We're getting an LGD!!

And this is her! Not much of a guard dog right now. She's just 2 weeks old now and staying with her momma and brothers and sisters, but she'll be home in 4 weeks. Then she'll learn all about being a good guardian for our other animals.
Isn't she cute!!

Our hens are going mobile!

Well we finally got it done! The Egg Mobile rolled out of the garage last night - just barely. Brian had to do some manual moving of the rear end to get it aligned just right with the rollup door. Brian added the roofing in the dark while I cut holes in all those kitty litter buckets so that they would work for nest boxes.
This morning, with the help of my son, we rangled all of the hens out of the high tunnel greenhouse, up the ramp and into their new home. Once they were all safely inside, Brian towed the Egg Mobile with the tractor out to the pasture.
As soon as we opened the door, hens came pouring down the ramp. It didn't take long for them to be happily foraging in the grass and leaves.
Tonite when it gets to be around dusk, Brian will go out and close the hens up in their house so they'll be safe for the night.

Like building a boat in your basement

It was raining. We needed to get the new Egg Mobile built. So, naturally we pulled the wagon into the garage and started nailing. The more we worked on it the more I felt like the guy who builds a boat in his basement and then can't get it out!

After we stood the walls up, we measured. OK. We had 3/4 of and inch vertical clearance if the roll up door was pushed up as high as it would go.

Wow, that was a close one!

The picture is of the wall of kitty litter buckets we are using for nest boxes. They are free at the recycling center, just the right size and easy to clean. The perfect nest box. At least they are now that I cut a hole in the bottom of each bucket for the hens to go in and out.

Brown County VIllage Market - NEW LOCATION!

It's time again for Saturday farmers market in Nashville! This year the Brown County Historical Society is allowing the market to use the lumber building that was part of the old True Value Hardware (between E. Gould and E. Mound Streets). This is a great location. Now we can hold the market even it it rains. :)
It wasn't the prettiest space when we started out, but Brian and I have been painting a big farm mural on the old cement block walls to brighten things up.
This Saturday will be our 3rd Saturday at market. Due to the really, really wet weather we've been having there aren't a whole lot of veggies available yet. We've been taking herb plants, lamb, persimmon pulp and free range eggs. And we've been taking orders for our pasture finished broilers and holiday turkeys. We'll be processing chickens this week so we hope to have fresh frozen broilers available at market this weekend.
We are also looking for musicians to play on market days. We don't have a budget to pay musicians but we are offering a booth space to set up and the opportunity to "pass the hat".
It's good exposure and a fun place to play. If you know someone who is interested in performing please have them call Brian (he's the Market Master) at 812-521-1063 to reserve a Saturday space!
We're also saving one space per week for not-for-profit groups to use for fundraisers/information booth. If you know a not-for-profit group that would like to use this free space have them call Brian to reserve a Saturday.

Baa Baa white sheep....

We finally have a white lamb this spring! Hickstick had a pretty little white lamb with a black nose. Of course she had it on a miserable, rainy day. Brian was standing in the yard talking to the arborist about removing a tree that was endangering the house and garage. He looked over at the pasture just as the lamb was born. Now if she'll let us get close enough we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. :)

When George of the Jungle and Bayou Babe moved North

At the end of March, Brian and my niece Sarah made a whirlwind trip to Louisiana. You see Brian had found a herd of Red Wattle hogs that descended directly from the original Wenglar Red Wattles. Ronnie Andrus had been raising a closed herd of RW's since he got his first ones from H.C. Wenglar. Brian and Ronnie had agreed to trade baby boars and Brian bought a gilt from Ronnie. So the 2 hogs were loaded into the crate in Brian's pickup and whisked away north. They spent 10 days quarantined in the stock trailer. It was a good thing they did because these two needed a little gentling down. Brian built them a special pen where they could be kept away from our other RW's. We rangled over names for them and finally settled on George of the Jungle and Bayou Babe.
Then we had to make the big move from the trailer to the new pen. Problem was the ground was too soggy to back the trailer across the yard to the gate. So we roped George and hoped babe would follow. That little boar had grown a bit since he arrived in the farm and he didn't want anything to do with leaving the trailer... or walking across the yard. We had to rope him around his middle, pass a rope through his mouth and push and pull at the same time. That pig was sure we were going to eat him! He squealed and dug his heals in.
I'm sure we were quite the comical site. Me pulling, Brian pushing and the little old Babe traipsing along behind us like nothing was wrong.
Once we got them into the new pen. George stopped squealing, looked around, stepped out of the rope and started rooting as if to say, "Hmmm not so bad. Is that all you wanted?"

