Jack-O-Heifer, New Neighbors, and Work (or lack thereof)

I've been in one of those moods lately where I feel like I don't have anything to blog about.  I guess I actually do, though.  We went hiking near Heber for Labor Day.  And we went to the State Fair.  That was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed the agriculture buildings more than I used to.  It was fun to see the goats that people were showing.  Also, the lady that a bunch of our goats are from was there, so it was fun to finally meet her.  We talked with her for quite a while.

Farm News

Our animals are all doing well.  Turkey is getting big.  I wonder how much he will weigh for Thanksgiving.

Daisy lost one of her front teeth.  Poor little girl!  I suspect one of the goats shoved her too hard.  (They're always trying to establish their pecking order.)  We were wondering, will she have a gap in her smile forever???   Do cows have baby teeth???  I finally looked it up.  Cows do have baby teeth.  (GOOD.)  Daisy will grow a new tooth in about a year and a half.

(I kept trying to get a picture of her goofy new smile and she wouldn't cooperate.  So, maybe later.)


New Neighbors

Did I mention we have new neighbors?  Because we do.

A couple days before our old neighbors moved, we were talking to them, and joking about whether the new people realize we have goats.  Our old neighbors said yes, actually, they were excited about the goats.  (They must not have shown the house at 6:30 am when our goats are noisy, I told Jeff.)

They really are excited about our animals, though.  The neighbors have two kids: Peyton (a boy, 10? years old) and Tristen (a girl, 4? years old).  They are adorable, and friendly, and they like us a lot.  We went over to introduce ourselves right after they moved in, and Jeff told them they're welcome to come over any time to visit our animals.

So, they do.

Seriously, the kids hang out in their backyard (by our fence) waiting for me to come outside.  "PEYTON, PEYTON!  THE LADY IS OUT!"  "CAN WE COME OVER?"  "Sure!"

I let them collect eggs with me one of the first times they came over.  I told them they could each take two.  They thought that was a lot of fun.  Peyton has come up with a schedule.  He thinks it is a good idea for them each to collect two eggs once a week.  That's fine.

They like to "help" me milk.  "Okay.  So you normally milk at 7:00?  We'll be outside at 6:55.  Wait for us, okay?"  It's pretty cute.  They come out with me, and I've shown them how to milk, so Peyton always wants to do as much of it as I will let him.  He knows to spray the teats, and wipe them with a goat wipe, and then to spray one squirt of milk not in the bucket.  "Let me do it, okay?  I know how."  Sure.  So I'll milk one side, and Peyton milks the other side, at the same time.  He chatters with me all about how fun it is to have nice neighbors, and about how farm work is like chores--except it is fun.  And he talks to me about how farm food is better than food from the store.  Then when we're finished milking, he likes to come inside and help me filter it.

Jeff thought it was really funny the other day because Peyton had suggested that he could help with the farm work and we could share milk and eggs and meat.  So then we were in filtering the milk and he explained a good way for us to do things:  when we filter the milk, if we get two quart jars, he'll take the one with less in it.  Hahaha!  He wanted to take half of our milk.  "Yeahh, probably not every day, but sometimes you can!"  "Oh, I mean, I know not every day."

So he wanted to try raw milk.  I told him he had to ask his parents.  So they both ran back to their house, and their parents discussed it and decided it was fine, and they came back and I let them take a quart of fresh, warm, raw goat milk back home.  (Labeled, of course.)  The next morning, Peyton told me he didn't really like it.  It tastes really different than store milk.  I asked if he had it cold.  "Halfway cold."  "OH, well you should try it when it is cold.  It tastes a lot better cold!"  So later he did, and now he says he doesn't think he likes store milk anymore because raw milk just tastes better.  Good kid.

He told me he can milk for us when we go on vacation.  It's tempting.  He usually milks about 1/2 of one goat all in all, so I don't think he would actually be strong enough to milk all by himself yet, but maybe next year.  It's cute that he enjoys it so much.

They also help with feeding the animals.  Tristen likes to feed Daisy bottles.  They both like feeding the chickens.

The thing about kids is, they're really funny.  Sometimes I wish I could just do farm chores without "help" (because it takes about 2-3 times as long when they come over), but mostly we just really enjoy having them visit.  They say the funniest things.  Peyton was AMAZED by the door to our garage (from the hallway by our front door).  "I can't believe this," he said, just standing there, staring.  "I've always wanted to see one of these.  It's just like I imagined."  "What?" I asked.  "You have an upside down door!"  "Huh.  I guess I do."  "You never noticed???"  "Well, I hadn't really thought about it." 


Jeff's Job

Jeff got a surprise at work recently.  Not this past Thursday but the week before, Jeff's CEO called him into a conference room---and said Jeff would be taking a six-day furlough, starting that Friday.  They put 80% of their employees on unpaid leave, because they were having financial problems.  Basically, they were receiving investor funds and the last installment was two months overdue.  Jeff asked a lot of prying, hard questions, and left work with the impression that the investor had probably walked.  "Take a vacation!" they told him, but Jeff knew after their conversation that he had pretty much been laid off.

