Chickens and Rabbits and Goats, OH MY!  You’re back!  Thank you so much.  It’s exciting to see the podcast is growing and gives me a boost to keep it fun and interesting!  

This episode continues the story.  I hope we don’t run out of time at the end of the episode like last time!  (CHUCKLE) 

Before we delve back into the story, a little more about growing up in the village of  Ellenburg Center.  Kids being kids, we would forage for treats and often that is wild fruit.  We would pick choke cherries that grew along the fence line in the back yard.  There was also a plum tree on the side of our property that was super prolific.  We would often shake the tree, well as hard as little kids can, and collect the plums on the ground.  Due to the very small town and most people lived outside the village, there were a couple of kids that lived along the row of homes on the street we lived on.  One of the women, I think her name was Mrs Lloyd, volunteered with Mom at the church and had a son who played with us often.  Next door were two related families, both with kids that were younger than most of us.  With our large family, and when a family adopts, even this size family can have a majority of the kids in a tight age range.  For me, Rick, who was adopted when I was, were both pretty close as well as pretty competitive - I guess that’s how brothers are.  

Now, where did we leave off last week… oh yeah - now I remember.  The small aluminum shed that we got for what was to be a “FEW” chickens became too small very quickly, especially with the 4-H 50 chicks program.  Mom called on her Dad, Poppy for a solution.  Actually, she called on him to get advice on how to make her solution a reality.  Mom’s artistic skills came back into play when she drew a picture of what she envisioned and needed advice on how to build was she imagined.  We quickly learned she wasn’t just thinking about housing more chickens! 

About this time, we also got two rabbits.  Now, I don’t remember how the rabbits came to be - they were pets for one of my siblings.  Well, from a kid perspective, rabbits are super cute, fuzzy, and well, pretty easy to take care of.

So - chickens and rabbits ….  And with the impetus of the 4-H’s animal husbandry program AND  her research of what we could raise to help expand our family sustaining food source, since we lived within the village, cows were certainly out of the question … right? … I mean, aren’t there  obvious reasons?   Okay, the answer is YES!

She found a perfect solution and that solution was dairy goats.  Goats are much much smaller, friendly like a pet in some ways, and they produced milk and meat called cheven.  When she posed that to us, we were interested because we might get rid of the awful powdered lumpy milk!  But goat milk?  What would that be like?  

Let’s continue with the story and I’ll incorporate a little about the dairy goat industry in a bit because that will be important soon and in the next episode or so.   

Calling on Poppy included calling on her brothers, both of whom were Vietnam heroes and veterans of the Marine Corps as well as equally talented with building trades, especially Uncle Russ, who at the time, lived with Grammie and Poppy in Ellenville.

I hope you are picturing this in your mind.  We have more than 50 chickens and now had the two rabbits, and we decided we needed two dairy goats because one would be lonely.

HMMM.. A bigger pre-fab shed would definitely not be enough.  No - we would have to build something new and something substantial!  Now, I don’t remember the exact size of the structure.  It was designed to serve two main areas.  One side for the goats and one side for the chickens.  Recall that our Ellenburg house had a substantial - okay, large back yard.   It seems, from memory,  that it was about 35 to 40 feet wide and about 15 to 20 feet deep.  It had to have electricity and a storage area for feed and supplies.  

Poppy and Uncle Russ came up and I remember the back-hoe coming in to dig the foundation.  Poppy had all the proper tools, plumb line, stakes, etc and ensured we had rebar, proper nails and tools.  Being inquisitive, we asked tons of questions and Poppy enjoyed teaching us what the tools were for and how to use them.

Now, they would go back to Ellenville and come back several times.  Once the foundation was ready, it was time to pour the cement floor.  Remember, we are not farmers or builders.  Notably, Dad was allergic to three significant things.  He was allergic to Timothy (found in hay), golden rod (also found in hay and prevalent along roads and in over-grown areas) and cats.  The cats were to come!  This project was primarily a Mom and the kids project and Dad continued to teach music yielding a steady income stream which is important when this growing project was supposed to be a “hobby”.  

