So, I woke up to stomach cramps and rain this morning. One has nothing to the other, except that I had to stay home, and by extension, the kids.
I overheard that the ducks were wondering around. Fortunately, Mom's little Muscovy is where she is supposed to be, but I have geese, chickens and NOW ducks wondering around.
At least next weekend, I'll have some pork for the freezer....a LOT of pork. The barrow and the gilt are HUGE compared to the ones we freezered up in the spring.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men
Why is it that when we plan something out, it doesn't quite work out like you planned? Mom was supposed to be here early (I assumed 9am was early, and even took the phone into the bedroom so that I'd hear it if it went off.) Well, I got up at nine...no Mom. Ran thru the usual gambit of contact points (email, FB), nope not there. When low and behold, who pops up on my IM list? This means that at 10am, Mom is still 2 hours from being here. At least. *Sigh* And we were supposed to get ALL of the chickens done today. At 10:35ish, Krys texts me and says they are on their way! Woohoo! Jim is out feeding the animals, and I'm cleaning up the kitchen.
You knew there was going to be another wrinkle, right? Yeah, there was. A big one. At about 11:30, Mom's rear tire blew out (no worries, only damage to human or vehicle was the loss of the tire). She called and asked Jim how to lower her spare, and he is GOOD, but not that good. Upon learning she only had the stock lug wrench, we both realized that we were about to embark upon Operation:Rescue. No way would Mom or the girls be able to break those lugnuts with the stock wrench, and Mom didn't have her 4-way in the van.
We got there. The damage to the tire was severe. But, like I said, that was the only damage done. Well, I'm sure all of them had a case of the jitters for a few minutes as a blowout will get anyone's blood pumping. Even Jim had trouble breaking the lugnuts loose, but he did, changed out the donut, and off we headed to the shop, hoping to find a tire, used or new, that we could replace the blowout with. No used, but we did find a new one.
So, given this wonderful turn of events, the chickens have earned a 3 week reprieve. Next weekend, we are transporting T-bone to the finish pasture and putting 2 pigs in the freezers. The weekend after that, Jim is in a wedding. Lucky birds.
You knew there was going to be another wrinkle, right? Yeah, there was. A big one. At about 11:30, Mom's rear tire blew out (no worries, only damage to human or vehicle was the loss of the tire). She called and asked Jim how to lower her spare, and he is GOOD, but not that good. Upon learning she only had the stock lug wrench, we both realized that we were about to embark upon Operation:Rescue. No way would Mom or the girls be able to break those lugnuts with the stock wrench, and Mom didn't have her 4-way in the van.
We got there. The damage to the tire was severe. But, like I said, that was the only damage done. Well, I'm sure all of them had a case of the jitters for a few minutes as a blowout will get anyone's blood pumping. Even Jim had trouble breaking the lugnuts loose, but he did, changed out the donut, and off we headed to the shop, hoping to find a tire, used or new, that we could replace the blowout with. No used, but we did find a new one.
So, given this wonderful turn of events, the chickens have earned a 3 week reprieve. Next weekend, we are transporting T-bone to the finish pasture and putting 2 pigs in the freezers. The weekend after that, Jim is in a wedding. Lucky birds.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wait......Honey, Why Are There 2 Cows Down There?
So, after the kids did the feeding, I was out checking on T-Bone (who is going to finish pasture) and Kahlani (who is due "in the fall") and the Sirs (who are next years eating). I have four cattle in front of me. These are my cattle. I know that. Then I looked along the northern pasture line and see two more large black spots off the eastern side of the pasture. Now, I've just come from the west pasture, and KNOW that Gumdrop and Squire are safely in there. What the Eck?
"Honey, why does it look like there are 2 cows down there? And one looks like a calf.."
Jim goes as far down the lane between the cow pasture and goat pen and sure enough...yep, cattle. Yep, one's a calf. Not sure if they are on our land or not, as we didn't have the time to go all the way over there.....but they didn't appear to be contained.
I've heard of dumped dogs...but dumped cattle? This is ridiculous! We can only hope that it's the backside neighbors cows. Right? Or else, I got more beef this year than I thought.
"Honey, why does it look like there are 2 cows down there? And one looks like a calf.."
Jim goes as far down the lane between the cow pasture and goat pen and sure enough...yep, cattle. Yep, one's a calf. Not sure if they are on our land or not, as we didn't have the time to go all the way over there.....but they didn't appear to be contained.