So, the six-day break became a six-day intensive job search.  We were disappointed about the furlough because Jeff really loved his job.  He liked the work environment, and he liked what he was working on.  Too bad. 

This past week, Jeff has been to a bunch of interviews, and he got his first job offer.  He has a few more second interviews at the beginning of next week, and he hopes to make a decision about his next job on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Finally, last night Jeff got a call from the CEO of his company.  We assumed it would be notification that Jeff was laid off, and it basically was.  On the message, the CEO told Jeff that unfortunately they were unable to secure funding, and everyone was going to be on "indefinite furlough" and he understood if Jeff wanted to find a new job, but the CEO hoped that he would still be able to secure funding.

So, I guess that's that.  We are grateful that we are very prepared, and we don't live on the edge; we haven't had to change our spending at all.  So that's a blessing.


Em's Job

I've still been doing a lot of marketing!  My 500 flyers came, and they look SO professional.  I think they turned out really nice.  I sent a bunch last weekend to people who are currently trying to rent their homes.  No response from that yet.  I also talked with a guy who e-mailed me this week about managing his home for him.  I think that one is going to work out.  So, that will be really exciting.

I would love to get busy doing more real estate work and less marketing.  (I think these things just take time.) 

We're gearing up for a couple vacancies--we've gotten notice for two of our properties.  It's kind of bad timing (summer would have been better), but not a big deal. 

I also ordered my second set of postcards for the 273 people.  I think they will arrive on Monday.

I'm participating with the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM), and I love their meetings.  Everyone is very friendly and helpful.


Well, I think that's about it for now!  We're doing well, and we're really happy.

A new heifer, more work, and preparedness blog posts

This week we got a Jersey heifer calf!

I told Jeff I would milk for three months if he would get me a calf.  He agreed.  We named her Daisy, she is eleven days old today, and she is absolutely adorable.  We won't actually get milk for a couple years, but we're still excited to have her.  I bought a halter for her, and we're teaching her to let us lead her, but cows don't really like going where you want them to.  We (okay, I) wanted her so that we can use her milk for cream, butter, and cheese.  Her mom gives 6-7 gallons per day, so Daisy should be a pretty high producer.  When she is full grown she will weigh about 800 lbs.


I've been working on building my property management business.  So far I am not managing much, so I've been working on marketing a lot.  I sent out 273 postcards to people who either bought or tried to sell multifamily housing in Salt Lake county within the last year.  A couple people called from that, but it hasn't resulted in any new management contracts---yet.  I also developed a flyer for other Realtors to give to their clients that are having trouble selling in this economy.  I designed sticky notes (with a message to the Realtors), and once the flyers arrive (probably Tuesday), I will be able to go out to other real estate offices and introduce myself to other Realtors.  I had 500 flyers printed, and I think they are a good direction to head.

Last week started a property management blog.  I am http://thepropertymanager.wordpress.com.  I have other websites, like my name .com and slcpropertymanagement.com, but I don't know how to put a blog on one of those sites (yet) so I figured I might as well start anyway.  The blog only has a few posts so far, because it is new.  I keep checking statistics to see if other people have found it at all, and it never has any views at all.  That's okay!  I'm still excited about it.  These things take time. 


I have also written more emergency preparedness blog posts.

I haven't mentioned this for a while on this blog, so there are a lot of new posts. I finished my series on sprouting, and then I wrote about: HAM radio, storing various types of fuel, food storage for restricted diets, a couple posts about specific eFoods Direct products, and bartering.  Now I am writing a series called "Preparedness Chickens" which is to help people understand how they can start keeping chickens in their backyard, as part of their emergency preparedness and food storage. 

11 April 2011 - Sprouting: How to Choose Seeds
18 April 2011 - Sprouting Supplies
25 April 2011 - Try Sprouting!
2 May 2011 - You'll wish you had a HAM radio!
9 May 2011 - How to get your HAM radio license
16 May 2011 - Storing Gasoline?
23 May 2011 - Storing Propane for an Emergency
30 May 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part I
6 June 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part II
13 June 2011 - Kerosene, White Gas, and Butane
20 June 2011 - Storing Wood or Coal
27 June 2011 - Best. Snack. Ever.
4 July 2011 - eFoods Direct Blueberry Muffins Recipe
11 July 2011 - Bartering in an Emergency
18 July 2011 - Everyday Bartering 
25 July 2011 - Prepare to Create Value in an Emergency
1 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 1
8 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 2
15 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 3
22 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 4
29 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 5

I have three upcoming posts about chickens, and then I will be moving along to another topic.  There has also been a change in the schedule, so now I will be posting every other Monday, instead of every Monday. 


Well, this is about enough for now.  We're doing well.  Please think happy thoughts of me finding properties to manage.  :)

ANOTHER new addition!

Yesterday afternoon, right as I was getting ready to go do an activity with my friend, J called with some exciting news: a bull calf was born! So, my friend and I changed our plans and we went up to go get the calf instead.

We found the place again, and this time I took Chalcy's kennel so the little guy wouldn't have to be hog-tied like our guys last year. We also brought a tarp to cover the kennel so he wouldn't get too much wind or rain or...SNOWSTORM?! Driving back took forever because the freeway was a parking lot. We made it, though.

