Cold Goats

(Ps. the last few posts, since Tim's birthday, have been posted a little out of order with some back-dating to get it all in there.)

Last week we had our first big wind storm of the season - the storm that knocks down all the lose trees and branches that in Juneau would have fallen months before. The first big wind on Whidbey is a bit like brushing your hair after having it in braids for a week - so much comes out that should have come bit by bit but instead saved up and came all at once. On South Whidbey nearly all the roads were obstructed by fallen trees, all the schools were closed for the week, and power was out for days all over. 

After being last on the repair list last fall, we assumed we would be out for another week. Some how, even with a giant tree across our road and clearly on the power lines, we kept power for all but the half-day it took for the county to cut up the tree and repair the lines after the storm was over. 

One tree is looking better after the wind than before. Remember back in August when I swore to avenge my tree friends against the evil tyrant of invasive ivy? The big tree at the top of the hill is looking rather ivy-free after my hard work of removing a foot-wide swath of two-inch-thick ivy vines. I feel this impressive feat deserves a little gloating. 

Back in the bus, Tim and Tilly have decided they are not going to be cold any more. I left Tim and Tilly home alone for a few hours and came back to the small bus filled with enough presto logs for the rest of the year. It is nice to be warm, particularly as the frost has begun to creep across the grass in early morning. When I wake up in the night after the fire has gone out, I tuck Tilly in with a blanket to get some cozy sleep. Now that Joe and Roni and Dad and Mum have gone, Grandpa is back to only heating his bedroom. November is a chilly, dark time of year. 

Look who's home! Tonight, two pairs of big floppy ears were separated from their herd, led through a pack of energetic dogs, jumped in the back of the truck and off we went. Stopping at the feed store for a bale of straw on the way home, a crowd gathered around the truck to coo at and snuggle the goats. Tilly was rather jealous. It's good to have out farm reunited and hopefully now growing. For the first 100 days of their pregnancies, we are supposed to try not to fatten them up too much. That's a hard one when they are so adorable and eager for goodies, and everyone gets fat over the holidays! What's Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years without a few yams thrown over the railings?

It is getting dark at 4:30p these days it seems.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

87 Things We Love About Grandpa, Dad, Ed

Kind, Generous, Adventurous, Smart, Funny, Brave, Helpful, Outdoorsy, Resilient, Wise, Noble, Strong

