Life Lessons from the Barnyard

What's the Hurry?

2012-03-10T07:45:00.006-07:00

When we first met our mare, Belle, she was 19 years old and my daughter, Megan was 7. We were just getting Megan started with horses and after a few successful riding lessons had decided to try to lease a horse as a next step. Belle was a black Quarter Horse mare with a mellow, easy going temperament and a nice smooth gait, who was in semi-retirement due to an old injury. Apparently she’d been kicked in the gaskin a few years earlier (that’s an area toward the top of the rear leg) and though the injury itself had healed, it had left tight scar tissue in that part of her leg that restricted her range of motion, causing her to move with a bit of a gimp. The injury had ended her career as a show horse and she had been sold for $1 to a family in Boulder as a kid's pleasure horse. Their young daughters only rode occasionally, so the family had decided to lease her out as a way to pay for her keep.

We leased Belle for about a year and eventually she was given to us by the family when they no longer had the time or interest to care for her. Since then, Belle has gone on to have a meaningful second career as a kid’s lesson and camp horse at our family farm. While Megan has lost much of her interest in horses (for the time being, at least) Belle has taught many other new riders how to overcome some initial fears as they begin learning how to ride. From the littlest 6 year old to several of my adult students, Belle has been the perfect beginner’s horse, in part because of her slow, smooth gaits but also because her favorite speed of all is a stand still.

Whenever a new student is a little uneasy or apprehensive about climbing up on the back of one of the horses (a fear I think is rooted in some pretty good common sense), the first thing I do is teach them how to make the horse stop. Knowing that they can control the speed and movement of their large mount is the quickest way to instill confidence and with Belle, it couldn’t be easier. She is voice trained (as all my horses are) to some basic commands such as walk, trot, canter and Belle’s personal favorite, whoa. Once students learn that a simple, firmly spoken “whoa” is all it takes to stop her in her tracks, they immediately relax.

In the wild horse world, where horses have to fend for themselves and be prepared to flee at the first sign of danger, the older horses eventually figure out that they should move as little as possible when no danger is present to conserve energy. You never know when a mountain lion or other threat might show up and you want to have enough energy in reserve to be able to run for all you’re worth if needed. While Belle certainly doesn’t have to worry too much about predators in her current living arrangement, she has definitely perfected the art of conserving energy. She never takes more steps than necessary, stays out of the fray when the younger horses are goofing off, and takes a nap every afternoon out in the back pasture.

I actually think I could learn a lot from old Belle. I myself, tend to rush from activity to activity, eat too fast, do too much, and don’t take nearly enough naps. I’m always running from one thing to the next and seem to have forgotten all about the word "whoa".

Belle turns 28 this month, and Megan will be 16. It’s hard for me to believe that my little girl who was learning to ride what seems like just a few years ago, is now learning to drive. And Belle has been a part of her world for more than half her life.

Each spring, I wonder if this will be the year that Belle retires for good. But when I leave her in the paddock and bring the other horses out to work in the arena, she just stands at the fence watching alertly with an expression that seems to say, “hey, what about me?” So each year, I bring her back into the arena for light work and she continues to be a camp and lesson favorite. Maybe conserving all that energy is the real secret to longevity.

Life Lesson: Take it easy if you want to go the distance

Breeding Does

2012-02-04T06:00:00.016-07:00

Last weekend, our 4-H club hosted an ultrasound clinic for our goats. Fifteen presumed pregnant does and their owners showed up at my co-leader’s farm on Saturday morning to determine whether or not they were indeed “with kid”. Each doe took her turn jumping up on the milk stand where the veterinarian placed a sensor on her belly while we all huddled around a small monitor looking for signs of life. It was not only educational for the club members but entertaining as well. And pretty successful, with 13 of the 15 does getting confirmation that they had been successfully bred.

Our family brought 3 of our does – Skittles, Starburst and Lily - and luckily all three turned out to be pregnant. We would have brought Milky Way, too, but she had just gotten home from the breeder the day before so would not be far enough along for anything to show up on the ultrasound. My favorite part of the vet’s explanation was when she said of Lily, Molly’s first-time-pregnant Nigerian Dwarf doe, that she could for sure see at least one baby, but that Molly should prepare for four! In other words, she can tell she’s pregnant but there’s no guarantee how many are in there. We were especially relieved to get this news for Lily after last year’s disappointment when she spent a month at a breeder’s farm only to come home “not bred”. Molly’s huge smile at the news that we’d had success this year was evidence of her relief that finally this spring, she’d get to tend to kids.

We were also happy to know that Megan’s doe, Starburst, was pregnant although by the looks of her, there was little doubt. She is already bulging at the sides and the vet confirmed that at least two very active kids are nestled inside. So, around April 15^th, if all goes well, we’ll get to meet them!

Now you might be wondering a little about the breeding process for goats so let me enlighten you. Goats go into heat approximately every three weeks during the breeding season, which varies a bit from breed to breed. For the big goats like our Nubians, the breeding season usually starts toward the end of summer and ends around January or February. The smaller breeds like our Nigerian Dwarfs supposedly cycle all year round, making it possible to breed them twice within one year. Some goats are easy to tell when they’re in heat (like our Skittles who bleats at the top of her lungs for 2 straight days during her time) and some are a little trickier (like our relatively quiet Lily). When they are ready to be bred, they are said to be in “standing heat” which means they’ll stand still for the buck to breed them. Any other time they will just run from the buck, or if they’re particularly bold or a little bigger than the boy, they may head butt him and generally avoid anything that resembles cooperation.

We don’t have any bucks of our own, so each year we scout out local breeders that we like the looks of and drive our girls to their farms. This year, however, Megan chose a breeder for her Nubians that lives in Wyoming and instead of driving to her, she brought her buck to us. Two of them, in fact. We decided to take two so they could keep each other company and we planned to breed one to Skittles and the other to Starburst. The bucks arrived a week or so before Thanksgiving and the arrangement was for us to care and feed for them for a month or two while they “serviced” our does.

We determined which buck we thought possessed the desired traits we were looking for with each doe, and had it all figured out. We’d breed Starburst to Count Jewelio – the longer bodied of the two, and Skittles to Hobokon – the bigger boned boy. Now I don’t know how many of you have ever tried to choose your daughter’s friends, or harder yet, boyfriends, but we had about as much say in who our “girls” would date as you might have in such attempts with your girls. When Starburst appeared to be in heat, we put her in with our chosen mate and of course, the two of them wanted nothing to do with each other. She ran from him and rather than pursuing her, Count Jewelio came over to us for attention and then just went back to eating. We gave it a few minutes with no improvement in their attraction to one another and then we switched bucks. And bingo, love was in the air! Starburst and Hoboken were a match made in heaven. So much for our careful selection and planning. Oh well, the main goal was a pregnant doe, and in that we appear to have succeeded.

Life Lesson: You can’t force love

Christmas Gifts

2012-01-21T08:54:00.003-07:00

Now that another holiday season has come and gone and we are in the middle of the longest part of winter, where the days are too cold and short for me to do much with the farm animals other than taking care of their basic needs, I find I have a little more time for reflection and reminiscing. All the holiday decorations are put away, the last of the candy from our stockings has been eaten and we’re all on a diet! We had a good Christmas with lots of yummy food and quality family time, and of course, plenty of gift giving. As my girls grow up it’s fun to notice how their gift requests have changed from the earlier, little girl stage. Megan, for example, at 15 didn’t have much of a wish list this year other than new music to play on her saxophone, i-tune gift cards and money to put toward her savings for a car. Molly, on the other hand, at 12 still likes a few “toys” although her requests have a slightly higher price tag than when she was little, usually being a very specific model of Breyer horse (which she collects) or money to buy clothes (since I long ago gave up trying to figure out what she would like).

So, considering the gifts we all gave and received this year made me think back to earlier years, long before the kids and horses and goats were part of the equation. When my husband and I were dating each other in our twenties, he loved to spoil me with nice gifts like jewelry, flowers, and spa gift certificates. He was very romantic and thoughtful and seemed to enjoy picking out and giving me these gifts as much as I enjoyed receiving them. It’s no wonder I married him, wouldn’t you say?

As the years went on, and I accumulated a fair number of pretty necklaces, earrings and pedicures, he started asking for suggestions from me as to what I might want for Christmas or for my birthday, so as not to duplicate something I already had or give me something that wasn’t my taste. I remember for our 10^th wedding anniversary, I very specifically requested a small gold anniversary band with 10 tiny diamonds, showing him examples of what I had in mind in jewelry store windows at the local mall. Not surprisingly, that’s exactly what was inside the small jewelry box I opened while we were out to dinner celebrating that year.

Fast forward to current day after twenty two years of marriage. Funny how time and circumstances change what you really value in life. I know it’s normal for the “romantic” factor in gift giving to wane after a couple has been together for a long time, and quite honestly, my current lifestyle as a farm girl, 4-H leader, cheesemaker and mom just doesn’t seem to make jewelry and fancy clothes very high on my wish list. In fact, in recent years I’ve specifically requested that Brian not give me jewelry as a gift since I rarely wear the majority of what I already have (except that pretty little anniversary ring). No, these days I’m much more likely to ask for cheese or soap molds, new gloves, or a set of cooking pots and pans. One year I actually asked for, and received, a new kitchen sink!

But this year I think I really outdid myself with my request. It might not sound romantic to you, but it’s what I really wanted and I love the fact that my husband listens so well to my truest wishes and doesn’t get caught up in the commercial hype of what a woman should really want. Yes, I was pretty delighted this Christmas morning to find a bright red ribbon adorning my beautiful, shiny new purple manure fork leaning up against the decorated tree!

Life Lesson: Feeling truly known is the greatest gift of all.

New Year, New Book!

2012-01-04T14:55:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year from the kids and critters at Briar Gate Farm!

If you're wondering why I haven't been writing any new entries for awhile, it's because I have been busy, among other things, compiling the stories from this past year of blogging and putting them into a professionally bound book!

Life Lessons from the Barnyard

By Kate Johnson

105 pages of humorous and heartfelt stories about the lessons I learn from raising critters and kids here at Briar Gate Farm.

You can order it for $10 from lulu.com or if you're nearby,
I have copies here at the farm.

I plan to start writing more stories very soon so stay tuned!

Silence is Golden

2011-10-02T20:30:00.000-06:00

One of the things we look forward to on the farm every spring is getting our new batch of spring chicks. Since hens only lay well for a few years, we find that getting a handful of new chicks each year ensures us of having an ongoing supply of farm-fresh eggs. Plus, those fluffy little peeps are just too cute to pass up when they arrive at the local farm stores at the end of winter!

Two years ago, my oldest daughter, Megan, decided to enter a few birds at the county fair along with her goats just to see what it would be like. Turned out to be a good compliment to the goat showing as the poultry barn is attached to the goat barn, making it easy to care for both species during fair week, and the chicken show is the day before the goat show, so there’s no time conflict there. We also learned that the poultry-showing kids can make a fair amount of money selling their birds to the public on the last day of the fair. So, this past year, we once again looked forward to selecting our spring babies with the plan to get more than we needed to keep our flock going so that we could sell a few at the fair.

My younger daughter, Molly, and her friend, Holly, decided they’d like to get in on the “chick action”, too. Holly lives in town but boards a goat at our farm, and she asked if I’d be willing to board a few chickens, too. I figured a few more chicks would hardly be noticed, but I did tell her that no roosters could stay. They get too aggressive and noisy and tend to beat up on the girls, so that was my deal. Unfortunately, when it comes to getting baby chicks, there is no guarantee that you’ll get all girls! Holly agreed to this condition and said that her uncle was also getting spring chicks and had agreed to take any roosters she might end up with.

In the past, we’ve always been able to go over to our local ranch supply and feed stores during “chick days” and have plenty of spring babies to choose from between late February and early April. But this year was a little different. You see, the backyard hen craze has swept through our town making it legal for in-town residents to keep up to four hens in backyard coops for egg production. This trend is growing all over the country, which is a great thing in my opinion, but the problem is, the hatcheries don’t seem to be able to keep up with demand. We “special ordered” chicks for Megan early in the season and they came in just fine. But Molly and Holly wanted to hand select their birds and each time they went to the store to look, they were either sold out or the order that was supposed to come in hadn’t arrived. Finally, after several tries and adjustments to their breed preferences, they finally had their babies. Molly got one each of three different standard breeds, and Holly selected two little black Silkies, a bantam breed (bantam chickens are about half the size of a standard chicken).

Holly started off with her chicks in a small cage in her mother’s apartment where she was able to care for and bond with them before they outgrew that set-up. When they got too big for the small cage, she moved them over to our farm where we took care of them during the week, and she came on weekends to do her share of goat and chicken chores. Now the thing with bantams is that they are too small to identify their gender when they are first hatched, so you can only buy bantams that are “straight run”, which means you don’t know if you’re getting boys of girls. As the chicks began to grown, Holly noticed that one was quite a bit bigger than the other, and she guessed it was probably a cockerel (that’s official poultry jargon for “young rooster”). She was just hoping she’d get at least one hen and when it came time to put leg bands on them as identification for the fair, she selected a pink band for the one she was hoping was a girl.

Not too surprisingly, around mid-July we began to hear the first attempts at a cock-a-doodle-doo out of one of her birds, although it wasn’t from the bigger one – it was coming from the one wearing a pink band! So, we quickly changed leg bands, being convinced that surely the other one would end up being a girl. But as luck would have it, about 3 days before the fair, I heard the now pink-banded bird begin the all-too-familiar beginner’s crow. Darn, two for two.

When it came to the poultry sale day, Holly did her best to market her young lads and tried to convince anyone she came in contact with that they really needed a little Silkie bantam rooster! But at the end of the fair, all the hens were sold and we came back to the farm with two little black, fluffy-headed cockerels.

Now, remember that plan for the uncle to take the roosters? Well, turns out he ended up with 6 of his own from his young flock of 12, so he took back his offer. We thought one of our 4-H families might take one, but they decided not to. I found two other potential takers but they, too, eventually backed out. As the weeks passed by, the little roosters got louder and louder and the sound of that cock-a-doodle-doo started wearing on my nerves. Normally, I love that sound, but now every time I heard it, it reminded me that those two boys who were supposed to be long gone, were still here!

Finally, out of desperation, I posted an ad on Craig’s List – FREE, cute and friendly bantam-sized Silkie roosters! MUST go this weekend!

You can imagine my joy and relief when the e-mail came in saying, “if you’ve still got ‘em, I’ll take ‘em”. BINGO! I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. When the couple and their three kids showed up to get the boys, I met them at the driveway with the roosters ready to go. I didn’t want to waste any time transferring them to the cage they had brought just in case they might change their mind at the last minute. The exchange took approximately 2 minutes, and they were on their way.

