Feed corn, winter snow and boyhood farm work are beautiful sights! The boys went up to a new feed store that just opened up in town. They bought some bags of corn for $5.75 for a 50 lb bag. They were doing good to get the trailer unloaded and the feed put away in the barn with the down pour of snow we were having. After they unload and stack feed bags, they bolt in the back door wanting hot cocoa. They take the layers of coats and gloves off as I fix them a warm mug of raw milk hot cocoa…something our family loves on cold days like today! I love hearing them talk about how many pounds they lifted and watch them compare muscles. Boyhood farm work is so good for young men!
If we were real agrarians, we would have a corn crib full of corn and hay piled high in our hay loft that we grew in our fields this summer. But we aren’t experienced agrarians yet. We’ve experienced a lot of what not to do. (like the example we give here)
When you start living on a farm, you quickly realize how inadequate your farming efforts really are. It’s good to put your hand to the plow so to speak and start somewhere and be grateful for the work you do get done. However, as spring turns into summer….summer to fall….and fall to winter….the grass disappears, it gets cold and your animals get hungry! A real farmer would plan to store up enough food for the winter. Just like a real farm wife would still have a pantry full of wonderful food stores conveniently stored away for the winter blasts.
We’re grateful for the lessons we are learning on the farm. We’re grateful for the challenge, for the growing and the stretching. We’ve come to understand the completeness and depth of the words provision and preparation. Our 24 hr. Stuff-Mart cultural mindset is completely opposite of the agrarian life where forethought and preparation are vital to survival.
Ideally, we would love to find a resource for buying bulk corn and mixing it ourselves. It’s too cold to think about that now though. We’re collecting the last pieces of firewood and hoping to hold out until spring so we can start over and try preparing for winter again!
I found some other “When It’s Cold Outside” posts I’ve written in the past. Here are just a few. There are a ton more:
We are very thankful the temperatures are supposed to be pulling up into the 40’s tomorrow!!! We’re wondering if that is going to happen!
We’ve enjoyed the winter wonderland. We had 3 days of snow falling from the sky last week…not accumulating much on the ground…but definitely beautiful! We’ve had I’ve-lost-count-how-many days of below freeeeezing weather. The icicles hanging from the rock cliffs are amazingly beautiful and the frozen ponds are a sight to behold! My, how we enjoyed the frozen ponds.
Below freezing weather is fine for a short while, but we are so looking forward to some warmer winter weather— 30’s and 40’s would be a good start! We love the winters and the beautiful seasons in this part of the South…
The kids enjoyed skating across the pond while I stood on the sideline worrying about cracking ice.
Our boys are the main milkers here on our farm. They have strong hands to prove it. I am very grateful to them for all their hard work around here.
Having a milking animal changes life pretty dramatically. She’s a big part of the family. She requires attention and care daily, but we are rewarded with lots of good fresh milk.
May still has a calf nursing on her. So we are managing the calf and the amount of milk we are getting. The calf is close to weaning.
It’s cold…very cold. The boys enjoy updating me on how cold it is outside. It’s been below freezing for a couple of days.
We’ve had a busy first few days of the new year and all very eventful. The boys heard coyotes out one night while doing their chores that they said they were so close that it ”made their heart leap into their throat”. Today, one of our ewe’s had twin baby lambs. We were all guessing that with the extremely cold weather, the ewe’s were going to start having their babies. Today she did and several of us were able to see her giving birth as we watched from the upstairs window.
I hope to get some pictures of the cute lambs soon.
My, how quickly late fall turned into the full force winter we are in right now. I took this picture about 7 weeks ago…when we had some fall color left and short green grass. Here’s our milk cow, May, with her calf, Luther, who was born on October 31st…Reformation Day.
Now, we bundle up for winter walks on the trail in the woods. The bitter cold wind has been howling for days. It’s a piercing bone chilling cold. We follow the brilliant bright green moss carpet along trail.
They found a “perfect picnic area”! They cleared some of the sticks, rocks and thorn vines and rested a while talking about how they wished they would have brought a picnic lunch…or how maybe we could just all go back to the house and pack a lunch for a picnic and then come back….in the 40 mile an hour 27 degree wind. That idea was better than the idea the 4 year old had of “why don’t we just go back home and play in the sprinkler”!
The winter sky beyond the web of sticks. Winter beauty. We were hoping for the snow to last longer than it did.
We’ve had a lot of family time around the fire…a lot of mulled apple cider…and hot cocoa milk. The fire wood is regularly being put to good use and plans are being made for the new year.
