Regarding my last post about the crisis in South Dakota, Christine asked,
"Good heavens, do you have an update on this? "
Yes, Christine, help is still needed - and I hope everyone will contact their representatives to make this situation clear to them!
Native American Heritage Association
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Thank you, lovely readers! And happy Valentine's Day to you and yours!
From HUNAP:
January 28, 2010, Cambridge – Native American Caucus students at the Harvard Kennedy School are taking action in response to the inadequate national response to the crisis on Indian reservations in the Dakotas due to severe ice storms and freezing temperatures. Last weekend, a powerful snow and ice storm ripped through the region, felling power lines, and cutting off power and water to thousands of South Dakotans, many of them on the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Indian Reservations. When full power and water will be restored remains in question.
The ice storms cut off electricity in an area about the size of Connecticut. With no electricity, no heat, no running water, and a wind chill below zero, a crisis is mounting. The Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has declared a state of emergency for his community and is calling for immediate assistance.
The tribes are working hard to bring families in out of the cold into shelters. The South Dakota National Guard, the State’s Department of Public Safety as well as the Army Corps of Engineers have come to the reservation and supplied some emergency generators. Help also is coming in the Red Cross and other tribes. But even with this assistance these tribes, among the poorest communities in the United States, are not able to meet the overwhelming needs of their communities.
Outside the frozen plains of the Dakotas, this human crisis has received little attention. The Native American Caucus student organization at Harvard Kennedy School would be grateful to American citizens to give the spotlight to their fellow Native American citizens. They are in great need of your help and aid. The American People need to be aware of this emergency situation.
To assist the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Tribes, contact Stacy LaCompte at Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Place at (605) 280-8588.
MEDICAL NEEDS: Dialysis Patients/Glucose Strips/Financial Support for Hotels
The dialysis patients have all been evacuated three hours away to Rapid City , SD. They are staying in hotels for at least a week and half, probably longer. Financial contributions are needed to help the families pay for their hotel expenses and food. An account has been set up at Wells Fargo to help with these expenses. You can contribute at any Wells Fargo or send to the Rapid City branch. Link To News Story
CONTRIBUTIONS:
Wells Fargo
Cheyenne Dialysis Patients (c/o Dew Bad Warrior)
Acct. #: 5815904338
1615 N 7th St.
Rapid City, SD 55701
Medical Items Needed on the Reservation (shipping address below):
° Glucose Strips
° First Aid Kits
° Children’s Tylenol
° Children’s Cough Syrup
FINANCIAL DONATIONS:
The Tribe has depleted its emergency budget with the two blizzards that already hit the reservation since December. It needs funds to help buy food and supplies for the community and volunteers, to pay for gas and overtime for the workers, to replace the motor at the water pump station that was destroyed, etc.
WIRE DONATIONS TO:
Cheyenne River Sioux 2010 Disaster Account
Direct to: United Bkrs Bloomington ABA # 091 001 322
Beneficiary Bank: Account Number 250 3373
State Bank of Eagle Butte
Eagle Butte , SD 57625
Final Credit: Account Holder @ UBB Customers Bank
Account Holder: CRST 2010 Disaster, Account Number 103173
MAIL CHECK DONATIONS TO:
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe/2010 Disaster Account
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman’s Office
Attn: Ice Storm Emergency Fund
PO Box 590
2001 Main Street (Tribal Offices)
Eagle Butte , SD 57625
CHEYNNNE RIVER SIOUX CONTACTS:
Robin Le Beau, Chairman’s Assistant: (610) 568-2101
Joe Brings Plenty, Tribal Chairman: (605) 365-6548
CRST Emergency Coordination Center : (605) 964-7711
Yippee, something got fixed and my entry page is back to normal. Phew! Thanks to those of you who suggested WordPress - I did set a new blog up over there and it was indeed very easy to use. I'll keep it there, just in case Blogspot goes wonky on me again.
Summer on a farm - even a hobby farm - doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging, as you can imagine. Add to that new Facebook and Twitter accounts, and my life took a major detour as I caught up with friends old and new. Sorry - I have missed you and your wonderful comments!
We had many more hatchings of guinea keets than anticipated, the most recent being this week! We are inundated with guinea fowl. They really are the cutest babies - much more adorable than baby chickens. They're like little "scrubbing bubbles" that zip all over the place on their huge, bright orange feet.
We are still awaiting the shearer to clip the Icelandics and the Angoras, both of which must be shorn twice a year. We had snow this week, so I hope he gets a move-on, since I want the goats to get a decent growth on them before the truly cold weather sets in. At least they have a snug barn, and we have heat lamps should we need them.
