Maternity ward

This is how Heidi (on the left) looked yesterday. Not as wide as Darlin gets when pregnant, but fairy wide. I was hoping she would calf soon before the really cold weather arrives Monday night. That's T-bone on the right - Darlin's bull calf from last Fall. He will be a lot of beef in the freezer next year.

Heidi's instant weight loss program! She gave birth to a beautiful red calf this morning - I think a girl. She has given us three girls in three years, one each of the colors that Dexters come in - dun, black, and now red.

A sweet kiss/sniff.

You can see Heidi's other two daughters in the background to the left. Hope to have both Artificially Inseminated in January, and then for sale.

The two mommas and their calves. They look like twins, but born a week apart. We will move them both to chicken paddock Monday before sunset, so they can shelter in the dairy shed when the temperature drops into the 20's.

The proud poppa comes over to check out his newest off spring. He has produced eight calves from four different cows in three years, with another three or four hopefully due in late Spring. I need to buy more registered cows so he can increase the herd even more.

Square dancing is a great family activity

Some friends invited us to their Square Dancing club, so we went. Found several other families we knew, and had a great time.

They alternated square dances (which I did) with line dances (which I skipped to take photos).

This was the first round of square dancing, but I found out it moved too fast to take pics. "S" and I had fun, and K8 also learned to square dance, but like me, sat out the line dances.

K7 and his friends danced every time regardless of the type.

Must be a line dance...

A very fun activity which we plan to do monthly.

Military farming?

We had a small problem. Having butchered the older chickens, we found that the young flock would not enter the chicken coop at night to roost, because the old flock used to beat them up. We needed the young chicks in the coop and locked up. Monday evening, I developed a detailed plan, then called my strike team together for a pre-op briefing.

Based on good intel concerning where the turkeys and chickens roosted in the dairy shed at night, I created a tactically sound plan to solve the problem. Once everyone knew the who, what, when, and how of the plan, we grabbed our flashlights and proceeded to our assigned positions.

First, the 2 large turkeys who like to roost on the gate (on the left) had to be gently herded out of the shed without spooking the chicks (some of whom did jump off their perches). Then Danny and I blocked the shed entrance with a large tarp. K8 opened the coop door while K7 moved through the gate to sweep the young chickens toward K8. K8 started picking up birds and carrying them into the coop, putting them in nesting boxes or on the roosting bars, or just chased them into the coop. Mom brought the camera along to record the action, and was the coop door keeper, opening and closing as needed to assist K8.

In less than 5 minutes, all 12 young chickens were in their new home with food and water, and the door closed. Mission accomplished!

We'll leave them in here for a week, so they get used to the idea that this is home, where they lay eggs in the day and sleep on the roosting bars at night.

Awesome Saturday

Started with a massive wood cut to provide firewood for several church families. We had 33 men ranging in age from 10 to 72. K7 had play rehearsal for "Christmas Carol, the Musical", but joined us halfway through.

Wish I had thought to take photos from the very beginning, but we were too busy cutting and splitting wood. You can get a good idea of just how large this monster oak was. The weather was cool and overcast early on.

We had 6 chain saws and 3 log splitters in action, which is more than we normally have at a wood cut, so we were really moving along.  

This trailer was completely filled, which will provide almost 3 months of fuel to heat this family's home this winter.

Filled this truck and the stock trailer to the left. We also took 2 truckloads of wood to a single Mom and her family. And there is still more wood left - what a magnificent gift this tree was to our community.

Kept cutting away, and there was never a stop in carrying wood to the splitters, or carrying small branches to the massive burn pile. As you can see, the sun eventually came out, but the temp never got above 51F.

Great effort and teamwork by everyone.

Had to finally end off cutting up the last few giant pieces when our biggest chainsaw (at the feet of Jayson on the left) hit a nail that was buried deep inside the stump. It was so deep that it had to have been hammered into the tree over 45 years ago and covered over with much growth. It was a surprise, and it ruined the brand new chain on the saw! Glad we didn't hit it earlier in the day.

