More Piggies

We have had our second lot of 3 pigs for about a month now. They are a Berkshire/Tamworth mix, 2 males and a female. Poor little darlings had mange before we got them and are somewhat stunted and bald. Since coming to us, they have gained weight and grown back some of their hair but they are still no bigger than their cousins the Tamworths, despite being a month or so older. They are happily uprooting the vegetable garden for us, part of our new no-till gardening plan. We have called them AlfRED, WilfRED and WinnifRED, in keeping with this year's names.

The other boys are out on the 'back 40' now, enjoying their freedom. We have been doing some serious fencing this year, trying to invest time now to avoid spending time later moving temporary fencing around all summer. In this part of the world, if you want to sink a fence post you have to do it before the end of June or it would be like trying to drive a nail into concrete.We have fenced off a large shrubby area for the pigs and the goats to share- and perhaps even the cow sometimes. We'd like them to clear some of the brush and turn it into pasture. The theory is, the goats eat the leaves on the bushes, with the help of the cow, who will knock over the bushes, and then the pigs up root them, in essences, clearing the land to make pasture, all the while fertilizing it. Will it work? Who knows, but it will probably work as well as most of our labour saving schemes- which is, not that well at all.

Great news!

Our Buttercup is pregnant! All the AI stuff has finally paid off and according to our vet, there is a nice little fetus developing in there.

Piggy-wiggies

While I was away visiting my brother in the warm southern US, Louise picked up 3 of our 6 pigs for this year's batch. We got some lovely Tamworth pigs, a very rare breed. Ours are all castrated boys which means we don't feel too guilty about raising them for meat. They are a beautiful ginger colour and Louise named them fREDerick, ethelRED and jaRED. Seems, though, that young pigs are skittish things and we like our pigs to be friendly and easy to handl; therefor, we spend a lot of time taming them. Last year, quite by accident, we discovered that pigs love marshmallows, so we sit in their pen with a bag of mini-marshmallows coaxing the little fellows closer and closer. Soon they begin to associate us, and the plastic bag, with these sweet treats and they look forward to our visits.

We keep them in a large box stall in the barn when we first get them and give them access to the outdoors to a large area fenced in by electric fencing. When the weather gets warmer and the pigs a bit bigger, it is time to move them outside to their summer quarters. Yesterday, we decided we should move them to make room for 3 more that Louise hopes to pick up this week. (Piglets of heritage breeds are not so easy to find, but that is another story. )

Anyway, we prepared their new living quarters, in the vegetable patch, where their job will be to dig up all the weeds in the garden so we can move the pigs out and plant directly. My idea was to string up temporary fencing all along the way to the garden and just herd the boys along. Great idea, if only pigs would herd. They were quite scared and really didn't want to leave the comfort and safety of the barn. After several abortive attempts at pushing them along and having them scoot back to the barn honking and squealing, we decided on Plan B- that is cramming them into dog crates and carrying them to the new home. I have been reading up on pig handling so figured that all we had to do was to make a narrowing path toward a dog crate and get behind them and chase them in.

Well, pigs don't really like the idea of cramming their fat little bodies into dog crates, believe it or not. They also have a remarkable ability to jump and can leap over hay bales with a single bound. We finally managed, purely by luck, to get ethelRED into a crate. Sadly, he is the largest pig and he went into the smallest crate. Not a happy fellow! But there was no way we were going to let him out to try again, so he just had to sit there, complaining while we chased his brothers around.

We noticed last year that the smallest pig is invariably the wiliest and indeed, jaRED is true to form. Shooting through any available space and jumping over bales and barriers. And pigs are much faster that one thinks they could be with those short little legs. A few times we sort of had a hold on one or the other but their sausage shaped bodies make it hard to hold on. Eventually I suggested we try to get them into sacks rather than the crates, so we tried that. All the while, the poor little guys are getting more and more panicky and stressed- which- surprisingly, worked in our favour because after an hour or so they finally became exhausted and generally fed up with us chasing them, and went one after the other into dog crates.

