Checking in on the Calves

In 2015 our three Jersey cows gave us three calves, two heifers and a little bull.  We haven't given a progress report on them lately and figured we'd summarize how they are doing.  First we'll start with Clarabelle.  Clarabelle is Rosie's heifer that was born on June 20, 2015

Clarabelle at 7 months old

Clarabelle is a beautiful little heifer and has a gentle disposition, perhaps the most gentle calf we've had.  She is clipped up for the District Livestock show in Lake Charles this next weekend.  She also has a weaning plate in her nose to wean her. She has managed to pop it out of her nose on at least four occasions, but has not robbed Rosie's milk.  I think she is content eating hay.  She leads beautifully with a rope and has the A2/A2 genetics that we were hoping for.  She's definitely a keeper!

Here is Luna, sitting comfortably in the hay that her mom, Daisy, manages to waste.  Luna got her name because she was born on a full moon on October 27, 2015.  She's three months old now and has a nice blue halter.  She gets to drink Daisy's milk all day long and then she gets separated and we get Daisy's morning milk.  In the picture below, you can see Daisy's big bag.  You would think that it is full of milk but actually, it isn't - it is scar tissue.  One of her quarters was ruined when she was just a heifer by Rosie.  We were weaning Rosie and had her separated from her mom and she began suckling on Daisy.  It caused Daisy to begin producing milk and by the time we caught it, one of her quarters was ruined.  Daisy still makes great milk that has a high percentage of butterfat, but only from three of her quarters.

Luna in her 'nest'

Luna, like Clarabelle, is a registered Jersey and has the A2/A2 genetics that we were hoping for.  This afternoon it was a beautiful January afternoon with temperatures in the mid-70's.  I put a lead rope on her and led her out into the yard and we made several long laps around the yard.  She is a spirited little thing, but is pretty much broken and leads without having to drag her.  While out in the yard today, she was introduced to her first patch of clover.  It was love at first sight!

Luna searching for a four leaf clover

And last but not least, we have little Chuck.  Chuck was born on December 5, 2015, so he's about two months old.  He's almost as big as Luna, though.  He was born to Amy and is her first calf.  He rushes out of the stall in the morning and hits Amy's bag, hoping to get more milk to drop for his breakfast.

Chuck' breakfast

Chuck is a muscular little guy.  He has lots of energy and is wild as a March hare. Before he gets too much bigger (and stronger) I intend on putting a halter on him and begin working on breaking him so that he'll lead with a rope.  We also need to get him registered with the American Jersey Cattle Association and check his genetics for the A2/A2 gene.

The only boy

I don't like to keep a bull on our little herd.  We're really not set up to handle all the drama that goes on with numerous cows going in heat with a bull around.  Our intent is to keep this little guy for right at two years and have him breed all our girls, then we'll sell him or process him.  We've actually had one bull calf that would charge you and try to hurt you.  We had to walk in the pasture with an ax handle for protection.  We don't want to go through that again.

A face to face encounter

We de-horned Chuck and you can see that his little head is healing up nicely.  He's drinking plenty of milk and have noticed that once he empties Amy's milk, he makes the rounds, robbing Daisy of any milk that she might have leftover after Luna has nursed.  Maybe that's why he's almost caught up with Luna in size.

Chuck, the milk thief

It is quite a rodeo to get everyone separated and situated at night.  We've been thinking about putting up a new corral to add a couple more areas of containment for our growing animal family.  Three cows and three calves on three acres.  That is a lot of animals for our little pasture.  The pasture is also shared by all of our laying hens and Annie, our Nubian dairy goat who will be having kids in less than a month now.

Our First "Real" Freeze

We have had an unbelievably mild winter so far.  In fact, I was telling my wife just the other day that the grass is still green in the pasture.  Although we're in the deep south, by late January the grass is usually dead and brown.  We've had a few frosts that has burned the grass a little bit, but you can see in the pictures below that there is still a lot of green grass in the pasture.

