Starting with Pigs

Often while outside working on our farm something will trigger a memory that I have the opportunity to dwell on for some time.  Every so often, life gets mundane, even for me. I will go about my daily work, and not think about how far we've come. As sad as it sounds, I will get into phases where I take what we have for granted. Not only our nice house and land but the knowledge that we have acquired over the last four years. Today as I was feeding our pigs, I had the opportunity to think about where we started with pigs a few years back. After I give the pigs their feed I will sit quietly on my 4 wheeler and just watch them eat. It is at this time that I evaluate my herd. In this certain pasture I have my three breeding sows and a few feeder pigs. Due to staggered breeding, my sows are mostly in different stages, such as ready to breed, already bred, nursing piglets or weaning piglets. While they eat, I normally will evaluate how my sows are doing in their current state, or how the piglets are growing and developing. But today I got lost in my thoughts and rather than checking out my pigs, I began to think back to how it all got started in pigs.
It was in early Spring of 2008 I believe when we started thinking about pigs. I really wanted to raise my own pork chops and I started researching how to do it. All the reading I did led me to believe that it wasn't that difficult to raise a pig. At this point I still hadn't figured out that book learning and on the farm learning are vastly different. After some discussion, we decided on getting two weaner pigs, piglets just weaned off the sow. We thought that it is always best to raise animals in groups, at least two, so they have companionship. We didn't know any pig raisers yet so we started perusing craig's list and other places to find pigs for sale. A spot was selected and I constructed a pen to house our newest additions to the farm family. Finally all preparations were complete and we found a farmer that had the right size pigs available. Zaner and I loaded up a pet carrier in the back of the pick up and we were off to get our pigs. It was an exciting trip, even though it was only about 10 miles away. Whenever I go on an animal buying trip with the kids we are all giddy like the day before Christmas. It's exciting to be getting a new thing, but even more exciting to get a cute little piggy. I really don't remember too much of the conversation that day but I do remember the look on Zane's face the whole trip. He had a huge smile on his face and couldn't sit still, it must have seemed to him like it took hours to cover the short ten mile trip. That is one of my favorite things to do is watch my children in excited anticipation to get something fun. To watch that childlike exuberance and see him looking at me like I'm the greatest dad ever for getting him pigs, just makes me feel good. I get a warm feeling now as I just remember those times. The farm we were travelling to was in the city, actually over the years the city had built up around the farm. For a time, I thought we had gotten lost because I was driving on a street of "million dollar" homes and I was thinking, "No way someone in one of these houses is raising pigs." But, out of the blue we drove by a farm, right on the main street. There stood the "Pig Lady", Lurene, who now is one of our best friends with whom we work often. Lurene directed me down to the pig pen and we got out of the truck to start shopping. There was a pen of about 30 weaner pigs all running around like crazy kid animals. They were all black and white except one, who was red and white. Zane jumped out of the truck, pointed at the "different" one and hollered, "I want that one, and I'm naming him Booger!" Obviously he had been putting some thought into this pig raising idea. You know, dad has been planning what kind of feed to buy, what kind of pen to construct, where to put feeders, how to get water to the pen, the five year old has been thinking, "what are we going to name them?" A smile crossed Lurene's face as she was seeing the same thing I had been relishing, the happiness and excitement of a child. She asked me if that one was one that I wanted, like I knew anything about pigs. At this particular point in my farming life I couldn't tell a good pig from a worthless cull. I shrugged and said, "Sure." I had told her on the phone that I wanted two, so she asked me which other one I wanted. I told her to pick out a nice one for me. She agreed and stepped into the pig pen and looked at me like I was coming in with her, nope. I had never touched a pig in my life and had no idea what to expect. They are fast little buggers. She chased them and got them cornered and grabbed ol "Booger". That pig let out a squeal like she had just ripped its ears off. Booger weighed probably 70 lbs and was squealing like it was crazy. She picked it up by the back legs and started carrying it over to the edge of the pen. I thought this was odd because the extent of my animal purchasing to this point was buying a puppy or kitty. When picking up your puppy, you don't grab the thing by its back legs and let it squeal and kick around, you cuddle it and make it feel safe and warm. She reached the edge of the pen and tried to hand me the pig and I smiled and said, "Put it in there" pointing at the pet carrier in the back of the truck. She must have thought I was out of my mind. She said, "Just take it." "Nope." The pig was squealing like a trapped bear and flailing all around, I was sure I would drop that thing then I would be chasing it through the back yards of the aforementioned million dollar homes. Poor Lurene just shook her head and stepped over the fence while carrying booger and stuffed him in the pet crate. One day I will have to ask her of her first impression of me on that day, probably city slicker scaredy pants. We got the second pig, "Bacon", and headed home. The next six months went along without any significant trouble as we raised our first set of pigs. The day finally came when it was time to butcher. We had the mobile slaughter unit come to the house to do the job. As I was chatting with the slaughter guy, Mike, I found out that he raised pigs himself. My pig wasn't raised very well, we had fed it the wrong stuff and it wasn't very big. He showed me the things he looks for in a pig and we discussed ways that I could do better next time. I didn't really think there would be a next time, because I just thought the whole pig raising thing was too much trouble. But Mike said he would call me when he had some more pigs available to sell so I could start my next batch. A few weeks went by as the pig was being processed at the butcher, and I grew more and more certain that we just didn't have time to raise pigs. The day finally came for us to pick up our cut up pig from the butcher and it was very exciting that we would be eating our very own pork that night for dinner. The dinner was a hit. The pork chops were thick and amazingly juicy. I was proud of the kids that not one of them was "sad" to be eating "booger" (?) but instead made comments on how yummy it was. Part of the lesson of raising our own food is to teach our children that in order for us to eat, something else has to give up its own life, and that's why we respect our food and our animals. Like I mentioned before, we had decided to not raise any more pigs because we didn't feel we had the time. As dinner was served, I cut into my first bite of pork, while I was chewing that first bite of amazing taste the phone rang. It was Mike and he asked me "I got some weaner pigs ready to go, how many you want?" My simple answer was, "Five."
So it began. Today I sit here looking over my herd of pigs and am amazed at how far we've come with this venture. Not four years ago, I didn't know how to pick a pig up, now we have three breeding sows, a boar and several feeder pigs. We still learn every day, but our knowledge is immense compared to that first day we brought Booger home. It's another example in my life where God has led us into something we didn't feel we were ready for or capable of, yet it was the thing that He wanted us to do, so He guides us along the way. Today I couldn't really imagine not seeing my pigs run around the pasture, it just wouldn't seem like the farm without our piggies.

