Ruminations on Ruminants

Disclaimer: Today's posting includes some images that are somewhat graphic in nature. 
Prior to reading further, you may want to finish your oatmeal or put your breakfast taco away for a while, for the discussion topic today is cow poop.  Ah yes, the ubiquitous cow patty.  I know, I know, it is often talked about around the water cooler at work and is a close second to maybe only SEC football as a discussion starter.  Although much maligned, the cow patty is an integral part of the farm economy and specifically, the production of milk.  (This post is going to embarrass my daughter - sorry Laura.)

We have to back up a bit, though.  It all starts approximately 92,960,000 miles away with that huge burning sphere of hydrogen and helium we call the sun.

Our sun shines its rays on fertile soil and coupled with refreshing rain, nutrient-laden lush, green grass grows in the pasture.  That lush grass is consumed by cows.  Those cows transform the sun's energy from the grass into delicious milk.  Those same cows fertilize the grass and the wonderful cycle continues.  How do the cows fertilize the grass, you ask?  Okay you can't say I didn't warn you:  Behold, the meadow muffin!



This is a nice, fresh cow pie in all its glory.  You are fortunate today as you'll see how this smelly pile of steaming nastiness transforms into something beautiful.  After approximately one day of sitting out in the hot, Louisiana sun, this piping hot cow patty dries up somewhat and looks like this:

Notice how it has crusted over somewhat after baking in the sun all afternoon.  What you don't see is that flies have been attracted to the irresistable pasture patty and have laid their eggs in it.  Those eggs will hatch and in three days, plump maggots will tucked in the safe confines of the cow chip and be at their peak of deliciousness for our feathered friends, the chickens.

Here comes the Cock of the Walk, the king of the barnyard.  You can almost sense the excitement in his demeanor.  He spots that chow chip ripe and ready.  Oh, what a prize he has found!  This Explorer of Excrement, this Conquistador of Kaka has made a delectable discovery.  He leads all of his hens to the cow patty and with a few scratches of their strong legs, they've transformed the cow patty into something that looks like this:

They pick through it and gobble up all the bugs in the patty.  As an added bonus, this "sanitation crew" cleans up the pasture and has broadcast fertilizer evenly across the pasture.  Who needs a manure spreader?  This fertilizer, in turn, grows a dense, healthy patch of bermuda/bahia grass that the cows love!

The cows eat this grass and the cycle continues.  It is a wonderful cycle that, although it may have some particularly gross aspects, it is interesting to see how God's creation works together to produce the meat, milk and eggs we eat.  (We just don't talk about the details at the table.)  Gotta run.  Here comes Tricia with Rosie.  It's evening milking time.

We'll talk again tomorrow.  I promise the conversation will be more pleasant.

Colors in the garden

During this time of the summer, the garden is having a rough time.  The heat coupled with insect pressure is a very effective knock-out punch on gardening.  The tomato vines have been pulled up and composted and right now we're basically waiting until around October to put the fall garden in.  We're still harvesting a lot of okra, basil, baby lima beans, and lots of peppers, including jalapeno, banana, poblano, criolla sella, yellow bell, chocolate bell and Vietnamese 5 color hot peppers, which are especially pretty:

As you can see, I have some weeding to do!  The foot and a half of rain we've had in the last 2 1/2 weeks has really gotten the weeds growing.  That's okay.  The grass in the pasture is growing and the cows are thrilled.  They are fat and happy and we've seen an increase in the amount of cream they are making.

I took a picture of this plant in the garden as well:

I really don't know what it is, but it is one of the plants that was included in the mesclun mix of salad greens that I planted last fall.  It is flowering now and the blue flowers brighten up an otherwise boring plot of land.  Odd for me to say that as I'm not much of a flower gardener.  I like things you can eat!  Speaking of that, the vines you see growing with the heart shaped leaves are sweet potatoes.  You can see evidence of the bug pressue on a lot of the leaves.

