I would do anything for love, but I won't do that

Another glorious day out here on the farm. Of course by "glorious day" I actually mean a new day full of new horrifying things. Monday from hell up in here.
Yesterday was shaping up to be a relatively decent day. We ran out of water over the weekend, so I was looking forward to the water guy coming and being able to take a shower for the first time in days. That's just the kind of life I live now.
I enjoyed my coffee, and went out to check on the critters. I was greeted at the door by Bella, our beloved Pyrenees puppy covered in blood. All over her face, her mouth, her paws, everywhere. Goodbye happy day, hello and good morning day of horror. It's like the prom scene from Carrie, except Carrie is Bella and I'll find out later it ain't pigs blood. At some point maybe I'll stop being entirely horrified and surprised by these types of occurrences. Or maybe if we ever figure out what the hell we're doing the incidents will cease, could go either way.
I steeled myself to find the source, sure that she had impaled herself on something, or been attacked by the yaks. I readied myself for an emergency trip to the vet once I finally found the source of all the bloody mess. Nothing. Not a scratch on her. This happened with Rocky the other day, so I was curious but not entirely alarmed. Figuring maybe she had gotten a rabbit or some other kind of small wild creature.
I do my rounds, check the yaks and the ram, check on the ewes and the lambs. Still no baby for Scout. Then the chickens.
Remember that poor little chicken that had gotten nearly pecked to death by my mean old lady hens? Sunday night I put her in the barn because they kept going after her and I've put a significant amount of time and effort into nursing her back to health. I look in the barn to see how she's doing and ensure her wounds haven't gotten infected. No sign of her. Not unusual as our escaped chickens normally just circle the coop searching for a way back in. I go to the coop. She's still not there. This is when the cold harsh reality fish slaps me right in the face. It crosses my mind that maybe it was her that Bella got. I quickly shove that thought from my head. She's a guardian dog, and she's with chickens all the time, she never goes after them. Shame on me for thinking that.
NO, SHAME ON BELLA!!!! As I'm thinking all of these things about my precious sweet baby Bella, the little bastard comes trotting over with a mostly eaten chicken wing in her mouth. She lays down and starts chomping down on the feathers so nonchalant. I am shocked and horrified. Rocky immediately knows they're in trouble, so he slinks down and starts to whimper. Bella stares at me while I'm yelling at her and wags her tail. She's a psychopath. I take it away and she immediately runs to the spot where she has buried the few remaining parts of the chicken. BELLA HAS EATEN MY WOUNDED BABY CHICKEN. This poor chicken, she just couldn't catch a break, despite my best efforts. By this time I'm a sobbing ball of hysterics, because 1) I don't know what to do 2) I have to pick up chicken pieces 3) I'm sad for the little hen 4)I'm afraid we'll have to get rid of Bella.
I decide to tie Bella up and leave the chicken remnants for Dylan, because I will do anything, except that, or so I think in the moment. Turns out that I will do that. I can't leave her pieces out there, it just doesn't feel right. So I pick up the few remaining pieces of Baby Blue, which is what I named her because she was so sad and small and all the hens were mean to her and because I had to put a blue ointment on her wounds to prevent infection.
Then I get to work on researching what to do with a Pyr puppy that kills and eats chickens. I find lots of info about dogs killing chickens but not eating them. I go further into the google search results. PAGE 4! Honestly I'm not sure I've ever even gone to page 2 before, but I'm desperate for some answers. Finally I find a person out of Saskatchewan who deals specifically with rehabbing and training "failed" LGDs. (LGD = Livestock guardian dog)
I spent nearly two hours on the phone with her finding ways to deal with the situation. Here is a fun fact I learned. LGDs will instinctually kill and eat sick/injured flock members in order to keep predators away from the healthy flock members. Horrifying right? She gives me a lot of insight into Bella's instincts and prey drive. She says I have only one option if I'm willing to give Bella another shot. Put a healthy chicken outside the coop, if her prey drive is what drove the first killing, she will kill this one and I will have to find her a new home without small animals, or children. If it was an aspect of her guard instincts she will not kill this chicken and I will be able to train her not to kill and eat sick and wounded animals.
SO NOW I HAVE A SACRIFICIAL CHICKEN. So far Bella has left her alone, fingers crossed this chicken remains safe. It is incredibly hard for me to align myself with this experiment morally. I'm not sure I'm even doing it correctly, I watch Bella like a hawk. Hoping that if I see her going after the chicken I can prevent another death and still get my answer, but she hasn't even gone near the chicken when I'm around. So I'm unsure whether that's because she is a good dog or if it's because I'm an overbearing chicken & dog mom.
On the positive side of my farm life, my yaks have remained home, no more adventures for them. They've even begun to accept Walske as a member of their herd, which is good in that they don't constantly fight, but bad in that Walske now won't even come near me for oats, let alone let me pet him.