You would think that all this chasing and squealing that all our hard work with marshmallows would be undone, but it turns out that pigs don't hold a grudge. Minutes after being released in their new quarters, they were happily rooting around and even coming up to us to see if we had anything for them. Some people could learn a lot from pigs.

Mountain Climbing

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it. Thought I'd post it anyway.

We finally managed to go riding yesterday for the first time in 2 months. The weather has not been cooperating at all, with ice, snow, high winds, bitter cold, all conspiring to keep us out of the saddle. And then Touche managed to get a stone bruise which effectively kept him out of commission for another couple of weeks. The horses have been bored, hanging around looking over the gate, kicking at each other and chasing around. But yesterday, it was not too numbingly cold and we had a free couple of hours, so we scraped some of the great clouds of winter coat off the horses- they have started to loose their thick fur; even though it still feels like winter I guess their biological clocks are telling them otherwise. We saddled them up, Louise having her usual battle with the grumpy old mare, who spends the whole time she is being saddled looking threateningly at Louise, waiting for her chance to show that person that she will not be dominated. Louise, with the aid of a riding crop, or talking stick as she calls it, always wins. She doesn't have to use the crop. She just has to show it to Miz in order to win the battle.

My saddle is a great big ancient thing- my only inheritance from my father (except for my large nose). It weighs a good 50 lb. Luckily Touche is a big fellow and can take the weight. I have a lighter saddle, but he is not comfortable with it so even though I find my father's saddle a little uncomfortable myself and way too heavy to carry, the horse must come first. Touche has not grown any smaller over the winter. In fact, looking up at the height I had to scale when I finally came to mount him, I figure he has grown an inch or 2. He is a good horse, very patient, so he stood absolutely still while I hauled my own not inconsiderable bulk up on to the saddle. It was like mountain climbing! I had become quite good at scaling his height over the summer, but appear to have lost my agility in the long dark months of winter. I have come to realize that I will have to keep in shape for mounting over the winter, set up a dummy horse to keep my legs limber, even when I can't ride. Another option is to teach him to stand by a mounting block, which is fine until I either voluntarily or involuntarily dismount and have to get back on out in the field somewhere.

It was lovely getting out to ride. The horses were feeling pretty good, it being nearly spring and having had no real exercise. I had to hold Touche back, something I never have to do normally as he is content to plod along looking at the scenery. Mizeri was nearly exploding with the need to run, so we gave up on the idea of a trail ride and worked them in the arena for a while. They haven't really forgotten any of their training and Touche still does an awesome stop, but even he was thinking naughty thoughts and had to be kept busy. We have all missed riding and are looking forward to more good weather.

Adventures in A. I,

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, getting Buttercup bred has been proving more difficult than we first imagined. Way back in October, we had borrowed the gomer and had had the AI guy out once, to no avail. Buttercup was still not pregnant. Gillian, our vet, had suggested we wait until spring when she should start to cycle again as she didn't appear to be coming into heat. So all winter we waited, feeding her huge amounts of grain to improve her condition. Well, now it is March, and finally, finally, there are signs that she may be ready to be bred again.

A couple of days ago it all happened. We called the AI guy, who came out and checked and said, yes, indeed, she was coming into heat. He would come back in the evening, bringing the straw of semen. Nine pm he arrives. It is dark and we never got around to putting electricity in the cow shed so we are doing all this by the light of the truck headlamps and a couple of flashlights. Buttercup, seeing the halter, and the AI guy, makes a quick exit out of the shed. She may not know exactly what is in store but she knows it probably won't be much fun for her. With a bit of bribery we get the halter on her and tie her up to a post. I won't describe the whole experience, as it starts to sound a bit perverted when I describe it, but ultimately, it seems we have a very good chance of having a calf next December.

The Mad Hen

A farmer has certain duties and responsibilities. He/she, having chosen to have livestock, has a duty to care for them properly, to make sure they have food and fresh water, a nice cosy place to live and a decent quality of life. In order to be a successful farmer, however, there are other duties too, things we don't like to talk about so much. For example, a hog farmer, however much she loves her pigs, still, at the end of the day, has to send those wonderful little characters off for slaughter, a dairy farmer has to remove the calf from its mother at a very young age and start artificially feeding it, and an egg producer has to cull the old unproductive birds.

