You Can Lead a Bull to Water, But You Can't Stop Him From Breaking the Water Trough

From about July - December, we kept our bull, Chuck, and our little buckling, Buckwheat, in a fenced off area that we call the "bullpen."  We wanted to keep the boys away from the girls, if you know what I mean.  Now is the time that we'd like Chuck to breed Daisy, Rosie, and Clarabelle, but Luna is too young to be bred.  So in order to effectively manage this, we put Luna in the bullpen and simply allow the bull to have access to both cows and heifer that we want bred.  We've seen some activity, but are unsure if breeding was successful.  We should know shortly.

One bad things about bulls is that they love to rub their heads.  They rub their heads on posts, on people, and on any other object they can find.  Unfortunately, they can be very rough and destructive to your property (or your body).  Take for instance the photo below.  This mud hole looks like pigs would be running around in it, but we have no pigs.  What we do have is a bull that rubbed the water trough with his head until he broke the bucket.  I placed one bucket nested in another one and the bull broke that one too.

Water would leak out and create a big mess that never dried up.  This is a management problem as it is a perfect breeding ground for parasites.  I don't want Luna standing in all that muck to drink water.

The bull broke the bucket and made a huge mess

So I went to the feed store and picked out a 50 gallon fiberglass water trough made by Rubbermade.  I think it set me back about $69 bucks.  That's okay, though.  It appears to be tough and durable and this spring when we put the bull back in the bullpen, he won't be able to break this one with his head.

Right now I'm supplying the water by water hose.  The hose runs about 70 feed from a spigot at the barn.  My plans are to run some pvc pipe underground to supply the new trough with water.  I will als put a float valve in it to keep this trough automatically filled up.  As you can also see, I've moved the new water trough out of the mud hole.  The trough is short enough where the goats should have no problem drinking from it.  This should make all the animals happy - except the bull, of course.

Curious Luna came down the chute wondering what we were doing.  She was sloshing through the mud and the muck.  I felt sorry for her.

While we were at the feed store, we picked up a salt/mineral block for Luna to lick on. I think it costed $6.99.  Luna promptly went and began licking on it.  Her pinkish colored nose from licking it made her look funny!  I placed the lick in a flat tub with plenty of holes drilled in it to allow rainwater to flow out of the tub.

Salt Lick

Luna of course can't speak English, so we are not sure what she is trying to tell us, but because I have some hearing problems due to not wearing ear protection, I am pretty good at reading lips.  I am pretty sure by reading her lips, that Luna is expressing her thankfulness for her new water trough and salt lick.  Her face was all pinkish color, letting me know that she had found the salt/mineral lick.  I licked it just to see what it tasted like.  Pretty salty... No wonder she's at the water trough now.

Your welcome, Luna.  Now if I could just keep that bull from destroying everything he comes into contact with.

2016 Egg Production on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm

Here is a second installment so far in January in our annual record-keeping report. Last week we showed our rainfall totals for year ended 2016.  Although we can't really control how much rain falls, we still track it as I like to see trends.  Now we'll talk about egg production from our hens for the past year.  We can do a think or two about influencing egg production, but weather, daylight hours, and nutrition play the biggest role in the amount of eggs "the girls" lay.

It is Benjamin's responsibility to go out each afternoon and gather eggs.  He walks out with his egg basket and checks the chicken tractors, the hen house and the nesting boxes in the barn.  He has to be diligent, though.  The hens are crafty.  They always find different hiding spots to lay their eggs - up in the hay loft, behind the refrigerator, sometimes just out on the flat ground.  He goes on his own Easter egg hunt each and every day.  He'll gather the eggs and package them into egg cartons and then he fills in a ledger with daily egg production by writing the daily tally down.  I total each month and then at the end of the year, I'll transcribe it into an excel spreadsheet.  Here is the result of last year's records:

Now you'll notice that egg production for the year 2016 totaled 7,373 eggs or 614 dozen eggs.  This year was slightly different in that March, not April as in prior years, was the best month for egg production.  I think that this is attributable to the spring grass out on the pasture during spring that yields a bonanza of nutrients that enables the hens to really kick it into gear.  That coupled with the increase in daylight hours and mild, comfortable temperatures during spring.  In a strange occurrence, the hens went on strike an laid only 1 egg in December.  One egg!

