A couple of farmers went to a party ...

Beauty and Beau (one month old) on November 5

Why has it taken me so long to tell you about our new milk cow Beauty and her calf Beau? Maybe because I still have a hard time believing that the first Saturday in October we went to a party at another farm, and before the night was over, I had my heart set on this beautiful Jersey cow and her one-week-old bull calf. I've spent a lot of time thinking, I can't believe I bought a cow on impulse! and wondering if I'd made a huge mistake. So, here is the story ...

PrairiErth Farm in Atlanta, IL, was having a harvest festival on October 4, and Mike and I decided to go. We had to do chores before heading up there, so we arrived when the party was already in full swing. We parked our car and were walking past the barn on our way to the hoop house where all the food was set out on tables, and I heard a voice yell, "They're going to milk the cow. If anybody wants to see them milk the cow, come on over to the barn!"

I knew Dave the farmer had a couple of Jerseys, but you would have thought that I had never seen a cow in my life. I got so excited and told Mike that we had to go see the cow! We walked into the barn, and a few minutes later, Dave came into the barn with a bucket, and his 12-year-old son started to milk Beauty the Jersey while her sweet little calf walked around visiting with everyone. Then Dave asked if any of the children wanted to milk the cow, and I stood there watching in amazement as children walked up to the cow and were yanking on her teats while she just stood there quietly chewing her cud. I looked at Mike and squealed like a 5-year-old, "I want that cow!" Mike just smiled at me. "Really!" I said, "I want that cow! Can you believe that? She's letting those children try to milk her!" I went on and on as Mike simply smiled. Then I said, "Honey, you have to milk her!" And he just kept smiling, but he did eventually walk over there and squeeze her teats a few times while I said, "Isn't she easy to milk?" Mike just kept smiling and said, "Yes, she is."

Dave said that Beauty had been sold, but she calved about three weeks early, and the buyer backed out of the deal. The calf was perfectly healthy, but it was a bull calf, and Dave figures that the buyer had been hoping for a heifer calf. Anyway, Beauty and the calf were for sale. I was thrilled that the calf was a bull because we sold our cattle more than a year ago, and there is very little beef left in our freezer, and I've been wondering what I'd do when we ran out completely. I haven't purchased or eaten commercial beef since 1989, and I'm not going to start now.

October 11, the day after we brought them home

I talked to Dave about buying the cow and her calf, but I don't think he completely believed I was interested. But, seriously, how many people come to a party and decide to buy a cow? Mike was probably hoping I was just joking. But I had a terrible time falling asleep that night because I kept thinking about Beauty. I woke up early and went downstairs and made a list of pros and cons for buying Beauty. The "pro" list outnumbered the "con" list by a lot. One of the advantages of buying her would be that she would obviously be great for teaching people to milk. Another thing is that we could make cheese with cow milk. If she produced more milk than we needed, we could get a calf from a dairy and raise it for beef. We could also feed extra milk to the pigs. The only down side is that we'd have to milk her, but on the pro side, it would take less time to milk one cow than several goats. Of course, the goats are going nowhere because I do still love my goat cheese, but I have always loved Jersey cream and butter. I love goat milk, but it doesn't have that "buttery" flavor that Jersey milk does.

So, after a couple of days of deliberation and discussions with Mike, I called Dave and told him that we wanted to buy Beauty. He sounded surprised and happy. He said he had hoped she would become a family milk cow rather than going to a dairy.

It's been two and a half months now, and we are enjoying her and her calf. She has learned to go into the barn every night. In fact, she gets downright loud when the sun is going down and we are not there to let her in. She heads straight to her stall, as soon as we open the door for her. And then I give her a hug every night as she starts to munch on her hay. We are enjoying her milk, which are using for yogurt and cheddar.

Beau is growing up so fast, and he is starting to get darker like his mama. Here's a picture of him on Dec. 10. We separate him from Beauty every night and milk her in the morning. The two of them are together in the pasture during the day, so he can nurse as much as he wants during that time. He will probably become beef in late summer as the grass starts to slow down. And at some point, we'll have Beauty artificially inseminated so she'll have another calf.

We're looking for a few good farmers

A few days ago I noticed that a farm house three miles from us had become a pile of rubble, and last night, it was a fire. A very old farming couple lived there. I met the woman once when I knocked on her door to tell her that one of her pigs had escaped and was in the field across the road. She moved slowly and looked like she was at least in her seventies. I felt terrible not being able to offer to help her get the pig back to his pen, but we were on our way to an appointment. I don't know what happened to the couple, but their house is now ashes.

According to the government, the average age of farmers in this country is almost 60. That's absurd for an average working age! That is the average age of retirement for many professions. Yet I know plenty of farmers in their 70s. Since we moved out here in 2002, we have seen many farm houses torn down -- at least one every year or two -- along the roads that we travel most commonly between our house and the Interstate, which is only 12 miles away. That's actually a very high percentage of the houses being torn down because there wasn't more than one house every half a mile or so. Now there are even less. Because most of Illinois has been turned into corn and soybean country, a single farmer can farm a couple thousand acres, so the number of farmers keeps shrinking.

But the problem is that we don't eat corn and soybeans. Although some of the corn and soybeans are used for livestock feed, a lot of it is sent to a lab and turned into non-edible things, such as ethanol and styrofoam packing peanuts (corn) and biodiesel (soybeans), as well as non-nutritive food additives, such as corn syrup, corn starch, soy lecithin, and things you can't pronounce like sodium carboxymethylcellulose. Back in the 1950s, Illinois was the fifth largest vegetable producing state in the nation. Today we import 95% of our food from other states and other countries. We have some of the best, most fertile land in the country, yet if something happened to our transportation system tomorrow, most of the state would be starving within days. Even if that never happens, the cost of transportation is going to keep climbing, and someday it will be considered absurd to eat lettuce from California or asparagus from South America. This food system is not sustainable.

