Category Archives: Homesteading

August 29, 2014 · 7:10 am

Joey el potrillo

Beauty and Joey

Beauty and Joey

The last few weeks, my husband has been calculating and recalculating Beauty’s due date and examining her girth for clues as to the gender of the expected foal. He estimated that since Shadow was born August 28 last year and he echó el caballo (brought the horse for stud service) 3 times the week after delivery, the last day being September 9, to take advantage of the “foal heat”, the new potrillo (foal) should be born July 7 since horse gestation is 11 months. And he also took the odds that since the last 2 foals were girls, certainly, this time it should be a boy.

However, this weekend, Beauty seemed quite ready to give birth, dates or no dates. We decided to place a friendly family wager on the birth date. I picked Tuesday. My husband picked Sunday the 6th since he had done his calculations, by golly. And my son went with the middle ground by choosing Friday.

Much to my husband’s astonishment, had Beauty waited just 3 hours more, I would have won the bet. Just as we were finishing up dinner on Monday, Chokis started barking and barking. We thought he and Chivo Pestoso (Stinky Goat) were having yet another manly contest. Chivo hits the door, and Chokis barks him down, which angers Chivo, and he hits the door again, which…well you get the idea. But then we heard Beauty chuff, and we were out the door running.

My husband went out the front door and my son and I out the back. I coaxed Chokis into the back yard and closed the door to keep him from more agitated barking and upsetting Beauty during delivery. My husband was yelling for the flashlight, which I had in my hand. I arrived seconds later to perform my vital role of lamppost.

My son’s job was to distract an agitated Shadow in the next stall. He threw some paca (alfalfa bale) in her dish with a mix of corn pieces and tied her next to her trough. She didn’t even lift her head from her meal until the corn ran out.

My husband had planned to modify Beauty’s stall for delivery but thought he had a few more days. Beauty is a big horse, and although her stall is a good size, a laboring horse needs room to lie down and get up as she needs. By the time we arrived, she had already lain down to deliver, and there was no moving her into the open.

The foal’s head and forefeet had already presented, but as Beauty took up so much space, the baby was squashed against the wall and unable to get the placenta off its nose. My husband dove in and tore the sac off its face, trying to convince Beauty to move just a little bit so the baby could come free.

His pleas must have worked because suddenly Beauty stood up and as my husband had hold of the front legs, out popped this incredibly long legged foal. He shouted for a knife to cut the cord, but it had already detached when the colt fell out.

My husband immediately slid the baby out from under Beauty’s hooves and checked the gender. ALL RIGHTY! It was a boy. He checked again just to make sure and did a little happy dance.

bit wobbly

Joey at 12 hours old

This was the first birth we were present at with Beauty (See Beauty’s Babies), and it wasn’t anything compared to goat births. The placenta was so thick it seemed like a white plastic bag, and there was so much of it. My son said he felt a little woozy, although there was very little blood. But he manfully sucked it up and wouldn’t leave the area for any little stomach flutters. I reassured my son saying that his dad was woozy at his birth too, so it was ok.

We were concerned that the foal seemed weak. We stayed with mother and baby while she cleaned and bonded with her new son and watched his first attempts to stand. Again, the cramped quarters were a problem. The foal’s legs were so long (so much longer than Spirit or Shadow’s had been) that he didn’t seem to have the room or coordination to untangle them in order to get up. We waited about 40 minutes, but he wasn’t able to stand.

We thought perhaps we should give him some more time and went inside to finish dinner. My husband went out again and stayed with the pair until after midnight, making sure the foal did get up to nurse before he came back in.

We were all out at the crack of dawn to get a good look at our new addition and debate a name. Two of his hooves were white, one was black, and one was half and half like painted fingernails much like Shadow has. Spirit had 3 white “socks” instead. He had a star on his head about the size of mark Spirit has and bigger than Shadow’s mark. My husband was puzzled at these coloring anomalies because the father had none of these marks. I suspect these are genetic markings from Beauty since all 3 babies had them. The foal’s fur was a dark brown, but the edges of his tail and around his mouth he was almost yellow. We think that eventually, his fur will be more yellow than brown since the father was a mustard color. None of these physical characteristics helped us decide on a name, though.

curious

Curious about the world around him.

So we tried looking for signs of his character. Spirit was incorrigible from the get-go and we had no trouble naming her. The foal still seemed weak and wobbly in the morning. He wasn’t much into whinnying either. He stayed very close to Beauty, although he was curious about his surroundings, especially when we brought the pair out of the corral to pasture. He liked being outdoors so much that he refused to come back in, much to Beauty’s consternation. We finally decided that his name would be Joey, from the movie,. War Horse We kept an eye on both Beauty and Joey. Beauty seemed exhausted and would lay down and get up like she couldn’t get comfortable. Joey was definitely eating but still seemed so thin. My husband was positive that the thinness was because he was more than a week early according to his calculations. I countered that with the size of him, especially his incredibly long legs, there just wasn’t room in the womb for him to wait another week, dates or no dates.

