Some days are just difficult. Doesn’t matter how you prepare for them or what you tell yourself, it’s just hard. We’re having a hard time with Taco-George. You know that he’s been sick for a bit and the most difficult thing has been that we have not been able to find a vet in the area that will even look at goats. Large animal doctors don’t want to deal with them, and the small animal mobile vets say they only do cats and dogs. Finally today, one of the guys a Jem’s Feed Store was able to give Sue a name of someone to come look. She’s on her way from Tucson now; we’ll see what she says. Continue reading
hard times
30 Wednesday Jan 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
When I haven’t really thought about an article, or when we don’t have one big event to report one, I tend to fall back on a regular ol’ farm update. The weekend seemed like it was quite busy and full, but as I look back on it – it’s not like we did a huge lot of any one thing. So, here’s just the general update. 
You know how I try to find an image to fit my title each post? Well, while roaming around the web trying to find a hole image, I ran across some interesting information that led me down the rabbit hole (no pun intended, but definitely appreciated) for a while. Did you know that trypophobia is commonly known as the “fear of holes”? These various phobias that I find out about are just fascinating to me. Trypophobia is really a fear or disgust of clusters of small holes, which could manifest for some people because, “clusters of holes may be evolutionarily indicative of contamination and disease—visual cues for rotten or moldy food or skin marred by an infection, the researchers theorize.” You can read the entire article I found, if you are so inclined, 
Don’t you just wonder that sometimes? You stand back and look at things, the focus is sometimes fuzzy, and you wonder…what’s happening? Maybe it’s the wind that was supposed to start at 11 this morning, but actually began in the dark hours of the day – wind always makes things seem… odd. Maybe it’s just that weird ‘Monday’ effect. You know, the one that makes you immediately nostalgic for the weekend. Whatever the cause, there were just some things this weekend,and today, that made me ask, quietly, to myself, mostly out of earshot of the chickens, goats, dogs and cats, “what’s happening?”. 
Yesterday we had a visit from Mr. Don Decker, NRCS District Conservationist and Malpie Borderlands Project Coordinator. That is one huge title to be toting around. I didn’t have the opportunity to spend any time with him because he came while I was at work, but he spent over four hours with Sue; walking the land, talking soils, vegetation, and best practices for conservation and working the land. NRCS stands for National Resources Conservation Services and is a service from within the United States Department of Agriculture. “NRCS provides America’s farmers and ranchers with financial and technical assistance to voluntarily put conservation on the ground, not only helping the environment but agriculture operations, too.” 
Sometimes we have issues with tumbleweeds. Not necessarily as bad as this house in the high desert of California, but they are a nuisance none the less. From a distance, they remind me of Tribbles and they seem to multiply with the same ferocity. We get them tangled in the electric fence all the time – they can do
Every once in a while there are days where things just take a turn down the wrong lane. I’m not exactly sure, but I think our Monday may have started way back on Saturday… in the technical difficulties arena anyway. Several things kinda didn’t quite work out, culminating in a total Monday type of day today. 
As a somewhat taller female, I understand what it’s like to feel too big. I’m 5’9″ and I rarely, if ever, wear heels because I always feel like I tower over people. Yes, something can be too big. Right now, we have a rooster who is way too big, and he just doesn’t realize it. I think they may be a bit like dogs and they don’t really understand size so much as attitude. Olaf, the rooster, is pretty gentle, he doesn’t fight much with the other roosters, he just tries to get his time with the ladies at the most opportune moments for him, which aren’t always to the liking of the ladies, or the other roosters for that matter. We’re not sure what to do with him, and we may be running into some difficulties. 
One of our long term goals is to give the oldies more free run of the “yard”. That area right around the house that is fenced in. Yes, it’s fenced in, but the fencing is 4×4 wire, which is fine for dogs, but the chickens could get through it if they tried hard enough. Before we start introducing them to a larger area, Sue has been adding this smaller squared pvc fencing to the original fence. We use is a lot when we first let littles outside of the brooder in a small outside area. It holds up really well, and it doesn’t look bad either. As a matter of fact, I had to do the close-up shot because it virtually disappears when you get a few feet away. In the next couple of days we’ll move their existing fence so it goes across the upper north west corner of the property, giving them a large triangle of open space to roam. They should like it. If they handle that well, we’ll make it bigger and bigger. Then, maybe by grasshopper season, they can be completely free! That would be amazing. 