Welcome to the farm. It finally feels like a real farm around here, since the arrival of nine goats. I am to look after their well-being as they munch down the Kochia weeds (the weeds that become tumbleweeds) in my corrals. So far, the little Houdinis have found only one spot that is not goat-proof, and have exploited it only lightly. They have been considerate of my first-time goat keeper status, which I greatly appreciate. I have spent hours getting ready for them. Days, actually.

Nothing around here can ever be straightforward. Everything I do creates a new dilemma. I put up sheep wire all around the area where they would be kept, hammering fence staples into the corral fences to hold the wire mesh up and keep the goats from crawling through or under it. Then I had to set fence posts in the hard ground to attach the sheep wire to, to connect the barn to the corrals. That was a pain, working by myself- I pushed them into the ground with the tractor bucket, but had to get it positioned just so, so they wouldn't fall over before I got to the lever controling the bucket. (I have done a lot of two man jobs by myself here lately). Then I looked at the barn itself. That was a head scratcher. See, this barn was recently refurbished, but it was done by a group of men bent on preserving it, and short on patience for handy little animal-friendly features that may or not ever be used, considering they did not know if the barn was ever going to have animals in it again. So gone are the doors on the back side of the barn allowing for access to the corralls, gone are the sliding tracks that the doors hang from, replaced by simple hinges that allow the doors to swing inward. Funny thing about an inward swinging barn door- no place to put a secondary screen door or a gate that allows air and sunlight in, but not animals out, if you should want to say, create a space that is secure but not pitch black for the chickens to lay their eggs and feel safe. The barn has three sections- the middle room, a south wing and a north wing. The north wing has rarely even seen the light of day, it is where a mouse-ridden truck and several other defunct pieces of machinery live. It stinks of old motor oil, rot and mouse turds. The middle room was where the chemicals and seed corn was stored for years, and it has one door- the gaping double door at the front, large enough to drive equipment in and out of. Not a single window. And the south wing also has no window, but it has two walk-through doors that provide ease of enter and exit. When all doors are closed, it is dark as a tomb in the barn. Not even a gap exists that is large enough to allow cats access to the fine mousing therein.

So my problem was how to get the chickens to move from the well lit, well ventilated south wing to the shadowy middle room. I used most of the sheets of plywood left over from the barn refurbishment to build a wall along the north side of the room, walling off the area where the most toxic chemicals were stored. Even though that was thirty years ago, I don't trust it. That was another two man job. Then I moved the boat that was parked inside, coughing as I gingerly lifted the tarp covering it and the musk of mice, living and dead, wafted out. The tire would not hold air so I just hitched it up the the pickup and eased it outside to be parked under the same tree our snowmobiles are parked under behind the shed, accepting that it was toast so gingerly rolling it on the rim across the yard wouldnt do much more damage. I figured, if expensive snowmobiles live outside, one decrepit mousepit of a boat would probably survive it as well, and if I eventually have to buy it from my family just to earn the priviledge of making that decision, it probably isn't worth much more than a good day's wage. And it is worth a day's free labor to me to not have to work around it every day for the rest of my farm life. Not that I make a wage at the moment, but I plan to someday...

And then I moved hundreds of pounds of metal sheeting out of the middle room into the north wing, as well as odd scraps of metal and wood, finally exposing the dirt floor- the reason for all the work.

Then I had to figure out how to get the mower unhooked from the tractor, which I finally did, although the real trick turned out to be getting it back on the tractor, which I also eventually did. By myself. Once the mower was unhooked, I fired up the trustly little blue New Holland, dropped down the rollcage so it would fit in the barn door, and dug out the floor, so convinced was I that years of chemical storage had caused toxic nasties to leach into the dirt floor. Turns out, the barn builders filled the floor with large rocks before filling in the dirt floor, but I dug down to the rocks, then, because I do not have the loader scoop operating skills that my husband has and did not have space to maneuver, I had to use a large grain shovel to scoop the dirt into the tractor bucket, sneezing and trying to only breath through my nose as the dust floated thick in the air. After I had taken out six inches to a foot of dirt, depending how deep the rocks let me go, and dumped it in a pile in a far corner of the year along with past piles of nasties from other projects, I made many trips to the opposite corner of the yard, where a large pile of sandy dirt was dug away from a clogged culvert, and hauled it to the barn to replace the dirt I had taken out. Then I covered it with straw and set up makeshift roosts from sawhorses and a junk scrap of plywood. Then inside to our basement storage room, where I "borrowed" several 2x2 pieces of lumber that moved here with us from colorado and will not be used for a frame to stretch canvas over for a painting, and cut and sawed and drilled and stapled chicken wire, making a "gate" that I can prop in front of the door when it is open, sitting just far enough away from the door jam to allow cats to slide through to gain access to the barn, but too narrow to allow a fat hen to squeeze through.

