Pit Bull Encounter

     Sometime during the Summer of 2008, or thereabouts, we decided to expand our herd a little.  The new expansion in mind was to get a buck goat to keep and use to breed with our does.  After an exhausting internet search I found the perfect little fella and decided that I had to have him.  The farm we were buying him from was in a little town about a two hour drive away.  After some convincing, Chera was talked into leaving the kids with a friend and we could go together to get our new goat.  Maybe not all readers will understand but I'm sure more than a few will understand that with two kids, a full time job and a farm to run, a five hour block of time away alone is priceless.  We don't have the time or money to go out on too many dates so we are only able to get away alone once or twice a year.  It just so happens that this time that alone time was on a long drive in an old beat up truck with no air conditioning in 90 degree heat.  So early one morning, we dropped the kids off at our friend's house and my pregnant wife an I were off on our date.  Right now I'm guessing there are not too many women reading this that are "jealous" of my wife but I think she still digs me.
     For the most part of the trip we rode right along in an uneventful quiet trip.  We passed the time discussing our still new farm and what we had planned, how we could make it work.  With Chera as the navigator we managed to follow the directions and find our way to the last leg of the journey which was a two lane highway rolling through farm country.  We were now in the process of looking at each house trying to find our destination, we were close but in the farm country it is often difficult to see house numbers.  Then I saw what I thought may be the place, a small farm with a bunch of goats grazing in the pasture.  I saw it a little late and had to quickly brake and turn into the driveway.  During this fast paced driving manuever I killed the truck and there we sat at the bottom of this farm's driveway.  This is where a little worry popped into my head as my truck is not the most reliable vehicle you can think of and I wasn't too confident in the rest of our trip.  I looked at my wife and she was simply looking at me with a half grin that said, "Nice move, big guy."  No problem, I thought, I turned the key.... nothing.  Tried again...... nothing.  Uh oh.  "What now?" I heard from the passenger seat.  The answer was easy, this is a farm, not the one we were looking for, but a farm none the less.  My new plan was just walk up to the house and knock on the door, any farm guy was surely to come down and help me out.  Wandering up the driveway was filled with new thoughts of how a completely broke fella like myself would ever be able to afford a truck that didn't break down once a month and maybe had air conditioning.  I walked up the driveway which was about 1/2 mile long and then it wound around a corner to the house.
     As I approached the house I noticed yellow lab looking dog lying in front of the door.  Now its time for me to come clean on one of my fears.  I'm deathly afraid of strange dogs.  So I stopped and stood there.  Kind of hoping that someone inside would notice me and come to the door and ask, "Hey dummy, why you standing in the middle of my driveway?.  This didn't happen.  So, plan B I guess.  The dog looked harmless enough, after all I had been standing there for several minutes and he just was lying there looking at me.  This is when I began my series of dog friendly chat, you know,  "Hey buddy, how ya doing?  Hey poochie, poochie.  Are you friendly?"  Like I was expecting the dog to speak and say, "Sure, friend, come on up."    But, he didn't answer me.  Oh well I thought and I started walking toward the door.  It was at this point when I finally didn't care about that lab anymore.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement.  I looked over and there stood the largest, in tact male pit bull I have ever seen.  He stood there, staring at me, and I stood there staring back, shaking.  All I could say was, "My goodness, you sure are a big fellow."  He growled.  Not a bark, just a low pitched, menacing, completely horrifying growl.  I've heard dog experts before spout off something about standing your ground, make eye contact, let him know who's boss.  I'm here to tell ya folks, not happening.  Instead, I took the path of shaking and melting like a bowl of ice cream in the microwave.  I literally felt like just breaking down sobbing, curl up in a fetal position and accepting my fate.  This is when my survival instinct took over.  Slowly I began backing up, talking the whole time in as calm of voice I could muster.  As i was backing toward the winding part of the driveway.  The dog slowly walked across the yard and stood in the middle of the driveway, cutting me off from the truck.  Now I was cornered and in the "fight or flight" mode.  My flight had been cut off so it was time to fight.  I slowly bent down and found myself three fist sized rocks and armed myself.  Well, this dog was not only menacing he was also extremely intelligent, because as he saw me pick up the rocks he just slowly walked away toward the house and my path was cleared.
     Walking back to the truck, my attitude was very different than the walk up to the house.  Rather than being frustrated with my circumstances and feeling self pity, now I was literally just happy to be walking.  The fate of my truck no longer dominated my thoughts and i was actually in a rather giddy mood.  Not bad for a full grown man that moments before was ready to break down into tears and give up my life.  I now stood before the truck, hood up, staring at the engine like I would suddenly become mechanical and see the problem.  After all, maybe it was like that movie "The Matrix" and time would slow down and the problem would reveal itself to me.  With this in mind, I was quite shocked that while I stood there staring at my engine it suddenly fired up and my truck was running.  Looking through the window, I saw a very proud and smiling Chera sitting behind the wheel.  Yes, you got it, she simply slid over into the drivers seat and turned the key.  

