Pete & Teri’s Next Big Adventure

I'm just back from a week away visiting family in Michigan. Peter, of course, had to stay here to care for our 26 chickens, 9 goats, 1 dog, 1 cat, and innumerable plants. And, oh yeah, do a little paid work too.

I had a great time during my whirlwind trip (from a suburb of Detroit to the Upper Peninsula to the northwestern Lower Peninsula and back to Detroit), but today I got to snuggle chickens (well, only the couple who will let me snuggle them), kiss goat noses, bury my face in cat belly fur, and be kissed by a dog whose little stump of a tail was wagging so hard that his entire body wiggled.

I arrived home last night at around 11 pm (that's 2 am in the time zone that my body had finally adjusted to), ate the delicious dinner that Peter had prepared, and tumbled into bed at midnight. A short while later we were both awakened to the sounds of the cat chasing something and the dog barking madly.

Just as I was contemplating looking to see whether the cat was after a mouse or only a moth (we – and the cat – sleep on a mattress on the floor of our loft; any prey larger than a moth would need to be dealt with), I felt something scurry across my (naked) chest.

It was far lighter than than the cat would have been.

I sat straight up in bed and said, "I think a rat just ran across my chest!"

Peter grabbed a flashlight and shined it toward the sounds of pouncing. It took a minute to figure out what we were seeing: on the floor at the foot of our mattress was an upside down bat.

Anu was pouncing on it and it was making weird little noises. Somehow it was able to right itself and fly away to hang near the ceiling on the other side of the room.

Peter then had to climb the ladder, maneuver the bat into a box, and take it outside to let it go. I got to sit in bed and hold the cat, and watch the whole thing through my haze.

The little guy was pretty cute, and made all sorts of ferocious bat noises at us. I wish one of us would have thought to take a picture, but at that point I think we both only wanted to get back to sleep.

That was definitely a first – we've never had one in the house before. We're guessing he came in through the attic. I'm sure he was just as stunned at finding himself trapped inside of a house as we were at his presence. Anu gets props for being such a good huntress, though we'd really like to keep the bats around and would prefer that she stick to the occasional mouse or rat.

It sure is good to be home.

(No, that's not sarcasm – I love all of the random encounters we get to experience out here!)

Daks and Drama Queen ponder the changes in their relationship*

Daks and I just had a wonderful weekend attending a stock dog training clinic run by Brian Abingdon, a breeder and trainer of prize-winning Border Collies. Daks' exact ancestry is a matter of speculation, but eveyone agrees that he is mostly Red Heeler, also known as Australian Cattle Dog.

This breed is famous for their intelligence, endurance, and ankle-biting – and Daks is no exception. The phrase you'll hear about them most often is "they NEED a job to do." Without a few hours of active outside time every day they turn into fanged tornadoes.

Daks was the only mutt in the class, and I know almost nothing about all this stuff, but everyone was extremely friendly and encouraging, sharing helpful tips and stories, and I'm already looking forward to attending the next clinic in August.

We all pulled up folding chairs with a view of a 70' square arena, and Brian brought each dog/person pair in separately for 10-15 minute sessions of 1-on-1 training with three extremely patient goats. The advanced dogs were quite inspiring to watch, and every moment was absolutely packed with things to learn about how herding dogs work.

Nikabrik getting into
the spirit of it

Despite the relaxed, friendly atmosphere, I was nervous bringing Daks into the arena for his first session. Would he completely ignore me? Nope! Maul a goat? Nope! Stop to poop in the middle of it with everyone watching? Oh yes indeed.

The first task with a complete beginner is to get the dog "hooked in" – ie, get him interested in playing with the stock and activate his herding (really hunting) instinct.

Unfortunately, Daks has had a year and a half of us chiding him for chasing goats, so he was a bit inhibited, but with encouragement you could see the instinct kick in as he began to race around, nudging goats with his shoulder and moving a reluctant buckling around by the extremely effective method of dropping his head and pushing on his nutsack(!)

Australian Cattle Dog
from the film "Mad Max"

The training method is very different from what I'm used to.  When teaching a dog to sit, or come, or give paw, you can show him what you want him to do and reward him with a treat when he gets it. With the stock dog training, it's their natural inclinations that get them moving, and early training seems to be largely a matter of giving the command for whatever he's already doing (assuming it's something desirable!), eventually building up an association in his mind between the sound and the action.

That may sound like a very slow process, but after a total of less than an hour in the arena, Daks began to understand "go get the goats" and even "bring me the goats." The whole way of working with the dog was wonderfully intuitive and made it seem as if he was starting to read my mind. I would recommend this training (and this trainer) to anyone with a herding dog – even if you don't have livestock and just want to learn how to work with their particular traits.

Obligatory cute photo of Koko!

One caveat: I was repeatedly warned that once these dogs have the instinct activated, small animals like chickens are at greater risk of becoming dog snacks. Daks is so far fine, still gentle and protective with the chickens, but we'll be keeping a closer eye on him for a while…

* This is actually an old photo I recycled for this post, but it seemed very fitting; Drama Queen is a tough girl and Daks is still very reluctant to try anything on her.

Wild strawberries have been fruiting for some time now, and here comes the first big domesticated one:

We're growing red Brandywine tomatoes again this year since we've had such good luck with them in the past. They are indeterminate* plants, which means that they have a vine-like growth habit and appreciate a good trellis or stake. Tired of messing with stakes and strings, I'm trying to weave these through a cattle panel for support:

These Pontiac Red potatoes are about five weeks old, and we've just put up a chicken-wire fence to help contain the mound we'll be building up over them:

Turnips, turnips, so delicious and easy to grow in our climate:

The cold frame is still booming and hasn't been covered in a month or more. The tall plant is an overwintered celery. The kale, turnips, and beets were started around January.

Tiny, tiny little apples are forming by the millions:

Tobacco took forever to sprout, then was very slow for a few weeks, but now it's exploding, and I think I'm going to have to give a bunch of starts away or just toss some in unworked soil and see what happens

Cabbages are loving the long, gentle transition from winter to summer:

No idea what this one is…it's in a patch that I occasionally hurl some cheap, outdated flower seeds into and otherwise leave alone:

* Another important feature of indeterminate tomato plants is that they bear fruit over a long period of time rather than all at once. Many people who do canning prefer determinate plants, which bear most of their fruit in one flush, but we find it easier to can frequent smaller batches.

I found out earlier today that on the evening of February 13 of this year, a bomb went off in my beloved German Bakery in Koregaon Park, Pune, India. A quick google search found reports of 17 people dead, and more than 50 people injured. The place was a home away from home for visiting foreigners, and a popular meeting place. I've spent a lot of time in there, drinking chai and conversing with friends and strangers alike.

My head reels, and my heart hurts, at this news.

(The photo is from my last visit to Pune, in December of 2005.)

Aberdeen has built-in pacifiers – yes, her kids both suck on her wattles when they aren't nursing. Her wattles are almost always wet.

And these tiny vultures (AKA four-week-old chicks) will soon be on their own in this big, bad world. Mama Leo is getting ready to stop mothering, probably within the next week. How do we know? The biggest tell-tale sign is that she is once again letting at least one rooster (or roosters?) mount her. She'll likely start laying again any day now, and stop mothering her babes a few days after that. This is our second batch of chicks hatched this year (out of three, so far).

Shy Girl Leo's two-week-old chicks take their first steps outdoors:

Aberdeen's babies at two days old and already bouncy: