Gooseridge Farm

Monthly Archives: April 2017

Die Hay, Die!

Posted on by Posted in hay .

It’s official.

 

Our main hayfield is now gone. I went through 2 weeks ago and sprayed it down with Roundup (Glyphosate).

Unfortunately, the temps dropped and the sun left the day after I sprayed the field, so it might not have had as much chance to work as it should have.

My plan had been to spray the field, wait 2 weeks, burn the field, then lightly disc it and then seed with a brillion-style ground seeder.

Erik had different ideas.

 

He didn’t want to burn the field (which would have gotten rid of extra sod and made for clean ground), he instead opted to till the whole field under.

The field was hard-packed clay . . . not such a good idea.

 

Since it hasn’t been tilled up in well over 20 years, tilling left giant lumps of clay. Tilling 3 times total helped break them up into golf-ball size lumps, but still not enough to plant grass on.

Now with 3″ of rain expected over the next few days, we stand to lose the entire field to washout.

 

Our second hay field (previously the teff field) will fair better. This was also sprayed to kill weeds and perennial grasses, but we didn’t till it, I used a field drag on it instead. This toothed contraption sank rows of teeth 1″ into the soil and ripped out all the grasses.

If it rains, the grassy clumps will protect the fragile top-soil.

This field will be solid “smooth brome” grass. The larger 8 acre field will be solid orchard grass. The guys online all said we won’t get much for cuttings off the fields this year. However, the orchard grass variety I chose was rated for 16 tons the first two years of planting. That’s about 8 tons per year . . . typical is a bit over  2 tons per cutting per acre (or about 80-100 50lb bales per acre)! 8 tons per year would be 320 bales per acre, or 2,560 for our 8 acre field PER YEAR.

Last year we got maybe a ton and a half per acre for THE YEAR. If we got 100 bales off each acre this year, each cutting (200 bales per acre for the year) we’d STILL be doing better than every other year we’ve had, and have more to look forward to for next year.

Bottom line, I’d be very happy to at least average 100 bales per acre, per cutting. Really.

The brome field I’m not sure. Everyone across the board said brome is hard to plant, and takes forever to grow thick. Well, we’re only doing 2 acres of it, so I’m not overly worried.

Fingers crossed on getting the hay to grow. Erik found some new liquid fertilizer stuff to buy for the fields, which should boost nutrition and help the grasses grow. We have a 3 acre field off to one side that I’m hoping to fertilize, then cut the wild grasses off from for hay for our group.

It’s going to be an interesting year.

Teff Grass Hay Bad for Horses?

Posted on by Posted in hay .

Last week I made it out to a horse rehabilitation facility which was going to work with and train our newest horse, Dezzie.

As we chatted, I happened to look down and find a huge stalk of Teff Grass hay. Excited, I help it up and said “Ah, you’ve fed Teff Grass, isn’t it awesome?”

The owner looked at me in horror, “No! It’s terrible! Our horses lost tons of weight on it and even our vet said Teff is bad horse hay!”

I looked at the girl in shock! Bad horse hay? I don’t think so!

But looking at the stalk in my hand, she was partially correct: this was in fact BAD horse hay! This hay had already started to seed, and it was past cutting prime. Some grasses like Brome and Timothy ae flexible with cutting and don’t lose nutritional value quickly. Others, like Teff and Orchard MUST be cut at a specific stage to ensure all nutrition is available for the animal who will be eating it.

Who ever had sold the girl this Teff, was basically conning her into it. He knew it was no good. You don’t grow hay and not know when to cut it. Now, whether or not she told him she had starved, rescue horses, I don’t know. But incorrectly cut Teff is bad for starving animals!

Lets get the facts on Teff Grass:

Taken from http://teffgrass.com/feeding-teff

Let me be clear – I researched Teff BEFORE I decided to plant it last year.

Teff is similar to the nutritional profile of Timothy, but, as the website suggests, the feed value lowers when you wait too long to cut it. Having grown it myself for hay, and fed it to my horses AND cows, the animals did VERY well on it, and slurped it up like spagetti! I had to be careful feeding it because they loved it so much they devoured their rations faster than other hays!

BUT . . . I also paid VERY strict attention to when I harvested it, and I cut it right at the correct stage of growth. I even got two MORE cuttings off it later, which were equally good!

Why Teff?

It’s fast.

Teff Grass can be cut 45 days after planting, and every 4-6 weeks there after. It gets thicker each time you cut too!

It’s an annual.