Babies arriving!!

Waiting for your very first doe goat to kid, is a test of patience. Everyday would find me in the coral at feeding time, anxiously looking for baby goats on the ground. Our does were fat, their udders were filled with milk and they had other physiological things going on that I won't write about here but dang, they were ready to have their babies. I was working in the garden one late morning in March when it finally happened.

As I was working along I heard a bleating from a goat that sounded "different" than they usually sound. Thinking that another goat had her head stuck in the fence, I stopped what I was doing and moved toward the pasture. As I approached the corral I saw... It's Time!!! There was Sweet Pie, lying down in the stall, pushing and straining. How dare she not call me. Suddenly I was overcome with the nervousness that a new father experiences. Any man whose wife has had a baby can understand that feeling of wanting to do something but realizing you are absolutely worthless at this particular moment. Worse than that you are probably more "in the way" than a helper. Sweet Pie was well along in the process by the time I had found her and the first baby was already coming out. I looked down there and to my shock there was a head sticking out of Sweet Pie's nether regions. I thought wow, wonder what a two headed goat sells for? Problem was, the baby was kinda stuck and even a rookie such as I found this to be a problem. My son was now standing beside me in awe of what was going on, and I made a mental note that my 5 year old son was going to need an explanation on the facts of life, but not right now. This was a crisis situation. Being a man that handles himself well in a situation, I was ready. Really, I am college educated, a two time father myself, been around the world a little bit, well read and confident in my abilities. I immediately sprung into action with the correct decision. "Zane, quick, go get your mother!" It didn't take long for Chera to arrive to handle this emergency. Woman to "woman" I guess, she new what poor Sweet Pie felt like and what to do. She flew into action while the rest of us stood by helpless watching, just like I did each time my own children were born. Chera assessed the situation and decided that the goat was indeed stuck. She was able to support the goat's head between contractions so any progress was saved and the kid didn't slip back in. A few moments later our first animal born on the farm was out and being cleaned up by her momma. After this her sister surprisingly just kinda flopped out and that was that.

The thrill of babies being born/hatched on the farm has never really went away for me, except now I'm not near as scared or pathetic. A few days later, our second doe kidded and we were off and running with our new breeding operation.

Our first farm Spring

Our first farm spring was a very anticipated event. We had two bred does that we could not wait to see babies. Our plans for our garden dancing around in our heads as we drew neatly out on graph paper different designs and arrays of plants that we would soon be planting. Searching the internet was a non stop adventure, as it what too cold and wet outside to really want to do anymore than was necessary. At any given time throughout the day, one of us would be online looking up, "how to help a goat have kids", "when do I plant my corn?", "which vegetables grow well together", the list is endless. Its amazing that the world survived this long without the information super highway, LOL. I mean really, "when do I plant my corn?", that's how much, not a farmer, I was when I started out. The location that we had planned for the garden looked like the former owner had a above ground swimming pool there. It was a large circle of deadness. However it was in the perfect location of where we wanted to start our vegetable garden. Due to having no activity on the land for at least 3 years, we decided to bring in some topsoil and til the area out nice giving us a good start. After that initial building of the garden we have not had to add nothing to the soil there and it is amazing soil. Between cleaning out the goat shed, chicken coop and letting the pigs live in there for the winter the soil is now very rich. The day the Lord provided for us to prepare our garden was nothing short of exquisite. The sun shone brightly on us, providing a mild mid 70's type temperature. My grandma from Montana had driven out to visit us and as always was a huge help. Grandma knows quite a lot about farming. She not only ran the tree farm for all those years but she grew up in an era when growing a garden was not a hobby but meant the difference in whether or not you ate. So the whole family, three generations, worked the day on tilling, raking and leveling. Side by side, hands in the dirt. We taught and learned lessons about how God has provided the exact right amount of factors for these plants to grow. We heard stories from the past that Grandma remembered. We looked forward in the future to see what our little place may become down the road. All and all it was a perfect family getaway spending time with one another under a pleasant spring sun, preparing for the busy days ahead.

