Adventures in Farming

If you miss me....

2011-01-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

You can find my latest ramblings at:

http://dotsbusyhands.blogspot.com/

Sittin' on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere

2010-12-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

This was not what I thought I'd be writing for my final post on this blog.... but it is what it is.

Yesterday we loaded up Hazel, Whitey and Will - milk cow, beef cow, and our Dexter bull. Packed a gilt in a crate. Packed sheep and Peaches the LGD into very large dog kennels. Loaded up watering troughs, pig panels, cattle panels and some chicken wire. Filled the cooler with farm raised poultry and pork and set off for Stamping Ground KY.

Why? you may ask. Well, we were helping Anders and Emily move all their new livestock to their new farm.

Mile marker 22.8 on I64, the truck died.

Many calls later Brian finds a very kind wrecker service to tow the truck. NOT the trailer. More phone calls to Anders, who enlists Emily's Dad in this adventure. Thank God for Jim! He found a truck to borrow with the right hitch in the bed.

More waiting. ... The wrecker shows up and I go off with the wrecker/truck to the garage leaving Brian standing by the side of the road with a trailer load of critters.

Jim picked Brian and the trailer up and came in to the garage to meet me. Mean time the nice folks at the garage checked the thermostat on the engine. That's what we all thought was wrong. Brian jumped in the truck when he got there, fired her up and she ran. .... Then she stopped. .... Then he tried to start her again and antifreeze shot clear up to the ceiling. Now I don't know much about engines, but I do know that's bad. :^(

To make a long story at least a little bit shorter- the engine is blown. The truck is dead. I called my DSIL for a ride home. My daughter married well. Travis just said ok and could we meet him and my daughter, Lydia at the on ramp for 64 in two hours.

So with our taxi on it's way, we leave the truck at the garage and head out to the kids' farm. By now it is pitch black dark out. We drop the trailer and the critters in the field. Anders will let them out in the morning when he can see to keep an eye on them. Emily gave us a quick tour of the house. It's going to be wonderful when they get it all cleaned and spruced up.

Than Jim ran us out to the interstate to meet our ride, treated us to burgers at the DQ. (No it's not farm raised grass fed beef but we were starving!) Two hours of good conversation and leg cramps in the car and we were home. We both fell into bed and slept hard for a few hours.

Right now Brian and his dad are headed to KY to bring the truck home on the car hauler. And I'm gettin' ready to go in to the hospital for a 12 hour shift.

By the way. . .

Anybody want to buy a truck cheap? It just needs an engine. :^)

Mass Migration

2010-12-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

Today the sheep, Pyrennees, piglet and cows go south to Anders' and Emily's new Kentucky homestead. We are really excited for them in their farming adventure!

Count down to the new year...

2010-12-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well folks this is it. Christmas is over and the New Year is around the corner.

So begins the count down to closing down this blog and Kiss My Grass Farm. On New Year's eve we close this chapter of our lives and open a new one.
We've turned over our Red Wattle preservation program to our DSIL - the bacon fanatic. We're sure he will do just great with the RW's.
The Buckeye chickens, the ducks and the cattle will be moving south to Anders & Emily's new farm in Kentucky. The guineas will stay - nobody could catch them anyway.
Brian will be concentrating on school. He is doing very well and has just been notified that we will be able to do an independent study in biology this semester. We'll keep downsizing our cache of accumulated stuff until we move to Crawfordsville in May.
So here we go to our next great adventure!!
I'm already counting down the days until Brian graduates and we can get back on a farm!!!

Wish us luck!

Winter butter

2010-12-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Dear old Hazel the milk cow is dried up. So this week when we went over to take a couple of piglets to our friends Donna & Keith, we came home with 8 gallons of their yummy raw milk.

So this morning I skimmed all the cream off before I froze the excess milk to use later.

I make butter using my blender. I find that the food processor doesn't work well at all. It heats the cream up too much and it seems to break up the butter fat instead of encouraging it to clump together.

My blender has a High/Low switch at the bottom. I set it to low for butter. Then I only used the 2 slowest settings- Blend when I start the cream. Grate when it gets to the almost butter stage. The cream looks like this when your first whir it in the blender.

When the butter fat begins to gather it looks like this. Now it's time to strain the butter milk away.

We feed the buttermilk to the piglets. They love it!!

After the butter milk is strained away the butter has to be worked to remove more of the milk. The milk hides in little pockets in the butter so I use a wide bamboo spoon to work the butter against the side of my big crockery bowl.

Then rinse with cold water and repeat working the butter until all of the milk has been worked out and the water is clear.

Then add sea salt to taste. Mix it in well and form the butter into balls. My hands are small and I've been doing this for a long time so I know my butter balls are about 1cup each. There are butter molds or the butter could be put in plastic wear. Butter will keep for about 6 months in the freezer.
Because this is winter butter it is pale yellow. The cows don't have fresh green grass in winter so there is less carotine.

Magic Mushrooms

2010-12-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

I went back to work on Friday evening. Several things have changed along my route to the hospital. The construction zones have moved south on SR135. There is a new detour around the "Drainage Improvement Project" ( That's what the signe said.) on Bluff road. But the strangest new thing on the way to work is the magic mushrooms... ok the sign doesn't say that. In fact there isn't any sign explaining why almost a dozen technicolor mushrooms or are they toadstools have sprung up next to the I70 underpass just before you get to Lucas Oil Stadium.

You can't miss them. They are really quite large and unusual. They sort of look like they've been sculpted by small children using a large amount of taffy instead of clay. Some of them look as though the "cap" is melting. You gotta love public art!

Sunny Day

2010-12-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

The sun is shining the birds are singing and it's a balmy 10 degrees out this morning! I think the birds are singing to stay warm.

Our Corgi, Miss Honey Shortlegs, loves this weather. She comes out of her dog house and rolls and rolls in the snow on mornings like this. Silly dog. She even likes to tunnel in the snow using her nose as a shovel... hmmm you don't think she's been taking lessons from the RW's, do you?

Snow Kitty

2010-12-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

I swear she looks like she's trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue!!

Hazels winter wonderland

2010-12-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

Hazel never misses a meal she's always the first one to the hay when Brian puts out a new bale. She is nice an and fuzzy right now with her winter coat.

I think she's really starting to show that she is going to calf this spring. I'm hoping it's a heifer. If it is the new little girl will be going to Kentucky to become the future family cow for my son and his growing family.

Oh Goodness Look!!

2010-12-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

I FINALLY GOT ALL MY DUCKS IN A ROW!!

Guinea Roost

2010-12-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

The four surviving Guinea fowl have decided that the peak of the barn is the place for them.

You see Brian was almost done with the roof on the barn when his shoulder got so bad he just couldn't finish it. It short 6 sheets of metal.

The Guinea girls have decided he left this nice open space for their roosting enjoyment!

Even when it snowed they insisted on roosting up there.

Barn Alarm system! They set up a horrible racket when anyone or any thing comes close to the barn.

There they are in the snow and wind.

I swear if they could talk that pearl gray would be saying, " What do you think you're lookin' at?, HUH!"

Silly birds. But they do keep the weed seeds eaten up so they don't sprout new weeds and they do eat ticks and other creepy crawlers in the summer.

Winter is here at last

2010-12-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

It finally snowed and I stuck my nose outside to snap a couple of pictures. It's so pretty!!

The persimmon trees in the back yard

This is our magnolia tree in the south yard just outside the picture window. See the buds waiting patiently for spring?

Downsizing PHASE II or When the heck did we get all this stuff?

2010-11-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Phase I was moving into the smaller house.
Phase II involved several long talks with my husband and three type written pages of lists.

List one: Things that can go now.

List two: Things to give to my son and his family.

List three: Things to give to my daughter and her family.

List four: Things that we will need to sell later - still using them or just not ready to part with stuff. You know we might need it. This will be Phase III

After all the list making was completed and carefully reviewed and cussed and discussed I spent several hours posting the things we either don't need, don't use or just can't see how we will ever be able to fit it into an apartment when Brian gets into Vet School - the things on list one.

Then I spent the better part of today answering emails and returning phone calls and answering the door.

Gotta love Craig's List. :^)

Most of our horse stuff is gone. The compressor and tools are gone.
I'd list everything that's still here but I'm tired of typing. So if you're curious go to craigslist.org and pull up Bloomington, Indiana. Look under Farm and Garden, Tools and Arts & Crafts. You'll know the stuff is ours because we are the only people who list Bean Blossom as our location. LOL

Maybe you'll find a treasure!

Reusable canning jar lids

2010-11-18T17:44:00.000-08:00

My son and I were talking the other day about how nice it would be if you could reuse canning jar lids instead of throwing them away. Today he presented me with a website for a company that offers reusable canning jar lids. I think it's such a great idea I'm going to share it here:

reusablecanninglids.com
According to the company website TATTLER reusable canning jar lids contain no BPA. They are safe for pressure canning, water bath, and vacuum sealing.

"Tattler Canning Lid's proven success, as a reusable product, has earned them the distinction of widespread customer satisfaction and acceptance since their origination in 1976. The years of development of this product have brought to the home canner a jar lid that is truly reusable. In fact, the longevity of TATTLER Canning Lids presents the likelihood they will be handed down to the next generation of food preservation enthusiasts!"
"Properly used, with any standard Mason jar and metal screw band, these reusable lids will last a lifetime. If you ever wear this lid out, we will replace it free! Follow standard directions and procedures, for two piece canning jar lids, with any normal home canning process, and obtain excellent results."
A package of 3 dozen regular mouth lids and rubber rings costs $20.95 from their online store. Replacement rubber rings cost $2.50/dozen.
They also offer bulk packages in 500, 1500 or 2500 lids each

I'm looking forward to trying them with my next canning project!

