If I Never

If I never have to chase another steer through the soybean field it will be too soon. These three have been training for the Olympics obviously and can now sail over every pasture fence we've worked so hard to install these past few years. They are banned to a dry lot with four foot high wooden fences and a hay bale until that truck and trailer can come to load them up later this week.

Oh Mercy!

 

We named the new Jersey heifer Mercy. No other name seemed to fit. It may have had something to do with the fact that I expect both of us will need quite a bit of extra mercy if the time ever does come to attempt to milk her on a daily basis. She has mostly just been enjoying her easy life of grazing on green pastures for the past couple of months since bringing her home, but the time came to gentle her if we were ever going to do it. Rather than me risking life and limb I called in the pros: two young nephews who have a reputation for being Cow Whisperers.

 Thankfully they were the first ones to rub her all over.

They even broke her to ride, in case, you know, I get the crazy idea to ride her after I'm done milking her.

She gave them a little run for their money, but all in all she proved to be just what we had hoped for with a Jersey: calm, sweet and docile.

Since Mercy proved to be so easy the boys decided to gentle Thomas the big steer. 

 

He now thinks he should get a hug from me every day, too. Every day until I eat you, Mr. Thomas.

 

The Busy Season

We wake up tired these days and go to bed even more tired yet. The sun starts shining earlier, and sets later, and our bodies believe that they have to keep up with it. As long as that orbiting ball of fire is making its trek across the sky we assume that there must still be time to finish one more project.

The last of the seven bottle calves are close to being weaned. The vast difference between the couple months of their births making the red and white steer appear tiny in contrast to its more mature counterparts. The Black Angus are dwarfed under the Holsteins tall, lanky forms, their growth appearing outward rather than up.

There are still five does milking, with a total of thirteen goats in all. Too many bucks make up the lot of them, with one Craigslist reply away from reducing our herd. Soon it will be weaning time for the kids as well, which puts another item on the never ending list: more goat fencing.

Our young replacement pullets are thriving, and the new clutch of Silkie chicks are protected well under the wings of their possessive momma. One little black fluff ball doesn't realize it is a Light Brahma mix  that was adopted into the Bantam family when we snuck some extra eggs under the broody hen. Soon it will tower over its siblings.

The garden is growing weeds faster than edible plants it seems, and if we don't catch up on our daily barrage we may just have to give up. Using all manual labor, busy hands digging deep in the sandy soil to remove pesky roots, makes for buff muscles and nice farmers tans.

Several new fruit trees are growing well- four peach and another pear, plus some Saskatoon blueberries that the deer seem to have acquired a taste for which continue to remind me that tree fencing needs to be wrote on that list as well. We are attempting blueberries yet again, hoping for a freezer full of them one year. There may be at least a taste for everybody in a few days if we can keep the birds away from them.

Overall, it's been another season of missing. Intensely missing my son. Longing for eternity to begin.

Almost too tired to even grieve, the pain still refuses to end. Flashbacks enjoy popping into my weary brain lately, attacking when I have little resolve to fight them off. The balance of living before the accident and after is continuous. Life goes on. A mother's heart doesn't want to. Joy is rarely ever bereft of the longing. Laughter only hides the scar, still too fresh to ignore. Somehow living here, longing to be there. Finding purpose in one more calf bottle, pulling one more weed, storing up one more treasure, praying one more prayer for all these young souls that surround me, hoping for hope, waiting for what is not yet.

I continue to be reminded that the year of the Lord's favor will come. He will:

"Provide for those who grieve in Zion-

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness in the morning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."

Isaiah 61:3

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 tells me to not grieve like those without hope, or even to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. I believe that Jesus died and rose again and also that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. The familiar words almost become rote in my tired state. I have repeated them so often that it becomes hard to make them exciting lately. I pray for God to wake me up to the gospel again, remembering those same words being uttered just before the accident.

Eternity.

I stop and ponder the word again. Eternity. Going insane wondering what Trent is doing there, wondering why mine is taking so long to begin. Wondering what to do in the meantime. Begging that my children would all be found there in Heaven together.