During all this commotion, dogs running in and out, dust flying, things going thump, bang, and roar, my sitting hen moved out. One moment she was there, clucking quietly to herself in her corner, ruffling her feathers if anyone came too close, and then next, she was gone. Never to be seen or heard from again. Poor gal. I am hoping she just relocated her nest to a safe place outside, but who am I kidding? There is no safe place outside. Neither hawks, coyotes, nor any other predator would pass up a small Silkie quietly minding her own business. A rattlesnake would seek a warm nest under her wings or in her nest while she was out getting a snack and not thing twice about striking back when she went into nest defense mode. Hungry, large stray tomcats would smack their lips over such easy prey as a miniscule, fluffy white hen.

I took a break during all this work to gather up scraps of lumber and chicken wire and build a large box for my baby chicks that has no floor, so it can be moved around the yard allowing them access to such big-chicken activities as scratching and pecking at grass seeds, grasshoppers and bits of gravel. They have discovered their wings. When they get excited, they now go up intsead of running away. Well, they run away, too. But after they land. They are excited adolescents testing their boundaries.

Yesterday, I went out to their run to ready it for them, tossed aside the piece of plywood I had leaning against it for a wind break, looked down, and saw movement. It took me a moment to realize the tightly coiled mass of scales at my feet was a rattlesnake. Even though my heart skipped a beat or two and I caught my breath, I didn't jump, just eased backwards, then, as soon as I was out of his striking distance, sprinted for a bucket full of scrap metal I had left sitting beside the barn, dumped it's contents, ran close enough to plop the bucket upside down on top of the snake and push it deep into the grass so he wouldn't escape, then ran into the barn for the first weapon I could think of- a wire snippers. I looked around for the long-handled plumbing pliers I had been working with so I could grab him, but couldn't find them, but I saw a long splinter of lumber leaning against the wall so I grabbed that. Back to the bucket, hoping he hadn't escaped. Knocked it over and he reared up, so I gave him the scrap of wood to strike at, then, in the moment following the strike while he was still collecting his wits, I pushed it into his body to hold him still while I clamped the wire cutter just behind his head and squeezed, stilling his furious rattling almost immediately. Normally, I would have buried the head so nobody would accidentally step on the fangs, but since it was still partially attached, I just tossed the whole evil mess into the burn barrel. The tip of my wire snippers is covered in snake blood now, and it grosses me out a bit to clean it off. I spent the reat of the day feeling a little crawly when I thought of it, and felt reluctant to walk through any more tall grass. I have a deal with rattlesnakes- if they are far from civilization, they aren't hurting anything except the rodant population, so I leave them alone if they leave me alone. But if they are on my property, in my personal space, I can't be blamed for "retiring" them. And I hope I see them first, because I know they have an identical understanding about humans. The thing is, they are snakes. They lie in wait of movement. They will always see me first. This is why I so greatly appreciate the big ones who warn me of their presence with loud rattles before I am on top of them. This one was smallish, it's rattles buried under it's body and barely audible. That was just bad rattlesnake etiquette. If you carry a payload of deadly venom, you owe it to the rest of the animal kingdom to spread the warning before they step on you and force you to use it.

Finally, the barn was ready. I hung a door between the two rooms, a cat/chicken access hole cut into the bottom of it. I was ready for goats in the south wing...just needed to quickly run over a few spots with a magnet to pick up all the metal junk that a goat might want to eat that would tear a hole in goat gut. I started looking around. Didnt see any trash...but then I stuck the magnet into the dirt and it came away covered in old, rusty nails. I spent an entire day going over the area outside the barn with a magnet on a pole, and every time I stuck it close to the ground, a dozen bits of metal trash stuck to it. In the last several days, I have picked up more bits of glass- window, mirror, soda bottle than I care to remember. More old ear tags and hypodermic needles from years of working cattle in that spot. Hours and hours of digging, picking up, poking the magnet around. Just as a precaution, I took the magnet inside the barn...and realized there was no way I could have goats in there with as much metal trash as was in the dirt floor (the one I had not replaced.) I spent an entire evening and most of the next day raking and searching through the dirt. Finally, I borrowed a neighbor's wheeled bar magnet to run over it, and every time I ran it over the floor, more stuff stuck to it. I finally have it to where I can roll it over the floor and it will come away clean. I hope that I have everything, but who am I kidding? I did get at least twenty lbs of scrap metal out of it. But I fear it is too far gone to be worth anything.

