The Accidental FarmerLearning how to farm on the fly

Last Saturday, we had another dog attack on our farm.

Not all dog attacks or dog owners are created equal and it is important that people understand the difference.

The first attacks happened shortly after I bought my farm. My neighbours, Bob and Ramona Carpenter, had an airedale that had killed 3 geese and both my peacocks. It also attacked a ewe and lamb, leaving me with bills for medication, etc. and two weeks of work in the barn. Upon hearing that her dog had killed my geese and peacocks, Ramona responded, “That is what happens to birds, they die.” As she shooed me out of her house amidst profanities, I told her I’d heard the same thing about airedales.

The Carpenter’s never did take any responsibility for their dog’s actions. Two years later when it attacked Bob, he shot it and went and bought another airedale that runs around the neighbourhood just like the one he shot. Enough said.

Deep gashes through to muscle tissue. An ear almost torn off.

On Saturday as I worked on our new chicken coop, Louise came running up the road screaming. She and her kids had just been making candles with our family and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. As I ran to the road she told me her dogs had attacked Blackie. We ran into the swamp but couldn’t find her. Louise went back to the road to console her two hysterical children. I searched the swamp and found Blackie stuck in the mud with the back of her head ripped up bad. When she got stuck, a log was fortuitously under her neck or she would have been dead with her throat torn out.

I hollered to my neighbour, Bob Crutch, and he came down to help get Blackie out of the mud and swamp, no small feat. Thank god he was home. Once on dry land, she walked back to the barn on her own.

Fifteen plus stitches and two hours later. A hope, a wing and a prayer.

When I contacted Louise later, she expressed sincere sorrow and anguish and offered to pay for a vet or any costs. I told her that a sheep is worth $250 and a Saturday night Vet visit likely $1000-2000. We would deal with it ourselves. She insisted on paying for any costs. Louise told me that when the dogs attacked, she grabbed Blackie to try and get her away but the dogs kept attacking Blackie’s legs and she bolted. When Louise caught up to Blackie, stuck in the mud, she could do little but sit on Blackie and fight off her two full grown huskies with her bare hands. She’s not a big woman. She came to the barn this morning to help me inject Blackie as I was alone. We discussed her dogs and I told her my concerns regarding livestock, wildlife and people, children in particular.

I have 4 dogs. Two are cupcakes but two can be ferocious and have caused issues. One is a livestock guardian dog and the other a blue heeler. Both consider the livestock and farm their personal property and while the maremma looks ferocious, it’s the heeler that will defend our farm until she’s dead. The heeler once defended our girls from an attack by Carpenter’s airedale, thrice her size. As I ran towards the girls, a blue streak came from the right and tore into that dog something fierce and chased it all the way to its front door. I work hard to maintain control of my dogs. They’re here for a reason and it’s not to attack people, livestock or wildlife. If left with no other choice, I will shoot my own dog or any of my neighbour’s. To date, I’ve never shot a neighbour’s dog, though I have been tempted.

The Champ. Her right ear will likely never rise due to muscle and ligament damage, if she survives.

I do not support the Dog Bylaw in Area H and likely won’t.

It is light on dealing with big issues and heavy on barking dogs. Penalties for attacks and barking are similar. It is poorly crafted, and I use that term lightly, but did meet my expectations of the RDCK.

You can’t introduce a bylaw that will create personal responsibility amongst bad dog owners and I’d far rather deal with my neighbour than any bylaw enforcement officer, police officer or legal process.

What kind of dog owner are you? Are you a Carpenter, or are you a Louise? The RCMP say I can shoot your dog on my property. Will you leave me to make that decision and carry that responsibility?

A fellow inthekoots member, Don Carmichael, sent me a link that is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of addressing what it takes to buy meat from local farmers. Don is the local Core Strength Guy and a supporter of local meat farmers.

A farmer visited every two hours to make sure this lamb and her mother were healthy and cared for.

When I go to the supermarket and look at meat prices, I damn near shit myself. Good local meat is much cheaper, raised in a natural environment and free of antibiotics, steroids and other drugs. You get to meet the person who raised your animal, crusty as they may be.

