Lehman's Country Life

This winter reminds me of the “Long Winter” that I experienced in South Dakota in the mid 1980s.  Now, I am sure that if you have read the Laura Ingalls Wilder book of the same name, you would have thought, at first, that I was talking about THAT long winter!

But, no!  Western South Dakota had a long winter in 1986 – 1987.  That was the year it started snowing in October and didn’t stop snowing until mid-April.  That was the year that my 80+year-old father-in-law said “I’ve never seen this much snow in my life!”

I do not remember how MUCH snow we got that winter except it was mega, mega snow!

Now, we lived 20 miles east of Rapid City.  The road to our homestead was 2 miles from the main highway and only about 1 mile of that was considered county road.  Our road was a no-maintenance road – the people that lived on the road did any maintenance needed.  And at the time of this big snow, there were 3 families that lived on it.  We had a large 4×4 3-quarter ton pickup with chains on all 4 wheels; Sue had a 4×4 pickup without chains.  The 3rd family, Holly and Michael, had a Suburban but it was not 4×4.  We also had a 4×4 Jeepster but it did not have the clearance that the pickup had.

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Once upon a time, about thirty years ago, we lived on twenty acres in western South Dakota.  My husband and I decided that these twenty acres would make a nice “homestead,” just about the time that the modern version of that word was becoming popular.

I have loved ducks for as long as I can remember.  I have WANTED ducks for as long as I can remember.  Once we got our homestead, I worked on Norm for a very long time to allow me to get ducks.
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Many people think that having a milk cow (or goat, as the case may be) is time consuming, shackling you to the farm day and night, night and day until your cow (or goat) has dried up. And then after she freshens, it’s back to the grindstone again.

But wait! There is a plan that allows you to be free as a bird whenever you want yet still be able to have a milk cow and all the goodies she gives you in return for feed, care and affection (whether she likes the affection or not).

I used this plan back in the “old” days when I was young and fancy-free, stronger and more able to handle four-legged beasts on my own, with no assistance from a husband (who was gone more often than not, at his “real” job).  However, he supported me in the plan and helped, when he was home at night and on weekends, with building fences, sheds, etc.
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I love watermelon pickles.  My biggest goal of the summer is to collect the best watermelon rinds that I can and make them into yummy, luscious sweet pickles to soothe my soul in the wintertime.

However, it seems to me that the watermelons these days are bred to have skinny rinds and there is NO rind left of any decent sort to make into pickles.  A shame!  A travesty!  How can we have those delicious pickles if there are no rinds to use?  I managed to get a total of three (count them, THREE) pints of pickles last year and they were a sorry sight to see, skinny little pickles, ashamed to show their heads against the fat ones in the past.
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At The Landing, our goal is to show the public the activities and life of the 1800s. One event that happens every spring is plowing and planting. We have two fields that must be plowed, dragged and planted each spring, and there are also several house gardens that must be prepared for planting.

The 19th century showed the largest jump from “primitive” to “modern” in the history of farming. By the end of the century, farmers had gone from using horse- or oxen-drawn walking plows to steam tractors. At The Landing, we use a sulky riding two-bottom plow, pulled by two horses. Our plow is a real mid-1860s model and allows us to plow more land, faster, than with the walking plow.
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Connie haying

Here at Ash Lane farm, we don’t have many animals to care for. We have about fifteen chickens at the moment and two sheep.

The barn was, when we moved in, a junky building that had been designated the “tear down building.” Then I discovered, after moving some junk, that there was working electricity and running water. We decided that the building could be renovated with a lot of work, but that it would be easier to work on this one than build a new one.

So we cleaned the barn out. There was a day that my brother was here; he helped me move about a dozen old, decrepit bicycles from one end of the barn. None of them were even close to being able to being recovered for riding, so we took them to the metal recycling place to get rid of them.

We got four hens and a rooster that winter to start us out with farm-fresh eggs. Now, I’m here to say that I do NOT eat eggs, for the most part, but I love everything else there is about eggs – the hens, gathering eggs, looking at nice brown eggs in the fridge and cooking with them.
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All of my growing-up years, I craved being in the country, out of town. I never cared for having neighbors, being crowded and having people watch me as I walked down the street or rode my bike or skated on the sidewalk. My favorite place, if I could find, was alone in a tree top or in a “cave” in a secluded woods somewhere near the house we lived in. But never in a shopping center, a store or a crowded concert somewhere. As I grew, I insisted that I would marry a rich rancher which would allow me to live on a ranch, away from people and out on the land with animals surrounding me. Well …. I got part of my wish. I married a rancher’s son, although not “rich.” I did find, however, that he was more comfortable with being on the land with something to do with his hands. He was not a shopper, a “go-er for the sake of going” type of person.
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People! Are your goats healthy? Your sheep? No arthritis? No hard udders that are a mystery? Are they eating well? Not just peanut butter in celery sticks; as I tell husband Norm, goats do NOT live on peanut butter alone (man does not live on peanut butter alone either, but that’s another story). Or could some of your animals have CAE? Do you even know what CAE is? Sadly, many do not; but don’t feel badly if you are one who does not. Just read on.

CAE (not pronounced ‘kay’ but ‘C – A – E’) is the acronym for CAPRINE ARTHRITIS ENCEPHALITIS. This is a disease that is transferred by milk or by fluids. This means that if your doe has CAE, you cannot allow her kids to be nursed by her or even allow her to lick and clean the kids. Even sneezing can transfer the infection.

Now, I don’t want to put fear in your hearts, but CAE is really a disease to be aware of and avoid if at all possible. Not every animal that has CAE will show signs, but one could be a carrier for youngsters to develop it. Both goats and sheep can carry and suffer from CAE, even though it’s predominant in goats. So I will not keep saying “goats or sheep” but let you change “goat” to “sheep” in your head if you wish.

CAE can have two different signs – a neurological disease in the spinal cord and brain of young kids and a joint infection of older goats resulting in arthritis.
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I have a strange dance that I’m doing most days in my kitchen. It’s a step, slide, step, slide, turn around, lift over, step slide. If I stand still too long, I get chewed on – either on my knee or calf, through my pant leg.And why, do you ask, am I doing this strange dance? Because of little critters in my kitchen!

On Valentine’s Day this year, my husband Norm brought home a newborn kid for me to care for. His mother was a youngster herself and didn’t know how to care for him, much less have enough milk to feed him. As I held him and warmed him in my arms, I got to thinking – if YOU were given a newborn goat or sheep, could YOU care for it properly?
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It was thirty-five years ago; I had an eighteen-month-old daughter and was newly pregnant with my second child. Husband Norm and I had just moved from Rapid City, South Dakota to Australia and were settling in. Norm was a teacher; I was a homemaker and didn’t know many people at all.At a teacher’s evening get-together, one of the wives asked me if I liked being in Tumut, the town we had moved to. I replied that I loved it but was bored, as I didn’t know many people. She, Margaret, asked me what I liked doing and I told her that I liked crafts like sewing and embroidery.

Margaret, who later became my closest friend, told me there was a guild that met every week that perhaps I would be interested in checking out. She offered to babysit my daughter, Joy, while I went to a meeting to see what was going on.
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