Talkin' Turkey

2010-11-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

We have two whole pasture raised turkeys in the freezer waiting for their big day. Brian wants to deep fry one. I confess that much hot oil over an open flame scares me. He says "Just don't look."

The second bird will be prepared by my daughter - in the oven. I'm sure she will put some new twist on the traditional bird. And I'm equally sure it will be delicious.

Buckeye Update

2010-11-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

Buckeye hens- notice the rose comb?

When we decided to transition over to a sustainable flock of Buckeye chickens we looked at our current poultry system and found it lacking. Rare breed birds are farely costly and well.... rare. We love the concept of free range chickens, but there is a large population of hawks on our farm. The hawks think that mobile chicken pens are like kitchen cabinets or the refrigerator in your kitchen - it's where you store your food until you're ready to eat it. So this year when we ordered Buckeye chicks and hatching eggs, we made the decision to renovate our first hog shed into a chicken coop. So we gutted the hog shed. Cleaned it all out. The building has three separate sections. One we finished for my mom's Auracauna chickens - Green legs the rooster and his party colored harem girls. The other side is for the Buckeyes. The third section is yet unfinished. I'm planning to close in 2 sides and add chicken wire to the third this spring for the chicks we hope to hatch in our incubator.

We did all these improvements to the building so we decided we would put what we know about feeders and waterers together to automate the chicken chores as much as possible. We invested in 2 oil catch pans - the plastic one you use to catch the nasty old oil out of your truck when you change the oil and 6 bolts with washers and nuts. We already had a couple of lidded plastic buckets. Brian's little zip roater made fast work of cutting out holes along the bottom edge of the bucket sides for the feed to flow out. Then a few holes drilled in the bottom for the bolts, slap on the pans, tighten down the nuts and VOILA! A chicken feeder that will hold enough feed for about 4 or five days for full grown birds... much longer for chicks. So after successfully engineering feeders we turned our efforts to self-waterers. All the waterers commercially available were expensive and too small to really reduce workload much. So once again we took our experience with cattle, sheep, goats, horses, pigs and various watering setups and put it all together.

Closeup of the spigots on the holding barrel.

We have been using 55 gallon plastic barrels as water reservoirs for our hog waterers for years and we had a barrel that wasn't in use. Brian added two taps and set it up on a sturdy stand about 30 inches from the ground. Two sections of hose and gravity carry the water from the barrel to the water cups. We had those laying around too. They were left over from our short experiment with goat keeping. The drinking cups work with a float shut off and are just the right size so several birds can drink at once. We just mounted them to the side of the new coop with a couple of screws. Of course in the winter the watering system will need to be drained. We'll be using rubber pans during the winter so we can empty out the ice daily. For now we water about once a month.

Hens coming up to the drinking fountain.

We moved the chicks into the coop as soon as they were ready to come out of the brooder. Three dozen or so fuzzy Buckeye chicks and about the same number of Auracaunas with a few wing feathers looked pretty small in all that space.

Now they are full grown and magnificent. The buckeyes are some of the handsomest birds I have ever raised. The hens are lovely dark russet red and the roosters with their iridescent green/black tail feathers are striking. The hens should start to lay nice brown eggs next month. Then in the spring we'll start hatching chicks. I love spring!

2010-11-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

My friend Donna is writing her second great American novel this month during NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Since I can't go anywhere I thought I'd start my great American novel and I did.... then I got sidetracked.
My son and his family are moving to a homestead in Kentucky close to Emily's parents and my SIL has been bitten by the Red Wattle Bug. No not hog lice! Ewwww!
He loves the Red Wattle pork and wants to raise his own.

So now I am writing Everything I know about farming or What not to do cause it don't work... believe me I tried it!

I hope to have it done by Christmas so I can tuck it into their stockings.

My Anchor

2010-11-12T07:02:00.000-08:00

On October 29 I had knee and foot surgery. Then spent 10 days in a leg splint whining on the couch. Now I have a "Barney" purple cast to anchor me down so I don't overdo things. The crutches are interesting too. We have an old house with narrow doors, odd heighths on the steps to get out to the sunroom and a narrow open staircase to basement. I'm not even going to attempt the basement steps until I'm walking without the crutches. I'm getting pretty good at going sideways through doorways and balancing down the 2 steps from the kitchen to the sunroom though!

The cast is supposed to come off on December 1. Then a walking boot and physical therapy.

All I've gotta say is I wanna go to the barn!!

Piggy"s Night at the Library

2010-11-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

Last year for Christmas I made all my grandkids soft, stuffed Red Wattle pigs. This year on Halloween weekend Taylor's pig went to a stuffed animal slumber party at the library. The kids all dropped off their stuffed animals on Friday evening and then came back on Saturday morning to pick up their animals, a treat and pictures of what their animals were up to during the night.

This is Red Wattle Piggy listening the Charlotte's Webb on tape. I love it!

Taylor's daddy said it would have been funny if Piggy was reading a pork cookbook!

I wonder what else he was up to all night?

National Small Farm Conference and Trade Show/RWHA Annual Meeting

2010-11-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

After spending half the day pulling together reports, printing cards and brochures, hauling piglets to the vet, filling out health papers and generally dashing about madly, Brian & Kacie headed out for Missouri. Ok so all the dashing about madly was done by Brian and Kacie. It's hard to dash about madly in a splint with an ace wrap up to your thigh and crutches. I was limited to organizing the paperwork and supervising.
I had really been looking forward to the conference and our annual RWHA meeting. It's one of the few times during the year that so many alternative/heritage breed farmers gather in one place. And the RWHA annual meeting is the one big RWHA gathering for the year. Not for me this year. I just couldn't see myself hopping around the exhibition hall when just bumbling out to the bathroom exhausts me.
So here I sit snuggled up on the couch with the laptop for company, my son and his little family sleeping in the next room because I can't be left alone in case I should fall or worse yet - not be able to carry food from the kitchen to my little nest on the couch. Contrary to popular opinion, I think I could live on the bowl of apples on the end table for 3 days quite nicely and I've learned to hang my lidded travel mug from the hand grip on my crutches.
It could be worse, I suppose, but I do miss being outside and taking care of the animals.
Oh well. Hopefully, Kacie will take lots of pictures and Brian will remember to turn on the recorder for the meeting. I'll just have to wait and see.

This little piggie went to market....

2010-10-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

We are off to take 3 not so little piggies to the processor. Then we will have Red Wattle pork available again at Double Oak Farm Green Grocery, located at 1120 Washington in downtown Columbus, Indiana.

The folks at Double Oak offer locally raised beef, pork and lamb as well as seasonal local produce and preserves. They are expanding their inventory all the time so stop by and see what's new!

A new farm record!

2010-10-06T19:04:00.000-07:00

We put 120 chickens in the freezer today and we were done before the sun went down!! It sure feels good to have all that meat in the freezer.
Guess what we had for dinner>>>>>

MEATLOAF!

Chicken has to wait for a week before I can face it again. :^)

Prep for the big day

2010-10-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

The vats are scrubbed and the knives are sharpened. The birds had their last treat this afternoon - sunflower seeds. We are ready to start bright and early tomorrow morning.... off to bed for me.
My alarm is set for 5:30.

Bye Bye Birdies

2010-10-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is butchering day. We will be putting 120 birds in the freezer. Our friend Arthur and my son and his fiance will be over to help. Brian will be at school. Hmmmm you think he planned that?

It will be nice to have all that chicken in the freezer and it will cut down on chores for the winter. We're hoping this is the last year we will be buying meat chicks. Next year our Buckeyes should be producing enough fertile eggs for us to hatch and grow out our own Kiss My Grass Farm pasture raised all natural chicken.

Sustainability here we come!!

I know I've been absent...

2010-10-05T04:22:00.000-07:00

absent from writing this blog, absent minded...

Well I'm going to try my best to work on that. I know I keep saying that.... but I mean it this time. LOL

So updates:

We traded houses with my daughter. We are in the little yellow house at the front of the property. Most of our things are still in boxes, but slowly I'm digging out. My mom is staying at the big house and will be living with my daughter and her family.

The garden was a bust this year in the draught. We had to decide whether to water the garden or the animals. We decided on animals.

Next year the gardens will be small, raised and hopefully will produce enough for us to get by. With Brian in school, we are really pulling back our production.

We'll still have pork available and eggs when the hens cooperate.

So now it's time to get out and milk Hazel. .. so gotta go!

And then they were one

2010-09-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

And now our wonderful grandbabies are one year old!! Wow time sure flies. That is Joel with the chocolate cake face. He was really getting into the fun of a first birthday cake!
And this is Miss Emma munching away at an icecream cone from her birthday cake decoration.

Quick list up date

2010-09-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

1. Brian has started his schooling to become a large animal vet. 4 days a week all day in class plus homework and studying.
2. Brian had shoulder surgery on Friday last. Big cumbersome sling with a bolster to maintain the proper angle.
3. Brian starts physical therapy next week.

