Chicbeth

Something wicked may have come this way to the farmette.  The witches foretold the prophecy on a warm July evening when two chicks hatched in the incubator.  The first was a scrawny little yellow one who was met with fierce hatred and distrust when I tried to sneak him under a broody witch. The second was a bossy little black puff ball who I was convinced was the reincarnation of Kyle the ineffectual rooster.

The two little chicks became best friends and constant companions in order to avoid being killed by the older chickens.   They all lived somewhat peacefully under the benevolent leadership of good King Big Red Chicken.

Round about September, it became apparent that one of the "Littles" as we called the two chicks, was a rooster.  There were some Peter Bradyesque attempts at cockadoodledooing but because the two were never apart, it was hard to tell which one it was.  I was sure it was the black one.  It was not.  There was a new rooster in town, and it was Big Red Chicken's kid, Little Red Chicken.

Little Red grew quickly and the sweet little chick who used to eat out of my hand, was turning into kind of an asshole.  Big Red still ruled the roost though and his quiet dignity reigned the coop.  But there was something rotten in the state of Denmark.  (I know, wrong Shakespeare metaphor.)  One morning as I opened the door to the hen house, I found Big Red Chicken dead.  He was so peaceful looking that for a second I thought he was asleep.  We assumed it was probably a heart attack.  He was a one year old meat bird and his massive size suggested that he was not bred for longevity.

Little Red quickly took the crown and his malevolence to all but his childhood friend was suspicious. Her status in the flock shot up from serf to queen in a matter of hours.  I could have sworn I even saw her rubbing her little chicken feet together muttering, "Out damn spot."  Double double toil and trouble indeed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Chicbeth and his power hungry wife, Lady Chicbeth.  Shakespeare's themes are truly universal.

Name Calling

Today I called Noelle the C word and it wasn't cow.  When the husband is in the city, I am responsible for milking the cow and feeding the chickens.  Not a huge time commitment, but when you add getting everybody up and fed, lunches made and putting myself together in a somewhat presentable state, it adds an extra 40 minutes or so to a morning that is already a frenzied, screaming, running out the door at 7:45 mess due to my fantastic procrastination skills.  When I have to drag my butt and the 20lb milker out to the barn at 5:45 a.m. for a puddle of milk from an ornery cow, it makes me upset.  What makes me even more upset is watching her leave the barn so she can nurse a very large calf.  I called him the B word and it wasn't Billy or Beef.

The days of having Noelle supply enough milk for every creature on the farm, seem to be over now that Billy is big enough to suck her dry in five minutes.  When I was staring at a refrigerator overflowing with milk a few months back, I was grateful we had the calf to share in the bounty, but now I am in a panic.  The thought of store bought milk or butter makes me sad, not to mention what it would do to my street cred as a self-sustainer.

We tried luring Billy into the barn one night but he broke out of the stall within an hour and went running to his Mommy.  A night of Noelle in the barn meant a night listening to the most heartbreaking laments you have ever heard. We need a plan.  Maybe he should be renamed Vinny Veal? I am thinking about inventing some sort of screw top teet caps.  I could make millions.

Lactose Intolerant

The other day when I was dining on homemade greek yogurt topped with fresh from the garden beet tatziki and cherry tomatoes, I was struck by how freaking awesome I am. Just five years ago the only food I produced on the farmette was arugula and blueberries and let me tell you, if those blueberry bushes hadn't already been on the property, it would have been straight up arugula salad and I guess tree bark.

Nowadays, I'm milking a cow; making yogurt, ice cream, butter, cheese (getting better at that).  Nestled in among the weeds in my garden, there is kale and beans and six different types of squash growing.  Never mind that I am not sure what they all are because I just kind of transplanted the seedlings willy nilly. Five different types of tomatoes have overtaken the green house along with beets, carrots, basil, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme and the tiniest little cantaloup I have ever seen. There are meat birds in the freezer and a dozen or more eggs coming out of the hen house most days.
What more is there for me to write about?  I am now a master farmer.  Oh yeah. There is Noellle.