Speaking of the snug barn, the Golden Laced Wyandotte chickens that Chef Jeff pasture-raised for the freezer are now having a lovely night's rest in the box stall, before their first (and only) car ride to the humane Mennonite butcher tomorrow. They had a week of feasting on cracked corn, carrots, and apples, as I spoiled them a bit. Perhaps I should have fed them garlic to pre-season them? Well, joking aside, they will receive a blessing from Chef Jeff before they make their journey. I hope we have treated them with the respect they deserved, and that they had very happy days here at Tuppinz Farm.
The livestock are all well. The dogs are all doing great.
Otter sleeps very soundly.
Molly stops chewing her cow ear to watch the big machinery pull up the driveway.
We did have to say good-bye to our wonderful kitty Max due to liver failure. He had never been a healthy cat since he first appeared here at the farm. The other four cats are all just fine. Despite our feelings about outdoor cats, we made the decision to move everyone but Abby out to the goat barn. There, they have two levels of room to run about; a large, heated bed; windows to let in sunlight; and no dogs to chase them. Boris and Otter were a little too interested in some of the cats, and the floorplan of the new house will not allow us to keep the cats and dogs separate any longer. Abby is older and keeps to herself - she will live in the studio and loft in the new house, in which the dogs will not be allowed.
The new house - ah, the new house. Did I mention the new house?
Suffice it to say, the old farmhouse in which we now reside is going to fall down soon. Literally. It will cost less to build a new one than to fix up this one, which in all likelihood isn't even possible. We also have five dogs living in this one - can you imagine trying to repair it? So... we have begun building a new house up on the hill and hope to move in in December.
The old farmhouse will be burned - not only to give students in the firefighter program at a local college experience, but also to get rid of all the awful karma, bad energies, and evil spirits which have clouded our lives for the past three years. I wish I could be excited about it, but the fact is, the experience of moving to a place where dishonest folk left so many very, very bad things really took a toll on me emotionally.
Thank goodness Chef Jeff has been up for the task of choosing counters, cabinets, flooring, and fireplace rocks! I never could have made a decision with so many choices, but he narrowed things down very quickly:
The interior will have a warm, Southwest feel to it. We will have geothermal heat, so the puppers will enjoy a heated floor in their rumpus room downstairs. I will have a larger studio in which I will be able to spread out my knitting, spinning, quilting, and painting, and I can hardly wait for that!
It has been a long and troublesome journey but I am confident that moving on up the hill will make all the bad mojo a thing of the past.
There are surprise babies at Tuppinz Farm!
A bunch of "scrubbing bubbles" appeared in the poultry food line yesterday:
"Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"
We have 18 new guinea keets!
When the guinea fowl go broody, they do it in secret. We never know if a hawk or fox has made off with one of them (we wouldn't mind too much as we love the wildlife also), or if they're not coming home to roost at night because they're on a nest. Apparently this time it was the latter. I think I spy another hen on a nest out in the sheep pasture... we'll keep an eye on her to see if another clutch hatches out.
Our tick population is well under control, and guinea fowl are amazingly loud, so perhaps if all of these grow up to adulthood, we'll fatten a few for the freezer.
Our chicken coop was also home to another hatch of babies - barn swallows:
The parents kept the coop insect-free while feeding their young, so have been quite welcome. Chef Jeff tells me he would give the babies a little pat on their heads each day. Don't they look like they're smiling? Having barn swallows grace our farm with their presence is something we look forward to each spring. They zoom around like tiny fighter jets all summer long, catching bugs on the fly. Beautiful birds. We always sigh and know it's springtime when we see them return.
This is my favorite hen, Pigeon Pie. She is a Quail Antwerp Belgian bantam.
When it's my turn to feed the poultry, she is first in line, and flies up onto my outstretched arm, or onto my head, or right into the feed scoop to fill her little beak and scatter food everywhere, creating a pile of chickens, ducks, guineas, and geese at my feet so that I can't take a step. Today, she thought I had something special for her in my egg basket, and flew up to take a peek. Sorry, Pidge, just my work gloves and camera in there...
Weather is perfect here today - sunny, not too hot, breezy. Baby kestrels are learning to fly and hunt. Dogs are napping. Sounds like a plan. Blogger just ate a complete post I had done with it's "autosave" feature (I hate that feature!) Perhaps they could nix that, and get the autopublish feature up and running again? Sigh.
It was a beautiful holiday weekend here in Wisconsin. We couldn't have asked for better weather.
The Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks were moved out to their netted pasture. They are about a month old now. They're loving the fresh air, sunlight, grass, and insects. Our broody Wyandotte hen hatched out nine adopted babies, so that little family was also put in the electric netting for "safekeeping".
In addition to moving the chickens around, Jeff and our Farmhand Extraordinaire, Dakota, got us caught up on goat vaccinations and hoof trimming, fencing, yardwork, hay moving, and a billion other tasks. Thanks for all the hard work, guys!
beautiful book, which also included recipes for homemade refried black beans and great guacamole. It was an outstanding meal, though we somehow got our hands on a jalapeño that must have been grown near a nuclear reactor because that thing was HOT - and this judgment from people who use habañero sauce on a regular basis!
