Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade... nice, if it works that way. There are times that what life hands you isn't lemons, but destruction of almost the entire orchard. We never did get moved to the 20 acres we thought we were going to, which meant closing down an egg business that was doing a little better than breaking even in only 6 months. I thought that was doing pretty good. I lost my job two years ago. The place where we lived for 8 1/2 years closed 17 months ago. I'd been breeding, butchering, and eating meat rabbits in a rural mobile home park. I had up to 60 at the peak of my operation. I started with whatever meat type rabbits I could get. I'd managed to buy a purebred Champagne d'Argent buck, which is a heritage breed, and intended to buy more Champagne d'Argents when I could manage to. I thought it was fun that most of his pedigree is in French. When we were notified of the mobile home park closure, I stopped breeding and started getting rid of rabbits. I had a few Jersey Wooly rabbits (miniature Angoras) that I kept for fiber, just for my own fun. Those two closures cost me 60 animals. Roughly 100 people had to find someplace else to live. Mobile homes are gone, trees are gone, they brought in a Cat with a ripper blade... it's now bare ground, awaiting development. The truss plant where my husband had worked closed during the housing crisis. He became so depressed that he was trying to drink himself to death. He was hospitalized twice in about six months for bleeding ulcers. We separated 17 months ago. He went to live at Union Gospel Mission (UGM) in Spokane, WA, and entered the recovery program there. We thought I'd find a job and get back to being able to be mostly self-sufficient... things haven't worked out that way. I've been homeless for 16 months. The church group I'd hoped to be able to rely on for moral support kind of vanished. My van was stolen, leaving me to rely on a bad joke of a bus system and walking everywhere the bus doesn't go. When I needed to rely on the bus to get to work, it took 3-4 hours and 3-5 miles of walking every day to get to a job that was 10 miles from home. I thought that was bad enough, but I fainted in April, broke my right ankle, and it quite apparently hasn't healed correctly. I've been in two different homeless shelters in the last 8 months. Couch surfing's a better option. Not even Vocational Rehabilitation will work with me until the ankle heals, because I can't stand for more than a few minutes. The constant struggles get to me sometimes. OK, that's the bad news. I think there's been enough of that to last for a long while. Now for the good news: I've been involved with a community group called Circles, facilitated by the Community Action Partnership here, for about 4 years. It's not a Christian program, although there are a lot of Christians involved. I was able to rely on that group for moral support, to find resources in the community that I might not have been aware of otherwise. One of the functions of Circles is accountability. There were times that my 'to do' list seemed long enough that people were concerned that I was taking on too much with my limited resources and would become depressed, so I sometimes scaled back my want/wish lists. A lot of my goals were very long range, but they're now coming to fruition. My husband will graduate from Union Gospel Mission's residential recovery program on the 30th. The biggest factor in the depression was how Steve grew up. To say that Steve's childhood was chaotic doesn't begin to describe it. He spent years in foster care. When a foster kid is 18, he or she is dumped, the system is done with them. Part of what UGM did was help my husband be diagnosed with clinical depression. Turns out he's had that underlying problem for most of his life, and it was fueling the alcoholism. He will probably need to take antidepressants for the rest of his life, and watch and work carefully so that he doesn't allow himself to become isolated again. But now that we know what to look for, we can see how to work on that. UGM's program includes an after-care phase. Unlike foster care, people aren't just dumped. We've started marriage counseling, and will continue that. We've been talking with Steve's mentor. Steve's been interested in cooking, especially baking, for most of his life, but never took the risk to work in that field. Instead, he'd worked a series of survival jobs. There needs to be more to life than just paychecks and struggling to keep the bills paid. Part of UGM's aims is to equip people to thrive, not just thrive. Steve now has a part-time job in a bakery. Money will still be tight, but we've had a lot of experience with that. We've been accepted to a program that helps homeless veterans with vouchers for subsidized housing. We've have an application in process for a one bedroom apartment. Between two agencies and the corporation that owns the apartment complex, we've been told "We'll make this happen." We'd hoped to be able to have me move into an apartment a couple weeks ago, but that didn't happen. The hardest part is waiting and waiting for all the agencies, etc., to put the pieces together.

