The Attack of the Sludge Monster!

The Pied Piper isn't the only one who has been battling the "SLUDGE MONSTER" (yes, the sludge has grown)...now it's Dear Farmer's turn.  Here's the story:
So Dear Farmer goes out to do chores and hears the cows bellerin' a storm.  Not really thinking too much of it, and writing off most of the noise to "them hormonal females" he feeds hay and feeds chickens, waters chickens, pets the dogs and trudges through the barnyard to turn off the hydrants for the stock-tanks.  There, near the stock tank, was a yearling bull-calf, stuck in the sludge.  Now, Dear Farmer was walking out to the stuck bull-calf when he realized two things.  One: The cows are all bellerin' looking right at him from on top the hill.  And two: Dear Farmer was sinking as he was walking, getting stuck in the sludge...the sludge was eating him!
Dear Farmer had heard of the Pied Piper and Wife's experience in the sludge, but had written it off to "that boy!".  Dear Farmer didn't realize that there was a real problem going on, the sludge had grown into a full Monster!!!  The river of sludge now encompassed the entire back of the barnyard, through the gate leading to the pasture and around the stock-tank.
The cows, however, realized full well that the low-ground where the stock-tank is wasn't safe.  Though I am sure they lectured that bull-calf, he thought he knew better, and they all watched the bull-calf getting stuck and stuck-er.  All the bellerin' was the cows just being mothers and telling that bull-calf, "You wouldn't be in this mess if you had listened to me!" and then the bellerin' was to Dear Farmer warning him of the danger.
Dear Farmer was stuck pretty well in that sludge, and pretty coated while he dislodged the bull-calf(who was very grateful he was getting saved). As he maneuvered out of the sludge he had plenty of time to look up at those cows on higher ground.  Dear Farmer formulated a plan.  If anyone is going to survive this crazy winter of non-frozen ground, drastic measures were going to be taken....Dear Farmer exited the barnyard and returned...armed with a chainsaw and wire cutters.  He walked the high ground right in the midst of those cows and fired up the chainsaw.  Then he cut away his beautiful oak fence that separated the barnyard from the pasture.  The cows were so happy to not have to stay in the barnyard anymore and happily trotted out the high ground to the pasture.
This story is a love story...Dear Farmer will rescue the helpless from the Sludge Monster!  He loves those cows so much he'll cut away a wooden fence that had blood, sweat and tears poured into it!
This story is a cautionary tale...do not build a barn in the low-lands.  Always build on high ground.
This story is vindication...the Pied Piper and the Wife did not do anything wrong in dealing with the Sludge Monster, it is a monster that even Dear Farmer has had to do battle with.   Beware of the Attack of the Sludge Monster!!!

The Snow, the Skis, and the Farmboy Trio

We finally have snow that is staying on the ground!  This can only mean one thing at our farm-it's time for winter activities to begin!
The favorite activity this year appears to be cross country skiing.  The Keeper of the Flame (oldest of the Farmboy Trio) is finally big enough to wear the boots and actually move the skis where he desires to go.
He's been waiting a long time (2 years), because the boots we have are the Wife's and she wears a woman's size 7...as the Keeper of the Flame is shorter than the Wife, it was a wait he did not know if he was going to endure alive.  Who cares about being taller than your mother? The Keeper of the Flame wants his feet to fit into her ski boots!
This new freedom he has comes with strings...he has to share the skis with the Wife(who actually owns them, so she gets first dibs) and all the Older Farmer's Daughters.  But wait!  There's more...
The Pied Piper wants to ski also.  Because "anything that the big brother can do, I should get to do too", is the Pied Piper's frame of thought.  The Pied Piper didn't want to believe the Wife when she said his feet weren't big enough for the boots, or that the skis were too big and he was too small, or that he had to wait a couple more years to grow a little older....these were all mute points.
So no less than three times in the day, the Wife has rescued the Pied Piper from death in cross country ski-related activity.  First he was well stuck on the ground with skis all discombooblated and poles sticking and pointing in dangerous positions.  Then he was precariously balanced betwixt tree and poles with skis dangling in the air(note: skis do not make you fly).  The Wife's all time favorite was the "hill" he created down the slide and was attempting to ski down it (the skis are almost longer than the slide).
The Wife introduced snow shoeing(we have a pair for every family member), skating (a black pair fit him perfectly), but who cares about all of those?  The Pied Piper was born to cross country ski!
Don't forget about the Keeper of the Flame, however.  He has been patiently waiting for this moment to come in his life, he gets dibs before his disobedient brother!  So upon waking every morning, in order to assure that the Keeper of the Flame gets the skis, he is the first one up and dressed with chores done and he's out the door and on the skis, blissfully enjoying the serenity of a crisp winter morning on the farm...cross country skiing.

Dear Farmer is "Old Fashioned"

I know that title surprises you, doesn't it?!
Dear Farmer spent the day battling the weather.  Freezing snow and rain mix pelted him all day.  Add to that the loveliness of high winds and biting cold, it was perfect winter weather for the North.  That is what Dear Farmer worked in all day.  Walking back and forth between hay feeders, with hay and without hay to get more hay. Opening and closing hydrants for water tanks.  Carrying feed buckets for the chickens, watering the chickens, gathering eggs, building pens for the goats and "polar bear"-puppy in the barn, so they were sheltered from the weather, and chasing calves (who were jumping through the feeders) back into the barnyard.  That was all Dear Farmer did, all day, twelve hours.
Now when Dear Farmer walked in the door to the house(frozen) he relaxed in the warm room next to the woodstove...and picked up a book.  Totally oblivious to the bug-eyed teenage Farmer's Daughters sitting on the couches in the room.  The girls had a crazed look in their eyes.  The look that said, "I haven't talked to anyone but my family ALL DAY!"  There were dolls on the floor mixed with legos and pattern blocks, a nice array of board books and wood chips decorated the area directly where he sat thawing.  But he didn't notice.  Suddenly, as if the veil had been lifted from his face, he saw everything.  The Farmer's Daughters, the mess, the twitching eyebrow on the Wife's face.
"Eh?" , said Dear Farmer
He was answered (enthusiastically) by all the Farmer's Daughters all at once.  Though it sounded like dull humm of an outboard motor in water, there was one common thread he could understand from all the girls..."The storm has taken out the internet!"{GASP!}
What that means is on this particularly miserable day, while all the children had off school-work, they were cooped up inside and not one of them could stream a video, not one could text a friend, no one could check out the blogs, the news, or social media of any kind.  It had been a day where all they can do was read a book or talk to eachother.  They played games together, they painted eachother's nails, they drew pictures of animals, we had conversations.  It was a great day!  But quite frankly the Wife was ready to have everyone go to bed, her ears had begun to ring from so much interaction. (thus the twitching eyebrow).
But the internet being gone was no big deal for Dear Farmer.  He was glad it was gone...we had an old fashioned evening.  All was quiet, the Old Fashioned kind of quiet.

The "Dog-days" of Winter

I know that the "dog-days" are in summer!  I know all about the stars and WHY it's called the "dog-days" of summer...but on the farm we have experienced a new phenomenon.  Maybe you have as well...when it rains it pours...dogs.
The Hausfrau has for months been wanting to breed our farm dog (a purebred Aussie) and sell puppies.  Part for the money, part for the want of a puppy, part as insurance that when/if the farm dog dies...there's a replacement.  Searching for another purebred Aussie (unpapered) within the Wife's required hour travel radius has not been easy.  Search has been limited.
Meanwhile, the farm is purchasing a Great Pyrenees puppy to guard the meat chickens we produce in the summer...keeping the predator issues at a minimum would be maximum. The search for the farm (as the Wife is not the one driving) has been much expanded.
Wouldn't you know the two would be found within days of eachother?!  Isn't that just the way it works?
On one end of the farm we have housed in a chicken pen a "polar bear" puppy.  She's nine weeks old.  She's absolutely adorable and squeeze-ably soft. The Farmer's Daughter is in love.  She's announced she'll never get married or have children, just this one "polar bear".
On the other end of the farm we have crated in the house a "brown bear" puppy.  He's seven weeks old. He's absolutely fluff-ably soft and roly-poly cuteness.  The Hausfrau is in love.  She's announced she will have the cutest puppies ever and the best herding dog on the farm.
The farm dog we have has been the "Queen Bee" of the farm for five years.  She feels totally inundated with puppies from every angle.  Of course, the Hausfrau has plans that she will have her own litter of puppies... but to not have even been pregnant and all of the sudden have puppies...everywhere, puppies!!! She's a little discombobulated.  She feels as though the sky has been falling.  Or maybe...it's that the "Dog-days" of winter are here.

Our First Holiday Apart

 This year our family looks different.  There are members missing.  A couple passed away...and one left home.  Honorable Son #2 has moved away from home.
Thanksgiving was the first holiday ever he was not home.  It was the first holiday ever our family was missing a member.
There is something not complete about the family when it gathers and anyone is missing.  The table seems a little bigger...the people a little sad...and the mood a little dim.
Life in general is hard...especially for children.  Children...all of us were one, some of us still consider ourselves one. Children have it rough.
Poor children, when we first venture out, it all seems new and exciting.  Not even a thought is given to those we leave behind.  We forge our own adventures.  Make our own memories.  We are Grown Ups! Individuals!  Our own person!
The excitement is overwhelming sometimes.  It's not until we are old before we realize the gift we had in being children. Sometimes it's not until we are old that we realize the gift we had in family.

The Farmboy Trio and the Sludge!

