Forum Discussion

I chat all the time with folks from several different forums. It's fun to have "friends" that one has never met, where one can say what one thinks and never worry about losing a friend; we're all pretty like-minded. Some of us were talking the other day about why some of us preferred to be 'country mice' as opposed to 'city mice'...

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Originally Posted by (name deleted) Out of curiosity - if you don't mind my asking - how did you land in Cody? I grew up on a farm in a rural area, but that part of Nebraska/South Dakota seems very desolate. Was that actually the attraction rather than a deterrent? Feel free to PM me if you'd rather... Thanks!

Naw, I'm not shy about it. DH and I were looking to get out of an area that had DEMANDED growth, and I was one of the people elected to bring it in. I was trained in development, etc, and with my compatriots started a huge initiative to turn a town of 1800 people and a county of 25,000 into a growth community. We worked at it daily for over 10 years and succeeded. The place will double in size in the next 4 years, and by 2022 that county is going to have 240,000 residents by all estimates. WE HATED IT. (Have you ever been really GOOD at something you hated?) We didn't want growth, and we didn't like the thought-control, property-control, attitudes, and we didn't like the increased ordinances and restrictions on our lifestyle that everyone else wanted and demanded. DH and I have always been down to earth country people, raising our own food, minding our own business, not caring what anyone else thought about our fruit trees, gardens, and farm animals.

So we went looking for a place to retire that had no controlling property ordinances, had an honest, simple, and decent way of life, and would never outgrow itself. We wanted a place where we could have chickens and cows and horses and fruit trees and vegetable gardens and greenhouses where no one would even think about making laws against them, and where we could go out at night without worrying about being accosted at gunpoint (a very real occurance - happened to me twice, good thing I was carrying) or being harassed in the daytime by 'do-gooders' who think that the more rules they enforce, they better off everyone is. We looked for something/someplace old and solid with a history of 'cussed independence' where we could live our life's dream of owning a small homestead farm and producing for ourselves (and our neighbors, if we had enough). I looked for property for 4 years on the internet, and the farmhouse with 60 acres in Cody was one of six properties (in NE, ND, and SD) I had on a list when I came out to look. I got to Cody - and never left. This was what we wanted, this was the attitude we sought, this was the type of property, people, and atmosphere we were looking for.

To be honest, I'm kind of glad that people think of the area as 'desolate' and unimprovable and even uninhabitable. It means that the high-end developers won't come here to ruin things with their McMansions and manicured lawns (where the cops have rulers to measure the height of your grass and fine you if it is over 1 and 3/4ths of an inch high - and no I'm NOT exaggerating) and gated communities, and that no one will put up big box stores that sell cheap Chinese goods to a mindless public that thinks that more 'stuff' means you are high class. The 'retirement communities' aren't going to rush here to build their little enclaves of endless exercise and self-satisfied, purposeless activities to keep their little minds and aging, oversurgeried bodies occupied. Freedom and autonomy mean more to us than just rhetoric - and personal freedom is what the High Plains, and especially the Sandhills, have. It isn't for everyone, and it isn't perfect (no place is) but it suited us right down to the fine hairs. When we come over that last hill and see the old water tower, we're like Dorothy, every time - "There's no place like home".

This weekend we go to buy our "miniature" milk cows... grin. The chicken coop is full, we are getting eggs every day from some very heavy chickens that love the cold, and the garden is about to be plowed under for next year - after giving us about 50 lbs of potatoes, some very nice pumpkins, and filling our canning jars and shelves. We have wood piled up for the woodstove, there are about 20 wild turkeys, some pheasant, bunnies, deer and antelope wandering through our property that need attention. The nights are silent and starlit, the days bright with sunshine or thunderous with storms or grey, dim, and peaceful with snow. Oftentimes for hours the only sound is the wind around the house, or the neighbor's cattle lowing in the next field over... we love it!

The people I worked with back there are all appalled that we "gave up so much" to go after what we wanted; many said they had no idea that we "were like that". They will never come here, either - which suits us just fine, too. They like what they have become, and we like what we are and have always been.

Ummmm.... How 'Bout NOOOO?

I knew it would happen eventually.

Some folks whom I moved to be away FROM are wanting to "come out to visit". They read about, see pictures of, what I am doing here, and want to 'come out to see'. One even had the cojones to ask if I had planted part of my garden for them! LOL. Ha. Ha. J/K. Before I ever left, one person even wanted to come out, and I told her, um, NO. She was hurt. Too effing bad. But she was raised on a farm, and has over and over insisted how much she hated it, never wanted to go back to it, hated the work and the dirt and the smell of it. Why would I want her or anyone like her here? Why on earth would she want to come all this way to a lifestyle she hates - unless she thought either a) I wasn't serious or b) she could play busy and impressive City Mouse to my country farm mouse (yawn)?

