I am sorry – ‘Toot Toot’ has nothing to do with anything, it is just a sound I make when I am moving an animal aside. It is just so cheerful, musical even. Just a childish ‘Toot Toot’ all by your self out in the field.
The other day a friend and I were talking about the work I am doing compiling the Fellowship Book ‘Letters For my Little Sister’. Sixty Eight of you contributed to this book. How brilliant is that. (I am filing it Tuesday so stand by for the big relief sigh!) Anyway my friend very casually said that an old professor of hers had told her: the best way to do the last edit of your book is to read it backwards. I smiled, nodded nicely and commented that it sounded like her old professor was obviously completely bonkers. She laughed. But the idea stuck as ideas do. 
So, last night I began to read Letters For My Little Sister backwards. Paragraph by paragraph. And she was right. It is an excellent way to check the work. We get into a rut moving the same way and don’t see certain things anymore. Maybe we should all do our days backwards every now and then. Just to jump start real observation.
This morning John will give the cows their last shots then later today the Lady Vet will come to AI (Artificially Inseminate) Daisy and Queenie. Daisy has done much better with her injections this time. No kicking and hurling herself about. 
Oh and by the way. John picked his first big red tomato today. Though someone ATE the evidence. It was stunning. We do not buy tomatoes out of season so that first taste is (dare I say it) orgasmic! Such a naughty word. 
We are still on to show our tomatoes on the 4th of July. How is your garden coming along? Do you want to join our Fourth of July challenge. John and his mother compete every year to get a tomato on the table for the 4th of July. Just take a picture of your biggest tomato and link back here so I can come across and have a look!
Part One of the chook run was added to the Hen House that Kim built. So now they have run Number One and a good solid lock down space for the night-times. And I have a lovely old chair for chook gazing.
Updates:
The general concensus (sp?) seems to be that Minty is having some kind of phantom pregnancy.
Daisy’s Big Bobby is officially weaned, no more milk for him. Daisy’s production is dropping and he is getting too big to manage safely. He is huge and such a bully.
The old fellas concur that Carlos Garcia was probably taken by a large Hawk or Eagle. He was a juvenile and not big. The piles of feathers and no body is often the work of a big bird.
Now my dear Godot the Angel is upstairs with his girls. But they cannot stay up there forever. At some point we have to get over our fear and let them out again.
Queenies Bobby has a light coloured runny bottom and I cannot work out why, (though it is possibly the hormones she is on to bring her into heat, he is a breast fed baby after all). The vet will have a look today.
Good morning. After doing the early work of the day forwards, I am going to go back to reading the manuscript backwards. Not long now and we can begin Book Number Two. Gird your Loins darlinks.
Have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
80 responses to “Toot Toot”
Our tomato plants are loaded, but no red ones yet!
Editing and proofing backwards is a great way to do it. I’d heard of it years ago and forgotten but recently took it up again and it works! What’s the topic of the next book, pray tell?
It is bubbling, I am going to introduce it later in the summer when the idea is crystal clear for everyone and also I want to be collating it over the winter this time. So watch this space!.. c
Hah! As some of the other fellows have mentioned…I hope yellow blossoms on tomatoe plants count! Here in the Northwest we call it the land of the green tomatoes! We’re lucky if we get any ripe ones by August!! C. it looks so beautifully lush and summery at your house…I love that first shot of Queenie and her bobby lying down in that long green grass and the barns in the distant…soo peaceful…
Is your T.T. home yet to help you with some heavy chores? He will probably think those are easy now compared to Army chores! 🙂
He is on the way, but i am sure he will spend his break sleeping, but we will be doing hay this week hopefully, so he will help with that.. fingers crossed though.. you know who it is!.. c
Glad backward is helping to move forward. 🙂
I had good advice!! Thank you Kristy.. c
We took a painting class where the instructor made us pain our flowers with the canvas up side down. The paintings came out beautifully, but alas, I’m a photographer and not a painter.
I know that feeling!!.. c
I found this to be most helpful years ago and went searching for it on the internet… found what is probably a better up dated version…
http://veterinaryextension.colostate.edu/menu2/Cattle/Calf%20Scours%20101.pdf have a look might just be rewarding for the future…
that is interesting reading Bulldog, and the first thing I did yesterday was shift Queenie and her calf into a fresh paddock. Which seems to have been a good move according to that site. I looked all over this morning and found no more evidence, but i am being very watchful. I have gatorade ready to go but he is hard to catch.. we will see. c
We used to give our sheep and lambs pepto bismal for scours.