We decided it would probably be best to put the little guy in the other half of the barn instead of putting him with the goats, because the goats might butt him to establish their pecking order. And actually, that would probably kill him. So I put out some fresh straw, and I carried him out to the barn, and dried him off a little better and left a dry towel on him, to keep him a little warmer.

The guy at the dairy told us this guy is a twin! The cow's ultrasound had shown that she was having a heifer calf. So they had her in their nice, cozy "way to go for having a girl" place where they deliver heifer calves with special treatment (since they keep them and want them to grow up to be strong milk cows). And then she gave birth to our little bull calf instead. The people at the dairy were surprised and disappointed. "I guess the doctor was wrong...but he's never wrong..." the guy said. So this little calf's mama got to relax a bit and they cleaned her up and sent her back out to the muddy fields...where she promptly delivered a heifer calf in the mud. Surprise! Twins!

I think that's why he's so little. He seems really healthy though, so that's good.

He's been trying to learn to stand up. Last night he could get his back legs up but not his front legs. Today he can sometimes get his front legs up and stand for a minute, but I guess it takes some work to get those front legs up after the back legs are up. He kinda leans on his...front elbow things?... for a little bit and then pulls himself up. Standing is tough when you're a brand new baby.

He's also trying to learn to drink milk replacer from a bottle. Not sure why calves are so reluctant to do this. He's not actually trying, even. I'm trying to make him try to learn to drink from a bottle. He puts up a fight while I pry his little calf mouth open and shove the bottle in his mouth, hold his mouth closed, and then reach in the sides of his mouth to try to squeeze the nipple so that he'll taste some milk and figure out the whole sucking thing. He hasn't got it yet. We'll try again later. He'll get the hang of it eventually.

The guy at the dairy says he thinks they may have another bull calf for us in about a week. (We had wanted two.) It's such a drive to go get them, so we'll see if we're up to it. We may just have one guy this year. He can be friends with the goats, anyway, so he won't be alone like a single calf would have been last year.

We got our meat back!

This Thursday I drove down to Spanish Fork to pick up our meat!

We ended up with 150 pounds of veal! I paid and waited while they brought the meat out to load up. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, since I know where the meat came from, and all.

It was just fine! As we loaded the meat into my coolers, I felt awesome! I felt like Nephi bringing back food for everyone after his bow broke, or something. I was so proud that my efforts over the past year will be feeding our little family. (And our friends.)

I stopped by Jessica's house on my way home. She and I have a joke that I took the calf to go live with a new family, on a farm.* So of course we joked that I was driving home from visiting the calf. It was fun to see Jess.

When I got home, we put the meat in our big freezer. Today I actually counted it out. This is what we ended up with:

Ground beef patties - 20 packages, 5 patties per package
Ground beef chub things - 7 of them
Short ribs - 4 packages
Rib steak - 9 packages
Sirloin steak - 5 packages
Tenderloin - 1 package
T-Bone steaks - 10 packages
Round steak - 1 package
Tip roast - 2 of them
Top round steak - 3 packages
Chuck roast - 5 of them
Cubed steak - 3 of them
Rump roast - 4 of them
Stew meat - 3 packages
Pot roast - 1 of them
Soup bones - 5 packages

I think the steaks have 2 per package. And I forget how many pounds I had our roasts cut to. Maybe 4-5 pounds? Now we just need to decide who all we are sharing with, and then start learning how to cook our different cuts of beef! It should be really good, since it was raised on our little pasture, with no steroids or hormones or anything. We did supplement with some grain.

We're pretty convinced now that we will be getting another calf for 2011. We may try a Holstein this time. We'll see.



* Oh, gosh. The kids who live on the other side of our pasture (little kids, like a 3 year old and a 5 year old) always stand on their side of the fence and they're friends with our animals. They liked the calves all right, but they really like our goats. They feed the goats, and call out to them, and the goats come visit. Anyway, as we were loading up Chuck to take him off to the meat place, the kids were over at their side of the fence watching. I don't remember if they asked what we were doing, or if J just volunteered the info, but J started to tell them, "We're taking him to go get meat!" and my jaw dropped. "NO!" I told J, in a sharp whisper. "DON'T!" "Why not?" "J. You are a bad person. You don't tell little kids like that!" "Ohhhh. Well? What do I say now? I'm in the middle of talking to them!" "Nothing. You can cut off a sentence and little kids don't realize it. They think what you said just didn't make sense, but that happens when adults talk to them anyway." "Okay." So he just kind of smiled at them. Their mom told us later that it was kind of funny because the kids told her we were taking the cow to go get meat. But like, they didn't realize the cow was the meat. They thought we were just taking him with us and bringing back meat. So it was all okay, because even though J practically told them we were eating their friend, it was still totally over their heads. Crisis averted.

Other Things We Have Been Up To

New Mexico
Last weekend, J and I went to New Mexico for J's grandpa's 95th* birthday! We drove down to Farmington on Friday afternoon and drove back up Sunday afternoon.

