WWOOFing

At 7 a.m. Monday morning Jessica and I were officially WWOOFers, or people who are part of the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms organization, and when you’re working on a farm everyone calls you a woofer. Bright and early, at least for us, we rode our bikes down the half mile drive from our single-wide to Steve and Mona’s house and the farm. Since it was Monday we were immediately put to work harvesting vegetables for the Gillette CSA. Since it was still somewhat early in the growing season for Wyoming, we were limited to a pound of lettuce, one tomato, a few onions and a handful of snap peas. It took the better part of the morning to pick everything, wash it and package it for the CSA members. Juno, being on lock-down, was tied up and not having a very good time watching the chickens, turkeys and guinea hens run circles around her. When washing and packing was done we broke for lunch and since it was reaching 90 degrees we decided to break for several hours and return to work when it started to cool down. Mona let us take anything we wanted from the garden for our lunch so we loaded up on onions and lettuce.

Back at our trailer we continued to get to know Jake and Carla, we got a little more unpacked and chose the room on the end of the singlewide trailer with an air conditioner. Jessica made a huge salad and we composed a grocery list for Mona when she went into town. Late in the afternoon we went back up to the farm and Mona turned me loose on the chicken house. She wanted me to take the rotting, crooked, falling down, floor-falling-through old farm building and straighten it up, replace the rot, fix the floor and the roof and turn it into a chicken house. The building was also full of old windows, screens and other miscellaneous junk and old animal poop from years gone-by. I surveyed the building, over and over, started jacking it up to try and level out the base a little and it was starting to come apart. I tried to nail it back together where I could but so much of it was rotting that not much was holding. Jessica and I emptied the old building, Steve came down with his bucket loader and we threw a chain around a metal tie-rod holding the building together and Steve fired up the rusty yellow beast and made the old building creek and groan till it was true and plumb again. There might be hope for the old building if we could get a foundation under it I thought.

After talking to Steve about his thoughts for a foundation Tuesday morning I decided it was time to convince Steve and Mona that we’d be better off, and much safer, dismantling the old building and recycling the old lumber and starting over. A little grumbling and back-and-forth conversation and they had turned the corner. The old building was to come down, the nails pulled, the lumber sorted and we’d start from scratch. The building came down with little fanfare, it was a bit frightening at times with the amount of rot and decay in the old building but as the roof came off and the walls came out I gave it a mighty push and the 12’x16’ building fell to the ground. Several days of pulling nails and we were ready to start anew. Among unbuilding and building we spent a lot of time weeding, harvesting, fighting grasshoppers, and doing general farm work over two weeks but Steve came through with his bucket loader, leveled the area and Jake, Carla, Jessica and I had formed a six inch wide foundation for a new 10’x15’ chicken house. Mona brought in 20 bags of concrete for us to mix and make our new foundation with so once our forms were set we started mixing concrete in an old wheel borrow and dumping it into the forms. Now, I’ve never done this before, but I’ve seen it done, so that made me the expert on all of this (I’ve really just done the pretty stuff once a house is up and put together but since I was in charge I needed to look and sound like I knew what I was doing). We got nearly all of the foundation mixed and poured when we ran out of concrete, about three bags short, and the nearest bags of concrete were 60 miles away. I really started to understand why farmers keep three of everything on hand because you never know when you’ll need… that. But concrete wasn’t one of those things you keep on hand… apparently, and we had to stop for the day. Mona was going to town the next day for the CSA and she would pick up the remaining concrete to finish the foundation.

Meanwhile on the farm, we continued to experience hot days and long lunches. One particular hot day and long lunch the four of us thought it would be nice to go up to the bridge in town, about a mile as the river flows, and float down in old tractor inner tubes. I had seen some in a corner of the shop and figured there were plenty of them for all of us to float at the same time. I learned then that on the farm you don’t throw anything away because it might be used to fix, patch, repair or be used in some way or another for something else, sometime on the farm. As I dug through the pile of old inner tubes, trying to fill all of them with air and only one of the dozen or more there holding air that at best we could float as couples if I could get a patch on the most promising tube. I pulled the patch kit out of my bike bag and patched a second tube as best I could. Two of us would be in business. I told Jake, Carla and Jessica of the problem but assured them we could all go, just not at the same time, and we agreed to go in pairs of two. Jessica and I would go first. We quickly changed into our swimsuits, packed a few beers, grabbed Juno’s leash and Jake drove us up to the bridge near town.