We, at the Round House Farm, do pretty well with the care of our animals. No one could say they are in the least bit neglected. In fact, they get their breakfast and supper well before we do, most days. But it is the other aspect of livestock farming we have more trouble with. Sure, we did manage to send the piggy-wiggies off to end up in the freezer, but not without some qualms and regrets. The calf, though, is still, at 8 months of age, nursing from his mother, a situation we justify by saying that it means we only have to milk once a day. No, the real problem lies with the hens.

Laying hens are very productive in their first year of laying, often laying an egg every single day. By the second year it is down to one every second day, and by the third, well, it is whenever they feel like it. We don't run a battery hen production line. Our hens become a bit like pets- we name many of them and know their characters- and it is hard to say that just because they are not laying an optimum number of eggs that we are going to prematurely end their lives. But perhaps we carry it a bit too far.

Our friend, Jo-Ann had a few hens. One day last summer she called and said that one of the hens was being badly bullied by the others. Hens are like that. They are like nasty little kids in the playground. If one of their group shows a sign of weakness or the fatal flaw of being 'different', they begin to peck at it and pick on it. We all been there as kids, either at the giving or receiving end. Anyway, she suggested that we try her with our flock- as we have more birds and they are used to new ones coming in. It was a disaster for the poor little hen. Not only was she being pecked to death, but she was not used to going outside, so she would huddle in the hen house, miserably picking up a few crumbs of food. We will have to get rid of her, we thought. Let's see if she gets along with Peggy's hens. No luck. The pathetic little creature was becoming more and more bald, and Peggy didn't want the responsibility. So back she came to us.

We put her in the big barn, where, it being summer, no animals were living. We fed her inside, and she had her favourite spots to roost. She laid a few eggs and clucked around quite happily, coming out to greet us each time we came into the barn. She had access to the outside, but seldom ventured beyond the threshold, except the times she disappeared. No sign of her in the barn and it was dusk. I called. None of her usual hen noises. I went to look outside around the barn, thinking I might just find a pile of feathers, all that is left after some predator carried her off. I was just about to give up when I saw a silhouette in the distance, on the other side of the horse arena. She was sitting, huddled up, obviously lost. I tucked her under my arm and carried her back to the safety of the barn. This happened a couple more times in the course of the summer and each time we thought, she is just a very dumb bird. We took to calling her "Mad Hen", assuming she was agoraphobic as well as a bit mentally deficient.

This week we discovered a reason for all her problems. She has cataracts. One eye is very cloudy and she has no vision in it and the other is starting to go the same way. This explains why she never cleans up the food pellets that have spilt around her dish, why she gets lost outside and probably why the other hens picked on her. So here we have a half blind hen. Really we should do the proper farmer thing and end her life. I mean, what kind of farmer keeps an old blind hen? But we have grown very fond of her. She appears to be affectionate and interested in seeing people. She is not doing anyone any harm there, wandering around the barn. And now she has a buddy- one of the Light Sussex hens who Louise found outside the hen house looking very bedraggled and sorry for herself. They seem to get along quite well, though Mad Hen was a bit agitated at first, perhaps remembering her poor treatment from the other hens, perhaps just not wanting to share her safe haven with anyone else. So we will keep her for now, until her disability prevents her from enjoying her life, or until we get up the courage to do what a farmer really should do- get rid of the unproductive stock.

Blizzard!!

Huge storm today. 90 km/hr winds with snow going horizontally. We were due to pick up a bale of haylage today, but decided the horses could make do with baled hay for a couple of days. With the snow drifts in our yard, there would be no getting out with the trailer anyway. Mizeri is not so happy about this development and takes out her ill-humour on her favourite target, Touché. He is still limping, but not so much, so he can hobble away from her fairly quickly. Is it cruel to keep him outside with her? They seem to have settled now and are resigned to eating their second rate hay, so we will leave them.

The rest of the critters and their slaves are inside our various homes, huddling away from the storm. We will wait it out.