Trying to deal with a stubborn 850lb cow on a daily basis makes me tense.  As I sit here writing this at 5:30 a.m. I am filled with trepidation thinking about having to go out to the barn to milk the beast. What will await me today?  Will she stand with her body and legs angled  just so in order to make it impossible to attach the milker?  Will she try to kick me when I reach in to remove the milker?  Will she lunge and jerk in the stanchion so much that the milker falls off the belt and spills milk all over the stall? I can hardly wait. Dairy farmers, I don't know how you do it.  I genuflect at your courage and patience.

She will stand perfectly still while he milks her.  I think it is a conspiracy.

And then there are her Houdini like abilities to suddenly appear on the other side of the fence. Earlier in the summer the husband and I were woken by Prince letting us know that the cow and her calf were in the front yard.  After chasing and cajoling with treats for a half hour, we got them into the barn and then spent the rest of the day mending fences as the song goes.

My worst Noelle fear came to pass a couple of days ago.  I was in the house preparing dinner when Scrappy came in.  "Mom, Noelle is in the backyard." F*%k!  The husband and eldest son were away which meant, James Dean, Scrappy and I had to get the cow in and fix the fence on our own.  My first thought was to get my neighbor, but he wasn't home and I didn't want to be the damsel in distress.  I wanted to fix it on my own.  I tried to lure her with some hay but she was much too happy with the fresh grass in the backyard. The hay did attract young Billy Beef however so between trying to get her into the pasture I had to keep him away from the open gate.  He doesn't scare quite as easily as he used to.  I was a lunatic calling to her in my sweetest voice one second and chasing him up the hill shrieking the next.

I finally managed to get her in with a scoop of grain sprinkled on top of the hay and got to work on the tangled, trampled barbed wire fence she had escaped from and would surly escape from again if I didn't fix it.  I stabbed myself about a dozen times with the barbs but finally got the wire untangled.  Unfortunately it was hanging about six inches from the ground so she and Billy Beef would have no problem with a repeat performance. Thank God for the husband and his barn full of crap. I was able to find two moveable fence posts that I pounded into the ground and hung the wire on.  I headed back into the house with a smug satisfaction of my farmhand skills.

Noel and Billy spent yesterday behind the fence but I suspect there will be many more breakouts.  6:30a.m. (Gulp)  Time to milk the cow.  Wish me luck.

PS: Today she threatened to kick me.  I think it is time for a restraining order

Say Cheese or Not

Happy one month birthday Billy Beef! Wow!  What a month.  It started out kind of the same way I started as a new mother; looking at the baby who didn't want to go to sleep at 11:00pm and thinking, "Now what?" only this time I am looking at a giant udder at 5:30am and thinking, "Now what?"  Here are a few things I have learned over the past month

1. I can milk a cow like a boss!  The first couple of days battling with the 20lb Surge Milker, trying to hoist it onto Noelle's "belt" and then trying to lean under the 850lb cow to attach the four suctions all while trying to avoid being kicked, I ended up in tears and resorted to hand milking.  Cross that off the bucket list. Hand milking is for the retired millionaire who fancies himself a gentleman farmer not the woman who has to be to work at 8am with three kids in the house not getting ready for school despite my threats as I left for the barn.  I scoffed at the ridiculous price of the Surger Milker, but now I am very thankful for the Husband's impulsivity and Type A personality that, "Has no time to waste milking by hand".

2. Cows produce A LOT of milk!  Thank Hera Billy Beef didn't end up Vinnie Veal because we get 5-6 gallons milking once a day without separating mom and nursing calf.  I cannot imagine where I would put 12 or more gallons if I had to milk her twice a day.  We have a fridge dedicated to dairy. It is filled with five gallon jars of fresh milk, cream, butter, yogurt, cheese and the freezer has some interesting ice cream flavors: Basil Chocolate Chip anyone?

