Sawdust, bread and goat babies, oh my!

Good morning from the farm!
We finally got our patio furniture set up, we have upgraded the chicks out of their foil insulated box and into the coup, started tilling up (hand shoveling) some garden area, fixed the fencing around the chicken run (temporarily improved one side of it), picked up a massive load of wood shavings that I'm oddly proud of and the juices over here are flowing!  I've been in this kind of nesting phase where I've been needing to make sure the house is set up and fully functional before I can refocus my energy outside where it is actually needed.  But things in the house are finally coming together; each room in our house now has a vague but dedicated purpose and is outfitted to ensure some degree of functionality.  So onwards and upwards to the great outdoors!

The chicks are super happy to be in the barn and I think quite relieved to realize that the world is not simply an eternal orange light but rather cycles of sun and dark, warm and cool.  I saw one chasing a dust speck today as it floated around in the air....for a while.  They are not smart.  But oh so sweet.  It seems they are starting to figure out their pecking order and find new activities (like standing on a new piece of wood...).  They are eating a ton but once they get a bit bigger and can forage a bit and eat our compost scraps that should be a little (financially) easier.  I learned yesterday that the top part of a chicken's beak will grow indefinitely, like fingernails! That's why they peck at stuff so much, to naturally keep their beaks from growing too much, crazy!

They will be in the coup for another couple weeks before we will let them out in the run, so we are needing to fix up the fencing around the run....it's currently more conceptual than structural.  So John and I spent a few hours the other day accomplishing just about nothing, but we stood near the fence.  I went inside to see how the girls were doing (my mom was over, watching Maggie) and I looked out the window a few minutes later to see that John had just torn the fence down.  Well that's one way to fix it.  My dad joined us and we spent the rest of the afternoon putting the fence back up, but in hindsight it was definitely the right idea. (Sidenote, it is amazing to have grandparents around!!)

We also went to the lumber yard (which Mags adorably refers to as 'the lumber store') and got an entire truck load of coarse sawdust for $20.  We got it home, shoveled it into a pile in the barn and put a clean layer down in the coup for the girls (and likely a few boys) to get comfty in.  For some reason this had been the activity that was really going to make me feel like I was doing something, and sure enough, it made me so happy, it just felt like it gave the barn purpose.

Well, it photographs small...

Now, above anything we are doing at our house, let me tell you what I'm most excited about right now.  The town of Wayne, Maine.  Who knew that it would come alive in the spring?  Who knew that one of the best farmer's markets in central maine was in Wayne?  Who knew that Wayne had the oldest 'Lake Yacht Club' in the state (which really means there is a beach with a bunch of people who have motor boats and like water skiing and barbeque- all good by me), who knew that at Halloween the whole village gets together in the town center and trick or treats together?  Who knew that the guy who refurbishes old boats in this town used to play music in our barn with his bluegrass band every thursday?  All these things that I'm learning about this little town make me so excited to be part of it!

And then there's this.

This showed up on our front doorstep the other day.  Let me tell you, my whole perspective on white bread changed that morning.  I sliced that bad boy up into 2 inch thick slices and made the best french toast I've ever had.  A couple of days later my neighbor and her 8 year old son came strolling into my driveway and we chatted for a while and I found out that it was her grandmother (whom also lives next door) that had made us the bread.  This lovely lady's name is Mary and I had met her a few weeks back when I trudged over to her house in my pj's and winter boots to apologize for my dogs who had just tried to eat her entire flock of chickens.  She seemed entirely unfazed by that and was just so excited to meet me.  She was about 4'6", wearing an apron, which is likely her daily uniform, and had a strikingly energetic handshake.  I brought over a bag of cookies I had made, in modest repentance for my savage dogs and she gave me an odd look but accepted and we moved on to chat about other things.  Now with this french toast on my plate I completely understand the odd look.  She was probably thinking 'girlfriend, I'm 100 years old and I sleep in this apron, there is nothing you can bring over to my house that I didn't already bake before 8am this morning.'  So I giggled to myself and thought maybe next time I'll bring her flowers.