Chasing after worry

Right around sundown each day we like to take a little walk around and "shut down" the farm.  Just take a quick look around for anything unusual, like someone left a gate open, left water on, didn't collect eggs etc.  On this particular night I was walking around and noticed some of our turkeys getting up on the fence between their pasture and the chicken pasture.  They were roosting for the night.  Well its really not that big of deal, because they are just "going to bed", even though I have fine buildings for them to sleep on out in the pasture. For some reason, I didn't think this was an "ok" thing.  I walked over and started knocking turkeys off the fence, there were about five of them so no big deal.  After I knocked the last one off the fence I noticed one turkey at the end of the pasture had gotten over the fence and now couldn't figure out how to get back in.  This is very normal as turkeys tend to be challenged in the area of thinking.  The poor thing was pacing the fence right where the big gun sprinkler was spraying.  It was soaked, it looked like a cat that just got "accidentally" pushed in the bath tub. (Don't ask)  So I wandered down there and started to climb the fence to get my wayward charge back in.  While climbing the barb wire fence, just as I was stepping over, my foot slipped and I fell.  On my way down, I straddled the fence which certainly didn't feel to well, and the fence acted like a springboard and vaulted me into the turkey pasture where I landed with a very non- triumphant thud on my rear end.  My only positive thought was that we live far out in the country and I'm quite sure nobody witnessed my gymnastic moment.  On to the lost turkey.  Trying to catch the thing was not easy.  I must have chased the little stinker a mile and it kept getting away.  The whole time I'm yelling at it that I am just trying to help, as if the turkey can understand me.  Feels pretty foolish as I look back on it now, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.  Finally the turkey was caught and placed back into the pen and I turned to walk back up to the house and relax for dinner.  As I turned I saw the turkeys back up on that stupid fence roosting again.  It was the same five plus a few more now.  Bad examples leading their peers into trouble.  Now, sad to say, I got angry.  Why won't you stupid turkeys do things the way that I expect things to go.  So this time I ran up the hill screaming like a madman.  Of course if I scared the wits out of them, they would learn their lesson.  (Who was challenged in the thinking department now)  Rather than getting scared and jumping off the fence and doing what I wanted, they simply looked at me, probably saying to one another, "Those humans sure are stupid."  I got to them and knocked them all off the fence again back into their proper pasture.  Job well done.  Now I ventured into the hen house to make one last check of nesting boxes.  Not finding any eggs, I walked back out the door and back up on the fence were even more turkeys.   As the steam shot out of my ears I grabbed a big stick laying there and started swinging it around and hollering like a Mongolian war lord, that didn't work either, so I once again pushed them all off the fence.  Now it was about dark and I walked up to the house.  As I reached the door I heard the all too familiar sound of wings flapping.  Turning around I saw several turkeys on the fence and others quickly jumping up, as if to say, "Hurry up before that crazy dude comes back!"  At this point laughter over took me.  It was now that I realized, "Why do I care if the turkeys choose to sleep on the fence?" 
So many times in my life I do this same thing.  As if there is not enough real issues in this life to cause stress, I will make things up to worry about.  How many times have I let things that really don't matter bother me?  Too often I'm afraid.  But that's what maturing is all about I suppose.  I went back in the house in a rather good mood and shared my experience with my wife and we both enjoyed a nice chuckle at my expense.