Unlike other grasses, Teff is an annual, so it dies in winter. It’s a “warm season” grass so it performs best in HOT weather. This makes it ideal for southern or western states where “cool season” grasses won’t grow for most of their grazing season.

It’s also good for northern states who need pasture during the short-lived summer months, and want to fatten cattle faster.

Being an annual, it allows farmers to keep something growing in their fields between major crop plantings, yet still get a paycheck from.

So if I love Teff so much, why am I not planting it again?

I would! BUT, I’d most likely plant it for summer pasture for the cows. At the moment I don’t have an extra area to plant as my previous area will be planted with Brome grass. Teff is perfect for farmers harvesting a winter crop such as wheat or brassicas.

Honestly, I’d rather just plant Native Grasses, which are also warm-season, but are perennials so they grow thicker each year. Native grasses are some of the best hay you can feed a horse but that’s a topic for another post!

Bottom line: Teff is excellent grass and hay. But do your research on it before you decide to buy it, so you can go to your hay seller with confidence! Or ask for a nutritional analysis. Or get one done yourself!

Teff Hay at correct stage for cutting, photo taken while cutting first cutting (note the stray timothy heads that snuck into my field?)

Photo of Teff Hay drying in the rows. Being a thin grass most think it dries faster and bale it too quickly. It dries at the same rate as other grasses, so don’t rush it!

*Doesn’t it look like an overgrown lawn?

Burned the Syrup.

Posted on by Posted in maple .

Ah, the life of farming. You work your butt-off for something, only to have it blow-up in your face.

I guess these days I’m never surprised, and try to let these things roll-off like water (if it’s something hard to prevent, and even the ones that were a stupid mistake).

This one, is STILL a bit of a shocker though.

If you know anything about cooking maple syrup first-hand, you know the single most important thing to NEVER do is let your syrup foam-up and scorch.

We keep a big bottle of anti-foaming oil on hand (often in-hand) just in case! Anti-foaming oil is a blend of highly refined seed oils that break the tension of sugary sap-syrup when it begins to foam. It’s so refined that it breaks down almost instantly and forms a scum on the surface of the cooking syrup that you scoop out with a filter stick. It in no way affects the flavor or quality of the syrup . . . unless you do something dumb like dump the whole bottle in!

In the old days, they used butter. But butter affects the flavor and the texture of pure syrup, and we now have access to better quality oils that do the same job, so most people don’t use butter anymore.

With our pan system, we have two potential types of foam-ups: in the sap pans, and in the syrup pans.

The sap pans typically foam within minutes of adding fresh wood to the fire. The burst of extra heat meets a flood of fresh sap and the sap begins to foam. 2-3 drops of anti-foaming oil over it and poof! its gone.

The syrup pan is completely different. When the syrup pan foams, that usually a sign the sugar content spiked too high, too fast and it’s busy converting itself from maple syrup to maple candy! When this happens, it’s because the syrup was not released from your cooker and now it’s beginning to back up into the other pans, which is preventing new syrup from entering the pans. The syrup boils so fast it LIFTS off the bottom of the pan, which allows the pan to super heat itself and instantly BURN anything that suddenly touches it. It also RUINS YOUR PANS.

Adding anti-foaming oil to a syrup pan does not help unless you douse it. Better is to open the syrup valve and let out the syrup into your filtering unit, and let new sap in from the back pans. You could also quickly ladle sap-syrup from your back pans into the front pan to help thin it.

I had this exact issue earlier in the season. Luckily that did not burn my pans or my syrup.

 

HOWEVER, the one that happened last weekend DID.

It was our LAST cook of the season. We were excited to see how much syrup we’d actually finish-up with. The cooker pan usually retains about 5 gallons of pure syrup inside, but it’s mixed into 15-20 gallons of sap-syrup. On our last cook, we dump the two syrup pans into 5 gallon buckets, then dump all the sap from our sap pans into 5 gallon buckets. Then we cook this all down on a separate cooker.

Had we done exactly that, we MIGHT not have burned our syrup into nothingness. But we didn’t.

We had roughly 50 gallons of sap sitting out back that I’d collected earlier in the week. It wasn’t much, maybe 3 hours of cooking and might produce 1 gallon of syrup. It didn’t seem worth it to me.

I knew our neighbors across the street also cooked syrup, but since they tapped silver maples, they had a rough year with very little sap. I thought they might appreciate 50 gallons to cook.

Erik didn’t like my idea to give them our sap, and he decided we should just cook it.

