Before bringing our fifty turkeys and fifty chicks home from Rooney’s in May, the Farmer carefully prepared the coop. He swept out the cobwebs, removed any dangerous objects from the floor, and built a little circular enclosure, about the size of a toddler’s swimming pool. He divided this structure in half with a long board, and placed food and water and a heat lamp in each section. Then he hung heavy blankets over the windows, to eliminate drafts. I had never seen him being so careful before. Just how delicate are these creatures, anyway?
When he brought the beasties home, he put the chicks on one side of the divider and the turkeys on the other. They immediately rushed the circle of heat created by the hanging red lamp, piling on top of each other. The birds on the bottom of the heap were smothering. The Farmer frowned. He raised the heat lamp a few inches, to increase the surface area of the heat circle. Suddenly everyone had room. He looked at me.
“We’re going to come in here every morning and every night to check on them, but make sure you don’t let in a draft. If they get chilled, they pile on each other and die.”
He told me we might lose half our chicks. I couldn’t believe how weak and wimpy they were.
This is really my first experience with poultry – unless, of course, you count Taiwan (and I don’t). Walking to the subway in Taipei every morning, I had to pass by a street vendor who took great delight in beheading a chicken just as I was walking past. I looked straight ahead, never gratifying her antics with my attention. I didn’t want to see if the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off stories were true. Those Taiwanese chickens always seemed to be monstrous, huge and fierce, in my memory: nothing like these wimpy chicks on our farm.
I must admit I wasn’t as interested in the baby chicks as I was in the baby lambs that I bottle-fed last February. They just don’t have the same endearing personalities. They’re soft, and fluffy, to be sure. But they are just too tiny and terrified to be cute. For the most part, I have let the Farmer look after the birds.
After a week or two, Farmer Fisher lifted the enclosure and set the chicks free to roam about the coop. Finally, he moved them to a room at the back of the barn that was open to outside for fresh air. They could escape fairly easily if they tried, but only the turkeys have been roosting on the wall and they don’t seem to have the motivation to flee. They are quite content at this resort, where food and water are provided daily.
We only lost four birds in the early coop stages, when they were clustering for warmth.
We lost one more during a group attack (don’t ask – it isn’t pretty).
The one chicken death that I found the most interesting was the one who died of a heart attack. My husband said he just went into the coop area, perhaps a bit too abruptly, and the movement startled the chicken so much that he had a heart attack and died.
This, to me, is ridiculous. But apparently it happens, a lot.
The chickens are nearly ten pounds each, and the time is approaching when they must meet their maker.
We carefully and quietly entered the coop the other night in order to spread fresh hay over the floor. As I hauled myself over the half-wall into the coop, the chickens skittered sideways en masse, muttering to themselves in a high-pitched, gurgling whine the whole time: “ohh….what’s she doing…..she’s coming closer….” And then every once in a while there would be an intermittent squawk from one who just couldn’t hold in the anxiety anymore. But none of them had heart attacks, thankfully. Not even when I accidentally dropped my pitchfork in their midst.
The Farmer has rented cages for transporting the chickens to the processing plant.
I can’t say I will be sad to see them go, but I can at least rest easy that they had a good life while they were on the Fisher Farm Chicken Resort.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Good afternoon, my name is Diana Fisher, and I’m a Floraholic
Floraholic. I think that is what you would call a person with my type of addiction. You see, when it comes to buying and planting flowers, I just don’t know when to quit.
Imagine my glee when the Farmer proposed. Not only was I getting a wonderful husband, but he came with 200 acres of potential flower gardens.
Now, the Farmer has always had a flower bed – one big raised perennial bed up against the front porch of the farmhouse. It’s lovely, with its hostas, flowering shrubs and lilies. It even features a little pond, much to the delight of the birds – and the barn cats.
But the dominant plant in this bed is something like a four-foot-tall dandelion. It’s invasive and rude: if you give it an inch, it’ll take the front yard. I have no idea what its proper name is, but most horticulturalists I know simply refer to it as the “outhouse flower”.
I became Mrs. Farmer Fisher at the end of August last year. As soon as the wedding was over, I dug a half-dozen holes in that perennial bed and plopped our wedding chrysanthemums into them. We moved our wedding arbor to the front flower bed and bought a climbing rose to wind over its length.