Saturday morning we had our first real freeze in which there was a thin coating of ice on the top of mud puddles.  It wasn't a heavy freeze and the water in puddles underneath the live oak trees didn't freeze, but it was a freeze nonetheless.  After milking the cows Saturday morning, I walked out to feed the pullets in the chicken tractor and heard, "crunch, crunch, crunch" underneath my feet.  The morning sun was shining and had melted the frost on the grass that had escaped the shadows of the oak trees.

Frost in the shadows

The remaining green on the grass will be turning brown now from the coating of frost that covers the pasture grass.  We have been supplementing the little remaining pasture grass with hay.  The cows are eating a round bale of hay every 6 days and we feed them 1 square bale each day of the "good stuff": Alicia 'horse' hay.

Old Jack Frost

The five gallon bucket that sits atop the chicken tractor where the pullets live had an interesting collection of ice formations in it.  It's almost as if the Almighty was giving a lesson on the different types of triangles as I can see an equilateral triangle, an isosceles triangle, a scalene triangle, and a right-angled triangle in the bucket pictured below.  (I had to look those up. I never was much good at geometry.)

Fortunately, the tubing that carries the water from the reservoir bucket to the waterer that hangs in the chicken tractor below, is located on the very bottom and it didn't freeze.  Folks in northern climes have to put heaters in their water troughs during the winter so their animals can stay hydrated.  Not down here - especially not this year.

A perfect "Home School" lesson

As you can see, the water in the water trough in the chicken tractor is very much liquid.  The heat that 30 pullets put off keep the area warm and toasty as opposed to the frosty landscape that you can see right outside the tractor.

Body heat

Although it is cold, I think the frost is beautiful with the crystals sparkling in the morning sun that stretches across the landscape.  We've still got some cold weather left - that's for sure, but the days are getting longer and springtime is on its way.  In fact, as I look at the weather forecast, I see that it will be in the 70's on Saturday and Sunday of this week, January 30th & 31st.  It looks like our inventory of firewood will hold out for this year.

In just a couple of weeks at the latest, I'll plant onions and potatoes.  The ground has to do a little drying up before then, but it is almost time to get things started!

"Sanford & Son" Maintenance Projects

Ah yes, I can still easily recall the instrumental theme music of Sanford & Son and see Fred Sanford sitting out in front of his business establishment reading the newspaper as Lamont drove up in the old red 1951 Ford pickup truck.  I can still recall old Fred saying, "You Big Dummy" or "This is the big one, Elizabeth.  I'm comin' to meet ya honey!"  As a young boy I watched that sitcom as it aired between 1972 - 1977. Fred and Lamont ran Sanford & Son Salvage, which was essentially a junkyard.

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In some ways I think that Sanford & Son made an impression on me.  By that, I mean that I have a certain affinity for 'junk.'  I always look at things destined for the garbage and think if there is any way that they can be used again.  Weird, maybe? I have containers of nuts, bolts, washers, and screws on my workbench from things I take apart before throwing away.  The general idea is that I'll use them again in another project, but often I either waste a lot of time looking through the containers for the items that I need, that it would have been simpler to just make a trip to the hardware store and purchase a brand new part.

While I am a pack rat, I don't like clutter, so all my piles of junk are neatly stacked in piles hidden from view and are mentally cataloged so I'll hopefully be able to find them when I need them.  There are definitely times when that junk item that should probably reside in the Jefferson Davis Parish Landfill, actually comes in useful.  I'll show you an example today.

Our kids' old swing set RIP

In THIS BLOG POST FROM 2014 I talk about disassembling the kids' old swing set.  It was sort of an emotional thing for me.  I'm an old softie on some things. While, as the post describes, many of the pieces of the disassembled swing set went to the landfill, I did save the tubing that made up the six supporting legs and top bar for the swing set.  They have been occupying a spot between the rain collection barrels and the air conditioning units, just lying there, biding their time until their opportunity presented itself to take on a second life and become useful again.  This weekend that time came.