Later that afternoon, as my husband and I sat on our deck sipping a glass of wine while looking out at our beautiful foothills view, I noticed with great pleasure how still and quiet it was, quiet being the operative word. It was sheer bliss.

As for next year? Well, let’s just say I’ve told Holly she can get chicks again, but this time they have to be Golden Sex-linked pullets. If they’re yellow, they’re girls!

Life Lesson: Be careful what you agree to

Goat Road Trips

2011-09-11T06:00:00.001-06:00

This summer, my teenage daughter and I took three of her Nubian goats to several out of town goat shows. We went to Torrington, WY, Douglass, WY and Pueblo, CO, in addition to several local shows. For the first big drive, we took our truck and trailer but after spending $120 to fill my diesel pick-up truck with gas, I got to thinking maybe those 3 goats could all fit in my more economical minivan! It certainly would be a quieter and more comfortable ride for us, be easier to navigate in parking lots and at drive-through restaurants, and the goats could enjoy the comfort of air conditioning while listening to music. Sure enough, by taking all the back seats out and packing carefully, we were able to fit three large dog crates, a milking stand, a bale of hay, a bag of pine shavings, buckets, hay bags, grooming equipment and our suitcases. We even had room for two folding chairs and a cooler!

Now I wasn’t originally planning on going to all these “away” shows this year, but I figured that with my daughter being so passionate about showing her goats and the fact that she actually wanted to spend time with me at the very peer-influenced age of 15, I'd better make time for these getaways with her while I still could. It’s hard for me to fathom, but I really only have her home for 3 more summers before she’s off to college.

The great thing about these road trips is that they’re sort of boring. What I mean by that is there is plenty of time to chat. Any of you who have teenage kids know that opportunities to really connect with them seem to get more and more fleeting as they grow up. Friends, homework, sports, cell phones, computers... these all compete with parents for attention during the high school years. But sitting next to each other on a long, boring stretch of I-85 through Wyoming with no other distractions allows for some pretty good conversation time. We talked about college and career choices, God and religion, goat breeding, driving laws, healthy eating, and lots of fun fantasy conversations about future houses and farm set-ups. It was great.

The goat showing was pretty fun and successful, too. When we started out with goats three years ago, we bought a small little Nubian doe named Skittles. She was spotted, cute and compact. Well, turns out “compact” is not highly desired in the dairy goat show world where terms like body capacity, height, strength and stature are frequently used to describe the winning does. Once Megan began to get serious about showing beyond 4-H, I offered to buy her a show-quality doe, but she insisted that the only truly admirable and respectable way to get a better show goat was to breed your way there. So, she selected a local breeder whose goats had the traits she was looking for and began to improve her line. Imagine her thrill when Skittles’ third doeling took Reserve Champion Junior Doe at the Colorado State Fair this year. Talk about a mother’s pride – mine and Megan’s (and maybe Skittles’, too!).

The only real downside to our summer goat road trips was the smell that was left in my mini van as a reminder of our journey. In spite of laying tarps down under the crates that housed the girls, the distinct smell of goat still permeates our family car. The vanilla scented car air freshener helps but now it just smells like we’ve been baking cupcakes in the barn. A suburban friend of mine was recently lamenting the fact that her minivan was such a mess, with candy wrappers, Happy Meal toys and miscellaneous drink cups everywhere. “Oh yeah?,” I said, “I bet you don’t have goat poop in your van!" Do you think Toyota would want to make a commercial about that?

Life Lesson: Look for unconventional opportunities to connect with those you love

Moovin' Cows

2011-08-27T06:00:00.030-06:00

Last weekend, my girls and I took our horses to a nearby cow clinic. If you’re wondering what that means, it’s where a small group of horses and riders learn how to do one of the most basic things that horses were meant to do, and that’s moving cows. Most of us who own horses for pleasure never get to experience the task that a rancher and a ranch horse do every day, and often the inner cowboy or cowgirl in us just wants to come out and give it a try!

So, we signed up to take Chummie, Amigo and even good old Belle to work some cows. Along with six other cowgirl wannabes (interesting that it was all women), we spent 3 ½ hours moving a group of 7 cows up and down and all around a two- acre patch of pasture.

Now I can imagine the image that comes to mind for you is a bunch of whoopin’ and hollerin’ and rope throwin’, but quite the contrary. You see, the art of moving a group of cows that are going to be marketed for beef is to stress them as little as possible. That means that to get them from point A to point B, you want them to move as slowly as possible so that they don’t lose any weight in the process. If you’re going to take a cow to market and sell its meat by the pound, you don’t want it to be running around losing weight before it goes!

The other factor to consider is that not all horses are familiar or comfortable with being around cows. Most of the horses at a clinic like this are being used for lessons, trail rides or even showing, but none of them lives and works with cows on a regular basis. So by taking it slowly and cautiously, we’re able to give our horses a chance to get up close and personal with an animal they may have never seen before, or at best, only from a distance.

To start out, the cows were in a little huddle in the middle of the pasture, and we fanned out in a big circle around them with each horse facing the cows. Then we turned and circled the group at a walk and a trot before stopping, reversing and doing the same thing in the other direction. This gave each horse a chance to see the cows from a distance and out of each eye, an important thing to do when introducing a horse to a new thing due to how their brain is wired.

Next, we each took turns riding right up to the little huddle and circling them closer before picking a spot to ride through the group. By doing this, we got a chance to see how our horse would react to seeing a cow up close and out of each eye simultaneously. Most horses take to this pretty naturally, but for some, it can be a little scary and intimidating. Our three horses seemed to love it, arching their necks and pricking their ears forward as they sized up the cows. I couldn’t help but think they looked like kids in a candy store! It was especially gratifying to me to see my big old retired dressage horse, Chummie, acting like this was the most fun he’d had in years. A nice change for him after his years of intense schooling and showing. Equally fun was seeing my two girls and their trusty mounts taking to it so naturally.

Once each horse had a chance to move through the group, we each had to go back and cut one cow out of the herd, move it outside the circle of horses, go half way around the circle and then move it back in to the center. Again, the idea is to do it slowly and with as little stress to the cow as possible.

Eventually, after we each had a successful turn at moving one cow, we started to work together in groups of 4 or 5 horses and riders, and then groups of 2 or 3, to move the whole herd of cows wherever we wanted them to go. We moved them from one end of the pasture to the other, to a watering trough, through a row of barrels, over a small wooden bridge, and through a round pen with gates at each end.

The final task of the day was to load the cows into a big stock trailer so the rancher who brought them to the clinic could take them back to his ranch. Our instructor opened the door to the trailer and gave us a few basic tips and reminders, and then we all slowly moved the cows up toward the trailer, being conscious of what our individual role within the group was. When we got the cows to the opening of the trailer, it was important to keep just enough pressure on them so they’d take the first step up into the trailer, without putting so much pressure on that they’d get scared and break from the group. We never moved more than at a slow walk and there was no wild whoopin’ or hollerin’, so to the casual observer it probably didn’t look like much. But by working as a team and taking our time, we had all those cows loaded up and ready to go home within five minutes.

It’s hard to describe the sense of satisfaction and just pure fun that came from our morning of moving cows. From the feeling of teamwork to the companionship with our horses and the enjoyment of being outdoors in a beautiful location, it was an awesome mother-daughter outing!

Life Lesson: Sometimes taking it slowly gets you there the fastest.

The Fair

2011-08-20T07:05:00.002-06:00

When you have kids involved in 4-H, you find that the whole world seems to revolve around the week of the county fair, which for us is the first week of August. It’s the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work and lots of practicing and preparing their projects to be judged. Our local county fair also provides a chance for my kids to hang out with other kids who are interested in similar things, eat more sweets and junk food than I normally allow, and show off their critters and creations to the general public. To say our family loves fair week would be an understatement!

This year, in addition to bringing their goats and chickens to the fair, they also entered artwork, jams, cheeses, flowers and an artistic gardener creation. I can’t participate in the youth shows, of course, but I do enter some of the open shows for baked goods, jams, cheeses and gardening, so I get to have some fun competing that week, too.

This was our third year of showing at the fair, and by now I’ve learned to clear the entire week prior to the actual fair to adequately prepare and get all the last minute things done. We spend the week clipping and bathing goats, bathing and dusting chickens, baking, making jams and cheeses, and doing last-minute practices for showing the animals. It’s amazing how much goes into getting ready for our week-long virtual live-in at the fairgrounds.

All the preparations were going along smoothly this summer and the anticipation and excitement were building as we got toward the end of the week before the big event. Our 4-H club did a volunteer shift at the 4-H snack bar (aka the Dairy Bar) during a pre-fair event, we marched with our goats in the County Fair Parade, and we even managed to host a final poultry showmanship clinic at our farm to help prepare the kids and their birds. It was the night before we were to start taking the first set of animals over to the fairgrounds and we were almost ready.

Then I got a phone call that threw a wrench in my careful planning and organization. It was from the mother of a large family in our 4-H club calling with shocking, terrifying news. Her 15 year old son, who we’d just spent much of the day before with, had had a freak, unexpected health crisis and was in a coma at the Denver Children’s hospital. Understandably she was in a panic about her child’s physical condition and prognosis, but she was also concerned for her other children who were planning to enter their chickens at the fair for the first time and were in a tizzy about how they would be able to proceed. As I helplessly listened to her tearful explanations about her son’s condition and tried to offer whatever support I could, I realized that the one thing I could do to help would be to make sure the other kids were able to participate in the fair as much as possible. And even though her son was not going to be able to be at the fair, there was no reason why his hen and rooster couldn’t be there. I assured her that we’d get the chickens ready and checked-in at the fairgrounds, and if needed we’d transport the other kids to and from the fair on show day.

So, the next morning my 4-H co-leader and I drove over to their farm, rounded up their 5 hens and the rooster, put them in cages and drove them back to my place. My daughter and I then gave each of the chickens a bath and got them ready for check-in, before turning our attention to our own 12 hens that also needed to be prepped. While I was matching the leg band numbers for their chickens to the paperwork showing which chickens had been entered, I realized that the boy’s rooster had not been properly registered. I knew he had really been looking forward to showing off this fine bird, so I had to figure out a way to get him to the fair! I called the poultry superintendent and after explaining the situation and the oversight, we finagled a “late entry” and the rooster was good to go. Two trips to the fairgrounds with cages loaded with poultry, and all of our chickens as well as theirs were checked in.

Every day that week while we enjoyed our fair experience, showed our goats, and ate our ice cream and cotton candy, there was a part of each of us that felt the heaviness of the situation with our fellow 4-H family and their son. Fortunately, we got a little more good news on the boy’s condition every day, and we were able to help his sisters get to the fairgrounds as much as possible so they could participate in the shows and fun.

My kids had many wins and got plenty of ribbons and awards that week, from Reserve Champion Senior Doe for Skittles, to Champion Dwarf Doe for Milky Way and Reserve Champion Best of Show for one of our hens. We also got blue ribbons in jams, cheeses and even flowers. But the happiest moment for all of us – the one that caused the most cheers of celebration - was when we watched the poultry judge award a Champion ribbon and trophy to our 4-H friend’s prized rooster! Hooray!

This was topped only by the news a few days later that the boy was home from the hospital and recovering well.

Life Lesson: Celebrate what matters most

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2011-07-30T06:00:00.003-06:00

Most of my time and energy as a hobby farmer has been devoted to raising various farm animals and sharing my passion for them with local kids and adults through my classes, clubs and camps at Briar Gate Farm. But I always feel compelled to attempt to grow a few crops along the way, too, as I cherish the idea of eating home-grown vegetables from my own back yard plot. Problem is, I’m don’t have much of a green thumb so my success is somewhat limited and variable.

Oh, I start out the season with good intentions each year, looking through seed catalogs to get ideas for new varieties to try, drawing diagrams of my 3 raised bed garden plots and shopping at my local nursery to find a good assortment of organic and heirloom seeds and plants to grow. I turn over my gardens in late fall and add a mix of compost and manure (have I mentioned we have a lot of poop around here?) and then turn everything over again in the early spring as I prepare to plant my cool weather crops. Some years I actually plan exactly what seeds I’ll plant first, when they will be mature, and then plan a second planting to maximize my space and effort. So you can see the initial efforts are admirable.

But every year it seems that for all my good planning and intentions, once the seeds get planted I seem to lose my focus or simply get occupied doing everything else that needs to be done around the farm in the spring and summer. I put a lot of love into the garden initially, but after that, it’s on it’s own. And because I don’t like to use chemicals but don’t know a lot about organic pest and weed control, my garden becomes a true example of “survival of the fittest.” Some years the bugs win, some years the weeds win, but occasionally a few of the veggies win.

So, it might surprise you that I have been entering some of my vegetables in the local county fair each year. I used to think that only expert gardeners and serious farmers entered their goods in local fairs, but once my girls started showing goats at the fairgrounds and I began spending the entire first week of August there, I realized that just about anyone with just about any talent or success could enter. Everything from amateur baking, photography, various crafting projects, honey, home-made beer, wine and cheese – these are all things that can be entered by anyone at the fair.

The first year I entered carrots, beans, swiss chard and zucchini and was thrilled when I took home a 2^nd, 3^rd and two 4^th place ribbons. I also entered several baked goods and won a 1^st place with my pumpkin bread (my cooking skills are something I’m a little more confident and successful with). The next year I got serious about the timing of my veggies and coordinated planting times and maturity rates to correspond with the vegetable entry date. Imagine my pride when the veggie judge awarded my yellow beans with the blue ribbon!

But this year, between the late spring, three family vacations, summer camps, goat shows and 5 baby goats being born on the farm, my garden has once again taken the back seat. I plan to enter a few things in the fair next week, but I don’t have much to choose from. The bugs won this year in my beet rows, the weeds seemed to succeed over my strawberries and I don’t know what the heck happened to my zucchini plants. But once again, I have some decent beans and a few nice carrots, so I’ll enter them and see what happens. Wish me luck!

Life Lesson: You can’t be the best at everything – just enjoy the ride

Horse Reflections

2011-07-02T06:00:00.009-06:00

This morning I was watching the trailer for the new movie, BUCK – a documentary about the legendary horseman, Buck Brannaman. I’m particularly interested in seeing this movie not only to see a great horseman in action, but because I feel a personal connection to the man. I was lucky enough to be able to attend one of Buck’s horsemanship clinics several years ago and have incorporated much of what I’ve learned from him and others in the natural horsemanship field into the work I do with horses, kids and adults.