It was such a nice trip! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which was pretty new, and very pleasant. We had breakfast Saturday morning with J's parents and some of his other relatives. Lots of fun. It turns out, one of J's cousins that he doesn't know very well actually has goats. He's into a lot of the same things as J is, and J just had no idea until his aunt was telling us about it.

We went out to J's grandpa's orchard for the birthday celebration. We talked with him for a little while, and he told us some neat stories.

J's dad grew up on the farm, and he took us for a tour on Sunday morning. It was neat to see a lot of the things I had heard about when I interviewed J's dad for my class last year.

One of J's uncles is a private pilot. He offered to take us up in his airplane to see the orchard from above. It was fun! He gave us a demonstration of weightlessness--he had us each put something out in the palm of our hand, and he went up and then dropped down, and our stuff floated above our hands. It was pretty intense. He also let me fly the plane a little.

We went to dinner at Tequila's, which is J's dad's favorite Mexican restaurant, because they have amazing salsa.


Those were some of the highlights.


Calves
[Warning: you may not want to read this.]
We made an appointment for the calves, with Circle V (in Spanish Fork), which is where some of our neighbors process their meat. We were supposed to take them down to Circle V last Tuesday, except that J didn't want to drive his dad's truck after our experience with the new truck on Monday. So we rescheduled for Saturday morning.

Friday evening I went outside and everyone was crying, and I thought I could hear Stew mooing from back behind the chicken area. Sometimes the calves get into the chicken area and a couple times they've gone back behind the barns from inside the chicken area. There's kind of a corridor between our barn and the wall in the back of our yard. When the calves get back there, they can't figure out how to get out and they moo.

Stew was kind of echoing, though, which was weird. When I went back to lead him out, I found him back in that area, but instead of being in the corridor, he had fallen into one of our irrigation wells. We have two wells, and we use them to switch the direction water flows when we're irrigating; they're square-shaped cement holes that are about 3 1/2 feet wide, 3 1/2 feet long, and about that deep, too. Anyway, Stew fell front-first. His front legs were at the bottom of the well, his neck was towards the bottom but bent up, and his back legs were sticking up out of the top. Poor guy. He was mooing and mooing. He was pretty scared, and he had feces all over, because animals do that when they're scared.

I tried to shift Stew a little to help him get up, but he didn't budge. He mooed some more. I scratched his neck and rubbed his head for a few minutes, and told him everything was okay. (It wasn't.)

J got home about then, and I had him come back behind the barns to see if we could pull Stew out by his back legs. We couldn't. He didn't even budge. Well, maybe he budged, but that was it.

What next? We decided we would need some men to help us get him out. We went to our neighbor's house to see if he would help us. He said he was in the middle of planning his wife's funeral** but if we would give him some time to finish up, he would be right over. He could bring his mare and we could put straps around the calf and have her pull him out, maybe.

We went back home, and Stew wasn't mooing anymore. He wasn't moving anymore, either. Poor guy. The weight of his own body broke his neck. What a terrible feeling--he was such a nice guy! What an awful way to die. Plus, after raising him for 10 months, and bottle feeding him 3x/day for two months, and spending lots of money on food, we were not going to get any meat from him. It was all a waste.

Our neighbor came over and he was all suited up for the task, and he brought some ropes and stuff, and we let him know that Stew didn't make it. (What a great neighbor though, eh?) We let him go back home to be with his wife.

We called a large animal vet to see about having him removed. After all, people have horses die and they have to do something with them, so there must be people who can do that sort of thing. When J explained where the calf was, the guy wanted J to get a bunch of guys out to our house to help him pull the calf out. (Uh, the reason we were hiring you is so that we don't have to ask our friends and family to do it.) So J wasn't sure the guy knew how to get the job done, and it was going to cost $150 (ouch). The guy was going to come the next morning.

J called some of his family to see if he could get help, but they couldn't or didn't answer or something. He called our home teacher, and got voicemail. He called the next day; he couldn't come. J called one of our neighbors (who used to be our home teacher), and he agreed to help! He came across the street within five minutes or something. He had a "come along" which is a tool that you attach to something, so that you can lift heavy things, or move them. He hadn't used it yet, but he thought it might be good for this task.

It was.

They hooked it to a tree over the well and eventually got Stew out. There was no way even 4 or 5 guys could have done it. Stew weighed about 400 lbs, but he was also caught on something.

They pulled him out to our truck; I put a tarp in the bottom of the truck. They used some wood to make a ramp and used the come along again to get him up into the truck.

What a friend, though. We really felt like we needed help, and it was such an awful task, but our neighbor just stepped right in, and he didn't complain once. It was such a relief to have the help; it really meant a lot to us.

Saturday morning J and me drove Stew to the dump. And then we drove him to the county dump, because it is the only one that accepts dead animals, we found out. The inspector there was super helpful.

Then we went back home because we were supposed to have Chuck down to Circle-V. J got the trailer attached to the truck, no problem, but Chuck didn't want to get inside. (Even with food to lure him in.) J put some grain bags down, to make a little ramp up. Chuck was still not interested. He's big enough that you can't push him or pull him.