Back when the kids showed goats around 2002, my Dad, Greg Meaux, and I built a small barn.  The barn still stands, but is in need of some repair.  The cows, goats and chickens use it as a place of shelter in rain storms or cold weather.  Over time the 2 X 4 bottom supports have come into contact with the ground and completely rotted.  All it would take is for one of the calves to hit the tin siding of the barn, and without any bottom bracing, the tin would bend upward.  This weekend I was going to make a trip to the local hardware store and buy some treated lumber and fix it, when I thought about the old swing set!

I took my measurements and pulled out the old swing set tubing and marked it. Using a grinder, I cut the tubing back until there was no more rust.  Then I took a 16 pound sledge hammer and flattened the two ends.  Finally I got a drill and drilled holes in the flattened ends, screwed the piping to the corner barn support posts, and then using metal screws, attached the tin to the tubing.  Voila!

A couple of hens inspect the construction

The barn is sturdy once more!

The swing set re-invents itself!

Now, not only is the barn repaired without having to expend any additional cash at the hardware store, but it is sturdier and will last longer than if I had purchased lumber.  There is one more benefit, too!

Still going strong - ~20 years later

When I'm puttering around in the barn and look down and see the familiar blue and green striping of the old swing set that is now holding the barn together, I'll have happy memories of when the kids were younger.  

A long, long time ago...

Eat your heart out, Fred and Lamont.  I've got my own salvage yard!

Germination (and then Termination)

Back on January 12th we posted THIS BLOG POST describing how we started our tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds indoors.  I thought it was time that we updated you on the progress of the seeds.  I keep the seeding trays on top of a cabinet in our utility room.  Hot air rises and to spur germination, you need moist AND warm soil.  Obviously light is a non-factor until the seeds sprout.  My main concern is to keep the soil moist, so each morning and evening I climb up on top of the washer and dryer and spray the soil in the seed pots with water.

On Day 10 after sowing the seed, this sight greeted me as I watered the soil:

Tomato Seed Germination!

Prior to sprouting, I keep the seed pots covered with plastic wrap in order to keep the soil moist while I'm at work.  When sprouting occurs, I remove the plastic wrap. Things were looking great so far. All of the varieties of seeds sprouted.  I calculated the germination statistics for each variety that we planted and it appears that we experienced a 100% germination rate on most of the heirloom tomato varieties that we started.  Fantastic!

Popping out of the soil, eager to grow

Now that we have tiny green leaves, light is needed.  I moved a four foot long fluorescent shop light that normally hangs over the workbench in the garage and propped it up with four canned goods on each side and turned it on.  The light provided will give the plants the 'artificial sunlight' they need to grow.  I once tried to just grow them near a window, but they grew so "leggy" that I decided that the plants just grew better under fluorescent lights.  You can see the spray bottle of water in the photo below.  I use it to water the seedlings.

Seedlings under the grow light

The peppers and eggplant have a longer germination period than do tomatoes, so I keep plastic wrap over them until they sprout.  

Peppers & Eggplants not sprouted yet and still covered

Looking back a bit, you can see the grow light up on top of the cabinet in the utility room.  As you can see this is a first class, professional organization (sarcasm!). You can also see the 3 milking buckets lined up ready for tomorrow morning. Daisy, Rosie, and Amy each have their own bucket.

The Seed Sprouting, Milk Pouring, Bucket Washing, Clothes Washing & Drying Room

Back to our discussion on seeds and their germination.  It would be nice to sit here and tell you that everything always works.  That would be a fat lie.  It doesn't.  I normally water the seedlings every evening and every morning.  Yesterday morning I forgot to water the seedlings as I dashed out the door on the way to my "real job." Last night when I hopped up on top of the washer and dryer, I was met with a sad sight.  About half of my tomato seedlings were dried, died, and laid to the side.  A hopeful post that began optimistically talking about germination has taken a 180 degree turn for the worse and now we're talking about termination!  Poor shriveled, dried out remains of what was once healthy vigorous tomato seedlings until my forgetfulness...

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...