The basic premise of the natural horsemanship movement is that humans don’t need to dominate, intimidate or strong-arm horses to get them to work with us. We just need to understand how they learn and behave in their natural, herd environment and then use this knowledge to partner with them to gain their trust and desire to cooperate with us. By considering their point of view and respecting what they are communicating to us, we can build a strong relationship and they’ll actually enjoy working with us.

Me and Amigo talking to Buck!

One of the things Buck mentions in his trailer is how horses are mirrors, reflecting back to their handlers elements of the human’s personality, style and sometimes baggage. I know about this concept and utilize it a great deal in some of my clinics with adults where I combine natural horsemanship and life coaching principals to teach important life lessons. This is a concept I’ve helped others gain self-awareness from but I haven’t always thought about how it applies to me. Now part of what Buck’s talking about is how a specific behavior from your horse at a given time may have to do with how you’re feeling or behaving at that moment. But hearing him mention it this morning got me thinking about what my horses have to say about me in general. Here are a few of the things I came up with:

· * My small herd is a close-knit family that gets along well most of the time, although squabbles do break out now and then.

· * Belle, my lone mare, is the leader and she’s usually pretty kind, except for when she’s in heat. Then she’s pretty moody and snippy.

· * Amigo can be kind of bossy and pushy but he’s basically a good guy.

· * Spirit gets into trouble when he’s bored.

· * Ringo is pretty agreeable most of the time unless you ask him to do something he doesn’t want to do.

· * Chummie is really reliable and trustworthy.

· * They all like variety but don’t want to physically work too hard.

· * They're all pretty spoiled.

* * They’re good with kids.

Hmm, it sure sounds like there are some similarities between me and my herd!

Life Lesson: Take the time to reflect and you’ll sometimes be surprised what you see.

Cock-a-doodle-doo (sort of)

2011-06-25T06:00:00.005-06:00

OK, so you know about the horrible chicken massacre that happened on our farm a few weeks ago. A raccoon (we’re guessing, due to the carnage left behind) took out 7 of my mature hens and my little bantam rooster. A sad day for all, and I have to say, not only am I bummed about having to once again buy store-bought eggs, but I also miss hearing the sweet, pint-sized cock-a-doodle-doo of my little Mr. Noodles. And apparently I’m not the only one in the barnyard who misses his crow.

The other morning, I was out feeding the goats and chickens as usual, when I heard a rooster crow. Now I wasn’t completely surprised by this as we have a whole chicken yard full of young pullets and as any experienced chicken owner can tell you, just because they came from the pullet bin, it doesn’t mean they’re all girls. In fact, there’s a roughly 10% error rate in the sexing of young chicks, which means that approximately 1 in 10 pullets will actually turn out to be cockerels, aka roosters. I already have my suspicions about a couple of the “girls” and I’m guessing one or two will start crowing any day now.

But the odd thing about the crowing I heard the other morning was that it seemed to be coming from the chicken yard where my 5 survivors of the chicken massacre are living, all of whom are mature hens. At first I thought maybe one of the young chickens was crowing and the sound was echoing off the metal wall of the hay barn making it sound like it was coming from the back yard. So, I watched and waited and within a few minutes, there it was again. Only this time, I could see the source of the sound and by golly, it was coming right out of the throat of my 2 year old Sicilian Buttercup HEN! Yes, I said hen, as in girl. And I know she’s a hen because as recently as a month ago, she was laying eggs in the dog house we use as a shelter in the young chickens’ yard and being that she’s a flyer, I know she’s the only mature laying hen that had access to the dog house at that time.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I saw her throw back her head and let out what was clearly, although maybe not completely full-throated, a cock-a-doodle doo. I have to tell ya, I about jumped out of my skin! All kinds of things went through my head in rapid succession: Am I that dense that I haven’t realized for 2 years that she was a he and not a she? Did my neighbor’s rooster sneak into my hen yard and it just happens to look just like my old hen? Is it possible to have a trans-gender chicken?

So, I told my tale to a number of people and had an interesting conversation with my 15 year old daughter about Chaz Bono and his gender re-assignment, and then once my curiosity got the best of me (and my schedule freed up to allow me the time to), I did what I often do when I have a question... I “Googled” it. I typed in the words, “can a hen become a rooster?” and voila, I had my answer!

According to Answers.com, the explanation is as follows: “Not a fully functioning, sexually active, egg fertilizing rooster, but they can assume the characteristics of a rooster when the flock has no male to take on the duties of guarding the flock. The Alpha hen can guard, protect and crow (almost) just like a rooster under some circumstances.”

Well, I’ll be darned, I do believe Miss Sicily just misses Mr. Noodles as much as I do.

Life Lesson: We all grieve and compensate in different ways.

Early Delivery

2011-06-19T09:54:00.001-06:00

Two years ago our first kids were born on the farm, Snickers and Milky Way. Their dam is a Nubian and their sire a Nigerian Dwarf, making them Mini Nubians, a relatively new and experimental dairy goat breed. The goal of the Mini Nubian breed is to end up with the classic long ears and Roman nose of the Nubian in a smaller, compact size – easier for kids to handle and well, just cuter! This year we bred Milky Way to a 4^th generation Mini Nubian buck in hopes of making good progress toward the ideal breed characteristics. The timing of this breeding was tricky because we had a family vacation planned for the first week of June, and then summer camps starting June 13^th, so we were trying to have kids born somewhere after the vacation but before the camps started. Goats go into heat about every three weeks and their gestation time is 5 months, so last fall we charted Milky’s cycles carefully and when she went into heat mid-January, we rushed her out to the breeder who is about an hour from our farm.

Now to add further complexity to the situation, the breeder was getting ready to go out of town and gave us a 45 minute window of opportunity to get the job done before he had to leave. Between the cold temps, the rush to get the deed taken care of, and the fact that this was Milky’s first experience with the breeding “facts of life”, I figured the odds of her conceiving were pretty low. But what the heck, might as well try. So, imagine my surprise when we had her ultrasounded two months later and learned she was indeed pregnant with a due date of June 13^th – the first day of camp!

As winter turned to spring, Milky’s belly got bigger and rounder and she began to develop an udder. She’s always been a chubby little goat, but by the end of May she was a wide as she was tall. She looked and acted great, with a healthy appetite and plenty of energy. Pregnancy seemed to agree with her. While we were on vacation in early June, the pet sitters who were milking our other doe, Skittles, each evening felt sure they would show up to milk and find babies in the stall, even though they weren’t due for another week and a half. Luckily, she didn’t have them while we were away. I just hoped they’d come a day or two early as the idea of running camp while babies were being born felt a bit overwhelming. Plus my brother and his family were visiting from Cincinnati and I hoped they’d get to meet the new kids before my brother and nephew had to head home on the 14^th.

On June 9^th, four days before the official due date, I turned Milky out to pasture in the afternoon and she happily trotted out there and munched away on the grass as usual. At 5:00, I brought her in for the evening and fed her some hay. This is normally Megan’s job, but she was at an amusement park with some friends so I filled in for her. Milky ate the hay with gusto and acted and looked as normal as could be. I had to go to a 4-H meeting at 6:30, so Brian was in charge of milking and bottle feeding the other baby that evening, with some help from Molly. He went out to do that around 8:00, looking in on Milky Way before he commenced to milking and all looked fine. But a few minutes later he heard a loud, alarming bleat coming from Milky’s stall. He ran to check on her only to find a tiny little kid on the ground! In a panic, he yelled for Molly to grab some towels and frantically dialed my cell phone number. It rang alright, but no one answered as it was sitting on my desk recharging instead of being with me at the meeting. They were on their own! Molly quickly got the towels and rushed to the stall in time to help catch and dry off a second kid while Brian again dialed my number and then called my mom.

By the time I got home at 9:00, I noticed the light on in the barn and found no one inside the house, so I moseyed down to the barn. Imagine my surprise when I found Brian and Molly along with my mom, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, and Megan and her friends (just back from the amusement park) all standing around the stall, with two kids on the ground and Milky still pawing the ground and looking uncomfortable. Within a few minutes of my arrival, she pushed out a third kid and I quickly jumped in a started helping Molly dry him and the others off.

When all was said and done, we had two new bucklings (Mikey and Charlie) and a doeling (Galaxy), a tired and bewildered but attentive new mom (Milky Way), and a reluctant but relieved first-time midwife (Brian!). And Molly did such a great job in the midst of all the excitement that I feel certain she is ready to have her own doe bred next year and take care of her first kids. As for me, although I missed seeing the first two kids born, it was great to know that everyone else could pitch in and take care of things so well without me. And I got a kick out of listening to Brian’s frantic messages on my cell phone the next day.

Life Lesson: You can only plan so much!

Vacations

2011-06-06T16:24:00.000-06:00

When we first considered moving from our suburban neighborhood to a rural property, one of the things we were concerned about was how we would be able to take vacations and get away once we had farm animals to care for. I mean, finding a pet sitter or a boarding facility for a beloved dog can be tricky enough, but when you have 5 horses, 9 goats, 22 chickens, a llama, 5 cats AND a dog – well, you see the dilemma. Yet, it was important to us not be tied to the farm to the extent that we couldn’t get away for a ski weekend or take a family vacation each year.

And I figured, I’m a creative problem solver; where there’s a will, there’s a way!

One of the first things you figure out when you live in the country is you’d better know and befriend your neighbors. On our street there are 10 properties of approximately the same 5 acre size. Eight of us own horses, so we often rely on each other to help out when needed. There are times when we may not see or talk to a neighbor for months at a time, other than a wave from the distance, but if a horse gets loose, it’s amazing how quickly someone spots it, rounds it up and puts it back where it belongs. We’ve done this for just about every neighbor at some point, and they’ve done it for us. And we always offer and are willing to feed and care for their animals when they have a need, so when it’s our turn to ask, the favor is often reciprocated.

Another thing you learn is that there are plenty of folks out there who would love to live on a farm, but probably never will, and they are often happy to “play farmer” for a week to get a fix for the country life. We’ve had whole families as well as single friends who have been willing to come for a weekend or even a couple of weeks at a time and take care of all the critters in exchange for the chance to experience and enjoy the rural life. In fact, Brian and I did this for some newlywed friends of ours almost 25 years ago. We stayed on their farm and took care of their horses and house pets while they went on their honeymoon, and I still credit this experience with being one of the reasons we eventually ended up living this lifestyle ourselves.

So even as we’ve accumulated more and more animals and our feeding and care routine has become more demanding and involved, we’ve always been able to get away for a much needed change of pace or family down time at least a couple times a year. But it’s not easy. I spend hours making arrangements, typing up notes, worrying about details, and generally stressing out before each and every trip. My “farm notes” has grown from a single page of instructions to a 7 page Microsoft Word document and sometimes I need a vacation just to recover from planning for the vacation. But I feel really lucky that there have been so many willing (and even eager) friends and neighbors to step in and help out so we can occasionally take a break from the daily responsibilities and get away.

This past week our family went on a vacation and I spent a good two weeks preparing notes, recruiting and training helpers, moving animals around to make things as simple as possible, and getting everything in order. Just as I finished all the preparations and had all 4 helpers lined up, we found out that the place we were planning to go (Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons) was having unusually terrible weather with snow, road closures, avalanche warnings, flood warnings, etc. Somehow this just didn’t sound like the trip I had envisioned when I’d started planning it months ago. But since I had all my pet-sitters in place, I knew for sure we were going on a vacation somewhere. I just really wanted to go somewhere that felt a little more like summer. So, the morning we were supposed to leave, I completely shifted gears and decided to head south to Mesa Verde and the Four Corners area instead. I cancelled hotel reservations up north and booked a hotel for our first night in Cortez, CO. I thought we’d get down there and then plan the rest of the stay. Risky, but with a wonderful weather forecast in that area, I figured how far wrong could we go.

Luckily, I was right and we ended up having a fabulous time visiting some parts of Colorado we had never seen before. I guess for most people planning the vacation itself is where they spend all their time and energy, but for me, that’s the easy part once the animals are cared for!

Life Lesson: Make good plans, but then be flexible

Invasion

2011-05-21T06:00:00.001-06:00

Last Saturday morning we got up early to get the girls ready to run a 5K benefit race being organized by our middle school. It was being held to raise funds for a beloved teacher who had contracted a life-threatening infection a few months ago and had accumulated soaring medical expenses as a result of his long stay in the hospital. It was a drizzly, chilly morning but our spirits were high as we got ready to celebrate the miraculous recovery of the teacher who had just gotten home from the hospital the day before.

Brian went out to feed the animals as usual, but when he came back in he looked pale and shocked. Turns out some kind of predator, probably a raccoon, had gotten into our chicken pen and there was carnage everywhere. We couldn’t believe it as the pen, where the mature hens and bantam rooster were being temporarily housed while our new spring chicks had taken over their normal coop, was surrounded by a very high wire fence with only about a 1 foot gap between the top of the fence and the roof of the barn. But apparently that had been space enough for the marauder to climb over and take out 7 of our hens and the little rooster.

Upon hearing the news, the girls cried and I tried lovingly to console them and to make sense of what had happened. Brian was faced with the painful task of rounding up the dead birds and placing their broken bodies into a large garbage bag to be dealt with later. He was moved to tears, too, in compassion for the birds as well as empathy for the sadness his daughters were feeling. We’d lost hens before to predators and thought we had all grown a little more detached from the inevitable occasional occurrence, but this loss felt worse. For one thing, many of these hens had been shown at the County Fair last season and had won lots of ribbons and prizes, and apparently we were more attached to them than we had realized. And then there was just the feeling of being violated that comes when a predator enters what you had regarded as a safe space.

I really didn’t think the girls would be able to pull themselves together quickly enough to finish getting ready and out the door for the race within the time we had allotted. But they really wanted to show their support for their teacher and got it together in time to make it to the race. While it was chilly and gloomy, they were determined to carry on in honor and celebration of the occasion.

At the start of the race, they were greeted by a wonderful and warming sight. The beloved teacher whom they’d worried about for so long and who had been given only a 7% chance of survival months earlier, was there with his wife, also a teacher at the school, and he was beaming from ear to ear at the sight of all these supporters. Another teacher was with him and was crying for joy at the fact that her friend and colleague had made it and was on the road to recovery.

Although we were all still gloomy and sad about our losses for the rest of the weekend, which was not helped by the cool, cloudy and damp weather, we found moments of happiness and celebration every time we considered the bigger picture. Imagining what our teacher and his family had been going through for months, and the jubilation all that knew and loved them were feeling as a result of his courage and perseverance through this ordeal, sure helped to put things into perspective.