Open the Gate!

Small town fairs are the best.  I like going to the larger county fairs for sure but in my opinion you can't beat a truly small town celebration.  We had the opportunity to enjoy such a time a couple of weeks ago when we attended Benton City Daze, our local community event.  We enjoyed the whole time but one event will stick with me for quite some time.  When we first heard that Benton City Daze was happening, the flyer said that there would be mutton bustin (sheep riding) for the little kids and calf riding for the older kids.  All three of my children were completely excited about the idea of riding these animals.  I was NOT so excited.  It was my thought that these kids didn't have a clue what they were signing up for.  I even told them, "You know, this isn't like the pony rides, where the thing walks along while you smile for pictures from mom."  All I got was "Pleeeeeeaaasssssee Daddy!".  Fine.  I wasn't worried so much that they might get hurt, they're pretty tough.  It troubled me more the psychological hurt that could happen.  LOL right now you're thinking I'm pretty wierd, and you're right.  Though I'm ashamed of it a little bit now, I was sure that they would chicken out once they climbed on these critters in the chute.  Not that that would bother me, but I didn't want them to feel "ashamed" of themselves if they got scared and the other kids went through with it.  Just a Dad over thinking everything. 
I soon found out that I was wrong and underestimated my children.  We arrived and got signed up and my daughter Zoey was the first to go.  She climbed right down onto the sheep and started the routine.  There was a young bull rider in the chute with her to get her all set up.  When she got all set up and ready to go, she looked pretty nervous but didn't say anything.  I asked her if she was alright and she said a resounding "Yep!".  I said just hold on as tight as you can and don't let go.  I had told all three of them the same thing, "It's your decision to ride and you can decide not to at any time, but you have to make the call.  When you're ready you have to look at the gate man and tell him 'Open the gate!'.  So I told Zoey everything was ready and we were waiting on her.  Immediately she hollered "Open the gate!."  That ol sheep took off outta there like a rocket but Zoey hung on and would not let go.  The sheep took a hard right and she slid off to the side but would not let go.  So at this point, my daughter was riding on the side of the sheep.  She continued to slide until she was directly under the sheep but she still held on.  The clown was chasing her hollerin,  "Let go, let go!"  Finally she dropped and that was done.  To my amusement she jumped right up and jogged across the arena like nothing had happened.  Job well done. 
There was no time to enjoy the moment for Dad though because, Isaac, my baby was up next.  As Isaac was sitting on his sheep preparing I could see that he was taking a completely different approach than Zoey.  His approach was ignorance.  That's right my three year old had absolutely no clue what was about to happen, and for that I felt kind of bad, but if I took him off the sheep at this point he would have cried all day, so gotta let him go.  I asked him, "You ready?".  He said "Sure."   He then said the magic words, "Open the gate."  Didn't take long for Isaac to find out this wasn't what he was expecting.  The sheep exploded out of the chute and little Isaac hung on like a trooper but only made it about two jumps before he flew off the sheep, face first into a pile of horse poop.  Nervous Dad was running right behind as Isaac rolled over, looked me in the eye, and held his hands out palms up and said to me, "I fell in poop!".  He's a trooper.  He stood up and walked out of the arena with his head held high.
 Next up was my oldest boy, Zane.  Now he was too big for one of the little sheep so he had to ride a bull calf.  I know my children pretty well and I could tell when Zane climbed down on that calf that he was genuinely scared.  Poor kid.  He couldn't back out now, his little sister and baby brother had just rode their critter, no way was he going to "chicken" out.  I said "It's your call, Zaner."  He looked up and said the words...... "Open the gate."  One jump, Zane had it licked.  And then that silly little calf put the brakes on and stopped, Zane kept going, flying straight over the top.  He flew about ten feet and belly flopped on the ground.  He popped straight up and jogged out of the arena and a relieved Dad met him outside the gate.
 It was over, they had all did their adventure ride and no major injuries.  As we sat and listened to them for the next couple hours it was fun to listen to their stories.  Nobody claimed victory over the other siblings for doing any better than the others, they were just all happy and proud.  It hit me that they didn't care that none of them made a "qualified" eight second ride, none of them knew what their score was they all just knew that they were really scared to do something and they had the courage to holler "Open the gate!"  That convinced me that my children had just learned a valuable life lesson.

