May 24, 2012 at 7:12 pm (Cut Flowers, Flowers)
Tags: Cut Flowers, farm, Lady's Mantle, Sweet Williams
I planted these guys three years ago: Lady’s Mantle (from one tiny three inch potted plant) and Sweet Williams (from a seed packet). They’ve spread into a massive patch and this is the second year I’ve been able to harvest flowers for the house. Sweet peas are coming in slowly but steadily. I wish I could send everyone a bouquet.
May 24, 2012 at 1:28 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: farm, fiction, finding time to write, non-fiction, writing
A friend of mine, a fellow writer and horse/farm owner, recently asked me how I found time to write articles and books while taking care of a farm. She was looking for ideas to help in her own work/farm/writing quandary and wondered if I had any tips for her. I wasn’t sure what to tell her because I put myself in the same boat. The fact that I can’t finish everything every day in the way that I want is always a source of frustration for me. I know I’m joined in this by a lot of people. My friend, Jennifer, another hobby farmer and photographer, and I admitted once that we looked forward to winter because there was a lot less for us to do.
Now I’m not complaining. I want to say that right off the bat, because owning this beautiful piece of land near Lake Michigan is a dream come true. Being able to stay home and write every day is another dream come true. I love all of my animals, even my mischievous goats, and one day away from my farm is hard to bear. But, there is a LOT to do when you own a farm and there is a LOT to do when you are a writer. So much to do that it can become overwhelming. There is no end. I feel guilty for taking an hour away from writing or weeding or planting to sit on my porch and read or to watch something stupid on TV. I long to jump on the train and go to Chicago to visit the art museum or to ride my bike to the lake and sit there for a few hours. Every day is filled with another task to do, another goal to meet, another weed to pull, another craft to learn that I can write about, another source to interview, another scene to write.
On an average day I wake up anywhere from 6 am to 7 am, feed all the indoor critters and then pull on the wellies and head outside. Chickens are first. I let them out, fill the water drinkers, top up the feed hoppers, lug extra feed out to the coops and gather any early eggs. Then it’s over to the big guys. I feed the horses, feed and cuddle the barn cat, feed the goats, spray the horses with fly spray, walk them out to their pasture, return to the barn to muck stalls and fill water buckets. I open the greenhouse and water the seedlings. Then I head into the house about for coffee and breakfast. Check emails, answer emails from my editors, take a sneaky look at Twitter, quickly scan the news on NPR online. Send out a few emails to writer friends to check in with them and then settle down to work. I write fiction for two hours each morning, six days a week, unless I have a pressing deadline. My riding instructor told me years ago when I became a professional trainer to make sure to ride my own horse first, otherwise I’d be too tired to ride after I’ve ridden everyone else’s horses. So I take that into my writing world too. If I waited to write fiction after being shackled to my computer…well, it just wouldn’t happen. This amount of time may not seem like much, but the word count mounts up with even an hour a day. I suppose that is the best advice I could give anyone who wants to write. Just an hour a day, start there.
After my fiction session I switch to non-fiction and fact check articles, and then either write an article, do some research, conduct interviews or work on a non-fiction book project. Then it’s lunch and then back to work or out to run errands. About 4, I take the dogs for a walk in the woods near my house or go for a bike ride. When I’m walking or riding I mull over plot problems or ideas for scenes. When I come home I make notes or quickly sketch out the scenes I thought of on my walk. I answer any emails and then change into barn clothes, feed the indoor critters, and then back out to feed the chickens, gather eggs, feed the big guys and then do any farm chores, such as water the gardens, weed, check my bees, harvest veg, ride the horses. Then it’s back into the house to make dinner, have dinner, do the dishes, hang out with my husband and niece for a couple of hours and then to bed where I’ll read for an hour, think about my fiction again and make any notes on my iPad before I go to sleep.
The weekend is filled with farm chores, harvesting, cleaning, visiting farmers markets, more writing, hanging out with family/friends, and, yes, even some time out on the porch swing reading.