Each one I have had to tell what to expect. They think they will come out to a free bed and breakfast, where they can play at being farmers without doing any of the actual work. They think they can spend time watching Mike and me work, put their kids on the horsies - or that they can sit back and be catered to while they are present, play and do nothing, chat endlessly about things and people and places that don't matter - that never did matter - to us. Ummm... NO.

So first, I tell them how to get here. They can fly into Denver, rent a car, and drive 6.5 hours northeast, the last 5 hours over narrow two-lane back roads, thru towns with no gas stations or other amenities, over miles and miles and miles of empty land where huge cattle ranches sprawl; no humans in sight. Or they can hop a small propeller-driven plane out of Denver to Rapid City (more expensive) rent a car, and drive 3 hours southeast over two-lane roads with the same amenities and scenery. Or, they can drive - 1700 miles, two to three days, mostly on interstates, but again - the last two hours on back roads.

Then when they get here, they must be prepared. There's no motels, although a friend of mine rents out hunting cabins year-round, "in town". The "town" consists of her bar/restaurant, several houses, the high school, with the feed store and the gas station on "the highway". In the summer it's normally 100 degrees, hot and dry, there's no A/C, just fans in the windows. In the winter it is COLD - breathless, mindnumbing cold; -40 degrees with the ever-present wind is common. "Breakfast" is what my daughter calls 'jump-up' - jump up out of bed and get it yourself. Feed-up is before sun-up - just chickens now to be fed and eggs gathered, but soon the cattle to be fed and milked, the horse to be fed, the dogs to be walked. Hay to be thrown out. The gardens to be tended and watered and weeded; or, in the winter, the greenhouse to be checked and worked. Wood to be gathered and cut for the woodstove. In the winter, the fire to be laid for heat; better do it right so it doesn't go out or smoke up the house. Cooking and cleaning and preserving, butchering and milking and the separating of cream and the making of butter and cheese. Work won't stop - can't stop - because we are working with living creatures whose needs must be tended. Fences to ride and check, pregnant mamas to be watched so that they don't drop babies in the snow. Hooves to be examined, health to be watched, on everyone. Is the floating water heater keeping the trough from icing up? Are the pumpkins still green at the top? Are the plants ready to come out of the greenhouse or should we wait another week? Manure to shovel, or walks to shovel.

Something else they need to know - there is NOTHING for them to do here. Not like they are used to. No malls, no Wal Mart, no shopping for a 40-mile, one-way drive, better make a list because you're not going back this week. No rows of bars and sushi joints and barbecue pits and fast food restaurants to just pop over to because you're bored with home cooking. There is a bar in town, that serves amazing burgers and steaks, and is open every day - it is great but the locals mostly sit there in the evenings and play cribbage or poker. No drunken rowdiness, no loud music.

And what gets you is the absolute silence. At night, there is only the sound of crickets, coyotes or the occasional cow, lowing off in the distance. No traffic. No noise. In the winter it is even quieter. No sound except the endless wind, whistling around the house and barns.

No, most people don't want to come here. And if they do they will hate it, no matter how polite they feel they have to be. Damned few of my friends or family would truly enjoy this for longer than three days. They would be nervous, jumpy, wanting to play where there is no place to play, wanting their excitement and their bright lights and their fast food and their desperate need for other people. There's no heating ducts upstairs! There's only one bathroom, and it just has a shower stall, no tub! How primitive! How atrocious!

But - that's why we like it here, that's why we moved here. To do the things we want to do without any bother, or having to smile at people we don't really like, want, or need around us. We like animals, we like work, and we like the silence, the heat, the cold.

So if you want to think about coming here, think long and hard about what you are willing to do - and not have. Otherwise, please, don't bother. Send emails and letters, but otherwise, stay where you are - or go somewhere else. We don't have the time, or patience, or even the inclination, to entertain you for even a day in your life. Unless you are willing to work, to pitch in and help do all the things that need to be done every day, no matter who drops by; unless you are willing to give up your sodas and fast food and shopping and partying, then you won't want to come here, be here, stay here. Go somewhere where you can feel happy - and not interrupt what we do here. We don't have the time nor the inclination to play with you, to pretend that we have the time to indulge your little fantasy of 'farm life'. This isn't Farmville or Farm Town, a virtual playtime, where things happen just right and you can leave or ignore it for days at a time.