I've heard of dumped dogs...but dumped cattle? This is ridiculous! We can only hope that it's the backside neighbors cows. Right? Or else, I got more beef this year than I thought.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
I Should Not Be Lazy...About Posting Pictures
I've been very slow at getting pictures posted. The interface at Photobucket irritated the heck out of me. I WILL get them done. I am just not quite sure when, as I just went over to try, and Flash 9 is needed to do the photo editing. I don't download anything onto a computer that isn't mine without permission.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
I Need A Vacation From My Vacation
So, this last weekend was Labor Day weekend. Labor is right. It's what we did, all weekend long.
Starting on Saturday, after Jim got off work, we went out to my mom's. We had three high priority jobs, and 2 lower priority jobs. Shay, her Dexter heifer, is due anytime in the next two weeks. (Still a heifer, this is her first calf). She's had a halter on her since we got her picked up on Valentine's Day. This was not intended or desired, and it was getting very tight. Shay just wouldn't let anyone walk up and mess with her head. Don't blame her, really, but my dad isn't the most livestock inclined man in the world, and couldn't (wouldn't?) help mom corral her and get the halter off. The buckling goats that are destined for food needed castrating. And last, but not least three pigs that needed moving from the South Field to the Hoophouse Pen.
As we got there, the new pig pen was just getting completed. Jim created a stall for Shay, and we got her squeezed in, and the halter off. Once she was squeezed up, and her head immobile, she was quite happy to let us remove the halter. It came right off. We spent about 10 or 15 minutes petting on her, and it gave me a chance to check her out, as Mom was questioning her pregnancy status. After looking her over, I came to the conclusion that yes, she's pregnant, but due closer to the end of her due date range, than the beginning.
Then we proceeded to trick the two bucklings into letting us have access to their hind ends. One boy was done easy enough, but the other one's testicles were very small and held extremely tightly against his body. We decided that rather than risk catching a ureter, we'd just leave him intact for now.
And then, the Great Pig Move. We got them out of the South Field okay, and they began heading northward, but soon saw Green Stuff. That looked much better than the short woman with the red bucket! And the pathway to their new home was somewhat cluttered by t-posts. The oldest kidlet and I moved those out of the way, while Jim, Mom and youngest kidlet rounded up the hogs. Jim eventually got one pig's nose IN the food bucket, and led it right into its new home. Rinse and repeat twice. All done!
The lower priority jobs were moving the goats southward, and moving the sheep northward. Didn't happen. Jim gets off work at 2, takes an hour to drive to mom's. By the time we'd gotten all that done, (doesn't sound like much, huh?), it was 7pm, and we still had a two hour drive home.
Sunday dawned, and we had more work to do. The trailer of hay (borrowed trailer, purchased hay) still had about 75 bales of hay on it that needed unloaded and stacked. Jim got it started, and I went out and helped by dropping hay off the trailer. Then I was off to return the trailer, and he was waiting for someone to come look at a couple of the goats we have here. I got back, Melvin still hadn't shown up, but was close. We visited with them for about 30 minutes, and they left. Time to shoot the Ram. It quickly became obvious that having the proper tools makes a job MUCH easier. Quartering the ram with out a saw was a time and muscle intensive task. Jim did all that work. We put the dismembered carcass into coolers and added ice to cool the meat. Monday would finish that job. On a good note, lamb tenderloins make a tasty meal.
Monday, Labor Day. Jim actually had the day off. From fixing cars anyway. So, in all my braininess, I'd told mom to come out and we'd off the chickens. Mom got here about 11, and we started working on them about 45 minutes later (the scalder water wasn't hot enough yet). Four hours later, we were done with nine chickens, but out of vacuum bags and had no freezer bags available either. So, we called that a day. Still have about 15 birds to do, plus a couple of ducks. The chickens were plenty fat, just not boob-heavy. And then I still had to grind up Ram. With out a meatsaw, or other handy dandy tools, grinding the meat was one of the best ways for us to stretch it out. Jim and I took about 1 1/2 hours to get it ground up, and then I put it in to packages.
Thank goodness it's Tuesday, and no major farm chores are in the offing!
Starting on Saturday, after Jim got off work, we went out to my mom's. We had three high priority jobs, and 2 lower priority jobs. Shay, her Dexter heifer, is due anytime in the next two weeks. (Still a heifer, this is her first calf). She's had a halter on her since we got her picked up on Valentine's Day. This was not intended or desired, and it was getting very tight. Shay just wouldn't let anyone walk up and mess with her head. Don't blame her, really, but my dad isn't the most livestock inclined man in the world, and couldn't (wouldn't?) help mom corral her and get the halter off. The buckling goats that are destined for food needed castrating. And last, but not least three pigs that needed moving from the South Field to the Hoophouse Pen.