As I thought about this story the other day, it brought me back to a decision we had recently made to move to a larger acreage farm and expand our business.  At the time the opportunity came to us, we didn't have any money to make the move let alone purchase extra animals and feed.  It just seemed like it was the right move for us.  We didn't quite know how it was all going to work out but we felt God was working in our lives and asking us to live faithfully.  We knew it was going to be incredibly difficult.  Just like I told my kids, "I don't think you understand what you are getting yourself into.", I felt that many of our friends were thinking the same thing about us.  We finally decided that this could be our only opportunity to move to a "real" farm and grow a sustainable operation.  We made the move.

No way of telling right now how this is all going to turn out.  We may be like Zoey and hang on to our dream refusing to let go while it drags us across the arena.  We may be like Zane and have our dream suddenly stop while we fly straight to the ground with a loud thud.  We may be like Isaac and not realize what we are getting ourselves into and land face first in a big old pile of horse poop.  But whatever happens, just like our children, one day when we look back on all this we can proudly say that we had the courage to holler, "Open the gate!"

Todays trouble is enough for today...

It was a normal morning of activity around the farm.  My wife, Chera was preparing for the farmers market, I was up enjoying a nice cup of coffee contemplating the day ahead.  As I often do in the morning I was sipping my coffee while staring out the window to the East, watching the pink glow of the sun as it rose over the hill.  As I was enjoying this wonderful view, I watched a group of our Thanksgiving turkeys run across the driveway.  "Hmmmmm, turkeys don't go there?"  was my thought as I took another sip of coffee.  It was one of those moments when my mind wasn't completely aware of what was happening, and then it hit, "Oh man, the turkeys are out."  About that moment Chera came up from the garage and said "Turkeys are out."  Yep that confirmed it.  "No big deal", I thought.  They're not in any danger, I will just finish my coffee then go out and get them back in.  Then I turned and looked out my South window.  Change of view, check out the valley and Horse Heaven Hills, beautiful.  Now a new thought entered my mind, "Why is my cow inside my chicken tractor?".  It is 5:30 in the morning, my mind isn't quite ready for all this stimulation.  As I stare in disbelief I see that all three of my chicken tractors have been destroyed, chickens are scattered in the pasture and cows are enjoying the chicken feed for breakfast.  "Stupid cows."
My first goal was to get my turkeys back into their pasture.  Sounds easier than it is folks.  If you have ever owned turkeys or worked with them you will understand me when I say that their capacity for intelligent thought is lacking.  I would chase they would run away.  Then they would follow me as I would walk away.  It was like playing the kids game, "Red light/Green light".  As long as my back was to them, they would follow me where I walked.  As soon as I would turn and look at them they would scatter.  So.... I kinda had fun with that for awhile, I mean "why not, right?".  Soon I was joined outside by my two son's and my neighbor who had been watching my activity from next door, (for how long, I don't know).  With four turkey herders we were much more effective and we got the turkeys back into their pasture.  Now that the turkeys were where they were supposed to be I stood back to reflect one why they had gotten out.  Two days before I had noticed that they were getting the pasture eaten down and they were ready to move to a new pasture.  Unfortunately, I let other things catch my attention and kept putting it off.  So the reason they finally pushed through their fence was they wanted fresher pasture grass to eat, only makes sense.
Now it was off to my destroyed chicken tractors.  Our "chicken tractors" are simply moveable, bottomless pens that I move around the pasture so my chickens can continually graze on fresh pasture and still be protected from predators. The cows had did quite a number on the structure of the tractors and it took me some time to repair them enough to hold chickens again.  Then I spent another hour or so chasing chickens to repopulate the tractors.  While I was doing all this i kept thinking that just the week before I had decided that it wasn't a good idea to house the cows and chickens tractors in the same pasture.  They had been doing fine together for some time but I knew that a blow up was imminent.  My plan was to move the cows to the North pasture, but I got busy doing other things and it just never happened.
By the time I finished corralling chickens it was near 10 o'clock in the morning and I hadn't even started my regular morning chores or fed the kids breakfast.  With Chera at market all day, and me starting basically 4 hours behind, you can imagine I wasn't feeling too optimistic about my chances on this particular day.
The rest of the day I struggled with a bad attitude to say the least.  I really didn't enjoy the day and remained behind in my work for a few days because of this messed up day.   It was then that I remembered something that Jesus said that I hadn't thought of in this way before.
Matthew 6: 34 So do not worry about tomorrow.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.  Living faithfully is a large enough task for today.
  On this particular day this verse hit me a little different.  You see, I had all kinds of things to worry about on this day.  However, I got to thinking, if I had only done the things that I knew needed done in the past days, I wouldn't have had to go through the worries I was facing today.  The Lord spoke to me on this.  If I truly give my full effort today and do the things He put before me today, most of "tomorrows" worries will be taken care of before they even occur.  Attack that to-do list, both the spiritual and worldly to-do list today!!

