Down on the Farm

Leaving Bloomington, we received a text from Kaitlin, our intrepid catsitter, asking what she should do when Daisy insisted on being fed at 5:30 am. Several hours too late, our advice was to ignore her ... which Kaitlin eventually did with such success that by the end of the trip, Daisy was eating on Kaitlin's grad student schedule. She should graduate magna cum laude with that achievement.

Our next stop was Centralia, where we spent a couple hours helping Kelly's grandma finish packing for her move to Arizona. Nightmare!

Then it was on to Kell, a little farm town outside of Centralia, and home to Kelly's father's boyhood friend, John, and his wife Rosemary. Plus their dog, Boscoe, seven or eight cats, twenty chickens, a goose, numerous fish, and three goats.


This is Boscoe, part Beagle, part Boxer, all wiggly butt and sloppy kisses. We bonded.

Boscoe gets along pretty well with the other animals. He loves to groom Roland, one of the barn cats.


I really need to do some work behind your ears.

I know it looks a little dodgy, and there was one unfortunate attempt at congress, but it all seemed to work out in the end.


Then there are the goats. Years ago, I had this dream of returning to Newfoundland and raising goats on a little piece of land in the Bay of Islands called Christopher's Cove. The goats would roam happily, and the cheese would taste ever so slightly of the salt air. Now everyone in the world makes goat's cheese, so maybe I will do as Rosemary does, and raise a couple when I retire, making just enough cheese for the two of us. (If I start talking about it now, Kelly might actually be convinced of the plan's merit within 20 years.)


This is Holly.


And this is Holly's son, Heath.


John and Rosemary explained that Heath's horns were inexpertly trimmed while he was a kid, hence the tight curl.


Then Heath and Holly begat Hercules. This guy is very affectionate with people.


But he has a slightly different relationship with Boscoe.

Rosemary kindly offered to let me milk Holly, and gave me a quick lesson. Though I knew it would be work, it looked easy enough. Just take hold of the teat, pinch it off at the udder so that it's extended into your palm, and squeeze.



Ha ha ha ha ha. It was impossible. I couldn't really get any purchase on the warm, full udder, and my feeble attempts to extend and squeeze the teat bothered Holly. I quickly handed it back to the expert.


It took Rosemary maybe 10 minutes to get a healthy pail of milk. After we left later in the day, I realized that we hadn't tried any in liquid form ... though the night before, we had a lasagne made with ricotta and mozzarella de Holly.

After the milking, it was on to a well-deserved snack in the pasture.



And thence to feed the chickens, who that morning enjoyed a mess of watermelon in addition to their corn.


They had provided the eggs for breakfast.

I hope you enjoyed them, thief.

The farm in Kell is just a wonderful place to be, with wonderful people.


And plants.

Lotus.


The leaves shade the fish that swim underneath.

And animals.


And bugs.

This is an assassin bug. It kills ash borers.

And birds.



And food, like a blueberry buckle and homemade ice-cream. (Emphasis on the cream!) John salvaged and rebuilt this old ice cream maker, fashioning the bucket from planks he cut from an old cedar light pole.



And a chance to see more than the stars. With this telescope we saw the swirly surface of Jupiter and saw two of its moons in close orbit -- closer than Rosemary had ever seen them.


Thanks, John and Rosemary, for sharing this beautiful corner of the Midwest with us.