Broken Bones & Broken Fences

Here's the thing about having critters, it's the worst. The actual worst. I love them, they hate me. I feed them, they break my ribs. They're bastards the lot of them. After the first days of chaos having Jo home we thought we had it sorted. The yaks were in one area, the cows in another. It seemed to be working and we thought things would settle. Why do we always think things will be okay? They never are. Dylan arrived home one night to the three adult yaks and JoJo in the wrong side of the barn. The human side. Eating the hay we have all stacked up for winter. Bridget, Brisket, Walske and baby Jack were still in the pastures. They are our only good animals, though I'm sure Jack would have also left had he been tall enough to get over the fence shards. The yaks or JoJo had broken the fence, it is unclear who and they will not cave to my interrogations.  Dylan and I had the brilliant idea of blocking them in the barn with our trucks and then just opening the animal side so they could go back within the fences that were still standing. HILARIOUS. We always come up with these plans, in our heads they go smoothly and in real life they are a hot mess of chaos and frustration. Of course as soon as I got near the barn with the truck they scattered. Don't worry guys, I had another brilliant idea. Lead them with oats. How many times do you think it'll take me failing in my oat bribes before I fully and entirely comprehend that they can only be lead with oats when they feel like following? The oat thing didn't work (likely entirely unsurprisingly to you all, though somehow a bit surprising to me at the time). The yaks took off toward the driveway. I carried my bucket of oats, apparently I still had some hope that they'd change their minds and suddenly want the oats. They didn't. Fairly quickly I realized I had gotten myself in a bit of a pickle. Cameron stood in front of me, Mary and Elizabeth to my left and right side, and my tied up bastard dogs behind me. Dylan was down blocking the driveway. I stood there for a moment knowing I didn't really have a direction to go. Towards the dogs and we'd likely have a dog vs yak battle. The dogs would lose. To either side, a me vs. yak battle. I would lose. Forward, same thing. Normally with yaks you carry a large stick, because for some reason they're less likely to attack if you've got a stick, but if you're complete shithouse at being a rancher like I am, all you have is a bucket of oats. I held the bucket out to Cameron he stared at me. Then he lowered his head and I knew he was coming at me. He did. I moved out of the way mostly, so he just clipped me with his horn. It knocked the wind out of me instantly. Fortunately he only came at me the once, then he backed up. Dylan had heard my one or two swears and came up. He had a pitchfork. Somehow we managed to get back behind the yaks and guide them back towards the gate. I spent some time chasing baby Jack around in hopes that he'd start to do his little yell for mom and get them all rushing back. It only kind of worked. Jo and Elizabeth just casually strolled to the broken fence and went back in. I opened the gate and eventually Mary and Cameron sauntered back in as well.
Dylan and I were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. It was all good until the adrenaline wore off and I realized that I was in an exceptional amount of pain. For a day or two I just waited hoping it would get better, eventually I went in to see a doctor. Broken ribs. Endless joy. So now I'm essentially a useless garbage pile. I can't do any of the farm things that need doing. All of this for some entirely ungrateful little jerks?!
Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug. I was the bug this time.
I spent a couple of days being pretty bitter towards the yaks but I have begun to forgive them. Though they are entirely rude, I do have to respect them for being tremendously powerful and majestic animals. They're just animals, just doing their animal thing. I suppose getting an ass kicking is just to serve as a reminder to me to never ever forget that they are more wild than tame and much much larger than I am.  Hopefully I will never again try to boss them around without the proper tools.

"Look at me, I am the captain now"

Things have settled down now though, Jo is staying within the fences and getting along with the yaks. We got our first snowfall that stuck so I guess winter is here now. Next month the sheep go back in with Walske and the herd. Cher have mercy on our souls.
Somedays we still ask ourselves what the hell we're doing and fantasize about selling it all and going back to living in a city. I don't think we're entirely serious about it though. Depends on the day I suppose. Most days it's 70% joking, somedays it's 70% serious.

Some mornings the farm looks so peaceful and lovely when I wake up in the morning I can't help but love it. Even though I know there is immeasurable chaos and frustration lurking just beneath the surface. I have experienced nearly every emotion since we started this journey, joy included. Though I have not yet found endless joy in the way I was looking for it. It always seems to come to an abrupt halt the moment I start to think we've got it sorted.

