Phil scheduled a full van checkup-up today. He drove the truck, and I was in the van: the courtesy shuttle doesn't deliver farther than 25 miles, and we didn't make the cut.
Before we reached the end of our road, Phil turned around. The truck was crow-hopping, and braking a bit funny, and he decided there was no way he wanted to drive us all home, and drive us all back again in the afternoon. So I followed him back down the road to home. We'd bring the van another day.
Phil had the packages set to mail for Christmas, so as soon as we got back to the homestead, I took the package and headed back up the road, headed to the post office.
Halfway up the road, the "flat tire" light came on. I called Phil to see if I should head home (rapidly running out of vehicles that would carry me the remaining miles to the post office!), and he said I should be able to make it, but go slowly and carefully.
The front tires had needed filling a week or two back, so after I mailed my boxes, I checked them and saw no real evidence of flattening, so I started home.
Back on our road (phew!), I heard an unwelcome sound, like a rim on the road. I pulled over again and saw that the left REAR was really quite flat.
Foolishly, though, I didn't think it was as flat as it could be, so I went a bit more before I called Phil. "Pull over! We'll come!"
Soon he and the boys roared up in the truck, and he managed to get the tire pumped again. The sideways appeared to have some damage, but since the tire held air, it wasn't as bad as it could be.
Phil found the hole in the tread and plugged it. However, the plug didn't work. And since I drive the car periodically, and sometimes drive Phil to and from the airport with boys in tow, having a working, reliable vehicle is high on my priority list. Even had the hole plugged well, the fact that the sidewalls were weakened (argh!) felt like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at the least opportune (and most cold outside) moment.
So Phil and I put on the spare and we drove the 90 minutes to the Costco Auto Center.
We arrived home after 7pm, after a day of nothing but driving around.
But I did get the Christmas presents mailed!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Truck: Restored!
After yesterday's tense drive, Phil did some maintenance on the truck today. He pulled the spark plugs: six of the eight were filthy (and, since spark plugs work by creating an arc, to have six of eight gritty where they should be arcing: no good).
He figured he should probably do an oil filter change, and to do that, he would need to change the oil. He didn't expect the oil would be very dirty, so he was surprised when he drained one quart of black sludge from the tank that should hold six quarts of vegetable oil colored liquid.
Oops. I don't know exactly how we got so behind on our truck maintenance, but it's a wonder and a blessing that he survived his trip yesterday, and we feel aglow with the truck in MUCH better working order. I can even hear that it sounds better.
The weather reached the forties today. We suspect that the several days we've just survived with weather hovering below 34 is unusual for this time of year. Phil said that several people in the auto parts store were commenting on how their diesel fuel gelled, and they had no idea it would do that. Maybe they both purchased diesel engines for the first time this year, or maybe it's just been surprisingly cold.
In any case, I decided to drop to one milking a day. I got all bundled up last night and headed out, with my headlamp, to milk Bianca at 6:30pm. Bianca was lying on hay, ruminating, and my tugs on her lead and pushes on her rump were not compelling to her to get up. And I realized, I have no reason to keep up twice a day milking. Whether I get 11 pounds of milk a day or 7, it's not that big a deal to me anymore. We have enough we can drink, and will probably acquire enough to spray our land before her gestation is over. I will welcome the extra half hour a day, and she, I'm sure, will welcome being allowed to stay nestled in the hay after the sun goes down.
Buttercup grieves for her lost companions. We came out yesterday afternoon to find her lying right on the edge of the pen, gazing balefully out, the picture of abandoned loneliness.
Pathetic. The good side is that she is very friendly now. I went into her pen and rubbed her back. I haven't felt very comfortable in the pig pen in months: three animals, who all outweigh me and have much lower centers of gravity and not much sophistication in the area of "we don't bite our friends" made me wary.
But with just lonely Buttercup, she is so thankful to have the company. She and I walked down to look at her hay bale bed, she walking beside me, giving encouraging grunts. We bonded.
Finally, a bit of child humor. Joe speaks more every day, but still not perfectly clearly. He brought me a Playmobil long bow and, with a glimmer in his eye said, "In chin chow." That didn't make much sense, but he repeated it over and over, then suddenly turned it horizontally and began making a sawing motion across the top of a glass.
Translation: "I chain saw."
I don't think many 2-year-olds wander about pretending to chain saw, but I'm glad he's so industrious.
He figured he should probably do an oil filter change, and to do that, he would need to change the oil. He didn't expect the oil would be very dirty, so he was surprised when he drained one quart of black sludge from the tank that should hold six quarts of vegetable oil colored liquid.
Oops. I don't know exactly how we got so behind on our truck maintenance, but it's a wonder and a blessing that he survived his trip yesterday, and we feel aglow with the truck in MUCH better working order. I can even hear that it sounds better.
The weather reached the forties today. We suspect that the several days we've just survived with weather hovering below 34 is unusual for this time of year. Phil said that several people in the auto parts store were commenting on how their diesel fuel gelled, and they had no idea it would do that. Maybe they both purchased diesel engines for the first time this year, or maybe it's just been surprisingly cold.