Rhubarb

The rhubarb by the sunroom is up and ready to pick so I thought I'd share a couple of recipes that I'm planning to try.
Rhubarb Nut Bread

1 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup liquid shortening 1 1/2 cups fresh rhubarb, diced
1 egg 1/2 cup nuts, chopped
1 cup sour milk (buttermilk) 1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda 1 tsp vanilla

Topping: 1/2 cup sugar, 1 T. butter

Stir in the ingredients in the order given. Pour into two well-greased floured loaf pans. Fill pans 2/3 full. Sprinkle topping evenly over each. Bake at 325 deg. for 40 minutes.

Rhubarb Honey Pie
3 cups rhubarb, cut up butter
1 cup honey 2 crust pastry
2 1/2 T tapioca
Mix honey and tapioca together and pour over rhubarb. Pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Dot wiht butter. Put on top crust. Crimp edges. Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 deg. for 50 minutes.

Let me know if you try these and how they turned out!

Dot

Rain, rain go away come again another day...

It's raining again. The yard is a swamp the garden in a swamp. The animals have all moved to the highest points on the farm to get dry ground.

The only critters on our farm who are enjoying this weather are the fish and the frogs. The ponds are fuller than I've seen them in years and years. Don't get me wrong. I know April showers bring May flowers, but I really need to get out in the garden. I have tons of stuff that really should be in the ground by now.

Ahhh well, this is the day the lord hath made... so I'm going to do some reading, make some meatloaf, bake some bread, finish the laundry and clean the home office...

The sun will come out tomorrow....

The secret

We have been looking for years for the secret to peeling hard boiled eggs made from farm fresh eggs.
We finally found it!!

Put cold water in the pot. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Add your eggs and cook like you normally do. Run cold water over the cooked eggs and peel.

We tried it and it works. :)

And there she was...

a beautiful butterfly.

It's been horribley cold and depressingly wet for the last few days, but this morning when we woke the sun was streaming through the windows. There in a puddle of sunshine was a butterfly warming herself and drying her wings.
I took several pictures and waited for it to warm up outside. Then I coaxed her to climb up on my fingers and carried her outside where she caught a whisp of a warm breeze and was gone.

Garage cleaning day #2

Well, Brian didn't get both garages done. So we are working on the red garage together. I'm going through a bunch of stuff of my parents'. It's slow and it makes me cry from time to time when I find pictures and little things that were my dad's.
I miss my dad. He died suddenly just over a year ago. He left a pretty big hole in our family.
It's nice to find some of the things that got packed up and put away when he passed away and mom came to live with us.
I cleaned up the brass barometric clock he got for "25 years of loyal service" and put it on my china cabinet.
It looks nice there and it makes me smile.

Brian storms the castle!

Yesterday, Brian got really brave, put on his armor and set out to tame the yellow garage.
The yellow garage was for years the place where everything my parents didn't need but didn't want to throw away went. And for the last year it has been the place where we stored things for "future projects", my son stored his "off the grid" building materials and my daughter's fiance parked his little girl's electric jeep.
Cleaning and organizing it had really been intimidating us.
It took Brian most of the day and he filled the dumpster X2 but it's all clean and tidy now.
Brian felt so good about getting the yellow garage cleaned and organized yesterday that today he's tacklin the red garage.
I'm sort of glad I'm working this weekend. Then again I wonder what he threw away that I'm gonna miss.
:)

Stimulus package

"if half the families in Indiana shifted $6.25 of their current weekly food budget to the purchase of Indiana grown or produced local food that this effort would provide an annual contribution of 300 million dollars into the local Indiana economy." That is what Victoria Wessler of goinglocal-info.com wrote in a recent article on her blog.
WOW! What a stimulus package! The economy benefits and our families eat well.
Hmmm.... that's the price of some tomatoes, a bag of lettuce, and a bunch of green onions.
It's amazing how a lot of little actions can multiply.