Another Hot Afternoon

Sitting in the shade of a shag bark hickory, LaLa and JoJo, our geese, enjoy the coolness of the earth in the spot they've selected. Busy farm hands, they've been contributing to the decomposition of the compost pile for their selected spot was once our manure pile. Likely with the chickens' help, they've scattered the pile, turned and aerated it, then scattered the pile again. Now, instead of a hot manure pile, they have an expanse of cool earth on which to rest their tail feathers as they while away another hot afternoon.

Behind them the horses feast on a fresh bale of hay. They're likely wondering when they'll be loosed to roam the front pastures again. Soon, I tell them. As soon as the work men have completed the installation of this second batch of automatic waterers, then the horses and goats will be free to roam and graze on fresh greens, and not have to settle for the dried out hay I have to offer them in captivity.

With all this heat, the evening was bound to bring showers. We sat on the porch for a bit as the dusk settled, listening to the falling rain, enjoying the show put on by fireflies flirting all across our little hillside.

Hot Weather

The days have been steadily hot for at least a couple of weeks now. Temperatures in the nineties are the daytime norm and low 100's are not unusual. The humidity provides the greatest challenge, though, because one can hardly stand outside and breathe without working up a healthy sweat.

We are thankful to have three automatic waterers installed and three more nearly completed. Now the animals are not dependent upon our trudging up the hill with a hose or buckets to get fresh water. Most of them can get to a fresher water source in their general travels. This is important as they all suffer under the stress of hot weather.

Staying hydrated is a challenge for people, too. I seem to be forever stopping to chug down glasses of water or sports drinks, only to have to stop again in just a few minutes. So long as the sweat runs heavily, I know that I'm okay. The cessation of sweating is a danger sign that one is already dehydrated. Feeling chilled when the thermometer reads 102 degrees Fahrenheit is another.

Miss Mary, her caprine companions, and the canines, equines, and camelids of the farm all hang out in shady areas when they can find them. The photo shows little Miss Mary--all of five months old now--lording it over the rest of us from the top of a woodpile beneath the tree canopy. No flies on that gal, she knows how to take care of herself.

The Highest Compliment

Moving to Middle Tennessee provided us with opportunities I had long imagined were out of reach during this lifetime. In my youth I enjoyed animals and the outdoors, but did not foresee returning to the land at Massachusetts prices. When the opportunity to move to a warmer climate arose, a place where greenery is the norm and city dwellers live in houses with yards (as opposed to high-rise apartment buildings), a place close to my in-laws I came looking for a home in Tennessee. That we landed in Wilson County, outside of Nashville in Middle Tennessee was a blessing, one whose gifts have continued to shower upon us every day we're here.

We chose a small farmstead on a hillside, perched high above any possible flood waters and situated such that we envisioned ourselves remaining ambulatory well into our golden years. If nothing else, the quarter-mile stroll down to the mailbox and back each day ought to help keep us moving. The additions of free ranging hens and farm-fresh eggs, and later of dairy goats and fresh milk, plus not only space to grow our own food but a plethora of farmer's markets scattered around to provide fresh food were the proverbial icing on the cake.

A schoolteacher without a classroom and having friends who wanted to know how we were faring, I took a former student's parent's suggestion and started this blog. She said it would be a good way for former students to keep up with me, and while I was not sure any of my former students would want to be tracking their middle school English teacher, I understood a blog would provide me opportunity to document our changing lives.

Early on I learned that blogs require illustration and I started taking pictures to post. Somewhere along the line the photos moved from the blog and onto various items courtesy of Vistaprint. Now we're entering the next phase by taking some of those products to market. We've joined forces with the Fiddler's Grove Historical Village in Lebanon, located at the James E. Ward Agricultural Center and on the Wilson County Fairgrounds in time for their Founders' Day celebration this coming weekend. Folks who stop into the General Store on Founders' Day can find two of our regular postcards, two oversize postcards, and a half-dozen note cards sporting images either of our farm or views from it, and tailored to acknowledge Fiddler's Grove and Wilson County along with our farm. Soon there will be a couple of our mugs on their shelves as well.

Now, to get to the point of this diatribe, in the process of teaming up with Fiddler's Grove I was paid the highest compliment. When the Fiddler's Grove curator was showing samples of our products to her board members in a meeting, I'm told that one of the viewers exclaimed, "I want her life!"

