Sky Tears

I was at Tractor Supply yesterday. My obsession when I was younger with shoes has turned to plants and the clearance rack of plants calls my name every time! I was in for cat food, I walked out with cat food, 2 raspberry vines and 3 packages of onions sets.

The weather report was calling for rain and severe storms. After last year's "Tornado Watch" which had us down in the basement and me wide eyed and feeling like I was going to have a heart attack, my neighbor's calm and cool demeanor set me at ease. Reading more and more on tornadoes, weather patterns, and conditions I have convinced myself there are only a few scenarios I need really get worried about. That said, tornado watches, warnings and the like are all off my radar so to speak unless specific things should arise and my neighbors have assured me that unless they aren't out on the porch sipping ice tea watching the crazy weather, I shouldn't worry, ha! They said they would call us and let us know if we need to take shelter as weather patterns for tornadoes are pretty specific for the events...built in meteorologists, I like it! We're still watchful but not every little blip sends us careening into the basement any more than any seasoned Californian spends their life under a table or in a doorway.

That said, yesterday I took the kids to town to grocery shop, the skies were cloudy and by 3 PM the horizon to the west was so dark. We headed home to get some onions in the ground before the sky opened up. By 6 PM Jeremiah and  were working in the shop listening to the rain come down on the metal rood, the cracking thunder over and over and the lightening flashing. It tapered off for a while but rained and rained all night long as heavy storm cells went through. The thunder, at time, was so loud it had to be cracking right over our house. I don't think I'll ever get tired of a good thunderstorm.

This morning Jeremiah asked if he could put his boat out on the pond yet. I told him he could put his boat anywhere outside and it would probably float. The weather site said an approx. 1.5 inches but I talked to the neighbor this morning who said 3"! Wow, that sure is welcomed. Boy have we needed this so so badly. We're still not out of the drought, I don't know what the current total is we'd need to bring us out but we're gettin' there and hopefully all this nice moisture continues. The temps have been staying fairly cool, in the 70's and 80's. There have been a couple of 90 degree days and the days when storms are expected, it's so dog gone humid that 80 feels like 110! It's awful to work in.

I have been trying to get the kids early to bed at night so we can wake early to get started on chores. Soon enough it will be getting to 100 by 3 pm and not cool below 80 at night and working at 6 AM will be horrendous. However, Rachel is such a night owl and it stays light here until after 9 and with everything we've been trying to get done, getting to bed at a decent hour just isn't happening ...yet.

Most everything is at least up in the garden. The peas and beans are looking really good and if it continues to stay cool I won't have planted the peas in vein, I was late getting them in because the early spring garden took a back seat to more pressing issues. I planted cabbage and broccoli this year, a first. According to people I've spoken with, cabbage will grow well in to summer here. I picked up some red cabbage in flats but I started my own green cabbage and broccoli from seed.

The meat birds have tripled in size. We're trying to convince the layers we got in February to go into the coup at night but they still insist on being in the chicken tractor. Most nights they perch on top but last night was not a night they wanted to do that.

Jeremiah is on his last day of contract work today. He has 2 days of training next week, one for CPR and one for defensive driving all so he can be certified through the district to drive a 15 passenger van. The district does not have buses, everywhere the students go for school activities are either contracted out or if the group is small enough, they go in vans. He'll be gone at the end of the month for a week for Nationals in Kansas City, I may have mentioned that. He has high hopes of bringing home a National title, it would be the first for the school.

He gets so little time off and as soon as we are back from WV in July, he'll be right back to work, Rachel and Drew will still be off for another couple of months but it is still nice to have 6 weeks off for summer.

I'll end here with just some misc. photos. Back to work, good day to clean and sew with all the rain that's falling/fallen. 

Buck kid out of Granite. We're keeping him at least a season.

Made some planter boxes out of old posts we took out. I have dill, oregano, thyme, cilantro and parsley planted here.

Doe kid- Bourbon St.

 

Herding pigs

I'd been wanting to move the pigs out to pasture for a while so I can get their pen cleaned and fences moved. There's no reason they should not be out on pasture full time. I hate keeping pigs penned up. We bought several packages of fiberglass posts. A lot of people use these for temporary/moveable fencing. Insulators are bought separately, they are screw on, these are the things that hold the wire. There are plastic and fiberglass posts that already have "insulators" built in but they are more expensive and the plastic one especially don't hold up nearly as long or well as the fiberglass posts.

