Now for Something Really Important

Phew!  What a week!  The Supreme Court decided same sex couples can legally marry, but many minorities and poor people probably can't legally vote anymore.  (I guess we can't have too many people having rights all at once. ) The Senate passed the Immigration Bill, but since the House is coming up with their "own" Bill and the Supreme Court has voted against Voters' Rights, it kind of doesn't matter.  And then out of nowhere this 2013 Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington becomes the face of all that is good and fair in the state of Texas.

Now that all of this trivial news has cycled through, it is time for some news that matters, namely, my flower boxes.

Every April I am determined to grow a beautiful English flower garden in the backyard and every June as the lone Dahlia out of the dozens I planted sways in the wind behind a sea of wild raspberry and goldenrod that somehow appeared overnight, I hate the farmette.

Thanks to my friends at Mount Vision Garden Center, I feel a little less of a failure every summer as I stuff some annuals into the flower boxes on the deck.  I am taking bets as to how long those hanging plants will last and whether the cats or the dogs will be responsible for their demise.  My money is on the kittens, but the husband says dogs in three days.  Did I mention he doesn't like the dogs?

Paging Dr. Dolittle

I was wondering recently, what is the number of animals one can have before they become a commodity rather than a member of the family?  I think it's fifty.  I was leaning toward 20 but there are people out there who have that many children and they seem to manage to at least name all of the kids.

My heart still beats a little faster when Noelle comes running down the hill to see me.  I smile from ear to ear when I feel her hot grassy breath on my neck as she nuzzles me. The dogs, while annoying in their competition for my affection, sleep at the foot of the bed every night.  I thought perhaps five cats would be a tipping point, but nope.  I still scoop each one up every day and talk in a sickening baby voice to them. Oh, and they all have names AND nicknames.

When the chicks arrived I was all set to name the layers.  I just assumed I would dote on them as much I did my original five; crouching down for hours watching their antics and hoping they would come hop into my lap. But there are just too many of them and I can't keep track of who is who so they are all just called, "chicken."  Perhaps when we put the roasters in the freezer I will feel differently about my layers, but these chickens are not pets like Jonah, Chicky Rivera and Kyle. They are food, whether meat or eggs. This does not mean they are not well cared for.  They have a very comfortable life with plenty of room to forage, but I have spared them my anthropomorphizing tendencies.

So here I am!  I am finally a farmer!  I have come to terms with the fact that the animals need to stay outside and the people inside (except the dogs and the kittens who "accidentally" end up in the house every day after school).   I no longer lock Noelle in the barn at night for fear of coyotes thanks to Cody Bear.  All the chicks have been relocated out of the guest bathroom to various chicken tractors that move to new ground every morning and I don't feel guilty that they don't all have cute names.  I have to say it is kind of nice to not smell chicken food or find the piece of brie you left out on the counter to soften half eaten in a corner of the living room because a cat absconded with it.  Even the dogs spend the entire day outside watching over the barnyard.

I was enjoying my new role of animal overseer instead of mama to all animals.  If I had a therapist I think she would be proud of the new boundaries I had laid down with my creatures. I was patting myself on the back the morning the husband left for a weekend in NYC.  I soon realized those boundaries had less to do with the "work" I had done on my relationship with my animals and more to do with the fact that the husband has become the primary caretaker of the critters since he has been home and I have been working.

Two of the chicks were in the infirmary due to splayed leg.  What is splayed leg you ask?  God, I love Google.  Seems there are many baby birds who suffer from this problem.  They just can't walk. Their little legs just slide out to the side and they end up face down on the floor like a drunk person on roller skates.  When we were first presented with this problem, I had the boys go online and figure out what to do.  The alacrity with which the jumped in to help was really quite impressive.

"Does she have trouble eating?" Prince shouted.

"No." I responded.

"Breathing heavy?"

"No."

"Do her legs go out to the side?"

James Dean shouted, "Let me go check!"

The answer was yes.