Mending Jeans

The other day, I was working in the back room at work and the owner of a business 4 doors down from us asked what I was doing - hemming pants. I was working on my own, but I could find time to do some for her family. Her husband brought some in the next day. The seam had frayed out, could I fix that? A little fusible knit interfacing, serpentine stitch to hold the interfacing and frayed edges together, re-stitch the seam, re-do the top stitching, and he's absolutely delighted. Not only that, his father -in-law will bring me some of his pants. I used to do mending and alterations professionally. I stopped because I was injured in a wreck and couldn't sit down to sew. The pain was agonizing, but the lack of finding solace in sewing was almost as bad.

When my kids were little, I complained one day at church that my sewing was nothing more creative than patching the knees of my son's pants. I had always thought of such mending as a rather onerous task that had to be done. It wouldn't be a bit surprising if it was something my mother complained about doing, so I picked up on her discontent. One of the older women said,"Well, dear, you can be thankful you have the skills to do that instead of throwing them away." Talk about a wake up call! Her comment changed my perspective.

I have known people who find peace in ironing and even find great joy in a well ironed shirt. I can't imagine that I will ever feel that way about ironing! While I can't say that mending is one of the joys of my life, my perspective on it IS definitely different than it used to be. I used to patch knees with pieces shaped like puzzle pieces, and stars. I patched a hole my daughter made above a back pocket with a butterfly. It matched the butterflies I quickly freehanded with zigzag on the 6" I sewed to the bottom of the jeans she was too tall for. What I didn't think of was that one of the high school boys at church promptly dubbed her "Butterfly Butt". At least she still laughs about that.

I've been looking at crocheted things and denim bags on Etsy. Sunday afternoon, I went out the the storage unit with our son and dug out boxes of old jeans. I knew I was sick Friday morning, planned to spend the weekend being sick, so that wasn't exactly on my to-do list. But he was there to do most of the work. I had lost a pair of jeans our daughter sent me to mend - turns out it wasn't my fault; her brother grabbed them to use as padding for something. I'm not telling her they're found,just fixing and sending them back, along with another pair of her old jeans we found that need the same repair.

Tuesdays are my longest days at work, and work tends to have fairly long periods of dead time between busy intervals. I brought 4 boxes of jeans in this morning to sort through. One of the things I was looking for was some jeans in relatively good shape for our latest room mate. I don't know if 5 people in a 600 square foot, 3 bedroom trailer is crazy, or just is. The jeans are sorted into a box of donors, some that are OK, just too small for any of us, and two boxes I may be able to use for myself. Some of "my" jeans are khaki and tan. The problem with those colors is that my uniform shirts are dark polos, and that combo looks like Walmart's uniforms. I sometimes go into Walmart in the morning on my way to work for something, but I do not like being mistaken for a Walmart employee!

I've looked at blogs like Diane Ericson's, and the whole recycled, re-claimed, re-purposed trend in sewing and clothing and found myself almost laughing. Where have the rest of you been while I've been living in poverty and being creative with leftovers?

Disaster

I haven't been writing much of anything the last several months. Not in my journal, my books to Bernadette, e-mails, or here. I haven't been able to stand writing.

In June, I had written about the bigger garden we'd planted. I went to California for a week in July to visit my dad, who'd been in and out of the hospital several times. By the time I got back, the garden and greenhouse had been abandoned. 2-3 weeks later, she had someone else tell us that she wanted us and all of our stuff "gone yesterday." After nearly 2 years of work, "yesterday" wasn't possible.

Some people from the church where we'd both been going helped move boxes out of her basement. On the surface, that looks like it would be good, right? The only good thing about it was that it did hurry things along.

Tempus Fugit

That doesn't mean time flies, it means time flees. I think that's Latin for wait a minute, where did the last 4 months go? I actually can answer that, it's just that time gets used very, very quickly when you're busy living it.

My daughter's 21st birthday was last week. I remember that milestone. I was doing very different things than she is. Means nothing more than the fact that we're different people; exactly what we're supposed to be.

Part of what has been consuming time is Coco. She's a smooth coated Border Collie, now 10 months old, Border Collie. We spend evening taking 2 1/2 - 3 mile walks, learning to mind leashes and have manners. I spend time holding her on a very short leash and telling her "NO!". She does lunge at birds, cats, dogs, people.... but it isn't aggression, it's trying to play. She thinks everything is her friend, or at least something to play with. Satsu, our long haired ginger cat, has had his tail grabbed a couple times. Coco thinks his tail's a toy. He vehemently disagrees. Satsu lets her know when she's invading his space. She's improving, but she's a normal Border Collie, older in months than maturity. She likes water, so wading in puddles is good - the deeper the better.

