160 Cows...and Six Deer

A common question when you live on a farm, I've realized, is "Do you have any pets?" I'm not sure why this is, other than people associate "farm" with "animals". And in our case, yes, we have animals...but they are not pets.

I've also come to realize when my reply is "Yes. We have 160 cows" the responses do usually include a comment on the quantity as well as "Oh...a real farm." Yes. A real farm. This is the Farmer's job. He does it 365 days a year (unfortunately, for us, at times) and we have 160 cows.

And no pets.

Well...Sorta.

Because, well, I now amend my answer with "and six deer".

They live in our yard.

The Farmer buys them carrots and apples.

I leave them the outer leaves of the lettuce head.

And we've even enabled family members...I made my sister pick up a bag of apples on her way to the house Thanksgiving because I forgot them at the store.

The Farmer was worried they would be hungry.

He should have been worried that my family would traumatize the littlest one, as my nephews spent two days with their noses pressed up to the windows to watch her every move.

Stag and Spike showed up early on and they are fairly nocturnal (hence, no photos).

They brought their girlfriend Doe one day.

And she brought her friends...Re and Mi.

And then Gretl showed up.

While they are not Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, Donner and Blitzen,
we do have our own Stag and Spike, Doe, Re, Mi, and Gretl.

And yes,  I love the Sound of Music.

Much to The Farmer's chagrin.

Now The Farmer frequently comes in to request a knife and he goes running out of the house. (This might worry many of you, but I assure you he's just cutting up vegetables in the garage.) He'll head off to take a shower and come back only to stare out the front window.

Can you see her come running across the driveway (just before the tree)? 

I get texts with deer reports while I'm on the road.

I get texts while I'm home asking about them.

And yesterday I sent a text "Mama put down her foot. Gretl finally ate her vegetables."

Because like any good child, she'll leave the carrots to the very last, scrounging for every last bit of apple first.

So yes, I believe we do have pets.

We just don't let them in the house.

The Obligatory Christmas Tree Post

We haven't quite moved everything into the house yet (we are still sleeping in the Penthouse above the garage) but we are ready for Christmas. And now that we have water for half the house - after six weeks without it, which is why we're a bit delayed in moving fully in - we are *this close* to sleeping over in the new house.

I told The Farmer I'm sleeping in my new bed on Christmas Eve.

I hope he joins me.

Despite our lack of 100% residency, we are ready for Christmas! Or at least we have lights on the front of the house and a tree in our dining room.

Those are the requirements, yes?

After three weeks of trying to work around the weather to go cut down a tree (aka avoid a day that was pouring rain), we resigned ourselves to letting Mother Nature win.

And we went to a tree lot.

Fortunately, our tree had just been cut the hour before, so it's almost like we cut it ourselves.

But we didn't...which means The Farmer is smiling in this picture. 

And the amount of swearing during the day was greatly diminished. 

And our angel...

She's the angel my parents bought in 1969 for their first Christmas. 

She was all they could afford.

The best part of the night was when The Farmer unwrapped her, found out who she was/where I got her, and immediately put her atop the tree.

This Is What Happens When You Email Me

I am the recipient of numerous texts that merely state "It's a boy!" or "Girl" or "Twins". You'd think I married a doctor. But no, I just married a farmer. A Farmer who probably knows more about females than I care to acknowledge. Because yes, he surrounds himself with 160 females on a daily basis.

Not all cows are named, which drives me a little bit crazy. OK...a lot bit crazy.

Why does Rolo have a name, but her friend #652 does not? And Sylvia? But no #702 beyond the numbers?

But The Farmer has started humoring me and more are getting names.

I embrace this.

I realize he is humoring me.

And revel in naming them.

Usually my reply to his texts are a suggestion of a name. One that pops into my head at the moment. And at 4:00 in the morning (The Farmer, unfortunately, ignores the clock with these texts) he - and I - are often baffled by what comes out of my head.

A number of my friend's kids have calves named after them. Andrew. Tomas. Oscar. Gerin. Zoe.

And I do too.