Chivo and Joey

Curious fellows

In the late afternoon, we took them out again, along with Shadow and the goats. Chivo Pestoso was very curious as to the nature of Joey but decided he wasn’t a threat and went to eat. Shadow wanted to be right next to her mother just like Joey, but Beauty wasn’t having any of that. She chased Shadow away, and we had to finally tie Shadow so that none of the horses would be accidentally hurt.

little horse family

Shadow, Beauty, and Joey

The scene reminded me of the day Spirit, who doesn’t live with us, but does live near us, escaped from her enclosure and came for a visit. Beauty recognized Spirit as she didn’t kick up a fuss when Spirit came right to the gate. The mother and daughter touched noses. Then Beauty turned her head to look at Shadow, then back at Spirit. She turned completely around and kicked the gate, basically telling Spirit to move on, which she did.
posing with Joey

Joey being a boy will eventually be an issue for us. We are already cramped for space. Shadow has her own stall and Beauty is sharing with Joey for now, but poor Fiona the donkey doesn’t have a place to call her own and is more often than not tied under the mesquite tree for the night. With 2 female horses and 1 female donkey all capable of going into heat, Joey will have to have a stall apart. It would have been just the thing had we been able to purchase that lot next door to adequately house our larger animals. (See Buying a piece of Heaven) Sigh! Well, we just will see what happens down the road.

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September 27, 2013 · 2:49 pm

A horse is a horse is a horse–or not

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My husband got it into his head awhile ago that he must have a horse. After all, as a youth in Cerano, he was never without his horse. Not long into his search, he found one that the owner was willing to barter for 5 goats and 3000 pesos. Deal done lickety split. Red was a quiet gelding, not much trouble at all at the beginning. He altered his pace to accommodate his rider. For my husband, he did handsprings and danced. For my son, slow and steady up and down the road. And for me, little a pony trot around the block. Everybody was pleased.

However, owning a horse was not without problems. First, there were mounting expenses. A horse needed a bridle, reins, a saddle and new shoes.

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My husband on Red.

Then having acquired a horse, my husband went in search of his lost youth. This caused some problems because he was now a married man with responsibilities, not a charro prancing about for the young ladies to admire. These solitary rides irked my son and I since he left us to do the other chores around the house and we never got a chance to ride.

My husband’s solution to this second problem was to get a second horse. Without ready cash, the problem was how. He heard about herds of wild horses in Los Amoles, and he and my son spent more than a week on daily treks looking for them. They did stumble across a small herd one day, after crossing a lagoon on the motorcycle, water up to their waists, but couldn’t get near enough to catch one, although they felt that the glimpse was well worth the adventure and the dip in the water.

A neighbor heard about my husband’s quest and took him to see an acquaintance who was selling his horse in Salvatierra. My husband was twitterpated with his first sight of Black Beauty. We didn’t have any money, but my husband scrounged and saved and sold his tools and the toolbox to come up with a deposit. That just goes to prove that anything can be bought on layaway. Two weeks later, Beauty was home and in season.

beauty

Our own Black Beauty.

And it couldn’t just be any stallion for Beauty. My husband went hither and yon and found one to his liking that also fit the budget. Stud fees vary on the quality of the stallion and the owner’s whim. But having obtained one, all the men in La Yacata came to watch the maquila (breeding). Then there were the endless discussions on whether the stallion ejaculated and whether Beauty was pregnant afterward. Honestly, not something I spend my afternoons discussing, but hey, whatever floats your boat I suppose.

So then there was the stud service fee, new shoes and, of course, a second saddle and bridle even though we hadn’t finished paying for the set for Red yet. At first, expenses did not include food as it was the rainy season and there was free grass aplenty for fodder. However, it’s a horse of another color during the dry season. Horses eat like, well, horses and now we had two.

But, to our delight, now with two horses, we could go riding as a family. My husband on Beauty, me on Red and my son changing out between us.

Riding about was not without perils. There are the low hanging branches of the thorny mesquite trees to look out for and hidden craters that may have been dug out ages ago for someone’s ajibe (dry well) that may cause a horse to stumble and throw the rider. Then the horse may decide that he or she is a racehorse and that turbo speed is called for to win this imaginary race and the rider (namely me) finds it hard to decelerate while ducking branches and hanging on for dear life.

My husband and son have a natural seat on horseback that I seem to lack. They slouch a bit and sit low in the saddle and actually look like they had been born to it. And I so wanted to look like an elegant English miss, complete with a blue velvet riding habit on the back of the horse. However, the horrible truth was that I looked as elegant as a frog on a log floating downstream. Oh well, I suppose someone had to eat the flies, and it might as well be me.

kids and red

Red and the summer class. He had such a friendly disposition in the beginning.