This year's garden, thanks to the loan of a rototiller, is 4 times bigger than last year's. Of course that means spending more time planting. Some of the seeds we had were SO old..... but they were free. Planted them all; the only thing we had to lose was a little time. If they grow, we've gained food we wouldn't otherwise have had.

We have more chickens. We got the new chicks at a 4-H event. Turned out that one of the Barred Rocks was a murderer. It killed other chicks. So, instead of the 14 we bought, there are 8 young chickens. Five of them are Auracanas. They're worth keeping for eggs, since they lay colors people find desirable. The Barred Rocks are nasty, aggressive birds. The best use for them, as soon as they're big enough, is dinner. The Rhode Island Reds will become meat, too, when we have other chicks that grow big enough. We will need more than we have, but we're working on that.

I keep frustrating the hens, and intend to continue. OK, we have 2 broody ones. I picked a couple of them up and took their eggs, gently tossed the hens outside. I did put 3 eggs under one of the broody ones, who has pretty well completed her clutch, too. We don't need ALL the hens to be broody at once; can't afford that.

I sent 2 dozen eggs up to Sandpoint yesterday with a courier because I thought they'd been around too long, needed to be used ASAP. Figures that I could have sold them today! I've been a little worried that we aren't moving eggs fast enough. Dropped into the 2 H&R Block offices where I used to work, left 2 cards,one for eggs and one for the store where I now work. Sold 4 dozen Wednesday, sent 2 dozen up to Sandpoint and gave a dozen to a friend who's husband is also unemployed more than he is working. Ben and I dropped by a hair salon where my boss' stylist had expressed interest, just to drop off a card, ended up with an order for 6 dozen, and only had 4dozen on hand. So we promised the other 2 dozen on Monday. We're out of eggs at home! We'll have to wait til tomorrow to get more.

My background, part 1

For me, the hardest, most painful part of leaving California was the loss of my community. It's still difficult. It still seems easier to be among people whom I'd know my entire life, who knew me, cared about me, helped when and where they could....Starting all over again, where nobody knows my background, even 7-8 years later, seems more difficult than I'd like life to be. So, the need exists for me to tell where I came from, since I'm no longer among people who automatically know.






JOHN O. ROWE
1895-1981


John Rowe (known as "John O.") was born in Solano County on a farm that was part of the Armstrong Estate (half of which is now part of UC Davis). He started milking cows at the age of 9 or 10 - hand milking. In the Fall of 1909 he entered the Farm School, directly out of grade school. The first classes toward a 3-year degree had been held on the campus 1 semester before he enrolled. He graduated from UCD in 1913. The total enrollment was 75 when he started and 188 when he graduated.

When John O. was 21, he and his brother and father bought the 'the old Wilson Ranch', 160 acres at $100 an acre. It is now known as Innisfail Farm. Two years later he entered the Army and was scheduled to go to France but ended up in Camp Lee, VA after the Armistice.

On returning to the farm he leased (1919), then bought (1924) the Innisfail herd of Milking Shorthorns previously owned by Alexander & Kellogg. While showing Milking Shorthorns at the International Livestock Show in Chicago in 1922, he met fellow showman, Lillian Barrett Wood. They were married in Indiana on December 4, 1927.

John O. was president of the Woodland Production Credit Association for 2 years and director for 24 years. He was active in Farm Bureau, helping bring the headquarters from Berkeley to Sacramento, becoming a charter member of the Yolo County Chapter in 1914, and of the Solano County chapter in 1915. In 1932 he became president of the American Milking Shorthorn Society. He worked with Charlie Hawkins to try to start the Cow Palace. In 1941 the first building was finished; the WPA and city of San Francisco got together to build it. The Army took it over after Pearl Harbor. The first Livestock Show in the Cow Palace was held in 1946.

John O. Rowe judged cattle at the Pacific International (Portland), American Royal (KC), Chicago International, Idaho State Fair, Oregon State Fair, Arizona State Fair, many county fairs in California, and the Eastern States Exhibition (Springfield, Mass).

Four hundred people attended John O. and Lillian's 50th wedding anniversary party in December, 1977. Today Innisfail Farm is still a premier Milking Shorthorn facility, run by a son and grandchildren of John O.
From UC Davis website.