Is that mean? Damned straight it is. It is also blunt and honest and true and REAL. If you're happy in your world - don't intrude it on mine. We left it for a REASON. And the reason is - we didn't want to be there any more, and we sure as HELL do not want it brought to us. not for a minute, not for a day, and not in the suitcases of those who think it would be FUN. No, thanks.

Butchering weekend

I'm getting ready to butcher eight chickens this AM.

It's funny the reactions I've gotten this week - everything from "OMG! You'd KILL an animal??" to "You're not going to kill ALL the roosters, are you? We like to hear them crow!"

I've taken pictures of them from the first day as baby chicks, through putting them in the chicken tractors. We've fed them everything from scraps to laying mash, getting them as plump as can be. Ten hens and two roosters we will keep, for eggs - that should be starting soon! - and more chickens come spring.

I like the Barred Rock variety for heaviness and color, and the big brown eggs. Soon we'll see how their flesh is for taste, and how well they winter over.

I don't look forward to it, to be honest. It is a LOT of work. But knowing exactly what went INTO these chickens, and filling the freezer with their meat, is satisfying. Knowing that this three day weekend will end with a future for the winter is comforting.

Since Mike finally got approved for his Social Security, we are waiting for the BIG check to come in, as well as the monthly payments. This will pay off things as well as pay for the things we need to get to establish our farm. I spend time every week on my Dexter friends' websites, as well as on a horse website out of Iowa. 9 hours away is not a far distance here, not when everything is so spread out. Cows. Horses. Thinking about everything I'll want and need, to try to become as self-sufficient as possible.

Every week my friends from back East email me, or more people try to sign on to my Facebook page. Some are hurting pretty badly, some are cruising along, and some are just nosy as hell and trying to find out WHAT in the world I'm doing. The latter still don't get that I am happy here, that I moved here to be happy, to stop indulging in THEM and to start indulging in ME. Turns out this week that even my own son thinks I'm crazy and need mental help. People who thought that they knew me were no different - they knew me not at all.

People just can't seem to associate the country life with me. Everyone seems to think that I LIKED being a part of who and what they were; LIKED socializing, LIKED controlling, LIKED being in charge of things, LIKED directing a community's thoughts and emotions and feelings. They can't understand why I would ever move to a place where there are so few people, where there is 'so little to do', where I'm not going out to party and eat and control others every night. Ummmm, sushi, lowcountry boil, oysters, fried this and spiced that, everything processed and handy, quick and simple. Good god, why grow it yourself when the stores are full of it? Why hunt or slaughter when everything is so available and so easy to obtain? Why gather up light and fluffy chicken down off of birds when you can buy the nice spun plastic filler for your quilt?

"Begin as you mean to go on". That's always been one of my mottoes. If you start out to do a thing, you have to do it all the way, not in little pieces parts, half-assed. I always put my heart into whatever I did, even telling myself little stories of encouragement to keep myself going while I did it. Now I'm going to put my heart into this, do things the "right" way.. What is so hard to grasp?

I still love my friends and love to hear from them - but what they are and what I am has always been different. Sure, some try to tell me that what I'm doing is what they want to do too - someday. But for most of them, "someday" will never come. They are too afraid of what their families might say, too afraid that people will criticize them, too afraid that - in their heart of hearts - they couldn't stand to be away from the bright lights and excitement of their current lives. They are too afraid that they wouldn't be able to butcher enough food for the winter, raise enough food in their garden, milk a cow, steer a bull for later butchering, chop the heads off of chickens they've fed for four months, gather enough wood to keep them warm; that they would starve or freeze or die or - be without all of the daily excitement they daily strive for. They will never have the courage to leave that life, no matter how much they dream about it, want it, hope for it. They will never even lay the groundwork for it. The minute one of their children or friends says, "Are you CRAZY??" they'll back down. So they live vicariously through me - and I let them.

Time to get dressed and get to work.

Giggle

The roosters are learning to crow.

Hee hee. Every time I hear them, I can't help but giggle.

The roosters I used to have had very clear "cock a doodle doo"s. These guys are more like high-pitched "rur -rur-RUR!" very garbled and funny. To hear them calling across the gardens, competing in their maleness, is hysterical and sounds like arguing teenage girls.

The ones in the tractors are fun to watch. They play games with the females, "trapping" them in the coops. The females will put up with it for a while, then either shove past the roos one by one or rush them in a body, shoving them out of the way. Then the roos patiently try to herd them all back in again. No reason - no danger. Just chicken life.

