Heard of Such a Herd????

A person need only go through a single move to realize that moving is both a bit of an adventure and a bit of a pain. 

With ten moves behind us, Jo-Ann and I are well versed in the surprises and adjustments that come when relocating from one home or area to another.

Even with more than our fair share of experience, though, nothing truly prepared us for the move from New England to our 1865 Country Victorian farmhouse in Ohio. 

We looked at a great many homes prior to the move, many of which were newer and move-in ready.  Still, there was just something about that old house that called to me.  I have, for the most part, learned to ignore those crazy voices inside my head but, when it came to that farmhouse, I listened.

So, a house that was built at the conclusion of the Civil War, which had weathered the windswept plains of the Midwest for over 140 years, and had, for a little more than a decade before our purchase, been unoccupied by any residents, would now be the place that we called home.

Anxious to take up the task of country living, immediately upon returning to Massachusetts to prepare for the move, I started searching the internet for livestock which I could raise on my little farm.

As a vegetarian, I had no heart for raising animals that were meant primarily for food.  This criteria alone eliminated almost every legitimate farm animal.

I was also having a difficult time convincing Jo-Ann, who is less than enthusiastic about even filling a bird feeder in the winter, of the merits of having animals, at all.  

The idea of predawn wakeups and trudging through blowing snow in freezing temps to feed and water the livestock, of an obligation that would require a 24/7/365 commitment, of being up at 2am for critter births and of warding off late night predators that howled worse than the winds across the flat lands seemed, for whatever reason, altogether unappealing to her. 

I take no pleasure in admitting that Jo-Ann was right but, in this one, single, solitary instance, I do rather wish that I had listened.

As I searched for a profitable, non-meat producing animal, I happened upon a rather odd creature known as an alpaca.  Alpacas had been imported from South America by a bunch of crazy people who dared to dream that an animal Ponzi scheme would be a success.  They were, oddly, right.

Alpacas do produce a wool that can be spun and made into very itchy blankets which people high in the Andes, who have no other option, have been known to sleep beneath, or fashioned into primitive dolls that are reminiscent of the souvenirs one might find sold by children on the streets of Bolivia. 





Beyond those two possible uses, though, they serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than being too cute to put into words.

In its lifetime, an alpaca might produce a sufficient amount of wool to make enough skin irritating blankets and useless dolls to profit an alpaca farmer enough money to almost cover the cost of a single veterinary visit.  A veterinarian making house calls in the country is not unheard of but a veterinarian who even knows what an alpaca is, much less who is willing to treat one, is a rare find, indeed.

The calls in search of such a vet generally went along the lines of:

“Do we treat what?”

“Alpacas.”

“Sir, are you asking if we treat alopecia?  Is your dog losing its fur?  Are you certain it’s not just mange?”

“Not alopecia. Alpacas. You know, like llamas but smaller.”

“Sir, we are in Ohio.  Were you trying to call Peru? If so, please hang up and try again.  If not, please….. just hang up.”

In spite of the fact that an alpaca would never be profitable for its wool, the Great Alpaca Ponzi Scheme artificially inflated the value of the cute little things to a price that would leave anyone, other than a convert to the alpaca farming dream, absolutely slack jawed.  

The profit came from the breeding and selling of useless baby alpacas, or cria as they are known, for thousands of dollars to another alpaca farming dreaming dolt which, as it turns out, were not in short supply.

Not unlike the house that nobody else had been crazy enough to buy for the previous decade, something about starting a farm where useless animals were raised also called out to me.

Investing every last cent of profit that we made from the sale of our Massachusetts home during the artificially inflated Housing Market Ponzi Scheme, I bought myself a whole herd of the adorable critters and then, and only then, told Jo-Ann the great news.

I had printed off copies of each adorable alpaca face from our new herd and waved them, one by one, before Jo-Ann’s eyes, which were too glazed over by shock to fully appreciate the cuteness of Precious, Petunia, Lily, Bitsy and the young herdsire, Clem, the base stock of our very own Alpaca Pyramid.