Illinois needs people to grow food for people living in Illinois. The problem is that getting started in farming traditionally has not been like getting started in any other profession. You had to inherit a farm. And with today's land prices, that isn't going to change any time soon. But there is an alternative. Incubator farms are starting to pop up for those who want to farm but don't have the cash to buy their own land. I've actually been thinking about this for a few years. Why don't we form a partnership with people who want to farm? We'll provide the land, equipment, tools, etc, and they provide the labor, and we split the profits. I didn't actually do anything to find potential incubator farmers, though, because I didn't have any faith in my idea. I thought, who'd want to do that? Well, as it turns out, lots of people want to do that!

In his book, Fields of Farmers, Joel Salatin said he is doing exactly that. The reason that his farm has grown so large in recent years is because he has former interns staying on at Polyface as partners. Joel now rents several farms within a 30 minute radius of his farm so that new farmers can work them. When I attended the Acres USA conference last December in Springfield, IL, there was another farmer there who was also doing the same thing. He did a session on the nuts and bolts of having new farmer-partners working on his farm.

With our children grown and no longer living at home, we have 32 acres here (and another 67 acres that I need to tell you about soon) that is too much for us to utilize to its fullest potential. It seems wasteful and somewhat stingy to simply use this as my oversized park when it could be used to grow organic food for people while giving new farmers the experience they need to be able to eventually go to a bank to get a business loan to buy their own farm.

So, that's the plan for 2015 and moving forward. Earlier this year, we created Antiquity Oaks LLC, and our main goal moving forward is to be a farm that educates new and aspiring farmers, whether they want to have a market garden, grow mushrooms, produce honey or maple syrup, or raise animals for meat, milk, or fiber. In addition to having classes and internship programs, we will have partnership opportunities for those with education and experience who want to start their own farming business.

If you know anyone who is looking for that type of opportunity, feel free to give them our contact information!

Trimming the boar's tusks

(or Vet Visit, Part 2)

A couple of days before the vet was supposed to come over to do the goat ultrasounds, someone on one of the pig Facebook groups posted a picture of a large gash in her leg. It was caused by her boar turning his head at the wrong moment, and his tusk sliced through her boot, her thick sock, and into her leg! Then several other people talked about similar experiences. All of them had sweet, docile American Guinea Hogs who just happened to turn their head at the wrong moment!

Although Henry's tusks looked scary, I never thought he would ever hurt one of us with them. He is so incredibly docile! But after seeing those pictures and hearing several other people say the same thing had happened to them, I decided that I was incredibly lucky to already have an appointment with the vet who was coming to the farm in a couple of days! So, I emailed and asked if she could trim Henry's tusks when she was here.

The vet said we needed to put him in a small space where he couldn't get away, and she could more easily work with him. Confine? Everyone around here is free range! After wringing our hands and saying to each other that we didn't have such a place on our farm, it finally clicked! We put him in the horse trailer! Then, while we were waiting for the vet to arrive, I tried to get a good picture of his big scary tusks.

I was disappointed that these pictures did not do justice to the tusks!

But here is a picture of the vet sawing away at one of his tusks ... look at the size of that bad boy! It's even longer than I'd realized!

Yep, that could have done some damage if he'd turned his head at the wrong moment. I was surprised at the dust that was created as she was sawing on it.

Once the tusk was cut off, she used a dremel to smooth off the sharp edges. And in case you are wondering, Henry was sedated for this. He may be sweet and docile, but I didn't expect him to lay there and let someone cut off his tusks. It's hard enough for me to sit in a dentist's chair and let them work on my teeth, and I know they're doing something that's ultimately good for me.

The vet said Henry's tusks shouldn't need to be trimmed again for a couple of years. While she was here, I also mentioned to her that several people online suggested simply giving a boar a few beers (one beer per 100 pounds, to be exact) and then using bolt cutters to snip off the tusks. She said the problem with bolt cutters is that the tooth will sometimes wind up cracking all of the way down to the root, so it's really better to use the obstetrical wire to cut the tusk. Although she didn't comment on the use of beer as a pig sedative, I don't really want to risk my hands on it, so we will be calling her back next time Henry needs a trim.

Vet visit

We don't have a full-time large animal vet anywhere near us, which is why I always wind up driving the two hours to the University of Illinois vet clinic in emergencies. However, there is a traveling vet that comes through here, and although it would be $140 to have her drive here just for us, if I can coordinate her visit with another nearby farm (or two or three), we can reduce that cost considerably. And that's what happened a couple of weeks ago. A farmer friend of mine was having the vet come to her place to trim her boar's tusks, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get an ultrasound on a goat that was being sold to Texas to make sure she was pregnant.

So, here's Marie on the milk stand, enjoying some grain, with no idea that the vet is about to put that cold ultrasound probe on her belly. It went totally fine though -- after Marie's initial shock -- and we learned that she was pregnant with at least two bouncy kids! So, Marie is now in her new home down in Texas.

Since the vet was going to be here, I also decided to get an ultrasound on Vera. She was two months pregnant and already huge. I have only ever had three goats look pregnant at two months -- Vera when she had quintuplets last year, and her mother Coco, the two times she had quints!