We thought it would be an easy entry into the creek, throw the tubes over the guardrail, jump a short barbed wire fence, get on our tubes and start floating. It started out great, we threw our tubes over the guardrail, Juno was ready to go, and as soon as the tubes his the ground a flock of six or so sheep came running from under the bridge. Now, Juno was off her leash (we were out in the middle of no where, why not) and no sooner did the sheep run did Juno find a way under the barbed wire fence to go chase the white fleecy animals. When Juno is chasing there is nothing more important that chasing, no amount of yelling, screaming, calling, anything can get her to stop chasing things running. To make matters worse the sheep were in seven-foot high weeds, I had to jump the barbed wire fence, chase Juno down chasing sheep while wearing swim shorts and flip-flops through weeds over my head. I had no idea where she was, where the sheep were, where they were going or what she would do if she caught up to one. I finally found her, on top of one of the sheep, nearly across the creek, and started yelling and screaming at her. She let it go, stumbled back across the creek and ran off into the tall weeds. As the lamb gathered itself, rose to its feet, and finally crossed the creek I could see what looked like blood coming from its hind end and figured I had just bought someone’s lamb. I furiously called for my dog, fought through the weeds, and stumbled back to the bridge where Jessica was waiting for our fun float down the creek. From her vantage point Jessica hadn’t seen anything. Panting, shaking and itchy as all get-out I got up to Jessica, with no dog in sight, and said we needed to go talk to the people at the closest house. I told Jessica that I thought Juno had gotten one of their sheep and we needed to let them know. All I really knew was that one of their lambs was across the creek and I didn’t think that was a good thing.

In proper creek floating attire I walked up to the nearest farmhouse, knocked on their door and I tried to explain the situation. The lady didn’t seem too concerned, just wondered why one of her lambs would have gone across the creek because apparently they would never, ever, cross the creek. She put her boots on, got on a four-wheeler, and went to look for her lamb. Jessica was still stationed at the bridge, where Jake had let us off, and had Juno by the collar. At least she was done terrorizing some of the local livestock, for the moment it seemed. The lady slowly cruised the small hills across the creek from her small sheep pasture, not seeing the injured lamb, she returned and told us she’d give Mona a call if they found anything amiss. We didn’t feel very good about floating the creek at this point but we were now stranded, with just a few Keystone Lights and one good inner tube and one slowly leaking inner tube from a shoddy patch job and a ‘vicious’ dog to get us back to Mitzel Farm. I decided the best way to get Juno to follow us was to have Jessica hold on to her, I’d float down a ways and Jessica would let her go and she’d come after me. It worked like a charm and Juno was now swimming after me and Jessica was coming in her leaky tube.

Juno had never really swam before, she usually gets in up to her belly and won’t go much further unless thrown in by me. She has some separation anxiety to say the least. The water was no barrier for her to keep close on this trip, she literally swam circles around us. From the bank, circle us a few times, swim back to the bank, shake off, swim back to us. This repeated for the entire trip down the creek, quite a feat for a dog having never swum more than a minute or more at a time. We had a quiet, uneventful float down Clear Creek and arrived back at the farm in just under two hours from when we were dropped at the bridge. I, in turn, shuttled Jake and Carla to the bridge and saw them off for their turn down the creek and when they returned we went back to work. Other than the sheep incident it was a really peaceful, relaxing trip.