That I, upon discovering that the insanity of alpaca rearing was not limited to our National borders, had gotten a better deal than the average alpaca farming doofus, by purchasing my alpacas from Canada where the US dollar was stronger, did little to sway Jo-Ann to  the brilliance of spending a small fortune to be on the cutting edge of raising adorable, worthless animals.

While I will spare the details of her full reaction, suffice it to say that I am quite certain that she would have much rather had alopecia than alpacas.

Upon  the advice from the Canadian farmer, I also bought a life insurance policy for the herd.  One must guard such a helpless investment, as it seems that a single coyote could wipe out our entire investment in minutes.  Fortunately, if not coincidentally, the Canadian farmer's cousin owned a company that insured alpaca investments.  I was thankful for the lead as I imagine that calls to insurance companies seeking a policy rider for alpacas would be even more frustrating than the calls to vets.  "Sir, do we ride what...."

Once the important matters of the investing in and the insuring of alpacas was complete, I began to take care of the more menial tasks such as finding Home Owners Insurance for our farm itself.

When I called my insurance company, I was asked for the location of the nearest fire hydrant.  As I had no idea where a hydrant was positioned, I was told to call the local fire department and to then give the agent a return call.

Fires are, evidently, to homes what coyotes are to alpaca herds.

I looked up the number of the local Ohio Fire Station for my new address and gave them a call.

I was more than a little surprised when an answering machine picked up.  I was instructed to leave a message and informed that my call would be returned when and if a member of the volunteer force happened to saunter in and take a look at messages.  Alternatively, I could call 911.

Before that event, I honestly thought that the moment the phone rang at a fire station, firemen, who had anxiously been standing by awaiting someone's call, would be sliding down poles from the top floor to the base of the building, pulling on boots while simultaneously running for the big red fire engine, hopping inside, strapping on helmets and activating the sirens even before the phone was answered.

To have received, instead, a message on an answering machine both crushed my image of what it is that firemen do and left me wondering as to just what kind of place it was to which I was moving.

Two days later, I received a response from the local fire chief who had finally gotten around to going to the station, since he had nothing more pressing to do for the day than to see if anyone had reported their home in flames or called to check on fire hydrant locations.

“You’re looking for a fire hydrant, are ya?” he asked.

“Well, the location of the one nearest to the home I am purchasing," I explained after giving him my address.

"You bought the old Gilfillen place, did ya?" he asked then chuckled before continuing on, "None of us thought anybody would ever buy that old place again."

Before I could ask why the chuckle or why the doubt as to the habitability of the home, he informed me, "Mrs. Hofacker, who was originally a Gilfillen and born in that house, went to school with my Mom and was my third grade teacher."

"Small world," I said, even though I was actually thinking, "Ugh, small towns." 

Before he could launch into more genealogy or reminiscing, I asked if he happened to know the closest location of a fire hydrant to the Gilfillen Place, which was, evidently, how the home would continue to be known even though my name was now on the mortgage and no Gilfillens were chipping in on the payments.

“That,” he explained, “would be somewhere in town, I reckon. So, a good four or five miles away, I’d say.”

“In town?” I asked, “But what if my house catches on fire out in the countryside?”

“We got water in the trucks,” he explained, as if the answer was obvious, “and there are ponds around where we can refill if needed.”

What he didn’t say, but I understood, was that it was highly unlikely that they would have to ever find a pond from which to refill the truck as the house would most certainly be burned to the ground before the all-volunteer force was even assembled at the station after the 911 dispatcher, to whom the answering machine refers the caller, got ahold of all the local boys to let them know that the Gilfillen Place was ablaze.

Not surprisingly, the insurance company was even less impressed by that answer than was I.  They, and the next four major carriers I called, all refused to issue coverage.

Insuring alpacas against predators, it turned out, was far easier than insuring a country home against fire.