Within five minutes we had a diagnosis: Splayed leg.  With the help of a couple of different Youtube videos and some surgical tape we managed to tape her legs together in a kind of splint.  Within a week she should be walking fine.  I told myself that the only reason we went to this extreme was because we would have been out at least $10 if she died.   It wasn't altruism.  It was the bottom line.

The husband had moved Splayer into the chicken house where the Guinea Keets are now residing and left her in a nesting box with water and food along with a buddy who was also having trouble walking. When he left for the city I went in to check on the patients and found the sad little pair slumped over with Guinea Keets running rampant.  How could I leave them there to get trampled?

 I put my two little chicks back in the tub in the guest bathroom with some water and food.  I managed to redo Splayer's bandage and make one for Gimpy as well. Gimpy was in sad shape.  I really didn't think she would make it through the night.  I went in every couple hours and brought her over to the water to let her drink and then she would lie down again and nibble on the watermelon I left for her.  I was over the moon when I found her alive the next day.  There is something amazingly gratifying about helping an injured animal.  Vet school here I come.

That night we heard gun shots very close to the house.  James Dean came to the top of the stairs hysterically sobbing thinking someone was shooting the dogs.  Did I mention they can be a little annoying?  I hustled the dogs in the house followed by the cats.  Having just seen "World War Z" (great movie by the way) I couldn't risk there being animal killing zombies on the property.

Convinced that my deer like cow was lying dead in the field, I grabbed a flashlight when the shooting stopped and went outside. I saw one set of glowing eyes that belonged to Cody Bear and another that I was hoping were Noelle's.  I managed to get them into the barn and close the door.  Within less than 24 hours I had managed to undo all of the boundaries I thought I had worked so hard to erect.

Everyone made it through the night and are back outside (except Splayer and Gimpy)  I think Gimpy may have a broken wing as well and I should probably just let nature take its course, but she is a fighter and I am going to try my best to get her back on her feet.  Splayer is hopping around eating and drinking. I am hopeful the taping will work so that one  day I might be able to have a house free of animals, but then we will probably find some other injured beast that needs round the clock nursing care.  Thus is life on the farmette.  And of course it is all just for the bottom line.  Running a small farm is very lucrative you know ;)

Happy Father's Day

The end of the school year is always a cluster ****.  There are projects to complete, baseball games to schlepp off to, presents to be bought for teachers, crap, I mean important school work to be brought home.  Scrappy Doo had a Kindergarten Graduation ceremony on Friday and I stayed up until midnight the night before editing a special tear jerker video to screen at the event.  When I got home on Friday evening and surveyed the kitchen it looked like a school room threw up all over the floor. I was too tired to care and went to bed because guess what?  I had to get up at six on Saturday so I could prepare to host five of Prince's fifth grade friends for a sleepover.

Each boy is having their own party and they each get to invite one child for every year of school so Prince had five, James Dean will have three next weekend and I am not really sure what we are going to do for Scrappy because technically K isn't a number.

Prince's friends were due to arrive around 10am and by 8 I was already barking orders at the husband, "Why didn't you get the ping pong table?" "Can you go pick up a new badminton set?"

Just before the boys arrived I had managed to shove all of the school stuff into a closet upstairs and sweep the floor.  Of course the only room they were all interested in being in was the one with the XBox, so freshly picked flowers in a vase on the clean dining room table probably was not necessary.

The husband left in search of a badminton set and I rearranged the children's artwork on the refrigerator because that is what you are supposed to do when you have five thousand other things to do.

When the husband arrived home two hours later he not only had a badminton set but a ping pong table, croquet set and a couple of paintball guns.

The plan was to take the boys to a 6:30 movie, but by the time we hoisted the ping pong table into the barn and the husband set it up, 6:30 was out of the question so we pushed our movie outing to the 7:20 show and he got to work on the badminton net.  By 7 all of the boys were outside laughing and playing volleyball.  I couldn't bear the thought of hustling them off to a dark theater instead of enjoying the gorgeous June evening.  The husband piled them into the van at 8:45 to catch the last show of the night.  I stayed behind with Scrappy and James Dean because I knew neither Scrappy nor I would be able to stay awake until midnight.  Ice cream with sprinkles was the only thing to soothe Scrappy's broken heart as the van pulled away without him and he was out by 10pm.