Lame horses

Despite all the signs of spring- the ground hog not seeing his shadow, seeds arriving, the clocks about to go forward- winter lingers. Today was a nasty, bone-chilling day. My DVD on training your horse to do tricks has arrived and I am eager to get out there start working with Touché and teaching him to bow. I have visions of Touché and me at the Oxford Exhibition, receiving our ribbon for ... well.....for.... I'm sure we will win something... and taking a bow.

Of course the weather is not the only thing stopping me from working with my horse. Silly young fellow managed to injure himself somehow when we left him out in the pasture alone. We had put Miz and DT in the barn to get DT used to being in a standing stall. Touché decided he wanted to be with them and started running about frantically and did something to his foot. He is now limping around feeling very sorry for himself. I am assuming it is just a stone bruise and am trying not to worry about it too much.

On a brighter note, now that the seeds have arrived, it is time to start thinking about planting. It won't be long before the snow melts and we can start that whole cycle of planting and weeding and weeding some more. Remind me of why we do this?

We have also found a source of piglets for the upcoming spring. We have reserved 4 little Tamworth piglets which will be ready in a few weeks. Unfortunately, we have sold more than that so will need to find a couple more babies from somewhere else to fill our quota. We may have to resort to getting some of those pink pigs.

Animal Adventures

It's hard to know where to begin with today's adventures. Do I start with the Great Escape? The Comedy of Errors? The Near Death Experience? or perhaps the Tale of a Curious Pup?For simplicity, let's try chronologically.

This morning I figure it was time to put Jessie, the Dewar's donkey who I have here to treat for thrush, out for some exercise. She has been in a large pen in the barn keeping her feet clean and dry but she does need to get out and it was a beautiful crisp, sunny winter's day. But where to put her? It seemed the cattle were a good option as she is used to cattle, so in she goes with Buttercup and Stewie. But no, that wasn't going to work. She kept charging at them and trying to kick Buttercup in the head. So, if she is that fiesty, let's try the horses. Miz, however, has other ideas. She's not going to let some long eared interloper into her territory. And Touche and DT are not helping matters, chasing the poor little thing, just curious, but Jessie doesn't know that. I finally settle on putting her in the orchard, where one lone hen who has wandered out into the snow was neither a threat nor an object to be bullied.

With that settled and all the animals fed and cleaned out, I am able to go into the house to enjoy my porridge for breakfast. Not for long though. I happen to glance out the window and am a little surprised to see a small black steer wandering through the Mundles' field next door. Seconds later, a little black cow scampers by. How did they get out? I think. Interestingly, neither of them seem overly comfortable with their new-found freedom and they are quite relieved when I shake a bucket of grain and call them back. Millhouse, the great big shepherd pup that we are fostering, tries to help until I put him back in the house. Eventually I convince the 2 runaways to return to their pasture. A quick investigation finds that an improperly fastened gate is the catalyst for the adventure.

The middle of the day passes peacefully enough. I head out to feed the animals early as we are expecting a couple of little foster kids for the weekend, due to arrive around 3 pm. I figure I'd get everything done that I could before they arrive. All is going well until I decide to give the horses some kelp powder. Miz loves kelp. I put a couple of cupfuls into one of the feeders and go on with the chores. I am about to go inside when I notice Miz acting strangely. She appears to be choking, attempting to vomit, getting down on the ground and rolling. Colic, I think. Quick, call the vet and get back out there and get her walking. Horses are strange creatures and when their bellies hurt they get down and roll and often get a twisted bowel, which, as far as I know, means they will die. It is one illness that all horse owners dread. The idea is to keep the horse walking so she won't go down before the vet arrives with medication. I take her out of the field and begin pacing circles around the driveway. Millhouse figures he can help too, and follows behind her, occasionally barking.

Susan, the vet, arrives in record time. She begins examining Miz, who, although looking pretty miserable, does not take kindly to all the poking and prodding. Millhouse still thinks he can be of assistance, but only manages to get himself stepped on. Yelping, he hobbles off with one paw flopping in a most worrying manner. He's gone and gotten a broken leg, I think, with only 3 more days until he goes to his new home! I have a look and although he is in pain, nothing appears to be broken. Susan will look at him later, after she saves the horse.