The Sovereignty of God as it Pertains to Calves and Farmwives

After pondering the deep truths of Scripture, watching an encouraging message via the worldwide web from titans of the Christian faith, talking to Alexis about my amazement over the intricacies of God's working through His sovereignty while mixing calf bottles and drinking one cup too much of coffee, I finally walked out the back door to start chores, only to discover the dry lot gate standing wide open.

With. not. one. young. bovine. in. sight.

The sinking feeling of despair was bolstered by my wise cracking teenage daughter who was quick to repeat her mother's wisdom, "Well, God's sovereign, right?"

Right.

Two months and too many bottle feedings flashed through my brain in an instant. I considered my options: crawl back into bed and wait for Rob to come home and deal with it, or humble myself before the neighbors who have already had to witness our horses in their yard this Spring and the whole herd of goats in the middle of the road last week. I chose the latter. Back up to the house to put on some mascara and some mud boots, then we grabbed the keys and hopped in the truck.

Being too early to eat crow pie we just made a quick jaunt down to the South neighbor, perusing the East neighbors field along the way, before we decided to turn around and check out the high grass beyond our own soybean field. The little buggers were found in the cool shade of the tree line, leaving their little cleft toed imprints in the soft dirt as a clear trail to follow.

Yep, God's sovereign alright. But sometimes I wonder what the benefit is of a forty year old farmwife running through the soybean field chasing after five black and white steers.

Redneck Farmers

 

You haven't truly lived until you've experienced the excitement of hauling two Black Angus bull calves two-and-a-half hours one way in the back of your minivan. For some reason the word "Redneck" keeps rolling through my brain.

The Problem With Farm Auctions

 The problem with farm auctions is that you get so caught up in the excitement and hand waving that you forget just what you went there for in the first place. Standing in the dusty Fair building next to the local farmers and wanna-be farmers watching one bovine after another traipse through the make-shift ring gets your adrenaline pumping and soon your dreams change shape right before your very eyes. I didn't even realize that I had dreams of raising a Jersey milk cow until tonight.

After the first group of beautiful heifers came through I started to think that a refrigerator full of unpasteurized, hand squeezed milk would be the next best thing, but their high price tag scared me off. Then, a few sales later, and with only a couple of stragglers left, the slim pickins got pretty cheap.

There she was, the skinniest most bedraggled red critter in the barn. When the auctioneer could barely get one hundred dollars to start the bid I nudged Rob and suggested she would make a perfect mother's day present. Up went his hand, then again and again, and number twenty-nine was the proud new owner of  our very own Jersey heifer. After finding a trailer to haul her home in we tucked her into her own dry lot and will patiently wait for the sun to come up in the morning to see what we really bought.

Now for a name: Daisy, Milly, Mercy, Petunia, Hamburger...

The Smell of Fall

With three bucks locked in a stall in the goat barn, the smell of Fall is in the air. I can feel the shift of the seasons beginning in my own body and mind as well. The slowing down of summer chaos has begun, and I am beginning to relish the thought of lazy, snowy afternoons with a cup of hot chocolate and books to read or write.

Home school thoughts are creeping in. Not that any of us are quite ready for it yet, but we're getting closer to being ready for it. I have yet to begin to put together any official curriculums, but rather have a vague list in my head of who needs what. When the gumption strikes(and Lord willing it will strike this week, perhaps after the corn is picked and put away in the freezer and the tomatoes have been canned)I will attempt to niche out a couple of quiet hours and type up a schedule and dig through the shelves to see if we need to order additional books. I have successfully ignored WalMart for several consecutive weeks, but I may have to break down to take advantage of their pencil sales.

This may be, by far, the easiest Fall farm preparation we have had since moving to this abandoned plot of our dreams. There are no falling down barns this year, no plastic to staple up to block the drafts, no half-built chicken coops to finish trimming before the frost comes, and no imminent projects to finish. The calves have shelter, the goat stalls all have gates, and the chicken's toes should stay warm in their insulated abode.