Life Lesson: Life has its ups and downs; focus on the ups whenever you can

Goat Milk?

2011-05-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

One of the things we soon learned about having dairy goats is that once the babies are weaned off their mother’s milk, you accumulate a lot of milk rather quickly. Even with only one milker in the barnyard producing 3-4 quarts a day, that’s somewhere between five and seven gallons of fresh milk coming in each week. And although goat’s milk is deliciously creamy and sweet (especially that of Nubians), it’s a little too rich and high in fat for my family to drink straight being that we’re used to drinking non-fat cow’s milk (did you know that goat’s milk is naturally homogenized which means it’s impossible to separate the cream from the milk without a mechanical cream separator?). So not long after our first goat kids were weaned, I decided it was time to learn to make goat cheese.

Now I thought this was going to be a very complicated and time-consuming procedure that would require all of my focus and attention to learn how to master. And given that my summers are very full and busy with all the camps to run, animals and kids to care for, and goat shows to go to, I thought I would learn the art of cheesemaking while on our annual summer vacation at my family’s cottage in northern Michigan. Each July we travel to Mullett Lake, MI where we relax at a 100+ year old rustic cabin that has been in my family for 5 generations. Life is simple there as we have no phone, no television and few responsibilities, and I thought this would be a great break from my normal hectic pace that would allow me time to really focus on becoming an artisan cheesemaker. And it just so happened that the first year we had goats was also the first year we decided to drive to Michigan instead of flying, which meant I could bring milk with me!

So, a couple weeks before we left for our trip, I ordered some basic ingredients and equipment from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, and as we prepared to make the three day journey across country, I packed a cooler with 3 half-gallon containers of frozen goat’s milk. Each night along the route, I carefully drained the melted ice from the cooler and repacked it with fresh ice from our hotel’s icemaker. Once we arrived at our destination, I put the by now mostly thawed milk in the refrigerator and waited another day or two while I enjoyed the time to unwind and relax.

Finally, the big day arrived and I was ready to learn to make goat cheese! I had my trusty Home Cheesemaking book at the ready, along with my cheese thermometer, butter muslin (very fine cheese cloth) and packet of Chevre culture as I gingerly heated the liquid gold in a pot on our cabin stovetop. The directions said to heat it to 86 degrees, add the culture (which was about 1/8 of a tsp of very fine white powder), stir, cover and let sit for 12 hours at room temperature. As I sprinkled the powder into the milk I couldn’t imagine that this tiny amount would have any effect on this large pot of milk, and I was surprised at just how little action was involved in these few steps, but I figured the hard part must come later so I pressed on.

When I checked the pot after 12 hours, I was amazed to find a large, solid round “curd” floating in a liquid pool of slightly yellowish green “whey” – amazing! The next step called for scooping the curd into a cheesecloth-lined strainer, and then tying the ends of the cheesecloth together and hanging it over a sink to drain for another 6-12 hours. Easy enough, and more waiting. After the required length of time had passed, I untied the cheesecloth to reveal a lovely, creamy white mass of something more similar to cream cheese than the dry, solid chevre I had envisioned, but upon tasting it on a cracker, we all agreed it was a success!

Now, several years and many, many pounds of chevre, fromage blanc, ricotta and mozzarella later, I can’t help but laugh at how mysterious and difficult I thought simple cheesemaking would be. Admittedly I haven’t ventured into the world of hard cheeses yet (in cheesemaking circles it’s said that soft cheese is easy and hard cheese is hard), but maybe I’ll have to cart some goat’s milk across country again this summer and give it a try!

Life Lesson: Try something new – it might not be as difficult as you think

Summer Camp

2011-05-07T08:57:00.000-06:00

As the days grow longer and the sun feels warmer, I know it’s time to start shifting gears and getting ready for another summer of camps here at the farm. During the winter, I focus more on my “indoor” profession of Life Coaching, but once the grass starts turning green and the birds start chirping, it’s time for me to shed my professional clothes in favor of jeans and a t-shirt and head back out to the barnyard.

When we first moved to the farm in 2005, I had a vision of combining my years as a horse-crazy young girl with my stint as a girl scout leader to create a riding and farm program for kids. My own girls had gone to several horse and farm-related camps before we moved out here, and though they’d enjoyed them, I’d always thought there was so much more that the leaders could have done with the rich material of animals, nature, kids, crafts and games. Also, once we bought the property here in Boulder County, we were pretty tapped out financially, so if we were going to have horses (and eventually goats, chickens, a llama, etc.) they were going to have to generate enough income to pay their way. Camps and farm programs seemed like a great way to accomplish this goal while allowing me to still remain essentially a stay-at-home mom.

Each summer, we put on 3 or 4 week-long summer day camps. Some are full day camps and some are half-day, and they are organized according to age of the campers. Pony Pals is a half day camp for kids 6 and up; Boots, Suits & Brushes is a full day camp that includes swimming and art in the afternoons for kids 8 and up; and Middle School Mares is a full day camp with a backyard sleepover in tents the last night for girls ages 11-15. Ours camps are small and intimate with no more than 8 or 9 campers per session, and I’ve really gotten to know a lot of the kids well as many come back year after year. Last year was an especially gratifying summer when I realized that many of my new Middle School Mares had been coming to camps or lessons on the farm since they were in kindergarten!

The way I organize the camp day is to teach riding lessons to a small group of 2-4 kids at a time while the others work on a craft or choose from an assortment of other farm-related activities. I always post of list of these options in the barn and go over the choices with the kids at the beginning of each camp day. Activities range from playing with the goats, to collecting eggs from the henhouse, playing with bubbles or water balloons, working on camp journals, swinging on horse swings, hunting for toads and free play. Guess which one always gets the biggest cheer when I read through the list? Free play! I’m always amazed how excited the kids get when I tell them they can actually make up their own games outdoors using nothing more than their own creativity and imagination. You’d think I just told them they had won the lottery. And they have come up with some pretty amazing, deeply involved games over the years involving teamwork, story plots, strategy, and lots and lots of running. In fact, some kids resume a game they had started the previous summer when they come back to camp the next year.

In his book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv identifies a phenomenon he calls Nature-Deficit Disorder: the disconnection between children and nature. He sites research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. I have to agree that I think today’s kids are so plugged into electronic media and so over scheduled with structured activities (although many of these are very worthwhile), that they are craving time to just explore and create their own sense of adventure in the outdoors without any specific goals or adult intervention. I like to think my camps are giving a handful of kids the chance to get a bit more of this in their lives each summer. I know I sure enjoy watching them do it!

Life Lesson: We could all use a little more Free Play time outdoors

Early Mornings

2011-05-01T09:19:00.000-06:00

You know that old adage, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise? Or how about, the early bird catches the worm? Well, I tend to agree with these sentiments but I can’t help thinking that maybe they were made up by farmers or parents of young children in an attempt to make themselves feel better about the fact that they are up feeding and tending to their critters and kids 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year!

Luckily for me, I tend to be a morning person naturally. I can remember as a teenager, all my friends would boast about sleeping till noon on the weekends, and I couldn’t manage to make it past 9:00, no matter how late I’d been up. This often frustrated me, but it also served me well during the summer of my 16^th year when I landed a job as a groom and hotwalker at River Downs race track in Cincinnati – a job that required me to be at the barn at 5:30 a.m. EVERY day of the week. And when my husband and I had our kids, the adjustment to those early morning awakenings wasn’t nearly as hard for us as for many of our friends since we were already pretty used to going to bed and getting up early.

So when we moved to our little farm and started accumulating our assortment and feathered and furry friends, the daily morning chore of getting up to feed them all around sun up wasn’t too hard. There is a restful quietness about the place in those early morning hours that I find to be so peaceful and grounding that I hate to miss them. Even when I’m really tired at first light, I somehow feel the urge to get up and start my day. Some of my favorite things about being up early include:

~ hearing my little bantam rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing out in the barn yard

~ that first sip of my hot tea with a piece of warm toast and honey

~ watching the foothills behind our house turn bright, glowing red for a few brief moments as the sun comes up in the east

~ walking out in my pajamas and slippers to retrieve the morning paper

~ having some silent time to plan out my day before all the activity gets started

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some mornings when getting up early feels like a chore. Certainly when I used to work in the corporate world, I dreaded my morning alarm clock and groused and complained every single day. And if I’ve had a bad night of sleep, I’m pretty grumpy at first light. But maybe because getting up to feed kids and animals every day is a reminder that I am living the life I always yearned for, I am generally a pretty happy camper.

My own teenage daughter could easily sleep till 10:00 or 11:00 and does so whenever she gets the chance. But being a high school student AND a dairy goat owner doesn’t afford her very many opportunities to do that. I’m always amazed at how hard it is for her to get up during the school week, but if we are going to a goat show, horse show or the best – getting up to go to the fairgrounds during county fair week - she just hops out of bed and faces the early morning with energy and enthusiasm.

Life Lesson: How you face the day may be an indicator of the day you’re about to face!

Candy Goats

2011-04-23T06:00:00.001-06:00

Our Nubian doe, Skittles, did so well with her very first kidding two years ago that I just assumed the second kidding would be even easier. After all, her first labor only lasted about 5 hours and she seemed to push her two mini-Nubian babies out almost effortlessly. I figured the second time around would be a breeze. But this time we had bred her to a full-sized Nubian and she was big as a house in the weeks leading up to her due date. I couldn’t imagine how she could get any fatter and she seemed to have trouble just walking from her paddock to the nearby pasture during those last few weeks. Then there were all the false starts in the days before the birth. I thought for sure she was in labor at least 3 or 4 times, but each time she’d show signs of labor for an hour or so, and then everything would stop. I lost a lot of sleep checking on her in the night, sitting with her while she apparently labored, and then going back to bed two hours later when nothing was happening. I even bought a new baby monitor (the one I used when my own babies were small had long ago been sold at a garage sale), so that I could listen from the comfort and warmth of my own bed.

Two days after her official due date of May 27^th, with the girls out of school for the summer and both having friends sleeping over, it looked like she might finally be ready. I checked on her as the girls were getting ready for bed and she was once again doing the labor dance: paw at the ground, lay down, circle around, get up, change sides, and do it all again. I was sure this was it so with the girls in their pajamas and the camera at the ready, we settled in on blankets covering hay bales and watched and waited. It was fun and exciting for the first hour or so, but eventually everyone got too sleepy and decided to go to bed, with the promise from me that I’d come get them when the babies were arriving. Again, I checked in on her during the night, but nothing.

I went to bed and had vivid dreams about Skittles and her labor. At one point I clearly dreamed that when I checked on her in the morning, a baby was just coming out and I had to run up to the house to get the girls. As often happens in dreams, my legs felt like they were mired in quick sand and I couldn’t get up to the house to alert the others. When I finally managed to tell them and got back to the barn, the babies were already there. To say I had a restless night of sleep that night would be an understatement, but of course, Skittles wasn’t having it much easier.

Around 5:00 am the next morning, when I got up to go feed the horses, I glanced in Skittles’ stall assuming I’d see her there snoozing (it was all very quiet). Much to my surprise, she was crouching low and I could see the amniotic sac beginning to emerge – just like in my dream! Fortunately my legs seemed to be working just fine, as were my lungs, and I ran to the house and hollered for everyone to come quick. Back to the barn in a flash, I got there just in time to see the first little kid slither out onto the straw-lined floor of the birthing stall. It was a tiny little black doeling, with long powdered-doughnut ears – adorable! Everyone was there by now marveling at the little cutie, and I figured the next one would be here any minute. But again, she proved me wrong and we waited and waited for another 45 minutes with no progress. I started to get concerned and decided to call my goat advisor, Melanie. When she answered the phone I said, “Skittles had her first kid but it’s been almost an hour and she hasn’t...oh never mind, here it comes!” And with a big push, out came a big, beautiful brown baby boy. He seemed half again as big as the first one, and I thought no wonder she was so fat and uncomfortable. We waited again for what seemed like forever, and Skittles still seemed restless and uncomfortable. About an hour later, just as Melanie arrived, she started straining again and Melanie went in to help her out. A baby emerged in the breech position. It was still and lifeless and a check for its heartbeat and breathing revealed it was stillborn. I feared that the girls would be upset and that Skittles might be, too, so I quickly removed the little brown doeling from the stall and placed in a towel in the tack room.

Luckily everyone was so thrilled with the two healthy little kids that the sadness of the stillborn was drowned out by the joy and excitement of the new arrivals. Megan named the kids Starburst and Hershey in the candy-name tradition and we spent the rest of the morning cooing and cuddling them, taking pictures, and admiring their silky long ears. Eventually the girls’ friends went home and it was just the three of us as my husband, Brian, was out of town. Believe it or not, he was actually on a trip with his mother and brothers to bury the ashes of his father who had died the previous fall. And back here at the farm, we were preparing for a burial of our own.

I dug a hole deep enough to ensure that the coyotes and raccoons wouldn’t dig up the body, and then went to fetch the little doeling that I had earlier placed in a small cardboard box. I asked the girls if they would like to see her body before we buried her, and much to my surprise they said they would. We tenderly unwrapped the towel and carefully viewed the perfectly formed little body, marveling at how sweet and peaceful she looked. We decided we should name her and I suggested Baby Ruth, since she would always stay a baby.

We each gathered a bouquet of flowers from the yard, and after placing the box in the deep hole and covering it with dirt, we set the flowers on the grave, held hands and sang Amazing Grace as a light misting rain began to fall. It was such a tender moment and one filled more with gratitude than sorrow.

Later that evening, after Megan milked Skittles, she came to me and asked if I thought it was o.k. if she poured a little of the milk on Baby Ruth’s grave so she could have some of her mother’s first milk. I was touched with the gesture, and together in the darkness, we accomplished the task with silent reverence. It felt good and right and brought closure to a day that was one I was sure my children would hold in their hearts forever.

Life Lesson: Life is fragile – Live each day with gratitude

P.S. Skittles had her third set of kids just 2 days ago – a perfect strapping boy and an adorable spotted girl. And it went flawlessly and effortlessly. Welcome Twix and Almond Joy!

Ringo

2011-04-16T06:00:00.003-06:00

When you live on rural property, it’s not uncommon to get calls from people looking for a home for an animal they can no longer keep. I’ve been asked to make a home for horses, goats, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats and even a sheep. The most common is the “gift horse”, which usually means a geriatric horse that can be used for limited, if any riding but that the owner wants to be sure is well loved and cared for. Our old Belle was one of these, and though she is older and can only be used for light riding, she does still earn her keep here at the ripe old age of 27 teaching riding lessons and working at summer camps. But older horses, like older people, can have a number of health concerns and the vet bills can really add up, as I’ve found with my older gelding, Chummie, who is on multiple forms of medication and treatments for some advancing arthritis issues. So, I am cautious when offered a “free” animal – especially if it’s a horse – and my usual reply is, “There’s no room at the Inn.”