In any case, I decided to drop to one milking a day. I got all bundled up last night and headed out, with my headlamp, to milk Bianca at 6:30pm. Bianca was lying on hay, ruminating, and my tugs on her lead and pushes on her rump were not compelling to her to get up. And I realized, I have no reason to keep up twice a day milking. Whether I get 11 pounds of milk a day or 7, it's not that big a deal to me anymore. We have enough we can drink, and will probably acquire enough to spray our land before her gestation is over. I will welcome the extra half hour a day, and she, I'm sure, will welcome being allowed to stay nestled in the hay after the sun goes down.
Buttercup grieves for her lost companions. We came out yesterday afternoon to find her lying right on the edge of the pen, gazing balefully out, the picture of abandoned loneliness.
Pathetic. The good side is that she is very friendly now. I went into her pen and rubbed her back. I haven't felt very comfortable in the pig pen in months: three animals, who all outweigh me and have much lower centers of gravity and not much sophistication in the area of "we don't bite our friends" made me wary.
But with just lonely Buttercup, she is so thankful to have the company. She and I walked down to look at her hay bale bed, she walking beside me, giving encouraging grunts. We bonded.
Finally, a bit of child humor. Joe speaks more every day, but still not perfectly clearly. He brought me a Playmobil long bow and, with a glimmer in his eye said, "In chin chow." That didn't make much sense, but he repeated it over and over, then suddenly turned it horizontally and began making a sawing motion across the top of a glass.
Translation: "I chain saw."
I don't think many 2-year-olds wander about pretending to chain saw, but I'm glad he's so industrious.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
How to Load Pigs
In retrospect, there were things we could have done to make it easier on ourselves.
Most notably, we could have started yesterday.
Today was the day to bring the pigs to market. I awoke several times in the night, and prayed for wisdom as we needed to get two 200+ pound pigs out of an enclosed electric pen, while leaving their sister and friend behind. Then we somehow had to get those two pigs into the back of the pickup truck, and although the goats can trip easily up a pallet into the back, I questioned whether heavy feeders, on their tiptoes (as pigs walk) would be so amenable to a situation.
The best I came up with was that Phil could back the pickup right to the edge of the electric line, put a pallet from the ground to the tailgate, and entice them up with food.
It's a good thing Phil is here. His way required more effort than simply backing up and setting up a pallet, but it actually worked. The midnight plans I made in worry weren't any good.
First, Phil backed the truck up to a cutaway edge of the driveway. (Above you can see the truck as he finished it out: higher sides, cattle panels above and around.)
Well, actually, first he had to get the truck started. He had had a passing thought yesterday, "I should make sure the truck is ready to go." I don't know why he thought that, since I think the truck always starts, but the truck didn't start this time. So he jumped it until it went well.
He then was able to set up a few boards as a chute from the hillside to the truck, a gentle incline instead of a mountain climb. He put cattle panels all along the chute (yes, pounding in t-posts for support every eight feet), and then we made a cattle panel corral from the truck, across the field of clover behind our trailer, and up to the edge of the electric wire.
It took some quick on-off fingers with the electric panel, as Phil adjusted the electric wire high enough for the pigs to walk underneath into the corral. We expected they would charge on in, since we lured them with food and slops. However, the little adjustment we made to the perimeter satisfied them with a few extra feet of earth to turn over, and they weren't terribly eager to leave the new source of worms (?) and greens for the larger unknown.
Eventually, though, curiosity and appetite won out, and the two boys pushed ahead. This was a bit of grace! We had expected all three pigs to charge ahead and have to somehow cut out Buttercup. Instead, the boy pigs were in the corral, and Buttercup was in her pen. Phil switched the fence around again, and she was again in her electric walled home.
Next we needed to get the boys up to the chute. Phil had prudently made the corral about 16 feet wide, so we each took an end of a cattle panel and drove the boys to one end.
The first time we did that, I took a split second too long to decide whether to bend the panel around the little apricot tree or to lift it over the tree. By the time I lifted it over, Socks squirted out underneath, and so we had to begin again.
That was a good practice run, though, because we realized that some of my connections were not tight enough, so Phil tightened some, and added others. That way, if the pigs spooked, they wouldn't break the fence.
The second time, Phil took the tricky end by the little tree. He's stronger and can bend it around the little tree, and we had the pigs well cornered, when Fox went between Phil's legs, lifting him right off the ground. Phil had held his ground, and held the two parts of the fence, but when Fox was determined, he went away.
The third time, though all went well. Phil wired the cattle panel into a teardrop shape, where the only out was up the chute into the truck.
The pigs were pretty content to stay where they were, eating clover. Socks made a little motion to go up the chute, but I think it was a bit too odd looking, so he turned back.
Phil jumped into their little pen and tried to push them up the chute. They just shot behind him. He bent down to look bigger at their level, but that didn't work well.
I had to stop taking photos at that point, because life got a bit more tense. First we found a large piece of plywood, and Phil pushed them right up to the chute. We threaded a piece of wood into the cattle panel behind it to keep the plywood in place. Then we tried everything we could think of to get those stubborn pigs up the chute.
Unfortunately, Fox had backed halfway up the chute, and he wasn't going further. Socks wanted to go up ahead, especially since I kept prodding his hiney, but Fox was large enough, the way was blocked, and we were at a standstill.
