This past week we enjoyed some time away from the farm. (Thanks to my dad & mom doing chores for us.) Can you guess from the photo where we were?
Now we are scrambling to catch up on things around here…the garden unfortunately didn’t go on hold while we were away, & we’re getting a batch of chicks today. The county fair begins next week, so there are fair projects to be finished up. So much to blog about…stay tuned!
Last week Matt bought 45 big round bales of cow hay out of the field.
I’ll tell you, I don’t miss making our own hay. But I think Matt does.
To make the process of getting it from the field to home easier, he borrowed my brother’s flatbed trailer & my dad’s Farmall 460 tractor. That way he could have his tractor at the field to load bales onto the flatbed, pull the trailer home with his truck and unload the bales with Dad’s tractor.
It’s good to have family close. And it’s good to have Grandpa’s tractor parked in the yard a few days.
Love to see that farmboy imagination at work!
A pull on this lever here…
and a pull on that lever there…
and we’re backing…
The ultimate “toy” for an 8-year-old boy!
It happens this time every year. AWOL. MIA. This year it’s partly because I’m still having problems with my web host & not able to access my own site much of the time. I plan to rectify that situation soon, switch hosts, & hope I can wrangle a refund out of the old one.
And as usual, it’s partly because ball games take over the schedule for the month of June. With all 3 of the offspring playing, some weeks it’s been at least 1 game (sometimes all 3 with games at the same time), 5 nights a week, plus varsity tournaments on Saturdays.
Liver Q pitching
I enjoy it…just being outdoors, in the moment, not trying to multitask 5 different things.
Rafe Henry
But I’m definitely ready for the end of it now. Rafe & Liv are done. Regional playoffs start for the high school tomorrow night.
Madeline rounding the bases
Then it’s on to reclaiming the garden from the weeds, and getting ready for the county fair. As I look back at the posts from this time last year, I see the same themes. And there is comfort in this cycle of our life, knowing that we’ve survived this same June craziness before.
Rafe came along to market with us a couple of Saturdays ago, so I put him to work on a little marketing campaign. The hard thing about selling meat at farmers market is that you don’t have the beautiful piles of vegetables to put out on your table. So we rely on our signs, brochures, photobooks, etc. for display.
I gave him complete creative control, and here’s what he came up with:
And it was a successful advertising campaign…we had several chicken sales that customers attributed to Rafe’s advertisement!
Ava lives to herd pigs. Sometimes she’s more helpful than others, but she tries and she’s getting better. It would help if we actually knew how to train her.
Matt likes to have her guard the gate so he can go in and out with the tractor, moving manure to the compost pile.
She keeps the pigs corralled up in the shed.
Nobody’s getting by her.
After a while the pigs just give up and lay in the shed. And then Ava gets bored, and pretty soon she’s nowhere to be found.
Obviously she – and her trainers – need some training yet!
Last week, Friday night. Ike woke me up around 1 a.m.to let him out. The weather has been beautiful and we’ve been sleeping with the windows open. As I settled into bed I heard a very strange noise outside. I’ve been reading the book Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, so my first thought was that the vampires were coming to get me. Then I thought it sounded like one of the chickens was being attacked. And finally I decided it was some sort of bird, maybe an owl except that it wasn’t the usual “who-who” sound.
Next night, my brother was bringing Madeline home from babysitting and remarked that it was a full moon and the chickens would be in trouble that night.
Which brings us to last Sunday morning. The sun was shining, blue sky, absolutely gorgeous weather. Rafe and I enjoyed our walk down to the chicken pen for morning chores. But there was a surprise waiting for us. Some kind of large bird had gotten its foot tangled in the electric poultry netting that surrounds the chickens’ range area and was hanging there upside down. The chicken it had killed before apparently getting hung up on takeoff lay on the ground beside it. It was hard to tell, the way it was hanging there, but I thought it was a hawk. Rafe be me a candy bar that it was an owl. Then we ran back up to the house to get Matt to come cut it loose.
I owe Rafe a candy bar.
A Great Horned Owl. The owl was already dead, probably having hung there upside down for a good part of the night. He was absolutely gorgeous. Big golden eyes, beautiful feathers that were incredibly soft, huge talons.
Matt called the DNR to see what we should do with it. They said to discard it somewhere like a ditch or in the woods. They’re a federally protected bird so it’s not legal to have them stuffed. Otherwise that’s what we would have done, because it seems like a waste of such a beautiful creature. But I understand why they don’t allow it. (Um, I hope it’s not illegal to take a picture of it before we discarded it!)
Searching Google, it seems that the sound I’d heard a couple of nights before might have been owlets calling for food. (See #3 here.
Or vampires.