Those of you who follow my blog might remember there used to be a milk goat in that schedule. As fun as it was, milking one goat took two hours out of my day. The milking bit was fast; the preparation before and after and dealing with the milk took the longest. So I dried my doe off in the winter and found that I didn’t really want to repeat the milking this summer, so I took a break. And that’s fine. In the not-so-distant past I would have forced myself to keep going, but sometimes the wise choice is to let some things go. The goat didn’t mind, I didn’t mind, I have a freezer of goat cheese and goat milk, so it made sense to take a year off of the dairymaid work. That’s another piece of advice: it’s okay to drop a project. You don’t have to do something forever, just because you did it once. That doesn’t make you a quitter.
Each day is a busy day indeed, and of course life prevails and I get sick or fed up, or someone in my family or a friend needs help, or someone is visiting from out of town or galleys come in for a book project that need to be addressed. It’s important to stay flexible and to understand there are only so many hours in the day, and not everything is going to get done perfectly…or at all. As long as everyone is healthy, fed and watered, the house and farm is relatively clean, and my work hasn’t gotten out of control, then I have to call that a successful day. Everything else is a bonus.
My best friend, editor and co-author, Moira Reeve, told me once that she gets what she can done each day, she cracks open a bottle of wine, surveys the damage, and pronounces the job…done? That’s really all we can do.
So that’s my blog written. Phew. On to the next task!
April 12, 2012 at 12:24 pm (Goats, Uncategorized)
Tags: Goats, LaMancha goats
My little LaMancha goats were born one year ago today on my husband’s birthday. Happy Birthday little guys! They were so little then. That’s Barley in the front and Clover in the back.
March 29, 2012 at 1:33 pm (Goats)
Tags: barn, bloat, Goats, laminitis, tack room
My goats, Barley and Clover, are nearly a year now. And they are really, really, really bad. Bad like little boys are. But like Dr. Evil says: I can’t stay mad at you. Look at that punim.
Look at it indeed. This picture was taken after I fed them. I was inside the tack room talking on the phone. That’s Barley standing in the wheelbarrow peering in the window. At one point he even had his nose pressed against the glass.
What I have learned about goats is that they are smart and that they are curious, which gives them a bad rep. Goats will eat everything, is one thing people say. But the truth is they don’t eat everything; they taste everything, usually things above their heads. Most of which they destroy whilst they are tasting it. If they don’t find it to their favor they will spit it out and show their displeasure by tap dancing all over it. Every chef’s nightmare.
There is an evolutionary component to this sampling thing above their heads. Goats evolved to browse lots of different vegetation above the ground instead of grazing on the same old grass like horses and sheep do. So they haven’t developed a resistance to parasites. There is no five-second rule to the goat. If it lands on the dirt, it’s yick. And if it smells weird and tastes weird they won’t eat it. And nothing will convince them otherwise. But I think this tasting of everything is also simply their natural curiosity, and nothing passes them by. They will taste your hair, the buttons on your coat, the laces on your shoes, the barn rake handle, the barn, the barn cat. Visitors are particularly tasty because they usually wearing something they haven’t tried yet, such as those dangly earrings.
The tack room is filled with things any foody goat would want to sample: hay, grain (horse and goat), treats, leather saddles and reins on bridles, barn rakes, barn cat. If only…if only they could get inside. Like an exclusive club that only allows the elite few, the tack room is the place to get into as far as my goats are concerned. They have tried to hop over the Dutch door, jump from the manure cart over the door, and they have fiddled with the latch in many different ways.
They’ve already figured out the hay barn, which is a huge tent thing that zips closed. Barley worked out how to grab the zip and pull it just enough to get his head under and slide in. The other goats follow behind. The first time they did this I found them bleating happily, jumping up and down on the hay bales like the hay barn was some kind of bouncy castle. To their credit they seemed to know they weren’t supposed to be in there. When I unzipped the door two goats stopped what they were doing and slunk out. Barley, of course, had his back turned and kept on frolicking, tra, la, la, until he heard me. If goats could look surprised, he did. Caught with his proverbial hoof in the cookie jar. But once goats work out how to do something they never forget. So I had to clamp the hay barn shut.