I once got a text that said "Girl that begins with V". My replies were all shot down (they'd already been taken, but he didn't share THAT information until later) until I enlisted the help of friends. I think we came up with Velma.

Why V? Because, despite the lack of names for some calves/cows, other family lines have rules. Letters of the alphabet. Sounds like. Goes with.

So "Me First"'s calf becomes "Elua", which is "two" in Hawaiian. Me First, by the way, always likes to be first.

And this past Friday, Wally arrived.

Why Wally?

Well, Wally - my colleague at work - had just emailed me. And so that's what popped in my head. And I was fairly certain we hadn't had a Wally just yet. 

Wally, my colleague, I don't think believes me that he now has a calf named after him.

Perhaps he will now.

Don't you wish you had emailed me last Friday afternoon?

Happy Turkey Birthday

The problem with a four-month hiatus from your blog is you have a lot to catch up on. I realize I could just start from today and move forward, but then you'd miss out on all the excitement of the last few months. I mean, don't you want to know why we didn't have water for six weeks and about the 35 gallons of paint?!?!? I know I would...

So what do you write about today? Versus tomorrow?

I decided since today is the start of the countdown to my birthday I'd update you on that. What? A countdown to my birthday? Yep...I turn 30-something 11 months from today. I think that counts as a countdown.

At least my sister E, when she was about 12, thought the day of each month counted. She wrote on every "18" on my mother's calendar a reminder that her birthday was 8 months away...7 months away...6 months away...1 month away. So Mamacita...put it on your calendar...my birthday is in 11 months from today!

My birthday is the week before Thanksgiving, which was a travesty when I was little. My sister's birthdays were both close to Valentine's Day, so they had pink and purple and sparkly stuff in the stores around their birthdays. Me? Ucky yellows and browns and silly Pilgrim hats. (This was before stores decided the Christmas decor needed to come out mid-summer.)

Ironically, Thanksgiving is now my favorite holiday and I like oranges and yellows and all those fall colors. And since I got the turkey platter (more on that in another post) Thanksgiving is at my house. We split up the holidays and Turkey Day is all mine.

So this year my family descended on The Farm to eat up a 22 pound turkey, stuffing, pie, and turkey birthday cake.

What? You don't have turkey birthday cake during your Thanksgiving meal?

I mean, how could you pass up this?

Now how to explain...

So when I was little I promise I had my own birthday party. Good ones. Great ones. We're talking Willie Wonka parties complete with chocolate cake for breakfast while dressed up as Oompa Loompas. 

But when I got older and moved out of the house, my birthday sorta merged with Thanksgiving. Now on one hand a party is a party, and to pair my birthday with turkey and mashed potatoes seems like a pretty good deal. But it also brought up those memories of Thanksgiving birthdays of my childhood where all I wanted was sparkly pink hearts and all I got was pumpkins and gourds in that horned shell thing-y. I mean who wants to dress up like a Pilgrim in 3rd grade and make butter by shaking a baby food jar when your sisters get to make Valentine's mailboxes to hang on your chair around THEIR birthdays.

I'm not jealous or bitter. Really.

So...turkey birthday cake.

A few years ago my sister E decided to turn the tables on the whole thing and she made me a birthday cake shaped like a turkey. Her children, L and K, were so excited about the cake; I remember there was lots of jumping around. They couldn't wait to show me. 

And now, five of six years later, the tradition is that I get a turkey cake for my birthday. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Because who wants a plain ol' cake when you can get a TURKEY CAKE?!?!??! 

In case The Farmer is reading this, please note that I loved my lemon cupcakes you got me on my birthday...special order!

Every year we've had a different cake for the celebration and this year...cake pops! Yep...those things that seem to be everywhere now. My sister M made them for my nephew's birthday and they figured out how to make turkey cake pops. 

And as usual, the process was the most amusing.

Exhibit #1: M brought along the cake pop decorating book, but didn't realize it didn't have a cake pop recipe in it. What sort of cookbook is that?!?!? It just kept referring to the "basic cake pop recipe". 

Very helpful, Ms. Cookbook.

So she sat there on her iPhone trying to find a recipe that looked familiar. 