As a meat farmer, I still buy meat from others. We haven’t raised cattle for 2 years so I usually buy a whole cow and sell off the half or quarters I don’t need. This year I bought and sold 3 cows from a local farmer. I didn’t make money on it, as it was shared with friends, but my relationship with that farmer is bombproof. He had several people back out after the animals were slaughtered and needed to sell them quickly. Amongst farmers, it’s often not about the money. It’s about sharing and helping out.

If you’re buying local meat, sharing is a great way to buy without purchasing a whole animal. Sharing 3 cows (2400 pounds) between 9 families cost us $2.65 plus a $0.60 cut and wrap fee per pound.

Our animals eat right and you can too.

We had a beautiful 4 pound prime rib roast last Sunday night that cost us $13. We have a bunch of ground meat we paid the same amount for. When you understand how an animal carcass is cut, you learn what you like and don’t like. Anything we don’t like, we have turned into ground or sausage. Sausage costs an extra $1.75 per pound but is worth every cent.

Melissa McEwan produced a great slide show called Meatshare that covers the nitty gritty of buying local meat in a pragmatic and down to earth way. While she is from the USA, her presentation is just as relevant in Canada.

If you are interested in purchasing local meat but have no idea what is involved, I encourage you to view her piece.

http://www.slideshare.net/mgmcewen/meatshare

Thanks, Don.

This is our first year of ramping up meat production and we have put out thousands over the last year to ensure a good harvest. With property and income taxes due, it is time to realize a return on our investment. A nice way of saying we are killing some animals.

To prepare, I need to find a professional slaughter/butcher master and a group of 3 helpers. I run through several possible scenarios in my head and come up with a plan that will ensure the animals are contained and easy to deal with. I can use the infrastructure I have without building pens or extra temporary fencing.

I call my friend Glenn and ask him if he will come out and make things go smoothly. He is a seasoned butcher and slaughter master but at about 70 years of age, I know he may not be able to come as his back has been bothering him. Glenn loves what he does and even with a tender back he jumps at the opportunity to come and do the important bits as long as I have lots of help. I assure him it will be so and wonder where the other 3 helpers will come from.

My neighbour Bob who is taking two of the pigs offers to come with his buddy and our own Chris Shepherd offers his help as soon as he gets a whiff of it. Of all involved, only Glenn is being paid. For everyone else it is sport, curiosity or necessity. I am the latter.

The night before slaughter, I go to the barn with a can of lime green spray paint and mark the 5 biggest pigs on the back of the neck. Then I split out those pigs. Nobody is watching which is good as I am constantly outsmarted by pigs. At 10:45 pm, some 2 hours later, all little piggies are happy in their pens. Those that won’t be slaughtered are penned in on the opposite side of the barn where they will not see what will occur and the green pigs are in the barn and will be lead out one at a time.

If all goes to plan.

Glenn shows up a half hour early as usual. Fifteen minutes later, Bob arrives without his buddy and as we are getting ready to take the first pig, Chris arrives. We’re on time, on schedule and one helper short. We are scrapping pigs instead of skinning or torching them and this is more work and benefits from many of hands on deck.

The lucky ones.

I lead the first pig out and away we go. Once the pig is shot, it is bleed and cuts are made in its legs. We attach ropes through the cuts and lift the pig with the loader and dunk it in a bathtub of 170 F water. After a minute or so, we pick it up with loader and place it on the scrapping table. My neighbour Paul arrives unannounced, a welcome addition. We work feverishly to get the hair off the pig. I accidentally cut the hide in several spots and have to take a deep breath. Glenn tells me my knife sucks so I grab another.

Pigs 2 and 3 go like clockwork and Bob takes off to the cooler as the temps are rising. I picked the hottest day so far to slaughter so the meat needs to move quickly and that is Bob’s job, which he does impeccably. He even knows our butcher Jake, who can be a bit crusty, an added bonus.

In a slow moment, Chris is gathering guts with a shovel which is a bit like eating jello with a knife. I grab the guts with my hands and put them in the bin. Chris comments on what a city boy he is.

Pigs 4 and 5 go well and Bob disappears to the cooler as we go looking for two lambs born in November of last year. The ram lamb is my buddy and taking him is tough. He lets me scratch his head and seeks me out when I enter his pasture. The ewe lamb is loud and generally a pain in the ass so it doesn’t bother me so much.

