Pests take over our farm retreat

Our four-month-old Golden Retriever pup has a bee sting on his eyelid. For an animal that yelps every time he is accidentally nudged, he is enduring this latest assault without comment. We were on the way to the vet anyway, to get a shot. Seems he will have to be on Benadryl for a day or two until the swelling goes down.

I didn’t see the bee or wasp that stung Fergus, but I’m sure he deserved it. He just can’t leave them alone. He follows them, stamps on them and then tries to eat them. He has also been seen flying through the air in attempt to catch one in his mouth. He has been warned.

I’m happy to see the honey bees back on the farm. For a few years all we saw were yellow jackets. We still have those, but they aren’t as plentiful as they used to be. The bumblebees hover over the flowers surrounding the pool, and have no interest in provoking man or beast – unless provoked.

I wish the same could be said for the mosquitoes. I know I said I wasn’t going to complain about anything this year, because look where complaining about last year’s drought got us. Flood. Torrential downpour. Ninety days of rain. And a great season for breeding mosquitoes.

We often say we don’t need to go away to vacation because everything we need is right here. A great view of the sunset, a pool to cool off in, comfy chairs on the porch. But it seems I am going to have to invest in some sort of mosquito deterrent if we are going to enjoy our outdoor surroundings after sundown. I heard something on the radio about creating a mosquito-free zone around your house. I’m going to look into it before our annual farm party in August. We want our guests to enjoy themselves outside on the dance floor under the stars, beside the campfire. If this mosquito situation continues all our guests will be in the house. And what is the point of a farm party if you are inside? That’s just a house party. We can have one of those in the winter.

While I’m researching how to get rid of mosquitoes, the Farmer says he also needs to find a way to scare off a family of snakes. They have nested beneath his new log cabin and they are his least favourite thing ever. I told him I’m pretty sure if he makes a lot of noise the snake will go away. I’m not sure, actually. Our neighbour has a snake living under her porch that actually emerges to greet people coming to the front door. And the snake appearance at the cabin happened while the radio was playing, full blast. So it obviously isn’t put off by music. In fact it seems to like classic rock.

Knock on wood, we seem to have effectively dealt with the skunks and raccoons this year. I am giving Fergus some credit for their absence. Normally we lose some of our chickens to the marauding pests. This year I think Fergus has properly marked his territory and they don’t want to run into him. Ten points for the pup.

On the subject of chickens, we will have several dozen to sell come the end of the month. You know where to find me if you want to reserve some birds. I will be happy to see them go; they are the biggest pests of all when you are trying to fill their feeders. They don’t even wait until you have successfully figured out how to get the 40lb feed bag open before they start pecking your ankles. I check on them once in a while but to be honest I haven’t gone in there to feed them in over a month. The Farmer can have that job. He has tougher ankles.

I’m really surprised we haven’t seen any poison parsnip on our property. Maybe the cattle have eaten it, or maybe it hasn’t found the right conditions to thrive here as it does just about everywhere else. It’s a good thing, too, because you can be sure if we had some of the toxic week, Fergus would find it and get himself into trouble.

For now he only has to worry about insects and the occasional misplaced piece of lawn furniture or farm equipment. He hates when they aren’t in the same place they were the day before, and spends a few minutes barking out a warning. Fergus the Farm Guardian is on the job. Bees, bugs and buckets beware.

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email: dianafisher 1@gmail.com

Fergus has a shocking barnyard experience

When Fergus first arrived on the farm he was quite overwhelmed. All of the sights, sounds and smells filled his senses and he spent many long hours sitting on the front porch, surveying his new kingdom. Occasionally he would summon the nerve to hop down the big set of stairs that his little legs could barely reach, so that he could lie on the cool green grass and nap. That was when he was nine weeks old.