Yesterday was 65 degrees and Maggie and I were outside literally all day.  I was needing a morning run so I loaded Mags up in the stroller for the first time since we've been here and took her for a run down the road.  A short ways down the road there is a pasture with some gorgeous goats so I figured we would stop for a minute and look at the animals.  As we parked ourselves next to the pasture fence I saw that there was a man and a woman leaning on the fence adjacent to me.  I hollered a good morning and told them we were just admiring his herd.  He hollered back that we were more than welcome to and that that one there was in labor.  Goat labor?? How cool! So I asked if it would be ok if we came down and said hello and he said it was fine.  We had been meaning to meet these folks for a while, they have a huge solar wall on their roof, tons of goats, a llama, bees, a cool old house and just generally seem to be running a fascinating operation.  His name is Dan, and we are now best friends.  I'm not sure he's entirely aware of that yet, but he will be.  Dan is retired and now focuses his time and love on his animals (the lady there was another neighbor).  He welcomed us into his yard and I, once again became painfully aware of my yuppiness in my neon salmon (yeah that's a color) running shoes, yoga pants and jogging stroller rolling over mounds of dried manure.  No one but me seemed to notice though, a testament to the Maine people who for the most part, don't care what you do or what you wear as long as you are friendly and honest.  So anyway, Dan welcomed us into the barn and showed us around, introducing us to all his goats, showing Mags and I all 7 of his brand new week old kids, and answered all of my probably naive and likely irrelevant questions.  The goat in labor was wandering around the field, she was 'a first timer' as Dan said, and apparently didn't know what she was doing.  For as many humans as I've seen labor, I thought she was doing a damn good job.  Dan kept a watchful eye on her from a distance to see if he needed to help her out at all.  But in the 20 minutes we were standing there, sure enough she birthed a tiny, wet, very confused, but darling little kid.  Maggie looked bored as we all stood around and watched and at the moment the baby goat popped out, she gasped and pointed and said 'baby!' and looked at me like...ma, you got some 'splainin to do!  The new mama goat cleaned her kid all over and somehow knew just what to do, just as mothers across species do.  Such a beautiful thing to be able to watch.  Just another Monday morning in Wayne Maine.

Trust vs mistrust

John and I stood out on our back porch today, drinking afternoon coffee, and watching Maggie run down the hilly fields behind our house.  What a cool thing to watch your kid explore on their own; to know that they feel secure enough to venture into the unknown, safe enough to be brave and curious, but still glance up at us to make sure we are there if they need us.  I sense that this child has some wild in her soul and this is the beginning of fierce independence, and I love it.   In kids, this type of curiosity is pegged as a normal part of development, Erik Erikson's stage of trust vs mistrust, where children learn whether or not the world around them is safe and ok to trust and explore, or whether it is a place to fear, harbor hatred and anxiety.  Sadly, in adulthood, people that walk around believing that the world is a safe place for them to explore and learn are talked about as naive, ignorant even. Perpetually stepping outside of our comfort zones and pushing our limits isn't always seen as normal,  in fact some go so far as to say that it is irresponsible, unstable, that we should find something we love to do and hunker down.  Not to dismiss that, there is a lot to be said for hunkering down in a comfortable life.  But there is a beauty in restlessness.  Maintaining the need to see and understand what is just beyond your reach, just beyond your comprehension, just beyond your bubble of comfort.  Trusting that not only is the world safe enough to let you explore, to try and fail and try again, but that you yourself are strong enough to survive this sometimes untrustworthy world.

This is why my husband is the smashingest of all husbands.  I swear the dude believes, ACTUALLY believes he can do anything...which might make him sound cocky, but no.  What it really means is that when we do something crazy together like buy a 44 acre farm in Maine with no experience or knowledge, and he grabs my hand and says we can do this, it makes me feel like a toddler exploring a field.  Like I can explore to the farthest reaches of my imagination, I can trip and fall and get up again, and I'm still safe...and still excited to keep exploring.

