Great Horned Chicken Killer.mpg

Charles was first out to the barn this morning.  I was getting ready to go out to milk the goats when he came running back in to grab his movie camera.  An owl had killed a chicken right next to the barn, and it was still there, with him filming it, when I arrived on the scene. 

He got some fantastic footage.  To see it, check out Great Horned Chicken Killer on YouTube.

Tobias in the Basement



Tobias in his hot tub

Tobias spent the night in the basement.  When we got home from snowshoeing yesterday, he looked cold and miserable.  Charles picked him up and took him in.  (We know for sure that he's too cold if he lets us pick him up.)  We lit a small fire in the basement stove.  Even with the stove going down there, it doesn't get warm enough to hurt him; it probably reaches 2 or 3 degrees above zero near the floor where he is.

This morning, when I opened the door, I was greeted with a great flurry of "Honk! Honk!"s.  He hates having to be inside and was protesting.  I held the door open for him and he marched back out.  The outside temperature was -14.  By the end of the afternoon, he was cold and miserable again.  We kept his "lake" filled with tepid water, so he spent a lot of time in the "hot tub".  He'll probably have to go inside again tonight.

Only two months to go until the beginning of spring. 

Charlie and Tobias

Snowshoes, the Lazy Winter Sport

I love exploring on snowshoes.  You just put them on and go anywhere.  No need for expensive equipment or special trails or training.  Just go.  It's not so different from walking, not at all difficult.

Today, we walked along the creek (after chopping holes in the ice to test its thickness).  The creek is like a highway for the wild creatures.  We've seen tracks of fox, coyote, wolf, deer, moose, squirrel, rabbit, vole.  Everyone uses it as a road.  When I first saw all the tracks in the snow, I realized how isolated we humans are.  The forest is just teeming with life that we rarely see.

When you strap on your snowshoes and head off into the bush, you realize how much activity is going on around you.  It's one of winter's gifts, so enjoy it.  Be lazy.  Go out and play in the snow.

Charles enjoys the view



Floyd, Marion, Charlie, and Tobias



Sally

Sally was a totally different goat than Sadie had been.  She was an Alpine, so she looked different.  She was also bossy, demanding, and loud; and she definitely did not settle in easily.  The problem was made much worse by the fact that we needed her milk for our orphans, so we had to separate her from her own kids.   She spent her whole day, if we weren't actually out at the goat pen, standing staring at the house waiting for us to emerge.  Then she would start calling us and not stop until we went over and chased her back into her house.

This went on all summer until we were nearly demented.  I would creep out of the house in slow motion, boots in hand, hoping to avoid catching her attention with a quick movement or a sound.  I'd continue in slow motion until I got out of her sight, then be able to work in the garden in peace for a while.

The reason we put up with Sally (beside the fact that we felt sorry for her) was that she gave gwo gallons of beautiful milk every day.  I've never since had such a generous goat.  We had enough milk to feed all five kids.  Feeding those kids was practically the only thing we did that summer. or at least it felt that way.  We took our duties very seriously, feeding them six times a day to start with.  Between heating the milk, measuring it out, feeding the little ones, then washing and sterilizing the bottles, the process took a lot of time.  The kids thrived, though.

We had decided to keep Sadies's doe kid, who we named Lyla.  Her brother, a Little Black Goat, gradually won our hearts, too.  By the time that we admitted that we loved him so much that we just had to keep him, that name had stuck, and he was known for the next twelve years as Little Black Goat.  The other three kids were butchered for our winter's meat supply.  After they were gone, Sally could live together with the kids and she finally shut up.

That was the only time we've ever totally separated mother and kid.

Little Black Goat affection

The First Winter

Charles and Marion on Robin

Our first winter in our new home is a bit of a blur in my memory.  I only remember a few things about it.

It was different from all other winters I have spent here in one respect:  I was bored.  Charles had bought a logging horse, a beautiful black Percheron named Robin, in the fall.  He kept her at a fellow horse-logger's place and he spent quite a bit of time logging.  I was alone, in the little house, surrounded by snow, with the two cats for company.  In the evenings, the lack of light paralyzed me.  I couldn't seem to do any work in the house with the limited light provided by the kerosene lanterns we used, so all I could do in the evening was to read for hours on end.  For the first time in my life, I started to feel depressed.

I remember the day I came out of it.  Charles finally figured out how bad things were.  He took drastic action:  he dragged me out of the house and together we built a snow castle.