Over the next month, Fergus’ legs grew so that he could leap up and down any set of stairs with ease if not grace. He began chasing the birds that had scared him by swooping down and dive bombing him when he had first arrived on the scene. He followed his nose down a groundhog hole under the playhouse and discovered the joy of running laps in the loose soil of my vegetable garden. Finally, after weeks of sitting on the back deck studying the cattle in the meadow, Fergus decided to wriggle under the fence to the barnyard.

On his first attempt he was scolded for eating the garbage ash around the burn barrel. He immediately understood that he was not to go into the barnyard again, after a sharp tap on the butt and a stern tone of voice from his master. However, the attraction was too great. The next time I caught him tip toeing deeper into the barnyard and peering around the corner of the shed toward the big barn.

“Fergus!” I shouted. He turned and looked at me, then turned back and ran as fast as he could toward the manure pile. I had just dumped the kitty litter there and realized, with horror, that he thought he could smell a potential midday snack. Over the next week we caught Fergus in the barnyard several times a day, sampling other disgusting delicacies. He developed a digestive issue.

I was up two and three times a night, changing the puppy pad at the end of his bed. Fergus needed a bath in the morning, as he had soiled his fur. The vet did a test on his feces and called me with the results. “We found something strange in Fergus’ poop,” she announced, “so we sent it off to someone who looks at this sort of thing all day long.” I can only imagine a few jobs worse than that.

“It seems Fergus has a rare parasite that is usually only found in earthworms!” she declared. “Is it possible that he has been eating mud?”

I had to laugh. Mud? Try mud, manure, cat litter, garden soil…anything that is smelly and on the ground at Ferg level. The vet assured me that the parasite would harmlessly work its way through the puppy’s system. She also prescribed something for the loose bowel problem. Then I looked at the bigger picture. We had to find a way to keep Fergus out of the barnyard.

We have inherited the invisible fencing collar that my daughter used with her hunting dogs. The first morning I walked the perimeter of the property with him on a leash beside me. Every time the collar beeped I told him “no no no” the way I always do when he is leaving his boundary. I made sure the system was set to encompass his established toilet area, the front and back porch and plenty of yard. But he could no longer access the chicken shed, my vegetable garden, or his beloved barnyard.

I adjusted the collar to Fergus’ scrawny little puppy neck, and set him free. Within five minutes he was under the fence and trotting happily into the barnyard. Just then, the collar started to beep. He stopped, turned and looked at me, wide eyed.

“Come, Fergus!” I called, holding the gate open to the house yard. He turned to go farther into the barnyard, and then suddenly started hopping around and yelping as if he had been stung by a bee. He yipped and yelped and covered the fifteen feet between us in about three leaps, landing in my arms. He shivered and whimpered like a European football star who had just had his ear flicked during a match.

I set the collar a little lower in intensity, realizing it had been dialed up to control Annie’s high-strung German Pointer, Skor. Surely a little Golden Retriever doesn’t need more than a subtle reminder of his boundaries.

Now Fergus turns tail and runs back to the house whenever he reaches the outskirts of his property and his collar begins to beep. He is a smart dog and is determined never to let his collar sting him again.

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Email: dianafisher1@gmail.com

A big moment for a young man and his lady on the farm

He’s been preparing for this moment for months. Just as he does before a championship match, the professional fighter plans ahead by marking the date and moving backwards on the calendar. Sometimes he has weight to lose to drop him into the next class. He often has skills to work on, muscle to build, reflexes to sharpen. In this case our young man planned ahead by making two very important lunch dates: one with his girlfriend’s mother, and one with her father.

Perhaps the discipline of martial arts training has leaked over into other aspects of his life. I believe this is what is supposed to happen, if you’re doing it right. In any case, many people might be surprised to hear that he treated me to a meal at one of his favourite Thai restaurants, so that he could ask for my approval. He wanted to know he had my support before asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage.

