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I’m posting a picture of Thorndale, our new bull calf, so that his cuteness factor makes up for what I am about to tell you: shoveling wheelbarrows full of manure is hard work. So hard, in fact, that I think that buying at $1 for a 50 lb bag at Home Depot sounds like a much better alternative than moving it from pasture to garden. (Those born to country life feel free to throw brickbats in your comments!). I was doing the wheelbarrow thing this afternoon. I figured I’d salvage a bit of the good stuff before I ran a drag harrow over the north pasture one last time before the weather really changed in earnest. Next time I’ll just pasture the cows closer to where I want the garden.

Speaking of weather changes, I’ve been battling my wood furnace for about a week now. So far I have a 3 month late contractor, 1 broken feed line, 1 broken relay, a possible broken pump, a forced air blower that will not shut off and may still be burning propane (and wood), and a hot water heater feed line that does not seem to be working. Ugh. Maybe I should shovel more shit. At least then I could make progress.

Knowledge comes slowly – and by doing. I’ll probably have to get the Hardy Furnace rep out here. The contractor has pretty much done what they said they would (including fixing the feed line), but the other ghosts in the machine are my problem. I could just order the parts and do it myself, but I think I want a pro from dover to tell me why my my central air is on all the time. I can handle a relay and possibly even an inline pump, but the thermostats may need to be recalibrated.

I’ll say this again: knowledge comes slowly and by doing. This is why I didn’t wait until I retired to try my hand at farming – or am I rancher, since I have cattle but no crops? – I digress. We’re doing this now so we can learn all the warts, bumps and pitfalls now. You don’t just grow veggies by sticking seeds in the ground. Ask Cath about our pumpkin pie experience. It turns out that one is not supposed to use a Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin for pie. You’re supposed to use a small pumpkin. Ummm…who knew? Again, those of you born to this life, feel free. City dwellers…now you know.

When you live somewhere long enough all the little tricks become obvious. I used to live right off I-94 in Chicago. My exit was the first one after I-90 and I-94 came together. If you were coming in from O’Hare, you knew to stay right on 90 and then dart through 4 lanes of traffic right after the merge so you could hit the off ramp. You also knew not to try and drive Montrose Ave. on Cinco de Mayo. Or on Saturdays after 11AM. These things take time.

In any case, Thorndale is doing fine. Our 19 year old was home from college and fell in love with him. She can’t stand the whole “country thing”, would never consider living anywhere but Chicago, and would rather die than live without cable television. Yet, there she was standing and watching him for 20 minutes before I wandered over. Good thing she didn’t see him frolicking about later in the day. She might have understood.

The longest week in recent memory ended Sunday. It started around 3:30PM last Sunday when I realized that Thorndale was not inside the fence anywhere. After 5 hours searching the brush and brambles with flashlights (and more help from pro Valerie White) Cath found Thorny in some (of course) thorn bushes on about 50 yards from the hole in the fence he escaped from.

It continued on Monday when it sleeted all afternoon while I was trying to repair the hole in the fence instead of working. Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday I worked late at my paying gig because the other estimator was on vacation for the start of deer season.

Friday I drove over to Chicago for the first time in 6 months. I dropped the Benz off in Bristol (near Aurora) for service. I got a loaner and drove downtown to meet my good friend Ben Levine for lunch. Then, I drove out to Mt. Prospect to stop in at Games Plus. After trading anecdotes with Rett Kipp, Director of Marketing for FanPro Publications and sometime Games Plus employee, I headed back down to Bristol, swapped cars, and drove back up to Schaumburg to check in for the Chicago Toy and Game Fair. After that, I drove back into the city for a quick game of Mutants and Masterminds and some Guitar Hero before crashing on a friend’s futon.

Saturday, I worked our booth at the fair from 7AM to 7PM, had dinner at Pappadeux (best cajun food in the NW suburbs) and then headed home in the dark and rain. I dragged all day Sunday. We got 56 bales of hay in at 9:30 and I went back to bed until 2PM. Then, I wandered over to the 44 acres for sale on 110th Ave. to check them out. Looks like good farm or subdivision land – but I didn’t get it at the auction on Monday.

Finally, I dropped off Kona and one of the turkeys at the butcher early Monday. I picked them up that night and my parents were shocked at the 21lb weight of the turkey. The kids thought it was great that the much feared Kona the Rooster was sitting in the freezer. That’s one way to deal with childhood fears I guess.

We’ll be enjoying our big turkey for Thanksgiving and doing some much needed work around the house. I started the wood furnace on Sunday and never did get any hot water from it, so it looks like I need to play with it on Thursday. I got more propane last week and have to say that wood has to be much cheaper.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Blossom gave birth to a healthy dun-colored bull calf early Saturday morning. It must have been something like a Hollywood western, with lightning flashing and the cow giving birth in the driving rain. I wouldn’t know though. I just know I went out to feed the cows at 7:00AM and there were four of them in stead of the usual three. I’m Mr. Cattle, aren’t I? I figured I had another couple of days to repair the bottoms of fences, clear out a stall in the barn (in case it got too cold), and otherwise get ready for the impending arrival. Not so much.

Of course, my first call was to expert cattlepersons Fred and Valerie White of Fieldstone Farm, who I’ve been leaning on for advice and assistance since I bought our cows from them. They came over shortly afterwards and gave the little guy a clean bill of health (and cleaned him up). I, of course, was nowhere to be found, having made a commitment to be somewhere with my Mom at 9AM that I simply could not get out of. Cath gave me the blow by blow, so I’m sure she’ll be able to help me next June when Yarro gives birth.

Of course, the temperature dropped like stone throughout the day and bottomed out around 28 degrees overnight, which made me worry (needlessly as it turned out) that I should have brought mother and calf into the barn for the night. With the morning feeding came the sight of champion nurser Thorndale feeding from Blossom, so “all signs point to yes” according to the Magic 8 Ball. I think this means that the calf will be healthy. We’ll have pictures of this very cute little guy as soon as we can. First, I have to finish this post and then figure out how to (literally) mend the fences.

For those of you interested, his full name is Blue Line Farm Thorndale, or “Thorny” for short. The way registered Highlands (and most all cattle, I suppose) are named is the name of the farm first, followed by the given name. Its like Chinese names – the first name is actually last. Since 2006 is a “T” year for ear tattoos, we wanted a name that started with T so we could keep things in sync. Some farms do themes like flowers or spices. We decided to do “El” stops. The only El stops that start with T are Thorndale and Thirty-fifth/Cermak. We thought the latter a bit unwieldy and even harder to explain, so we went with Thorndale. Next year is “U” for ear tattoos, which means we’re hosed. There are no El stops that start with U. Maybe Yarro’s calf will be “Union Station”. It’s not an El stop, so maybe we’ll have to allow Metra stops in a pinch.
Now for some administrative business: I am behind the 8 ball at paying work, volunteer work, and home projects, so I’m going to only post once a week through the end of the month so I can try to catch up on this. Some of you might notice this represents an increase in the pace from the last couple weeks, but its as slow as I dare go intentionally. Have a great week. We’ll be enjoying our new addition!