Wow when I write it down it doesn't take up nearly as much space on the page as it does in our life.
4. We have 2 RW sows waddling and moaning about being very pregnant. They can farrow any day now. In fact I was sure they would pop last week.
5. We are moving. Well we are trading houses for the time being with my daughter and her family. We get the little house to live in - privacy, and quiet for Brian to study. They get to spend time with Grandma and live in the big house. We'll see how this works out.
6. There are not enough hours in the day for me to get everything done. So this list will have to suffice for now. And admittedly this is not the whole list of what is going on... but if I list it all out I'll get overwhelmed and go back to bed. :^)

Deer, Oh deer, Oh deer

2010-08-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Anders and I went out and picked sunflowers in the bed along the front of the farm. We noticed the deer had gone through the electric fence and knocked it down. I hustled back and turned the electric off and Anders mended the fence. Then we turned it back on. All the cows were still in the pasture so no harm done.
This morning as I groggily stumbled through the kitchen with a glass of OJ, I happened to glance out the north window.
That's odd, I thought, as I glimpsed a black and white shape heading at high speed across Wagler's alfalfa field.
"Honey," Brian said as he came into the kitchen. "Sarah Wagler just left a message on your phone. She says our...."
"Cows are out again, " I finished for him.
Not only were they out, but judging by all the unusual places we found cow manure, they had been out for most of the night. Luckily, this time Brian was home so he called them into one of the page wire paddocks by the barn. At least the deer can't knock that fence down.
Now you may well ask why is it so much easier for Brian to call the cows in? I have a theory, but I'll have to back up and explain. When we bought our White Parks and Belties the man we got them from called his cows with "NOW, NOW, NOW!"
Don't ask - I don't know why. I do know that those cows wouldn't come to anything else so we changed how we call all of our cows to "NOW, NOW, NOW!"
My theory is: Brian has a Southern Indiana twang that makes NOW sound almost like a two syllable word. I just can't match it. Believe me, I've tried. My NOW! just won't cut the mustard when it comes to our cows' discerning ears.
Who new cows were so picky?
But back to the deer problem - the hunting season is approaching and I'm practicing with my bow...jerky anyone?

Ahhh the green leafy shade on a hot day

2010-08-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

The other day it was 104 and our cows decided to go on walk about looking for some shade that was cooler than the shade they had in our field. They decided that breaking down the fence was a good idea.

Anders called us as we were headed from the doctor's office to drop Brian off at school. I told him I was at least an hour away. He said he had already tried to get them back in - no way were they cooperating. I told him to keep an eye on them and I'd be home as quickly as possible.

At home I loaded up tools and a bucket of feed & headed out in the pickup to find the breach in the fence and our cows. It turns out our neighbor has a beautiful forest of mature pine trees, with a lovely carpet of green at their feet. Our cows thought it was a lovely place for an afternoon nap.

I coaxed the cows back in with a tempting treat of feed. (Good thing they are all chow hounds!) I felt a little like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs to find their way home. I had to drop a handful of feed every 10 feet to keep them coming along while simultaneously brushing off giant black horseflies and wiping the sweat out of my eyes.

When I finally got them back in, Anders and I started to patch up the fence. That's when I realized the lovely carpet of green in the neighbor's pine woods was lovely green POISON IVY!

We high tailed it in for showers as soon as we finished. I think I did pretty good I only got a little patch of rash on my ring finger and my right ear. Not too bad for having waded through it and touched it bare handed while patching the fence. :^)

And we waited, and we waited and we wondered...

2010-08-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

if the momma duck would ever hatch her eggs. It seems like forever since she set up housekeeping in the corner of Gertrude the sow's stall. Yesterday when I let Gertie out I noticed half an egg shell in on the ground.

OH NO! I thought Gertie finally got wise to the treasure trove of goodies stashed in the corner!

I hustled her out of the barn and went to investigate. Momma hissed at me stood up and spread her wings.

Three little heads peeked out looking for all the world like plush stuffed ducky toys that you see at Easter. They are SOOOO yellow! So far I've only been able to count 3 but I think there are more. Momma just doesn't want any one to get too close. So I locked the stall gate so nobody would bother her and relocated Gertie to a stall further down the line. Gertie wasn't too thrilled with her new location but she is adjusting.

I'll post the pics I took as soon as I can get them off of my camera. It's acting a little crazy lately. I think maybe I accidentally changed a setting I shouldn't have. Who knew?

We bid goodbye to Bonnie & Clyde

2010-08-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

As I type this the Haflingers, Bonnie and Clyde are on the road to Michigan along with the wagon and their harness. I am sad that they are gone even though I didn't have time to do much more than admire them and pet them. I know they'll be happier where they have a job to do.

Brian doesn't believe me, but as soon as he gets done with Vet school, I am getting another Hafllinger. Mark my words. I am counting the days. ;^)

The Hazel compromise

2010-08-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

This morning my mother announced that she was buying Hazel. Do WHAT?
That's right she said she was buying Hazel and that Anders and I could milk Hazel for her. That would relieve Brian of responsibility for the cow and she said she is going to buy Hazel's food. I tried to reason with her. I explained that if she buys Hazel that won't really solve our time problem. We'll still have to milk and care for her.

Have you ever tried to argue/talk sense to a red head? Or a stubborn little old lady?

There was no reasoning with her. Hazel is staying. The only compromise I could win was: if the milking gets to be too much we'll dry her off and put her out with the beefers. Then we'll try milking again when she calves in the spring.

:^) I admit it. I'm glad Hazel is staying. :^)

You are either moving forward or going backward....

2010-08-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

...but you just can't stand still or as my Daddy always said "Piss or get off the pot."

So here we are with horses, pigs, cows, ducks, rabbits, chickens, sheep, pigs, guineas and turkeys. And Brian in school full time to become a vet. And I'm working full time. So tough decisions have to be made and followed through on. I hate letting any animals go, but we have to get the chores down to something that doesn't cause stress and anxiety every day.
We've decided to sell the Haflingers - Bonnie and Clyde. And our milk cow, Hazel and her heifer calf, Gaia. Some of the sheep have gone to live at my son's. Some of the sheep are going to be going to the processor for meat.
We've already sold most of our RW's. We are keeping just 3 sows and 1 boar. We'll still have plenty of RW pork for sale.
We are cutting down the chickens to just my mom's Auraucanas and my Buckeyes - minus all but 2 roosters. So we will have eggs available. All of the broilers will be in the freezer by mid September.
The ducks and guineas are self sufficient so they are staying.
The bunnies are no bother & they are Kacie's project, so they get a reprieve.
The turkeys will be gone when we get close to the holidays - Yummy pasture raised main dishes you know!

I think I am the saddest to see Hazel and Gaia go. Hazel is so kind and gentle. Even Brian, who has little affinity for cows, loves Hazel. She is the undisputed queen of the barn. Gaia is the princess and will be a great milk cow when she grows up. It's hard to sell a baby you bottle fed from 3 days old. :^(
If you know anyone who needs a great cow or a sweet heifer, give them our number. 812-521-1063

We need to simplify our lives as well, so much of our accumulated hoard must go.

Our new motto is: "When in doubt throw it out." (or sell it or give it away). The most frequently asked question: "Have you used____ in the last 6 months? Can you honestly say you will use it in the next 6 months?" If the answer is no... it must go!

So far we've sold off our pony cart and a walk behind sickle bar mower. We have a manure spreader, several hay wagons and hay wagon undercarriages with wheels and a horse drawn passenger wagon with double harness for sale.

Next we'll be clearinf our the garages. Then it's the house.

We are looking at ways to simplify our daily chores as well. We've created 5 gallon self feeders for the chickens and float controlled self waterers for them as well. We bought miles (actually several hundred feet) of garden hose so we can more easily water hogs and cattle.

Long term we will be reducing the size of the garden and increasing the intensity of the gardening.

I admit there are several things that fail the question test, but I refuse to give up my spinning wheel, loom and kiln. I just can't admit I'll never have time for them again.

All this sorting and moving is depressing but at the same time liberating. I just wish we were already done with it. :^)

Laurel and Hardy (and company) Shear sheep

2010-07-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

Before we could start shearing Peaches had to be put on her cable she was a little too eager to "help".
Then it was Laurel and Hardy and company shear sheep. My son, Anders, his fiance, Emily and I got started. Their little one, Joel, joined us later to watch from his backpack. And eventually Brian wandered in to help when the bailer broke for the umpteenth time.

We had the sheep "corralled" in the stock trailer for easy catching. Thank heavens my son is young, strong and has long arms. He caught each sheep and I slipped a halter on. Then it was me pulling and him pushing and sometimes carrying the reluctant sheep to the stanchion.

This is the first year I have done the shearing myself. Some of the sheep look pretty good... Some of them look like I clipped them with the weed whacker. This is our ram we are clipping.

Toward the end he was getting rather impatient and my hands were buzzing from the vibrations of the clippers. It took Brian and Anders to hold him still while I did his chin. Emily was elected official photographer... and no I am not posting the overly closeup pic she got of my backside when I was bent over!

About the time I thought I was really getting a pretty good technique - we ran out of sheep.

Now I'll have to wait until next year to practice.

Brian beats the rain

2010-07-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

For the first time in three years, Brian got all the hay he had down rolled up ahead of the rain storms. Granted the bailer is toast and he had to borrow my brother's bailer. But it's done and that is a good thing.
Now if he'd just get his truck put back together so we can leave for Oregon on Thursday that would be icing on the cake.

Happy Independence Day!

2010-07-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

We may complain about out government and rules and regulations, but we still live in a country where we are free to speak our minds.That is something to be thankful for.