Grandpa Charlie

The new year had brought a new set eager anticipations on the farm. With our hens now laying we were looking forward to enjoying our very own farm raised eggs. Looking forward to the warming weather of spring we were eagerly planning out our first big farm garden. Graph paper drawings littered the tops of most our tables in the house, from random ideas that had entered our minds and consequently released onto paper. Our does were getting bigger with their impending kidding times coming in a couple of months. Life was exciting. Then on one otherwise unmemorable evening I received a phone call from by brother. He informed me that my Grandpa had fallen ill and was in the hospital. My brother told me that the doctor had pronounced that Grandpa was dying and wouldn't live for much longer. Grandpa Charlie was a very special person in my life. He had been one of the men who raised me. My mother had died when I was a teen and Grandpa and Grandma took me in at the farm and raised me. I'm not fully familiar with the details of how he came to Montana but I knew enough to think it was exciting. Somewhere around 1970 in the outskirts of Chicago, Grandpa decided he didn't want his family raised in the city. He and Grandma began looking for places and to my knowledge they purchased the tree farm in Montana site unseen. Back then they obviously didn't have the advantage of the internet to research properties and they didn't have nearly enough money to travel and look the place over. They traveled to Montana with everything they owned and I believe, at that time, 5 children (they had eight total). They had no knowledge of tree farming,of Montana nor did they know anyone out there or have any relatives. To think of this now as a grown man with children, the courage this move took is amazing. Grandpa didn't have a job lined out and it took pretty much all of their money to make the move. They arrived in Montana in late fall I believe and were going to see no cash flow from the farm until at the earliest Springtime. I remember listening to the stories of that first winter and how they lived on deer meat that they were lucky enough to hunt. Eventually, Grandpa landed a good job, and for the next 20 something years he would work full time at his "real" job and come home after and work on the farm until dark. I watched this as a young man but never respected it until now. Even with all the work that he was doing that man never missed a sporting event or school function of any of his kids or grand kids. That may be speaking a little out of turn, I'm sure he missed one or two, but not any of mine that I can remember. Not just the home games but he or my grandma would travel to the away games, at night, through blizzards, whatever just so we could look up in the stands and see a loving face, or hear the supportive cheers. After all the kids had grown and went their separate ways they sold that farm and went fishing. I asked him years later, when I finally matured and wanted to farm myself, why he hadn't let one of his kids take the place over and try to keep it in the family. He told me that all the kids had other things they were supposed to do. When I asked about me, he frankly told me that I was in no way close to being mature enough.
I thought about these things as my family and I were driving to Montana to visit with Grandpa one last time. In the Bible we are told that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children and children's children. It was on this drive that I finally understood this passage. The inheritance Grandpa left me was the love to grow things and the desire to raise my children in a "farm" style life, where they can learn the value of working hard. Grandpa passed away a day after we arrived. The seed he had planted in my heart years ago had laid dormant like that of a plant seed in the soil waiting for the spring to bring life back. Just as Grandpa left this earth his farm was passed on to the next generation, it just wasn't located in the mountains of Montana anymore it was now in Washington. Grandpa never saw my farm before he died, I hope he can see it now and is smiling that smile.

EGGS!!!!!!

Christmas was now behind us and we were wondering through the cold, wet days of Winter dreaming of the warm sunshine of Spring to return. Daily chores were still plenty as we had to keep animals water thawed make sure everybody had enough feed, which being new to this we had NO idea what was enough feed. It was on one of these cold, rather dreary days that one of the most exciting things ever happened to me..... I found an egg! This may not seem that exciting to you but we had gotten these chickens as day old baby chicks in August. We had watched them grow and took care of them. I had spent HOURS building nesting boxes that were just right. For weeks we had anticipated the arrival of our first egg. I was going out to water the goats and there it was, in the bottom of the water trough. HUH, I've built you hens those fancy warm nesting boxes and you are going to lay your egg in the goat's water trough! I didn't care, it was an egg, our first egg, the first actual "production" out of any of the animals that we had spent our money and labor on. I must have looked like a brand new daddy as I strutted in the house to inform my wife, I found an egg. "Where is it?" Obvious question really, you'd figger I would have triumphantly carried my trophy into the house to immediately scramble it. My response caught her slightly off guard, "In the water trough." Huh? Who cares, I thought, our chickens aren't broken that's the important part. Over the next couple weeks we enjoyed the finest eggs we had ever tasted. Life had went from seeking excitement of riches to each day excitement of racing to the nesting boxes to collect that day's bounty for breakfast.

First farm Christmas

We made it through the fall with everything in tact and moved on to our first Christmas on the farm. Dad got nostalgic on everybody and thought now that we own a farm we could remember Who Christmas is all about. So very early Christmas morning I woke the family and we all went out to one of the goat stalls to tell the story of the birth of Jesus. It seemed to me an opportunity to remind us all that our Lord was not born to riches, He wasn't born in the fancy comforts of a wealthy man's home. He chose instead to be born in the stables. He was born meekly amongst the barnyard creatures and people of modest means. To me it was a precurser to the life He lived on earth. He didn't seek wealth and power. The only glory he sought was to glorify His Father in heaven. Its no secret that in today's society we lose sight of the real reason for Christmas, me too. We tend to get wrapped up in the retail mentality buying gifts and worse, expecting gifts from others. Its ironic that we have now turned the celebration of a Lord that sought no gifts into a day where often focus on receiving gifts. As we huddled on that cold morning in the stall smelling of animal poop and straw, I thought about how meaningless "things" are and how the amazing things are taken for granted. There I stood, amongst a beautiful family that loves me, honoring a God that saved me on a farm that I had dreamed about for years. For the first time in many Christmas's I had absolutely no thoughts at all about any gifts I would receive or what I may have for dinner, or what football games may be on, I was simply thankful for all the real gifts He has given me.