But as Winston Churchill famously said:

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I've started my seeds early enough to allow for such miscues.  It's not too late to start all over again. I'll simply replant tonight and hopefully, armed with knowledge gained from the results of my oversight, I won't repeat the same mistake twice. Happy Growing, Y'all!

Making Homemade Mayonnaise

We have made homemade mayonnaise in the past, but we were just given an immersion blender and decided to make some more using this new appliance. We've made it in a regular blender before, but the immersion blender makes it better and faster.  Just the other day Tricia made a batch of mayonnaise for us and Russ was in from college for the weekend and we decided to make a jar for him - with a twist.  Jalapeno Mayonnaise!

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of mayonnaise.  I never have been.  However, there is a local po-boy place in Lake Charles that uses jalapeno mayonnaise.  It adds a great spicy flavor to a poboy, so we decided to make some of our own.  Here are the ingredients:

• 2 medium eggs (our hens are only laying 5 eggs a day, so we're rationing the eggs now!)
• 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar (we used the vinegar from our pickled jalapenos)
• 1 Tablespoons whey (whey is the liquid that comes off when you make yogurt)
• a generous pinch of salt
• 1 cup of light olive oil

Ingredients for making (jalapeno mayonnaise)

Mayonnaise is so easy to make.  Once you have all your ingredients together, crack two eggs into a mason jar.

Break a couple of eggs

Add a generous pinch of kosher salt...

Salt

Next we added 1 Tablespoon of whey from our cows.  This was separated off when we made kefir - a type of drinkable yogurt that we make smoothies with or when we make cheese.  This earlier post about cheese-making shows pictorially how we separate whey.  Whey is a preservative.  In fact, homemade mayonnaise made like this will last for a week, but when you add a tablespoon of whey, it will last for several months.

Whey

Then we pour in 1 cup of extra light virgin olive oil.  Notice how everything goes into the same mason jar that you'll store the mayonnaise in.

Adding the olive oil

Then in a couple of teaspoons of vinegar from the jar of pickled jalapenos we made last year.

Jalapeno vinegar

Put the immersion blender down to the very bottom of the jar and pulse to blend the eggs.  Then move the blender up and down slowly to mix the entire contents of the jar.

Let's mix things up!

I kid you not - in just a few seconds... voila! Mayonnaise!

Homemade mayonnaise!

Now, here's the part that you customize.  We added pickled jalapenos, but you can make whatever you wish.  Adding fresh dill would make a fantastic herbed mayonnaise.  I was talking to a buddy today who makes chipotle mayonnaise by adding a can of chipotle peppers at this point.

Adding jalapenos to make jalapeno mayonnaise

The blender chops the jalapenos up and gives the mayo a slight greenish tinge and a nice, spicy taste that is sure to liven up a po boy, sandwich or burger.

Our work here is done

We labeled it, dated it, and put in the fridge to use.  We talked about using it to make a chicken salad sandwiches or egg salad sandwiches with a little "kick" to it!

And There Were Giants in the Earth

In THIS POST from back in 2014, I chronicle a family heritage trip that our family took, venturing to South Dakota, where my maternal grandfather was raised.  We visited relatives there, toured the old family farm and spent time in a museum looking at artifacts from early settlers to the area.  My mom's maiden name is Sneve.  It is a Norwegian name.  Many people from Norway settled in the Dakotas.

My coffee mug below was given to me by my great uncle and aunt who live in South Dakota and depicts a beautiful scene painted by artist Terry Redlin, of a South Dakota farm complete with pheasants in flight.   Sometimes people look at a nice, pastoral farmstead and don't fully appreciate the work involved in farming.  There's a lot more than you think that went into making the scene you see below.  More on that in a minute.

"Country Road" by South Dakota artist Terry Redlin

After returning from our trip to South Dakota, my uncle gave me a book to read.  It is called Giants in the Earth, by O. E. Rolvaag.  I read the book and it really made an impact on me.  The book is set in the 1870's and it tells the story of the early Norwegian settlers to South Dakota and the hard work, disappointments, and trials they experienced as they tried to build a life and raise families in a land that was harsh, unforgiving and seemingly uninhabitable.