We tried little boards, to step Fox backwards a step at a time. That didn't work: he just stepped over. (Desperation made him quite agile.) We tried talking; we tried gentle prodding; we tried luring with water and food. Nothing.
Finally, Phil just hopped up and over, and pushed Fox backwards. It took about five seconds, and Socks followed happily. They drank and ate while we put the tailgate up, and the pigs were trapped, right where we wanted.
It was now 1:15pm, and we had done nothing today but work with the pigs, but there were still four hours until the abattoir closed, so we were doing pretty well.
The truck wouldn't start. After a few minutes of battery boosting, though, the truck roared to life, all the way to the top of the driveway.
Then, for some reason he still doesn't understand, Phil cut the engine. I think he was concerned about what would happen if he shut off the truck while on the road.
And that was the end of that truck for the next couple of hours. We tried boosting it with the van, and after a half hour, nothing happened. Phil went looking for a few extension cords to use his industrial booster, and, a second grace, the two cords he found fit: with about two feet to spare. Thankfully, Phil hadn't cut the engine three feet further forward.
After much prayer, and fiddling with the battery, the truck finally resurrected, and Phil drove off, now after 3pm. He reached the abattoir around closing time, but the owner was still there and came and helped Phil unload.
The truck was "driving funny," so I was much relieved when, nearing 7pm, Phil roared back down the driveway.
Farming isn't for cowards, that's for sure!
Most notably, we could have started yesterday.
Today was the day to bring the pigs to market. I awoke several times in the night, and prayed for wisdom as we needed to get two 200+ pound pigs out of an enclosed electric pen, while leaving their sister and friend behind. Then we somehow had to get those two pigs into the back of the pickup truck, and although the goats can trip easily up a pallet into the back, I questioned whether heavy feeders, on their tiptoes (as pigs walk) would be so amenable to a situation.
The best I came up with was that Phil could back the pickup right to the edge of the electric line, put a pallet from the ground to the tailgate, and entice them up with food.
It's a good thing Phil is here. His way required more effort than simply backing up and setting up a pallet, but it actually worked. The midnight plans I made in worry weren't any good.
First, Phil backed the truck up to a cutaway edge of the driveway. (Above you can see the truck as he finished it out: higher sides, cattle panels above and around.)
Well, actually, first he had to get the truck started. He had had a passing thought yesterday, "I should make sure the truck is ready to go." I don't know why he thought that, since I think the truck always starts, but the truck didn't start this time. So he jumped it until it went well.
He then was able to set up a few boards as a chute from the hillside to the truck, a gentle incline instead of a mountain climb. He put cattle panels all along the chute (yes, pounding in t-posts for support every eight feet), and then we made a cattle panel corral from the truck, across the field of clover behind our trailer, and up to the edge of the electric wire.
It took some quick on-off fingers with the electric panel, as Phil adjusted the electric wire high enough for the pigs to walk underneath into the corral. We expected they would charge on in, since we lured them with food and slops. However, the little adjustment we made to the perimeter satisfied them with a few extra feet of earth to turn over, and they weren't terribly eager to leave the new source of worms (?) and greens for the larger unknown.
Eventually, though, curiosity and appetite won out, and the two boys pushed ahead. This was a bit of grace! We had expected all three pigs to charge ahead and have to somehow cut out Buttercup. Instead, the boy pigs were in the corral, and Buttercup was in her pen. Phil switched the fence around again, and she was again in her electric walled home.
Next we needed to get the boys up to the chute. Phil had prudently made the corral about 16 feet wide, so we each took an end of a cattle panel and drove the boys to one end.
The first time we did that, I took a split second too long to decide whether to bend the panel around the little apricot tree or to lift it over the tree. By the time I lifted it over, Socks squirted out underneath, and so we had to begin again.
That was a good practice run, though, because we realized that some of my connections were not tight enough, so Phil tightened some, and added others. That way, if the pigs spooked, they wouldn't break the fence.
The second time, Phil took the tricky end by the little tree. He's stronger and can bend it around the little tree, and we had the pigs well cornered, when Fox went between Phil's legs, lifting him right off the ground. Phil had held his ground, and held the two parts of the fence, but when Fox was determined, he went away.
The third time, though all went well. Phil wired the cattle panel into a teardrop shape, where the only out was up the chute into the truck.
The pigs were pretty content to stay where they were, eating clover. Socks made a little motion to go up the chute, but I think it was a bit too odd looking, so he turned back.
Phil jumped into their little pen and tried to push them up the chute. They just shot behind him. He bent down to look bigger at their level, but that didn't work well.
I had to stop taking photos at that point, because life got a bit more tense. First we found a large piece of plywood, and Phil pushed them right up to the chute. We threaded a piece of wood into the cattle panel behind it to keep the plywood in place. Then we tried everything we could think of to get those stubborn pigs up the chute.
Unfortunately, Fox had backed halfway up the chute, and he wasn't going further. Socks wanted to go up ahead, especially since I kept prodding his hiney, but Fox was large enough, the way was blocked, and we were at a standstill.
We tried little boards, to step Fox backwards a step at a time. That didn't work: he just stepped over. (Desperation made him quite agile.) We tried talking; we tried gentle prodding; we tried luring with water and food. Nothing.
