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.

Our first farm Spring

Our first farm spring was a very anticipated event. We had two bred does that we could not wait to see babies. Our plans for our garden dancing around in our heads as we drew neatly out on graph paper different designs and arrays of plants that we would soon be planting. Searching the internet was a non stop adventure, as it what too cold and wet outside to really want to do anymore than was necessary. At any given time throughout the day, one of us would be online looking up, "how to help a goat have kids", "when do I plant my corn?", "which vegetables grow well together", the list is endless. Its amazing that the world survived this long without the information super highway, LOL. I mean really, "when do I plant my corn?", that's how much, not a farmer, I was when I started out. The location that we had planned for the garden looked like the former owner had a above ground swimming pool there. It was a large circle of deadness. However it was in the perfect location of where we wanted to start our vegetable garden. Due to having no activity on the land for at least 3 years, we decided to bring in some topsoil and til the area out nice giving us a good start. After that initial building of the garden we have not had to add nothing to the soil there and it is amazing soil. Between cleaning out the goat shed, chicken coop and letting the pigs live in there for the winter the soil is now very rich. The day the Lord provided for us to prepare our garden was nothing short of exquisite. The sun shone brightly on us, providing a mild mid 70's type temperature. My grandma from Montana had driven out to visit us and as always was a huge help. Grandma knows quite a lot about farming. She not only ran the tree farm for all those years but she grew up in an era when growing a garden was not a hobby but meant the difference in whether or not you ate. So the whole family, three generations, worked the day on tilling, raking and leveling. Side by side, hands in the dirt. We taught and learned lessons about how God has provided the exact right amount of factors for these plants to grow. We heard stories from the past that Grandma remembered. We looked forward in the future to see what our little place may become down the road. All and all it was a perfect family getaway spending time with one another under a pleasant spring sun, preparing for the busy days ahead.

Grandpa Charlie

The new year had brought a new set eager anticipations on the farm. With our hens now laying we were looking forward to enjoying our very own farm raised eggs. Looking forward to the warming weather of spring we were eagerly planning out our first big farm garden. Graph paper drawings littered the tops of most our tables in the house, from random ideas that had entered our minds and consequently released onto paper. Our does were getting bigger with their impending kidding times coming in a couple of months. Life was exciting. Then on one otherwise unmemorable evening I received a phone call from by brother. He informed me that my Grandpa had fallen ill and was in the hospital. My brother told me that the doctor had pronounced that Grandpa was dying and wouldn't live for much longer. Grandpa Charlie was a very special person in my life. He had been one of the men who raised me. My mother had died when I was a teen and Grandpa and Grandma took me in at the farm and raised me. I'm not fully familiar with the details of how he came to Montana but I knew enough to think it was exciting. Somewhere around 1970 in the outskirts of Chicago, Grandpa decided he didn't want his family raised in the city. He and Grandma began looking for places and to my knowledge they purchased the tree farm in Montana site unseen. Back then they obviously didn't have the advantage of the internet to research properties and they didn't have nearly enough money to travel and look the place over. They traveled to Montana with everything they owned and I believe, at that time, 5 children (they had eight total). They had no knowledge of tree farming,of Montana nor did they know anyone out there or have any relatives. To think of this now as a grown man with children, the courage this move took is amazing. Grandpa didn't have a job lined out and it took pretty much all of their money to make the move. They arrived in Montana in late fall I believe and were going to see no cash flow from the farm until at the earliest Springtime. I remember listening to the stories of that first winter and how they lived on deer meat that they were lucky enough to hunt. Eventually, Grandpa landed a good job, and for the next 20 something years he would work full time at his "real" job and come home after and work on the farm until dark. I watched this as a young man but never respected it until now. Even with all the work that he was doing that man never missed a sporting event or school function of any of his kids or grand kids. That may be speaking a little out of turn, I'm sure he missed one or two, but not any of mine that I can remember. Not just the home games but he or my grandma would travel to the away games, at night, through blizzards, whatever just so we could look up in the stands and see a loving face, or hear the supportive cheers. After all the kids had grown and went their separate ways they sold that farm and went fishing. I asked him years later, when I finally matured and wanted to farm myself, why he hadn't let one of his kids take the place over and try to keep it in the family. He told me that all the kids had other things they were supposed to do. When I asked about me, he frankly told me that I was in no way close to being mature enough.
I thought about these things as my family and I were driving to Montana to visit with Grandpa one last time. In the Bible we are told that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children and children's children. It was on this drive that I finally understood this passage. The inheritance Grandpa left me was the love to grow things and the desire to raise my children in a "farm" style life, where they can learn the value of working hard. Grandpa passed away a day after we arrived. The seed he had planted in my heart years ago had laid dormant like that of a plant seed in the soil waiting for the spring to bring life back. Just as Grandpa left this earth his farm was passed on to the next generation, it just wasn't located in the mountains of Montana anymore it was now in Washington. Grandpa never saw my farm before he died, I hope he can see it now and is smiling that smile.

