Bert, the dud

I've got good news and bad news.

First, the good news. I will have a freezer FULL of wonderful grass-fed beef in a few months.

And the bad news? Bert failed his sperm count test.

No, that title isn't a typo. I didn't mean dude.

We loaded Bert up into the trailer on Sunday evening for a trip to the vet first thing Monday morning. It actually went very smoothly. We expected a real hassle getting him into the trailer, but he just followed the armful of alfalfa. The vet gave him a score of 62, which is failing. While we could keep him and see if he could breed anyone, we don't have the herd size to risk not getting our girls bred. We can't get him into the locker until mid-March anyway, so we are planning to just hold onto him until maybe mid-June so he has some time to start fattening up on green grass a little before he goes in. We should have grass by mid-April, so it seems silly to save ourselves the hay feeding of that last month when we've come this far.

Now, though, we are in a bit of a pickle. We were counting on having our girls bred in August to calve the following spring. But, that is awfully hard to do without a bull. Don is going to visit a guy selling a Jersey bull on Saturday, so if all goes well, he'll buy him. The new bull will actually make a visit to Harriet (and hopefully do what Bert failed to do!) and then spend the rest of the winter at a friend's place who wants to get his cows bred. He'll come back here, then, in the spring.

Although I'm disappointed that we've got a dud bull, I am thrilled beyond belief at the prospect of all that beef! We'll probably try to sell half of the meat and keep the rest. Yummy!!

Little Braids

Someone around here is getting hair long enough for braids. What we call "Laura braids" from Meagan's obsession with everything Little House on the Prairie.
That someone is also, apparently, camera shy...

Drawing Textbook

I really love art. It is funny, though, because I grew up absolutely terrified of it. I was convinced by the time I hit middle school that I couldn't possibly do anything even remotely artsy. I drew and drew as a young child, but during those awkward middle years, something changed. Perhaps someone said something rude. I don't remember. All I knew is that I could. not. draw.

And I didn't. Until I was married and on a whim, signed up for a college art class. Oh my, did I have fun. I often went early and left late, just to get in some extra time working with the teacher. And, at the end of the year, she actually bought one of my projects! Wow. I had forgotten about that until just now. Anyway, that opened up so much for me. I still am no great artist and I really have to work to draw and don't even ask me to draw from life because that is HARD. But, I enjoy it.

My kids were totally stuck in their drawing. They had been drawing the exact same stick people with circles for mouths that they drew at the age of 4. I tried in vain to get them to draw what they saw and not what they "knew". I wanted them to see that we don't actually have circles for mouths, nor do our arms look like sticks, etc. I knew we needed drawing lessons, but I didn't know where to start.

One day, I stumbled across a post on Baker's Dozen about Drawing Textbook. I placed my order and have been so happy with the lessons. When we first started, we flipped through the book and the kids started screaming that they could never do those later lessons. We just finished the book today. And, I'm happy to report that they have done wonderfully. I'm not sending them to art school just yet, but they've developed so much in their abilities. And, I've had so much fun going along for the ride.

Meagan's creations:
Caleb's creations:
And a few of my own:
Fun, fun, fun!

The best-laid plans...

Just when I had plenty to write about and pictures to go with, I am stuck (bad choice of words because I wouldn't want it any other way!) with a sick babe in my arms. Poor Josh spent the night battling a 104-degree fever and though it is much-improved, he still wants constant snuggling. So, since typing one-handed is a bit of a drag, writing will have to wait.

But, here's a cute picture of him in the meantime. Check out the six-pack...on his back!!!

January 2010 Farm Production

Somehow, I write a post and then 11 days go by without anything. I don't quite ever know exactly where all that time went, but it sure does go fast. Ah well, here's to more consistency...

Anyway, things have been pretty consistent on the milk and egg front, except that we didn't milk for 4 days due to a really bad storm. With all the calves in the barn, there wasn't any milk left for us! Our visitor, Harriet, has returned to her family, and we've still not started milking Lily or Belle. We are thinking about just not adding to the winter work load with them. We are getting plenty of milk for now. We'll see. Our thinking may change. The good news, though, is that Belle has been much less skittish. She is actually letting us lead her by the halter. The bad news is that Harriet did not get bred which means either Bert is a dud or she just didn't take for some reason. The next thing to do is to load Bert on the trailer and take him in to be tested. That'll be fun. Jersey bulls are not known for their friendly demeanor. It's not like you can just loop a halter on him and say, "Come."

