Farm Friday, April 7th, 2023
April Fools’ snow and sweet victory for the blue team
News from the farm:
- Winter Wonderland on Saturday.
- Election on Tuesday and muddy mess in the driveway.
- Greenhouse starting up this week.
- Chickens hiding their eggs and sheep learning their names.
- Burnt syrup Thursday.
- Writing news.
We were predicted to get five inches of fresh snow last Friday night. On Saturday (April Fools!), we woke up to more than a foot of the white stuff. It is beautiful, but I might have appreciated it more in November. It made for some beautiful photos and we did have a couple of nice ski outings, but frankly, we are all ready for the snow to be gone.
On Tuesday we had an election in Wisconsin. When they call Wisconsin a “battleground state,” this election is what they mean. It was for a state supreme court seat, and, even though the race is technically non-partisan, a win for either party would tip the balance between conservative and liberal. At stake was possibly our whole democracy.
During the previous presidential election, Trump had asked the state legislatures to invalidate the votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. At the time it was too much, too unprecedented, but now that the idea has been on the table for a few years, it seems like in a similar situation in 2024, the Wisconsin legislature could make a different decision. Because of partisan Gerrymandering, the Wisconsin legislature is firmly in Republican hands, despite the state voting for Biden in 2020 and a Democrat for Governor in 2022. So they could and would do it. With a conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, any legislative action to invalidate the 2024 election might have sailed through. So both parties and their donors went all out. It was the most expensive State Supreme Court election in U.S. history.
The Democrats in my county are concerned about election integrity. In 2021, there was a shortage of election judges due to the pandemic. The municipal clerk had to consolidate polling locations and it was a proverbial shit show. The shortage was mostly on the Democrat side because by then the red hat people were done with the pandemic. So we had a chaotic election, with mostly Republican judges, many of whom could be described as suspicious of the voting process and definitely angry about Brandon being President. After that debacle, I was recruited to train to be a chief elections inspector in our county.
Tuesday was my first election as chief, and I can say things went off without a hitch. The only issue was one person got their ballot and went straight to the optical scan machine without marking it. We made a sign and gave one person the job to tell people they need to actually vote before they put their ballot in the machine. That person also gave out stickers.
Judge Janet won! Democracy has a chance in Wisconsin.
While I was out doing my civic duty as an election judge, I got a phone call from the farm. The truck from the greenhouse supply place had arrived with 7,000 pounds of soil mix, fertilizer, and other supplies. The truck had been there an hour at that point and the pallet mover machine had gotten irretrievably stuck in the muddy gravel on our driveway. And it was raining. Oops.
I could not leave my post, and so I had to have them call our neighbor to help the driver get the machine out of the mud. It is in moments like these that one appreciates having neighbors who will put on a coat and go out to problem-solve and do the work that needs to be done. Thanks, Dale!
Last week when we visited the llama farm (no updates yet), our friend casually let it slip that all of her 20 sheep know their own name and come when called.
What?
She said with a simple training technique and treat rewards we could do it too. Every time we feed treats, we call out the name of the sheep receiving treats and soon they learn that their name means treats. We have been trying it out with mixed success. Pepper just stands by me and tries to eat everybody’s treats. Chili and Lucy hang back and I have to go to them. Merry seems to have it down.
After the rain on Tuesday which melted some of the snow, the chickens and guinea fowl could range over a wider area of the farm. It was fun to see the guineas in the front yard of the house and out on the road slowing down traffic again. Also, with the longer days, the chickens are getting broody and hiding their eggs in the barn.
The other night when we went to shut the chicken door and close up the barn, Pippa was barking her head off in the back of the barn. I went to look and there was a big raccoon hiding behind some pallets, and Pippa had the raccoon cornered. I was worried that Pippa might get in a fight and I would have to get between her and the raccoon, so I scooped her up and carried her to the house. Later we figured out that the raccoon had been coming to eat the eggs that the chickens have been hiding.
We finally collected a bunch of sap on Monday and Thursday and we cooked it into syrup on Thursday. The problem was that I went inside to make supper and the syrup burned in the pan and turned into burnt caramel. What a loss! It was something like 3 gallons that burned up — about $200 worth of syrup. And the new pan is now warped from the heat — still usable, but not flat on the bottom. Aarrgh!
We decided to decant the leftover burnt syrup and bottle it up to see if anyone wanted it. I had some on french toast today and it did not taste like regular syrup. What did I expect?
In writing news, I wrote a great essay about the book The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. Please read and tell me what you think.
© 2023 Andrew Gaertner. All rights reserved.
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