Holy crap. The pumpkins have gone nuts this week, putting out literally tens of flowers per plant. I have two little baby watermelons, and there are flowers all over those plants too. The Green beans have finally burst into prolific bloom, and the squash and tomatoes are blooming like mad too. I just may have a harvest after all! I will actually have to go to each plant and make sure - especially on the pumpkins and watermelons - that there are not too many flowers/fruit on each one so that they don't get too overburdened and die before they can put enough energy into each fruit to get big.

Meanwhile, out front, Mike put an inverted-tire planter on the Maple stump. I filled it with soil and put in some blooming wave petunias, and painted it to look like the stump - except for the light spot on the front, that says "Little Tara" with the signature rose (that I also have on all the fenceposts) painted on it. The petunias in the hanging pots are blooming crazily too, and the daylilies are putting out their unusual and multi-colored blooms along the fence. The neighbors are all commenting on the strange and beautiful colors!

I came home exhausted from work yesterday, and as hard as I tried I simply could not get moving this morning. Then of course I had "an episode", and had to take my meds instead, and went upstairs for a nap, went right to a sound sleep. Five hours later I came down, still drained and exhausted. It drives me crazy but it is just something I have to deal with.

Monday I have to finish up some work and Monday night I have to help at the physicals and registration. Tuesday I'll have to take Mike in for his yearly evaluation so I won't be available at all. So I guess I'd better get what rest I can, and just do what I can, when I can. Pisses me off to be so weak, but I am where I can hide my weaknesses from others now, and take care of myself when I need to, and that is a good thing.

The Year Without a Summer?

It has been a lot cooler and wetter here than normal, according to my friends around the picnic table at the town's pot luck supper last night. Good for grass, corn, hay, wheat, and plants - not so good for some things. Pat's sons were tucked up under blankets yesterday, as the day was cold and wet and rainy all day until just before the picnic.

My potatoes are really taking off. Pat told Mike yesterday that I could come get all the old tires I needed for them. The kids don't use them for their paintball wars any more, and they are just sitting in their field on the hill behind the house.

I had to go into work all last week; lots of things to get out for the school year already. Physicals for the kids who want to take part in athletics are a week before registration, so we had to get the forms to them. Part of the Co-op order came in and I had to separate that out for everyone. Neat little piles in the gym, all with their names on them; elementary and High school teachers alike. Had to close out the computer program year for the food service billing, and re-open it for this year. Had to print all the registration stuff and put it in folders to be ready. Still waiting for the Board to approve the Student Manual, and Kate to approve the Staff Manual. I loaded all of the new year's registration paperwork onto a disk, because many of the forms they needed I had to regenerate. For some reason they were not saved - except as blank hardcopies in a file. Some folks still apparently think that a computer is like a big typewriter, and don't understand the uses!

I suggested that we get a scanner and scan in all of the records we have to keep so that we can throw away all of the huge binders of hardcopies everywhere. I am puzzled that no one ever thought of it before. If you need the records, why not have them were you can download them and print them - or keep them out of the way when you don't?

So I have been in "work mode" all week, not "farm mode". I have a couple of days this week of freedom, but will definitely have to go in this Thursday for a class. Rocky, Terri, Kate and I will all be attending a class in Valentine on PowerSchool, the student record-keeping program. We have started a file of questions to ask. The program is so unwieldy, but I'm thinking that if we just get with the programmers and DO the things we want, we can find out what we don't know that is making our lives so difficult. It's dumb for me to have to keep handwritten records of attendance because the program isn't accurate... or isn't being used to its fullest capacity. I'll find out which on Thursday!

Here on the farm, the roosters are learning to crow - the BIG guy in the rooster coop finally has it down. He is so showy I almost don't want to kill him; big and cocky and with a HUGE comb and wattle. Thinking about changing him out with one of the smaller roosters in the tractors; whatever genes he has I may want to keep and promulgate, not lose in the pan. It's all about the breeding and the future.

I DID protest our huge increase in taxes, and got a concession from the Assessor's office. They didn't drop it as much as I asked for, and of course I didn't expect them to - but they DID knock off over $6,000 on the assessment. I gave them pictures and an 8-point set-up as to WHY it should be dropped - including their errors in property assessment all over town. They actually sent an assessor out last week to evaluate the parts I noted where they had made grievous errors. I didn't raise hell and wasn't nasty - just presented facts. What I'm not telling folk is that, if we get approved for the tax loophole for Mike's disability, the property will come in well under the $75,000 limit set by the state for that forgiveness. So we will only have to pay taxes on the "extra" farm property - assessed at $7,000. Which should lower our house payments by about half, since the taxes are paid into an escrow held by the mortgage bank.