Everything was rolling like normal, all systems “go”. I’d been tending the fire, and splitting wood (and coughing and hacking and choking on the smoke that was aggravating my cold).

The temperature on the syrup pan was climbing quickly, and soon it was already up to 219! I realized I had for gotten our hydrometer cup to test the sugar content and decide what temp would be syrup.

I ran-in to get it, but realized I had forgotten to wash it. I quickly ran hot water through it to clear the sticky syrup out, then I popped back outside.

Erik was tending the fire and jumped out at me instantly!

“You didn’t open the filer box and now you’ve got syrup everywhere because it hit syrup temp while you were gone!”

Now Erik was totally joking, but he was trying to get me worked up. This is also something I could see myself doing and something he would yell at me about.

Unfortunately, while he was busy harassing me, and I was trying to clear my sick, foggy brain and remember what I had been about to do, no one noticed the pans. He started to crack the valve to open the syrup into the filter box, but I told him to turn it off until I knew what temp it needed to be.

I was having a rough time scooping syrup out to dump into the hydrometer. The cooker had been leaking smoke more and more and that day was especially bad. It seemed the syrup was to temp, but thanks to the smoke, my foggy brain and Erik still harassing me, what happened next should NOT have happened.

Were I by myself, I could think better with a foggy brain. I would have run through all my steps logically like I always do. Check the syrup sugar with hydrometer, open filter box, set temp on computer system, set switch to “auto”, check the back pans. When syrup begin to release from the valve, check temp on computer and adjust valve as needed.

However, my foggy brain is easily confused and distracted and has a hard time fighting through the fog to remember what I was doing before getting distracted.

No one turned the computer back to “auto”.

The syrup hit fast and hard, and like lightning it shot through every single pan.

I was the first to notice the smell, and asked Erik what he’d done. He instantly took offense, not thinking that with a major cold I couldn’t ask exactly nicely but everything comes out gruff and husky-sounding. So again, more time wasted arguing about how I asked my question.

Meanwhile, the smell of burned sugar was filling my nose. If someone is scooping scum off the surface of the sap pans and dumping it behind the evaporator, it often hits the chimney and causes a burned smell. This is what I’d figured Erik had done.

Unfortunately, as we walked back into the shack to find out what was going on, EVERY SINGLE PAN was a pile of foam.

Erik quickly shoved the float box down to try to flood the pans with cold, fresh sap while I began dousing the pans with foaming oil.

NOTHING WAS WORKING!

Thinking fast, I quickly ran out and grabbed a bucket of sap I’d brought back from the woods and dumped it into the pans to try to cool them. Erik was standing by the fan plug and I kept yelling at him to pull the plug! Finally it dawned on him what I was saying and we shut the system down.

But it was too late.

Giant chunks of charred syrup began floating up like bodies in a shipwreck from the bottom of the flues. I silently scooped-out the remains of the dead and piled them behind the evaporator.

I carefully ladled-out some of the syrup and tasted it.

Gone. All gone. All 6 gallons down the drain.

It tasted like the charred remains of a marshmellow reduced to a pile of ashes.

And just like that, our maple syrup season was done.

No one could have predicted what happened. It was only our second year using this system and as the more cooks you do the more concentrated the sap gets. You can’t point the finger and say it was anyone’s fault, and you can run through a mile-long list of things that could have been done differently. Ultimately though, you just never know what will happen.

 

I now have the unpleasant task of finding out how badly damaged our pans are. Hopefully they just need cleaning. Sometimes though, pans are totally destroyed in syrup burns.

Finishing-up Maple Syrup Season – What we learned

Posted on by Posted in maple .

It is with a heavy heart that I am officially closing-out maple syrup season. For us it’s been a bit of a bust thanks to temperatures hitting too high, too early in the season. We collected less sap this year than last year, and cooked it down into fewer gallons.

However, nothing is a complete bust if you’ve managing to come away from it learning something new and useful. And this year we really did!

 

Way back when we visited the maple syrup warehouse to buy our supplies, the owner showed us a newly completed research paper that showed how using new taps every year could increase your sap production significantly.

Erik was incredibly skeptical, but we bought 25 new taps as a test to see if the research was correct.

Guess what?

When the production slowed on our trees, and out of 150 old taps we’d have roughly 10 buckets with maybe 2 gallons each, ALL our new taps had AT LEAST 2 gallons, some even 5! The trees were tapped at the same time and in the same area, but those new taps ALL OUT PERFORMED THE OLD TAPS.