Rachel and I set to work on pushing the fiberglass posts into the ground last Friday and stringing the electric wire. Saturday I thought it would be nice if the butcher pig could spend her last day on the earth in a pasture instead of a pen so I set out to walk her out there. HA! Yeah, my idea that I was going to use a pig pole to guide a pig straight to the pasture like those show pigs was wishful thinking! The male pig got out first and while they are used to being in a pasture, they did not want to go to the pasture I wanted them in which  meant going through the goat's main pen, around the chicken coup and through a gate. I chased that stupid male pig for an hour! Jeremiah finally came out and we were able to coax him through the gate and into the pasture.

Then came one of the females. Lordy Moses you would have thought we were leading her to her death that day! She ran me over more than a few times and finally once we sweet talked, nudged, and bribed her almost all the way into the pasture, I came behind her with he hot wire fence and post (which when taught serves as the gate out of the pasture) and laid it across her rump for good measure to get her to move her fat butt into the pasture the rest of the way and not to think about backing out. After all was said and done, I laughed about her getting shocked for a good 5 minutes just for the fact that she gave us such a hard time and I wanted to drive the point home the wires were hot and she didn't want to screw with them. She got the point.

Then came Ann and if anyone ever tells you a pig cannot be an equestrian jumper, they'd be dead wrong. That pig jumped with every bit as much grace as an Olympic trained Warmblood over a fallen tree trunk. In the end we tired her out and she went in pretty easily.

After all was said and done, it probably took us a good 2 hours to get those three pigs moved 50 feet, the long way around. The next time they are moved, we'll add to the existing line in the opposite direction, open up the "gate", allow them to move though and close it behind them and remove the previous fence line.

All it takes to keep them in is 2 hot wires placed about 10 inches and 18-24 inches off the ground, depending on how big they are. It makes for cheap moveable fencing that allows us to keep the pigs on new soil tilling, eating and being pigs. It also allows for the kids to get a good laugh watching mom and dad trying to herd pigs like a couple crazy people.

Experience

Rachel was supposed to have 4-H archery lessons on Saturday AM. It means I wake up early to get out to the barn to do chores so we can all load up and get on the road by 7:30. Unfortunately it was canceled and at least 4 families didn't get that memo, grr! We had a full weekend planned to include a former student of Jeremiah's coming by to weed eat along the pasture fences. The electric wires were being overgrown by grass and shorting out the lines. I wanted to move the pigs out to pasture but without a working fence, that was a recipe for disaster.

The kids and I put in corn and pole beans. We're almost done with garden plating minus melons. We plan to plant those vertically this year! Well, not PLANT them vertically, but grow them vertically. One the fruit starts to develop it needs to be either suspended in a nylon stocking or slung in a piece of fabric. We're far from that point yet and I've been waiting to get the pigs out (their pen is right next door to the garden), so I knew whether or not they'd be close enough to stick their heads through the fence to chomp on the leaves!

The onions are growing like mad, as are the potatoes (we planted those in barrells), lettuce is almost ready to be harvested and everything else looks great! Just waiting on the melons. We'll put up cattle panels eventually but until they start growing, there's no rush. The peas are also up too, we put in Lincoln Peas and cowpeas, it's a little late but we'll see. I made some "natural" trellises with branches. They look kinda rustic. I also created some faux raised beds out of some old posts that we took out when we put in the old fence. It's not really for containment, it's to know where things are planted more than anything. I have a tendency to plant herbs (especially) and forget what was planted, and end up pulling weeds out along with the actual plant-lings. This year I fixed that! We put in 30 tomato plants so far. I want to get in a couple more, they were a little small to put out yet and were heirloom from seeds that I only planted a few of so I really want to put them in. The garden looks so nice and neat right now, pretty soon it'll be overgrown but the kids love it that way, they call it their jungle.

On to the "experience" part of this post. Mea Hamm, one of our piggies, began to limp again and the boar (male) pig was really getting after her which was forcing her to stay in the shelter much of the time as it would be difficult for him to bother her in there with the height, if you know what I mean. When we first got the pigs they were always destined for the freezer but it just so happened we were able to get an "uncut" (un-neutered) male and with the scarcity and expense of "weaner" (weaned pig @ 20-50 lbs) or "feeder" (50-120 lbs), I figured why not breed them. I figured if I screwed it up, the worst that could happen is we loose a pig to ignorance but it wouldn't be in vein if a lesson is leaned all is not lost. As it turns out, pigs are EASY to raise! I like pigs too. The male is beginning to be a bit too much to handle and it's not as though they can be led around like dogs (I'll tell you a story about that a little later) but they are very curious and personable and talkative and just all around nice farm animals to have around for their existence on earth.