I didn't wake up when everyone got home after midnight, but when I awoke this morning I found the husband curled up at the foot of our bed as Scrappy, James Dean and I stretched out comfortably in the King size bed and a gaggle of boys slept in the next room.  He could have gone downstairs and slept in the guest room (I would have)  but he didn't because the place the husband wants to be more than anywhere is with his family even if it means sleeping at the foot of the bed.

So a very happy Father's Day to the best Dad and husband I know.  I may have the big ideas for Popcorn Bowl moments, but he makes sure they happen.

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday present on Saturday was a Yard Machine Rototiller.  Many of you are probably thinking, "Wow, that is a really sucky present," and I would agree normally.  I remember reading some article in one of those crappy magazines I used to have time to read, about a guy who gave his girlfriend a top of the line humidifier for Christmas.  The point of the article was that while he seemed like a heartless prick, it was actually a very romantic present because the girlfriend suffered from sinus infections and she really needed a new humidifier.  The reader was supposed to be touched by his sensitivity.  My thought was why didn't he get her the humidifier months ago and buy her a real present on Christmas?  So normally, yes I would have been less than pleased to receive a rototiller for my birthday.

But after  a week of the husband trying to get the new heavy duty tiller onto the tractor only to find it didn't work,   I had resorted to using a hoe in the tropical rainforest that is my garden so, the rototiller was a pleasant birthday surprise. Technically I asked for a push mower so I could mow the rainforest in the hopes that the husband would somehow be able to use that tractor he couldn't live without to actually do something I deem important, but alas that did not happen.  I spent most of my birthday weekend feeling like Rambo wielding a machine gun as my birthday present jackhammered into the rocky soil.

I had a lot of time to think while my Yard Machine bounced up and down trying to dislodge yet another enormous boulder from the beds  I have tilled in this garden for four years in a row.  I really think someone is sneaking into my garden and planting large rocks every winter.  It's probably the neighbor whose porch my rooster craps on.

One of the things I started thinking about was how my consumer interests have changed throughout the years.   I would have been the happiest seven year old in the world if I had gotten another Fisher Price Lapsitter doll for my birthday.

In my twenties, when I was a size 2, my roommate and I spent countless hours clothes shopping.  During TV pilot season when I had a little extra cash,  you might find us at Cynthia Rowley or Agnes B but usually it was the sale rack at Betsy Johnson or one of the great thrift stores in SOHO where I found the cutest 1950's red and white checked swimsuit.   Unfortunately, when I decided to wear it with a pair of three inch red and white check platform sandals it was a little less cute and a little more tranny hooker.  Come to think of it, maybe my red and white check fetish has something to do with my Lapsitter doll, Mary.

My thirties was the beginning of my love affair with cooking.  I visited most of the ethnic grocery stores  throughout the five boroughs of NYC.  I could spend hours perusing the aisles of exotic spices or strange fruits and vegetables.  I even attempted to make Korean kimchi much to the chagrin of my roommate and probably most of the neighborhood.

Now in my forties my latest obsession is farm stuff.  I use the term stuff, because there is no real category to put all of the merchandise you can find at my two new favorite stores: Brandow's Feed and Seed and Tractor Supply.

Brandow's is hands down my favorite shop because the staff is so nice and helpful but Tractor Supply has some of the craziest shit this city slicker has ever seen.

Do you need some tools?  Sure.  Tractor supply has all sorts of tools except the tool the husband needed to make the heavy duty tractor tiller work apparently, so I am actually not supposed to be shopping at Tractor Supply anymore.

    

I am not really a tool kind of gal though.  I like all of the wacky animal stuff.  Along with ginormous baby bottles for calves and all sorts of salves and herbs to make your (insert farm animal name here) healthy and productive, they have clover seeds to attract deer.