The young man takes his time. He doesn’t just blurt things out. Perhaps this is one of the things she loves about him. She too is a thinker. When he took me for lunch, I asked him where we should sit and he chose a chair directly opposite a poster of a Muay Thai fighter. “I’m sitting here,” he announced. “For strength!” I was pretty sure I knew what he had summoned me for, and I was happy to give my blessing.

Her father probably gave him a bit more of a challenge. I’m sure he too is very approving of this young man for his daughter but he isn’t about to ‘let her go’ without a test or two. Always discreet and polite, the young man just said that dinner with the old man went well.

He was turning 28, and we usually celebrate birthdays as a family on the farm. So he orchestrated a bit of an ‘Inception’ moment, where I suggested that she invite his family to the farm dinner as a birthday surprise for him. Unbeknownst to her, they had already been invited by him, and accepted. His brother, sister, mother and three close friends came from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto to help fill our kitchen while he popped the question. Any concern that I might have had about my daughter finding out about this day beforehand melted away when I saw how excited she was to be surprising him. He gave an adequate performance of surprise, and then led everyone into the kitchen.

The Farmer took the young man aside as everyone gathered, whispering, “I’ll bet you’re more nervous now than you were for your toughest opponent in the ring!”

The twenty of us lined the kitchen, and our hero stood in the middle. He is a civil engineer by trade but he is also a great speaker.  Dressed in a crisp white shirt and walking shorts, he paced the floor as he addressed us. He thanked us for coming, and for sharing his birthday this way. My eldest daughter smiled, familiar with our family tradition of giving a wee ‘speech’ on the occasion of your birthday. And then he was done. And still standing there. The room was silent. All you could hear was the puppy, whining in his crate, likely protesting his exclusion from the gathering.

She stared at him, and her eyes glazed over. I wondered what she was thinking, watching him run his fingers through his hair and shift his weight back and forth. (Later she told me she had had a horrific thought that maybe he was going to announce he was terminally ill. But that soon passed and she realized what he was doing.)

She knew this day was coming, but she didn’t know he would be ‘taking a knee’ on this date. They had discussed marriage and looked at rings together. He chose wisely. The vintage style round diamond on a rose and white gold band suits our designer daughter to a tee. There were tears all around as she kissed and hugged him and pulled him to his feet. Someone asked her to confirm her answer, a resounding “Yes.” We popped two bottles of pink champagne and gave everyone a glass for a toast.

There is no rush to set a date. They live together and are saving for a home. She is in no hurry. She has been waiting for this moment her whole life - since she was a little girl, dressed in a gold floor-length gown, watching Belle dance with her man on “Beauty and the Beast.”

It was an honour to have the farm chosen as the venue for this live proposal celebration.

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Email: dianafisher1@gmail.com

The gathering place

The Accidental Farmwife

Our farm is a gathering place

By Diana Fisher

The farm is a retreat for city people. It’s a place to try out your new rubber boots, go for a hike in the forest and get back to nature by feeding a cow an apple. At our farm on any given Sunday you can fill your belly with home cooked food and nourish your soul with good conversation and the love of family and friends.

When we first started hosting family dinners on Sunday we made it sort of a command performance for our girls. It was a “be there or be square” kind of a thing. They had to have a really good reason not to attend. As they got older and had work commitments we occasionally had to excuse one or another of them but at they also started to bring boyfriends home around the same time. Our gathering grew in number. Our musical daughter brought starving musicians home to dinner. Well, they likely weren’t starving but they did appreciate a good home cooked meal. And to be honest, most of them were pretty thin. And vegetarian. And you know what they say – “don’t feed the musicians” – we joked that they kept coming back for the free food but we were the real winners in that deal. Many Sunday sunsets were accompanied by acoustic guitar singalongs on the back porch, with multiple harmonies.

I remember thinking we were really lucky that our family wanted to spend each Sunday with us. The Farmer is a creative, experimental cook and other guests bring special contributions to the meal. No one leaves hungry. But I think it is far more than the food and good company that motivates family members young and old to make the trek out to the O’Neill Road at the end of each week and the start of the next. I think it’s the farm.

