The colours are incredible tonight in the Kispiox. We’ve had two hot sunny days and now the wind is up and the clouds are drifting in again. Sunset comes so late and lasts so long that “magic hour” stretches out into the evening and we’re often in bed before the colours dim. Tonight as I step outside to bring my laundry in, I do a double-take. The horses are so close, just the other side of the pasture fence, nibbling the new grass that’s appeared since the chickens renovated that little bit of the pasture. They almost don’t look real, or rather they look super-real, every hair and every sleek line of their bodies lit up by the slanting rays of the sun. Away to the east behind them there’s a spot on the mountain where the light still plays long after the valley below is in shadow. We call it sunset but it’s us that are wheeling away to hide our eyes for a time. Goodnight, Sun. Gotta go now.
I start to pull things off the line, tossing the clothespins into an old coffee can. They’re the same style as my mother used, and both my grandmothers: ingenious little contraptions – two carved wooden legs held together with a spring that eventually rusts as the wood weathers to grey. My work pants are like cardboard, the heavy fabric dried stiff in the wind. I’m proud of them; they’re serious pants and hard to find, cut for women but tough as hell, with a double layer of canvas down the leg. They have deep, satisfying pockets and functional tool holding loops. Most women’s “work” pants are facsimiles. They’re cuter, flimsier, single-stitched and tighter in the butt. “C’mon, Barbie, let’s pretend to work hard!” My pants protect me from barbed wire, hostile plants and animal attacks – affectionate, curious or otherwise. Puppies can scrabble, goats can paw with their sharp little hooves and piglets can chew on my cuffs. These pants have warded off attacks by rooster, horsefly and goose. There’s been much less shrieking on the old homestead since these pants showed up in the mailbox.
Actually the goose has turned out to almost be a disappointment. I thought he’d be the source of many epic stories, culminating in a huge feast. Maybe biting isn’t satisfying when all you get is a beakful of canvas. The first day he ran at anybody who came near. He flapped his wings and hissed and snapped his beak. If you offered him something to eat he’d bite you. If you pointed out the little swimming pool you rigged up he’d bite you. If you turned your back he’d come up behind and bite you. I was about ready to order his execution and be done with it. We’ve got better things to do than dodge a goose all day.
But then, quite suddenly, we were best buddies. It’s like he figured it out overnight, hunkered down with all the lower-class poultry, the unfriendly hens, one of them broody, the rooster miffed at his presence, the hysterical guinea fowl I call the Triplets of Belleville. Aha! I imagine him thinking. She’s got the keys to the cupboard! I should be nice. I’m still a bit mistrustful, and I keep an eye on him, but it’s working out for both of us. He follows me around all day and we chat. I’ve learned that he’s a purebred Pomeranian Saddleback, and I’ve been working on an arranged marriage for him. His future wife is still a gosling at home with her parents, so he’ll have the summer to settle in before becoming a family man.
Speaking of betrothals, our little boar has arrived and is slowly integrating with the other piglets. Mrs. Pig isn’t so sure. She’s accepted her other three foster pigs but it’s different with this one, and probably his testosterone is a factor. We hope she warms up to him in the next few months since we’re hoping to found a dynasty with the two of them and a few other brides once we can make the space. Kitsune is not the most likable pig at the moment, but if you were a 50 pound youngster getting tossed around by a 600 pound territorial beast and negotiating constantly with five of your contemporaries, having been separated from your Mom recently and hauled for 12 hours in a dog crate in the back of a Ford Ranger, in the heat, you might be a bit irascible yourself. We’re patient. The last three foster pigs were wild and scared to death when they got here and now they come running and flop down for belly scratches. We start with casual bits of apple tossed here and there and move on to extra bowls of oatmeal. My mom calls it cupboard love but it’ll do.