Suddenly, the lambs are off to the cooler. I help Chris put his lamb heart and liver in plastic bag and he disappears to play ultimate Frisbee. Paul goes home to pick Saskatoon berries. I go to get cash for Glenn and refreshments. When I return to the farm, all is quiet, like nothing happened.

It is a bit smelly though and when Bob returns, we dump the guts before settling down in the shade for a well deserved beverage.

Funniest Comedian I've ever seen.

We saw Derek Edwards at the Capital Thursday night. Our friends pitched in and picked up our children from school and delivered them to soccer and music, made them dinner and brought them home.

We love our friends.

It was perfect and Rachel and I both needed a laugh and a night out. I got up at 4:30 and Rachel got up at 5 so it was a bit of a pull but with the help of our friends, Aaron and Sue, we made it. We both struggled to think of the last time we had done such a thing.

Of course, we were in a hurry to feed animals and apparently, when I closed the inside gate to the pig stall, it didn’t quite hasp properly.

When I looked into the pasture early Friday morning, I just assumed I saw sheep as it was still pretty dark and my eyes fuzzy so I went back to bed and slumbered until I heard squealing, lots of squealing.

Big White Dog

Our new Maremma, Coco has made friends with one of the pigs who likes to race along the fence and play with her. She assumes all pigs are keen pals and was trying to encourage them to play when the squealing erupted.

An hour later I had all the pigs in their pen, or so I thought. I went to the house, helped our sheep shearer shear our dog, Mabel the Table, and then quickly changed into my clean clothes and went to my other job, the one that pays the bills.

When I arrived home, Rachel told me that one of the pigs had decided to hang with the sheep and was out in the pasture with them pretending to be a short, fat, hairless sheep. Apparently she was quite happy and it took Rachel another half hour to convince her she was a pig and should join her brethren.

Sheep or Pig? Tough to tell at 5 am.

They made a mess of the inside of the barn before escaping into the pasture that took an hour to clean up.

They’re such pigs.

Fortunately when they escaped, they stayed within the confines of our property and didn’t wonder off to root up the neighbours’ gardens as our steers and sheep have done in the past. It presents an awkward situation and one we are glad to have avoided this time around.

The piggies are all happily in their pen tonight and I hope they stay there. It’s not like they are short of room or mud pits and pasture to root up already.

We’re the 12 little piggies and we are going to huff and puff and blow your house down or at least, drive you crazy.

Oink.

Nice Pig

My recent foray into farming more than 2 pigs has put me on the warpath for food waste, preferably vegetables and fruit.

I stopped by many businesses this week to ask for food waste and what I found was interesting.

The larger the business, the more likely it is to landfill food waste.

Those large businesses come up with an amazing list of reasons why they are not willing to make the effort. Most involve liability but some involve people taking lettuce and feeding it to deer when they said they were feeding it to pigs. The Conservation Office arrives and spanks the produce manager at this facility so he is less keen to help which is understandable given he was trying to do the right thing.

Here is a summary of businesses I have visited and their responses.

Slocan Valley Coop is with the program and willingly saves waste food aside for those who want it. Because they are a small, efficient business, they do not produce much waste.

Safeway, Castlegar, Nelson and Trail, all send their food waste to the landfill. They generally state liability concerns as the reason but the Assistant Manager in Nelson talked about a Corporate Responsibility Program and said that in larger centers, Safeway gives it to a third party who takes care of it. Nothing like this exists in the interior of BC and while these stores contribute to our communities in many ways, they still landfill all food waste at considerable cost to themselves and the environment.

Save On Foods in Nelson was the same as Safeway excepting the assistant manager didn’t stand and talk with me for 20 minutes nor was I offered any way to comment or contact anyone as I was at Safeway.

The Kootenay Market in Castlegar did give me some old produce but told me the story about the Conservation Officer and several folks who started fighting over the compost. The produce manager was not terribly keen and stated the owner had a policy of not giving out food waste, largely as a result of this static and honestly, can you blame him?

Evergreen in Crescent Valley likely has the best program. They put it all out and people come and get it. First come, first served. Rules for taking compost are clearly posted and because they have been at it for so long, there is rarely anything left as regulars know when to pick up.