So, what, you say have we been doing on said farm?  Well, so far (after all of that epic talk about being empowered to get outside your comfort zone), we haven't actually done anything crazy.  The snow is ALMOST melted (although a few more inches this week I think), and there are a couple of green shoots of grass coming up.  So we got the chicken coop ready, we cleaned it out, set up the roosting boxes and some other boards and posts for them roost on.  Maggie helped by swishing a badminton racket around in the old chicken poop and saying 'working, Maggie working.' Love.

We wanted to get 4 hens and 4 chicks, just a small group to keep it simple.  We wanted hens so that we would have eggs sooner but we also wanted chicks so Mags could get comfortable with them as they were little and then watch them grow.   But our craigslist searches for hens were minimal and we asked the one person in town that we know and she had no recs on where to get hens, but she did say there was a roadside sign just down the road for chicks for sale.  So I drove over later that day, in a near blizzard which just seemed wrong.  Mags was in the back, we had our box with shavings and were ready to go.  I knock on the door and an older man answers, he had been at the stove making a grilled cheese.  He told me he was making dinner for his mom (wow she must have been old) and he would be right with me.  So he continues making his grilled cheese, grabs a plate and a couple other things out of the fridge and walks out of the room.  I stand in his kitchen with Maggie.  This is one thing I love about Maine, no one is ever putting on airs for anyone.  When he comes back we exchange a total of six words about the weather and go see the chicks.  He was very nice but I know that he took one look at me and said 'oi.'  As I'm juggling Maggie and my shaving filled box down his 14 steps in the snow, with my non work boots.  John and I decided to get 14 chicks, since they were 'straight run', which I learned that day meant that they hadn't been sexed yet so we will end up with a mix of hens and roosters.  We don't have a huge use for roosters so we figured we would get more and hope for 8 or so hens. So we load them up, him picking up three to each of my one awkward grabs of a chick.  The box is full and he looks at me and says blankly, why don't I carry the box out to the car for you.  Oh man I'm such a stereotype right now, I laughed to myself.  I get the kid loaded up, the chicks in the car, the man paid ($2/chick, my kinda price), and he kind of hesitantly says 'oh uh, just keep an eye on their, their butts.' 'Their butts?' I say.  And I realize now what this man has known since the moment he saw me....I know exactly zero things about raising chicks. He proceeds to tell me that their poop crusts over on their butts in the first couple weeks of life and they will die if you don't clean it off because its basically plugging the vent. So...

You should have seen me, a dish of warm water, some dish soap, some rubber gloves, some Q-tips, and a look of determination.  I picked them up one by one...and sure enough, every one of them had good ol crusty butt.  Thanks dude!  So here I am, dunk, pick, rub, repeat until all their little butts are cleaned and allowed to do their job.  I'm proud to say that today we are six days into owning chicks and we have 14 happy, seemingly healthy, growing chicks, none of which died from butt plug syndrome, or hypothermia in our very jerry rigged warming set up. 

(I had some foil packaging that I lined around the trough to reflect our heat lamp, and put our electric space heater just outside...I'm not a purist).  I'm also proud to say that my chicken handling skills have improved vastly in the last week.  They are getting big and strong and are starting to loose their fluff and gain real feathers.  There is one, the runt, that is our favorite who has four feathers right at the tips of her wings and the rest of her is still fluff, she is so sweet. 

Anyway, we have just transferred them into a bigger box that they will probably be in for another few weeks before we start to bring them outside.

Another "farm endeavor" that is really no different from our previous life is that I've been making tons of granola.  Don't worry, I'm absolutely storing it in mason jars, like any good yuppie would.  Here is the ingredient list (I didn't measure so I can't help you there) if you are interested, its certainly nothing novel but I think its pretty good!

Melt butter, coconut oil, maple syrup, molasses, agave and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, whatever you want)
Mix oats, flax, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, shaved coconut, raisins
Mix melted deliciousness with dry goods and bake on 400F until golden brown (25 minutes or so?)

In sum, we are still very much in prep/plan mode (without much planning) here at the farm, but I have been feeling so empowered to simply try things, to excite my creativity, to challenge what I know about what I am capable of.  I'm so excited to be a toddler in my own field and explore this crazy world of homesteading!