We love May the Milk Cow. She has a bull calf that is about 6 weeks old now. They are doing wonderfully. We have an abundance of winter milk for which we are all thankful for.
Having that milk drastically cuts our grocery bill as well. Of course there is a lot of work that goes into getting that milk to the house everyday. We love the fact that we have a handful of very energetic boys who can milk the cow now. We look back at when we started farming and see a huge leap in what the boys can do now. It’s amazing. We have a 3rd cow milker in training currently.
We’ve moved up the younger ones to take over some of the chores the bigger ones use to do. Like collecting eggs…however, this has had its challenges. A 13 year old is a lot more careful than say…a 7 year old….but after losing a few baskets of eggs to mysterious accidents…like tripping over the goat…he’s well on his way to becoming an expert egg collector. He hands me baskets of eggs every evening….and now they are consistently not broken!
The 7 year old and 8 year old are also delivering slops to the pigs everyday. That usually goes without incident, except recently somehow they lost the slop buck on their way back to the house. I don’t understand how things like that happen…but they do. Hopefully, we will have some pork soon.
At the end of this year, our meat is almost gone and we’re having to reevaluate our “planning” on raising meat. It should be timed so that you go from butchering to butchering without lag time waiting on animals to get ready. When you are about to butcher your cow, don’t get so caught up in the glories of having your very own meat to stock your freezer with that you forget about the next cow that should be making its way into your pasture before or around the time you butcher the first one. Keep the cycle going or you will end up with an empty freezer and no “next cow” ready to be butchered.
It’s a busy time…farming and home schooling and livin’ life. We’ve had a full Fall already with difficult funerals and happy weddings. We’ve tried to slow down. I’m beginning to think that is not possible.
So we’ve been hitting life full speed ahead and making progress some days…and other days not so much.
As the day winds down and our family takes a seat at the family meal table, I look around at all those sweet faces. The older boys and girls have worked hard all day. The younger ones…not so hard. The baby…was hard work. It’s loud and busy. They’ve all got something to say about something that happened that day and when we ask them, “So, what did you learn today?” They are eager to talk about all the things they learned.
I’m blessed to know my older sons learned something new in math and figured out how to castrate one of their lambs and ring the pigs noses without adult oversight. My younger boys figured out how to fix the broken electric fence and informed me that their school notebooks need new notebook paper. I’m thrilled to know that my daughter learned her Latin words all by herself, started reading a new book and finished writing her historical letter to a friend at church.
I always enjoy hearing what the little ones learned. Whether it’s the 3 year old telling us that the kitty cat doesn’t know how to eat peanuts or the turtle likes his food washed…. or something a bit more vague, like our 7 year old boy announcing what he learned, ”I learned how to turn that black thingy on with that switch thing ….you know….but I didn’t have the right tools to skin it.”
Hmmm…!!! We eventually deciphered what he was trying to say and told him not to bother the power tools and to forget about skinning the dead bird he found…just bury it.
In the midst of a busy life, are we really taking the time to slow down and savor those moments with our children? I’ve found that those little children grow fast. Time is never still. It’s always progressing and passing. I’m trying to capture the sights and sounds and find complete enjoyment in spending these days with my children.
Cousins watch the momma cow as the baby calf nurses.
7 year old is surveying the damage and replanting the overturned grass.
What happened to our pasture?
Our children like to play a game called, “This Animal….”. You go on to describe the attributes, characteristics and description of your secret animal and see who can guess what animal you are talking about first. Then the winner gets a turn. It’s lots of fun if you have children who own the DVD’s series Creatures that Defy Evolution…and they have memorized it.
So…..This animal has dug-up or plowed-up our pasture…but the boys are about to fix that today with some copper and a pair of pliers.
Evidently, the farm boy knows more about his barn cat than we thought! After breakfast, the little farm boy noticed the barn cat meowing at the back door. He went out, picked her up and said, “Yep…she had babies…somewhere…I bet they’re in the barn loft!” He put her down and he followed her to the barn.
A few moments later, he yells from the barn loft. “Yep…She has four babies…just born!”
So that means her fat belly wasn’t due to the fact she ate the rat!
Our 6 year old came in the house a few days ago with an important farm announcement concerning our barn cat.
Missy Mouser is definitely pregnant! She has a big round belly and is losing feathers around her teats.