Occasionally, though, a freebie will come along that doesn’t fit the usual mold, and such was the case with Ringo. When Ringo came into our lives, he was only 7 years old, basically sound and with no big behavioral issues. Yet he was being offered to us at no cost. The reason for this was that he was owned by a friend’s young daughter who had started riding a year or two before and had fallen in love with Ringo, who at the time was her lesson horse. But as her skill level progressed and her interests shifted to more serious jumping and showing, he was not quite meeting her needs. You see, he has an unusual scar on his face and moves like a Mac truck, which makes him not exactly show material. Apparently as a three year old, he was kicked in the face by another horse in his pasture, and the resulting scar left a hole beneath is right eye big enough to fit a super ball in. And for reasons unknown, his hips are frequently locked (despite countless chiropractic treatments) which makes him move in a less than graceful manner most of the time.

But Ringo has something huge going for him and that is his personality. He is about the sweetest gelding I’ve ever met, both to people, horses and other animals in general. And he is calm (aka lazy) and fairly agreeable when only asked to do limited work, which is what our farm is all about. Besides, he’s also kind of cute. When my friend, Jen, offered him to me a few years ago as a free horse, with two saddles, a bridle, several horse blankets and a bag of feed, along with the open-ended agreement that she would take him back if he ever wasn’t working out for us, I figured I should give it a try. So, on a chilly winter day in February, I picked him up from his nearby boarding stable and brought him to the farm for a trial run.

It took less than two days for him to completely assimilate into my small herd, with absolutely no posturing, bullying or fireworks of any kind. We kept him in the arena adjacent to the paddock where the other horses lived for the first day so they could see him but not interact. On the second day I turned them all out together and they acted like they’d known each other all their lives. I spent a month or two working with Ringo on ground work and under saddle, along with a trainer friend, to make sure he’d be safe and appropriate for my young riders. Although he doesn’t know much and can be sort of stubborn, for the kind of riding we do here, he has gotten along just fine.

I’d like to say that he’s a good fit here in spite of his unusual looks with that big old scar and his clunky way of moving, but the honest truth is that he’s a good fit, in part, because of those things. Beyond just learning to ride, I really try to teach kids other life skills such as appreciation, empathy, confidence, acceptance and patience and I find that Ringo’s appearance and movement opens the door for some great, meaningful conversation around these topics. Sometimes kids are a little shocked by the scar, but they quickly learn to look past what’s on the outside and appreciate what’s on the inside. They’re also impressed by the fact that Ringo is so friendly and willing to have his face petted and scratched in spite of the trauma he endured with the long process of recovery that his injury required. And his laziness and somewhat awkward movement has made better riders out of more than a few kids in my program – he’s certainly no push-button horse!

I’m also happy to say that Ringo’s former owner is thrilled that he has a good, loving home where he still gets lots of interaction with people and other animals, plenty of pasture time, and a pretty easy job description. She and her daughter come to visit him on occasion, but their visits have gotten less and less frequent in part because they have peace of mind knowing that this gift horse situation was a win-win.

Life Lesson: Turn your Weaknesses into Strengths

Everybody Poops

2011-04-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

It probably goes without saying that living on a farm with numerous animals means there is a lot of manure to contend with. A few interesting statistics might make you appreciate just how much scooping we actually do around here. For instance, did you know that horses poop an average of 31 pounds a day? I have 4 ½ horses (if you count the pony as a half), so that’s almost 140 pounds of manure a day just from them. Factoring in the 5 hours a day they spend on pasture, where they can poop all they want and I don’t have to pick it up, that brings the total down to just over 110 pounds a day. Or 770 pounds a week. That’s a lot of crap!

Then there are the goats and llama but they’re a little easier. For one thing, the llama creates a pile for his waste making it pretty easy to clean up, and the goats have compact little poop pellets that don’t accumulate too quickly. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because my daughters and the 4-H’ers who have goats here do all the goat and llama clean up so it’s not a big concern for me.

Chickens also poop a surprising amount as I became well aware of when I used to let my hens free range around the farm. I’d find chicken poo on my deck, in the driveway, on the sidewalks, in the grass... I’d like to say I keep the girls confined in a fenced chicken run now for their own protection from coyotes (which is true) but deep down in, I’m sure the mess factor has a little something to do with their relative lack of freedom these days.

Now it might sound like I’m complaining about all the clean-up required around here, and there are times when it gets pretty old (like when the temperature is below zero for a week straight). But for the most part, I don’t really mind the task. In fact, sometimes I find it almost meditative. If you’ve never scooped horse manure before, you may think it’s a really stinky, smelly job. And believe me, fresh horse manure does stink. But once it dries and hardens it really has very little odor. And there’s something about the rhythmic, repetitive action of scooping that is mesmerizing and relaxing to me. That is, if there is no whining in the background.

It used to be that we tried to make stall and paddock cleaning a weekly family chore. We figured if the girls had their own horses, they should be doing their share of the work. That went pretty well the first spring and summer when the whole farm concept was fresh and new, although they were pretty little then (6 and 9 years old) so to tell you the truth, they weren’t all that much help. But eventually the novelty wore off and the complaining began. We’d try to make it fun by having weekly themes to scoop by (crazy hat day, loud country music day, etc.) and when that didn’t seem to be working anymore, we tried a more militant approach, tying the chore to privileges that could be taken away if there was non-compliance. But after several years of the weekly struggle, last fall my husband and I decided to try something new. We just did it ourselves. Now I know that may sound like a cop out, but by this time, the girls were much more focused on the goats than the horses, and doing almost all of the chores related to them including most of the milking, grooming, feeding and clean-up. So we figured they were still contributing to the farm chores even if they weren’t helping with the horse clean up.

I must say that once I got over my frustration at their lack of help, I found that I actually enjoyed the process so much more now that I could do a little here and a little there whenever it fit into my schedule. Most of the time that’s when everyone is at school and work and it’s just me and the animals here. I often let the goats into the paddock with me as I’m cleaning for the sheer comic value they bring to the task. Their silly antics and funny games keep me well entertained. And I’ve been known to take a break from emptying manure buckets to pick up a barn kitty for a good cuddle or grab my camera to photograph the horses in the pasture with the beautiful foothills in the background. I find these quiet moments of detachment from the rest of the outside world to be grounding and renewing for me. I’ve also had more than a few creative inspirations come to me as I’m scooping poop. Must be a combination of the fresh air, a little exercise and the methodical nature of it all that frees my mind up for new thoughts and ideas.

So while others do yoga, meditate, read scripture or pray, I scoop poop. Grab a pitch fork and give it a try!

Life Lesson: Find your source of inspiration and renewal, no matter how unusual it might be.

Snickers

2011-04-02T06:00:00.005-06:00

In the world of dairy goats, girls rule and boys drool. What I mean by that is, girl goats (does) are the main workers providing babies and milk and so are the most desirable gender, while the boys have relatively limited usefulness. Of course, a few bucks are needed to help make the babies, but only a few. They don’t make great pets (they’re pretty stinky, have a one-track mind and can be fairly aggressive). Wethers (castrated males) can make good pets and companions, but most people who raise dairy goats end up selling the boy babies for meat.

Now I don’t have a problem with this per se. After all, I’m a meat eater myself. But I have to tell ya, once you’ve bottle fed a few baby goats and see what darling personalities they have (more like puppies than livestock), it’s pretty hard to imagine them on the dinner table – at least for me it is. So, each year that we’ve had kids so far, we’ve managed to figure out something else for the boys to do besides being sent to market. And that’s especially true of our first boy, Snickers.

Snickers was born on May 5, 2009 to our Nubian doe, Skittles. He was the first baby ever born at Briar Gate Farm, which automatically made him special. But he really IS special beyond the fact that he was the first born. When Snick was 1 day old, it was apparent that he was a cuddler. His sister, Milky Way was much more rambunctious and rowdy while Snickers was content to sleep and snuggle and get showered with kisses all day long. This personality continued as he grew up and before long it became clear that he was just a big, loveable dope. He has been somewhat accident-prone at times, getting his head stuck in buckets, his legs caught in hay bags, and once he almost strangled himself when he got his collar stuck on a hay rack. But his best feature is that he doesn’t seem to have an aggressive bone in his body – especially toward other goats.

We noticed this fact as our small herd began to expand. Each time we brought a new goat to the farm and introduced it to the herd, the others would butt heads and ram the newcomer in its sides with such animosity that we’d have to separate them for a while until the posturing and bullying settled down. But Snickers never seemed to display this tendency and didn’t act all tough like the others, so he soon became known as the “welcome goat”, keeping the new arrivals company and helping them assimilate into the larger herd. Once we had a young wether that needed minor surgery and had to spend a few nights in our mud room infirmary while he was recovering. Not surprisingly, Snickers was chosen to be his nursemaid while he convalesced.

We’ve also found other ways to keep Snickers “employed”. He has learned to pull a cart and gives rides to kids when they come to visit the farm. My daughters delivered Christmas cookies to our neighbors with Snickers pulling the cart wearing reindeer antlers on this head (he wasn’t too fond of this detail but complied fairly well). He has been in parades and utility classes and has carried a pack with our lunch in it on mountain hikes. He has even been leased by a local 4-H member who wanted to show a goat at the fair but couldn’t have one of his own.

I imagine if we keep raising dairy goats and get more serious about the milk production end of things we may eventually have to consider the idea of selling a few boys for meat. But for now, Snickers continues to show us that boy goats are useful for a whole lot more than they’re sometimes given credit for.

Life Lesson: Embrace Your Unique Talents - Don't be Pigeonholed!

Amigo

2011-03-26T06:00:00.007-06:00

As my kids’ riding program started picking up a few years back, I found I needed another gentle horse to add to the lesson roster. And my husband needed a reliable mount for the occasional trail rides we took together. We’d tried a few other horses in the early years on the farm – one “borrowed” from a friend, one that turned out to have too much arthritis for regular use, and of course the infamous Honey (see two blog entries ago) who luckily was never tried in the kids’ program – but none of these had been quite the right fit. So one spring I set out to find the perfect addition to our small herd.

I once again turned to my two faithful online friends, Craig’s List and Dreamhorse.com, as well as local horse contacts and friends. Turns out what I was looking for was what everyone wanted: a gentle, pretty, smooth-riding gelding between 7 and 12 years of age with no major health issues. Oh, and did I mention I was on a fairly limited budget? I drove many miles that spring, looked at quite a few horses and even brought several of them back to the farm on a trial basis. But it appeared this was going to be harder than I had expected. Either the horse was too flighty and inexperienced, didn’t get along with the other horses, had training issues I wasn’t prepared for or interested in fixing, or had some kind of physical concern. I guess if you had this ideal horse, you either were happy with it and kept it, or you knew you could ask a lot of money for it which meant it was out of my price range.

The months ticked by and I was only weeks away from my first horse camp of the season with only three lesson horses in my line-up – one of whom was on loan from a friend. I could manage with three if no one got sick or lame, but I was anxious about not having a fourth horse in case someone had a problem or my friend decided she needed her horse back for her own use. I had one potential new horse at the farm on trial with the vet scheduled to come out for a vet check the next day, but I’d already decided this horse wasn’t going to work for my program because of inadequate training. I was scheduled to ride another potential horse the next morning and then I spotted a new Dreamhorse.com ad.

The ad was for a pretty sorrel Quarter Horse gelding name Jose and it had just been listed. He was 10 years old, had been ridden by kids in Little Britches Rodeo, and was in my price range (just barely). I made arrangements to go see him the next morning and planned to do something I never did – take my horse trailer with me. I always figure if I like the horse I can talk options with the seller and come back for him if we work things out. It somehow seemed presumptuous and like bad luck to bring the trailer on the first look. But this time I knew I had the vet scheduled already and if this was the right horse, he’d need to be looked at anyhow. I rode him and liked him, so I asked the owner if I could take him for the vet check and then bring him back if he didn’t work out. She agreed saying, “but trust me, you won’t be bringing him back”.

Well, she was right. He passed the vet check, the hubby check and the Belle check (a requirement we had put in place when another horse we had considered kicked our older mare, Belle somewhat violently and I had promised my daughter that all future horses would have to be nice to her or they couldn’t stay). And so I finally had my 4^th horse with only two weeks to go until camp. I normally get to know a horse for a month or more before putting him in the kids program, but I worked with him for those two weeks, knew he had a strong background with kids, and felt comfortable putting him right to work. I did have to change his name, however, as Jose just didn’t sound like a horse to me and didn’t roll off my tongue easily. I decided to stick with a Spanish word and arrived at Amigo as the perfect name.

Amigo was a gem the whole first week of camp, and one of the campers fell in love with him, riding him every day. The day before camp ended, she practiced all she had learned for the end-of-camp show and was excited to get to demonstrate for her parents how well she could ride her new friend. But the afternoon before the show, Amigo threw a shoe and though we were able to get the hoof trimmed a bit, he was sore as heck. The next day, I didn’t have the heart to tell the little girl he couldn’t be ridden after all the preparation she’d done, so I gave Amigo a double dose of bute (the equivalent of horse aspirin) and hoped for the best. When it came time for the young camper to ride him in the show, he gingerly made his way around the arena, obviously still somewhat uncomfortable, but doing everything he was asked with a can-do kind of attitude. Then and there, I knew I’d made a good purchase.

And the icing on the cake? Turns out Amigo is a distant cousin to Belle!

Life Lesson: Know What You Want and Don’t Settle for Less

Barn Cats

2011-03-19T06:00:00.005-06:00

My passion for horses goes back to early childhood, but my first and most enduring animal love was and still is the cat. Some families are dog families but mine was a cat family. Throughout my childhood we always had at least one feline in our home and to this day, every member of my immediate family has one or more cats sharing their lives. I have five.

Now if five cats seems a little excessive to you and makes you wonder if I’m one of those crazy cat ladies, put your concerns to rest. Considering we live on 5 acres, that’s only an average of one cat per acre! And only three of our purring pals live inside the house with us (each adopted from the local humane society) while the other two are barn cats. Well, sort of. Put it this way, the two outdoor cats don’t actually live in the house with us, and they do catch mice in my barn, but they aren’t what you might think of as traditional barn cats. In fact, they spend much of their day sprawled on a comfy chair in my heated mudroom and are more social and affectionate than your average Golden Retriever. So let me tell you how this came to be.

