From Oliver with Love

Thank you to everyone who sent cards, emails, phone messages and texts full of warm wishes over the holidays. It was a wonderful Christmas on the Fisher farm.

One of the notes I received was from Stinky the kitten, who has been renamed Oliver by his adoptive humans. Here it is, in its entirety:

“Still tired from the move – though adjusting well to my new digs.

From what I can tell, the “holiday” season is upon us.  This time of year seems very special – the landlords have set up a beautiful tree and have decorated it with wonderful “toys” for me to bat and swat around the living room. Honestly, every time I knock down one of these “toys”, the landlords pick it back up and return it to the tree – I’m assuming for my later amusement.

I’m enjoying spending all this quality time with my new found family.  They seem nice but, if I were to make a small comment, they’re a little cheap with the treats for my taste.  Don’t get me wrong, they feed me well, but all I want are those treats!!!  I could eat them all day every day - if only they would let me.  I’ve started meowing in protest … I’ll let you know how that works for me.

The new landlords are cool.  They pretty much let me do what I want.  One of them even looks like me – though he’s much bigger than me and makes these weird barking noises - his name is Digory and we sometimes sleep together.  Contrary to popular belief, I’ve never woken up with any fleas.  He’s a veteran so, for the time being, I tend to copy his moves and his sounds – unfortunately, without much success.  The best I can manage sounds like a guttural sneeze.   The other two landlords think it’s cute when I do this but they also really hope I’m not coming down with something. 

Last week they took me outside to play.  Let’s just say, things were not how I remembered them.  First of all, there was all this white stuff on the ground – I’m not going to lie to you, it gave me paws.  Second, there were no lambs, donkeys or horses anywhere.  Being new to the area; I chose to stick close to home.  Besides, I don’t want to wander too far from my treats!!!

Nowadays, I get most of my sleep (see picture hereunder) while the landlords are away.  Playtime mostly happens when the landlords get home from this thing called “work.”  (Whatever it is, it must be fun because they always seem to be in a great mood when they get home to me)  Because I feel that playtime is never long enough, I tend to indulge in a few extra rounds at night.  That’s when the landlords are subjected to the wrath of my Santa Claws.  For some reason, however, this behaviour is being discouraged. 

Overall, things are great and I’m fitting in quite nicely in this new household.

Please extend my holiday “best wishes” to everyone on the farm (especially my brothers and sisters). 

Meow for now, Stinky – a.k.a. Oliver.”

We have two more kittens in the house ready to be adopted, if anyone is interested. Please feel free to visit my blog: www.theaccidentalfarmwife.blogspot.com to see their photos.

As we head into the New Year, it’s time to clear out the cobwebs, clean out the closets and attempt to stick to our resolutions. I will be doing my annual donation of “stuff I don’t need” to charity, and getting down on bended knee to dust baseboards. My resolution is to avoid sugar. Let’s see if I can make that one last until at least Easter.

New Year's Baby!

Dining Al Fresco

Farmwife-in-waiting

The lambing pens are lined with hay, waiting for our Christmas babies to arrive. The rams obviously did some work before we locked them up in August, because there is a ewe or two with a distinctly swelling udder. They are “bagging up”, as the Farmer says. That is a rather indelicate way to describe the situation. Most of our ewes are due to lamb in April.

Our cows are also due to give birth any day now. Ginger, Betty, Julie and Mocha each took turns dancing with Young Angus when he arrived last spring. However, according to the Farmer, they are not bagging up. But that doesn’t mean anything. Betty didn’t bag up the last time she gave birth to a huge calf either. She just let out a long, low mooo one morning and twenty minutes later she was licking her newborn clean.

In order to make things as comfortable as possible for our four bovine mothers-to-be, the Farmer has closed them off in their own field on the far side of the barn, There they have their own water supply, an open pasture and part of the barn for shelter.

This weekend the Farmer decided to cut the huge beams that make up the half-wall in the turkey pen. This large, open room is ideal for the cows, and now they can get in. Within half an hour of the Farmer’s renovations, Ginger and Julie had moved in to the new space. They are the smart ones, I think.

