I'm sitting in my husband's recliner nursing a mildly work bruised body while I sip coffee and watch clumps of snow smack the windowsill from our eaveless trailer house roof.
It's cathartic.
Or is it?
Seeing sunshine.
So foreign.
Seeing the snow melt, even if it's just for a couple hours before the freeze creeps back in.
I've been working 12 hr night shifts this week, so the sun feels unreal. I might as well be in a fairytale dream in this moment.
Noise, dust, grease, ice-on-every-surface, snow whipping into my mouth and down the back of my neck whenever a task calls me outside, steam so thick you can't see, the bone-grinding crunch-squeal of machinery, my coworkers’ tired voices echoing and crackling over the radio… that's my reality. Not warmth. Not sunshine.
This might sound depressing and dystopian, I suppose, but that's just winter here in the Northland when there's bills to be paid and many mouths to feed.
Still, right now, right here, the sun is filling my bones with warmth, and I feel a bit of my inner self thawing. Spring is many weeks away, yet winter is losing its grasp.
Reluctantly.
Like prying a soggy dog biscuit from a toddler’s iron-gripped fist.
"I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring than we were in September. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December."
-Oliver Herford
"Soil pickin' and livin' off the land."
A little side rant.
I've brought this up before, but I don't know what to call what we do anymore, truthfully. It's not a farm because we don't profit off of what we grow and raise. I have been told so many times by “real farmers” that we are NOT farmers. Ok, fine, we don't have a farm.
Lately, farmers in the social media sphere have also begun claiming the title of “Homestead” as theirs as well, and have taken over online homesteading forum discussions, naming themselves the authority on nearly every subject. Apparently, one also can not “homestead” without making an income from their endeavors either. The homestead, according to some, is now just the central hub for the greater farm. So not a homesteader either? What are we, survivalists? Not exactly, we're thriving. Subsistence farmers? Soil pickers?
When my youngest daughter was just learning to piece together thoughts and reason, she asked a question and made a statement while gardening that I haven't ever forgotten:
C: "Mom is the earf's skin the soil?"
Me: "Yep. It covers the earth."
C: "Then why are we always pickin' at it? Just pick, pick, pick like scabs."
I know. I need to just drop the whole idea of needing to categorize what we do. It's an old, worn out shoe of a discussion and no one cares, really. We're just living off the land and that's good enough. But the dark and cold is still deep in my bones, and like the Grumpy old Men, I gotta have something to whine about. There's a quote by Tom Allen that goes, "Winter forms our character and brings out our best." But I often find myself in the frame of mind of Max Goldman when he said, "Do me a favor. Put your lip over your head and swallow." I'm sure there's a way to balance those 2 quotes on a scale to form a somewhat reasonable mind frame, and not erratic mood swings.
Whatever it is that we do, we are well nourished from our work. We started winter with 2 freezers packed full of veggies and protein, and a pantry shelf loaded with potatoes and squash. Our egg cartons haven't been empty even one day. Our earth pickin' has made healthy nourishment a daily option, and for that, I am extremely grateful!
The Herd
(Content warning: talk of butchering and a photo of dressed carcasses.)
I haven't written about the herd for a while. I think it's definitely time for an update.
Last fall, the great cull happened. We said goodbye to over 30 head of goats. All but 4 were put to use feeding our family and Pack. 200 lbs of smoked sausage stocked our freezer, and many bags of roasts and sliced jerky meat too.
I was going to write something deeply touching and expressively endearing about the symbiosis of their contribution to this homegrown "not-a-farm" subsistence endeavor, but I ran out of steam right around the time I made my last 2 gallons of tomato sauce, and parted out the last neck roast for the freezer. I burnt out, mentally and emotionally by November, and just didn't feel like writing any longer, so I took a break. I'm sure my email-only subscribers have noticed!
Even with as many goats that became part of our diet, we still didn't cull the number of does we had planned to. My original plan was to cut our doe herd down to 12 total. I KNEW that was going to be hard. And then as we began sorting through the herd, hands on, health checking and evaluating, I realized how big of a waste it was to cull out so many perfectly great does. Beautiful goats that checked most of my boxes. So 20 head went into the breeding pens instead of 12, and 4 doelings were also retained to grow the herd.
The retained doelings are from my 2 favorite maternal lines: "The Aunts" and the "Celestial Gals." Doris, Eloise, Cassiopeia, and Ursa.
"The Aunts" all have old-fashioned names. The line was started from a doeling we purchased years ago named Millie. She was a Boer/Nubian cross. With a wonderful sweet temperament, and big rangy body, she won us over as a herd favorite. Unfortunately she was not the most maternal and her udder had poor attachment. 4 generations of outcrossing later, the granddaughters are perfect for our herd. Maternal, good feet, great build, fantastic udders. Priceless.