The next morning I expected to hear the worst from the neighbors with the lambs. Mona didn’t seem too worried about the ordeal, “These things happen on the farm,” she assured me. Steve wasn’t so positive, “If a farmer sees a dog chasing his animals, he won’t hesitate to shoot them.” Great, now Juno would be shot on sight and from the number of guns in Steve’s gun rack right next to the front door I didn’t dare question him. I’m just glad Juno was able to evade the farmer with the sheep. Well… at this point in our week of farm experience I guess I wasn’t really sure if I was glad she was still alive, she had devoured a guinea hen on day one and less than a week after our arrival she had taken a lamb down in a creek. I suppose I was a little indifferent if she met her match with a .22 while gleefully chasing a domesticated farm animal. The neighbors hadn’t called so we were in the clear at this point anyway.

Our farm work went on as usual, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, harvest in the morning, do something else in the evening, for me that was usually working on the new chicken house unless it rained, and on occasion, rain it did. Being from the northwest we think we’re pretty tough about rain, no one carries an umbrella, we gladly wear our Birkenstocks and socks if rain is in the forecast. In Wyoming, if there are clouds, there’s a high probability of rain and thunder and lightening. And the rain isn’t the northwest mist, it rains, like up to two inches in a hour. I’d like to see the hardcore northwest hippies in their Birks and socks in a Wyoming summer storm. As bad as it may sound, we often hoped for rain so we wouldn’t have to go back to work, the hours were fairly long, the work was physically demanding and when it didn’t rain, which was most of the time, it was hot, even at 9 a.m. and it didn’t really cool down till nearly dark. We had signed up for the adventure so when we went to work we gave it all we had, as best as we knew how, even though we were secretly doing our own little rain dance.

By the end of our second week we had floated the creek twice, seen a real Wyoming rodeo, Juno had killed a guinea hen, severely injured a lamb (the neighbors finally called and were treating it with iodine and penicillin, no need for vets in the Forever West state, Juno had torn up its hind end pretty good but the neighbors were happy we took responsibility for it and told them about the whole thing), we had a foundation poured for the new chicken house and the floor built on the foundation. During the weekend Jessica and I decided we needed a break from the farm and we went into the Bighorn Mountains to camp for a night. We had asked around and the Tongue River was the place to go. We were trying to get the chicken house done so we worked Saturday morning and left for the mountains in the afternoon. It had been a while since we had been in town so we went grocery shopping and wandered in and out of western wear shops in Sheridan (Jessica really wants a pair of cowboy boots now) and finally up to the campground. The campground was little more than a turnaround at the end of the road with an unkempt outhouse and free camping. As usual I made friends with another young couple camping and we spent our night cooking over their campfire, rescuing the ever-falling baby squirrels and playing drinking games till the wee hours of the night.

Sunday morning Jess and I tried to ride the extremely technical trail that lead out of our campsite, which is never a good idea after a late night drinking. The trail was steep, very rocky and very technical. Jessica made it about a mile before calling it quits, she probably walked her bike as much as she rode it and I decided to keep going, being a much stronger rider than she, but I only make it about a mile further than she before I gave into the beast of a trail. We met back up at camp, went for a little hike, I swam across the freezing Tongue River and we headed back to the farm, a little defeated but a little refreshed at the same time.

Our third week at the farm was somewhat unplanned, we had thought we’d stay for only two weeks but I have a really hard time leaving a job unfinished and since we didn’t even have a single wall up on the chicken house we thought it best to stay and at least get it to the point chickens could live in it. Jake and Carla had left for home to visit family and friends so we were on our own to harvest for all of the CSA’s and try and build a chicken house with minimal tools. We normally started at 7 a.m. but that third week I started at 5 a.m. at least once and 6 a.m. several other days to try and get it as done as possible so we could leave by the weekend and get to our next farm in Iowa before they gave up on us. Jessica was a great help and we were almost able to complete the new chicken house and I felt confident in Jake that he could put the finishing touches on it (check out their blog, www.chickenlooper.blogspot.com) and get the chickens roosting and nesting in comfort.