Busy, busy week at Tuppinz Farm. Here are some of the highlights...
The sheep and goats were finally shorn! They are so relieved to be nekkid, as the days are starting to get very warm. That's "Fontina" (whom we call "Caribou" for obvious reasons) in the foreground. Need fleece? We have LOTS!
This year's Largest Fleece award goes again to our Jacob ewe Montana. Jeff tells me the Shetland fleeces are again very nice and soft. I'm looking forward to keeping the two badger-faced Icelandics' fleeces for my own use - they are identical in coloring so it will be nice to combine them and have enough matching wool for a big project.
I would have preferred that shearing not take place on the same day the farrier and vet were scheduled to attend to the donkeys, but on a farm, you have to roll with the punches. Farriers, farm vets, and sheep shearers are not as easy to coordinate as the business projects I was used to in my "former life". There simply is no option to have a "Type A" personality on a farm.
Poor Michelle had to have her shearing appointment on a day when she couldn't even be home! I hear her wether's fleece is really nice...
Potatoes are up and growing nicely. We're using this method.
My crazy junk garden is also doing well.
I tried to make raised beds using only materials I could scrounge up around here. I decorated with rusty bits of metal that were found on the property.
I'm growing lettuces, hot peppers, tomatoes, scallions, cucumbers, basil, cilantrol, parsley, three pumpkins, and sunflowers. We had lots and lots of rain this past week and the plants loved it.
We moved about 100 iris plants from the area that became the veggie garden, and popped them in the beds in front of the house. Several of them flowered despite this insult. We have planted echinacea I started from seed, as well as rudbeckia, in one bed, and roses in the other; next year it should be very pretty - all purple and yellow.
Little goats are growing like weeds, too. Here are sisters Elfine and Daisy May, almost all grown up (but still very tiny!)
The purchased Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks have their wing feathers now. Soon they will no longer need a heat lamp. They enjoy the thinnings from the veggie garden - feeding them teaches the chicks to eat greens (which they won't learn without parents to raise them) and it gets some good vitamins into them.
We had a lovely Wyandotte hen go broody. Unfortunately, before we realized she was nesting, we gathered the eggs she was laying each day for the refrigerator. We then noticed that she - and she alone - was hanging around with our single Golden Laced Wyandotte rooster... the two chickens we most hoped would reproduce. Hobby Farm Mistake #1027 - when the chickens you want to breed actually do, let the eggs turn into chicks!
So as not to waste her broodiness, we collected two days' worth of eggs which will hopefully become mixed-breed chicks, and stuck them under her. She accepted them readily. Hobby Farm Mistake #1028 - when you have a hen that is broody and you want to hatch out chicks, consider the fact that she is nesting in front of hay bales you will need to access in the next month - not the best choice of locations for anyone involved.
Last Saturday, we went to the farmers market in Eau Claire, at Phoenix Park. It was raining and quite cold, but we had a great time. On our walk back, I saw this Labyrinth in the park - what a neat thing!
On the way home, we stopped at a couple of places to fish for a little bit. Did I mention it was rainy and cold? The only trophy was an ugly thing I caught called a river chub, which went gently right back into the water. We gave up on a fish dinner and went to Tep's Drive-In in Augusta, for their amazing garlic fries. Got to love a place with carhops - especially in an Amish village.
I ended up the week with a meeting of my MaryJane's Farmgirls group yesterday. We met at Dee Dee's Diner in Northfield and had a great time chatting and knitting and sharing pictures.
Dianne, Kayley, Dawn, Michelle
We meet on the second Saturday of each month to just hang out and do whatever... we talk about animals, crafts, gardening, and end up laughing. One doesn't have to be a "real" farmgirl to join; as MaryJane Butters says, "'Farmgirl' is a condition of the heart." We're just a bunch of gals out to learn new things and meet new friends.
The weather has turned glorious. First hay cutting this week. Crickets, junebugs, and moths abound (one notices this when one takes up fly fishing...) Baby squirrels exploring their world. The glow of light as the sun begins to cross the horizon is more amazing each and every evening. What a wonderful time of year.
Who's this fuzzy face?
We are officially a four-donkey family! Meet Rocky Mountain Songbirds Ty-Dyed Champ:
Currently, Tikki won't let him near Jazz and Eli... or her hay pile. But things are actually working out well and in a day or two they will all be fast friends.
Champ is a nine-year-old gelding who comes to us from the nice folks at Dixdlor Ranch here in Wisconsin. He was born here and the photo on that web page is in fact Champ himself!
Eli's wondering if we'll still love him. Silly boy!