Persimmons

2010-07-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

They're still green but our persimmon tree is loaded with fruit. The branches are weighted down and several are nearly touching the ground. It's hard to believe something that hard, green and pucker producing will become one of Indiana's best loved wild delicacies. I can't wait 'til fall when they turn burnt orange and sweet. Persimmon pudding is one of our favorite foods around here. You can check out our Persimmon pudding recipe on our website kissmygrassfarm.net . Maybe this year Brian will create a persimmon icecream. Hmmmm. . .

It's a hogs life

2010-07-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

I want to be a pig if I get to be reincarnated. Why? So I can apply the appropriate amount of MUDD Factor 90 sunscreen and lay around in the sun all day, get free mudd facials and have someone wait on me hand and foot with meals and cool drinks.

;^) lol

This is Star sunbathing in the clover. Life is just sooo hard.

Sprouts

2010-07-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

Plants are popping up all over the garden. We may have had a hard time getting the garden in the ground. We feel like everything is in really late, but it's all in now and sprouting like mad. The top pic is bean seedlings stretching for the sun and the bottom one is watermelon seedlings. Now it's mulch, mulch, mulch!

Home dairying

2010-07-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

Oh the joys of having our own cow! So far I've made gallons and gallons of yogurt. Brian has perfected ice cream in at least 4 flavors and he's plotting his next creation as I write. I've made baked custard and Rennet custard. And there are several one gallon bags in the freezer filled with lovely yellow butter balls.

So for my next trick I decided to tackle cottage cheese. I read the directions in the Rennet package. It didn't look all that difficult. I thought I sort of remembered the process from when I was little and my mother made cottage cheese. So after the morning milking I strained the milk into a big stainless steel pot. Added the required number of Rennet drops and buttermilk. Then I placed a linen towel over the top and placed it carefully on the counter to wait.

Wait. Oh yeah how long did it say I had to wait? 12 hours... let's see it's was 11am by the time I got everything in the pot... so it should be curd by 11 pm. No big deal I thought. I have to work tomorrow so it will good to stay up tonight and get "flipped".

So at 11pm I was cutting my curd, heating it to 115 degrees slowly in a water bath, stirring every 5 minutes so the curds didn't stick together. Then straining off the whey. Plunging the curd in ice water. Hanging it to drain. At 2 am I decided it was just going to have to be drained enough because I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I tucked it in the fridge and crawled into bed.

This morning I added salt, pepper and cream. Yep that's right cottage cheese is supposed to be swimmin' in cream. Then I tasted it. YUMMY! It's going to be great with fruit and for stuffing pasta. Thanks Hazel. :^)

HAY! HAY! HAY!

2010-07-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

Brian has 4 fields of hay down, 1 raked and he's started baling. Now if the baler will quit breaking we might get it all rolled up before the weather changes again and it starts to rain.

I want to see pretty big round bales all neatly in a row waiting for the freezy breezes of winter. I always feel better when the haying is done.

The good and the bad and the ugly

2010-07-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

While walking through the garden I caught this butterfly with my camera. Butterfly - both good and pretty.

Then I checked my rose bushes only to find these little monsters munching away. YUCK! Time to get out the Neem-Py and spray at sunset.

And they call it ducky love....

2010-06-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ok so my friend, Donna's, fractured musical titles are rubbing off on me. Anyway, the Muscovy's have finally settled in to life in and around the barn. Since we have 3 males and only 2 females, the boys are constantly showing off for the girls. Visitors to the farm are surprized when the males start their hissing and head bobbing and the females trill. One young man asked me if I was sure they were ducks. Afterall, ducks quack right? We haven't had any viable duck eggs yet, but maybe by this time next year we'll have some ducklings waddling around the farm.

The first tomato

2010-06-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

Here it is in all it's red and juicy glory the first tomato of the season from our garden. Hurrah!
I had to grab it for this pick before Brian bit into it. :^)

Growing like a weed!

2010-06-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Joel in his favorite outfit... nothing but a diaper. He's got 4 teeth now. He loves my home made yogurt and cottage cheese. But bananas are still his favorite food!

Butter day

2010-06-25T10:53:00.001-07:00

One day a week I clear the milk refrigerator. First I skim off all the cream, then I re-bottle about two gallons of milk into one quart milk bottles. The smaller bottles fit in our inside fridge better and they are easier to handle for my mother who has arthritis. After all the cream is skimmed, I start making butter.
No I don't sit in my rocker and churn like granny on the "Beverly Hillbillies". I use the blender. While the butter's in the blender I empty the excess milk into a "Pig Pale" to be carried out to the hogs. Then I wash all the empty one gallon jars and put them back on the shelf for next week.
You can hear the change in the blender sound when the butter starts to rise. Then I run it through the strainer to remove the buttermilk. I save a little for cooking and send the rest to the piggies. Then it's rinsed with clean cold water and put into a bowl. When all of the cream is butter, I "work" the butter to get as much liquid out of it as possible. Then I add salt, shape it into butter balls and drop the butter into ice water to firm it up.
One butter ball goes in the butter dish and the rest in the freezer.

I'm hoping to have enough butter put by in the freezer to keep us through the time when Hazel is dry this winter.
Here are some of my buttery creations swimming in their ice bath.

Camp kids

2010-06-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

The kids from Camp Palawopec came to the farm today. One young man showed up without his shoes much to the consternation of the camp counselors. Walking around the farm in bare feet was out of the question so I had to make do.

"What size shoes do you wear?" I asked. "Twelves."

Well, I wasn't going to be able to lend him any of my boots. Luckily Anders had left a pair of very adjustable sandals in the breezeway. After everyone had foot gear we set off for the grand tour. They bravely trekked around the farm in the heat and humidity to meet the animals. It was a lot of fun showing them. Education is definitely the key to preserving our family farms. We talked about what it means to conserve endangered livestock breeds, why we rotate pasture, what makes a Red Wattle a Red Wattle. . .
Petunia was the perfect spokes pig. She stood still and let everybody pet her and feel her wattles, ears and nose.

A group of campers will come out to the farm each week for the rest of the summer. I'm really looking forward to it!

Of laundry and the search for a gasoline powered washing machine

2010-06-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

You see my son, Anders and his fiance Emily and future farmer, baby Joel live in a tepee. No running water, no electric, lots of laundry. So several months ago we started searching for a ringer washer that was gas powered. No luck on that account.

Brian mentioned that the kids really needed a washer to his dad. Now Brian's dad is the king of junk hunting. Just mention whatever oddity you are looking for and sooner or later he'll find it. That's how we got our hand cranked corn sheller.

Brian's dad called this week.He found us 2 ringer washers for $80 in good condition except they don't have motors.

Hmmmm..... Brian and I put our heads together, hunted through the "just in case we need it" junk in the garages and came up with a lawn mower engine to use on one washer for the kids. Hurrah!

We decided we could probably splurge on another electric motor like the one on our chicken plucker for the other washer for us.

To most people it will sound weird that I am excited about a ringer washer, but I love doing laundry in them. My grandma taught me. First you do the lightly soiled whites, then the colors, then the dirty ol' farm jeans. You use far less water. The laundry gets done all on one day. And when you hang all that laundry out on the line to dry it comes back in the house smelling like fresh air and sunshine! What more could you ask for?

I can't wait to get the one refurbished for the kids. I think I'll pitch in some clothes line and clothes pins so they are all set. ;^)

Tomatoes and basil OH MY!

2010-06-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

I just finished mudding in 110 tomato plants - Black of Tula, Chocolate cherry and a flat of mystery tomotoes that somehow lost it's label. On my days off next week I'll be putting down mulch and putting up stakes. I finished off one bed with about 24 Classico Italian Basit plants as well. Can you say spaghetti sauce?
Now my knees are muddy, my face is red and my clothes are soaked with sweat so I am sitting down with a glass of ice water for a much needed break.

Soon it will be time to do the chores and the milking, then Brian and I are going to sneak out like kids for a late nite date with a light dinner, icecream and the midnight movie - Toy Story III. :^) I sort of wish it was playing at the drive in... sigh....

Anniversary

2010-06-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today we have been married for two years... time flies when you are having farm. :^)

Life with Brian is always an adventure and never dull.

I am looking forward to many more years of adventures together.

Hello, this is Miss Piggy calling...

2010-06-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

This morning we decided to move the little boar we are keeping and a feeder pig out to the pasture. Brian suggested that Anders and I should finish up the chores in the barn while he delivered the cage full of squealing porkers to the pasture. We met back at the house for brunch.
Brian was sitting at the kitchen table when he realised he didn't have his cell phone... Uh OH! He took my phone and started calling himself in hopes that he'd hear his phone.
He listened in the house... no ring. He listened in the yard ...no ring.
He listened as he walked to the barn... no ring.
He listened in the barn... no ring.
He listened as he walked out to the feeder pasture and climbed the fence... no ring.
Then he looked down.
The back of the phone with it's little camera eye chomped and chewed was all he found.
Back at the house he plucked up his courage and called for a replacement phone. Of course the girl at Verizon laughed when he told her what happened. She laughed even harder when he told her that he ran over his last phone with a tractor... and she darn near hurt herself laughing when he gave her his email address: kissmygrassfarm@hotmail.com. Oh the agony and humiliation! LOL

This afternoon he decided he should check his messages using my phone. He only had one message . . .

from the pigs!

" Squeeeaal! Grunt grunt growl! Grunt"

ROFLMAO!

A day on the farm... June 15, 2010

2010-06-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Skyler (alias Farm Boy) and Brian moved the Buckeye chicks to rolling chicken tractors yesterday so today the chores where a bit different with more waterers to carry.