The Kootenay Coop in Nelson has a great program also, on par with Evergreen, but like most small businesses, they produce little waste given the volume of product they sell.

I should mention that my survey is very random and spotty to date.

Staff working in the trenches at all stores were sympathetic or apologetic if they were not able to give out waste. At large chains, these folks see the full impact of corporate policy at a local level. They would love to do the right thing but are bound by policy. Some are willing to point to the waste and go for coffee but many are 5 years into a 25 year mortgage with kids and debts and can’t risk losing their jobs over a ton of food waste.

Next time you visit one of the large businesses who landfill food waste, why not take 5 minutes and fill out a comment card or speak with the manager? If they don’t know it is an issue, how can they respond?

Twelve new pigs just arrived on the farm.

Six are sold to neighbours, two we will keep and two are spares but we are reserving 2 pigs for a special cause.

We would like to raise these 2 pigs for local food banks in the Slocan Valley and Castlegar and are looking for a group of people to sponsor these animals with donations of cash and food waste.

We are willing to contribute our time but need others to cover the costs of purchase, feed, slaughter, curing, cut and wrap.

If we deliver a 200 pound pig at $3 a pound, cut and wrapped, it is worth $600.  I anticipate the cost of sponsoring each animal to be about $400 or $2 a pound but won’t know the final cost until all the bills are in and I’ve gone through another pair of gumboots.

Pigs are omnivores and will eat anything. We feed a blended hog ration (all grains and good stuff, no pellets here) but using food waste can cut feed costs in half, grow bigger pigs that taste better, and save a lot of food from being wasted.

How we should deal with waste food.

Surprisingly, some large stores, like Tom’s No Frills in Castlegar, have a strict company policy that forbids giving food waste away for fear it will get into the human food chain and expose them to some liability. They offer great prices but a low level of creativity and a very poor solution that keeps their lawyers happy but accomplishes nothing else.

Thanks to the Slocan Valley Co-op for our piggies first taste of lettuce, celery, pears, mushrooms and other goodies. They went wild for it.

A special thanks to Michael Mills for picking up our 12 pigs when he got 18 of his own. These pigs look great and Michael did a fantastic job of keeping them healthy during a stressful move from the Lethbridge area. I saw him at 7:25 am Monday and he arrived home in the wee hours Tuesday. He wouldn’t take any cash for his time and only accepted gas money.

I have no idea how this is going to work. There are a lot of questions at this point.  How will we get food waste in the quantities we require? Will the grain truck show up in time with the second load of feed? Will we lose any animals. (We are saving two aside, just in case.) Will they bust out and turn into a pack of marauding garden raiders?

Twelve happy pigs.

Shit happens.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of these handsome devils, please let me know.

This needs to happen quickly so please spread the word.

My friend Arron wanted to bring his son, Torin, over to see our new lambs.

I had an ulterior motive and knew things would go better with Arron and Torin’s help. With Rachel at the head, Aaron at the tail and me in the middle, things were bound to go well.

After nutting three lambs, I managed to get Torin to record the last job on his iPod. Torin Graham is the video guy for this footage. He did a great job of capturing what we were doing.

Torin said he felt funny about recording it so he didn’t record the first three.

Understandable.

Torin Graham. Awesome Video Dude!

It’s 1:30 am, Sunday, as I start this post. Please forgive me if I am verbose. I’m trying to stay awake.

I should go to bed but if I do, I will miss my 3:30 visit with a young lamb who is struggling. On top of that, it is cold and other ewes are close. On my last visit, one was walking around her pen grunting every time she had a contraction.

The Struggler battling to his feet.

Both our new ewes lambed prematurely. The first lamb didn’t open his eyes for two days but was strong from the start. The second, born 15 hours ago, is struggling for his life. Too weak to stand and eyes shut at birth, it took Rachel a lot of effort to get him nursing so he got the colostrum he needed in time to save him.

Getting a weak lamb to nurse on a new mom takes patience. The older ewes, the pros, help them along and are used to lambing, us and being handled. The first time moms are wild eyed and scared shitless. When their lambs can’t see, it creates problems.

Throughout the day, with each feeding and nap, the struggler gains strength and this afternoon, he stands on his own. He still needs to be guided to the nipple but once there he is able to feed on his own.