The cows are feeding now on wrapped hay that smells like whiskey. The fermentation process has left the silage rich and scented. They chew slowly, savouring the flavour.

So we will go out in the morning and evening now to check on the animals. I hope they don’t all give birth at once. I hope things go without complications, as planned. We selected a bull that would produce smaller calves that grow quickly after birth. I don’t want to deal with any calves getting stuck during birth when I’m the only one at home. It would be just my luck to have this sort of thing happen.

Misty is supposed to be pregnant, but we still don’t have that confirmed. Perhaps when we have the vet in to assist with the cow births, we will get him to do a preg check on Misty at the same time.

I have to go to Rooney’s to stock up on calf bottles and milk replacer. I keep this at the ready in case a ewe gives birth to multiples. Inevitably there will be a runt lacking the rooting instinct, and I will have to feed it with the bottle. During the first 24 hours, that milk must be colostrum straight from the mother, or the chance of survival is very slim. As much as I try, however, I cannot get enough milk from a ewe to fill an eye-dropper. The Farmer has to climb into the pen, tackle the mother and steal her milk. He can get an inch or two of colostrum in no time, and then I fill the big syringe to feed the baby.

Ideally, after a week or so, the runt will regain his strength and catch on to the routine of feeding from his own mother. If he doesn’t, I have to train him to feed from the bottle that I strap to the side of the pen. This method has worked, in the past. We are in the business of growing healthy sheep here.  

If the cows need help feeding their babies, we will supplement their feedings also. I will buy my supplies, and wait. They can come now – I am ready.

A Tale of Two Kitties

Attempting to slow down life

I don’t know how life suddenly became so busy. We don’t have kids to ferry around to hockey or soccer; only one remains at home and she is pretty self-sufficient. We have less than a fifteen minute commute to work in Kemptville, and we spend the majority of each weekend at home. Still, life goes whizzing by.

Some of our best moments are spent at the dinner table, in the garden, or in the barn. Just living, working, talking together. The best memories are not built in front of the television or computer.

The computer is a necessary evil, keeping us connected to work and friends and news in the rest of the world. But I think we can do without the TV. In 2011, the Farmer and I are going to look at our life to see how we might attempt to slow it down by simplifying things a bit.

I love living in a region with four distinct seasons – but they mark the passage of time in a way that clearly shows you how fast life is passing. Last winter we were praying for a dear friend with brain cancer. This winter we are burying him.

It’s been almost three years since we lost my dad. Three years. But as I watched the movie “The Bucket List” last week, the tears ran down my face. It is very difficult to recover from the loss of a permanent fixture in one’s heart.

I have friends entering menopause, fighting cancer, burying their husbands. Yesterday we were in high school.

Our lives are a blip on the screen. The best we can do is to surround ourselves with positive people, to keep traveling up hill, and to pause to appreciate the moments.

This morning my mother called to tell me she would not be at Sunday dinner. Instead she would be visiting with her own 95-year-old mother Vicky, who had recently suffered a fall. Vicky was only slightly hurt in the fall, thank goodness, but it put things into perspective. Occasionally she falls down and has to remain on the floor for several hours until she is discovered. She has left the water running in the bathroom for the entire day. She left the milk to burn on the stove. It is becoming unsafe for Vicky to continue to live on her own. At times like this, I wish we were Italian.

If we were Italian, I might be a stay-at-home Mom, and we could move our aging parents and grandparents into the spare wing of the house. There they would enjoy their golden years, and pass their wisdom on to the younger generation – our children and grandchildren.

But alas, we are not Italian. We work outside the home, and we are not able to move our aging family members in with us. It is time to find a new home for Vicky.

Vicky has been through some hard winters, living in a little schoolhouse in Quebec where her husband hunted, she gardened and they traded their goods for eggs at the farm down the road. As a single mom of four boys and one girl, Vicky learned to be thrifty, resourceful, creative and optimistic. When she doesn’t understand or cannot hear what you are saying, she giggles. She doesn’t get frustrated or upset – she just laughs. That’s Vicky.

And this gorgeous woman, who still paints her nails to match her russet-red hair, deserves the very best for the last few seasons of her long life.

Stinky Finds a Home