A lesson of Patience...

One of the main reasons we chose this lifestyle was to have the ability to "work" side by side with our children. Our whole married life up to this point, included a combination of two jobs, whether it was both of us working outside the home or me working two jobs. So when the farm opportunity came along it gave us the opportunity to work as a family on the second job.
One of the duties when raising livestock is to sell animals to generate income, (we are not raising a bunch of pets). With this in mind, in August, Zane and I had to take a group of goats to the livestock auction. This is always a very exciting day for Zane. He loves to hear the auctioneer talking and about every 30 seconds there is a new animal being led out for him to see. I enjoy our trips to the auction because it is about a 2 hour trip that Zane and I just get to chat about whatever is on his mind, and sometimes what's on a 6 year old's mind can be quite entertaining.
On the drive to the market the conversation ranged from were dinosaurs bigger than the whole earth to can a cheetah run faster than our truck to can you stand on clouds or would you fall right through. Answering questions such as these sure makes the trip go fast and can make a man forget all the stress in life and remember what is really important.
We arrived at the auction early and unloaded our animals and as is the Zane/Daddy custom went to the lunch counter to get our fries and a coke. Zane relishes this time more than any other I think, as he only gets to drink a soda pop about 5 or 6 times a year, and I'm usually the culprit that gives it to him. After finishing our treat we decided to walk out back through the corrals to look at all the animals that were up for auction that particular day. As we were walking back I saw a rig pulling up from one of those "fancy" goat farms that breed the top quality goats that are way out of my price range. It caught my attention because at the auction, animals sell way cheaper than at those fancy farms. Now I had been given specific instructions that on this particular day I was to sell goats, not buy. Hmmmm.... "Well, it doesn't hurt to look." I thought as I wandered over to the trailer as it was getting unloaded. There were some very nice meat goats coming out of that trailer and I wondered why in the world these quality goats were available at the auction. I asked the owner why she was getting rid of these goats, and found out that they had bought another place and needed to be off their place now so they were under the gun to sell them today. Strict orders or not, a guy must take advantage of an opportunity such as this, so I went to the auction office and got a bidding number. You can't bid on anything without a number that is registered to your name. With that we were off to the auction.
Once seated, Zane looked very delighted as he sat there, with his second bucket of fries, and settled down to see all the animals. This was the Saturday auction so it was a mixture of all the animals. There was cows, horses, llamas, sheep, hogs, goats. The whole process takes about three hours, normally we are able to leave directly after our animals are sold but on this particular day we had to wait because I wanted to purchase the goat I had saw getting unloaded. Soon enough the sparkle of the day wore off and Zane began to get bored, probably after he realized I would not be getting him another soda. He began to ask, "Is it almost over?" I told him, "Son, sit still, God is teaching you patience." As the day began to drag on, he continued to ask several times in many different ways, if we could please go home. I replied each time with my same answer of God teaching him patience, pretty darn proud of myself for taking the opportunity of the teaching moment at hand.
Finally, we reached the end of the auction and I was able to purchase the goat and did get a great deal. We collected our money from our sales and paid for the goat we purchased. Then it was time to get in line and pick up our new goat. We had to sit in line in our non-air conditioned truck in 100 degree heat for over an hour. Once again, Zane informing me of his desire to get home and me responding about God teaching him patience. With the goat loaded and the auction finished we headed for home. Then, getting on the interstate, I pushed in the clutch and heard a loud "plunk", and my clutch stayed on the floor. Oh no...... My clutch had literally fell out the bottom of my truck. There we were along side the road, broken. I had no cell phone so with Zane on my shoulders we ran across the interstate to a convenience store and called my wife to get somebody to come pick us up, remember, we had a goat in the back of the truck. She was able to get ahold of our friend Jody, and he told her he would finish some things up and head that way. He was at least two hours away so we walked back over to the truck to watch over the goat and wait. No air conditioning in the truck so we sat with the windows down, until we realized that we were right next to the river and there was a fresh hatch of mosquitoes that decided to attack us. So the windows went up and we cooked. Now I was the frustrated one, sweating, tired, worried about my poor son sitting there bitten up by mosquitoes. While Zane was calmly playing with his dinosaurs and making up little games he said to me, "I'm sure glad I came today."
"Why is that?" I asked half listening and half steaming mad at my situation.
"Cause if I didn't come, you would have had to go through this all by yourself." he answered. Wow, didn't see that coming. Those are the moments that can bring tears to a father's eyes.
After three hours of idle conversation and waiting we were sitting in about of ten minutes of silence when I heard Zane say, almost to himself, "God sure is teaching us patience."