Millie was our first and only loss to a coyote attack, and it still hurts to think of how she suffered. I won't go into detail, as it still makes me sick to think about. She suffered for hours without us knowing, and it was a very harsh reminder that survival is a cruel beast. Naturalists will sometimes tell you that cruelty and barbarianism isn't a concept in the natural world, but my very human coded heart disagrees. To attack a living creature and leave it to suffer without even putting the loss of life to use is pointless and cruel. It was likely a young coyote learning how to hunt, so I understand the "why." I just wish the wiser pack members had been there to show how him how to properly finish the job. I don't fault wild animals for needing to eat, but that's also why we maintain a diverse wild side to our land and don't hunt the wild game. They have a lot of options and usually don't even bother with our herds.
The "Celestial Gals" line came from the most crotchety, broken down old goat we've ever had in our herd in her last years. When we purchased her, she was named "Murder on the Dance Floor," her personality matched the name well. We shortened that name to Luna, and the Celestial line began.
Luna gave birth to the most beautiful doelings who had strong maternal instincts, but unfortunately carried her weaker pasterns. 4 generations of selective outcrossing later, we have better built does who are much nicer to handle, but still carry Luna's good qualities. In winter, they carry their matriarch's coat with long, thick cashmere curling out from under colorful guard hairs. Their horns are a distinctive outward and upward curved shape that makes them easy to catch. Matriarchal treasures that bless this herd.
Our buck pen was reduced by one. Our homegrown buck, Hopper, is the second ever live breeding buck to leave our place. (The first is a working buck at my brother's goat farm in Northwestern North Dakota.) Hopper is a well-built beast that's wild as a fox flea, and I hear he's very happy in his new herd. I'm so happy he was able to find a job since he was too closely related to our entire herd to even use any longer. We did use him last year and it was obvious that some of the offspring were too inbred. A mistake I don't want to make again.
Blue and three Kiko/Boer bucklings remain here. I purchased the trio with the intent of growing them out to see which one has the best build and temperament and cull the two that fell short, yet all three are still here. They're just too nice to make a decision! So our buck herd is currently at four despite me intending to only have two. I will have to make a decision this year because all three have the same sire.
Our doe herd is due to kid beginning of April, and that is coming up so fast! They are all maintaining great condition on meadow hay, minerals and protein tub.
I can't wait to see our new crop of kids! It's always so exciting to see what new bucks throw as far as color, size, and conformation.
The Fluffle
Our rabbitry is currently booming. After a pretty long break with no kits born, I was getting pretty discouraged. Our Champagne D'Argent buck got sick with pneumonia, and we ended up putting him down as he was losing condition fast. I love Champagne rabbits. But getting back into them has proven to be expensive and not as easy as I found it to be 10 yrs ago. Our entire rabbitry is now all mixed meat breeds that are full of color, attitude, and fast growth. Good enough for our needs.
The mixed breed silver martin buck I had purchased as a weanling over last summer finally became interested in his intended job designation, and successfully fathered a rabbitry loaded full of gorgeous tricolor, silver martin, and magpie coated kits. I'm over the moon excited, because this year is the one where we really need to retain some doe kits to replace aging breeding stock. Our pack of dogs will be eating good again soon too with all the growouts that don't make the save list. It feels so rewarding to finally have success in the rabbitry again!
I do credit some of this success with the white greenhouse plastic we put on the hoop house last fall. It has brightened their living quarters up so much, and they've been much more willing to breed. I suspect light access has to do with ovulation in rabbits much the same as chickens.
I need to add, I am so proud of how amazing our rabbit does are. Many gave birth in -20°f temperatures, and it dipped down to -50°f several days after. They packed their nests full of fur and kept those kits covered tightly with straw and hay over the fur, and all was packed firmly down. The only sign of life was a steady stream of breathy steam coming out the tops of the nest boxes. We didn't disturb nests on those cold days, so the kits had the best chances of staying warm. We didn't lose a single kit. Simply amazing! Harmonia, a first time mama, did just as well as our 3+ yr old experienced does. She has definitely earned a long-standing spot in the rabbitry.
Soil
Gardening plans are currently underway. They are big plans. Too big, as always. I have exciting things happening and I can't wait to share! That will be a series of upcoming posts as I lay out my gardening plans and grow lists. Stay tuned for that!
As February closes and March begins, I wish you all the best seed starting and perhaps the beginning of the best lambing/calving/kidding season ever on this side of the hemisphere. Even with the March (and April) blizzards that are sure to come, spring is on the horizon. The anticipation is a beautiful thing.
"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?"
-J.R.R. Tolkien