So let’s go back to that goat in the tack room window. A few days after I took that photo they breached security. About noon I saw empty feed bags tumbleweeding across the pasture—feed bags that had been folded up INSIDE the tack room, so I knew the door was open. Now, it’s not good for an animal to get into grain bins and overeat. This causes bloat in goats and laminitis and colic in horses. I hightailed it down to the barn expecting to find sick animals all around. I have to apologize for not taking a photo of the tack room for you but I didn’t have my camera with me. I wish you could have seen the damage. It looked like we had been robbed. Feed sacks everywhere, hay bales exploded open, chairs overturned, saddles dumped on the ground. Muddy cloven hoof prints everywhere. The goats had danced all over everything. Thankfully they hadn’t eaten any of the grain, but from the looks of things, they had tried to eat the barn cat. I found poor Holden hiding in the manure shed and his little cubicle bed lying forsaken in a puddle of muddy water in the middle of the paddock. Who knows what wild ride he had been on.
The cause of the breach? The tack room door was wide open so I’m thinking this was a human error. Perhaps it wasn’t latched all the way and the goats were able to slide it open somehow. But we have all vowed to be extra vigilant from now on.
The goats had the manners to look chagrined. But even if they didn’t, really, who could stay mad at them. I mean, look at that punim.
February 28, 2012 at 1:09 pm (Chickens)
Tags: Chicken Breeds, Long Crower, Magabook, Tomaru
My latest magabook, Popular Farming Series: Guide to Chicken Breeds is out! It has 90 plus profiles and color illustrations as well as articles on feathers, anatomy, and breed history. Read all about it here:http://www.hobbyfarms.com/popular-farming-series/chicken-breeds.aspx
I think my favorite breed in the book is the Long Crower. The Long Crower is a very rare bird and it does what it’s name suggests: crows for a long, long time. Up to 25 seconds. Not a bird to have in your coop if neighbors are nearby. Check out the YouTube video:
February 1, 2012 at 9:12 pm (Chickens, Uncategorized)
On Monday I had the privilege of interviewing Dave Mizejewski for my livestock Q and A for Hobby Farms. Dave is a media personality, author, blogger and a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation. You may recognize his name from Backyard Habitat on Animal Plant and from his appearances on NBC’s Today Show, The Martha Stewart Show and Good Morning America. And of course now you’ll know him as a guest source for Hobby Farms!
Dave is one of those people who is utterly passionate about wildlife, and he totally understood that a good many (I’m even thinking maybe ALL) hobby farmers and urban farmers want to have a farm that exists in harmony with the surrounding wildlife. Not only is having an eco-friendly farm good for the planet, but when predators and prey are in balance, they tend to stay away from your own livestock and plants. And many can even help out on the farm. Raptors keep voles and mice out of the barn, bees and other pollinators increase yield, and birds that eat insects keep that pesky population in check. But sometimes a predator can learn that chickens or other farmyard critters are easier to get hold of (and probably even tastier) than a fleet-footed mouse or rabbit. That’s the case with my reader’s question. A hawk had learned to pick off her free range chickens, kill them, and eat them on the spot. Since raptors are protected by federal law, farmers have to learn to work with a predator instead of against them. Dave explained that raptors are very smart, and once one learns to hunt chickens she keeps doing it until she fails a few times. Once she realizes it isn’t worth it, she moves on to other prey. That means my reader might have to keep the hens off the range and indoors for awhile. As Dave said, sometimes the total protection of the flock for a little while is worth it in the end. And for sure, my reader can go back to admiring her resident hawk soaring over her fields dive-bombing field mice. And that’s as it should be.
To read Dave’s entire answer, you’ll have to wait for the May/June issue of Hobby Farms. But in the meantime, if you’re interested in finding the best tractor or all purpose vehicle for your farm, take a look at my article on the subject (my pro source is the AMAZING Cherry Hill–yes, I know how lucky I am to get to interview people like this) in March’s Horse Illustrated, which is out very soon.
In the meantime, look at this great photo on Dave’s blog. This will give you a good idea of his sense of humor. I love the koala’s little hand holding the leaves.
I also want to apologize for the lack of posts on the blog. I had foot surgery just before Christmas and it’s been healing slowly. I thought that would give me more time to write the blog, but turns out it’s hard to be inspired when you’re incarcerated in the house for weeks on end. I couldn’t even walk to the barn to see my animals. My husband finally brought my boy goats, Barley and Clover, up to the house on Christmas Eve so I could see them. They bleated when they saw me. Heart…melt. Yes, indeed.