If memory serves, this is just a picture of amniotic fluid, but that means the goat is pregnant! Unfortunately, with Vera being two months into her pregnancy already, the vet couldn't get a good view of all the kids at once. She could see three at one time, but she was hesitant to say that there were more than that because it's tough to know when you're seeing the same kid or a different one each time you move the probe a little. So, I guess we'll just have to be surprised at the end of January when Vera kids. If she does have five in there again, I just hope that they come shooting out as easily as they did this last kidding season. Mike was home alone and said he could hardly get them dried off fast enough.

Tagging pigs

Although we've been raising American Guinea Hogs for four years, and we had Tamworths for about six years before that, we've almost always sold them for meat. However, the past couple of months, I've had several people contact me about buying breeding stock. In fact, all of our September piglets have been sold as live piglets to people who want to raise them either for meat or as the beginning of their breeding program. In order to provide positive identification for them, the pigs need to have ear tags, tattoos, or ear notches. I hate ear notches; tattoos can be hard to read; so that leaves us with ear tags. It's the lesser of three evils.

Three piglets were picked up on Saturday, and we needed to put ear tags in them. I really expected it to be about as much fun as a root canal without novocaine. Mike and I discussed whether he or I should hold a pig or be the tagger. I personally didn't think that I was necessarily strong enough to do either. Although most people think of pigs as "fat," the fact is that they are the most concentrated bundle of muscle of any of the animals on the farm. Ultimately we decided that he should hold the pig while I put the tag in the ear.

And I am happy to say that it went much better than anticipated. In fact, it was easier than tattooing goats or tagging sheep. The pigs made a short squeak when the tag went into their ear, but that was it! No thrashing, no non-stop squealing, no drama. It wasn't much harder than using a hole punch in a piece of paper.

And the three little pigs were on their way to their new home!

Livestock Conservancy Conference

Last weekend I attended the Livestock Conservancy's national conference in Austin, TX. Like all of their conferences, the food was amazing! Members donated a variety of delicious pastured meats from heritage animals. Then the lucky chef gets to use that meat in all sorts of creative ways for a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The meats included Gulf Coast sheep, Red Poll beef, and Large Black pork.

Although food plays a starring role in the conference, the real reason that everyone attends is to learn and network. I presented a half-day workshop on Friday morning about creating value-added products with heritage livestock, and it was a lot of fun. The point of the session was not to tell people how to do things (like spin yarn) but simply to give them an idea of things that could be done and what type of investment would have to be made in terms of learning and and financing. I met some very interesting people at all stages of the farming journey, from those still in the planning stages to those who've been raising livestock for many years. Saturday, I presented a one-hour talk on goats as the centerpiece of a diversified homestead, which includes information on how to actually make things like soap and cheese.

When I wasn't speaking, I attended sessions. During most hours, I was wishing I could be in two places at once! My favorite was a session on silvopasturing pigs -- or, raising pigs in the woods. The speakers were Marc and Lydia Mousseau of Atlanta. If I had met them anywhere else, and they had asked me to guess whether they were pig farmers or the owners of a design firm, I would have totally chosen the latter. However, the correct answer is "both!" I could totally relate to them because they were city slickers like I was 12 years ago!

It was two years ago that Marc became enamored by Ossabaw Island hogs and started talking about raising them on their land outside of Atlanta. Of course, his family thought he was nuts. (Sound familiar?) But as he continued talking about them and even came up with a business plan, they began to realize that he was serious.

Marc talked about the job of building a barn and erecting fencing for the pigs, as well as his agreement with an Atlanta chef who buys all of the pork that is currently being produced. I laughed more than once at his stories, and I filed away a couple of interesting tidbits of information. (1) He buried his fencing eight inches deep to keep the pigs from escaping, (2) If you say "Ossabaw" to Siri, she thinks you're saying "Awesome Bob," so of course, Marc had to name one of his boars "Awesome Bob!" and (3) Ossabaw Island hogs kill and eat coyotes! But they don't eat the tail.

Although Austin was unseasonably cold with temperatures in the 50s, Illinois was much worse! I arrived home to temperatures in the teens, and we had a dusting of snow on Monday evening. Winter seems to be arriving much earlier than normal, and I am definitely not looking forward to it.

Culling pigs

Tomorrow is the day that our last group of yearling pigs will go to the locker for processing, so I have to make my final decision on which gilts to keep for breeding. Yesterday morning I went outside for another one of my visits with the pigs. Although they were not at all friendly a few weeks ago, my little visits have turned most of them around. There is still one pig with a pink nose and two white legs that has made it quite clear that she doesn't want to be friends, so her destiny is sealed. The other four that are still here, however, have grown accustomed to my little visits and enjoy being petted.

This one was the first to roll over for a belly rub, and now I can walk up to her and start petting her, and she just drops herself to the ground and rolls over like this! In addition to winning me over with her sweet personality, she also allowed me to count her teats. She has 13, which means she'll be able to feed a lot of little porkers! One of the other pigs has 14. Two of the others only have 11, which is not good if they have more than 9 piglets. Two teats at the end often don't develop enough for the babies to actually be able to use them effectively, so more teats is better. Julia had 13 babies last year, so these pigs can have a lot! Because the sow lays down, and all of the piglets nurse at the same time, she needs to have enough teats for all of the babies.

