I can’t begin to express the change in mood around here after a day of sunny, relatively warm weather! A few friends came over and helped me in the garden, cleaning up my sadly neglected asparagus beds and hauling several back-breaking loads of manure from the barn to the garden. We even got a bed mostly ready for peas (I’ll bring some manure down for it today) and got a decent load of firewood split and in the house. Fantastic! I paid out a few moopons, our farm currency.
Callie and her lamb---the first of the season
The first lamb of the season was born yesterday—a Cotswold/Icelandic cross. She’s delightfully sturdy and vigorous, with beautiful loose curls, and a short tail—no tail docking for her!
It seems like all anybody talks about around here this winter is the weather, which has certainly been noteworthy. Asheville is having, so far, the third snowiest winter on record, and that’s without March weighing in yet. March can be a pretty snowy month around here!
Fortunately, this weekend it’s warming up pretty dramatically—up to the average for this time of year!—and the sun is actually supposed to come out. We have major plans for the nice weather—there is so much to do around here, and we’ve gotten so little done this winter. A couple of different friends have offered to come out and lend a hand on the farm in exchange for moopons, our farm barter dollars.
I would love to get going on some garden projects, but alas, the ground is beyond soggy, so I’m not sure if that can happen! But I’m sure we’ll come up with plenty of projects to keep us all busy.
PAX
All that matters is to be at one with the living God
To be a creature in the house of the God of Life.
Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the
mistress
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.
Sleeping on the hearth of the living world,
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of a master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.
– by D.H. Lawrence
A neighbor has taken on the task of organizing a neighborhood seed order from Fedco for the last couple of years, gaining a bit of a discount and cheaper shipping costs for everybody. The seeds have arrived and we’ve needed to get over there and pick them up, but Maude’s situation pretty much eclipsed everything else in our lives for the last couple of weeks. Now that she’s fine again, we’re planning to go and get them this weekend.
I’m looking so forward to messing around with soil and seeds! I saved seed from my Carbon and Great White tomatoes, so I can start those anytime. I decided to not grow Juliets this year, even though they’re about the most reliable canning tomato I’ve grown. I can’t save seeds from them since they’re a hybrid, so I’m trying open pollinated Bellstars (which I used to grow in West Virginia and loved—not sure why I stopped growing them), and Heinz 2653, which in spite of its hi-tech sounding name, is also open pollinated, and determinate, so I’ll hopefully get enough tomatoes all at once to can in decent-size batches.
We’ll start eating salad from the greenhouse in the next couple of weeks—if this had been a normal winter we’d already be harvesting lettuce!
And speaking of normal winters, ED reminded me that last year she and Bernard took the cows, goats and horses on almost daily walks up the mountain to graze in both January and February! That’s hard to imagine—I don’t think they’ve been able to do it once this year. I can’t help but think that the regular exercise is good for the animals, and might have even prevented Maude’s ordeal.
Spring snow
A friend told me yesterday that Madison County has had three full days of school this month (as homeschoolers we’re a little out of that loop). Poor kids are going to be in school way on into the summer!
Even though it’s just as cold and windy as with any of the other snowstorms we’ve had this winter, there’s a different quality about this one—something to do with the angle of the light. Feels like a spring snow.
Maude is walking around—not far, and not for long—but I know that each time she gets up and stands around for a while and lies back down her muscles are getting stronger and her confidence is increasing. We’re still checking on her every three hours, just in case she gets herself in a jam, but as our confidence is increasing, we’re sleeping better in between checks.
It looks like we’ve got another winter storm moving in, and another scheduled for early next week, which will mean March is coming in like a lion. That’s fine with me, as long as we also get the going out like a lamb part!
Beowulf has fit right in with our little pig flock (herd?)—he sleeps at night in the much coveted middle position, and he’s holding his own with Dixie, which is really funny, since he can walk back and forth under her without his back touching her belly!
Our friend Dana lent her love and support to yesterday’s lifting of Maude, and wrote a great blog post about it: It Takes a Village to Raise a Cow
She’s lying back down now, but everything seems to be in good working order—she’s just a little weak to stand on her own for long. We are so relieved! And so thankful for our neighbors.
Maudie in her pretty harness
Maude standing on her own
I haven’t been able to get online for a day or two—another modem bit the dust. We picked up a new one in A’ville yesterday—probably should’ve picked up a few just to keep around.
Maude is still down, but very active—she managed to crawl/scoot the length of the barn aisle yesterday! This is really good, but challenging to manage, as she is in constant danger of getting stuck in corners or under the barn doors, or tangled up in things like the table we keep in the aisle for setting the milking stuff on. So we are checking on her constantly and moving bales of hay around to keep her safe and comfortable. She’s getting lots of treats—carrots and oranges—and lots of attention, so she greets us eagerly whenever we walk in the barn.
Today our friend and neighbor is sewing a sling out of big car-towing straps and nylon fabric, and DH is building a big scaffolding framework thingy, and either this afternoon or tomorrow morning we’re going to pick her up onto her feet and see how that goes.
The best place for Maude updates is this thread on the family cow forum:
http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=911&action=display&thread=29598&page=1
That links to the first page of the thread—go to the last page to see the latest updates.
