Prairie Madness Part II

Bring on the Spring

May is back, ladies. Somehow, she keeps doing that—it must be a cyclical thing—and with her, as usual, comes the attendant delusion that it’s your year to be an Earth Mother! Fortunately, no one knows more about delusions than the Prudes, and we’re here with another list of tips and tricks to keep your sacred season more grounded than a freshly-dug grave!

So don the linen overalls of aspiration, kick off the mass-produced sneakers of inhibition, and get ready to frolic through the great thistle-patch of revelation: short of allergies, late frost, cutworms, boll weevils, anxiety, humidity, abject ignorance, gas leaks, ineptitude, sabotage, or a flat tire—nothing’s going to slow your roll!

Prince Farming

One of the most remarkable aspects of May is the unbounded energy it awakens in the male of the species. I’ve known a man to mow a two-acre plot three times in one day and then build a complete dining room set in the evening with no prior knowledge of woodworking during the month of May. Computer programmers who have never touched a screwdriver in their entire lives will spontaneously spawn a fully stocked Dewalt tool belt and go around taking measurements of anything in three dimensions. Why sit by and watch your menfolk compulsively prowling the house with a stud finder when you could harness that drive? This is your month for raised beds, window boxes, beehives, chicken coops—grab your husband, brother, friend or uncle, hand him a set of plans and watch the ancestral fire kindling behind his eyes.

Cinderella’s got nothing on that chop saw.

Live or Deadstock

Last year, you “did” chickens—starting with little peeping fluffballs of charm, which developed into fiendish, lizard-eyed machines of dread. You learned that real-live eggs are often smeared with real-live bird poop, which is no more charming crusted on an egg than it is landing unexpectedly on your head. So it’s no surprise that you want to move on to the intermediate level and dip your toes into the caprine pool. Yes! The time is definitely right for goats.

Perhaps, like us, your first exposure to goats was through the charming illustrations of “Heidi,” and you envisioned your days with them involving flower-filled romps through alpine meadows and sips of fresh milk from earthenware mugs. Flowers may be included in your goat adventure—probably the ones you lovingly planted last fall, scrutinized fanatically through the spring as the first shy blooms burst forth…only to be promptly beheaded by an unscrupulous doe, who doesn’t even like the taste and spits the blossoms out before gaily moving on to chewing a piece of plywood. As to fresh milk, well, it turns out you’ve got to breed the goats to get it, and that’s going to look a lot different from anything you found in Heidi’s picturesque pages.

My first breeding adventure involved a little Nigerian Dwarf buck named Dugan, who was, to put it politely, very taken with my female goat, Jane. Jane, normally a shy and retiring doe, turned into a positive harlot the second she entered Dugan’s vicinity. The two of them scampered off to the barn without so much as a backward glance, engaging in many public displays of affection along the way. When I came to pick up Jane the next morning, she delivered the goat equivalent of a Disney Princess monologue and tried to make a break for freedom. Dugan strutted at her side possessively, a little cigarette protruding from the corner of his mouth, occasionally bleating things that sounded suspiciously like “screw you, old man, I’m gonna marry her anyway.”

When at last I had maneuvered her into my trunk, I turned to find Dugan in the driver’s seat—only his miniature stature prevented them from eloping then and there. I still haven’t gotten any goat milk, and Jane has hated me ever since.

Screen Free

Speaking of Disney princesses, nothing puts you in touch with the mysterious feminine principle like bringing the out-of-doors in. This spring, ditch the screens and fling your windows wide—an uninhibited breeze provides matchless pleasure, and Mother Nature never fails in providing unexpected guests to inject a little whimsy into your day.

Depending on the circumstances, of course, “whimsy” may mean “shrieking horror.” Take this helpful quiz to determine whether your visitors will be of the “tweeting bird/peeping mouse” or the “holys*#$whatjustcrawledundermychair!?” variety:

1) Your name begins with a "C" and rhymes with "Quinderella."     Y.    N.
2)  A close family member wants you dead.    Y.    N.
3) You have PTSD from a spindle.    Y.    N.    What's a spindle?
4) Your response to any life event more significant than clipping a hangnail is to burst into song.    Y.    N.

If you answered “Y” to all the above, congratulations! Your morning coffee will be soundtracked by sweet songbird serenades, and you’ll probably get custom rodent couture thrown in. If you answered otherwise, well, “cute” is all a matter of perspective—wasps are small and winged, too! And while those jumbo grass spiders aren’t exactly cuddly, they’re a lot more likely to produce the amount of fabric needed for a ball-gown. Screen-free life is a #winwinwin!

Cinderella’s little known sidekick Seymour the Spider performed poorly with test audiences and was cut from the film. His priceless textile contributions to her iconic pink gown were lost to history.

Foray into Foraging (What’s the Worst that Can Happen?)

Maybe don’t ask that question, and definitely don't google it. Just start slow and easy, foraging a natural, plentiful substitute for something you don’t rely on and can easily go without. Coffee, for example. Did you know that the roots of the chicory plant can be dried, ground up, and brewed as a coffee substitute? That’s right! This beloved roadside weed is so much more than a pretty face. Wikipedia recommends “harvesting after a rain shower, in order to more easily extract the long roots” of these tenacious little buggers. This means that instead of yanking on the fibrous stems for the approximate length of a Scorsese film, you can yank on the fibrous stems for the approximate length of a Scorsese film and get mud all over yourself. When at last the long roots have popped free of the earth and sent you flying backwards, you will stare in wonder at what looks like a handful of slimy, anorexic carrots, and say, with your Native American ancestors, the phrase that sums up this experience, and the homestead experience as a whole, namely, “I’ll just get a latte.”

—C.C.