Thank you, ma'am. I cannot imagine a higher compliment.

I'm a Soft Touch

I'm a soft touch. There's no other way to explain it. After vowing to give the does a rest and agreeing to back off using Old Blue Eyes so much, I crumbled at the first sign of goat love. Okay, maybe it was the second sign.

For a good couple of weeks now the little bucklings, those born this year, have been becoming increasingly sexual. Snorting, grunting, and chasing any caprine with four legs--usually female, although thankfully Evelyn seems to have remained exempt--these boys are trying to be bucks. I need to finish a separate enclosure for them, but between one thing and another getting fencing jobs completed is slow. Too slow. Some automatic waterers are in and functioning now, so it's time to call back the fencing crew and to lay in a store of cattle panels so that I can create temporary fences with ease. (More on why I'm not just planning to use hot wires for that job later.)

Last year I vowed to beat the rutting season by separating the sexes before the fall. I aimed for September, but it seems that Bully got a few gals bred before I'd finished the separation process--Thumbelina, Gwen, and Jennifer. This year it isn't even officially summer yet and it has already started. The flirting by does and the bucks' application of their favorite oh-so-very-sexy cologne. If you're a goat, that is.

A couple of days back I caught Gwen mooning about alongside the fence to the boys' pasture. BullyBob was snuggled up against the fence on his side of the pasture. "You can't be serious," I said to Gwen. But she, in typical goat fashion, ignored my outburst.

Then yesterday they were mooning over one another again. In earnest. And so I, soft touch that I am, granted them a Saturday night date night. After all, Mary's hardly nursing now--if at all, and November is still warm enough to be safe for kidding. Although it would be nice to breed a line of dwarf fainters, I'm not sure that using this particular dwarf buck will be the key because Mary is tall like her dam; however, it's with that thought in mind that I granted them a date in the alpaca gals' pasture for the night.

By this morning they had stopped mooning over one another, so perhaps the urge has passed, or been satisfied, or both. This week I will sequester all of the bucks into one pasture and be done with them for a time. Then perhaps we'll hold a buckling sale. Anyone in the market for a blue-eyed Nigerian Dwarf buck of almost any color, or for a fainter buck or a fainter x Nigerian Dwarf cross buck--we're the farm for you.

Firefly Photography

"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug," Samuel Clemons (aka Mark Twain). I love this quote for a number of reasons. Although I first encountered it as a writer, and so appreciated the nuance it contains, I later exploited it as a teacher when my eighth-grade students were challenged to communicate an unlikely quote using the manual alphabet. The repetition within the quote helped students achieve success and gave all of us charged with transcribing the quote a sense of satisfaction for a job well done. Today, though, I come to the quote from a different direction.


Ever since the year heated up in April, we've been graced with the presence of dozens, nay hundreds, of fireflies dancing about the fields, forests, and ditches each day as the shadows lengthen. These feisty bugs don't even wait until dusk to appear, rather they begin to populate the woodsy edges of our fields before the sun has really even thought about setting for the day.

Today the quote comes to me simply because I've accomplished what had heretofore eluded me: photographing fireflies. When a dear friend was returning to Silicon Valley early last summer the challenge was made: could we capture her beloved fireflies with photography so that she could take them along with her? Until last night ... 

Sometimes I am technologically challenged, and at other times technology makes sense. Last night I finally figured out how to turn off the automatic flash on my camera, and voila! Firefly photos!

I wonder what tomorrow's revelation will be...

Winged Visitors

I had the pleasure of visiting another Master Gardener's farm the other day. Barbara's artfully-designed garden is flourishing under the watchful gaze of this year's scarecrow. Touring the well-tended patch of earth awoke the gardening bug in me and I'm eager to see Phyllis's garden get underway this year. So far I've only tended our container garden, and worked at starting some flower beds along the driveway, but the time to plant is nigh and the seeds I started on the porch are clambering for larger spaces of their own.

In Barbara's garden I was struck by the onion blossom (actually, I believe she said it was a leek). I do enjoy blossoms serving winged pollinators, but prefer bees and butterflies to the common flies we saw crowding over this blossom.