Susan suggests that Miz needs to be sedated for further treatment- not being the kind of horse that tolerates people poking at her, so we should move her into our one box stall. The box stall, however, is full of Nigerian Dwarf goats and their climbing toys. Quickly, I clip lead ropes on the 4 little darlings and drag them out to the cow barn and push them inside. I clear out all the steps, tables and planks that clutter the stall, and then it is ready for the horse. We bring Miz in, inject her with a sedative, and she is just getting droopy when I hear a vehicle come in, followed by the sound of a child crying. Wonderful timing, I think. Here are the kiddies and I'm standing here holding a sick, drugged horse. I rush out and speak to the social worker. Just in with a sick horse, I say. Won't be a minute!

15 minutes later, I ask Susan if she minds if I go check on the situation outside. There is the poor harried social worker with a howling toddler in each arm. Clearly, she is getting fed up. I rush into the house and phone my mother. Please can you help? Good old Mum to the rescue. Where is Louise anyway? I proceed to unload the van of all the accouterments that children seem to need and show the social worker, whose name I haven't even asked, where the toilet is as little Elizabeth needs a pee. Mum arrives. The social worker makes a quick escape from all the madness. I wonder what she will report to her superiors. May be the last foster kids we ever see! Back to the barn, where Susan is busy stuffing a tube up Miz's nose. Miz, even in her drugged stupor, is not impressed. Finally, the tube is in the right place and Susan is able to flush out the obstruction and administer some anti-gas in case of colic. We are nearly finished when Louise arrives. She clues in that there is a problem with Miz when she sees the vet's truck and only 2 horses in the field, and rushes into the barn worried that the miserable creature is on death's door.

I leave Louise to the horse and vet and go into to rescue Mum who I figure won't be coping too well with 2 unhappy children. I was right. I change diapers, wipe noses, remove jackets and find toys. Susan comes in with Louise, checks out Millhouse's paw, and gives him an anti-inflammatory to stop it from swelling. We find food for the kids, send Mum home and crack open a much needed beer. Another day at the Round House Farm.

More Evidence that Winter May be Ending

One of the first signs of impending spring in the Maritimes is rain. Torrential, cold, windy rain. This morning I looked out to see the horses huddled in their shelter, looking out longingly at the bale of haylage just out of reach. Before anyone starts feeling sorry for the poor starving creatures, I must add that they do have ordinary hay in the racks of their shelter, readily available but not half as tasty.

Once more the rain has turned the remaining ice on the driveway and yard into a treacherous expanse. Funny how such a short distance becomes terribly daunting when covered with ultra-slick ice. If someone could mimic that lack of friction, I'm sure it would have all kinds of industrial applications. The ice may be another reason the horses are not venturing out. Horses hooves are not really designed for ice walking and it is both funny and nerve wracking to watch them attempt to cross a stretch of ice. Mizeri has the technique, no doubt gleaned from her years of experience. She minces across the slippery surface without a hitch. Touché and DT, on the other hand, sort of limp along, thinking if they put less weight on their feet they won't slip. However, they still take great big strides, so every now and then they slip and have to scrabble with all 4 feet to remain upright. They both have good strong legs, or so I tell myself when I start to visualize broken limbs and bankrupting vet bills. In time, hopefully, they will learn to cope with it.

We had our seed get-together this weekend. Louise and I had already gone through our seed collection and decided we didn't need very many seeds, just a few peppers and tomatoes, one type of eggplant, some swiss chard. Oh, but sit us down in front of those glossy catalogues with a bunch of other avid gardeners and we lose all sense of prospective. I don't know how many things we are ordering but I know it is not just a 'few' of anything. It's not our fault. We have a real weakness for the heirloom varieties that are becoming more and more available in the catalogues and on the web. They have such wonderful descriptions. Tomatoes of all shapes, sizes and colours with intriguing histories. Corn that the native people grew (probably a bit like what we used to call 'cow corn' but never mind.) Lettuce, squash, spinach, berries, all with wonderful descriptions and names. Forget about the fact that we never have time in the summer to get around to harvesting and preserving let alone weed. But that's okay. Apparently geese will weed the garden....

