Dry

It is official. Mattie, the Jersey cow, is dry for the winter.

I milked her for the last time yesterday evening, and reveled in knowing that I wouldn't have to do it in the mornings anymore. Not until March...

November was an interesting month with the dairy cow. She was ready to be done. Almost hitting 2 years of steady milking, I can't say that I blame her when it came to wanting to be done, but I needed to stretch her until the end of the month! So stretch her I did. She continued to drop as the weeks wore away, but we both gave it our all to see that there was milk every single day. She went from 2 gallons a day, to 1.5 gallons, to 1 gallon, to 3/4's of a gallon, to 1/2 a gallon, and then finally sputtered to 6 cups a day. It was hard having to turn folks away who have been depending on Mattie each week. It was hard having to give folks jars that weren't all the way full. But yesterday was our last gasp and the ol' girl has finally earned her three month's holiday. And I'm glad for both of us.

Today I cleaned out the milking parlor for the last time until spring. The floor was swept and then mopped, the goats' milk stand was given a final scrub, the vacuum pump was dusted and the power cord was coiled neatly. The milking machine was wrapped carefully and placed on top of an empty feed bin, the feed bucket was overturned. It is clean and quiet in there. We are done Mattie; we've finished for the year.

Mattie's due date is February 21st, but who knows when that calf will actually drop. If it's a heifer, then she'll stay as a future replacement milker. If it's a bull, then I may keep him as a working ox. Either way, I am excited for the first calf here at GSF and am happy knowing that I have a plan for the little tyke. 

Barn chores used to take me 3 hours to do, what with milking the goats and the cow, and then feeding/watering everyone. This morning it took me 30 minutes to take care of all 70 animals. It was nice.

But having dry animals does mean that I'm back to my annual dairy fast. I haven't had any milk since October, and won't have any milk until mid-March. Ouch. But it's the price I have to pay to have the winter off from milking animals in freezing temps and fighting with frozen vacuum lines. Pick your poison, I guess.

Well Mattie dear, you've done well. Now you get to laze around the barn and do absolutely nothing more strenuous than eating hay. What a rough life you've got, girl.

How To Have a Great Day

First, catch a pig in a record winning time of 30 seconds. Make sure that it's raining heavily outside before you do this though, and then be in an area in which the mud comes up to your ankles thanks to the recent flooding you just had.

Secondly, build yourself an automatic fodder growing system out of PVC pipe, and then right when you finish you must find that you put the most important piece on backwards and you can't get it unstuck so as to fix it.

Third, come inside the house and have the whole family tell you that you look like something that the cat dragged in. By this time, your hair will be plastered to your head from the rain, you should have mud on your face, pants, and sweater, as well as having mud smeared liberally on your hands. 

Now, clean your face and hands up, but don't bother to change your pants since you'll just be back outside in an hour anyway to do more barn chores. Go upstairs and pull out your bowed psaltery, and play that little instrument like you'll never get to play it again. Play it so that the glossy wood vibrates in your hand, and the bow takes on a life of its own. Play it like you mean it. 

And know that in your dirty, tired state, that life is beautiful.

This is a cross-post from my Facebook page that I decided to share on here as well. :)

Thirty Seconds Flat

Sausage escaped again today.

I caught him in 30 seconds flat. 

I fixed the problem, so there will hopefully be no more episodes of this.

I was rather pleased with myself afterwards. 

I'm figuring this pig out.

Mystery Crop Revealed

Y'all did an excellent job at trying to guess the latest crop being grown here at GSF! You guys got really close at guessing the answer, but no one *quite* got it. So I'm here to spill the beans and give you a fill-in.

Those little green and purple seedling you saw were mustard sprouts. I let them grow to day #10 of germination and then lopped them off this morning.

The result is what is called Micro Greens. A wildly popular (and wildly expensive!) crop that upscale restaurant chefs are raving over and trying to buy whenever possible.

