Godfrey Family Farms

I’m not uploading a picture here, I’ll let you create your own.

Max stands in the middle of the pasture, orange Wall-E t-shirt topping his hand-me-down Oakland A’s shorts. His body tenses as he waits for the signal from his big sister. It is her job to put the alfalfa in the trough for the cows. It is a distraction, aimed to occupy Cookie while I coax Mocha out for her evening milking.

Cookie, mother of Luisa and foster mom to Star, only gets milked in the morning. Each evening, the calves go into the adjoining pen so that Cookie’s milk can build up overnight. We milk her in the morning and feed that milk to the other 2 calves and/or to the pigs, then her calves come back in to finish up what is left. Cookie has a lot of milk.

So each evening, we traipse out to the field. I carry a bucket for the milk in one hand and a bucket of wash water in the other. Bella runs to the other side of the pasture and throws in some alfalfa to tempt Cookie while I call Mocha in to milk. I take my place at Mocha’s side and begin milking as Bella opens the gate for the calves. Max takes his place in the center of the field, awaiting his cue.

He is all boy, except for the pink Hello Kitty rubber boots he insists on borrowing from Olivia. He fidgets as he waits, eager to do his job.

Bella entices Star first and he trots over to the gate. Max rushes in to make sure Star gets all the way across the pasture then resumes his spot at the center of the field. Luisa separates easily, but she is in no hurry. She runs toward Max and he begins his routine.

He raises his arms out at his sides, lunges in her direction and yells. “YAH!  YAH!”

Luisa, only a month old, is already taller than the top of his blonde head. She looks at him in surprise. She is the princess of the pasture and she has no intention of being bossed around by anyone, let alone this small creature.

“YAH! YAH!” he yells again. She shoots him another look and lopes away, joining the other calves. Luisa runs just fast enough to get out of the way of this mini madman, slow enough to show that she isn’t the least bit afraid of him.

“Good job,” Bella yells from the sidelines and Max latches the gates. On the way out, she puts her arm around his shoulder. “Pretty soon, you’ll be moving cattle all by yourself,” she tells them. 

My little cowboy grows an inch taller just thinking about it.

Our farm is so alive that I suppose it is inevitable that death is a part. Yet, each time, it sneaks up on me, a surprise of sorts. Yesterday was so hot. Most of our animals have automatic waterers of some sort (portable, in many cases), but we still have to check on everyone when it gets hot.

Yesterday we checked and checked. The irrigation ditch provided water to make a wallow for the pigs to keep cool. The big fruitless mulberry tree provided shade to many of the animals. We did multiple checks for water, shade, comfort of the others and yet….

We lost a rabbit, 3 laying hens and 5 meat chickens. There was no obvious problem, just the heat. We’ve had losses before when the temperature has spiked. It just doesn’t ever get to be routine. It always feels like failure.

From this morning:

It is market day and the figs are ripe. The alarm is set for sometime dark, but I’m already awake, mentally preparing for the rush. I stumble into the kitchen, grab a cuppa joe and slip my sockless feet into Muck boots. On my way out the door, I grab Brian’s denim shirt to use as a light jacket. The calendar says summer, but this morning whispers autumn, a cool breeze insistently turning to wind as I head out to the fig tree with a box.

 I push myself into the arms of the tree, still-warm coffee sloshing around in my stomach as I navigate through the sticky leaves searching for figs. When figs are ripe, they change color subtly from a bright green to a softer yellow. The once-perky fruit begins to droop, heavy and tired. Many develop stretch marks; pregnant flesh anxious to deliver.

 Across the field, the cows look at me, startled. They lie there, chewing their cud, trying to figure out what might be happening. My girls are creatures of habit and this is not, in their opinion, how the day is supposed to begin. Like me, they can’t believe I’m up and out at such an hour.

 In a few moments, the rest of the farm wakes up. My kids are out doing their chores early, and the sheep and lambs are not as cautious as the cows. A chorus of bleats threatens to overwhelm the suddenly urgent bawling of the calves. Turkeys gobble a welcome to my daughter who feeds them. Not to be left out, the ducks begin clamoring for a treat.

 By now, my box is nearly full of figs, and the cows have determined that they may as well get up. Cookie ambles over to the gate, ready to be milked. Mocha follows close behind, each one vying to be the first to get a bucket of grain and the relief of an emptied udder. They stand, patiently waiting as Brian lugs out the milk machine.

 I wash Cookie’s udder and we hook her up. The milk squirts into the machine, hot against the cool stainless steel. I go back to picking figs as Brian monitors milking progress. In a few minutes, the milking is finished. I take in my figs and go to collect duck eggs. One hand is dedicated to opening gates and picking up eggs. The other hand—the clean hand, if you will—picks more fruit.

I head in with a dozen duck eggs, my stomach full of figs, Asian pears, fresh prunes and a peach whose juice dribbled down my chin in the cool of the morning. I forget that I need to fix breakfast for the children until the whining begins. I wonder what sort of mother forgets to make breakfast. I send the children out to raid the trees for themselves and put some rice on the stove. We’ll top it with butter, brown sugar and some milk, fresh from the cow.

The older girls have loaded the van, and they hop in with Brian to go to market.

Morning has begun.

Our farm was featured in the Appeal Democrat today, Summer Kids section.  And wordpress is not letting me link properly, so here it is the old fashioned way:

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/farm-97964-godfrey-muck.html

I mostly ignored the article I read a few days ago that told me that politicians are considering how to regulate the amount of dust produced by a farm. Even though most commentary tends to note the impossibility of such a task, there are lawmakers who think that farm dust should be regulated by the EPA.

And then I had an idea. I have a new regulation to impose. In these dark economic times, perhaps a ray of hope to government budgets everywhere. I think we should levy a tax on politicians who produce too much wind (from either end, thank you). We should regulate, license and apply a fee schedule to stupid ideas. The dumber the idea, the higher the fee.

I wonder how long it would take to erase the national debt.

Now, as a farmer, I want to keep the dust down because doing so makes my animals happy, my neighbors happy and my family happy. But sometimes…..dust happens.