I had the idea that he would probably step into the trailer to suck on his bottle. I went and grabbed one of the (empty) calf bottles out of the garage. It worked.*** J and I got out of the trailer and closed it up. We drove down to Circle V.

They don't actually slaughter on Saturdays or Sundays, so we put Chuck in a pen behind the building. We glued a little label onto his rump so that they would know who he was, and we poured some grain for him to eat, and then we left him there. It made me kind of sad. I liked our calves.

I feel less bad about eating our own meat when animals die and go to waste. It just seems like life is so fragile, and either our animals can die and rot and become dirt or they can nourish us, and sustain our life, and they can be a gift to other people, and nourish them, too. It's almost a beautiful thing, looking at it that way, that they can go to so much good, instead of just decomposing. When the dog kills chickens, or Stew dies, it seems like their lives were just wasted.

Anyway, enough about all that.

We're thinking we will probably get another calf this winter, since we will only be getting 1/2 the meat we were planning on.


My Little White Bird
Do you see the little white bird in the first picture of the calves? She is my Silkie chick. After Chalcy killed her buddy (the rooster), she didn't have a flock anymore. So last week she started hanging out with the calves. She would cuddle with them when they were laying down (they were warm!), and follow them around when they walked around the pasture. It was pretty cute. Also, isn't that sad? She lost her rooster buddy, and then she lost her flock of calves, too. Now she kind of hangs out with the goats. A lot of times she comes over to me when I go outside. I like her.


Volunteering
I was asked not to say much about this**** but after orientation, hours of interviews, and a pretty thorough background check (they actually called 5 people), I am now volunteering with an organization! When my background check came through, they called me and let me know that they had a couple matches for me in the program. I picked one, things were approved, and we have been moving forward. I'm really excited about this. (Is that vague enough? It seems like it is going to be a pretty big part of my life for at least the next year, and probably longer, so I wanted to at least mention it.)


Chalcy
Our dog is doing well. Lately she loves to chew on things. Usually she does not chew on things she is not supposed to, but she really tears her toys apart.***** I think for her, pulling stuffing apart is kind of like popping bubble wrap is for people.

Chalcy is also a teenage puppy, and she is testing all of her boundaries. Sometimes she runs around our house and climbs over our bed. NO. Or she bugs the trash. NO. Or she steals napkins and rips them up. NO. (I'm such a fun-hater.)

Chalcy LOVES her bell. We put a bell on the doorknob so Chalcy would let us know when she needed to go out. For a long time she wouldn't touch it, because I accidentally got her toes when I "rewarded" her for ringing the bell (by opening the door). Now she rings the bell and takes a step back. And waits. And rings it again. I let her out, and half the time she just wants to play. We leave her outside sometimes, because otherwise we're in and out, in and out. When it was snowing it was even worse, because the snow was SO FUN, but it was COLD. So she would ring the bell to go out, she would play, and then I would bring her in because it was too cold for her to stay out. She would warm up for, oh, 2-3 minutes, and ring the bell again.

Chalcy thinks I'm around just to be friends with her. All day she follows me around and tries to stuff toys into my hands.

Chalcy stayed with Heather and Josh while J and I were in New Mexico, and we really appreciated them letting her visit for the weekend.******

Our next trip is going to be to California, and we're bringing Chalcy with us so my family can meet her, and so she can try traveling with us. It should be fun.

Chalcy is BIG. She can't stand up all the way in her crate anymore. I think we're going to try to get her a dog bed and see if we can transition (and get her huge kennel out of our living room!), but I don't know if she will be obedient enough for that to work yet. I guess we'll see.



Okay, I'm about as caught up with blogging as I need to be for now, so I'm going to cross "Blog about Subaru" off of my list, and get back to doing other things.


* He is old.
** How's that for bad timing? She has cancer, and it's terminal. She just has one of her lungs now, and she's not doing too well. It's really too bad. They're a very, very nice family.
*** How sad is that? All he wanted was a bottle. He had nice memories.
**** On Facebook, which probably also means on blogs.
***** Remember "Sid" from Toy Story? It's like that. Fox only has one eye and one ear left, and I stitched up his face. Chalcy pulled Lobster's eyes off (because they poked up), and that pulled his head open. Giraffe's ears and horns and tail were all gone the first day, its hooves were gone the next day, and by now Giraffe has stubs for legs and only part of its head. Squeaky Bear doesn't squeak anymore because Chalcy bit his head off.
****** Seriously, thanks so much, guys.

Our new DOOOOOOM BUGGY (aka. Horse trailer)

On Friday, J and I went on another fun date. We went to go buy a horse trailer. The main reason we need one now is because we need to be able to transport our calves. We brought them home in the back of J's dad's truck, and that just isn't going to work for them anymore. We also need a trailer because we will probably use it a few times per season to buy many bales of hay, or a lot of grain.

We decided to get an old trailer because new trailers are very, very expensive. Old trailers hold their value very well. J found this one on KSL. It is a 1984 horse trailer. The tires are pretty new. Some of the lights weren't working, so J offered $100 less than the price the guy had listed it for, and the guy accepted the offer. We hooked it up* and drove off. Later, the problem with some of the lights corrected itself. Great.