STOP - INTERLUDE

Growing up, holidays were bustling with activity as I’m sure your home was as well.  At Christmas, we had a few traditions.  We didn’t set up the tree until Christmas Eve.  We would go to church to the candlelight service and when we came home,  each child would put one ornament on the tree and hang their stocking made by Grandma on the fake cardboard fireplace.  Come to think of it, I am a little surprised that the cardboard fireplace didn’t go up in smoke; I guess that look back is for another day.

The tree had a lot of special ornaments in addition to the Santas made from the eggs described earlier.  I remember being fascinated by several little bells important to Mom and Dad’s history.  We had a star on the top of the tree.  Most notably, were very large round ornaments that were green, purple, and gold.  Since large ornaments are hung at the bottom of the tree, I would lay under the tree every year and count them — oh, and sometimes fall asleep there.  We would get up on Christmas morning - and the tree was so beautiful.  Back then, tinsel was abundant on trees, and so many kids, it seemed like the presents were stacked almost as high as the tree.  The stockings always had an orange in the toe area and full with candy and what we would call stocking stuffers today.  After we were done opening our gifts, each of us would pick a place under the tree and keep our gifts in little piles until it was time to take them to our rooms.  Since the tree went up so late compared to others; it would stay up later than most.  It was occasionally still up in February!   Jumping ahead a little, When I was in at least 7th grade, I wandered downstairs late on Christmas Eve.  I promise - it wasn’t a ruse as OTHER kids would do.  I walked through the dining room and what did I see?  MOM and DAD were wrapping gifts.  The tree was decorated… well, I was ushered back to the stairs to go back to bed.  I never told my siblings.  What I did start to notice though, was that the gifts from Mom and Dad and the gifts from Santa had the same style of hand writing on them.  It started to all come together.

At Easter, we hunted for eggs inside and outside the house.  At Halloween, the typical costumes and trick or treating.  I didn’t like Halloween very much.  I didn’t feel comfortable going around asking people for candy.  I liked candy, just felt it was kinda embarrassing to knock on someone’s door and ask for free candy.  I helped hand out candy early on so I wouldn’t have to go trick or treating. 

Oh well - let’s get back to the building of barn!

We were all in school one day and Mom scheduled the cement to be delivered.  What she didn’t realize was the quick drying cement was indeed quick drying.  As we got home and went into the back yard, there was Mom  with a garden hoe trying to move the cement in the large floor area as quickly as she could as it was already started to set!  It was wild… Cement is both heavy and difficult to manage.  She got most of it moved pretty much across the entire floor.  On the upper left side, there was a permanent hump or mound where the cement was initially poured that occupied maybe 1/8 of the entire floor area that set before Mom could move it.  Oh my!  While it wasn’t perfect - bottom line is that we had a floor and it was perfect enough!  It was ready to raise the structure.    

As the structure went up, neighbors are looking on wondering just what are those crazy Terwilliger’s doing!

It was completed pretty quickly with the Holton expertise and Mom’s tenacity.  You know what?   That structure was well made and I remember it was both perfectly functional and pretty nice, um, and it was technically a barn.  

We had a net 25 plus chickens from the 4-H program.  Because this was a project and we were kids Mom found a breed of chickens that laid blue and green eggs.  The breed is araucana and we got a couple of those as well to make the program more fun.  All the free chickens were Rhode Island Reds - the reddish brown chickens you may be familiar with while the araucana chickens were mostly darker colored with colorful plumes on the roosters and varied, more muted colors on the hens … AND they did lay mostly blueish colored eggs though they were smaller than the other eggs. We had ONE araucana rooster that had very long spurs and was just plain mean.  Every time someone would go into the chicken area, he would attack.  I finally learned to go in with a small camping shovel so if he came at me, I could use it like a shield.  He still attacked!  Eventually, he tasted delicious!  