And then the nine lovely girls showed up. I waited until after our anniversary trip, a mountain biking trip to Crested Butte, before letting the neighbor bring them over. As soon as we returned, I hit the ground running with last minute preparations. At last, a pickup and trailer pulled up and they poured out the back and into the corrals, spotting the deep green kochia weeds and not even stopping to chew as they sampled this weed and that one.

The next morning, the neighbor returned to give me a milking demonstration. I have to admit, after years of living dairy free, it is not the easiest transition switching to dairy that I milk myself. I mean, I stopped drinking milk because not only is commercial dairy product laden with hormones, antibiotics, white blood cells, pus, infection, e.coli, and therefore pasteurized beyond all hope of retaining it's natural enzymes, once I thought about it, it seems really unnatural to drink the lactation product of another species. Over the years my occasional ice cream or frozen yogurt treat has always been creamy and delicious, but a little less appealing the more I ponder the fact that this came from a cow boobie. (okay, so the correct term is udder. Or specifically teat. But hey. A boobie is a boobie, no matter how many nerps it possesses. Just because it's not called an udder on a human doesn't mean it isn't the same thing.) But for the first, and possibly only time in my life, now that I have access to hormone-free, antibiotic free, grass fed, organic, raw goat's milk, I am definitely going to try it for all the health benefits touted. But the fact that I physically go out to the barn and squeeze a goat boobie to get it just brings the wrongness so much closer to home. I don't see white liquid as an elixer of life anymore, not for adults and not from another species. We grow out of it for a reason.

All the same, though, the act of milking brings me joy. The goat I chose to milk is perfect for me. She is a small black goat with drooping velvet ears, lovely brown eyes and curving horns that I use to pull her into the barn, her four dainty hooves digging into the dirt until we reach the barn door, at which point she willingly hops over the jam and follows my bucket of oats up onto the milking platform, where she stands muching oats with her head in the stanchion while I make passes at her udder and she flicks me away with her hoof. It is only an obligatory fight, because as soon as I squeeze the first stream of milk out onto the milking platform, where Moto is waiting for it, she settles in, her leg back to give me more room, and soon I am pulling long white streams from her into my bucket, my head and shoulder gently pressed into her warm, soft, shiny pot belly. I coo to her and call her my sweetheart and she flicks her ears back at me occasionally, and sometimes pulls in the stanchion, but all it takes is me reaching up and shaking the bucket to remind her of her oats and soon her head is buried in the bucket again. I find it to be a very tender, therapeutic experience for me. Her gentle, inquisitive nature, her warmth, her soft udder must reawaken some forgotten childhood response in me, because I always feel a bit more calm, a bit more connected to all living things, a bit more nurtured after our milking sessions. I also feel in control, as though through this simple, symbolic act, I have crossed the threshold into a world in which I feed myself and those I love, I rely on nobody, and things that nourish us are of the nurturing earth and therefore, I am of the earth. It is a competely different experience than a florescent-lit supermarket filled with cardboard and plastic holding bits of food from unnamed sources and disembodied fruits of plants I would not recognize. It is the difference between food and nourishment. I don't know if there is anything scientific to the saying that we are what we eat, but I am okay with eating and being nourished by animals who are happy and loved. There seems to be a difference, a vitality to eggs that come from chickens who chase each other around the barn, trying to steal a tasty morsel from each other. Who lay their eggs two feet away from a cat who is stretched out purring and luxuriously sleeping in the hay. Who cackle loudly and proudly about the egg they just laid before running off to go find their next grasshopper. Being vegan was in large part because a diet created by unhappy animals seemed incongruous in a life I wanted to live. But here, sharing life with animals, feeding them, being fed by them, it seems to just happen. We all share the happy. Puppies and kitties and chickens and goats and humans. One big, happy family. This being nourished by happiness stuff, my feeling that food created by happiness is more nurishing at a cellular level than food created in misery, is it all in my head? Maybe. But does that make it less real? I think not.