If we lived in a small bungalow on a street in town, there wouldn’t be the same draw. The farm has an appeal all of its own. People don’t just come to see us and to eat our food. They come to see the farm. They come to smell the honeysuckle on the fresh, sweet air. They come to hear the geese honking their way up the creek at dusk. They come to watch the cattle return to the barnyard, single file on a crooked diagonal path across the pasture, mooing in unison.

I do believe we get a bigger crowd when they know the baby will be here. But like everything else on the farm, she brings you down to earth, demands your undivided attention and helps you to appreciate the simple things in life.

The Farmer and I were married on the farm ten summers ago, and we host a big farm party every year, in addition to our weekly dinners that average 18 guests and our Easter and Thanksgiving gatherings that top out around 43. We have accumulated the trappings of hospitality that make these events easier. He built a three-season room that accommodates a sixteen-seater picnic table made by his uncle Bob. We have been gifted serving trays and utensils, extra place settings, dishes, glasses and mugs as well as chafing dishes (I didn’t even know that was a warming plate before I met this man). We have the extra folding tables and chairs, eight table cloths, 24 cloth napkins and cutlery for 45.

But still I don’t think it’s the fact that we are set up for this sort of thing that makes people gravitate to the farm for their special occasions. This weekend we celebrated the lives of two very special women on the farm. My uncle came from Florida and his late wife’s family came from Calgary, Quebec and Toronto to celebrate her life in a memorial service. He wanted to have it on the farm because he knew it would be comfortable, casual and meaningful. He knew this because he had attended a memorial service for his brother on our farm two years ago.

We also celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday on the farm this weekend. We had about ten people more than we expected but we were able to accommodate them with a bit of shifting and adjusting. Lorna’s short term memory is deteriorating and the crowds confuse her but she seemed to understand what was going on and appreciated the festivities. She even had a piece of cake, which she is allowing herself to do a lot more often these days.

She understands that life is too short to pass up cake on a special occasion. Or to miss another gathering at the farm. 

A full house on the farm

My daughter Anastasia needed a place to stay between houses. We agreed that she should move in to the farm for a week. That was great news, because it meant I would get to see my granddaughter quite a bit. Unfortunately it also meant I would be seeing and hearing more of Annie’s German Pointer, Skor.

Skor is a beautiful dog. He is a sweet, energetic and fun-loving three year old. But he has a bad case of nerves. He is constantly jumping up on things including people, the furniture, parked cars and the door to the house. Within a few hours of being at the farm, Skor had scratched the front door beyond repair, busted a doorway through the wooden lattice work under the porch and formed a path through the three-foot-tall flowers in the front bed. Annie said she would repair whatever Skor wrecked. It’s a good thing she is only staying a week because I don’t think she could afford any more damage.

Our pup Fergus loves having Skor and his considerably better behaved brother Rupert the Yellow Lab on the farm. Rupert puts up with Fergus bobbing up and down under his chin, nipping at his jowls and his ears. The bigger dog even teases the pup and engages him in play. Fergus is in heaven.

One day Annie needed someone to watch the baby. Of course I volunteered. Leti and I were having a great day together, splashing in the pool and playing with her Barbie and pony collection. Then I noticed Fergus was missing. He had wriggled under the snow fence that I had strapped to the bottom of the barnyard fence. He was standing on the rock pile on the cattle side of the fence, challenging a groundhog he had discovered within. I called him to come back but he ignored me. I picked up my 18-month-old granddaughter and started toward him. He’s a smart dog, and he knows he isn’t supposed to be in the barnyard, where he could be harmed by a bull or over-protective cow. I approached him carefully. The trick is to catch up to him before he notices and starts running in the opposite direction. That’s when I saw the coyote.

