Vaughnshire Farm

It’s been a full, busy, tough week.  While we have had many victories we can rejoice in, this past Saturday we experienced a big loss here on our farm.  We lost our milk cow, Bonnie. 

A combination of her curiosity and determination, a left open barn door and a feed bag, ultimately caused her death.  While, in retrospect, we could kick ourselves for not having the feed more tightly secured and the barn door shut tight, we did learn a lot on Saturday.  Paul and the boys spent a large part of the day trying to save her from bloat.  They even resorted to sticking a water hose down her throat into the rumen to release the air.  I was so proud of my two boys for their hard work that day…even though it was hard.  All and all, the vet said that what happened was bloat leads to toxicity.  She died before we could treat her with antibiotic shots.

Loosing your milk cow isn’t quite like having a chicken die.  We have chickens come and go on a regular basis and although they are part of our farm like Bonnie was…there are so many of them running around here and they just all blend in the chicken flock the same. 

Bonnie was our first family milk cow.  She, in a lot of ways, threw our family immediately into living real farm life!  We learned soo much from her.  Bonnie gave us lots of fresh raw milk, cream and butter and for that we were so thankful.  She was a great big Guernsey with lots of personality and attitude to boot!  People have been asking us the question…”Well, are you going to get another milk cow?”  And, Yes…we will…eventually… and we want a big brown Guernsey….like Bonnie Blue was. 

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. 

One of our Bantam hens hatched out a baby chick not to long ago.  He is so ugly, we can’t believe he is real.  He isn’t liked much by the other farm yard animals.  When visitors come and happen to catch a glimpse of him, they assume he was in some sort of fight.  He wasn’t in a fight and he isn’t diseased, he was just made this way.  This is what happens when a turken rooster gets loose with your bantam hen.  Since he is disadvantaged, we decided to let him live on Vaughnshire for the time being. 

A very excited 7 year old boy came flying in the house announcing that one of his “Super Buff” chickens finally laid an egg! These 2 “chicks” are important to him because they are the ones he nursed back to health 5 months ago. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of the actual disbudding process.  With milking our goats and small children handling the goats, we prefer having them (the goats) with out horns, so we decided to have our friend come over and show us how to disbud our week old baby Alpine goat.  It included putting the baby into a little box with only her head sticking out and heating up something like an iron rod so that the horn buds could be burned off.  She ended up looking quite strange for a while…

Miss Docie is the newest goat baby here on the farm.  We were so excited that she was a girl!  This means that we will have the opportunity to raise her up and train her to be a fine milking goat!  This week, we will learn how to disbud her so she will not grow horns.  It is another one of those “operations” one must learn when living on a farm, however, not near as disgusting as those pig operations!

We have been spending lots of time with Miss Docie.  The children have enjoyed playing with her and she provides lots of entertainment for them. 

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.

We arrived home from a wonderful fellowship time at Church and started to settle in for the evening.  Dad and the children ran out to do the chores quickly before supper.  At supper, one of the children brought up the fact that they didn’t see our expecting milk goat when the cow was being milked.  In fact, no one had seen her at all since we had been home. 

After supper, my husband goes out to the pasture in the pouring down rain to locate the missing goat.  (..Who we later found out went through two fences to the back woods.)  We awaited anxiously as he searched the pasture.  It was taking too long and my daughter was starting to worry that something was wrong. 

The 10 year old offers his insight on the situation, “Well, maybe she died in goat birth?”    He seems to have a way with words and offering blunt opinions at just the right time

It was taking a long time.  It was now nearing 10:30 pm and I yelled out the back door to see if he needed any help.  He hollered back in the distance that we could come up and see…  to see what, we had an idea but weren’t for sure… but we hurried to get our boots and coats on and ran out the back door and up the hill…..in the dark…in the rain.

We arrived seeing a beautiful little, newborn alpine doeling.  The children were so elated and I was in disbelief as I didn’t even really believe the momma was even pregnant.  However, she was and kidded exactly when the breeder told us she would. 

We relocated the momma and baby to a covered area for the night and returned back to the house with a happy crew awaiting daylight to show the rest of their siblings the newborn kid in the morning. 

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.