Three or four years ago, we composed some sweet potatoes in the garden and they come up volunteer every year.  That is a blessing!  No planting - they just come up year after year.  Gradually, the vines will take up the entire garden.  Around October we'll dig up the garden and harvest a bushel or so of sweet potatoes that we cure and eat on for a while.  We love sweet potato fries.  Baked sweet potato with butter is delicious.  We've even gotten to where we do a North Louisiana thing and put a big dollop of it in chicken and sausage gumbo.  It's not only us that enjoy them, either.  Daisy, Rosie and the rest of the cow family will gather along the side of the fence when we harvest.  They absolutely LOVE to eat sweet potato vines/leaves.

Sometimes, it is easy to get discouraged by difficulties that come our way in our day to day lives.  It's the little things in life like this that we can be thankful for.  Things we didn't plant, things we didn't work for, things we didn't expect, suddenly bless us - and not only us, but our animals, too.  God is good!

Gathering Eggs

One of Russ' chores each afternoon is to gather the eggs.  We kind of have the Blue Bell philosophy with eggs.  We eat all we can and sell the rest.  Egg gathering is sort of challenging as you have to look in all the places that a hen might decide to lay.  They are very creative in their laying spots.  Some on top of the hay bales...

Some are in a separate nest that we found...

Some are in some milk crates that we use as nesting boxes.  This girl wants to keep setting, so Russ has to remove her from the nest to get her egg.

After Russ collects all the eggs in the barn, he opens the feed room, grabs some rice and feeds the chickens.  If you look closely you can see Blackberry, the calf, being nosy.  Shortly after this picture was taken, Blackberry hit the wire egg basket with her head and broke 7 eggs.  Well, if you're gonna make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs.

Now we move out to the pasture.  We have two chicken tractors that the girls roost in at night.  The tractors are cages on wheels.  We move the tractors each night so that the chicken poop fertilizes the pasture.  If they roosted in the same spot, their poop would kill the grass.  This way the "fertilizer" is broadcast each day to a different place in the pasture, encouraging fresh growth of green grass that the cows can enjoy.

The tractor on the right is the "Ford Eggsplorer."  It has 6 nesting boxes as well and sometimes they'll lay here.  We lift the roof that has hinges and gather any eggs and then we push the tractors one length forward.

Once we've gathered all the eggs, we inspect them and do a quick wash job on any that might be dirty.  We really try NOT to wash them as the hens leave a "bloom" on the eggs which keep bacteria out of the porous egg.  Unwashed eggs have a longer shelf life than washed ones.  Heres a picture of some of the eggs we gathered minus the seven that Blackberry broke.

One of the best things about farm fresh eggs from pastured poultry is the taste.  They have a rich taste and the yolks are darker than the store bought eggs.  This is due to a diet that consists of things that birds are supposed to be eating - like bugs, worms, and grass. An added bonus aside from the taste is the health benefit.  Pastured eggs are indeed more healthy for you.  They are loaded with omega 3 fat, vitamins E, A and D.   

Another interesting tidbit about eggs: the only difference between a brown egg and a white one, or a blue or green one, for that matter, is the color of the shell which is a reflection of the breed of the hen.  To this point, none of our hens have laid golden eggs.  We eagerly await that hen to begin laying! 

Charlotte, is that you?



I saw this spider crafting her web yesterday afternoon.  This morning I checked to see if she had written, "Some Pig" in her web, but this must not be Charlotte.

 Good Morning everyone.  We're off to church.  It is a beautiful morning.  A little hot and humid, but that's okay. 

Today we'll get Benjamin ready for camp.  He's heading off to Hot Springs to Brookhill Ranch Summer Camp for a week.  Laura has been there all summer.  At the end of the week both he and Laura will come home.

This afternoon, I'll try to show you the egg gathering process. 

Got Milk? (We do!)

Today is Saturday - the Sabbath.  Normally, we're up at 5 am milking.  On Saturdays, however, we sleep in a little bit.  That is, until we hear our alarm clocks going off.  In this case it is two Jersey mama cows outside of our window mooing loudly.  They want to get milked and begin their day - a day filled with eating grass and slumbering in the shade.