Eggs collected: 343, or about 28.5 dozen (about 11/day)

Milk collected: 1291 cups, or nearly 81 gallons (about 2.88 gallons/day)
Milk sold: 2 gallons

Oh, and our pig is getting close to butcher-age. We'll be trying to sell her, as we still have lots of pork left from our last butchering.

Boys with knives

For a baby boy with an older brother, this is bound to happen...

Hot cocoa

When the weather outside is frightful, nothing warms us up like some homemade hot cocoa. And because we always have a large amount of milk in the fridge, we get to make it very authentically.

Hot Cocoa

Mix together:
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup sugar (I use Rapadura, but I'm still working on reducing the amount)
pinch salt
1/3 cup boiling water

Bring to a boil and then gently simmer for 2 minutes, being careful to not scorch it.

Add 4 cups milk and heat to very hot, but do not boil.

Remove from heat and add 3/4 tsp vanilla.

Even Abby gets a little, though I ladle her's out before it gets very warm!

Big boy

This is all happening way too fast. Josh is now getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. He rolls all over the place and gets into anything within a foot of the floor. My goodness, do these babies ever stop growing so fast?

Wedded bliss

Don and I were married on New Year's Eve fifteen years ago. Fifteen years! That is hardly believable. Especially since I haven't aged at all in that time. I should really dig out a wedding photo, though, because Don has changed so much. He used to have this skinny pencil neck! Of course, he was only 21 at the time.

We don't often exchange gifts for our anniversary. It's proximity to Christmas makes gift-giving seem extraneous. But, this year, we skipped the Christmas gifts. We only gave gifts to people outside our immediate family. So, when I had an idea just a few days before our anniversary, I decided to act on it.

Don loves foosball. He and a buddy used to play nearly daily when we lived in Oklahoma. And now, we have this wonderful new sunroom to enjoy but only some garden benches for it in the way of furniture. Lots of empty space. So, I got on Craigslist.

Score.

At the moment, you have to be a real die-hard to want to play in the sunroom because it is C.O.L.D. We've been down to -11 degrees and it isn't much warmer in there yet. Drywall is going in though, so we will soon get to open the house up to the new rooms and start up our new wood-burning stove. It will get better. For now, though, it's coats, hats, and gloves if you want to play.
It makes it just that much more of a challenge.

Another prairie dress

A long time ago, I made this dress for Meagan. I didn't know a whole lot about sewing, especially pattern sizes, so it was entirely too big. Well, the girl has been growing like a weed since then and now it fits.

And my, but she does look cute in it. She absolutely loves it.

For her birthday, she got a gift card to Hancock Fabrics. She wanted to make another dress, so she and I were digging through my fabric to see what we already had. We found some pink floral fabric, enough for the dress and bonnet, so she used her gift card for the pinafore. I've spent the last several days sewing away.

Here it is...
The pinafore fabric is a little thicker than the blue I used for the other dress, which is good because she's not exactly the type of girl who sits around with her ankles crossed. I've had to repair a button that pulled out on the blue pinafore.

One more winter project that I can cross off my list!

True Confessions

I have a confession to make. For all my insistence on healthful eating, for all of my efforts to eat local, organically produced foods, I have a miserable love for Coke. It's a love-hate thing, really. In that I hate that I love it. But, oh, I do.

That is why I did the happy dance when I saw this in the cooler at the checkouts in Walmart (which, of course, my shopping there could be a confession of its own...it doesn't happen often, I swear!!):
Made with real sugar. Frankly, I couldn't taste a big difference. But I was so excited to get my fix without the high fructose corn syrup. Limited time only, and it isn't coke, but it'll do.

And, as long as I'm making confessions, here's another...I once went out in public like this:
It's not something I'm proud of.