His recent return to the world of competitive bridge has had just as big an impact as his earlier decades of play ⚫ He's an accomplished teacher of bridge, even to the seemingly unteachable ⚫ His courage to (try) teaching me to drive in the old VW bug - complete with stick shift and unannounced ditch diving ⚫ He went on to teach Ukrainian immigrants with English as a very recent second language how to drive ⚫ Snow berms did not slow him from detouring through the meadow to pass a smug neighbor stuck in snow ⚫ He is the fastest stair-climber on Whidbey island in his age group ⚫ He can lift his end of a couch, chair, dresser, Christmas tree, or goat ⚫ Imagine my shock when he beat me in a running race when I was the fastest runner in my 5th grade class! ⚫ Ed programmed computers in Machine Language before high level languages or even assembly was invented! Right on the Iron as they say ⚫ He was one of the world’s first computer programmers, back when they were as big as commercial refrigerators ⚫ His new iPad was mastered in moments - or at least months ⚫ Such an early adopter of the new and interesting - the first time I ever heard of a Kindle was when i opened my birthday gift from him ⚫ Brave to be one of the first people in the country to get radial keratotomy eye surgery ⚫ You never know when another secret talent will emerge from him - like making stereo cabinets ⚫ Excellent Dresser Builder ⚫ Birdhouse Builder Extraordinaire! ⚫ Famed inventor of the one and only magnificent Pink Furry Chair ⚫ Developer and distributor of custom add-on cord winders for vacuums ⚫ Made Clever Hacksaw Blade Under Counter Jar Openers for all the neighbors and churchgoers in TN ⚫ He could make an Iceberg lettuce salad with two quick slices of the carving knife, a perfect wedge of white "greens", ready for the Catalina dressing ⚫ Macaroni with tomato sauce for supper ⚫ His cranberry sauce is amazing! Really rounds out a chicken or turkey dinner ⚫ His tuna salad hits the spot after a long drive or flight ⚫ His German potato salad draws raves from real live Germans ⚫ Ed's Chili Recipe is the greatest ⚫ World's best watermelon pickles. I have never tasted any better than his ⚫ Ed makes a great Cucumber/Vinegar salad ⚫ Ed showed me how to make Cucumbers and mayonnaise with a little pepper ⚫ Always keeps lots of cold Michelob Ultras in the fridge, just in case someday Joel stops being such a PNW beer snob and returns to his Midwestern roots ⚫ Ed's cinnamon toast in the morning before school ⚫ Ed showed me how to just sprinkle sugar on buttered toast - mmm great! (and cheap) ⚫ Ed is the originator of the Suet Pudding Christmas tradition ⚫ Though not Swedish, ate lutefisk on more than one occasion ⚫ Once he was spotted with his little grandson Timmy, under the kitchen table, shelling peanuts by flashlight ⚫ He bought a boat for us to take family vacations on the Mississippi. How cool is that? ⚫ He only took one week of vacation a year for I don't even like to think of how many years ⚫ Spent his precious vacations driving a car thousands of miles with three squabbling kids in the back seat ⚫ Toured the great capitals of Europe ⚫  Rode elephants in Southeast Asian jungles ⚫ Wrestled alligators in the mangrove swamps of Florida (well, that last one is unconfirmed) ⚫ He is an accomplished canoeist - from the boundary waters of Canada, to the crocodile filled rivers of Costa Rica ⚫ Was the first real person I knew who rocked a fedora, and wore it when most men had given up the style (for reasons that I'm sure had nothing to do with his alopecia areata) ⚫ He wore his golden crown on their golden anniversary with such good humor and style ⚫ His (largely unrequited)  love for Dolly Parton set a standard for romance that I strive to uphold to this day ⚫ He bought his daughter a horse, which makes him every teenage girl's ideal daddy ⚫ Woke up early on winter mornings to break the ice on the horse's water trough and drag a bale of hay out from under a tarp loaded down with snow ⚫ What other father would set pride aside and be seen bumping down the road with ten bales of hay bulging out of a VW bug?! ⚫ Who knew that ten bales of hay could be transported by a VW bug?! ⚫ Nemo says: He's generous with the treats, has a great lap for sitting in, and is great company on walks to the orchard, mailbox, and beach ⚫ His willingness to adapt to living with noisy, feathered neighbors ⚫ Chickens and goats just seem to love him for some reason, and come running whenever he appears on the deck ⚫ He gently live-trapped dozens of squirrels, ferried them carefully across the lake, then made them walk the plank to shore ⚫ He gave his kids a lifetime of Lake Vermilion memories ⚫ Brought home an endless supply of gas tanks every summer so his kids could water ski any time they wanted to ⚫ He was the uncontested guru of the local Investment Club for most of two decades, and in all that time no members were sent to the Poor Farm ⚫ He served as second-in-command to Gen. MacArthur during WWII, at least to hear him tell it ⚫ Modestly turned down hundreds of requests by Louis Rukeyser to appear on Wall Street Week ⚫ His economic sense rivals Jim Cramer ⚫ For household expenses he can pinch a penny until it screams, but he's always generous about giving to others ⚫ Has a generous, but no nonsense approach to gift giving ⚫ Paid my way through college, even though I mostly used those years as an occasion to play countless games of Oh Hell ⚫ Corrupted the good Lutheran Carlstedt girls with card games of Oh Hell ⚫ He excels at making friends with a wide range of folks - even liberals! (All the little old ladies adore him) ⚫ Stands by his convictions in the face of adversity - even if he's the only one in the room (or state) rooting for the other team ⚫ He's the adventurous sort, leading the blind on bus rides and getting new friends out of the house (or senior living facility) ⚫ He volunteered at the hospital, warming up everyone's day ⚫ A very kind host ⚫ His memory is better than all the rest of ours (yet he still blames forgetting things on age) ⚫ Dispensed a great deal of fatherly wisdom, sometime using actual words ⚫ He's the strong, silent type  ⚫ He's willing to jump in and help out ⚫ Far, far too humble to check to see whether there are actually 87 things in this list ⚫ He seems so gentle and unassuming, but watch out for that sense of humor! ⚫ He's got a twinkle in his eye that shows his sense of humor ⚫ The Mona Lisa has her smile; Ed has his mischievous grin ⚫ His wit got him nominated as the official company retirement roast speech maker - people reported they laughed until their cheeks hurt ⚫ Married Faith Eunice Carlstedt, and stuck with her all the way ⚫ Giving his children the gift of growing up in a stable home with a loyal committed marriage ⚫ Picked up and moved clear across the country to be closer to family, and gave up a lot to do it ⚫ His life and the way he lives, inspires and connects eleven members of his pretty wonderful family.