One of the first hard lessons that we learned is that milk cows need to be milked everyday. They don't observe holidays!  They don't care what the weather is like.  They are pretty demanding girls.  But, they provide the best fresh milk ever.  Fresh milk for drinking, for making butter, fresh cream, kefir, cheese, creme fraiche, ice cream, etc.  We love it.

First, we get things together to begin milking.  First we start with two very clean gumbo pots.  We wrap the top with a sun-sterilized flour sack that acts as a filter to keep dust, hair and other contaminants from the fresh milk.

Next, Tricia fills a bowl with water, vinegar and dash of soap.  This is used with a rag to clean Daisy and Rosie's bags and udders prior to milking.



Then we head out to the barn.  Here's the milk maid with her bucket!



When we get to the barn, the first thing we do is give the chickens some rice to eat.  Tricia always says that anyone with self-esteem problems needs to get themselves some chickens.  They follow you anywhere!  We have a mixture of barred rock, Rhode Island Red, and Aracauna hens.  The barred rock and Rhode Island Reds lay beautiful brown eggs and the Aracaunas lay blue and green eggs.  Delicious.

Here comes the girls.  They're hungry and want to be milked.  Amazingly Rosie is first today.  She's usually lagging behind.

We have two milking stalls in the barn.  Here's Daisy.  I think she's saying, "Hurry up!"

Now they are both clipped and we get ready to get started.

In the next couple of frames, Tricia starts by cleaning their bag really good with the vinegar, water, soap mixture.  Then she squirts out a few shots of milk from each teat.  This is to squirt out a "plug" that the cow makes to keep bacteria from entering the teats.

Tricia then ties one of Rosie's legs.  Sometimes Rosie kicks - not really to hurt you, but she can knock over the bucket.  Not a good thing when you've got a gallon or two of milk in the bucket.  We learned quickly about the old saying, "You can't cry over spilled milk." 

Next, Tricia fashions some hay twine around the pin bones and back legs.  Rosie swishes her tail and has a habit of hitting you across the face with a tail that is wet with milk or fresh morning dew.  Tricia's invention keeps that tail from swishing.

Now she adds a little olive oil to each teat for lubrication.

Finally, here we go.  Tricia sits down and starts milking.  I start milking Daisy right on the other side.  Once we start milking, it only takes 15 minutes to complete the job - not too bad.

After finishing, we go inside and get the milk ready for refrigeration.  First Tricia removes the "filter" and pours the milk into gallon jars.

Here's what the girls provided today - Almost 3 gallons.  We milk Rosie twice a day and Daisy once a day as we share her milk with her little adopted calf.  We put all the milk in the fridge. 

After the milk cools, the cream rises to the top.  You can see in this picture where the top 3 inches is pure cream.  This can be ladled off to make butter or to use as cream for your coffee.

Now that the work is done, it is time for a nice glass of fresh milk.  

Nice milk mustache, Benjamin!

First post on our family's new blog

Well, here we go...  I have wanted to begin blogging for a while now and decided to go ahead and begin today.  I'll first start with introductions.  We're a family of five that live in South Louisiana that seeks to serve Christ in all we do.  We try to produce nutrient dense foods for our family's consumption and love learning about traditional means of farming and self sufficiency.  It is truly a rewarding thing to sit down at a meal knowing that everything was produced on our 5 acres. 

My beautiful wife is a stay-at-home mom.   This is an amazing woman!  You'll get to know her better later.   We have 3 wonderful kids.  Older daughter will be starting LSU this fall after attending Leader's Academy in Hot Springs, Arkansas for 10 months.  Middle son will be a senior in high school and youngest son will begin 6th grade.

We have a couple of Jersey milk cows named Daisy and Rosie that we milk each morning along with a dairy heifer, named Magnolia "Maggie Mae" and dairy bull, Stryker.  The new addition that the boys are pictured with above is Blackberry.  She is an angus heifer that was orphaned by her mama at the farm and Daisy adopted her.  She's growing quickly on that rich milk.  We also have around 60 laying hens from which we gather wonderful eggs each day.

We hope you'll drop in and visit our humble postings as we share what's going on on our little farm.