A favorite spring sight
We were sitting at Madeline’s ball game in St. Ansgar last night, watching a storm slowly roll in. Grey and black clouds took their sweet time, curling at the edges but not churning. (Good.) I kept an eye on the flags flying on the pole, first blowing to the north and then switching to the east. About that time the air went from hot and sticky to chill. I told Matt we’d better check on the second batch of broiler chicks when we get home from the game, just a few weeks old and just moved out to the pasture a couple of days before. We lost 8 in one night from the last batch, in a middle-of-the-night thunderstorm. So now I’m paranoid.
Umpires consulted coaches. The game started. Lineups were announced. The National Anthem sung. Madeline is the leadoff batter…a bunt…thrown out at first base.
And just then, lightening, and just like that, the game is called.
Before we even get out of town the rain is starting, and by the time we drive the 12 miles home it’s a downpour. Still, I make Matt drive out there to check on them. Surprisingly they look okay, at least half had gone back inside the shed and rest were up against the building under the extra-long eaves. Probably because it was still light out when the rain started. They could see where they needed to go to get out of it. It’s those dark-of-night storms that get them. A sigh of relief.
Still, I expected to find at least one fatality when I went out to do chores this morning. But no, they all look clean, happy, dry, perky.
A good start to a Wednesday.
Posers
I’m in a very frustrated frame of mind…since moving this blog to a 3rd party hosted site, I can’t access it much of the time. Thus the lack of posting. A handful of other people have reported the same. The hosting company tells me it’s just me, because the website “downforeveryoneorjustme” says it’s just me. My ISP also says it’s just me, or my equipment. I’m thinking that all of the other people that can’t access this site are also in Iowa (but different ISPs), so it may be a DNS resolution issue somewhere along a shared path…Qwest, perhaps? At this point I’m not sure what to do next. Suggestions welcome! (I’m begging you.)
In farm happenings…we had our first Friday market last week. Not a lot of people there. I spent more than I sold. This is a problem.
We took our first batch of chickens to the processor on Sunday. The heat was brutal, we lost a handful because of it. But they’re in the freezer now & should be ready to go by the weekend. Holler if you want some (or give us a call to arrange pickup if you’ve pre-ordered.)
2.5 days until school lets out for the summer. Their freedom begins…mine ends…kidding!…(sort of) Ball games started this week, so it already feels like summer anyway. Except that we still haven’t finished putting garden in. I hope we can wrap up that task this weekend. I don’t know why, but I don’t like the planting part. I prefer the weeding part. And now Matt’s probably spewing coffee out his nose reading this, because he does most of the weeding.
Other plans for the holiday weekend include farmers market Friday, Bandfest Saturday morning, and then the rest of the weekend is mine all mine. Oh wait, away softball games Monday night. Nevermind.
I’m wondering if anybody is even reading this here thing in this new location. So please leave a comment if you’ve trailed me over from the previous residence. (Again, I’m begging.)
I think that’s enough randomness for one night. I need to get the camera out & take a bunch of new pictures, find some blogging inspiration. have a safe & restorative Memorial holiday, and THANK YOU to all of our veterans past & present as well as those currently serving.
Our chicken pen is at the far end of the pasture, not quite a quarter mile walk down the gravel road. People have questioned why we don’t keep them closer to the house. There are a few technical reasons why we don’t but, more importantly, I’d be missing the sights & sounds between here and there.
Spring blooms…
Reg winged blackbird…
And a fierce robin fight…
And when I get down there, I’m greeted by eager little birds. It’s nice to be wanted.
Who says broiler chickens can’t fly…
(Of course once they have their feed they forget all about me.)
Farmers market started this week, and we’re trying a little different schedule this year. Last year we tried to do 3 markets a week, and it was insane. So, this year we’re dropping the Charles City market.
We’ll start at the Mason City Friday market on the 21st, be there the 28th and June 4th, and from there we’ll be there every other week.
The Mason City Saturday market starts June 5. We’ll be there June 5 and 12, and then every other Saturday from that point.
Or you can come to the farm to get what you need! Just give us a call!
As promised, I’ve got pictures of babies! I don’t have all the calves photographed yet – I know, I’m a slacker – but here’s a few:
Remember this little girl?
She was the firstborn this year. She just has “fancy” written all over her, I think.
And then there was this little guy:
He’s a little darker version of his mother, Caramel. You never know with Caramel what color of calf will come out. In the past her bull calves have always been black-whitefaces, and her heifer calves have always looked like this only much lighter – a very light almost-white cream color. (And we always named them Louisa.) But Caramel threw us for a loop this year with this sweet little khaki-colored bull.
The really interesting thing is that this year, every calf is a miniature of its mother. The solid red cow had a solid red calf. The red whiteface cows had red whiteface calves (they’ve always had black whiteface calves before.) The black whiteface cow had…you guessed it…a black whiteface calf. And the solid black cows had solid black calves like this one:
And then there are these little stinkers:
2 of our 3 sows have farrowed. The first one had 10 pigs, and the second one had 15! So far, 12 days in, each has lost only 1. They are awesome mama’s!
And to all of you awesome mama’s out there, Happy Mother’s Day!