Finally, Phil just hopped up and over, and pushed Fox backwards. It took about five seconds, and Socks followed happily. They drank and ate while we put the tailgate up, and the pigs were trapped, right where we wanted.
It was now 1:15pm, and we had done nothing today but work with the pigs, but there were still four hours until the abattoir closed, so we were doing pretty well.
The truck wouldn't start. After a few minutes of battery boosting, though, the truck roared to life, all the way to the top of the driveway.
Then, for some reason he still doesn't understand, Phil cut the engine. I think he was concerned about what would happen if he shut off the truck while on the road.
And that was the end of that truck for the next couple of hours. We tried boosting it with the van, and after a half hour, nothing happened. Phil went looking for a few extension cords to use his industrial booster, and, a second grace, the two cords he found fit: with about two feet to spare. Thankfully, Phil hadn't cut the engine three feet further forward.
After much prayer, and fiddling with the battery, the truck finally resurrected, and Phil drove off, now after 3pm. He reached the abattoir around closing time, but the owner was still there and came and helped Phil unload.
The truck was "driving funny," so I was much relieved when, nearing 7pm, Phil roared back down the driveway.
Farming isn't for cowards, that's for sure!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Clearing, in Action
The boys and I went to visit Phil's clearing efforts today. Very neat to see what he does.
First, he goes around with the chainsaw and cuts down everything small or yucky in about a 200 square foot section. Most of these are dense thin saplings, too large to cut through with a scythe. Some are clumped, some have thorns, some are larger trees that are crooked or otherwise unpleasant.
He also sections the larger trees for easy moving later. The oak he puts aside into a good firewood pile. (And he can use the bucket of the tractor to move quantities of the oak sections.
That takes almost no time, even though he's using a dull chain. He cuts right at ground level, so hits dirt sometimes, and so using the duller chain is worth the little extra cutting time. He's not dulling a nice new blade.
Then he stacks into piles, roughly, and then compresses a few of the piles together to make a bigger pile. He needs to make stacks because while the tractor can move piles, the single saplings are so flush with the ground, he can't move those very well. They need the bulk of the combined group.
And it's worth it to have the piles because that way, he has the "mess" somewhat contained: safer to work in, more encouraging to view the progress.
He started on Monday with the path to the creek. Above you can see the part he cleared (the creek, with some bushes fallen into it, is hidden on the left of the photo; the center is the path for the fence). Below you can see the part he hasn't cleared, just to the right of the cleared path.
When I first saw what he'd been working on, I was a bit disappointed. He has so much to clear! The section completed is nice, but I wanted four times that amount done! Ten times the amount!
But then I realized that what he has cleared in a day or two is probably about equal to what he spent all last winter clearing, where our stonefruit orchard is now. The chainsaw and tractor have helped a lot, leaving me free to homeschool the boys and work. The above photo shows what he's done. The below photo shows the next section he has to work on (and, really, all sections in the lower pasture that remain).
It's an amazing amount of overgrowth.
It was cold enough last night that, midafternoon when the boys and I went to visit Phil, there was ice on Hog Creek. I was surprised that ice could remain so long on a fairly robust little stream, but, well, it is cold.
As we hiked back, Abraham discovered what we think is the jawbone of a fox. He wasn't sure he wanted to touch it, but he did for posterity (this photo).
My household work took an odd turn today. Lately the pump in the motor home has been freezing overnight, but by midday gets thawed enough that we can run the water. We tried putting a pilot light in with the water last night, but that turned out to be totally counter-productive. The door wouldn't close all the way with the light in there, and with weather in the teens overnight, we think that the water in the storage tank froze solid. To have no running hot water is too bad; to have no running water at all is astonishingly difficult.
I had no recollection of how we managed water issues last winter. I do know I did the dishes in plastic tubs in the barn (and made the family eat bread two meals a day so I didn't have to do many dishes. But I had forgotten the Berkey we set up in the bathroom so we had (thawed) water to drink. And the plastic camping bag so I had a way to wash my hands. It's probably time to break those out again.
First, he goes around with the chainsaw and cuts down everything small or yucky in about a 200 square foot section. Most of these are dense thin saplings, too large to cut through with a scythe. Some are clumped, some have thorns, some are larger trees that are crooked or otherwise unpleasant.
He also sections the larger trees for easy moving later. The oak he puts aside into a good firewood pile. (And he can use the bucket of the tractor to move quantities of the oak sections.
That takes almost no time, even though he's using a dull chain. He cuts right at ground level, so hits dirt sometimes, and so using the duller chain is worth the little extra cutting time. He's not dulling a nice new blade.
Then he stacks into piles, roughly, and then compresses a few of the piles together to make a bigger pile. He needs to make stacks because while the tractor can move piles, the single saplings are so flush with the ground, he can't move those very well. They need the bulk of the combined group.
And it's worth it to have the piles because that way, he has the "mess" somewhat contained: safer to work in, more encouraging to view the progress.
He started on Monday with the path to the creek. Above you can see the part he cleared (the creek, with some bushes fallen into it, is hidden on the left of the photo; the center is the path for the fence). Below you can see the part he hasn't cleared, just to the right of the cleared path.
When I first saw what he'd been working on, I was a bit disappointed. He has so much to clear! The section completed is nice, but I wanted four times that amount done! Ten times the amount!