Crying Over Spilt Milk

Those who have not ever own a dairy cow, goat, sheep, or water buffalo or whatever will not truly know the meaning of that saying "Crying over spilt milk." I mean, what is to cry about?- so you tipped over your glass of milk and have to clean it up. Get over it, you whiner! But how about this scenario: you have spent time sterilizing your milk bucket. You have your warm wash water and towel. You go out to the barn, get the bucket of feed ready, clean your cow's udder and dry it carefully with the towel. Feeding station all ready, you let the cow in to the milking area, set up your seat (in my case, a couple of flakes of hay) and start milking. Milking is not a speedy process. The cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo, what ever, does not give up her precious liquid so easily. So it is that when you have nearly filled your nice clean bucket, there is a feeling of satisfaction, of a job well done. Now imagine how you feel when said cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo, or whatever puts her manure covered hoof into the bucket and tips it all over the dairy floor. Although there surely is no use in crying, you can understand why someone would want to .

Yet Another Snow Day

We woke up this morning to a white, wintery world, snow blowing and drifting, the morning routine made more cumbersome by the need to slog my way through the drifts. Digging out the chicken house. The horses coated with a fine layer of snow as they stand, stuffing themselves on their bale of haylage. Now there's a word that probably is not in the dictionary. A cross between hay and silage, referring to the large round, plastic wrapped bales. The grass is cut from the fields and only partially allowed to dry. It is then baled up and wrapped in plastic- our plastic is a stylish black and white striped. The grass then partially ferments, making it smell slightly sweet and alcoholic. The horses love it, and it has the added benefit of being ideal for Mizeri who is allergic to hay dust. Saves us from having to soak the ordinary bales of hay in water, a less than pleasant chore when it is minus 15 degrees outside.

Once a week we hitch our Canadian Tire utility trailer up to the Matrix and drive down to the Gulf Shore to the Irving's dairy farm to pick up a bale. That little Toyota is quite the car. A Japanese pickup- one of our friends calls it. From the day we brought it home, we have stuffed bales of hay inside, hauled 40 kg sacks of feed, saddles and other horse gear, dogs, cats, even 20 or so full grown meat king chickens on their way to the butcher. Finally we bought the trailer and many of these things can be hauled outside, rather than in, which improves the smell, particularly when transporting fowl. And now we are asking the poor little workhorse to drag 800 kg bales of haylage, and it rises to the occasion. All that and great fuel economy. Those Japanese know how to build a car.

The snow continued to drift all day. I took my life into my hands and made my way on foot up to Mum's house to feed her cats and make sure the house was still intact after the storm- not so far but the road was alternately snow filled and icy. Mum is off to central Canada, visiting the sisters, both mine and hers. The weather there is no better, apparently, bone chillingly cold. Why aren't we all sensible like my little brother and living in Florida? Sure, we pretend we wouldn't like all that warm weather. Not natural, we claim, living in a place that doesn't have a good bout of bitterly cold weather or proper seasons. Too hot in the summer. Too many bugs. Too many people- tourists. Disneyland. But to be honest, we are just terribly, terribly jealous.

So the snow kept falling, blowing, filling in the driveway that was ploughed out twice already. I guess our snowplough guy is having a prosperous season. Really, we don't mind the snow storms that much. Sure there is the back breaking chore of all that snow shoveling, but we don't have to go anywhere, or do much of anything. There is something special about being snowed in. There is nowhere you have to go, nothing you have to do. School is cancelled so we don't have to go to work. We can light the woodstove, heat up a couple of cups of hot chocolate and check out daytime TV. And we have had 6 days like this already this winter. Beat that, Florida! How many snow days do you guys get in a year? Eh?