3. And speaking of cheese, I have learned that I suck at making it.  When I agreed to abandon the city and move out to the country, I told the Husband I would do it if I could make sheep's milk cheese. Three years, 72 chickens, five cats, two bunnies, two dogs, a miniature horse, a cow and a calf later, I still do not have any sheep, but I do make cheese (poorly).  It is way too sciencey for my cooking skills. I am more of the Shirley Valentine school of cooking.  "I like a glass of wine while I am preparing the evening meal.  Don't I wall?"

There is no drinking while making cheese.  Partially because you have to pay attention to temperatures and what culture to add when and the cutting of the curds.  The other reason is that it is very time consuming.  When you start at 7am with milk still steaming from the cow, and end the process days later, that would be one hell of a bender.

As I type away I have some curd setting for feta which will be ready in three days.  Farmhouse cheddar will take two months or more.  Since I am more of an instant gratification seeker, I have tried several times to perfect the 30 minute mozzarella.  I have had one slightly edible ball, but most have tasted like silly putty. Yes, I did chew on silly putty when I was a kid so I do know what I am talking about.  There is nothing like pressing a wad of slimy grey silly putty onto your favorite Family Circus comic in the Sunday paper and then peeling the image from the page and popping it into your mouth.

There are so many variables to experiment with to determine why your cheese sucks.  Is the milk too fatty?  Not fatty enough?  Did I add too much citric acid?  Was the temperature right?  Should I add the rennet later?  Should I let it sit longer?  Usually with cooking I just add more butter or white wine.  Sauce too thin?  Add butter.  Sauce too thick?  Add white wine. Food too bland?  Sauté it in butter and add white wine.  For my daily cooking I don't need to know the chemical structure of milk fat and protein and why milk is different depending on the time of day or year you get it.  And how to compensate for the different fat content and whether your cow was pissed at you the last time you milked her.

Fear not readers.  I have not given up.  I will be winning that blue ribbon for Best Cheese at the County Fair next year, but in the meantime...Watch out Ben & Jerry.  I am gunning for you.  Oh, and here's a cute video of mom and baby.

Yup. We got milk.

Billy Beef is two weeks old.  We were considering changing his name to Vinnie Veal, but cannot bear the idea of taking him away from Noelle at this point.  Her mothering instincts are intense and beautiful.  I thought I was a rockstar because I managed to push out a few babies, but I had a team of people helping me out:  ob/gyns, midwives, nurses, husband, best friend.  I can't imagine what it would be like to start feeling really crampy one day and all of a sudden see a slimy little creature come out of you.  Then, while experiencing complete exhaustion and bewilderment, you feel compelled to lick the slimy little creature clean and eat its placenta.  Mother Nature is the bomb.

It took some time to get Noelle into the barn to milk her.  She prefers to spend her time out in the pasture with Billy and his de facto godmother, Cody Bear.  Ironically, with his cinnamon coloring and white facial markings, Billy looks more like his godmother than his mother and Cody Bear takes her job very seriously.

I spent a few days trying to entice Noelle to come into the barn by bringing a big scoop of grain out into the pasture and shaking it so she could hear. She looked at me, looked at Billy lying next to her, bowed her head and gave him a low, guttural  moo.  He immediately rose to his feet and trotted up the hill behind her.

Finally by day 4, I came a little closer with my scoop of grain and let a few pieces cascade from my hand so she would know it was the real deal.  Again she looked at me, looked at Billy and gave him a low guttural moo.  He jumped to his feet, but this time trotted behind her down to the barn.  I put two heaping scoops of feed into her pail and locked her into the stanchion.  After a few failed attempts to attach the milking machine/medieval torture device, I decided to forgo the milking and try to get my hands on Billy.