Several summers ago, the mouse population in my barn reached an alarming number. They were chewing through the Rubbermaid bins where we kept grain, building nests in bales of hay and helping themselves to the snacks that kids in my summer horse camps brought with them and stored in lunch bags on shelves in the barn. I had just built a tack room addition onto the barn which could be used as a safe place to keep a barn cat in at night so it wouldn’t become a coyote meal, and I convinced my husband that if I got a barn cat, it would indeed stay outdoors. Of course, it would need company, so we would need to get two.

I located a litter of kittens in need of homes on a nearby farm, and one beautiful early June day, surprised my daughters with an outing to go pick out two of them to bring back to the farm. I let each girl pick out and name a kitten and soon we were headed home with a pair of tabby brothers, one silver and one yellow, they named Dusty and Rusty. We set them up with a cozy bed, food and water in the tack room and lavished them with love and affection. A few days after their arrival, we began our first of four summer horse camps, and so the kittens were handled and adored by kids right from the get go. As a result, they are two of the friendliest felines ever known. In fact, when I took them to get neutered around 4 months of age, the vet commented that she had never seen such relaxed and easy going cats and that they had actually purred through the entire procedure!

As Dusty and Rusty grew, they became wonderful hunters and my mouse population declined significantly. When the fall nights started getting chillier, we added a heating pad to their bed to keep them warm at night, and our process of rounding them up at dusk and closing them in the tack room for the night seemed to be working well. All was going according to plan until one late fall day when we noticed that Dusty’s left eye didn’t look quite right. That pupil seemed more dilated than the other and the whole eye seemed larger and almost bulging. A trip to the vet’s office confirmed that the pressure was high in that eye and he was diagnosed with glaucoma – rare in cats and even more unusual in a young kitten. We were referred to an animal eye specialist (can you say Ca-ching$?) and it was determined that he was blind in that eye and probably in a fair amount of pain. We started him on a regimen of pills and eye drops to see if we could control the pressure, but after a couple of weeks with little or no change, we were advised that we should have the eye removed.

My first reaction to this news was one of alarm at the price tag. When it was all said and done, this “free” barn cat was going to cost well over $1,000. But I felt we had made a commitment to the kitty just as we had to all our animals to be their caretakers and providers, so I gulped and swallowed this bitter pill. My next concern was that my daughter, Molly, whose kitten he was, would be upset by the prospect of her beloved Dusty soon having only one eye. She was fairly upset and worried that he would look weird and that it would be hard for him to adjust, but I assured her that he’d adapt and that we’d all get used to it.

The day of the operation in early December just happened to be the coldest day of the year up to that point, registering only about 5 degrees. Dusty sailed through the procedure in his usual, easy-going manner, but when he got back to the farm for his convalescence, I just couldn’t imagine sticking him out if the frigid tack room while he was in such a state of vulnerability. It was agreed that he would spend a couple of days recovering in our heated mudroom, and of course his brother Rusty would have to keep him company.

And so it was that my “barn” cats became “mudroom” cats. Once they discovered the joy of being in a heated room attached to our house, where they could actually see us in the adjoining kitchen, they never spent another night in the tack room. I’m happy to say that Dusty recovered fully and has had absolutely no trouble adapting to his one-eyed condition. His brother, who has become quite the rolly polly fat cat, loves him just the same, and Molly even thinks he looks more distinctive and unique than before. And they both enjoy and live up to their new nicknames, Winky and Twinky.

Life Lesson: Animals and Kids are More Resilient Than You Might Expect

Honey

2011-03-12T06:00:00.008-07:00

A few years ago, our older mare, Belle, colicked one afternoon late in November. For those unfamiliar with the term, colic is a common ailment that horses are susceptible to and it can be deadly. There are different types and reasons for colic, but basically it’s some kind of obstruction or upset in the gut and horses often roll to try to get rid of the pain, which can cause all kinds of internal problems. At any rate, it’s not uncommon but when it happens to your horse, it can be pretty scary. Luckily, with some meds and vet attention she bounced back quickly. But over the next year or so, she colicked two more times, which got me sort of worried. She’s an older girl and I wondered if this could be the beginning of the end for her. She’s a really special mare with a great disposition, and I got to thinking it would be nice to have a daughter or cousin of hers that could carry on her legacy when the day came that she moved on.

So, I set out to search for a relative of hers using the horse sale search site, Dreamhorse.com. If you think you might like to buy a horse some day, this is a great place to look, but if you don’t want to get hooked, I’d stay away if I were you. It can be addicting. Anyhow, Belle’s great grandpa was a fairly famous Quarter Horse named Impressive, and using Dreamhorse I was able to search for horses with his bloodline in their lineage. So, I gave it a try. And lo and behold, I found a distant cousin for sale just 30 minutes away! A pretty little palomino mare named Honey.

It was February when I found Honey which isn’t the smartest time of year to buy a horse, but because of this, prices are usually pretty good then. She was priced attractively and the owner sounded fairly desperate to unload her as she had just bought another horse. So, I drove out to see her on a very cold, snowy day. When I arrived at the facility, I found it to be a run down place with small, dirty, uninviting runs for the horses. Honey was in a little semi-sheltered area with a few other horses and she looked a mess. She was small and scraggly, her coat was dull, and her mane was choppy and in knots. The gal that owned her told me she’d gotten her from an auction along with a foal, and that she wanted the foal but not Honey. She’d ridden her a few times and said she didn’t seem to know much and got a little worked up at times. She’d recently thrown a girl that came to look at her when the girl’s foot banged against the rail while riding her in the small arena. OK, my head should have taken over at this point, but my heart was louder and stronger and I felt I needed to get this little mare out of this less-than-ideal setting. I rode her briefly and thought she seemed sweet enough and had a smooth jog, so I decided to buy her.

Over the next few months, I worked at getting some weight on Honey and doing some basic training in my arena. She seemed willing and responsive, and most of the time was real calm and sweet. And she and Belle got along well, so all seemed good. I started taking her on easy trail rides nearby and she went along pretty nicely. Until one day when I was riding with a friend and a jogger came running toward us from up ahead. For whatever reason, Honey got worried and started to back down the embankment by the trail and then she started bucking. Now I’ve got a pretty good seat and have been bucked around a bit in the past, but this happened so suddenly and swiftly, I was off before I knew it. I landed on my wrist resulting in a hairline fracture, but other than that I was o.k.

I decided I’d better get some help with training Honey and enlisted the assistance of a local Natural Horsemanship trainer. We spent a month or so together doing ground work and were just getting to the point where I was going to get on and try riding her again. That weekend, my daughter and I decided to go to a trail riding clinic – she with Belle and I was planning to take my big, reliable gelding, Chummie. But at the last minute, I thought it would be fun to make it an “all girls” outing, and took Honey instead. Do you notice the emotion involved in making that decision?

Well, let’s just say, that turned out to be a bad idea. About half way through the clinic, Honey got spooked and took off to bucking again. Not just a little hop, but a full out bucking bronco rodeo routine. It felt like it lasted forever (I’m sure it was only about 30 seconds) but it was clear she had no intention of stopping or slowing down until I was off her back. The minute I landed on my knees, I knew I would be selling her. The first time could have been a fluke, but this round made it clear this mare had some ghosts in her past and was downright dangerous.

I sent her off to a trainer for the summer to work out as many of the issues as possible, feeling it would be hard to sell her in this condition. Once the trainer deemed her safe enough, I went back to my old favorite, Dreamhorse, and listed her for sale. I was 100% upfront and honest about my experience with her in the listing as well as when people came to see her, but because she was now a pretty little thing after putting on some weight and muscle, it didn’t take long for her to be sold. The new owner claimed to have good experience with “troubled horses” and I wished her the best. As the trailer drove away and Honey headed off to her new life, I was both hopeful for her success with her new trainer and relieved that it wasn’t my burden any more.

And by the way, Belle hasn’t colicked since.

Life Lesson: Listen to your Heart, but don’t ignore your Head

First Kids

2011-03-07T14:07:00.002-07:00

Babies are born every second of every day all around the world. But when it’s your baby, especially if it’s the first one, it seems like the most original, unique, personal and miraculous experience on earth. That’s how it was for me when my first child was born 15 years ago this month, and that’s how it was when her first child was born. OK, my 15 year old doesn’t actually have a first child yet (thank goodness), but she does have a first kid. The goat kind, you know.

When we brought Skittles the goat home through a raging blizzard in January of 2008 (see The Great Goat Adventure – Jan. 29^th blog entry), she was newly pregnant with her first kids. We had waited a long time to bring her home after it took three tries for her to conceive, but now the real waiting began. January and February tend to drag for me anyhow with the cold, limited daylight hours but that year really progressed slowly. We were all so excited about having new spring arrivals, and May felt like such a long way off.

When the warm weather finally arrived and Skittles’ due date of May 6^th got closer and closer, we decided we should have a plan to make sure everyone who wanted to attend the birth had a chance to. My mother had recently moved to the area from Ohio and she for sure wanted to be there. Megan, whose goat it was, wanted to be there no matter what she had to miss. And May is about the busiest month for school kids with all the end-of-school-year activities, so it seemed inevitable that she’d have to miss something to witness the birth. My other daughter, Molly wanted to be there, too, but my husband figured he’d see the new babies soon enough, so no need to be “on call”. The plan was that if Skittles began showing signs of being in labor during the school day, I would call my mom and she would swing by the girls’ schools and pick them up on her way to the farm. Both school offices were alerted to this possibility and we agreed that a message of “kids on the way” texted to Megan at school would mean go to the office and prepare to get picked up.

You’ve heard the saying, a watched pot never boils? Well, that’s what it felt like those first few days of May. Every hour or two I was out in the barnyard checking on Skittles, and although she was big and round and her udder was starting to form, she pretty much looked and acted like her usual self. Until the morning of May 5^th. That morning, she was real quiet and seemed to be in her own little world. She didn’t eat a lot and wasn't interacting with her buddy, Springer much. She just stood by the fence and seemed to be lost in deep thought. I had a bunch of little errands planned for that day but something told me I should stay close to home, so I put those things on hold. It was a beautiful spring day and it was easy to keep myself busy with outdoor chores so I could keep an eye on Skittles. I checked in with my mom mid-morning to let her know she should be on stand-by.

Then around noon, Skittles started pawing the ground, laying down and then getting back up again. I knew from the reading I’d done about goat labor that this was a sign that things were about to begin. I moved her into the stall we had cleaned out as her birthing suite and when she started making low groaning noises and something that sounded like a cross between a click and a snore, I called my mom, texted Megan and put the whole plan into motion. It sure was exciting when 20 minutes later, everyone was home and excited to watch the birth of our first farm babies.

Well, you know how labor can go. Sometimes it’s a whole lot of hurry up and wait. So, wait we did as Skittles got up, laid down, pawed a little and then stopped. A few minutes later she’d groan a little, shift positions and then stop. The she’d stand up, turn around, lie down and stop. After about an hour of this, we decided to get comfortable and got some folding chairs, magazines, and snacks and settled in for the long haul. Molly lost interest and went to play on the trampoline while the rest of us hung out and tried to guess how long it would be. At this point we wondered if Megan would make it to her band concert scheduled for that evening, which would be a drag to miss, but we had our priorities.

Around 4:00, my goat mentor-friend, Melanie showed up to check in on things, but after waiting and watching with us for an hour or so, she gave up and went home, promising to come back when the babies graced us with their presence. No sooner had she left, when Skittles started moaning really loud, and pushing and straining, and within minutes, out came a beautiful, perfectly formed tiny brown goat kid. I quickly checked for the gender and said, “oh darn, it’s a boy”. Now I know that’s not what new grandmas are supposed to say, but in the dairy goat world, the girls rein supreme. He was so adorable, though, that we quickly let our brief disappointment go as we helped his mama clean him up and dry him off. Just as he was starting to try out his wobbly little legs, Skittles crouched down, moaned and pushed again, and before we knew it, there was a little black and white baby. Again the gender check and this time, cause for celebration – a darling little doeling!

Megan named the kids Snickers and Milky Way, in keeping with the candy theme, and as she snuggled with the babies and showered Skittles with affection and appreciation, she really did look like a kid in a candy store. Oh, and she even made it to her band concert, although a little late.

Life Lesson: New Life is Always Miraculous

Seger

2011-02-26T06:00:00.003-07:00

Chickens don’t like snow. And my hen yard is on the north side of the barn, so it stays snow covered for days after a storm even as other sunnier parts of the barnyard dry out. Whenever it gets like this, my hens huddle together in their coop rather than venture outdoors, and even though this is their choice, I always feel a little sorry for them. So often during really cold, snowy spells I open their coop door and let them free range in the barn to keep them from getting too stir crazy.

One winter, after a week of frigid, snowy days, I got a little complacent and wasn’t paying attention to the fact that it was gradually warming up and the snow was melting outside the barn, so the hens were starting to venture further and further outdoors. Normally I like the idea of letting them free range a bit, but we live in coyote country, and after a particularly cold spell, those coyotes are hungry from lack of good hunting in their territory and they start to get pretty bold. So when I came home one afternoon and found three of my hens dead and half eaten in my yard and one entirely missing, I felt I had only myself to blame.

The worst part about losing hens to a coyote, besides the loss itself, is that the coyotes figure out there is free lunch to be had in your barnyard and come back for more, often bringing their friends along. So when the coyote showed up right at my back gate that evening I knew I was going to have to do something. Of course, I made sure everyone was back under lock and key, but it made me nervous not only for the chickens, but for the goats and my barn cats as well. I contemplated getting a shot gun and taking care of matters myself, but I’m really not the gun type. Besides, I don’t have anything against the coyotes themselves and feel they have a right to be living out there in their dwindling habitat. I just don’t want them coming into my barnyard.

So, I decided it was time to try one of nature’s remedies for such problems and got myself a llama! You may not know this, but most llamas have an instinct to guard any group of animals that they live and bond with (often sheep or goats). When they sense danger, they will sound an alarm, round their wards up and move them to a safe place, and make loud noises to intimidate the unwanted intruder. They’ve even been known to chase down the predator and stomp it to death if they feel the threat is great enough. I figured this was worth a try – and besides, llamas are amazingly cool looking creatures and I thought it would be a neat addition to our menagerie.

After making a few calls to some local 4-H and Llama Rescue folks in the area, I was referred to a local llama breeder, Carolann, who was getting out of the breeding business and trying to sell some of her 40+ llamas. We spent an hour or two together one afternoon and she patiently answered all my questions and concerns about llama ownership. To get us started, she suggested that we “try” a llama for a month or so to see if we liked having one around.