At the end of the growing season I lovingly put the perennials to bed with layers of straw that I stole from the sheep feeder. With visions of a colourful springtime to come, I went to Home Depot before the frost and bought packages of bulbs: lilies, alliums, tulips and iris. And daffodils. I bought three packages of thirty daffodils to scatter all over the bed and out into the lawn.
For nearly two hours I planted those bulbs. When spring came, I was disheartened to discover that my double-bearded red tulips, white iris and lilies were all miniatures. They were pretty, but less than six inches tall. I could barely see them amidst the mounds of wild violets in the perennial bed. Next fall I will read the packages more carefully.
And what of my 90 beautiful, naturalized daffodils, popping up all over the lawn, heralding the arrival of spring? Nada. Zip. Nothing. I have no idea what happened to them. Not a single daffodil came up.
I know it is customary to wait until the long weekend in May to plant annuals and vegetables in Eastern Ontario, but I couldn’t make it past Mother’s Day. I had received two black pedestal urns for the front porch and I could not wait to fill them. I went to Jonsson’s Independent and bought baskets of red, purple and white blooms.
A week later, a good friend gifted me with a couple of classic wooden 7-UP crates. They had “geranium planters” written all over them, so off to the nursery I went. Two hours and about $50 later, I had two each of peach and white geraniums, and a bunch of trailing purple verbena. Like I said – I have a problem.
As the month of May continued, I conceded that I had probably spent enough on the single-season annuals. Then I discovered that seed packages were available at convincingly low prices in nearly every grocery, hardware and dollar store that I entered. I bought seeds for cosmos, evening primrose, asters and giant red sunflowers. Visions of wildflower gardens filled my head and I planted them in every spare spot I could find amongst our perennials. When I ran out of garden room, I filled spare containers and placed them up the steps to the porch. I planted flower seeds along the end of the vegetable garden and dug a new bed in front of the shed.
Now, some of these seeds have matured into fluffy green plants, but only the cosmos have bloomed so far. I am optimistic that most of my plants will flower, but I have given up on the seeds that I bought from the sale bin because they were last year’s stock. When they failed to send anything green through the earth, I gave up and filled their allotted space with gladiolus bulbs.
I have come through my first growing season as a Farmwife with a much lighter wallet. Next year, I will follow the Farmer’s advice and plant only the occasional perennial to replace the ones that die out.
I will beg my gardening friends to share with me when they divide their perennials in the fall, and I will attend the plant sales put on by local horticultural groups. I will transplant wild lilies from the back meadow and try to ensure that I have something in bloom every month so that I don’t go into flower withdrawal.
I know – I still have a problem. But I’m working on it.
Imagine my glee when the Farmer proposed. Not only was I getting a wonderful husband, but he came with 200 acres of potential flower gardens.
Now, the Farmer has always had a flower bed – one big raised perennial bed up against the front porch of the farmhouse. It’s lovely, with its hostas, flowering shrubs and lilies. It even features a little pond, much to the delight of the birds – and the barn cats.
But the dominant plant in this bed is something like a four-foot-tall dandelion. It’s invasive and rude: if you give it an inch, it’ll take the front yard. I have no idea what its proper name is, but most horticulturalists I know simply refer to it as the “outhouse flower”.
I became Mrs. Farmer Fisher at the end of August last year. As soon as the wedding was over, I dug a half-dozen holes in that perennial bed and plopped our wedding chrysanthemums into them. We moved our wedding arbor to the front flower bed and bought a climbing rose to wind over its length.
At the end of the growing season I lovingly put the perennials to bed with layers of straw that I stole from the sheep feeder. With visions of a colourful springtime to come, I went to Home Depot before the frost and bought packages of bulbs: lilies, alliums, tulips and iris. And daffodils. I bought three packages of thirty daffodils to scatter all over the bed and out into the lawn.
For nearly two hours I planted those bulbs. When spring came, I was disheartened to discover that my double-bearded red tulips, white iris and lilies were all miniatures. They were pretty, but less than six inches tall. I could barely see them amidst the mounds of wild violets in the perennial bed. Next fall I will read the packages more carefully.
And what of my 90 beautiful, naturalized daffodils, popping up all over the lawn, heralding the arrival of spring? Nada. Zip. Nothing. I have no idea what happened to them. Not a single daffodil came up.