I had first read about micro greens in my Spring 2012 catalog from Johnny's Seeds. I was intrigued by the idea of the tiny plants, but didn't give it a whole lot of thought at the time. I was preoccupied with getting ready for this year's broilers, turkeys, cows, and goat kids. Cool idea, but it wasn't my time to be sprouting little seedlings. I did however try to stay updated on how the micro green fad was playing out in the food world. To my surprise, the little greens didn't fade away as the seasons passed; instead the interest has grown. Hmmm.

Fast forward to this October/November. My dairy goats are dry and won't start milking until March/April. The cow will be dried up by Sunday. The goats and cow provided the majority of my income and I was facing a 3 or 4 month period with very little cash flow. My mind jumped back to the idea of the micro greens. Why not try it now?

After hours upon hours of more research, I bought a test package of seeds that would make a colorful, spicy blend. I have to admit that they taste as good as they look... I have a hit list of some local restaurants that I would like to start selling my micro greens to, and I'm planning on contacting them soon and seeing what deal we can strike. :) 

I'm also taking this idea and giving it a slightly different twist. I have a batch of wheat sprouts ("fodder" as I usually call it here on the blog) that are almost ready to be eaten, and when that point comes I'm going to contact a local, upscale pet store (it ain't your ordinary shop...) and see about taking them some free samples. If they like the sprouts, then I will see about becoming a regular supplier for them. 

And who knows, maybe I'll see about getting a booth at one of my local farmer's markets and see about selling some micro greens there next year...

So there you have it. Yet another one of my wild ideas. But somehow my ideas manage to work one way or another, so it'll be interesting to see how this one pans out. :)

A Full Day

I woke up at 7:26 this morning so as to turn my alarm off, which would start beeping at 7:30. I was already sleeping in a bit more than usual, but today I wanted to sleep in juuuuuust a wee bit more. I slept until 7:33 before bolting upright as my sub-conscience remembered that I had a doctor appointment at 9:30, and I needed 2.5 hours just to get barn chores finished and make myself presentable. Whoops. So all ideas of sleeping in were thrown out the window as I started scurrying through the beginnings of my Wednesday. Surprisingly enough, I managed to make it out the door just in the nick of time. And yes, I even managed to brush my teeth. I'm good.

Almost three months ago, I lost pretty much all hearing on my right side. I had gone swimming at the beginning of September and came home with an aching case of swimmer's ear. After a week of being a grumpy bear from the painful infection, the swimmer's ear cleared up. But before another week could pass, my hearing faded for no definable cause. We tried everything to treat it... Drops, candles, water, more drops, more candles, more water... Nothing worked. After awhile I got used to being half deaf, but I did miss being able to hear, and was I definitely getting tired of having to ask people to repeat themselves. So today was the day, I was going to the doctor and I wasn't leaving until I could hear!

Shucks, I should have done that sooner... The nurse pulled out a cattle-sized syringe which she admitted to having bought at our local Wilco, and started the oh-so-fun process of irrigating. And wonder of wonders, that did the trick. I can now hear from both sides now! It's taking some getting used to though, how loud everything seems now! Just tapping away at this keyboard has me wondering if the keys have always been this loud... Never take your hearing for granted. It's a wonderful thing.

After regaining my hearing, I had to face the next challenge of the day: Taking my permit test.

Yes, you read that right... I'm 20 years old, I run a small farm, I have an off-farm job, but for all these years I have NOT had even a driver's permit. I tried getting it last year, but failed the test and then was too busy to take it again. But I had to stop running from fear of failure; this was getting ridiculous not being able to drive myself anywhere. So I bit the bullet and did it today. During the whole drive into town (20 minutes), the doctor's appointment, town errands, and up to the very, very, very last minute at the DMV, I had my nose stuck in the driver's manual, trying desperately to finish reading through the darn thing. That book of 113 pages has been the bane of my existence for the last year and a half! I finished reading the very last page right as the lady at the desk pointed me in the direction of where I would be taking the test. Talk about "squeaking by"... After something like ten minutes of agony, I finished the test and PASSED! Whoop, whoop! I am officially a "legal" driver! So now I just have to bite the next bullet and learn to drive a vehicle that has a stick shift. [shudder] It's been five years since I've tried driving something with a stick shift, so I'm hoping that perhaps I've matured since then and will be able to do it. We'll see though. I'm a horrible when it comes to multi-tasking which is what driving anything besides an automatic vehicle seems like to me.

