Vaughnshire Farm

Today we were quite busy.  We took a trip to the butcher shop to pick up our meat.  We took all the coolers and freezer bags we had and still needed more…so the children ended up packing some of the meat in plastic bags and putting it inside boxes.  We froze on the way home with the air conditioner on high!

Here the boys are unloading the roller rack and packing our hamburger patties.  We are very glad we opted to have 1/3 of our beef put into patties.  They came out very nice…and are sure to be a convenience for me cooking. 

They loaded the coolers on to a roller cart to take out to the trailer. 

Almost ready to go…It took quite a while to pack over 600 lbs of meat. 

A very proud 11 year old stands by the lamb meat he raised. 

 A very busy 2 year old pushing carts. 

After a big day, we finally get the last of the meat into the freezer.  We still have a lot of rearranging to do, but at least we have our own beef, pork and lamb stocked at home in our freezers!  And Wow..that is an amazing feeling to raise your own food!  Anyone wanna buy some meat?!!

Since moving to the farm, we have had a crash course with the concept of food going from the field to table…family style.  I will be the first to admit that at first it was at first very strange concept.  We, like the majority of Americans, were completely disconnected from knowing where our food came from.  However, lately we have had plenty of opportunities to get use to the age old idea of family food production. 

Yesterday, we took our steer to the butcher.  He weighed in at 1,080 lbs!  I was surprised he weighed so much!  We also loaded up a pig weighing in at 205 and two lambs that each weighed 50 lbs.  Had we of known the lambs were only 50 lbs, we probably would have waited a little while before processing them.  

We were concerned about loading up the animals on the trailer.  Our last experience with loading up an animal to take to the butcher was traumatic.  Traumatic only because the pig would not hop up in the trailer like we were expecting him to. Only after lots of dragging, pushing and ear deafening pig squealing, was the 300 lb pig finally in the trailer. That day we found out that they don’t just hop up in the trailer when you want them too. 

However, we learned a few things from last time.  First, don’t feed them before you load them up.  You will want them hungry so they come to the feed you lure them in with.  Second, park the trailer in the field the night before and put a feeding trough in it.  They will want to check it out. 

The guys put a feeding trough and feed in the trailer the day before.  They left the trailer open and in the field over night.  The next morning our 12 year old went out to the trailer and put some more feed in the trough.  He then ran up the hill to go find the cows and bring them down.  When he arrived back at the trailer, to our great astonishment, the pig was waiting for him.  He was lounging in the feed trough inside the trailer.  WOW, that was easy!  Our steer wasn’t as easy, but compared to what we were expecting… 

Now we were ready to head off to the butcher.  We had about an hour and a half truck ride with 8 children and a trailer full of animals.  We arrived at the Yoder’s butcher shop and went inside to fill out our order.  They hand you a sheet of paper for each animal you bring in and ask you how you would like him.  Roasts or Steaks, thick or thin, tenderized or not, medium or hot sausage etc. etc. etc.  After we filled out our orders, it was time to drive around back and unload.

The boys help unload. 

Here they try to coax the cow off the trailer and into the weighing station. 

Little ones look on with great interest. 

Still trying to coax the cow…only this time out of the weighing station.  I became a bit concerned when the executioner began to yell at the cow, “HOOO, YHAWW, I don’t have all day cow!” 

Maybe I should get the children back in the truck??

The Yoder’s butcher shop is quite large.  The children look on at the work taking place.  Our 3 year old asked, “Is this the place where they take the cows apart?” 

It was a great field trip…that is…for those who enjoy loading and unloading messy animals and watching people cut up meat.   We will return in about 3 weeks to pick up our meat. 

The day has arrived and we are downsizing here at Vaughnshire (for a change!). 

We will be less one cow, one pig and two lambs out in the pasture –  We’re off to the butcher…that is if we can manage to catch them all! 

If you could have know how farm illiterate/challenged we were just a few years ago, you might appreciate some of the farm stories all the more.  I remember driving by a neighbor’s farm not long after we had moved from out of the city and looking at all their “goats” in the field.  We had been looking for some goats to clear some brush and they seemed to have an abundance of them.  Maybe they would sell us a couple of them?  So we pulled over and asked the elderly gentleman about his “goats”. 

He starred at us a while, looked back over at his “herd” and looked back at us and said, “Well, Dem ain’t goats, Dem are sheep!” 

Minor mistake.

Back then, telling sheep and goats apart proved to be a challenge for us.   Did you know there was such a thing as hair sheep–they don’t look like the typical woolly sheep.  

My, how far we have come! 

A couple of weeks ago, our 5 year old comes running in the house after being outside for a while working with the big guys.  He mainly observes and hangs around the boys when they are working.  He still gets distracted with honeysuckle, ant piles and lizards. 

So I asked him what he was up to and he says, “Well, I was just watching daddy and the boys cut up one of the rams and put cheerios on the other ram.” 

Hmmm….I had no idea what he was talking about. 

After some more inquiry and vague 5 year old answers, I found out that daddy and the boys were castrating the baby rams…and he had been watching them.  They decided to do the old fashion cut on one of them, like last year’s pig and use the handy dandy elastrator banding tool (using cheerio looking rubber bands) on the other one. 

You know…just a regular day in the life of a farm boy. 

So now that we have both sheep and goats we have the proverbial discussions among the “owners” of said animals as to which one is better to have.

Sunday morning we awoke to find a new baby ram romping and playing in our pasture!  Our second baby lamb born here on the farm in a week.  All are well and thriving. 

Out of all the farm animals, I prefer the docile nature of the sheep.  They don’t fuss or try your patience like the goats, pigs or cows.  They aren’t incredibly noisy and seem to go along with your wishes without complaint.  They don’t test your fencing set up or run you down for feed.   My husband says…that’s because they are incredibly stupid. 

One of the highlights of our farm experiences came yesterday in the form of watching one of our sheep give birth to her first baby lamb.  Our 10 year old son is very interested in larger animals (as opposed to poultry) so he had decided to start an entrepreneurial venture around cows and sheep. 

We took a trip this week to visit a man who had a herd of sheep and came home with two pregnant ewes and one lamb.  We were told that the ewes were very close to lambing, within the next couple of weeks.  However, the next morning our son came running into the house saying that one of the ewes had something wrong with it.  We ran out to see what was going on, only to find out that she had definitely started the labor progress. 

Within a few hours we noticed that her labor was progressing as she started to turn around in circles, paw at the ground, sit down and stand up often and stay within a certain area.  She soon started having very strong contractions and we could see something appearing— a water bag, then two little feet and eventually she delivered a healthy, very adorable, baby ram.  Our 10 year old was able to watch her progress throughout the day and was the one who actually saw her drop the baby on the ground.  We took turns watching her labor from a short distance. 

Not all of us roosted in the barn rafters with binoculars

I had the children take a break for lunch….they ate in shifts as to not miss the lamb being born.  When it was the 10 year olds turn to eat, he quickly ate his lunch without saying a word, didn’t even ask for seconds or take a drink out of his cup.  He ate and then ran out of the house saying, “I’ve never seen anything be born before!”  Minutes later, one of the other children ran in the house announcing that she had the lamb. 

It was a very exciting, thrilling day for new shepherds here on the farm and we are in awe of the miracle of birth once again.  Now we await our second lambing here on the farm….which should be very soon!