First Cut


We’re taking our first cut of hay this week. People are always curious about what this little farm is growing so I’ll share with you now that we grow an orchard hay which is mostly grass with some alfalfa and clover mixed in — it’s an excellent horse hay. Our farm has water rights to the Snake River and this hayfield of ours is irrigated by handlines which are long sections of metal pipe with sprinkler mounts. These pipes have to be carried out and attached to each other by hand across the span of our hayfield which is cumbersome work and it only gets more difficult as the hay grows. The work becomes uncomfortably humid as the season warms up and as the hay grows taller it’s like wading through hip deep water out there. I actually really hate moving handlines but a hayfield is a beautiful thing, provides organic weed free food for our own horses and our hay goes to market — it’s part of our yearly income so we get the job done around here!

We take three cuts of hay a year. We don’t own our own haying equipment so we have a neighbor cut it for us — he hays throughout this ranching community and does a good job. He pays us per bale that comes off our property and then he turns around and sells it himself locally. It’s actually kind of a bad deal for us, it’s a ton of work to keep that field growing and we pay for our water rights every year. We would love to have our own tractor and swather but we’re not quite there yet. I do look forward to making 100% profit on our hay someday though. After a season of irrigation work I always feel let down by the hay checks.

Robert estimates our first cut of hay will put up about 800 70lb bales this week which is a beautiful first cut. Some of our hayfield has grown taller than me! It’s a lush place that the wind plays like an instrument these days. I’ll be sad to see it mowed. But that’s the way of things. The first cut is always the sweetest!

If you live in Southern Idaho or South Central Idaho and you’re looking for high quality horse hay, please feel free to email me about it. Our field is never sprayed and it’s grown with a lot of love and a lot of cussing by me if I’m having to move handlines by myself…so it’s extra zesty.

Our place isn’t huge but it’s hard working. I come from Saskatchewan, land of commercial, non-irrigated, mono-culture-mega-farming. My relatives always seem confused when I refer to this place as a farm because it’s less than 2000 acres. I think there’s some danger in trying to market something as bigger than it really is. Based on my roots, I would call this place of ours an acreage if it was just a house plopped on some land with a couple of gardens. Because it actually has a crop going to market on a yearly basis that contributes to our annual income here, I call it a small, working farm. There’s no growing season like the high desert growing season if you have water rights and the roots we put down sink themselves into rich, volcanic, river flood plain. There isn’t anything we can’t grow. Amen.

Briefly…on the topic of customs fees:

What I am about to say is not about anyone in particular (I am not calling anyone out) but I want to address something real quick-like this morning. I regularly have international customers request that I declare a low dollar value on jewelry shipments that are shipping to destinations outside of the USA…OR that I declare that their shipment is a gift instead of declaring it as merchandise. This puts me an a truly awkward position. I have to sign customs paperwork for every package I ship internationally stating that I have truthfully declared the value of the contents of packages I am mailing. To falsely declare the value of these objects is to lie — it is in fact ILLEGAL for me to do so. If I were to be caught doing this I would face fines!

I understand where these requests are coming from, I’ve been asked to do this for years by many different individuals, and I agree, getting smacked with an additional customs fee is awful. I don’t want that for any of my customers but lying about the contents of my shipments puts my integrity in jeopardy as well as the integrity of my business. It’s illegal. I cannot do it. I apologize. I appreciate the support of all my ladies and gentlemen in Canada, Europe, Central America, South America and all around the rest of the world. I will go to the ends of the earth to serve my supporters and very often do, but this is the one customer service request I cannot fulfill for you.

My apologies!

Sincerely, Jillian

Neighbors. Am I right or am I right?

I’m neighbored out. It’s amazing how we can live in the middle of nowhere on a little farm and still, there’s neighborhood drama. I feel like it’s been going on all spring, too, culminating in one specific neighbor popping by last weekend to pontificate about a situation she’s in which led to her talking crap about some other neighbors who are good people which led to me calling her out on being poorly behaved (Robert says I should have kept my mouth shut but there’s a moment when silence is the same as lying and I couldn’t tolerate her thinking that I agreed with her) which led to her screaming at me at the top of her lungs and coming completely unhinged which led to her telling me she would see me in court.

HOLD ON.

What???!!???? Gold star for bad behavior and bullying, neighbor lady, and thank you for making me LAUGH aloud as you drove away!!! Too ridiculous!

I’m not interested in being enemies with this woman but I sure as heck don’t want to be friends. I can practice civility but I can’t have any of this individual in my life. And that’s ok. But it raises the question: what do we do when the lives of others begin to spin out and crash into our own lives? What do we do when others splash unsavory details all over our tranquility? What do we do with the neighborhood-arse? Every neighborhood has an arse, every office has a jerk, every swimming pool has had a turd floating in it. I know the answer is not to move again, to a bigger farm or ranch that has a wider buffer zone between my neighbors and I…or maybe that is the answer? The fact is no matter where we go we’re going to have to live with others to some degree. The only thing I can think to do is take my lessons as I can from the people I have to share this canyon with — some lessons will be full of joy and others will be hard knocks. And more importantly, I think I’ll strive to be a good neighbor to my neighbors. Lord knows, one rotten egg is more than enough rotten eggs in this community.

