Farm Sitting Part 3: Moo--Shriek = I'm Hungry

Meet the cows: There are four mamas, four babies, and one steer. As far as I know, they don't have names. The steer will end up in the freezer. I don't know what will happen to the others. The mama that makes all the noise is behind the fence post. Did you know that cows would make that sound? She was hungry.



These cows got two bales of hay morning and night and took the longest to feed. Two bales is a lot of hay and I seemed to get half of it on me and inside my clothes. I was amazed at the places I found hay later on. The cows got a lot on them, too; watch what happens in the video. You can also sort of see how the bale is divided into flakes. Another thing of note, though you can't really see it in the video, is that the cows would go after the hay that I was currently shaking down. They seemed to vie for the "freshest" despite the fact that I tried to put some hay all along the trough as quickly as possible. I even noticed that they weren't so happy about the bale of hay that had been sitting directly on the ground, preferring to sort through to find the hay from the bale off the ground. Man were they picky!



I don't know about your mama, but mine always told us chew politely and not eat like cows. Cows are noisy eaters. The sound on this video doesn't do it justice; you get more hay rustling and less chewing noises. It was the opposite in real life. Listen carefully and you can hear them chewing their cud.



As they ate, they seemed to eat as much as they could right where their head was leaving a indent in the hay. It was most noticeable after the first bale of hay, but you could still see it after the second which is when I took this picture:



Those weren't the only cattle. There were two visiting heifers penned with the bull--I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. Here's one of the girls:


There were also Honey and Cow in the front pasture. I don't know if this is Honey or Cow. If it's Honey, she's safe. If it's Cow, well there's a reason she doesn't have a proper name.

Okay, so for some reason I deleted the picture of Cow/Honey. That's sad since they deserve some recognition as part of a benign mistake. It was the morning of the last day, Friday, and I had finished the chores, fried up some fresh egg and new potatoes for breakfast, and was reading my scriptures. All of a sudden, I realized I hadn't fed the girls up front yet. It was about 9 am--at least an hour after when they normally would have been fed. I raced out there to find them not-so-happily waiting for me. If Cow has a little less meat on her bones, well, they can take it out of my portion.

I was informed when I went to be trained that I would get some of the meat when the animals were slaughtered. Fresh meat and eggs-YUM!

Farm Sitting Part 2: What's that got to do with the price of eggs?

Movie quote--any takers?

For the most part, the two and a half day stint at farm sitting went very smoothly. No one jumped the fence or got sick. However, I made a few relatively benign mistakes that made things a little more interesting.

Fed after the cats and dogs, the chickens got an ice cream size bucket of feed twice a day plus six or seven handfuls of wheat as scratch in the morning. In the evenings, I collected the eggs. I officially started my farm sitting experience Wednesday evening and so got to collect the eggs right off. I don't know if this is standard farm procedure, but the chickens had a dark box where they laid their eggs. The box opened into the storage part of the barn making egg collecting rather easy.


Two of those eggs were not laid in the box. There were a few hens who preferred more light when they felt the urge to lay, but they were consistent with the placement and I never had to go looking for eggs. Here's a picture of the "rogue" eggs:
There were actually two sections to the chickens. One with about eight hens, and another with two hens and a rooster. When the owner walked me through everything, she said that she thought she saw a chick in the second section, but hadn't verified it. Neither of the hens in this section laid their eggs in the boxed area (a different one from the one in the picture) and you had to move the hen out of the way to get at the eggs. The owner told me to just grab the tail feathers and show her who's boss.

When I went to collect the eggs from this section, I did just that. And that was my mistake. There was a chick (I could see it) and I got soundly nipped as I tried to move the hen to get the eggs. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had used my head (not to gather the eggs). Everyone knows that you don't bother a mother with young and I did it anyway. Yes I had seen the chick and I did it anyway. To make matters worse, I hadn't worn gloves so I got a nice peck on my palm. It wasn't more than a scratch, but it stung throughout the rest of the chores (or maybe that was my pride). Here's the ferocious hen and her baby.

The rest of the hens and rooster were never a problem. Of course I never tried to grab their tail feathers.
Thanks to these obliging chickens I haven't had a store bought egg for a while.

Farm Sitting Part 1: Drink all your milk!

Meet Lucy and Amy:
I believe Lucy is the older goat and Amy is the baby, but I'm not really sure. I just know I had to feed them. [Editor's Note: These names are switched. Amy is the adult, and Lucy is the baby. From this point on, the names are correct.] Lucy's mom died and so has to be bottle fed "goat formula" morning and evening. She still eats hay--they got 1 flake of hay each morning and evening. (Apparently something about the baling process causes a bale of hay to become divided into sections or flakes. Think of it as a stick of butter that easily divides into pats when it's unwrapped. If you'd like to actually see, feel, smell and taste your own flake of hay, go here.)

Here's a picture of Lucy eating the hay:
I tried to get a picture of both of them eating, but Amy doesn't like anyone watching her eat. She would extricate herself from the hay bin and watch me warily.

My favorite part--of the whole experience actually--was giving Lucy her bottle of "goat formula" (the official name was something like goat milk replacement with some probiotic added in). Since the bottle was just a used soda bottle, I had to hold the nipple onto the bottle otherwise she would pull it off in her excitement. As a result, I had goat slobber and milk on my hand. Yum.