In addition to personality and number of teats, I'm also looking at body conformation. The pig in the picture is one of the medium-sized pigs. Unfortunately the one with 14 teats is huge. She has a lot of fat, especially around her jowls, and it makes me wonder if she'll have fertility issues. Overweight animals often do. She has been getting all of the same food as the others, and somehow she wound up weighing a lot more. Since she is bigger, will she have bigger piglets? It might be interesting to keep these two and see if they are different in terms of fertility and how many piglets they are able to raise.

So much to consider, and my deadline is only a few hours away.

A new goal

As we are making the transition from homestead to full-fledged working farm with a strong emphasis on education, I am attending a variety of business seminars, and a couple of days ago, I attended one on managing multiple priorities -- and boy, do I have multiple priorities! It seems like I go through every day doing whatever is urgently demanding my attention, whether it is a goat in heat that needs to be bred or milk that needs to be turned into cheese, which leaves little time for things that need to be done but are not urgent, such as finishing the staircase or putting tile around our bathtub. (Yeah, we moved in 10 years ago.)

"Goals" was one of the many topics covered in the six hour seminar, and although I am no stranger to goals, sometimes we need to be reminded to actually apply what we know! Even though something may be important, it may not get done because you don't have a goal. So, I've decided to set a goal of posting on here at least once a week. I'd spent so many years just posting as soon as something happened that I never thought I needed to set a goal to post on here. But as other things have taken over my life, I find that blogging on here gets pushed to the back burner.

I have a goal of posting on my Thrifty Homesteader blog three times a week, and I usually meet it. Because that is a "how to" kind of blog, I feel a commitment to produce information to help people learn to homestead or live a greener life. But, I've always looked at this blog as my homesteading journal, and feeling that no one really "needs" to read this stuff, it gets put off day after day. I suppose I think of this as my fun blog and Thrifty Homesteader as my work blog. Even if that is the case, I should still make a habit of blogging here regularly because we all need to remember to incorporate fun into our lives, right?

So, rather than thinking that I'm going to write lots of individual blog posts on all of the little things happening around the homestead, here are a few highlights. You see that rose up there? That was really taken on our farm two weeks ago! And the same bush is still blooming, even though we've had two nights with below freezing temperatures. There are currently three blooms on that bush!

I planted lettuce in August, so we now have lots of big, beautiful heads of lettuce!

And that means we can have lots of salad! I especially love an entirely homegrown and homemade Cobb salad made with our chicken, bacon, jack cheese, boiled eggs, and lettuce!

Here is a picture of the butter I made with the milk from our new Jersey cow, which we got in early October. I am still hoping to tell you how we got her because it's a funny story, but for now, you get to see the butter. We've also made yogurt and gouda with her milk so far. No verdict on the gouda yet because it has to age, but the yogurt was a lot thinner than my goat milk yogurt, which would be fine for smoothies, but when it comes to fresh eating, I prefer the goat milk yogurt.

We currently have the goats grazing around our house, so here's Lizzie! We do rotational grazing, and now is the end of the grazing season, so we're letting the goats have every last bit of greenery, including everything in our yard.

Next weekend I'm heading down to Texas for the Livestock Conservancy conference. If any of you are there, say hi!

So, there you have it ... what I've been up to the last few weeks and where I'm heading. And I now have a goal to post on here at least once a week. It may not be perfect, but it'll be something.

Pigs and cows and sciatica, oh my!

There are 365 days in a year and 24 hours in every day, so why did a 150-pound pig decide that NOW was the time to get itself completely tangled up in Electronet? After yesterday's 7-hour barn cleaning marathon, I can now say I truly feel your pain if you've ever suffered from sciatica. The last time I was walking, holding my back, moaning, groaning, and breathing like this was 21 years ago when I was giving birth to my last child! I was simultaneously crying in pain and laughing at the complete absurdity of the situation! Getting a pig out of Electronet in my condition was quite a challenge, but it is free -- and I bet it will never go near Electronet again.

my Facebook status yesterday

I have no doubt this would all be quite hilarious if I were watching it in a movie. But I'm not. I'm living it. But let's start at the beginning ... (It's okay if you laugh. I promise I won't get mad.)

I've had sciatic pain off and on for the past year. When I was mistakenly diagnosed with reflux earlier this year, I started sleeping on a wedge, which did nothing for my digestive problems but after the first night of sleeping on the wedge, I realized that my low back pain was gone! So, I thought I had learned how to deal with it. On Monday someone came out to help clean up the kidding barn and get it ready for kidding season, which will start in December. Because my back has been bothering me a little, I made a point of not doing any heavy lifting. I did all of the gross little things ... like cleaning off the shelves behind the kidding stalls, cleaning the store room, removing fly strips, and other tedious but important jobs. (Now I really wish I had taken a picture! It looks great!) Other than my knee feeling a little more swollen than normal, I was feeling fine. We worked from noon to seven, then I came inside and cooked dinner. By 9 p.m., I knew I had a problem, but I figured a good night's rest would take care of it.

Not even close! I woke up yesterday morning wincing in pain every time I moved. I was moving slowly and taking tiny steps. When I came downstairs, the first thing I did was an online search for sciatica. I didn't learn anything terribly helpful, although I found it curious that most of the articles said it is made worse by sitting. Hmm ... mine was always worse from laying down flat, either on my back or stomach. Sitting never seemed to bother it as much. So I figured I'd spend the day sitting in front of the computer, icing my back off and on all day. It was going pretty well until around 2:45 when I suddenly heard a pig squealing non-stop! I limped to the window as quickly as I could manage, as the squealing continued. The pigs are in the front yard cleaning up the acorns and hickory nuts. When I looked to where the squeal was coming from, I saw a pig tangled in the Electronet that was keeping the goats in their area.