It was a bittersweet discovery. We now knew to buy all new taps next year, but had we done it this year we could have quadrupled our syrup this year.

 

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The taps we use are plastic (I’m not sure if metal taps have the same issues), and plastic is slightly permeable. Bacteria can find tiny niches and stay dormant even after washing thoroughly (which is nearly impossible with a tap anyway). When it once again has warm, sugary, tree sap flowing through it, the bacteria begin multiplying and spreading along the tap until it reaches the tree. The tree senses the bacteria and instantly begins trying to heal itself to prevent rot. It starts to seal over the hole.

The minute temperatures reach 50 degrees, that bacteria begins multiplying like crazy and the tree begins to close.

 

Long ago, taps were made of metal, and were much larger. It’s very likely they never had this issue before. With the invention of “tree-friendly” taps in smaller diameters and made out of plastic, the issue of taps closing too early seems to be a new one.

 

Bottom line: if your season seems to be less productive than it should have been, buy new taps every year. They make cheaper, disposable taps for this very purpose.

 

 

MEMOIR MONDAY: No Power, Round 1

Posted on by Posted in Uncategorized .

Last week we were once again without power for over 24 hours, and it got me thinking about when we began to lose power in the camper.

People ask me all the time “Wait, don’t you still have a generator?”

The answer is “no, we don’t. It died that winter, almost taking us with it!”

Late but here it is:

Excerpt from Six Kids, Four Months and One Camper

****Our doublewide had just been delivered*****

The kids had come back from school and since all of them were with us Erik decided to give them the tour. I went into the camper with Earen to prep dinner. It was a brats and hotdogs night. My options were a bit limited since I could only use the grill. Erik came back a few minutes later.

“The kids are busy fighting over sleeping arrangements.” Erik said as he walked back into the camper grinning mischievously.

“Oh yeah? Why am I not surprised!” I walked outside to light the grill. It took me a few tries then I came back. “Man that grill is a pain in the butt to light when it’s windy!”

Erik paid my comments no attention. “I called the guys earlier today for the plumbing and electric hook-ups and they will be out Monday. Monday morning I’ll call the township to come out and get approval for the work so I can get Consumer’s Energy to connect to the pole.”

“I thought you only needed a cement slab and septic?” I was confused.

“Yeah you do, but the township still has to approve your pole before you can let Consumer’s connect to it. We could begin moving into our house as early as Tuesday!” Erik’s grin widened into a full toothy smile, then he tackled me to the floor and wrestled me for a few minutes while I protested about needing to make dinner.

I wasn’t going to get my hopes up about the house.

I finally managed to get back outside with my plate of brats and dogs along with a winter jacket. It was starting to blow pretty good now, and I could see faint wisps of snow dancing across the cold-packed snow ground, swirling and leaping. I was quite sure the driveway would be drifted-over by tomorrow. I opened the grill and laid the food out evenly cross it. Then I stopped.

The fire was out.

That was strange. It was a new propane tank. I turned the nobs off and waited a few minutes to clear any gas, then turned them back on and tried to light them again. The lighter wouldn’t light. It would flame-up, then puff-out instantly. I looked at the side gauge, it was definitely full. I grumbled to myself and left the food while I went in for some matches. Good thing we had a huge box of them thanks to Randy!

I happily trotted back out with my box, pulled the grates off to one side, turned the nobs back on and struck the match.

It blew out instantly.

I frowned. I turned my back tighter to the wind and struck another match. This one flared to life, then blew out as well as soon as it got close to the grill.

So did the third and fourth and fifth.

I got smarter on my sixth. The fire pit behind me was filled with fresh newspaper from Erik’s tractor hunting. I grabbed a few sheets and twisted them into torches then lit them. They flamed to life eagerly, and I lit the gas burners on the grill. They roared into an eager line, but by the time I got to the next burner, the wind had blown the lit one out. I tried for 10 minutes, my eyes welling up with tears.

Why did everything crappy have to happen to me? Here I am, freezing my butt-off in single-digit temperatures trying to feed my family and I still get crap! It wasn’t fair! I was trying super hard to do this! My fingers were so numb I couldn’t hold a match anymore and even with two pairs of pants on, the wind was slicing right through them.

I gave-up and scooped the dogs and brats back onto my plate and slowly slunk back into the camper.

“I gotta cook this on the stove.” I announced woefully.

“No, you can’t, remember? You said you could cook stuff on the grill.” Erik didn’t look up from his Craigslist hunting.