The way to the hearts of most sentient beings is through the gut. The goats are a prime example of this. They are also dopamine in action, right before your eyes. They will go through any barrier, and thank you for the challenge, to get at some grain. As it happens, grain, though commonly fed, is not good for most animals – certainly not in quantity – but goats don’t know this. Goats don’t care. They’re full of dopamine and they’ll persist beyond belief to get what they want. The trouble is, just as with humans, when they’re bloated up from eating too much of the wrong thing, they can’t ruminate well. There’s no cud to chew. The serotonin doesn’t have a chance to kick in properly. So they’re all “gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it” and not nearly enough “aaahhh, there it is!” And then their memory for the treat persists, and they’ll chew through wire like Birdy did when she decided she wanted to sleep rough, or pounce when your back is turned. They’re into flowers in a big way, too, and anything that grows in pots on a porch behind a gate.
On the day that Flora went into labour for her little buckling, the same day that Bella the cat was paralyzed and in a coma after having a fit, I decided I’d better have Flora close, so I banished all the chickens (Guz and the Triplets of Belleville – three guinea fowl that screamed all day until we figured out they’d get separated and would panic and couldn’t hear each other over their own cries so we’d have to go out and herd them closer to each other – had not yet turned up to live with us) and was leading Flora into the chicken house where I’d put down some fresh hay. Birdy was right behind us and pushed her way in before I could shut the wire door. She made straight for the barrel which had one bag of feed, nearly empty, in the bottom. I ignored her because I was checking Flora out and wondering whether my preparations were adequate. The vet is many miles away, and I wondered how much help she’d really need with her first birth. There came an absolutely unique noise, and I’ll bet none of you has heard it yet, the unmistakable sound of a full-grown goat falling into a big heavy plastic rain barrel head first. The only way to get her out was to tip the whole thing over. Goats don’t know embarrassment and as quick as a flash she was on her feet with her head buried in what layer mash was left.
As for Bella, that cat lingered. She’d already been partially paralyzed for a few weeks and I’d thought she was at death’s door the whole time. Some days she’d lap a little water or even eat a bit of meat, and other days we’d syringe in enough water to keep her throat lubricated. I don’t believe in man or beast dying of thirst. I slept with Bella in my arms night after night, sending her love and gratitude for all the years of eccentric companionship. One day, I offered her some oolichan oil. She put out her tongue and lapped at it and she’s never looked back. A week of oolichans until we ran out and then tuna and now she’s back on her regular all beef diet – because a house cat would normally catch and kill some beeves for the freezer. Another month later and she’s gained back nearly all the weight, got her balance back and the use of her limbs. Her back end is still a bit wonky but I just shake my head in amazement when I look at her.
As for Flora, she was just fine. I checked on her every now and then and at one point I peeked in and she had a little white spotted baby in the straw with her. I watched until it was clear he was nursing and I watched to see if she had another one in there. The internet told me how to check her tummy and it wasn’t that different from when Bea had her puppies and we could feel there was one more in there so we slept on the floor beside her til he came. I could tell there was nobody else in Flora’s middle, which was a shame in a way because we’d left both goats with the neighbour’s billy for weeks and thought maybe we’d get a couple of sets of twins out of it. I think actually Birdy is probably gay and that’s fine too. I agree with the hatchery lady that “Every peep must earn her keep” but they don’t all have to produce meat milk or eggs. Some are Great Teachers of Humour and Tolerance.
The internet, as all of you know very well, is a mixed blessing but if you combine it with your own intuition, logic and values, you’ll find some bit of advice or a diagram or a definition to help you out, whatever your question happens to be. I ignored all the sites where somebody said goats didn’t have a clue and you had to stick your arm up inside them to make sure everything was going according to plan and the ones that said the whelping dog would be lost without you, and looked instead for the sites that said “trust her and stay out of it” but outlined what a true emergency would look like and how soon you’d absolutely have to have a vet there.
It turns out that pigs can be something of an exception to the rule of trusting the momma and leaving it all up to her, and the story (a tragedy in Three Acts) of the first litter born here on the farm has been told already. It’s such a shame to think that sometimes animals actually die while you’re learning what it is you need to know, that all the advice on the internet doesn’t help if you’re on your own and scared to climb into the birthing pen with a huge pig you haven’t been acquainted with for very long, and the piglets are already born in the night, already chilled and can’t seem to find their own way to the crib with the heat lamp, nor latch on properly to their mother’s life-giving teats.