After coming home and helping a farm patron with her weekly goods, I headed out to do what I thought would be normal barn chores. Ha. I'm so naive sometimes.

Upon getting closer to the barn door, I could see what looked like the southern half of one of my pigs poking out from a 5-gallon bucket. Preposterous! Why on earth would my pigs be out? Why such a thing is ridiculous, right? My pigs? Escaped? Well, it turns out that it was indeed a pig that was not in its usual pen. Arms akimbo, I looked down at the grunting marauder who had not yet learned of my presence. I grabbed a hind leg on the trouble maker, intending to bear hug the fellow and put him away. Who knew that pigs could be so slippery!?!? The pig squealed and shot forward, out of my grasp and reach. And of course it just had to be Sausage that was out. The bigger, meaner of my Tamworth weaners. Mike was calmly back in his pen looking innocently smug. It was time to call upon all whatever wit and cunning I had left in me (which amounts to precious little). Now, have you ever tried to catch a 40 lb. pig? There is virtually nothing to grip on those things. Seriously. With a goat or sheep they at least have an upright neck with gives you some leverage. Pigs? Nothin'. They are fast as greased lighting, and they're a perfect torpedo shape which leaves you pretty much nothing to grab except a leg. But how are you going to get close enough to grab that leg if the oinker is going too fast!?!?  My pig books all said things like putting a bucket over the pig's head, putting them in a floorless box and then scooting them where they belonged, putting them in a gunnysack, or luring them with food. Right. Okay, we can do this Caity. I didn't have a gunnysack, so that idea was kaput. Luring him with food? Nope, he wasn't hungry after all the time he had just spent snacking in the barn.  Putting him in a box? Turns out that the ONE box that was big enough was so soggy and damp that Sauasage was able to literally burst right through it. Put a bucket over his head? Are you kidding me? I felt like a cutting horse facing a steer trying to put a bucket over his head. Either that or a hockey player with a grudge. 

That was it. There was only one thing left to do, but I didn't know what that one thing was. So I set out to do it. Yes, I'm genius. I thrust, he dodges, I throw in a parry, and he retaliates with a lunge. This isn't a chase, it's a fencing match of brain power between species. he ducks behind the 2-ton stack of hay and I clamber over it. He wheels into a corner and I just barely miss him. He met his waterloo though in the milking parlor. I had him cornered there. During this whole adventure, Peaches the heifer was bawling her head off for some reason or another. Her moo is fairly tolerable, but when she bawls it makes my skin crawl. Ugh. Feeling downright feral I crouch and lunge as the little porker passes by me. HA! I got you by the hind leg you uncultured swine! Sausage retaliated by jackknifing around with a fierce growl and trying to slice my arm open with his needle-like teeth. The only available option I had at that point was to quickly scurry to the opposite side of him and grab his other leg. Great. Now I've got this pig in wheelbarrow fashion. What now? 

So for the record, while putting a bucket over a pigs head might not work, nor might putting him a box do much good, trundling him around like what kids do in wheelbarrow relay races works *perfectly*. I had my pig, and I sure wasn't about to let go of him, so I applied forward pressure to that haunch of ham and smiled for a quick moment he began moving. After a few more moments, I figured out how to steer my vagabond pig and away we went. The merriment only lasted until we got to the door when Sausage decided that he'd had enough and began to squeal hideously. Ever heard a pig scream? Mothers, your toddler throwing a tantrum doesn't even come close to the pitch of an upset pig. Word of honor on that. But continue to trundle we did, meanwhile I pondered just what it would take before the neighbors called Animal Control on me. Peaches was still bellowing. Chickens were in my way. I was wearing a skirt. Could this get any funnier? I got Sausage over to the pen and with a supernatural heave-ho, I scooped him up and tossed him just barely over the top edge of the pen wall. With the pig screaming and writhing the whole time. All the work at the veggie farm is giving me some really nice upper arm muscles and a strong back, let me tell ya'. Comes in handy when you're trying to toss a pig who doesn't want to be tossed.