I know it is customary to wait until the long weekend in May to plant annuals and vegetables in Eastern Ontario, but I couldn’t make it past Mother’s Day. I had received two black pedestal urns for the front porch and I could not wait to fill them. I went to Jonsson’s Independent and bought baskets of red, purple and white blooms.
A week later, a good friend gifted me with a couple of classic wooden 7-UP crates. They had “geranium planters” written all over them, so off to the nursery I went. Two hours and about $50 later, I had two each of peach and white geraniums, and a bunch of trailing purple verbena. Like I said – I have a problem.
As the month of May continued, I conceded that I had probably spent enough on the single-season annuals. Then I discovered that seed packages were available at convincingly low prices in nearly every grocery, hardware and dollar store that I entered. I bought seeds for cosmos, evening primrose, asters and giant red sunflowers. Visions of wildflower gardens filled my head and I planted them in every spare spot I could find amongst our perennials. When I ran out of garden room, I filled spare containers and placed them up the steps to the porch. I planted flower seeds along the end of the vegetable garden and dug a new bed in front of the shed.
Now, some of these seeds have matured into fluffy green plants, but only the cosmos have bloomed so far. I am optimistic that most of my plants will flower, but I have given up on the seeds that I bought from the sale bin because they were last year’s stock. When they failed to send anything green through the earth, I gave up and filled their allotted space with gladiolus bulbs.
I have come through my first growing season as a Farmwife with a much lighter wallet. Next year, I will follow the Farmer’s advice and plant only the occasional perennial to replace the ones that die out.
I will beg my gardening friends to share with me when they divide their perennials in the fall, and I will attend the plant sales put on by local horticultural groups. I will transplant wild lilies from the back meadow and try to ensure that I have something in bloom every month so that I don’t go into flower withdrawal.
I know – I still have a problem. But I’m working on it.
A Season Without Television
It all started with a simple voicemail: “Please call Bell ExpressVu in the next 24 hours for a very important message.” We didn’t have the time or inclination to return the call. The next week, we had a similar recording on our answering machine. Again, we ignored it. Finally, our cable bill arrived in the mail with an extra charge on it. We had been billed for a channel that we had not asked for. Apparently we were supposed to call the company at the beginning of the offer to tell them that we did not wish to have the channel added to our package.
The Farmer decided he just wasn’t going to pay that portion of the bill. He made a note on the invoice and sent it back, with his usual monthly payment. This went on for months. The unpaid, unasked-for portion of the bill slowly accumulated in the balance.
After a year, the phone messages started again. They were probably from the Accounts Receivable department but we will never know for sure because we didn’t return the calls.
Then, one day, Farmer Fisher sat down to watch his favourite Saturday morning television program, “Canada in the Rough”. Much to his surprise, all but one channel displayed the message: “this channel is only available with a paid subscription”. The Farmer put down his coffee cup with a smirk and said, “Well, honeybunch, it looks as though we’ve been cut off.”
Now, the Farmer doesn’t watch a great deal of television, but he is fond of hunting and fishing shows, the occasional documentary, war movies and just about anything on the Lonestar channel. I confess a minor addiction to all singing and dancing programs, but for the most part I sit in the living room just to be with my husband. I always have the laptop or some sort of reading material to fall back on if he’s watching another episode of “Bonanza”.
The girls, however, are a different story. When they found out that we had no television, they were incredulous.
“But you’re getting it back, right? You can’t expect us to go all summer without television!”
I took the bait. “You know, when I was growing up we only had two channels. It wasn’t a big deal. If there was nothing on, you read a book. In fact, during the summer months, my father believed you should be outside from breakfast until dinner. He unplugged the television and put it in the garage until September.” (I’ve repeated that last part to my kids so many times that I can’t even remember if it’s actually true…)
The girls rolled their eyes at me for the twentieth time that weekend (doesn’t that cause irreversible damage to the retina at some point?) and stomped off to their rooms where they quickly text-messaged their friends to spread the unbelievable news.
We probably will get our account settled and our television working again. It will likely take only a phone call to get things sorted out. But in the meantime, we are actually enjoying seeing the girls working on their scrapbooks, talking to each other, baking in the kitchen, reading and – yes, it’s true – playing with the kittens OUTSIDE. They don’t even spend much time on the Internet because, of course, we have dialup and that is too frustrating to bear for more than a couple of hours.