Not much bigger than Fergus, the young coyote was bounding along the fencerow toward my little dog. He appeared to want to play, but my instincts told me to get Fergus out of there. I picked up the pace, Leti bouncing and giggling along on my hip. I waved my free arm at the coyote and made as much noise as possible, hooting and hollering. Leti helped. That seemed to scare him, because he turned tail and ran back in the direction from which he had come. Then I bent down and scooped up my gangly and awkward Golden Retriever pup. A dog on one hip and a toddler on the other, I turned and headed back to the house. It must have been quite a picture. Fergus was all wiggly and squirmy in my arms. He wanted to be released so he could go back to investigating groundhog hill. Leti kept trying to reach around and stick her fingers in Fergus’ mouth. I tried to keep them separate while walking as fast as physically possible, back out of the barnyard and across the lawn to the house.

It’s possible that the coyote thought Fergus was one of his kind and just wanted to play, but I wasn’t taking any chances. For the next two days my back ached from the effort of carrying nearly fifty pounds of human and fur baby while running across a rocky pasture.

The Farmer was less than enthusiastic when he learned we would have houseguests – some of them with four legs. We kept the dogs in the basement or out on the porch when the Farmer was around – no use in poking the bear.

On their second night with us, the baby wasn’t feeling well. Fever kept her up most of the night and so no one got more than a couple hours sleep. In the morning, Skor tested our bedroom door and found it to be unlocked. He bounded up onto the bed and licked the Farmer right across the face. That day my husband packed up his fishing equipment and took off to the lake with a few of his closest two-legged friends. The only full house he wants to see in the next week is in a card game.

Email: dianafisher1@gmail.com

The magical power of Dad

Fathers, do not underestimate your power. You have the ability to influence a young life without saying a word. Your child will be watching your every move – studying your facial expressions and second guessing everything you say, searching for hidden meaning. You are the number one man in your child’s life at the beginning and although someone may someday take your place, those formative years are extremely important.

Your son will shape his own identity in large part by studying yours. He will try on your expressions, your habits and mannerisms to see which ones fit and which do not. Some things he will consciously try to mimic and other things will just happen organically, as a magical product of genetics. He may walk like you, but will he share your weaknesses as well as your strengths?  Your relationship will heavily influence whether your son matures into a man of character or whether he struggles with personal failings all his life. There will of course be myriad other factors shaping your son’s future, but they don’t diminish the power of your influence.

You can’t determine every aspect of your child’s future by your own behavior. But it is extremely important to watch not only what you model in front of your child, but also what comes out of your mouth.

The relationship between a father and daughter is a particularly special and powerful one. The way you relate to her will help her to define her feeling of self-worth. Now if that isn’t a heavy load to bear, I don’t know what is. I remember carefully examining everything my father said to me in terms of my looks, my dress, my intelligence and my talent. He helped me to grow into a confident, self-assured young woman, but he also provided a very realistic perspective on where my challenges lie. A high school science teacher for over thirty years, he told me, “you are smart in ways that will get you nowhere in the world.” That was when I won top marks for English. I took it as a compliment but I got the message. He just didn’t put the same value on writing ability as he did on math or science.

He also treated my sister differently than he treated me. I’ll never forget looking out the window and seeing him teaching her something about the car. They were huddled together out there, under the open hood. When I asked him later why he didn’t show me too, he said something like, “well Cathy likes to learn how to do things on her own.” That one left me puzzled for a while.

Dad didn’t say it often, but I knew he loved me. I knew this because he looked forward to the time we spent together after school and seemed disappointed when my part-time job wouldn’t allow me to do that anymore. He joked about my boyfriends but I always knew he cared. He teased me regularly about my hairstyles and wardrobe choices but in reality he was saying “I see you.” That is all that really mattered. My mother, sister and I were never left wishing he told us he loved us. He did that every day, by making us laugh, and giving us his time and attention. My mom said Dad told her “I love you” on their wedding day and “If it changes,” he said, “I’ll let you know.” He was a man who chose his words carefully.