He immediately fled the barn and I followed behind calling to him in the most Mary Poppinsish voice I could conjure.  He stopped a safe distance away and stared at me with a curious head tilt.  I thought my Dr. Doolittle routine was working until Cody Bear ratted me out with a warning call to the entrapped Noelle.  She whinnied and Noelle frantically mooed in response. I decided it was best to go  back to the barn and release her from the stanchion rather than risk her never entering the barn again.

We now have a pretty good milking routine. The husband or I go out in the morning and call to Noelle.  She moos to Billy and he follows her into the barn.  He has his own stall next to her stanchion and he lies down where she can see him while she eats and is milked.  I even got to pet him.

There has been no separation of mother and baby like we thought we would have to do in order to get our share of the milk. He nurses on demand and we still get about 5 gallons of milk a day.  It is a win-win for everyone, except perhaps the poor creature attached to the milking machine. Our little self-sufficient engine is really revving up on the Farmette.

It's a boy

To quote Jon Stewart, "Here it is, your moment of Zen."

Royal Baby Watch

Sorry Princess Charlotte, but the birth everyone on the farmette is eagerly awaiting is that of the heir apparent to the Bovine Queen Noelle.

The farm minion (the husband) has been hard at work preparing the royal suite for the little prince or princess.

A portable milking machine has been purchased, a stanchion has been built to milk the Queen Mum and the husband has personally transported 1500 lbs of a special organic grain from Vermont for Noelle to munch on while she is being milked.   I am convinced that the exorbitant cost of this grain must mean it is sprinkled with magic fairy dust. I try to focus on the fact that I will no longer have to pay $4/gallon of milk and $6/lb of butter instead of the $1000 we have spent so we can be slaves to our daily 5am milking regimen.

We know the birth is imminent due to the fact that Noelle is really, "bagging up". This is a term the husband learned from a Youtube video to describe the expanding udder.  As a former milking mother, I find it rather offensive, but he loves to throw the phrase around whenever neighbors come over.  The owner of the baby daddy delivered some hay recently, and the husband invited him to take a look at Noelle.

Husband: "We think she is ready because she is really bagging up."

Neighbor: "She sure is bagging up, but probably will bag up even more."

What about the fact that she looks uncomfortable because she has a 100lb calf pressing up against her ribs?

A 100 lb baby is what gets me.   When I was big and uncomfortable towards the end of my pregnancy with Prince, I was suddenly struck by the notion of, "This baby has to somehow come out of my body!"  I was terrified and he only weighed 8 lbs.

Granted, Noelle probably weighs in at well over 800 lbs but since I am going to be playing midwife, I am feeling a tad stressed out.

"Don't worry." said a friend who has experience with birthing calves.  "She will probably be fine, but if the baby is breech, you will  have to tie a rope to its leg and pull."

Shut. The. Front. Door.

This is sounding way too much like the movie "Alien." I envision myself covered in copious amounts of amniotic fluid as I try to leverage myself against a railing to pull the calf out before I am suffocated by a gigantic placenta.


to be continued...

Bueno

Noelle is pregnant. This either makes us experts in bovine estrus or incredibly lucky.  Either way, it looks like a new bundle of joy will arrive on the Farmette mid- June and we will begin our daily milking chores, never to have a family vacation again. I exaggerate a bit but travel will be much more difficult.

Since lengthy family vacations may become a thing of the past, we figured we might as well go out with a bang and bring the children somewhere exotic and unusual.  A place that will give the boys bragging rights later in life when they are comparing  "messed up things your parents did when you were a kid" stories with their friends.

With the recent announcement that the US would be normalizing relations, we decided on Cuba.  It is not a destination many American consider when planning a vacation so we would still maintain a modicum of street cred while enjoying a warm tropical retreat from the subzero temperatures we had been experiencing in upstate New York this winter.