But then I realized that what he has cleared in a day or two is probably about equal to what he spent all last winter clearing, where our stonefruit orchard is now. The chainsaw and tractor have helped a lot, leaving me free to homeschool the boys and work. The above photo shows what he's done. The below photo shows the next section he has to work on (and, really, all sections in the lower pasture that remain).
It's an amazing amount of overgrowth.
It was cold enough last night that, midafternoon when the boys and I went to visit Phil, there was ice on Hog Creek. I was surprised that ice could remain so long on a fairly robust little stream, but, well, it is cold.
As we hiked back, Abraham discovered what we think is the jawbone of a fox. He wasn't sure he wanted to touch it, but he did for posterity (this photo).
My household work took an odd turn today. Lately the pump in the motor home has been freezing overnight, but by midday gets thawed enough that we can run the water. We tried putting a pilot light in with the water last night, but that turned out to be totally counter-productive. The door wouldn't close all the way with the light in there, and with weather in the teens overnight, we think that the water in the storage tank froze solid. To have no running hot water is too bad; to have no running water at all is astonishingly difficult.
I had no recollection of how we managed water issues last winter. I do know I did the dishes in plastic tubs in the barn (and made the family eat bread two meals a day so I didn't have to do many dishes. But I had forgotten the Berkey we set up in the bathroom so we had (thawed) water to drink. And the plastic camping bag so I had a way to wash my hands. It's probably time to break those out again.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Phil's Character Growth
On Monday, Phil was all set to go down to finish raking our little field and then seed it. He drove over with the tractor, but the ground was a little too wet. He figured it would be okay to seed, and then clear, so he drove back, took off the rake, and went to put the backhoe on the back.
Superman Phil, though, couldn't get the hydraulic lines connected. He told me later that he was about to get really frustrated and blow his stack, when he suddenly thought, "Maybe this is the Lord's way of telling me I'm just not supposed to do this today."
What character growth for Phil!
So instead he spent the day building up the sides of the truck, and bending a cattle panel over the top, so we'll be able to bring our Fox and Socks pigs to the abattoir on Thursday. I am excited to see them go. The three pigs together are getting through about 50 pounds of feed a day, and at $22.50 a day, that gets pricey quickly.
Phil tried to get the hydraulic lines connected at the end of the day, and they went together without any trouble.
For myself, like the boys, I, too, am tired of looking at the same picture books. I climbed over mountains of stuff in the storage area, and found a box of children's books. It was one of the highlights of my month to find the forgotten treasures. And some I have no connection to anymore: it felt good to put those in the giveaway pile. I packed up a collection of books we've read enough this year, and decided I would do the same thing every day.
Sadly, today I tried to find another box, but apparently Phil and I stacked our myriad boxes without much consideration: the classics (Homer, Shakespeare) and the engineering books are on the top, and all the favorite children's books so far buried I cannot reach them. Bummer.
Phil spent today clearing the lower pasture. He's cleared the whole line along the creek, and started swaths of land. He's figuring out how to use the tractor to best effect. He even got a dense patch of underbrush cleared, so dense he wondered (before we got the tractor) if he should just ignite it. But neither of us trust our abilities to prevent larger forest fires, once ignited, so I'm happy he was able to cut and knock down the brush.
I had a disappointing calculation about the chickens and eggs. I know that our broilers were about $20 apiece to raise; I had hoped that, at $5/dozen, we were almost breaking even with the eggs. But, at the end of the year, I have perspective on how much the chickens actually lay, and how much the feed costs. Sadly, at $5/dozen, we aren't even covering current costs, let alone the $1000 it cost to raise the chicks to full-sized birds.
Which leaves us with several unpleasant options: switch to potentially GM feed (non organic), or add soy (which does transfer: folks allergic to soy cannot handle soy-fed meat or eggs, and I really don't want soy) in order to reduce feed costs. Or stop selling eggs, which is not a happy option since we actually have a few persistent customers. Somehow, I don't think raising the price of eggs to $8/dozen, even though that's what I think would be a true break-even price, is doable for most folks.
The economics of farming frustrates me. I feel like it should be possible to produce food that I would want to eat for a reasonable price, even if I don't pay myself, but that isn't happening.
In happier news, though, Phil and I are talking again about housing options, and that is fun. Even 1000 square feet, well designed, would be a great living space!
For now, though, when I turn on the motor home tap and warm water comes out, I truly rejoice. What a treat!
Superman Phil, though, couldn't get the hydraulic lines connected. He told me later that he was about to get really frustrated and blow his stack, when he suddenly thought, "Maybe this is the Lord's way of telling me I'm just not supposed to do this today."
What character growth for Phil!
So instead he spent the day building up the sides of the truck, and bending a cattle panel over the top, so we'll be able to bring our Fox and Socks pigs to the abattoir on Thursday. I am excited to see them go. The three pigs together are getting through about 50 pounds of feed a day, and at $22.50 a day, that gets pricey quickly.
Phil tried to get the hydraulic lines connected at the end of the day, and they went together without any trouble.
For myself, like the boys, I, too, am tired of looking at the same picture books. I climbed over mountains of stuff in the storage area, and found a box of children's books. It was one of the highlights of my month to find the forgotten treasures. And some I have no connection to anymore: it felt good to put those in the giveaway pile. I packed up a collection of books we've read enough this year, and decided I would do the same thing every day.