"Oh! Good grief! Seriously? Seriously? Today?" I hobbled to the front door and headed outside without even changing my slippers to farm shoes. Having been shocked a couple of times by an electric fence, I knew the pig was truly in distress. And just in case I had any doubts, it was continuing to squeal non-stop. I made my way to the barn as quickly as I could and unplugged the fence charger. The squealing stopped immediately. As I then headed towards the pig, I saw absolutely zero movement. Oh no, it's dead. No, it wouldn't have died at exactly the same second you unplugged the charger. But it's not moving. Why isn't it moving? And so my thoughts spun out of control until I was close enough to see that the pig was blinking its eyes. The whole time I was moving from one end of the front yard to the other, I was also holding my back, taking deep breaths, blowing them out with a loud moan, and occasionally throwing out a swear word for pain control.

When I finally reached the pig, I realized that it had pulled up five of the stakes that held the fence in place. Although I was able to remove one strand of fencing from across the bridge of its snout, I couldn't figure out how exactly it had put itself at the center of this gordian knot. A strand of fencing ran so tightly across its back that I couldn't even slip a finger under it. In my pain-induced fuzzy brain, I had the brilliant idea to pull the pig backwards. Keep in mind that I can't squat because of the arthritis in my knees, and now I can hardly bend my back, so I am bending my knees as far as I can, and I'm trying to bend my body forward at my hips. I foolishly thought that I could simply use my arms to pull the pig backwards. Hey, at least I knew that I wouldn't be able to use my back to pull on it. Of course, the pig wanted nothing to do with me pulling on it -- as if I could actually have moved a 150-pound pig with only my arms!

First I hobbled to the house for a pair of scissors so that I could cut the strand of fencing. Even though we probably own seven pairs, there was not a single pair that I could easily find. Thanks to the fact that, more than once, I've caught my husband using goat hoof trimmers to cut and strip electrical wire, I realized that they were probably an even better idea than scissors, which probably would not have worked anyway. So, off I hobbled towards the barn, huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning, and holding my back the whole way. We always keep an old pair of hoof trimmers in the side of a hay stack to use for cutting baling twine, so they were easy to find. And then I made the same arduous journey back across the yard, looking like a woman in hard labor, minus the obligatory baby bump out front.

I finally reached the pig, who now had enough strength to squeal in anticipation of the fact that it knew I was going to touch it again. This was not one of the friendlier pigs who actually enjoys getting a scratch behind the ears and a back massage -- and even if it was, it probably would not have been after being tangled in an electric fence and being shocked for a couple of minutes. I slowly began my descent into the semi-squat, hinged bending at the hips until I could reach the wire across the pig's back. Because I couldn't even get my finger under it, I pushed the tip of hoof trimmers under it as gently and slowly as I could so as not to accidentally stab the pig. The moment I heard the snap of the hoof trimmers cutting through the fence strand, the pig bolted, running as fast a pig could possible run, across the yard, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder without slowing down.

When I finally went back inside, I complained on Facebook. I knew I would still need to do evening chores a couple hours later, but that seemed like nothing after dealing with the pig fiasco. Mike had done double-duty on a lot of things that morning because he knew I was having trouble, so I only needed to provide hay for a few animals and bring the goats and cows into the barn. Simple enough, right?

I'd love to say that I had nothing but positive thoughts throughout evening chores, but that wouldn't be true. I had all sorts of visions of goats running amok, dancing on hay stacks, and gorging themselves on the pig grain. You see, I had to move them from their pasture, across the front yard, and through the whole barn to get to their stalls. I also had to move the milk cow and her calf into the barn. Milk cow? What milk cow? Oh, right, I haven't told you about Beauty and her calf Beau yet. They've been here for almost two weeks now. I promise I'll tell you about them in the next couple of days!

When I went outside to do chores, Beauty mooed at me from the back door of the barn, so I thought I should take advantage of the fact that she was already at the door and let her in as soon as I had hay and water in all of the stalls. It took me awhile because I couldn't lift the five-gallon buckets, so had to use the two-gallon. She was standing a little too close to the door for me to open it enough for her to walk right in, so I took a couple of steps out of the door and pulled on her halter to get her to walk around the door and come inside. It was the first time I'd ever tried that. We've always hooked a lead rope to her halter before, but I'd forgotten to grab one and was budgeting my steps. She actually cooperated quite nicely and was heading into the barn. I had not thought to close the door to the goat stall, so of course, that's where she went. Part of me wanted to just leave her in there, but the thought of a goat laying in a cow pie changed my mind. Once again, I pulled on her halter and she followed me into the aisle and then into her stall. I closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

Beau, however, was a different story. He was running back and forth through the barn. At only four weeks, he is a sweet little thing, but he is rapidly approaching the size of a Great Dane. We've started putting him in a separate stall overnight so that we can milk Beauty in the morning. Porter the English shepherd helps me move the goats into and out of the barn, and he knew I was trying to get Beau to go towards his stall. He was trying to help me by nipping at (but never actually biting) Beau's hind legs. Beau seemed to know that Porter wasn't going to actually bite him, and was completely ignoring him! It was actually rather humorous seeing Porter's reaction. He would nip at Beau's heels, and then he would look at me with what I swear was a confused look on his face! Porter seemed to be saying to me, I'm telling him to move, but he won't move! Why won't he move? Beau's back reaches to the middle of my thighs, so I got behind him and started to push my thighs against his back end. If he went to turn one way or the other, I'd just push on his ribs with my hand (doing the odd semi-squatting, hinged hip bending) to make him go straight. Finally we made our way to his stall, and after staring at it for a few seconds -- just long enough to make me worry -- he ran inside.