On the chicken side, we had to build nesting areas along one wall where the chickens would take turns to lay their daily eggs.  While chickens take a day off every so often, they generally lay one egg a day.  I would go to feed them and collect the eggs.  Have you ever seen a chicken lay an egg?  Well, they sit in the nesting area when they are “close” to laying the egg, they stand up, and stretch their neck and head upwards straining until  the egg is laid.  Now, chickens are not the smartest in the animal kingdom.  I would have fun with this.  If I was able to catch the exact time the chicken was going to lay their egg, I would put my hand under their body and catch the warm egg as it came out…..  Typically a chicken looks down at their freshly laid egg with a little pride, and gently nestles themselves on it for a bit before joining the flock.  When I stole the egg, the hen would look down between her legs - and turn her head like, um, didn’t I just lay an egg?  I don’t see an egg.  She would gingerly sit back down on the empty nest.  The reaction was the same every time I did it.  Fun for me, confusing for them. 

So, as the research ensued, Mom convinced Mark and Karen they would be the sponsors or primary caretakers of the two dairy goats.  After all, everyone who was old enough,  had to participate in committing to responsibility for our hobby.  My guess is that Mom only sold them on the “fun” parts of the plan since there would, of course, be adult supervision!   Animals, for anyone who grew up on a farm or has a pet knows, is a huge responsibility.  

So in the Spring, we got two dairy goats from the Shagbark Farm in Connecticut owned by Helen Hunt.  Ms Hunt was a well known and respected breeder in the Northeast. 

We need to break for a few minutes to talk about dairy goats.  There are what we called scrub goats and there are purebred dairy goats.  Purebreds made sense because they are bred to produce milk and that was the primary purpose of adding them to our animal family.  Purebred dairy goats are registered through the American Dairy Goat Association or ADGA and as you’ll learn in the next episode, there are sanctioned shows at county fairs and such as well as other measures of top breeders. 

Mom quickly became intrigued with the lineage tracking of purebreds.  There are several breeds.  Quickly, the four main ones that we got involved with are toggenbergs that are tan with two white stripes down their face.  Alpines, that come in various colors like black, brown, and white and many variations therein.  Nubians are the ones with floppy ears and a Roman nose, and, Saanens are white.  I posted photos of the breeds to take a look at.

So, we initially bought the two female Toggenbergs from Shagbark; one was named SHAGBARK G. JENNY  that we called Sandy and a slightly smaller one was SHAGBARK DAISY that we called Cocoa.  I don’t know why we didn’t call them by their registered names.  They were the only ones that we made names for them.  Within short order, we added a white non-purebred goat we called Snowball that Linda had responsibility for.  She had a birth defect.   Her waddles were on her ears instead of being on her neck and kinda looked like ear-rings!  Snowball was already at milk-producing age so thank goodness — the powdered milk was a thing of the past!!  The evil plan was working!  

Since we were engaged on the path with purebred dairy goats, Mom registered with the ADGA and had to come up with a herd name.  The winner?  We started with the RA for rabbits, GO for goats, and CHI for chickens.  Our house in Ellenburg was on the bend of the road and Ragochi Bend was born..

STOP+ INTERLUDE

So, you can see we had changes in our life by caring for chickens, rabbits, and goats.  One aspect of a large family is that meals, especially dinner was a big deal.  Mom was a very good cook and she made an abundance of food.  There will be stories about that coming up as well.  One of the most memorable dishes was rice, ground beef, soy sauce, mushrooms, and light seasoning.  It was like a casserole and easy to make.  Mom called it Poppyaki - a twist of Poppy’s name with an Asian ending.  I still make it for myself from time to time after all these years.  It’s yummy and I think of Mom. 

Birthdays were curious for me growing up.  My birthday was set as May 7th.  Rick’s birthday is May 10th.  Well, I am the boy who never had my own birthday party.  My birthday was always celebrated with Rick.  Early on, we had one cake.  As we got older, we each had a cake.  Cake is okay.  I am not a super fan of cake for some reason.  It wasn’t until I was a bit older that Mom would acquiesce and my desert was a pie, still celebrated with Rick.  One day, I will have MY OWN birthday party — but I digress! 