Anyway, I have lots to share with you in the coming days, so, as they say in the newspaper trade, watch this space!
December 25, 2011 at 11:46 am (Uncategorized)
I found this wonderful video of the children in the ballet school. The pride on the children’s faces is amazing. SAB
December 24, 2011 at 4:39 pm (Horses)
Tags: Ballet, ballet companies, chelsea clinton, dance mistress, New York City Ballet, Nutcracker, ovation channel, sitting trot, york city ballet
Each holiday season I watch a lot of Nutcrackers…I’m kind of a ballet fan, which to me is like human dressage. My niece and I kick off the season by going to see the Nutcracker at the Joffrey in Chicago. I watch the other Nutcrackers on the Ovation channel, performed by many different ballet companies around the world. This year, the New York City Ballet televised their Nutcracker live on PBS. Not only was it fabulous, but Chelsea Clinton took the viewers backstage to see what goes on behind the scenes. There was a short piece about the School of American Ballet, which is the associate school for the New York City Ballet (there are lots of kids on this Balanchine version of the Nutcracker, as it should be). Something the dance mistress said really caught my attention. She said that the children were not allowed to hang on the barre, put their elbows on the barre, yawn, talk amongst themselves, or do anything but dance and listen. She said when she speaks the children stop, look at the teacher and listen. They aren’t allowed to even scratch their arm, because if they do then they can’t hear what she is saying. She went on to explain that this training would give the young dancers discipline and to prepare them for the performance. It also instilled respect for the art of ballet. This may seem an antiquated notion today where discipline is thought of as a punishment, but discipline means to learn, after all.
This whole thing struck me because dressage demands the same discipline and respect. Get away from that and you lose the heart and the craft of horsemanship. My instructor Kass instilled in me the importance of focusing during a lesson, of taking the time to hone the basics, and to perfect my seat. So many people simply want to buy an expensive horse, start doing piaffe and flying changes and skip the other “boring” parts. Not at Kass’s. I went to Texas to train with her for three weeks and I, a professional trainer, was lunged for several hours a day at the sitting trot, and with no stirrups or reins. That time in the saddle paid off. I have a position that I’m proud of, and I’m happy I spent the time perfecting it. And I’m glad to hand my knowledge on to my students.
There is a term in ballet called reverence. Dancers apply this by bowing and curtsying to the teacher and pianist after class. They aren’t doing this to give the teacher a big head. Reverence pays homage to the teacher’s knowledge, which was handed to her by another teacher, which was given to her by another teacher, and so on. In this way the dancers honor the art of ballet. We have our own reverence in dressage where we salute the judge in competition.
I don’t ride as much as I used to but I carry this discipline and respect into other facets of my life, such as in writing or working on the farm. It holds me in good stead and I know having discipline and giving respect will help the young dancers in their lives, no matter what path they choose.
Oh, and you should have seen the children dance! Watch a little here.
December 1, 2011 at 9:59 am (Horses, The Original Horse Bible)
Tags: Animals in the War Memorial, Cavalry, Cleveland Bay, Exmoor, handspring puppets, Jilly Cooper, Nick Stafford, Trakehner, War Horse, World War I
I’m absolutely thrilled that the movie War Horse (based on the play with handspring puppets, which was based on the children’s book by Nick Stafford) is coming out in the theaters this month. And it’s not just because I love a horse movie, but because it makes me happy when the general public discovers how important horses were in our history and the sacrifices they made for mankind.
War Horse takes place during World War I (The Great War) and it would be the last major conflict in which military sources used mounted cavalry. But even so, the horses’ use was restricted due to the wide scale employment of barbed wire strung across the battlefield, not to mention the machine gun, which easily ended any cavalry charge in the most deadly way. Nevertheless, horses and mules were conscripted and used for transport, supplies and moving artillery.
Here is the very sad part. Draft horses, light horses, and mules died in great numbers. Between 1914 and 1918 the US exported nearly a million horses to the war effort in Europe. 6 million equines served in total. Most of them perished on the battlefields. Most of the ones who did make it through were slaughtered in France. Very few made it home.