Today was cold.  We've had unusually warm weather, but today was actually freezing.  The Farmboy Trio was intent that pond in the middle of the woods was probably frozen, and no one was going to persuade them any different.  So outside the Trio went!  {Ahh, the house was so quiet.}
About an hour later into the house burst the Keeper of the Flame(oldest of the Trio).
"Help! The Pied Piper is stuck in the sludge and we can't get him out!"
The Wife stopped making lunch and got on her "duds" to go on the rescue mission.  She found the Pied Piper stuck up to his knees in sludge.  Boots were totally unseen and boy was crying, "I'm stuck! I'm cold!"
{For the record: sludge in this case is made up of half mud and half cow manure.}
All the questions could be answered later, the sludge was acting like quick sand, the more he had struggled, the more stuck he was.  The Wife had on her "duds", but there was no amount of "dudding" that was going to rescue her from getting quite coated in sludge as well.  The Wife made her way out to the boy, leaned over, told the Pied Piper to hold onto the back of her coat, and plunged her hands into the ice-cold sludge to grab ahold of the boots below.  Foot number one came unstuck and the Wife lost her balance.  The Wife was now coated with sludge from the right hip down, both her hands to elbows, and in her hair.  This was not going to get any better, foot number two now had to be dislodged.  With the free-ing of the second foot the Wife picked up the crying Pied Piper and carried him out of the sludge.  With sludge dripping everywhere, the both of them made it inside.  All boots were dropped outside the door-the Keeper of the Flame hosed them all out and off.  Inside the house clothing was stripped off and went directly to the laundry to be hosed off and then washed.  Frozen hands and feet were thawed in water and then by the woodstove. Thankfully no one else followed the Pied Piper into the sludge!  For ONCE!  Thankfully it was just one boy the mother had to rescue and there were others to go run for help! That's why we go in "twos" everywhere on the farm.
And for the record, the pond was not frozen.

Country Hospitality: Example D

In Dear Farmer's world, when it comes to hospitality, you should be the first offering before it's asked.
So, before a neighbor asks you to watch his farm while he takes a day off, country hospitality dictates that you should anticipate the need and offer to watch the farm so he can take a day off.  Simple enough and incredibly difficult! Wouldn't you know, Dear Farmer is a professional at this one!
The family just spent the weekend at Fabulous Aunt and Uncle's home.  They were descended upon by oodles of family from the north, south, east, and west. It was wonderful, it was fun, it was a weekend of country hospitality.
While there, the Amazing FarmWife!(Grandma) exhibited this bit of hospitality when she called in the troops to set up for the retirement home's Christmas party, because she saw that the manager was dealing with another(more important) issue.  She organized and rallied all the Grandmas and Grandpas to take charge of the situation (unbeknownst to the manager).  Tables and chairs were moved, tableclothes on, place settings set and centerpieces placed.  She saw a need, and she jumped into action...Country Hospitality at it's finest even in a retirement home.
Fabulous Aunt and Uncle opened the doors of the house, sent out invitation texts and cancelled plans, all to host an impromptu small family gathering of 30 people...Country Hospitality at it's best on the spur of the moment.
Folks!This is what life is supposed to be full of, and the Wife is loving it!

Dear Farmer and the Darkness

cue dark music....Dear Farmer doesn't do well with darkness.  He works much better in sunlight.  And as most all of his work is outside...sunlight would be quite helpful. End of dark music.
We all function so much better with sunlight, but here in the north it's rarely sunny in the wintertime.  Our days are most often filled with clouds.  Especially if the temperatures are warmer...then it's really cloudy!And usually it's raining as well.  The gloom is something Dear Farmer doesn't handle all together perfectly.  He doesn't like to be wet, or cold, or encased in gloom.  All three together are the recipe for a very un-enthusiastic Farmer.  Then he becomes like Eeyore, the donkey in Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne...a sad farmer, a whoa-is-me-farmer, a why-oh-why?-farmer.
All of this means several things in Dear Farmer's household.  First of all, no matter how much electricity costs, absolutely every light in the rooms where Dear Farmer will be must be on.  This includes closets as well.  He says it helps lift his spirits...the Wife cringes as the meter could be used for a ceiling fan on day like this.
Secondly, we will never be moving to Alaska(sorry, friends) or anywhere where there is a period of darkness for any amount of time.
 Lastly, this means that even with all the lights in the house on-Dear Farmer will still be a little gloomy as he does have to work outside. So the family tries to make his favorite foods for meals, tries to be kind-er to each other and not have loud rambunctious fussy children(HA!).
Even with all our attempts to help, the evening still rolls in at 4:30 p.m. And being a man who's life is dictated by the sunshine...darkness means it should be time for dinner and bed...even if it is only 4:30 p.m.  The other day, Dear Farmer came inside.  It was another raining day, gloomy, and cold.  He shed his "work duds" and turned to the kitchen where the Wife and Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter had already created dinner-complete with fresh homemade yeast rolls.  The table was set, the children were seated, and the family ate dinner.  Shortly after dinner, Dear Farmer retired to the living room to sit by the woodstove.  The children began to get a little loud and rowdy so Dear Farmer sent them all upstairs for bed.  When the Wife finished taking care of the dirty dishes, leftovers, and baby she saw that all the children were gone.  "Where are the children?" ,she asked Dear Farmer.
"Bed." was his short reply.
"But it's only 6:30 p.m.!!!", the Wife exclaimed.
"It's dark outside.", said Dear Farmer.
Surely all of the world has children that will gladly and quietly go to bed at 6:30 in the evening, but not Dear Farmer's.  However, once put in bed...they aren't getting out....it's the principle of the matter.  So, despite the children's dislike of an earlier than usual bedtime, it was still bedtime, and Dear Farmer retired to bed at 7p.m. .(The Wife still had stuff to do, so she did not.)
Thankfully, wintertime doesn't last all year.  Thankfully, the days will get longer next year, and we won't be living in a gloomy dark cave much longer.  Thankfully, Dear Farmer has taken to looking at the clock a little more frequently, and even though we hear "It's only 4:15 and already it's getting dark!" we know that Dear Farmer has at least checked the clock.
cue dark music...

Cows Go Take a Hike!

Due to Dear Farmer's excellent containment fencing-we haven't had cows get out in the road(also the front of the house) in a while.  No, instead they decided last night it would be nice to take a hike...ahem...in the back 40.  So, when Dear Farmer went out to do chores in the morning...he was missing about half his herd.
The call went out in the house for "all hands on deck!" and we sprung into action.
The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter had to watch the house...clean up breakfast, make sure the walls didn't cave in.
The WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter had to watch children...dressed, chores getting done, and making sure they all stayed safe.
The Keeper of the Flame had to do his chores and take care of the animals at home.
Everyone else just had to obey the "biggers" in charge.
The Wife got all bundled to go out and help Dear Farmer.  The cows were back...Wa-a-ay back...out past the nearest neighbors and down almost to the next township.
Thankfully Dear Farmer's voice can carry pretty well on a crisp morning.  "Come On, Cows! Let's Go! Let's Go! Let's Go!" , he shouted as he clapped. The cows heard that call eighty acres away and 'bellered response. They were on the move, the hike had to be made back home.
While Dear Farmer was calling and clapping the Wife took the farm-dog out for a "training session". The farm-dog was all excited to get to move the cattle around!  Farm-dog helps, be we usually lock her up when it's important to have the cows go where we NEED them to...because she's just not that good yet.  But this time, she did okay.  At first she was really careful and listened really well to us-but then she got cocky and tuned us out.
 All-in-all the hike home went well....the cows are back in the pasture, the house is still standing, the chores were done, the animals were cared for.  Just the beginning of the day....

Pepper and the Pied Piper: Pack-Goat Training Day Four

"He won't obey!"
"Pepper isn't being a nice boy."
"Can I have a new goat?"

Pepper and the Pied Piper are well suited for eachother.  Both have a tendency to go their own way, both are thinking they are the only "right" ones, and both have an unending supply of stubbornness and energy.
Add to all that that both not liking eachother right now, and we have the perfect couple.

So, the Pied Piper has taken Pepper out on a walk every day.  Pepper, being a goat, now feels he is "owed" this walk-regardless of how he has behaved at any other time in the day.
The morning bucking and ramming, the nipping and nudging all aside, at two-o'clock, it's time for a walk!
The Pied Piper is just not understanding why Pepper gets his walk when he's not a being a good boy, doesn't that mean he should be disciplined?  The Wife is in the process of making the Pied Piper understand that it means they should go for more walks, so Pepper understands, he's being worked, not pampered.  The food doesn't come free around here, let alone cheap.
The Pied Piper has to go for a walk every day at two-o'clock.  It doesn't matter how whiny and fussy he is in the morning, or how precocious he's been in the afternoon.  And depending on the level of noise he's creating in the house, he's sent out on even more walks throughout the day.  The Wife is in the process of making the Pied Piper understand that certain behavior is not acceptable and energy should be expelled productively and outside.

Both boy and goat are working on character building, but neither of them know it.  Both boy and goat are building a relationship, and neither are appreciating it.  Both boy and goat are exhausted at night, and the Wife is loving it!

As We Prepare for the Onslaught of Company

It's the most wonderful time, of the year....

Dear Farmer's theme.  We've spoken of country hospitality(see May and July 2015) and Dear Farmer's LOVE of it.  This is the time of year when we get to really be hospitable...fling the doors open and have a steady stream of people!
Everything has to be done to prepare...bathrooms cleaned, bedrooms disinfected, floors mopped(and scrubbed, and mopped, and scrubbed).  Dusting, vacuuming, straightening, wiping, and organizing.  The house, we hope, will shine from top to bottom.  By the end of December, it will badly need it again...but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
We'll be making food...lots of food....lots and lots of food.  Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks and desserts.  There is no other month that food is needed in quite this amount. Gluten-free, organic, dairy and egg-free..we've got you all covered.  Seasonal foods, kosher foods, fermented foods, and sinful foods-we're eating them all!  And then we plan on taking the New Year off of eating or cooking altogether.
And Dear Farmer will be grinning from ear to ear!  Happy as a cat in a chicken factory, he'll open the door and greet friends and family.  People we haven't seen since yesterday will be greeted as though we hadn't seen them for years.  People we haven't seen in years will be welcomed as though we saw them yesterday. The oldest and dearest friends will laugh at all Dear Farmer's jokes, even though they've heard them all before.  Cups of Hot Cider and seasonal music will indulge our senses.  Dear Farmer is looking forward to having you here...and when you get here, we'll be ready for you!

