Chapter 7: Back Dosling/Guck

We are going to be doing a science experiment around these parts. First, we must formulate a hypothesis. If a goose hatches a duck egg and thinks that the little baby is her gosling, will the bird grow up to be more duck-like because of its nature ... or will it grow up to be more goose-like because of its nurture. 

It reminds me of a favorite book in our house: A Blessing from Above which details the story of a kangaroo that adopts a little blue bird. 

As an adoptive-family, I am constantly amazed by the lessons I witness and could give on nature vs. nature. 

Here's the truth: there are things my son that does not share my DNA does that remind me so much of his birthmother. A movement he makes. A facial expression. A look. 

And then, he'll do something that makes me think: he's definitely a Kitsteiner. 

And now, we will have the opportunity to see how this works with ducks and geese! 

So fun!

Chapter 5: Therapy

Hard labor may be some of the best therapy there is. 

I suppose, in my growing up years, that therapy was my athletics. I can clearly remember struggling with my emotions during my senior year of high school. I asked my English teacher, Mrs. Mackey, to excuse me, and I think, sensing I was struggling, she let me go to my athletic director father's office. (She was a gem by the way)

My wise Dad sent me out for a jog. 

Therapy.

I don't shoot baskets anymore or kill a volleyball to release anxiety and depression. But I can unload the back of a Ford with two tons of chicken feed and feel better. 

Here's what I'm learning ... more and more as I spend extensive time in this rural bit of America ...

We are designed to move. We are designed to work. Both sexes. (Although I really think, boys especially, need work and girls have the ability to find outlets through other things.) I think athletics helps replace that fact, but I truly believe the absence of movement is affecting our children. 

Our boys are turning into me, and they crave responsibility and jobs and purpose. Today, Sidge successfully pulled John's tractor out of a ravine with the side-by-side. What a moment for him!

Truth: our family is dealing with some anxiety/depression right now. One of my sons is battling. I'm battling. A daughter is struggling with some sleep issues related to anxiety. It's awful to feel this beast as a grown-up. But to watch your child face that same beast and be helpless to fix it, is gut-wrenching. 

But as son and I unloaded these bags of feed, you could tell: this movement, the strength required, sweat, heat ... it's good for the soul. It means something. It's ... therapy.

Chapter 3: Finding Treasure in the Weeds

 

This white post sits in the middle of our duck paddock. And if you didn't know any better, you'd probably not question its existence. But I know. We all know. It's marking the spot in the paddock where our one remaining female duck has gone broody with a nest. 

We have one loan remaining female and one loan remaining male duck ... due to a coyote. About a year ago, a coyote decimated our duck paddock. It was, as it always is, terribly sad, and, as is often the case with a coyote, he ate very little of what he killed. He simply went on a rampage, killing and not eating. It's nature's way of course. 

But it's still incredibly disappointing.

When we found the dead ducks, there was a nest of eggs out in the paddock that we had overlooked when collecting eggs. We collected the eggs and incubated them. Seven went into the incubator. Three hatched. And after months of raising them, when their feathers came in, we discovered they were ALL MALES.

Seriously?! Not a single female ... what are the odds.

Kind of good I guess.

When it comes to animals on a farm, males are less-then-desirable. You must have a very low number of them or else fighting and death occurs. If you have too many male ducks, they'll kill each other or their ladies. So we were forced to process those three ducks we raised. 

All year, we've waited to see if our remaining female and her male counterpart could create a new nest. And now, here it is. Each day, we patiently wait to see if any of the eggs will hatch. If the Mama will raise these, it's way easier than us trying to raise them in a brooder. So we are hopeful.

If you closer, right at the base of the white post, you will find the nest. It's nearly impossible to see. She's done such a good job camouflaging it and covering it with her own feathers. Not only is it nearly invisible, but her presence keeps predators away. Normally a duck will run away from us if we enter the paddock. But Mama Duck will not get off that nest. Even if I reach down and pet her, she stays firmly planted to her nest. 

Usually, the Mama is sitting on the nest. But if she isn't, and you weren't paying attention, you could easily step on those eggs. 

So we put in a white post to make sure anyone enters the paddock remembers where the Mama is nesting.

I have learned so much about the nature of life due to living on a farm. So much about death and birth. About adorable little lambs and a violent death where its head is eaten off because it wandered too far away from the herd.

I've watched a bear take down a lamb, moving across an entire pasture in just a few huge pounces. We've seen bobcats and coyotes and raccoons on our game-cams, investigating our animals to see if we left any of our t's uncrossed. 

You see the importance of the herd. The importance of protection. The importance of safety in numbers. The importance of electric fencing.

And after a tragedy, you wait to see if a story of survival can emerge from the ashes ...

And you wait to see if the eggs hatch.

Chapter Two: The Perfect Farm Dog

My very first dog was a Dalmatian named Scrubs. My husband got him for me right after the doctor told us we probably would never have children. He purposefully picked out the most high-energy, high-maintenance, biggest piece-of-work dog he could. 

 

(We would go on to have four children in five years after his arrival. But of course, that's another story entirely and will have to be a different chapter in this book.)

Scrubs moved with us from Eglin AFB in the panhandle of Florida to Turkey to the Azores to Middle TN before finally helping us settle on this farm in Bulls Gap, TN that we have called home since 2015. 

