Changes

Today we decided to see a movie. Everyone has been talking about Toy Story 3. I don’t think we’ve ever seen any of the Toy Story movies in the theater, but this was one of a few that Becca and I could agree on. I’ve heard so many people say that they cried during this movie, and couldn’t figure out why. About halfway through, I was thinking to myself, “There’s no way I can cry at this movie.” I was wrong. I won’t give away any part of the movie, but if you’ve seen it, you know where the tears started to sting. I fought them back. And then, at *that* moment, I couldn’t hold them back anymore. I sat there trying to surreptitiously dry my tears so no one would notice, wondering why the heck I got all teary at that part. Harrumph. Maybe there’s a soft spot still in this guarded heart.

After the movie, we had a little bit of extra time before Becca’s swim lesson, so we drove North on Healdsburg Avenue to see what was down there. I found the back way to the dump. I haven’t found the Salvation Army store/compound yet, but think that it’s in that direction.

Before Becca’s lesson, I talked to the instructor and told him that she didn’t meet the criteria for the class he was teaching, and even though other instructors said that she could be in it, I wanted him to know exactly what her level was. She did fine for the class, but he started teaching the breast stroke during the second half, and I recognized that she didn’t have the foundation necessary to build on for this class. I looked at all the other classes in the pool and also recognized that she didn’t really fit into any of them, either. She is in between the levels that are being taught.



Looking at the schedule, I saw that private lessons were an option for a slightly higher fee. I’d already paid for the group lessons, and the difference in price wasn’t much at all after getting that out of the way. I asked after class if it would be possible to shift to private lessons for the remainder of the session, and it is. So starting tomorrow, Becca gets private lessons that will really help her. The lessons start a half hour later, but that actually will be easier for us to get to once I’m back to work next week. I am feeling much better about this, and I think Becca will enjoy the one-on-one attention, rather than having to wait her turn while 2-5 other kids are taking turns getting individual instruction.

We stopped by the grocery store for a couple things, then headed home. At the second and last gate on the property, we saw the vultures again. What actually caught my attention first, though, was the dark grey coyote trotting off and away from the sheep pasture. Then I spotted the vultures sitting on the posts at the gate, intently watching where the coyote had left.



My landlords have lost another sheep. This time, in broad daylight. They are planning now to move the last remaining sheep and the llama with her into the pen with their horses and goats. The fence around Salsa and her bucklings is tall and strong, and the locals say that the coyotes won’t mess with an electric fence, including my PermaNet fencing, so I hope that my goats will be okay once the sheep snacks are moved. Hunters are coming onto the property tomorrow, and may take care of part of the problem. The deer population is down this year, and the predators are simply looking for their food, but it is hard to lose livestock.

The source of the water leak on the property has been narrowed to between my landlords’ house and the tanks, so we hope they’ll be able to figure it out before too long.

Friday might be warm enough to go to the river with a picnic lunch. We will have to see how it goes. Saturday morning will be the farmer’s market, and late that afternoon and Sunday we’ll help Jessica and Cory move to their new house. I can’t believe the week is almost over.

Snake Out of the Grass

Another day, another adventure on the IBTC Farm. Today’s lesson, boys and girls, is about rattlesnakes.

I received a call from day care today that Becca had a fever, so I left work early to pick her up and bring her home. I had her rest for the afternoon, and when it was cool enough outside to put the goats into their barn (it gets rather stuffy in there), I started cutting the fresh fruit and veggies for mama goat Salsa, while Becca volunteered to get the grain started. She headed out the back door, and a few minutes later I heard her scream.

Now, Becca shrieks at almost anything that surprises or displeases her outside. A spider, a lizard that surprises her, stumbling on a stone. She’s asked me before, with indignation because I didn’t come running, “Didn’t you hear me SCREAM?” I’ve told her, yes, but she does it all the time, and it’s never anything serious.

This time I knew it was serious. This was not an eek because she was surprised, but a full body scream of fear, so I dropped what I was doing and headed for the door, just in time to meet her, grain scoops in hand, panting and scared. “I saw a rattlesnake!”

It took time to figure out where and what happened, but finally, after she calmed down enough to remember, she could tell me exactly. She was rounding the corner of the patio paralleling the deck, getting ready to step up onto a small platform and ramp that run between our house and the studio apartment next door. She was angry at me because she really didn’t feel good and didn’t want to help with chores, so she was moving at a clip, luckily looking at the ground. She still came up on the coiled snake on the platform faster than either of them wanted. She screamed, it rattled, and then it slid off the platform to the right and underneath, and she ran up the steps to the left.

The first thing I want is a gun. I know that I don’t want to go after any future rattlesnakes that I might see with the plan of bonking it on the head with a shovel and then chopping its head off, because WHAT-IF-I-MISS?? So the first thing I do after getting as much info as I can from Becca is call my dad to find out what kind of gun to get. Luckily, he’s good about talking me through things and down from such over-the-top ideas. I don’t really need a gun at this point, and right now it would be more hazard than help. We run through the things I already know to do, and when he and Mom mention boots I realize that we cannot be doing chores in flip-flops or clogs during the summertime anymore. It’s HOT here today, though it was cooling nicely at the time, but we don our boots. I’m sure that we looked quite the pair, in shorts, tank tops and cowboy boots. Daisy Duke, we’re not, but it got the job done.

