Days Off on the Farm

Okay, arguably there are no days off on a farm.  Regardless of the day, the chickens must be fed, the fire must be chopped, the various waterers freed of their icy prisons, and so on.  But when you're a small urban concern with two "regular" jobs that pay for your farming, days off can be key.  Today is New Years Eve and, thankfully, both my and my wife's employers have given us today off in lieu of the First, which is a Saturday. 

So, what to do?  Do we run to the movies?  Enjoy time in a park?  Go on a drive?  Nah.  Today is groceries, and feeding animals, and stoking the fire, organizing the kitchen for the coming candle making rush, and making appetizers for our neighbor's party tonight.  And yet, the pressure to go to our 9-5's is not there, making these common tasks more enjoyable.

Wherever you are and however you will spend the holiday, we at Odd Ducks Farm wish you a Happy New Year.  For us, it's more work but we love it.

Hibernating Or Simply Somnambulant?

Is it possible that people hibernate?  Or am I just lazy?  It's exceedingly difficult to tell whenever winter really damps down our activity as it has this week.  Snow has been falling for the last two days and even though we're snug and warm inside (with a good fire going, I assure you) I still find it hard to get up and do anything around the house.

It could simply be the lull between Christmas and New Years, leading us to rest and recuperate before everything starts up again (we have at least two parties to go to this weekend) or it could be the lack of sunlight.  Either way, I want to get up off my butt and do something, but the moment I stand up I can feel my will ebbing slowly away. 

Tomorrow is water/food day for the chickens.  The thought of roving bands of renegade chickens should motivate me to get off my but for at least that much work.  Nobody wants to face a hungry chicken in 18 degree weather, least of all me.

Searching, Always Searching

It's been a long time since we've made candles in any quantity and for any purpose other than home use.  We forgot the intense amount of trial and error, between the selection of the right containers, the right colors, the right fragrances, and - most daunting of all - the correct choice of wick.  There are just so darn many variables!

That being said, we have decided on our first ten scents we will offer.  They are:

Winter Spruce
Blueberry Cheesecake
Cedarwood Vanilla
Fresh Cotton
Cranberry Marmalade
Garden Rose
Spiced Pomegranate
Pumpkin Cream Souffle
Sugar Cookie
Wildberries and Cream

A Confluence of Potential Motion

I woke this morning, groggy after the holiday, and let the dogs out to pee as usual.  As I was about to bring them back in, I heard a terrific crash outside and much barking from our little Queensland heeler.  I rushed outside to find that she had wedged herself behind the woodpile and succeeded, with all 30 of her pounds, to push the pile over into the snow.

And I had just finished stacking all that wood a few days earlier.

Needless to say, she spent the morning cowering in the corner, sure of her impending doom, while I went about my day.  It wasn’t until just now that I was able to go out and survey the damage.

As it turns out, I’m glad I didn’t come down too hard on her.  The frozen ground, suitably strong to hold up the wood for the weekend, had thawed to the point that the rack broke through the frozen crust, causing the whole pile to pitch over into the yard.  Our poor dog was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back on this one.

I am back inside now, having just spent the last hour paying for my own mistakes.  I placed thin boards under each narrow foot, hoping that the frozen ground would hold better with the weight spread out a bit.  With the coming sub-freezing temperatures and up to a foot of snow, I think we’ll be okay for a while.

Why is so much of homesteading a two steps forward one step back proposition?

Warm Fires and Warm Hearts

I hope all of you had as good a Christmas as we did.  The kids' appetite for new playthings is well sated, our larders are more full than they were prior, and we're all nestled before the fire enjoying the warmth from the hearth inside and the blowing winds outside.  Light a fire, pour a good mug of 'nog, and enjoy the last few hours of the Christmas weekend.  Cheers!

Warmth in Wood

We have, in our current home, a wonderful brick fireplace that can keep the main floor of the house toasty for hours, even after the fire is out.  However, being an urban farm means that wood can be expensive or downright hard to come by.  Not so anymore.  Our friends put us on to a wonderful farm in Idaho, Blacksmith Farms, that sells firewood and home logs for good prices (including delivery). 