After roughly 50 lambs, I know you can’t turn your back on them and must pay attention. Just looking doesn’t count. You must spend time with your animals and observe them in more than a casual way. You need to check their heart rate, temperature and put their nose to your ear and listen.

When I do this with the struggler tonight, I hear the unmistakable sound of gurgling, which is a probable sign of pneumonia, not unusual in a lamb born at -14 and a week early to a first time mom.

When I go to the medicine cabinet, the Pen Aqueous I need is in date and with a good shaking, ready to go. I find a small syringe and sharp that fits. I struggle to remember how much to give a young lamb and how to inject it. It has  been two years since I have done so and regrettably, I don’t keep the written records I should. I never intended to be a farmer. Why should I keep records?

Tools of the trade

My friend, Jane Lee, responds quickly on Facebook. She worked as a nurse for years and her advice is timely and includes a link to the manufacturer’s site. Why didn’t I think of that? Any advice she can give me at 12:30 am on a Sunday morning is golden.

Thank god she is a night owl.

I follow her advice.

The best way to get this medication to an animal is by injecting close the heart in a neck muscle but as he is skin and bones, this will be difficult. Doing it alone will be touch and go but I have no choice. He needs two mL of medication, twice a day for five days.

2:30 am. Went to the barn early on a whisper and found two healthy new lambs. Helped dry them off and mom took over. Inject the struggler and he takes it like a champ. Place tarp over his pen and come back to the house to get an extension cord for a heater.

2:30 pm, Sunday. Punched. Smell like sheep urine, feces and afterbirth and feel similar.  I get shit on putting the struggler to a boob. I should be skiing or sleeping. Two and a half hours of sleep isn’t cutting it.

The emergency room.

The two lambs born last night are healthy and frolicking. Their mom, Teapot, is the shortest and widest ewe in our flock and an attentive mom. Her largest lamb is a girl and a keeper.

12:30 am Monday. The struggler is half dead and cold as ice when I get to the barn. In two hours, he has tanked. I quickly stuff him in my jacket and take him back the ER, our kitchen. I fill two hot water bottles, place  him on top and wrap him in my down jacket and wait. I warm a syringe of antibiotics and inject him. At 2 am, I hear him calling for his mom so I take him and his warm cocoon to the barn for a feeding. It takes 20 minutes to get him feeding but with every hour, he picks up. I feed, place him in his cocoon and try to get 45 minutes sleep on the couch, fully clothed, then do it over.

3:30 am Tuesday. Take the kettle to the barn and refill the hot water bottles. The antibiotics are working and the hot box is a life saver.

5:30 am. His eyes are opening which means a lot less work for me.

8 pm. One of our old ewes, Cousin, is not interested in her grain and pacing…….

9 pm. Cousin had triplets, two girls and a boy. That makes 7 not including two born last fall and those to come.

Grandma is the only ewe left to lamb. She is usually a hold out so it could be two weeks before she lambs, but the truth is, I never know for sure.

Three days of sleep deprivation are coming to an end and I hope to get up only twice tonight…

HELLO!

Six weeks ago, I looked at the front of an oncoming semi and thought it might be a way to solve my problems. I wasn’t planning on doing it but the thought crossed my mind. For 50 days of powder skiing each year, I can deal with the other 315 days as they come, no matter how shitty they are. I have no plans to kill myself.

I don’t give up that easily.

My problems aren’t huge or insurmountable but I just couldn’t see daylight, unless I was standing in a ray of sunshine. Most people would look at my life and think it is idyllic, which it may be. I know that, and the fact that I had to struggle to put on a happy face was a problem. It often has been.

For about 6 weeks, I had pretty much stopped eating, sleeping or having any interactions that were not absolutely necessary.

I’d often kicked myself for having a poor outlook on life. Others have mentioned it too which just seemed to re-enforce my thoughts. I should get my head out of my ass. Life’s not that bad.

As soon as I caught myself staring at the grill of a Freightliner, I knew it was time to call my GP. He spent many years working in mental health and is sharp as a tack. He always gives me the no bullshit version, which I appreciate, but he’s got a heart. I trust him.

Image Credit: richard-wilkinson.com

When he started asking questions, what I always knew in my bones started to become obvious.

