Ideas

Last night I cam home from a weekend of working out at the ranch with a half gallon of fresh goats milk, a carton of 18 eggs, and a lot of ideas.

A few weeks ago I ran across a web site that has really stuck with me. Unfortunately I didn't save the link and now it has disappeared into the vast landscape of the internet. It was talking about what you need to do and know before you decide to start a farm. It talked about practical matters of knowing what your land, mineral, and water rights are before you buy a property, and it talked about the biggest pitfall being people buying a farm for it's idealism without knowing first what they are going to produce.

I've been wracking my brain ever since. There's been a lot of talk among the group of running a dairy. We've considered livestock for meat. We've looked into harvesting fiber, but the take on that everywhere I've read is that it's a tough sell. You have to produce a huge quantity before you can make any kind of a meager living on it.

Bryan grew up a wheat farmer, and Brandie grew up a cattle rancher - so there is a lot of practical experience in the group as far as dealing with machinery, animal husbandry, planting, growing, harvesting... You name it and these two seem to pull information out of their brains in a deluge. I'm always so delighted when Bryan starts spouting off information like an old-time almanac. Early last fall I commented that the locusts were singing in the city. Without missing a beat or taking a breath he replied that the first frost would be in about 6 weeks. I didn't have the wherewithal to mark it on the calendar, but I'm sure he was right.

This weekend my body started waking up to the fact that it is spring. We rose early to milk the two goats that have freshened, fed the little guy, ran errands in town, and cleaned the corral hauling tons of horse manure to the compost piled in the garden. The sun was shining and with temperatures in the 60's I bared my shoulders in appreciation and was paid with a wicked sunburn. This is a ritual I'm familiar with. I just don't usually get my first sun of the season in March. We finished up the day building a dresser/desk for their 8 year old daughter out of discarded water bed parts. We filled our bellies at dinner with no guilt for the calories. We'd burned our fair share in the work of the day, and after making a half gallon of milk replacer I moved on to the late evening feeding of the little guy before sleep came fast and hard.

The weather turned chilly on Sunday. I had help with the early morning feeding of the little guy and we headed out to milk goats again. The hard sleep was still heavy on our heads and Maggie eventually grew tired of my in-experienced tugging. Bryan took over and while trying to get the last dribbles from her she decided she'd had enough and stuck her foot in the bucket.

After some expletives we released the babies to their mother's milk and headed inside where I was given my first lesson in pasteurization. They heated the milk to 161 degrees in order to make the milk safe for consumption. They only do this when they get a foot in the bucket. The rest of the time we just filter it and refrigerate.

With a spring chill unwilling to lift and the urge in our bodies to move, the spring cleaning bug bit into us and we scrubbed the kitchen down. In the middle of this, and I'm sure spurred on by the foot-in-bucket incident, Bryan took a break from cleaning to go fix the milking stand.

While many missions were accomplished - we unfortunately did not get around to starting the dig for the cistern. Perhaps next weekend the weather will hold long enough to get through more of the work at hand. Still with my skin stinging from the sun, my finger cut, and a splinter embedded deep in my hand - my body is glad of the warmth and the movement and the productivity.

After getting home last night, though, I discovered quickly that I miss the crying of the little guy, the warmth of his body in my arms, and the sound of his quick breathing in my ear. I miss the way he would find me in the kitchen and try to nurse on the leg of my blue jeans telling me he was ready for another bottle, and his antics as he leaps and pronks about slowly but proudly conquering more of the living room furniture.

On returning home last night the room-mate pulled out a movie he had found and thought I would enjoy, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John". I thought it was going to be a theatrical account from the write-up, but it turned out to be a documentary of one man with unusual ideas trying to save his family farm, succeeding, failing, and succeeding again. Repeat as needed I suppose to get the full picture. I laughed and cried. I was delighted with his efforts, and then horrified at the obstacles pitted against him. I highly recommend watching it if you've got any bit of freak inside you that seems all too entwined with the love of dirt between your fingers.