South Dakota winter @ the Old Farm

As my uncle warned me, this book is not a feel-good, happy story.  If you are looking for an inspirational book that leaves you uplifted and joyful, well, this is not your book.  I don't want to spoil the book for you, but the words, "and they all lived happily ever after" are not found in this book's final chapter.  It deals with rugged determination, persistence, and a work ethic which is all but extinct by today's standards. I want to tell you a little bit about it, for despite it's tough story, it does show the "Giants" in the earth that came before us and paved the way for where we are today.

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The protagonist of the story was Per Hansa, a man who loved the land and because of that, I feel a kinship with him.  He had a firm belief that anything was possible with enough hard work.  Per Hansa loved his wife Beret and their children with a deep love.  This emotional narrative about the pioneers' attempt to tame the land is a well-written story.  The author successfully communicates their hopes, dreams and fears in a way that becomes very real to you.  You can feel Per Hansa's struggle, you find yourself rooting for him as you might with an underdog in a big game - you can empathize with with him after he suffers defeat after defeat after defeat. What made men like him tick?

Their toil and sacrifice, along with other pioneers, won the west, tamed the prairie and made America the nation it is today, but it came with a huge cost in human life, work, and disaster.  They were a very hardy people and worked hard to pass along a better land to their children.  Immediate gratification seemed to be a foreign principle as they remained focused on toiling to yield a better life that not they, but their children and grandchildren would be the beneficiaries of.

My Mom in front of  The Old Sneve Barn

I mentioned earlier that Per Hansa had a deep love of the land and other than being a story about pioneers, this is an agrarian story and agriculture is described in terms that true agrarians can identify with in the following excerpt about Per Hansa's preparing and sowing his first wheat crop on the virgin South Dakota soil:

"His wonder grew as he gazed at the kernels; there they lay, so inanimate, yet so plump and heavy, glowing with smoldering flame,  It was as if each kernel had light within it - life now asleep.  He thrust his hand into the sack and took out a handful of grain; it weighed like lead.  As his grasp tightened, the kernels seemed to soften under the warmth of his hand, they squirmed and twisted, slipping against one another, they seemed to be charged with a delicate life that was seeking release.  But when he opened his hand and stirred a finger among the grain, the kernels lay there as lifelessly as before - inert, yellowish, pale, yet burning faintly with inner, golden light... Reverently he lifted handful after handful from the table and emptied it into the sack."

A true agrarian, Per Hansa looked at seeds in a way that most people would think borders on insanity! He saw the life, the hope, the future that lay inside those seeds. As springtime neared, he became anxious to plant his seeds in the fertile land.  You can sense his restlessness to get out there and sow his seed - watching the weather, counting the days.

"As the mild spring weather set in, a feverish restlessness seized him, the work on the seed was done and he could not stay indoors....  The chickens were laying finely now, he was finding as many as five eggs a day. They'd better begin setting the hens pretty soon; when fall came, they would have at least fifty fowl on the place?... Next minute he was over on the prairie, talking to and caressing the oxen, and feeling of their necks where the yoke would lie... Now if the ground would only dry up! Per Hansa looked at it the first thing in the morning and felt  of it every night before he went to bed.  Today it had made fine progress.  Good Good - if the sun would only shine as warm tomorrow!... He dashed off to the neighbors, to see how the ground was coming on there.  No, it was wetter than at his place, where the land lay higher.... I'll bet my land is going to be the first to dry up? he told himself."

His wife saw his spirits lift after the long, gloomy winter and she, and the whole family, fed off the energy that was within him.

"Beret hadn't seen him in such good spirits since last spring.  He walked so lightly; everything that had life he touched with a gentle hand, but talk to it he must, his voice sounded low, yet it thrilled with a vibrant energy."

And finally it was time to plant.  The time he had waited on for so long!