The Thursday before we left Mona had a special treat for us, I had told her that on our trip I wanted to see something born, something slaughtered, I wanted to learn to make bread and I wanted to learn to make cheese. Mona wasn’t big on baking bread or making cheese and all of the calves had been born before we got there so it was time to slaughter a turkey for our last meal on the farm. As we were beginning to put the siding on the chicken house Mona came down to meet us with a rusty hatchet she had ‘just sharpened’, had me put two nails in a board, side-by-side, about an inch apart and had us follow her to the pen where the five turkeys were working to keep the grasshoppers down. Jessica and I gave one another the, “I guess this is it,” look because we didn’t think we would actually slaughter anything. Mona waited outside the pen and ordered us to pick a turkey and bring it over to her. I tried to pass the buck and make Jessica be the one to decide the fate of the birds but she couldn’t do it either. Strangely, it sounds a lot easier to kill your food than it is to actually do it. Jessica said, “I don’t know which one to get.” I pointed at all of them and said, “How about that one?” “Which one?” She replied, pointing to one of them nearest to her. “Yeah, that one.” I reassured her. She squeamishly picked it up by its feet, held it upside down and carried it over to Mona. I could see her eyes welling with tears as the bird took its last look its friends, she sniffled and handed the bird off to Mona who in turn handed her the rusty hatchet. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You’re going to have to do this.” “What?!?” I thought, I just wanted to SEE an animal slaughtered, I didn’t wanted to be the slaughterer. Mona was holding the turkey down in the grass and pressing its little head between the nails I had put in the board, and the only thing to be decided was who was going to chop its head off and I could tell from looking at Jessica she wasn’t going to do it. I took the hatchet, Mona directed me where to strike it, I took its head in one hand and with the other swung the hatchet down on the neck.

I’d like to say that the head came clean off, one strike. That wasn’t so much the case, the first strike severed something, blood started squirting all over my hand, the turkey started flailing violently in Mona’s death grip, I knew I had to get the head off so I struck again, and again, and again, and again, and again, did I mention the hatchet was rusty? After six or so strikes the head was finally off, the turkey was convulsing in Mona’s arms for what seemed like forever, Jessica was looking on like a deer in the headlights and I was wondering if turkey blood would come out of my clothes. When the headless turkey finally gave up Mona took it up to the washhouse where she had a stockpot waiting with hot water to scorch the bird to help the feathers come out. As we stood around plucking feathers I wondered what Juno would think if she were there see the whole ordeal, she’d probably want me to tie the turkey to my neck and run around for a while to see how it feels.

Fourth of July Feast

The morning of the Fourth of July leaving the Big Horn Mountains it was dark and grey and pouring rain, but we were excited to get to our first farm with dreams of fields full of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, beans, melons, cucumbers, corn and any other vegetable imaginable. I was hoping to see a flock of chickens, a tree lined drive up to an old white farmhouse with a wraparound covered porch and wisteria in full bloom growing up the porch columns and a big old red barn. You know, the idealistic old farm you see in movies.

We reached Sheridan, the closest big town to the farm, and Jessica called the farm to get directions. We were still about an hour away and Mona, the farm owner, asked us if we could pick up some hamburger buns for the bbq that evening. After going through Sheridan and stopping at Safeway we were nearly there, three thousand miles after leaving Portland and nearly three weeks on the road we were almost there. We thought we had left the rain in Oregon, but it was still coming down pretty hard. There weren’t many turns to get to the farm, just sixty miles of rural country road, nothing new to us. At the town of Leiter, which didn’t have so much as a speed zone, we were to turn left at the gravel road, cross the railroad tracks, go over a bridge and when we came to the sign that read, “Slow Down You Sons-A-Bitches,” we would soon cross a cattle guard and their driveway was the first on the right. When we turned down the driveway half of the road was lined with giant cottonwood trees and hay fields, the other side was scrub brush. I was feeling confident now that half of my dream farm was here, an oasis in the brown land east of the last notable mountain range on our map until the east coast. The driveway seemed to go on forever, the tree line stopped, we passed a old farm and some falling down out building that Mona had said were her neighbors, and then passed a single-wide trailer Mona said was about half way to their house. The mud was picking up, the van was having a tough time and was handling like we were in snow. As I tried to steer the van down the straight drive the horn in the van took on a life of its own. I like to honk occasionally as we drive through the country but I wouldn’t do it this close to our destination, Jessica looked at me disapprovingly like I was doing it on purpose, and I looked at her dumbfounded, the van honked a dieing sounding honk, straight out of “Little Miss Sunshine” and we both burst into laughter, the kind of laughter that brings uncontrollable tears. We composed ourselves and I kept the van between the fences and we finally slogged through the mud, leaving deep ruts in the driveway, up to the farmhouse.