December 2009 Farm Production

Our egg production is finally up. The reason for this is twofold...They aren't leaving the coop much due to snow (which means they aren't laying eggs in odd places around the farm) and they are getting extra light through the heat lamp. I finally have eggs enough for some breakfasts again, as well as extra for baking.

Eggs collected: 273, or 22.75 dozen (almost 9/day)

Milk has been a bit of a yoyo lately. We've got lots extra due to visiting Harriet, but we've also had to bring all the cows in on some days due to extreme weather. When they are all together, Norman makes the rounds, emptying everyone out. We also had several low days with Harriet until we realized that Bert was helping himself as well! The stinker. He must be a little confused as to his role with Harriet. We are not currently milking Belle or Lily...we'll probably wait until Harriet goes home to start that. For now, they are just feeding their calves. Anyway, we've still gotten plenty of milk!

Milk collected: 1285 cups, or 80.3 gallons (about 2.6 gallons/day)
Milk sold: 2 gallons
Milk products made: 2 lbs each of gouda, queso blanco, and cottage cheese, as well as butter, ice cream, and yogurt galore

And except for the 2 new calves, that's the extent of farm production for this month! And, like last year, I'm going to include a line graph for the year. What can I say? I'm a first-born. The milk is cups and the eggs are counted singly.

Big Book Review, Vol. 4

It's that time again...time when I sit down and record what I've read over the past six months or so. Once again, the actual number of books is much lower than I feel like it should be. Part of that is because I've got so many periodicals that I read, part because I've been totally into listening to the "Stuff You Missed In History Class" podcast (both current and past podcasts), part because I have a newborn for crying out loud, and part because the first book I worked on was a total monster of a book.

Here's the list:

Building Christian Character: A Devotional Guidebook through the Elements of Christian Character for Children and Adults by Blair Adams (image from first edition)

This was a heavy book, and I'm not just talking about weight. It was over 350 pages full of elements that make up Christian character, their polar opposites, and Bible verses pertaining to each. I understand there is a system available to use it in schooling that I'd really like to get my hands on. I often found myself thinking, "wow, I'd really like to have the kids memorize this list of verses," about a whole variety of character issues that still need polishing. Of course, I need my own bit of polishing as well...


Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel

A very informative book. Our new root cellar going in made it so that I needed to learn something about cold storage...Stat. I appreciated the logical layout of the book. I even got a good pumpkin pie recipe (using honey in the filling and butter in the crust) that everyone here enjoyed.





I also read the following books as a preview for Caleb, whose insatiable appetite for books has left me scrambling to find good books for him:

Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer L. Holm

Really enjoyable. It's about a Finnish family, a girl with 7 older brothers whose desperately hoping for a baby sister, and life on the Nasel River at the turn of the century. May Amelia is constantly getting into trouble, but she really has a heart of gold. I passed it along to Caleb.






The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

The book must be out of print because I couldn't find it listed, except for used copies, on Amazon. It is about a Dutch Jewish family forced into hiding in WWII. The book focuses on the youngest daughter who, along with her middle sister, must stay in the upstairs room of a farm house. You do really get a sense of how maddening it would have been to be, essentially, prisoners. And once free, how awkward it would be to rejoin the world. I haven't passed it on to Caleb for one reason: language. The farmer they live with lets a few words fly that are unacceptable in our house. As far as exposure to Nazis go, the book is actually quite a gentle introduction to the atrocities. It is a shame that it is ruined by language.


The Fire Pony by Rodman Philbrick

I liked it. It totally made me want to ride horses. There is some intrigue in it...a past that haunts the main character's older brother. You never know exactly what happened, but you know that they have to keep moving to stay ahead of his past. The ending is good. I won't spoil it, but I felt it was a great ending to a kid's book. I did pass this one along to Caleb as well.