After putting Sausage back where he belonged and fixing the pen up, I was hot. And Mad. Peaches was still bawling so I made the split second decision that if she was going to bawl, then she had better have a legitimate reason for doing so. I shooed her into the barn, haltered her, and began the process of halter breaking her. My goat mentor who is also a vet tech, 4-H leader, and retired dairy cow owner, gave me some advice on breaking my mischievous heifer, so I decided that I might as well do the work today. The method? This may seem slightly harsh to some, but I think to those of you who really know large livestock, this is pretty tame. Dear Peachy abhors being haltered, and absolutely does not lead. That's not a good thing when she already weighs 700 lbs. and is still growing like a weed. After getting the halter on Peaches, she was tied to a support beam in the barn. The rope had to be long enough that she could lay down comfortably, but short enough that she wouldn't get tangled. It's a fine line. I asked my goat mentor how long she should stay tied and her advice was four hours. Every twenty minutes you have to check on them, brush them down, work with their feet, and towards the end you try leading them around. As I suspected, Peaches threw a conniption about the whole thing for the first hour and a half. I stayed outside with her for the first hour, making sure that she didn't do something foolish, and teaching Mattie that Peaches was off limits for awhile. After two hours, Peaches figured out that by standing close to the beam, there would be no pressure on her face. After three hours she was chewing cud. By four hours I was able to lead her around. Tomorrow will be the test to see if Peaches remembers her lesson or not. I'm really hoping that this works... 

When all the animals were fed, watered, captured, or trained, my afternoon was plumb gone and I needed to start dinner. We were going to have a simple dish of chicken with some biscuits, but then I decided to throw a bit of pizzazz on what would have otherwise been a rather plain meal. I just finished reading Joshua and Jessica Applestone's book titled, 'The Butcher's Guide To Well-Raised Meats'  and their "secret" chicken rub blend sounded way too tempting to not try tonight. I did leave out the cayenne pepper on my first try since not everyone in the family likes that spice as much as I do. But even without the cayenne, the chicken turned out amazing. Good gracious me, why did it take me so long to find that recipe??? The biscuits were also livened up when a sister decided to add cheese and garlic powder to them. Ha, okay I don't even want to know what my weight is now that dinner is over. But it was worth it. ;) I love food. Growing it, tending it, harvesting it, preparing it, and then eating it; it's all good.

So now I'm tuckered. It's been a full day, and my clock says I need to go milk the cow now. A farmer's work is never done...

New Crop

I've had an idea fermenting away in my head for about a year now, and as of last week I decided to finally take the plunge and see if this idea was solid or not.

But I'm going to be mean and not tell y'all any specifics just yet. Yes, I'm mean; what else is new? ;)

But here are a few pictures of my new, mystery crop. Any guesses as to what it is and what it will be used for? (Hannah C., you can't guess! I think I already told you!!)

Watching My Back

Unbeknownst to me, I left a gate unlatched today while doing barn chores. 

And not just any gate, mind you, it was the gate that led straight outside to freedom. Straight into the path of a busy country road. It was the gate that led to grain and hay galore. It was the gate that led to milking parlors and stacked pumpkins. It was the gate that could lead to a loss of $4,000 in livestock if they got loose and couldn't be recaptured.  If there was ever a gate that the animals dreamed of being left unlatched, it was this one. And I left it ajar this morning.

I went out this afternoon to do the routine barn chores of refilling water buckets and hay mangers, feeding pigs, and checking on chicks. Everything seemed normal. I looked ahead at the gate that is ALWAYS latched and found it swung wide open. I gasped in horror and wondered how many animals were gone. 

I had no need to wonder though. Lying down in the entry way of the gate, chewing his cud and looking as calm as a saint was Darcy, my white wether lamb. Peaches tiptoed forward towards the sight of freedom, but Darcy glared her back to her spot at the hay manger. My little sheep kept all fourteen animals exactly where they belonged. I scratched him on the chin and told him he was wonderful before gently scooting him away from the gate. He simply chewed more cud with a stoic expression on his velvety face. 

It's nice knowing that I have a sheep watching my back.