A high risk company was finally located and a policy issued and I was then able to get back to such important matters as preparing my acres for alpacas.

I found a fencing company, picked at random among the many farm fencers listed in the small country phone book, and arranged to have the field  readied for the alpacas, which were now costing me room and board fees from the Canadian farmer who had been caring for them for free up until the moment he had my signature on the buyer form.

When the pasture was, at last, fenced, I began to consider the ever so slight dilemma of having no way to transport the alpaca herd from Quebec to Ohio as I did not own a livestock trailer.  My transport worries, though, soon became a moot point.

Only days after the fences were up, an Angus in Montana came down with Mad Cow Disease.

The tracking process for the bovine infirmity began and, as luck would have it, the bull had been born, bred and transported from Canada. 

Swiftly, the USDA closed the border to all Canadian livestock. 

I was left wishing that I had bought insurance FOR a coyote, of the illegal smuggling variety, to sneak my herd across the border.   The Northern border is, evidently, far more protected by the USDA than is the Southern border by the Dept of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the 140 year old house in which we were attempting to live (more on that in an upcoming blog) was in dire need of maintenance. 

I suppose I should have anticipated that would be the case when the home inspector checked off “Needs Repair” on every single line item of the inspection form and concluded his remarks with “Much work is needed to restore this home to its former grandeur.”

Jo-Ann, even less on board with the alpaca purchase than she had been in the beginning, was constantly making such nonsensical and irrelevant comments as:

“I could have a roof on this house that didn’t leak if ‘we’ hadn’t bought alpacas.”

“Those broken windows that are letting in the wind and rain could have been replaced if ‘we’ hadn’t bought alpacas.”

“We could afford to put food on our own table if ‘we’ weren’t paying some Canadian to feed those alpacas.”

With no end to the border closing in sight and the prospects of my alpacas being granted a visa looking doubtful, I, as is often the case on my projects, conceded defeat to my alpaca farming dreams.

I listed my herd for sale on the Internet and, since one evidently is born every minute, a buyer from South Carolina, who was either unaware of or unconcerned with the border ban, was soon the owner of Precious, Petunia, Lily, Bitsy and Clem and was the one paying room and board fees to the Canadian, ay.  

Jo-Ann got new window panes and new shingles which made our home somewhat suitable during the inspection in the days ahead when we applied, as recounted in posts past, to become potbellied pig parents and thus took in critters even less useful than alpacas.

Perhaps, alpacas, though, weren’t so much a Ponzi Scheme as a virtual reality scheme.

I bought and sold alpacas, creatures which may or may not even truly exist, from, Canada, a far away land that, likewise, may or may not even be real, all via the Internet, all sight unseen and, in reality, never seen.

It occurs to me that if Farmville had existed twenty years ago, I could have been spared much turmoil.

In A Pig's Eye!

As a precursor to this story, please read "This Little Piggy" and "Huffed and Puffed" from the June archives.
=================================================

Who would have thought it?!  Our pigs actually enjoyed living outdoors and even seemed to prefer the old barn and two acre field to the confines of life in our living room.

As they settled nicely into their outdoor space, where they relished having old barn boards to rip from the walls, grape vines to pull from the arbors and grassy acres to convert into mud holes, I went about preparing the place to make it a suitable winter residence.

Thinking that they would be far more comfortable in a cozy little hut, all cuddled up in a piggy pile, I built them a piggy house, such as my building skills allowed. 

My building skills, as you may have come to realize by this point, leave much to be desired.

It, thus, came as no surprise when I couldn’t quite figure out how to determine the measurements necessary to construct an “A Frame” roof for their building, which was little more than a really large dog house.

I had been altogether unsure whether to utilize the Pythagorean Theorem, some concept of the Pi equation, the theory of relativity, the big bang theory or the good ol’ A2+B2=C2 formula so I simply took a poorly educated guess and, not surprisingly, fell short on my calculations.