Sunday was her day. After doing some research on butchering over the past few months, with the meat lockers (butcher shops) being full up, with the weather warming and her doing nothing but putting on weight, it was do or die. Sorry, that comment's sort of in poor taste (snicker). Yesterday morning was cool with a slight breeze and overcast. I got chores done early, Jeremiah had a co-worker who helped us do a couple goats (and has done a lot of pig butchering) come over and show us the ins and outs of cuts. I gotta say, pigs are so much easier to figure out cuts on than goats! There's just not much to those goats, which we knew but man alive, the meat on pigs!

Saturday evening we bought one of those vacuum sealer things. You buy special bags and it sucks out the air and seals the bag. Pretty nifty! Jeremiah and Keith shot her and stuck her and got her hung. Having a front loader on the tractor has made easy work of hanging and skinning, let me tell you. We aren't big fans of cracklings and I don't have time to tan a hide so the hide is pretty worthless to us. The entrails, feet and head we dispose of out in the pasture, the dogs take care of it all. I am sure that sounds just horrendous to some people but short of burning it, they will dig it up, pull it out or it will attract predators if we were to dump it elsewhere so doing what comes naturally to them isn't a big deal for us. The whole theory that if a dog gets a taste for meat or blood of a certain type of animal they will kill animals of that specie has been proven wrong time and time again here. We feed all animal parts from butchering to our animals, give them raw good meat from the freezer and they eat deer too. Never once have the dogs gone after a live goat, chicken, or pig. I think we're safe there.

After 6 hours we have 200+ lbs. of meat in the freezer and while some of it may be labeled "hunk roast" because we're not adept yet at cutting particulars like sirloins, we did get some nice pork chops and 2 BIG tenderloins. I have no idea what this girl weighed but she had a nice layer of fat on her (not too much) and was in good flesh. They say you get the most meat and least amount of waste off of a pig carcass, whereas beef is something like 65% "waste" (though it's not all really wasted, the bones and entrails, etc. go on to be processed for other applications).

After they halved the carcass, we layed it out on a plastic covered picnic table under the trees. We did tenderloins from one half and cut chops from the other (they are the same cut of meat, if you leave the loin whole you have a tender loin, if you cut it into portions, you get chops). All the ribs were cut so we got 2 nice lengths of spare ribs and baby back ribs. The hams, holy cow (!), I had to cut bags and "splice" them together to make something big enough! All in all it was a fantastic experience.

Those who know me, know I didn't grow up this way. Those who don't know me, I'll tell you, I didn't grow up this way. It's taken a lot of personal courage to come to terms with daily feeding, watering, caring for and ultimately pouring my heart and soul in to animals that I know will ultimately be put on our plates. I never thought I could ever eat an animal we raised, but in the end, the feeling of satisfaction knowing what all went in to an animal that gave its live to feed our family is gratifying and makes me even more grateful for what has to happen so that people can eat! I really feel that being grateful for food has a deeper meaning and sense of satisfaction when you have a hand in it start to finish on a scale that gives you one on one personal attachment to each individual. Commercial operations just don't do that, you loose sense of the individual and it's all lost.And while it would be difficult to come to know each individual chicken living in our shop right now, the sense as a whole of utmost appreciation for the collective beings is enough for me to feel somehow connected.

It is not easy for our children and they do, on occasion, come close to begging us not to butcher or put down a certain individual and it's no easy task to put our feelings aside as parents and do as they wish for the sake of their feelings (or our own for that matter) but as time goes by and the more and more animals that move through here, the more they are coming to terms with it and the more appreciative we see them becoming. They know what it takes to put food on the table because they are out there everyday helping. They are learning what it means to be compassionate and merciful and they are leaning what it means to set aside the humanism of how some people view animals. This is VERY important to us.

Our animals are not people, we love them, we care for them, we give them a far better life than some animals have and then we eat (some) of them. Period. All animals have a purpose here and they are productive. If they are not, it is time to move on. It does not mean we cannot love them while they are here, it does not mean we cannot enjoy them and their antics, or name them. It just means they are here for a short time and that's it. I can see that the children's hearts do not hurt for such and such goat or chicken like they do for say, Butters (the dog). It's two completely different heartaches, and that tells us that they have learned to discern one from another and they are mentally healthy and moving through this aspect of life the right way. 