We had to wait a few weeks, this being winter and all, but two days ago a beautiful load of wood was dumped unceremoniously in our driveway.  It took me both afternoons since then to stack it all neatly in the backyard, but boy was the work worth it. 

I’m tired, I’m sore, but for those two afternoons I was definitely warm – all without having to burn the wood.  As it stands now, we have more than a winter’s worth stored up in the backyard along the fences.  Now that we have plenty, I plan to have a warm fire going any day I’m working at home – either on farm business or my “day job.”

Here's to a long day of fireside warmth and gift giving . . . only two more days to go.

It's Beginning to Feel a lot Like . . .

So . . . the tree is up, but not decorated.  The lights are lit, but only inside.  The presents are wrapped, but only some of them.  And still, it truly is beginning to feel more and more like Christmas.

We truly love giving our weekends to our friends' farm.  In fact, we hope to give our whole week to our own farm, once the right property becomes available, but for now we are content to do what agriculture we can in our urban farm and to help with the alpacas whenever possible.

That being said, giving our weekends to the animals has certainly cut into our home time, hence all the half-completed items listed here.  Yet, it is still Christmas regardless of whether we get the tree fully trimmed in time.  To see our kids are beginning to get excited and we can't wait to wake up early this Saturday and give gifts (and eat WAY more calories than are usually advisable).

It's coming, and ready or not, we're happy.

Angus Air Ruighinn

For some reason (a reason I know well but won't express here) driving to and from the farm in a tiny, sprightly Ford Focus hatchback just didn't feel right.  That, and there was no way to haul even one bale of hay or even one small cria without major hassles.  To this end we traded in our city-life, urban commuter-mobile for a real, honest to goodness Truck (capital 'T' intended).  This behemoth is simply a joy to drive and will haul everything we need it to and more. 

The kids quickly named the truck Angus, a name which is both fitting and expressive of the intent and personality of a big modern version of a buckboard.  We can't wait to give Angus his first workout.

Not Fainting Goats, These

There comes a time in every young cria’s life when the strange and oft-demanding personage known as the farmer straps a frightening contraption to their face, always followed by an insistent tugging on the chin from the rope hanging down from a ring tied in the center.  This is, of course, only a halter - a necessary lesson for any alpaca whether they will be shown or not. 

Handling alpacas is, arguably, much easier than other livestock.  While I have stood placidly by as more than one young cria has leapt right at me after I’ve placed the halter on their head, a similar action by a cow or even a sheep would require that I move aside, and quickly.  A half-sized alpaca tends to bounce off rather than trample, aided by their natural reticence to physical contact and the fact that I outweigh them by at least a factor of two.

That being said, the range of reactions these young fluffy pillows have to the halter is varied and sometimes hilarious.  Some simply accept it after a few tosses of the head, merely testing the lead a few times before succumbing to the fact that I am, in truth, in charge at that point.  Others fight the whole way.  One young lady likes to make repeated leaps right at me whenever I try to lead her anywhere.  She seems to forget the number of times she’s bounced off me and ended up limbs akimbo on the barn floor.  My least favorite response, but simultaneously the most hilarious, is the dramatic faint.  Some cria, especially the young males, will drop the ground in the most dramatic poses of distress.  They are simply overwhelmed by the experience and can’t face the world with that darn thing strapped to their head.

Beyond the humor of the faint, it’s a big pain.  They won’t move, they won’t stand up.  One had to be lifted bodily and taken into the vet room.  The trip back was similarly strenuous.  Sometimes you can tickle their back hips and they’ll stand again, sometimes it takes fetching their mother to coax them up. 

After a full day of this, my wife found a handy trick.  She found that if you place your arm around their neck gently and keep their head up, the cria is much less likely to drop like a Victorian lady after climbing stairs while wearing a tight corset.  It doesn’t always work, and once they’re down there’s still the problem of getting them back up, but it helps.  That counts for a lot.