Just about that time, Carolann got a call from the local Llama Rescue that a family was moving out of the area and couldn’t take their llama with them. He happened to be one that was originally from Carolann’s herd. She remembered him fondly and realized he might be just the perfect match for my needs, being a friendly guy that had been living with goats for years.

So on a cold, January day, Seger the llama showed up in my barnyard and made quite an impression on the other animals. The horses had never seen anything quite like this odd creature and stomped and snorted and craned their necks to try to get a better look. The goats were actually pretty scared of him at first, but after a few hours in neighboring paddocks, they settled down and realized he was nothing to worry about. Over the next few weeks, they became better acquainted and the bonding began.

In the meantime, we were fencing our front pasture for the goats and when it was finished, we turned Seger and his charges out for the first time. They were all so happy for the space and freedom and we laughed as we watched Seger running crazily around the pasture, legs flying is all directions. The next morning, Brian was out doing some yard work, when he heard a strange, high pitched screech. At first he wasn’t sure what it was, but then he figured out it was Seger sounding his alarm! Apparently there was something at the end of the road that concerned him and he was running up and down the fence line making this sound I can only describe as somewhere between an Indian war call and a turkey warble. Back and forth he ran as he screeched his alarm, then he ran over to the goats and rounded them up in a corner of the pasture, went back to the fence line and ran and alarmed some more, came back to check on the goats, and on and on. He did this routine for 30-40 minutes and eventually the goats just laid down in the corner he had herded them to while their caretaker made sure the perimeter was safe. It was quite something to watch and I was so proud and pleased with my successful experiment.

We never did find out what he was agitated about that day, but I suspect it was the sound of cows in a neighboring pasture. Turns out, Seger is a little worried about cows, as he is about strange dogs, certain new people and the garbage men! Anything that he thinks might pose a threat to his herd is suspect in his mind. And when we come to take a goat out of his pen to work with or groom, he paces and hums and tries to watch where we’ve taken it. In fact, he gets so concerned about his babies being out of his sight that when the county fair rolls around and we take all the goats to the fairgrounds for the week, we send Seger to “llama camp” at Carolann’s just so he won’t get too stressed with worry.

The other day, Seger and the goats were in their winter paddock as usual, along with a rooster that has been banished to the goat yard for bad behavior (that’s another story), when Seger heard the cows moving in the field behind our property. He quickly rounded up the goats and moved them into their stall for safety. Then he came back out and got the rooster, carefully nudging him into the stall with the goats. Apparently, llamas will bond with just about anything they think they’re in charge of!

Life Lesson: Protect the Things You Care About

Noodles

2011-02-19T06:00:00.029-07:00

The first spring we lived on the farm, we decided we were ready to try our hand at raising chicks. I'd always loved the idea of collecting fresh eggs in the morning and couldn't wait to get started. We got a kid's book on chicken care (a great way to get the basic information you need without getting overwhelmed), read up a bit and headed out to our local farm supply store, Murdochs, to pick out our new little darlings. If you've ever been to a farm store during "chick days", you know how irresistible those little fluffy hatchlings are. We knew from our reading that if we wanted laying hens only (i.e. no roosters) we would have to select our chicks from the bins marked "pullets", as opposed to "straight run". Apparently, identifying the gender of a one-day-old chick is so tricky that only a professional Chick Sexer can do it (I kid you not, that is a job title in the Dictionary for Occupational Titles!). The pullet bin contains little girl chicks (most of the time) while the straight run bin hasn't been sexed, hence you get what you get. We decided to start with 6 chicks and picked out 3 different breeds which, from our limited research, we thought would be friendly and lay pretty eggs (no white eggs for us!). We chose 2 Ameraucanas (known as the Easter Egg chicken because they lay eggs ranging from brown to pink to green and blue), 2 Golden Sex-linked (to add some color to the girls themselves) and 2 Black Australorps. We brought them home in their little cardboard box and gently placed them in the pine-shaving-lined trough we had set up in the garage.

We dutifully fed and watered the chicks each day and watched them grow for the next few weeks. Meanwhile, Brian started building a chicken coop that would be their home in the barn once they were big enough, and we cut a small door into the barn wall so that they would be able to go outside into a fenced run to get fresh air and exercise. Brian constructed three nest boxes with a hinged opening to make collecting eggs easier, and a couple of perches for the girls to roost on at night. When the chicks were about 6 weeks old, they had outgrown their garage nursery and it was time to move them to their new digs. It seemed hard for me to imagine that they would know to jump up onto the roosts to sleep, but when we checked on them that first night in the barn, sure enough, they were all lined up on the perch just like the book said they would be!

It took about 5 months until we got our first fresh eggs and once we did, we were ruined for store-bought eggs forever. The yolk of the fresh eggs is almost orange and wonderfully thick and flavorful, while the whites are firm and viscous. By comparison, store-bought eggs seem watery and bland. So, now that we are spoiled with the real deal, we have found it necessary (and fun) to get a few more chicks each year, to keep the fresh eggs coming. Hens tend to lay well for 2 or 3 years, and then they produce less regularly, so we decided that we'd add several new birds to the flock each year to ensure a steady supply of the delicious eggs.

Well, a few years ago, when we went to pick out our annual spring chicks, we arrived at Murdochs mid-afternoon during the height of chick days only to find that every single chick in the "pullett" bins had been sold. All that was left were the straight run babies. We had our hearts set on getting chicks that day, so I decided to do some quick "research". I figured, if we ended up with a rooster, it would be good to select a breed that was known for friendly boys and not one of the overly aggressive breeds. I consulted the Murdoch's employee who specialized in chickens (I call her the Chicken Lady) and learned that the Japanese Bantams were my best best for a friendly cockerel if our 50/50 chance of getting a boy landed us with a rooster. Bantams, in case you're not familiar with chicken types, are basically little chickens - when full grown that are only about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the large breeds. And so it was that we selected two tiny Black and White Japanese Bantam chicks.

Everything went fine as the chicks started out in the garage trough-nursery like all our other spring chicks. And as they grew and matured, it became evident that we probably had ended up with a pair - a pullett and a cockerel. We were actually somewhat pleased with the idea of having a little man in the hen yard and I looked forward to hearing his first cock-a-doodle-doos. But then, at about 6 weeks, tragedy struck when we came out to feed the chicks one day and found that the little bantam pullet had suddenly died, leaving poor little Noodles (don't ask me how he got this name) a widower. I was concerned that he would be lonely without his mate, so rushed back to Murdochs for a replacement. Much to my dismay, the bins were all gone and I learned that chick days were over. And it was too late in the spring to special order any new chicks because poultry breeders stop shipping them once it gets too hot. Poor little Noodles was to remain mateless and so the Chicken Lady recommended that we put a stuffed animal in with him to cheer him up a bit. Granted, there were other big hens in the coop with him but it wasn't the same as having his own partner. So, we found a little stuffed pig, put it on the roost, and sure enough, Noodles squeezed up there next to the little piggy that night and made the best of it.

Well, I couldn't see letting Noodles mourn any longer than necessary and once again turned to one of my favorite resources, Craig's List. I posted an ad that read: Wanted - 6 week old Japanese Bantam pullett for my heart-broken little cockerel. I figured it was unlikely, but what the heck. And believe it or not, within 24 hours, I had a response from a small farm within 30 minutes of ours that had a dozen or so pullets available that were not only the same breed, but exactly the right age! I couldn't believe my luck and quickly headed down to fetch up a new wife for the little guy. In fact, I decided to buy two just in case something happened to the first one.

When I got the two girls back to the barnyard and put them in with lonely little Noodles, he took one look at them and I swear his little chicken face lit up and seemed to express, "Wow - two for one!!" He was overjoyed and followed them around excitedly for the rest of the day. That night when I checked in on the roost, there was Mr. Noodles proudly nestled between his two new young harem wives.

Life Lesson: When life deals you a bad blow, better days are usually ahead

Lucy

2011-02-12T06:00:00.006-07:00

I had a dog for many years that was as high maintenance as they come. A husky-shepherd mix I had found as a stray puppy when I was in college, she was a beautiful dog and I loved her dearly, but she was not an easy keeper. For starters, she was a runner. Given the opportunity, she would take off chasing rabbits and squirrels, totally disregarding my commands to “come”, and sometimes would not be seen for days at a time. She was also nervous around kids and couldn’t be entirely trusted around them, having been known to bite when cornered or feeling uncomfortable. In her older age, she developed incontinence, had teeth problems and eventually succumbed to cancer at the ripe old age of 16. The day my husband and I had to have her put down at the vet’s office, we cried our eyes out while we said good-bye to her, and then came home feeling a huge sense of relief that our years of dog ownership were over. I realized that I was just not a dog person.

Or so I thought. For 6 years, I told myself and my kids that we were cat people (and eventually horse people, goat people, chicken people...) but we weren’t dog people and we weren't going to get a dog even though we now lived on a farm and had plenty of room. That was until I met a few really nice Golden Retrievers. Our neighbors had an older Golden that would come visit us now and then, and I thought she was the sweetest thing I’d ever met. Then Megan’s fourth grade teacher had a couple of Goldens that she brought to class and I was so impressed with their calm, loving behavior that I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t like dogs – I’d just had the wrong breed all those years. So, I decided maybe it was time for us to try to adopt an older Golden Retriever to come live on the farm with us.

We started out by trying to adopt through the Golden Retriever Rescue and went through the initial application process, but progress was slow and each time we found a dog that seemed like it might be a good match, it was adopted by someone else before we were able to meet it. Feeling a little impatient now that I had decided it would be nice to have a companion around the farm while everyone else was at school and work during the day, I placed a “wanted” ad on Craig’s List. Within a few days, I had been contacted by a woman in Denver who thought our home sounded like it might be a good one for her 6 year old Golden, Lucy.

Lucy had been living with Deb and another older Golden her whole life, but the older dog had recently died, Deb worked full time, and Lucy was spending her days alone, indoors, gaining weight and becoming depressed. As much as Deb loved her, she knew this wasn’t the best life for Lucy and when she saw my ad stating that we were looking for a dog to join our family farm, she thought this might be a better life for her girl. We arranged to meet and see if it was a good fit.

When we first saw Lucy, we were struck by how big she was. She was a tall dog with big bone structure, but she was also extremely heavy. She weighed over 95 pounds and was almost as wide as she was tall. But she was super sweet and well behaved and so we decided to give it a try for a week before making a final decision. I was as concerned about whether or not she would fit in with our family and all of our animals as I was with Deb’s comfort in giving her up. But after a week, a good grooming and some quality time together, we all decided this was a great match and that Briar Gate Farm would be Lucy’s home from now on. Deb seemed really comfortable with the idea and at peace about giving Lucy up to what she could tell would be a happier, healthier life for her. It was truly a gesture of love that she was able to let go and give up such a great dog.

It didn’t take long before Lucy had settled in on the farm and was as bonded to us as if she had lived here her whole life. And just by increasing her activity level and being outdoors with us so much, the pounds started melting away. Within 6 months, she was down to almost 70 pounds and looking great. We’ve kept in touch with Deb, sending her progress reports, pictures and having her come for occasional visits, and she even took Lucy for a few weeks while we were on summer vacation one year. But we all agree that Lucy is better off in her new life with us – and I can say that I really AM a dog person after all!

Life Lesson: Sometimes Loving Means Letting Go

Chummie

2011-02-05T06:00:00.006-07:00

As we entered our first winter on the farm, I got a call one day from a friend saying she knew of a “really cool” horse that needed a new home and that I should consider him. He belonged to a friend of hers who was getting divorced and selling the small farm where they lived, and she and her kids had sort of lost interest in the single horse they owned. My first thought was, “I don’t really want to take on a new horse as we go into winter”, but when she told me he was a 17 hand Dutch Warmblood retired dressage show horse, I knew I had to check him out. I have always loved big horses and had wanted to learn dressage for a long time. So, I called his owner and arranged to meet him.

When I first saw Chummie, he sure wasn’t much to look at. He was a flea bitten gray – probably my least favorite horse color - and was pretty muddy with a long, snarled mane that hadn’t been brushed for quite a while. He was big, though, and as I stood next to him grooming him and picking his hooves, I couldn’t stop commenting on his enormous stature. His feet seemed like dinner plates compared to the dainty hooves of our mare, Belle and the tiny Shetland feet of Spirit the pony. But he was gentle and mellow and pretty easy-going when I rode him even though his owner said he hadn’t been ridden for months. So, in spite of being underwhelmed with his general appearance, I asked if I could bring him to the farm for a few days to see how he got along with the others and to get to know him better.

He arrived at our farm the week before Christmas, and ambled into the paddock like he’d been there all his life. He immediately befriended Belle and Spirit and seemed completely at ease in the new setting. I discovered that he was extremely affectionate and loved nothing better that a good hard scratch on his forehead and between his ears. By the second day that he was at the farm, I had fallen madly in love with him! Then my brother and his family arrived from Ohio for a holiday visit, and they each took a turn riding the big guy. Now, not one of them has any horse experience whatsoever, but Chummie was a complete gentleman and as cooperative with my 6 year old niece as he had been with me. That clinched it, he was here to stay!

Over the next few months, Chummie and I continued to get to know each other and as he got in better physical shape, I realized just what a great horse he was. He was really well trained and had an awesome trot and canter. But beyond the relationship he and I were developing, I started to notice that he and Belle seemed to be forming a special bond, too. By spring, we had a couple more horses on the property and Chummie seemed to have taken on the role of Belle’s protector. If she was in her stall eating hay with the stall door open, he would stand at the entrance so the other horses wouldn’t go in and bother her. If she walked out to the pasture during a big snow storm, he would loyally follow behind while the other horses stayed near the warm barn. When she took a nap out in the field, he would stand over her and keep the others from disturbing her. They were pretty much inseparable.

When the next summer rolled around and we hosted our first summer camp for kids, the campers noticed this special bond and insisted that Belle and Chummie should get married. So, with Spirit as the “flower boy”, our newest horse, Jazz, as the “ring bearer” and Chummie and Belle dressed in bow tie and veil, I officiated in a silly, equine nuptial ceremony during our end-of-camp horse show. And the happy couple continues living happily ever after!

