The Mist Descends

We woke this morning to the hushed tones of a drizzly fall morning.  The clouds are so thick that the sun barely shines any light through their grey expanse.  The leaves are rustling wetly in the breeze and the dogs dearly wished they didn't have to go outside for their morning ablutions.  I sit now at my desk, doing the day job that allows me to do my real job – simultaneously raising kids and a farm.  The sky, if anything, has grown darker in the last hour and the rain has sidled into a cold mist that presses down on the yard and the house with a constant insistence.

Today is a good day for candles and a fire.  I have the candles, adding their modest light to my desk while I attempt to work.  The fire will have to wait – there are chores to do.  The chickens will need feeding today, more for the warmth than the food itself.  The eggs must be fetched.  The dogs must be exercised. 

And still, with all these requirements and needs facing my day, I still look outside with pleasure.  I love a cold, wet fall day almost as much as I love the bright crunch of a new snowfall.  It is a great day to sit back, enjoy the grey quiet, and listen to music.  (My recommendation for a day like this . . . see the linksbelow.)

In Memoriam

Poor little Special Surprise wasn't able to be saved.  He lived one month and three days, but in that time he was loved and well cared for.

Suri Cam

You've heard of CritterCam?  We'll, this is SuriCam!!!  I was out in the fields at SuperSuris on Saturday trying to get some video and pictures of the bred suri female we're going to lease (and whose baby will be ours next year when it is born) when this little cria thought she would investigate what the little silver box was that I was holding up to her mom.  Cuteness ensued.

With a Sad Heart

It was only a month ago that my wife was at SuperSuris in Green Bluff, WA and everyone was surprised by the birth of a new cria to Camilla, an old girl from Peru that everyone thought was beyond having babies.  My wife was attending a workshop at the time, just getting ready to leave for the day, when someone spotted one of the female suris on the hill, laying down and clearly laboring.  No one knew this old girl was pregnant, not even the vet who gave her an ultrasound and declared her so. 

After a very difficult time and much shifting of the cria to put him in the right position, a little boy was born to the world in a jumble of legs and hair – a pink, wet, and weak little premie cria with a twisted neck from the odd position he was in in the womb.  My wife helped them wrap his neck and support him while momma looked on with concern.  It was a few hours before my wife could pull herself away to come home to her own children.

We have spent the past month popping in on the little guy, checking his progress.  The kids even named him, with the Walker’s blessing.  SuperSuris Special Surprise.  And a special surprise he is.

It is with a sad heart that we announce that the little guy who stole all our hearts is not doing well.  He’s having trouble eating and he’s very very weak.  Yesterday he could barely lift his head to nurse, getting a few sips before his head would droop down – after which he would rest a bit before trying again.

We’re hoping that a night in the warm vet room and some tender loving care from the Walkers at SuperSuris will see him improve.  Unfortunately, this often isn’t the case in situations like this.  The little guy has had a hard life, even before he was born, and he’s a feisty little man – but he’s also very young and very weak.

We’re pulling for you Special Surprise.

The Strange Sounds of a Spokane Fall

It must finally be fall.  Mornings are crisp, evenings are cold and dark, and our days alternate between fast moving overcast layers and sunny brightness that deceives the casual observer as to its actual warmth.  The leaves are giving up life-giving chlorophyll, shutting down for the winter and getting ready to drop sedately to the ground.  And yet, none of these things herald fall in Spokane so much as the steady tuk-tuk-tuk of the air compressors and the geysers of water and air blowing out of random sprinklers throughout town.  It’s this time of year that every contractor’s truck suddenly sprouts a tow-behind compressor and lawns grow the oddest mushrooms that look distinctly like signs advertising “$25 Sprinkler Blow-Out!!!”

It’s definitely fall today.

Blissful Warmth

The heat lamp is installed and the thermostat is working.  The girls are happy again.