But here is an even stranger occurrence. Notice that the egg production in May 2016 was the same exact amount that the hens laid in June 2015.  Also notice the egg production in June 2016 is the same exact egg production of July of 2015.  How strange is that!?  Now these are only just numbers and they are pretty meaningless (other than the seasonal trend) because I'm lacking the most important number - the number of hens we have running around out on the pasture each month.  The hens won't stand still for long enough to let us count them.  The egg production could be falling due to the age of our birds or they could be falling because the hens are getting older.  Or it could be due to both things.  We do add 15 pullets to the flock each year, but we probably lose more than that due to predators, cows stepping on them, and just death from old age.

Tricia guesses that we have 75 hens.  If that is the case, in 2016 each hen laid 98.31 eggs per year. That is well below the 200-240 eggs per year that the birds should lay according to the breeds we have. That means the average eggs per day we harvest is 20.2.  The average eggs per bird per day is 0.269 and the average hen lays an egg every 3.71 days.

So far in January 2017 the girls haven't laid an egg yet!  We have actually had to purchase eggs from the store. Gasp!!  It makes me want to make a big gumbo with those freeloading hens.  We do see from past years that the egg production starts rising in late January - early February.  We'll see if that rings true in 2017.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

I like candy.  I'm not gonna lie.  I am like a kid when it comes to shopping for it.  I like sour candies, especially, but also like dark chocolate and licorice.  I like finding old fashioned candy at places like Cracker Barrel.  I'm trying to slow down on the candy, though.  There's only one thing I like shopping for better than candy - SEEDS!

Ever since I've been a little kid, I've always loved to grow things.  In a story I've probably told more than once (sorry), I can remember being just a little boy and running outside and planting my fruit cocktail.  It didn't grow.  Imagine that!  I can remember sticking toothpicks in the side of an avacado seed and placing it in a jar to watch it grow.  I can remember school projects where we sprouted green beans in paper cups.  Growing things has always interested me - always has and always will.

There's nothing better than to get out the latest Seed Catalogs from heirloom seed companies and stretch out in front of a fireplace on a cold winter day and order seeds.  The varieties of different seeds are interesting.  The photos within the pages of the catalogs make you want to fill your shopping cart with one of each!

I pulled out my seed inventory in which I maintain our records of both purchased seed and saved seed and then determine which seeds I need to order and/or replace. After reading through each page, I made my order online.  Saturday when I went out to check the mail, yep, you guessed it!  I had a package waiting!  It was sealed up tightly in a bubble-wrap envelope to keep the contents safe.

I ripped open the package feverishly and pulled out the contents one by on and laid them out on the table.  This year I replaced some of our old favorites, but I also found a few new things to plant.  I want to try my hand at growing black beans.  I also want to grow some red kidney beans.  I've never grown them before, but I'm going to give it a try.  In looking at our disaster plan, I realized that if TEOTWAWKI happens, some of my preparations are lacking, namely, how do you cook red beans and rice if you don't have red beans?  I hope to remedy that this year!!

Here's the other thing that I like about ordering seeds.  One of the companies I order from, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, sends several packets of free seeds in with your order.  We call that lagniappe or "a little something extra or free."  I laid all the seeds on the island in the kitchen and admired them.

Looking over the seeds - the variety and beauty and promise of new, interesting vegetables, I got excited to get out and start working the soil.  Still too early for that,but I am reminded that Thomas Cooper said, "A garden is never as good as it will be next spring!"  I'm already planning! It is going to be my best garden yet...

At Time to Plant - A Time to Reap

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—
A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.  - Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Yes indeed, a time to plant - a time to uproot.  This past Saturday we uprooted the tomato plants and on the very same day, we planted more!  The previous weekend it was twenty something degrees and now, well, it was in the seventies and I was in shorts on the patio with seed starting mix and a bunch of seeds planting the spring 2017 crop.  I try to get a very early start so that I can get the seedlings transplanted in the garden as soon as I'm confident that we won't experience a frost.

I plant all of my tomato, eggplant and pepper seeds in January, and I nurture them and baby them until it is time to transplant them out into the garden.

Here is an inventory of the different heirloom varieties that I planted:
Eggplant: Louisiana Long Green and Florida Market Eggplant
Peppers:  Criolla Sella, Hot Jalapeno, Craig's Grande Jalapeno, Banana Pepper, Emerald Giant, and Horizon Peppers
Tomatoes: Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Black Vernissage, Black from Tula, Big Rainbow, Pink Brandywine, Thessaloniki, Amish Paste, and Valenciano 749 Yellow Tomatoes.