When the roof was placed on top, in spite of what I had thought were extremely accurate guess angle measurements, not only was there not an eave overhang but the entire roof stopped short of the edge by 2” on either side.
 

Ever resourceful, I draped plastic sheeting over the top, stapled it down tightly then added a heat lamp inside.  Next came a nice bed of fresh straw and blankets galore from the Goodwill store for the gals to sleep beneath.

The next task, the difficulty of which I underestimated even more than I had the roof dimensions, was to convince the pigs to move in.

Pigs, not unlike pigheaded men, do not ever, under any circumstances, like to be told what to do.  They will, even to their own detriment, oppose a much better idea rather than submit to another's recommendation. 

Amidst the loudest, most protesting screams and most menacing grunts that they could muster, I marched, herded and corralled the trio over to their new house and then attempted to shove them, one by one, inside where I threw the covers over them so that they could discover what a wonderful place I had made them.

As one was pushed in and covered, though, another ran out.  The process repeated until I was exhausted and frustrated and exhausted at being frustrated by those ding dang pigs! 

After far more effort than one should ever expend trying to stuff pigs in a blanket, I gave up and, once again, conceded failure.

At no time in the process did the pig screams ever stop or even so much as pause.  I was sweaty, dirty, the straw and blankets were scattered about and the truth of the old saying, "Never wrestle with a pig.  You'll both end up muddy but the pig will enjoy it," rang true.

Before my hog house construction even began, the pigs, one and all, had opted for an unsuitable old horse stall, which was completely barren of a door to shut out the winter wind, as their new home and they were not about to be evicted and relocated by the likes of me.

The only time they stepped hoof into my little pig house again was to drag out the blankets which they carried to the horse house that they now called home.

Utilizing the strategy which I harshly, if privately, have judged many a bratty child’s parents for using, I decided it was far easier to just give in to the pigs’ demands and allow them to do whatever it was they wished to do.

In my enablement of hoggish behavior, I measured the horse stall opening and headed to the local hardware store to buy the building materials necessary to construct a door.  It was the least I could do.

Our local hardware store was staffed by retired farmers, contractors and tradesmen who welcomed nothing more than a project that was to be completed by a novice like me. 

Unlike the big chain hardware stores that are often staffed by workers who know no more about building than do I (surprisingly, such persons do exist!), the fellas at the small town store, when I described my needs to them, would gather together in a huddle, discuss the situation, sketch diagrams, reach a consensus, gather the supplies for me and describe to me exactly what needed to be done. 

The result was that I returned home with all the necessary supplies but the “know how” on my part remained sorely lacking.  Those detailed directions provided me, which included sophisticated construction terminology such as “miter cuts”, “socket sets” and ”hanging plumb” were so foreign to me that, had the instructions been spoken in Macedonian or, worse, provided in IKEA stick figure fashion, I would have been no less prepared to complete the task.

Fortunately, the moment I walked into the hardware store for the pig stall project, I happened upon a clearance aisle where I found, in exactly the width I needed, a beautiful set of 15 panel French Doors!

Being that they were cheap and already built, I quickly bought them, loaded them into the back of my new truck which, even if forbidden by the Pot Bellied Pig Rescue Society of Ohio for swine transport, was quite the handy vehicle now that I was a "farmer".

With the sting of the Pig House failure so fresh, though, I opted to call a local handy man to install the door. 

The handy man arrived, looked at the doors, looked around as he took in the realization that it was a barnyard in which he was being tasked with installing French doors, looked at the stall, looked at the pigs, looked absolutely bewildered at me as I explained that the doors were, indeed, for the hog house, scratched his head, rubbed his chin and, without a word, got to work.

In less time than it would have taken me to find my hammer, which was more likely to have been in a nest box in the hen house than in the toolbox, he had the door completely installed. 

He took a picture, as I’m sure he was certain that his buddies at “The Handy Man Bar and Grill” would never believe what he had been tasked to do, wished me luck and left me to marvel at what we dubbed “The Pig Parlor”.

