white and very little green. the house is extra cold today. The thermostat on the wall says it is 55˚F. Brrrr! Wouldn't be bad if it was 59˚F, that 4 degrees makes a big difference.

Invited friends out tomorrow for a sledding party. I have no idea how many folks will come. It doesn't matter as sledding is always fun.

I am thawing some apple cider we pressed in August. The plan is to heat it up and put in some spices and drink the sweet warming fluid. The adults can add rum as well. Will also make hot cocoa to which the adults can add kaluah and/or rum if they choose.

My Weekend: The good, The Bad, The Indifferent

Shiva helping on the farm
Boy, it has been an eventful past couple of days.

Some bad things have happened and some good things have happened in the past 48 hours.

The worst thing to happen was losing Shiva the cat on the highway last night while we were out eating with my brother, Scott, who is visiting from Brooklyn, NY. Shiva had been with us around 8 years. he was our gardening cat. He loved to follow us out to the gardens and hang out with us while we worked. if we worked too long or too hard he would distract us away from work and get us to play with him. He was unique and will be sorely missed. So the three of us spent the late evening in shock and toasting the cat. He was buried this morning and a sugar maple sapling was planted on top of his corpse.

Better is the fact we bought a new bed and box spring today. we have been sleeping on a futon on a board for our entire relationship (and I was sleeping on it for about 10 years before that). But of course we could not have the bed event go smoothly. The first trouble started at the mattress store when we could barely get the mattress in the van and had to tie the box spring to the top of the van. we got about 2 miles down the road and one of the ropes came loose. So stopped at the Lutheran Church on US 40 in Richmond, In and tied the thing back down and went on our way to Radio shack to buy an adaptor for a new DVD player (more on this in a sec). Got the adaptor and got home with no problems but a bit of stress.

Got the box spring in the house and wouldn't you know it, it would not fit up the stairwell. So as I write this Eugene and my brother are working on taking the lintel (plus a lot of plaster and most of the door frame) off of the door in hopes that this will give us enough room to get the box spring up the stairs.

Now the destruction is over and the BS is halfway up the stairs (yay!!!).

In better moments this weekend we went to our last regular farmers' market and did alright. It was a busy market traffic-wise but not a lot of buying going on. It seems it was Miami University's Parents weekend so we got a lot of parents coming to the market with their college aged kids. Hopefully this means we get more student customers next season now that they know there is a Saturday market.

The best thing to happen this weekend has been my brother visiting and seeing the new farm for the first time and plastering two walls that had gotten water damage this past spring. now we have some fine looking plastered walls with no mold or paint peeling off of them.

Finally, we bought a DVD player at the evil Wal-Mart Sooper Center and now find it will not work with our antiquated (read 6 year old) TeeVee. We can buy a $50 adaptor at Radio Shack but that is nearly twice what the DVD cost and it may be better to buy a new TeeVee (though the one we have works fine and does not need replacing) or may have to return the item to Wal-Mart and get our money back and remain a VHS family for awhile longer.

While were doing this the cat was being killed, yet another bad Wal-Mart memory. A favorite cat killed and a useless DVD player-Great...

The bed has made it upstairs, the house is full of dust and plaster, the lintel over the stair doorway looks like hell but, by Gawd, the deed is done and we will have a real bed to sleep upon for the first time in our marriage. It will be nice to wake up not stiff and in some pain and well rested.