I have noticed that in the pig raising world, the sows are deemed to be either “good” or “bad” mothers, which of course happens to people all the time too. A good hog mother knows to get up really slowly and lie down really slowly to give her tiny babies time to scurry out of the way. She grunts and calls to them and pushes the litter into a squirming ball in front of her with her snout as she’s lying down. So just because eight out of ten piglets are dead at the two-week mark, it doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother and should now become sausage while we try out another sow. It means we have to learn fast and be prepared to be a lot more helpful next time.
It still feels strange to say “next time” or “next year”. I live in fear of running out of money before we can see a return on our investments, before the farm begins to pay its own way. I also have fears about my own energy, how it can just plum run out sometimes and it’s like waiting for the well to fill up again when you accidentally run it dry. We have just celebrated our one-year anniversary here, my daughter and I. We have a lot to be thankful and grateful for and a lot to be proud of.
The people around us are probably our greatest asset. We don’t see them much; everybody’s busy all the time. But we know we can call on them, and they on us if help is truly needed. We even fit in a little social time here and there, although we often combine that with a trip to town for supplies. No, the winter is not a time of leisure and cocooning but it’s busy in a different way. We have both discovered talents we didn’t know we had and find joy in making sense of all that happens, pleasant or less so. If we weren’t here virtually all the time we would miss out on so much, like watching our grumpy Mama Pig nursing her own huge babies long after the point they’d be weaned in any commercial operation, and after about a week, allowing the foster pigs to nurse too. These three, supposedly only two weeks younger than ours, and from the same farm, were roughly half the size of ours. They had already been weaned at six weeks and had been shipped a hundred miles to our place, which involved being terrified for about three days, scared for three more, and then okay, especially after being accepted into the litter. I would expect all that to set them back, and they are gaining now, although slowly. I wonder how it’s going to go when everything can happen right here, and nobody is shipped anywhere? We still think our sow farrowed early partly due to the shock of being moved while pregnant.
Mother’s milk is unbeatable and we intend to let all our animal mothers nurse their babies as long as they themselves want to. For financial reasons, as well as timing for the weather, most people want those piglets outta there so the sow will come into heat again right away and they can fit two litters into the calendar year. We’re thinking on this, and many other dilemmas that deserve some time and patience before we fall into step with what “most people” do.
I was going to tell you more about the role of the male animals on the farm, and all we’ve learned about castration so far. There’s a story in how the little stud colt only had one testicle and we had to wait and now he has two but the mare might already be pregnant by him, and the vet doesn’t want to do the deed until early fall because flies. And the part about how you really have to learn to castrate piglets yourself, and do it when they’re super young both to get it over with and so someone has a hope of holding them still so you can be quick and accurate and yes, get it over with. I was going to further tell you that although we try to be conscientious and do things “properly” a very sneaky young German Shepherd has confirmed that Bea is in heat again and because he managed to run off with her (or she with him), he’s obviously smarter than we are so perhaps he is a worthy dad of her next litter after all but she’ll have a spaying appointment two weeks after she weans this next batch. If she’s pregnant. And no, we’re not running a puppy mill and thank you for not being judgemental. Bea will be fine and so will we all.
I was going to tell you more about all that, and about our first real garden and how it’s finally starting to produce, but doesn’t this mean we’ll have to freeze and can and dry a lot of stuff if we don’t really start eating out of the garden til late June or early July? And I’d like to say more about the wonderful people we are meeting, gradually, here in the Valley and roundabout, but it’s getting late in the day and I’m expecting a visitor from Whitehorse any time now so I’d best get the dishes done and think about lunch. So until next time we’re sending out lots of love from the Hundred Souls and counting. Two women, two dogs, three cats, four horses, nine goats, seven pigs, three Guinea hens, sixty-nine chickens and a goose. Four ravens and a bunch of songbirds, a colony of meadow voles, a litter of foxes…and so forth.