The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman

I must admit I was drawn to this one because of my fondness for midwifery. The description on the back wasn't too enticing, but I read it anyway. I really liked it. It reminded me somewhat of The Tale of Despereaux in that it is a simple story with deep underlying emotional growth for the characters. However, it is crass in places. True to the medieval time period in which it is set, there are several (maybe 4?) references to someone being caught with their breeches down, pinches, warm & sticky kisses, and the like. Nothing overly vulgar, but I will wait a few years before letting Caleb read this one if he gets it at all. I haven't decided that one yet. Does it pass the "Whatever is good, whatever is noble..." test? Hmmm.

Books we read for school:

• Walk the World's Rim by Betty Baker - Good story that inserts a fictional character into real history. When we went to learn the real story behind the book, we were amazed at how true to life it actually stayed. A hard look, also, at slavery and honor.
• Pedro's Journal by Pam Conrad - Diary of a boy on Columbus' ship. Great way to learn about life on a ship during that time and about Columbus specifically.
• Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark - Honestly, I had to trudge through this one. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally, I just can't figure out why Sonlight picked a certain book. This is my core 3 question mark.
• Incans, Aztecs, and Mayans by John Holzmann - We really enjoyed learning through this book. And, I've been amazed at what the kids have retained. In fact, Meagan often writes a number in the base-20 Mayan way after learning about it in the book.
• Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare - We all really enjoyed this one about a boy who is left to care for the home while his father is gone for months to bring the rest of the family back.
  
• Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare - Another wonderful book...one of those that the kids are chanting "One more chapter!" after each reading. The main character is 16, so I was a little concerned that it would be too mature for them, but they loved it. It is about a girl of privilege from Barbados who loses everything and is forced to turn to relatives in colonial Connecticut. She is accused of witchcraft and discovers who really loves her through it.
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes - We aren't finished yet, but it looks like it'll be a winner.

That's all for this year! Happy reading!

Babysitting Harriet

We are doing a little babysitting over the holidays for some friends of ours. It really isn't a bad deal at all. They paid us for the trouble in honey and Harriet comes with her own system of payment as well...more milk!

Harriet is another Jersey who is here for 2 purposes. First, we are milking her daily so that her family will not come home from their vacation to a dry cow. Second, she is here to get bred. She visited Bert a while back for a day, but it didn't work out for her. This time, we are hoping that her extended stay will create a bred cow to return. Cows don't seem to appreciate just being thrown in with a bull and expected to come out bred in a few hours. They need to get to know the guy. They need some romance.

Bert is up to the task. He is so happy to have someone in his pen with him. He was getting lonely. What he doesn't know is that he is being tested. If Harriet doesn't get bred, Bert may end up in my freezer sooner than expected. Of course, Annabelle is his other test. She should be bred, though we don't know. If Harriet goes home still "open", we'll probably get Annabelle's status confirmed...before we do anything drastic.

He is a good-looking bull, though, in my completely unprofessional opinion. But looks won't cut it if he can't get his job done. I don't need an aggressive, horned, and useless lawn ornament. I could use some beef though.

And baby makes nine.

Lily is the proud new mama of a baby bull calf! I do realize that if we continue to grow like this, at some point, it would be silly to post each birth announcement. But, for now, it is still so new and exciting for us that I simply have to share!

Lily and Belle were bred to the same bull, so it isn't too surprising that their calves are nearly identical. The guys went out to milk this morning and Don's dad opened the back door of the barn. He had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing double.

We've named the little tyke Runza. His future is nearly certain as beef, so we thought a food name was appropriate. Being named after a Nebraska favorite beef sandwich seemed natural.

Lily is a wee bit short. She is so short that when we've used the bucket milker on her, the claw (the part that attaches to her teats) nearly scrapes the ground. We always laughed about it, wondering how on earth a calf could get low enough to nurse off of her. We still don't know, incidentally. Runza wasn't hungry when I was out there taking pictures. Someday, I'm sure I'll catch them in the act, though, and the mystery will be solved. We suspect that he may get down on his knees, but we aren't sure. You can see, though, in the photo, when he came over to check her out that he is a little tall to nurse like most calves do. Caleb thinks we ought to make a stand for her to get up on so he can nurse more easily.

There is Snowflake and Runza together. Snowflake is definitely bigger in comparison, with just 10 days between them.

Baby calves are just the same as baby humans...sleep is a favorite pastime.