Life Lesson: Know a Good Thing When it Comes Along

The Great Goat Adventure

2011-01-29T06:00:00.002-07:00

My friend, Melanie invited us over to her farm one weekend to see her goat kids that had been born a few weeks earlier. If you have ever held a tiny goat kid and fed it a bottle of warm milk, you will understand how quickly and completely we became hooked! They are about the most darling creatures on earth. So, not surprisingly, shortly after that visit we decided that goats were the next critter we wanted to add to the farm. We joined a local 4-H club and signed up for a dairy goat project, but knowing nothing about raising goats, I decided we would need to recruit a “goat mentor”. I knew just who to call to ask to be our project leader! And as it turned out, Melanie had grown up showing dairy goats in 4-H and was delighted to join our newest adventure.

The first thing we had to decide was what kind of goats we wanted. After doing some research, we came to the conclusion that Mini Nubians were the ideal breed for us. A cross between Nubians and Nigerian Dwarfs, this newly emerging breed donned the long, floppy ears of the Nubian with the smaller size of the Nigerian in an efficient little dairy goat perfect for small children and small properties. Problem was, there didn’t seem to be any Mini Nubians in Colorado! After much searching on the internet and talking with the 4-H goat folks, I finally found a small Nubian doe near Durango, CO who was being bred to a Nigerian Dwarf. Although Durango was a long drive from our farm, it was still in the state, so I agreed to purchase the doe and sent in my deposit.

Now the waiting began. It was September when we agreed to purchase the doe, Skittles, but she had to be bred before we could go and get her. Goats go into heat about every three weeks, so once she was bred the first time, we had to wait three weeks or so to see if she had “settled”. When she went into heat again, they tried breeding her once more and then we had to wait another 3 weeks. When the news came that she had gone back into heat yet again 3 weeks later, we started getting concerned. It was decided that they would try a different buck, but in the meantime, we started looking around to see if we could find a back-up doe in case this one just couldn’t get pregnant. We found a few other options but all were full Nubians which was not our first choice so we kept our fingers crossed. Fortunately, the third time seemed to be the charm and by late December we were told Skittles had finally settled and we could come get her any time after the first of the year.

So, on January 2^nd, my mom and I along with daughters Megan and Molly headed down to Durango to fetch up our goats (we had decided to also purchase a young Nigerian Dwarf wether – castrated male – as a companion for Skittles). It took us about 9 hours to get there with a few stops along the way, but the drive was beautiful on a clear, cloudless Colorado winter day. We stayed in a hotel in Durango that night and when we got up the next morning to head out to the ranch where the goats were living, it started snowing lightly and we thought we'd better hit the road as soon as possible. Well, we got the goats just fine but it wasn't quite soon enough for as we headed up Wolf Creek Pass about 30 minutes past Pagosa Springs, it started snowing harder and harder and about 7 miles from the summit, my little mini van just couldn't do it and we had to turn around. We drove all the way back to Pagosa Springs, bought snow chains (wished I'd done that sooner!?!), and then headed back up the mountain after being told by a local tow truck driver that we should try to make it over the pass right then or we might be stuck there for several days (with two goats in dog crates in our mini van - no thanks!?). This time we were successful and made it over the pass with no problem. It was dry on the other side and after removing the snow chains we made pretty good time until we hit another snow storm south of Denver. It was slow going but we all finally made it home to Briar Gate Farm 12 hours later. The goats were amazingly good travelers and aside from an adorable "bleat" every now and then, they slept most of the way.

When we got home around 10:00 pm and opened the crates in the back of the mini van, Skittles stumbled out and seemed to have forgotten how to use her legs after being folded up lying down for the past 12 hours. She hobbled around on her knees for a few minutes before she finally remembered how to stand up, and we got a pretty good laugh out of that. The goats settled in well to their new surroundings and we began the fun of getting to know them and how to take care of them while we waited and waited for the next 5 months to pass before our goat kids finally arrived. But that’s another story that you’ll just have to wait for!

Life Lesson: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Bringing in Hay

2011-01-22T06:00:00.013-07:00

The spring before we moved to our farm was an unusually wet one along the Front Range. Since there were no livestock living in the pastures of our new place before we arrived, the grass was about 2-3 feet high by the time our moving truck pulled up the gravel driveway. Knowing we would have plenty of use for the hay all this grass would provide, we quickly found a local farmer willing to cut and bale for us. Being from the suburbs, we had never actually watched this process before and we were enthralled each day when the farmer showed up with a new piece of very large farming equipment – cutting the first day, letting it sit for a day to dry, then coming back with a contraption that looked like a series of pinwheels, which would fluff up and flip the dried grass over into what were called wind rows. This then sat for another half day, before it was dry enough to run through the baler. In the end, we had about 75 bales of freshly cut hay dotting the back 3 acres.

Now the challenge was to figure out how to get the hay into the barn. Being new “farmers”, we hadn’t acquired a pick-up truck yet. We knew we could probably pay one of the neighbor boys to move the hay with his truck, but we really liked the idea of doing it ourselves so we set out to consider our options. We figured we could load it into the back of our minivan, but that sure didn’t seem very farmy. The only other vehicle that could assist in the job was our new John Deere riding mower which we jokingly called our tractor. We decided to hook a little wagon up to the tractor/mower which would allow us to move about five bales at a time. This was terribly inefficient, but also remarkably fun! I got to drive the mower while Brian loaded the bales, and the girls had a great time running and jumping and hiding between the bales, and taking turns sitting on my lap steering the John Deere.

When it was all said and done, we were hot, sweaty, itchy and tired, but it felt really good. The joy of doing a concrete job together as a family while laughing and playing made it well worth the exhaustion. I commented that by next year, we’d probably have a pick-up truck to bring in the hay and the girls said, “No! It’s much more fun doing it this way!”

Life Lesson: Make the Most of What You’ve Got!

Spirit

2011-01-15T06:00:00.037-07:00

Once we became official owners of our first horse, Belle, we knew we would have to get her a companion. Horses are a social species and don't do well alone. Besides, the plan was eventually for us each to have our own horse on the farm, so we might as well start by finding one for my youngest daughter, Molly, that would be a pasture mate to our aging mare. Molly was just about to turn 6 and loved the idea of horses, but so far hadn't expressed much interest in actually riding them. I didn't want to make a huge investment in a big horse that she may or may not ride in the long run. Plus, I wanted something small and accessible for her. A little Shetland Pony seemed like just the thing at this stage, so I set out to search for one using my favorite horse search site, Dreamhorse.com.

It turned out that friendly, trained small ponies were relatively hard to come by. Maybe it was because "friendly pony" is somewhat of an oxymoron. Many ponies can actually be quite nasty and the good ones - well, they tend to stay where they are. Luckily, I found a little pinto Shetland cross for sale that was being used as a carousel pony and in a petting zoo at birthday parties. After meeting him we decided he would be a good fit for our current situation. His name was Spirit and although he didn't know a whole lot, he seemed to have a sweet temperament and the price was right. So, on the day we were ready to move Belle to our new farm, my friend brought her truck and trailer to pick up both Belle and Spirit and we brought them to the farm in early June. When we loaded Spirit into the trailer next to Belle, he gave her a little nip on the leg, she kicked him and that was that - they had an understanding!

Spirit seemed to idolize Belle and followed her everywhere she went as they both became familiar and comfortable with their new setting. Belle accepted him in that kind of, "you sort of annoy me but you're all I've got" kind of way, but made it clear that the you-bite-me-I-bite-you game that Spirit thought was so much fun was out of the question. Molly was overjoyed when she first got to meet Spirit on the morning of her 6th birthday and had fun grooming him and being led around in the arena. But once she discovered riding the big horses, her interest in riding the pony waned. As sweet as he was, he was also a little mischievious and nippy, and his fast-paced, bouncy trot wasn't nearly as easy to ride as that of the longer legged, well mannered older horses. So by the end of the first summer, Spirit was mainly a pasture ornament and friend to Belle.

Over the next few years, we tried to find a role for Spirit in a number of different ways. He gave lead line rides to the little kids who came to our farm programs but was somewhat unpredictable and a little jumpy so eventually I found it easier to just use the big horses. I got the idea of training him to be a cart pony, but as we got busier with more animals, I found I just didn't have the time to commit to a regular training schedule so that never happend. He was and still is the right size for the littlest kids to groom, but being brushed and braided every now and then doesn't seem like much of a job. So, while he was a cute little guy who was fun to watch with the other horses as he tried to get them to play with him, I just wasn't sure what his real purpose on our farm was.

That was, until my neighbor and dear friend, Mindy rescued an older Clydesdale mare. Now Mindy is a gem. She's an amazing body worker, a true earth goddess and above all, an animal angel. She nurtures every animal that crosses her path better than anyone I know. In fact, if I was an animal, the only place I would rather live than at Briar Gate Farm is with Mindy. And I have been lucky enough over the past couple of years to have her as one of my main farm sitters when we travel and need someone to take care of all our critters. So when she got this older mare, Claudette, I asked her what she was going to do about a companion for her. She considered getting another horse but didn't feel like she wanted to make the longer-term commitment of having two. Naturally, I had just the solution for her - a cute, friendly little pony I knew that really needed a job!

I took Spirit down to Mindy's one afternoon and turned him out into the pasture with Claudette. Much like his initial meeting with Belle, he trotted right out to her, gave her a little nip, she turned and gave him a little kick, and from then on it was true love! Now Mindy comes to get Spirit every morning after Claudette has finished her morning feed and nap, and they spend the day together in her pasture. Then at the end of the day, Mindy brings Spirit back home where he joyfully reunites with the herd he has come to love here. Not only is this a great solution for Mindy's shorter-term companionship needs for Claudette, Spirit seems to have matured and is easier to catch and lead now that he is handled a little bit every day. It has truely been a win-win situation.

Life Lesson: Everyone has a Calling

Belle

2011-01-08T06:00:00.012-07:00

My oldest daughter, Megan, went through a number of animal-crazy stages when she was little. During preschool she was her school's resident dinosaur expert, which then morphed into a dragon passion by kindergarten. The next logical step was a love of unicorns, and of course that could only lead to one thing...horse infatuation. About this time, the animated movie, Spirit, came out and I enthusiastically accompanied my young daughters to view it on the big screen. Well, that was it - we were all hooked!

Recoginizing that this might just be my ticket back into the equine world, I agreed to sign Megan up for a few riding lessons when she was seven years old. We found a good local instructor and got started. She loved the lessons and took to it quickly, but after a few months I couldn't help but think, "I could teach her all that if we had our own horse"! Now, knowing what the long-term responsibilities of horse ownership entail, I decided it might be best to start with a lease and see where this took us before making a bigger commitment. Enter Belle.

A friend saw a flyer at her daughter's elementary school for a partial lease on an older Quarter Horse mare named Belle. For just $100 a month, we could visit Belle's Boulder stable, groom her, ride her, and love her 3 days a week while the current owner fed her, cleaned her stall and continued paying all the other bills. Sounded like a great next step on our equine journey. We signed on and for the next year or so, enjoyed establishing a relationship with Belle with a minimal time, money and energy commitment. It was perfect.

But good things rarely last, and so when the day came that the owner announced they were moving to Ft. Collins and taking Belle with them, I wasn't too surprised. I offered to buy Belle from them, but she wasn't for sale and so we sadly said goodbye with the understanding that we could visit her any time we wanted to. We did make the drive up to see her several times over the next year, while we continued to look for another lease horse for Megan. But Belle was a tough act to follow and we couldn't find a horse or stable that felt as right as our situation with her had.

About this time, my husband and I were weighing the idea of making this major move to a small farm. We'd gone back and forth for months, but it had finally just clicked that it was now or never. We had found a small property of interest and had decided to make a verbal offer on it one chilly January day. That very same day, I got a call from Belle's owner with the news that his family was finding it hard to make time for her and if I was interested, they'd like to just give her to us! Call it fate, kismet, destiny...we knew we were on the right track.

The offer we made on the initial property didn't go through, but it was the step we needed to take to know we were now committed. Within a month, we had found another suitable property and had a contract in place. We weren't going to move until June so that the girls could finish out the school year where they were, so we had to find a local boarding stable for Belle until we could move her to our own farm. It took a couple of months to get everything set, but finally in early April, we hired a horse transporter and went up to get her.

It was a humbling sight when we arrived at her boarding stable. The once shiny, plump black mare was noticeably thinner and her coat was dull and badly in need of brushing. She's been in a group feeding situation and had been pushed around by the younger, more dominant horses, so had dropped quite a bit of weight and was obviously in need of some serious TLC. What seemed like an amazing gift horse soon felt more like a horse rescue.

But thanks to lots of good senior grain and alfalfa hay along with daily nurturing visits and grooming, Belle soon got back to her sleek, healthy weight and the softness of her kind eye returned. Then and there, we made the commitment to her that she would live out her twighlight years in peace and harmony in her new forever home at our very own farm. As she approches her 27th birthday, she is doing just that.

Life Lesson: Some Things are Just Meant to Be

New Year - New Blog!

2011-01-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

Where it all started

2011-01-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'd wanted to live on a farm since I was seven years old. That's when I fell off my first horse during a public trail ride in Indiana and strangely, simultaneously fell in love with the big, four-legged creatures. Since that day, I'd yearned for a farm of my own - not just for horses, but for animals of all sorts and sizes.

Throughout my childhood, I managed to talk my parents into a large array of pets including dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters and yes, even a horse. And I was lucky enough to live on a small farm with my horse briefly during college in Virginia. But soon after graduation, I found myself not only farmless, but horseless as well after my horse's unexpected and untimely death.

During the next 15 years of job searches, courtship and marriage, graduate school and the birth of my two daughters, I always felt a longing for country life that couldn't be quelled. No matter how I rationalized it away as impractical, illogical, impossible, unattainable, the dream just wouldn't die.

Finally, in 2005, I acknowledged that this was something I needed to do or I'd always regret it. By then my girls were 6 and 9 and the thought of them growing up in our comfortable but tightly packed suburban subdivision left me feeling restless and unfulfilled. So, with the understanding support of my kind husband and the enthusiastic encouragement of my two by-then horse crazy daughters, our family set out on a new adventure as small-farm owners and rural life enthusiasts.

Now after 5 years, 4 horses, 1 pony, 8 goats, 1 llama, 5 cats, 14 hens, 2 roosters, 2 ducks and 1 dog, I've decided to share my passion for this satisfying lifestyle and the numerous things it has taught me by creating this blog. My goal is to share weekly stories with readers about how the critters (and a few crops) we've raised have provided not only enjoyment, recreation, new skills and more than a few aches and pains, but also valuable, meaningful life lessons along the way.

So sit back, relax and join me for these stories of fun, foibles, feasting and family on the farm.

LIFE LESSON: Listen to your Heart - Dare to Dream!