Dear Farmer Fights for Life

The Wife got called out to the hay barn early this morning by Dear Farmer, he had a calf down.  He simply said, "We've got to TRY!"
The Wife has learned to grow some thick skin-especially here on the farm.  She assessed the situation: a calf, alone, down in mud(because they always go to the worst location, never the best), having seizures.  There was truly no way to fix this.
However, Dear Farmer is in the business of Life.  Seems strange, as he raises cattle for your table, but he's genuinely in the business of raising, not killing...and for sure not letting "the least of these" die alone in the mud.
It took two hours.  The Wife and Dear Farmer setting up bedding and pen, hauling the calf(they weigh a lot!) from behind the barn in muck up to our knees to inside the barn-protected from the weather.  Then we cleaned the mud off the calf and warmed organic buttermilk and creame to spoon feed her.
The background of the story is, this calf had a mother who loved her and cared for her, but somehow the mother broke her foot and had to be sent to butcher.  The calf had done pretty well after that, while the herd was on grass, but since moving to the hay barn had set herself apart from the herd. Dear Farmer was watching her slip away...he was hoping it wouldn't get to this point.  He wanted her to THRIVE!  But it doesn't appear she will.
For now, she is comfortable and loved on.  Resting on a clean bed of hay in a warm barn.  Chickens happily laying on top of her and around her.  The dog coming in and licking her nose periodically.  The children spoon feeding her and petting her.
This is the hard part of organic farming: letting nature do it's thing and trying to have little involvement.  But when it comes to valuing every life-Dear Farmer is at the top of the list!  No matter how difficult, messy, or long...nothing gets left alone or behind.

Pack Goat Training: Day One

Always in a quest to make animals more useful, we are endeavoring to make our goats "pack-goats".
How is this useful? I am so glad you asked...here's the story....

So, throughout the year (the winter especially) the Wife is looking for ways to keep the Farmboy Trio busy in positive and character-building pursuits.  A lazy boy is eventually a naughty boy.  That's the Wife's theory. In the quest to make animals constantly useful, and mixed with the need to engage three little Farmboys, the Wife found an article on "Pack Goats".  Does anyone else remember the picture of the goat with the straw hat and sweet little backpack on his back from Richard Scarry books?  Goats pulling carts of children and fencing supplies, children taking goats on adventures with packs full of supplies, Dear Farmer getting his lunch delivered to him via "pack-goat". That was exactly what the Wife thought of!  Add to that the picturesque thought of a brother leading his goat which is pulling a cart with his sister in it(both children clean and smiling faces) and you have a Wife on a mission!!!
"Dear Farmer, we must train our goats!", declared the Wife, and off she went in search of training material.  Dear Farmer, I think, mumbled something that was probably an "okay" and rolled over to go back to sleep...because it was probably very late at night and as soon as the sun goes down, so does Dear Farmer. Anyways, the Wife has been reading blogs and watching youtube videos like mad to learn how to teach the Farmboy Trio to train the goats.

Well, today was the first day of training.  It started to rain at about 9am, and it hasn't stopped since.  But neither rain nor lack of time was to dissuade the Wife from setting out with four children (Farmboy Trio and also WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter) for goat-training day number one.
The Keeper of the Flame has decided to work with "Garlic", a brown Billy Goat.
The Pied Piper is working with "Pepper", a black and white Billy Goat.
The WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter is working with "Paprika", a dark-brown doeling.
The Little Farmhand(Dear Farmer's Shadow) was working with "Cumin", a light brown doeling.

Step one: Entice the goat to always be your friend by feeding them a peanut.
This was very easy.  Everyone got this one, no problem.

Step two:Put collar and leash on goat.
The Billy Goats got a little concerned during this process, the doelings didn't notice what we were doing, they were looking for where we had pulled the peanuts out from.

Step three: Take the goats on a long walk.  This will build up endurance.  Make sure you tell them where to go, not them telling you where to go.
And here's where the rubber met the road.  In the rain there were children walking, running, laughing and grunting.  Goats were pulling and tugging, nibbling and nudging, jumping and bucking.  It must have been quite a sight for the cars driving by.  Rain and cold with children and goats all over the place in the mud and fields.  It was the Little Farmhand that couldn't get "Cumin" to cooperate.  Plead with her as he did, she was more interested in getting out of the rain than playing with the little boy.  He was crushed.  We told him that we would do it again on a day when it's not raining, maybe she will be better.  But in the end, the only thing that made life any better was sitting by the woodstove and reading a book with the Wife.

Well, day one went well. We'll consider it a success, if for no other reason, because the humans got out there and did something productive. The goats didn't lay around the hay barn all day just getting fat, they were expected to get out there an do something as well.  Everybody ready for day two???

22 Years Ago to Today

22 Years ago today...Dear Farmer married the Wife.  A girl who didn't fit the description of anything he was looking for in a woman.  The Wife married Dear Farmer...who wasn't a farmer back then, he was a Welder, which is good, because the Wife wasn't going to marry a Farmer.
21 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was a Welder,  became an Electrician...which is good, because the Wife wasn't going to be married to a Farmer. And the Wife told the Electrician that he would be a Father.
20 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician and a Father traded in the "sports car" for a "sedan" and sold his motorcycle and bought a boat.  Which is good, because the Wife is a beach girl, and boating is a family activity.
19 Years ago...The Wife told Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, he was to be a Father...again.
18 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician and a Father sold the boat and bought a truck.
17 Years ago...The Wife told Dear Farmer, who was an electrician, "It would be so nice to have another baby."
16 Years ago...The Wife was expecting another baby, and Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, started his own electrical construction company.  It was "...& Sons, Inc." because all he had was boys.  But the baby was a girl.  The name of the company did not change.  And this was all good, because the Wife was grateful she hadn't married a Farmer.
15 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, bought a cottage by the lake for the Wife.  Because she was a beach girl and loved to be near the water.
14 Years ago...The family was expecting another addition again...and all the children had chicken pox...and Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician, sold the "sedan" and bought a 15 passenger van...because he had an inkling the family was going to get bigger.
13 Years ago...The Wife thought, "This is it!  We have "arrived" and life cannot get any better!"
12 Years ago...The family was expecting another addition, and we hosted Thanksgiving in the cottage with thirty-one family members and friends and celebrated being married together 10 years.  And The Wife was grateful because Dear Farmer wasn't a farmer, he was an electrician.  And Dear Farmer was grateful that the Wife had learned how to cook, and loved to host people!
11 Years ago...The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer started to not like being an Electrician...he was unhappy.  And the Wife was just praying he would do anything...but don't be a Farmer!
10 Years ago...Dear Farmer, who was an Electrician became a Builder.
9 Years ago.....The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer, who was an Builder, began to sell his "...& Sons, Inc" business in pieces.
8 Years ago.....Dear Farmer, who was a Builder, built a barn for a friend.  A beautiful barn!!!  The Amish friends came an "oooo"-ed at his craftsmanship.
7 Years ago....Dear Farmer, who was a Builder, built a fence for the friend who he built the barn for....and during the building of the fence, the friend asked him about farming cattle...what do you do? how do you do it?  And that was the day Dear Farmer thought about being a Farmer...a dream of his since he had been young.
6 Years ago....The family was expecting again, and Dear Farmer was a helping a friend learn farming, and he was still a Builder.
5 Years ago.....Dear Farmer closed the business "...& Sons, Inc." and became a Farmer full-time.  And the Wife was not really thrilled, but God had softened her heart and she was learning to love a "farming" way of life. And preparations were made to move out of the cottage and away from the lake.
4 Years ago....Dear Farmer and the Wife moved the family out to the farm and they hosted Thanksgiving where 43 family members and friends were present!  They all celebrated being together, grateful that God has made us the wonderful family we are, grateful that God can change hearts, grateful that God is in control of our lives.
3 Years ago....The family was expecting again.  Dear Farmer and the Wife were learning the ebb and flow of life on a farm.  The family was learning the work, the diligence, and the dedication it would take.
2 Years ago... Dear Farmer thought, "This is it!  We have "arrived" and life cannot get any better!" And Dear Farmer and the Wife celebrated their 20th anniversary.
1 Year ago.....The family was expecting again. And the Wife was so grateful that Dear Farmer was a farmer!  And she was grateful that she had learned to love the things he loved, and love the life he loved.  And Dear Farmer was grateful that he had married the girl he had, and that she was a woman that embraced everything that God sent her way and loved him, his children, and his neighbors. It was all good.
Today....Happy Anniversary, my darling Dear Farmer!  He's on the road today picking up the heads of the cattle that just went into the butcher.  The restaurant will buy it all. I'm so glad you love being a farmer...I can't imagine being married to anything else, but YOU, a farmer!

And so we bid farewell to #241...

There was a beginning to this blog...it was the result of telling a friend of Dear Farmer's encounters with one specific cow...#241.  If you look back, that was the first story we shared.
#241 was a mean and nasty cow.  She was always ready to run down Dear Farmer, with no rhyme or reason.  With a disposition so negative, bad feet and no back teeth Dear Farmer had her on the butcher-line several times.  Each time she was to "go" she'd have a calf, and so she would need to stay for the survival of the calf.  Dear Farmer didn't mind too much because she was an excellent mother and she gave wonderful calves...well, he wouldn't mind initially...and then he'd be running back to his tractor with an angry cow chasing him again!  The two of them did this dance for four years.
This past summer #241 had a name change, we called her "Ugly".  She began to loose weight and turned to a mess of bones and skin hanging.  She was not looking good, really bad advertising for an organic farm. So Dear Farmer moved her to the barn and tried many remedies for her, none seemed to help.  Earlier this week Dear Farmer went down to do chores, and "Ugly" was laying on the ground near the feeders, dead.
There wasn't rejoicing.  Dear Farmer is a little disappointed, he would have really liked to have had the upper-hand and eaten her...but not this foe.  We all gave a sigh of relief and a nod of the head.  Acknowledging the passing of the enemy who gave us so many great stories...farewell to #241.

Dear Farmer's Favorite Holiday-Thanksgiving!