I wasn't really sure who NEEDED to attract a deer into their yard.  I see at least ten a day in my yard and before we got the dogs, they would come right up to the house and eat basically anything I had planted. There are at least ten different brands of grass seeds you can plant so deer come scampering into your yard.  It wasn't until I saw this one that I understood the purpose of planting tasty morsels for deer.  I am pretty sure this camo couple does not have two pet bucks they luck to take photos with.

Does this strike anyone else as cheating?, It is definitely messed up at the very least. Planting this must be the hunting equivalent of pulling a Rosie Ruiz.

I now have the most genius idea. I am going to open a store that sells toys, super tight mini skirts, every condiment from every country on earth, seeds, and all sorts of farm animal paraphernalia.  I am sure it will be a huge success, or maybe I just shook a screw loose while I was tilling my garden.

symbiotic

I was tossing around  a few ideas to write about this week, including the fact that I might need an ox because farm equipment sucks and only exists to piss you off,  but then a friend of ours pulled up with a trailer the other day and dropped off a horse. We had discussed the idea of taking this little horse as a companion for our lonely spoiled calf, but were not expecting her to arrive on this particular day.  Yet, the husband and I just looked at each other as if it was the most normal thing in the world for someone to drop off a horse.  This got me thinking about our relationship.

For the most part the husband and I are a total ying and yang. Call it symbiosis, co-dependence or a girl who was looking for a daddy figure in a boy who was looking for a mommy figure: It works.  This is not to say that he is my best friend.  I love him and thoroughly enjoy his company, but I already had a best friend when I met him.  In fact, whenever I read some wedding announcement in "The New York Times" or some article in "People Magazine" about a woman who is marrying her, "best friend," I want to send her the business card for a divorce lawyer as a wedding present, because either he is gay or you are going to be sorely disappointed in your marriage.  While the former may work for many including Michelle Bachmann, most of us who are married to a heterosexual guy know they are not going to want to trash talk about the mom who lets her six year old play "Halo" (Oh yeah, that's me), and he is not going to help you Netflix stalk every movie Jeremy Renner has been in because he is cute, but not in the obvious kind of way.  These are things friends are for.

Anyway, I digress.  The husband is the jump in with both feet kind of guy who takes on a project without knowing what the hell he is doing and completes it.  I am more of a worst case scenario, research it to death, and though it will make most of my friends who knew me in my twenties roll over in fits of laughter as they read the following description of myself; cautious conservative kind of gal.

Sometimes the husband's impulsivity leads to some costly mistakes, but it is also why we have a full fledged farm in less than a year, so I don't get on his case too much about the fuck ups.  Plus, the, "I told you so" moment I got to bask in as the used pick up I warned him not to buy was towed into the driveway a couple of weeks after he purchased it, was worth every penny of the $2000 he spent on the piece of junk.

The one flaw to our perfect symbiotic relationship is my love of animals.  This is how the woman who only wanted a few chickens and four sheep to make cheese with ended up with a 72 chickens, 13 guinea keets, five cats, two dogs, a rabbit, a heifer and now a miniature horse.  But even more than my inability to say no to an animal, I have come to realize the balance of a farm is much like the balance of a marriage or any good relationship.

In the garden you plant beets with bush beans because they help each other grow.  Carrots and onions repel each others pests.  Cows like to eat the tall part of the grass while sheep and horses like the short grass.  The chickens like to eat the bugs and worms in the manure of both and spread the seeds to make an even more lush and nutrient dense pasture and the dogs protect all of these creatures from predators.  Of course, 72 chickens might be a little excessive in this situation, but this is where the husband's go big or go home attitude comes into play. The delicate balance of any relationship or society for that matter needs to be about helping each other.  I have had a plethora of ah ha moments about the meanings behind dozens of old time sayings since beginning of my farming journey, and I can honestly say, what's good for the goose really is good for the gander.

It is when we think we can game this precious symbiosis that the shit hits the fan.  Think of an abusive marriage or the Dust Bowl or the gardener who only grows one crop or the factory farms that only raise one type of meat or the housing bubble.  When all energy goes into one side of the relationship, the microcosm withers and dies. Perhaps we should all consider this dillema. The farmers I have had the privilege to meet since moving up to the farmette seem to understand it implicitly.