Pit Bull Encounter

     Sometime during the Summer of 2008, or thereabouts, we decided to expand our herd a little.  The new expansion in mind was to get a buck goat to keep and use to breed with our does.  After an exhausting internet search I found the perfect little fella and decided that I had to have him.  The farm we were buying him from was in a little town about a two hour drive away.  After some convincing, Chera was talked into leaving the kids with a friend and we could go together to get our new goat.  Maybe not all readers will understand but I'm sure more than a few will understand that with two kids, a full time job and a farm to run, a five hour block of time away alone is priceless.  We don't have the time or money to go out on too many dates so we are only able to get away alone once or twice a year.  It just so happens that this time that alone time was on a long drive in an old beat up truck with no air conditioning in 90 degree heat.  So early one morning, we dropped the kids off at our friend's house and my pregnant wife an I were off on our date.  Right now I'm guessing there are not too many women reading this that are "jealous" of my wife but I think she still digs me.
     For the most part of the trip we rode right along in an uneventful quiet trip.  We passed the time discussing our still new farm and what we had planned, how we could make it work.  With Chera as the navigator we managed to follow the directions and find our way to the last leg of the journey which was a two lane highway rolling through farm country.  We were now in the process of looking at each house trying to find our destination, we were close but in the farm country it is often difficult to see house numbers.  Then I saw what I thought may be the place, a small farm with a bunch of goats grazing in the pasture.  I saw it a little late and had to quickly brake and turn into the driveway.  During this fast paced driving manuever I killed the truck and there we sat at the bottom of this farm's driveway.  This is where a little worry popped into my head as my truck is not the most reliable vehicle you can think of and I wasn't too confident in the rest of our trip.  I looked at my wife and she was simply looking at me with a half grin that said, "Nice move, big guy."  No problem, I thought, I turned the key.... nothing.  Tried again...... nothing.  Uh oh.  "What now?" I heard from the passenger seat.  The answer was easy, this is a farm, not the one we were looking for, but a farm none the less.  My new plan was just walk up to the house and knock on the door, any farm guy was surely to come down and help me out.  Wandering up the driveway was filled with new thoughts of how a completely broke fella like myself would ever be able to afford a truck that didn't break down once a month and maybe had air conditioning.  I walked up the driveway which was about 1/2 mile long and then it wound around a corner to the house.
     As I approached the house I noticed yellow lab looking dog lying in front of the door.  Now its time for me to come clean on one of my fears.  I'm deathly afraid of strange dogs.  So I stopped and stood there.  Kind of hoping that someone inside would notice me and come to the door and ask, "Hey dummy, why you standing in the middle of my driveway?.  This didn't happen.  So, plan B I guess.  The dog looked harmless enough, after all I had been standing there for several minutes and he just was lying there looking at me.  This is when I began my series of dog friendly chat, you know,  "Hey buddy, how ya doing?  Hey poochie, poochie.  Are you friendly?"  Like I was expecting the dog to speak and say, "Sure, friend, come on up."    But, he didn't answer me.  Oh well I thought and I started walking toward the door.  It was at this point when I finally didn't care about that lab anymore.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement.  I looked over and there stood the largest, in tact male pit bull I have ever seen.  He stood there, staring at me, and I stood there staring back, shaking.  All I could say was, "My goodness, you sure are a big fellow."  He growled.  Not a bark, just a low pitched, menacing, completely horrifying growl.  I've heard dog experts before spout off something about standing your ground, make eye contact, let him know who's boss.  I'm here to tell ya folks, not happening.  Instead, I took the path of shaking and melting like a bowl of ice cream in the microwave.  I literally felt like just breaking down sobbing, curl up in a fetal position and accepting my fate.  This is when my survival instinct took over.  Slowly I began backing up, talking the whole time in as calm of voice I could muster.  As i was backing toward the winding part of the driveway.  The dog slowly walked across the yard and stood in the middle of the driveway, cutting me off from the truck.  Now I was cornered and in the "fight or flight" mode.  My flight had been cut off so it was time to fight.  I slowly bent down and found myself three fist sized rocks and armed myself.  Well, this dog was not only menacing he was also extremely intelligent, because as he saw me pick up the rocks he just slowly walked away toward the house and my path was cleared.
     Walking back to the truck, my attitude was very different than the walk up to the house.  Rather than being frustrated with my circumstances and feeling self pity, now I was literally just happy to be walking.  The fate of my truck no longer dominated my thoughts and i was actually in a rather giddy mood.  Not bad for a full grown man that moments before was ready to break down into tears and give up my life.  I now stood before the truck, hood up, staring at the engine like I would suddenly become mechanical and see the problem.  After all, maybe it was like that movie "The Matrix" and time would slow down and the problem would reveal itself to me.  With this in mind, I was quite shocked that while I stood there staring at my engine it suddenly fired up and my truck was running.  Looking through the window, I saw a very proud and smiling Chera sitting behind the wheel.  Yes, you got it, she simply slid over into the drivers seat and turned the key.  

