30 Days - Day #10: News From The Homestead
Long time followers of this blog know that I used to repost my Mum's email reports about the happenings down on the farm. She called it 'The Duck Report'. At some point over the last few years she decided that it was more trouble than it was worth and stopped doing it, much to my disappointment. I liked having a slightly murky window into Mum's brain; as a Yorkshire lass, she can be quite mysterious at times because she doesn't talk a whole lot.
Anyway, I guess that nearly forty years of daughterhood has bought me some 'chat' currency with her because now she calls me up and tells me all about the strange farm happenings. I mean - it's great - but now I have to translate it and I fear that it'll lose some humour in the process. Oh well, here goes...
The Duck Report 2.0
You'll be pleased to hear that she still has ducks. Even though they tend towards horrifying levels of infanticide and playing 'chicken' with the barn cats, Mum still manages regular crops of ducklings and lives off a steady diet of duck eggs without any bacterial repercussions. The adult male (his name escapes me - Mum used to name them all after English monarchs, so there has been a George, an Edward, an Albert etc., etc. - I don't know who we are up to now) still chases after my Dad and pecks at him. It's hilarious to witness because my Dad is now 70 and to see him sprinting across the barnyard with a hissing 12 lbs. duck in tow is a priceless family moment. Good times ;)
After the tragic death of Jersey Girl, the Jersey cow, Mum swore off cows for good and I can't change her mind about it at all. She loved that damned cow. I miss the fresh cream, milk and cheese, but Mum doesn't miss the milking schedule. Still, there was a gap in her barn family that needed filling so - BAZINGA! - Mum's back in the sheep herding business. She bought 3 ewes and now has a ram as well (she hastened to point out that her ram has papers and is therefore a SUPERIOR RAM... erm, yeah...). She's had one lambing so far and those little blighters have already met their maker much to Mum and Dad's lamb-dinner-loving delight. Have I mentioned that Mum is remarkably sanguine about livestock slaughtering?
So, her latest sheep update has been SHEARING! Yep, my 68 year old mother - the one with the replacement hip and the hitch in her step - sheared her own sheep last week. And, boy, is she chuffed with herself over it. According to Mum, once you balance the sheep on it's ass with it's front legs in the air 'they give up'. I found this hard to believe but Dad later confirmed it: it was a very sedate process. So, she accomplished that, and then she washed and processed the wool. Now, the wool is clean but needs to be carded (the process of combing out debris and tangles using two wiry brushes) and then spun. Mum found a local lady willing to teaching her these things and then rent her a spinning wheel. YES, MY MUM WILL BE SPINNING WOOL AND THEN, POSSIBLY, WEAVING STUFF ON A LOOM LIKE SHELDON FROM THAT 'BIG BANG THEORY' EPISODE. When this happens, I will quite possibly react as Leonard did...
In other sheep-related news, Mum retrieved the lamb pelts from the abattoir when she took the guys off to slaughter, and decided to learned how to prep sheepskins. How, you ask? The internet. Yeah, she didn't ask anyone for advice, she just went online and looked at a bunch of recipes and then sorta made up her own. (Her exact words were: "There are a few good things on the internet, you know. Most of it's crap, but there are a few..."). These recipes involve things like acid baths and tanning chemicals, but still Mum managed. Aside from an unfortunate incident in which the dogs were attracted to the pelts before they had the fat removed (they grabbed them and had a tug-o-war with them on the lawn), the whole process went well. She has fluffy new sheepskins and is all 'Come into the room and witness how much a rock' about it. You go, girl ;)
Over the summer, she sold off 5 horses bringing the current count to 3. She had buyers come from the States, and one crazed horse person actually drove all the way from Nova Scotia to get one of her ponies. One horse, Finnegan, was discovered to be permanently lame, so Mum donated him to an SPCA 'retirement' farm instead of euthanizing him. It's a shame because he's still quite young, but at least he'll have a comfy life in his new home. Now, Mum only has Mayflower, Whinny, and Twix. She was hoping to sell off Whinny as well but thinks that it might be too late in the season for that to happen now. Still, 3 horses to care for over the winter will be considerably easier than 8. She's also trying to sell off her considerable tack stock - she has just about every piece of English tack ever created, and probably a spare one to boot. It makes me sad that Mum's horsey life is winding down but I have to stop and remind myself of her age. It is a large undertaking to run a working farm and train livestock in your retirement years, even though that's always been her dream. I hope that she holds onto the farm as long as she can because I think that she will lose a lot of her energy the day that she decides to sell it and downsize.
Finally, in dog news, Saiko - the morbidly obese golden retriever that Mum and Dad adopted in the spring - has been reduced from 140 lbs. to 114 lbs. The vet is impressed and believes that Saiko will be a normal weight for his frame (he's a BIG golden, even without the weight issue) by next spring at this rate. He's a very loving and enthusiastic dog and Mum is enjoying him a great deal (although she shaved him because she "wasn't going to put up with all of that burr shit"). Tigger - Orbit's mother and general wunderJRT - has started to go a bit sideways and is now doing very weird stuff inside the house. She is 19 years old, blind, deaf, and cranky, so maybe she's winding down. I watch Tigger's progress with great interest because Orbit is almost a carbon copy of her, both physically and mentally. I want her to last as long as she can.