British author Jilly Cooper, who wrote the scandalous and hysterically funny novel Riders, worked tirelessly to get a war monument to animals installed at Brook Gate, Park Lane, near London’s Hyde Park. She succeeded in 2004, and the the Animals in War Memorial is beautiful. The first inscription on the monument reads:
This monument is dedicated to all the animals
that served and died alongside British and allied forces
in war and campaigns throughout time
The second:
They had no choice
Moira and I wrote about warhorses in The Original Horse Bible, and although we knew about the horses’ fate, it still upset us all the same. Between World War I and II, many breeds neared extinction, such as the Exmoor pony, the Cleveland Bay, and the Trakehner.
I suppose this is why I nearly burst into tears this last weekend when I took my niece and nephews to see the movie Hugo and saw a huge cardboard display advertising War Horse. I was toast when the first trailers came on TV. Only last night my husband caught me welling up. I just can’t help it. When the part where Joey, the star of the movie, is on the battlefield in harness, he turns his head and his little face, his white blaze, is covered in mud. It gets me, it really does. I just want to run out to the barn and bury my face in my horse’s mane. See for yourself:
Show of hands. Who cried?
November 8, 2011 at 12:31 pm (Horses, The Original Horse Bible)
Tags: Courtney King Dye, Equestrian Medical Safety Association, Helmet Safety, Helmets, Riders4Helmets, The Original Horse Bible
I had a little accident recently on my horse. I’m fine, my mare’s fine, but it proved to me, once again, how important helmets are.
My husband and I had just mounted up to go on a little hack around the farm on a nice fall day–no fast work, no road riding, just around the fields and trails. We recently put in power to the barn and dug a trench for the new power line that stretches across the road that leads into the barnyard. It had been backfilled with dirt for several months so we didn’t think much about it. However, it rained the night before our ride and what was previously firm footing was now actually mud. So, as Murphy’s Law would have it, as soon as I mounted up my mare stepped back and both her hind legs slid into that ditch. So down we both came and Tully fell on top of me. Instead of a ride on my horse I got a ride in an ambulance instead.
The point of this whole story is that I’m able to sit here and type this blog because I was wearing my helmet. I hit my head pretty hard on the ground so I have no doubt that if I hadn’t been wearing my helmet it would have been a lot worse. I always think stories like this encourage other people to wear their helmets, otherwise it’s easy to get complacent. You start to justify it: “I’m just going around the field, I’m not cantering or jumping; my horse is steady; I haven’t fallen in years so why do I need a helmet?” I’ve trained horses for nearly 20 years now and three of my worst accidents have been from the standstill. Consider these sobering facts from the Equestrian Medical Safety Association: Most injuries occur during pleasure riding. A fall from two feet can cause permanent brain damage; falling off a horse is equivalent to falling eight feet or more above the ground. A human skull can be shattered by an impact of 7-10 kph. Horses can gallop at 65 kph.
The Center for Disease Control reports that head injuries in equestrian activities is on the rise. In 2007 it reported that between 2001 and 2005, 11.7% of all sports related head injuries were from riding horses. That was the most for any single athletic activity.
A good example of the danger of helmet complacency is what happened to Olympian Courtney King-Dye. Courtney is one of our shining stars in dressage. She was in a hurry one day and rode a horse without a helmet. Her horse tripped, she fell off and sustained a very bad head injury. She was in a coma for a very long time. Courtney’s life is changed forever, her family’s life is changed forever. As a result of Courtney’s injury a movement arose for dressage riders (and other disciplines too) to wear helmets. I will let Courtney tell you in her own words:
Just as Courtney said, we are all a role model for someone. So take a moment to dig out your helmet. You never know whose life you might end up saving. I hope my story of dodging a traumatic brain injury helped influence you too. In honor of Courtney’s bravery in telling her own tale and supporting helmet safety, I’m holding a contest. Send me a picture of you riding in your helmet and I’ll put you in the running to win a signed copy of The Original Horse Bible. Send pics to sharonkbiggs@aol.com. Entries close December 31st.
Here are some great Web sites about helmets and helmet safety:
Equestrian Medical Safety Association www.emsaonline.net
Riders4Helmets www.riders4helmets.com