Bad moooods...and gomers

This morning , as usual, I stumbled out of bed and carried out the usual chores, the first of which is to milk the cow. Stewie is locked away in his little pen all night to allow us access to the milk he would otherwise consume. By the time I get out there at 7-7:30 in the morning, Buttercup is ready to have the pressure eased from her udder and have her breakfast. I am not sure which is more important to her, but I suspect it is the food. Anyway, she is usually a well mannered cow, amenable and tractable. This morning, however, I guess she was having a bad day. I know how she feels. Sometimes I wake up and just want to swing my horns at anyone who irritates me. I don't mind the horn shaking, but when she catches me on the cheek bone with one long pointy horn, I get pretty irritable back. I am not a cow training expert, but she seems to respond well enough with a slap on the belly and an agitated "Hey, don't do that!" But really, one can't allow a cow to use her horns on the person who feeds her and has to milk her.

But I wondered if maybe her foul humour may have stemmed from her coming into heat. That would be quite an exciting development, as we have been trying to get her bred since October. A cow's gestation period is 9 months and breeding in October would mean a calf in late June, early July, a nice warm time of year to bring a baby into the world. Buttercup is a purebred Irish Dexter cow and we wanted to have purebred offspring. As there are no Dexter bulls in the area, we decided AI was the way to go. An internet search turned up a source of semen out in Alberta. Oh, but there is so much more to artificial insemination than finding a dad.

First you must find a place to store the semen and, no, your home deep freeze will not do the job. You need a nitrogen tank. It is not financially viable for us to buy our own tank, not that cost ever stopped us from doing anything for the farm, but I did manage to find a beef farmer who had space in her tank and was happy to let us use it. We are on good terms because I trim her horses feet- no one else is willing to do it because they are so ill mannered. So we have the tank. We get 10 'straws' of semen delivered, semen of a bull, which we discover later, is already deceased. That's a bit creepy but I don't suppose Buttercup will care.

The next step is to find an AI technician. That wasn't so hard, as my farmer friend recommended a guy who lives just down the road. I phone him and he agrees to come to do the job when Buttercup comes into heat.

But here's where the difficulty arises. Turns out, cows are supposed to come into heat every 21 days, but are only fertile for 4-5 hours, so you really have to be on the ball with this one. How do you tell when she is in heat? Easy, when she is with other cows, as they will mount each other, but our Buttercup lives alone with her overfed- and castrated- young son. So, my farmer friend says, borrow our gomer. What? I ask, thinking I hadn't heard her correctly. She explains- a gomer is a bull that has had a vasectomy. He has all the hormones but can't actually breed the cow. When she comes into heat, he will get all excited and we know it is time to call the AI guy. Great idea, we think, only a little daunted by the fact that the gomer is about 6 times the weight of our little Buttercup and is, for all intents and purposes, a bull.

Mary and her husband, Paul, deliver the gomer in mid October. He is huge! But he is gentle, Mary says. We are not so confident and only go into the field with him after throwing him and Buttercup some windfall apples to keep him busy. He towers over her but, yes, he is gentle. Stewie seems to love having a dad to follow around. Buttercup is not at all intimidated. So we wait. Every 21 days she should come into heat. We wait and watch. We even go out with a flashlight a couple of nights, thinking he looked a bit interested earlier, but nothing. After more than a month, she does come into heat. Mr Gomer is not particularly interested, but we call the AI guy anyway.

I think we just missed it, he says. What? We have been waiting for over a month. But he goes and gets a straw and we try anyway. The AI guy tells us we should have her checked by the vet in 60 days. Meanwhile, we send Mr Gomer home. He was not much help and he ate a lot and did I mention we were a bit intimidated by him? We wait, watching to see any signs of a heat cycle. Nothing, which is hopeful. Maybe she is pregnant. Then finally it is time to call the vet. It is not good news. Stewie is not going to have a brother or sister. To make matters worse, it seems she is not cycling. Why not? I ask. Undernourished, the vet says. You mean we have been starving our cow? Not exactly, she says, but she needs more vitamins and minerals. And she probably won't come into heat until February, when the days get longer.

Now Buttercup is in heaven. She went from getting no grain at all on the organic farm that we bought her from, to getting 2 big buckets of nice, molasses coated grain, laced with dried kelp, every day. Sometimes she doesn't even finish her feed, there is so much of it. She looks pretty good to me, but so far no signs of heat. But now it is February, so when she was so grumpy, I thought it looked promising. Sadly, nothing. Seems we will have to wait some more!