Sadly, today I tried to find another box, but apparently Phil and I stacked our myriad boxes without much consideration: the classics (Homer, Shakespeare) and the engineering books are on the top, and all the favorite children's books so far buried I cannot reach them. Bummer.
Phil spent today clearing the lower pasture. He's cleared the whole line along the creek, and started swaths of land. He's figuring out how to use the tractor to best effect. He even got a dense patch of underbrush cleared, so dense he wondered (before we got the tractor) if he should just ignite it. But neither of us trust our abilities to prevent larger forest fires, once ignited, so I'm happy he was able to cut and knock down the brush.
I had a disappointing calculation about the chickens and eggs. I know that our broilers were about $20 apiece to raise; I had hoped that, at $5/dozen, we were almost breaking even with the eggs. But, at the end of the year, I have perspective on how much the chickens actually lay, and how much the feed costs. Sadly, at $5/dozen, we aren't even covering current costs, let alone the $1000 it cost to raise the chicks to full-sized birds.
Which leaves us with several unpleasant options: switch to potentially GM feed (non organic), or add soy (which does transfer: folks allergic to soy cannot handle soy-fed meat or eggs, and I really don't want soy) in order to reduce feed costs. Or stop selling eggs, which is not a happy option since we actually have a few persistent customers. Somehow, I don't think raising the price of eggs to $8/dozen, even though that's what I think would be a true break-even price, is doable for most folks.
The economics of farming frustrates me. I feel like it should be possible to produce food that I would want to eat for a reasonable price, even if I don't pay myself, but that isn't happening.
In happier news, though, Phil and I are talking again about housing options, and that is fun. Even 1000 square feet, well designed, would be a great living space!
For now, though, when I turn on the motor home tap and warm water comes out, I truly rejoice. What a treat!
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Snow! (Poor Tennessee Cows: What a Shock)
While Phil went to get a new hydraulic line, I had the good task of cleaning up my perpetually messy work area. I actually got just about all the way through all the papers on my "desk" (Phil's dresser) which is a wonderful, mind-clearing feeling.
On his return, Phil toughed out the chilly weather and borrowed Butch's rake (attached to the back of the tractor). We have a few fingers of cleared land jutting off the neighbor's clearing that he and Butch weren't able to seed: the area was so overgrown with small pines that, though Butch could bush-hog the area, the seeder could not handle the ground debris. So Phil worked on that until dusk, though he did stop to consider then why he was bothering: if we're planning to seed by hand broadcast, surely we could just step over any downed saplings. Hmm.
I was pleased to hear Bianca mooing at lunch. Unexplained moos can mean heat! She wasn't standing in her normal spot, either. I went to watch and saw her try to mount Fern, who moved away in annoyance. So Fern wasn't in standing heat, apparently, but that was the closest thing to heat I've seen from Bianca, and it is close to 90 days since she calved. Semen straws ship next week, so, should she behave oddly again December 26, hopefully we'll be ready (and Giovanni won't be out of town).
Good news, that, on all fronts. The month-long block from getting straws released finally cleared, at what appears to be just the right time. (We seriously considered getting a bull, but the $80/month in additional feed costs, the danger in having a heavy, testosterone-laden beast nearby, and the fact that then you have only one bull, one genetic line to use decided against it. I am hoping that it's better to have a bit longer than a year between calvings than to have a bull. But really I'm hoping and praying both cows will successfully breed with AI in the next month.)
The boys and I had a great time indoors. While I continued to wade through the pile of detritus on the dresser, Jadon went through an entire book of paper crafts that I had done as a child, diligently tracing each pattern so that I could someday pass it on to my children. Abraham said, "You copied the pages for Jadon. That was a good idea!" (Abraham makes me laugh without necessarily meaning to. Today he said that he would like "fried rice and pudding for lunch. Not mixed together.")
Then I went to the toy storage area and brought the boys long forgotten tops, Memory, a little wooden snow village that Phil had as a child (Joe liked that), and the greatly missed dominoes. Isaiah made elaborate Irish-like huts, and then asked to take photos "from all sides." I gave him the camera and sometime later looked up from the paper I was perusing to find him taking stop-action photos of his stationary tower.
"Isaiah! Do you know how long it will take me to delete hundreds of identical photos! Ack!"
He hadn't thought of that and was very apologetic. I laughed, though, when I looked later. Joe had, apparently, pushed a little bean or something into the corner of the photo while Isaiah was shooting, so a little dark object rolls up the frame and then back down. There was motion after all.
About 4pm, it began to snow, and Jadon waited as long as he could before suiting up and going outside to pack together large swaths of 1/10 of an inch snow into a snowball.
I doubt our Tennessee cows have ever seen snow before. Poor Bianca. I went to get her for milking and she practically danced away from me. She put her head down to lick up some molasses and snow fell on her nose and she snorted and immediately her milk dried up. I got two cups, and the rest of the rich milk, which I could feel through the bag, stayed high and dry.
And, finally, for something completely different.
After we had the motor home here a few months, it took longer and longer to fill up the 40 gallon water tank. The last time we tried, it took 13 hours. When the repair man came out, he found the line clogged with sediment, and since then, we've used filters to keep the motor home's water running freely.