Why? Because there's no gift giving involved.  Because there's a focus on gratitude to God.  Because there's a meal involved, with turkey!  Because we have one super-amazing family that gathers together and doesn't pretend to have a good time, they actually are having a good time! Because it marks the end of the busy season, and the beginning of rest.
Our tradition is to go to gather with family where-ever the Wife's Grandma (the Amazing Farm-Wife) is.  As the matriarch of the family, where-ever she goes is designated "the Family Thanksgiving" house.  Some years ago she traveled to our cottage for Thanksgiving, and then to our farm...so we hosted.  Nowadays she stays closer to home and the family gathers at Fabulous Aunt and Uncle's home.  That is where we will be this year.  It will be a small crowd...Dear Farmer and the Wife.  Honorable Son #1, The Farmer's Daughter, the Hausfrau, the WhizBang! Farmer's Daughter, the Keeper of the Flame, the Pied Piper, the Farmer's Shadow, the Little Farmer's Daughter Trio, The Millibilly Cousins and their 9 Millibilly Children, the Bike Doctor and the Doctor's Wife and Grandson, Donald Duck-Uncle and his boys, Huey and Duey, Un-Cool Photographer, The Overcomer Uncle, Great Uncle, Great Aunt, Great Cousin, Fabulous Aunt, Fabulous Uncle, Awesome Grammy and The Amazing Farm-Wife-Grandma. Just a small contingent of the broader mob we call FAMILY.
Happy Thanksgiving from Dear Farmer's Family to you! We hope you enjoy your day as well!

The Goats Preferred Warmer Weather

Really, can you blame them?  Just a couple short days ago they were nibbling on pasture grass.  Today they are eating dry hay.  A couple of day ago they were sunning themselves on the deck.  Today they are laying on a bale of hay out of the cold wind and off the cold ground.  We are all pretty sure that when they come out to greet us, they are saying, "Where did the sunshine go?"
When the Wife strapped on the snowshoes to take the goats on a walk they looked at her with eyes that said, "Is this what we have come to?  You expect me to...what?"
When the Farmer's Daughter and the Pied Piper went out to milk the goat she tentatively got on the stand and looked back at them as if to say, "You warmed your hands, right?!"
Everything moves a bit slower in the cold. The goats are nice and insulated between the forage from the woods, the pasture and the chicken feed they gorged on when Dear Farmer forgot to cover the bucket. Their winter coats have grown in nice and thick, thanks to the alpine heritage.  They really are ready for winter.  However, I think they are praying for a quick spring with the rest of us.

6 am, 9 children awake, 7 inches of snow...

The donuts tallies are:

3 Old Fashioned donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles
6 Long Johns with vanilla icing
4 Long Johns with chocolate icing
2 Custard filled Bismarks
1 Old Fashioned Chocolate donut with glaze
3 Peanut Persians
2 Apple Fritters
4 Jelly Filled with vanilla icing
1 Jelly Filled with sugar top

and this was where the bakery ladies were laughing and dancing because they had finished our order
we then purchased:

1gallon of chocolate milk
1gallon of whole white milk
2 gallons of orange juice

(and because this order came to over $25.00, I got a 21.08lb. turkey for 69c per pound!!!!!)

It is now 8:30 am, there are 11 children and 2 parents awake, 9inches of snow, and chores to do after we eat "breakfast".

The Children Await Snow

Snow isn't something new or exciting in an adults world.  It's something that the northern states simply accept as part of the winter season, in large or small quantities.  Here, in Dear Farmer's home, it's a tradition.
With children, anything can become a tradition.  When Dear Farmer and Family moved to the actual location of the farm, we made the first snowfall an extra-special tradition.  Up until that point it was dreaded.  Dear Farmer saw the snow as a long-hassle, the Wife saw snow as a mess, and the children saw snow as a prison sentence.
We had to re-adjust our thinking!
It all started with the first snowfall.  On the event of the first snowfall the Wife would take all the children into town to the grocery store,to stop at the bakery counter.  The grocery store, lovely as it is, isn't geared for a practical thrifty large family, so we really don't go there often at all.  Going to the grocery store is even somewhat of a treat...so to take everyone into the grocery store for the sole purpose of stopping at the bakery counter is unheard of.  There we stopped at the bakery counter, and the Wife told the children, "Pick out your favorite two donuts for breakfast."  The heavens parted and the glory of the Almighty shown down on the bakery counter as the angels sang "Gloria Deo donuts, pax matrem aeternum!" (which hip latin speaking people know means: Glory to God for donuts, and peace to mother forever).
The first snowfall, the loveliness of a breakfast of donuts...there was no more we could ask for.
It helped to put a positive spin on the upcoming length of winter...the joy of pulling out the winter gear, the anticipation of winter sports, the fond memories we make for seven months of the year.  It's almost here.....!!!

I'm gonna DANCE!

We have one favorite activity that encompasses all age groups...DANCING!
Truly, we aren't good.  You won't see any of us on TV anytime soon, but we DANCE like we mean it! We have heart, if not rhythm.

We could trace the origins of this activity in our family back to the Wife's Great-Grandparents. As country-folk it was a community activity in the winter to gather at one appointed house for an evening of dancing. The Wife's Grandma(the Amazing Farm-Wife) remembers the drive and anticipation of the evenings.  They would walk into the house and the floors would have been cornstarched for a little slip.  The adults would enjoy the evening dancing away and children would eventually pass out on couches then be loaded into cars for a late-night drive home. Grandma continued her love of dancing during WWII and all the dances afterward.  The Wife's Mother learned and loved square dancing and polka. When the Wife and Dear Farmer married, it became almost a requirement that Dear Farmer dance.  He even square danced with the Wife's Grandma and the two won family awards.
It seemed only natural that when the children were old enough we taught them the barn dance "Virginia Reel".  The children also learned ballroom dancing...the old-school-Fred-and-Ginger ballroom dancing, not this new dancing that looks like an aerobic-workout.  This is our dancing.  We are hard-core, old-school, break-out-the-fiddle dancing.
If we get really crazy, Honorable Son #2 begins his Irish High-Step Dancing, the rest of us attempt to follow him, but it's so not pretty.  That's about as crazy as we get.

O the fun we have!!!  Many family nights we have spent moving the dining room tables out and spending the night twirling and laughing. The fiddles sing from our MP3 music and bluetooth speakers, the dog and cats, goats and chickens all peer in our dining room window to see the family warmed by love and woodstove having a evening laughing and talking, spinning and skipping, eventually the adults are the ones sitting and fanning themselves while the youngest pester "spin again, spin again!"

This is a reason to love the long winters, I'm gonna DANCE!

Dear Farmer Electrofies the Chickens

The Wife is noticing that this time of year is less than glamorous.  The leaves are off the trees and laying on the ground brown and withered.  There's mud everywhere, mixed with dead grass and hay.  And Dear Farmer's jobs are practically mundane...but because of the exciting spring and summer-time, they were pushed off to "before winter" on the list.
So for the past week, Dear Farmer has been retro-fitting a small shanty (used to be a curbside bus-stop for another farm) to fit over his motors and chutes for the chicken feed.  Someday there will be a nice facility built around these chutes and motors and someday that facility will connect to the brooder houses that will someday will be built.  But that's someday, not today. So for now, retro-fitting this little shanty that's 6'x4' is what he has to do to make pumping feed less like aiming a stream of feed towards a bucket while the wind blows it in your face.
The shanty is in place, the motors and chutes are cozy inside, and now the motors are being hardwired into the panel.  Up until now the motors have been given electricity by extension cords(heavy duty all weather cords).  It has been okay, but if an extension cord was needed for any other project it was stolen...not good when anyone else went to pump feed and found they couldn't. And since this is all towards the someday-plan, Dear Farmer is running the electricity to power the someday facility as well.  Think of it, lightbulbs for brooder houses powered by hardwired electricity.  Lights outside so we can see in the dark for evening chores and morning chores...o the possibilities!
It's a happy day for the chickens!  They'll never have another wind-blown-wind-covered Dear Farmer feeding them again.  There won't be an extension cord missing so we can't feed them.  Dear Farmer will be able to see what he's doing for chores, instead of working by braile.  O the simple things in life-electricity-how great is that!

Landscaping Plan for 2016

The Wife was planning out what to do for landscaping...she thought, "Ooooo, a garden of planters!"  She planted herbs in the pots and planters, she fastened a small fence around the area, dreaming of a trellis for the opening (someday).  Then the chickens came....and the chickens loved the pots to sit on and nibble herb dinners and the planters to poop in. The children saw the fence and they used it as hurdles in games of tag and the "jail" in kick-the-can.
New plan...those tiger-lilies look nice around all the trees, perhaps they aren't so haphazard as she thought they were.  We could expand the tiger-lilies, get some other colors (besides orange) and feel very "old lady"-like.  Then the goats came...and the goats thought the tiger-lilies were candy, and they ate and ate and ate them to the ground.  Well, scratch that one.
New plan...the Wife thought,"The children jump and run through fences, the goats eat plants, the chickens poop on everything and nibble the herbs...what can I plant that will be safe and look nice?"  And then she found the joys of a yard-full of slides and swings, a climbing wall and ladders, bikes, scooters and roller blades.  Yep, one full acre of playground.  That's how we're landscaping in 2016.
There will be a day when the yard will be landscaped and look like no one lives here, but that will be when our family doesn't live here at all.  For while we are here, when you drive past, please enjoy our landscaping.

The Feeding Frenzy

Dear Farmer has a feeding frenzy going on down at the barn, the cows are coming up for hay.  There's a hundred head coming at the hay bales and they are HUNGRY!
With the hay feeders set up at the barn and the water-tanks winterized, he's feeling pretty ready to endure another northern winter.
Dear Farmer pokes around while the herd jogs into positions, when he looks: the cows are butting eachother for primier positions at the hay, calves shoved into the feeders by the mob, and hooves sticking up in the air(cows were piling up on one another).  There was no discontent sounds, just happy-munching and snorting.  The winter feeding frenzy is in full swing! And Dear Farmer smiles, it is all good.