We might just leave things as they are for the rest of the summer. The Farmer and I are so busy in the gardens and the barn; we won’t notice the missing television.
And the nice folks at Bell ExpressVu didn’t cut us off cold turkey. They did leave us with one channel. Farmer Fisher can watch as much “Cosmo TV” as he wants. I think he is developing a deeper appreciation for “Sex and the City”.
-30-
The Farmer decided he just wasn’t going to pay that portion of the bill. He made a note on the invoice and sent it back, with his usual monthly payment. This went on for months. The unpaid, unasked-for portion of the bill slowly accumulated in the balance.
After a year, the phone messages started again. They were probably from the Accounts Receivable department but we will never know for sure because we didn’t return the calls.
Then, one day, Farmer Fisher sat down to watch his favourite Saturday morning television program, “Canada in the Rough”. Much to his surprise, all but one channel displayed the message: “this channel is only available with a paid subscription”. The Farmer put down his coffee cup with a smirk and said, “Well, honeybunch, it looks as though we’ve been cut off.”
Now, the Farmer doesn’t watch a great deal of television, but he is fond of hunting and fishing shows, the occasional documentary, war movies and just about anything on the Lonestar channel. I confess a minor addiction to all singing and dancing programs, but for the most part I sit in the living room just to be with my husband. I always have the laptop or some sort of reading material to fall back on if he’s watching another episode of “Bonanza”.
The girls, however, are a different story. When they found out that we had no television, they were incredulous.
“But you’re getting it back, right? You can’t expect us to go all summer without television!”
I took the bait. “You know, when I was growing up we only had two channels. It wasn’t a big deal. If there was nothing on, you read a book. In fact, during the summer months, my father believed you should be outside from breakfast until dinner. He unplugged the television and put it in the garage until September.” (I’ve repeated that last part to my kids so many times that I can’t even remember if it’s actually true…)
The girls rolled their eyes at me for the twentieth time that weekend (doesn’t that cause irreversible damage to the retina at some point?) and stomped off to their rooms where they quickly text-messaged their friends to spread the unbelievable news.
We probably will get our account settled and our television working again. It will likely take only a phone call to get things sorted out. But in the meantime, we are actually enjoying seeing the girls working on their scrapbooks, talking to each other, baking in the kitchen, reading and – yes, it’s true – playing with the kittens OUTSIDE. They don’t even spend much time on the Internet because, of course, we have dialup and that is too frustrating to bear for more than a couple of hours.
We might just leave things as they are for the rest of the summer. The Farmer and I are so busy in the gardens and the barn; we won’t notice the missing television.
And the nice folks at Bell ExpressVu didn’t cut us off cold turkey. They did leave us with one channel. Farmer Fisher can watch as much “Cosmo TV” as he wants. I think he is developing a deeper appreciation for “Sex and the City”.
-30-
A Baaaa'd Day in the Company of Many Sheep
I was raised in the country but I know nothing about farming. After several seasons of life’s twists and turns I returned to my hometown and married a sheep farmer. Overnight, I became The Accidental Farmwife.
Remember that Saturday a few weeks ago when the mercury hit 30 before noon? Well, that was the day when, just after his first cup of coffee, my new husband announced, “Come on, it’s the first of the month. Time to work the sheep.”
The Farmer “worked the sheep” the first weekend of every month. He gave each of the sheep their worm medicine, along with a quick head-to-hoof checkup to make sure there was no incidence of injury, infection or disease.
I like to be hands-on in my new role as farmwife. And that doesn’t mean hands on the rolling pin or the vacuum. I like to help out on the farm, feeding the animals, pitching hay and mending fences. It’s good, honest work. It’s cheaper than going to the gym for a workout, and just as effective. It can be very rewarding. It makes me feel alive.
So I picked up the canvas liquor bag filled with bottles of penicillin, 8-way vaccine and syringes, and followed the Farmer out to the barn.
There, standing just inside the door, were four creatures I had completely forgotten about. Our cows.
“Do they get a needle too?” I asked, eyeing the sweaty beasts.
