Cheaters never prosper...but they do get butter faster.

One of the lovely things about having more milk than we can drink is that I have the guilt-free opportunity to skim off the cream, feed the skimmed milk to the pigs, and make something wonderful. Often, that something is ice cream. I've already written about my problem with ice cream, so I doubt I have to extol the virtues of that option. But lately, I've been making butter.

If you've never tried fresh butter, especially the raw, fresh, deliciously yellow butter from a Jersey cow on grass, you really should. Oh, the sweet, sweet smell. I know the stuff sells for upwards of $10/lb, but if you can find a way to splurge, do it! Or, find a nice source of milk and make your own!

I've made butter before by the good, old jar method. The shake-the-jar-until-your-arms-are-falling-off-and-you-want-to-curse-the-butter method. And that is certainly a fine way to make it. But someone once showed me how to do it using a food processor, and I don't plan on going back. Unless the system collapses and I have to, that is...but then, there will be bigger problems than tired arms. Until then, though, it is so easy...

Add the cream...
Turn that puppy on...
Drain off the buttermilk...
Look at your lovely butter...
Rinse thoroughly with cold water...
Plop it in a butter bell - mine was handmade at Homestead Heritage (or shape and refrigerate or freeze)...

Yum!

We had been planning on not milking through the winter (Thanksgiving would be our quittin' time), and just drying off the cows. But since Caroline calved so late in the year, we won't be doing that. And it's a good thing too, because I really love having milk, butter, and homemade ice cream available. I am truly spoiled!

Two.

Abby turned two yesterday...and suddenly, I feel older. What's with that???

She is still holding back on talking, though she has added a few more words to her vocabulary, including a Russian goodbye. I keep telling Oma that I'm having a hard enough time getting her to speak English, but what can you do? You can't fight progress, no matter the language.And two years later, she's still a precious miracle.

First day.

After 5 and a half months of waiting and trusting, Don has finally gotten a job! He started today. And even though time went on and his expectations of job quality diminished, God really showed him that he would provide above and beyond. It's not the highest paying job in the world, but it will provide...and more importantly, he is really excited about the work. It could hardly be more different from what he was doing before, but his prior experience should really be helpful. He'll be working at a farmer's coop, doing safety compliance.

Now, we just have to figure out how to get along without him home! Five and a half months is a long time...we really started to rely on his being here. I'm just hoping that the house addition doesn't slow down too much!

Where's Abby?

Is that a foot?

Abby loves to tuck herself in between 2 bookcases and arrange her toys in front of her and on the shelf.

And I must say, she has a little of her big brother in her. That boy would line things up like you wouldn't believe. We'd often find lines of toys stretching across his room. Her desire to be neat and tidy, though, goes beyond that because she actually will pick toys up so as to not leave a mess.

It's CDO...like OCD, but in alphabetical order like it should be.

Norman has two mommies

One of the things you learn when you keep dairy cattle is that every cow is different. Every. Cow.

There are ones who produce a large quantity of milk and those who produce less, but maybe have thicker, creamier milk. There are those who are a dream to milk, standing still in the stanchion and not even switching their tails. And there are those who stomp around and feel that milking time is the best time to empty the bowels. There are those who are consistently dirtier and those who somehow keep themselves tidy. There are those who would never, ever willingly let another calf nurse off of them and those who will either actively or passively adopt whomever gives their bag a nudge.

Isabelle is a born nurse cow.

Norman has been kept close to the house along with his mama, Caroline, and Isabelle, our other cow in milk right now. It makes milking chores much more pleasant, especially on bitter cold mornings. The other 4 (Lily, Belle, Annabelle, and big, ole' Burt) are out in the big pasture.

Shortly after Norman was born, Isabelle decided she was lonesome for a calf of her own and began offering her services to Norman. He was happy to oblige, of course, because what is better than a big bag of milk at your disposal? Two of them! She even seems to think that it is at least half her responsibility to protect the little guy and keeps a close eye on us when we get near to him.

At the moment, we're letting this continue. It makes for a surprise each morning, as we never know who will be full and who will have just been emptied by Norman.