I guess that might be a sure sign to this little farm boy who is confusing the signs of a broody hen, a milk cow and a pregnant cat. One of the ways the boys can tell if a hen is about to go broody, or about to sit on a clutch of eggs, is when she starts to pull the feathers out of her breast to ready herself to warm the eggs. Cats don’t pull feathers obviously but since this cat has been nursing kittens, it looks as though she has lost some of her “feather’s” on her belly. Hopefully, her fat belly is due to the fact that she ate the rat the boys caught in the milk barn with their small rodent trap and then accidentally let go by my back door step. I haven’t calmed down over the rat story to be able to relay that rationally yet.
I remember the first time I discovered the fact that real bats live real close to me. It was quite disturbing. There’s nothing like taking an evening stroll with your husband as he shows the kids how to make the neighborhood bats nose dive…. at us. Everyone but me thought diving bats were the neatest thing on earth. I was the first one back to the house.
We have a lot of bats in Tennessee…real bats and scary caves like in Huck Finn. Bats are very beneficial to have around the house. I know that. I just can’t get over the horrifying mental image…something resembling a flying rodent with wings and tiny pointy ears and beady eyes with sharp teeth and claws. They eat around 1, 200 bugs every day. They are mammals and give birth to live little “batlings” who nurse for about 6 months.
The other day, one of the boys caught a bat in the loft. I was outside in the yard when I hear our 12 year old yell, “QUICK..Somebody get me a jar with a lid…I think it’s going to bite me!!!!!!”
One of the other children ran to get the much needed jar…quickly. He came out of the loft holding a very alive and creepy looking bat. We were all amazed. We had a great close up view of this incredible creature and decided to keep it to show dad when he arrive home later that evening.
About 11 pm that night, when I was sitting at my computer checking my email, now in a quiet, dimly lit office. I was interrupted by something swooping down right over my head. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the “something” was that creepy bat and it didn’t take but a millisecond after that for me to become completely hysterical.
With my hands covering my head, I ran down the hallway…screaming then quickly slamming the bedroom door I waited impatiently for my husband to catch the flying rodent. He runs around the house for the next 20 minutes with the table cloth trying to out smart this keen sonar flying escapee.
He did catch it…finally and returned it to the jar… this time putting the screw top lid back on that one of the children had taken off. They feared the bat might suffocate in the sealed jar…so one of the boys put plastic wrap over the jar top right before going to bed. He poked a few holes in the plastic giving the bat plenty of fresh air and a great opportunity for escape.
The next night, we released the bat. We found out that bats evidently don’t just jump up off the ground and fly away. We eventually placed it near the sunflowers and it climbed up the stalk and swooped down and started flying around eating our bugs again.
I was just sad that 1,200 bugs didn’t get digested the night the bat spent the night in my house. I was glad to see it back at work and out of my house!
I think it isn’t shocking to say that our culture at large has a very strong hatred of good honest work. As a culture, we relish what is faster-quicker-easier… The word “work” invokes the thought of having to exert too much energy, too much commitment…too much stick-to-it-tivity. It means I actually have to focus on something, exert mental and physical energy and put heart into something from start to finish.
Many of our grandparents were farm kids who knew what real, hard work was. It is a far cry from today’s sports and video game consumed boys. Valuable life lessons are lost when boys focus on play rather than consume a regular diet of honest, hard work. Boys need responsibility, working by the sweat of their brow, seeing a task through from start to finish. They learn to love and appreciate work, understaning it’s importance.
I love reading old stories to my children about “work”…good old fashion work ethic! We’ve read many books like, “Farmer Boy” which portrays boyhood work as a part of every day life. The most recent family reading book my husband has been reading out-loud to us is called, “Every Farm Tells a Story” by Jerry Apps. It has many wonderful stories about good boyhood work. We’ve been enjoying it immensely as a family as we laugh and relate to Mr. Apps’ childhood stories about growing up on a family dairy farm in Wisconsin.
Chores started on the home farm when you were around four years old, depending on, as Pa would say, “how much meat you have on your bones.”….By the time you were five, you moved up to feeding the chickens and gathering eggs….The ultimate chores took place in the cow barn. Milking cows by hand ranked number one. Other prestigious chores included forking hay from the haymow in ten-below-zero temperature, with frost hanging from the cobwebs and brushing you in the face; shoveling manure from the barn gutters into the manure carrier; cleaning out the calf pen; and throwing silage down from the top of the silo….Ma and Pa raised us to work together, play together and live together. We helped each other, depended on each other and at times defended each other….
Our children have especially enjoyed the age-appropriate chores Mr. Apps shares in his book. I’ll list off some examples of work these boys did and at what age…it is really amazing!
“Chores were and important part of our growing up years…”.
“We learned not to complain about work. We learned to show up on time, every time, day in and day out, including weekends. And we took pride in what we were doing. Chores were not drudgery, at least not on the farm where I grew up.”