Despite that, there is nothing better than having a person or animal be so excited to see you. When Lucy saw me coming, she went crazy. If she was outside the barn when I came up, she would race to the barn. No matter what, she bleated like she hadn't been fed in a week and jumped up on me when I entered the pen. I videoed the process the last time I fed her. Check out the tail wagging! You can also hear the ponies and the cows letting me know they were hungry, too. (Chickens. cats, and dogs were fed first, then the goats followed by the ponies and cows/steers/bull. More about them later.)

I love the beach!

About a week ago, I went to the coast for a mid-single activity. I always enjoy going to the beach and it was nice to go with a group of people rather than by myself. I don't have a lot to say about the activity except that it was fun, but I do have some pictures to share. I always take pictures and keep track of which beaches I've been too. This trip was to Hug Point, one I have been to before. What made this trip unique, besides the fact that I was with a group, was the tide. It was low enough that I was able to walk to the next beach south, Arch Cape--my favorite beach. I've never seen it that low at those beaches. I walked the entire length of both beaches.

Aside from being able to walk a long way, there were a few rather unimpressive tide pools, but fun to see anyway. The best anemones were actually at the base of a rock. They were the most colorful and open.
There were a lot of mussels, too.


One of the things I like best about these beaches is the mist or fog that sometimes hangs around. After walking the length of the beach, my hair was damp.

The Corn Game

I spent the last few days in Seattle making myself useful. I figured that was a good way to start off my summer--being useful and being in Seattle. Amidst everything, my niece and I invented a new game. The Corn Game, as we call it, is quite simple.

How to Play:

Step One: Take a bowl of mixed white and yellow popcorn kernels.

Step Two: Put a handful of popcorn in a bowl or on a plate and pick out all the yellow ones.

Step Three: Dispose of the now separated corn in any appropriate manner. We threw out the white ones (too old for anything) and kept the yellow ones.

History:

My sister's grinder had recently broken and she thought it might have been because of the old white popcorn she had been grinding for cornbread. And, as we are Brodericks, we couldn't let all the newer yellow corn go to waste just because we wanted to throw out the old white stuff.

My niece had strapped herself into her booster seat because . . . well why do two-year-olds do half the things they do? Who knows. I thought it would be great to get her to help sort the popcorn; it would keep her occupied while my sister worked on dinner and would get the job done. We just weren't sure if she could do it. Well she could and we called it The Corn Game.

Accessorizing The Corn Game:

1. Shout for joy every time you pick out a yellow kernel.

2. Put the yellow kernels in another container before dumping them in with the rest. The more often you dump, the better. You can even dump after one kernel.

3. Allow everyone a chance to get one handful at a time from the mixed kernels to pick through.

4. Occasionally drop a kernel and the person not strapped into a booster seat gets to pick it up.

5. Shout to Mommy that you are playing "The Corn Game," or that you are helping.

Warnings:

1. Let the two-year-old get the last of the mixed kernels from the container.

2. Discourage the swallowing of kernels.


So, does anyone else have "games" you've made up to keep kids occupied?


Co-author of "The Corn Game"

Oh where oh where has my little box gone?

This last Thursday I was scouring my house of a card that wasn't a thank-you card that I could use to mail my brother's wedding gift. I was so sure I had some cute plain ones somewhere. I checked under the desk in the sewing room where I last saw them and saw a random box. It had been there for I don't know how long. As it was under the desk where I keep my semi-permanently borrowed sewing machine, I'm sure I had kicked it or bumped it every time I sat down to sew something, but I had never bothered to see what it was. I opened it up, and found items I thought I had lost.

At the end of the school year, Neil Armstrong requires all teachers to box up pretty much everything for the summer. Over the summer, everything gets moved out so that the floors can be waxed. I had to have things off the floor in Utah, too, but at least there I had counters and cupboards and so didn't have to actually pack everything up like I was moving.

At the end of last school year, knowing things would be jostled and moved, I packed a few things in a box to take home. These were things that I didn't want to or couldn't replace if they broke or got lost. I had a number of children's books and a set of ceramic unicorn bookends I got for Christmas one year. They made it home at the end of last school year and I didn't see them again until this last Thursday.

At the beginning of the year, I had looked desperately for the box but to no avail. One of my first lessons uses one of the books in the box. I ended up checking out the book from a library across town. I was just glad I could find it. I had to change some other lessons because I couldn't find some of the other books. I was sad because I enjoyed those books and lessons and the books represented personal monetary investments.

I'm not sure how I missed the box in all my desperate searchings. It certainly gave new meaning to the phrase "hidden in plain sight." Anyone else have random "lost and found" stories? Please share.

Mad Libs

My sister-in-law sent me a delightful birthday card in the form of a mad lib. However, if I am going to enjoy it to it's fullest, I need some help coming up with the words. So, if anyone would like to help out please give one of each of the following. Use your judgment please.

adjective
time of day
noun
number
number
noun
verb (past tense)
article of clothing
body part
famous person
noun
body part-plural
adverb

Later I'll post the text of the card with your suggestions.