We ran another line of cross fencing in the south pasture during the afternoon. It was miserably hot and humid. Two minutes outside and your clothes were dripping wet. We came in for big glasses of ice tea and cooled off in the A/C. Then right on schedule at 6:20 pm the evening thunder storm grumbled in with rain by the bucket and a light show to rival the 4th of July. By 8:00 it had pretty much gone by so we went out in the lingering rain and did our evening chores. I don't think I was dry 10 minutes all day.

When we got back in I started pizza dough for homemade pizza. I glanced out the west window and there was a rainbow above the greenhouse and the light from the setting sun was just amazing. We stopped everything, ran for the camera and then spent some time on the porch swing just marveling at the wonder of what a little sunlight and water can create. It was a good day.

Apprentice farmer

2010-06-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

Skyler is an intelligent, good looking, healthy 13 year old boy... who has volunteered to work on our farm this summer. We are both surprized and really grateful to have his help.

So far this week he has helped to plant and mulch 50 pounds of seed potatoes and 48 pepper plants, cleaned the barn, and learned a little about the milking machine. He's also tried his hand at hog herding and teaching our dairy calf to lead with the rope halter.

He has willingly helped muck out the barn.... I don't even like that chore! Thanks Skyler!!

Now before you think it's all work and no play, he's also gone fishing.

Yummy Yummy Yogurt

2010-06-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

This week I turned 2 gallons of yummy fresh unpasturized milk into yummy tangy slightly sweet yogurt. Just add a little honey, strawberries or a spoonful of jam for a delicious cold smooth treat. Or add a little fruit and some granola for breakfast. Or strain out the whey to make a soft yocheese spread.

Geeze I'm makin' myself hungry! :^)

Workin' the night shift...

2010-06-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

No not me, silly. Our pyrennees, Peaches. Every evening about dark we corral the sheep and feed them. Then we set Peaches free to roam the pasture for the night. She stays up all night on guard for any danger to her sheep. I know she's awake and on guard because she barks at anyone who steps out the door to let you know not to mess with her sheep.

Promptly at seven in the morning, Peaches goes to her doghouse and crawls inside for some much needed rest. That is where we find her when we bring her food, latch her cable and let the sheep out for the day.

We'd love to let Peaches roam during the day too, but she's still such a puppy. She forgets when you weigh 85 pounds you can't play puppy games with baby lambs. So this is our compromise.

In the afternoon, Peaches holds court with her wooly charges. She is definitely the warrior queen of her domain.

Peeps in the mail!

2010-06-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

At a quarter to seven this morning Brian's phone rang. It was the post master. Our guinea chicks and turkey poults had arrived and would we please hurry and come get them.

So we skipped our morning cuppa, threw on some clothes and headed to the post office. Two peeping boxes were gratefully handed to us with a sigh of relief from the post master.

When we got them home we put them on the warm breezeway so that we could go out and do chores.... Hazel, the milk cow wasn't gonna wait for a bunch of peepings to get settled. After chores Brian took off to pick up Kacie... (Last day of school!)
I stayed behind to settle our new peepings into oversized dog crates that my friend Mike so generously donated to the farm.

Turkeys have to be the nosiest birds I've ever been around. These little ones just had to get up close and personal with my camera!

The guinea peeps weren't nearly as nosy but they are twice as active.

We ordered the guinea mix package so they will be pearl, silver and white. Even now you can tell which ones will be silver and which ones will be white. But there is one little one that doesn't look like any of the others. He (she ? I'm not sure.) has a white mask and a white bib and tucker like a penquin. I think I'm going to name this one "Happy Feet".

:^)

Chicklets

2010-05-27T05:50:00.000-07:00

Here are three of the Buckeye chicks from my first hatch. Right now they are in a dog crate in the breezeway. Sometime this week after I move the larger chicks to the chickhouse, they will move to the outdoor brooder.

Time to clean out the incubator. Not one of my favorite jobs.

Climate change

2010-05-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

We've gone from what seems like months of cool rainy weather to a tropical heat wave complete with humidity that could rival August all in less than 24 hours.... This Ziggy I found in the Sunday paper says it all!

South Pork comes to visit

2010-05-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday our friends Donna and Keith from South Pork Ranch and Dairy made the long trip from Chatsworth, Illinois to our place to pick up our extra rake. I'd been looking forward to this visit. Donna and I are sisters from different mothers - really! She's a night RN and so am I. Her husband, Keith is a farmer /dairyman and my Brian is a farmer/ milks our cow. I love to read her blog and she reads mine. We all encourage each other in this madness we call farming. See the parallel universes we live in!

AND Donna forgets about time differences and so do I. LOL! About the time we started wondering if we should call and check on them, Donna called to say they had forgotten the time difference. Good thing I'd made chicken pot pie for dinner. It needs to rest a bit after coming out of the oven. If you serve it hot fresh from the oven all the goodies ooze out. The guys loaded up the rake using lots of chains, the front end loader and luck. Meanwhile Donna took pics and we decided these loading adventures make both of us nervous.

As always this visit was too short. Brian had to take off in the middle of dinner to pick up Kacie. So the rest of us lingered a bit around the table and took a quicky tour of the 99% finished barn. Then it was time for Donna and Keith to wave goodbye as they backed causiously out our driveway with their new rake in tow.

Hmmm.... I wander when their peacocks will hatch their babies? Then we'll have an excuse to go visiting!!

When did people start being afraid of real food?

2010-05-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

As I do most every night that I work, I took a quart of our nice fresh, unpasteurized skimmed milk to work to drink. I was getting it out of the fridge as another nurse was looking for non-dairy creamer. I offered her a little real milk for her coffee.
"Eeyew I can't drink that. I looks like breast milk."
"Technically all milk is breast milk," I replied.
Another nurse heard our exchange looked at my milk bottle in abject horror and asked, "That came from your cow." Well duh! Where did she think milk came from a laboratory somewhere? Or maybe it just appears on store shelves late at night like magic?
I took a swig of deliciously cold fresh milk and went on with my day, but it's really been bothering me all evening. When did we start believing that the more processed, the more removed from the source, the more depersonalized our food was that it made us somehow better off?
I was fortunate to have been raised largely on rich fresh unpasteurized milk from our family cow and pork and beef and vegetables we raised ourselves. And I know this is anecdotal, but my siblings and I were healthier than our friends growing up. My sister and I didn't "blossom" while we were in grade school like girls do now. It distresses me when I see 8-9 year old girls with developed breasts. They are ill prepared for the changes in their bodies and the change in the way that people regard them. This early puberty has been linked to hormones in our food. Why is it that when people talk about contaminated foods they think only of bacteria? They don't think about hormones and antibiotics passed along and concentrated in our commercial food chain.
Another of my friends asked me how I could eat animals that I had raised myself. It never occurred to me that you shouldn't name your food. Each animal on our farm has a name. A personality. And a purpose. We are kind to our animals while they are with us and grateful for the food they provide us. We take responsibility for their welfare and we take responsibility for what we eat.
Come on! Food doesn't start out dismembered, depersonalized, plastic wrapped and sealed. We had a European couple stop by the farm for a tour last summer. They thought it was weird that in the U.S. you can't tell what animal the meat at the market comes from unless you read the signs. In European markets, they said, you an tell what the animal because you can recognize the parts.

All beef starts out as a living breathing calf in the spring and if it's lucky it grows on pasture until it's two years old. Then it is humanely processed into delicious grassfed beef. If it's not lucky it is raised in an overcrowded CAFO with a lot of other unfortunate animals. It's fed on grain it was never meant to eat and kept alive and growing on antibiotics and hormones. All pork starts out as a cute little piglet not a whole lot bigger than a man's hand. On our farm they are fed on excess cows milk, grain and all the pasture they can eat. They have lovely mud holes to play in and a large pasture to root around. Less fortunate pigs are raised on slatted floors in crowded conditions and fed sub therapeutic antibiotics and growth hormones. They cut the pigs tails off so that when the pigs become stressed from the overcrowding they can't bite one another's tails.

Which would you rather eat: food from stressed animals grown in crowded conditions? or food lovingly raised by a caring farmer?

Think about it. Know your farmer, know your food.

Today

2010-05-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today after chores we moved my 5 baby blueberry bushes from where they were in the soon to be a cow pasture part of the field to the soon to be an orchard part of the field. Good thing blueberries don't have deep roots. It took a bit of hauling and a lot of shoveling but I have them all tucked in. I planted them a little less deep as our ground is clay and stays wet. Then I mulched with a layer of old horse manure. I topped that with cardboard to suppress the weeds and then added a layer of aged bark mulch. The mulch gives it a nice finished appearance and it keeps the cardboard from blowing away before it kills all the weeds and grass.

While I was coddling my blueberries (Brian doesn't like blueberries so he refused to participate in the move) Brian pounded in T-posts and set insulators for the new pasture area. Brian and pulled the fence together it's easier that way. We thread the fence wire spool in a piece of rebar and take it for a walk as it unrolls. It goes pretty fast this way. Just as we were finishing up it started to pour!
Good time for a break and a quick run to Rural King for more insulators and wire. We lucked out today they were having a 10% off "Bucket Sale". You know 10% everything you can fit in a five gallon bucket. You'd be amazed at how many insulators will fit and how big a roll of electric fence wire you can fit in a bucket. :)

It stopped raining by the time we got home, so Brian went up to work on the horse paddock fence while I put some homemade mac and cheese in the oven. Anders and Emily were over and Anders made a reasonable attempt at making one of our traditional family foods - wilted lettuce salad. He'll need to practice some more before he's as good at it as grandma!
The kids ate with my mom while I went out to help Brian. Thursdays are always rush rush rush because I go back to work tomorrow.

