Fall Cleaning at the Farm

We had our semi-annual Farm Clean-Up Day a little bit ago.  When we got there in the morning we had a herd of friends waiting for us, but they didn't seem to want to really stay and help out but that was ok because that kind of help isn't very useful anyway.




We had lots of other hands to help out in all the work that we had planned.  Which wasn't really all the much, but it took quite a bit of work to get it all done.  We mostly just cleaned up the farm and moved in the ton bales of hay that we have gotten in the past few weeks



One of the things I'm glad the minions did was to muck out the manger area.  That is always a dirty, dusty, smelly job.  Trents minion took to it with gusto though and was having a great time digging all that stuff out.  The only good thing about that is that we now have a large pile of excellent compost for gardens come Springtime.



.  Moving the hay was a real hassle.  Since there wasn't any way to move the ton bales themselves through the narrow doorway, we had to move them a slice at a time.  We would set up a tarp next to the bale, pull off a bunch of hay onto the tarp, and then drag it into the barn.  It sure is amazing how much hay 1 ton actually is when it is all spread out instead of bunched up tightly into a bale. 

 These are 2 different pictures of the spot we store the hay in.  The left is after about 1 1/2 bales have been moved in.  The right is after all 3 bales were moved.  They are from different angles but you can see how much further out the stack is by comparing the other stack of regular bales on right hand side of the storage area.

 

Naturally, once the hay was all moved, everyone had to take turns swinging on the rope and landing in the hay.

Well I think the motor is now working properly, I checked it this morning and it has stopped binding up. It may have just needed to be broken in. Let me know if there is a problem.

Problems at the Pump

Apparently our pump broke down a few days ago.  I didn't hear anything about it until it was fixed, but I feel for those that had to hand milk for the time that it was being repaired.  Now that it is fixed, it sometimes binds up and the internal motor won't spin.  It is easily fixed by manually turning the motor back a few degrees.  The best way to do that is to use a metal rod and get some leverage on the fins attached to the internal windings.  Then push them clockwise.  Looking at the end of the pump face on, here is what to look for.

To further illustrate this process we have a short training video to become familiar with in case you are called upon to perform this procedure in the course of your duties.

  

Hopefully this will not be necessary once the new parts become worn in.  If it continues, it'll have to be taken apart and re-examined to see what is causing the internal winding to become bound up.  I have left a metal rod that works well for this on the left side of the pump.

Stuffed Zuchini for dinner

I applaud you in your efforts of trying to be 100% self sufficient. I have tried to find ways to do that myself, but often get some crazy looks at my house.

If you are looking for a dinner that is made all homemade I think I have found one for you if you like zucchini. Here is a recipe that a neighbor just told me about and we tried last week. Since I have only made this once I haven't perfected it quite yet, but it definitely has potential. If anyone has any adjustments please post them so we can all benefit from them.

Take a large zucchini (we used two medium sized ones for our family of 7)
Cut it lengthwise in half. clean out the seeds, making a trench.
You may want to steam it for about 10 minutes in the microwave to soften it. (you can make your stuffing while you do this)
Use your yummy sausage from you newly slaughtered pig, fry it up and place in the bottom of the zucchini trench you have made.

Stuffing:
1/2 c finely diced onion
3/4 c chopped celery (I passed on celery since I didn't have any, still turned out delicious)
1/2 c butter
4 cups homemade bread cut into cubes
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Saute onion and celery in butter (and sausage drippings if you would like) until softened, but not browned.
Stir in about 1/3 of the bread cubes. Pour onion mixture into a large bowl and stir in remaining bread cubes, poultry seasoning, and pepper. Mix well, this stuffing is ready for baking.

After you have heaped stuffing on the top of each of the zucchini halves, place in the oven on a cookie sheet, uncovered, on 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes (or until zuchini is tender and stuffing is crunchy).

Well I have looked forward to this day for a while now, although the dream is not quite realized yet, I'll explain that a little further on.

