Trail of quail

Perhaps it's because I've been filling the bird feeder over the cold months, but we've had a LOT of quail hanging around over the winter.

Their favorite refuge is a pile of brush near the house. Originally we had plans to chip this pile, but instead we might keep it there. It offers refuge against both terrestrial and aerial predators for the quail as well as other birds.

The quail have hung around the "front porch" of this brush pile for months now.

The funny thing is, the quail are gathering in unprecedented numbers

The other day I looked down and saw a whole bunch of quail on the road.

The flock grew and swelled until there were dozens, maybe over 100, quail.

And then they all marched down the road as if following an order.

Yes, a veritable trail of quail.

A ton of reference materials

As most readers know, we love books. We have – ahem – a lot of them.

We have our books organized by subject matter, i.e. World History, American History, Homesteading, Religion, Writing, Science, Finance and Frugality, Preparedness, Rural Living, etc. Most of these books are nonfiction, and a great deal fall under the category of reference materials.

In the spirit of putting up Amazon Associate links once in a while, I thought it might be useful to put up the occasional blog post reviewing some of our favorite volumes. Maybe I'll call it "Book Review Monday" or something.

With that in mind, today's book review will feature two modern-day reprints of very old farm references. "Homemade Contrivances" dates to 1897, and "Handy Farm Devices" dates to 1910.

The reason we like references like this is because a capable carpenter like Don can duplicate these useful plans and ideas without much hardship. Sometimes older items are as good, or better, than their modern counterparts.

These are not small books, either. "Handy Farm Devices" is 288 pages long. "Homemade Contrivances" spans an impressive 621 pages in length. That is a lot of information.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, I earn a small commission.)

So there you go: Your book review du jour.

The harsh reality of life in winter

Older Daughter was working in the kitchen the other day when she glanced out the window just in time to see a bird fall off a tree trunk into the snow.

At first she was inclined to think it was funny – clumsy bird! – but it soon became apparent the bird was stuck in the snow. I donned boots and waded out to free it.

The bird was a red-shafted flicker, and it was indeed stuck in the snow. Or ... something.

Did it have a broken leg? A broken wing? Whatever the issue, it was serious.

I gently picked it up. Within moments, it dropped unconscious.

I brought it onto the porch and laid it on a dishcloth just to keep it off the freezing-cold surface. It died a few minutes later.

It had no apparent injury, so my speculation is it died of starvation. This is the harsh reality of life in winter for many birds, and one of the reasons I like to keep our bird feeder full during the colder months.

Poor little flicker.

Hoof prints in the snow

We've had elk hanging around lately, always a wonderful thing to see.

While walking Mr. Darcy the other day, one hoof print was clear in the snow. I put my foot right next to it to compare sizes.

Now compare it to the hoof print of a deer, and the scale of size difference between the two species becomes obvious.

Trust me, elk are BIG.

When you're stuck, you're stuck

A few days ago, I noticed a distant pickup perched on an icy stretch of road. It's a steep road, too.

Then I noticed something else: Some poor guy was literally shoveling his way up the hill.

It was a long, steep slog for the poor guy.

Hours later, when I went out to do the evening barn chores, he was still at it.

The next day, I saw this:

He had made it a few yards higher on the slope, but that's it.

Just as I posted this blog post, I looked out the window and checked. The truck is still there. When you're stuck, you're stuck.

Black belts in frugality

For obvious reasons, the subject of frugality has been very much on our minds lately. Now that we're facing our first full week without gainful employment, I thought it might be useful to describe our belt-tightening activities.

Our black belts in frugality didn't start last week, or last month, or last year. The foundation was laid way back in 1992 when Don and I gave up our well-paying city jobs and moved to a fixer-upper on four acres in southwestern Oregon. We went from a combined income of $70K (extremely decent for the time) to zip, zero, zilch, nada. Now that was an adjustment.

But we made it work and, needless to say, learned a lot.

As a financial exercise for our current belt-tightening, I looked up some budgeting advice, much of which involved creating spreadsheets for various categories. Almost all budgeting advice includes the need to be flexible (for when life throw you lemons) and the importance of tracking one's spending

One such article had some sensible advice, including splitting income between needs (50%), wants (30%), and savings (20%). Personally I'd drop that "wants" category by quite a bit, but then we're still in the adjustment phase, not maintenance phase.