 Back in the 90's when we were young, childless and carefree, the Husband and I visited an artist friend in Cuba .  We fell in love with the warmth of the people and the decrepit beauty of Havana.  We spent our days walking through the streets photographing the once magnificent Colonial buildings that still housed people despite the fact that they looked like they could collapse at any moment.  In the evening we sipped mojitos on the veranda at the Hotel Nacional half expecting to see Michael Corleone walk through the door. We vowed to return someday.  Little did we know it would be 15 years later with our three boys. We wanted them to experience the off-limits Cuba of Castro before US sanctions are lifted and hoards of Americans descend upon the tiny island stuck in the 1950's with its orange and lime green tiled hotels and streets lined with, "Chebies" (old American cars from before the revolution that are beautifully maintained and still running.) They needed to see for themselves that countries are about the people who live in them and not foreign policy decisions or governments, despite what the press and the history books say.

We went online and reserved rooms at the hotel we had stayed at during our earlier trip as well as a four night stay at a beach on the western tip of the island.
Since as of this writing it is still illegal for U.S. Citizens to travel to Cuba unless they are part of a tour group or have a special visa, Americans must fly through another country.  Every other country has relations with Cuba so flights are not hard to come by.  The first time around we opted to fly through Cancun which was a breeze.  You can obtain a visa right at the terminal in a matter of minutes.  This time we decided to fly from Toronto and visit Niagra Falls along the way. The visa process at the Toronto airport was equally easy. Contrary to popular belief, Cuba wants Americans to come. Tourism is their largest industry and they welcome us and our money. Our money, we soon learned was a problem.

It is not visiting Cuba that is forbidden.  The sanctions against Cuba are economic so spending money there is verboten for US Citizens. You cannot use credit cards from American banks or write a check.  Once in Cuba, you can change dollars for CUC which is one of two Cuban currencies and the one most used by tourists, but there are higher fees for changing American dollars.  We exchanged our American dollars for Canadian at the Toronto airport, but we would soon learn that we should have exchanged more.

Upon arriving at the hotel in Havana, we discovered that our credit card had only been used to reserve the rooms.  It could not be used to pay for the room due to the sanctions.  Since Cuban hotels will only allow 4 people/room we were forced to have two rooms for our family of five.  At $400/ night for both rooms that would take a big chunk out of the $1500 we had brought with us.  I started to question the prudence of our vacation destination.

Luckily, we had paid for our four nights at the Villa Maria la Gorda in the Cabo Corrientes Nature Reserve thanks to a British travel agency we found online, so we decided to ditch our second night in Havana and head to Vinales, a lush mountain town where the tobacco for the infamous Cuban cigar is grown.

We managed to get five seats on a very comfortable coach bus that drove us the 3 plus hours to Vinales for 15 CUC per person. When we arrived we immediately went to the taxi office to find a car to drive us another 3 plus hours to the western most tip of the island where Cabo Corrientes is located.  Despite the effort the Cuban government has made to preserve this 30 mile reserve, it is a difficult area to get to.  A taxi was our only option.

The kindly dispatcher spent 45 minutes with two cell phones and the help of various locals who wandered in and out of the office trying to hire us a taxi. Her tenacity paid off and we were all set for the morning.

When we exited the office we were met by a young woman on a bike whose home we would be staying at that night. Cubans are allowed to apply for a license to rent out rooms in their homes to tourists.  You will see  many, "Casa Particulars" signs on homes throughout Cuba.  They are an inexpensive way to stay in Cuba and offer foreigners a wonderful opportunity to meet locals.

We were brought to a tidy colorful stucco house on a street of equally tidy colorful homes. The concrete floor had a thick glossy marbleized finish that was as beautiful as it was functional. The young woman's mother greeted us with the warm Cuban smile we had encountered numerous times over the past two days. Through her broken English and my terrible Spanish, we introduced ourselves and she showed us to our two small but immaculate rooms which we soon cluttered with our bags and iDevices. I unpacked the snacks I had squirreled away from our Copa Airlines flight and the boys dined on almonds and Oreos while the Husband and I cracked open the $4 bottle of wine we had bought at a roadside restaurant we had stopped at on the bus ride.  Our money troubles didn't seem as dire and we relaxed with a rousing game of Crazy 8s.