It is 55 degrees and I am gong out to clean out the chicken tractors and put in fresh hay, then mix up the poop and hay with more horse manure and dirt and build up the potatoes in the tires. Then I have to weed the gardens. I wish the pumpkins would start flowering - the watermelons are, and I am waiting, waiting... even have canteloupes coming up, but they are not flowering either. The onions are going gangbusters and I am really excited about them - never had so many GOOD onions coming out. The grasshoppers are starting to be a problem and I will have to fix that, though. I found heads on my oats yesterday, so THEY are actually producing, as is the wheat. So much to do...

Hot hot hot

Yesterday morning I got started VERY early, before the sun was up. I mixed up chicken coop scrapings with straw, old horse manure, spoiled hay, and dirt in the wheelbarrow. I got the tires from the west garden and took them to the east garden where the remaining potato plants are. I put the tires around the potato plants, and filled the tires with my wheelbarrow mix, up tot he top leaves of the potato plants. Then I mixed up my spray and sprayed the east garden.

While I was doing that, DH was expanding the 'rooster coop'. It was too small especially in this heat. So he measured and cut, then I crawled into the rooster yard and snagged the chickens one by one. He had wire-tied some iron fencing together and made a temporary yard for them to stay in while he redid their coop. At first he didn't slide the last piece of fence over the top, but the first rooster fooled him and immediately leaped up and flew out! After a few seconds of screeching and squalling - mostly by the rooster - he went back in and we got the rest of them.

Halfway through the day I stopped and got a bucket of Icy water from the hydrant, and went around refilling everyone's waterers. The chickens were panting. I poured some water over the edge of the temporary yard and the chickens immediately started digging into it for the coolness. Today is supposed to be very hot again - and then we are supposed to get vicious thunderstorms tomorrow that should bring the temps back down to the 70's-80's instead of the 90's for another week. We had sweat rags that we kept soaked in the icy pump water to keep washing our faces with so the salt wouldn't run into our eyes, and draped them over the backs of our necks to help keep us from getting overheated. I drank over two of those BIG screw-top-with-straw bottles of sweet tea.

While I was scraping up the horse poop in the barn, I found where some Japanese beetle had gone to town, laying her larvae everywhere. I scooped them out, separated them from my manure, and put them in the rooster yard. They 'went fool' over that!

While I was in the East garden I went over and stared at my wheat patch. HEY! It ISN'T all grass! There's small green wheat heads showing!! I have wheat!

So now the roosters have a nice A frame coop instead of their small box, and all of the potatoes that were big enough are now "tired". Today I have to get into the west garden and get to work. DH is exhausted from yesterday, and has to go in to town today to get his knees shot up anyway, so he's sitting and resting this AM. I am sunburnt and sore but there is so much to be done. The grasshoppers that Utah is fussing about we are starting to have too - and I predicted them coming here after seeing the population last year.

Gawrsh it's hot.

OK, it's only 79, with about 20% humidity and a 25 mph southerly breeze; but it's HOT, especially when you have to work in it.

I'm doing laundry and working on some ceramics, also decided to make ice cream today. It is smooth and creamy and sitting in the freezer right now. There are little bits of fresh strawberries and bananas in it.I got some beautiful fresh red raspberries too, and cut them up into little pieces. Most of the strawberries and raspberries I cut up and froze, but I have a small bowl of raspberries smashed with sugar in the fridge. I couldn't resist keeping them out, even though I don't have the slightest idea what I will do with them. They are my favorite fruit. I made a big bowl of tuna salad, too; and am thawing chicken and Little Ceasar's cheese bread out for supper. Pondering what I can do with those things, too.

I'm staying inside today; mostly because, after all of the running around we did yesterday, I got sick and had to take some pills and sit very quietly for several hours. I HATE that. So much I needed/wanted to do, and of COURSE I was unable to finish. grrrrrrrrrr.

The chickens are getting bigger and bigger. They really love getting moved about the garden, getting new grass to pick and new bugs to eat every few days. The roosters in the stationary pen are getting big; I pull grass and feed it to them, too. The girl at the feed store said, "Why don't you feed them cracked corn instead of mash?" - because I want the roosters to be as fat as possible, not rangy yard birds, when I butcher them.

The remaining wild mama turkey wandered through the yard yesterday -with eleven chicks in tow. So cute.

Even though it hasn't rained in four days, the soil still is damp down below and the plants are growing beautifully. I'll have to get the tires out and put them around the potatoes soon. Everything's growing, almost everything is working out the way I want... so I hate being sick and miserable, hate having to be careful, hate having to go sit down and rest every little while. There's still so much to do!