We got the horse paddock electrified just in time to start chores. We fed and watered the Red Wattles together then I went to the house to get the milking supplies. Meanwhile Brian put up the hens and got the eggs. Then he milked and I picked a treat of clover for Hazel and Gaia.

Then back to the house, strain the milk, wash the milker, wash the eggs and put it all away. Supper time! Mac & Cheese and a huge glass of cold milk here in front of the computer for me. And an after dinner soak in the tub for Brian.

Now I'm going to try to dig my desk out from under the stacks of things I meant to take care of "yesterday".

The day after...

2010-05-12T19:27:00.001-07:00

we have all sheep present and accouted for.

TAKE THAT COYOTES!!

Tomorrow we reintroduce the fluffy white dog to her job.

Outwitting Mrs. Wylie Coyote

2010-05-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in the middle of the afternoon there was a coyote in sheep pasture. A brazen Mrs. Wylie out looking for a lamb lunch. Brian ran in and got his rifle. He missed. Then she actually circled around and tried to get back to the lambs. Brian shot again - missed. She gave up and headed into the neighbor's woods. We set about doing a head count. We knew we'd already lost one lamb. There was another missing.

We haven't had any trouble with coyotes up to this point so we hadn't really been worrying about them. Our Pyrennees has been confined to a cable since she broke her leg and she likes to roam. So she was no help at all. We quickly hot wire fenced a good area up close to the house and tried in vain for hours to convince the sheep that they should go in for their own protection.... and besides the grass really is greener on that side of the fence.The sheep have gotten half wild and skittish with being free on pasture so long. Finally at dark, we gave up, said a prayer for lamb safety and went off to bed.

During the night Mrs. Wylie must have been back and brought friends. This morning we were down 4 more lambs. We spent the better part of the day working to corral the sheep inside the new electric fenced pasture inside hog panels, inside corral panels. Tonite Mrs. Wylie should not be able to find a tasty lamb snack.

We'll see what the morning brings.

The Great Red Wattle Pork Tasting event

2010-05-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

So it was really a family pitchin dinner at my house, but we did do a taste test on all the new flavors of Red Wattle sausage we had made. The folks at This Old Farm Processing did a great job with the five RW's we took to them.

I cooked a package of each kind of sausage: Maple, Low Sodium Sage, Hot Italian and Mild Italian and Brats. The Maple was the hands down winner with the kiddy crowd. While everyone loved the brats. Opinions on the other sausages were as varied as the people tasting them. I'm looking forward to making some homemade pizza this week with the Italian sausage.

I grilled a couple of ham steaks so we could try them as well. The unanimous decision was - delicious! Earlier in the day we had sampled some of the bacon for lunch. It was so good I just couldn't stop eating it!

And the best part of all - the processing is All Natural. No MSG. No nitrates except for those that occur naturally in celery juice powder.

We have lots of RW pork in the freezer. Call Brian to place your order: 812-521-1063 I can't wait to hear how you like it.

Of Dairy Maids and Dairy men

2010-05-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

It is my considered opinion that the advent of the milking machine was when the family dairy moved from the domain of women to the realm of man.

When I was younger I milked a cow by hand. Resting my head against the warm side of Bossie the cow as streams of steaming milk splashed rhythmically into the pail was ... a Zen experience. When the cow was dry I'd turn her out and carried the bucket of warm frothy milk to the house. Simple, uncomplicated, relaxing.

Now my husband uses a milking machine to milk our cow, Hazel. The machine involves a vacuum pump and its idiosyncrasies, lots of mechanical parts, enough hoses to confuse an octopus and a stainless steel tank. Brian finds the whole contraption fascinating. He actually enjoys fine tuning the connections and settings. He talks constantly of finding the perfect length for the hoses and whether or not the sling is really necessary. When he starts talking mechanics and physics my brain turns off and I find myself "Uh Huh" ing him. You know - nodding and making little noises of agreement while not really paying much attention to what he said. I tried using the milking the machine once. By the time I was done I was a frustrated, nervous wreck.

To add insult to injury, when the surge is full of milk I can barely lift it. Even Brian uses the little trailer pulled by the lawn tractor to haul the milker to and from the barn, but he can at least lift the stainless steel surge up into the wagon.

So there you go... when milking started involving machines it became man's work. Because men, in my experience, like machines and those doggone milk cans are HEAVY!

There is nothing like real butter!

2010-05-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

Today I made butter from the cream I've been skimming off of Hazel's milk. It is yummy!

I was in a hurry so I used the food processor to "churn". It worked pretty well, though the butter didn't clump like I expected it to. I had to strain the butter out of the butter milk. Then I put it in a bowl of cold water and gathered it together into a ball. After I had all of the cream churned, I worked the butter to remove any water or butter milk. I ended up with about a pound of beautiful yellow butter.
Now I need to make some fresh bread to go under it!

Downsizing

2010-05-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

It's time for tough decisions. Brian will start pre-vet classes full time in the fall. There will be less time for him to do things around the farm. I will still be working full time. So we are downsizing.

We'll be cutting back to 4 Red Wattle sows and 1 boar. We will offer the available animals to the folks that are currently on our waiting list. It's not been easy deciding who gets to stay. All of the hogs have personalities and traits that we have grown to love. With the smaller herd, we will continue to have RW pork for sale from the farm.

I'm planning to keep 4 Shetland ewe lambs and 1 ram lamb from this years crop of babies. The balance of the flock will be sold or sent to the processor. If you know of anyone who would like some very hardy Shetland sheep - I've got them. We have been breeding for worm load resistance and great mothering ability on pasture. We will be selling brown, black, gray, and white Shetlands. These animals would make a great foundation flock for handspinning or a homestead flock for both wool and meat.

This flock reduction means we won't have any lamb for sale in 2011 but lamb will return for sale in 2012.

We will continue to have free-range eggs available at the farm. As soon as I can build up my flock of Buckeye chickens we will also have dressed birds for sale. And garden produce will be available at the farm stand.

Buckeyes are here

2010-04-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Not the nuts, the chickens! We picked up 28 little Buvkeye peeps and 32 hatching eggs from Matt Johns on Thursday evening. The peeps are happily making themselves at home in the brooder behind the garage. And the eggs are incubating on the second shelf of the incubator in the basement.

Now I have to get in gear and remodel the shed behind the garage into a chicken palace. I have 300 ft of chicken wire riding around in my Honda, and I've got a bunch of kitty litter buckets saved for nest boxes. Now I need to collect up posts, find a nice long pole or 2 for a roost, a few boards and a couple of cast off windows. Then an afternoon of banging and pounding, measuring and pulling and it will be ready to go!

Woolies, woolies everywhere

2010-04-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

There is nothing quite as heart warming as little lambs romping in the spring green grass. There are 4 sets of twins and 1 single lamb. One set of all black twins. Two pair with one white and one black. One pair that are black with white spots.

We still have 4 ewes expecting. They are huge! I wonder if one of them will have triplets.

Pretty little cows all in a row

2010-04-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

After the rain, the calves found a nice dry hay pile to settle down on for a nap. The perky little calf on the right is the only heifer in the bunch. Isn't she cute? But my mother still has not decided on a name for her... So for those of you that sent in names... stay tuned.

Lucy

2010-04-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

Lucy the Red Wattle gilt was hamming it up for the camera today. She will replace her momma, Jenna, when she is old enough to be bred.

Peep, peep

2010-04-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

These are some of the chicks we've hatched out from our incubator. Anders supplied the fertile eggs from his hens. Right now they are in the brooder behind the garage where there is a heat lamp food and water. It's a nice place to be if you are a chick. These little peeps will go over to Anders and Emily's place as soon as they have enough feathers.
Now I'm hoping the Muscovy duck eggs I have in the incubator will hatch well.

Earth Day Delivery

2010-04-24T08:15:00.001-07:00

This is Taylor looking through the fence at Hazel's new baby. Hazel finally decided to have her calf on Earth Day. She was born in the little paddock next to the barn some time after noon while we were all up at the house baking.
We all paraded out to the barn to see the new baby. It's a beautiful reddish brown heifer. She has soft eyes with long eyelashes. She looks like she has on mascara and eyeliner.
Emily commented how appropriate that she was born on Earth Day. So we've decided to name her Gaia.

Baking day- making a tradition

2010-04-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

My great grandmother and my grandmother and my mother taught me to bake bread, rolls, pastries, cookies, and pies. I loved spending time in their kitchens when I was little. So this week I decided to carry on that tradition of passing down cooking skills and recipes by starting a baking day with my daughter, Lydia and Anders' fiance, Emily. So Thursday we got together in my kitchen.
I especially enjoyed holding Joel, Emily's baby, while she was cooking. :<)

This is Lydia enjoying holding Joel while I do some baking.

and this is Emily rolling out Pita bread. At the end of the day we had 4 loaves of bread, Pita bread, Penuche bars, Hearts of Darkness Brownies, pizza dough. The pizza dough we divided up and put in the freezer. For supper we brought in the pork Brian had been smoking all day. We threw together a 3 bean salad, and warmed up a hashbrown casserole. My kids and their families all around our dinner table.

What a day!