This website listed 18 budgeting categories as follows:

• Housing (rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees)

• Transportation (payments, gas, repairs, insurance, parking fees, registration, public transportation costs, etc.)

• Food (grocery costs, restaurant meals, take-out or delivery, coffee shop stops, alcohol, work lunches)

• Utilities (propane, electricity, water, cell phones, internet, trash)

• Medical/health care (insurance, prescriptions, eyeglasses, out-of-pocket costs)

• Additional insurance (life, disability, etc.)

• Taxes (state, federal)

• Education/childcare (N/A in our case)

• Debt payments (personal loans, student loans, credit cards)

• Retirement/savings (something, hopefully, we won't touch; but nor are we likely to be able to add to it for a while)

• Household items/supplies (cleaning supplies, paper goods, home decor, small appliances)

• Personal care (hair, nail, makeup, beauty items, massages, spa treatments)

• Clothing (including shoes, accessories, purses, backpacks, work clothing)

• Entertainment (gym memberships, cable TV, movies, events, bars, hobbies/crafts, streaming services)

• Travel (airfare, car rentals, tickets, hotels, souvenirs)

• Pets (food, medication, vet visits, accessories such as toys)

• Gifts/charitable giving (charity, church, holidays, special events such as birthdays, etc.)

• Miscellaneous (could include things like bank fees, "excessive personal spending," postage, etc.)

I've said it before: If we had to lose our major income stream, it couldn't have happened at a better time in our lives. However that's because we've spent years pre-positioning ourselves in some major, major ways.

Some of those major pre-positioning tactics include:

• Living in a low cost-of-living area. Most, though not all, rural areas fall into this category.

• Purchasing our home outright when we sold our last place. This decision meant we had to limit our options to what we could afford, which means our current home is not our "dream" home, but that's okay. We're in the process of making it into our dream home, and that's what counts.

• Years of whittling down expenses. Make no mistake, this takes practice; but the results can be astounding (as the budget analysis below will show).

• Purchasing in advance things we knew we would need. During times when money is less tight, buying up things you know you'll need not only fights against inflation, but provides a cushion when income drops. We don't have to buy coffee or tea, for example, because we have plenty. We bought a rototiller last fall (a very high-ticket item for us), and now it's ours whenever we need it. Remember when I bought a few extra pairs of prescription eyeglasses? Yeah, ask me how happy I am to have those in reserve (I am absolutely blind without my glasses). We pre-purchased building materials when we could afford it, so when it comes time to build a chicken coop, finish the garden infrastructure (including fencing and drip irrigation), construct a calf pen and milking stall, etc., the out-of-pocket expenses to complete these projects should be low.

• Getting out of debt. Oh heavens, the freedom that comes with being out of debt is indescribable. This isn't something that can be accomplished easily; but if you still have a dependable income, I recommend aggressively paying off debt as fast as humanly possible. And then – this is important – don't acquire more. It's one of the reasons we transitioned to an all-cash lifestyle so many years ago; it means we don't fill up our (single) credit card with frivolous purchases.

So anyway, this is how we handle the budget categories listed above:

• Housing (rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees). We have no mortgage, and we budget for the two bills we'll get every December: property taxes and homeowner's insurance. Our property taxes went up (no surprise), and now we pay about $1000/year. Our homeowner's insurance nearly doubled to $2000/year. Since both these bills come due in December, we have time to save up for them.

• Transportation (payments, gas, repairs, insurance, parking fees, registration, public transportation costs, etc.). We own our older (used) cars outright, so insurance is low; however we often have to pay for repairs as a result of driving beaters. Since we work from home, we probably spend about $150/month on gasoline (driving to town for church, errands, etc.). Don did mention he plans to curtail those "quick trips" to the hardware store for this or that, and instead will plan and combine such trips with other errands to avoid using gas. This means we'll be more housebound, but we're homebodies anyway, so it's no biggee.

• Food (grocery costs, restaurant meals, take-out or delivery, coffee shop stops, alcohol, work lunches). Take-out or delivery food is unheard of in our area, so that's not even on our radar. We had been in the habit over the last couple years of enjoying a restaurant meal about once a month, so that stops. We don't frequent coffee shops, have work lunches, or buy alcohol. (Once my current box of chardonnay is gone, it's gone.) Our pantry is full, as is our chest freezer, so with the exception of fresh vegetables, our food expenses are low, especially if we cut back on frivolous things. Besides, this year we'll have a garden and fresh milk from our own cow.