And then there were the goats, which actually went extremely well, thanks to Porter's help. Even though he and I have taken only one herding class -- not a series of classes, but one, three-hour intro class -- we've learned to muddle through and work together on moving the goats from the barn to the pasture in the morning and back into the barn at night. Since we use rotational grazing, the pasture does not always abut the barn, so there is an almost infinite number of challenges that could occur daily. However, I also think that the goats have been trained as much as the dog.

If a movie were ever made about Porter, he would be voiced by Eddie Murphy. His personality is so much like a lot of the Eddie Murphy characters who think that all of the women love them and that they are oh-so-tough with their adversaries. And he's a little too quick to declare success and start to celebrate. Moving the goats into the barn was flawless, but then Porter came running back out, jumping jubilantly into the air, as I slowly hobbled towards the barn so that I could close the stall door. I could see that some of the goats were coming back out of their stall and into the main part of the barn. I yelled, "No! Porter, go get the goats!" As soon as I screamed the words, the goats all turned on their heels and headed back into their stall. Then Porter turned away from me and ran to the door of their stall, tail wagging wildly, looking up at me and saying in that Eddie Murphy voice, "Hey! What you worried about? I got it under control! See!"

I closed the stall door as Porter again began jumping into the air declaring success at once again putting the goats in their place. As I continued my labored breathing and walking slowly towards the house, he would run ahead, then turn and run back to ask me what's taking so long. But we eventually made it back to the house, and I was very happy to call it a day.

Many thanks to PR intern Brooke Poling who took the pig pictures when she was here on Sunday.

Goat breeding challenges

 Elizabeth Taylor

Breeding challenges? What's so challenging? They just do it, right? Well, yeah, but because we want to know who breeds whom, we have to set up the goats on dates. And because we want to know when the kids are due, we wait until the does are in heat and then put them together with the chosen one. That is much easier to do when (a) you have no physical limitations, or (b) you have children with no physical limitations who can help. I used to have both. I currently have neither!

This morning before leaving for work, Mike mentioned to me that Taylor was screaming her head off. Ah, that's who's making that racket out there. I looked out the window, and her wide-open mouth matched the sound of the screams as she stood at the gate to the barn pasture staring towards the buck pens. This should be easy, I thought, because she's a trained milk goat. She runs into the milking parlor twice a day, every day for milking. Well, obviously she was afraid that I had some terrible fate in mind for her because this turned out to be anything but easy!

I went to the pasture and opened the gate so she could come into the pasture where the buck pens are located. She eyed me suspiciously and then ran past me. To complicate matters, this pasture has been rooted up quite a bit by the yearling piglets, so there are lots of holes and little hills that make walking a challenge -- even for someone with a good pair of legs. Don't even think about running, I told myself. Patience is a virtue ... and reduces injuries. But every time I came without twenty feet of Taylor, she'd bolt! You'd have thought the doe had never been touched by human hands in her life.

I wanted to breed her to Monarch, but if I couldn't catch her, that was going to be a challenge. She visited the buck pen where AJ was hanging out with Victoria, a yearling who is being pen bred. She flagged (wagged her tail) at him, and he sniffed her and turned up his lip, meaning that he liked what he smelled. Then she trotted down to the buck pen at the other end of the pasture where Calvin and Austin were staying. She was bred to Calvin last year. I really hoped that she would not plant her feet down there and refuse to move because it was the farthest from where Monarch was staying. Finally she trotted back to AJ, and I decided that it might just be easier to go into AJ's pen and bring him out. After all, there were no other does in the barn pasture. So, I went in there, and AJ ran away from me!

"Seriously, dude? Do you want to have sex today or not? Because if you run away from me, it's not happening!" I took a few more steps towards him, and he ran away again. He is four and a half years old. This is his fifth breeding season. He really should know that when there is a girl in heat, and I come to get him, it means only one thing! "Well, never mind then," I said as I turned and left his pen. "Your loss." I really wanted to breed her to Monarch anyway, so I decided that catching Monarch and bringing him into the barn pasture might be the easiest route.

I went into the little barn where Monarch was staying with the three bottle bucks. Monarch is only six months old, which is why he is still with the baby bucks. I thought it would be easy to catch him because when I was trying to take pictures of him last week, he kept jumping on me. But of course this couldn't be easy either. He came running into the barn from the pasture when I called the boys, but as soon as I tried to catch him, he started running around the stall in a big circle. So, I got a pan of grain and a lead rope. Finally something went right! He went for the grain and didn't care that I was putting a lead around his neck.

As soon as I took him into the pasture, he and Taylor spotted each other. She came trotting over, and he ran to her. He sniffed her, she flagged, he blubbered, she stood, he mounted, she hunched her back indicating a successful mating, and that was that. Yes, it really does happen that fast. Had I blinked, I really would have missed it!

But a single mating isn't always enough, especially with a six-month-old buck whose sperm count may not be that high yet. At that point, Taylor decided to play hard to get, so she started trotting around the pasture, and Monarch tried to run after her, dragging me behind him. After about five minutes of this, she decided to stand again, so there was another successful mating. I can't do this all morning, I thought. I should be able to catch Taylor next time she stands for Monarch. So, I grabbed Taylor's collar and led them both into the barn so I could put them into a stall for the day.