This morning I ate a meal that was (almost) completely home-grown produced by us. I had sausage from our pigs (which by the way, far exceeded my expectations, it was awesome), eggs from our chickens, patty pan squash (sometimes called peter pan squash) cooked up with the eggs, home made bread with honey from our bees and unfortunately the butter was Tillamook butter so it was not produced or grown by us, I will work on that and see what I can do. Fresh awesome raw goat milk from our goats, that's pretty good ,I think coming from a suburban home in the middle of a neighborhood that's really good. So except for the butter (and the salt and pepper) everything came from our own production.

I am working to have a full blown real meal completely produced by us, that is the real dream, seems that breakfast is easiest but I want to produce a full dinner without skimping. I will keep everyone posted and by the way if you have some good recipes please post them here on the site, thanks.

Kill The Beast!

For quite some time now there has been a rash of chicken slayings at our farm.  Nearly 50 chickens have lost their lives to some fearsome creatures that have been preying on them whilst they slept.  In the dead of night it would slink through the woods, coming ever nearer to the poor ladies who were trembling in fear, as they did each night.  Terrified of the scratching that would come at the door, more terrified of the beasts that would come through the door and visit blood and horror upon them.  They would run stark raving mad, each trying to escape the death that came each evening.  Yet in the morning, each would look upon the sunrise with relief, delighted to live another day, yet ashamed that a sister had to meet a terrible fate of claws and fangs, in order for them to live a while longer.

Trent had been trying to trap the unknown creatures with the bear-claw type traps but he wasn't having much luck.  As a matter of fact, the creatures absconded with one of his traps, which had been staked deep in the earth.  Letting us know that this was no ordinary beast we were up against.

Some futile days of effort later, a kindly neighbor put out another kind of trap. A little less deadly, but it was more effective because the culprit was soon apprehended.


It seems that a family of raccoons had discovered the buffet that an unguarded chicken coup can be.  There seems to have been quite a family of them because 8 have been trapped, and 2 have been seen dead on the road.  We saw another one tonight as we were finishing up milking.  This little monster was thrashing at growling me as I came near the cage, giving me the evil eye.  I suppose that I wouldn't be too happy to be stuck in a cage either.  But for the death and destruction it and his ilk have caused,  there is only one sentence...DEATH!


As I've said before, I used to think Trent was a soft-hearted guy but I might have to adjust my thinking.  When I first saw Frankenstein and how the townsfolk destroyed him so easily, I found it hard to believe, however, seeing Trent the Vengeful wielding a pitchfork made me rethink how deadly it is to be on the receiving end of one of them during a peasant rebellion.  No wonder the Devil uses them to spread misery and agony.

Red Letter Day

Today was a Red Letter Day.  I'm not exactly sure why that means a good day, at least, I wasn't sure, but after looking it up, I am sure why it means that, gotta love the Internet......

So Anyways, it was a Red Letter Day for a couple of reasons today.  First and foremost, we sold off the Moocher.  That is what I have been calling the little horned goat that has been mooching food, water, and lodging from us for the past several months without giving us anything in return.  We had a guy come a pick her up tonight as we were milking.  She wasn't a bad goat, for a moocher, but I think that as a group we are much to easily taken advantage of.  We keep falling for the big eyes, and sad stories, and keep letting these non-productive members of the commune moocher off of our tender hearts.  There were the ones last year, and this one this year.  Most people would just turn them on the street but we never seem to do that.  It is time we learn some tough love regarding these things.

The other good thing is that the Moochers friend, the littlest goat, has finally gone through the whole milking routine without any intervention or help.  She is still a little shy, but did it all on her lonesome.  She is always in the last set to be milked, so I was getting her companion going and seeming to ignore her.  In reality I was keep a sideways eye on her to see what she would do.  So she comes into the milking area and back to the eating area a few times, kinda like she is waiting for me to do something.  I've got my hands full at the moment and she finally gets tired of waiting for me and walks in, jumps up on the stand, and starting eating.  She didn't even jump when I closed the stocks around her head.  After the milking was done, she jumped on down and joined her compatriots.  Gold Star for me!  The next step in her training is to get her to fight to be the first one in like the others do.

The other night it was time to trim the toenails.  That is another nasty job that I'm glad Mike does.  But it isn't nearly as simple as it seems.  Here is a picture of the crew that it took to get it all done.  You wouldn't think that those things could put up such a fight, but apparently for a woman, breaking a nail can be a catastrophe!