Today was the time to install a new filter. Above you can see what the clean, new one looked like. Below you can see the one in use the last three months: tiny grey silt, packed around, with several tablespoons of silt frozen at the bottom. No wonder the water wasn't flowing easily!
Friday, December 3, 2010
The Egg from Beyond the Grave
Thursday morning Phil and I finished processing the last eight chickens as soon as morning chores and breakfast were done. I hit my groove, and so was surprised to find that, when I finished up, it was 1pm!
One bird gave me a really hard time when I tried extracting the innards. I kept trying and trying, but the opening felt too small; something was wrong.
When I finally got out the innards, yes, something was wrong: a fully formed egg was inside the body cavity. I was not expecting that!
(Maybe the egg isn't quite from "beyond the grave," since the hen will go into the pot, not a tomb, but it has a dramatic sound anyway.)
So out of 26 birds processed, three birds were currently in production. That's not a terribly efficient way to run a farm, and I am happy to put those birds in the freezer.
The chickens averaged about two pounds less than the laying hens, coming in in the mid two pound range (except for the smallest, that weighed 1 pound, 2 ounces dressed out: that one went in the stock pot, since there was pretty much no meat on the poor thing).
I had pulled the yellow fat off the internal organs of the fattest birds. I figured I should at least try to render the fat, and it went incredibly quickly. Within about 10 minutes, I had well over a quart of bright yellow rendered fat. (The cracklings were pretty gross, so I gave those to the pigs. I don't think regular pork cracklings are very good plain, either, but they do help refried beans taste yummy.) Below you can see the difference between the rendered pork fat and the yellow rendered chicken fat.
I made stock with the necks and smallest bird, put the feet and livers in the freezer for future processing, and was happy to be done with this project.
Phil sealed up the door to the bedroom: it doesn't close quite all the way, and the 1/8" gap all the way around lets in a lot of cold air. He had sealed it last year, but one son (who shall remain nameless) picked it all off the door sometime this summer.
Phil also tried to clear some of the lower pasture. The brambles looked so easy to take out, so he went down with machete and scythe.
They weren't easy to take out. They resisted, and he opted against lugging the chainsaw down the hill.
Just as well, since he had to dig a big hole. Then he went up to town to have dinner with one of our pastors: the one hour that he wasn't actively working today was spent on a sober task. But he had that hour: something he doesn't have every day. (And if Chloe had died while he was at dinner: what would I have done? Somehow tried to get her outside, I think, and then just hoped that no wild animal got her in the night? God was very gracious.)
While we were processing the birds, I had a striking realization: we could make it here. For the last month, we've been waiting to hear from the pig farmer about whether the way is open for us to purchase it. We continue not to hear anything, but, for the first time today, I realized I could be content either way. Either way will be a good option; either way, we'll have an adventure and gain experience. It was the first time either option actually looked appealing to me: for the last six weeks, my main hope has been to move to the pig farm. Only that would make life seem manageable. But no more. Whether we stay or go, it'll be great!
I have been experimenting with one of the final frontiers of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. I already do grass-fed meat and organic poultry, top quality eggs and raw milk. I take my cod liver oil and make bone broths. I never buy salad dressing, ferment kefir, cook with only coconut oil, butter, or lard (though I use olive oil, too, in lower heat applications), and soak nuts before eating.
But lacto-fermented vegetables have eluded me, until now.
For my fifth year anniversary at my company, I requested a sauerkraut crock. I used the amazing thing one time, and didn't fully understand how I was supposed to store it. The top grew moldy (I'm ashamed to say, probably after a few months), and I threw it all away and never tried again.
Right now, though, I have fermenting in my house some gingered carrots, some kimchi, and some beet kvass, a fermented drink that has good digestive enzymes, or so I'm told. (Below: kefir from our milk, beet kvass, and kimchi, with the carrots in front: so pretty!)
I've been taking a spoonful of a (store bought) fermented vegetable with every meal, and I will be curious to see if I feel dramatically better. Or even a little better. Better digestion never hurt anyone, I suppose.
On Friday, Phil shot the last bird. We had hoped it would be happy just to eat bugs, but when I entered the barn first thing to find it eating the cat food, we knew it had to go.
Rather than fire up the scald water for a single bird, Phil plucked it by hand (excluding the tiny wings: I cut those off and fed them to the pigs). He was surprised by how not difficult the project was: to do only one to three birds, he figured it would be very doable to pluck, so long as the plucking commenced right after killing.
We had lent out the chainsaw, and Phil spent some time fixing it; he also spent several hours clearing along the creek on the neighbor's land, preparing to get fencing put up for grazing next year. He was pleased with the progress he made with chainsaw, and tractor to push the brush out of the way.
I think he's still figuring out the tractor's dimensions; he backed into a tree and tore one of the hydraulic hoses. I think that happened right before dark, and he intended to drive up to Tractor Supply to get a replacement, but by the time he had researched this new purchase, he wouldn't be able to get there before closing.
I've shelled all the peanuts we grew this year. The ones that weren't too shrunken filled a quart-sized jar. Yay!