Death and Life with perspective from Little Farmboys

Death is a part of life, as the preacher pointed out, everyone and everything will die.  It's not a new concept on the farm.  Death is a hiccup in a day.  This past month our family had a Grandfather die.  And while death is totally accepted, a loved one's death is more than the hiccup, it's a full day of sadness.  We had many conversations leading up to the funeral with the Farmboy Trio (in particular).  For whatever reason, little farmboys are a bit more socially ungraceful...conversations included topics such as:
"grave-farting" : I don't care if little Johnny said your grandfather will haunt you, don't do it!
"booger-slurping-during-prayer": Hold a tissue and blow at an appropriate time.
"funeral-apparel-commenting": I don't care how big you think anyone looks, black is slimming, don't say a word!
You laugh, you snicker, but if you were the Wife taking the Farmboy Trio off the "compound" you'd be having the same conversations!
Funeral day came and went without any large debacles, we found the missing shoes, ties were clipped and knotted, syrup wiped from faces.  The Farmboy Trio made a quiet entrance and exit-and the Wife breathed a sigh of relief.  The general feeling throughout the boys was one of understanding, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21b)
The acceptance came in smaller doses:
"Grandfather is not going to be coming to the beach next summer, he's in Heaven."-Keeper of the Flame
"Grandfather is not in pain anymore, God's prepared a yacht for him to live on."-Dear Farmer's Shadow
But the best comment was from the Pied Piper of the Farmboy Trio the morning after the funeral...he sat down to a bowl of beloved sticky-oatmeal after waking up tired from busy days, slightly on the wrong side of the bed, and said, "Well, Grandfather's dead. He's in Heaven with God.  And he's eating a better breakfast than I am!"
While we miss the departed-Grandfather, we are still here and living.  Sticky-oatmeal is a part of life on earth, there are better breakfasts in Heaven to come!

Winterizing Water

Dear Farmer has been preparing for winter.  It seems it will come without our opinion on when or how much...So, Dear Farmer has placed the mobile coop in it's winter location(it can't move through snow) and placed hay bales around it so the cold wind doesn't blow so much through the floor.  And he's set up feeders for the hay to be dropped in, so it stays off the ground and snow.  Now he's making level ground for the water-tanks to sit on, installing heat-tape on hoses and heaters in tanks, so in the freezing temperatures, all the animals have water. The cows will lay out in the field, nibble on hay and lick snow, but they really enjoy a long drink of water!  The chickens will cuddle in the coop and peck the scratch and water nipples.  The goats keep us entertained with their antics and the children prefer to not have to bring them cups of water when they look thirsty. All the creatures need water all year long.
Have you ever thought to winterize your water?  Many people live in houses where pipes don't freeze in the super-cold northern winters.  But the animals don't have that luxury.  So, Dear Farmer is caring for them, doing what they cannot, and spending a week leveling ground and insulating water systems.  Farmers don't just twidle their thumbs and look at the sky when the weather turns cold.  There's still bunches of work to do.  Like figuring out how to get a drink of water to an animal in the middle of a freezing cold winter.

How about a cat?

There is a road that divides the farm, it makes life...interesting....
The Farmer's Daughter initially started breeding the "elusive" blonde tabby for farms, it was a struggling business.  The hardest part was keeping the cats alive.  She was caring for them well, but barn cats live outside...in barns...which means they walk outside wherever they feel like.  Apparently they really like to sunbath on warm concrete...like the road.
Unfortunately, like cats usually do, they seemed to feel that the cars were in their way-not that they were in the cars way. And so, they did not move when cars came...smoosh.
We're not trying to be hard-hearted, but that is life, the survival of the smartest. We stopped counting how many died...the death toll was astronomical. At the same time, the cats were reproducing at an almost ridiculous rate. At one point in time she had eighteen kittens, and no one was buying them!
She began giving them away...buy one, get one free...and "ding-dong ditching" them on doorsteps(people we knew wanted them).  Cats were urged to follow neighbors home, and tossed in departing cars. Desperation had set in.
Thankfully the herd is now under control-somewhat-but we still have the kittens available at any time, if you want one!  They are excellent "mousers" and do a great job begging to get in the house(which is NOT happening!). Hey, you! You want a cat?!

Dear Farmer counts his chicks before they've hatched!

Dear Farmer just ordered chickens to follow the cows (being the cow-vets) in the mobile chicken coop for next year!  It's a very exciting day!!!  First he got to make someone at the hatchery very excited when he placed an order for 240chicks to come in this year (next year he'll order the remain 160 chicks we need)! Then he got to tell the whole family that the chicks were coming, and what kind they were, and why he chose them.  It's a beautiful thing to have an absolutely silent table of twelve people hang on your every word...and Dear Farmer loves to tell them all the details when they're listening:
He ordered Barred Rock Chickens because they have a nice temperment and are good egg layers, and later they make good stew birds.  They lay well for about four years, they have brown eggs, but the chickens don't eat ticks.
He ordered Black Australorps because they are so docile, good egg layers, they are heat-tolerant(which makes them good for summer laying) and they do eat ticks.
And he ordered a newer breed, the Madisons. They are mix between two other breeds and are supposed to be good layers and foragers, especially bred for living in the cooler weather of the north.
He ordered these three different breeds also be cause they are so diverse in color, which makes it so pretty to look at!
Every so often we get a "broody hen", which means she just wants to sit on her eggs and takes great care of them, so they will hatch. This makes collecting eggs from her a little more intimidating...she'll peck your hand, and sometimes "bite" you...but that's the exception, not the norm.
Dear Farmer's going to be busy this winter, caring for all those chicks, but he's so excited about having a great flock next year, it makes all the work worth it!

Hail to the Rock Pickers of Life!

There's jobs in life that no one wants to do...the bed-pan washer and rock-pickers would be top of that list.
Honorable Son #1 has come up with philosophical ways to pick rocks(see farmingthedream.com Aug.2015).
The Farmer's Daughter has used rock picking for quiet moments of suntanning and body-building.
All-in-all, the job is still just picking rocks. At the end of the day, it's back-breaking, dirt-sticking, sweaty work. And next spring...there'll be more rocks to pick.
Hail to the Rock Pickers of Life!  The ones that do thankless jobs.  The ones that do it everyday because it never really gets better.  Those are the people that exemplify diligence!  Here's your standing ovation!!! There really are people who appreciate your work.

The Keeper of the Flame is in search of Unusual Eggs

One of the Keeper of the Flame's jobs is to collect eggs.  As it's quite the job of late, finding where those chickens could be hiding eggs THIS time, he's begun making it more fun.  He's in search of the unusual eggs! What are unusual eggs? That would be chicken eggs that are speckled shells, bi-colored shells, unusually small or oblong, sometimes there's double yolkers(those are really huge!), and occasionally he finds one with no shell at all!  Once he finds a dozen...he plans to sell them. "Mom, do you think $20.00 is too much for my unusual eggs?" Yes, son, I do.  It'll be another couple weeks before he has another dozen, but I think they'll go for $3.00...in case anyone's wondering.

Dear Farmer has one of THOSE days...

It's one of THOSE days...you know the ones...nothing goes right and everything you planned becomes nothing that you planned...THOSE days.
It started with needing to catch chickens to go to butcher at 4am.  Just what everyone wants to do at 4am...and Dear Farmer can do it, if he wakes up at 3am and drinks a pot of coffee first.  He feels that prepares him adequately to bundle up on a frosty morning and pluck still roosting(ie sleeping) chickens off their roosts and into crates to be transported to the butcher.  Then, after an hour of chicken catching and being pooped on...he gets to come inside and drink another pot of coffee, then go out to do chores.  This is where things turned bad...while drinking the pot of coffee a farmhand jogged inside to let Dear Farmer know that we were nearly out of chicken feed.  Dear Farmer popped onto the phone with the feed supplier (because everyone in the farming world is up and moving by 5am--except for Dear Farmer's Wife), who was also drinking coffee.  The feed supplier informed Dear Farmer that their delivery truck was broken.  How to get feed???  Well, after chores the plan was to move hay from the storage where the large hay fields are to the fields where the cows winter.  This can be an all day process...it wasn't going to be now.  Now, Dear Farmer also had to drive down two-and-a-half hours to get chicken feed, drive back two-and-a-half hours to bring it home, and unload it all.  And so, Dear Farmer suited up, and away he went.  Loading hay for transport went smoothly, but took longer than expected.  Brought hay back and unloaded all the hay-smoothly, but longer than expected.  Loaded up for chicken-feed run, and took off with the Keeper of the Flame to pick up feed.  En Route the two major roads (both toll) were under construction.  Ergh, crawling through and already running later than expected was not in the plan!  Then he got off on the wrong exit, and had to figure out where he was...Dear Farmer, is not techno-savvy, GPS isn't even an option...so he had to drive twenty minutes out of the way, to figure out where he was, to go around a block, and get in the right direction again...finally making it to the feed supplier-and found out he had forgotten the bags to dump feed into back at home.  Thankfully the feed supplier scrounged up enough bags and loaded up Dear Farmer for the return trip back home.  Dear Farmer tried to pull out the day from the pits and met up with Fabulous Uncle for dinner (late) and drove home (later) and made it in the driveway by 10pm.  While  in bed that night he was moaning about his rear-end being in real pain...found out he had been sitting on a roll of electrical tape for his 16 hours driving vehicles all day.  It was really one of THOSE days, but he made it through in one piece, not wanting to do it again anytime soon.

What can you do without?

Our two cousins came to visit this weekend.  It's alot like the "city mouse" and the "country mouse".  Not meaning that in a bad-way, just simply there are two different lifestyles between them and us.
Well, the temperature dropped the first night they were here...and that meant firing up the woodstove for heat.  That was pretty wonderful!  Your whole house is heated by one woodstove? Yep.
THERE'S MORE!  Our Fabulous Aunt and Uncle came for a visit...and brought store-bought-in-a-box cereal!!!  Apparently this is a big deal in your house.  Yep.
BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!
What no one counted on is: because of the temperature drop, the doe-lings didn't want cold bellies, and nursed off the milk-goat all night.  So, after milking the goat, we had about a quarter cup of milk in the morning....
We were going to be eating dry cereal for breakfast.
You actually eat the goat's milk on cereal? Yep.
It brought the Wife to thought...here are two children who are experiencing a life totally foreign from their own world.  We don't buy our milk at a store, we light a fire for the heat, and we only have store-bought-in-a-box cereal when Fabulous Aunt and Uncle bring it....
What would our children be like in their world?
For a couple days the cousins had to do without a bunch of modern comforts (privacy would be a big one in our family), and they had a great time (and very little sleep).  What would our children have to do without in their world?
Like the "city mouse" and the "country mouse" discovered, there's beauty in all places.  To find contentment right where you are is a thing you should never do without.