Now, if we can figure out why it’s the boys that are such sissies we’ll be better off.

A Voyage

We spent the weekend halter training young weanling alpacas, but that story will have to wait a bit.  I'm leaving early early early in the morning on a business trip, not farm business sadly, but once I get back I'll fill you in on the fun.  Let's just say that young cria's can be . . . dramatic their first time on the lead. 

Mice and Melancholy

We’ve had a week of on-again off-again rain, leaving us with a mire of sloggy mess on the roadways in place of the beautiful covering of snow we had since before Thanksgiving.  Along with the departure of much of the snow has gone our holiday spirit.  It’s hard for us to trim a tree and put up Christmas decorations without a healthy covering of snow on the ground.  We’re managing it well enough (the tree is up at least) but we continue to look at up at the grey sky and wish for snow. 

In the mean time, I am happy to report that our War of the Mice seems to have been won.  It’s a hard reality of both living in an 80 year old house and keeping animals that mice will move in every fall.  Once it gets cold these little buggers, cute though they are, begin to find the little crevices and niches in our house where we seldom look, making for themselves a handy nest out of the detritus of a normal life.  The added attraction of a big can of chicken feed in the basement doesn’t help of course.

After way more traps than I care to count, and more than a little peanut butter, I appear to have caught the last of them.  If the temperatures warm up enough this week, a few more may find a way in, but for now the basement is rid of the unseen scrabbling and theft of chicken feed that has been rampant the last few weeks.

We Are A Farm, But Who Can Tell?

My wife and I are going through the process of branding our little freehold and its meager (as yet) products.  This is always both a fun and a challenging process, as you can really do anything with the brand you are building, but you must remain cognizant of the fact that your name and logo must be marketable as well as unique.  There are far sillier names for alpaca farms than Odd Ducks, and the name just seems to fit the longer we wear it   The name is ours and we mean to keep it.  As for labeling and the logo, that is another thing entirely.

As I type this, my wife's brother is working (quickly, we hope) on a logo for our growing farmstead.  In the mean time, the materials for our first line of beeswax candles are on their way here (via the angels at UPS) and we have no brand to put on them.  Design ideas are plentiful but decisions are thus far few and far between.

We will have sample labels up here soon.  Until then, it's back to the drawing board.  I can't wait.

P.S. Check back later for a link to our Etsy store, where we'll be selling our line of candles . . . as soon as the development is done, that is.  They're made with all-natural beeswax and our scents are all phthalate free.  More details as they are available!

Happy Nikolaus

As much of my family is German, as well as many of our friends, let me wish you a Happy Nikolaus.  Children in Germany (and some of German descent we know) put their boots out last night in hopes that St. Nicholas would leave them treats.  I know some boys that got movie tickets as a reward for their good behavior this year.  Our own children did not participate this year, opting instead for the haul that Santa Claus has brought them in years past.

Whatever holiday you observe, Odd Ducks Farm wishes you a happy one and, if you're lucky, one snuggled closely with your family.  Enjoy a fire in the fireplace and wassail for us.

We Have Readers?

I pulled up the stats today and was gratified to see that people actually read our little blog. Thank you for your attention and time.  Welcome to the farm, we hope you enjoy your stay.

'Ere the Sun Rises

Last night we came to realize how very very tired we really are.  After dealing with the dumping snow last weekend, the warming this week with all the fun of the slush and ice, and the usual pressures and needs of a week's work, we were truly nackered.  In a bid to restoring some of that lost energy, we decided to sleep in this morning.

We were woken by a rare sight for December in Spokane.  The sun was streaming in through the windows.  When I climbed up to the window and peeked out at the side of the blinds, I was greeted with a twinkling frost and bright blue skies.  It was a welcome break from the rain and snow and made the morning all the more pleasurable.  We sipped coffee and ate French toast - made with eggs from our own flock - and enjoyed a quiet morning at the table.  Now, off to the alpacas.