Dan ⚫ Joy + Rich ⚫ Joel ⚫ Tim + Krista ⚫ Daniel + Amanda ⚫ Ariel + Tim ⚫ Min Min

Birthday/Thanksgiving family dinner

Sunday night dinner at the house included Brother Tim, Brother Daniel, Amanda, Mum, Dad, Grandpa, Tim, Ariel, Maggie, Tilly, Nemo, and Rowdy. Amanda came bearing birthday cake for Grandpa (birthday on Monday, the 16th), and a nutella pecan pie and pumpkin pie for early Thanksgiving.

Grandpa ready for dinner, Tim snuggling Tilly, Brother Tim reading our "Year Two" photo book, Dad carving the chicken, Maggie and Mum preparing all the "toppings".

Brother Tim giving a Vanna White to our home-grown chicken (front) and the store bought turkey (back) as well as the stack of presents, cake and pies, and a stack of our family photo books (front right). Daniel and Amanda in back putting the finishing touches on getting dinner ready.

Grandpa's beautiful 87th birthday cake: North Douglas Chocolate Cake, a Juneau classic.

Grandpa's big present from the whole family was a list of 87 things we collectively read out-loud, then gave him a framed copy of.

Goat Date

Esther and Petunia are off on their double date at long last.

The trouble with breeding goats is first we have to find a suitable bachelor - in this case a Nigerian Dwarf buck which is a bit tricky to come by on Whidbey Island and I'm reluctant to take the girls on I-5 in the back of the truck.

Even if we can find an eligible bachelor, the host farm has to be willing to take our girls for as long as it takes for them to get pregnant, as their monthly heat cycles can be hard to tell and who wants to go on a long truck ride and meet new goats when they're hormonal anyways?!

So we took Esther and Petunia back to see Henry, the resident Nigerian Dwarf buck on the farm we originally got the girls from who is not related to either girl and who failed to make us kids with Petunia last year. We're giving him another try with double the odds this year.

The truck ride was a bit tricky. I got up the nerve to load the goats without really enough forethought or planning. I grabbed a bucket of feed and led them successfully into the truck! And then... and then I stood there holding them for a while wondering what to do next. Any rope within reach? No? Hmm.... I closed the tailgate and went to look for rope. The girls hopped out and started eating bushes. Hmm... Eventually I tried again with an empty feed bucket as bait and two of Tilly's harnesses, properly adjusted for each goat, and four lengths of rope. With each goat secured to the center of the truck with no possibility of falling off the sides, both crying loudly and Tilly in the front barking at the crying goats, we started off down the road. Slowly. Very slowly.

With a line of cars behind us leaning out their windows taking pictures (thankfully not honking) and the girls crying and barking respectively, we got lost. I took the wrong turn and ended up 6 miles down at the end of the wrong road. So we pulled into a gas station full of admirers for directions and redirected our course, ending up at the farm right on time to drop off the girls.

Rejoining their familial heard, the girls were not impressed. They stood on a platform near me and looked suspiciously at eager Henry. As I left, they followed from inside the fence, crying loudly and staring after me as Henry sniffed. Hopefully in a few weeks they will be home and pregnant.

The waiting time

Life is getting colder here on the farm. Our bus has a wood stove which we've been putting to work to be warm and toasty in the evenings before snuggling under our good sleeping bags, but it is now cold enough that Tilly seems to need to be tucked in too to get a good night's sleep. There is something about being cold that is a little nice, and makes being warm that much more special and wonderful, like how much better food tastes after being truly hungry, or birthday cake when not every day is a dessert day. The intensified reward of something really waited for and wanted, especially with these basic daily things - warmth, what we eat - is something that with all our modern amenities, I haven't experienced in a while. It's easy to dart from warm car to warm building and miss out on that all-day cold that makes curling up in bed in front of a warm fire so lovely. Now I am working outdoors with kids and with our farm things and Tim is outside frequently for his electrical work and we are feeling the cold and appreciating the warmth.

The chickens are also going through the changes of winter. Did you know eggs are a sometimes food? It's easy to imagine tomatoes and watermelon and corn on the cob as seasonal foods, but eggs are often neglected from the list. Before chickens were bred and manipulated for maximum production year round in lit, heated, totally controlled warehouse factory farming, eggs were a seasonal food that needed to be stored and preserved through the winter. These methods of oiling eggs and packing them in sawdust or brining the eggs for storage are nearly forgotten. Our chickens are still laying a few eggs in the winter, but not enough to sell to all the neighbors like in the summer - closer to a dozen a week than a dozen a day. So I'm having to have the "seasonal foods" conversation with many disappointed egg fans. Maybe in the future we will have more winter-laying oriented chicken breeds, but for now, they are summer girls and need the extra energy to molt (grow new feathers) and stay warm.