Next call was to my landlady. Her husband surprised me by answering the phone, as he’s not often here and I didn’t know he was expected today. It cracked me up when he told me that Bette is the snake killer and turned the call over to her right away. She is a sweet, lovely, petite retired school teacher. She explained to me that she uses a heavy metal rod to throw onto the snake to hold it down, which allows her to clobber it with a shovel and take its head off. She’s done this more than once, and I like the approach that buys more time and distance using the pole. She says she’ll bring it down here, and I should call her if I hear any rattling.

We completed chores cautiously, which took about twice as long, and I don’t think either of us are going to use that ramp for the rest of the summer. As Dad reminded me, snakes are part of living in the country. True, but they are not allowed around the house. I hope this one took off and none of them show up at the house again.

Adventures on the Ranch

I started this blog as a means to share some of the, shall we say, unique happenings that occur on our little ranch/farm. Most of the time, our lives are pretty routine, or as routine as they can be in this setting. I get up, prod my daughter, Becca, to get out of bed, do chores, prod her some more, we run through the morning routine, to work/school/day care, home again, chores, dinner, and whatever. With the exception of the type of things we do, most of it is much like the everyday lives of most Americans.

Then there are those days, like the one I had yesterday, where everything was unique and even somewhat bizarre from start to finish. I "bookended" this day with two "Sorry, but I have bad news" calls to my landlady, and in the evening she filled me in on the rest of the unusual aspects of her day.

As usual, I prodded and poked and annoyed Becca to get her to start moving and let her dog out to do his morning duty. (She begged for him and promised she would be responsible for his care - some days it's a real chore for ME to force her to live up to that promise, but I stand strong!) I got the goat feed and water sorted for the day, fed the chickens and let them out of the coop, brought half of the goats to their pen, then sat down to start milking Imbri. I look up and ... what is that? The studio apartment next to my home, which is used by my landlords for storage, has two huge sliding glass doors across one side, and one of the four panes is completely shattered. I give my landlady a call and describe the problem to her, noting that it doesn't look like anyone tried to break in, because nothing is disturbed. She wonders if the shearer might have backed into it the day before, or if the Hispanic gentleman she hired to do weed whacking might have sent a rock into it. It wasn't broken the night before, so we both conclude that it probably was the rock, but it didn't shatter until the night cool down brought enough of a temperature change to make it fall apart.

I go about the rest of my day and then head for home. Our house is about a mile from the road, and at the second gate, near my place, we suddenly see about a dozen vultures, flying about, landing on fence posts, and looking very intent. Oh, no. Another sheep died?



I pull up to the gate where I have a better view and cell signal, and call to let my landlady know. Luckily, I am not breaking any bad news to her this time, as she already knew about it. She thought I was calling about the OTHER broken window at my place!

Apparently, she gave her weed trimming helper instructions to work up at her place until she got back from errands, but when she got back, he was down at my house, having already cleared where he wasn't supposed to, and she discovers that another pane of the sliding doors on her studio has been completely shattered. Senor Weed Whacker shrugged his shoulders and denied any responsibility.

By this part of her story, we have driven up to the house and are starting to get out of the truck while I'm still on the phone. Becca exclaims in distress, and I come around the corner to see that, yes, he cleared weeds behind my house, but he also cleared all the chamomile and turned the entire area into a dust bowl. Because Becca is making noise in the background, I let my landlady know this, but haven't told her yet that I discovered later he put a hole in a hose and knocked a hole into the side of my blueberry bush pot. (Deep sigh) He also moved my watering system for the carnations and Tabasco plants, so I needed to find the hooks that had been flung everywhere and get it set up again. Luckily, it appears there is no hole in it.

The good news is, that I didn't come home to an even worse nasty surprise. Senor finds rattlesnakes while he is weed whacking, and apparently he seems to like these discoveries, as he kills them and takes them home. When he was working near one of the goat pens yesterday, he apparently found and killed one, skinned it, and hung it from the tree. He almost forgot to take it with him, and I am sooooo grateful to my landlady for reminding him. That definitely would have freaked us out, to come rolling into the driveway and see a skinned rattlesnake hanging by its rattles from the tree!

We settled in to a routine evening, and Becca finds two turkey feathers, that she thinks will look good in her hair. She is right.



With the full moon approaching, the coyotes are more active. We stepped outside for a while before bedtime to listen to them. I think I hear young ones yipping and trying to howl. Luckily, we both sleep deeply and the house seems to be insulated well, because we rarely hear them while in bed, unless the windows are open.

When I stopped by to drop off a check to my landlady this morning, the poor thing came out looking worried, "Is there anything wrong?" No, thank goodness, not this morning, but who knows what adventures will happen at the IBTC Farm today?