The Stars are so bright!!!

In the country there is a lack of light-pollution.  Sometimes there is a "glow" coming from more inhabited commuities...we have noticed it happens more often during football season.
Last night we took time to step out of the woods in which our house is nestled, and walk into the field to enjoy the beauty of the stars.  They were so brilliant!!!  The twinkling and sparkling was almost so amazing that we couldn't take our eyes off of it!  We saw the gradual change on the horizon, from the summer sky to the winter sky.  The horizon looked as though the stars were almost touching the earth all around us, and the night was so clear it felt like you could reach up and touch the stars.

The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork...Psalm 19:1 ESV

There is no way we could be stewards of this world, without fully appreciating the Creator's handiwork.  If you have to get out into the "wilds" to enjoy the stars on a clear night...DO IT!  You won't be disappointed.  

Waiting and Hoping for Hay

When the Wife was a child she could not have thought that as an adult seeding a hay field would be something she would be concerned about.  But she is finding that seeding this particular hay field is an "angst" in her wonderful world of agriculture.  This hay field has lain fallow for a year, so it first had to be disc-d, rock picked, disc-d again, rock picked, seeded, and then dragged.  This is what the Wife has learned this year:
Disc-ing has nothing to do with dancing, mathematics, or an Olympic event.  Disc-ing is where a tractor hooks up to an implement that looks to have dozens of round metal discs on end.  This implement in lowered to the ground and run over the ground.  It is not plowing, it is taking the ground and breaking it up, pulverizing the dirt, and preparing the dirt for seed.
Disc-ing the ground brings rocks to the surface.  No seed grows on rocks.  Rocks damage farm equipment and possibly Dear Farmer.  Rocks need to be removed.  They are best removed by a rock picker of some-sort.  There are rock pickers that you connect to a tractor, another in a long line of farm implements, and rock pickers can be people.  Manual labor tends to be more thorough and more testy.  The question here has to be answered, "Do I want to deal with people whining while picking rocks, or spend the money on a rock picker?"
The ground must be disc-d so many times because after the rocks are removed(each time) new ground is uncovered that must be broken and pulverized for planting.
Seeding is the act of planting seed.  There is forty pounds of seed needed per acre...the seed must be present before you can begin seeding.  Mice like to eat the seeds, so do other rodents, birds, and deer. To order seed years in advance is not wise.  It's like storing ice-cream in your freezer the day your baby is born for their third birthday...not only is it tempting for someone to eat it, but it will be no good in three years.
Seed must be ordered and delivered in a timely manner to get the seed planted.  Planting can only happen when the conditions are perfect.  Dry, but not too dry.  Warm, but not too warm.  Sun-shining, but not too sunshiny. Not too early, and not too late in the year.  And the planting will take time.  One full day, nothing else will get done.
After planting the field will need to be "dragged".  This is not something that is done with drugs, and it does not mean the work is boring.  A "drag" is a massive angry looking farm implement that is flat with spikes poking out of the bottom and possibly chains.  It looks more like a medieval torture device, being pulled behind a tractor.  It's heavy and nasty to delicately push the seed into the ground and dust the top over with dirt.  Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?  Once the dragging is done...the name of the game is "Wait and Hope".  Wait for nature to do what it will with the seed.  And Hope it comes up and the field can grow into an amazing and lush hay mix.
This is what has happened to cause this particular field to be an "angst" in the Wife's life:
Dear Farmer went to disc...the disc broke down.  Three different times this happened!  It consumed three days of fussing with a broken implement for it to accomplish next-to-nothing! FINALLY Dear Farmer fixed everything to disc, job finally done.  Dear Farmer has had to cut other fields, care for other chores, and bale hay...while that was happening someone was to have picked the field.  Someone didn't, and didn't and finally did, and did it badly.  So Dear Farmer went to disc again, and broke the disc on rocks, and had rocks pelted at him...and sent people back to do a better job.  When they were finally done, it was late in the year. The weather was not perfect...Dear Farmer waited...and waited....and then he disc-d as quickly as he could. Then he sent people out to pick rocks...and they did an okay job. And it rained.  And the rain destroyed the job Dear Farmer had done of discing...and he had to disc again.  The disc was tired, and it did not want to work.  But Dear Farmer pushed it, eventually-in October-the job got done.  October is too late for planting, but Dear Farmer really had no choice.  He cannot keep the seed, which was ordered early in the year, through the winter.  So he planted the seed.  Then he called the help to drag the field...but the help decided to go home early that day(ARGH!).  So Dear Farmer went to bed...wondering...will the seed get wet before the help comes tomorrow to drag???  The help came to drag the field...and it's late in the year...it's cold and dry, blowing and overcast, and Dear Farmer really doesn't want to have to plant this field again.  The Wife really doesn't want to have to live through another year of planting this same field.  So...we are Waiting and Hoping that next year we will have a hay field with hay growing in it.

Tagged Calves and Castrated Bull-Calves, and nobody got hurt!

Yesterday was a five hour adrenaline rush!  After a week of fencing containment paddocks and wiring new electric lines on those fences, as well as setting up gates and panels---we were ready for pushing the entire herd through the squeeze shoot and dispersing them into the winter paddocks.  It was a grueling process.
Dear Farmer's job is to look over every bovine that comes in the shoot.  Are they healthy? Do they need a tag in the ear? Male or female? Castrate if needed. Dear Farmer shouts out the number of the animal and color tag to the Wife, who writes down everything Dear Farmer observed on that animal and the tag.  The tags are color organized.  Yellow tags mean: organic female, Blue tags mean: organic male, and White tags mean: non-organic breeding stock.
The Wife's other job is to pray for safety for Dear Farmer as he stands behind a bull and castrates.  It can get hairy(no pun intended).  Here we don't use knives for castration, so there's no shots, no knock-out drugs, and no second chances.  We use a Calbrate Bander, the most amazing device known to farmers and well worth the money spent!!!  It's a thousand times more humane as well!
And we castrate while the animals are on green grass, so there's no fear of infection because there's no messes!
The Farmer's Daughter runs the herd through the containment in into the shoot.  She had quite a time getting those little calves to do what she wanted.  But she was patient and used her knowledge of "energy" well. "Energy" isn't a new-age concept.  It's the force of your emotions and the positioning of your body that drives and animal to do what you want.  Sheep herders use "energy" when training their dogs.
Along with the Housefrau Farmer's Daughter keeping all the little people out of the way, and the Whiz Bang!Farmer's Daughter running back and forth from the Wife to the house for miscellaneous supplies-we had four other farmhands helping out.  Including the VeggieMan, the ChickenGuys, our Model Friend and the HerbGuru. They aren't usually working the cattle with us, but they did a great job filling the gaps.
In the past we have had Dear Farmer run over and stepped on, Dear Farmer kicked, Dear Farmer's Daughter kicked, people thrown, panels and gates beaten by angry cows, people fleeing over fences, and paperwork pooped on.  This year we had none of it! God heard the prayers of the Wife!!!
There's quite an adrenaline rush when working with cattle. It's such a big animal, and we are such little people!  There's people "whooping" and "whistling"!  The occasional yelling to a body to move one direction or another.  It's easy to see why cowboys do what they do, it's fun!  But at the end of the day...when the count was in...112 head of cattle...there's the largest sense of accomplishment.  It's like, no matter how bad Dear Farmer's body hurt, it was all worth it.  Everyone was safe, no one got hurt.  112 Head of cattle grazing contently in a field is a beautiful sight.
 

Family Series (Part 1)...Grandmother: the Amazing Farm-Wife

The Wife recently got a wonderful compliment: "I want to be like your mom. Your mom's the awesomest farm-wife.  She does so much, helps your dad, AND gets in there with the cattle.  She's so involved." Thank you, the Wife will live on that one for a while...but she's not the original farm-wife, she does take lessons from a really great teacher.  Here's the story:

The Wife has a special family(you may have gathered) which sprung from one amazing woman...her Grandmother.  Grandma was the Amazing Farm-Wife, that's all she ever wanted to be.  A farmer's wife and a mother.  Simple enough.  Life (however) is never that simple.
Grandma gave birth to thirteen children, twelve survived, eleven still-living. Her husband was a veteran,a farmer, a salesman and a nurse.  He passed at far too young an age. She lived in farmhouses with no electricity or plumbing. She gardened and butchered for food.  She kept a sense of humor about her that makes her a joy to be around...even if she's lecturing you on what you should and shouldn't do.  She has emphasized the importance of family being together, a unit, and a place of safety.  Is this because of being from a rural area?  Maybe because of the life she has lived?  She didn't have a crystal ball, but she did know that in the future, this family would be important! And we would all need eachother. ( If everyone else could grasp this concept-the world would be an amazing place and the government would be much smaller!) It's because of this emphasis on family that the Wife wanted a large family.  Grandma always says, "It's hard work, but so worth it!"
This past weekend Grandma asked the Wife, "So, you never wanted to marry a farmer?  What do you think of it now?"  The Wife's answer was: "No, I didn't want to marry a farmer.  I knew how much work it would be.  Now...I wouldn't trade it for a million dollars, now."  Why wouldn't the Wife trade it?  Because she's learned the value of it.  Because Grandma came along side her and showed her all the wonderful parts of being a farmer's wife.
Hail to Grandma!  She's one Amazing Farm-Wife!

The Goats have a Bad Day

As it gets cooler and the days get shorter, the Wife finds the Goats are becoming a lot like the days...cooler and shorter.  The two doe-lings used to jump about happy and perky, they were sunshine itself throughout the day.  They are currently annoyed and constantly butting heads(literally).
The milk-goat, who generally is only concerned with food(how much can she get of it, and where is it coming from) is more concerned about who's touching the gate and why.  She's ready to take you on if you don't look right to her.
All of this the Wife understands. The Goats live outside in a barn.  The wind blows, the dirt is obnoxious this time of year, and the children are ALWAYS next to her.
Well, it might just be justified that the Goats are having a bad day...this might be a long winter.