Meanwhile, Mamacita started mixing things up.

With my hand blender. 

I do have an actual stand mixer, in case you were wondering. 

After we found a recipe that seemed reasonable, nephew M2 had to taste the batter.

Yes, I know you shouldn't eat the batter. 

But I know you eat it too. 

To make these turkey cake pops you frosted the cake pop, then added fall candy corn for the feathers in the back, a tip of candy corn for the beak, and a piece of Swedish fish for the waddle. And don't ask me where E finds things like candy eyeballs, but she does. 

Of course quality control can be questionable at best.

And when you are three and you lose your cake pop off your stick...

...it looks like this.

And the claws...with a pout...come out.

Don't you wish your birthday was a week before Thanksgiving? 

1,000 Geese A Laying

We do live on a dairy farm, but right about now we have a different sort of animal also on the farm. Normally in my backyard I look into the eyes of a heifer who is guiltily eating my rose bushes and eyeing my yard. Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, even for a cow.

But now the cows are inside for the winter and I have a different view out my kitchen window.

What are you looking at, you ask?

Let me get a bit closer...

Still not sure?

Yep...the farm is a stop-over for geese on their way south. Lots of geese.

And when they fly, it's pretty magnificent to watch.

As I walked to the barnyard Saturday morning they were flying around and I did a quick estimate count. We're closing in on 1,000. 

Minus a few...as we also have a half-dozen hunters in our backyard too. We are also quite popular with that crew, if you can imagine. 

Welcome to Fall Travel Season

OK, well technically it is over but "welcome to Fall Travel Season" as my life sorta takes a completely different turn and I live off a 23-page itinerary of my own making, heading off to exotic locations like Culver City and Beaverton...and Honolulu and Santa Barbara, but don't remind The Farmer of those locales. Just remind tell him I'm in Culver City and Beaverton.

But this is my bad excuse for not posting since August 23rd. Yes, August 23rd. Pitiful.

It's been so long that then you start to feel sheepish about getting back so you postpone things because, well, you are tardy on your postings. And then you are tardier. And then it's December 8th and your Christmas music is playing and you realize it's not getting any better. August 23rd is getting further and further away. So just bite the bullet and reintroduce yourself to your blog.

Hello blog! Good to see you again!

So what has been happening since August 23rd? A few things...

I got busy.
The Farmer stayed busy.
We stayed on a first-name basis with the folks at Lowe's.
We established a new record of three Lowe's in three counties in one day.
But we finally found the shower door.
We bought our 35th gallon of paint.
We got our occupancy permit in early October.
We moved in the first boxes in early November.
Yes, that was a four week delay.
Note the first two lines of this list.
We moved in most of the boxes in mid November.
My family arrived for Turkey Day and spent the night.
My brother-in-law literally had to make his own bed and put the frame together.
My sister got to sleep in our new bed that we had yet to sleep in.
We still haven't slept in that bed.
My mom bought us curtains.
We still are waiting for the curtain rod to be installed.
It has to dry.
It's hanging like a trapeze in our garage.
It's two pieces of plumping pipe fitted together.
Because while we found the shower door, we did not find a 157 inch curtain rod.
Hence, no sleeping in bed.
We have Christmas lights on the front of our house.
We are eating and living in the house.
We are not sleeping in the house.
Yet.
Because of that dang curtain rod.
And the fact that we haven't had water in half the house since October 31st.
Oh, did I forget to mention that?
Yep.
But we have a back-hoe parked on our front lawn.
If it doesn't rain hopefully we'll have water on Monday.
If it doesn't rain.
We've had triple the normal amount of rain in the past two months.
So cross your fingers.
And me?
I'll be in New York on Monday.
Because, well, Fall Travel Season isn't quite over.

Obligatory Farmer & calf photo

We're Becoming THAT Neighbor

On Tuesday The Farmer was late for breakfast.

So he drove home.

In case you were wondering...yes, that is his tractor.

On the lawn.

The Farmer says as long as nothing is up on blocks in the front yard, we are fine.

We have to have standards, you know.