Slushy Slush

Unfortunately for us, our winter wonderland is a bit tainted of late.  The weather gods decided to take away our cold arctic air and leave the moist warm air behind.  Without both we're now living in a slushy middleground between autumn and winter.  The snow that is left behind is heavy with water, the roads are either slippery with melting slush or full of standing water.

I want my winter back, thank you very much.

Officially Ours

We just did it.  We are officially alpaca farmers, in the most limited sense of the term.  This last Sunday we signed papers and gave our first check to SuperSuris to lease our girl you see on the left, Sweet 16.  She truly lives up to her name as she's sweet and lovey.  On top of that she's a truly great mother and has terrific fiber qualities and body shape.  She's currently pregnant and will deliver towards the end of August next year.  That baby will be ours free and clear and we have every intention to purchase Sweet 16 at the end of the lease.

We are now officially in the business.  We have our first dam, soon to have our first baby.  The search for the right property continues, as does the search for a farm truck to replace my commuter-mobile.  More posts as things develop.

Soccer and Alpacas

Finally, verifiable proof that alpacas are no good at soccer.

Turkey Day, Here We Come

On that cold December morning in 1941, President Roosevelt put aside years of useless squabbling and set the date of Thanksgiving in this country as the fourth Thursday of November.  Far be it for me to argue with the wisdom of a President of this country, but I have to disagree on this one point.  Thanksgiving is first and foremost about thanks, but that thanks started and ended with thanks for a bountiful harvest (or in the case of the Pilgrims, much wheeling and dealing with the indigenous population).  Why is it, then, that we are celebrating the harvest on a day that dawned clear and cold and exactly 0 degrees Fahrenheit?  Our harvest did not occur in November.  We have long since put up or eaten everything that came out of the ground, back in October.

I have to agree with the Canadians on this one.  October is a much more realistic month to hold a harvest thanks holiday. 

That being said, we will be making the most of this year’s Thanksgiving by accepting the gracious invitation of our friends and neighbors down the street.  Much turkey and potatoes and green bean casserole will be had by all.  I plan to spend the evening semi-comatose before the fire, watching Pumpkin Chunkin’ on the Science Channel, and furiously trying to finish a scarf I am making for someone very special to me (out of alpaca wool, no less).  It’s hard to feel “farmerly” when the temperatures are below zero, the snow has a healthy frozen crust on it, and the chickens are bedded down in their fresh straw, their little bellies swelled with warm water and grain.  Bring on the pumpkin decimation and imbibement of two days’ worth of calories.

I hope you and yours have a pleasant day.  Eat more than you should, do less work than you usually do, and enjoy the simple things in life – friends, food, laughter, and a firm roof over your head, be it yours or someone else’s.

It's Coming

I was raised well beyond the chance for flurries and blizzards, in the depths of the hell that is the hot valley east of Los Angeles.  Thus, my education in weather was limited to mysterious words and terms that had no real meaning to me – smog, visibility index, heat inversion.  It wasn’t until we moved to Arizona that my real education in weather began, at the desk of many a flight instructor as I worked towards a degree as a professional pilot (a degree which I never did finish, but that is a story for another time). 

The weather in Arizona was so unlike the weather in Los Angeles that I often found myself watching it just because I could.  Weather in LA simply arrives through the smog and haze.  In the mountains of Arizona we would watch the thunderstorms move in, towers of roiling power that evinced the shape of massive sailing ships gliding slowly but inexorably towards us from the desert in the lowlands below us.  It was there I learned that clouds were not white but were in fact made of every color of the rainbow.  The reds and oranges of a broken overcast would give way to the steel blue and putrid green of a good supercell about to dump it’s fury on us.  I learned the static feeling in the air and the pressure on your chest that signals that it’s time to stop watching the storm like a fool and get inside under shelter before the hail falls.

But now that we are settled here in Spokane I have learned yet another form of weather.  Today we woke to find a couple inches of fresh snow had fallen in the night.  It wasn’t quite three inches, but it was enough to create that silent hush that I love so much in the early morning.  During the day, the sun nearly peeked through the clouds, though with our 20 degree temperatures it would not have done much good.  I cleared the sidewalks and went inside to await the real storm.