Seeds always strike me as such a miracle.  Each tiny seed holds so much promise, so much potential, so much life will spring forth from that dead-looking seed!

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I normally plant two seeds in each seed pot.  That gives me the possibility of getting 8 seedlings from each variety.

I cover the seeds with soil and give the soil a good sprinkling with water to simulate a soaking rain.  In a few days they will germinate and then I will install a florescent light above them.  We'll peek in on them in a few days to check our germination percent.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Yesterday we chronicled the fate of our fall tomato crop that was planted a month and a half late due to the floods of August 2016.  Because of the delay in planting, the fall tomatoes never ripened and instead froze solid overnight, still green as a gourd on Saturday, January 7th.  I began researching what you can do with green tomatoes.  Obviously you can fry them, but once they freeze, their cellular structure is compromised and don't stand up well to slicing.  What a waste!  Or was it?

It's not easy being green

I took the biggest ones and froze them on trays.  That way they can be frozen individually and put in gallon ziploc bags and can be used to cook with as you would ordinary red tomatoes.  I froze about 6 pounds this way.

Freezing them whole in the deep freeze

I found a neat article about something called Pomodori Verdi (essentially green tomato sauce) that educated me that you can use green tomato sauce the same exact way that that you can red ripe tomato sauce.  It is very simple to make.  I simply took 10 pounds of green tomatoes and put them in a big pot and added 2 cups of water and began to cook them over medium heat for about 45 minutes.

At about the 40 minute mark, I got a potato masher and began crushing the green tomatoes right there in the pot.

I used the immersion blender to really liquefy the green tomato sauce.  This is perhaps the neatest tool ever made since Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.

Then I added 2 Tablespoons of  dried basil, 1 teaspoon full of minced garlic,2 teaspoons full of salt and some fresh ground criolla sella pepper we just made.  The immersion blender pureed all the tomato sauce and spices.

I used my canning funnel to pour the green tomato sauce into the sterilized canning jars.

I used the measuring stick to allow for 1/2 head space in the jars.

Finally, I added one Tablespoon of fresh-squeezed lemon juice onto the top of each jar of green tomato sauce.

I then put the gaskets and tattler lids on the jars, put the rings on and put them in a water bath canner for 35 minutes.  I pulled them out after the allotted time and let them sit for 24 hours.  The jars were sealed nicely and the color was an odd, but beautiful green - kind of strange to think that this is tomato sauce!

In all the 10 pounds of green tomatoes made 8 pints of Pomodori Verdi.

And added another variety (and color) to the canning pantry.

We've already used some of the pomodori verdi added to the chicken stock base for a homemade chicken noodle soup.  Very Good!  I'm anxious to try it over spaghetti. Although it is a shame we didn't get the tomato crop in earlier to be able to harvest a huge crop of RED tomatoes, I'm glad that we were able to find a delicious way to salvage the GREEN tomato crop.

A Very Cold Weekend - For Us At Least

Saturday morning we woke up to temperatures hovering around 23 degrees.  That is a little cold for us. I was out the night before wrapping pipes on the cattle trough so the pvc wouldn't break.  Speaking of the cattle trough, our cows were standing in front of the trough with a very puzzled look on their faces. They couldn't understand the ice, I guess, and why they couldn't take a drink.  I solved their problem by breaking the ice on the trough so that they could get to the water.

Breaking the Ice

I put on my insulated overalls and Tricia and I went out and did the morning milking.  We use Vaseline petroleum jelly as a lubricant on the cows' teats.  In the summer time, the vaseline is almost in a liquid form from the South Louisiana heat.  That was not the case Saturday morning.  In fact, the vaseline was almost a solid consistency and was hard to spread on the teats for milking.  We got it done, though and finished up milking the cows and goat.

After pouring, I got a roaring fire going in the fireplace to warm us all up.  I went out to the wood pile and filled the wagon full of firewood.  Once I lifted up a few pieces of firewood a strange sight caught my eye.  A whole bunch of roaches and a poor gecko had succumbed to the frigid temps.

The 'clean-up' crew was quick on the scene to quickly devour all of the roaches and the gecko, too.  It didn't take them long to eat all of them.

