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Especially if your cattle are seized with some kind of preternatural bovine wanderlust and you get a knock on the door from the Sheriff’s department at 6:15AM asking if you own a small brown cow who, right at that exact moment, was wandering along the road in front of the north pasture. And people wonder why I’m trying to put in new cattle fence as quickly as possible.

Here’s something for your urban to rural transition - horse fence, even an electric one, might not keep an adventurous Highland calf from sneaking in and out of the pasture at will. At first it was alarming when we saw cattle on the wrong side of the fence. Then, it became routine. Then, it was alarming again when I realized how often it was occuring and how powerless I was to stop it. This is not the “cycle of life” I signed up for.

Moving to the country often entails the same sort of fantasy images as when people think about having children. Adults and kids, running through the grass in slow motion holding hands. Teaching children to ride a pony and collect eggs. The barn raising  sequence from Witness. Kelly McGillis naked in Witness. The reality, of course, involves a lot more scraping of poop off shoes, raccoons trying to eat your chickens, and thousands of dollars in new fencing. In my case, that was at least an *expected* reality. It doesn’t make it any easier when all you can do for the Sheriff is shrug and point to the new line of fenceposts and say, “I’m trying as fast as I can.”

Luckily, the Sheriff was nice. She had horses. Cath might not be as understanding. She would prefer not to keep an ever constant vigil for escaping cattle. She would also prefer that I not think about Kelly McGillis in Witness. In fact, I am forbidden from ever mentioning the word “Amish”. Ha! She’s on vacation this week and probably won’t read this any time soon, so Amish, Amish, Amish. Of course, I’m forbidden from saying this word mostly because we’re so ashamed at our fences compared to theirs.

It took most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons, but I finally cleared the side yard of waste wood. Everything that is too small for firewood got stacked into a pile in the west pasture for burning next weekend. All the bark, scrap lumber, and a few lucky black walnuts got burned in the firepit near the old apple trees. It was quite a roaring conflagration for awhile. Old pine pallets burn hot and fast. Of note, I tried to burn the tree waste in the west pasture first, but the “InstaStart” fire brick didn’t quite live up to its name. The paper wrapper burned out without ever catching the flammabale brick. Result? No fire. By the time I’d figured it out, I had my hands full with the one in the fire pit. I say, “in the fire pit” as a sort of etomological shorthand for “in/around/near/above” the firepit. I had a lot of junk there.  The fire got so hot it split some of the sedimentary rocks lining the pit (Note to self: find more granitic rocks).  I also had some small creeping grass fires in the dead grass near the firepit. This, despite some rain Saturday afternoon and being early in the season (Note to self: get a longer garden hose.).

Between children’s sporting events, setting things on fire (inadvertently, or not) and starting back in with my jogging, I was booked all weekend. This turned out fine, since GenCon Event Reg was totally overloaded (Note to self: try to act surprised at this). Again. I am already the the King of Generic game tickets, but this year I wanted to get just one actual event slot. Nope. Given the insane overlap between gaming geek (even pen and paper RPGs) and computer  geek, you’d think that they’d have a handle on this sort of thing by now. Not so much. Which is a shame…

because with gas over $3.50/gallon, construction at the convention center and an overall bad economy, they are going to need every last thing they can to get people to show up and spend money this August. For a long time the clueless economists kept saying that “it appears that the economy is going to be able to stand up to $100/barrel oil prices”. For some reason, it never occured to them that the symptoms might take a few months to manifest themselves. This point was brought home to me at Tractor Supply Company the other day when I looked at the prices on their new 3 point hitch compatible equipment. Between increased energy costs and rising demand from China/India, steel prices have shot up in the last year or so. Prices on TSC’s disc harrows went from about $500-$550 to $660. Ouch. I should save money in dollars why? I need to get some Euros or something.

In any case, watch this space for details on how to order your Blue Line Farm Thanksgiving Turkey. Our prices have gone up, too, but less as a result of China and India’s developing economies than the fact that I grossly underpriced them last year. Kudos to those of you who got one on the cheap!

I got back from the butcher last night with 9 frozen birds for the deep freeze. I’ll be cooking one up Thursday in the slow cooker. Given the time of year, the rest may be destined for the grill. Mmmm…tasty meat. Our motto.

Cath and I were joking about a possible summer camp for kids at BLF, wherein we teach kids about the Cycle of Life and then hand them a shovel, “Here ya go, kid.” If you don’t think the idea of having city kids shovel manure out of a stall while listening to “Cycle of Life” from the Lion King is hilarious, have another glass of wine. Personally, I just want to produce the complimentary DVD of the kids’ week at camp for all the Yuppie parents, but I digress…

In essence though, this is how sustainable farming works. Plants grow, animals poop, humans manage. We move the poop from one place to another. We keep out the bad plants. We make sure that there aren’t 13 roosters to only 26 hens. (For which, the hens are eternally grateful).  With good management, you get sustainable agriculture. With bad management, you can screw things up pretty good. This (also, in essence) is what we are learning to do as part of our big Urban to Rural transition.