The Last Harvest

Okay, it's not strictly the last harvest, as there are still some onions and broccoli out there.  However, given our recent spate of cold days and even colder nights we felt it was time to bed down the garden and pull the last big harvest for the year.  This bounty represents the last big payoff for all our hard work this year (except for the pumpkins, which we didn't grow this year for lack of space).  We spent the day digging countless rows of carrots (look at that big mamma-jamma on the left!), sifting through clods of loam for the last few potatoes (hashed browns anyone?) and pulled the last leeks from the pile (cock-a-leekie soup, on the way). 

The zucchini plants, large in their hubris, are no more - and their few small fruits are ready for our enjoyment.  Their bigger brothers and sisters have already given their all to zucchini bread, which is cooling on the counter as I write this.

The chickens are cooing peacefully with full stomachs from all the off-cuts and less than perfect veggies we tossed their way today, topped off with more than a few slugs and worms for good measure. 

The dogs are exhausted from supervising us and the children all day, whining their dreams into their pillows.

We are exhausted.  We are filthy.  Our boots are caked with mud and our hands are cracked from the cold.  We are happy.

Frozen Chicken

The girls are protesting.  I have yet to get around to putting their heat lamp in the coop, nor the daylight lamp that keeps them laying through the winter.  In protest, the girls have slackened their production, giving only two eggs in the last two days.  I get the message ladies.  The comforts of home are on the way.

The real shock comes for the three newest girls.  They were born last spring and have never seen a real winter.  On top of that, the last winter was so mild that I bet the older biddies are not prepared for the trouncing they say we're going to get this year.

First Real Frost

Okay, it may have been a partial frost, but the first signs of thawing ice crystals twinkling on the grass and the last few tendrils of our corn stalks greeted me this morning with a wink.  Winter is not far off and its high time we got off our butts and made ready for it.

There's much to do.  I have two trees worth of wood to chop into the right size for our old fireplace, 1,500 square feet of garden to bed down for the winter, countless stalks and vines to chop for the compost pile, and all of it before the ground freezes hard a rock for the season.  When I went out to feed and water the chickens this morning, their steely glare reminded me that I have yet to place the heat lamp back in their coop.  This I will do today, along with other little things that can't wait until tomorrow.

Beyond it all, I love this time of year and look forward to getting the farm ready to hibernate for the next few months; almost as much as I love the first green shoots of spring or the warm sun peeking behind summer clouds.  It is nearly winter and it is time to get going.

Hmmm

When Nature gives you a cool summer, make fried green tomatoes.

Lease-An-Alpaca

The hardest part for any new alpaca farmer is the acquisition of good stock.  You can get a "pet" male for a couple hundred bucks, but we're not big on just pets.  Yes, our chickens are treated like little queens, especially by our kids, but we keep them for the eggs.  Likewise, the alapacas are going to be ours for the fiber as much as anything else.  To that end, we're looking for excellent animals with good fiber qualities.  We know we won't be able to get the best right off the bat, but Super Suris in Green Bluff has a new program that we're very excited about.  Soon we hope to lease a bred female from them for a year, during which time we hope she'll have a healthy baby (next summer some time).  When she does, that baby will be ours, permanently.

More news to come as we work out the details.

The Search for Identity

Choosing a name was hard, an effort that took many emails, chats, and conversations between the two of us.  Do we make it funny?  Do we make it deep?  Do we go with something original?  How about something that evinces an image that we want?  Well, we've chosen and we feel that Odd Ducks is not only a good descriptor for us as a family but also for our choice of farm products.  Alapacas, especially Suri Alapacas are still rare and unusual enough to earn the name Odd Ducks Farm.  And yet, there are many other layers to the name I'm sure we'll explore in the future. 

Now the hard part.  A logo for our brand.

A New Farm Is Born!

That sure sounds better than "we bought the farm," doesn't it?  And since we haven't actually "bought" anything it seems more appropriate.  This blog, when it gets going and when we get going, will be a repository for news about the up and coming Odd Ducks Farm in Spokane, WA (or thereabouts).  Check back for updates later on as we build this little freehold from the ground up (even without the ground yet!).