My prejudices show clearly when the view of flies swarming a blossom awakens a feeling of revulsion in my throat. They're creatures just like the rest of us, but I see them as filthy pests. Go figure: the view of chickens scratching in manure gives me pleasure, knowing they're foraging for feed, but the sight of flies on a pristine flower blossom gives me the shivers.

The last of the house-hatched chicks is off the porch this week. They settled happily into their new enclosure atop the grass out front. (The presence of not-so-old piles of horse manure scattered about made their new home all the more attractive.) Building a sturdier enclosure for them, one with protection across the top is high on my endless list of projects. It's right up there with fencing enclosures around the new waterers than will allow alpacas, horses, and goats to graze down our front field (the neighbors have lawns, but our front stretch serves the animals--both domestic and wild--that grace our land) without wandering into areas where they're unwanted.

When I first caught sight of LaLa-the-goose's absence of long wing feathers the other day, I thought she had tangled with one of the puppies (who will be a year old later this month). However, another explanation occurred to me eventually: the geese are molting. I collect some of the sturdier feathers as I encounter them; perhaps they'll be useful as quill pens (without ink) when we volunteer as school teachers in the Fiddlers Grove Historic Village one-room school houses on Founders Day. As small as the Wheeler School and Fiddlers Grove School buildings are, I'm sure there will be room for a few goose feathers! I'll talk to the Fiddlers Grove curator; she may have some inkwells we could put in the classrooms.

A word about the myriad of butterflies gracing our fields and forests will serve to conclude today's meandering musings. The delicate creatures make the world their home, landing on buildings, plants, even people whenever they so choose, then stopping to taste their host or to spread their wings. To me, their presence provides opportunities to slow down a bit, to see the world in their time and to appreciate the beauty of our great, green earth.

Local readers, when you're at the Wilson County Fairgrounds & James E. Ward Agricultural Center, be sure to stop in the Fiddlers Grove General Store for note cards, postcards, and coffee mugs born here on P&CW Organic Farm! They'll be in stock in time for Founder's Day and your purchases will help to fund the Fiddlers Grove Historic Village as well as to feed our animals. Y'all come by now, hear?

Dere's a 'Paca in da Pool!

Keeping cool in summer is a challenge. I come indoors at day's end with clothing that can literally be wrung out. It must be far worse for the heavily-fleeced alpacas, animals bred and raised high in the cool reaches of the Andes mountains. Sure, we took them for shearing in April, but still they droop in the hot, humid air.

The kiddie pools have been in the alpaca pastures for a couple of weeks now and only Goldie Rose (shown) and Hamilton have taken to lying in them. Van, our other adult female, will step into the pool to be hosed down but won't snuggle into the cool wetness pooling about her feet. (For those who wonder, all that muddy water visible in the pool came directly from Goldie's knees and legs. Her light coat not only shows the dirt better, it seems to hold an inordinate amount of the stuff when compared to the other alpacas.)

Of the males, usually Gregs or Shaun like to lie in the mud when the hose is on, but neither has taken to the pool. So far only Hamilton, the black unintact male, has become eager to clamber into the pool when he sees the hose coming, then to cush (that's the word for the way camelids settle themselves down atop their folded legs). He looks quite pleased when he gets the pool to himself without any competition.

Although LaLa, the female goose who has been staying in the pastures with the camelids, will eye the water (as she's doing in the photo with Goldie), so far she has not tried chasing an alpaca out of the pool. Later on the floating feathers will speak of her having had playtime, but I'm glad such time is not at the alpacas' expense.

Worthy of note: LaLa has abandoned the three eggs in her nest. I've not seen her setting atop them for many days; however, she has also made no attempt to hop the fence to join JoJo--the gander who's lording it over the fowl down by the house. The pair drifts to one another along the fence, but seem quite content to remain separated by the sagging woven wire of the old home-pasture fence.

Hay Again

Haying season has arrived again. When I spoke with our neighbor across the way to tell him how gratifying it is to look out over his pastures each day and to watch him laboring with the harvest, he was glad that someone got pleasure out of his labors. I had actually gone over to share a few of the farm note cards and postcards we've been creating here, since some include views of his land and labors.

Now that his cows are off the hayfield for the season, we watch them moving about in the fields beyond the hayfield. Although more distant, they still feel very much the close neighbors.