Along where the chicken pen went, we have a new plant growing up: something in their feed, since the patches of new growth are precisely where the feeder has been, at about 10 foot intervals.
My garden is fairly dormant, but the daikons, mustard greens, kale, turnips, and some radishes came up well before the cold days came upon us.
All the "empty" beds hold garlic, well mulched with hay and waiting for the spring.
One bird gave me a really hard time when I tried extracting the innards. I kept trying and trying, but the opening felt too small; something was wrong.
When I finally got out the innards, yes, something was wrong: a fully formed egg was inside the body cavity. I was not expecting that!
(Maybe the egg isn't quite from "beyond the grave," since the hen will go into the pot, not a tomb, but it has a dramatic sound anyway.)
So out of 26 birds processed, three birds were currently in production. That's not a terribly efficient way to run a farm, and I am happy to put those birds in the freezer.
The chickens averaged about two pounds less than the laying hens, coming in in the mid two pound range (except for the smallest, that weighed 1 pound, 2 ounces dressed out: that one went in the stock pot, since there was pretty much no meat on the poor thing).
I had pulled the yellow fat off the internal organs of the fattest birds. I figured I should at least try to render the fat, and it went incredibly quickly. Within about 10 minutes, I had well over a quart of bright yellow rendered fat. (The cracklings were pretty gross, so I gave those to the pigs. I don't think regular pork cracklings are very good plain, either, but they do help refried beans taste yummy.) Below you can see the difference between the rendered pork fat and the yellow rendered chicken fat.
I made stock with the necks and smallest bird, put the feet and livers in the freezer for future processing, and was happy to be done with this project.
Phil sealed up the door to the bedroom: it doesn't close quite all the way, and the 1/8" gap all the way around lets in a lot of cold air. He had sealed it last year, but one son (who shall remain nameless) picked it all off the door sometime this summer.
Phil also tried to clear some of the lower pasture. The brambles looked so easy to take out, so he went down with machete and scythe.
They weren't easy to take out. They resisted, and he opted against lugging the chainsaw down the hill.
Just as well, since he had to dig a big hole. Then he went up to town to have dinner with one of our pastors: the one hour that he wasn't actively working today was spent on a sober task. But he had that hour: something he doesn't have every day. (And if Chloe had died while he was at dinner: what would I have done? Somehow tried to get her outside, I think, and then just hoped that no wild animal got her in the night? God was very gracious.)
While we were processing the birds, I had a striking realization: we could make it here. For the last month, we've been waiting to hear from the pig farmer about whether the way is open for us to purchase it. We continue not to hear anything, but, for the first time today, I realized I could be content either way. Either way will be a good option; either way, we'll have an adventure and gain experience. It was the first time either option actually looked appealing to me: for the last six weeks, my main hope has been to move to the pig farm. Only that would make life seem manageable. But no more. Whether we stay or go, it'll be great!
I have been experimenting with one of the final frontiers of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. I already do grass-fed meat and organic poultry, top quality eggs and raw milk. I take my cod liver oil and make bone broths. I never buy salad dressing, ferment kefir, cook with only coconut oil, butter, or lard (though I use olive oil, too, in lower heat applications), and soak nuts before eating.
But lacto-fermented vegetables have eluded me, until now.
For my fifth year anniversary at my company, I requested a sauerkraut crock. I used the amazing thing one time, and didn't fully understand how I was supposed to store it. The top grew moldy (I'm ashamed to say, probably after a few months), and I threw it all away and never tried again.
Right now, though, I have fermenting in my house some gingered carrots, some kimchi, and some beet kvass, a fermented drink that has good digestive enzymes, or so I'm told. (Below: kefir from our milk, beet kvass, and kimchi, with the carrots in front: so pretty!)
I've been taking a spoonful of a (store bought) fermented vegetable with every meal, and I will be curious to see if I feel dramatically better. Or even a little better. Better digestion never hurt anyone, I suppose.
On Friday, Phil shot the last bird. We had hoped it would be happy just to eat bugs, but when I entered the barn first thing to find it eating the cat food, we knew it had to go.
Rather than fire up the scald water for a single bird, Phil plucked it by hand (excluding the tiny wings: I cut those off and fed them to the pigs). He was surprised by how not difficult the project was: to do only one to three birds, he figured it would be very doable to pluck, so long as the plucking commenced right after killing.
We had lent out the chainsaw, and Phil spent some time fixing it; he also spent several hours clearing along the creek on the neighbor's land, preparing to get fencing put up for grazing next year. He was pleased with the progress he made with chainsaw, and tractor to push the brush out of the way.
I think he's still figuring out the tractor's dimensions; he backed into a tree and tore one of the hydraulic hoses. I think that happened right before dark, and he intended to drive up to Tractor Supply to get a replacement, but by the time he had researched this new purchase, he wouldn't be able to get there before closing.
I've shelled all the peanuts we grew this year. The ones that weren't too shrunken filled a quart-sized jar. Yay!
Along where the chicken pen went, we have a new plant growing up: something in their feed, since the patches of new growth are precisely where the feeder has been, at about 10 foot intervals.
My garden is fairly dormant, but the daikons, mustard greens, kale, turnips, and some radishes came up well before the cold days came upon us.
All the "empty" beds hold garlic, well mulched with hay and waiting for the spring.
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