We had intended to park it in our garage, since there's space. Horse trailers are heavy enough, though, that you can't move them after you park them. So it would have been tricky to maneuver. For now, it is parked in our backyard** but we plan to move it either to the side of the house or to the driveway.

J keeps telling the calves that it's what they will take "to get to Heaven." I tell him that's sad, and he shouldn't say it. They don't understand, though, so they're pretty interested in it.

I keep wanting to call it our Dooooooomsbuggy (in a creepy voice) because to me it looks an awful lot like the little buggies that you sit in for the Haunted Mansion, at Disneyland.*** I want to repaint it. J says we don't have time. (Yeah, we actually don't.) Maybe someday.

I also keep thinking we should really get a horse or two. J says to save my personal money. He also says we don't have time for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.) He also says we don't have money for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.)**** When we have more money and time I can have a horse. That will probably be in a while, though.



* It was pretty funny, actually. The trailer was in the middle of a field and when the man was showing J how to hook the trailer up, the horses that were in the field became curious about what was going on. They came over to check things out and started nibbling on our clothes, etc. I forgot how much I love horses.
** Which had a ton of space and was still tricky to maneuver. J just needs more practice.
*** It turns out those are actually called "Doom buggies." Eh. Whatever.
**** J also says horses are too big. They make him uncomfortable. I tell him it's kind of like business: some business people are afraid to hire people that are smarter than them, or bigger than them, or better at things than they are. This is a mistake. Good business people hire people who are better than them whenever they can because they help you make your business stronger. Or, it's like the Lion King--"But what if he's on our side." I told J: "A horse could plow our crops much faster than you can." But, we don't actually have any crops, so it doesn't really matter.

Farm Update, etc.

It's been a little while since I posted about our little farm.

Our calves are doing well! We fenced the front and back pasture areas well enough that the boys are always out grazing. That's what they do all day, every day. Pretty much. We de-horned* them and castrated them, and after that they had the worst 6 hours of their lives, but they're fine now, and they've forgotten all about it.

The calves are suuuuper cuddly. They are the friendliest guys in the world. They both love to be scratched. When I go out into the backyard, often one (or both!) of the calves will come up to me to be scratched. They stick their necks out, so that I can reach to scratch their chins, and their necks, and I'll scratch behind their ears, and their little bangs, and their foreheads, and they just soak it up. If I'm busy, or stop scratching, they'll rub their neck against me, so that I know what they want.

The calves usually come when I call them. I'll call, "C'mere boys!" and they come running. This is helpful if they have gotten somewhere they're not supposed to be.**

When we brought the calves home, they had ropes around their necks. We left them on, and it helped us tell the calves apart. I think we could probably tell them apart without the ropes, but eh, just to be sure, we've left them on. They are also helpful for directing them to particular places. The calves are getting BIG, though, and the ropes have been getting tight. So about a week ago, I got them collars. IFA was having a sidewalk sale, so I bought cheap collars in basically the same colors as their ropes were. I feel like they need bells, because don't calves wear bells around their necks? J tells me he can't think of any useful reason to put bells on them, and it's true--I can't think of any reason to bell the calves either. Oh well.

I have the funniest video of the calves with Paley. I need to figure out how to post it, I guess. See, [months ago] I used to come home, and sometimes Paley would be all wet. Half of her head would be wet, or she'd have a big wet blotch for a couple inches on her tail... and I started to wonder whether the calves were licking her.

They were!

Paley would go up to the calves, and rub against them, and the calves would lick her! Except, their mouths are so big (and they're so slobbery) that they soak her.

One time J and I were out with the calves and we saw it happen. Too funny! We laughed and laughed. We were like, that's so weird! But then I told J, cats lick each other.*** And J was like, "Oh, yeah! They speak her love language!" and that made me laugh too, because it was like, "of course!"

The calves are great. We like them. The very best thing, I think, is when I go outside and Stew first sees me. He looks up at me, kind of like the dramatic chipmunk YouTube video. I feel like he's thinking: "*GASP!* SHE'S HERE! You're here, finally!" Often he'll start walking out towards me, to say hello.

The chickens are mostly doing well.

We moved them to a different area (because the calves were EATING the chicken coop. Hey!) so they have plenty of space to dig around and eat bugs. When we put them in their area, it was grassy, but now it is just dirt, because they tear up the grass so effectively.

When we had moved them before, one of our chickens went missing. It was Gertie, from the chicks that we actually raised. I mentioned to J that I wondered whether she might have gotten out and ended up across the street with the flock across the street. She did! Our neighbor came over one time, and we were talking about chickens and she asked if we had lost one of our birds a few months ago. Actually, yes!

She said a new bird had shown up at their house, and the bird kind of stayed to herself. Our neighbor had wondered if the bird might be ours, since she thought we had birds too. J went over later and picked her up. Gertie was so skinny! And! Our birds didn't remember her. It was pretty sad. They all pecked at her, and chased her. So she started spending a lot of time on top of our chicken coop. Poor girl! She spent every night on the roof of the chicken coop.