I suffer from depression. Always have. The only difference this time is, I’m 47 and no longer have the energy or desire to put on a happy face.

We talked about my physical tendencies, mainly whether I tended to gain weight easily (yes) and decided on medications to combat my malady. He told me it would take 4 weeks for them to have full effect. I had watched friends suffer nasty side effects from similar drugs, so I was pretty nervous.

It was time to give modern chemistry a try. It wasn’t like I was doing Ecstasy or Methamphetamines.

I'm a man. I can change if I have to. I guess.

My body is a champ in terms of dealing with side effects, apparently. I puked a couple of times and things went much better once I read the full instructions and summary of side effects on day 3.

One of the side effects is referred to as priapism. If you get a woody that lasts more than a few hours and becomes painful, you should rush to emergency before willy is damaged.

Nasty!

The way my GP described depression is pretty simple. If your brain chemistry is off, all the positive thinking in the world won’t help that. While he recommended a book called Mind over Mood, he cautioned that if your chemistry is good, positive thinking helps. If it is bad, it won’t.

Over the long term, I have no idea where this is leading. I only know that life has been easier the last couple of weeks and my partner, Rachel, has commented that I am enjoyable to be around, like I was when we met.  It’s amazing what happens when serotonin gets to the right place.

While modern chemistry has not solved any of my financial or other issues, it has made it easier to put them into perspective. They’re just speed bumps in the road. It means I can focus on solutions instead of problems.

Life and powder skiing goes on, if I’m lucky, and if one person reads this and calls their GP, my time was not wasted.

Life doesn’t have to be difficult.

Winters are a bit slow on the farm, salted with brief flurries of activity.

As I lean in the doorway watching the sheep watch me, I feel like I should have a piece of straw hanging out of my mouth with my hat pulled low as I gently slumber.

Bob the snowplough Photo: Jim Ross

Fresh snow is just an excuse to fire up Bob and plough with my swank new snowblade. Sometimes when I see a friendly neighbour is out, I sneak over and plough their driveway for a giggle. One neighbour still hasn’t figured out who it is, which only makes it more entertaining. There are a couple I would like to plough in, but I resist the urge.

When the days are short, small happenings on the farm take on more significance than they should.

Over Christmas while tending the farm alone, I discover a turquoise egg which I carry, bursting with pride, back to the house. We already have green eggs but these babies look like big Robin eggs without the speckles and I found the first one, which must mean I’m special. I start scheming about producing special breeds of chickens to lay coloured eggs. Easter Egg Chickens, if you will. And they’re organic too! No pesky dies.

Various farm eggs Photo: Jim Ross

I could become a tycoon. They’d call me “The Easter Egg Guy.”

On Christmas morning, I wake early and think Santa has overshot our roof but when I grab a flashlight, it is a herd of elk demolishing any low hanging branches on our apple trees and digging through the snow to eat the lush green grass I didn’t mow in the fall. I dislike mowing lawn. That’s what sheep are for.

When I step onto the bedroom deck, they startle briefly and then ignore me. The dogs don’t bark as they know it is a waste of time and may get them stomped. The herd leaves behind large craters and piles snow against my fence 18 inches deep. They haven’t found the hay, so I let it slide. The fact that I can see a herd of elk within 20 feet of my bedroom deck is pretty cool. I take it as a good omen and crawl back in bed, sugar plums dancing in my head.

The two lambs born in November are growing like weeds and have been healthy which is amazing considering they were born in the dark, in the middle of a chunky rainstorm, in the middle of the pasture. I can barely pick the boy up any more. The girl will make a great addition to our flock. What I anticipated being difficult has been a breeze.

Red Barn and Round Bales - Image Credit: STEPHEN FILARSKY

The 800 pound, round bales we bought in the fall are taking a bit of getting used to but for the price, I will gladly purchase hay that way next year. The first bale was a bit of a clustercuss but the second went smooth as silk. Bob isn’t mighty enough to lift an 800 lb bale into the hay loft so we will have to figure out a better way to store them but for now, they are dry in part of the sheep shed.

The barn roof is leaking but every time it snows, I go skiing, and when it rains, there is no way I am climbing on a steel roof to see what the hell is going on. When it is sunny, it slips my mind.

It is a dilemma.

I fear I may need to apply myself.