The Great Egg Hunt

The chickens have abandoned the nesting boxes for "safer" housing...which happens to be the deck railing right outside the kitchen door.  (Side-note: do not use that door.  The Kirby Salesman found out why last night, as he stepped in fresh chicken poop and realized he was surrounded by sleeping chicken butts.  He didn't really try to sell us the vacuum after that.)  One of the results of this is the hunt for where the chickens are laying the eggs...because they aren't using the nesting boxes or the deck.  This summer children were finding eggs in the bushes, the goat pen, the tiger-lilies, and even on the driveway.  As the temperature has decreased, so have the number of places the chickens have been laying.  So the hunt was on!  Where were the chickens laying a dozen eggs a day???  The Wife had a treasure hunt list for the children to work off of, "Did you look in the: playhouse?garage?stroller?Burley?grill?4wheeler?3wheeler?little truck bed?big truck bed?...."
After a month of finding (maybe) one egg a day, the Keeper of the Flame(oldest of the Farm-boy Trio) came in with his shirt bulging! He did it!  He found a nest with three dozen eggs in it!  Ooooo....how long did he suppose they had been there?  So the eggs were tested using the sink/float method. Bad eggs are supposed to float, and good eggs are supposed to sink.  It's really not 100% accurate, but it gives a good idea of whether or not you want to crack one open.  These are the eggs that we put in the fridge and mark "Crack with caution".  Where did he find the nest?  In the middle of the hay-bales!
Now, in order to reach the eggs in the middle of the hay bales, one must meet certain criteria.  One must be shorter than four-feet, small enough to fit in a foot-and-a-half opening, not be claustrophobic, not be allergic to hay, and willing to squeeze into a small dark cave of hay in order to hand out chicken eggs....The Wife does not meet the criteria.  So, the Wife, should she desire eggs, must make the job of getting the eggs as desirable as she can. Not wishing that any of her children should be found on a couch in a fetal position explaining the deep-rooted reasons of their fear of scrambled eggs as the job they had as a child...the Wife must stay up-beat and positive about spelunking for eggs!
Promises of brownies for breakfast, cookies for snack, and french toast for dinner abounded and children volunteered to procure the eggs for the Wife!!!  Daily we have a dozen eggs, now.  How absolutely wonderful!!! The prize was so worth the hunt!

Feeding the Bulls

How do you make friends with a 1,600 lb. bull???  Remember the old saying, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."  It's true about bulls too.  Here's the story:
Dear Farmer and the Wife took the middle-five out to the pear tree and apple trees to see if there was anything to be picked.  We knew that if there was anything, it would be really high in the tree, so Dear Farmer strapped onto the front loader our "cage" for lifting people into the air via tractor.  And after we were all loaded into the "cage" he informed us that the trees that we were about to go picking on...that's where the bulls and steers have been hanging out.  Well, there were a few of us that were really glad we were in the "cage" and a couple that were a little leery about being there at all, and one that didn't care as long as he could ride in the "cage" and sing, "Higher!Higher!"
So Dear Farmer drove us all out to the fruit trees. And about as soon as we rounded the corner where we could smell the trees, there were six very large Beltie males. The males looked at us, in a "cage" on a tractor, and did not give the impression they were willing to have us join them in the pasture. They bellowed and snorted. Children who were leery about the bovine before, became nearly terrified. But Dear Farmer was anything but dissuaded from his mission. He continued on, raised the "cage" into the trees, and called out "Toss me some apples!" The Wife did, and Dear Farmer called the bulls by name, like a mother calls to a well-behaved child.  Up lumbered a combined total of 3,000 pounds of bulls, and Dear Farmer held out an apple to each. Lapping his hands like puppies the bulls ate the apples as fast as we could toss them to Dear Farmer.  It became quite comical. The joke was that the bulls were no longer swatting flies with their tails, the tails were wagging. Picking fruit became the secondary activity, feeding the bulls and steers the primary activity. We had to leave. The children were singing "good-bye"s to the bulls and steers, and we went home...Dear Farmer feeling very good about being friends with the biggest bulls on the block.

Dear Farmer's Broken Window

Dear Farmer is on the last hay-cutting of the season(YIPPEE!). Something that we are all excited for!  His last fields to cut are the really rocky ones.  They weren't so bad, until torrential downpours eroded the top of the hills and caused deep grooves going down into valleys. Now it's a real nightmare to cut.  The rocks ping around you the entire time as the mower hits them and throws them up in the air with no rhyme or reason.  Well, off Dear Farmer went, very grateful that his tractor is an enclosed cab and he has something(even if it was glass) between he and the rocks.
He broke numerous cutting blades, but he'd fix them, and continue cutting.  The rocks were pinging and pelting, but he continued cutting.  He counted the number of rocks that hit his cab windows.  Each time one hit he offered to God a prayer of thankfulness for the rock not hitting himself. 'One...two...three....'
At rock 'seven' he wondered,"How much more can this window take?"  It was rock 'eight' that answered that question.  Dear Farmer said it sounded like a gun-shot, and suddenly glass was everywhere!  Though the glass was all over, the rock still didn't hit Dear Farmer.  (The Wife is so grateful for the enclosed cab on the tractor!  Dear Farmer is grateful, too!)  That finished the hay cutting for the season.  Dear Farmer decided that if a rock could smash the tempered glass, he wasn't going to continue cutting and risk the next rock smashing his head just as hard.  (The Wife is so grateful that Dear Farmer didn't take the chance.)
So he drove home. The tractor can still be used to bale the hay, it'll be a little louder than usual, but all will be fine.  The dealership has been contacted and a new window ordered.
Dear Farmer drank a little more coffee than usual that night.  He said he nearly "greased his shorts" when he heard that sound and all the glass crashing around him.  But we Praise God it's just a broken window.

Girls' Day!

If the chores are done, and the boys are all gone, then the girls have the house to themselves...this makes it "Girls' Day".  What do girls do when left all alone???  First thing they do is clean up an area in the house.  This way they can pull out all the "girlie" stuff they want to in a clean location.  Nail polish and remover are the first things that come out, next is the movies(all the ones boys gag at), and lastly is the food.  Girls in this house have a need to have food whenever the boys are gone.  "Junk" food is okay, but usually it's more desirable to have fruit and dips.  We love our fruit!  Soon after area is clean, nails are painted, and movie has been watched there is a phone call from friends...can they come over and play for the afternoon?  So, the girls all leave the Wife and Itty-Farmer's Daughter to go play elsewhere.  What does the Wife do?  She puts the Itty-Farmer's Daughter down for a nap and sits down to read a book(while the apples cook down for saucing)...Ahhh.  THIS is such a relaxing day.

Boys' Day!

On Dear Farmer's one day that he's not cutting hay all week, he took his Farm-boy Trio out for the afternoon to the near-by "big city".  The Four of them went to all the manly stores...the local farm implement supply, the big tool supply store, and the bulk-buying store.  Of all the places they went, and all the things they saw, what do you suppose was the highlight?
"Mama!  Pop bought us each a BIG hot dog and a BIG soda!  I got to choose my own soda!!!  Look at my BIG cup!  I have a blue straw!  And I ate the WHOLE hot dog MYSELF!!!"
Dear Farmer was impressed.  It's not often that he takes out the Farm-boy Trio...let alone by himself.  Aside from the incredible fascination with every store's bathroom, and the fact that the each boy in the Trio has a bladder the size of a peanut and he had bought them each their own BIG soda...so they had to use each bathroom a few times while in the store, never all at the same time; the whole trip went well.  And that was Boys' Day!
Stay tuned for what the girls did while the boys were away....

The Wife vs. the Goat

Usually the children rotate through milking the goat.  There have been two times that the Wife has had to stand in for a child...in two years.  That mean that the Wife and the Goat are on wonderful terms, however the relationship only extends so far...milking isn't included.
This morning the Wife had to send the Farmer's Daughter off to the Stable at six o'clock in the morning and then transfer her to next job at eight o'clock.  At seven o'clock Dear Farmer asked the Wife "Who's milking?"  The answer should have been "The Farmer's Daughter."  But she was gone.  The answer was, instead, "I am."  With a frazzled thought and morning sneezing the Wife bundled up the Itty-Farmer's Daughter, plopped her in the backpack, and away we went to milk the Goat.
First thing, find the Goat.  The Wife and the Goat have a good relationship, one that centers around the Wife bringing the Goat food.  All the Wife needed to do was call the Goat's name.  The Goat, happily, came.
Second thing, get Goat onto milking stand.  A little more difficult.  The Goat, never having the Wife(really) milk her, was confused as to why she should stand on the milking stand for this woman???  A little coaxing, a lot of nudging, and some tomatoes from the garden...the Goat decided to stand on the milking stand.
Third thing, milk the Goat.  Surprisingly easy, except if ...you have a baby in the backpack on your back(well behaved, but becoming heavy),while you are leaning over to milk the Goat, and have cats that keep wanting to go swimming in the milk bucket...THAT'S where this got difficult.  One cat actually jumped on the rim of the bucket startling the Goat and the Wife, which made the Wife jump back, the Goat jump up, and the bucket tipped over.  One quart of milk and one cat gone.  Back to milking....
The Wife brought in one quart of milk to the house.  The Whiz Bang!  Farmer's Daughter said, "Is that it?"
The Wife mumbled something about having one less cat and departed back outside.  The Goat was standing at the barnyard gate(asking to be let out)...the Wife looked at the Goat.  The Goat looked at the Wife.  The Goat stayed in the barnyard and the Wife gave her water.  The Score is Wife:1 Goat:1, but the Wife maintains control of the game.

We live for the emergencies!