2010-04-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

After spending most of the day chasing after a part for that apparently they only made one of and it's on our big tiller... we stopped by Anders & Emily's to help them put up a tent. They are living in a teepee which means they don't have much storage space. They had one little pop up tent already that they use for a playpen. The baby is just starting to crawl and it gives him a safe cozy place to try out his new skills.

Tent up and back home... put up the horses, our lady Hazel the cow and all the momma pigs... then out to the garden for an hour or 2, balance the check books, do some RWHA paperwork, blog....

Geeze! I"m making myself tired just typing this... better wrap it up so I can go check the expectant momma pig one more time then off too bed.

Garden update

2010-04-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Brian got the garden area tilled this week. He used our new grader blade to create raised beds. The first couple of beds are sort of crooked, but once he got the hang of it the rest are beautifully straight.
So far I've planted some broccoli, 3 kinds of cabbage, white and red onions.
Tomorrow I'm putting in peas, lettuce, radishes and 100# of seed potatoes. And that's before lunch.

Lydia and Emily are coming over to bake tomorrow at noon. We're planning on bread, noodles and crackers for tomorrow. That will take care of the baking for our 3 small families for the week. I'm really hoping this becomes a weekly ritual. It's a great way to pass down the baking skills my grandmother taught me and to have some girl time too. :)

Wooly wonders

2010-04-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

While I was at the hospital tending to my life saving duties.... the sheep were busy bringing new little wooly bundles of joy into the world. We now have 5 sets of twins and one single lamb for a total of 11. I'll add pics to this when I get my camera charged tomorrow morning.

Bringing down the house!

2010-04-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

When my nephew, Johnathon, was a teenager he built a tree house - for his Grandma. That's right he built a treehouse so his grandma could go up and sit to watch the sunsets. He built it very well: spacious, solid floors, no leak roof, nice stairs, wrapped it in green lattice around the lower half of the walls. He did an awesome job. We all called it Grandma's Castle.

Fast forward to last summer, our almost tornado. Winds that ripped down 2 dozen trees on the farm including the main support for the treehouse. We debated several options for the Castle: tear it down, shore it up, just let it fall. ... none were very satifying. Then Brian suggested that we could use 2 tractors and their front end loaders to lower it to the ground. Sounded scary to me!

Well, Sunday my middle brother, Dan, came down with his tractor and he & Brian brought down the house.
Gently, slowly, in perfect coordination. Whew!

Now the Castle is going to get a second chance as our farm store. We'll be moving it over by our driveway, adding screening to the sides to keep bugs out, a screen door, shelves for produce, a fridge for eggs and a freezer for our farm fresh meats. If all goes as planned the farm store will be open for business around May 15th.

When I grow up...

2010-04-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

This week Brian and I were talking about our vet. How he is getting pretty old, how there isn't another large animal vet that's affordable near us. How there are fewer and fewer large animal vets.
Brian said "I'd like to be a vet, but that's a long time to go to school."
I said "I went back to school after 40 to be a nurse. You should go ahead and go. I'll support you the whole way!"
So now Brian's looked up prereqs and requirement, class schedules and application, forms and documentations. We're hoping he can start this fall.

He'll need lots of encouragement and support so drop him a note at: kissmygrassfarm@hotmail.com

On today's menu

2010-04-15T05:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I've already been up and done 3 loads of laundry, run the dishwasher, caught up on some paperwork, made coffee, had breakfast and found 2 new baby chicks in the incubator....

Next comes chores, clearing the new paddock for the Haflingers, emptying the garden shed so Brian can move it to the garden area from the yellow house's yard, then final check for leftover stuff forgotten in the garden patch, bushhogging, then tilling of the garden and take down of 1/2 of the 60 ft high tunnel. We are going to break it into 2 thirty foot long greenhouses. We've learned they are easier to manually ventilate.

And if we get that all done by noon, it's lunch and a siesta... Then planting until supper time. Lydia and Travis are coming over to grill Kabobs or as Brian calls it "meat on a stick". Better get moving I hear the cows calling for their breakfast!

Hazel is home

2010-04-15T05:17:00.000-07:00

This is Hazel in her new stall. We let her out yesterday for the first time in her little personal pasture next to the barn. She should calf in about 10 days. Anybody want to make a guess on the time and date?

Piglets to pasture

2010-04-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Today was the day that we castrated cull piglets. Ear notched all the piglets and moved the weaners to the pasture. Ear notching and castrating rank right up at the top of the things I don't really enjoy doing but that need to be done.

On the other hand, moving piglets to pasture is fun! The piglets start out of the trailer tentatively. When they see all the green grass they bolt down the ramp and run and jump and squeal.

In every litter there is always one piglet that decides it does not want to be weaned. It will run sqealing and carrying on up and down the fence. Usually, the piglet settles down after an hour or 2.

NOT today. One enterprizing piglet decided if he slithered on his belly he could miss the electic fence wire and squeeze down into a tractor rut to get back to his momma.... We had to wean that piglet twice. ... and plug up the tractor rut. :<)

Wind farm

2010-04-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

Monday we went to Illinois to get our new milk cow, Hazel. We drove through a couple of wind farms. This picture I took as we were driving. The windmills went on for miles and out as far as you could see like a garden of giant pinwheels turning slowly in the breeze. Yet it was quiet except for the noise of our truck motor and the tires on the highway. I think I like wind power.

Canned Ham

2010-04-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

This is Squeek our latest "Canned Ham".

When it's time to wean pigs we use a metal trash can. What? Yep. That's right a metal trash can.

It seems momma pigs can't count very well. And out of site (and quiet) is out of mind. So when it's time to wean piglets, we head in with a metal trash can with a lid. Brian or I scoop up the piglet, plop it in the can & put on the lid. Then we pick it up and walk away as though nothing funny was up.

The normally squealing piglet quiets right down as soon as the lid is on. Once the piglet is quiet, the momma hog goes back to eating or rooting or whatever it was she was doing before she heard her baby squeal.

We carry the "canned ham" to the piglet lot, lift it over the fence and gently tip it on the side. The piglet strolls out into it's new home.

Simple, low tech, low stress and safe for everyone involved.

Call of the wild

2010-04-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough this week to catch the Canada geese doing their mating ritual on the pond by our house. Can't wait to see if they raise any little ones!

IT"S TWINS!

2010-04-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

This is our other White Park cow. She was so huge yesterday Brian and I had to help her roll up on her belly so she could stand up. . .

Today she had twins!

I took this pic when the second calf had just been born. Isn't 10x zoom wonderful? She was still licking it to clean it up. I'm sure it will be just as white as the first on in a few more minutes.

I'm posting more pics on our facebook page... check it out!

To market to market...

2010-04-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

The winter feeders are finally ready to go to the processor. They are fat and slick on new grass.
We will be taking them up on April 12 to This Old Farm, our new processor. We are excited to be able to offer all-natural sausage, ham and bacon.

I'll keep you posted.

Nothing gets a man's attention like...

2010-04-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

. . . a middle aged woman in rubber boots and a straw hat running down the road waving her arms like her hiney's on fire.

:<)

Let me back up. Yesterday we noticed a bit of effluent at the outlet for the septic system... EEEwwww! yuck! So Brian called the poop pumper guys. He explained that as far as we know this tank hasn't been pumped since it was installed in the late '80's. He carefully gave the address and described the driveway and the farm sign.
Now keep in mind we own 2 septics on adjoining addresses. The other house they have been to repeatedly it's system is ancient and demands regular care.

Ok so now you know the background. ... This morning Brian and I were in the farthest pig pasture when we looked up and saw the pumper truck at the wrong house and the guys looking puzzled and getting ready to get back in their truck. OH NO!!!! Ok so what Brian said was more of the 4-letter explitive variety, but we won't go there now.

Brian had surgery on his wrist yesterday so all he could do was stand there and cuss. Good thing they couldn't hear him over the noise of the truck. I lit out across the field as fast as a middle aged, over weight lady in barn boots could go... managed to scale the fence and jump the ditch without embarrassing myself too much and went running up the road toward the truck as previously described. Just in time.

We got the pumper guys out to the right tank and it was a good thing too. Seems this tank hasn't ever been pumped. The "seal" had never been broken. It was full of sludge... Note to self: get tank pumped more often than every 20 years to avoid fence vaulting, ditch jumping and general pasture sprinting.

Last day of vacation...

2010-03-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

This is it. The last day of vacation. The weather report called for an inch of rain and lots of wind, so we moved the hens and spent the morning battening down the animals so no one would wash away.

It started raining around noon. HARD. and it's still raining and blowing. Luckily the kids aren't in the teepee tonite. Emily has gone down to be with her family for a few days and Anders has a nasty cold so he's in the house tonite. With the crazy wind I keep looking out the window to be sure the teepee is still there.

I did the unthinkable this afternoon and took a nap. Then Mom and I each started a painting. I'm working on a picture of 2 ram lambs and mom is working on a covered bridge landscape. While waiting for paint to dry, I put a multi-meat loaf in the oven. Tonite it's lamb and beef. We'll eat it with cucumber or barbeque sauce. I like cucumber sauce. We are going up to my daughters for dinner. She's making ribs and a side. I'm bringing the meatloaf and baked potatoes. I'm hoping she's doing dessert. Her sweets are awesome.