 Monarch 

Leading two goats across a pasture -- one by the collar and one with a lead -- is not as easy as it sounds. Monarch is not exactly trained to lead like a dog, so he was zigzagging all over the place and ran around me, wrapping the lead around my legs. Because I had one hand on Taylor's collar, I couldn't move the lead to my other hand. I'm not sure how I got out of there uninjured, but I did eventually get them both into a stall in the barn.

Note to self: Put all of the bucks into their own individual breeding pens, and if a doe is in heat, do not let her into the pasture after the morning milking!

Blogging ... and a visit from my daughter

I've spent a bit of time today looking over old blog posts and remembering how much fun it used to be for me to share my day-to-day life with everyone on here. After eight years on this blog, I am currently on track for having the lowest number of posts in any year. It certainly isn't because we don't have a ton of stuff happening around here. I'd have to say that the opposite is true. I always think about blogging when I'm in the midst of something, but then it just never happens. I want that to change. I still love sharing my stories on here! I know I just have to get back into the habit. Now a lot of little things wind up on Facebook, either on my personal page or on the Antiquity Oaks farm page. However, I still love telling the long stories, so I just have to start doing it again!

So, here is a little something that I've been meaning to share! Remember Margaret? She was only 14 when we moved out here, and she and her sister could have drowned in the flooded creek when trying to rescue some goats back in 2008. Click here for her version of the story. Today she is an electrical engineer in Ft. Worth, TX, which is a lifetime away from the farm in Illinois! She flew up here to help out with the Homesteading Conference over Labor Day weekend, and while she was here, she also helped me with some website things for the farm. While we were outside getting pictures of the goats for the website, I also got a couple pictures of her with some of the animals.

The Farm Crawl went well last month, and then we had the Homesteading Conference (mentioned in the above paragraph), and then I flew out to California to speak at the National Heirloom Expo, and I came home to cold and rain and two mama pigs giving birth in the pasture -- yes, all of that at once!

I realize this is a terrible excuse for a blog post, but hopefully I'll be back in the swing of this blogging thing soon! Although most of this is not terribly exciting, the saga of the pigs giving birth has been quite the drama, and I promise I will tell you the story soon. And yes, I will have adorable piglet pictures!

Stocking up

About a month ago we finally got our first load of hay that will feed our animals through the winter. Since then we got a second and third load of hay, so the barn is filling up fast.

Jonathan, who has now gone off to college, helped stack the first load.

Don't worry. Mike wasn't throwing that bale of hay at Jonathan.

Yeah, I was having fun taking pictures and trying to get all the bales in mid-air.

And this is what it looked like when that first load of hay was stacked. You see who immediately took advantage of that hay stack? (way up on top!)

We all know that the real reason barns have hay stacks is so that the barn cats have a place to hang out. This is Patches, our nine-year-old barn kitty who was dumped out here as a kitten.

Since I took these pictures, we've had two more loads of hay, and this side of the barn now has hay up to the ceiling, and the other side is about half full.

Want to visit?

Kat doing a goat milking demo in 2012

We are busy getting ready for the Third Annual Livingston County Farm Crawl, which will be held next weekend, August 23 and 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. In addition to visiting our farm, you can also visit four other nearby family farms.

Set-up of our soap and wool the first year

Why are we doing this? Well, it all started when I was complaining to a friend one day. You see, we used to get quite a few phone calls and emails from total strangers who wanted to come see our farm in person because they'd seen our website or read one of my books or seen an article and so on. At first it was a lot of fun! But after the tenth or fifteenth time, you start to realize that nothing gets done when you're walking around with visitors chatting -- even when they volunteer to help you, because really, they don't know what they're doing so it takes longer to explain things to them than it would to just do it yourself. So, I decided to set aside a few days each summer just for visitors. Whenever someone would contact me about visiting, I'd suggest that they come on one of our Open Farm days. We did that for a few years, and then one day I was complaining to a farm friend in Iowa about how much work it was to get the farm all gussied up just for a dozen or so visitors. And she said, "Why don't you have a farm crawl?" A what?

I guess pubs are few and far between in Iowa, so instead of pub crawls they do farm crawls. It made sense that if a few farms got together to promote a day where people could visit multiple farms, we would get more visitors. There were four farms total, and we figured that if each of us could get 10 or 20 people to come, that would be 40 to 80 for all four farms. We were all very surprised and excited when we had 300 visitors that first year!

Last year another farm joined, making a total of five farms for people to visit, and this year we've decided to go from Saturday only to Sunday also. If the number of visitors continues to grow, it could get a little crazy on a single day.

You can visit the official Farm Crawl website to see the map and list of farms, which includes what you will see at each farm and what will be available to buy. Here is what will be happening on Antiquity Oaks:

Available to purchase: vegetables, eggs (both chicken and duck), goat milk soap made with organic oils, Shetland wool roving, Shetland and llama yarn, raw Shetland fleeces, Old English Southdown wool batting, naturally colored sheepskins, llama and wool rugs, books on raising livestock, gardening, homesteading, etc. Credit cards accepted.

Demonstrations:

Saturday, 10:30 a.m. Goat milking
Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Solar oven cooking demo
Saturday, 2 p.m. Mozzarella making
Sunday, 11 a.m. Scything (cutting grass hay with a scythe)
Sunday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Solar oven cooking demo
Sunday, 3 p.m. Goat milking

Virtual garden tour

Due to all the challenges that you've all been hearing about over the past few months, things happened later than usual this year, and the garden was no exception. However, we are doing better than I had expected. Here's what it looks like now ...