“The fire keeps going-out. The lighter won’t work because it’s too cold, and the flames won’t stay lit on the grill. They keep blowing-out too!” I grabbed some toilet paper out of the bathroom and blew my nose.

“Aww, are woo cwying? Erik asked laughing and poking me in the ribs.

I glared at him, “My fingers are nearly frostbit! I’ve been outside with no gloves trying to get the fire lit!” I looked at the temperature gauge in the bedroom. “And it’s only five degrees out!”

Erik rolled his eyes, “oh, ok baby. I guess you can cook them in the microwave then.”

“What? You can’t cook brats in there.”

“Why not? You can cook hotdogs . . .”

“I don’t know, brats are different. They are raw meat. They will get tough and rubbery in there!”

“Well then I guess you’d better cook them carefully!”

The kids all ran back inside excitedly and out of breath.

“Eian pooped in the toilet!” Abby announced.

“Shut-up Abby! I did not! I found the poop!” Eian shoved her as they both struggled to rip their boots-off quickly.

Earen blinked rapidly in surprise as cold gusts of air blasted him from the slider as he sat on the ground with his toys. In his feverish attempt to run in to tell his story Eian nearly trampled baby Earen.

“Can’t you move him somewhere else?! He’s in my way!” Eian spat as he scowled at his baby brother sitting in front of the sofa.

He plopped down onto the sofa and draped his feet in Earen’s face. Earen began screaming and crying.

“Well then MOVE! I want to sit down! You don’t have to hog everything!” Eian began nudging him to the side with his foot which produced even louder howls from baby Earen.

“Eian! Knock it off dude! You don’t have to be so rude! Get your feet out of his face, he’s just a baby!” Abby yelled at him.

I was standing in the kitchen trying NOT to overcook the brats. I could feel the anger ticking at the back of my head hoping Abby would resolve the situation. I didn’t know if it was an older brother thing, or an Eian thing, but he had NO regard towards his brother at ALL. I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut and not say anything mean.

“What am I supposed to do Abby?! Crunch my legs up like this?” Eian tucked his knees up to his chin and raised his eyebrows at Abby. “Besides if I sit like this Dad will probably fart on me!”

Abby shook her head in wonder. “What? Why would Dad fart on you if you sat like that?”

At that exact moment, having been listening to the conversation and sitting beside Eain on the sofa, Erik farted and began laughing hysterically as both kids screamed and ran to their back bedrooms.

Nuriel and Brea walked inside, and the gust of single digit air knocked the scent of fart further back towards the kids’ room and more screams rippled out of the kids. Erik began laughing so hard he was snorting. Brea and Nuriel exchanged glances and gave me a quizzical look. I simply shrugged and shook my head.

“Did the kids tell you?” Brea asked as she kicked off her last boot.

“Something about poop was all I heard before the screaming began.” I replied, stopping the microwave to flip the brats over.

“Yeah! I guess Eian and Abby were looking around and Eian opened the toilet and there was a huge turd in there!”

“What?!” Erik sprang up suddenly. “Not uh! You guys are such liars! You know how I know? Because the moving people have to flush all the lines with winterizing liquid to keep the pipes from freezing!”

“No, Dad, I SAW it! It was so gross!”

“It was Eian’s!” Abby shrieked from the back bedroom and Eian tackled her down again.

“Was NOT!” He yelled back.

“Did it have chunks of corn in it Brea?” Erik asked gleefully.

“What? Eww! I don’t know! I didn’t stop to poke it! Dad you’re so gross – why couldn’t I have gotten a normal Dad?!” Brea wailed.

“Because I’m a cool Dad, not some boring fuddy-duddy!” Erik replied as he jumped up and began giving her a noogie.

“Wait!” I interrupted. “Those pipes have antifreeze stuff in them! Whoever pooped in the toilet could have damaged the pipes if they tried to flush the toilet! It’s not like a regular house!”

Erik stopped his assault on Brea. “Do you really think the movers took a crap in our toilet?”

I shrugged and opened a can of baked beans.

“Well it couldn’t have been Eian,” Erik continued. “He was with me the entire time I was over there, and when I left all the kids were arguing over bedrooms. He needs total privacy to poop . . .”

“And strip his clothes off!” Abby yelled and giggled from the bedroom.

“Shut-up Abby!” Eian shoved her and walked out of the bedroom and sat at the table. “When will dinner be ready? I’m starving!”

“In just about one minute,” I said, looking at the time on the microwave.

Everything went black.

“Daaad!” Shrieked Brea who was now in the back bedroom when the power went out.

The camper was black as night.