When we get back I am going to clean my office... it looks like a family of raccoons had a party in there!!lol

Day 9 continued

2010-03-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

STOP everything.... Anders' truck wouldn't start when he got ready to come home from work. He called Brian for some phone triage. No luck. So we stopped work on the barn and headed for Bloomington. Supper ended up being Subway and we went back to work on the barn until dark.
We didn't get as much done as we wanted but the drainage ditch is in place for the big rain tomorow. Here's hoping we make more progress tomorrow.
It will be the last day of my vacation and there is a ton I want to get done.

Day 9 of vacation

2010-03-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Time to really scurry!! We were up at 6 this morning in order to be at the neurosurgeon's office by 8:15. Brian will be having carpal tunnel surgery next week. The Doc wanted to do it tomorrow, but we told him we had to find surrogate farm help before we could incapacitate Brian for an unknown amount of time.

I can cover the chores on Tues- Friday, but I'll need Anders and Emily to pinch hit on the weekends while I am working. It's going to be interesting for sure, but we will muddle through like we always do.

Today Brian and I are working on the sow stalls in the barn and stalls for for Bonnie and Clyde the haflingers and stalls for Hazel and her future baby.

We're going to do our best to finish up the barn before the surgery. I'm sayin' a prayer for patience, efficiency and speed in getting that done.

Well time to get back at it.

Day 5 of vacation

2010-03-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

After chores this morning, Emily's folks arrived to help the kids put up their teepee. They are giving their new shelter a test run in our north pasture before the big move to their property. We settled Emily's mom in the house with baby Joel and my mom. {Emily's mom really wanted to help but she is under MD orders to take it easy on her foot.}
Emily's dad and Anders carried all 17 posts out to the site and carted the canvas out. Then it was time for the big event!! Much spreading of canvas, laying out of poles, reveiwing and debating the correct way to tie knots, turning diagrams this way and that to get the right orientation and much, much direction reading followed. It took most of the afternoon for us 4 novises to get the teepee up.

By the time it was upright we were all starving so we headed to the house. Emily and I fixed whole wheat biscuits and Red Wattle sausage gravy for a late lunch. With coffee, OJ and milk from Vogel's dairy it filled everyone up. Then Emily's folks took Joel with them for an overnite and Anders and Emily settled in to fine tune the comfort features of their little nest.

I grabbed my niece, Heather, and we went out and gathered up hog panels from various temporary pens and hauled them up to the barn so we can use them to make the new sow stalls. When that was done we put some time in on my chicken tractor improving the nest boxes. Then she helped me haul straw in to the sows and their babies so they would have warm dry beds.

After that I was getting tired and Heather had to go home. I puttered around doing laundry and loading the dishwasher. About dark-thirty I went out and closed up the hens, got the eggs and checked on Mom's baby chicks.

With Brian and Kacie gone & Emily and Anders out in the teepee it was way to quiet in the house. So I took my friend Donna's advice and slowed down a little. A hot cup of tea and the "Contrary Farmer" joined me in the recliner for some relaxing reading. Well at least until I realized I was nodding off ....then I crawled off to be.

**I'll post Teepee pics as soon as Anders downloads them off of his camera

Day 6, 7, 8

2010-03-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

Ok so I got so busy I didn't blog... somehow when Brian is home there doesn't seem to be enough time to blog!

So we have finally gotten the yellow garage cleaned and an area set up for starting seeds in flats. Seeds are ready to go into the greenhouse. Things are starting to move at spring fever pace.

And a few updates to past posts:

The cow is still hobbling but she's eating and drinking and feeding her baby. We'll just wait and watch to see if she improves.

Anders, Emily and little Joel are pretty settled in their teepee. It is causing a lot of second looks & talk amongst the neighbors.

They come up to the house to have dinner with us each evening. Sunday evening was impossible Quiche an easy egg casserole that makes it's own crust. Monday we feasted on liver & Onions, gravy, brown rice and green beans with Essie's cobbler (blackberrry) for dessert. Essie's cobbler is from a recipe my great grandmother found on a flour sack. It was her favorite cobbler recipe, my grandma's favorite cobbler recipe, my mom's favorite cobbler recipe and now it's my favorite cobbler recipe. I've posted the recipe on our website: kissmygrassfarm.net Today I made a nice thick potato soup and served it with flatbreads and garlic flavored olive oil.

Tomorrow Brian and I will be working on the stalls in the barn tomorrow.

NAME THE CALF CONTEST

2010-03-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

This adorable little girl needs a name. Can you help us out?

We've decided to have a name the calf contest. Just email your calf name to: kissmygrassfarm@hotmail.com

When the committee {that would be my mother- this is her favorite cow's calf} has made her decision we'll contact you via email so you can collect your prize.

What prize? Well we are offering a framed farm photo of your choosing. We'll post all of the possibilities a little later.

Contest ends March 31. {That's my moms's birthday}So send in those heifer names now!!

Spring serenade from the frog prince

2010-03-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

This is a "Spring Peeper". Around here the merry chorus of peepers is the surest sign of spring and warmer days. This little guy was singing his heart out trying to attract a girl "peeper" to be his bride. I hope he finds his princess.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

2010-03-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

To get to the straw on the other side. On my way up to the garage today, I found 3 lovely brown eggs nestled under the edge of one of the huge round straw bales we've been stockpiling by the driveway.

Day 4 more and more

2010-03-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

These are Babe's babies. This morning they discovered the joys of going "snorkeling" in the water pan. It's too bad this picture doesn't have audio!

We spent most of the morning running to Lett's Hardware to get the new belts for the bailer. Then Brian's dad arrived with another load of straw and I stole a minute for myself. I snuck off to the beauty shop for a shampoo, trim and style. The style part didn't last long since I immediately put on a hat when I got home. LOL

For lunch I tried my hand at grilling pork shoulder steaks with mesquite wood chips added to the coals. They were great with baked potatoes, and succotash on the side followed by cherry cheesecake. After lunch, I helped Brian load up the car. He and his daughter, Kacie, are going on a Daddy/Daughter road trip to Missouri this weekend. They will be interviewing our old friend Bud Nichol about his years of raising RW's. And they'll be going to check out some Soay sheep. Hopefully they'll come home with lots of video and pics. I tried to make it very clear that they are NOT to bring home a baby sheep in the back seat of the buick.

Once I kissed the DH goodbye, it was back to the never ending garage cleaning. I've already filled the dumpster. We've a rather large pile of yard sale items. There is a stack to go to the garden shed. A stack to go to the barn and a stack to go to the house. And there's a stack to go into the dumpster after they come to empty it again on Monday.

After I got overwhelmed by the garage, my niece and I went out to walk through the animals. We are expecting more calves and lambs any time now. We didn't find any new babies, but it was a good thing we went out. My mom's favorite White Park cow was down and couldn't get up!

It looked like she had laid down on a mound of hay, then when she got comfortable she rolled onto her side. When she did that she ended up with her feet up hill. It is difficult- if not down right impossible- for a cow to rise from that position. Heather and I pushed the poor old girl up onto her belly and went after hay and water for her. By the time we came back she was standing up, but not using her right leg.

We didn't want the other cows pushing her around and we wanted to be sure she could take care of her calf and get to water without to much trouble, so we moved her slowly and painfully the 20 feet into the round pen. Then we caught her calf and put her in with her momma. Feed, hay and water came next. And now we wait. I'm hoping she will recover in the next day or so.

After that drama, I decided to tackle another adventure. Moving one of the chicken tractors to the grassy spot by the new barn. This has traditionally been Brian's job. He's better with the hydraulics on the tractor and the balancing act required to get the chicken tractor relocated. I used the tractor bucket to pick it up. Luck was with me and one of the cross pieces snagged on the bucket arm holding it fairly securely in place. I put the tractor in 4 wheel drive and hauled it to it's new location. There was one tense moment when I was trying to tip it off of the bucket so it would land risht side up and not squash me in the process, but it came out okay. Tomorrow I'll go over it and give it a spring "tune up". Then the hens come off my garden and the plants start going in!!

By the time I got done with that it was dark. Time for a shower, some leftovers and a glass of tea, and catching up on emails and my blog. Now all I'm waiting for is my good nite call from the DH.

Warm, full and sleepy

2010-03-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like the comfort of a heat lamp after a nice snack of warm milk. These are 2 of Jewel's little ones. As soon as they get under the heat lamp they crash for a nap every time.

Day 3 of vacation continued...

2010-03-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

Well so far the piglets are doing fine.
After Jewel was all settled down and making enouraging happy mommy grunts to her babies as they suckled. I came in and got a shower. Delivering piglets is sort of messy.

Then it was time for lunch. Luckily my niece was at the house and she had already made spaghetti. :) And done the dusting and sweeping. I admit housework isn't my favorite thing. So I hire her a couple of times a month to knock out the house for me.

Brian and his dad hauled huge bales of straw and round bales of hay. Brian also almost got all the metal on the barn roof.... 3 sheets to go!! YEAH!!

Then it was up to the yellow garage for cleaning day and treasure hunting with my daughter. We spent the rest of the afternoon hauling things out of the garage. We did find some neat old vases, some dishes and quite a few mouse nests. My mom is a bit of pack rat. There were all kinds of things tucked away in that garage. Lydia found some neat old vases and the cuckoo clock my brother brought home from Germany. Everything except the mouse nests, I'm sure my mother put there and has subsequently forgotten.

We quit just after dark. Dinner tonite was ham and eggs. It was too late to start anything fancy. Then we all fell into bed.

Day 3 part one.... PIGLETS!!

2010-03-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

When we went out to do the chores this morning... Jewel was having her babies. It took her all morning but she now has little piglets happily nursing at the milk bar.