I type this while an honest-to-God blizzard blows outside my office window.  I have known this was coming all day, as did everyone else on the block.  It seems that no matter how many winters pass in this place, none of us seems to be truly ready when it finally decides to shove autumn out of the way.  True, it’s two weeks earlier than usual this year, but that is hardly an excuse.  We all scurried like squirrels burying our nuts before the frost, only our nuts were garden hoses and rakes and shovels, not to mention a few potted plants.

All day I could sense the storm building, but in an entirely different way than either LA or Arizona.  It came in insidious degrees, minute changes over the whole day that added up over time to something you could taste, something you could feel, but at such a slow rate that any one change was too small to notice.  Even the dogs and the chickens felt it.  The chickens never came outside today, preferring to huddle on their roost and drink the warm water I gave them now and then.  The dogs, rambunctious this morning in the delight at the fresh snow, slowly quieted down and settled, until by this afternoon they no longer sought to go out.  They are not huddled together on their bed by the heater, noses to tails, snoring in their lassitude.

The whole world outside seemed to inhale slowly all day, taking a deep breath before we plunge into the storm.  Now that the storm is here, that breath is still held, waiting for the rude splash of nature’s fury on our faces.  It won’t be expelled until the sun breaks through tomorrow.

I wait to exhale myself.

A Trouncing On the Way

I just checked the forecast.  7-10 inches of snow over three days, followed by sub-zero temperatures.  We're in for it now.

Sweet Sixteen

We are recently returned from a tip up to see our girl at SuperSuris in Green Bluff.  Sweet Sixteen will officially be ours (via lease) on December 1 – something about which we are beside ourselves with excitement.  We are taking part in a lease agreement with our friends at SuperSuris which will allow us to begin to build our herd without the six-figure investment typically required.   We will lease her for a year, during which she is expected to deliver a cria some time in August. 

I like to refer to this as rent-a-womb. 

We’re leasing her long enough for her to produce offspring, which will belong to us free and clear at the termination of the lease.  Better than that, at the end of the lease we have the option to purchase the mother and apply our lease payments to date to the price.  At the end of this, we plan to own one adult Suri alpaca and her baby.  If there is a better way to get into the field of alpaca farming, I don’t know it.

Sweet Sixteen is the girl we’ve selected out of the nearly two hundred at SuperSuris.  She’s a sweetheart with good lineage and a family history of easy-going alpacas with good fiber qualities.  And she’s a good mom too.

Oddly enough, it seems that Sweet Sixteen has figured out this relationship.  Yesterday I came out into her field (with all the other new mothers) to say hello.  After she got used to me, she walked calmly over and placed her head on my shoulder.  I rubbed her neck and she made happy noises and pushed into me.  Today she walked right up to me and let me put a halter on her, no protest.  She then stood still, leaning into me again, while Dick, one of the owners of SuperSuris, trimmed her toenails. 

She definitely seems to know something’s up and that it relates to us.  She hums contentedly whenever any of us is around, and she always has a kiss ready for our kids when they visit.  It will be one short year before the relationship that she already senses is completely settled, but in the mean time we continue to think of her as “our” girl.

Sick, and Yet, Some Snow

Allow me to apologize for the dearth of posts of late.  We have all been sick and trying in vain to get ready for winter.  We woke this morning to a light dusting of snow on the ground, more snow in the forecast, and some very perturbed chickens.  More to come soon as we get back up and about.

Fall Shearing

No, not the sheep.  Me.  And the kids.  My wife has been cutting our hair for over a year now, and besides a few odd cuts due to my son's near constant movement, she's gotten quite good at it.  With the current economic situation (not to mention various pay cuts by our respective employers) the theme of our year has been "do for ourselves what we can do for ourselves."  This includes hair. 