As we got there, the new pig pen was just getting completed. Jim created a stall for Shay, and we got her squeezed in, and the halter off. Once she was squeezed up, and her head immobile, she was quite happy to let us remove the halter. It came right off. We spent about 10 or 15 minutes petting on her, and it gave me a chance to check her out, as Mom was questioning her pregnancy status. After looking her over, I came to the conclusion that yes, she's pregnant, but due closer to the end of her due date range, than the beginning.
Then we proceeded to trick the two bucklings into letting us have access to their hind ends. One boy was done easy enough, but the other one's testicles were very small and held extremely tightly against his body. We decided that rather than risk catching a ureter, we'd just leave him intact for now.
And then, the Great Pig Move. We got them out of the South Field okay, and they began heading northward, but soon saw Green Stuff. That looked much better than the short woman with the red bucket! And the pathway to their new home was somewhat cluttered by t-posts. The oldest kidlet and I moved those out of the way, while Jim, Mom and youngest kidlet rounded up the hogs. Jim eventually got one pig's nose IN the food bucket, and led it right into its new home. Rinse and repeat twice. All done!
The lower priority jobs were moving the goats southward, and moving the sheep northward. Didn't happen. Jim gets off work at 2, takes an hour to drive to mom's. By the time we'd gotten all that done, (doesn't sound like much, huh?), it was 7pm, and we still had a two hour drive home.
Sunday dawned, and we had more work to do. The trailer of hay (borrowed trailer, purchased hay) still had about 75 bales of hay on it that needed unloaded and stacked. Jim got it started, and I went out and helped by dropping hay off the trailer. Then I was off to return the trailer, and he was waiting for someone to come look at a couple of the goats we have here. I got back, Melvin still hadn't shown up, but was close. We visited with them for about 30 minutes, and they left. Time to shoot the Ram. It quickly became obvious that having the proper tools makes a job MUCH easier. Quartering the ram with out a saw was a time and muscle intensive task. Jim did all that work. We put the dismembered carcass into coolers and added ice to cool the meat. Monday would finish that job. On a good note, lamb tenderloins make a tasty meal.
Monday, Labor Day. Jim actually had the day off. From fixing cars anyway. So, in all my braininess, I'd told mom to come out and we'd off the chickens. Mom got here about 11, and we started working on them about 45 minutes later (the scalder water wasn't hot enough yet). Four hours later, we were done with nine chickens, but out of vacuum bags and had no freezer bags available either. So, we called that a day. Still have about 15 birds to do, plus a couple of ducks. The chickens were plenty fat, just not boob-heavy. And then I still had to grind up Ram. With out a meatsaw, or other handy dandy tools, grinding the meat was one of the best ways for us to stretch it out. Jim and I took about 1 1/2 hours to get it ground up, and then I put it in to packages.
Thank goodness it's Tuesday, and no major farm chores are in the offing!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Hay! It's What's For Dinner.
Earlier this week, I picked up a load of hay, stacked on a 24 foot trailer. Today was the day we unloaded that hay. It didn't take as long as I feared it would, and I had the trailer back to it's owner before 2pm. My chickens, dog, and loose goat seem to think the hay stack is a great place to play.
Fortunately, the chickens won't be a problem much longer. Tomorrow is the great chicken processing, during which, we will process each and everyone of those darned chickens.
The other job for today is to take care of Ram. He's being a butt. He's done his duty by the girls, so now it's time for him to do his duty by the family, and provide us with meat for the next month or so.
While we are building up our breeding stock, we tend to get to eat whatever we kill for a while. Starting next year, however, we should be able to put enough different meats in the freezer that we will have a choice of meats to sup on.
Fortunately, the chickens won't be a problem much longer. Tomorrow is the great chicken processing, during which, we will process each and everyone of those darned chickens.
The other job for today is to take care of Ram. He's being a butt. He's done his duty by the girls, so now it's time for him to do his duty by the family, and provide us with meat for the next month or so.
While we are building up our breeding stock, we tend to get to eat whatever we kill for a while. Starting next year, however, we should be able to put enough different meats in the freezer that we will have a choice of meats to sup on.
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