The perennials are done producing and just hanging out until next year. That's asparagus in the middle, rhubarb on the left and strawberries in the lower right corner...

The tomato plants are still really small ...

but we have tomatoes! They are still green but should be ripening soon. These are chocolate cherry tomatoes, and I can hardly wait. No, they do not taste like chocolate. They are chocolate colored, and they are as yummy as chocolate in their own way. They are definitely my favorite cherry tomato.

The zucchini and patty pan squash are doing great. The row on the left is zucchini, and the row on the right is patty pan squash. They were planted six feet apart, but they are so big, they have eclipsed the walkway. It seems like we can never plant them far enough apart. When you have nothing but seeds in your hands, it always seems like you are giving them more than enough room. I think I may have even posted on here in a previous year that I was going to start planting them eight feet apart.

And here are some awesome peppers that we are trying for the first time -- feher ozon paprika. They are supposed to ripen to a peachy-orange color. It's a sweet pepper, and yes, you can supposedly dry them and grind them up to make paprika.

A month ago, I planted some Swiss chard...

There are also onions and kale, but I didn't get pictures of them. Sunday I planted five types of lettuce in one of the raised beds: flame, Ella Kropf, speckled, Yugoslavian red butterhead, and bunte forellenschluss. Some of the raised beds have hoops on them so that we can cover them and continue to harvest through the winter! Soon we'll be planting more fall crops, such as arugula and more spinach and lettuce, also in the raised beds.

Apples!

This poor tree was planted in 2008, and this is the first year that it has produced more than three or four fruit. Most of our fruit trees are producing a decent harvest by three years of age. Our pears trees produced an average of 27 pounds each in their third year.

I do have to give the apple tree credit for merely surviving, as it is the young fruit tree closest to the barn, which means that whenever the goats accidentally get out, it is the first one to be attacked. You can see that the bark was recently stripped off on the left side of the trunk. Unfortunately, this type of thing happens at least annually.

You may have also noticed the lack of mulch, which doesn't help, as the tree has to compete with the grass and weeds for water and nutrients. As soon as the apples are harvested, I will add compost and mulch. I normally do that twice a year -- in spring and in fall -- but because of my injuries and illnesses the first six months, it was one of the many things that slipped through the cracks. So, I am especially grateful that this little tree pulled through with such a nice harvest!

Update on everything!

Yikes! July is already more than half done! My knee has finally improved enough that I am able to do about 80% of what I normally can do, which is really great news for me and everyone else here.

My baby daughter has flown the coop big time! Even though she had been at the University of Illinois for the past two years, that was less than two hours away. On Friday she moved all the way to Ft. Collins to begin work on her Ph.D. at Colorado State.

And here are a few pictures of things happening around the farm....

We have been teaching Tinker the yearling lady llama to lead, and she is doing splendidly! I never dreamed I would ever have a llama as friendly as her. Most are quite aloof, but Tinker is a true sweetheart, loving attention ...

We just moved the youngest batch of chickens out of the barn and into their bottomless pen (a.k.a. chicken tractor) ...

And the ducklings that hatched a month ago are growing so fast ...

Hope to get another update out before another month passes!

Updates around the farm

Life moves on around here at lightening speed this time of year, regardless of whether anyone is injured or sick or if something gets broken.

I am happy to say that Charlotte is doing very well. She came home the day I slipped and fell in the bathroom, so I have not been able to spend any time with her as it was rather challenging for me to walk more than a few steps after falling and landing on my knee. Mike and the girls took Charlotte's boys out to see her after she got back, but no one seemed to recognize anyone. The kids were only a day and a half old when Charlotte was taken to the University, and she stayed there for a week, so I knew it would be asking for a little miracle for them to recognize each other, but I wanted to at least try. So, the boys are drinking goat milk from a bottle.

Speaking of my knee, I went to the ortho doc a week after falling again, and he talked me into a cortisone injection. After the injection, he said that he would expect it to flare up and get worse for a couple of days. It did flare up, but unfortunately, it lasted for more than two or three days. It is improving a little now, a full week after the injection, but I am still unable to do anything without it swelling up even worse. Physical therapy is supposed to start next Wednesday, but I am not terribly hopeful unless the swelling goes down.

Silver fir tree tomato plant at sundown

We are still planting in the garden, and we are not being helped by a rabbit or two (or five) that is eating bedding plants or newly sprouted seeds. Something ate almost all of our lemon squash plants, as well as a few pepper plants and eggplant plants. Mike chased a rabbit out of the garden yesterday and sealed up the hole in the fence that it came through, but I'm not terribly sure that there are not more of them hiding in the garden area. There are a few places with very tall weeds where they could be living.

Yesterday, 52 baby cockerels arrived from Cackle Hatchery. They are being raised for meat. We were not able to hatch enough chicks this year, so I finally got tired of waiting and ordered some males.

Buff Orpingtons at six weeks of age

We sold the eight Delaware chickens that we hatched, and we have some buff Orpingtons that are now about six weeks old, and we have moved them into a chicken tractor. Once the pullets are big enough, we will integrate them into the laying flock, and the few males that are in there will be used for meat.

Six-week old heritage turkeys, mostly Royal Palm

We moved our turkey poults into a moveable pen also. As they get larger, we will split the group and move half of them into another pen so they are not crowded.

And last but not least, the ducks are doing a good job of reproducing this year. We only have four females, but two have hatched ducklings already! All males will become dinner while the females will be kept to lay eggs next next, as well as to make more ducklings. Yes, the mama is white while the babies are black. We have a black Cayuga drake so we're assuming these are all his babies.