I was one of those 400 people. There weren't supposed to be presents; Rowes had enough stuff. But my dad turned a myrtlewood bowl and carved the outside with a herd of individual animals that Rowes had owned when he worked for them. When we went in the house, Dad just quietly set the package on top of a cupboard, to be found later. When the gathering had wound down to mostly family, one of the grand kids reached up, brought the package to John O. and Lillian "open it". "Oh, there's Chess, and Lily 31st....." Of course, the recognition brought out stories of those animals, and others.

Chess' name was actually Wassuchetts Chess. He was a huge, extremely gentle, white bull. My dad would ride him, like a horse. He would bellow when someone he didn't know came in the yard. One evening, after dinner, they heard a bull bellowing, got up to look, and there was nobody there. This continued to happen, so John O said to my dad "Glenn, you'd better go see what's bothering Chess." Wasn't Chess at all - it was one of his sons, back of the barn, out of sight of the drive, trying out his voice. Chess had been sold as a calf to someone who put horn weights on him. Shorthorn's horns are suppose to curve up, but when Rowes got him back, his were closer to a Hereford's curve. John O. loved horns. The prospect of hornless cows would bring out "Good God, man, you wouldn't cut their tails off!" De-budding calves became a necessity, but I doubt John O. ever managed more than acceptance of what seemed to him an evil.

Descent of the Shorthorn breed is traced through cow families. There were a lot of Lilies. Dad did a carving of one who was a particular favorite of John O's. She was a spectacularly beautiful cow. But they also talked of one Lily who was a chow hound, would slick up the grain when she came in to be milked and look for more; had to be watched so she didn't gain too much weight. There was one that John O and Lillian's kids called old banana horns. Her horns looked like bananas.

John O. and Lillian B. Wood-Rowe were far more than simply married. Lillian was an excellent advisor, every bit his partner in the herd. During the Depression, the family came home from church one day, dispersed to do necessary chores before dinner, when Lillian realized that there was a heifer calving in a corral, needed help. All the men were busy, so she removed her (only?) church dress, shoes, stockings, carefully hung them on a fence post, and, ever the perfect lady, in her slip, proceeded to help the heifer. Even after John O was gone, the sons and grandsons turned to mom, even asking her to take trips to check out a certain animal they were considering adding to the herd, or using for artificial insemination. There were times she told them 'no, not this one, because....' and she was right.

Lillian's family had Chinese cooks. One, when he was new, told the family that if they didn't eat all their dinner, they'd get it in the biscuits in the morning. Sure enough, the scraps from dinner showed up in the next morning's biscuits. The family looked at the biscuits in bemusement and dismay. Lillian's mother took the cook aside and explained to him that, in their family, the scraps went to the chickens, and if he wanted to keep his job, he'd better stick to that.

Every once in awhile when we were growing up, Dad would look at our plates and tell us that if we didn't eat it, we'd get it in the biscuits in the morning. I may have gotten that the most because I passionately hated vegetables. Interesting how silly little family stories have a life of their own. I just told my 16 month old grandson "You'll get it in the biscuits in the morning" then had to explain to my daughter.

Dad had known them for years, but when I was probably 7 or 8, discovered a facet of Lillian he hadn't known. He had worked with Percheron draft horses when he worked with Rowes. I loved the stories he used to tell about them. He decided to carve some draft horses, but was having trouble finding pictures of any. One day when we were at Rowe's, he told them how frustrated he was at the lack of pictures. Lillian said, "Well, Glenn, what do you need?" She went into the office, brought back some folio sized books, and proceeded to spread them on the table, where she and Dad spent several hours going through them. They were stud books. Dad went home somewhat stunned. He hadn't known that, before her marriage, in an era when ladies didn't actively participate in the breeding of animals they owned, Lillian B. Wood had been a very active, very much hands-on breeder of purebred Percherons!

John O's instructions for after his funeral were that you couldn't get that many people together without having a party - with ice cream. John O believed that ice cream was the perfect food. And LOVED parties.

John O and Lillian's kids commissioned Dad to carve a perpetual trophy in honor of their parents, to be presented as a citizenship award to outstanding Milking Shorthorn breeders. It was presented to the family in Pomona and the fall of 1982.

The farm that used to be Innisfail's home is now gone, victim to the encroaching towns and state regulations. John O and Lillian's son John Stuart and Emily Rowe bought a farm in Capay, near Orland, that already had the necessary "improvements" required by the state of California - that had nearly bankrupted the farmer they bought it from. Most of the herd was sold. Rowes kept the best for themselves. My dad told me that John Stuart Rowe Jr. intends to take over when he retires.