Soon, however, we will send Norman out to the pasture with Isabelle. Isabelle doesn't produce quite as much milk as Caroline, so we'll let her take the calf and keep Caroline close to the house to be milked exclusively by us. We are expecting Belle to calf early in the year, so we'll be bringing her in so that we can start working with her before she calves. She is the wildest of the herd, so she definitely needs to get used to being handled, especially if we need to assist in any way during the birth.

Until all that happens, though, Norman is sure getting his fill.

House update

Things are moving along nicely with the addition. You can see that the retaining wall is just about done and that the house is getting wrapped and windowed (surely that is a word, right?). Don finally decided to rent a Bobcat to move dirt, since we had to backfill around the wall. Shoveling the dirt over, one wheelbarrow load at a time, was just taking way too long. The siding and roofing is supposed to go up this coming week. It'll be a whole new house by next weekend, that is, if the rain will stay away enough to get the work done!

Nineteen Pounds

Okay, so I knew that Josh will just about break your arm if you have to carry him for any length of time.And I knew that he and Abby wear almost the same size diaper.And I knew that it wouldn't be outrageous to suggest a big baby, as I have had 3 before.But 19 pounds at just 3.5 months?That's one big boy.

Waiter, there's a hair in my soup.

I do believe that one of the sneakiest, least talked about, issues of new motherhood is hair loss. Those pregnancy books that gush over the lustrous hair that you'll have during your nine (or, in my case, ten) months of waiting really do us a disservice by ignoring the inevitable. That hair...that lustrous hair...that which just does not fall out on a daily basis during pregnancy? It's coming out sometime.

And so, along will dealing with too-tight pants and leaking milk, you must also lose all your hair. Oh, I know that the body is just playing catch-up. But, seriously...when I see all that hair in the shower, I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a wig.

And a hair net.

Rubbing Elbows

In the past few months, I've been so pleased to see someone I know get published and another friend mentioned in a magazine article.

The first is Ben Gotschall. He is the herdsman at the dairy that we used to buy our raw milk from (before we started milking our own cows) and he was the one who delivered our Annabelle to us when we bought her from Ben's dad (who, by the way, is named Jerry...how can you not love that? Ben and Jerry???) He has started writing articles for Stockman Grass Farmer, sharing his vast knowledge of cattle with his readers. Ben is all cowboy, and, amazingly enough, is also a poet and has published a book called Where It Happened. What fun!

The second was a surprise to me. I was reading an article in Stockman Grass Farmer (different article!) when I stumbled upon the name of Butch Tindell of Texas. He is the man at Homestead Heritage who taught the homesteading course that Don and I took a few years back. And, this last time we visited, opened his home up to us for a lovely dinner. He is a wonderful mixture o knowledge and hospitality. He will be teaching at an upcoming seminar in Colorado as he represents Homestead's business model for their grass-fed/grass-finished beef.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I have joined the ranks of those in print. Mother Earth News printed the letter to the editor that I wrote! I was reading my October issue and imagine my shock when I read my own letter. I had written about our experience building a homemade chicken plucker (the one designed by Herrick Kimball). Of course, I realize that my claim to fame isn't nearly as exciting as a book of poetry or being a keynote speaker at a conference, but I'll take what I can get.

Autographs available upon request.

October 2009 Farm Production

Ahhh, it's good to be back. I will say that as time away from the internet wore on (and on), I was getting more and more used to not having it around. But, I am glad to be able to check the bank account, look up a recipe, and keep up with others' blogs once again.

October was a busy month for us with all the building going on, but we still had quite a productive month farm-wise as well. Of course, as I said before, we welcomed our first, born-on-the-farm, calf to new-mom Caroline. She did splendidly, though I would've preferred a less bitter-cold night for calving! She is now producing milk jointly for us and for Norman.
Eggs collected: 220, or 18.3 dozen (about 7/day)
Eggs sold: none

Milk collected: 888 cups, or 55.5 gallons (about 1.8 gallons/day)
From that: 2 lbs mozzarella, 2 lbs ricotta, and lots of milk to the piggies
The pictures are from Norman's short time in our kitchen while we were trying to warm him up and get him started. The box is small, but it helped hold in the heat.