Casual grazing as a little peculiar herd

Calpernia and the babies are doing so great, she will sometimes even let me touch them. Sometimes, is the key word. Most of the time she headbutts me until I'm done giving them their daily checkup. My legs are covered in bruises from my feet to my hips. Glamour everyday.

The two little babies

Getting LIT at the milk bar

My little baby chicks are growing up so fast! One of them is nearly twice the size as all the others, I'm fairly sure she's been sneaking out at night to juice on the side. We call her ChickZilla or Biggie Smallz.  Their little feathers are growing in and I'll admit that I'm a bit sad to see the fluff going away. I've been calling the all girls, but I wont know for several more weeks if they're roosters or hens. Fingers crossed for hens, that are not old lady mean. Some of them have wing feathers that look almost too big for their little bodies which I find endlessly entertaining. Awkward gangly chicks, pure gold.

You may think the black one in the back is nearly as big, she's not. She's actually the smallest, she's standing on her sister

My quest for joy out here has been hard the last couple of weeks, but I catch glimpses of it every now and then. I'm getting there.

Rocky Didn't Even Get Me A Card

It's Mothers Day today, I had planned to be in Prince George visiting my mom, and Dylan's mom but alas, I live in a land of eternal hell so I was unable to go.
Turns out that was for the best because not only have I rattled some important things loose on my car with all the dirt road driving I do now. It has been raining for three days. Not a happy springtime sprinkle, but a brutal massive flooding type rain. Our road is washed out in two spots the creeks near us our totally flooded. People near us have had to go pull their cows and calves out from the creeks and over flowing dugouts on their property.
I mentioned previously how my chickens are mean to each other, they have not improved. I have improvised a short term solution. Part of which involved me building a secondary chicken coop. which needed to be done before my chickens drowned in the rain. I planned to do it myself because I am an independent lady.
I pride myself on being able to do most things on my own. My mother and grandmother taught me pretty early on how to use tools and I like to consider myself relatively handy. Dylan is a carpenter so since I've been with him he does all the handiwork. Not because I'm incapable, but because I am incapable of doing things that are up to his standards. Fair enough. The chicken coop I figured would be fine for me to do on my own seeing as I was making it out of all the garbage lumber that was discovered beneath the snow on our property. So I got to work.
Task #1 9:00am
Locate the tools I would need.
I could not find the tools I needed so I found a hand saw, a hammer and nails, and that's it. I had also found a drill and screws, but I couldn't get the drill to work and Dylan always tells me not to break his tools, so I was afraid to keep screwing around (pun intended) with it in case I ruined it.
Task #2 9:15am
Gather up the garbage/"material"
This involved me ripping pieces off of a
tree house, pulling things out of dirty mud holes covered in slugs. My life is so glamourous.
Task #3 10:00am
Get to building
Things were far more difficult than I anticipated, if only I had found a drill I knew how to use and some screws. I hammered and nailed until my little arms felt like jello. I sawed materials until I truly believed my back was going to just break off. But I got it finished. It looks like garbage, because it's made from garbage, but it does the job. Keeps the chickens out of the weather, and gives them a place to lay their eggs. I start to walk to the house and I realize that my little legs can barely even move. I'm not sure when I was this physically exhausted before. It's a small coop, three nesting boxes. Its just big enough for me to give the six mean chickens a place to go.
I'm trying to walk back to the house, willing myself to start dinner so it's ready when Dyl gets home, I assume it's about 3:00pm.
I'm sitting down on the porch when Dylan drives up. This means it's actually 7:00pm. WHICH MEANS IT TOOK ME NINE HOURS TO BUILD A TINY COOP OUT OF GARBAGE. He looks concerned because I look exactly as good as I feel, I tell him about my coop. He is a good man, so he says, "I saw it, it looks good." We both know he's lying. I tell him about how tired I am after using the handsaw to cut all the material. He is not sympathetic. The worst part about him being with a carpenter is that he does that kind of thing all day every day so when I have to do it one day and whine to him, he hasn't a shred of sympathy to throw my way. We go in the house together where he can see immediately what tools I've used. He's not even through the door and he starts laughing.
"OH MY GOD, RACHEL, I'M SO SORRY. I FEEL SO BAD FOR YOU." He yells through his laughter.
I'm beginning to feel vindicated.
"THAT IS NOT A SAW FOR WOOD! Thats a hack saw, it's meant to cut through small pieces of metal, plastic etc. I used it for pvc pipes. It's barely got any teeth on it. You seriously cut every piece of material with this? HOW?!"
I feel less vindicated, much more embarrassed. But alas, the coop is done and my mean old granny hens have a place to lay their terribly infrequent eggs and stay warm.

