Hey everybody!!!

Wow, how long has it been? Too much time has passed, I know, since I last updated anyone on our blog. The year that has passed since I finished graduate work has been filled with activity, productivity, and wonder. Not only on the farm, but in the lives of our whole family. Jenn is working on becoming a midwife, the children are all doing well with school, and Emma’s writing gets better and better. Of course, this is the farm blog, so I’ll stick to that subject, and leave the rest for later inquiry.

I don’t remember where I left off last season. I know nearly filled our projected share bounty, only falling a little short on pork, by delivering 36 pounds instead of forty. But all the chickens were delivered, all the turkeys drew rave reviews, and the eggs are always favorites. Everything went well for the season, with our only rough spot being the processing of the turkeys. Our work schedules interfered with our ability to harvest in a timely matter, so they were huge, and it became quite a struggle to lift a fifty pound bird out of a chicken tractor. We’ll do things a little differently this season. A little more planning perhaps?

Winter successes included the maturation of our second layer flock. We now have eggs taking over our fridge and counter space much of the time. We anticipated this, and are selling les expensive chicken and egg only shares. We should also have plenty of extras that will be sold pay for feed. We always give some away, or as we prefer to say, share.

Our new flock, or should I say, Rosa’s “pet” project, has been the sheep. We move the ewe’s over to a neighbors barn for the winter, and they were successfully mated. One lamb has been birthed already, without any problems. The lamb took to mom as our creator intended, and they can be seen in our front pasture together. Our other ewe looks as though she will lamb at anytime. Births on a farm are always special, whether it’s chicks or lambs.

Speaking of chicks, we averted disaster with the broilers. The day we received them, less than 24 hours old, we moved them directly to the brooder with heat lamps, in the garage and well protected from the wind. As we left for the farm store, all was right with the world. However, when we returned less than an hour later, every chick was near dead. In fact, they seemed about as dead as Lazarus. It seems that they had all decided to swim in the waterer I had provided, which was too large for chicks. Their down was soaked, and they lost body temperature. Against all hope, we piled the chicks into a box (it seemed kind of useless to be gentle), and brought them into the kitchen. We tired to towel dry them, but it was not working – at least not fast enough. So I drove to the dollar store because we have no hair dryer, and brought one home. And – it worked; perfectly. Out of seventy chicks, all but eight not only survived, but acted as though nothing had ever happened. They are all doing very well. Science may explain this event fairly easily, but only the language of miracles can provide an appropriate meaning. These are the life events that allow us to experience God, and incorporate such events into an ongoing narrative of faith as the major informant of day-to-day living.

I almost forgot, Micah, a Methodist preacher, and I, all drove to Sheridan and purchased to ram lambs. We will be turning those into meat, but have not decided if we will butcher in November, when the meat is tenderer, or in spring, when we can harvest more wool and just ground all of the lamb. We are also thinking of culling our breeding Ram, as he is eight years old, and we are not sure how much longer he will be able to sire. This, of course, means we will be looking for a new Corriedale ram over the summer.

We are slaughtering a yearling bull, hopefully this week, and will replace it with another dairy bull calf. We were going to give the bull a lot more time, but the castration band had broke without our knowing, and, well, the little guy is now a bull, and I am the only one who will go into the pen. I have a big stick!
Pigs will be here on June first, and who knows what else will come our way. I do know, that, only a month ago things seemed to be moving slow, and I was not eager for the season to begin. Yet, once we got started adding to the life of the farm, there is much more to take in, more to enjoy, and more relationships to be developed with those special creatures that do more than bring us comfort, they provide sustenance. We value this cycle, and that is why we treat our animals the best we can, even if everything gets pretty dirty, or, nasty sometimes, especially during the winter.

Lot’s of shares left to sell, and many more pictures that we will have to share. Hope that you will stop by and see us, scot and jenn and family.

Finally, a Farm Update

Wow, it has been a long time since I’ve updated the blog. We received an email from a Friend in Washington State, and she wondered if we were busy with the farm since we had not been blogging for a while. Well, we have been very busy with the farm, and there are a lot of updates.