Soon the pigs will be shipped off to the locker plant. I never have to feel like we waste any food with pigs around as every little scrap is fed back to ultimately feed us back. The three steers will be a bit smaller this year as we have refused to pay the high prices of corn, but God always makes it enough. The three young steers are growing just fine on grass, and given the state of the pastures they make me think again that we could have raised four.

There are eight does to condition for the upcoming breeding season which ushers in the dreaming season of spotted kids in early 2013. Soap classes continue to be a success, and an invitation to host a goat's milk soap booth this fall at a local event is a good sign that their livelihood on the farm is secure.

The garden is dwindling down. It hasn't been a stellar year, but we have had it so much better than most of the country. If my world wasn't so consumed by grief I would probably be much more appreciative of the lush green that surrounds us up North.

Thanking God, again, for His sustenance on OurCrazyFarm.

A Day Late and a Couple Dollars Short -or-April Counts

If anything, I am late. And so it is, never failing, the April counts are in ... ahem ... on May 10.

Egg totals (from 15 laying hens, two of whom thought they would brood several rotten eggs for a few weeks and receive free room and board with absolutely nothing to show for it, poor bitties): 202 eggs, almost 17 dozen, averaging 7.48 eggs a day, all this considering that the farmers wife forgot to record three days in the busy month of April.

Goats Milk (from 6 goats at the beginning of the month, down to 4 goats mid-month, with one milking a day from does who also raised their babies): 54 1/2 gallons of farm fresh goats milk (I only missed marking one day, five days we didn't milk), averaging 2.3 gallons a day. The milk was used to finish raising the three holstein calves (that are now officially weaned! Yippee!), as well as lots going into the freezer for future soap making. I even tried my hand again at making cheese!

Lots of baby kittens were born~ twelve to be exact. Any reasonable offers are being accepted ~ they're "freer" if you take several ~ and I may even pay you to take some.

Ten more baby bunnies were born to Cole's prosperous farm business.

Several pullets were sold to many happy Craigslisters.

The eight pigs are fat and happy eating their cheese and whey.

And now, after I feed all those hungry critters, I'm going to start catching up on the May calendar.

March Counts

Once upon a time I used to keep detailed farm records via blog posts of all the productivity around here. It served as a good way to remember just when the goat kids were born, or when the calves should be weaned. So .... in the hopes of it being a monthly occurence once again, the counts, tallies and farm news are in for March 2012.

The most recent excitement on the farm has been the addition of eight new pigs as of yesterday. Although the idea of raising a sow and farrowing our own cute little piglets is appealing, the idea of castrating them is not, so we are content to bring them home in the back of the truck ready to eat all the left-over Dairy cheese and whey (plus garden and table scraps) that they want until they reach an average weight of 250# and head off to the locker plant to fill our freezers as well as those of some other happy customers.

Sadly, Boaz the pup has found a new home. My heart strings nearly made me keep two big labs, but the pocket-book strings realized that we really don't need to feed two big labs. Plus, I have hopes of actually reclaiming the couch one day. Sigh. Those eyes....

Cole's farm was blessed with seven new additions this week when his bunny surprised him a week earlier than expected with babies. Of all the kids, Cole is the one who loves farming and critters. It helps that he is also a hard worker and financially wise (and I think God just enjoys blessing him) which has enabled him to build a little farm enterprise of rabbits and Silkie chickens. He has been my right hand chicken man for several years, and has outdone me on chick sales already this spring with his intuition of what the chicken-buying public wants.

We are watching Lightning and Sassy pretty close this spring. Last year it was on the agenda to get a certain stud colt gelded, but due to being otherwise preoccupied, it never happened. Which leaves us guessing .... are they or aren't they expecting??? Hmm.... lot's of fresh green grass or baby bulges???