Just these few animals quickly became a full time job.  The first goats were more hobby and pet like for us.  Goats are very friendly and in some ways show similar affection to people as dogs do by rubbing their head on you, enjoy being brushed and petted and loved treats of almost any kind!  So, despite the work, it was “kinda fun” as well.  The next couple of years were figuring out the division of work and frankly, the plan of providing for the family was very much paying off.  Mom’s plan was working.  **pause**. Perhaps the plan was working too well.  Things started growing faster than we could imagine and understand and we were still kids, and young kids at that.

From my memory,  we outgrew the in-town barn pretty quickly.   We moved to Chateaugay New York, 12 miles away to a 105 acre farm.  

In hindsight, as a fifth grader, I didn’t have a sense of this.  Today, I’m thinking that more likely we were given the option of getting rid of our “pets” that likely were classified as farm animals or move out of town due to likely complaints from neighbors over the sounds and smells of a growing animal enterprise.  Well, we did move.  

Creative farming was the exciting on the Terwilliger farm!  Our experience in Ellenburg didn’t really prepare us for going from 3/4 acre to 105 acres!  100 acres were on one side of the road and 5 acres across the road that was US Route 11, a major trucking highway route.  The driveway was long going up to the house.  

The new family home was about 3 miles from the town of Chateaugay, and about 20-25 minutes away from the next largest town with a full sized grocery store which was Malone.  It was a large white house big enough for our family.  It has a large front porch that was one of the nicest attributes of the house.  The biggest drawback for the house was the galley kitchen that was incredibly small.  I mean, my kitchen in my condo is bigger!  Seriously, two people could not be in the kitchen at the same time without bumping into one another.  

The property had a large barn, a pump house, a grainery that we used for smaller animals, and a garage.  There was also a mid-sized building 50 yards from the rest of the facilities.  The farm also had a number of horse-drawn pieces of machinery.  The farm hadn’t been used for animals for many years evident by the condition of the facilities.   A map of the property, taken from Apple Maps, is in the photos for the episode with notes on what was was there and what is there now that wasn’t there when it was Ragochi Bend.  Oh, and we didn’t have the resources to equip the farm as one might expect!  More on that later.  

The transition that happened with the final move of the family to Chateaugay was the main reason for writing my book that the podcast is built on.  This change was even more daunting than the growth of the family through adoption.  We had NEW major responsibilities.  We had a lot of laughs figuring out HOW to farm.  AND, It is the time in MY life that tragedy knocked me down more times than at nearly any other point in my life.  We grew up in Ellenburg WITH our classmates and neighbors.  During that time,  at least for me, I didn’t experience discrimination OR any kind of abuse due to my Asian heritage.   Fast forward to five Asian American children moving into another small (one flashing light) town and my life changed in significant ways that would adversely affect who I was for life that you’ll see unfold as we move through my journey.  

The next episode shares stories, mostly humorous about  Town folk running a farm with zero experience!   In addition to adjusting to life on a farm, life takes a turn that blended multiple devastating events from the bane of discrimination that shook me to my core and how growing up as an Asian American became a personal crisis.

Purple Rain by Prince is one of my favorite songs.  I think it’s because I extract a meaning similar to what Prince said the song was about and at the same time, it is about moving through the purple rain.  Part of his lyrics are

I only wanted to see you

Laughing in the purple rain

I know times are changing

It's time we all reach out

For something new, that means you too

Please keep this in mind as we continue our journey.  We all have Purple Rain sometimes?  What’s Yours? It’s  how we move through it that makes all the difference.

The episode Art is a painting of Mom that I had commissioned when stationed in Korea.  I also included some photos as I will continue to do, from the Holt complex in Ilsan, Korea.  They are in Instagram and Twitter.  The links are in the podcast description.

Please help the podcast gain more traction with sharing the journey we are on and with ratings on Apple or your favorite podcasting site. 

This episode is dedicated to my siblings. We all made the journey and shared the love and dedication of Bill and Barb Terwilliger.  I wouldn’t be who I am without the love and support from these amazing people.

 The Boy in the Trash Can Podcast is a production of CSJ Asaociates.