First, the pigs are now hogs, and they are eating a lot. I think we might change the feed over to a 12 percent protein, as they are close to weight and the lower protein feed casts less. All six hogs are weighing close to 200 pounds, I’d guess, and butchering day is set for July 29. This year’s pork is far surpassing the harvest from last season, as we purchased far better quality feeders.

Our layers are laying just fine, and our new Australorps are growing just great. Hopefully, they will begin laying at the end of August, so that we will have some eggs for sale over the winter. As for the first batch of fifty broilers, they should be ready for butchering in a week or two. We could butcher next weekend, but we could let them grow another week to add a few pounds. We might even have some extra for sale, unless we sell the rest of our five shares soon.

We added bull calves this spring, and had a few problems. We purchased some Jersey calves for $25 a piece, and brought them home, where they promptly came down with a bad case of the scours. We had to do some nursing, but both came through with the use of a home remedy that rehydrated them, and a little extra warmth from some heat lamps. The health of these bull calves became a real point of interest for a couple of neighbors, both of whom raise Jerseys and have had multiple problems with the calves because they tend to be weaker than other breeds. We found this out first hand, as one of them, right after being rid of the scours, came down with a joint disease. I held off giving penicillin in hopes of the calf improving, as it was eating very well, and getting itself up to stand with relative ease, even though it was having trouble with its front legs. However, when I went out the next morning, the calf could not get itself up at all, and could not eat. I administered some penicillin, but it was too late. The calf passed on after two hours. The other one, which the kids named Eros (I know, I know), is doing great, and will be eating grass in no time. We still hope to get another bull calf so that we can offer beef next season.

As expected, we were able to pick up our yearling ewes, which Rosa has been waiting patiently for for more than a year. We picked them up, had a pleasant visit, and brought the animals home without any problem. I had just finished putting up the electric fencing in the pouring rain the day before, and during the morning, and felt comfortable that it could hold most anything. When it came time to unload the sheep, I lifted the biggest one out and placed it in the shelter, just barely latching the fence. As I went to get the other one, the first burst out of the pen and into the pasture. This does not seem to bad, but of course, the story continues.

Being told by the breeder that the sheep should spend a few days penned before letting them out into pasture, I became intent on rounding the ewe up and back into the pen. Now, she did not know me from Adam, and was naturally very scared. I should have known from previous experience with animals that, you simply cannot control an animal that you do not have some sort of relationship established with, if at all, when they set their mind to something else. After about ten minutes of trying to keep away from Micah and I in the pasture, the ewe went right through the electric fence, and I followed, right through the electric fence. I chased the animal for about 15 minutes in the pouring rain, and then Jenn came home during the chase, and her and Rosa began to help, We tried for about an hour, in the continuing rain, but could not catch that ewe, who finally ran across an open field, and far away from us. Jenn and Rosa were crushed, and I was simply distraught. I had no idea what would become of the ewe, but it was now out of our hands. We put the other animal into the pen without incident.

The next morning, one neighbor stopped by and told us that someone spotted a ewe in their back yard, and figured it was probably ours. (I wonder why?) At least we knew it was in the area. Another neighbor stopped by to help Jenn and Rosa look for the animal, but I did not go, as I did not think we would be able to catch the animal even if we saw it. On First Day, Jenn and Rosa made flyers offering a reward for the lost sheep. When they left to post the flyers, Micah suggested out of the blue that they stop at a house around the corner of our section and ask the neighbor if they had seen our ewe. Jenn stopped, at least to let them know we were missing an animal. When she spoke to the neighbor, he indicated that he found a ewe eating grass right outside of his goat pasture, and when he invited the girl in, she walked right in and began socializing with the goats. Jenn brought the ewe home without incident, and we unloaded her from Jenn’s van into the pasture.

Of course, by this time, the other ewe had found her way out of the pen, and was lonely. I can’t believe how sociable sheep are. She was attracted the company that would be offered to her by the hogs, and the taller grass, and went right through my so called impenetrable fence. When we got the lost ewe into the pasture, she saw her partner, and then she jumped through the fence, and that is where the two of them have remained. And they spend as much time next to the hogs as they can. Naturally, we borrowed money for a more powerful fencer (I am not working yet) and cut all the overgrown grass, which should have been done weeks ago. Learn as you go, that’s our motto. All the animals are doing fine now, and so are we. We feel blessed by each of them, except for one of the roosters.