Reading it backwards makes sense as you tend to read and re read the early part of a work more often than the later part. Wish I could join in the tomato challenge but am not in Spain so no crop for me this year 😦
I’ve heard the reading backward thing as well—really useful for finding spelling errors…since you’re not reading the sentence in a logical way, your brain
doesn’t “gloss” over what you see with what it knows was meant to be written. I’m growing no tomatoes…but we’ll soon see how well the American wild flowers
you gave us are doing in France! Will let you know.
I’m so sorry about Carlos Garcia. He was a beautiful bird. (I was too late with my condolences to post the day his remains were discovered.)
My old piano teacher had me learn to memorize a piece backwards.
Orgasmic is the right word. My husband is saving our last package of bacon from last years pigs for the first tomato so he can have a BLT sandwich. We wait all winter, spring and part of summer for those tomatoes. I do not buy the grocery store ones. Why waste my money on “tomatoes” that aren’t even close to what a true garden raised tomato is? When they finally come on, and this year will prolly be late as we are getting ALOT of rain and I keep checking and praying the garden is still green and not yellow, we eat them at every meal. Actually we gorge on them knowing when they are gone we won’t have them for about 8 or 9 months.
If you figure out animals digestive tracts, please let me know. Just when I think I have my goats kinda figured out, they pull something new out of a hat. I figure by the time I’m 100 (optimistic aren’t I) I may have seen 99% of everything, but until then it’s more like standing there saying “what now? good grief.” And lately, toot toot would NOT be what is being muttered around my animals. It is hot, humid, rainy, and the flies are HORRENDOUS. I live in northern Indiana, not the south either. I have had 2 almost full buckets ruined in the last couple days by one of my older, as in knows better, goats who has decided to take to kicking and stepping in the bucket then looking at me. You can imagine what I am muttering after yelling “Sara no @$#%.” Shouldn’t say those words but a full bucket of hand milked milk ruined is not a wonderful feeling. She doesn’t get a treat that milking and she actually turns around and waits at those milkings that she is not a good goat. I swear she knows and is doing it on purpose. It is also not what I mutter either when I am trying to round the last few up for milking after they decide it is fun to run to the pasture during milking time. I’m stopping that one by shutting our gate to the barn. Running around a pasture in a pair of overalls I have started wearing this year because of the bugs! in 90 degree temps with how knows what humidity does not make a person mutter good things. All that being said I would not give up my animals, land, garden, lifestyle for anything. I love my life. I just found your blog looking for cheese recipes. I subscribed after being on it a couple of minutes and found myself laughing out loud with the mental pictures. Thanks for writing.
Welcome Jenny, how delightful to have you on board especially as you are a fellow over-all wearer. I hate it when flies land on me! Good lluck with the cheese.. I make the farmers cheese and labneh once week.. but you will be using goats milk yes? can you make yoghurt from goats milk?.. c
Nothing better than summer tomatoes!
Reading a piece backwards is always a great check – put’s a check on the know-it-all brain-in-a-hurry.
It’s also a great technique if you are ever on an multiple choice test or big exam and suddenly go blank – or just can’t think of answers. Start at back and work forward.
(Animals probably knew that all the time?)
Wow, reading your work backwards. That is an excellent tip i hadn’t heard before. I’ll pass it on; best to you in your cows with runny bottoms and largest tomato’s world.
That’s a really nice-looking hen house. I’m sure they’ll enjoy their stay in it. Our Golden Retriever ate the last tomato of the season on year. We were really looking forward to enjoying it ourselves.
naughty.. c
Reading backwards is one of the best proofreading tricks there is. I learned it from a colleague 20 years ago when a corporate newsletter publisher.
Oooo, what’s our next assignment?!
soon darling.. soon!! c
The first tomato – what a thrill. Reading backwards sounds a great idea. I wonder if I could try doing my 108 step tai chi backwards, as the first part is well learned but the last section keeps slipping away from me.
And another book scheme already! So is that the title: ‘Gird your Loins darlinks’?????
Fantastic!! c