Before we were out of the van the screen door opened on the enclosed porch of the simple house and out walked Mona, a mid-50’s lady with short dark hair wearing crocks. She reminded me a lot of my parent’s friends, happy, energetic and very welcoming. As we introduced ourselves we met her dog, a short and friendly black and white boarder collie named Belle and we let Juno out so they could do the doggie-dance. The rain had let up and Mona thought we should see the farm. She walked us through the ankle deep mud to the greenhouse where tomatoes were growing chest tall and putting on tons of green fruit, she pointed out the old shed she wanted me to turn into a chicken house and as soon as she said it Juno took off in a dead sprint like she does when chasing cats in the neighborhood or seagulls at the beach and just as fast chickens started screaming, feathers started flying, I started yelling and tried to run her down with twenty pounds of mud stuck to my shoes. I caught a glimpse of Juno with a black and white speckled bird in her mouth, my yelling turned to screaming and Juno released the bird. My blood pressure and adrenaline were up, to say the least, and I was able to get a hold of my friendly white dog. I’m not sure Mona saw the whole ordeal but she didn’t seem too upset about it. We trudged back up to the house, I tied Juno to the metal railing leading up to the porch and Mona invited us in for fried ham and eggs.

I quickly realized this wasn’t the farm from the movies I had dreamed of but after seeing the place and meeting Mona and Steve I knew we would be in good hands and have a great time while we stayed and worked at Mitzel Farm. Over coffee, fried ham and fried eggs we visited about our trip, their farm, what our daily activities would be and generally got acquainted. We were going to be primarily working with Mona with the rare exception that Steve would need help with the hay operation. Mitzel Farm consists of 420 acres, of which nearly all was hay for their cattle operation. Mona had fenced in 14 acres for gardens across the creek to keep the deer and antelope out and had erected two high-tunnels along with a heated green house and a small tunnel to grow peppers in. Mona and her neighbor Carol serviced 57 CSA’s, or community supported agriculture, where three times a week we would have to pick vegetables, wash them, and make equal bags of produce that would be combined with produce from Carol’s farm and either Mona or Carol would drive them to drop sites in the surrounding towns for people that signed up for the farm fresh organic veggies to pick up. When we weren’t picking, washing or bagging veggies we would be weeding, pruning, spraying organic grasshopper killer, watering or tending to the chickens turkeys or guinea hens and I was in charge of turning an old decrepit farm building into a chicken house to keep the birds out of the harsh Wyoming winter weather.

As we finished eating and were sitting around talking Jake and Carla came up to the house. Jake and Carla are a married 30-year old couple from Utah, leaning on the granola side of the cultural spectrum who had come to Wyoming in early April to spend the planting, growing and harvesting season learning how to run an organic farm with Mona and Steve. Jake and Carla were staying in the singlewide up the driveway and Mona suggested we stay with them. According to Mona they had expressed a desire to have a little more people interaction, I can see why after experiencing the desolation of north-central Wyoming, so we followed them out to the trailer and got the grand tour. Three bedrooms, kitchen, bath and washer and dryer along with Happy and Eli, Jake and Carla’s dogs, and a cat that wouldn’t leave their room. We were so accustomed to sleeping in the van that we weren’t sure we would stay in the trailer but we’d park out there to use the bathroom and kitchen. After getting to know each other for a bit we were given the rest of the tour of the farm, Jake gave us a boat ride across the creek so we could see the outside garden, to the untrained eye it was a weed garden, but we were assured there were veggies in there somewhere. We finished the tour and headed back to the house where Steve was cooking burgers on the grill and Mona was preparing the rest of our Fourth of July feast. We left Juno and Belle to play outside and headed inside.