"Again Per Hansa thrust his hand into the bag and his fingers closed on the grain.  He felt profoundly that the greatest moment of this life had come.  Now he was about to sow wheat on his own ground!  His hand tightened in the bag; he was on the point of lifting it out when something queer happened - the kernels were running out between his fingers!  He gave another grab, closing his hand still tighter; again the yellow kernels slipped through his fingers like squirming eels.  Then Per Hansa threw back his head and laughed.  These fellows aren't very anxious to go into the ground after riches for me!  He ran his hand around in the bag, stroking the grain caressingly, taking great handfuls and giving them a gentle squeeze."

As he began sowing the wheat, he was very serious about his work, wanting to give the seeds the best possible chance for growth, wanting everything to be perfect in order to maximize the yield.

"And now the wheat rained down in yellow semicircles from Per Hansa's hand; as the seed fell, the warm rays of the sun struck full across it, and seemed to wrap it in golden light.  Per Hansa restrained himself, working slowly and carefully - the seeding must be even and not too thick."

Although many would consider this to be hard, manual labor - not Per Hansa.  This was labor, for sure, but it was a labor of love.  In fact, the tiredness that he felt at the end of the day was a good feeling - an honest day's labor.  That's what I tell my kids: Find a job you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life.

"As long as the daylight lasted, Per Hansa kept on seeding. After supper he sat at the table without moving, he didn't want to get up; a pleasant feeling of languorous exhaustion had settled on him, the reaction from his excitement.  The next day Per Hansa worked like one possessed; he made fine progress.  Per Hansa walked home that night in great satisfaction."

I can identify with Per Hansa's love of the land and I greatly admire his work ethic and love of his family.  Something about that last sentence, as simple as it is, strikes me, "Per Hansa walked home that night in great satisfaction."  Per Hansa was able to take great satisfaction from doing the job that he loved and that makes me happy.

Giants in the Earth was a really good book.  It was a book about survival, hard-work, determination, and told the story of some really strong people who began a task that they knew would not completed within their lifetimes, but of whose toil was a work of love - Love for the land and love for their family.  Their work not only built a nation, but built great character in the generations that followed.

Clarabelle's Bad Day

Have you ever had a bad day?  Most people would answer in the affirmative that there are sometimes days where perhaps one thing goes badly and then things keep getting worse - one bad thing follows another.  Clarabelle, our little seven month old Jersey heifer, had one of those days this last week.

For starters, Tricia had our veterinarian drop by for a farm call and give Clarabelle a brucellosis vaccination.  Brucellosis is a serious disease that infects ruminants and can be transmitted to humans through consumption of their milk.  Brucellosis is incurable and highly contagious and it is for this reason that when herds test positive, they must all be slaughtered.  Although there is no cure, there is a vaccination.  Our veterinarian came and administered the injection.  Animals who have received the brucellosis vaccination must get an ear tag, or in the case of a show animal, an ear tattoo to show that they are vaccinated against the disease. More information on brucellosis can be found At this APHIS link.

The injection is not a pleasant experience for the animal and neither is the tattoo. You can see the green dye in Clarabelle's ear below from her brucellosis tattoo.

Not a happy day

If you are wondering about the metal plate hanging from Clarabelle's nose, well, that leads us into the discussion of how Clarabelle's day continued getting worse from there.  Clarabelle was still nursing on her mom, Rosie.  Each day they spend the day together and she gets to drink Rosie's rich milk.  At night we separate them and Rosie makes milk all night for us.  Well, at seven months old, we wean our calves. That means that Clarabelle's days of drinking her mother's milk are over.

Weaning calves can meat separating them in separate pastures, but this sometimes causes undue stress on the momma cow and the calf.  We like to try to keep them together, but to do this, we put a weaning plate in the calf's nose.  That is what you see hanging in her nose.  There are many different styles.  Below is a primitive weaner that was used to wean calves.  You can see the philosophy of the devices. The device is placed in the animal's nose.  When the calf tries to nurse, the points irritate the momma cow and she won't let the calf suckle because it is uncomfortable.