The Wives were talking and laughing about all the "emergencies" they have (respectively) had on farms this year.  The laughing was a sign that all the "emergencies" turned out well. In a sense you live from one "emergency" to the next. The down-time is just getting yourself prepared for the next "emergency"...and you anticipate it will be bigger than the last, otherwise you wonder if it was an "emergency" at all.
This morning the Wife and Farmer's Daughter nearly passed Dear Farmer and a neighbor on the side of the road. Thinking it was a neighborly chat, the Wife slowed the vehicle down to wave, and found the two men were corralling a bull-calf that had escaped the paddock.  The Wife did what the Wife has been taught to do: slow vehicle down and put on hazards, following behind the farmers so that the bull-calf wouldn't back-track.  The Farmer's Daughter jumped out of the vehicle and was the presence on the opposite side of the road, and the neighbor's wife ran around opening and closing gates as needed.  It was a team effort, and the bull-calf was back inside the pen all safe.  Dear Farmer assured the neighbor this was nothing, "I had all the steers and bulls out the other night at my place.  You should come over for coffee!"(See Country Hospitality Examples C & B)  The neighbor dropped by some cheese curds as a thank you...they were amazing!
Usually, in farming, what is an "emergency" to one isn't to another...there's nothing new to farmers.  We're doing the same thing that was done at the beginning of time:  raising animals, being stewards of the earth God created, and training the next generation to do the same.
It does seem at little odd, however, that this breed of person...farmers...who seem so dull and slow...they live for the excitement, the thrill, the "emergency"!

Hunting or Hunted?

There are only a handful of people that have been given permission to hunt on the farm property.  One of them is a gentleman who hunts for the trophy.  He's one of those die-hard, well-outfitted types.  He's not too fond of cows, or bulls, or steers...really, he's not fond of all bovine.  As we have about 120 head of bovine...he is frequently walking through them, around them, or past them, to get to his "spot". He's amazed how Dear Farmer walks through the cows talking to each one, even Dear Farmer's Little Farm-boys hop on the backs of the cows and not one seems to notice.  The Hunter, however, is timid.
On this particular day, The Hunter was heading out from one "spot" to the next "spot".  As he was crossing the field he noticed a cow following him, a little disconcerted-he went a tad faster.  She went a tad faster. He went faster still, until they were both at almost a full run!  The Hunter was close enough to the electric fence line and figured, "this is it!" diving to get under the electric line and on the other side.  Alas...he wasn't quite as small as he thought he was, and his rear end nailed the line as he went through.  ZAP!
Other than still being a little tingly, The Hunter's fine.  He's sure the cows have made sport of following him, now, anytime he's in the field a larger group takes after his direction.  So if you hear laughing coming our way...it may just be the cows, they're hunting hunters today.

We hear the cows!

We had a call while we were on vacation.  The voicemail message went like this: "We hear the cows!  We think they are in the field next door!"
Well...they weren't in the field next door to the person who had left the message....on a clear and crisp night in the country, sounds carry REALLY well.
This absence of light and noise isn't something you get outside when you are in town. Some nights its so dark you really cant see your hand in front of your face. Dear Farmer has actually walked into cows in the dark! When our enlarged family is at the Great Gathering at Photo-star Uncle's Celestial Acres we get the reminder "Bring your flashlights!"  There's no outdoor lights... you can really enjoy the stars, the children run around with glow wands so we can keep track of them, and the brilliance of the campfire light is awe-inspiring.
On a cool crisp night sound carries. We hear the coyotes running in the woods.  We have thought they were right next door, because we could hear them so well, but they were really a mile away.  There's a train that runs on tracks about five miles from our house, we can hear it at 10pm, 1am, 4am, and 6am.
So be careful if you're trying to carry on a private conversation at night in the country...you may be sharing with the whole neighborhood, and you can't even see them!

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...."

The song gets us in the mood, but no worries, it's not actually snowing here..yet.  As our Nordic-Friend friend keeps reminding us of the countdown...there's only ?? more weeks til it snows!  This means we're in WOOD MODE.  There's a lot of things to do on the farm getting ready for winter, but the top of the family's list is: WOOD.  We burn it for heat.  Yes, we are really sustainable people, but we're also burning wood for heat because we like the house at a mere 80F in the dead of winter...and we're cheap and won't pay that much for propane!  So, off to the woods we go to cut down the dead trees, clean up what's laying on the ground, and get in lots of fresh air and exercise!  It's the process of getting the wood that can be either exciting or a real drag.  The Pied Piper and Shadow of the Farmboy-Trio get the opportunity to put all their graffiti skills to work as they mark each dead tree with brilliant orange paint.  Behind them comes the Honorable Sons, Nordic-Friend, and Dear Farmer with chainsaws and a wood-spliter.  The Farmer's Daughters are in charge of the cleaning and stacking...driving the trailer back and forth with loaded wood and picking up all the dead stuff in the down-time.  It's a whole family affair. And from now until next year it will be happening once a week over here.

"You have cows in the road!"

The first thought when you hear a knock on your door at 9pm at night is "this isn't good".  Escalate that adrenaline when you hear the phrase, "Cows on the road!"  YIKES!  It was all hands on deck, and (thankfully) they all thought to throw clothing overtop jammies.  Being dark outside we needed one specific tool: a flashlight.  Dear Farmer raced outside to jump on the ATV (headlights!) and others were left inside to throw on footwear and find a flashlight(preferably one with batteries and working).  The Farmer's Daughter raced out, the Wife was still left looking for a flashlight, how did she find one so fast??? That girl couldn't find anything in a house to save her life(the barn's a totally different story)!  Then the Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter handed the secret weapon to the Wife...a phone.  Guess what all their new phones have on them? Flashlights!  Ah ha!  Figured out how the Farmer's Daughter found one so fast.  Out went the Wife.  The cows that were on the road were the money-making cows!  The bulls(breeding buddies) and five steers(going for market next month)...usually when boys get bored together they get in trouble, right?  I wonder which one of them had the bright idea of "car-tipping"?  It ended just how you'd expect, they got in trouble with the farmer.  As soon as they heard the ATV they looked a little sheepish at Dear Farmer and followed him back home...the rest of the night they sulked.  The adventure of stopping traffic was so much fun!

Job Security

Dear Farmer has it.  Fact of the matter is: around here no one can do "everything", but him.

The Wife has it.  Fact of the matter is: no one else wants it....here's the story...
In the past the Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter has fancied herself "practically perfect in every-way".  She's not actually too far off the mark, her faults are few.  Then again, she hasn't lived very long, or very much, so it's easy to be measured within a very small pond as a very big fish.  One of her admirable qualities is that she enjoys a mother's job.  All she wants to be, she says, is a mother.  {sigh} How sweet!  Her opportunity came this week as the Wife came down with a raging fever and was useless for five days.  The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter was delighted to be told by Dear Farmer "You're in charge of the meals and the kitchen, keep it together."  Like the angels in heaven began to sing and the doors of glory opened whilst the light of divinity shone on her face, she felt something like that.  What started off as an angelic ideal began to turn into cruel reality.  By the end of the third day the Wife had a haggard and whining Hausfrau moaning "I'm not supposed to be a mom for twenty more years!"  The reality of the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer is that no one is ever perfectly satisfied, but it doesn't change the job.  You can't please everyone all the time.  And no matter how much you clean it-it's never going to stay that way permanently.  And I'm just talking about the kitchen and meals...
The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter did an amazing job!  She made her own menu using everything we had in the kitchen, no shopping was needed.  She cleaned it, cooked it, and managed it.  She really did well. The other children really didn't need to stop and appreciate her job, because she did it so well, it varied little from the Wife being there.  But all these positives, when over-worked and tired, become negatives.  The sign of maturity is when we look at the glass "half-empty" and see it as beautiful and we choose to proclaim to the world it is "half-full".  The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter isn't quite there yet.  She's asleep in bed...enjoying the fact that the Wife is better and awake.
The Wife is grateful that the Hausfrau had this opportunity.  Lessons lived are often better learned.  And it's nice to know that I have job security for another "twenty years"!

A vacation to watch a parade

Dear Farmer took a vacation for Depot Days in Amboy, IL.  In years past Dear Farmer has gone to the fund-raising event and enjoyed the tractors and the cars...this year it rained.  The rain makes it a little harder to REALLY enjoy walking around and looking at parked tractors or cars.  But we did make it to the parade!  A parade to beat all other parades!!!  Mostly because we had family in the parade, but then there's also the candy.  We waved to our Great-Oldies driving the models named after the alphabet, and each child snatched (easily) a pound of candy each (which stayed at Fabulous Aunt and Uncle's house).  It was actually just a vacation away from the reality of life.  The one where Dear Farmer could watch someone else drive the tractor, see someone else's hard work, and sit back and eat all the cereal he wanted to...
Every so often we need those...a vacation to watch a parade...it refreshes us as we face reality once again.

Off to the Races!

Farm children do play.  They play really really hard!  Favorite past-times of the Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter and the Whiz-Bang! Farmer's Daughter is bicycling.  The joy of cycling away from the farm and down the road, the wind blowing in their hair, and the sun on their backs is great relaxation from the daily chores.  The Hausfrau was given a new bike this year.  She had been without for a couple years, so the new bike was quite a delight!  Within the first week the bike wheezed and whimpered to her that it hadn't been ridden in quite some time.  The second week the bike gave out...off to the Bike Doctor it went!  Thankfully we have an amazing Uncle in our family -the Bike Doctor!  If you're ever in his neighborhood in Dixon, IL you can check out Green River Cyclery , he is absolutely the best(especially if you're a serious cyclist).
While the bike was at the doctor's the Wife questioned the Hausfrau(who was moaning that there was no bike to ride), "Couldn't you run the distance?"  The Hausfrau replied, "Run four miles?????!"  Apparently, that was not in her option list.  During all this, the Whiz-Bang! Farmer's Daughter had been riding an aged bike(previously owned by the Wife)...the Hausfrau confiscated the bike-claiming imminent domain. But that bike was not ready for the four mile ride either, and it ka-pooped.  Now both Farmer's Daughters are without bikes.  Not Daughters to be held down-they turned their disappointment around and into a game for all the siblings to enjoy.  Everyone strapped on roller blades and skates and began racing up and down the driveway.  The Hausfrau procured a silver cup from her treasure trove(also known as "messy room") and it became the "WINNER'S CUP".  The garden hose is the official finish line, the lawn chairs are set up along the drive for the spectators.  Any chance the children can-they are watching or racing!  The Hausfrau and Whiz-Bang! Farmer's Daughters are missing their cycling route to area farms and friends, but they have made another special memory with their siblings right at home-driveway races!