By the time you were 6 or 7, you helped pick the smaller stones (out of the field before the crops could be planted).
When you were 10 or 12, you drove the team while sitting on the disk harrow or you walked behind the drag while a dust cloud swirled around you.
You became a serious hoer when you were 7 or 8.
By the age of 12 or so, you were cultivating potatoes with one horse and a walking cultivator.
By the time you were 10, you were driving the horses and performing simple tasks like handling the team while Pa pitched hay.
When you were 12 or so, you were pitching hay along with Pa.
By the time you were 14, you were driving a team on the threshing crew.
By age 12, you husked corn by hand for the hogs after school, often a wagon load every afternoon.
By the time I was 12, I put every nickel I earned toward buying books. I didn’t yet understand Pa’s good times-bad times theory (of saving some money for the bad times to get you through until the good times roll around again).
We have a long way to go to recapture what it means to work hard and to embrace it. But is no secret that we live in a day and age of wimpy boys, who don’t know what a hard days work really looks like, couldn’t defend the family if they had to, haven’t a clue about how to produce or hunt food and couldn’t save a nickel if they wanted to.
Moving to a farm was one of the best decisions we ever made!
The official motto of his dealership is, “God, Guns, Guts, and American Pickup Trucks!” They are giving away an AK-47 with each new truck purchase. It may be a gimmick, but if you listen to the interview you will see this guys is the real deal. Not only is he real… he is smart; he is helping to arm his neighbors. I would be willing to bet, if an army (foreign or domestic) were to invade the central part of our nation, they would not do well in Missouri where Max Motors is located.
If you are new to our blog, you can read about some of our snake encounters here, here and here. Not that we particularly like snakes…I detest them…but in the country…snakes are just a part of country life… much more than I would like! My husband and boys, however, have a fascination and respect for the “good snakes” around here that I just cannot understand. I ran across this quote in an essay I am reading and heard a imaginary “I told you so” whispering to me in my husband’s voice:
If the corn is low in the crib, the boys are likely to shuck carefully, keeping their eyes open for the king snake. This snake is worth ten cats as a ratter, and careful, economical farmers always throw one in their cribs if one is to be found. But not only as a ratter is he valuable. He makes war on all poisonous snakes and drives them from his presence. His invincibility is believed to be due to his knowledge of snake grass, an antidote for poison; for after bouts in which he has been bitten by venomous snakes, he has been seen to wiggle toward this grass and chew it. There is only one time of the year when he is to be avoided. He goes blind in August; and, feeling his defenseless condition, he will leg you-that is, charge and wrap his strong body about your leg, squeezing and bruising it.
Quote taken from the book: I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition.
We do not have a mature dairy bull on our farm. We have been told by those more experienced than we, that dairy bulls are the most dangerous farm animal around.
We do however have a bunch of bull calves here on the farm awaiting to be banded. Our 13 year old castrated one bull calf they are raising for their grandmother…we have 6 more to go but are allowing the young calves to gain a bit more weight.
Today, we had an up close and personal introduction to a really amazing Guernsey dairy bull from the Guernsey Dairy farm in Kentucky. It was a great home school field trip!
Mr. Guernsey Dairyman was a wonderful host and let our whole crew pile on his gator and ride the pasture to see the Guernsey girls! Wow! Was that ever a treat for us to see so many Guernsey’s at one time. We oooohhhed and ahhhed over them. They were all ages and all sizes.
One our way back to the dairy barn, he stopped to introduce us to his bull. Bulls are incredibly territorial, so he noticed us right away and started coming towards us.
I began to doubt if the electric fence wire was on and even if it was…Brutus here, looked like he didn’t care about a thin little wire. Mr. Guernsey Dairyman stopped the gater and began to tell us about his bull and the calves and other things that faded out of my hearing as I watch the big bull just feet from us start bellowing and rub his head into the ground. I wasn’t sure what that was a sign for, but I was sure he was not liking all 11 of us staring at him and his girls.
Mr. Guernsey Dairyman went on about how dangerous bulls were. The bull stopped rubbing his head on the ground and got up snorting dust out of his nose and stomping his foot several times…just like in the movies. Boys are amused at this sort of thing. Not me. Now I am really sure we should just get back to the barn. I’m content to look at the impressive beast from a distance. They were thrilled with the great front row seat!
We had a great time and after all that, brought home two Guernsey bull calves. (although not staying a bull!)