The garden is now put to bed for the winter, though I do have some cleaning up still to do there yet. We are still reaping the benefits of it, however, as we pulled in many, many bags full of green tomatoes to ripen inside. Every few days, we find more red tomatoes in the bags and are still, even past our first snow, enjoying fresh, ripe produce!

Produce preserved:

• 8 lbs sunflower seeds
• 8 cups of dehydrated tomato powder
• 5 pts dehydrated tomato slices
• 4 pts dehydrated hot peppers
• 9 pts tomato sauce

In addition to the produce, we also harvested some meat for the freezers. We butchered some older hens, new, young roosters, and our 2 goat wethers. We will miss those boys, but we are grateful for the opportunity to know that our food was healthy and happy in life.

Meat put away:

• 10 whole chickens
• 75 lbs goat meat

Unfortunately, we lost one of our bee hives. We have no idea what happened, but they all died. The other hive is doing well and though we weren't able to collect honey from them, we hope that they'll be off and running in the spring. And that's all from the farm!

It's a boy!

Norman, the adorable Jersey bull calf, was welcomed to our farm in the wee hours of Saturday morning. His mama, Caroline, calved out in the drizzly rain and Norman had a rough start due to the chill. But, it was nothing that some time in the kitchen with a half-gallon of his mama's colostrum couldn't fix. They are now together and happy. Pictures coming when we get internet back!

Still in the dark

I'm sitting at what Don likes to call a "chick place to eat where they serve mini meals" because we are still without internet. Surprisingly, no one has spontaneously combusted from the situation. Anyway, here's a quick recap...

We had our first snow on October 10th (pretty early this year). Everything is harvested and the garlic and strawberries are in to await the Spring. We are about a fourth of the way done on the retaining wall. We've hired an Amish crew to install the roofing, but not much is happening right now while we sit in the mud and wait for the rain to stop. Meagan's pet rabbit Riley has died which was hard for the kids to take. But, along with death, life comes to the farm. We expect Caroline to calve anytime now. She was due on the 18th and things are looking good for tonight or tomorrow.

That's all I can think of at the moment. We get internet back on November 3rd, so until then, I'll still be scarce. Thanks for the well wishes and prayers!

Offline

Our internet satelite is now INSIDE my new mudroom. And, apparently, the satelite doesn't like trying to do its thing through wood. So, until we can get the satelite mounted in a new location and re-aimed (which will likely take a sweet forever, given the satelite company's past response times), I'll be offline. Of course, I'll snag some Wi-Fi when and where I can, but it probably won't be often for a while.

In the meantime, you can just imagine all the nailing, sawing, roofing, siding, retaining wall building, and such that is and will be going on around here. At least we've had our first frost and most of the gardening work is done!

September 2009 Farm Production

What seems to be our last summer month, September was a continuing bounty of goodness from all aspects of the farm.

Eggs collected: 145, or about 12 dozen (almost 5/day)
Eggs sold: none


We dried off Lily about halfway through the month because she was producing so little...we decided she needed a break. And, we went to once a day milking as well. It's all an experiment around here, but we've read that less milking is less stressful to the cows. Since they both had a bout of mastitis (which is quite understandable with all the stress they've undergone in the last few months with moving and new people & routines to get used to), we figured they could use a little less stress.

Milk collected: 778 cups, or 48.625 gallons (about 1.6 gallons/day)

I turned a half-gallon of milk into yogurt on a nearly daily basis. But, except for that and a few pints of ice cream, I didn't make any extra milk products. The piglets drank most of any excess this month.


Produce canned:

• 15 qts pumpkin
• 95 qts tomatoes (!!)
• 12 qts potatoes

Produce otherwise preserved:

• 8 cups roasted pumpkin seeds
• 4 lb 11 oz dried popcorn
• 47 lbs onions
• 3 lbs 3 oz frozen bell peppers
• 7 cups frozen hot peppers

Conspiracy

Just when I thought I might never return to my pre-pregnancy size (apparently, my metabolism isn't what it was), it was made fact when I encountered these three words of doom...

Waffle Cone Wednesday

3 scoops of ice cream in a waffle cone for only $1.49.

All hope is lost.

Excuse me while I wipe the Rocky Road drips from my face.