A Dad not only has the power to change the way his daughter sees herself – he can also shape her choice in a future male partner. It is only natural that we will choose someone who seems familiar. Someone who reminds us of Dad. We do this without even knowing it and often don’t realize it until something happens that makes the similarity obvious. What kind of man will your daughter be choosing for herself, even subconsciously? Are you teaching her that men are strong but sensitive, kind and generous? Or will she be drawn to someone who reminds her of you but isn’t necessarily the best choice in a life partner?

On this Father’s Day, as the daughter of a man who made me feel treasured, loved and cherished (without words), I ask you to carefully consider the influence you are having on your child’s life. 

We have entered the Golden age on the farm

(photo of Fergus by Paulina Hrebacka)

The Farmer and I have entered a new era. After ten years of marriage, at the ages of 61 and 49, we have welcomed a new baby into our lives. He is a Golden Retriever and we have decided, after much debate, to name him Fergus.

The Farmer wanted to name him Red. He is a red type rather than the English blond type of Golden, but I argued that “Red” is simply a colour and not a name. I wanted to name him Finn, but perhaps that is more fitting of an Irish setter. Goldens come from Scotland. We were watching Outlander on Netflix one night when the name came to me. He will be known as Fergus the Red. Fergie for short.

We have received a great deal of advice on how to train this puppy. Some say you should crate the dog beside your bed so you can get up in the night to put him outside. This will speed up house training. However, I was reminded that if you allow the pup to sleep in your room as a pup, he will think it is his room going forward. I don’t want to be sharing my room with a huge dog that is dreaming loudly about chasing rabbits and snoring in his sleep. When I mentioned this to my husband he said, “Well, you could always go sleep in the other room!”

Fergus was tucked into his pet carrier on the first night. This was settled into the larger crate which will from now on be his safe place for naps and bed time and anytime he wants to get away from us, our visitors and our house cats. (Although we haven’t seen much of said house cats since Fergus arrived.)

I left the door to the carrier open so that Fergus could use the puppy pads in the larger crate if need be. And there was a need, the first night. The second night, I awoke a couple times in the night and brought him outside to relieve himself in the long grass that I have designated as his toilet area. His crate pad stayed dry.

The first full day at home, Fergus roamed around and explored every corner in the house. He discovered that although he can wedge himself under or between many different pieces of furniture, he cannot always extricate himself. He is very quiet, and doesn’t know his name yet so I spent a few minutes looking for him before finally discovering him stuck uncomfortably in a tight space under the spare bed. I decided to block the exits so he has to stay in the room with me.

I also used up about half a bottle of enzyme spray to eradicate pup accident odours. We are starting to learn each other’s language so hopefully in the next week or so we will go through a day without an indoor mess. It’s hard to know when he is planning a pee when he spends the majority of each day with his nose to the ground, sniffing. Always sniffing.

The other thing Fergus loves to do is chew. He has a variety of chew toys in different strengths so that he can exercise his needle-sharp teeth. Unfortunately he likes toes and fingers the best. I have the marks to prove it. But for the most part our tiny Golden Retriever wants to please us. It is obvious that he is looking for instruction, so we just have to figure out how to tell him what we expect, and to reinforce it.

This is all new to me so, of course, I am reading. I’m learning how to train our pup so that he can soon go off on road trips with the Farmer / Real Estate Agent. It wasn’t our intention to buy a puppy. We have both always owned rescue dogs from shelters. But despite contacting all area shelters and registering with Golden Rescue, we were unable to find a retriever that way, so we had to place an order for one of a spring litter.

Fergus is the Farmer’s “retirement dog”, although that man may never really retire. He has always wanted a Golden, so I suppose he deserves one. It’s plenty of work, training and cleaning up after this little creature but I realize he will only be little for so long. Thank goodness he sleeps a lot, because I am exhausted.

email: dianafisher1@gmail.com