K7 made it to the woodcut and was wearing his Scout uniform (and as usual, the only guy in shorts!). He was one of 6 Eagle Scouts working with us. Why in uniform?

Because after the wood cut, some of our boys had to rush into town to carry flags in the annual Veteran's Day parade at 1:30. 

While in town, I couldn't help taking this pic showing the lowest gas prices we've seen in a long time. After the parade, we ate Subway sandwiches because it was 2:30 P.M. and we were pretty hungry since we hadn't eaten since early morning. Then it was off to another service project installing a dishwasher for a family before the boys could attend a birthday party in the evening for two good friends. What a day!

That calf we thought was due Oct 1st? Arrived 2 November!

Poor Little Darlin, our family milk cow, has been as big as a whale and waddling around waiting for this moment to calf in paddock #2. Saturday morning, 2 Nov, about 10:45 A.M. It is a bull calf, her second in a row. He is solid red and probably polled like her previous two calves. You can see two Dexter heifers in the background in paddock #1, which is currently the single girl's dormitory. They will both get Artificially Inseminated in January. 

Don't have his name picked yet, but it'll probably be something like "Rib-eye". He is beautiful, and glad he has a good "fur" coat.

I am just thankful that the weather was dry and in the low 50's, and did not freeze later that night. I gave Momma a little grain and a good scratching. She's a great mother and takes very good care of her off spring. Most dairy farmers around here have over 100 calves at a time to manage, but even with one or two (we have another one due this month), it is a big deal to us.

Papa and entire family in the waiting room? No. They came over bellowing a cow chorus because they saw me give Darlin grain, and they wanted some! Our bull, Red, better have all those other girls bred for late Spring calving.

Rabbit - the other "white" meat!

K8 invited his buddy over Friday to teach him how to butcher rabbits. He has recently begun raising New Zealand whites.

He will need to do this frequently once his two does start producing regularly. I envision eating fried rabbit a few times each month.

Mom came out to watch before leaving for a weekend trip to her parent's home to celebrate her Mother's 86th birthday.

"I'm a Momma's boy!", and not afraid to show it.

Order up! I need 9 chickens cut, plucked, and bagged please.

It has been 3 years since we started our flock, and the egg production was slowing down drastically. You know what that means on the farm - if the hens aren't laying, they go in the soup pot. We also had a few too many roosters. Last Wednesday was the appointed date for the deed. As you can see, we had an organized process with an improvised assembly line. Notice the first "victim" already in the cone just to the right of K7's head.

While K7 brought the birds out of the coup, K8 sharpened the blades.

We had an experienced friend from Church come to teach and oversee the day's work. 

K8 also had a friend over. Everyone of us was busy plucking feathers as fast as possible. Here, K7 is waiting for his bird to pluck. Next time, we'll butcher fewer chickens and do a better job plucking.

It started to rain, so we had to quickly shift our work area into the barn. Here the boys are removing feet and wings.

"Hey, did anyone sanitize this table first?" Final stage of eviscerating then rinsing and bagging before going into the freezer. 

Fickle temperatures?

The temperatures have gone up and down the past week, confusing the air and ground temps and resulting in heavy fog.

It was pretty cool looking, so I had to take some photos.

An hour later, you can see the two heifers in paddock #1.

And a much better view of our lovely glen with cows and sheep.

Fickle female decisions?

Remember back a few weeks when they painted Mom's greenhouse white? Well, we were ready to begin leveling the base to the ground in preparation to covering it and start a winter crop...

...when Mom announced this week that she wasn't really happy with the color White (that she picked). "I think it would look better painted Red!"

You have heard the old saying - "If Momma ain't happy, nobody is happy." It's true. "So what are you standing around for? Get it painted Red!"

Same crew, but more experienced this time around, so it went a little faster...except the guy up top. 

K7 looks like a maroon Hulk, busting out of his sister's old high school sweat suit (now Mom's painting clothes). "Hey, you missed a white spot on this side".

Mom called K8 back into the house before they got started and told him to change out of his nice clothes. Here he is also wearing some of Mom's painting clothes. He missed so many spots on the roof frame that he will be back out there painting again on Monday.