Gradually she has integrated back into our flock. She's fattened up again, too. Now, several of our birds spend some time on the roof of the coop. It's kind of a pain, because they poop all over it, so I hose it off but it often looks dirty.

We started irrigating this year. When we water, snails come out! They slide all over our ag water pipes, and they climb all over our water access places. I pick them up by their shells and toss them to the chickens. What a treat! The girls love snails. They all cluster together and it's like watching a game of football--one bird will grab the snail, and start running, and everyone will follow, and try to get the snail. Awesome.

Yesterday morning when I went out to take care of the birds, I found that our white bird with more black was dead. I think she died of natural causes. She was one of the older ones, and it didn't look like anything interesting had happened.

We also recently picked up our final addition to our farm: a goat! She is a Nubian doeling. Nubians are the best milk goats, so J really wanted that kind. They are also the least pleasant, supposedly. Their bleat is kind of annoying. We named our girl "Feta" and she is about 4 months old, so we plan to start milking her probably next March.

She was very nervous about coming to our house, but she fits in very nicely. She feels like she is part of a herd with the calves. She just follows them around. Feta is very friendly! Especially for a Nubian. The family we bought her from had 4 young children, so the goat definitely got her share of love from them, and I think it made her a very patient goat. She lets people touch her and she is not aggressive at all**** (except with Chalcy! Poor Chalce!), so she's pretty nice.

It's very funny because the kids next door are SUPER interested in our animals. They love to come up along their side of the fence, and watch our calves. They like the goat even better, though. Yesterday I saw them outside bleating at her. It was the funniest thing! The calves are mostly quiet. (They only 'moooo' once in awhile, when they're really hungry and they think we've forgotten them.) The goat bleats fairly often, though. Not all day, or anything, but quite a bit, and a few times a day. So the boys 'bleh, bleh, bleh'-ed at her from the fence, and she would turn around and look at them, and sometimes 'bleh' back to them.

Well, Chalcy is crying because she is Not Allowed to play inside today (because of the work I'm doing), and she does not like to play outside Without Me. I think it's nap time, and time for me to get back to work. I do feel like I have so, so much to blog about, but this is a good start, eh?*****





* (Not for the weak of stomach:) For dehorning, we used a paste to burn the root of the horns. I think it hurt them a lot and they hated it. For castration, we used a band castrator, which is basically a contraption that stretches a really really tight rubber band, and then you stick the whole thing over their parts, and then let the handles close, and roll the rubber band off. I think this actually didn't hurt them much.
** A couple weeks ago, J moved the calves into the back pasture and forgot that he hadn't closed the fencing on the other side of the house. In the morning he was leaving for work and as he drove out of the driveway, he stopped and came running back towards me-- "Em! The calves are out! Come help me bring them back!" So I put Chalcy in her crate, and went to help him bring the calves back. He was trying to tug on the ropes around their necks, and they weren't too interested. They were hanging out in the middle of the road, in front of our house. (And I thought ducks in the road was funny...) So, not a good place for them. "C'mere! Chuck! Stew! C'mere boys!" I got them excited and started jogging in front of them, toward their other pasture. So they started trotting and followed me. Of course.
*** I remember at the Humane Society, when I adopted Paley they told me she was a really sweet kitten and she had gone around grooming all of the other kitties that were in the same cage as her. If cats lick each other, it means they're being sweet.
**** Except with Chalcy. Poor dog!
***** Happy Canada Day!

Update #1

We're married!

We were married at the Jordan River temple on 20 March!

This is the only picture I have so far from our wedding.* It is a picture of us arriving at the temple, taken on my phone, by someone we don't know, as we were trying not to be late.


Our reception was at J's parents' house, and it went well.

We spent Saturday and Sunday nights at The Kimball, in downtown Salt Lake, and then on Monday we flew down to southern California for the rest of our honeymoon. We stayed at a resort on the beach, in Oceanside.

This is a picture from our visit to the San Diego Zoo:
We had a second reception in Walnut (CA) on the following Saturday afternoon.

We flew back that Sunday, and since then we have had many, many fun projects. Some of our recent activities have been:
- me moving in.
- finishing taxes.
- a LOT of cleaning and organizing. (But lots more to go...)
- flooding our house, and trying to fix the roof.
- meeting with roofers, and replacing a portion of our roof.
- building a new area for the chickens.**
- pruning trees.
- tiling linoleum under the kitchen counters (to cover the concrete and reclaim some kitchen space).
- school projects.
- more school projects.
- weaning the calves.***

Those are the things that come to mind. Hopefully sometime soon I can begin to blog about recent things in greater detail.

Some upcoming projects include:
- writing furiously for the next day or two and then,
- hopefully, hopefully, most-likely graduating this Friday.
- Mom visiting for my graduation.
- participating in South Jordan's green waste collection day thing by hauling branches we pruned.
- actually (finally!) cleaning and organizing our house.
- getting started with ag water.
- implementing more of the Nourishing Traditions ideas into our diet. (To try next: sprouting our grains and using fresh flour for recipes.)
- learning to use Quicken better.
- finding a job.
- building raised garden beds? (maybe?)
- building some furniture.
- getting a puppy!****
- starting a compost pile.
- getting a goat? (may be delayed until next year)
- cleaning/painting the barns?
- fencing off the larger pasture area. (For calves as they get larger, and/or if we get a goat.)
- mayyybe getting more hens, since this is the right time of year. We're also considering a couple turkeys, for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We have a lot going on. For now, I've got to get back to schoolwork. I'm still finishing a big paper.