Burgers, potato salad, chips and beer, a great Fourth of July meal. We sat in the dining room, talked farming, travel, religion, hunting, raising beef cows and the organic farm life for an hour or more before I wanted to check on Juno and throw a Frisbee for her and Belle and I headed outside. Belle is a better behaved version of Juno, she wants to play as much but is much more polite about it and I went to throwing the Frisbee for her. About fifteen minutes later Jessica came out to find me and when she got near she looked down and asked, “So… did Juno do this?” “Do what?” I replied as I threw the Frisbee again. Moving her foot around in the grass, “This…” I backed up, praising Belle for her last catch, to where Jessica was standing, looking upset and I saw the dead bird. “Hmmm…” I said, “I don’t know.” Juno came running up to us and picked up the bird, tore a piece off of it and proceeded to have her Fourth of July feast. My stomach sank, it hit me that my dog had killed one of Mona’s birds. My voice shaking, I sighed, “I guess she did.” “What should we do?” Jessica asked. The first thing that crossed my mind was to hide it and pretend it didn’t happen, I didn’t want to get kicked off the farm before we got a chance to help out, I wanted to be accepted and Juno to be welcomed. These people let us come all the way from Oregon and before we could unpack our dog had killed a part of the farm. “Well… I guess I should tell Steve and Mona and see what they want to do about it.” I told her.

With my head down and shoulders hunched I walked back into the house, “I think I owe you a chicken…” I said to Mona. “What happened?” Steve chimed in. “I think Juno got one of your chickens.” I explained. “I’ll keep her tied up, I didn’t think she’d do it but there’s a dead bird in the lawn. Let me know how to make it right, I’ll pay for the bird and do anything you want to make it up to you. I feel terrible.” I said. “These things happen, don’t worry about it. Just work.” Mona consoled me. She could tell I felt terrible. “I feel like the parent of an irresponsible kid.” I said. Mona and Steve then told me about Belle and the night she killed four chickens a friend had given them. Steve said that he tied one of the birds to her neck and left it there for four or five days until it stunk and she was so sick of it that she never went near another bird again. “If you want to cure her that’s what you have to do.” Steve told me. I wanted to cure her, I knew it wasn’t her fault she killed it, it was mine, she was just acting on her instincts and I neglected to keep her from them and apparently the best way to train her was to tie this dead speckled bird around her neck.

I walked out of the house, down to the shop looking for something to tie the thing to her neck with and found a length of stiff wire. I picked it up and walked back to the house, found Jessica with Juno and the bird, jammed the wire through the carcass, and called Juno to me. She sulked up to me, head down and tail between her legs and sat at my feet in front of the bird on the wire. I threaded the wire through her collar, coiled it a few times, and Juno was now attached to her kill. She stumbled around a bit with this four pound feathered, bloody mess hanging between her legs. Jake and Carla had ridden their bikes back to the trailer so Jessica and I got on our bikes and headed back to meet them. Juno, usually leading the way, was lagging behind, unable to run she dropped out of sight by the time we reached the trailer. She soon showed up without the bird and the wire stuck under one of her front legs. I sighed, and knew I had to go find the bird and reattach it to Juno. I rode back down the driveway and found it, called Juno who reluctantly came because she knew what was in store, threaded the bird back onto the wire and Juno was again attached. She made it back to the trailer and it was nearly dark, Jessica and I decided to sleep in the van and unpack the following day. There was no way Juno was going to get to sleep in her cushy spot in the van so I tied her up outside the van and after showering Jessica and I went to bed.

We woke up with the sun and heat early, Mona wanted us up at the farm at 7 am to pick veggies for the CSA, which wasn’t a problem being up before 6, and opened the van door to check on Juno who had been surprisingly quiet over the night. As soon as I opened the door I could tell something wasn’t right, Juno was still there but there was little more than a wire around her neck and a pile of feathers on the ground. She ate the whole bird. Bones, feet, guts, everything. Surveying the site and kicking the feathers I found the only remaining piece of the bird, the head and about an inch and a half of the neck. Thinking she could still learn a lesson I got some thin rope out of the van, picked up the head and tied it to her collar. Looks like Juno won this round, but I was going to make sure there wouldn’t be a round two.