“Yup. And they also need ear tags,” Farmer Fisher muttered, stopping just in front of the barn to sum up the situation. He had fenced the animals in, and steam was beginning to rise from the hay with the heat. I won’t say I was sweating like a pig because I think I was sweating more than a pig. I started squelching my way through the manure and mud on the way into the barn, careful not to lose a boot.
The only way out of the barn for about 100 sheep and 4 cows was through a rough chute that the Farmer had fashioned out of plywood, cedar rails and posts. Within seconds of opening the chute door, it filled with sheep. About twelve of them.
When the sheep realized that they had not passed through the barn door to freedom, they began to heave and lurch toward any breaks that they could find in the makeshift fencing. Two of our patients wriggled out under a fence rail. I lowered myself down into the chute to block the rest of the sheep from escaping.
Farmer Fisher began the vaccinations, grabbing the sheep one at a time by the scruff of their woolly necks. I moved the animals gently forward, pushing them into a tight bunch so that none of them could break free.
The sun was beating down on us, and those sheep were hot. My legs ached from bending and squatting, and my arms were fatigued from bracing myself against the straining sheep. My skin itched from the greasy lanolin. I sat back on a fence rail for a rest.
Seeing her opportunity and seizing the moment, a frantic ewe bolted in my direction. Realizing that I had left the escape hatch under the fence uncovered, I quickly squatted down and opened my arms wide to “catch” the leaping sheep. I caught her all right. Her high-heeled hoof caught me square in the chest, knocking the wind out of me. I sat down hard, in hot, steamy mud and manure. Squish.
After a few seconds I opened my eyes. Twelve sheep and a Farmer were looking at me. My husband asked if I was ok. I considered, for a moment, asking if I might be excused. I sat there, slowly regaining full consciousness, and marveled that my reality involved sitting in manure at the end of a sheep chute. I reminded myself that the stupid, panicky sheep looking at me wild-eyed were just a few months ago the cute little things that came to my call. Not anymore. Now they saw me as nothing but a barrier between them and freedom
My husband regained his focus, grabbing sheep, vaccinating them and shoving them through the end of the chute to freedom. The newly inoculated sheep twitched and squirmed as they wandered away, reacting to the sting of the medication. I wiped the sweat from my eyes and took a drink from my water bottle. A bruise was beginning to form on my chest where the frantic sheep had shoved me.
Finally, all 100 sheep had been treated.
We turned and looked at the cows.
The calves Tyson and Mocha wandered gullibly into the chute, led by the sound and smell of sweet feed that I poured into an upturned garbage can lid. The Farmer put one leg on each side of the chute and straddled, like a bucking bronco rider at the rodeo. Tyson took his shot like a man and strutted confidently out into the barnyard. Mocha was another story. She bucked, twisted and wriggled until she was bent in half and facing backwards. The Farmer gave her an injection, and then realized she also had a bit of congestion. With the other needle, he gave her a shot of penicillin.
While we were working the calves, their mothers were getting extremely agitated.
Betty tossed her head back and forth, mooing in protest. Ginger pushed against her prison bars until the top rail fell down.
“We’d better get those cows in here before they break out,” I suggested.
The Farmer looked nervous. And that is never a good thing. We opened the door to the chute and Ginger promptly took her place. I slid the barrier bar in behind her so she couldn’t back up. It didn’t take eight seconds to realize that the chute wasn’t going to hold Ginger for long.
The dosage on the wormer said that cows should receive 50 mls. That meant each cow had to be stuck with a needle 5 times. The Farmer scratched his head and asked me to read it again. He grabbed hold of Ginger’s slack skin around her neck and poked with the needle. It promptly broke in half.
That was the end of that. Apparently we can provide the same dosage of worming medicine in a mouth swab.
But first we need to buy a proper head chute, and we need to teach Ginger and Betty to open wide and say “aaahhh”.
-30-
Remember that Saturday a few weeks ago when the mercury hit 30 before noon? Well, that was the day when, just after his first cup of coffee, my new husband announced, “Come on, it’s the first of the month. Time to work the sheep.”
The Farmer “worked the sheep” the first weekend of every month. He gave each of the sheep their worm medicine, along with a quick head-to-hoof checkup to make sure there was no incidence of injury, infection or disease.
I like to be hands-on in my new role as farmwife. And that doesn’t mean hands on the rolling pin or the vacuum. I like to help out on the farm, feeding the animals, pitching hay and mending fences. It’s good, honest work. It’s cheaper than going to the gym for a workout, and just as effective. It can be very rewarding. It makes me feel alive.