Moving on...Jeremiah and I are scrambling to put together a roving coup (chicken tractor) to get the meat chicks out of the shop. The meat chicks came a little sooner than planned. They are trying to "jump ship" and get out of the round bale ring they are being contained in. Jeremiah welded a frame out of angle iron. We had some used barn tin we're putting on for the roof, back and side. Half of it will be covered, half of it will have hardware cloth (sort of like chicken wire) installed. They will not be allowed to free range as the hawks would pick them off and to be completely honest, I am in no mood to feed hawks what should go on my plate, there's plenty of snakes and vermin to feed them!

Jeremiah's last week of work is this week. He could have taken today off and worked Friday instead but it's supposed to be 92 today and he may as well get a hot work day out of the way in an air conditioned location instead of spending it here having to come inside and not get any work done because of the heat. That said, I need to get going and get the garden watered, laundry hung and close up the house before it gets too hot out.

Wordless Wednesday: Lap Turkey

Hello turkey bird

chillin'

feelin' sleepy

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Pomp and Circumstance

This post really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Pomp and Circumstance really. It just seemed like a fitting title for May. In the past 2 weeks combined we've gone to 5 graduations. Jeremiah teaches out of district students, he tries to attend their graduations, 2 of which were this past Saturday. UGH. I had to suffer sit  through the Kindergarten and 6th grade graduation and all of the accomplishments of each students at the kids' elementary school last week, or the week before I guess it was. Only 1 more to go for the high school this Sunday afternoon of which, the kids and I don't have to attend.

We're finally getting to enjoy some spring weather. Except, the past 2 days have been near 90 or at 90 and that's no fun! But we've been enjoying a smoothie once a day!




The meat birds arrived yesterday. These things, they remind me of jungle army ants! They've been selectively bred for outstanding feed conversion and they grow out to butcher weight in 6-9 weeks, depending on how big of a bird you want. They are voracious eaters and have been known to have leg issues from their fast growth rate but after doing quite a bit of research, if we withhold food overnight, it gives them a chance to rest. Honestly, they would literally eat 24/7 if the food was available to them.

Frankenstein birds? Perhaps, I don't think hybrid anything is inherently bad. These are the types of birds raised in commercial production, the same birds at the grocery store. We intend to raise them differently than commercial farms however which will include being put on pasture in a couple of weeks where they will spend the rest of their days being fed a high protein diet but also being allowed to scratch in the dirt and eat bugs and grass while enclosed inside of a moveable coup enclosed with a chicken wire type covering. We've yet o make it, ha. Hadn't planned on them being here until next month. Anyway, for now they are in an old hay ring inside the shop. 

 

We got the garden tilled a couple of evenings ago. The pigs did such a thorough job last fall the tiller went through it like butta. What's nice is that I can utilize the entire plot this year. I couldn't get the tiller into the corners and I ended up loosing feet of growing space along the fence. The pigs tilled right into the corner for me.

We planted some lettuce, beats and a few herbs about a week ago in some raised boxes. Today the children and I planted onions and basil. There is quite a bit in the greenhouse and I am in no hurry to put it into the garden. I'd like to get the seed plants planted first, the stuff n the greenhouse, for now, is happy. I've got lots of different kinds of tomatoes, peppers, herbs and egg plant. I don't know if it will all fit to be honest.

Mother's Day/Drew's birthday was pretty uneventful. Jeremiah and I drove up north to get some hay we found at a pretty good deal. Sold half of it and paid for a good majority of what we kept.

Drew got a bike, a set of Legos and a couple of Nerf guns that he and Jeremiah love to play war with. Drew still needs training wheels, it's true. Or maybe they are a crutch, either way I almost felt sorry for a minute that he's 7 and has not lived in a place with enough concrete to effectively learn without. The gravel and grass would be a little difficult to learn on. Truth is, I am actually not sorry at all. He's been lucky enough to live 99% of his life outside of the concrete jungle. I consider that a blessing. Maybe he doesn't think so or won't think so later on but we think it's pretty darn great, even if they dicide at some point it isn't. For now, they don't know much else and think it's pretty awesome.