Babies arriving!!

Waiting for your very first doe goat to kid, is a test of patience. Everyday would find me in the coral at feeding time, anxiously looking for baby goats on the ground. Our does were fat, their udders were filled with milk and they had other physiological things going on that I won't write about here but dang, they were ready to have their babies. I was working in the garden one late morning in March when it finally happened.

As I was working along I heard a bleating from a goat that sounded "different" than they usually sound. Thinking that another goat had her head stuck in the fence, I stopped what I was doing and moved toward the pasture. As I approached the corral I saw... It's Time!!! There was Sweet Pie, lying down in the stall, pushing and straining. How dare she not call me. Suddenly I was overcome with the nervousness that a new father experiences. Any man whose wife has had a baby can understand that feeling of wanting to do something but realizing you are absolutely worthless at this particular moment. Worse than that you are probably more "in the way" than a helper. Sweet Pie was well along in the process by the time I had found her and the first baby was already coming out. I looked down there and to my shock there was a head sticking out of Sweet Pie's nether regions. I thought wow, wonder what a two headed goat sells for? Problem was, the baby was kinda stuck and even a rookie such as I found this to be a problem. My son was now standing beside me in awe of what was going on, and I made a mental note that my 5 year old son was going to need an explanation on the facts of life, but not right now. This was a crisis situation. Being a man that handles himself well in a situation, I was ready. Really, I am college educated, a two time father myself, been around the world a little bit, well read and confident in my abilities. I immediately sprung into action with the correct decision. "Zane, quick, go get your mother!" It didn't take long for Chera to arrive to handle this emergency. Woman to "woman" I guess, she new what poor Sweet Pie felt like and what to do. She flew into action while the rest of us stood by helpless watching, just like I did each time my own children were born. Chera assessed the situation and decided that the goat was indeed stuck. She was able to support the goat's head between contractions so any progress was saved and the kid didn't slip back in. A few moments later our first animal born on the farm was out and being cleaned up by her momma. After this her sister surprisingly just kinda flopped out and that was that.

The thrill of babies being born/hatched on the farm has never really went away for me, except now I'm not near as scared or pathetic. A few days later, our second doe kidded and we were off and running with our new breeding operation.