We hung some curtains and gave the pigs our Sealy posturpedic mattress which was unusable in the house as it, like so much of our furniture, would not fit around the corner of the narrow, fully enclosed farm house staircase and, therefore, could not be moved upstairs.  We then made up their bed with fitted sheets added the blankets and rehung the heat lamp with an infrared night light so as not to disturb the piggy slumber. 

The Pig Parlor was, in a word, spectacular! 

 

They loved their place and for the first time in our coexistence both the pigs and we were happy with the arrangements.

Things went uneventfully for nearly a week after which Jo-Ann came rushing into the house to tell me that Misty, the nicest of the pigs (which is to say the least likely to go into a teeth chomping, hair raised, full attack mode at the drop of a hat), had lost her eye.

“Lost her eye?!” I exclaimed and went running to the field to find Misty eating grass and worms as if nothing at all was wrong.  As I knelt to look at her, though, it was very obvious that she had only a fold of fat covering the sunken socket where her eyeball should have been.

Not knowing what else to do, I quickly called Little Bit’s Mom, our Pig Mentor, and she came over moments later with a full veterinary kit which, evidently, real farmers keep right on their nightstand for just such an eye loss emergency.

After a thorough examination by Little Bit's Mom and determining that the pig was, indeed, sans an eyeball, she decided that the best course of action was to flip Misty onto her haunches and hold her tightly in a sitting position while she applied antibiotic ointment to the eyeball socket.

Why the pig could not be held while on all fours to this day remains a mystery to me.  Since it was I who would obviously be doing the pig flipping and hog holding, I was less than enthusiastic with the plan but, as Little Bit’s Mom was the pig expert, a flip onto her haunches (Misty's, not Little Bit's Mom) it would be.

Completely nonplussed at the attention which she was suddenly being shown and sensing that we were not taking the situation as well as was she, Misty took off like a greased pig at a country fair.

I chased her through weeds and mud and, at last, into a corner of the field.  Her screaming at being pursued reached a level more intense than I had ever heard previously though I had been hearing intense pig screams, over one matter or another, on a regular basis for weeks. 

The other sows quickly came running over, not so much because they gave a hoot about Misty, but because a pig, in my experience, never misses an opportunity to join into a crescendo of hog hollerin’.

Amidst the deafening raucous from the trio, I leaned over Misty, wrapped my arms around her sizeable girth, lifted and simultaneously fell backwards, pulling her with me as I toppled.

I landed in the weeds with quite a thud and with a pig in my lap.

At that moment, in quite an unfortunate, uncomfortable and vulnerable position for us both, Misty threw her head back, let out the loudest scream in her existence and, as she bellowed loudly enough for anyone within a country mile to hear, both of her eye sockets popped fully open, revealing not one but two eye balls staring wildly but in exactly the spots where the two eyes ought to be.

Standing there with a tube of ointment in hand, Little Bit’s Mom seemed almost disappointed at the loss of opportunity to put her pig doctoring skills to use while Jo-Ann joined in with squeals of her own, while clapping her hands and jumping for joy, “Her eye is back!  Her eye is back!”

Jo-Ann, rejoicing at the turn of events, and Little Bit’s Mom, pouting at the anticlimactic treatment opportunity but insisting that I continue to hold the hog while she went to get hoof trimmers so that she could at least get her hands dirty doing something farmer related, headed from the field and back to the barn.

As I sat, with the pig in my lap, enduring the continued hog howls, a truck slowed on the road and the man behind the wheel glared at me.

It was then that I, completely mortified, realized what that man was seeing; I was sitting alone in a field, in knee high grass with a screaming sow squirming on my lap, my arms wrapped tightly around her.

I could simply shake my head “no” as he slowly drove away.

If there is a bright side, at least it wasn't a sheep which I was holding?  Those wouldn't come until the following Spring.