The word caballero, which is translated as gentleman in English, literally means one who owns a horse. Horses were a status symbol, as only the wealthy could afford their upkeep. Regular folks made do with donkeys or mules. As we hardly qualify as wealthy, Red had to work to earn his keep. My husband worked with my father-in-law and son to till about an acre of land near our house to plant corn, both for our own larder and then later to feed the horses during the winter months when grass is hard to come by.

plowing with red

Red the plow horse.

For a time, this worked out well. Then Red became persnickety. He didn’t want to plow. He reared up when I was on his back. He nearly kicked my son. We couldn’t figure out what got into him. My husband thought that he might have been improperly castrated and a neighboring mare in season was causing his bad behavior. So he had a neighbor sedate Red and check. Nope. That wasn’t the cause.

Then, the second theory was that he was too well fed and, therefore, didn’t want to work. It’s true that he filled out while living with us. His coat was not as shaggy but glowed. So what’s the solution for overfeeding? My husband tried tying Red to a tree in the afternoons so he couldn’t graze, but his ornery disposition didn’t improve.

So he was sold to B, my husband’s brother. B would ride hell bent for leather, up and down the ravined roads in La Yacata, late at night. I was sure he would be thrown and break his neck, but he didn’t. That lasted about 3 months, then Red disappeared. We have many theories, but no trace has been found.

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September 17, 2013 · 6:12 am

Declaring Solvency

thoreau-grasshopped

Oh, you say, but you live in México and everyone knows things are so much cheaper there. But the truth is, they aren’t. For example, a loaf of bread costs $24 pesos, a liter of milk $11 pesos, and a stick of butter up to $8 pesos, a bag of sugar $16, an ice cream cone costs $15 pesos etc and the average wage is less than $50 per hour.

Oh, but you don’t have very many expenses then, you might say. But that isn’t true either.

We have accumulated a little bit of debt. Last year, my moto fell to pieces and we had to buy a new one on credit, which wasn’t easy to obtain. However, making prompt and weekly payments of $315 pesos, my moto will be paid for in 14 weeks! Yippee!!

We have regular expenses such as tortillas (now $14 pesos per kilo), gas for the vehicles which every month is more expensive, clothing and shoes for a growing pre-teen and during the dry season, feed for the animals. Then there are the occasional expenses such as my current quest to become a Mexican resident (See Getting Legal–Trip 1 and Trip 2). And finally, there are emergency expenses like last week when my husband accidentally sliced open his arm with the machete while cutting grass for the horses and had to get stitches.

Since employment is iffy at best (See The Working Man) for my husband and I, becoming self-sufficient has been essential to our survival.

We have been able to eliminate some expenses entirely.

We have no running water, so we bring our water from nearby springs in water storage containers instead of supporting the Pepsi and Coke companies that sell water in garafones (water jugs) here. (See Water Woes) We do not have electricity, so we don’t have that bill to worry about. We use a power converter from our truck battery to run or charge the occasional electric appliances we use, like the blender for salsa, or the laptop and DVD player. Not having a refrigerator also means only buying what can be consumed in a day, so no prepared frozen foods for us.  (See Simple Living)

We have been able to reduce some of our daily expenses to next to nothing.

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Our mini-orchard provides us with limones (limes), duraznos (peaches), guayabas, naranjas (oranges), chayotes, chillimoyas, and moras (blackberries) in season. La Yacata provides us with nopales (cactus), pitayas, (See Picking Pitayas) and tunas (See Picking Tunas) in season. Our goats provide us with meat and milk (See Separating the Sheep and the Goats) and our poultry (See Why did the chicken cross the road) with eggs and meat. We plant maiz, calabaza and frijol (corn, squash and beans)–the three sisters–for both us and our animals. We have also recently decided that our weekly loaf of Bimbo bread was a luxury item, so now we make our own, cutting our expenses from $24 pesos for one processed loaf to $15 pesos for 2 loaves of home-baked organic goodness.

donkey riders

It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them–Henry David Thoreau

Our wardrobes have been reduced to a few serviceable sets of clothing that are replaced when needed. Our cleaning supplies have been reduced to soap and water, a broom, a mop, a rag, and bucket. Our entertainment expenses consist of board games, horse or donkey rides (See Donkey Races in La Yacata), long walks, bike rides, visiting friends and relatives, reading, gardening and the occasional incidental adventure or two, all of which cost next to nothing.

When we moved to México, we decided to make a fresh start and live within our means. It has been an ongoing process and one that hasn’t been easy. It has required a rethinking of our lives, not just how we spent our money, and reclassifying many things that we thought were essentials as luxuries. (See Forcibly Green-Obligatory Organic) Our diet, our spending habits, and our family has changed dramatically in the 7 years we have been here. I can’t say that it’s been a bad thing becoming solvent.

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