The grader had by then pushed up huge banks of snow along the sides of the road.  At the corners of our driveway, these banks were especially high.  We chose one of these to make our fort, carving blocks igloo-style and building a tower ten feet tall, with a wall, and a tunnel leading to a chamber looking out onto the road.  It took all day.  It was fun!  We ended up with a wonderful snow castle.

At that time, the school bus came along our road to a point about a mile from our house.  Everyone living past us had to take their kids to that "terminal" in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon.  There were four or five families that would drive by twice a day.  For a week or more after we built our snow fort, cars would stop outside our place and we'd hear requests to explore the fort.  As the cars drove off, we'd hear the kids' voices pleading, "Can we build one when we get home?"  The kids loved us, the parents maybe not so much.

Building that castle broke the spell of negativity I'd been under.  I started to see winter as an opportunity for fun.

Our First Goat



Sally and all five kids

Our very first goat was named Sadie.  We didn't have her for very long, though.  Our first experience was pretty traumatic.  I had decided, by the spring of our first year, that I needed more to occupy me, and that I'd like a milk goat.  Although I'd done lots of reading, I'd never had livestock; and we really weren't ready for it.  We had no barn and no fencing.  Really, no-one should have sold us a milk goat then.  However, we put up a small goat shelter and found a fellow just a few miles away who had a goat for sale.

Sadie was a Saanen in an advanced state of pregnancy.  We knew that it wasn't the best idea to move a goat to a new home at that point, but we had some doubts about the care she was getting where she was, and thought we could care for her better.  We brought her home.  We had good feed for her and she was a lovely, quiet goat who settled in easily.  All seemed well.

Two weeks later, on a dark and stormy night, Sadie gave birth to triplets.  She didn't have any trouble, the kids were strong; we went to bed happy.  When we went out in the morning, though, she wouldn't get up and the kids were obviously hungry.  We spent the day phoning people for advice and trying to coax her with treats.  We learned how to milk a goat that's lying down and borrowed lamb's nipples from one of our neighbours to bottle feed.  By evening, we'd decided that she needed the vet and we bundled her into the truck and headed for town.

The vet diagnosed milk fever, which is a calcium-deficiency problem that can result in death.  It was caused by severe malnutrition.  We'd been right about the care she'd been getting.  What a way to find out!  She got a calcium injection and perked right up, but the vet wasn't optimistic about her long-term prospects.  We went away with supplements and hope.

The next couple of days were a roller coaster of emotions as she improved, relapsed, improved again.  We nursed her constantly, between bottle-feeding the kids with milk from a neighbour.  On the second day, Sadie died, leaving us with three orphans to care for.

The fellow that sold us Sadie was distressed to learn what had happened.  After a discussion with him, we figured out that he had three does together in one pen.  He fed them adequately, but put all the feed in one spot.  Poor Sadie was the lowest goat on the totem pole; she must have got very little of the food.  This guy had only been keeping goats for a few months longer than we had and didn't know any better.  He was already discouraged and was only too happy to get rid of another goat by replacing Sadie for us. 

We came home with Sally, the dominant goat in his herd, with her two kids.  Suddenly, we had six goats: Sally and five kids.  I'd never be bored again.

Building a Small House - Part II

Our house-building began in early July when we poured the foundation walls and was complete in early October when we actually moved in.  We built the house totally by ourselves, other than the actual pouring of concrete.  We both learned a lot.  Charles had built log houses before, but not a frame house.  I had never built anything at all. 

We kept it very simple.  The dimensions of the house are in multiples of the dimensions of a sheet of plywood and the rooms are square.  We made sure it exceeded the building code requirements.  The pitch of the roof is very steep to shed snow.  We didn't skimp on safety items like insulated stovepipe.

For all you women out there who are like me and have never built anything, I would like to say:  This is a liberating and empowering experience.

• I ceased being afraid of pain.  That summer, I dropped boards on my toes, hammered my thumb, overworked my muscles, etc., and I learned that a bit of pain is not the end of the world.
• I learned that I'm capable of a lot more than I thought I was.
• I discovered how helpful my own, intelligent, feminine way of seeing things can be when the man in charge is pushed to listen.
• I also gained a more enthusiastic appreciation of the special, masculine skills possessed by my husband.
• I feel a beautiful comfort and confidence that comes from knowing exactly what lies beneath my feet when I walk across my floor.

I highly recommend it.