• Utilities (propane, electricity, water, cell phones, internet, trash). We have no water or trash costs. Our water comes from our well, and our trash is covered by our property taxes (our area doesn't have pickups, but rather centralized dumpsters). Normally our electricity bill is about $110 a month, but it spikes to almost twice that in the winter, because we use a stock-tank heater to keep the livestock water ice-free. We don't have smart phones (just one "dumb phone" for roadside emergencies), and of course we have internet service. Bottom line, there isn't a lot we can cut from our utilities.

• Medical/health care (insurance, prescriptions, eyeglasses, out-of-pocket costs). This is probably the biggest question readers have about our frugal lifestyle. How do we handle health insurance? Don is now covered by Medicare, and I'm covered by Christian Healthcare Ministries (a medical sharing business). Our monthly out-of-pocket costs for both these programs comes to about $415 for the two of us. Neither of us are on any prescription medicines, except Don's low-dosage blood pressure medication, which costs about $200/year. We thank God that we're in good health.

• Additional insurance (life, disability, etc.). We have no additional insurance.

• Taxes (state, federal). We pay quarterly taxes since we're self-employed. I'm working on our taxes at present; what we pay in quarterlies may go down since we can document a large income drop.

• Education/childcare. Not applicable in our case.

• Debt payments (personal loans, student loans, credit cards). Not applicable in our case.

• Retirement/savings. Contributions to our retirement savings is obviously taking a hit, and hopefully we'll never be in a position where we have to tap into our retirement savings.

• Household items/supplies (cleaning supplies, paper goods, home decor, small appliances). Not applicable, especially when on a budget. We have enough cleaning supplies and toilet paper to last a while, and home decor isn't even on our radar.

• Personal care (hair, nail, makeup, beauty items, massages, spa treatments). Bwahahaha. Nope.

• Clothing (including shoes, accessories, purses, backpacks, work clothing). Again, nope. We have plenty of clothes and shoes. Besides, I hate clothes.

• Entertainment (gym memberships, cable TV, movies, events, bars, hobbies/crafts, streaming services). Not applicable in our case.

• Travel (airfare, car rentals, tickets, hotels, souvenirs). We travel very little, and will travel even less going forward. I haven't flown since 2019. Don and I took a couple of road trips last year, but that's not likely to happen this year. The one trip we do have budgeted this year is to drive down to southern California to visit my very elderly parents.

• Pets (food, medication, vet visits, accessories such as toys). We have a lot of dog food on hand, and of course we take Mr. Darcy to the vet when necessary. We'll also be needing some additional hay for the cows before long, which we'll purchase as needed. We are responsible for the pets and livestock under our care, and have no intention of neglecting them.

• Gifts/charitable giving (charity, church, holidays, special events such as birthdays, etc.). It was a tough decision, but we had to cut back on our charitable donations (church and other charities). We hope God understands. As for holidays and birthdays, etc., the only time we ever spend money for these events is at Christmas (and not much even then), so we'll see what this upcoming holiday is like.

• Miscellaneous (could include things like bank fees, "excessive personal spending," postage, etc.). We have no bank (or credit union, in our case) fees; "excessive personal spending" is out of the question; and we'll handle other miscellaneous expenses as they come up.

When we sat down for our "budget summit" after I got the news I was being laid off, we estimated our streamlined yearly expenses (including food, charitable giving, taxes, insurance, etc.) to be around $18K. We're confident we can bring in that amount through freelance writing, so at this point, we're optimistic we'll be able to continue.

As Don put it, our goal is to give ourselves bonus points for wherever we can cut costs. He's talking about taking me out for pizza on a Friday or Saturday night as a sort of last hurrah (we haven't been able to do this for years!), but then ... that's it. Future pizzas will be made at home.

So this explains our black belts in frugality. I welcome any thoughts on how we can cut more costs and trim our expenses even further.

It is NOT SNOWING right now

You'll be pleased to know it is NOT SNOWING right now.

After all, that's what the weather report says. I believe it, don't you? This is RAIN.

Everything you see in this photos is just an illusion. I used PhotoShop.

Good thing, too. I'd hate for it to be, y'know, winter. So repeat after me: It is NOT SNOWING.....

Gender reveal

After our Valentine's Day calf was born yesterday, I still wasn't able to determine the gender. That's because Filet was being, understandably, very protective.