Dairy steers make excellent beef and you can often find them quite inexpensive compared to the beef breed counterpart. While they have a higher bone to meat ratio…dairy steers offer high quality beef for a fraction of the cost of ..say… a registered Angus.
Caring for calves has been an excellent family adventure here with several children who are capable of taking care of the bottle feeding.
Our boys are raising a cow for their grandparents. They named him Tex. They have been bottle feeding him for a while now and he is finally weaned! He weaned from the bottle last week…he still likes Havala’s ear.
I am sympathetic to the newly weaned calves. They come bounding up to the fence when we come near thinking we have a yummy bottle of milk for them! I think it is sad…everyone else doesn’t seemed bothered by the cute little cow trying to nuzzle his head up near us looking for that big bottle. Of course, I didn’t go out twice a day, rain or shine, for months feeding them either.
However, such is farm life… little calves grow up, get fat and become hamburger.
Today, we acquired 3 newborn…really newborn, one was less than 24 hours old… bull calves. Tonight after a full day of chores, playing real live cowboy and dealing with 3 fragile not-yet-bottle-broke calves, our 8 year old remarks with pride after supper ….”Sure is nice having bottle fed calves back on the farm!”
I laughed… Yeah! Sure is nice having bottle fed calves back on the farm!!! … I think we went a week without bottle feeding before we jumped into it full time again!
If all goes well, we hope to get these bulls healthy and strong, castrated, dehorned and ready to sell as nice family farm feeder cows. We’ll keep you updated!
Baby calves are so enjoyable to have around on the farm. We love watching them romp and play. Here’s one of our baby cows named Havala. Here, Hava is chasing our 8 year old as he makes his way over to one of the other calves. We plan on keeping her here on the farm to produce beef cows for us hopefully for many years to come. Over the last few months she has really grown and fattened up!
Our children love feeding the calves their bottles. And the calves love the children and that bottle they carry!
Havala and Tex are doing great and growing leaps and bounds and eating lots of fresh grass.
When you buy very young, little calves, there is always a cloud of unknown in the air. Once you get them over the hump and they start really thriving…it is exciting to watch them take off! We will soon be weaning them off the bottle. It sure has been nice having a milk cow to provide raw milk for the calves — it has helped these bottle fed calves really gain the nutrition they needed to thrive.
I am not quite sure how long the moniker “Junk Birds” has been around in our family. Maybe after we dealt with bird mites invading our house one Spring. I’m trying to forget that experience.
We don’t hate all birds. We enjoy watching many kinds of birds. My kids know how to identify a large amount of birds…hawks…vultures…and other flying things. We occasionally see the beautiful white headed bald eagle flying over and around our farm. I was shocked the day I was driving over the creek bridge to have a very large white headed bald eagle skim over the hood of my truck and continue flying down the creek. It was one of those amazing moments. I had only ever seen a bald eagle at the zoo in a huge bird cage. Now they live across the road from me at the creek. And we look for them all the time, and sometimes we…though rare..see them flying high in the sky.
They are the black, squawking, good for nothing birds that daddy called “junk birds” one day and it stuck with the kids. They aren’t beloved like the majestic robin or the beautiful blue bird. They aren’t interesting like the killdeer bird and aren’t mysterious like the bats. They aren’t electric like the humming birds…so they ended up with the name “junk birds”.
Since spring, the kids have been monitoring the trees and the bird houses and know the low down on the nests goin’ on around the farm. The junk birds moved in our large back yard tree and have been making quite a racket.
Not too long after the junk bird nest was discovered, the boys found an abandoned baby bird down on the ground in the general vicinity of the junk bird nest. They put the bird in a bit of hay inside the girl’s play house situated under the big tree. Well, the girls found the baby bird in their play house and being the mommies they are…they instantly adopted the bird as their baby. Which means… by day end… the bird was hopeless.
Big sister taught the little girls how the momma bird feeds her babies and showed them how to dangle a worm over the baby’s mouth and watch him open wide and gulp down the worm. The little girls started digging for worms and took over the baby birdie care and feeding. It was perfect, until the 3 year old stuck a piece of dog food in the baby bird’s mouth and choked it. Big sister, being girl she is, saved the bird’s life by sticking her fingers down the bird’s throat and pulling out the large dog food chunk. It was back to worms, eye droppers of water, lots of holding, 3 year old singing and “rest” for the baby bird in the hay pile in the girl’s playhouse.
The next day the bird disappeared. The girls were sad. The boys suspect the cat got it but didn’t announce their theory too loud for the girls to hear.
Fascinating lessons learned and memories made on that beautiful Spring day of taking care of a baby junk bird.
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