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Installation of the weaner is painless, though.  If you look closely below, you can see a tinge of orange in Clarabelle's nostril.  The weaning plate has rubber balls on the ends of each curved metal piece that is inserted in the nose.  Once in the nose it is tightened down by a wing nut, the rubber balls keeping the weaner from causing irritation.  It doesn't pierce the nose, but it still must annoy her.

Side view of the weaner

Not to mention the fact that she's now unable to get Rosie's teats in her mouth and drink the delicious milk.  She misses the milk and for the first few days, she'll moo and moo.

"Got Milk?"  NO, No I don't, unfortunately!

It doesn't take long, though for her to figure out how to stretch out her neck, extend the plate, and pull her head back across the grass or hay to eat.  Gravity, however, makes it impossible to do the same on Rosie's udder to get milk.

So all in all, it was a bad day.  An injection, a tattoo, a strange, uncomfortable device inserted into her nose, and then being cut off from ever drinking milk again! A bad day indeed.  Take heart, Clarabelle.  At least you're a milk cow and not a beef cow.!

Chopping Down the Cherry Tree

There's a lot of bad news out there in the world.  So much so that it can make you fearful or paralyze you into inaction if you aren't careful.  Tricia and I were talking about the fact that humor is so important.  It is nice to laugh, even in the midst of tough times.  In fact, being joyful is good medicine.

A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.  Proverbs 17:22

I like to laugh and the following is (to me) a funny joke.  This is actually a joke that you can tell at church despite the fact that it is a "dirty" joke.  You'll understand what I mean once you read it.

There was once a country boy who hated using the outhouse because it was hot in the summer and freezing in the winter...plus it stank all the time. The outhouse was situated on the bank of a creek and the boy determined that one day he would push that outhouse into the creek. 

So one day after a spring rain the creek was swollen so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek. He got a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away.

That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper. Knowing this meant a spanking, the little boy asked why. The dad replied, "Someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today. It was you, wasn't it, son?"

The boy answered yes. Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didn't get into trouble because he told the truth."

The dad replied, "Well, son, George Washington's father wasn't in that cherry tree."

See what I mean?  Don't you feel better already?

Another thing that can help you get your mind off of the Worry Du Jour is to just get out there and do something.  Something that causes you to exert energy. Something for which you can see the results of your efforts relatively quickly. That's just what I purposed to do this weekend.  In THIS POST from 2014 we talked about how a beetle infestation is killing some of our water oak trees and how we've had to cut them down.  Although I hate to lose these trees, the pecan trees will branch out with their canopy and occupy the space that these trees once held.

Well another water oak tree has succumbed to the same fate and it was time to bring it down.  This time I decided to chop it down with an axe - the way that George Washington did it, even if this wasn't a cherry tree.  Russ helped me get started.  I'd take swings until I was tired and then he'd take over.  Finally, the tree weakened by the chopping, started leaning and I was able to take a final swing and push in a direction to ensure it wouldn't topple over on the barn or garden fence. TIMBER!!!

Like a beaver chewed it up

Now it would have been much simpler to do this with a chainsaw, to be sure, but taking this tree down with an ax ended up being exercise for the mind and the body.  It also provided some tasty morsels for the hens.  The larvae of the beetle is a big, fat white worm.  While cutting through the tree, I pulled several of these worms from tunnels in the wood.  I threw them to the chickens and the lucky hen that snatched each one ran off with delight, trying to run away from the others before they pried it from her beak.  I was also able to chop the tree very close to the ground, to avoid having a stump sticking up out of the ground that one could trip on.

Farewell to the water oak tree

I held my breath a little as it fell as it came pretty close to hitting the garden fence. It hit the muddy, rain-saturated ground with a thud.  Now is where the fun part comes in.

Benjamin came outside and his job will be to cut the tree into smaller pieces and move it out of the way.  He began swinging away with the ax.  I told him that tasks like this eliminate the need for gym memberships or weight lifting.  He can build muscle mass and get in shape without paying a gym or purchasing equipment.  I recall splitting firewood when I was his age.