“What’s that beeping sound?” Abby asked, an edge of nervousness to her voice.

“Smoke detector,” I replied, expecting Erik to get up and go fix the generator since I was making dinner.

Erik didn’t budge.

“Dad! Aren’t you going to go fix the generator?!” Brea wailed from somewhere in the camper.

“Nope. I’ve been on my feet working all day, not sitting at home doing nothing like SOME people.” He replied off-handily.

“Well I have not been doing NOTHING all day, but I guess I’ll go fix the generator instead of making dinner . . .” I grumbled as I pulled-on my boots quick. I didn’t bother grabbing my coat since I knew I’d be back inside in a minute.

Typically when the generator blows, you flip the reset switch and start the girl back up again. I was pretty certain it wasn’t the gas. I double-checked it anyway though. Low, but not out. I added more to it to last us through the night and set the reset switch.

Nothing.

The single digit weather felt even colder. Maybe it was finally down into the negatives? I hadn’t checked before leaving but wished now that I had! My fingers were quickly going numb and I was shaking quite violently. I don’t mind the cold as long as I can dress for it, and in my haste I had not put on a jacket!

I tried restarting the generator again. It struggled and coughed and choked and died out again. I tried repeatedly to get it going, but it wasn’t. I knew if I went in to ask Erik for help he’d point out some dumb thing I had forgotten to do and I’d feel like an even bigger idiot for not remembering or thinking of that.

However, I was out of options, so I had to drag him out to help me.

“Move over and let a man get the job done,” Erik gave me a light push as he stooped down to look at the generator.

He tried again and again to restart it, but it coughed and choked and died each time. Finally, he pulled a plug out of the back. It looked like a tiny dipstick on a car.

“Did you check the oil?” He inquired, his question tinted with an edge of smart ass.

“Oil?!”

“Yeah, it takes oil. Just like a car. So I guess you haven’t been keeping an eye on it, have you? If you’re going to be running a machine, it’s your job to keep up on its maintenance.”

I gave him a furious look. “What?! You never said anything about the oil! How am I supposed to know about these things?!”

Erik shrugged smugly. “Maybe do your research online at the library. You don’t have anything to do all day anyway. Might as well spend it trying to learn about the machines you are using . . .”

I was too furious and dumbfounded by his comments to say anything except give him a soul-piercing glare with my eyes. Unfortunately it was too dark for him to see my stare.

“Go get me the yellow oil pan.”

“What? Where is it?”

“I don’t know where you put it! I need it though because this oil needs to be changed!” Erik thrust the dipstick in my face.

“Can’t we do it tomorrow when it’s daylight?” I asked hopefully.

“No! Not unless you want to freeze tonight! This won’t run in cold weather with thick oil. I think I’ve got some extra oil in Randy’s covered trailer. I’ll go look and grab a wrench, you get my oil pan.”

“Um, ok . . .” I still had no idea what this oil pan was, but I kinda had a picture in my head of something like he described. I had never changed the oil on anything, so how was I to know?

My teeth were chattering so violently by this time that I feared I’d break them off. I ran to the slider and begged the girls to throw me my coat and gloves in the bathroom closet. They grabbed them along with a hat (thanks!) and I threw everything on and began to feel a bit better.

I pawed around the round top with a flashlight trying to find this oil pan thing. A flash of yellow in the far part of the wall caught my eye. Oil pan! I think. . . I dragged it back to the generator. Erik followed behind me with a new container of oil and his ratchet set.

He had me hold the oil pan under it and set to work testing ratchet sizes. I glanced at the nut and told him it was a 7/16 size. He ignored me and continued testing all the sizes. I wasn’t skilled with tools, but I could see the size was a common one I had used over the years. I had been right, 7/16 was the only size that fit. He ratcheted the nut off and instantly thick, black goo came oozing out. It was hot and steam poured-up out of the oil pan. Erik began tipping the generator to facilitate faster movement. In 10 minutes we had it drained and re-filled. Erik made me restart it, and it roared to life. The lights flew back on in the camper and the kids all shrieked with delight.

I was thoroughly exhausted now. Earen was still only sleeping every 30 minutes at night lately, and 8:00pm was whooping my butt. The snow looked so fluffy and comfy. Maybe just a quick nap here. I could roll around and pad up a small area and tuck myself in. I was warm and toasty. Just a quick little nap in the soft, cozy snow . . .

Earen’s crying broke my thoughts, and I wearily trudged back to the camper to finish making dinner.

The brats came out tough and rubbery.