Much ado about nothing

I've been selling a few eggs from our flock. As far as I know, I've complied with all the state rules for person - to - person sales, but more is being demanded of me. I've been confronted with someone's presumptions that governmental regulations should apply to me that aren't legally necessary in this area. The other day, she told me that the government has to know what we're doing so it can regulate us. We clean that out of the chicken house on a regular basis. She wants me to have a license that simply does not exist here!

I learned today that she worked for the USDA, had a bad experience with farm eggs once, and believes that farm eggs should never be allowed to be sold. No one has tried to sell these eggs to her or suggested that she eat them. There has never been any suggestion that she should be involved in the sales in any way. She is offended and up in arms over the mere fact that they exist. She refuses to drop the subject or leave me alone.

Where does she think the commercial eggs in grocery stores come from? Robots? I've been inside commercial egg laying operations. Necessary to fulfill demand,I'm not making any moral judgements for or against them. There's no way the small entrepreneur can possibly fill their niche. But their existence does not make small family operations evil or unclean.

I fail to be impressed with the fact that she worked for the USDA. My dad did, for 30years. He was responsible for enforcing certain regulations and for millions of dollars of other people's money. Dad could be tough, but he does know the difference between personal opinion and laws. For that mattter, my husband was required to take classes for a certification in food safety for a job. I just happen to have a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics, which did have some training in food safety. We don't go running around being know-it-alls, but neither would we do unsafe things.

I will go to the health district and ask for verification, in writing, signed by the director, so that I can prove that I do know what I'm doing. But we will also sell the eggs by other avenues, that has no imagined impact on her.

I dread being around such people. I'm allowed to, and even have the responsibility to, defend myself. How to do it wisely is the big question. I'm not going to convert someone so ignorantly innocent to my viewpoint. People who've been personally impacted by such unfairness don't even need explanations. Once again, I've realized that I become angry because I feel very threatened.

There are always rules in life. They're a necessary part of living in a world that includes other people. Quite a few of them are good.

Where is the crime in trying to make a better, healthier, lifestyle for myself, my family, and my friends? In order to continue to keeping chickens, we need to have them at least pay for their feed. It would be nice if we could make enough profit to fund some expansion. What is this, Soviet Russia, where "profit" was restricted to state-run factories? Reality there was that those factories never really did make a profit. And the lack of small individual choices to do little things like have your own flock and sell eggs was one of the factors that eventually brought about the downfall of the entire system. Oh, no, I've dared to stick my head up above the common crowd, it must be chopped off!

I'm not running around dispensing questionable, unsafe eggs from a disease-ridden flock. Reality is that while our flock is not strictly organic, they eat much the same food we do. Theirs just gets to the coop daily when it's too stale to be palatable to humans, before it's spoiled. The chickens eat insects and plants that are available inside their run. They have access to the outdoors daily, which is a lot more than be said for most commercial egg operations. We plan to expand the chicken run and let some meat chickens range free throughout the acreage. If there was something wrong with the eggs or chickens, we'd know before anyone else. To me, it seems obvious that, if there was a problem, we wouldn't sell any eggs until the problem was appropriately dealt with.

The dogs and goats get table scraps, too, whatever is suitable for their species. When someone's home all day, the goats are turned loose to perform their function of weed eaters. Some of their browse is classed as noxious weeds. They're not poisonous, just fast spreading garbage. We've sown some seeds that should improve the browse. In a few weeks, when we can afford fencing, we'll build a bigger goat pen, then move them. Then we'll add their present enclosure to the expanded garden, which will have to be fenced to keep the goats out while it's in production. We need a rototiller or the means to have someone come with a tractor for a few hours. I suppose we shouldn't be allowed to use goat and rabbit manure and composted chicken manure, as fertilizer, since it doesn't come from a 'sanitary' factory. Tough.

PS 2/11/2011 Sat down and talked this morning with the director of food services, environmental health department of the local health district. Took in the high-lighted printouts from state website and a dozen eggs to show her what we're doing. She did have one stipulation that just hadn't occurred to me, to black out the original printing for grade, supplier, etc. Easily done, taken care of now. Everything else was fine, and anyone with further questions should be referred to her. See, I knew I wasn't the evil witch.