* Jess and Mitch kindly shared some of the pictures they took, but we promptly laundered the SD card. So we haven't actually seen them yet.
** Since the calves were eating the chicken coop.
*** While we were on our honeymoon, the people that we paid to feed them felt like they were skinny, so they fed them twice as much milk as we told them to (and as the package said to.) So we had to like, double-wean them, because first we had to wean them down to the recommended amount, and then we had to really wean them. Not their favorite, but they like grass now. We also dehorned them, and castrated them. Worst day of their lives!
**** NOT allowed until the house is completely clean and organized. It will probably be a small dog (since J likes small dogs better and since it will be an inside/outside dog and our inside is not huge) but it may be a big dog (because I think I like big dogs better and if it's inside/outside anyway, if it has too much energy, that can just mean it's time to play outside.) If it's a little dog, it will probably be a mixed breed one (a yorkie-poo/chorkie/pomchi/yorkie-pom/porkie, etc.) because those are cute and have the benefits of mixed-breed dog (eg, better health and temperament). If it's a big dog, it will probably be a great dane. We'll see.

CALVES!!! part one

Every time Gina blogs about their calves, I want one. They're so cute!

J and I have also been talking a lot lately about eating better meat. We want to switch to grass-fed no-hormone beef even though it's so much more expensive. We're just pretty convinced that commercial beef is not too good for people. Someone in one of my classes talked about the movie Food, Inc. and we watched it a couple weeks ago. That contributed to things, too.

On 13 February, we were talking again about getting a bull calf. J thought they would be pretty cheap, but on KSL, they're all like $400. Until! We realized! It's because those are the Angus ones that are meant to be steak. Male dairy calves would be cheaper. And they are. We found someone in Ogden who was selling one for $20. Sweet! J and I talked more about the logistics of it--where would we put it? How long would it take to grow big enough to be slaughtered? Does Jersey meat even taste good? J is worried about safety issues: what if the bull hurts someone?

We decided that we could put our little bull in the pasture area, and it would be fine with the renters' dogs. The right amount of time to raise him is 16-17 months, we think, and he can get up to 1200-1800 lbs. We're planning on moving later this year, so what we will do is: either slaughter earlier and not get as much meat, (but really, how many hundreds of pounds of beef do we need anyway?) or leave him in the pastured area and come by to take care of him after we've moved. People online say Jersey meat tastes really good, so that should be ok, and as long as we castrate him when he's fairly young, he will stay gentle.

Okay! With everything figured out, J said I could call about the day-old bull calf. So I did!
But we didn't hear back from the guy on KSL. We didn't hear from him that weekend, or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday...

So we supposed we weren't going to have a calf after all. (Oh well. We're busy people anyway.)

EXCEPT! The guy called me back that Thursday! He had two bull calves, and did we want them? They were 1 day old (born Wednesday) and they'd had colostrum (= a Big Deal). We had only planned on having one. Calves are expensive to feed. The guy said he would call the next people on his list of people who had replied, and maybe there would be another single one by the weekend (when I said we would probably pick him up), so we could have one then. We talked some more about what if we did take both. The guy said most people want at least two because they keep each other company.

I told him to hang on, I'd talk to J, and I'd let him know. Mayyyybe we could take two. If we did, would he want us to pick them up that evening, or what? He said YEAH! If we could pick them up that evening, that would be great! He would take $30 for both calves.

So I called J at work and we decided that Yes! We would take them both! I called and let the guy know, and I hurried off to IFA to get calf milk replacer. And bottles. And some straw. I went back home and cleaned out the barn. After work, J borrowed his dad's truck and we drove up to Ogden to pick up the boys! The guy had suggested that we bring large-dog crates for them, but said that if we couldn't find any, we could hog-tie them, and that would work. We couldn't find any (sorry, guys!) but J's dad did put a tarp across the back of the truck, to keep so much air from getting down into the truck bed.

I told J that I was planning to name mine "Carne," and J thought he would name his "T-Bone." But then we thought of better names-- J named his "Stew" (like, as in "beef stew"), and I renamed mine "Chuck" (like "roast chuck" or "ground chuck"). They're perfect names for bulls, we think-- Chuck and Stu sound like buff, muscle, manly-biker-guy names. Also, perfect names for steak.

So we went up to Ogden and picked them up, and they were so cute!

I hadn't slept the night before (homework), so J and I had talked about me going over to his house early so we could bottle-feed the calves together in the morning, but we decided not to so that I could sleep in. And then I could just feed the calves by myself.

HAH! Yeah right.

[to be continued...]

[This last picture is from a couple days ago. Chuck is in back (with the orange rope) and Stew is in front (with the blue rope).]