It doesn't take much as far as equipment goes - no Flobee involved.  A good beard trimmer or hair trimmer can be purchased from Costco for less than the cost of one round of haircuts at a salon, and some of them (especially the Wahl brand) are quite effective.  The kids get their trims in the bath, a nice way to make their unruly hair lie flat and also a handy way to wash off the trimmings.  For myself, my wife sits me in a chair in the kitchen (a wood floor is key here) and shears me short.  Thankfully, I have little left to trim, but even so she does a great job.  In a world where a man's haircut costs $20 and a kid's costs $10 or more, this has been a great money saver for us.  That, and my wife simply enjoys doing it.

Where to Buy, Where to Buy

The search continues for our ideal landing place, an eventual home for our burgeoning herd of alpaca, chickens, dogs, cat, and children.  We have looked all over and back again around the city, but we haven't yet landed on that perfect piece of heaven in the country.

Part of the difficulty comes from having to balance any number of variables - amount of land, topography, soil conditions, zoning, the house and any outbuildings, as well as proximity to our friends and potential sales locations for produce and fiber products.  To find a place where every one of those things, as well as a hundred nameless others, is perfect is simply not going to happen.  With each property we look at we have to decide if the unique mix of characteristics equals a good place to be.

There is the added uncertainty of selling our current property in an unsure market.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that the perfect set of circumstances will present itself, but our hope in providence is not enough to keep us from working our butts off in the search.

And the Cold Descends

We have been spending more and more time at our friends' farm and less and less at home, thus the thin news of our doings on our own farm.  Today I hope to make up for that.  It's bread baking time again.  I have been using Jenna's recipe (from Cold Antler Farm) to great results in past months.  I have, sadly, given up hand mixing everything, but I still knead by hand - a necessary release of tension in a stressful world.

This weekend, we're making candles for my daughter's school project.  I was glad to see so many supplies still available at the local craft store, but the price of wax has simply gone through the roof.  I imagine it has something to do with the bee die-off happening around the country.  Next spring I definitely plan to put in our fist hives.  I'm tired of paying for something my bees would give me for free.

In the mean time, our wet but mostly pleasant fall has moved on and the deep cold grey of winter is nearly upon us.  The forecast has little gray flecks of snow in it rather than the slanted rain we have been seeing.  I doubt we'll get any accumulation, but it's cold enough outside and the air has that peculiar feel to it that means that winter's blanket is not far from descending on the city.  I hope the chickens are ready.  Come to think of it, I better get raking - the leaves are still on the grass.

A Candle in the Dark

The nights have grown dark, soon to be even darker when the infernal timekeepers tell us to wind our clocks back an hour, and the cold wind rattles the storm windows every night as we snuggle far beneath the lip of our comforters.  It is the perfect time for candlelight and wood smoke.  I find myself working late tonight, on something for someone else for which I will receive little credit, and yet I am surrounded by the warm glow of several candles and the comforts of a gently steaming cup of tea.  If you have to work late, and it happens to be the early dark of a burgeoning winter, candlelight is an effective poultice for the poisoning gloom.  Light a candle.  You don't have to work, I promise.

All Hallows Eve

Halloween is many things to many people.  To our kids, it is a chance to pretend to be anything they can dream up while simultaneously receiving the gold coins of childhood – heaps of candy.  For the parents it’s a time of buying way more candy than one would normally allow in the house while simultaneously searching near and far for the “perfect” wig and small tubes of white cream make-up. 

For the local farmers it’s easily one of the busiest times of the year.  We spent the day up at Green Bluff, once again enjoying the company of over 100 alpacas, plus two llamas and a slightly cantankerous barn cat.  The air was crisp, the breeze just enough to keep us cool while we tended the pastures, and the roiling clouds were just getting ready for the night’s trick-or-treating.

As in years past, it was cold that night, leading some to hide their costumes with thick coats (mostly the very young and very old).  And yet, it didn’t stop most from coming out and walking the neighborhoods in search of sugary goodness.  We love fall in Spokane and Halloween is an integral part of that.  Yay for the ghosts and ghouls and pumpkins.

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!).