EGGS!!!!!!

Christmas was now behind us and we were wondering through the cold, wet days of Winter dreaming of the warm sunshine of Spring to return. Daily chores were still plenty as we had to keep animals water thawed make sure everybody had enough feed, which being new to this we had NO idea what was enough feed. It was on one of these cold, rather dreary days that one of the most exciting things ever happened to me..... I found an egg! This may not seem that exciting to you but we had gotten these chickens as day old baby chicks in August. We had watched them grow and took care of them. I had spent HOURS building nesting boxes that were just right. For weeks we had anticipated the arrival of our first egg. I was going out to water the goats and there it was, in the bottom of the water trough. HUH, I've built you hens those fancy warm nesting boxes and you are going to lay your egg in the goat's water trough! I didn't care, it was an egg, our first egg, the first actual "production" out of any of the animals that we had spent our money and labor on. I must have looked like a brand new daddy as I strutted in the house to inform my wife, I found an egg. "Where is it?" Obvious question really, you'd figger I would have triumphantly carried my trophy into the house to immediately scramble it. My response caught her slightly off guard, "In the water trough." Huh? Who cares, I thought, our chickens aren't broken that's the important part. Over the next couple weeks we enjoyed the finest eggs we had ever tasted. Life had went from seeking excitement of riches to each day excitement of racing to the nesting boxes to collect that day's bounty for breakfast.

First farm Christmas

We made it through the fall with everything in tact and moved on to our first Christmas on the farm. Dad got nostalgic on everybody and thought now that we own a farm we could remember Who Christmas is all about. So very early Christmas morning I woke the family and we all went out to one of the goat stalls to tell the story of the birth of Jesus. It seemed to me an opportunity to remind us all that our Lord was not born to riches, He wasn't born in the fancy comforts of a wealthy man's home. He chose instead to be born in the stables. He was born meekly amongst the barnyard creatures and people of modest means. To me it was a precurser to the life He lived on earth. He didn't seek wealth and power. The only glory he sought was to glorify His Father in heaven. Its no secret that in today's society we lose sight of the real reason for Christmas, me too. We tend to get wrapped up in the retail mentality buying gifts and worse, expecting gifts from others. Its ironic that we have now turned the celebration of a Lord that sought no gifts into a day where often focus on receiving gifts. As we huddled on that cold morning in the stall smelling of animal poop and straw, I thought about how meaningless "things" are and how the amazing things are taken for granted. There I stood, amongst a beautiful family that loves me, honoring a God that saved me on a farm that I had dreamed about for years. For the first time in many Christmas's I had absolutely no thoughts at all about any gifts I would receive or what I may have for dinner, or what football games may be on, I was simply thankful for all the real gifts He has given me.

Fall Breeding

It was September now and that is the time for breeding, (goats). We had our new does and wanted to start right away building our own herd. A friend from work had a buck goat that he was willing to let me use and brought him over to the house. He didn't have a name so we decided to call him Frankie. I was very impressed at this fellow when he first arrived. He probably weighed between 250-300 lbs and to me seemed massive. With a nice set of horns he could be pretty intimidating. We had no idea how to handle an animal like that and I would say we were both rather nervous around him. My wife attempted to make friends with him and give him a pet which he didn't seem to like all that much and soon pinned her up against the coral. She handled it quite well, she yelled at him and wacked him in the head. I think it frightened her a touch; it scared me too and it wasn't me getting pinned against the fence, or wacked in the head. I'll tell you she handled all this better than a friend of mine who was visiting. He is a large man 300+ lbs, tough, from New York and was walking across the pasture right by that buck. I hollered to him, "You better keep your eye on that boy, he may decide to start trouble. Well my friend wasn't gonna let his machismo get challenged in front of the wives. He laughed and said "I ain't afraid of no goat." Before the words left his mouth ol Frankie rammed him right in his knee. We all got a pretty good chuckle out of it, except my buddy who though he wouldn't admit it, probably had a pretty sore knee for awhile. Its funny to look back on now how we are not nervous around the big bucks anymore, respectful, but not nervous. The courting ritual that the buck goes through was also new to us. I won't describe it in detail here I'll just use how my wife described it when she first saw it; "Gross!" . Frankie performed his duties, Sweet Pie and Jar Jar Binx, our third doe from the purchase, were successfully bred within two weeks and Frankie went home.