Last year, I put the bale feeder right below the barn hay door. This arrangement worked nicely when I was tossing 2-3 squares a day to the cattle. At the end of the winter, I had about 6-18 inches of manure laden hay piled up around the feeder. I used the tractor to move it over to the garden plot. This year, I kept the bale feeder out in the north pasture all year. I was using round bales, so it made sense since it’s hard to get the tractor in behind the barn.  I even moved the bale feeder a couple of times so I didn’t get a giant pile of crud in one spot. I didn’t count on the extra wear and tear (and manure) from the 3 horses. I now have a gigantic spot of my north pasture that will probably not produce anything green this year without a big reseeding effort on my part. I might have been better off leaving it in one spot and sacrificing just one spot. Lesson learned.

Remember to send your kids to BLF Summer Camp this summer, too! Cycle of Life manure shoveling! Betting on whether or not today is the day Charlie the Draft Horse is actually dead and not napping! Lots of Rooster Pot Pie (with complimentary sugary drink box)! We’ll have a special class for older kids in “Electric Fence Repair”. Lots of fun for your little ones!

Blossom gave birth to “Van Buren” last Wednesday. VB is a healthy, if leggy, little bull calf. He’s brilliant red like his mother. Being the sentimentalist that I am, I immediately told Cath and the kids not to get too attached to him. We are full up on bulls. Spring is coming soon and with the additional horses and many more cattle, we are going to have a grass shortage. I’ll have to put out hay year round and deal with overgrazing on the grass. That’s a couple of months away, luckily. Until then, I’m happy that the little guy is doing well.

In other news, we just got business cards printed. For free, too, so I won’t complain that I have enough of them to last for 20 years. I could line the coop with them and still have enough. I better get to work and sell some animals. Or at least, try to sell animals in a way that involves handing out business cards.

Daylight savings time starts tomorrow morning. Don’t tell the hens though. They’ve already started laying again. We’re already swamped with eggs. And roosters. I’m taking 6 of them to the butcher ASAP. 9 is too many. Some of them are downright beautiful birds, but I only need 3 or 4 tops. The pecking order is getting goofy already. I may even take a few hens, just to cull the White Chantecleurs and the Hamburg. I’m out of room in the coop and I’ve got turkeys coming in a month or so.

Finally, let me thank everyone who’s reading this blog right now. Our page views have grown every month since I started. It looks like lots of people are interested in chicken coops, so we’ll develop that area of the site a bit more in the next month or two. After that, I’ll sculpt a miniature Arc d’Triumph out of mashed potatoes and learn to juggle. I’m swamped at work (note the large gap between this post and the last) and with Spring coming up, it’s time to get back to work on all those farm projects that require decent weather and dry ground.

In the meantime, we’re (that’d be the royal we as in me, Cath rolls her eyes every time I mention “farm” and “money”) ironing out a business plan and working on more static content for the site.  Remember, we’re doing this Urban to Rural transition so you don’t have to. Wait. No. So that you can do it smoother…right.

I was going to write a big “think piece” about the last year (well, 18 months) since we’ve moved here. However, I’m so insanely busy that I only have time for the bullet point version. I’ve always said that “Wherever you go, there you are.” Of course, I didn’t always say that. I’ve only said it since I heard it in the cult classic “Buckaroo Banzai”. In any case, I have gone to Michigan and here I am with all the same faults and features I had elsewhere. Thus, I am totally swamped with programming for work, a house that needs attention, important duties left undone and a taxed, but understanding wife.

Such then is the situation from which I bring you a quickie list in review:

Swamped with work (at work) Ben misses most of the Spring planting season. Cath’s garden is saved from oblivion by our neighbor Tom and his tractor attached rototiller.

Uptown is born. The Great White Calf. Huge, beautiful and sadly, unregistered. She’s a bovine Cinderella, she is. Miraculously, both Blossom and Yaro gave birth totally unassisted. This is one of the reasons I started with Highlands, but I am eternally grateful nonetheless. For one thing, I don’t have any really long rubber gloves.

I purchase my first tractor implement - a brush hog. Well, it’s technically a “rotary cutter”, but that’s like saying you bought “facial tissue” instead of Kleenex. Last week, I bought my second implement - a clamp on bucket bale spear. After almost tipping the tractor twice with a 6-700 lb bale on the end of it, I am lucky I still had the brush hog attached to the back to act as a counterweight!

I book my first “farm revenue” by selling a batch of roasters to our friend Essie. Luckily, she does the butchering.

August and September bring our first cattle shows. I am pretty inept, but they’re good animals, so it goes well. Our kids love it.

By Thanksgiving I’m almost caught up with splitting firewood. Thank you global warming. We trek over to Chicago with a load of frozen turkeys wedged into the trunk of Cath’s Honda. No one wants the gigantic 33 lb Toms, but I luck out and sell them to work for the Holiday party. More farm income. It almost covers the cost of feeding the turkeys and driving to Chicago.

By Christmas I wonder if I have enough wood to last the winter, but I’m way ahead of last year.

Horses arrive just after Thanksgiving. A real mixed blessing. I’m losing my shirt, but it’s been a decent experience so far. Rent-to-own, as it were. That reminds me, I have to go order some more hay.

I get a Log Jack for Christmas and don’t even know what it is. After having it explained to me, I decide that is my absolute favorite Christmas gift in recent memory.

That’s the bullet point version. No big psychic insights or anything. Watching the real estate market finally crater unmistakably, I’m glad we sold when we did. I see a recession coming and I don’t see gas getting any cheaper. Wheat is over $10 a bushel and Congress just passed an inane spending bill with even more corn ethanol subsidies. All of which reaffirms (I think) my decision to get back to the land. Have a wonderful New Year’s!