Some of the wild weather we've had in May and now in June has been just as entertaining. One evening driving home from enumerating for the 2010 Census in Rutherford County, I felt like I spent more time watching the sky than the road because low-hanging clouds were beginning to churn into a funnel and I had every hope of outrunning any chance of landing in Kansas before reaching home. I do love the winds, clouds, and driving rains. And the portraits drawn across the sky give me great pleasure to watch.

The sky is so big here. She's an ocean unto herself with a colorful pallet of paints at hand to portray her moods. I feel blessed to have such a prime seat for her many shows.

My Beak, Your Muzzle

JoJo the gander makes it his business to snap at as many animals as he can catch in any given day. Young puppies or kids submit in fear under his attacks. Older ones are less fearful, although JoJo has been known to "ride" adult goats or dogs as he chases them.

Oddly enough Ms. Kathleen, who is just shy of a year old, seems to have taken a shine to JoJo's attentions. Rather than seeing the attacks as malicious, she seems to view them as acceptable attention of a sort. Perhaps she even accepts his nips as a form of scratching.

Whatever she's thinking, I'm amused to watch them meet across a fence. Kathleen comes smiling to the barrier on her side. JoJo stalks up, neck outstretched, to the panel through which he can walk when he so chooses. The dog lies down and places her head within the gander's easy reach. When he reaches in to nibble, she seems pleased to receive the attention.

I still have not quite figured out this strange relationship; however, the two animals seem quite content with their odd arrangement. Stranger things have happened, I am sure.

In Honor of Sweet Pea

 Although felines get little attention in these blog posts, their presence around the farm gives us pleasure nonetheless. One of the cats to grace our yard was a visitor from next door, a fluffy, one-eyed cat named Sweet Pea. On occasion I might encounter him somewhere around the front or side of the house, heading busily for some definite destination, lurking in the grass, or just lazing in the sun. 

 After Annabelle and Barney arrived to become our official barn cats, and once they got settled in, we believe that Barney as Sweet Pea tangled a time or two. Barney certainly came home with his sleek, black coat thinned in places. When our neighbor Theresa reported that Sweet Pea had been fighting, we figured out that Sweet Pea was most likely Barney's adversary in the yard.

Sadly, this morning Theresa found Sweet Pea dead beside her driveway. He appeared to have been poised for attack; he did not go down without a fight. We're hoping that Barney is not to blame, but Theresa did say that Sweet Pea has been unwell, and that he even had an odor of death clinging to him when she last saw him.

So long Sweet Pea. You will be missed. Happy Hunting in Kitty Heaven!

Waiting on Water

June has rolled in wearing a full-length cloak of humidity, buttoned up tight to her chin. Breathing deeply is a challenge. Staying hydrated is a full time job as the sheen of perspiration coats one immediately after stepping outdoors.

Today the mares enjoyed a few bites of green in the enclosure down front, eagerly awaiting the day when the first automatic waterers will be installed and a pasture with an endless water supply is provided for them. Right now they have half of a 55-gallon plastic drum serving as a pasture watering hole, but in this weather it's known to get sucked dry in short order. Then the gals paw at their bucket so that it flips on its side and rolls down the hill...ensuring that they'll have to wait for me to fetch it back to where the hose can reach it before they get more.

The closest automatic watering trough will be installed just a few feet from where the gals were grazing today. This project was begun about a year ago when we had a well drilled to provide fresh water for the farm. Days with heavy equipment driving over the pastures and through the woods resulted in a myriad of ditches until the water lines could be installed and the ditches filled in again. Between time and weather, getting the job done has not been easy. One good rain results in ground boggy enough to trap any of the heavy equipment needed for the job and days must pass before the ground becomes dry enough to work again. Since last summer we've had a mountain of ten Ritchie sheep-and-goat watering troughs awaiting installation. Very soon we hope to have the first three up and running.

The plastic troughs themselves are quite affordable, but the rock (at least six inches thick, if my recollection is right) and the four-inch-thick cement pad required beneath each trough gets costly--especially when the trough will be located on a slope, as most of ours must be. Plus, most of the materials cannot be delivered directly to the sites. The rock, gravel, even cement must get carted to each site by the bucket load. We're lucky to have conscientious, experienced help for this job who not only aim to get the job done with an eye on the long-range cost, but who also are responsible working around the various animals on this farm.

When all is done and even after the bills are all paid, we'll be indebted to Ash Drilling and Bowen Backhoe & Dozer Service for years to come.