One, Two, Three, Four

As most of you know, surprises are not my thing. I do not like surprises even a little. It is entirely necessary for me to know when things are going to happen so I can efficiently stress over all the minor details and possible scenarios ahead. Since moving to a farm this is especially true. We've found that surprises on the farm are mostly, SURPRISE, the yaks escaped, you have a bottle lamb, your dog at the chickens, theres a cougar/coyote/bear in the vicinity. Today however we got a very different surprise. A yak baby. 

 Dylan and I were really fortunate to have spent the weekend remembering why we bought this land in the first place. Since moving in at the end of March it's been a steady stream of stress and things going wrong. Things were getting pretty tense out here. Dylan was able to get the weekend off work and we spent some time exploring our property, something that we hadn't yet done with the exception of looking for yaks. Turns out 160 acres is a lot. It's so much more land than we know what to do with. While we were out there though we came across a few spaces that we'll keep in mind as possible build sites. It was really nice to have a couple of days to just enjoy the things we've been working so hard for/on. The stress over animals lambing and calving is done, the lambs are here and healthy. Little Nugget is doing super well, growing like a weed and being a huge pain in the ass. Calpernia's lambs are rambunctious and fat very healthy little ladies. Everyone is out in a pasture which is nice for me because I don't have to feed and water them a bunch of times a day, they can handle that on their own. Dylan fixed our kitchen sink last night so we finally have a functioning sink which feels like a luxury after so long. We enjoyed a nice little fire and Sunday night and despite the number of times we've regretted this move we were happy.

Our little Sunday night fire

On Friday our highland cows arrived. Two beautiful heifers and a little perfect steer calf. I always said that hell would freeze over before we got cows, but hell ain't frozen and we've got three Hairy Coos. We first saw Highland Cows in Scotland a few years ago, and even I had to admit, they were pretty damn cool looking. So now we have some of our very own. They are even relatively tame, I may be able to pet them at some point!

Meet Bridget (Ginger), Brisket (Calf) & Jo-Jo (Black w/ Bieber haircut)

Last night we wen't to bed thinking that all of our animals had either been delivered or been born and we would have no new additions until next years batch of lambs & calves. SURPRISE! NOW WE HAVE FOUR YAKS. Last night before we went to bed the yaks and Walske were in the back part of the pasture, not terribly unusual as it's thickly treed back there and makes a nice retreat from our billion degree days. This morning, they still weren't up at the front. Clearly I'm still dealing with yak panic after their last escape because not seeing them at night or in the morning sends me into an immediate panic. Out I went as fast as my little legs would carry me to circle the pasture and ensure they were still home. As I rounded the corner a tiny black and white spotted thing ran into the trees. More panic. My initial thought was that one of our lambs had gotten out of their pasture and into the yak pasture. As I was thinking about how I would possibly get the little one out I realized that there was no way I had an escaped and lost lamb and an entirely calm Calpernia. It was then that it came out again and I realized that in fact we had a yak calf. I think I've mentioned this before but yaks are more time costly than cattle to breed, they don't typically come of breeding age until they are nearly three years old, very rarely will they come into season at two years old. They only breed once a year, and being as our girls are just two years old we anticipated breeding them next year and getting calves in the spring of 2019. They don't breed the year after they've calved so you typically end up with one calf every two years after they've hit three years old. This is a significant bonus for us. Now we either have a yak bull that we can raise with our cattle and breed HighYaks for meat, or we can band a bull calf and raise it for meat. If it's a girl, we have a third female yak to use as breeding stock for our lovely bull Cameron. Either way we're happy little farmers today. I of course can't get close to it at all so the sex is still a mystery. Mama Mary (C20-2) is terribly protective which although painful for me because I just want to snuggle it, is a good thing.

Mary and her new baby (also Walske)

Every day is an adventure y'all. Someday we'll look back on our first year of farming and we'll hopefully laugh. So far every day is a new surprise good bad or lovely, we take it one day at a time.