This morning when I went out to feed, she immediately gathered her baby and retreated to the opposite side of the corral. Actually I didn't mind this. It meant I could clean the barn and fill the water tank without watching my back.

The baby actually navigated the deep snow with surprising dexterity.

I cleaned up the barn floor and then layered the floor mats with sawdust in hopes it would increase traction for the newborn. I noticed it slipping yesterday.

The baby followed Filet right into the barn for breakfast.

In fact, while mama ate her own breakfast, the newborn dove in for its own breakfast as well. Go for it, kiddo! Get all the colostrum you can!

I checked up on everybody midday, and saw Filet by herself out in the snow. But where was the baby?

It turns out baby was bedded down inside the barn. Smart baby.

In the evening, since all the animals were outside, I took the opportunity to clean the barn and scatter more sawdust.

Interestingly, the calf came loping over right away, curious to see me. Keeping a wary eye on Filet, I felt under its tail. A boy! Dear readers, meet Romeo.

We've marked on our calendars for ten days from now (when the testicles drop), at which point we'll band Romeo's equipment and turn him into a steer. He'll have a date with the freezer in a couple of years, but in the meantime we're enjoying having a calf again.

Our Valentine's Day surprise

For the last few days, we've had bitterly cold temperatures, with lows at zero degrees Fahrenheit. Coupled with our huge snow whomp from last week, we're definitely into winter.

We've been keeping the cows confined to the corral for a few reasons. One, there's no sense letting them out into a pasture that's sixteen inches deep in snow; two, the gates are blocked shut anyway; and three, our Angus cow Filet was due to calve at some point, and we wanted to keep her close.

Filet is what had me worried. Since she's a former range cow, she's not crazy about being in the barn, even though it offers abundant shelter and that's where the feed box is. She'll eat, then retreat back outside. During the last cold snap, I'd feed the cows in the morning and tell her, "Don't have a calf." I'd feed the cows in the evening and tell her, "Don't have a calf." I prayed, literally prayed, she would not have a calf during the cold snap. Temps that low will kill newborns.

Today – Valentine's Day – was significantly warmer, with a low of 18F. And it snowed the blessed day long – prettily but relentlessly. When I went out to feed the cows in the morning, Filet was giving low moos and acting agitated – and her udder was bagged up.

I came back into the house and told Don, "I"m 99% sure Filet is in labor."

I made it a point to trudge through the snow and check on her about every hour and a half. Later in the morning, I was amused to see Mignon, her yearling calf, avidly nursing. I haven't seen Mignon nurse for months. Evidently she smelled milk!

The temperature rose until it hit about 31F by noon. Around 2:30 pm, I went to check, and she had just – and I mean just – dropped the baby. Even better, she actually came into the barn for this! I was thrilled.

Maggie (our Jersey) was intensely curious about the new arrival, of course, and to her credit, Filet wasn't overly aggressive about it. I, however, stayed well away. I've seen bovine maternal hormones in action many times. Nope.

When I got there, the calf wasn't yet on its feet. It flopped around a few times, but the barn mats were slippery and it couldn't get much by way of footing.

Splat!

Filet is an experienced mother. I have no idea how many calves she's had, but I'm guessing at least four and probably more. The baby was in good hands.

I had to dip in and out of this scene because this is my last weekend working my online job, so I was somewhat tied to the computer. But it was hard to stay away from a new baby!

I went out to check on things before dusk to clean the barn (if I could) and feed everyone. The baby was on its feet and Filet had moved it outside ... which was probably better for its footing, to be honest.

I took the opportunity to clean the barn, keeping a very wary eye on Filet. She bellowed and lunged at one point, and I didn't argue – I ducked back behind the gate. Mostly it was just bluster, but not all of it. Filet is a big cow and I wasn't taking chances.

I mean, c'mon ... would you mess around with this mama?

The baby wandered in and out of the barn, greeting its new herd mates.

Mignon, the calf's big sister, seemed calm and interested in the newborn.

When I left them for the evening, the calf was juuuuust on the verge of finding the faucet. A belly-ful of warm colostrum, and the calf will be just fine in the snow, especially since we're actually on a warming trend.

I'm about 80% certain the baby is a girl, but obviously I wasn't going to peek under its tail to confirm. However on the assumption that's correct, what shall we call our Valentine's Day calf?