Venture into goat ranching

After some time and basic clean up and repairs our place was livable and we were in our new place full time. It wasn't as "nice" as some people would like by societies standards for sure. We had all tile floors, and not the nice stuff, but the tile that is used in hospitals and cafeterias. The sink in the bathroom didn't work and we had to use the bath tub to wash our hands. The floors were cold, hard and seemed to grow dust bunnies faster than weeds in a garden. But even with all this, we were very happy and felt blessed to have our own land to start our farm. Our pastures were greening, chickens were growing, and now it was time to acquire our goats. We had researched for over a year anticipating getting a farm and now our dreams were about to become reality. To begin we had decided we wanted at least one dairy doe that we could milk for our own consumption and then fill out the herd with meat goats. We traveled to a goat ranch about an hour from our house to look at our first goats. We immediately fell in live with an older Alpine doe named Sweet Pie. She was friendly and of beautiful colors. We bought Sweet Pie and two other does on that day but we could not bring them home with us yet. One of the other does was Deluxe a pretty little spotted Boer Alpine cross, she has become one of our best meat does always throwing meaty fast growing kids. We eagerly anticipated going back to pick up our goats and add them to our Happy Lil Homestead. Sad news came the week we were to pick up our first does. My wife's grandfather passed away after a long battle with cancer. She immediately flew out to attend the funeral with the children. I was unable to attend as I had to work at my "real job". So while the family was away I traveled to get the goats on my own. They arrived and were waiting on the family when they returned. They were a nice welcome home present. I'm proud to say that at the time of this post Sweet Pie is still a productive member of our herd along with three of her daughters and one grand daughter. Deluxe has also remained and continues to bless our farm with fine meat goats.

Fixer Upper

The loan came through and we officially had our home. The new chickens were happy I'm sure as they were wondering what was to become of them. Now the real work was to begin. We had a lot of help from our friends at church, several of the kids from our youth group came over and spent a couple of days helping paint the inside and general clean up of the outside. The place was a bank repo and hadn't been lived in for about two years so the pastures were dead, brown and the ground was hard as concrete. After a couple of weeks of water is was very encouraging to see the place come back to life. As example look at the very bottom picture and compare to the top picture in this post, they are taken from the same angle only about six weeks apart. No fertilizers or chemicals, just water and poop.

We need animals!!!

So one of the first orders of business was to get some animals for our new farm. Now, how I went about this explains a lot about my character. It was early August and our offer had been accepted but if you've ever purchased a place you know that it still takes a month or so for everything to go through. So in reality, it wasn't quite OURS yet. But that didn't deter me. I wanted chickens so I ordered a batch of 50 Barred Rock chicks. They came in the mail to our duplex and we set up a brooder on the dining room table. We now officially had chickens..... though we didn't officially have a farm. Still don't know what I would have done with those chickens had the sale fell through.

The Beginning

I was staring at the computer reading the real estate listing for this place thinking "Well there's gotta be something wrong with that" 2.5 acres for $###,###. You see we were living in our duplex with our two young children and had been looking for a more country lifestyle for quite some time. Problem was, we didn't have any money to buy anything so we had pretty much given up. Then six months later, this listing suddenly popped up on my computer like God was saying, "Hey, I found you a house!" We went out and looked at it, loved it, and made an offer, (a really low offer: did I mention we had no money) They accepted the offer and we had our house. Fixer upper really can't describe this place it was in pretty bad condition by today's societal standards but I thought it was the greatest place ever. It was located on one of the busiest streets in the city but the property was still not in the city limits and considered county, which meant I could have farm animals. The neighbors in the 4 plex right next door I'm sure appreciated this. Well this was the beginning of our journey, over the next while I will try to explain how we went from a poor duplex family to certified city farmers, its quite a journey.