Rituals

Another grey day. The slush from last night's little snow squall remains on the ground, making walking over the icy driveway to the barn carrying buckets of water for Buttercup into an extreme sport. But it is February and Groundhog Day has come and gone. Before we know it, it will be mapling time and Westchester will have its annual pancake supper. Our seed group meets next weekend to order our seeds for the garden and we are planning our order of spring chickens- or chicks actually. All the familiar rituals of spring.

For the past 2-3 years a few of us have gotten together to order from the seed catalogues. Oh, the seed catalogues! Harbingers of spring. Glossy purveyors of hope. The glorious vegetables; the exotic foot long beans, Japanese radishes, okra, eggplant, 50 varieties of tomatoes, greens, celeriac, corn, -and the flowers; climbing, blossoming, hummingbird and butterfly attracting- our garden is going to be wonderful! (several months later, when the bugs and weeds have had their way, a very different reality will be recognized)

Now on to the fowl. This year we are ordering some heritage breeds of poultry. Our old hens are getting very old indeed. We worked out the other day that aside from the 2 young hens hatched this summer, the rest of our flock is over five years old. Considering commercial laying operations 'retire' their hens after one year, ours are very elderly indeed. In fact this winter, with 25 layers, we are lucky to find one egg in the nesting box each day. One of the most expensive eggs in the world. Time for new birds.

For years we have had some Araucana mixes from our friend Harris McCormick. Harris' birds are cute and sprightly, a mix of the Araucana and some kind of bantam. They lay lovely little blue eggs, mostly only in the summer, but we can put up with that. What is harder to take is the fact that they really don't like laying in the nesting boxes. No, they much prefer using clumps of weeds or grass. Many a time we have come across an attractive clutch of blue eggs nestled under a shrub, waiting for their mother to go broody and start sitting on them. Occasionally we are even slower finding them and the mother is half way through incubating them. Once we were even later than that and we lifted the broody hen to move her and her eggs to a safer place only to find several fluffy chicks and more eggs hatching. This renegade hatching of babies would not be such a problem, except we are really trying to end the bantamX line of birds, hoping to actually get some of the eggs our hens lay.

So this year we decided to do some research and buy some varieties of hens for their egg laying abilities and characters as well as their looks. So many options! We do want some more blue egg layers, but let's go for the purebreds. We'd like some of those Marans that lay very dark brown eggs, some Buff Orpingtons who are lovely, fat, gentle hens that lay well in the winter, some Chanteclers, the old Quebec breed, and... well, the list goes on. But our hen house is small, so decisions have to be made. Choose only a few of each and kill off the old girls, or... build a bigger hen house. Time will tell.

Then there are the turkeys. For the past couple of years we have raised a few turkeys. Kept a couple for ourselves and sold the rest to friends. Turkeys are great birds. They travel in a herd (flock, I suppose). They are curious and like to follow us around, or follow the dogs, cats, horses, whatever. And they are very easy to keep. They have been very popular and very tasty, but we haven't been very happy raising those big white birds that are used commercially. They have their beaks trimmed, which we are dead set against, are started on antibiotic laden food and as importantly, are kind of ugly. We want pretty ones, the old fashioned Pilgrim kind of turkeys. So we will order some of them. Minimum order 15. Oh well, we'll find space. The larger varieties of turkeys don't breed naturally but John Dynesveld says he knows how to do AI with turkeys and is trying to convince us to keep a breeding pair. We are not sure that is such a great idea, but are easily swayed so we may well end up with a permanent pair of turkeys.

For years now, I have thought how nice it would be to have a goose at Christmas. What could be more traditional? Louise has been very much opposed, remembering the attack geese her father kept some years ago. But with all this searching through hatcheries, we have found a nice variety of geese- the Embden. They are meant to be quite gentle and will eat all the grass on your lawn- no more lawn mowing- and Christmas dinner to boot. What more could a person want?

Spring is looking very promising.