 

In 2016, at nine years old, he decided his work was done, and we burried him at the hairpin -- a tight turn on the back road -- halfway between our house and my in-laws' house. Right smack between the people he most loved.

We knew we had to get another dog. We knew that our six-year-old Sidge, especially, needed another dog, and that the grief would be too intense for him without a new animal to pour into.

We decided that with a farm overrunning with chickens and geese and ducks and sheep, we needed to make sure we had good dogs. They had to be trainable. We couldn't risk having to get rid of a dog because he refused to not dine on peasant. Or lamb chops. I mean what would we do if he had a lamb chop addiction?

 

We researched extensively, and we decided to get an Australian Shepherd. But because they were expensive dogs, especially when purchased from the high-level breeder we were looking at, we decided to get two of them. (That makes sense, doesn't it?) But the two was so that we could breed them and make back some of the money we spent.

 

And that's the story of how Bauernhof Kitsteiner came to be a farm that raised Aussies. And that is how we ended up having Ritter and Arabelle.

 

Ritter is the big Daddy. He's over 60 pounds. A red-merle. And a huge pile of loving fluff. He has very few needs other than belly scratches. And he's yet to meet a person he does not like. While Sidge likes to claim Ritter as his own, he really does belong to all of us.

But Arabelle? Her black-tri-self is my dog. I didn't set out to make her that way. She just chose me. She was born a farm dog. Today, after dropping my daughters off at church camp, I went for a walk/run on the track that circles the hospital my husband works for. Arabelle ran next to me off-leash. She stays in a heel when I tell her, and runs free when I let her. Half a dozen people stopped me to comment on her impeccable behavior as I let her run off-leash next to a busy road and tons of people.

But that's Arabelle. She lives to serve me and to be out with me on our farm. John captured the video of her jumping over one of our electric lines today. She does this often. If I give her the command, she jumps. If I tell her to stay, she will. Her hardest responsibility is when I ask her to leave me. She hates that.

I'd like to pretend that I am a professional trainer, and I simply conquered this dog with my impeccable training techniques, but that would be a mighty large lie. She honestly, nearly completely, trained herself. She often looks at me as if to say: "C'mon human. If you could get your act together, I'd be able to do a whole lot more."

I never dreamed any dog could replace my Scrubby. But Arabelle has nestled herself deep within my heart. I'd like to say I'm a two-dog woman, but as I look around these acres, I know that I will most likely always have a dog by my side. 

They are made for these hills.

Chapter One: Rumination

I've decided that if I don't write it now, I'll never write it.

My book that is. The book that my mind is continually writing and rewriting. I write it as I fall asleep. I write it as a I drive my brood hither and tither. I write as I read other people's writings -- loving a way they captured words and hoping I can do it as eloquently. 

As I move around our farm, my mind writes. It's how my brain has been wired since I was a little girl.

I write words in my head.

And if I am really focusing, I am t-y-p-i-n-g those words. 

It's an out-of-body experience of sorts. My fingers fly around the keyboard, hitting the letters as my brain says the things I want to say. I picture the fingers moving as I let the words flow silently through the recesses of my mind. 

I returned this afternoon from a weekend away -- some time with my childhood friend, Michelle, and her three children and husband. Her oldest was having a birthday, and my Sidge has become his good friend. So we drove the five hours to North Carolina to celebrate with him.

I returned this evening from a weekend away and was swept into the paddock nearly immediately to catch five sheep. 

Catching sheep is a game. It's a chess board. There are moves you can make. And moves you can't. A bad move can put you in checkmate nearly immediately. And if you are really on your game, you might be able to win in just a few choice steps. 

But the chances of success with the "easy choice" is usually poor. Tonight, I knew it. John had an idea using Jacob and Anni and myself out in the open field with only one hard fence to use for "trapping" the sheep. There were some cattle panels available, and he thought we could use those and win the battle.

It's always a delicate dance out in the paddocks ... not wanting to shoot someone else's idea down to quickly. Pretty sure an idea will be successful or trying not to be pessimistic that it's doomed from the beginning. Tonight, I told my husband I thought we'd be better off skipping to plan F. We've done this so many times, I knew what A thru E would be, and I didn't think they would work. 

While we didn't skip immediately to F, we did move there quicker than normal. We spent just a few minutes taking a step at A and B and C before deciding to forego D and E and jump to F. This means taking twenty extra minutes to set up some netting. It's winning the chess game by making thirty extra moves, and your body instinctively wants to find an "easier way" to do it. You want to find the faster way or the easier way. 

But the slower more deliberate choice is often more successful.

That sentence holds so many layers of lessons, I know it would take me more hours than the few minutes I have before bed to unravel them. I am sure while I am in bed minutes from now, my fingers will start flying around my imaginary keyboard, typing thoughts I probably won't be able to recall come morning. 

Returning from my friend's house, I start to second-guess our life, taking my husband on an emotional roller-coaster. This farm. These sheep. Michelle doesn't have these. And her life is simple.

"It's not simple," my JB reminds me. "That was a weekend. It was not reality. Reality is real. And real is not simple. It's messy. It's challenging. It isn't fixed by getting rid of sheep or living in suburbia or quitting the real life you have been chosen."

The slower more deliberate is often more successful. 

Like a sheep, I must go ruminate.