Benjamin bringing the ax down on the wood

"Chop, chop, chop," was all I heard as I walked off.  No rush.  I told him if he cuts up one or two pieces a day, the tree will be gone before he knows it.

Chop, Chop, Chop

Once the log is gone, I'll start looking for some grass seed to plant in the barren muddy area around the barn.  For now, I'll leave ol' "George" to finish cutting up the 'cherry' tree.  And lo and behold after just a little chopping, I had forgotten all about the bad news that fills every news report!

2015 By The Numbers

At the beginning of each year, we like to look back to see if we can better manage things by looking at trends, statistics, and facts.  We pray that we'll be good stewards of things that the Good Lord has given us to manage.  As a result we try to read and gain knowledge and improve each day.  Another thing we do is maintain records.  Although it can be tedious, good record-keeping is vital in determining what works and what doesn't work year after year.

Our utility room is the primary work area of our home.  We wash and dry clothes there.  We pour milk there and wash the milking buckets and milking rags there. We store our egg cartons for packing away our daily egg production there.  We germinate all of our tomato, eggplant, and pepper seeds there.  We have a deep freeze chest freezer where we store a lot of our meat, vegetables and fruit there. There's one more thing we do in the utility room.

It is there where we have charts to track our egg and milk production as well as rainfall totals.  The charts are on a magnet attached to the door of the freezer.  Each day we dutifully chart totals and at the beginning of the next year, we record the totals.  I've thought about automating it by maintaining the charts in an Excel spreadsheet, but files can be lost or destroyed.  A chart maintained by hand, complete with different handwriting and ink colors on various lines, shows imperfections and mistakes.  These imperfections and mistakes remind me that that's who we are.  We are quite imperfect and fail quite often, but we keep going even though the results may not be pretty.

Anyway, today during lunch I transferred all the handwritten data into Excel, to quickly provide sums, averages, and see trends over the past three years we've been keeping records.  Here is our story:

For year ended December 31, 2015, our hens produced 9,155 eggs or 763 dozen eggs in total. Although I can't count them because they won't stand still while I'm counting, I'd guesstimate that we have about 65 laying hens running around the pasture, clucking, pooping, and doing other such fun hen things.  They are chased by 7 roosters who are quite amorous and when they aren't running from the roosters, the girls lay eggs for us.

Not surprisingly, over a three year average, the best month for egg production is April.  If I had to give an educated guess why, I would say that in April, the pasture has lush grass.  Spring has sprung and the tender, nutritious grass, along with bugs, worms and other delicacies give the hens maximum nutrition, allowing them to fill the nesting boxes with beautiful brown, green and blue eggs.

We'd be able to increase our egg production during the winter months if we kept a light on for them. Their laying quantities reduce significantly as the days get shorter since a hen requires a certain amount (research shows 15 hours per day) of daylight to maintain peak egg laying.  We choose not to do that and give the girls a 'rest' during the winter.  We do look forward to the longer days of spring and the resulting increase in egg production.  Our historical records show that this increase begins abruptly in very late January/early February.  We'll see if this trend continues...

Now let's take a look at rainfall totals.

Although we can't do a single thing about rainfall, it is interesting to track rainfall totals.  Rainfall averages over time for our zip code shows that on average, it rains 60.35 inches per year - a tad above 5 feet in a year!  If you average our rainfall we recorded over 2013 - 2014 (two year time period), that is right on the money: 60.25 inches.  However, in 2015 we had a full 9 inches more of rainfall in the year, totaling 69.05 inches or almost 6 feet of rainfall.  That's almost a foot more rainfall than we got last year! March continues to be our driest month, but the 13 inches of rain in April 2015 propels it to be the new 3 year average wettest month, replacing the previous two year average wettest month of January.

Overall, we just got more rain this year, despite June, July, and August being drier than normal.  That explains why the barnyard is a muddy, soupy mess.  Let's look on the bright side, though.  Our aquifers ought to be fully recharged now. California is in a drought.  I'd rather have too much rainfall than not enough.