If you’re reading this rant-of-exhaustion of mine this morning, I suppose I just want people to know that despite the fact I have created a beautiful sanctuary for myself to live and work within, there are still human generated disruptions in my life and I know there are for you, too. We’ll all get through it in good time. In the meanwhile, sow flowers, tug weeds.

ON THE TOPIC OF GROWING THINGS:

My gardens are coming up so beautifully here. I managed to get the last of everything planted over the weekend and chased the garden planting with an intense two days of shrub, tree and rose planting. Everything is in the ground now drinking up water and sunshine and getting taller every day. Each morning when I survey my cultivated dominion I’m amazed at how quickly things grow. I wish there was a way to measure growth of adults. So much of how we grow and change once we are physically mature humans is invisible!

ON THE TOPIC OF GARDENING FAILURES:

I confess to being in extreme dahlia distress. I’m in the depths of despair! I think all my dahlia bulbs are duds. I don’t know what I’ll do without them. My dahlia grove brought me a lot of joy and beauty last summer. I might have to go to the plant nursery one last time to see if I can remedy the situation but I think all may be lost.

How do your gardens grow?

Ernest

Between South Dakota and Wyoming, on the one day that neither Robert nor I was here at the farm, all 22 of my chickens were killed by a predator. The death toll over a two week span here was actually 22 chickens, 3 ducks and our tom turkey but losing all 22 chickens in one day really blew the roof off my head. I phoned Robbie up at work before departing for Wyoming and I told him, “Please bring home a Great Pyrenees puppy this weekend, I won’t go another day without one.”

While our decision to add Ernest to the farm might seem like a rash one, we’ve been discussing picking up a guardian dog for our livestock for over two years now. Every summer I have suffered heavy predation issues at the farm. The first year I had what I believe was a mountain lion plucking full grown turkeys off of 6ft tall perches. The reason I think it was a lion is because this predator was burgling 25lb birds without any struggle and was walking straight off our property with them. I don’t care what anyone says. No skunk, coyote, fox or bobcat could have managed that. It was a lion.

Anyway, it became apparent early on that we would eventually have to bring home a guardian dog for our livestock and my only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner! It’s going to take a while for Ernest to grow up and be big enough and strong enough to do the task he was bred and born to do. I wish we had started a pup two years ago!

Let me tell you about him. We named him for both Shackleton and Hemingway and because we would like him to do his job earnestly. He is so very hairy which is a real novelty since our other dogs have flat coats. His fur is incredible, it’s soft and silky and curly and almost the texture of lamb fleece which is very interesting to me. He has a long tail that he sometimes carries straight down and parallel with his legs, sometimes it sticks up straight like a lightning rod, other times it’s curled softly around off to the side, it’s such an expressive part of him. I love to notice everything he says with it. He’s CHILL. He’s very different from the last three dogs we have raised — all of which were/are high-octane German Shorthaired Pointers from heavy hunting bloodlines. Ernest gets the zoomies from time to time but for the most part he is quite relaxed, naps a lot or just lays down and watches the world. Farley, Tater Tot and Penelope all have extremely strong senses of smell. Ernest seems to have an acute sense of sight and hearing. I watch him when he is laying in the shade and he is continually responding to sounds and sights, filtering everything he senses. Two days ago he stood up and let out his first alarm bark — he planted his feet, brought his tail up, put his chest out and let out some adorable woofs. His bark will be scary when he is full grown, we’re counting on it. Because Ernest is intended as a working dog on our farm, he will live outside full-time and since the day he arrived he has been sleeping alone in the safety of his guardian quarters over in the horse paddocks where the chicken coops are. He spends all the daylight hours out and about with the dogs and I and the cats and the horses and when night comes, I tuck him into bed. He already has a strong sense of place and a general grip on some of the rules around here and I see him growing in confidence daily.

Lastly, it is such a joy to have a new little guy to tend to during the fire season while Robbie is away working. I like that Ernest is easy going, he forces me to slow down which is a serious struggle for me in the summertime when there is so much to do around here. He keeps me in the present even more than my other dogs do.

Ernest, you’re going to be such a great friend to all your friends and such an utter terror to all your enemies. Welcome home, little boy!

Observation Bracelet

For anyone who missed out the first run of my coyote rib bracelet I am offering a pre-order for the second (and maybe the last) batch. The window to order one will be open until June 7th and orders will ship out on June 25th. Full details can be found in the pre-order shop listing over in my shop!