The three big steers are growing well. We have ended up already with pasture dilemma's this month as we have one too many variety of critters and one too few pastures for them all. The steers are fed supplemental grain, which means they can't be with the horses. The goats could run with the steers, but then they climb in the round bale feeder and make a mess in the hay, not to mention that the steer pasture fencing is not all goat proof yet, which means there are goats in my yard on a regular basis. Then there are water issues, who to fence where so that everybody has access to automatic waterers. Fencing is on the list for the sixth year in a row as we continue to figure out a way for all these critters to co-exist.

The three bottle calves in the barn are doing great. Their ears are still going the right direction, which is always a good sign. I haven't done the math yet to know the exact figures if it is actually cheaper to raise two goats per year to feed one calf for six weeks, but I do know that it's cheaper than burying dead calves due to scours from raising them on milk replacer as we did for so many years.

And talking about those goats .... I think I may have too many. As the numbers have changed so often in the past couple of months I tend to lose track of just how many I have in any given week. This week it's eight babies, six milking does, two (hopefully still) expecting does, and one handsome buck, which equals 17 goats. Some of those babies will be finding new homes in the next couple of months after they are weaned, we will keep a couple of the bucks for breeding this fall, as well as keeping the doelings to build up our herd as we have a couple of does that will probably be culled next season.

March milk total: 68 1/4 gallons (plus the spilled milk, and the three days that we forgot to record). Wow! Sixty eight GALLONS of goats milk from one milking a day to sustain three calves, plus raise their own kids~ now that's a work force in action!

Besides the joy we get from raising these critters, we have also strived to make the farm animals profitable enough to at least cover their own feed costs. The goats provide in several ways: kids for resale, milk to raise the calves on, milk for soap (for family use plus soap making classes) and cheese for the Fair competitions. As odd as it sounds, we don't drink the milk. I really, really wish we could acquire a taste for it, but after all these years we just haven't been able to. Maybe after calf season we'll try again.

We can't forget the chickens. From 13 Light Brahma hens, and a couple of Silkie hens, we gathered a total of 267 eggs (besides the three days we forgot to record); just over 22 dozen eggs. Plus, we raised 200 chicks. Now I officially know why I have been so tired. This super busy season of farm life will slow down soon as all of the babies are getting bigger and will require less hands-on care before too long, and just about the time that happens we will be gearing up to plant the garden. Aaahhh.... Farm life!

The Insanity

Life.

It just has a way of keepin' on, even if you can't keep up with it.

It has been crazy busy around here lately. A birthday and an anniversary and purposely scheduled craziness might have something to do with it, but still .... crazy busy.

Five of the six poodle-pie puppies have found new homes, which means that I have five less poodle-pie puppy messes to clean up every morning. Grace has gone from one puppy to the other making them her favorites as they all leave: first D-O-G (said phonetically, Deogie) and Licorice left, then Cheesenout, and Rosie, and yesterday Chocolate, leaving behind little Boaz who is doing his best job to convince us that we do need a goofy little yellow lab. Sigh .... Rob is doing his best to stand his ground amongst all of us animal lovers.

The farm is busy, too, with six milking does now. Martha delivered last week~ another buckling. We have decided that next year must be our doe year as we are over run with bucks right now. This new guy brings the total up to 6 bucks and 2 does. Micah donned him "Stripey" as the rest of us were all pretty much named out. Lord willing, pictures to come as soon as I can spare a hand to carry the camera down to the barn amongst the three calf bottles, water jugs, egg basket and milking supplies.

Yes, we also got our bottle calves. It is more of a "going through the motions" event this year with little to no fan-fare over the black and white buggers. Again, Lord willing, pictures to come soon, and I'll try to write a detailed post of how we raise them on goats milk in the near future.

And then there are the chickens: our egg laying girls have been loving the sunshine and have been laying us lots of farm fresh eggs. In an attempt to get back on track with actually farming we have been recording eggs again. In the last ten days of February we brought in 74 eggs from 16 hens. Good job girls!

Our pullet chicks are doing great, and there are some very happy Craigslist people who bought several over the weekend. We still have some little ones in the basement waiting to graduate to the big outside coop, and some more six week old pullets waiting for homes if anybody needs them. Overall the chicken business is good for so early in the spring.