So I picked up the canvas liquor bag filled with bottles of penicillin, 8-way vaccine and syringes, and followed the Farmer out to the barn.
There, standing just inside the door, were four creatures I had completely forgotten about. Our cows.
“Do they get a needle too?” I asked, eyeing the sweaty beasts.
“Yup. And they also need ear tags,” Farmer Fisher muttered, stopping just in front of the barn to sum up the situation. He had fenced the animals in, and steam was beginning to rise from the hay with the heat. I won’t say I was sweating like a pig because I think I was sweating more than a pig. I started squelching my way through the manure and mud on the way into the barn, careful not to lose a boot.
The only way out of the barn for about 100 sheep and 4 cows was through a rough chute that the Farmer had fashioned out of plywood, cedar rails and posts. Within seconds of opening the chute door, it filled with sheep. About twelve of them.
When the sheep realized that they had not passed through the barn door to freedom, they began to heave and lurch toward any breaks that they could find in the makeshift fencing. Two of our patients wriggled out under a fence rail. I lowered myself down into the chute to block the rest of the sheep from escaping.
Farmer Fisher began the vaccinations, grabbing the sheep one at a time by the scruff of their woolly necks. I moved the animals gently forward, pushing them into a tight bunch so that none of them could break free.
The sun was beating down on us, and those sheep were hot. My legs ached from bending and squatting, and my arms were fatigued from bracing myself against the straining sheep. My skin itched from the greasy lanolin. I sat back on a fence rail for a rest.
Seeing her opportunity and seizing the moment, a frantic ewe bolted in my direction. Realizing that I had left the escape hatch under the fence uncovered, I quickly squatted down and opened my arms wide to “catch” the leaping sheep. I caught her all right. Her high-heeled hoof caught me square in the chest, knocking the wind out of me. I sat down hard, in hot, steamy mud and manure. Squish.
After a few seconds I opened my eyes. Twelve sheep and a Farmer were looking at me. My husband asked if I was ok. I considered, for a moment, asking if I might be excused. I sat there, slowly regaining full consciousness, and marveled that my reality involved sitting in manure at the end of a sheep chute. I reminded myself that the stupid, panicky sheep looking at me wild-eyed were just a few months ago the cute little things that came to my call. Not anymore. Now they saw me as nothing but a barrier between them and freedom
My husband regained his focus, grabbing sheep, vaccinating them and shoving them through the end of the chute to freedom. The newly inoculated sheep twitched and squirmed as they wandered away, reacting to the sting of the medication. I wiped the sweat from my eyes and took a drink from my water bottle. A bruise was beginning to form on my chest where the frantic sheep had shoved me.
Finally, all 100 sheep had been treated.
We turned and looked at the cows.
The calves Tyson and Mocha wandered gullibly into the chute, led by the sound and smell of sweet feed that I poured into an upturned garbage can lid. The Farmer put one leg on each side of the chute and straddled, like a bucking bronco rider at the rodeo. Tyson took his shot like a man and strutted confidently out into the barnyard. Mocha was another story. She bucked, twisted and wriggled until she was bent in half and facing backwards. The Farmer gave her an injection, and then realized she also had a bit of congestion. With the other needle, he gave her a shot of penicillin.
While we were working the calves, their mothers were getting extremely agitated.
Betty tossed her head back and forth, mooing in protest. Ginger pushed against her prison bars until the top rail fell down.
“We’d better get those cows in here before they break out,” I suggested.
The Farmer looked nervous. And that is never a good thing. We opened the door to the chute and Ginger promptly took her place. I slid the barrier bar in behind her so she couldn’t back up. It didn’t take eight seconds to realize that the chute wasn’t going to hold Ginger for long.
The dosage on the wormer said that cows should receive 50 mls. That meant each cow had to be stuck with a needle 5 times. The Farmer scratched his head and asked me to read it again. He grabbed hold of Ginger’s slack skin around her neck and poked with the needle. It promptly broke in half.
That was the end of that. Apparently we can provide the same dosage of worming medicine in a mouth swab.
But first we need to buy a proper head chute, and we need to teach Ginger and Betty to open wide and say “aaahhh”.
-30-
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