Switching gears a bit, back in August we received over 25 inches of rain.  This delayed the planting of our fall garden by over a month.  Due to this delay, I knew that our tomato crop would not mature and be ready for harvest before being killed by a freeze.  But with our really mild winter, I was surprised when I actually pulled a red tomato off of a vine in January!  Can you believe it?

A January tomato (not grown in a greenhouse)

Sadly, though, that would be the only red tomato that we would harvest.  Just 3 days later, this hard freeze burnt our tomato plants to a crisp and freezing the nice looking tomatoes into a solid chuck of tomato-ice.

Just a day earlier the tomato vines were healthy, vigorous with lots of green growth. The freeze wiped them out.

I like this picture because it represents the "against all odds" spirit of our heirloom tomatoes.  Here it was January and our tomatoes were still growing, still blooming and ready to grow nice fruit.  Until, of course, the north winds began to blow.

That picture is sad in a way, but then it also shows a defiant spirit and gives a testimony, of sorts, about never giving up.  Speaking of that, I'd like to talk a bit more about the fall (frozen) tomato crop tomorrow.  It dovetails nicely with the 'never give up' theme.  By this time, it was time to go inside and warm up.

If there is a better way to warm up besides enjoying a nice bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo, topped with fresh green onions and a a side of sweet potatoes, I'm unaware of it.

One Size Fits All

We have found that a halter for a cow generally will last one year - tops.  The primary hobby of cows, that being eating grass, is very hard on a cow halter.  The act of eating grass is a very repetitive process for the cow that involves stretching the neck out, grabbing a wad of grass with the tongue and pulling the head back, ripping the grass out, chewing and then doing it all over again.  Same song, second verse.

Believe it or not, doing this numerous times a day takes a toll on the halter.  The chain on the halter that runs underneath the cow's jaw is shiny from continuous rubbing on the grass and the chain rubbing together against the grass will cause the chain to wear.  Over a year's time, the chain will become thin and eventually break in two like Clarabelle's halter did below.

Oh, sometimes I purchase a small chain link or I'll use some tie wire to mend the halter for a while, but the patchwork repairs don't hold up for long and then it is time to purchase a brand new halter.  We get the halter at our local feed store here in Jennings as we like to support our local businesses.

I was thinking that the halter is pricey at $24.78; however, for competitive pricing, I checked around on the Internet and $24.78 at our local feed store is actually a pretty doggone good price.

Here's the problem, though.  As the cows grow, you must purchase a new halter. The halters are sold in three sizes - Calf, Yearling, and Cow.  We have calf halters that we keep on the calves to break them and walk them, but they don't stay on the calf long and they aren't eating much grass, so they last for a long time and the calf halter is rotated from calf to calf and used over and over.

We don't even buy a yearling halter.  We have figured out a way to make the Cow Halter be a "one size fits all."  When I was probably 10 years old, I got a wood burner for Christmas.  You've probably seen them.  You plug them in and they get very, very hot.  You press the tip into a piece of wood and you can create all sorts of beautiful art, plaques, and signs.  At least that was the general idea.  My artwork and signs did not turn out like the pictures on the box and my creations were things that only a mother could love.  Besides that, the thing was dangerous.  It would heat up hotter than a blast furnace and give you third degree burns or burn your house down.  I loved the wood burner.  I just never got past the 'pre-novice' stage of wood burning.

My old wood burner

Hold the phones for a cotton-pickin' minute.  Forty years later (I don't throw anything away!), I have found the perfect use for a wood burner.  It makes a Cow Control Halter into a "one size fits all" halter.  By plugging the halter into an outlet and allowing it to reach the temperature of molten lava, you can gently push the wood burner tip through the nylon halter creating extra holes well past the ones that are factory made.  Once I have many holes added, I use the tip of the wood burner to melt away the hard nylon 'blobs' that are created by the melted nylon as that might scratch the cows' neck.

Adding holes to the halter

I added seven evenly spaced holes to the halter, turning this cow halter into a yearling halter.

Right now Clarabelle has a long strap that I simply tuck underneath the halter. She'll have plenty of room to grow into it as as she grows, I'll loosen the buckle as she grows until she is into the "Cow" Size.

Clarabelle is very happy with her new blue halter and quickly sticks her tongue deep into her nostril to show her exuberance with her new accessory.

I've always thought that is one heckuva trick!  My tongue won't reach that far.