They don't use it. They lay their eggs in it, not in the nesting boxes, just on the ground in it. They stayed outside during the apocalypse rain. I worked so hard to build it for them and they'd rather stand outside looking like drowned rats. I thought maybe they didn't like it, so I set up tarps for them to go under to get out of the rain. They didn't like that either. I've now given them four different options to get out of the rain, they choose none of them. They are terribly ungrateful.

Just like Rocky, he's an ungrateful little mutt too. This is the third mothers day that has passed and once again, he has not given me a card. Just a little bit of drool on my pants. He's very generous with his drool. I love him despite this.
Happy Mothers day to my mom, who taught me how to use tools, but apparently left some learning for me to do on my own. Happy Mothers day to all of the incredible women that have shaped me into the hot mess of a farmer I am today. I've been fortunate to have had a village of strong and intelligent women guide and support me through my life.

Teensy Tiny Babies

Calpernias first baby, the easy one

Okay guys. Last night was bonkers.
I had checked Calpernia relatively obsessively for a couple of days. Ultimately I decided that I must have been way off in my lamb predictions and quit checking every couple hours with all the gear I may need for lambing. So last night around five I went out to chase a circling hawk away from my chickens. On my way in I figured I'd stop at the lambing pens and check my girls. THERE WAS A BABY. I was immediately relieved that lambing had gone well and stayed to make sure she got up to nurse. Then the second one started, the relief left me rapidly, I did not have my gloves, my bottle of colostrum in case she wouldn't let them nurse, I HAD NOTHING and Dylan wasn't home. At first I thought I could see the baby's nose. That was alarming, sheep are supposed to come out front feet first, then more of the legs appeared, I relaxed. Then the tail appeared, and I realized her sac hadn't broken I was petrified. I was frantically texting my farm friend during this. He tried to call, my phone froze up, I knew it was bad if he was calling and not just "loling" at my paranoia. I pulled the baby out, she was still in her sac so I had to break it, she had already done a kick when her head was still inside, but she wasn't breathing after I pulled the sac. So I opened her mouth and checked for any sac remnants, then blew on her nose. She started to "baa". Calps quickly got her all cleaned up, but the little baby wasn't getting up to suck. Shawn texts to say, you've got to get her suck, hold mama down if you have to. So hold Calps down I do. Its not an easy task at the best of times to hold a sheep down, let alone with one shaking hand while the other tries desperately to get a lamb to latch on. I was so terrified that the little nugget was going to die on me. Within a few hours everyone had settled in and the babies were happily sucking and doing their little clumsy walk.

The little one with the black ears is the one that I had to help get out, up and going. She's my little miracle baby.

Now if someone had said to me six months ago that this would be a thing that I would do in my life, I would have laughed and named at least one hundred other people more likely to assist in sheep birth than I. I'm a bit squeamish, or I used to be. I don't like to get dirty, and I especially don't like blood. Those and other things are present in significant ways during lambing. I got right up in it. There was blood, poop and who knows what else from my feet up into my hair. 

Though I had done some google research, and thought I would know what to do if things went wrong. In the moment however I forgot everything I thought I knew and was just winging it. Fortunately for all of us it turned out okay but hot damn guys, I'm not sure if my little heart will ever slow down. 

Scout is still awaiting the arrival of her babies. I'm hoping there'll only be one and no one needs assistance. Fingers crossed guys.

By the time yesterday was over I was so exhausted, I felt like I'd been run over by ten trucks. I thought it was solely from the adrenaline of it all. Now I think it may also be from Calpernia's endless attempts to kill me while I tried to get her baby on her. 

This little baby will always have a special place in my heart