The weather has been crazy, too. We had the biggest snowstorm of the season a couple of weeks ago, and in the past two days it has been so warm that all the snow has melted. The kids dug out the shorts and flip-flops today and even took out the duck boat on the pond to celebrate.

I bought roses. This, in itself, was a significant event because it's one of those things that we used to do when Trent was here. As a reward for making it through Aldi's with two overflowing shopping carts, we would take turns picking out bouquets. When Grace saw the flower displays last week on our grocery shopping trip she asked if she could pick some out .... I woke up from my stupor enough to say yes.

Insane is how I have felt lately. If somebody would just find me a straight jacket in a cute brown and pink pattern I could be content sitting in a padded room rocking back and forth. And then don't wake me up until it's my turn to go to heaven.

The crying doesn't seem to do any good, so I have opted for the insanity behind curtain number three these days. I mean, really, how else does one wrap their brain around the fact that their son is not here? Thoughts of God and His glory and heaven consume me unrelentingly. And for the millionth time I ask: How do you go on living here? What do you live for? When you know that this is all temporary, what is worth investing in?

It's worse than having to cook three meals a day only to have it all eaten in moments and then have to wash the dishes three times a day only to get up and know you have to do it do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day.

Oh~ and the tiny push that sent me cascading into the insanity mode: somebody stole Trent's identity and claimed him on their taxes. Yes, we were informed that we would have to paper file our taxes and prove to the government that our dead son was really our dead son rather than somebody else's dead son who was claiming that our dead son was their dead son. Uh-huh. Now you see why that cute little straight jacket might not be so bad? Who would even think up these things?

So, I humour myself with barn chores twice a day: feed the calves, feed the goats, feed the chicks, feed the calves, feed the goats, feed the chicks. It's cheap therapy.

Farm Stuff

Oh, that's right . . . we are farmers. As Grace has been praying so often for me lately, I am trying to find my joy again. Farming has been more therapy than joy this past year: a good reason to get my sorry self out of the house and do something constructive. All my well laid out plans for worldly success has ceased to be enough, and I have just been in survival mode. Rob and I have committed to no major life changes (we've been very tempted, but have stayed the course) at this point, knowing that grief does crazy things to you. So I continue to fight to find my joy in what used to bring great joy: kids, horses, goats, simply living. These cute little critters have helped lately. I'm slowly remembering why we dared to attempt to make this dream come true five years ago.
We now have seven surviving goat kid's: 5 bucklings and 2 doelings. Cole and I have started milking five does in the mornings and are getting a measly gallon-and-a-quarter a day. If we had been better farmers and started milking right away the girls would have been doubling that amount ... Yeesh! I'm surprised the earth hasn't opened right up and swallowed me for all the grumbling I've been doing around here lately. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Grumble that the coffee doesn't taste good, grumble that the puppies bark all night, grumble that I have four kids and an old farmhouse in the middle of a long {unbelievably easy, nearly tropical} Wisconsin winter. Finding myself on my backside looking up at the evening sky after slipping on the ice helped changed the grumbling into thankfulness for not having a broken leg last night. 1,000 blessings here I come.

One first-timer doe is due this weekend: Jacob's first offspring~ I can't wait! Actually, I forgot about the poor little doe being due, as she is the only one expecting this month (unless, of course, I miscalculated the other two first-timer doe's due dates, which is very possible.) If all goes well, and Lord willing, we will hope to add three Holstein bottle-calves to the farm next week. They will be raised off of goats milk, and unless milk production increases dramatically, some supplement milk-replacer.

Chickens ... now that's where the farm money is.

Our first batch of 100 chicks have graduated out of the basement and into Cole's chicken coop with a heat lamp, leaving the newest 100 little chicks in the basement to get off to a good start.

These chicks will all be raised for resale (except for a few replacement hens for us) as egg layers, unless of course Rob's nightmare comes true and we become the next "Egg and I" story with 600 chickens this summer. Poor man to have to live with a woman who's dreams consist of critters, and more critters.