Our accommodations cost us $40 for the night and for an additional $3/person we were treated to a breakfast feast of fresh eggs from the chickens running around the neighborhood, ham, coffee, juice, three different types of tropical fruit and fresh bread. We stuffed ourselves and after the fifth hug and kiss Scrappy received from our enamored hostess, we said our goodbyes and went out to meet the taxi.

A small Renault sedan pulled up and I wondered how the six of us and four suitcases were going to fit. The driver managed to get all of our stuff into the trunk and we piled in.

As we careened untethered down the twisty mountain road, my bad mommy guilt weighed heavy.  I clutched Scrappy Doo in my lap like that was somehow going to protect him if we crashed.  I couldn't help but think about the hours I spent researching baby seats before Prince was born and the number of times I walked 20 blocks with 2 children in the stroller and one strapped to my chest rather than getting into a cab without child safety seats let alone seat belts.

Once we got down the mountain I relaxed a bit.  It was slow going through many small villages with farmers trotting down the street in their horse drawn carts. Rice paddies and tobacco fields stretched for miles.

We reached the entrance to Cabo Corrientes and everyone was relieved; especially our driver who had to go back to Vinales and pick up a passenger headed to Havana.  The only scenery for the next half hour was dense forest.  All of a sudden, there was a break through the trees and the turquoise waters of the Caribbean sparkled in the sun.

We arrived at our destination about a half an hour later and were pleasantly surprised by the lovely water front cabin we would call home for the next few days.  After paying for our taxi, we had no idea how we were going to afford to get back to Havana, but at that point we did not care.

Our room included breakfast and dinner so for the next couple of days we would save some of our fruit, bread and cheese from breakfast.  The boys thought it great fun to smuggle out our leftovers in a napkin.  Our kindly waiter soon caught on to us and appeared at our balcony the next afternoon with three pizzas.  Here we were the, "wealthy" Americans receiving charity from this generous man who probably earns less than $1,000/ year. We were humbled and grateful.

Once word got out about the broke Americans, everyone was trying to feed us. One morning Scrappy Doo came sauntering up the walkway covered in red lipstick and munching on cookies.

"Where'd you get those?"  I asked pointing to the lipstick stains as well as the cookies.

"The maid." He nonchalantly replied.

Our bellies were fat but our wallets were still slim. We had enough to get back to Havana and to pay our airport tax but that still left one more night in Havana. With no internet or cell service we could not even call relatives in Denmark to ask them to wire us money. The husband decided to use our last few CUC to buy a phone card and call the British travel agency that had booked our beach cabins. Success! We were able to charge our taxi back to Havana as well as a hotel and taxi to the airport.

The next day a van arrived for us.  It even had seatbelts. We climbed in along with our chivalrous waiter and another employee from the resort. Since the cabins are in such a remote location, employees come stay at the resort for a week and go home for a week.  We were happy to give them a lift and repay their generosity.

We reached our hotel in a Havana suburb in the late afternoon.  The grand lobby was surrounded by balconies and lush foliage. Upon closer inspection the fountain next to the reception desk was dry and stray cats ran across the railings reminding us we were in a country that had seen more opulent days.

The next day as we waited for our taxi to the airport, James Dean and Scrappy informed us of their plans to move to Cuba after college.  The husband and I smiled at this affirmation of a successful vacation despite some monetary set backs. Who knows what Cuba will be like by then.  I am hopeful for the opportunities the Cuban people will be afforded once the sanctions are lifted but I am fearful of what the influx of American businesses could do to this magical island. I am however sure the people will remain some of the kindest souls I have ever met and I will forever cherish my memories of Cuba.