So, what else happened? Well, while all of this sheep business was happening, Dad told me that he made pasta sauce. *crickets* I asked him if he did anything else and he hastened to add that it was a lot of pasta sauce and that he made it from scratch.
Okay, Dad, I'm over here doing my sarcastic slow clap for that achievement...
Anyway, I guess that nearly forty years of daughterhood has bought me some 'chat' currency with her because now she calls me up and tells me all about the strange farm happenings. I mean - it's great - but now I have to translate it and I fear that it'll lose some humour in the process. Oh well, here goes...
The Duck Report 2.0
You'll be pleased to hear that she still has ducks. Even though they tend towards horrifying levels of infanticide and playing 'chicken' with the barn cats, Mum still manages regular crops of ducklings and lives off a steady diet of duck eggs without any bacterial repercussions. The adult male (his name escapes me - Mum used to name them all after English monarchs, so there has been a George, an Edward, an Albert etc., etc. - I don't know who we are up to now) still chases after my Dad and pecks at him. It's hilarious to witness because my Dad is now 70 and to see him sprinting across the barnyard with a hissing 12 lbs. duck in tow is a priceless family moment. Good times ;)
After the tragic death of Jersey Girl, the Jersey cow, Mum swore off cows for good and I can't change her mind about it at all. She loved that damned cow. I miss the fresh cream, milk and cheese, but Mum doesn't miss the milking schedule. Still, there was a gap in her barn family that needed filling so - BAZINGA! - Mum's back in the sheep herding business. She bought 3 ewes and now has a ram as well (she hastened to point out that her ram has papers and is therefore a SUPERIOR RAM... erm, yeah...). She's had one lambing so far and those little blighters have already met their maker much to Mum and Dad's lamb-dinner-loving delight. Have I mentioned that Mum is remarkably sanguine about livestock slaughtering?
So, her latest sheep update has been SHEARING! Yep, my 68 year old mother - the one with the replacement hip and the hitch in her step - sheared her own sheep last week. And, boy, is she chuffed with herself over it. According to Mum, once you balance the sheep on it's ass with it's front legs in the air 'they give up'. I found this hard to believe but Dad later confirmed it: it was a very sedate process. So, she accomplished that, and then she washed and processed the wool. Now, the wool is clean but needs to be carded (the process of combing out debris and tangles using two wiry brushes) and then spun. Mum found a local lady willing to teaching her these things and then rent her a spinning wheel. YES, MY MUM WILL BE SPINNING WOOL AND THEN, POSSIBLY, WEAVING STUFF ON A LOOM LIKE SHELDON FROM THAT 'BIG BANG THEORY' EPISODE. When this happens, I will quite possibly react as Leonard did...
In other sheep-related news, Mum retrieved the lamb pelts from the abattoir when she took the guys off to slaughter, and decided to learned how to prep sheepskins. How, you ask? The internet. Yeah, she didn't ask anyone for advice, she just went online and looked at a bunch of recipes and then sorta made up her own. (Her exact words were: "There are a few good things on the internet, you know. Most of it's crap, but there are a few..."). These recipes involve things like acid baths and tanning chemicals, but still Mum managed. Aside from an unfortunate incident in which the dogs were attracted to the pelts before they had the fat removed (they grabbed them and had a tug-o-war with them on the lawn), the whole process went well. She has fluffy new sheepskins and is all 'Come into the room and witness how much a rock' about it. You go, girl ;)
Over the summer, she sold off 5 horses bringing the current count to 3. She had buyers come from the States, and one crazed horse person actually drove all the way from Nova Scotia to get one of her ponies. One horse, Finnegan, was discovered to be permanently lame, so Mum donated him to an SPCA 'retirement' farm instead of euthanizing him. It's a shame because he's still quite young, but at least he'll have a comfy life in his new home. Now, Mum only has Mayflower, Whinny, and Twix. She was hoping to sell off Whinny as well but thinks that it might be too late in the season for that to happen now. Still, 3 horses to care for over the winter will be considerably easier than 8. She's also trying to sell off her considerable tack stock - she has just about every piece of English tack ever created, and probably a spare one to boot. It makes me sad that Mum's horsey life is winding down but I have to stop and remind myself of her age. It is a large undertaking to run a working farm and train livestock in your retirement years, even though that's always been her dream. I hope that she holds onto the farm as long as she can because I think that she will lose a lot of her energy the day that she decides to sell it and downsize.
Finally, in dog news, Saiko - the morbidly obese golden retriever that Mum and Dad adopted in the spring - has been reduced from 140 lbs. to 114 lbs. The vet is impressed and believes that Saiko will be a normal weight for his frame (he's a BIG golden, even without the weight issue) by next spring at this rate. He's a very loving and enthusiastic dog and Mum is enjoying him a great deal (although she shaved him because she "wasn't going to put up with all of that burr shit"). Tigger - Orbit's mother and general wunderJRT - has started to go a bit sideways and is now doing very weird stuff inside the house. She is 19 years old, blind, deaf, and cranky, so maybe she's winding down. I watch Tigger's progress with great interest because Orbit is almost a carbon copy of her, both physically and mentally. I want her to last as long as she can.
So, what else happened? Well, while all of this sheep business was happening, Dad told me that he made pasta sauce. *crickets* I asked him if he did anything else and he hastened to add that it was a lot of pasta sauce and that he made it from scratch.
Okay, Dad, I'm over here doing my sarcastic slow clap for that achievement...