We're in the middle of a refi on the house. The previous mortgage broker we used for our original loan called me a few weeks ago and asked me if I had time. I told him I always have time to save money! It's become a bit of a pain in the butt as we have to have an appraisal done in it. It started out not needing one but the lending institution in Ca. is asking for one strictly as a formality. Whatever. Fine. So today I have been cleaning because even though an appraiser lives in his house too, it's like cleaning before the maid gets there. I didn't think our interest was high before, when we got the loan nearly 3 years ago it was the lowest that could be had. Rates have dropped considerably which is why he called us and after all is said and done, our interest will drop over a point and save us about $200-300 a month and because it's a VA loan and Jeremiah is considered partially disabled due to military service, we're paying pretty close to nothing out of pocket. Can't beat that, right?  As it is, I intend to leave the payment as it is and if my amortization calculation is correct, the place should be paid off in about 15 years.

At any rate, it's cooled off some and the garden isn't going to plant itself. Dinner also isn't going to make itself, unfortunately. Strawberries are on sale, I have been craving a strawberry pie and I've got chicken ready for chicken and noodles!

Scrapbook

  Back into the soap making routine now that we have extra milk to spare, looks good enough to take a spoon to =)!

 
Cha cha chia (left) & tea tree camomile (right) 


For two years we advertised the barbless wire fence that we replaced 2 spring ago, for two years it sat in the pastures getting caught up in the brush hog and mower. Finally we were able to find a reasonably priced PTO-driven fence roller at a farm auction and got it all rolled up last weekend!



Just a few of the new kids enjoying the stump near the (dry) pond while the does graze.


Rachel lost a tooth, it's been a while!

 I won't spend a lot of time discussing weather. Suffice to say, it's been entirely strange! A day or two a week with below freezing temps! Yesterday, May 2, the kids' last day of school and it SNOWED! YEP, snowed like it was the middle of winter, couldn't believe it and the afternoon turned out to be gorgeous, so go figure! We're thankful for the moisture, we've had quite a bit of rain. I don't think we're out of the red yet but making significant progress.

We lost two fruit trees to the cold, fortunately they are guaranteed for a year so we'll go down this weekend and get replacements. Every week I keep saying, surely we are past the last freeze and it snows yesterday. The other trees look really good though so here's to hoping!

I walked out in the pastures where we planted brome and oats and with the weekly rain, it's all coming in very very well. I am super excited about that as it was really taking a chance planting not knowing if the moisture will come to get them off to a good start. The brome does OK in drought but if there isn't moisture to get it to germinate, it's all for not. 

We rented a dumpster to dispose of some of the downed branches and logs. There is just so much, it will take us a very long time to get through it all but it's on the "to do" list. We were able to clean out in front of the shop which is along the roadway and it looks 100% better! There is a lot of rye grass there I hope to cut and dry and put up for some hay. As the grain trucks drive by during harvest they drop a lot of misc. grains that end up growing along the roadway.

We went to town Sunday for ice cream (because it was 86 degrees!), and saw smoke out our way. Which isn't uncommon, this is the time of year to burn off fields and brush, except if you don't cut your old growth, it's so dry from winter and drought it's sure to catch fire. The neighbor directly to our north was out cleaning brush with a chainsaw and I assume threw a spark and obviously with as much brush as he has, it went up like a roman candle! As we were headed east on 4th toward home my heart started racing as we were being passed by firetrucks and seeing the location of the smoke but not being able to 100% tell where it was coming from. From the barnyard I could see flames licking up into the air. Jeremiah took the kids in the car and drove out to the fence line and I started opening the trailer doors and gathering up the goats in case we needed to evacuate. Fortunately, for us, the wind was coming out of the south driving it northward and for Kansas (where a strong wind to most is but a gentle zephyr to us), the wind was pretty calm. The neighbor 2 properties north lost 6-7 acres of pasture and their orchard. The firefighters were quick to get it out and it could have been a whole lot worse.

Today the kids went with Jeremiah to work. I am cleaning house, what fun! It's a nice day to hang clothes out and I'd like to get some more planting done. I'm a little behind. The tomatoes, herbs and peppers will stay in the greenhouse until, well, at this point, AUGUST with the way the weather is going! The neighbor's let us dig strawberry starts several weeks ago which we put in barrels. I covered them with straw so they would not freeze and they are doing well. The kids and I planted potatoes the other day in barrels and lettuce, beets and some greens in raised boxes Jeremiah made last year that I used for cold frames since I did not have the greenhouse. I also planted herbs, lettuces, spinach and such inside the greenhouse too.

The blackberries have remained in the pots and those are in the greenhouse. I don't think we're going to plant them in the ground but put them in barrels and see how they do.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend!